’The Island’ by Guilty Genius

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’A Taste Of Your Own Medicine’ by Charlotte Emma Gledson

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’She-Demon Chronicles Part III’ By J.L. Johnson

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’The She-Demon Chronicles Part II’ by J. L. Johnson

She-Demon Chronicles, Part II

By J.L. Johnson

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THE WINNER! ’The Observations of Doctor Briant’ by K.C.T. Webber

THE OBSERVATIONS OF DOCTOR BRIANT

By

K.C.T. WEBBER

The only consolation in this is that I can no longer feel.

If I had only noticed it--that bitter, astringent taste--all of this could have been avoided. If I had never met her, she would still be beautiful. If I had never come here, she would not be dead.

If. What a useless word that is, when used with regard to the past.

            The obvious struck me mere seconds too late and now I have only to observe, in this strange Sinai sunrise, my own disgust, my own distant fear, and the curious, translucent-brown spiders at their meal. It is an oddity, how they use their front legs to feed.

             The sun was rising over Saudi Arabia when our ship inched into the mouth of the Gulf of Aquabah.

Upon my arrival, this place filled me with a lightheadedness that comes when you step into a place completely new and strange. It felt even more distant than it actually was, as if I had traveled not only a great distance, but backward through time, as well, though, of course, it was 1892 here as much as it was back in New York.   

In the desert, there is a strange phenomenon when the sun rises. It seems to do so more quickly than anywhere else. You can watch it. You can watch it move, inch by inch; you can observe the orange glow, growing slowly outward like blood spreading, seeping into the sand. The shadows race circles around stones, emphasizing the stillness of everything else.

Enveloped in this sense of stillness as I was, the prayer songs startled me. Even while on the ship, I could hear the prayer leader bellowing his incomprehensible incantations to Allah, his voice echoing from sandstone, into the desert and back again. I was filled with an unfamiliar exhilaration, and at the same time, such a reverence as I had never before experienced, producing in me an odd sort of emotion; it held in it the beginnings of both laughter and weeping. Though I understood not a word that he sang, the feeling did not fade until the prayers did.

            Sharm El Sheik was a place of sandy cyclones driven by winds, scorching and dry, that seemed to blow from some massive forge sitting somewhere unseen. The sun sat pale and high and beat down upon my head with the force of a hammer. Brown people in white robes bustled around squat tents and moveable merchants' stands that came down from Cairo. A few looked at me oddly. I did not mind, for I knew that I too was staring a bit vulgarly, but could not satiate the need to do so. The place was so strange to my eyes that I felt that I had to take it all into my senses. The liquid air surrounding everything gave the place the feel of insubstantiality. There was a feeling that it would disappear; that I would never again lay my eyes upon it.

             My guide was a man of few words. He spoke little English and broken at that, but he was fair at French, at which I was most fluent. He met me on the beach; there were no docks, despite this being a trading post. He nodded, grunted, and bid me to follow.

We made our way from Sharm El Sheik at sunrise the next morning, just after the prayer songs. The man refused to move during the bellowed pleas and praises, to which I had no objection. To do other than be still upon one's knees during these supplications was to receive such withering looks that one was infused with an actual sense of danger. The long, curved knives worn by the men only lent to that perception.

            Camels, I discovered, are not at all like horses. One must sit sidesaddle--to do otherwise is asking for a great deal of discomfort. And they sway side to side much as I imagined a ship's mast would, were I to perch atop one. This, along with all of my other observations--they seem most petty and inconsequential now--I noted in my journal.

            The land was, at first, flat and hard and scattered with the remains of sandstone, ground to jagged scraps by a thousand years of wind. But as we traveled northward, mountains clawed their way upward ever higher. They were sharp, serrated things, yellow and brittle, with deep crags that closed around my shoulders, reared over my head, threatening my life with every step.

            We camped often in these crags, burning whatever camel dung we could find for our fire. On the first night, I had found a nice niche in the rocks that proved to be most comfortable. It cradled me as adequately as my bed would have done. My comfort there was short-lived, however, as my guide returned from hunting fuel for the fire and promptly dragged me from my place. I was taken aback and more than a little cross with the man. For a moment.

