Short Fiction (latest update - The Boogeyman)

This is not really based upon a gaming session, but was a story I found myself inspired to write after a Lovecraft reading binge. This is the first draft of the story - if you find any mistakes while reading, please let me know about them. A warning - some of my friends found this a rather depressing read - if you don't like doom and gloom, you may want to skip this one.

Despair…

I can no longer live in this world, this society of interminable suicide and corrosive decay. The blind repetition of insignificant tasks threaten to drown me, and I dread the counting of numberless days that blur together, strangling my dreams and will to resist, breaking me as I slowly grow old. The fresh flowers of yesterday have faded, nothing but tarnish and rust remain.

The desperation bleeds into my dreams and waking moments, robbing me of rest. As I walk through the glittering spires and golden cities of my youth, I see that the pavement is cracked and grass peeks through, the golden spires are crumbling, fading and flaking paint falls from above in a gradual hail, and the laughter of yesterday has succumbed to the mourning of a land dying. The sweet smell of lotus blossoms and spun sugar replaced by an opiate wind of exceeding foulness, bringing to mind the fetid reek of the open grave or charnel house. I pull my jacket tight around me to try to retain warmth in the teeth of the jealous breeze that seeks to sap my vitality, but I can feel the numbness spreading and the cold stabs of ice forming in my veins.

There is a place, there is a place; a place I once visited in my many dream trips of youth; a place my steps begin to lead me to; one last glimmer of hope and fancy in the gray landscape surrounding me. As I walk I almost think that I can detect the hint of lost fragrance in the biting wind. Circulation is somewhat restored, and I no longer hold my jacket so tightly as my pace quickens toward the effervescent source of radiant joy. The city still reeks and crumbles around me, but I know the orchards will still be there, the orchards before the archaic shrine where once I rolled and laughed in the flowers and enjoyed the bittersweet tang of hanging fruit. It is just another corner or two, and I can barely contain my excited feet as they urge me to run the final paces.

I round the corner and stare down into the orchards, the blossom-covered limbs laden with plums and apples, pears and figs. The rows of trees stand as I remember them, radiating outward from that ancient place of columns and worship of long-dead gods in all their green and glorious life. Yet as I approach the rusty hinged gate and gain access to the gardens, I have the sudden urge to retch from the taste of bile that floods my senses. For the grass is brittle in its greenness and snaps underfoot like delicate crystal blades, and I can see the leaves of the trees etched with lines and fractures of the same quality. The fruit still appears in abundance on the hanging boughs, but it is not the teasing aroma that drew me back to this place. Instead, it is cloying, overpowering rot that assails me, the fruit hangs over-ripe from heavy limbs, and the ground is littered with the pitiful remains of birds and animals which mistakenly fed on the tainted fruit. No! I cannot abide any longer the dreams I once cherished twisted into this loathsome perversion. Clutching my head I fall to my knees weeping, barely noticing the tearing of skin on cobblestones and the sudden spike of rough and raw abrasions. I lose track of how long I am lost in despair, but eventually I notice the taunting presence of fragrance still lingers in the air, seeming to reach out from the steps of the old open-sky temple and lure me in.

Rising to my feet, I make my way past the stark desolation and ascend the crumbling granite steps leading me between yellowed and cracked marble columns to the heart of the place. At the center of the shrine, the old altar remains but is moved, rotated sideways on its axes to reveal a dark flight of steps leading into subterranean gloom. The first stirrings of fear awaken in my mind, but are insufficient to overcome the powerful draw of that faint odor that leads me down into the unknown. It is barely a moment before my feet propel me to descend this flight of stairs into the forgotten subterranean realms.

As I start upon this path of unknown antiquity, I am abruptly plunged into darkness as I move beyond the range of the feeble sunlight. For countless hours I grope and fumble down the ever steeper sloping flight, my only direction the pull of the lingering scent, my blind hands moving over carvings of indiscernible design and pattern. Gradually, I become aware of my sight returning, my surroundings illuminated by a sickly phosphorescent glow that seems to breathe from the very walls and permeate the thick atmosphere of these unhallowed depths. As my vision focuses a stifled cry is pulled from my lips, for I can now see the awful carvings and hieroglyphs carved into the wall. Though unable to decipher the strange, flowing symbols, I cannot but help to discern their meaning. Above the lines of suspected script are graven images in bas-relief, depicting sequences beyond my wildest imaginings. It is difficult to be articulate now; some images defy attempts to describe or explain – suffice to say, the graphic display now confronting me took my mind down the most hideous of paths. If I was to believe the story unfolding before me, this blasphemous ruin and the depths below had been hollowed out even before the builders of the once-golden city above had laid the first brick. Preserved in the immortal rock was the complete history of this star-spawned temple and the vile rituals that had often taken place. The predominant figures in the pictorial record were not of men, but beings which defy all attempts at reasonable description. They seemed to have the features of men, but also suggested to my tired mind cats, scaly-skinned lizards, and tentacled things of the greater depths of the sea. What they were designed to represent I cannot say, but they were shown freely intermingling with a fawning populace of human slaves.

