Satan's Blood
BJ Neblett
© 2014
October 30, 2000 11:16 PM
My current address reads Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Atlanta, Georgia. I’m doing a five year bit for drug possession. The feds enhanced my sentence because I was caught carrying a gun. A stupid little chrome Berretta .25 more suited for a woman’s purse. The damn thing didn’t even belong to me. It was my girlfriend Anna’s. She insisted I take it along. You never know what kind of weirdoes and low life you’re gonna’ run into these days when you are dealing.
Not like the old days.
Then, a little weed, a couple of blotters of acid, some Boone’s Farm apple and its peace and free love for everyone. If you were lucky some cutie hippie chick in torn jeans and tie-died halter would invite you to join the party. Hell, you didn’t even have to smoke. Just take a deep pull of the Maui-wowie atmosphere and chill to the Dead.
Not today.
Today you meet some hyped up street thug who is shakin’ so bad you could use him to mix paint. And you know he’s packin’, too. As are his two homies sitting in the purple juke box with the 20” rims across the street. As is the skinny chick in the blown afro and hot pants. As is the prismatic pimp leaning on the light pole, she’s rubbin’ against. As is the old dude in dirty Tee shirt and suspenders, leaning out the third floor window, watching as daddy shakes-a-lot stands in front of you trying to count his Benjamins.
Everybody’s packin’. You gotta protect yourself. The feds don’t care. They’ve got a real hard on for gun cases these days.
Actually, I’m anything but a drug dealer. Sure, I sell a few tabs of ecstasy and maybe a tiny amount of coke. But I’m small potatoes. Very small. One or two buys a month max, just to supplement my income as a free lance photographer. Man, I don’t even use the stuff. Not since Carter went back to being a peanut farmer and disco crawled back into the slimy pit it slithered from. Honest. It’s strictly a business. These days you do what you have to do to survive. Am I right?
The gun charge also upped the ante and landed me in a federal pen instead of a low or medium facility. Thanks, Anna. Being in prison is bad enough. Pens are the worse, and Atlanta is the worse of the worse.
Built over a hundred years ago, Atlanta has maintained it’s hard as nails reputation as well as its foreboding appearance. Other joints have been remodeled, modernized, updated or torn down. Not Atlanta. Indoor plumbing, running water and electricity are its only concessions to civilization. Even the tall battlements capped with gun towers were left unchanged. Together with the rough stone construction, they give the place a medieval feel. Like something out of the Marquis de Sade’s nightmares.
Inside it’s downright creepy. The dark narrow corridors echo and ring eerily. The antiquated pipes scream and belch. And the cold stone walls bleed a dark rust red color. Satan’s blood the inmates call it.
This is the place that broke the likes of Al Capone. Alcatraz must have seemed like a picnic after Atlanta. Here James Cagney and Edward G Robinson get the chair in old black and white flicks. This is the place no convict wants to go. In the entire world there is no more desperate place than Atlanta Federal Prison.
I rolled restlessly in my bunk. The hard plastic mattress crackled like fire, beneath me. I have two years and two months left on my sentence as of today. The crude calendar etched into the bottom of the bunk above told me so. I took the homemade scribe and marked off another day, then returned it to its hiding place. The scribe is only an inch and a half long, made of soft aluminum scrounged from a wall rivet, and barely sharp enough to scratch the flaking layers of decades old paint. But it’s considered contraband. If you are caught with it, and if the guards aren’t in a good humor, it could be considered a weapon. Then you find yourself in the hole for thirty days. And when you get out some of your hard earned good time has evaporated into thin air. And here at Atlanta the guards are rarely in a good humor.
Actually, five years isn’t too bad a stretch these days. And for a place like Atlanta it’s a walk in the park. The sad reality is many of these guys will never again see a sunset that isn’t crosshatched with chain link and razor wire.
My cellie, Nathan leaned over from his top bunk. “Hey, School, lets me check your radio, man.”
I handed him up the small, overpriced Sonny Walkman that’s sold on commissary. Nathan’s not a bad kid, for a murderer. When he was nineteen he knifed a guy during a botched drug deal. That was five years ago. He’s looking at twenty five more.
There is a kind of perverse unwritten code among inmates; a status and pecking order. Take Nathan for example. According to the code, anybody can shoot a person. It takes balls and nerves of nails to gut a man up close. Nathan is shown respect and fear. Even by some of the guards. I know he’s just a scared kid surviving the only way he knows how, in a world he didn’t create and doesn’t understand. Then again, aren’t we all?
“Thanks, School.” Nathan settled in above me. I could hear the vulgar, repetitive hip hop lyrics hammering out of the tiny ear buds. I wondered which would blow first, the cheap speakers or his ear drums.