Of the two dangerous beasts in this cursed land, I had chosen to bed with one of them--spiders. My anger was beat down by the swelling of cold that rises into one's belly after an unseen danger has passed. He turned me around and pointed at the huge, translucent-brown creature scuttling across the rocks. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, hideous and large enough to best a small dog in battle, I imagined. Thereafter, I kept a vigilant watch for them, while at the same time I hoped most adamantly to never again see one.

            Worry rose in me as we came to the last water bag in our possession. Over the three days that we had journeyed thus far, my guide looked at me with badly veiled disdain every time I drank. Truly, I began to wonder if the man was part camel himself, for he barely touched a drop and when he did, he scarcely wet his lips. When I finally decided that I must comment on the impending shortage, he told me not to worry. He said nothing else.

            Try as I would to learn from the man the intricacies of the Bedouin language, I gained nothing. (I could not even glean from what the Bedouin language was called, so I determined to simply refer to it as Bedouin.) He would only say that he was not Bedouin. He was Egyptian and that was that. This was a thing that I found quite interesting, for though anthropologists consider there to be a difference, I had not considered that the locals might see such a large difference as well. Many, I had discovered in my short time in Sharm El Sheik, viewed the nomads with quite an abundance of scorn and even fear.

My day's stay in Sharm El Sheik had given me some time for questions and I quickly found those questions to be unwelcome in most instances. Often, I was left standing where I was, with my potential source of information quickly leaving. Some would talk, if quietly. And from their words and manner, it seemed that the locals had imbued them with a mystical badness that indicated to me the fear and loathing of creeping evil. This too, I noted in my journal.

            My worry over water was indeed needless. My swaying beast carried me deep into a crag and consequently, into most welcome shade. My estimation of the temperature was around a hundred and thirty degrees. My New York person, being not at all used to such an extreme, was finding it quite difficult to persevere, and more so as the days passed--yet another matter of some disdain on the part of my guide. Dealing with the man was becoming cumbersome, though without him, I would surely have been in a dire situation. It was he who stopped me in time. I only learned later that had I simply kept walking, I would likely have been punished for not observing the called-for cultural procedures.

            He growled at me to stop. His French was not soft as it was meant to be, but produced in the throat, as if he were choking on it. It was then that I saw the Bedouins, sitting among the stones at the mouth of the crag, their makeshift shelters of a color that made them barely distinguishable from the sand. Closer however, they were a brightly dressed people. Robed men and veiled women stared at us with little expression as we entered their territory.

            My guide called ahead--in Bedouin, it seemed to me, given that it was not French or Arabic. There rose in me a slight frustration at this. He could have been preparing me for this meeting all the time and it was now clear to me that his not doing so had been simple refusal rather than ignorance as I had assumed. Indeed it was Bedouin.

            There came toward us an old man, flanked by five or six younger. All wore long, curved knives, slender blades bare and thrust through thin sashes. The handles appeared to be of some sort of bone.

            I was taken by the apparent openness on the face of the old man. He smiled. His hands were spread, as if greeting an old and most welcome friend. Had I known... If. If...

            Following a short conversation between my guide and the old man--who I later found was the tribe's leader--my guide informed me, quite bluntly, that he would have his payment immediately. When I suggested that his services would still be required, he laughed. He made it quite clear that he would not stay among these people. He would stay outside the camp and would be available upon my wish to depart, but he would not stay with the Bedouins. I considered this to be a rather ignorant sort of prejudice, but paid him what had been agreed. With some haste, he was gone and I was left alone with a people about which I knew not a solitary thing.

            For the better part of a month, I stayed quite happily with these savage people. The language was coming to me satisfactorily and I was now able to communicate with little difficulty. I was often invited to eat at the old man's fire--I gladly accepted, of course. We moved often, tracing our way northward along the Gulf of Aquabah. I took part in driving the camels and peculiar little goats, which most among my new companions found endlessly amusing, given that this was the duty of a young boy.

            I stopped such childish actions at a young woman's suggestion. She said that if I looked like a child, then the men would continue to see me as one. 

