The dead clawed at the Earth. Still not strong enough to leave their graves unassisted. Pestilence carried by the rats instead. New mutations harvested in the forest where nothing grows.
Marcy paused. Their howls of pain came from decomposed lungs beneath the dirt. Another layer added to the song.
Marcy’s ears searched for the Song of the Daisy humming softly amongst the decay. Its petals closed until she waved her hand above to bask in its golden glow. One living thing. A gift in the night beneath Honey’s accusing stare.
The light of one thousand stars gave her strength. Another second added. New flesh burst into existence. An eruptive display of pus and blisters. Resist the itching and become whole, no longer filled with holes.
Her shovel rested against a gravestone. The words worn away. Not even the light of the daisy could bring them back. Marcy ran her fingers along the grooves searching for sense in the dark. Only chaos.
Life contagious beneath the dirt. Half-life. Reanimation spreading long tendrils through the graves. Shallow graves first. The fresh ones. Mass graves far below. Plague pits of long ago.
A cassette rewound on its own. The only electric device to work in the cemetery in the centre of the Forest of the Dead. Relieve Marcy’s loneliness when she plucked the daisy. The hit of thousands of dying stars breathed fresh life into her face. Plump out the skin. Hide the waxed black threads she used to sew herself together.
Start again. Children’s laughter. Recorded. Distorted. Long ago. Long dead.
Her throat dry with reanimated flies looking for escape. Left overs from the club. Stuck forever on a 56 second loop. Honey trapped in her cage. Drop her phone. Wave her hand. And kill the flies.
She pointed her face to the Moon and let them out. Party over. Until she called them again. A few last lingers.
The drum loop never stopped. Only paused for four seconds of silence. The flies joined it adding yet another layer to the Song of Decay.
Marcy couldn’t wear her motorcycle jacket everywhere. The zippers carried the song into bedrooms in the night announcing her arrival with flies and rats. Not everyone deserved fear. Body hair standing up, not with static, but with her arrival. The song on the air.
Children snatched from their cradles. Old men with a final erection never to find relief. Patients on the cancer ward. They turned their faces to Marcy. Is it my time? One or two in the night unless a nurse injected too much diamorphine.
New clothes stolen from the backs of the dead. Burial clothes not found in the mass graves deep below. The dead didn’t like their clothes stolen. Snatch the babies from the cradle and carry them off in the night. A toddler choking on a sweet couldn’t scream. Cower in fear against her motorcycle jacket and the zippers.
Marcy wanted the Song of the Daisy to come with her to the tough ones. Unexpected in the night. Only carry them as far as the Forest. They had to make their own way through. Rest and the next life waited at the end.
Faces of the damned scratched into the bark. Forever cast in howls of agony. The look they gave Marcy when she came for them in the night. Attempted erection relief sought down her thigh. Little members hidden by their thumbs. Toxic spunk couldn’t hurt Marcy in the dark.
You can’t intimidate death. Pissing off death is a different story. Ejaculate down her thigh designed to control. Implant feelings of worthlessness to their general perceived superiority. Some of the faces forever displayed the shock when the damned realised everyone is judged equal. No exceptions to any specialness regardless of what their own voices had to say.
Rats to carry the babies through as the old men wander lost with eternal erections. Tents in their piss-stained y-fronts and pyjamas. Forever doomed to wear the same clothes unless they find the end of the forest. Stripped. Souls laid bare for the shower of flames.
Their wives went into the light long ago. Reborn as someone new. Soulmates never die. They’ll meet again. But maybe not so soon.
Leering faces from the trees as they lower branches at the free. Only when the souls trapped inside can work as a team. Snag the skin and feast. The leaves never turn green, no matter the amount of envy.
Cracked sexbots litter the forest floor leaking their creamy whites and drain fluid. Another obstacle in the dark. Homes for the rats with their fluid leaking into the soil. Feast for the tree roots running deep, past the mass graves. A little moisture where they could get it.
A shimmer of white and a burst of life from the trees. Donnie paused to watch as he shoved half a burger into his mouth. He needed more than food to pass through the forest alive.
Marcy waved. Their eyes connected. 56 seconds load blown. A virus in her mind. Explosive firework display leaking into the WiFi. Timed to the drum loop. A dirty glass filled with gin and tonic neither wanted. Walls sticky with oozing honey. Maggots trapped within. Tainted.