Inmates speak a language all their own. Anyone over forty is School as in old school. It’s a term of respect. For the most part the older guys are looked up to and treated well by the other inmates. I’m fifty-four and white, a definite minority in the system. For the last few years the feds have busied themselves trolling the city sewers for serious offenders. Mostly what they’ve caught are street punks in their teens and twenties. Obnoxious and usually illiterate, toss them in with harden, older criminals who are only interested in doing their time quietly, and you’ve got the makings of real trouble.
To make matters worse, the system is overcrowded to the max. Three men in two man cells isn't unusual, especially when you heard in a bunch of temporary hold overs. That was the situation this Monday night.
Lights had been out for about ninety minutes when the door to my cell creaked open. A tattered green mattress hit the floor. It was followed by an old wool army blanket and a stained sheet. A lanky figure in orange overalls three sizes too big for his needle frame stood silhouetted, as the guard removed his handcuffs.
“You can’t treat me like this,” he screamed in a cracked, scratchy voice.
The solid steel door slammed shut with the heavy ominous metallic clunk common to jail and prison cell doors everywhere. The stranger gave the door an ineffectual kick and cursed.
“Welcome to the block.” Nathan had one ear bud out and was hanging out of his bunk like a hungry vulture. “Whats you gots for me, homie?”
“What?” The stranger turned. Gold shone from between two fleshy lips in the dim light. “Whats you say, boy?”
“You can’t come into my house empty handed,” Nathan spit back.
The stranger’s eyes flashed white with anger. “I gots nothin’ for you, bitch. Nothin’!”
I wasn’t worried. I’d seen Nathan’s jail house act before. For the most part that’s all it was, just an act.
He rolled over, replacing the ear bud. “Sokay. For now. But your corn flakes are mine, pops.”
The first thing every con does when he hits a new facility is try to establish his toughness, his manliness, his street cool. Peacocks struttin’, it’s always ninety-five percent show and five percent blow. It’s a prison ritual as old as prison itself.
The stranger grunted and looked down at me. “And what’s your friggin’ problem?”
I stared back up at him, “Three men in a cell for starters.”
He kicked at the mattress then turned around and punched the cell door harder than he meant. Stifling a chuckle, I could see the grimace on his face in the pale yellow moonlight filtering in through the small window.
“Yeah, well, I ain’t doing this!” he barked, then raised his voice. “You hear me you dumb ass bastards, I ain’t doing this!” And he kicked the door again.
“Hold it down,” I said. “You’re disturbing the rats.”
The stranger spun around, his eyes searchlights in the dark. “Rats? They ain’t said nothin’ ’bout no rats!”
“It ain’t the two legged kind,” I said.
“And it ain’t the rats you gots to worry about, pops,” Nathan quipped and let out a sick giggle.
I smiled to myself and rolled over. Inside, a cold shutter shook my body.
Our guest noisily settled down, making himself at home on the concrete floor. I was still awake an hour later when the scratching started. Almost imperceptible at first, it grew louder, closer.
“What’s that?” There was fear in the stranger’s voice.
“I told you, rats.”
“You was serious about that, boss?”
I turned over. The stranger was sitting up in the middle of his mattress, the blanket clutched at his throat. He looked like a frightened little girl who had just heard the boogie man.
Maybe he wasn’t that far off.
“Relax. They seldom come in here. If one does just throw your shoe at it,” I replied.
In the cell’s dim twilight I could see the stranger was close to my age. He wore a short nappy afro, graying at the temples. His large nose had been broken more than once and an ugly hook shaped scar marked his left cheek. The air in the cell was cool, but sweat beaded his grooved forehead as he tried to settle back down. His road mapped eyes remained fixed on the large gap at the bottom of the cell door.
“Don’t worry,” I teased, “they don’t eat much.”
The stranger sucked in a shock of air and grabbed for his shoe.
The scratching continued. It echoed off the drab green painted walls. I could hear the stranger breathing on the floor next to me. Nathan’s words rang in my head: it ain’t the rats yous gots to worry about.
More scratching.
Closer.
Instinctively, I reached down and tucked the trailing blanket into the sides of my mattress. Parents tuck their children in snugly, telling them to keep their arms and legs under the covers. It breeds a sense of fear into them. A fear of what lurks under the bed. It wasn’t what might be under my bunk that frightened me.
A clatter of chains rattled down the hall: the guards making their count.
Midnight.
The stranger shuffled nervously.
Every inmate hears the story of Satan’s Blood his first week here. The story varies, grows with detail and intensity…and gore…depending on who’s doing the telling. But the basic, grizzly, unfathomable true facts remain the same.
October 31, 1934 4:35 PM
Roger Zaha wore an oversized chip on his shoulder like a medal of honor. He was angry. Angry at life for the lousy trick it played on him. At least that’s how Roger Zaha saw things.
For seven long thankless years he worked as a guard at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. The work was honest and steady. It provided an ample living for his wife and son.
But Roger Zaha was a malcontent.