Further examination of the images was to prove impossible at that moment, for I gradually became aware of a low murmur ahead of me, such as waves lapping against a rocky shore. The ever-present fragrance that had led me thus far grew powerful despite my growing terror as I started again toward the bottom of the stair, and whatever I might find in the chambers dug so far from the sight of day. I reached the archway and stepped through into a vast chamber that stretched away to the horizon in every direction I glanced, dominated by a great and dark sea which lapped at the broken and sandy shore that lay beneath me. The sickly glow persisted, if anything more luminous than before, and as I gazed skyward I saw that the upper reaches of the cavern pulsed with the greenish phosphorescence. Seeing no landmarks or anything else of interest in the vicinity, I began a slow and circuitous route around the edges of the great gulf.

Again, a period of time passed of indefinite length, where I was aware of nothing but the lapping waves and the green radiation from above. At last it seemed I could make out some feature of the cavern other than the black water and rocky walls and floor. Ahead of me two spots of red cut through the surrounding haze. I quickened my place and rapidly closed the distance, noticing as I approached that the fragrance, which had drawn me thus far, now permeated the air with increasing strength every step forward. I drew closer still and finally came upon the scene I had apparently been summoned to witness. A great slab of solid gold decorated in the same hieroglyphs of that terrible passage I had followed to these nether regions stood upon a raised dais of onyx, a glowing red brazier releasing perfumed incense at either end. Kneeling before the unwholesome scene was a figure cloaked all in black, drawn tight about it so that I could see no revealing patches of flesh nor discern any feature nor detail of the man. Sensing my approach, the figure drew itself up to what must have been its full height – I can only say that it now stood a full head above me – and beckoned me closer with a sweeping wave of its black robed extremity.

In spite of the horror which blackly gnawed at the edges of my soul, I was powerless to resist the thing before me, and felt betrayed by my own body as it propelled me to face the cloaked form of its own volition. It spoke to me then, in the hollow rasping tones of a corpse escaped from the sepulchre – it spoke to me, but reason fled and I could not recall the words even as it said them. It reached out with its beckoning appendage and stroked my cheek with a touch like clammy leather, drawing my eyes to meet the billowing gulf of its hooded face. It continued to speak as it raised its other extremity and slowly removed the ominous cowl from its hidden face. I wished feverishly to avert my eyes but was betrayed by body once again, until I beheld its features and was saved by the frantic screams that burst from my lips and led me back to the waking realm. For though it had corpse-lights burning in its eyes and a leering rictus smile pasted across its features, I had beheld in that fearsome robed thing from the unimaginable abyss MY OWN FACE.

Now I wade through the endless toil and constant drudgery of the waking world, and when the sun sets I lay down for uneventful dreamless nights. I do not try any longer to recapture the fading glory of youth, nor seek to visit the glittering spires of my yesteryears. And although I know that hideous being has robbed me of that which I never realized could be lost, my smile stays on…

Stop the Madness

Hmm, its been a long time. Let me throw this back up to the top and see if I can draw a comment or two this time

Also, I was going through stuff in the attic, and found this piece I wrote when I was 16. Here it is for your enjoyment/amusement:

Stop the Madness

That clock - the oven clock in Mom’s kitchen, blinking after a storm because no one reset it - that clock is behind it all. It blinks perpetual midnight into the room. 12:00 AM... 12:00 AM... 12:00 AM... The ghostly greenish glow of the flashing time illuminates the room somewhat. After your eyes adjust to the dark, then you can see the room where it is always the witching hour.

In the center of the room a small impish child swings from the slowly revolving one-bladed fan, laughing with evil glee. Father doesn’t hear him; father doesn’t care; father was eaten by a horse yesterday, a large black stallion with wolfish fangs. The Panzer cat strolls slowly across the room, his dumb eyes purring and his open mouth staring. It has just eaten the horse, and now wants to nap. Outside the window the nuts hunt the squirrels.

