Gargoyle Grotesque
©2010 Dave Jeffery
Smashwords Edition









Shadow of the Gargoyle 


‘You’re not scared are you?’ 
   The words came without sincerity, but they did have a fair dollop of scorn and contempt. They came from a boy named Aaron “Westy” West, and he was wearing a red and white checked bandana; the colours of a gang known as The Hellhounds. The derision in Westy’s face appeared as comfortable for him as the bandana.
   The object of his scorn was Toby Abolins; 17 years of age, new to town, and in need of friends since leaving his home town of Bromsgrove, after his parents’ split six weeks ago. Toby had gone in search of new friends, a new life and had somehow found The Hellhounds. And tonight he was their initiate, their pawn until he’d done enough to earn a red and white checked bandana, and equal status. 
   ‘No, I’m not scared,’ Toby lied. ‘I’m here aren’t I?’
   ‘Yeah, you’re here,’ a skinny, fop-haired youth called Angus McHugh scoffed. Leaving school with a GCSE in woodwork, Angus was The Hellhounds’ resident academic. ‘But I’d say you’re pissin’ your pants like my Grandma at Christmas.’
   ‘Bite me!’ Toby retorted with bravado he didn’t really posses. This earned him a scowl from Westy. 
   ‘Okay, hard man,’ he said adjusting his bandana. ‘Let’s see what you’re made of.’ 
   The group moved across the street, the glare of sodium lights from a distant petroleum refinery gilding the urban landscape about them. Westy took point, followed by Toby, then Angus and finally, the skulking, hulking shapes of the last two members: Billy and Elvis Johnston. The two boys were well over six feet and brought muscle to the gig, and not a lot else.  
   They were heading for St Andrew’s, the local church; a grey brick building that dated back many centuries, to an age when the Saxons tore up the countryside, looting and burning as they went. Not that The Hellhounds were aware of any of this. In fact, other than the cost of a six pack of beer and a carton of smokes, oh, and making trouble for those around them, The Hellhounds didn’t really know much about anything. 
   The Hellhounds stopped at the wrought iron church gate, and Westy produced a bolt cutter from the inside of a jacket that looked leather but reeked of plastic. He used the cutter to chop through the flimsy chain and padlock; and the chain snickered to the floor. Westy made it look easy, a massive hint that he’d been doing this kind of thing since he was old enough to shop lift from Mothercare. 
   The gates were pushed open, producing a squeal that was long and thin, causing Toby to peer over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed.
   ‘No-one’s going to come,’ Angus reassured him with a wicked grin. ‘No one cares.’
   The boys made their way towards the church; a building comprised of squat squares and sharp angles, and as they neared Angus paused to look up at something straddling the door arch.
   ‘What the fuck is that?’ he quizzed.
   It was a stone creature, its snout twisted and frozen into a leer big enough to expose a mouth crammed with sharp, corrugated teeth. Its great, gnarled hands hugged the archway’s apex, and a pair of immense, unfurled wings gave the idea that this thing was about to lift the building into the sky, never to be seen again. 
   ‘What you looking at, Angus?’ Elvis Johnston said in a voice as slow and lumbering as his gait.
   ‘I’m shagged if I know,’ Angus said, peering at the beast. 
   ‘It’s a gargoyle,’ Toby informed them. ‘They’re supposed to watch over churches.’
   ‘Well he’s got his eye on you, new boy,’ Elvis chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Think that he suspects something?’
   ‘Hey, Westy,’ Billy Johnston laughed, ‘this stone fucker’s almost as ugly as you!’
   ‘And, for a can of cider, your mum’s good for a gang bang,’ Westy grinned from his place inside the door arch. ‘Now shut your crack and help out here; put some of your daddy’s gym membership behind these bastards.’
   Billy and Elvis approached the large wooden doors hidden by the gloomy recess and, with several hefty blows - from equally hefty feet - kicked them inwards.
   Toby winced at the series of massive crashes, but Angus was right: no-one came to investigate. No-one, it seemed, gave a toss what they were up to here, it was as though the town’s apathy knew no boundary; and Toby felt guilt feeding on his belly.
   ‘Come on, Toby,’ Westy said. ‘We’re in!’