He grew up hard and fast in Atlanta’s toughest tenement. Everything Zaha ever had he fought and scratched to gain. He clawed his way up to a respectable job and position in a clean, quiet community. It was the height of the Depression and a man couldn’t ask for more.
But Roger Zaha wanted more. Hell, he’d paid his dues, he deserved more.
Zaha resented the other guards. None of them had gone through what he did, Depression or no Depression. Yet here he was, almost thirty, and no better off than the rest of them. He hated them for it. And he didn’t bother to conceal his anger.
He was the one who pulled himself up out of nothing. He was the one who made something out of himself. It was time he got what he deserved.
“Hey, Zaha!”
The words came from cell F66. Molech’s cell. Zaha worked in a section of the prison known as the tombs. Here the worst offenders remained caged in their 8x10 cells twenty-four hours a day. None would ever be returned to society. Ahriman Molech was the worse of them all. Molech had coldly immolated his three young children, burning the house down around them while they slept, just to collect the insurance.
“Zaha, come here.”
Molech’s voice was crushed glass in velvet, sibilant. Yet it cut through your ears like razors. His shale black eyes were the devil’s own, never looking at you but piercing straight through your flesh. When he spoke, you felt the gelid fingers of his breath on your throat.
“Zaha!”
“Wa’da ya want, Molech?”
“You know what today is, Zaha?” He curled one thin, barely perceptible lip into a pointed smile. “It’s Halloween, Zaha.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Halloween, Zaha. You know witches, goblins, and the undead.” He let out a laugh that chilled the guard. “Wouldn’t you like to be with your kid?”
“Leave it alone, Molech,” Zaha replied angrily. He rapped the cell bars with the end of his wooden shillelagh.
Molech’s sneer grew. “I know what you want, Zaha. I know what you think, what you dream.”
“You don’t know nothing.”
The dim cell light cast Molech’s shadow large and misshapen on the rough stone wall. To Zaha it looked like a hulking beast ready to strike.
“I know you’re right,” Molech said. He paused and leaned closer. “You’re better than these illiterate monkeys who prowl around here in their starched uniforms like zombies, much better than them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can help you. I can arrange it so you never have to work again… ever.” Molech’s exaggerated face jutted from between the bars. His voice hissed in Zaha’s ear. “Think about it, Zaha. Everything you need brought right to you… laid at your feet. You won’t have a thing to worry about.” Molech’s words were sure and quiet as a prayer at midnight. “I can give you what you want…”
“You’re crazy as a loon, Molech! How can you do anything for me?”
Molech laughed again then squinted at the guard. “What’s the matter, Zaha? What are you afraid of? You got nothing to lose, except this crummy job. You got no faith in your dreams, Zaha? Afraid of what they may cost you?”
Zaha reared back and spat on the floor of the cell. “I ain’t afraid of nothin’! Do you hear that, Molech, nothin’!” he barked, shaking the shillelagh. “You’re as crazy as they come!” Zaha gathered himself and stared back into Molech’s serpentine eyes. “But I’ll tell you something, Molech. I ain’t crazy… no, sir. But for what you said… why… I’d pay any price… any price in hell!”
Molech relaxed back from the bars, the crooked grin melting into a satisfied smile.
The next morning Roger Zaha awoke to a nightmare. He was dressed in prison fatigues and stood behind the bars of a cell. Cell F66.
“What the…hey!” Zaha grabbed at the barred cell door and shook it fiercely. “Hey,” he screamed, “what the hell… what’s going on… what is this… some kind of crazy joke?”
“What’s the matter, Zaha?” A voice from one of the cells called out. “Don’t like the accommodations?”
“Oh, he’s too good for this,” a passing guard snapped back.
Another laughed. “Yeah, don’t you know… Zaha’s better than us!”
“Not anymore he ain’t!”
The cell block erupted in hoots and shouts and laughter. Tin cups raked and rattled against iron bars. Zaha covered his ears from the rising din. “This can’t be real… it can’t be…”
When he looked up, a uniformed guard stood outside his cell. But it wasn’t a guard, it was Ahriman Molech! Zaha lunged at him, grasping through the bars. Molech laughed and turned aside.
“Never have to work again,” he said. His voice was icy and hollow. “Everything you ever need, laid at your feet… at your feet, Zaha!” Molech’s footsteps clattered down the hall, the shillelagh rapping against one iron bar after another, his laughter dissolving in the distance. Just before he disappeared out of sight, Molech raised an arm, snapping his fingers.
At that moment a piece of paper floated down into cell F66. Zaha snatched it up in mid-air. It was a newspaper clipping dated Friday, January 18, 1935. Zaha’s hands trembled as he read:
(Atlanta, GA) Roger Zaha, the man known as
the Halloween butcher, began his life sentence
today at the federal penitentiary here in
Atlanta, the same place he had worked as a
guard. After a sensational trial, Zaha, 29, was
found guilty of the brutal Halloween night
murder of his five year old son, Roger Jr. Zaha
allegedly used a butcher’s knife to dismember
the boy’s body before burning it to conceal the
crime. During the trial, a police spokesman
testified that the cellar walls of Zaha’s Fulton
County home were splattered with the child’s
blood. Unconfirmed sources have stated Zaha
told police he sacrificed his son to appease Satan,
making vague references to Leviticus 20 and
Jeremiah 19 in the Old Testament.