The man’s watch beeped. The man heard this only faintly, for the Panzer cat had eaten his watch. The watch beeped again and the man’s left eye twitched. He was seated in the chair with no bottom and he had fallen through to the floor. The Panzer cat, which had eaten his watch, and also eaten the wolfish horse that ate his father, was sitting on his foot. The man put his cigarette in his ear and exhaled. A cloud of thick yellow smoke wafted out and curled around the swinging changeling’s leg. The watch beeped again and Panzer cat looked upset. The man inhaled and closed his eyes and went...

Skipping through fields of lilacs gold and blue he ran with his love, his only love that would be. The sun danced in her hair beneath the clear night sky and life twinkled in her eyes. They tumbled together through the fields of flowers while the birds sang overhead.

Time once promised to halt and wait while the young lovers played, but alas! Time lied and his love found herself late and the Furies to pay if she did not return home. She drove off in her petite red car and promised to return.

He sat long after parting, while rain fell upon him and lightning danced above. As he rose to return to his private hell the great Crash echoed through the woods. He ran and ran but Oh! too late - his love was dead. Not only had Time lied but his love as well - she would not return to him. Was it the rain or his tears coursing down his cheeks as he whispered, “I fancy tripping through lilacs gold and blue.”

He flinched in his chair at the memory, arriving slowly back at the present. He sat in the chair with no bottom, his bottom resting on the ground and his legs splayed above him and almost complete darkness surrounded him. All was quiet save the beeping of the watch as the Panzer cat galloped away, the light flashing 12:00 AM, and the changeling cackling as it swung from the fan.

“Stop the madness...” he whispered.

Heat built up inside of him and he closed his eyes, hoping to end the pain. Soon it ended, all of it - the memories, the madness, the misery.

The man spontaneously combusted.

I like the second one better...sounds like something that would make a good short film in some ways...very strong images.

Nice one mate!

The second piece has... comedy value The first piece is very nicely Lovecraftian, but the second piece... Well, it starts very well, body is good, very trippy - not the kinds thing I'd want to read regularly but very well written, but the ending just makes me break out in laughter because it seems to totally out of context with the rest of the piece

Your writing skills seem good though

The Boogeyman

“Hey, kid! Wake up!”

Matt felt a small, hairy claw prying at one of his eyelids. He slowly opened the other eye and caught sight of a tiny, misshapen creature perched upon his nose and furiously ripping the lashes from his other lid.

“Aaaaah!” Matt sat up in bed screaming. The beast evidently did not have a very firm grip and catapulted across the room, striking the wall and dropping from view with a soft squishing sound. A creaking noise called Matt’s attention to the closet. The door he remembered carefully shutting before going to bed swung lazily open, revealing a large black shape with dull crimson eyes that rose out of the closet and advanced upon the foot of the bed.

Matt screamed again. And again and again until a cold, clammy hand grabbed his throat from behind, cutting off both his cries and his air. The breath left his burning lungs as he fumbled with one hand for his aspirator, which he’d left on the nightstand next to his bed.

Suddenly the hand and the shape melted, giving way to the brilliance of the overhead lamp. He blinked rapidly to adjust to the unexpected light, relieved that he had just been saved from certain doom.

A ringing smack knocked Matt sprawling across the covers. “What are you tryin’ to do, wake the dead?” He cringed and looked up at the source of the voice, his stepfather Gary. Gary was a short, balding man who had obviously been well built during his youth but had started to go soft, especially around the middle. What was left of his wispy hair stood out crazily from his head and he was dressed in a dirty tee shirt that showed the stains of many beer spills.

Gary’s tirade continued, and Matt shrank from his strident voice, almost wishing he could be back in the nightmare where his stepfather couldn’t reach him. “I have to work in the mornings, you little punk, so that you can eat every day and have clothes to wear, and I don’t appreciate these little stunts.” Whirling and opening the closet (it should have been open, thought Matt, in the dream it had been open), he exclaimed, “Look, its empty! There is no Boogeyman, and if I ever hear you scream or mention bad dreams again, you’ll get a chance to visit the hospital.”

The light went out and Matt could hear his stepfather stomping back to his own room. Left alone again, Matt realized with dawning terror that the closet door had been left open. Helplessly he turned to face the opening.

Within its inky depths, one red eye closed in a wink.

