“Eski.” My disciples knew what that name meant, or they thought they did. The candles pulled their flames down low. Even they sensed the presence creeping overhead. Everyone hiked their shoulders up except me.

I heard the screaming sweep from one end of the room to the other, the torment of a thousand souls howling from one central vessel. White, phantasmal faces materialized from a dark corner. They swam and twisted around one another, eternally confined to meander across the shape of a tall woman. Eski had no eyes, for she saw through her collection of faces.

My disciples turned towards the incessant screaming. Their eyes widened beneath their hoods, pricks of amber reflection caught in fight or flight. Eski’s thirst lingered so heavy on the air, my disciples began eyeing each other hungrily. One of them ran out from the crowd and bolted for the door. The defector’s hood flew back, showing me a blonde ponytail. Dammit, I liked that one, not that it mattered in the end.

Eski’s form broke out into teems of unbound souls—Fragments, I called them. My disciple halted mere feet from the door. Souls had grouped at her feet, restraining them as the wailing faces spread up her legs. Their cries grew louder the higher they climbed. The girl shrieked, trying to kick her way free.

“Screeeeeam,” Eski whispered. The shifting mass of souls ate its way up to my disciple’s neck, her moans barely audible over the resonant cacophony. They swarmed over the rest of her, suddenly cutting off her sound.

My disciples swayed in shock and inexplicable hunger. I once lived through that emotional cocktail before I was spared. Eski hummed as she fed. One final yell rang in my ears before the girl’s blood sprayed out from between the souls throbbing like leeches. The humming stopped. Every Fragment turned towards my remaining disciples. At once, they flew to the main offering. I looked over at the girl’s husk lying on the floor. I never could get used to that.

Screeching echoed off the stone walls as the rest of them were bled dry. The Fragments threw the withered skins in a pile and melded back into Eski’s female form. I fixed my eyes on the outline of her face. I had accepted my heinous role in this, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed seeing my disciples that way.

“Will this be enough until next month?” I asked flatly.

“More,” whispered Eski.

“Gathering people and getting them to trust me takes time,” I explained patiently.

“I chose you as my servant because you had the most to lose, remember? Their blood is your rent. You give. I take. You stop. I take.” Goosebumps prickled down my arms. I balled my hands, protecting my wedding ring. “More, slave,” Eski repeated. Her body of souls had grown, as had the bloodlust in their eyes. She backed into the darkness, but the screaming didn’t leave my ears until long after the faces had faded.

No one ever talks about Evelyn Pierce. She was an older widowed woman. No one really new her past. All anyone ever new was certain was that this old wrinkled woman’s husband, a man by the name of Nathaniel Patton, had died years ago, far before I was born.

Nathaniel had returned from harvesting their annual wheat crop. Evelyn had been baking a vanilla cake for a church gathering and she stepped out to tend to her flower bed. She left the rusted gas oven on too long, and it leaked. The gas swelled, filling the house, and one little spark flicker for a moment from that old oven... The whole house was enveloped with fire, tongues of fire licking the ceiling, while Nathaniel slept silently in his cedar rocking chair.

37 years later, no one has seen Evelyn. The rumors galavant about. “She did it on purpose!”

”I saw her running away as soon as she knew he was dead!”“She died in the fire too!”

I believe the last one. And you know why? Because I’ve seen her. Not in the daytime. Just at night. In my dreams. It’s dark. Then it bursts into a beautiful and yet horrible crimson-orange as wisps of fire begin to caress my skin as the house crumbles to ashes around me. I am Nathaniel in his rocking chair. Asleep as the world around me burns. I’m asleep but I still see the flames, smell the smoke, feel my flesh shrivel from the heat...

and I see something else...

and old woman...

cackling...

as she she tends to her lilies, tulips, and blood red roses...

And I just now saw the story prompts... oops

No bloody sacrifice is enough to appease the terrible craving for blood demanded by this horror. Born of a thousand tortured soul’s tormented screams he is a very dark demon who sometimes takes on human form. The superstitious people of the eighteenth century called him a vampire but before that he was known as Eski. He was banished to Iceland by an exorcist in 1906 but has been known to reappear at various times and places throughout history.

It is said that he gets inside the heads of crazy people and makes them do horrible things. Some say it was he at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Charles Manson and his "family" killings, and more recently Sandy Hook Elementary School. The twentieth century appears to be the bloodiest century of them all. It would seem that Eski is alive and well. Hope you’re in sound mind and body tonight.

“SUZIE!!!!”

Stupid bitch...I wonder when she will stop yelling.

“Coming mother.” I shout back in the politest tones I can conjure.

These days my blood boils over every time I hear her say my name.How the fuck does she have the authority call me? She is just my adopted mother. Nothing more.

If she was my real mother...she would know that I am not the sweet, polite ,golden child of the Slasher family. I am the bitch who skinned her annoying little dog. I am the one who plucked out it’s eyes and gently kept them in the deepest corners of my drawers. I am her 30 year old fucking hostage. I know now that this has to end.