The scream reverberated throughout the prison: the echoing howl of a banshee; the plaintive bay of a wolf caught in a steel trap; the cries of a thousand faceless tortured souls; the tormented scream of a madman.
“I’ll get you, Molech!” Zaha cried out, slumping to his knees. “I’ll get you! As God is my witness, I’ll find you! If it takes me eternity, by hell I’ll find you, Molech! I’ll make you pay… by Satan’s blood I’ll make you pay! Molech…!”
The inhuman screams continued through the night. In the morning Zaha was found in a heap on his cell floor. His bones were broken. His body was covered in thick crimson welts, ugly festering purple and black bruises, and dozens of deep cuts and gashes. It was as if some sinister hand had thrown him about like a rag doll. Dark rust red colored blood was splattered across the cell walls.
Roger Zaha recovered. He spent the rest of his life in cell F66. He didn’t work. Everything he needed was brought to him, just as Ahriman Molech promised.
Zaha died in 1974, still vehemently claiming his innocence. Shortly after, inmates began to mysteriously disappear throughout the prison.
Eighteen to date.
Since that January night in 1935, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary’s halls echo with torturous screams. And its cold stone walls run rich with the dark rust red inmates call Satan’s Blood.
October 31, 2000 2:25 AM
The scratching continued.
Waxed louder.
Closer.
I could feel the presence of a pair of cold, unblinking eyes. They stared out from a shadowy corner; searched the dusky light for an errant cornflake or a few stray bread crumbs.
It’s nothing.
You get used to the nightly scratching and prowling after a while. Some of the guys save their breakfast cereal to feed the rats.
Like I said, it’s no big deal.
Unless the scratching stops.
The scratching stopped after a time. There was a frantic flurry of nails trying to gain traction on the slick, painted cement floor. A few feckless squeals.
Then silence.
You see, the rats know.
“Thank God, theys gone,” the stranger mumbled hoarsely. “That’s ok, right, boss?”
From the position of his voice I could tell he was sitting up again, probably huddled in the middle of his mattress, the blanket clutched at his throat.
I wanted to speak, say something. Tell him: no, it’s not ok, ’cause when the rats run away…
A dry terror crawled up my throat, silencing my words, stitching my lips together. Above me, Nathan folded himself into a tight ball. I knew he was facing the wall, covers pulled over his head, an unavailing defense against the unknown. His usual position when the scratching stopped and the rats ran away.
I knew the position too well.
Boisterous hip hop blared from the tiny ear buds. Nathan had cranked the Walkman’s volume. As if music could drown the fear. From beneath my own covers I cursed for not keeping the radio myself.
The first scream is always the worse. No matter how many you experience. The piercing shriek grabs you by the balls. It squeezes so tightly the back of your brain aches, like the first stabs of the mother of all migraines.
I knew the stranger wanted to say something, maybe scream himself. He shuffled nervously on the floor. Fear had stitched his lips together as well.
If you are not too terrified to listen – if you dare listen at all – you might discern a voice in the truculent wailing:
“Molech!”
Shrill. Strained. Raspy.
“Molech!”
Tortured. As if imparting pain.
Another twisted howl rent the stagnant air. Then the pounding began, far down the hall.
“Molech!” Blam!
Hollow. Metallic.
Searching.
“Molech! Blam!
Closer. Four cells down.
“Molech!” Blam!
Three cells…
…two…
A low, algid fog crept into the cell, like the Avenging Angel.
“Sweet, Holy Jesus.” The solicitous stranger’s whispered prayer floated up from the floor next to me.
“Molech!”
Blam!
The pounding thundered, as if we were trapped inside the breech of discharging cannon.
Blam!
Lights flickered on at five AM. The food traps in the cell doors hammered open one by one. Footsteps scuffled outside the cell.
“Hey, I thought there were three in here?”
Bleary eyed I accepted the plastic trays from the guard. On the cell floor lay the tattered mattress, old army blanket and stained sheet.
And one lone shoe.
Trembling, I passed a tray up to Nathan.
“The marshals’ probably yanked his ass up out of here during the night,” another guard replied. “You know how the feds operate, they never tell us anything.”
Nathan and I ate our cold cereal and hard, butter-less toast in silence.
It wasn’t the federal marshals.
The stone walls in our cell dripped silently…
…an icy rust red…
Urban Fiction/Horror/Fiction
18 and up
3,771 words
BJ Neblett
Excellent short story for collections of horror, urban fiction or general fiction
Prison is bad enough, but what if the prison is haunted?