He could pass through the Forest of the Dead chasing his own empty in a cloud of bottled fog and juniper berries. His horse couldn’t leap over the cemetery walls. Death on the landing. For both. Gin with the tonic already poured in and a slice of lime only carried him so far.
Another woman screamed inside his head. She couldn’t hear the Song of the Daisies, or even the one daisy. Marcy couldn’t get to her. Wrap her hand around her wrist and put her in the ground.
The burger wrapper he dropped for Marcy’s rats. Chew the wires of the sexbots. Line their hollow insides. Reanimate and give birth. Breed the fleas. Fresh mutations in the dark. The woman in his head banged on the bars of her cage with frantic energy. She didn’t like Donnie being kind to Marcy. Jealousy spread out in waves and hit the trees.
He was off. Chasing burgers into the forever night. 56 second drum loop to carry his load. A cloud of artificial fog to hide in. A filter on a picture uploaded to social media.
The only sun from the daisy in the graveyard with the horse away between the trees. Donnie’s half-smile/half-smirk at a joke only he was in on shining light onto the creeps trapped in the trees.
The rats squeaked as they fought for his dropped wrappers. Another layer to the song. Lick the cheese off. Nests to build in the cracked sexbots with their real blinking eyes and creamy fluid.
The rats wouldn’t go near the trees. Except, to feast on the flesh of the damned. Needle teeth tear holes in the skin for fresh agony. Rigged up with extra nerve endings. A triple root canal without novocaine all over the creep skin.
Spread their fleas to the dead. Pestilence in the night and Marcy appears in her motorcycle jacket. The zippers screech the Song of Decay only the soon-to-be-deceased can hear. And the empty. Zombie-eyed stare in the dark. Eyes glossed over behind their masks.
Voices sounded off in Marcy’s head as she dug. Can’t fault a man for trying. Leering face. Carved into a tree. Empty stares of witnesses to be scooped up and carried off in the night coughing black phlegm and blood. Glands swollen. They erupt with black pus and decay.
The daisy struggled to sing. A song of life to compete with death for four seconds. Silenced again. The petals closed, holding the galaxy tight. Secrets of a different universe kept inside.
The shovel struck the wood of a casket, shallow graves of the recently deceased. The graves went down for miles. Mass pits from the Black Death and everything below. Marcy saw the bottom once. Her way out of the Void. She had to dig. Dig up. The only way is through.
A howl from inside. The dead only liked to be disturbed on their own terms. Restless with Marcy’s digging. Woken before their time to rise again. She slipped into their dreams on her way out of the Void.
Marcy went to her hands and knees. Blue stole her rings. No need to worry about dirt caught between the cubic zirconia and nine carat gold. Why are you dolled up? A pillow held over her face. She kicked and squirmed.
The dirt landed by the side of the hole. Thrown by hand. Donnie couldn’t come in and help her. His own problems to chase. Drowned in burgers, chips, cola and beer. Scratching from inside. Someone didn’t want to doze and wait until she was called.
Her wings stretched out from her shoulders. A lonely green feather amongst a sea of greys and blues. The daisy hummed inside it. A faint hint of peace for her travels. Drag the ones destined for the trees kicking, screaming, spitting and biting. Still no remorse. Even at the end. They didn’t do any wrong. Can’t fault a man for trying.
A howl came from the casket. Death hurt. Trapped beneath the Earth. Not yet time to wander in the forest and find the Void. Journey to the other side. Out-narc frenemies. Time spent basking in the blue glow of a touchscreen. Life wasted. Death in a holding pattern beneath the Earth.
Mass graves next. Souls stolen from their most recent bodies. Fighting underneath. Confused. Lost. They didn’t have any black threads. The soil breathed with their movements. Ancient gravestones shoved through the dirt to see the moonlight once again.
A news headline flashed. Still no cure. Typed out on social media. Out-narc the frenemies and dismiss as false news. An air of superiority. Do you think you should come in? Frenemies simulated empathy in the emptiness. Masks contorted into ugly snares. Carved forever into the bark. So filled with hate. A future yet to come.
Scratching at the casket beneath her fingers. A cough as Marcy pulled open the lid. Dirt and phlegm. Not even the worms could survive in the cemetery. Reanimated flies and renewing rats. The daisy tried to draw life where it could.
