Terror Syphon
by Sigmond de Carminae

  The sun sat impaled upon the distant mountains, its fading light throwing out crimson streaks of blood that washed the sky in red. It was now the  Orson rose, just as the sun slid on its own blood below the mountains and  into the grave of night. High above, the moon was white and pale, casting a  distinct shadow of the mountains upon the earth and upon the city under the mountain.

    From out of the rock he moved, sautering down the foot hills into the city a mile or so away, it's lights bright enough to light tbe rock face encompasing it, its edifaces challenging the peaks themselves.

    It was never a busy highway, this road he stalked tonight. It was freshly black with a asphalt and bright yellow lines with little reflectors emedded inside. Signs warning of deer and curves dotted the cement river as it flowed into the wilderness. The busy highway was on the other side of the pillars, under the mountain. Orson enjoyed the deserted road more. All alone at night in the wilderness, a perfect setting for a fearful kill.

    A car approached. Orson reached out his mind into the night, reaching high with it and decending on the vehicle like a hawk upon a rat, catching the people within unaware. It was a family. Often times it is fun to slaughter a family. The mother first, the daughters, the youngest son, the father, and finally the eldest son, who's main directive was vengeance, not fear,
and the frustration that poured of eldest sons after the slaughter of their family before their eyes was rapture. But this was not the right night, tonight would be a solitary kill, but frightening and painful.

    The car moved past, its lights catching Orson in the midsection and making that section seem to disappear, replacing it with images of the trees behind. The family took no notice of Orson, yet he touched their minds with his long, psychic arm. Beds would be wet and hearts would be raced.

    Cars came and went, most families off on a drive to some secluded relative, to some camping area, or some enforested establishment. It didn't matter. The kill he desired was just rounding the hill. Beyond him, there were no more cars. The man drove easily past Orson, noticing him, but not really caring. A fet hundred yards later, he drove past him again. The man remained uncaring. After the third time of driving past the pale figure in the long black druid robe that seemed to disappear under his headlights, he began to get suspicious.

    Orson again walked by the car, this time going both ways. He walked toward it and it past him, then he was seen passing it and rounding the hill, where he disappeared. The man was growing quite nervous now, speeding up slowly, unconciously. He kept checking his mirrors and turning around to look out his back window. It was on one of the follysom happenings that a horn blared and he swerved to avoid on-coming traffic. A car pulled up beside him and swore at him. The man's wide, fearful eyes with the seeming lack of intelligence and desperate silent plea for help startled his verbal assailant, who quickly drove on. The man turned his eyes back to the road, a cold sweat coming down his face, salting his lips. Something flickered in his periphreal vision and he slowly turned his head to his right.

    Out side of the passenger window, a man was walking calmly, his dark clad arms ended at a pallid hand upon the black backdrop of the man's clothes. Osmond ducked his head down to look inside the car just as the driver turned his head back from the spepomoeter, which read seventy-five. The driver's eyes widened in horror as Osmonds smile revealed two rows of razor sharp teeth. The sadistic smile turned into a furious roar as one white, hand burst throught the window and siezed the driver's throat, pulling him out of his seat, bursting his belt, cutting his neck, and veering the car into a tree.

    Jason woke to an explosion of sorts and had his head dashed against his steeringwheel just as the airbag flew out, smacking him back against his seat. The belt had cut into his neck, causing a painful scratch and a burn that nylon can make. He got out of his coup to find his car totalled. The windshield was busted in and out, a bit on the seats, a bit in the tree and
on the hood, and a bit stuck to his clothing. He rubbed his temples, the dream of the pallid man in black fading as his worries rose instead. He walked back to the city.

    About half way there, in the late, late night, he turned for some unexplicable reason and caught the image of a man in black with a white face following. He turned around, back to his worries when the dream sprung from its hiding place and screamed at his mind. He whipped around to find nothing but the still air, bogged down with humidity. He resumed his course, worrying now about two things; his car and his sanity. His brain naturally kept coming back to the question of his sanity and he turned right around again for proof. There was the pallid figure in dark robes sauntering through the night, luminescent eyes intent. Jason picked up his pace, fearing to turn as so often happens when one is chased.