*****

After school the next day, Matt unlocked the front door and trudged inside. He caught his reflection on the mirror in the entryway and frowned. He was a wiry boy of eight, small for his age, with tangled brown hair. His usual expression was gloomy and pensive and he had a habit of chewing on his nails and bottom lip. He threw his backpack on the floor next to the door and sighed, recalling the events of his day. The teacher caught him dozing off in class again and severely reprimanded him, but he couldn’t help it. Whenever he went to sleep at home, the nightmares came, and each night they grew in intensity. He never had time to sleep, never.

“Matt, you left the bedroom light on again!” Matt stood bolt upright, eyes growing wide and body growing rigid with fear. Gary was somehow not at work but already home, waiting…

Gary stormed into the room raving about the price of electricity and Matt overcame his temporary paralysis, whirling towards the door and escape. A hand caught him by the collar, pressing him into the glass storm door before lifting him into the air and hurling him backward against the wall. He felt the air driven out of his lungs as he collapsed to the floor gasping. Looking up, he saw his stepfather’s foot pulled back to deliver a kick. Matt tried to scramble aside but was not fast enough and his vision went alternately black and red. A dull throbbing ache filled his side as Gary stumbled away from him.

The refrigerator door swung open in the kitchen and he heard Gary pop another can of beer, his stepson forgotten in the heap where he lay gasping and crying and clutching at his aspirator.

*****

Late that night Matt lay whimpering in bed trying to avoid sleep. If he slipped the dreams would come, and he would scream, and Gary would beat him. His white knuckles clenched the covers as his paranoid eyes darted to every corner of the room, searching for any hint of movement. So far there had been none. Matt sighed and glanced out the window – and froze. A cadaverous figure stood outside, regarding the boy with deeply bloodshot eyes that had no pupils. The figure grinned through half-rotted lips and scratched at the window. At the same time, a slow creak told Matt that the closet door had started to gradually swing open. A shriek welled up within his soul, and as the Boogeyman came into view he could no longer contain it. He couldn’t believe that he was asleep; he was awake – he had to be.

The light flipped on and he saw that the closet door was still securely shut. The real monster walked into the room. “More nightmares? When is it going to end? I warned you not to wake me up again.”

Matt pointed to the window and yelled again. Maybe if he could show Gary that the monsters were real his stepfather wouldn’t hurt him anymore. Gary turned and looked, but of course the figure had disappeared from the frame, melting back into the shadows from whence he came, and all Gary saw was Matt’s little television set.

In blind, drunken anger Gary picked up the small box and heaved. It crashed through the window in a spray of reflective shards and then burst upon the lawn in a cascade of glittering sparks. A snap warned Matt that his stepfather was unfastening his belt, then rough hands jerked him out of bed and pushed him to the floor. The leather strap bit into the tender flesh of his back, eliciting a cry of pain. Another smack followed and Matt tried again to voice his agony but discovered he could make no sound. As the belt continued to fall, cutting angry red stripes across his skin, Matt realized that he couldn’t breathe. Growing numb to the continuing rain of blows, he fumbled and groped for the one thing that could help him inhale again – his aspirator.

Gary finally left the room and Matt crawled to his nightstand. He finally closed his trembling fingers around the small plastic tube and held it to his mouth, feeling the cool icy air once more flow into his lungs. While he sucked on the aspirator his mind unlocked a desperate plan. A feeling of hope filled his heart as he decided that this is what he must do; he would run, run to his Uncle Eddy’s, run to where he would be safe from his stepfather and hopefully from the dreams, too.

He rose and dumped the schoolbooks from his backpack, replacing them with a couple spare sets of clothing and his piggybank. After tying his shoes and shouldering the pack, he went to the window and climbed out, carefully avoiding the scattered splinters of glass. Favoring his room with one sad farewell glance, he pushed off the sill and dropped to the ground. The night air was cool and moist and he could hear the sound of chirping crickets all around him. Matt scampered to the street and started toward the nearest bus stop; he had no time to savor the night if he wanted to get away.

He raced around the corner of the block and then slowed down – the house was out of sight and he felt he’d made a clean escape. The street ahead was dark except for the occasional streetlight, which he avoided the best that he could. Ignoring the tree branches that seemed to reach out to grasp him he stuck to the shadows, learning that they were sometimes friendly and now always the domain of bad dreams.

The bus stop loomed before him at last, surrounded by a halo of light. He decided to brave the illumination and sat down on the bench. Clutching his jacket tightly around him, he looked up and counted the stars to stay awake.