   Inside, the church was a combination of deep shadow and milky light, the latter courtesy of a battery of small, wall-mounted bulbs. Pews were neatly organised in formal rows; interspersed with stone columns.  At the far end of the church, the Alter was flanked by two free-standing candle holders, each topped by an electric bulb fashioned into a candle. 
   ‘Okay,’ Westy said to Toby. ‘You know the deal?’
   ‘Yes,’ Toby said after a deep breath.
   ‘Then say it, just so you don’t forget,’ Westy pressed.
   ‘I go up to the Alter and take a shit on it; what’s to forget?’ Toby replied with an edge to his voice.
   ‘Are you scared now?’ Angus smirked. ‘Might help make it happen a lot quicker.’
   ‘Go on,’ Westy urged. ‘Promise we won’t watch.’
   ‘Or take pictures,’ Elvis said patting his pocket.
   Without a word Toby made his way towards the Alter, his footfalls thick and dull in the confines of the aisle. As he approached, he began to unbutton his jeans, wondering what the Hell he was doing here in the middle of the night; was his need for friends worth all of this? He blocked this out by concentrating on the job(bie) at hand, clamping and unclamping his stomach muscles to encourage peristalsis; trying to get things moving. 
   ‘What on earth are you boys doing in here?’
   The voice came from nowhere, and for a few seconds Toby thought that his bowels were going to need no help at all. A shadow to his left caught his attention; elongated and moving at speed, and as it moved so did The Hellhounds; but not in a bid to escape. No, that would have been the sensible thing, the actions of the reasonable. Instead Westy and Co. ran up the aisle on an intercept course with the man now weaving in and out of the pews, and heading towards Toby.
   ‘This is the house of God,’ the vicar was saying. Toby could see that he was a small man with a big belly; dressed in black, and his dog-collar was missing. ‘You must leave here and I will pray for you.’
   The vicar had reached the aisle now, but the Johnston brothers barred his way with their considerable bulk.
   ‘Turn around and walk away, old man,’ Elvis said, his voice monotone. 
   ‘You should not be in here,’ the vicar protested, ‘this is a place of worship. You could all be in a lot of trouble. But if you leave now I will say nothing. You have my word.’
   ‘You have my word,’ Westy said dourly, ‘that if you don’t get the fuck out of our way, you’re gonna regret it.’
   The vicar’s cheeks flushed a little, twin rosy plumes that gave his unblemished face some character; but Toby was unsure if this was a result of anger or embarrassment. But either way, the vicar didn’t “get the fuck” out of their way, instead he took a step forward, towards Elvis Johnston.
   The boy, who towered over the man, placed a big hand on the vicar’s chest and shoved hard, sending him pin wheeling backwards, his feet becoming tangled and he went down heavily. The sound of the vicar’s head hitting the sandstone floor was like a pistol shot. 
   ‘Shit, Elvis!’ Angus yelled. ‘What you go and do that for?’
   Elvis didn’t reply, he merely stood there trying to come to terms with what had happened. 
   ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Westy said and stepped over the vicar without looking down. The others shuffled after him, with no hint of urgency, leaving Toby to stare incomprehensibly at their retreating backs.
   Then there was a tiny sound, a low mumbling which Toby located pretty much immediately. It was coming from the vicar.
   ‘We can’t just leave him,’ he called after them. ‘He’s still alive!’ 
   Toby ran to the vicar and knelt beside him; so preoccupied with the event that he failed to notice he was kneeling in a spreading pool of blood. The low mumbling continued, the vicars mouth moving, his eyes glazed as though he were elsewhere. 
   ‘I’m with you,’ Toby muttered miserably. 
   ‘Oh, Lord protect this humble house … that we tend, in your name … so that we continue to serve you in peace and hope …’ the vicar whispered, oblivious to Toby’s presence. ‘Deliver us from such evil …’ and with that, the muttering stopped.
   ‘Oh, man!’ Toby called to The Hellhounds, who by this time were standing near the battered church doors. ‘He’s dead! You’ve killed him!’
   ‘You coming or what?’ Westy said deadpan. 
   Toby was about to answer, about to tell The Hellhounds that they could all go and fuck themselves when the church began to tremble, clouds of dust falling from high above as a fine, gritty mist.
