horrors2

bagrada.The_Earach.tex

  1\chapauth{bagrada}
  2\chapter{The Earache}
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  6The night was dark and muggy, the heat weighing down on me like a
  7heavy winter jacket in the spring. The ringing in my dull aching
  8ear was the only sound. I stuck in my pinky and wiggled it, then
  9frowned at the sticky piss-yellow wax left on my finger. Not for
 10the first time, I thought about seeing a doctor. I shook my head.
 11My ear has never been right since that day in the pond, so long
 12ago. Time enough for doctors in the morning. Tonight, I had a girl
 13to save.
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 15
 16
 17``You have to help our friend, Mr.\ Bavarious!'' the kids
 18had said. ``She's been kidnapped by some freaky
 19cult!'' The cops didn't believe them. Neither did their
 20parents. But I did. I knew the dangers of not listening to kids. My
 21sister{\ldots} if I'd listened to her she'd still be
 22alive today. I'd told her she was just a kid too, that I
 23didn't have to listen to her, that I could swim where ever I
 24want. I almost died that day. Instead she died, died much too
 25young, died saving me. I loaded my beretta and nodded to them.
 26``Don't worry; I'll bring your sis{\ldots} I mean
 27your friend back to you.'' The boy shook his head sadly and
 28looked at me as I left.
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 32As I approached the abandoned warehouse where they said their
 33friend was taken, I glanced to the stars and felt a shiver run down
 34my spine as they seemed to blink in the night sky. A coppery rusty
 35scent floated on the stale breeze. I was close. I walked up to the
 36old wooden door, with my finger on the trigger, and kicked it open.
 37{\bf Light}. Bright searing light. Red rusty light. Purple smoky light.
 38Spirally yellow light. Grey and black and white colorless light. I
 39didn't hear the broken door clatter to the ground in front of
 40me or the vomit that suddenly projected from my throat, just the
 41constant droning ringing in my ear, louder now.
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 44
 45The lights faded as I tried to blink through the afterimages to
 46look around the room. All around an old stone altar were the
 47cultists, theirs eyes bleeding, their robes coated in glistening
 48puke, their mouths slack in death. On the altar floated the
 49girl{\ldots} or parts of her. She was split in two; her eyes still
 50smoking, her hands still raised to the sky in prayer. The left side
 51of her mouth opened in a bright smile, while a few feet away the
 52right side gaped wider as if she were screaming. She was pinned in
 53the air like a butterfly to an insect spreading board. In between
 54her two halves, something moved, then the world ended around
 55me.
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 58
 59The air became thick, muddy and gritty, like I was back beneath the
 60pond again that awful day. The lights returned{\ldots} rusty red,
 61black and white, vomit green. The horrible spiraling yellow. The
 62girl melted away, her long blonde hair splashing to the floor, and
 63I felt the air shift as something floated towards me. The ringing
 64in my ears was now the tolling of great bells, driving me to my
 65knees as my gut heaved and tried in vain to find something else,
 66anything more, to throw up. I felt something bitingly cold and
 67scalding hot brush my arm as the colors floated past me, and then
 68my arm wasn't there anymore. It floated off into the lights
 69which were now many bright balloons, all painted with crying faces
 70I could almost recognize. I blinked and the balloons popped
 71revealing a swarm of fireflies, each with a uniquely colored light.
 72So beautiful and horrible as they flew by me towards the door,
 73their lights blinking in a pattern my mind fought not to
 74understand. The tolling of the bells was now a tinkling song that
 75made me want to float along with it, if only I could recognize the
 76tune. The fireflies were floating spiders, then darting fish, then
 77the drowning faces of my dead sister. I staggered to my feet and
 78turned towards the door as the colors wafted through and became
 79dark. I took a few stumbling steps after them but stopped when my
 80foot kicked something metal and heavy{\ldots} the beretta I'd
 81dropped. Whispers suddenly, in my ear. My little sister.
 82``Breathe, Luke.''
 83
 84
 85
 86I gasped for air, realizing I hadn't taken a breath since
 87kicking the door, and fought my way to the center of the room,
 88kicking the bodies of the cultists aside, and then gathering the
 89messy blonde hair and other unrecognizable bits into a clump in the
 90crook of my remaining arm. ``It's okay.'' I said.
 91``I've got you.'' With the smell of rusty blood in
 92my nose, the taste of bile and vomit in my mouth, the ghost of my
 93left arm screaming that it's still with me, the afterimages
 94of the wondrous lights seared into the back of my eyes, and the
 95constant and steady ringing in my ears keeping me company, I
 96staggered out into the now starless night. ``Don't worry
 97sis. I'll get you home.'' 
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