This story is written by Toneye Eyenot, administrator of TBM, due to obvious reasons he is not entering the contest but —we wanted to gift our groovy readers with a bonus story 🙂
…Enjoy.
Blending into the shadows, Milton Swift ran on silent feet along the pavement, his left shoulder maintaining a steady inch from the wall all the way to the end. Three guards patrolled the premises during the night; two outside, and one inside the museum. This was going to be easy money for a cat burglar of his impeccable skills.
Swift had been contracted to steal only one artefact in particular. Of all the treasures locked up within, he found his client’s choice a little more than odd, but his payment was generous enough for him not to ask any questions. Suffice it to say, his client was indeed quite odd himself. A scruffy, derelict looking fellow who reminded Milton of that TV character from his childhood, Catweazle; both in look and in demeanour. If he hadn’t presented Milton with his money up front, he would have scoffed at the absurd request and walked away.
He stopped at the corner of the building and peeked around the corner, searching for the guard, who was nowhere in sight. Swift had been here before on another job and was perfectly familiar with the layout, the access points, as well as the tools he would require to get the job done. Earlier that day, he had visited the museum and left a third floor window unlatched, placing a small magnetic device beneath the sill which effectively disarmed the security system in that vicinity. Now he crouched in wait.
A single bead of sweat formed on the side of his brow and ran down his temple with a faint tickle. He would have five minutes to scale the wall and get inside the window between rounds. The moment he saw the guard appear, Milton retrieved climbing claws from his backpack and quietly put them on his hands and feet, all the while watching as the guard once again moved out of sight. The pavement ended with the wall and, rounding the corner, Milton was able to steal across the grass without a sound, despite his steel clawed shoes. About twenty feet along, he stopped and began to climb. Within less than two minutes, Swift was inside the museum.
He had to make his way to the prehistoric exhibits, specifically the area housing relics from the Pleistocene epoch. His objective was a fossilised paw print of Canis Dirus – the Dire Wolf; a bone-crushing canid which terrorised the plains of North America during the last ice age. Swift left the climbing claws beneath a cabinet by the window and moved stealthily through the massive room towards his prize.
The level of security in this place was laughable, considering he had relieved them of a rare and extremely valuable Phoenician vase less than a year previous. Perhaps they figured nobody would be interested in stealing dinosaur bones or whatnot, but for whatever the reason, it was as simple for Milton as walking up to the exhibit case, opening it and securing the heavy fossil in his bag – after a full minute of marvelling at the sheer size of the footprint; it was much larger than his head and only just fit in the back pack. He was in and out of the museum in no more than ten minutes and on his way to rendezvous with his eccentric client.
Swift’s climbing claws hung uncomfortably and conspicuously from his belt, as there was no room in the bag for them with the massive fossil. His thigh began to ache from the spikes bashing against it with each step, to the point he knew it was going to leave a considerable bruise. It was only a few streets more to his car, so he unclipped them from his belt and carried them the rest of the way. Milton snidely considered charging his client more for the extra inconvenience. That, and the fact the Moon seemed to light up the night more than any other he could remember. He may as well have committed the robbery in broad daylight.
* * *
Milton pulled into the drive at his client’s house and got out of the car, slinging his pack over his shoulder as he walked slowly towards the front door. He couldn’t reason why, but the apprehension he felt clawed at his chest and made it harder to breathe with each step he took. Only one room was lit; the rest of the house stood dark. The one room glowed softly as if by candlelight. Swift forced a swallow, realising his throat had become parched, and beads of sweat ran freely down his body beneath his clothing. Something was not right. Something was terribly wrong; he just didn’t know what, but he’d come this far and wasn’t about to leave without payment.
Upon reaching the first step, the porch light came on and the front door swung open urgently. Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked up to see his client shooting his head from side to side several times before fixing a crazed stare on him.
“Were you followed?” The words came out as a whisper but boomed in Milton’s ears.
“Of course not,” he snapped in response, cringing and shaking his head in an attempt to disperse the bizarre effect of the man’s voice.
“Quickly! Enter!” With that, he turned and vanished into the darkness inside. Milton cautiously followed. “Close the door behind you.” The voice trailed off abruptly, as though the bizarre fellow had been whisked away by an unseen force.
Once inside, Swift’s eyes began to slowly adjust from the glare of the porchlight to the interior gloom.
“Did you bring it?” The voice came out of nowhere, startling him to the point he very nearly turned and ran straight back out the door. His usually steely nerves were failing him miserably in the presence of this perplexing fellow. He just wanted to get the business over with and get the hell out of there.
“Y-yes, I brought it,” he replied, a lot less gruffly than with his first response. He was in this man’s domain now and it actually terrified him.