People buried in their Sunday best. Marcy wanted a miniskirt. A better fit around her rejuvenating flesh than men’s jeans chosen when she left the Void. Start again.
Let her legs breathe with expanding flesh. She couldn’t carry children away in the night in the same PVC she wore pressed against Donnie’s window. Covered in spent semen. He achieved some distance squirting down her thigh with the lights of the city below.
Life to rub out the death. Grabbing hands grope at her every night out. At every job selling her prints. If you’re not interested, you shouldn’t be wearing that. Marcy looked up. His face leered at her from the tree. Donnie wouldn’t let her carve out his eyes. The leering creep’s skin made up the leaves. A rustle with a rain of burst blood vessels. Pain he couldn’t express trapped within the bark. The trees screeched. Each soul trapped inside clambered over each other. Dicks in hand. Never to find relief for their heavy balls.
Rats in the night with their fleas. One wave of her hand and the rats had life. Half-life beneath the floorboards. Stealing the flesh of the damned. A feast in their nests. Donnie’s dropped burger wrappers offered a processed treat of orange cheese. Swarm around him and wait for the empty nutrition to fill their insides. Their fleas can’t infect him. Immortal for 56 seconds rage dying on the sheets.
One wave of Marcy’s hand and the woman in the casket had a voice. More than she had in life. Marcy didn’t remember bringing her down.
“Thank you.”
“It isn’t time yet. I need your clothes.”
“My clothes?”
“Yes. For the little ones. They get scared.”
“What am I going to wear?”
Marcy helped the woman out of the grave. Her Sunday dress could be altered. The hemline a little shorter. No plans of seduction in mind. Only, growing space. The daisy sped up the process. A gift of free-will. Faded Star on stage every night. No one loved him. No one loved Marcy. Lives entwined. She wrapped a bit of black thread around his wrist.
The leering trees watched. Faces trapped behind the bark. Soul stacked on top of each other. A new woman to manipulate into bed. It is meant to be complimentary.
“I don’t like them watching.”
“No one does.”
Marcy pulled a knife out of her jeans. The sharp blade caught in the silver moonlight. (Fuck Donnie up his arse with an eight-inch strap-on, or maybe a cactus, if he protests too much.) The daisy hit a high note drowning out the Song of Decay for a brief four seconds. Cracked sexbots carried it through the Forest of the Dead. Ghost lights shone through a strobe light.
The eyes on the trees slashed until they bled tainted honey. Plunged into darkness once again. Sap for the rats. Regenerate their fur and bones, ready for tomorrow. The Song of the Daisy carried on while the rats licked the slashed eyeballs. No one could hear it above the drum loop and the Song of the Dead.
Marcy linked her arm in the woman’s.
“Come with me.”
She led her to the centre of the cemetery. Away from the trees. Even with their eyes slashed, no one liked to be around a creep. The gravestones worn to faint nubs in the dirt. The Earth moved with the mass graves below. The light of the daisy didn’t reach far.
“I left a pile of clothes. Help yourself.”
Marcy pointed. A tea party for the dead. All the airs and graces. Trapped in rags. Released with a little imagination. Entertainment while they wait.
Faint blue light from her finger tips showed a pile of rags stolen from death scented bedrooms in the night. PVC dresses taken from the backs of sexbots as they appeared in her forest. Even sexbots must die. The forest grew crowded as time sped up.
Marcy pulled the dress over the woman’s head. She could keep her stockings. She took off her jeans and tee shirt. She couldn’t leave them in the pile of festering clothes. A breeding ground for fleas. Away from the creeps trapped within the trees.
Marcy walked back to the daisy. She waved her hand over the flower, opening its petals. One last goodbye before she rode into the night, carried on a flying carpet of reanimated flies.
Tears pushed at her eyes as she absorbed its song. She wouldn’t cry. She held her hands over the light. No longer transparent. She didn’t need waxed black threads to hold herself together anymore. Faded Star’s song came through loud and clear. A memory to carry on her one green feather.
A wave of her hand and the daisy closed. Blisters burst as she stood. Push out the pus. Replace with pink flesh. Life giving flower in the dark. She wanted to sleep next to it forever. A life to rebuild. Eternity to alter.
The eyes on the trees started to open again when she walked out of the iron gate. Two stone statues kept guard. Knights on horses once painted white. Not identical. A stray burger wrapper blew in the breeze. Stone knight reached out and clutched it. The daisy even gave them life in the dark. Half-life, built with ground bones stolen from the damned.
