Canto 1: Nightmare whisperer

Chapter 1: Fear of the dark

The sun never shines in rueful town, in the middle of weepy hollow. Almost all year the fog invades the streets and suffocates the alleys in its fluffy mantle of oblivion. Oblivion, just what every ruefullian carves the most. But sometimes what you want is exactly what you will never get. These and other thoughts were spiraling in the mind of Joe, just like the fog that gently floated around his old brown shoes. Those shoes were moving pretty quickly, allowing Joe to rush across the alleys that he knew very well, cause passing through the narrow streets was a wonderful way to leave policemen behind, action that he had to do plenty of times in the last two weeks.

He was sure the policeman would never find him now, thanks to the darkness that was starting to engulf everything in its cold grasp and the omnipresent fog, that with the night though was starting to retreat. "Good night foggy foo" Joe whispered with a devious smile, thinking at the stupid nickname he gave to his best ally "you served me well again. Ah, foggy foo, what would I do without you?" He laughed maniacally at his rhyme, while turning the key in the hole that opened the iron mesh door that let to his secret hideout.

After a u-turn in the entrance a solid iron door blocked the passage to the real entrance, nothing that Joe's key couldn't open though. Inside it was barely furnished, since Joe didn't pass a lot of time in there. He was a man of actions: despicable ones, but still actions. Just a table, an old kitchen set, a fridge, a big basement freezer, a couple lamps he stole from an old house he robbed last year, a TV set on a wooden crate, in front of a couch that doubled as a bed for when he was too tired to "work". He threw the wallet he stole from that guy in the alley, before cutting his throat from side to side, and prepared to make dinner. He walked up to the freezer and wondered out loud: "What am I gonna eat today?" He opened the freezer door and stared at his option "There is some Lucas left, but a bit of mary wouldn't hurt". He was looking at the frozen chopped body parts of kids, his favourite food. He always wondered why no one ate children in this crazy crazy world: their meat is very premium, they are easy to kill and their pleas to be spared, the cry for help and for their mother, the look in their eyes while the life was leaving them brought Joe a joy unmatched by any other action he ever did. He settled for some steaks obtained from a little girls' back and started cooking it with barbecue sauce. Before closing the freezer though the sight of the little girl head, with cerulean vitreous eyes and a mouth now forever opened in a silent scream of horror brought a smile upon Joe's face.

After a 'delicious dinner' Joe decided it was his relax time, so he jumped on the couch and turned the tv on."I wonder if they'll talk about me again" he said. He really hoped that was the case, because he loved to look at unknowing mothers asking for 'the kidnappers' to 'release their children'.

He 'released' a kid's skeleton once, right on his family's doormat, and from the screams Joe thinks they didn't like the gift too much.

His thought were suddenly interrupted by the news theme."Here we go. Haha" he said, while rubbing his hand together in anticipation. The anchorman started to speak "Good evening, and welcome to weepy hollow news. Our first piece is about the fog slayer..." Joe delightfully cheered "Yeah! Go me!". The journalist kept talking about the brutality and spiteful regularity of Joe's malicious deeds, and Joe was staring at the television in amazement, drinking every single word of the anchorman like a dry field would drink a glass of water. Afterwards, Joe was so satisfied that he was about to turn off the tv, when the anchorman became even more serious before adding "And now, for some more grim news... " Joe froze in place “More grim news? What could be more grim than me kidnapping and killing three kids in a week.” he wondered, angry that apparently the worst news weren’t about him.

Meanwhile the anchorman was announcing the next piece “Do zombies exist? Let’s go to our reporter Hannah Barbara to find out”. “Thanks for the line, Mike. We are here to rueful town’s general hospital because something unbelievable and terrible is happened, and it’s still happening in this same hospital, right now. Let’s ask the employee on call at ER this morning for more info. What’s your name?”. A pallid man on an hospital bed stuttered “Stanley”. “Ok stanley, I know you still are in shock, but can you tell us what you saw?”.

Stanley, while shaking, begun his story “O-o-ok. I was at my place behind the glass wall, I was drinking a coffee, I was bored, you know… usual stuff. Then, at 3:24 AM, I saw a silhouette approaching in the fog. I immediately noticed something was wrong, the person was using only one leg to walk, dragging the other behind, and the right arm was bent to an unnatural angle. As they were slowly crawling towards me, I started to notice they were a man. I would have gone and helped him get inside, but i can’t leave my place for any reason at all. I would have liked to ask him if he needed any help, but since the glass is very thick, the man was out of my voice’s reach, so I preferred to wait.

