Fear and Fervor – A Patreon Fiction

Today’s fiction is an excerpt from this month’s Patreon work. I’ve combined my two favourite genre’s – Romance and Horror – with a dash of Lovecraftian influence. Enjoy!

---

Up upon the attic’s bare wooden floors, in the bodega of Casa Del Potro, between discarded paint bottles and torn canvas. Therein lies the young male we know only as Eduardo. He sits with his back against the raised mattress, naked save for a pair of dirty boxers. They reveal the stringy black threads of hair covering his legs and arms and have begun to crawl past the navel to his chest. Smudges of paint cover some of his brown skin, and the whites of his hands are lost to a swirling grey rainbow of colour.

He sleeps deeply and soundly. The dark tendrils of oily curled hair tumbled down to his chin like a frayed curtain. Near his bare feet lies a canvas still heavy with wet paint. Each corner holds a random item that keeps the canvas from rolling in. An iron stands in one corner, the severed cord wrapped in dark tape. In another corner is the one half of Eduardo’s wearable Jordan’s, the bottom half yawning with yellow strands of loosening superglue. The foot of an aged table, and one of the three metal stools keep the remaining corners down.

Caressed over canvas is a visage of improbable beauty. Flaxen tresses that divulge in hues of orange and red cascading down the back. Golden braids coil the hem of the snowy dress that sits below the smooth skin of bare shoulders. An elegant face gazes out at the viewer with gleaming emerald orbs that reach into the soul and tug it to the surface. Pert upturned nose sits perfectly on the symmetrical face above thin pursed lips. There is a haunting glare accentuated by her slightly raised brow, as though she notices something behind the viewer. Perhaps she feels the tiny pinpricks of an insect crawling up her leg below the separation of canvas and real life.

Or perhaps her gaze from canvas onto reality bears a truth she wishes not to comprehend. The artist, a living soul, tethered to the encroaching darkness ignorantly rejected as merely death. Only she, the portrait, the art, the creation, has any semblance of what awaits beyond the veil.

There is more to this corporeal existence than we can see. More beyond the ethereal presence that on occasion slinks along our spine with icy tendrils.

I will tell you the story of Eduardo and his paintings for it is a story that must be told. Perhaps it shall restore the madness that rattles my bones like arthritis.

Pray the madness does not pass on to you, for there is no fetter back to this blessed ignorance.

---

 

Advertisement

Friday Fiction: Wattpad Excerpt

As you might know (some of you definitely know), Friday’s are usually Microcosmsfic days, where 3 elements are spun and a bunch of us write a 300 word flash fiction using those elements. The prize is prestige and an opportunity to judge the next round. Last Friday I wrote a Fable called The Man and the Mice and to both my surprise, and glee, I actually won that week’s Microcosmsfic, both picked by the Judge and the Community. *Swoons*

So I wont be entering this Friday as I will be judging the entries. You can, however, enter the comp here: MicrocosmsFic.com Write great stories!

I actually loved writing that fable, and you can read the whole process of how I came up with the story, on my Patreon page (free) here: Inspiration Behind The Man and the Mice

Fridays are also days when I post a chapter of my novella, Innocence, on Wattpad. The premise follows four police officers and a young doctor, who illegally execute a known killer. Now someone (or something) is stalking them.

Here’s an excerpt from the next chapter. Innocence – A Wattpad Novella

---

The room spins as body leans forward to reach for the fallen injection. The body slumps onto the warm wooden floor with a soft thwack. Eyes glaze over the irregular lines that mark each thin, individual piece of floorboard.

The rows of polished plank begin to sway.

Bend.

Lurch.

They curl upward from the ground and wiggle free from their confines. Oversized gunk drips wet, grey splotches over the curling floorboards, coating them in their mucous membrane and form egg-shaped heads. The droplets slither over the wood, every drip causing the planks to writhe to life. The curled heads wiggle upwards like cat-sized maggots, squirming as the slime devours the wooden meat sack that was once the floor. Together, in rapid gyration they turn to the body on the floor in a unison of tiny beady eyes. Black as coal. Tufts of slick hair drape over the left side of their bulging heads. The gunk continues to drip over their tiny humanoid faces.

The giggles contract into hicks of breathless inhalations, gurgling with saliva dripping down the gawking mouth, then rising into a crescendo of strangled chortles winding into wild screeching.