Entering the kitchen, I swiftly grab the shiniest knife. I already know where it’s kept. Ha!!

“Suzie ....Dad is coming home.”

I flinch. David is not my father.I could never picture him like that.The only way I can picture him is in his birthday suit, slowly stripping me down as this bitch watched and cried.

The floral pattern on her dress doesn’t fool me. I never really like flowers anyway. I was way more into eyeballs. You should see my collection, you would be amazed at how well preserved they are. I can still see the last gleam of light that the owners had in those eyes before I murdered them in cold blood. Well, let’s add one more pair.

And with that, the knife hits blood and bone.

As she falls down and writhes in pain, she screams,” What did you do...What about your unborn brother?”

This only makes a mile wide smile break out across my face.

A collection of unborn brothers ...sounds GOOD.

But then I hear David pull up in the driveway.

Shit.

Poor dear, wrong time to come home...I hadn’t even cleaned the mess.

Guess another pair is to be added. Wow...this is a night of great acquisitions.

“Anna baby.” I hear him say. Asshole. I hate it when he calls her baby. Thank God he can’t do that anymore.

I plunge out into the lobby, blocking him from the kitchen.

“Hey sexy....” I mumble in passionate tones. He just stands there dumbfounded ,while I mutter all the things I would do for him..to him.

However what he said next was the end of his short , miserable life.

“I could never love you like that...I love only Anna and I want you out of my fucking house!!!!”

Oh no he didn’t.

Again, my knife made contact with bone, the warm blood gushing out, spraying, dancing, giggling(and me with it!!). I loved this feeling.

After a satisfying night of plucking out and adding two more pieces to my collections, I settled down next to David, or whatever was left of him anyway. The feeling of thick blood flowing between my fingers made me tingle all over. And as I smeared it across my face, I finally understood my life...and it made me want to never die.

8/28/18

I

am Sloth

free of bonds

without care or toil

a stillness of exhausting energy

I need not squander my days

striving for a human salvation

a depleting spiritual duty

given by another

I'd rather

rest.

Talking in a

Twisted tongue

To an all alluring

Life

That was thriving

On the briny

Brink,

Among the

Bushes, and 

The spikes!...

...I was grasping

Her advances,

And I thought I

Read her well...

…Never

Speculated

'bout our

Setting...

It was still

Too

Soon to

Tell...

If she'd vanish

Into shadow

Like the sun

Behind the hill.

Her eyes were

Wading in the

Squall

That rose up 

From the 

Sea!...

I was mouthing

Dreams, and

How I felt...

...A smiling face

Set free

From the conflict

Of the thrashing

Waves, and

The wreckage

That returned...

...By scraps of light

We chattered on,

Though we never

Spoke a word.

© 

2017

Bunny Villaire

He scissors his torso wide,

rope wound tightly

to keep insanity in,

trembling in convulsions,

pain upheaves in torrents,

broken threads, crumbling psyche

walking barefoot in troubled mind.

       Nightmares stuffed in jars

Shovels a fake outside

won’t expose bowels of inside.

Electricity strikes bolts like

pins and needles in his brain

as he cons his game

and feigns his truth

in violent purple slashes

of clouded sanity.

       Nightmares stuffed in jars

Wolves howl within his anguish

broken mirrors surround

shattered tumbling tears,

unable to witness heartless sun.

He feels his dripping sweat

through burning of surrender,

flashes of knotted destiny

scrawled on his face.

Of all he has lost,

he misses mind the most

       Nightmares stuffed in jars

She says she doesn't mind that

we've got infinite endings.

We sink into long field grass

and I pull her closer.

The sky is black and her heartbeat

is a sparrow.

We've chosen this place because it's special.

I could watch her in this autumn sunlight forever.

"It's coming soon." She whispers into my chest.

I tell her I love her,

kiss her,

and the sky explodes.

It's a distant tingling warmth at first

like the picnic date I fell in love with her,

and then the burn consumes us.

Starlight-spined, cast me in art.

My shoulders the curve of

cassiopeia, a waist wrapped in Orion's belt, and

fingers full of Saturn's rings.

Aren't we all such

lovely spacey people?

Isn't it pretty how I bleed black tar out my

veins? How my teeth look

imprinted red in your neck? How these

crystal tears of jealousy smudge the edges of my face,

make them run into one another--

nose three-fourths down my chin, balancing upon an eye

rolling down the corner

of a lip?

Are you on your knees begging for another shot

while I down my own to wipe your face off my windshield

before I crash the car?

We're not headed for stars, we've got

oblivion stenciled on every stop sign we

blow past.

Here today but gone tomorrow

Are our momentary distances and sorrows

For the strangers we called our friends

Have turned to such alien trends

And all that seemed happy a day before

Has caught up in time's lore

The vexing touch of childhood bliss

Has disappeared and gone amiss

The days wangled and nights lost

Have now shown there severe cost

Leaving behind a numb soul on a forked road

Each path the same, with unknown loads