A young man finds himself in federal prison, locked away in the infamous Atlanta State Prison. He soon learns first hand the frightening secrets contained behind the cold iron bars and ancient concrete walls.
This work will appeal to New Adult and adult readers of general fiction, horror and sci-fi/fantasy.
BJ Neblett is a full time writer with two books and numerous short stories published. His newest novel, Planet Alt-Sete-Nine, a contemporary urban fantasy is due out Fall 2017. BJ teaches creative writing classes at Seattle's famed Hugo House for Writers and has taught ACE writing classes in several locations. He can be found in his Seattle home playing and listening to music, surrounded by his classic guitar collection and his thousands of records.
BJ graduated from Marple Newtown High School where he majored in writing and poetry. After service in the Army he began writing in earnest, being mentored by several writers and writing groups. Drawing on a 30 year career as a radio DJ, BJ finds inspiration in the crazy, colorful characters he has encounter, as well as the irony he finds all around. Preferring the short story format, his writing style encompasses strong characters and richly defined plots.
Ugly Beauty (first chapter)
(This is the first chapter of my novel in the works, Ugly Beauty)
Mirrors. Sierra hated them. Every time she looked into one, she was reminded of what she wasn't. And that was pretty.
Of course, her parents assured her that she was beautiful. And at one time, Sierra had been naive enough to believe them. But on her first trip to Siris, the huge metropolis they lived on the outskirts of, she realized that she was what they called Flawed.
And she also found out why they didn't live in Siris. After all, only the richest and the prettiest could live in Siris.
And those two words--rich and pretty--didn't describe her family even if you used your imagination.
With a sigh, Sierra let the tiny gilded mirror fall from her hands to the rocks below. There was a tinkling noise as it broke, and she regretted what she'd done. But only for a moment.
She shielded her eyes as she glanced at the sun. It was time to go home. Much like a monkey, she scampered down four or five branches and then leaped to the rocks below.
"Ow!" she yelped in surprise, as a shard of glass from the mirror embedded itself in the calloused underside of her foot. Hopping around on one foot, she carefully squeezed out the tiny sliver and wiped away the blood.
She stared at it for a moment, long suppressed feelings bubbling up again. "Yeah, I bleed everything time I look in a mirror," she muttered angrily, tossing the piece away and limping home.
Sometimes, as she walked, she imagined that she was beautiful and rich, and living in Siris. And she had a boyfriend. But Sierra was too old for that, now, and her hopes of becoming beautiful when she hit her teenage years had shriveled up and died. So had the dreams of living in Siris before Governor Sharon. It was she who had made the first push to "cleanse" the city from "undesirables" such as Sierra's own self. Fifty years had passed since then, and Governor Sharon's goals had been carried out by her successors, Governor Lyron and Governor Petrie.
Upon reaching the small, two-story house that she knew as home, she paused to watch the sunset before pushing open the weathered front door and entering into the dim interior.
"Hello, honey," her mother called from the stove. The greeting was cautious, testing to see what Sierra's mood would be today.
"It's getting cooler, so that's nice," Sierra responded, heading for the stairs.
"Yes, that is," her mother agreed. She didn't press for any more conversation, recognizing that her daughter needed some additional time to think things through.
Sierra's mother wasn't plain, but she wasn't beautiful, either. However, something about the golden-red hair, blue eyes, and the graceful, proud way she carried herself often turned heads. Perhaps she would even have found a place for herself in Siris if she hadn't have fallen in love with a young man, who was both poor and flawed by a huge scar on the left side of his face.
Sierra wished she'd gotten her mother's elegance and grace, but she hadn't. She'd gotten the same reddish gold hair, only perhaps more red than gold, and her eyes were sky blue. Her skin was pale with freckles, and something about her face was just...plain.
It was of these things that Sierra thought as she stared out her window. Rheal, her best--and only--friend, had told her to quit thinking about her looks and try and help her parents out.
"Stop daydreaming, wishing you were beautiful because you're not. And you've got to come to grips with that," Rheal had broken out, at last, a little harshly. "I used to be beautiful until my face was burned in that big fire in Siris. If anyone has a right to complain, it's me, losing everything I knew. But you don't see me leaving at dawn to wallow in self-pity while my parents and siblings do all the work."
Sierra hadn't really talked to Rheal after that. She knew that he was right, and she didn't want to admit it.
"Time for dinner!" Keagan, her little brother, hollered up the stairs.
Sierra started from her thoughts, then collected herself. Turning away from the window, she hurried down the stairs to the dinner table.
There wasn't much talk. Her father was bone-tired from whatever it was he did at the power plant, and her younger brother was too busy stuffing his face with food to talk. Her mother, ever sensitive to Sierra's moods, just let her have her quiet.
Sierra gathered the supper dishes and washed them while her parents talked quietly in their bedroom. Maybe about her? She considered eavesdropping but pushed the thought quickly away. What was the point?