“So, are ya gonna get on or what?” The bus driver’s cranky question stirred Matt from a deep dream in which he had been glued to the bench while a wicked, twisted dwarf with razor talons, clacking steel boots, and a crimson-stained beret slowly advanced upon him. Shuddering, he climbed onto the bus and sat in the first seat by the window, placing his backpack on the seat beside him so that no one would try to take the adjacent chair.

He looked out the window as the bus rolled back into motion, trying to ignore the caked-on dirt and streaks of dust and grease. Buses always reminded him that other people had problems too, for some reason, but this never comforted him. Far from it, he had grown to hate the sticky floors, the gum mashed on seat cushions, and the smell of those who had ridden before him. No one deserved to live in such conditions, and being a compassionate young boy, it made Matt feel worse when he was exposed to those less fortunate than he.

The bus screeched to a halt and Matt handed the driver a wrinkled dollar and climbed down to the street. He walked quickly towards Uncle Eddy’s apartment building, confident that his uncle would let him in and would know what to do. He had finally escaped Gary, the tyrant that ruled his home.

*****

Ed sighed and sipped his espresso, glancing every now and then at the stack of term papers scattered across his coffee table. A hundred papers waited to be graded before Monday and he had looked at only twelve so far. Procrastination never ended with good results; he always paid for it with last-minute research and with sleepless nights and with utter exhaustion, and yet he seemed somehow unable to avoid it. He breathed deeply and ran his free hand through his thick, curly brown mop of hair. He picked up another paper and stretched his lanky form before settling down again. Best to start working and stop thinking about it; mental self-chastisement wouldn’t get the work done.

A knock on the door completely derailed his train of thought. Rising and moving to answer it, he abandoned all thoughts of work in favor of daydreams about friends who would rescue him from boredom and labor. His jaw dropped in happy surprise when he saw his visitor. “Matt! How are you, little buddy? Whatcha doin’ here?” He patted his nephew on the back and provoked a small whimper of pain. Ed dropped to his knees, unbuttoned Matt’s shirt and jacket, and pulled them off. When he rose again his face had contorted into a livid mask of rage.

“Did your stepfather do this?” he demanded. Matt nodded in answer and his uncle exploded. "I knew that bastard Gary was no good! I swear , Matt, if it takes all my savings to pay for the legal expenses I’ll make sure you never have to live with him again! It was a mistake to ever let you stay there after your mom died.”

Matt let Uncle Eddy lead him into the bathroom and watched as he opened the medicine cabinet. Ed collected a wad of gauze and a bottle of peroxide then carried Matt to the couch and began applying the medicine to his back. Lovingly, each strip of gauze was dipped into the peroxide and then rubbed soothingly across the angry weals that crisscrossed the boy’s back. Matt let his muscles relax and stretched out on the couch, his uncle’s couch, with the not-quite-broken springs and the soft feather cushions that seems to sink to fit his body perfectly, feeling the relaxing steady massage of Uncle Eddy’s hands on his wounded back…

Long before Ed finished the back rub, Matt was fast asleep. For the first time in weeks, he did not dream.

WOW. Great visualization on that story, Sniktch. I like.

i agree, great story Sniktch




(i was rooting for the boogeyman to eat Gary just desserts, i'd say)

My God, Sniktch. That's very, very powerful. I love it!

Posting this here for Sniktch.

Sniktch said:

Heh, well for one thing he would have been able to examine more if he was only gradually becoming aware of the noises ahead. The grammar is kind of intentionally clunky to 'mimic' Lovecraft to a certain degree.

I actually wrote that one about 6 or 7 months ago, but it was written all at once (the words literally poured out of me like I was an open faucet) and all in one mindset (I was in a deep, black funk - could you tell?).

I've never gone back and done any editing on it, just let it stand as it was...

Feel free to post criticism to the thread itself also. It'll be easier for me to find again that way, for one thing

Click to expand...

Precisely, and that was my point - things like this (and I was betting that you did write it all in one fell swoop and had edited it very little) are the death knell of the writer. Once you have it on paper, edit it as much as you can stand it - get someone else to edit it - something, as long as it has other eyes (or your fresh eyes) upon it several times, the better.

Yes, I could tell, and I have many similiar works composed similiarily...

Also, the lapping of the waves would very likely not make a mumuring sound. Little things like this will get you every time - they flow out of our minds and hearts when we write for three reasons: 1. we think that way, so it makes sense to us, 2. it sounds good, so why not write it?, 3. we've likely heard something similiar somewhere before. Watch out for these things - train your writer's eye and ear to find them and it will make you better.

I'll cut and paste this over to the thread.