            We spoke often in passing, but no more than that in the beginning. I was, however, thankful for her small, whispered advice to me when no one was looking. I was aware that certain care needed to be taken in such things, as the interaction between men and women was a complex and sensitive subject.

            I heard her voice from the other side of one of the bland, tan curtains that hung to protect us from the sun by day. Whispers drifted to me from a shadow that passed as I lay on my colorful, woven carpet. Soon the advice became encouragement and after that, progressed to simple bits of conversations, pleasantries and such.

            Often, our movements took us over rough terrain and I was ever amazed at how the camels handled such extremes, especially given the trouble that I had, at times. It was along one of these treacherous routs that I was injured. Sandstone is not the sturdiest of stuff, I found, when it crumbled beneath my feet. I bellowed as jagged shards bit deeply into my leg. My embarrassment at delaying the entire group was not warranted, as the old man said that it happened to someone nearly every month or so. He brought me some sort of bark to chew and insisted that I only take very little and never swallow it. It was bitter and astringent and, as I began chewing, I was immediately relaxed by numbness that spread throughout my body. I was made not at all tired by the stuff, as I would have expected, but the pain was completely gone. (I resolved to obtain a sample for study before returning to New York.) The old man's understanding, along with the amazing bark, of course, made the situation a bit easier, but not so much easier as did the young woman's presence.

            Among the Bedouins it is the duty of a man's wife and daughters to care for him and heal his injuries. If a man has no wife or daughters, it falls to his mother and sisters. I was, of course, lacking all of these. This was not unprecedented, it seemed--just nearly so. Still, there were cultural procedures in place--she volunteered to take the duty of being my nurse. It was then that I was again warned of the spiders. She insisted that I must inform her immediately if I began bleeding again, for they were drawn by the smell of blood. And I was, consequently, very uncomfortable, but I slept better knowing that she was watching over me.

            She tended to me day and night, bringing me food and water and doses of that bitter root. Our conversations lengthened and deepened. I was learning a great deal and in the beginning, busied myself with constant scribbling in my journal as we talked. Soon, though, I found myself forgetting to open the journal--forgetting to take notes.

It was shortly after that, that she showed me her face. As I lay on my carpet, a sense washed over me of a close presence. I opened my eyes to see her kneeling over me. She stared down at me, brown eyes large and bright, and breathed deeply. Her bosom rose beneath her robe in a most flattering way. I was a bit nervous at noticing and quickly turned my head. From the corner of my vision, I watched her hand rise. With a slow, determined motion, she tore her veil from her face. I was struck to the soul by the beauty that appeared from beneath it. My hand rose slowly and of its own volition. I touched her cheek. Her eyes widened, as if with realization. Standing quickly, she hastened into the darkness.

            That was all there was to the incident, but its significance was not lost on me, by any means. In my time with these people, I had learned that women were not allowed such a display with any other than husband, father or brother. This, of course, set me to wondering. Was it as a brother that this woman was beginning to see me, or as something else?

            In light of morning, I tried to seem as if nothing had transpired, but could not completely pull the wondering looks from my eyes when they fell upon her. Her eyes smiled above her veil when they met mine. And so it was for days thereafter.

            And for days thereafter, I fought to perfect her image in my journal. Her face stared up at me, taking an entire page. Over time--I had convinced her, with some effort, to show me again--I was able to scratch out an image that was unmistakably hers. 

            Our meetings became more intimate. Soon the veil came off every time she entered my shelter. Light brushes of her face became longer, firmer. Closer. The act of changing my dressings became something more, with touches lingering.

I could feel her breath on my neck, her feet hooked under my thighs, and her legs tightening around me. I knew that it was a mistake even as we did it; we both did. The knowledge did not stop us. She asked if she could go with me when I left. I said yes, though I had no idea how I would accomplish such a thing.

            My leg had healed nicely over the next weeks. And over the next weeks, I could not take my eyes from her. I could not have a thought without her intruding upon it. Our excuse for being together was rapidly evaporating and I even considered causing myself further injury just to maintain it.

            She came to me one more time. Tears flowed from her eyes and disappeared behind her veil; this night, she did not remove it. She was with child. It was an impossible thing for a virgin to explain away, but this, the child, would not be the downfall, as one would expect.