The trees watched as she bent over to scoop up a family of flea bitten rats. Plant under the floorboards of the council offices closest to the mass graves. She held the rats close to her chest. The only babies she’d ever have.
Flies buzzed to life beneath skin fallen from the trees. A carpet to carry her through the forest and past the meadow. Daisies singing at midnight. Faded Star danced with Honey around the Maypole. Naked beneath the Full Moon, bodies illuminated not in silver but in gold.
Marcy choked as she went by. Fresh life in her throat. Swallowed jealousy. Honey stared at her phone. Face forever illuminated by the blue light of the touchscreen. One swipe away from Donnie’s home address. Stalk him even around the Maypole with Faded Star. Her heart dead in the meadow. Bleeding out in Donnie’s front pocket wrapped in barbed wire. Four seconds empty.
Tainted honey ran down the trees, trapping maggots in amber. Food for the creeps, faces etched in bark. A flash of white and she caught Donnie licking it. Out of burgers. A diet to stop him sweating grease, cola and beer pounding into Marcy from behind. Seven inches off his waist and straight into his cock.
Sociopathic stare of a woman trapped in the bark with the creeps always made Marcy’s rejuvenating flesh crawl. As in life, as in death. Eyes burrowed into her with a fist slammed onto the table. Why don’t you trust us? Marcy cuddled the rats close to her chest until she flew past. Extended family captured inside.
Old men huddled together. Lost with eternal erections. Marcy couldn’t help them. They would come when they were called.
A wolf howled rising from the dirt. Reanimated life called by the Song of the Daisy. Something to snap at Donnie’s horse. Make him walk until he found his way. Sweat out the burgers and add to the fog. Trapped forever in his 56 second drum loop unless he could escape during the break. Follow the Song of the Daisy out of the Forest of the Dead.
Maggots sprinkled from the sky. No longer midnight as she travelled out of the forest. The rain became heavy and then, she was clear. Standing in a closet next to a fluffy pink dressing gown and forgotten doll.
Mother rat bit her finger. Anxious to be off. A nest in the floorboards. Let the fleas out. Infect the family’s cat. No cure. The bacteria identified too mutated. Antibiotic resistance.
Marcy stuck her finger in her mouth. She didn’t like coming for the little ones. The new dress should make them scream less. The Song of Decay slung over a gravestone back home. Pus sucked out, she stepped out of the closet. Better to spare the little girl the death that waited in a few days.
Twelve years old and forced to clean up after the dog she didn’t want. Bring her mother cups of tea. Shouted at for too much sugar. Or, too little. The eggshells cracked beneath her.
Marcy pushed a blonde lock off the child’s forehead. A better life waited for her in the beyond. One not so hard. The girl learned all there was from the family she chose. The rats ran around her boots, looking for a hole to crawl into. They paused to scratch at their fleas.
She grabbed the girl’s wrist and dragged her away into the closet. Reanimated flies engulfed them both. Transported back to the forest. Donnie stopped licking the trees long enough to say Hi Marcy.
The girl rubbed her eyes.
“Am I sleeping?”
Old enough to have some understanding, Marcy hated it when they were that age. The dirt below moved. Something reanimating just beneath the surface. Marcy pushed the child to the side with a tenderness her barren womb couldn’t give to children of her own.
White bone reflected the moonlight. Marcy raised her hand and the flies dropped dead. She wanted to see what the Earth gave back. The girl clung to her side. Nearly as tall as she was. The fear showed her age.
Moth-eaten fur clung to the bone. A faint hint of straw. Something stuffed and put on display. A muzzle came out. Flesh pushed away the straw, burying the flies.
The trees watched. Their faces forever frozen in a scream. A half-life with no movement. They wouldn’t grow. The roots ran deep enough as it is, past the mass graves and into ancient grounds beneath.
Ears. Paws. Black paws. A fox. Shedding straw onto the forest floor. Shotgun shell swallowed by the flies. Some long-forgotten hunter’s trophy saved from the dogs. Marcy moved the little girl back. Donnie took his tongue away from the tainted honey. A brief pause as his stomach shrank and his jowls began to sag with lost weight, age and stress.
