The Book Of The Dead His tired mind awash in cheap liquor, Edgar’s nightmares intensified. Outside the window, bright light suddenly flashed like a heartbeat, pumping red, neon light like hot blood into the dingy room, arousing Edgar from his fitful slumber. The light seemed to take on an almost liquid quality, seeming to lap at the edge of the bed like a hungry tongue. The walls began to dissolve into red liquid pools, leaving a sign hanging for a moment in time flashing Cafe Purgatory, before it suddenly vanished like a wisp of smoke in a high wind. Edgar felt the dirty, sweat stained bed bobbing up and down, awash in an ocean of blood and entrails that stretched unbroken to the horizon under a pitch black sky. Suddenly, a small, frail man with deep set, obsidian eyes rose up naked from the vile ocean of blood to stand beside the bobbing bed. He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth stained with blood. Dark things played in the liquid at his grimy feet. He was erect, and tugging at himself with his gnarled fingers like a curious child. “You want the bitch?” he asked Edgar, in a voice like steel ringing under the blows of a hammer. He pointed a gnarled finger at the far wall, where Edgar’s lover, Annabel Lee, was splayed on the wall crucifixion style, her hands and feet held in place on the cheap plaster with steel spikes. Blood dripped from her wounds and pooled at her feet. Her eyes, opened wide in horror, stared out at nothing, her bloody maw of a mouth agape and silent. ''She is yours, sinner, if you can make it past me to the other side.'' Edgar sat in stunned silence for a few moments, then; “This is all a dream, only a nightmare induced by cheap liquor and bad food, and nothing more. My Annabel is dead.” He shakes his head, as if making an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. The imp grinned maliciously. “No, she is “in between.” “Dead is dead,” Edgar said, climbing off of the bed. “And there is no in between.” “Are you sure?” the imp said, moving closer. His breath was foul and reeked of dead things Edgar would rather not picture the imp consuming. “I am very sure, you evil little man. Now go away and leave me to my dreams.” “You foolish and languid humans have no clue as to just how evil evil can really be.” “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,” Edgar replied almost proudly. “And these bizarre stories you write? You are totally wrong according to the dictates of hell. You have been leading many unwary people into that dangerous reality called thought.” “It’s how I make a living,” Edgar retorted. “It’s how I…” “It’s how you fool yourself into thinking you control your own destiny,” the imp replied, moving closer still. “Now, do you want the bitch or not?” Edgar stood his ground, sure that this annoying little man would disappear if he closed his eyes. He closed them and opened them to see the imp was still there, tugging at himself furiously. “I’m waiting.” “If I go with you, I will see Annabel alive again?” The imp smiled and snapped his gnarled fingers. Annabel’s legs spread wide, revealing severed tongues lapping at fresh wounds that covered her thighs like roadmaps. He snapped them again and the tongues shriveled and fell to the floor like a rain of slugs. “As you can see, I have many great powers, one of which – luckily for you – is the power of resurrection.” Edgar stood studying the imp’s face and seeing nothing that would imply treachery, reluctantly agreed. “And if I escape unscathed, you little imp of the perverse? I see you more as a hellion than a scamp.” The imp grinned mischievously. “Then you and your lover will be together for eternity.” “Then so be it.” The imp’s face beamed with gleeful delight. “Wonderful! Let the games begin!” He snapped his fingers again, and Edgar’s world went black. # As Edgar awoke from the dream that really wasn't a dream at all, his eyes fluttered open to see a ceiling dripping with blood. The walls were bathed in blood as well, as if they'd been painted with it. The walls seemed to pulsate, beat like a heart, as he surveyed his surroundings. Edgar lay in a huge tumble of red silk cushions on a heart shaped bed. As he began to rise, he got a massive head rush, and his whole head seemed to unlock and divide like a puzzle box. His entire nervous system suddenly suffered a series of delicious shocks and spasms as a smoky haze filled his brain. He shook his head to clear it and glanced around the room; positioned directly in front of the bed was