    Jason turned once more to confirm to himself that there was nothing there, that he was in shock, that he WAS insane, but found, not a foot behind him, the tall, dark haired, dark attired, and dark-hearted figure of Orson.

    A smile grew on Orson's lips as he drew them apart, their ends curving, revealing to the frightened man two glistening rows of savagely grooved, pointed teeth. Orson raised his left arm across his chest and swung it in an arch, back-handing Jason, sending him to the ground, splattering blood on the mountains hundreds of yards away. A whoof escaped Jason as the air fled his body, not wishing to partake in the events that would happen to the man.
Orson bent languidly and picked up the body by one foot. He was easily two feet taller than the man whom he held up-side-down so that his eyes might meet his prey's. Orson smiled that greusome smile and licked his teeth, cutting into the tongue, tearing through the flesh and severing the tip of it. The blood flowed like a river through the treacherous rocks of his teeth as it descended to the waterfall of his chin. The man in his hand screamed, but Orson silenced the scream with a swift blow to the chest, evacuating yet more fortunate air molecules.

    Sadistically, Orson spat on Jason and grabbed the other foot. He held him up by each leg, spread like a giant wishbone, and pulled. The first thing to go was the mans garments, but the most satisfying sound was the tear of his scrotum and the blood that sprang like a crimson fountain, settling itself to rundown his front. So quick and brutal was the castration that Jason could only hiss in air as the tearing continued. Orson impressed his will upon nature and kept this man alive as he tore throught he pelvic bone, listening and nearly giggling as it cracked. He tore further, exposing the stomach, intestines, and colon, which poured out of the rupturing body. Jason looked up and caught a cord of his innards in his face. Again wanting to scream, yet finding his lungs on their way down. The sickening splat of his respiratory organs hitting the ground would have made his stomach turn had that not also been sliding grotesquely down his front, slowly, like the sap from a tree. The tear reached the mans rib cage and an orchestra of bones cracking and popping ensued. The scream Jason struggled to issue as
bones punctured his falling heart burst his throat, sending blood into his vision as it ran down his face.

    Orson dropped the broken body just as the mind began to fade and picked it back up by the skull, his thumb and index finger on the respected temples. He smiled again, and spat into the open mouth, pouring telekenetic energy into the mind, keeping it alive. He put his hand on the shoulder of the shredded corpse and gave a hard push, shattering the color bone and leaving only a naked spine attached to a flesh-covered dying head. He brought up the end of the spine and examined it like a string of perls. He daintily plucked off the last piece and felt the mind flinch. Piece by piece he removed the vertebra and let it fall insignificantly to the ground. With the final piece cam the brain stem which severed from the rest of the brain
the lower lobe. The head lapsed into a pathetic siezure, so incredible was it that Orson burst into sadistic mirth and dropped the head. The energy from the tiny spasms kept the brain alive long enough for the eyes to see a massive boot decending upon it.

    The following morning, Detective Collier was escorted to the crime scene of a brutal murder. As he stepped out of the car, he wondered if there was actually a sentencing differentiation for those who were convicted of murder and those convicted of brutal or savage murders. As his foot hit the ground, he felt some thing gelatinous squish beneath his foot, lifted it, and found it to be what seemed like brain matter. He stepped forward more
carefully, trying hard not to destroy any more evidence. He gingerly crossed over the police line to see a score of pale, sickly uniformed officer. He slowly turned his head downward, his eyes lagging behind, and saw what made them so bleak. His guts swirled and pushed up everything he had ever eaten and it fell from his mouth into the pool of blood, brains, organs, and bile that was accumulated below him. The unscrupulous mess of vomit, in amazing volume, mixed with that horrendous collage of body parts already down there spurred off a dramatic round of regurgitation from the rest of the peace-keepers until they were all on the ground suffereing from painful dry-heaves and the horrid stench of all those decaying, digested, and half-digested organic substances.

    From his mountain tomb, Orson saw this and grinned, his regenerated tongue spreading out along the bottom of his lip in a sick grin, a premonition of the next night's kill and feast on fear.


© Sigmond de Carminae, May 4, 1999

June 1999 HofP