I started to worry a bit when I heard him mumble, I thought he was either crazy or shocked. Anyway, I was not prepared for what I saw when he stepped under the portico leading to the ER. He was… urp.. bl..bl..ugh” he was about to vomit, but managed to hold it down, and then, staring at the wall like he was trying to detach his conscience from the fact, he continued “His body was wrecked, a crooked shadow of what once must have been him. He lacked a huge portion of the lower jaw, the left part. Only a gigantic hole was left, from the middle of his throat to the top of his lips. Another hole was carved into the right side of the head, but this time the top part was damaged  It was like something huge munched parts of his jaw and his skull away. I saw meat shreds dangle inside and out his neck, I saw his right eye half bitten wobbling gore away from what was left of his right orbit, I saw skull chips sticking to the blood sprinkling from time to time through the vein of his brain. It looked like someone took a blender to a strawberry and whipped cream party.

The rest of his body was mangled just as much. i could see half of a lung missing and I saw the acid dripping from his stomach to the ground, where it was getting mixed with blood by his duodenum, that he was dragging behind like his left leg, now only composed by bones and apparently some cartilage keeping it together. His left arm ended in broken ulna and radius, but the rest of it was stabbed in his heart, twitching at every heartbeat.

His right arm was broken as well, bent at 90 degrees from its normal position; his right hand was scorched, the red muscles exposed to the air. He was also sighing and sobbing, screaming from time to time. He kept repeating only one word with his wrecked mouth: regret, regret, regret. I puked, lost my senses for the shock, and here I am”

The reporter meanwhile was utterly disgusted “Uhh, thank you Stanley for all the gruesome details” she looked at him like to scold him “Now, everyone would think that Stanley just had a bad dream, but I can confirm what happened was very real. The patience name is Sam Whatner, politician and father of two. After some more fainted nurses and half of the Emergency staff running from ‘the zombie’, Mr. Whatner was eventually hospitalized and medicated, all that was possible. Doctors announced that this is the first recorded case of someone hurt that bad that managed to survive.

The tv then showed the bedazzled face of a doctor “It’s against the laws of medicine. Heck, it’s against the law of nature” he exclaimed. Then the reporter was back on screen:”Also, a nurse tattled us that other paranormal activity regarding Mr. Whatner is happening: his heart is beating, but no blood is going through his veins; when they tried to inject him an anesthetic,  he emitted an excruciating wail of pain, after which some new wounds opened over his sternum, they spelled ’no relief for the wicked’; when doctors tried to figure out if the left forearm stuck in his heart was actually his, they put it near the broken arm’s bones: like a magnet, the bones immediately attached back together seamlessly, like the arm was never broken in the first place; also it’s said that Mr. Whatner is healing at an increased rate, but when he heals one wound completely, another one forms somewhere else. This is all we know for now, we’ll keep you informed. back to you, Mike”.

“And thank you...err… Hannah? Or is it Barbara? Well, anyway, thanks for those disconcerting news. We’ll give you more updates on Mr.Whatner’s condition during tomorrow’s noon newscast. After the fruitless attempts to make Mr.Wheatner say something else than ‘regret’, policemen started an inquiry to find the responsible of such act of villainy. After a couple of hour, a patrol found the scene of the crime, on which an unsettling graffito was written with fire burns: ‘That made me bust a gut. -The dark-’. CSI department also found fire markings on the road near the graffito. Mr.Whatner’s jacket was found tattered and a bit burned a couple of meters from the crime scene. No other clues have been found at the moment, but We will follow this story very closely. And now for some less creepy news...” PONF.

Joe turned off the tv, squeezing the remote in his hand really hard. “The dark? The dark? Who the hell is the dark? How dare they stole my precious moments of glory. Time to show them who’s really boss. Martha, keep an eye on the house, ok?” he said, referring to a poor girl’s corpse that was kept firmly over a bathtub by a knife stabbed in her chest. Joe cackled at the joke, wore his jacket and bolted out of the house in the labyrinth of alleys he knew so well.”Tsk. The dark. I ain’t afraid of the dark” Joe mumbled between his teeth. “Oh, but you really should be” he heard a raspy whisper answer. It didn’t came from any particular direction, like it was brought by the diaphanous fog, very clear but always present. A massive shiver run down Joe’s spine, ‘cause he didn’t think anyone could have possibly known where he was or heard what he said. “Who’s there? Show yourself” Joe uttered with a command, but the alleys kept silent, like nobody was there. Joe thought his mind was playing tricks on him, so he shrugged and kept walking. Along the way though his instinct wasn’t at peace. He kept having the weird sensation something was stalking him from the darkness all around.