   Then the trembling abruptly ceased and from outside there came the sound of something landing heavily on the church lawn. 
   ‘What they Hell was that?’ Angus cried, jumping back from the doorway. ‘Something’s out there!’
   ‘Angus, you dipshit,’ Billy Johnston sneered as he walked outside. ‘It’s just something falling off the roof.’ 
   It was then that Billy Johnston began screaming. It was a high pitched scream; the kind of scream someone makes when their worst nightmare becomes real. 
   And as suddenly as it came, the scream stopped, and to Toby this felt worse. It felt final. 
   ‘Billy!’ Elvis yelled in a voice made angry by fear. ‘Get back in here!’
   As if on cue, something flew through the doorway and hit the back wall; and The Hellhounds turned to look at it. The shattered, splattered mass sliding down the wall like a streak of spittle rolling down a pane of glass may well have been Billy Johnston; it was difficult to tell. But it was red and pulped, and steamed in the cool church air. Then the smell hit them, the sharp tang of blood adding to the horror of it all.
   ‘Billy?’ Westy asked the bloody image now pooling on the floor. Then, pandemonium broke out.
   Angus bolted towards Toby, gagging and covering his mouth with a fist. Westy followed shortly afterwards, after several failed attempts to get Elvis to come with him.
   Elvis merely stood staring as his mangled brother, calling his name over and over again.
   The church was suddenly alive with another scream. But this wasn’t a scream of terror, it was a scream of anger, of absolute, animalistic rage and the owner of such a mind-numbing scream appeared shortly after. 
   The gargoyle was no longer grey stone. Its skin was green and coated in a greasy sheen; the sharp teeth and cavernous mouth were red from their work on Billy and its eyes, oh, its eyes were so alive and so full of purpose. 
   Toby watched as Elvis turned to face the creature as it ducked through the church doors, its large leathery wings folding in behind it to accommodate access. But, once inside, this thing towered over the remaining Johnston brother, its bulk throwing him in shadow. 
   ‘You killed my brother, you fucker!’ Elvis said savagely, and Toby thought under any other circumstances, against any other opponent, Elvis Johnston would be one scary bastard. But today was the day that anger, fury, rage - fuelled by vengeance - was simply not enough. Not by an Imperial mile.
   The creature grabbed Elvis by both legs, scooping him from the ground. The big boy yelled something that Toby couldn’t fathom and then the creature swung him round like the world’s biggest tennis racquet. Elvis’ head struck one the concrete pillars with such force it vaporised; leaving  a fine red mist hanging in the air for a few seconds, before  fading away like a bad, bad dream.
   ‘Jesus, oh, Jesus!’ Angus shrieked as he ran up the aisle at full pelt. He skittered to a halt, his legs scissoring in the spreading splash of crimson coming from the base of the vicar’s distorted crown. He went down heavily beside Toby, cursing in pain.
   Behind him, Westy was also bawling out in fear and pain. Having cast Elvis’ decapitated body aside, the creature was now pursuing The Hellhounds’ chief honcho, as he clambered over pews in blind, unmitigated panic, and a fruitless escape attempt. As Westy expended more and more energy, the beast merely flicked its wings and drifted over the seats, the rush of wind filling the church like the din of a small jet engine. 
   And then it fell upon him, grabbing him by the throat and hauling him high before pinning him to one of the pillars. It regarded him for a few awful moments as he struggled haplessly, his legs pumping the empty air; his hands beating pathetically against forearms as thick as petroleum pipes.  
   Numb with horror and revulsion, Toby and Angus watched as the Gargoyle extended a finger on its other paw and traced a single horizontal slit across Aaron West’s stomach. There was a period of frantic activity as The Hellhound fought against the shock of what was happening, his flailing legs serving only to assist gravity in its desire to uncoil his innards and slop them noisily onto the stone floor.  And through it all, Westy continued to cry out in total, incomprehensible agony; until the beast, now tired of his pitiful protests, silenced him by snapping his neck like a breadstick. 
   ‘We’ve gotta find another way out,’ Angus muttered; his eyes rolling with madness. ‘Come on, Toby! We’ve gotta escape!’
   ‘There is no escape,’ Toby whispered, his voice slow and thick, as though he was trying out his vocal cords for the first time. ‘There is only salvation and blood.’