After washing the dishes and drying them, she lingered by the family room to watch her brother play. It was one of the rare moments in Sierra's life when she actually felt happy, watching his youthful innocence, as well as his curiosity at work, crafting impossible stories for his toys to play out. She actually smiled a little as she watched the giraffe and the ant fly to the moon to discover the charm that would make everyone beautiful.
I wish, she grinned, shaking her head.
Keagan, sensing her eyes on him, looked at her. "Do you want to play?"
He asked the question so often, and Sierra had said "no" so many times, she wondered if he would ever ask it again. But he had.
For a moment, she considered actually playing with him. But then she remembered that she was sixteen. This was a world she'd been shoved out of a while ago. Now it was like she was between two worlds--the world of her childhood and the world of her adulthood. And it was like neither wanted her.
"Not tonight, buddy. I'm a little tired," she responded, smiling at him. "But maybe tomorrow."
Keagan considered her for a moment, then smiled wider. "Okay!"
She lingered in the shadows, watching him return to his ridiculous fantasies, and then turned to the stairs and the haven of her bedroom.
Emotionally drained, she stiffly lay down on the bed, her sun-browned arms spread wide across the clean sheets. Gradually, as the moon rose in the sky, and her eyelids closed, her fingers worked their way beneath her pillow and closed around the small mirror she kept there.
For someone who hates mirrors, I sure have a lot of them, she thought wryly to herself.
The other part of her brain responded It's because you keep hoping that one day you'll look in that mirror and see a different face.
If only.
Title:Ugly Beauty
Author: Abigail Burchwell
Word Count of Excerpt: 1,105
Genre: YA/Fiction
Age Range: 14-18
Synopsis of Ugly Beauty: Sierra Rosenberg only wants one thing: she wants to be beautiful. After all, your face and your money are what gets you a place in Siris. Unfortunately, she has neither of those. She must learn to come to grips with her reality and learn that looks aren't everything, and ultimately, what true beauty really is.
Why I Believe This Project Holds Potential: Nowadays, a lot of emphases is placed on what you look like and how much stuff you have instead of who you are. A lot of teens are struggling to meet people's expectations of perfection and are left feeling inferior and worthless because they simply can't. It's important for every person to realize that their attitude and their personality is what makes them beautiful, just as Sierra does.
Education: Homeschooled/Private Tutor
Platform: Self-published on Amazon
Website: https://shadoweliteallies.wixsite.com/shadow-elite
Preferred Genre: Science Fiction/ YA
Age-Range: 14-18
Previously Published Works/Experience: The Motto Trilogy Book One: Together We Fight
Article in the Clarion Mirror
Three-year course in creative writing
Currently taking a year-long course in crafting short stories and novels
Likes: Outdoors, running, dog training, writing, swimming, hanging out with friends
Hobbies: Running, writing, drawing, and doing things with paracord
Bio: I've been writing since I was seven, and I haven't stopped since. I've only self-published one book, however, to "test the waters". I come from a large family consisting of four older brothers, a younger sister, a dog, and a snapping turtle. It can be hectic at times, but it's usually pretty fun, and never cease to give me encouragement, inspiration, and criticism!
Hometown: I was born in Hagerstown Maryland, but my family moved to North Carolina when I was three. I have recently moved to Pennsylvania.
God Knows.
God knows what is hiding in that weak and drunken heart,
In that room of pain and rememberings that's tearing you apart.
You must have kissed the girls and made them cry,
And it's been a while since you're tears ran dry.
God knows what is hiding in those weak and sunken eyes.
Yes, He knows how you break with all those empty lies.
And even all those hardfaced Queens of misadventure
Once longed for love over a lecture.
God knows what is hiding in that world of little consequence
When you couldn't build a wall so put up that fence.
You must have known it would keep them out
Welcome, all of those who abandoned hope and cradled doubt
God knows what is hiding in those cold and broken minds
To have pushed away the good hearts and drawn the blinds
He knows how you recited those lies to a one man audience
You told yourself it was for protection but burned out the guardians
And if that was common sense, and if everyone that circumvents
Claimed to have the brain to rise above the mundane,
I would wish to stay forever young and dumb
Than to be like the once vibrant souls gone numb.
For if I had a brain to lead me astray
I'd be cold as stone and rich as the fool
That turned all those good hearts away.
But behind the tears and inside the lies
Burns a flame of longing nestled among severed ties
When you cut the rope and turned a blind eye
That flickering flame refused to die
God knows who is hiding behind that painted mask
He knows they're dreams and hopes and for what they ask
A fiery throng of muted angels does burn black
It's hard giving love and getting nothing back
God knows who is hiding behind the thickest walls
When every window is blocked and corpses roam the halls
A thousand slowly dying sunsets come and go
But if you can't see them then you'll never know
God knows who is hiding behind an angel's smile
It's the tortured, helpless soul that dies out after a while
And God sends out his children to hold those weeping forms
But you have to open up before the tears become the storms
God knows who is hiding behind a wretched prayer
How you hate the game and once worshipped the player
God knows how you pushed him away for pride
Oh the pain had come but you had never cried.