            Evening was falling and we had stopped for the night. I approached the old Tribal Chief's fire intent on eating with him as I had done so many times before. The stink of camel dung was a soft, musty smell rising in the smoke. I maintained my bearing, despite the nervousness coursing through my veins. With child... I could scarcely imagine what I would do about this situation. It would have no chance to cause me worry. I rolled out my carpet and my journal flung to the ground, landing at his feet.

And the face of his daughter, unveiled and beautiful, stared up at him from the page.

I froze. I looked from the journal to the old man and back again. I braced myself for the reaction. Cold clenched at my bowels. The old man picked up the journal. He looked at it. Then he closed it, and handed it back to me. I swallowed hard as I took it. I said nothing. Neither did he.

             I heard them question her. I heard them cut out the child. I heard them stone her. It took an eternity.

Her screams still tear through my mind with every second. If there is a consoling factor about my current situation, it is that I can no longer feel, physically or emotionally. I am an observer, watching myself watch.

It was three months into my ill-fated journey. It was morning, before the sun. I rose, laden with the repeating memories of the journal falling open before the old man and still puzzled by the lack of any reaction. We broke the fast with dry bread, dried meat, and the pungent taste of goats' cheese. But this morning there was something else. There was an odd flavor about my bread that reminded me of something familiar, if vaguely. It was astringent and slightly bitter. I paid it little attention. Now I wish I had. The old man, what seemed an eternity ago, said to take little and never swallow it.

Now I watch myself watching. I am aware of the grit of sand under my nakedness, but cannot truly feel it. I can feel the tugging, the tearing, but there is no pain. I am aware of fear as an idea, but it is not touching me. The Bedouins are gone now. Their small forms are dots on the horizon, obscured by liquid waves of heat that fill the distance. Her body lies not far from me, a mangled heap, with blood spreading slowly outward, seeping into the sand. Her veil is in her hand. Her face is uncovered. It is no longer beautiful.

The sun is rising over Saudi Arabia. Shadows race circles around the stones, but I do not need the effect to emphasize stillness, for I cannot move. I am perched against this rock and I cannot move.

I watch the spiders at their meal. The smell of her blood has drawn them from their hiding places in the rocks. They are massive, translucent-brown, and hairless. It is an oddity, how they use their front legs to feed.

I vomit violently and it splashes onto my chest. It does not deter the spiders. My mind flails, searching for some memory of those prayers I heard in Sharm El Sheik; they will not come.

One of my legs has been reduced to bone, pink and shiny in the new sun, and the flesh of the other is going quickly as they make their way upward. One of them jerks backward, peeling a strip of skin from my thigh. Another holds one of my testicles, turning it as it chews. They crawl onto my abdomen, tearing at the soft flesh there. They begin burrowing in; one of them disappears, stretching a fist-sized hole pushing it's way inside. I am aware of the tugging, the tearing. I am aware of the fear hovering somewhere out of sight. And I watch.

The only consolation is that I can no longer feel.

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’Collecting’ by J. Munstis HALLOWEEN ENTRY 19!