The fox pulled itself out of the ground and shook off the straw. Fur hung off bones. Donnie’s cloud of juniper berries in fog couldn’t mask the scent of reversing decay. Skin fluttered in the trees. Souls trapped within couldn’t spread their jealousy far. Trapped in the bark. Lightning bolts of pain for their other treemates. Soulmates never die, trapped forever to leer at the dead.
Rats came out from the sexbots. Another predator in the forest. Competition for the one wolf. Soon, there would be a pack. Champions in the Army of the Dead.
The fox stood before Marcy. Understanding in its eyes. It lowered its head and bent its knees. A bow for the Queen. Angel of Death in the riding the (K)night. It bounced away, between the trees. Marcy caught one last sight of it. Leg raised and a stream of reanimated flies before the stream of dusty urine from the bladder reborn new. Souls trapped still had their taste buds.
Marcy stretched her wings, pushing the little girl away.
“Why did the fox bow?”
“This is my forest. I own everything in it. Except Donnie and his horse.”
“My horse died. Back broken.”
Marcy turned to him.
“Too many burgers. It’ll be back again in 56 seconds. Better catch your ride further into the manufactured chaos, not of your making.”
Marcy pushed him. Blood stain across his jeans. Attract the reanimated flies. Call them to him.
Marcy turned back to the little girl.
“You are left with two choices, make your way through the Void and be reborn new or stay as you are forever and haunt the Earth.”
“I died?”
Marcy watched the girl. Sometimes there were tears and other times immediate understanding. She watched her mouth move, one year or so shy of a pimple outbreak. Tasting the words in her mouth. Lost in thought.
“Can I stay with you?”
“You can.”
Marcy took her hand. They walked through the forest.
“Why do the trees have faces?”
“Borderline rage and groping hands. Out-narcing frenemies, caught in a constant whirlwind of competition. Looking for completion in the wrong places.”
The girl tugged at her hand.
“What does that mean?”
“They were bad people who pretended to be good people with holes where their hearts should have been.”
“Oh.”
They walked on. Marcy watched the forest floor move beneath their feet. Reanimation sped up. Carried with the drum loop. The daisy’s petals and life within its golden centre reached far. Its song didn’t.
They reached the cemetery gates, guarded by the Knights. Marcy looked up at them and smiled. The horses no longer gleamed but faint flecks of white paint appeared while she was gone.
“In there?”
“In there. It isn’t too late for me to drop you at the wall.”
The girl shook her head.
“I want to stay with you.”
“I’m not here all the time. When you are stronger, you can wander the forest. Help those who are lost. I know of a secret meadow where the daisies sing. I can bring you there sometime.”
They walked through the gate. Marcy paused for the little girl’s transformation. Her flesh sagged and melted off. Her bones knitted themselves together with black thread, recycled thousands of times. New flesh. Grey flesh.
The girl yawned.
“Let me show you where you sleep. You’ll need your rest. Changes are coming.”
Marcy led the girl through the cemetery, past the sleeping daisy. Child sized graves existed towards the centre. Away from the trees with their leering faces.
The woman she dug up before scattered clothes about.
“I can’t find anything to wear.”
Marcy laughed.
“Were you like that in life too?”
A few more and they could have a party. The woman stumbled over, leaking grave fluids.
“Who is this?”
She bent to the little girl. The girl yawned.
Marcy didn’t like to learn their names. Give them an identity. Risk attachment to the half-life. Fall into a routine. Grow comfortable. Forever filled with holes. Never whole.
“Tired is who she is.”
The dirt moved beneath them. The restless dead, waiting until they can rise again.
“You can go back to sleep too, if you want.”
“It feels good to stretch my legs.”
“Suit yourself. Don’t leave the forest.”
The little girl wiped her eyes.
“Nearly there.”
Marcy led her to a hole lined with pine. Trees chopped down near the meadow. Trees that didn’t have souls trapped within. Marcy didn’t want to end their suffering. Let them free.
“Get in now.”
Marcy lowered the girl in. She rolled over with her thumb in her mouth. Nearly a teenager. Forever a preteen. Marcy kicked dirt over the sleeping child. More to pick up tonight. More rats to release with their fleas.
Finished. She walked back to the daisy. She should change her shoes before she starts again. The heavy boots didn’t match her dress. She waved her hand over the petals and they opened. Four second pause to bask in its light. Breathe a half-life through the Forest of the Dead.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #20 ‘The Forest of the Dead’ By Dani Brown @DaniBrownAuthor – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