The maggots skitter as though the sound invigorates them. They skid forward from their coiled perch in frenzied slurping shuffles. They climb over the body in a mesh of wriggling appendages.

---

What are you currently writing?

Supernatural Paranormals Week

It’s week 2 of Spring Death on the blog and it’s all about the supernatural and the paranormal. As a transitional short from last week’s Serial Killer week, here’s an excerpt on a supernatural serial killers:

---

“Weh ma! Baba!” he exclaimed as the aged bodies of his reanimated parents stared blankly at nothing before them. He hadn’t noticed how cold the room had become until his breath escaped in an ephemeral plume. But it was a passing notion. His heart seemed to be beating in his ears, a light elation filling his lungs, crawling across his face into a grin that spread to his eyes. The two bodies on the bed turned sagging pale faces towards him, milky eyes unseeing, mouths drooped to reveal toothless gums and dry grey tongues.

“Ma?” he said to the closest body. The woman on the bed seemed to be more skin than anything else hanging down her skeletal frame. She raised stick-thin arms out towards him,

“My child.” A feathery murmur escaped from chapped lips, “Come.”

Excited, Siyabonga rushed to the woman and wrapped his arms around the cold, bare body.
“Oh ma! Ma!” he cried into the icy flabs. An earthy aroma rose from the body. He was barely aware of the strength in the arms as they clutched him tighter and tighter and tighter. The spell had worked. Traditional medicine had done what modern science never could – it brought his parents back from the dead. The sangoma was the real doctor not him. His thoughts were broken by a sharp pain in his side. He gasped for breath,

“Ma!” he choked as his arms pressed against his sides, his back folding in on itself as ribs crackled under the grip. He tried to scream but only a gurgled whisper escaped. He hadn’t even heard or noticed his father until a second embrace wrapped around them and clutched harder. The crackling bones sounded like splintering wood, the unyielding pain perforating his arms, twisting along his back, grinding into his chest. A guttural groan clawed out of his throat.

“My child. Thank you.” The voiced snaked into his mind. It was not his mother’s voice. It wasn’t even female. He tried to speak but the pain was too intense, black spots peppered his vision as his breath shortened into painful hics.

---

What happens next? Are they really his parents? Who has he brought back from the dead and what will they do next? *Cue music and final credits*

Patreon

To read the behind-the-scenes draft of my stories, you can become a Patreon from $1. As a Patreon, you are also able to send suggestions and ideas for your own personal creation; it doesn’t have to be related to my Spring Death theme.

Walking By Faith

Where do we go, nobody knows. We go wherever the wind blows.
~Faith – the spirited Adventurer ~

Faith hoisted the large, heavy backpack higher up on her shoulders, placing it in a more comfortable position on her back. She gripped the backpack’s dark straps firmly; they came across the front of her mud stained blouse, the blouse no longer a sunny yellow in colour but fading into a shade of yellow and brown. Her large straw hat hid her from the scorching heat, and the flow of long, light brown hair coming from it covered her ears, framing her demure face and reaching her shoulders. She looked ahead, her clear hazel eyes sparkling with excitement as she gazed across the empty, ridged landscape of the desert; there was a large tower ahead. It stood erect, rising from a sand dune that covered the bottom quarter of the immense structure. There was an eagerness within her. It seemed to bubble right through her as a large grin spread across her face and she began to rise up to her toes and drop back down to her heels in an energetic rhythm. She glanced down at her partner and snorted softly.Unlike her, young Aaron sat crossed legged on the coarse ground; despondent. His short golden brown hair lay matted to his head from sweat. The heat had taken every ounce of his energy, regardless of the short swim he had taken, at the oasis Faith had managed to direct them to. The mud had helped cool them off too but the prospect of traversing the sandy terrain with mud baking on their skin did not appeal to him at all, even if that would have cooled him down. He gazed up at the tower in the distance, shielding his light brown eyes from the sun so he could look at it without going blind. He sighed dejectedly; that was the last thing he wanted to do.