Annabel, sitting naked in an ancient, blood stained chair, with frayed but sturdy leather straps holding her hands and feet in place. There was nothing around her but shadows, as the imp approached her from the front, carrying a small black leather bag. “So, Annabel; is hell not more beautiful than heaven?” Edgar tried to sit up but his whole body was frozen in place, his limbs numb and useless. His vocal chords however worked perfectly. “What have you done to my Annabel?!” The imp moved closer to Annabel, stroking her thighs with the needle. “Sometimes, Edgar, even I have almost been frightened by your dedication to degradation. Now, I think it's time you and your lover tasted the most exquisite of delicacies. You've both earned your place with me.” Edgar struggled against his limp body to no avail. “Let her go! Take me instead!” The imp grinned. “I think you've shown a rare but pleasing appetite for all of the sweet and rotting fruits of moral corruption.” “What are you talking about?!” Edgar exclaimed. “She has done nothing, they were my stories!” The imp immediately jammed it into his heart, drawing a stream of dark crimson. “Our outer skins are eroded by the passage of time and sin. No sinner escapes unscathed. Why not, then, defy time by becoming part of something eternal?” Annabel tried to speak, but could not. Her tongue had been removed while she was asleep. She began to writhe and squirm to no avail as the imp drew closer and placed his hand upon her head, forcing her to look down at her body. Thousands of tiny puncture wounds cover her body, all of them fresh and dripping streams of blood that were pooling on the floor around her. As she looked closer, she could see that the wounds were not only punctures, but words. The words formed names...places....dates. Acts. The beast had used the needle to tattoo her whole body, with a record of atrocities so rare and unbelievable, that her mind wanted to revolt from the actual truth of them. “I envy you so much,” the imp said, licking blood from the needle. “I myself, I am only the book's index, so to speak. But you, my love, my masterpiece of pain, you are the Book. The Book of the Dead. The braille of blood and the encyclopedia of sin. A permanent record of sin for all who enter my walls to read, to remember why gave up their virtues so willingly.” As Edgar watched in helpless horror, Annabel bucked and squirmed in her chair again, but it had been bolted down to the floor with spikes made of human bone. Her bladder and bowels let go just before her sense of sight as well, as the beast jammed his fingertips into her eyes, blinding her. Edgar screamed again, his voice filled with pain and suffering at watching his Annabel dying a second time, this death so much more painful and agonizing than the first. The imp was drooling with delight at her suffering. “Now, now, my love, it's only part of your punishment, you see. You will feel the sinners reading the records, but you will not see them. I think it is a small price to pay for infamy, for your place in eternity. Don't you think?” The long imprisoned secret burst forth from Edgar’s soul. “I’ll admit my guilt; it was my negligence that caused her demise! My drinking and my…” “It’s much too late for that.” The imp smirked. “Please!” Edgar begged, but to no avail; the imp was gone now, vanished like a wisp of smoke, and she felt hot, burning fingers probe her bodily orifices, hands caressing her breasts and buttocks, warm, wet tongues licking her wounds, the new arrivals reading her, understanding where they were and why. The warm, wet tongues continued to probe her every orifice, slowly, gently, then harshly, her sins filling hungry mouths, her skin illustrations filling hungry minds. Edgar, unable to watch her suffering any longer, fainted dead away of heart failure from the horror of it all, the blackness of death his only granted mercy. Annabel, after a lot of struggle, managed to get her hands free, but made no attempt to remove the straps from her feet to escape. She was beginning to like it here, despite the discomforts. She leaned back in her chair, the chair of pain and pleasure, running her fingertips all over her body, and began to read. Finally exhausted and her fingers numb, she stopped to breathe, her labored breaths more of an orgasm than a sigh of relief. Then the darkness, the loneliness, the feeling of eternity began to take her over. Lowering her fingertips to her thighs again, she read some more.
Copyright © 2015 Derrick Cutter |