   ‘Oh, shit!’ Angus said scuttling away. But by putting distance between him and the thing now assuming Toby’s shape; Angus found himself in the shadow of the gargoyle.
   With a whimper, Angus McHugh slowly turned and peered up - and up - until his world was filled with the sight of this hulking creature, who responded by reaching down and placing a palm on the top of his head and closing his fingers over the youth’s face ; while clamping the other on his shoulder. 
   As he sat on the floor, his hands clawing at the talons digging into his shoulder-blades and searing his flesh, Angus McHugh’s head was screwed round until it twisted away from his body; his scream rising in pitch as his vocal cords lengthened, then cut off completely when the tissue finally snapped. The creature hurled Angus’ head across the church where it bounced several times before coming to a gentle stop, mouth still gaping; eyes still blinking, against a pew cushion.
   Toby shook his head, trying to clear the fog that had temporarily drifted through his consciousness, leaving him with a pervading, yet perverse, sense of justice. And as recall decided to stay for a while, so did the fear. He found himself confronted by this ancient beast, its maw a deadly mix of teeth and saliva and blood.
   He didn’t want to die, but the fog’s residue had left him with the sensation of inevitability; that he had to die since the vicar’s words had inadvertently set in motion an ancient weapon; and its duty and its course was neither flexible nor avoidable.
   ‘Make it quick?’ he whispered to the beast. And for a second, through his fear, through his tears, Toby Abolins thought that he saw the gargoyle’s enormous, misshapen head nod an accord.
   Only when he felt fatigue wash over him; drowning him in its suffocating embrace; did Toby know for certain that whilst the beast had not spared him, it had chosen to spare him the pain.

End
   


To the Devil His Due

Victor Talbot murdered his wife on their seventh wedding anniversary. He had lured Katie into the woods with promises of a romantic moonlit supper, and maybe something more. Katie had batted her doe-like brown eyes and pursed her trout-like lips and told him that he was a very, very naughty boy. 
   But, twenty minutes later, when Victor kept his promise and given his dull, simpering wife of seven years something more – in the guise of forty stab wounds to the face and chest – he didn’t feel naughty at all. Panting and splashed with sweat and gore, Victor Talbot felt liberated. He felt whole, as though something that had been suppressed for so long had now been given credence. 
   Because, on more occasions than Victor could count, Katie had dragged him out into the park to enjoy the sunshine and watch children playing on the slides and swings, dropping huge hints as to her hopes for their future. And Victor would sit and smile and pretend that this was a reality to which he would someday subscribe.
   But the real Victor Talbot didn’t think about walks in the park and raising a family. The real Victor Talbot thought about what sound a windpipe would make if he squeezed until it snapped, or how heavy a human head was when you held it in one hand. He had tried to ignore such notions; putting them down to fatigue or the musings of a bored civil servant. But if he was perfectly honest - which more often that not, he wasn’t - Victor knew that he was fundamentally different to most people.
   His murderous instincts had started with his eighth birthday present, two mini lop-eared rabbits. He’d named the buck Timmy and the doe, Stacy and had subjected them to wholesale misery for most of their pitiful lives. It was an unexpected joy to pin them down, one hand on the back of a neck, the other on the rump and press them into the ground as hard as he could until they wriggled and squirmed and, when the pain became too much, emitting tiny grunts and squeals. Or he’d pummel them with his fists, so hard on one occasion that he’d actually knocked Timmy out and held him up by his neck for a few moments slapping his furry face until he’d come round, frantically bucking and kicking as Stacy cowered in a corner of the hutch, watching helplessly. And although Victor had never killed them, on his darker days he’d really, really wanted to.
   Afterwards he had never felt guilt, only a sense of triumph – a sense of power that came with knowledge that the lives of these helpless creatures were in his hands. He was omnipotent; both sadist and saviour. And one day, as Timmy and Stacy accepted his dominance over them by lying at his feet, ears slapped flat to their backs in the bunny equivalent of you’re the boss, please don’t hurt us, Victor Talbot had gotten his first erection.
   He doubted that it was a coincidence that he’d gotten a significant boner during his frenzied assault on his feeble-minded wife. But beyond this, the whole event was of little significance.  In fact, as he rolled his wife’s cherry-red body in the piece of plastic sheeting he’d stowed behind a tree earlier that day, Victor decided that this was fast becoming a chore. 
