Horror of the Blood Devils by Tim Curran

Author:Tim Curran [Curran, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weird House Press
Published: 2023-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

BLOOD FEAST

-1-

When Wiles opened his eyes, he was in the darkness. His wrists were bound above his head with rope or twine and from them he dangled. The more he struggled, the more he swung back and forth, the fibers digging into his skin.

Make sense of this, a voice said in the back of his head, trying to steer him from panic into reason.

There had to be a reason.

Something crawled over his face. He felt flies buzzing about his wrists.

The swamp.

Then it started to come back: Snakebit Swamp. The hunt for the escaped shitheads. Sgt. Teague. Corbett’s death. All of it. And the more it came back, the more he felt his mind begin to crumble.

He began to squirm and thrash, which only made his plight that much worse as he swung from side to side, his wrists aching and his breath catching in his throat.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he began to see shapes around him. Vague at first, they slowly took on detail until he realized that there were others hanging there with him, strung by the wrists. The very idea made him want to scream until his throat bled.

His mouth opened to do just that, but no sound came out save a dry rush of air. His heart pounded, his temples pulsed, his breath scraped in his throat.

He had never felt so helpless in his life because he knew that what had tied him and the others would be back. They had not been brought here for no reason.

The flying things, a voice whimpered in his mind. The bat-things. You know what they are. They have a name. Say it.

But he wouldn’t because once he framed that old, terrible name; what was left of his mind would completely splinter. As it was, his brain was filled with imagery of ancient tomb-yards clustered on hilltops, riven graves, and night-black shadows that issued from the mouths of mold-encrusted sepulchers.

Now he could see more of what was around him. He was in some sort of attic or loft, crisscrossed rafters high above, gaping holes in the roof through which moonlight spilled in. He smelled age and rot and mildew.

And then it got worse: there was an overpowering stench of black soil, putrescence, and … blood. Not fresh blood, but old blood. Copious spilled amounts of it that had dried to brown whorls. It smelled the way he imagined a closed-up slaughterhouse would stink: rank with the memory of blood, meat, rancid fat, and drainage.

Then—

Listen.

Oh, dear God, listen.

Something that had secreted itself in the shadows was breathing. He could hear it. It made a whistling, rasping sound that grew louder and louder as if it was excited by the fact that he was awake. It began to move in his direction … worming, rustling … as it dragged itself ever closer.

Now it was mere feet away, something that wore the shadows like a shroud. Its fetid smell was sickening. He could feel a sickly heat coming off it in waves.

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