Collecting

 By J. Munstis

Jack Stone sat at the bar; grasping onto his drink as if it held its life in it. He couldn't believe that he was alone. His parents had been taken from him at his early age of twenty two. They were his rock and tree. All seemed lost as he sipped that short glass of whiskey.
    Slowly, other patrons passed him, holding their noses. His appearance was at its worse and he was sure the smell was overbearing. It didn't matter to him, it had been so long since he had a decent shower and he couldn't smell it anymore. He finished off the glass and pushed it forward for a refill.
    "I think you've had enough Jack," Stanley told him. "You smell and you're scaring all the customers away. I need you to leave and don't come back until you've cleaned up. Don't bother paying either; I don't want your dirty money." Jack stared blankly through drunken eyes. It was the third bar he'd been banned from in the past two weeks. He knew he had a problem; he just didn't do anything about it. Scratching his scruffy face, he lifted himself off of the stool and stumbled to the door. Leaning against the wall, he pulled a wool winter hat over his long scraggly hair.
    The air outside was bitter and cold. Pulling his torn leather coat around himself, Jack headed home in the cold night. Everyone he passed turned away from his rough appearance. Pulling the hat down over his ears, he noticed that a man stood under a broken street light at a four way stop. All he could see in the dark figure was a small reflection from the neon lights of the shops. As he walked closer, he could see that the reflection was off the silver head of a cane.
The figure lifted its head towards him and Jack stepped to side away from his gaze. Although he could not see what the figure looked like, he felt as if the gaze was penetrating his soul.
"Hello Jack," a harsh whisper came from the shadowed face. The figured moved towards him, into the light of the bright neon sign above Jack. His skin was white with an ashen tinge to it and pale green eyes stared at Jack. The thing that Jack noticed was the suit he wore held absolutely no color. It seemed to just be a black mass enveloping the bearer.
"Wha…whaddya want?" Jack slurred.
"To make a deal."
"What kin'a deal?"
"A life changing one." The man played with his cane; making the head bob back and forth. "I can give you your life back. All you have to do is sign." Jack watched as the man reached in to the blackness and pulled out a long slender item. When the man unrolled it, Jack realized that it was some type of scroll.
Looking at the parchment, Jack thought about getting his life back. His parents would be alive again. He wouldn't smell anymore and the best thing was he wouldn't have to live in the homeless shelter anymore. He never could stand all the people crowding into the shelter.
"Wha' do you git out of it?" he stammered and wiped a bit of drool with his sleeve.
"Oh just a little something. Something that you won't need. So, do we have a deal?"
He held out a silver pen to Jack who stared at it. Grabbing it with eagerness, he signed the parchment. The ink on the parchment seemed to pulsate but Jack figured it was the booze talking. Pulling the scroll from Jack's hands, the man stuck it back into the darkness of his suit. With a small chuckle, the man turned down a nearby alley and faded into the shadows.
"Your pen!" Jack shouted down the alley. "It is a nice pen." Admiring the craftsmanship of the pen, he headed towards the homeless shelter, hoping he could find some place to sleep.

Jack woke the next day to something unexpected. It wasn't the fact that it was nine o'clock at night it was that He was lying in a large bed, not a dirty cot. Rubbing his face, he noticed that he was clean shaven. Smelling his arm, he realized he was clean. Looking about the room, he saw that it wasn't the shelter and slid out of the bed. It was his old apartment, but better.
"Was it all a dream?" he asked himself while rubbing his head. He wandered about the apartment, finding that the only difference was that everything in it seemed to have been improved. The ripped couch brown couch was now a black leather couch and the kitchen was up to the standards. He even found his wardrobe was improved; all the suits were Armani. One in particular caught his eye. It was a solid black suit that had been pulled out and prominently displayed.
After a quick meal of eggs and toast, Jack found a wallet sitting on the coffee table filled with bills and credit cards. He was amazed.
"It was just a dream," he repeated. He put the black suit on and found that it fit him perfectly. As he was smoothing it out, he felt something in the inside pocket of his jacket. Reaching in he found a black envelope and a scroll that looked ancient. Opening the envelope he found a letter addressed to him.

Jack,

Time for your end of the bargain. Take the scroll and collect the souls of those listed. Use the dagger on the kitchen table to do so.

If you fail, I will come get what you gave to me.


When Jack finished the letter, he was more confused than afraid. He found the dagger on the kitchen table. It was a simple silver dagger but the blade was etched with flames and a skull. When he picked it up, he had a sense that his skin was being burned. He knew that this was no dream. Opening the scroll, he found a list of thirty names and where they could be found at ten at night. Sticking the dagger into his belt under the coat, he headed out the door.

Jack sat at a bar drinking a glass of whiskey. He looked at the clock on the wall as it turned ten. A gentleman walked in and sat at the opposite end. Finishing his glass, Jack paid his bill and walked over to the man.
"Chris Parker," he began. "Four years ago, you made a deal. I'm here to collect." The man's face turned white when Jack thrust the dagger into the man's chest. Retrieving the dagger, he cleaned it and stuck it back in his belt. Taking a quick look at the list, he saw that the name began to fade away.

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'Clinton' By Martin Treanor- HALLOWEEN STORY ENTRY 18!