And if that was common sense, and if everyone that circumvents
Claimed to have the brain to rise above the mundane,
I would wish to stay forever young and dumb
Than to be like the once vibrant souls gone numb.
For if I had a brain to lead me astray
I'd be cold as stone and rich as the fool
That turned all those good hearts away
Tear out the walls and chains that bind you so
And cry a little to learn of letting go
Do not give up, there still is love
Someone loves that God above
Embrace the helping hands and good hearts
Tonight there will be no more fall-aparts
Let someone slip back in to hold you tight,
And banish the dark with a little light.
Lightless denizen
“A House stands upon a shady hill...”
Like a lady in waiting. Like a child still born. Like the cries one would hear from a doll gagged and scorned.
And in it's parlor built for song and dance. Rots a dance floor. None ever got the chance.
Like the nursery built for a suckling son.
Saw the sun shine never on a living one.
Was too shady. For lady. For garden. For love. So forlorn was its story. Think cursed from above.
From its Yves to its Gables.
And rocking less cradle.
Sits an illness. A stillness.
Unholy. Death labeled.
That gaze. You dared not.
A malaise I now share. Wearing a thousand mile stare. So say my thoughts.
Like a corpse caught, In the hangman's frayed knot.
Yet still plenty hemp strands.
To send any ill man.
To the boat man. Two silver.
Wind not.
(Picture a man choking to death? Just as I’d thought)
Would you dare spend a night?
Holed up in this haunt?
Do I dare? Whilst I write?
As the Shadow grows closer I fight.
The urge to take flight.
From my penance. My plight.
To be silenced by the featureless.
Night.
Bambi
Bambi was a little deer
Whose mother loved to have him near
In spring, they frolicked through the grass
Enjoying flowers, friends and laughs
They scrounged and saved and so together,
Survived the cold, white, winter weather
Of Bambi, Mother took great care
Such knowledge, grace and love she shared
Until the hunters struck her down
The gunshots, haunting, awful sounds
"Mother mother!" Bambi cried
Too young to realize she had died
But when he reached a certain age
He realized he was full of rage
Against the hunters Bambi sought
revenge, for leaving him distraught
He watched them on their farm each day
Feeding horses, baling hay
Day and night he stalked the men
Awaiting his chance to get even
He followed them when they crossed town
The dark, rural roads familiar ground
At the end of every week
The men would head to town for drinks
One night, as they left the bar
The hunters staggered to the car
The drinks had left them light and merry
The country roads were curvy, scary
Foggy from their night of drinking
Neither of the men were thinking
A large buck ran into the street
They slammed on brakes, the tires screeched
The driver screamed and oversteered
Surprised and frightened by the deer
The car, it spun and hit a tree
The men died almost instantly
Bloody windshield, broken glass,
Echoes from the violent crash
Then silence cloaked the night with peace
And Bambi felt a great release
His anger he could now transcend
For mother’s death had been avenged
One Hundred And One
His sweet innocent flesh enticed me as he ran through the gravel chasing after a redheaded girl. You could see the sweat beading across his forehead as she eluded him. I watched as an adorable black girl showed up and knew I needed to have her too. Her brother made four; four was a challenge but I've done it before.
Children's skin was baby soft and they were also easier targets. Show them a puppy and they'll follow you anywhere. Give them candy and they're yours. From my van I could see their plump little bodies darting from tree to bush. Where were their parents? Te parents didn't spare a glance as they gazed down at their phones. Easy, they made it so easy!
My eyes looked for any signs that someone was paying attention to me; no one was. Who cared about a landscaping van with handicap tags? No one ever spared me a second glance once they saw a "disability" I imagined their tantalizing sweating skin as they ran around in shorts and tank tops; soon they would be mine.
Soon it would be their flesh under my palm and I gripped my erection. So sweet. The redheads pale skin against the black boy's ebony. They would serve me well. The white semen spilled on my hand as the little white boy tagged the redhead. Soon, just not today.
Every day I went back and worked near them. They didn't spare me a second glance and their parents rarely let one slip in theirs. Soon was getting closer. The little black girl ran right into my and I got hard when my hand slipped down her shoulders.
"I'm sorry Sir." And so polite, I liked that.
"You're fine sweetheart." Her smile was it's own ray of sunshine as she took off after her brother.
Tomorrow. It would be tomorrow.
But tomorrow they weren't there and my anger bubbled to the surface.
Where were they!
Sunday, it's okay... it's Sunday.
My dalmation barked from the car and I leashed him this time before taking him on a walk. He's served me well these last few years; Spot was a good boy. I let him play and threw a ball until it was time to go home; tomorrow.