The travelers, completely unrelated, had been making their way across the desert for a week and a half now, each with their own personal goal. Faith sought adventure, yes, she lived with almost eccentric motivation that had led her to many different parts of the world. Yet this journey had become spiritual more than adventurous as she trekked through aesthetic landscapes varying from mountains and valleys to forests and jungles. Each region she traversed filled her with awe and wonder, a deep longing as well as a desire to know not only about its creation but also about its creator. Aaron on the other hand was an orphan, abandoned as a young boy by his parents claiming they were not ready for a child; he was pulling them down. He’d met his parents again later on and they had rejected him again. In his sadness and anger at his parents and a deeper bitterness for his unfair life, he lost all will and purpose to live. At the apex of the apartment building where his orphanage was located, he’d found himself on the edge of the building and gazing glazed eyed at the inevitable below him. Had Faith not appeared at that moment, Aaron would not have been alive this day. He found a new desire at that moment, a desire to figure out his purpose and know more about this ultimate Being that Faith spoke of so reverently yet so mysteriously about. Who indeed was the creator of those marvelous places Faith had traveled to? Where was He now? What purpose did He have for him? This journey had to have answers, just had to.

“Come now, enough rest let’s go!” Faith exclaimed as she grabbed the younger boy’s arms and pulled him up to his feet. Aaron grunted his disapproval but let himself be pulled up to his feet.
“Are we seriously going to climb that?” Aaron asked, unable and unwilling to alter his despondent tone of voice.

“Of course! This tower will challenge you beyond anything you have ever faced!” Faith exclaimed, falling back into her excited rocking, “In fact, there is a historical record of a young man, a little older than me, who not only climbed the tower but leapt from its top!” Aaron had a moment to remember his once strong desire to jump from his own high tower; so much had changed since then that the idea disturbed him.

“Not only did he jump, but he landed safely on a bale of hay at the bottom…he called it…the Leap of Faith. Exhilarating!” Faith’s face seemed to glow under her straw hat, her lips unable to contain the large grin that filled her face. Aaron, however, was skeptical…and fearful. It was as though Faith had saved him from one jump only to propel him towards another only this time…he was not looking forward to it. Not at all.

---

I hope you enjoyed the little excerpt from one of my short stories called Walking by Faith, playing around with that theme of walking by faith by having a character named Faith. The basis of this story is the idea of self discovery and also how God reveals himself in nature. Within the course of the story itself you will see that outworking of revelation through the eyes of energetic, optimistic Faith and the skeptical, despairing Aaron.

As always, please feel free to leave a comment, message etc. Thank you for taking the time to read and visit my blog. May you have a blessed week!

Journey of the Heart

Dusty broken shoes walk unhurriedly across the gravel on the side of the road, on what was a sorry excuse for a pavement. They walk with the ease and casualness of someone who is off on some trivial errand. The frayed, once white, sneakers slow down as they approach the grey pole of a road sign.

Cape Summits 10 ↑

Kaaphoekstad 20 ↑

            With a slight shrug of the shoulders, the walker adjusts his backpack on his shoulders. The contents within are not light, but the journey has strengthened him. Before moving on, he looks about at his surroundings, noting the green that surrounds him. The cape has been known for its lush green locations, the same ones that stretch a little into the distance where they fall off over a cliff. Further beyond is the bright blue of the endless ocean, shimmering in the distance. The breeze cools him off considerably, for the sun has been out full force burning the light brown skin to a slightly bronze shade. More than once the idea of shedding his shirt had crossed his mind, wishing to feel the cool breeze against his sweltering skin but he could never bring himself to do it. After a brisk wiping of his forehead, his dark eyes drinking in the ocean view one last time, he turned away from the viewpoint and continued to walk on.

********************************

“At Cape Summits huh?”

“No ways you gonna make it that far…quit now.”

“I can’t quit…not now.”

“Is this person so important to you that you are willing to walk all the way to another province for them?”

“Several provinces actually.”

“What!… how far are you going?”

“Far…very far.”

“You are crazy you know that?”

“Maybe…But I have to. I have to”

***************************************************************************************************************

This is an excerpt of a story I’ve been working on inspired, funny enough, by a song by a band called 30 Seconds to Mars. I have an outline for this but now its a matter of the details. The song by 30 Seconds to Mars is called “From Yesterday” and it has the following lyrics:

He’s a stranger to some
And a vision to none
He can never get enough,
Get enough of the one

For a fortune he’d quit
But it’s hard to admit
How it ends and begins.

Now I don’t listen to 30 Seconds to Mars these days but I think the idea behind my inspiration can still be used. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a full version of the final piece. In the mean time, any feedback will be appreciated. Thanks!