   ‘My, my,’ said a rasping voice on the wind, ‘I do believe you have done something quite wicked this evening, my friend.’
   Victor froze for a few seconds, and found himself checking his wife’s eyes. Katie’s glassy stare reassured him that she was quite beyond making accusatory statements. 
   ‘Your kill is incapable of reproach,’ the voice reassured him. ‘It is I who speak to you now.’
   His heart scudding in his chest, Victor turned and scanned the tree-line. And then he saw it; a stone plinth, six feet high and crowned with the statue of a winged creature, made up of claws and wicked teeth. A gargoyle; frozen in flight by a stonemason’s chisel. 
   ‘Come to me,’ the voice urged. And this time Victor was under no illusion that the words came from the direction of the plinth. ‘I wish to bargain with you.’
   At these words, Victor ignored rogue thoughts that he may have lost his mind; that the savage murder of his wife had been a catalyst for a one way ticket to loon central. In these words Victor sensed something that only the predatory amongst us can, he sensed that this improbable creature needed him; it was at his mercy.
   Trampling over his fear, Victor approached the statute, the crunch of dry twigs under foot loud in the still, moonlight landscape.
   ‘Are you a gargoyle?’ Victor asked as he stopped before the statue. He imagined that the stone was edged with a thin blue mist. 
   ‘I am a prisoner,’ the gargoyle hissed, ‘trapped by trickery.’ And at this the blue mist became prominent, erasing any of Victor’s doubts. ‘And who, pray tell, are you?’
   ‘My name is Victor,’ he replied after several swallows. 
   ‘Victor?’ the cold stone shimmered under the blue haze. ‘Are you a warrior? One who stands upon the bodies of the vanquished?’
   Victor had never thought of his name in such a fashion. He liked it. He liked it very much.
   ‘And who is your victim, Victor,’ the voice mused.
   Victor turned towards Katie’s body, but he couldn’t see it from where he stood; it was too far away. 
   ‘My wife,’ he muttered. 
   ‘And how has she wronged you?’ 
   Victor thought about this for a moment. ‘She was weak,’ he finally said.
   ‘A servant needs strength to serve, this is true,’ the gargoyle said in the depths of Victor’s head. ‘You are wise to dispatch her so. But I suspect that you enjoyed the act more than the punishment. You have awoken the beast, my friend. Do you have the strength to tame it; to let it loose on this world?’ 
   ‘Are you the beast?’ Victor asked with faux resolve.
   ‘The beast is lust, Victor,’ the creature explained. ‘A lust to exert power over those destined to be minion. This world needs someone like you; to lift it from mediocrity. For an age I have watched the feeble forge respect from the masses; the intellectual suffocate the mighty. Times have changed, but not for the better.’ 
   Victor peered at the featureless stone slab upon which the snarling effigy sat, inert yet emitting such presence, it caused him to shiver. He could feel its authority, yet he was also aware of its impotence at its incarceration. 
   ‘What is this mist?’ he enquired. 
   ‘My prison,’ it replied simply. ‘I win wars for kings and this is my payment. An eon in stone! Curse them and their bloodline!’ The blue smog glowed deep azure for a second, as though this creature was trying to flex its psychic muscle, but to no avail, the intensity dimming almost as soon as it came. ‘A sacrifice is my key to freedom. You have blood on your hands, Victor. Will you be my saviour?’
   Pensively, Victor allowed a familiar sensation wash over him; relishing the warmth of superiority, for despite this creatures’ great power it was still reliant on him. And this beast was right, he had enjoyed killing Katie; and he knew that he would never tire of this desire. 
   ‘What’s in it for me?’ he said churlishly. ‘If I helped you, what’s it worth?’
   In his mind’s eye, Victor felt the gargoyle smile malevolently. ‘If you were my liberator, Victor, I have a duty to serve thee, as I have Lords and Kings. I can be your conscience. Only the strong deserve to survive, and only those with conviction will prevail. Your power is a fledgling - if you falter then I will give your strength on your path to prominence.’
   ‘I don’t understand,’ Victor muttered, mesmerised by the creature in stone.
  ‘Then I will show you,’ it said.