And then they were there. After school they came to the park and I knew I had about five minutes before a parent showed up. The elementary school had just let out across the street and I could do it after the parents showed up, but with four kids... I needed time.
If I took one at a time, they would stop coming. But I needed all of them, they were a set and would complete everything. The other's would be pleased to see them.
Spot was eager to play and this time I brought him right past those gorgeous mixed skin children. As I anticipated, they stopped and I let them pet him for about thirty seconds and moved on. Children had short attention spans, they went back to play. Spot was a good boy, I brought him to the van and told him to sit by the truck; he would stay. Eight minutes and still no parents; I really could do this.
I went running up to them and this time I wore shorts to show my prosthetic leg, sympathy has served me well these last few years.
"My dog, he just ran off. Have you kids seen him?" Acting; kids bought it easy.
"No." Their sad eyes searched the park and I pretended my leg had been bothering me and ran to look behind a tree, they followed after me. Good little ones. That little girl was a peach and I was debating on starting with her or leaving her for last.
"What's his name?" The redhead asked and she looked behind her.
"Spot." He would only come to me when called. Slowly they followed me away from the open field and towards the trees.
"I heart him." When my voice declared it they took off running behind me.
"Is that him?" Spot was by the van and I sighed in relief as called for him and ran over. He was such a sweet puppy when I adopted him and I wouldn't change him for anything; not even these children.
"Spot." The black boy reached a hand out and Spot licked it.
My chance. There was no one in this isolated section of the park. The remote opened the door and Spot jumped in. They were too focused on him. One, two, three four bodies on the grass. The taser was tossed in the van and one by one bodies were stacked on the ground.
Parents were showing up as I signaled to leave the entrance of the park. Stupid worthless excuses for human beings. They were hugging and still hadn't looked for their children. I noticed when they weren't there yesterday, I cared and they didn't even look for them?
The drive was long as I headed to the old farm and I got them in their cages before they woke up. The other's looked in on them as they were placed and now I had ten; ten was the magic number.
Tomorrow would be a lot of work but now that I had my black spots, everything was perfect.
Dinner was important so I fixed them all plates and brought bottles of water, I couldn't have that skin drying out. That beautiful smooth skin. My last project was my first from children and the finished product was a higher quality. That prostitutes jacket; god it was awful! Their dry skin with sores all over them, disgusting.
They cried for me to come back as I left.
"It's okay my pretties, I'll be back in the morning."
"I want to go home." Home, why would they want to go back to parents who didn't even love them or protect them?
"You are home sweetheart, I told you. You're going to live forever now." Spot was waiting when I got back in the house and the television couldn't mask the cries coming from the barn; no one could hear them anyways.
The sounds of their screams lulled me to sleep.
I would miss that tomorrow.
In the morning I put on the jacket I had made previously and thought of all the improvements I could make this time around.
Each time it stayed longer before drying out, every jacket was better than the last. But I admit I couldn't wait until there were more children to cry me to sleep again at night.
The little black girl was perfect and made number one hundred and one.
Wow, one hundred and one? I bet no on could claim that accomplishment.
Budding Blooms
Scamper away
no strings attached
bare feet on rich earth
incense of freshly mown grass
star diamonds lighting up night sky
minnows in cool pooled water
breeze kissing blushing face
sipping sweet nectar of life
ambrosia for soul
peace blanketing
weary essence
drink it
all in -
heart
reopens
ahhh!
Who is the Devil?
“Cross God one time, and you will be depicted forever as a bloodied goat man - but I’m the evil one.”
She crossed and uncrossed her legs.
Indeed, the young woman across from me was not unpleasant to look at. She was plain looking, mousy even.
If I had been told that the devil were a woman, my mind would have filled with a vision of a Delilah temptress, forked tongue slipping in my ear while I quivered with waning resistance.
Alas - no swirling smoke, no hopping henchmen. Dressed in crimson satin, a woman devil of my imagination would convince me to do vile things with whimsy.
The woman across from me was buttoned down, no cleavage or flitting eyelashes. She looks like a mom. I try to keep my suspicion, any fool could guess that this was naught but a trick. Blue blouse and khakis did not an innocent make.
“Oh, this isn’t my normal form, this is a rental especially for you.”
A wink, there it was - the trickster was out to play. Ignoring that Lucifer was reading my unexpressed thoughts - I was filled with disgust. This woman possessed, to be used and discarded like some puppet.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
Staccato laughter burst from her, drawing the attention of the tables around us. It was that laugh that began the chill, which poured over my skin like oil.
“This is my fault, I tend to indulge in theatrics.”
She began to change. Sallow shrinking greying meat - half of her face ripped up with a violence, showing bloodless flesh - she laughed again, the laughter strange sounding from behind flapping skin. It was then that I saw the tire marks, which crawled up across her chest before me.
“Remember me now?”
I had tried to forget. Spread on pavement in the dark - I hadn’t gotten a good look. Besides, I had been very drunk.