“Splendid!” the man gleefully retorted. “Follow me. I have your…payment.” This last word sent Milton into a mild swoon, and he placed his hand on the wall beside him to steady himself before complying with what seemed an irresistible command. Doors swung open before him and the soft light spilled out to the hallway, casting an unearthly incandescence around the silhouette of his host, which made him shimmer in and out of visibility right before his eyes. Terror gripped his entire being, but Milton was compelled forward, into the room beyond.
“Show me,” the man commanded and Milton stiffly removed the bag from his shoulder, placed it on a small table and retrieved the fossil, passing it to the man with shaking hands. He snatched it from Swift and gazed at it for a few moments in awed silence. “Sit,” he ordered, not taking his eyes off the magnificent paw print he now held in his eager hands. Once again, and completely devoid of any resistance, Swift complied.
He could do nothing but sit and helplessly stare as the man paced back and forth, muttering something under his breath, before coming over to the table and reverently placing the relic down. The silence in the room stifled him, and his breath escaped in shallow gasps as the man remained still and continued to stare at his prize for what seemed forever. With a sudden shudder, he stood upright and turned to Milton, a beaming smile on his face.
“You are extraordinary!” he exclaimed. “Here, a libation to seal our covenant and to express my sincerest gratitude.” He poured from a decanter into a beautifully ornate goblet and handed it to Swift. “Drink. Please.” As before, Milton had no choice but to do as the man instructed. He took a tentative sip and began to lower the goblet from his lips. In a split instant, the man was beside him, hand beneath his and tilting it back to his mouth. “All of it.”
Though the drink was sweet, almost immediately, he was overcome with nausea and an agonising cramp in his stomach. Milton had just been poisoned with aconite. The room spun, faster and faster, and Milton felt the distinct sensation of his bowels releasing as he simultaneously vomited and fell from the chair to the floor with a heavy thud. He didn’t feel the impact however; his entire body had become numb and paralytic.
His vision blurred in and out of focus as the man who now had Milton at his mercy disrobed and started circling him, counterclockwise, a chant emanating from him though it seemed to come from out of the very air itself.
“Deosil go by the waxing moon, chanting out the joyful tune.
Widdershins go when the moon doth wane,
and the werewolf howls by the dread wolfsbane.”
As the words fell from the air to the floor all around him at chant’s end, the man squatted by his side, producing a knife in one hand and a small bowl in the other. Placing the bowl on the floor, he took Milton’s wrist in a firm grip and dragged the blade across the palm of his hand. Milton didn’t feel a thing. Allowing a copious amount of blood to spill into the bowl, the man then gently placed Swift’s hand on the floor, and proceeded to repeat the process with his own hand, mingling the blood in the bowl until it was near half full. He then pulled a small bottle from the folds of his bedraggled cloak; holy water, which he poured into the bowl, all the while muttering strange verses which Milton could not understand at all. His whole body burned with fever, in direct contradiction to the petrifying numbness the poison induced, and he became even more disoriented and confused.
The man took the bowl and rose to his feet, slowly stirring the mixture with his finger as he approached the table. Carefully, he poured the blood and water into the paw print of the ancient Dire Wolf, took it up in his hands and raised it above his head. Whatever it was he said, Swift had no idea, but the voice tore through his mind with a thunderous roar until the chant ended and the man lowered to his knees slowly, bringing the relic down in what looked to be a gesture of supplication, before placing it before himself on the floor. Milton watched on in horror as the man leaned forward onto his hands and forearms, fixed his gaze upon him, and then lowered his face to the paw print to drink.
What happened next was completely outside of Milton Swift’s comprehension. This insane, scraggly old man began to contort unnaturally. He would blow up to nearly three times his size and return to normal, all in the blink of an eye, and with every blink of the eye. The strobing effect made Swift helplessly throw up yet again; he couldn’t avert his gaze from the horror before him. The room flickered as the candle flames danced to the motion of this man’s transformation. Milton wanted to scream, but no sound came. The face which stared back at him protruded and retracted, over and over, the baleful eyes glowing with an unearthly amber light.
The man screamed a long, drawn out bellow, deepening in timbre with each passing moment into a roaring howl. His face split open vertically and a black snout pushed outwards, which then began to expand. The splitting continued, as flaps of flesh peeled and fell away, the beast emerging and continuing to swell in size until it seemed to fill the room; it’s shoulders pushing against the high ceiling. All Milton could do was stare helplessly at this monstrosity. The physical agony he felt internally from the poison paled next to the mental torture his eyes tormented him with. He was in Hell and the Devil, in the form of an enormous wolf, was there to greet him.
The last moments of his life were filled with blinding terror and excruciating pain as the beast glared down at him, then opened its mouth wide, revealing canines the length of his forearm. The stench which emanated from its gaping maw rolled over him like a putrid wave as it clamped down on his legs and slowly drew the paralysed Milton into its gullet; the ravenous beast seemed to relish each patient bite.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – BONUS Entry ‘Dire’ by Toneye Eyenot @ToneyeEyenot – 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”]
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