  Suddenly there was no wood, the spectral trees; the night sky - silver with moonlight - melting away; replaced by an open landscape. In the distance there was a castle on a hill, and a road meandering to a portcullis, lifted and waiting for an army that was never going to return. The air was now thick with smoke and the putrid stink of death, and Victor found himself standing on a battlefield, lances embedded in the ground and pointing at the smitten sky, and swords as shattered and broken as the multitude of bodies littering the countryside; a great army now slain and brutalised in battle by the thing sitting amongst them.
   The gargoyle regarded Victor’s approach with eyes of the vilest kind, its snout was at work opening the chest of a supine knight who screamed in agony before a huge hand rose up and ripped open his throat. The creature allowed its wings to flap lazily in the breeze sweeping the open field, as it fed, its green skin glistening with blood and was splattered with wads of meat.
   ‘This is the world I would choose, Victor,’ its bloody snout growled. ‘Will you be part of it? Or will you balk at such a prospect, I wonder?’ It dipped its head and drank deeply from the gash in the knight’s belly.
   ‘How can I trust you?’ Victor said, licking his lips. In the darkest part of his mind, the part that allowed him to torture helpless rabbits and wantonly stab his wife to death, suddenly wondered what human blood would taste like. 
   ‘Set me free and I will create a darkness in which you shall shine; bright and unchallenged; free to sate your darkest desires.’ And at this the gargoyle buried its paws into the fallen warrior’s exposed abdomen and dragged out his innards from the crimson cavity. ‘We all need to feed our desire, Victor,’ it smirked before chomping down on a snake-thick intestine, allowing blood and grey paste to ooze from the corner of its pointed maw. 
   Victor blinked once, his heart exhilarated at the thought of total dominance. He felt giddy with it, his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. In his pants, his member stirred; oh the joy of it! And as soon as the vision came it faded away, and he was now back in the wood once more, staring at the stone gargoyle on the plinth.
   ‘What do you want me to do?’ he breathed. ‘Explain what will happen.’
   ‘Her blood on your hands; her blood on this cage,’ the beast whispered. ‘I am no longer corporeal, Victor. A king’s magician has seen to this. I will transfer; your body will be my home. And you will be my master.’
   ‘You mean: you’ll be part of me?’ Victor said, suddenly unsure.
   ‘We will be symbiont, Victor; I am at your mercy. What will you have done with me?’ the creature said in a pleading tone.
   Victor smiled. He was in control here. This thing would have to obey his commands; he would be able to wield its power to carve a world in which he could do what he wished and have what he wanted. He really would become a deity on Earth.
   ‘Will you do as I ask?’ the gargoyle coaxed. ‘Will you set me free?’
   Victor looked first at Katie’s blood on his hands, then up at the stone, coated in blue mist. ‘Yes,’ he said with a thick tone. ‘Yes, I will set you free.’
   And Victor placed his blood-streaked hands upon the stone plinth and felt small charges of static crackle against his palms before a vast blue-white light momentarily flared up in front of him, forcing him to clamp his eyes shut for fear of searing his retinas. He fell backward landing heavily on his backside and stayed there for a while, stunned.
   ‘Are you here?’ he said to the moonlit statue; now devoid of its coat of blue mist. ‘Are you with me?’
   ‘Yes, Victor, I’m here.’
   Victor shook his head to clear it. It was a really odd sensation; because nothing tangible had changed; other than the bright light, and the fact that the gargoyle sounded very different. If he didn’t know better Victor would have said that this timeless creature incarcerated in stone for centuries sounded like his recently deceased wife.  
   And when Victor heard the distinct sound of plastic sheeting being torn to pieces somewhere behind him, he began to get the feeling that: maybe, he’d made a pretty big mistake. 
   He couldn’t move - he couldn’t turn around; fear had paralysed him like a poison. The slow crunch of twigs told him that Katie was getting used to walking again; her speed picking up as the movement became more familiar to her. 
   To it.
   Victor vomited in terror as he heard Katie stop right behind him. In his minds’ eye he saw the knife in her hand, and her eyes were no longer glassy and lifeless. They were eyes of the vilest kind.
   ‘Oh, Victor,’ Katie growled from over his shoulder. ‘You’ve been very, very naughty boy …’
   
   
 
END