After a while, exiting from the alley maze, he found himself on a main road, almost completely desert. With the fading layer of fog whirling near the asphalt of the road and the sidewalk’s concrete, it looked like a particularly creepy ghost town. That’s when he heard it. A skittering sound, sound of chitinous legs moving and sound of mandibles snatching. Joe jumped for the surprise and quickly turned around, half expecting to see a black widow, a scolopendra, a brazilian spider or god-knows-what other creepy insectoid, but again he was greeted with the sight of bugger all nothing out of the ordinary. This time he thought a shout could get him much unwanted attention, so he kept his hexes for himself.

Joe passed several hours walking through the town, half waiting  for a chance to aggress someone and half waiting to be attacked. He was sure something was following him, but acting like usual, he went into the train station and selected his prey, a teenager boy, approximatively 15-16 years old, who got down the 9 PM train with a big luggage. “He is not going to run very fast” Joe considered, before starting to tail him from a safe distance. He didn’t take a taxi, so he must have lived near the station, Joe thought. “Better for me, I guess. Less walking to do” he whispered to himself. He followed him to a round piazza, until a sudden dense fog cloud made Joe loose him. “Damn it. Well, at least I kinda know where he lives. I just need to tail him a couple more times and he’s going to be mine”.

He heard the raspy whisper again:”I’m afraid you won’t have much time for that”. Another shiver run down Joe’s spine. This time the voice came from behind him, so he quickly turned around, and he finally met his stalker. He was wearing a long black coat, a hood places on his head, hiding his face in shadows. Skeletal hands, as white as milk were the only visible part of him, his left hand was firmly grasped around a scythe, his black curved body made from a black opaque material. Clearly it had not been painted, and it looked very old, the blade had carved ‘fear’ on it, but the writing was very wobbly, like the engraver had a stroke. From every opening except the bottom of the coat, sinister flames skimmed the borders of it, engulfing his hands and the scythe in fire. But it wasn’t a normal fire, it looked like it was made of obscurity, the center was black like the darkest of nights, then faded in a mixture of very dark nuances of blue and violet. A more transparent rim of flames enclosed the first one, passing over the coat’s border, its light pastel version of blue and violet blazes dancing in the breeze. The inner layer looked like it was made of a dense gel. The weirdest thing Joe noticed though was that it didn’t emit any light at all, and since the coat was still intact, they must not have been very hot too.

The weird man raised his head to look at him, and Joe noticed that two wispy lights were shining inside the coat, supposedly where his eyes were hidden by the shadows. The left light was red, while the right was green. “Ha, he must have hanged two lights in his coat to simulate two glowing eyes, but he must be colorblind. And they do not even move around in sinc. Pfft, what a fool” Joe thought, not knowing if he was supposed to laugh at or feel offended by that pathetic attempt to scare him.

“So, you are the dark, uh?” Joe inquired with a smug face

“Yes, we are, Joe. And now it’s about time we teach you to dread us.” he answered with his raspy voice. While he started to lean forward, Joe said. “What do you mean with we and us? Are you blind, delusional or just plain crazy? You are alone, stupid asshole”. His coat suddenly inflated like it had no weight, dark flames rising behind him. Joe saw the green light focus into a tiny dot, and heard a rattling sound , like bone clashing together. Just when Joe thought he was about to do something, the flames from his body started to whirl, the liquid center started to float away from him in bubbles of fire, that agglomerated a couple of meters in front of him, the wispy red light leaving the hood in a bubble as well. After twisting around for a couple seconds in what looked like a transparent rubber balloon filled with murky water that somewhat caught on fire, all seen through a purple-blue filter, it started to congregate in a short human form. In the end it formed into the shape of a girl, about 10-12 years old, ‘her’ features roughly drafted: a bob haircut, a shallow depression in correspondence to the eye sockets, a hint of a nose, total absence of a mouth,a small faintly accentuated genderless body, tubular limbs ending smoothly in semi-spheres, like the men on traffic signs, and no clothes, all wrapped into the dancing tenuous flames.She was standing with her legs bent, his arms opened wide and his head hanged down The wispy red light swirled around in an ascending spiral while the body was taking shape, but in the end settled in the left eye socket, while the green light was still placed in correspondence of the coated man’s right eye.

Joe was surprised that the scythe was still on ‘fire’ despite what just happened. “Oooh, what’s this?” He said with a mocking tone “the badass is using some stupid hollywood effect to try to scare me. I’m so horrified. Look at you man, hiding behind an inflatable girl doll. You are ridiculous”. But the third shiver of that night run down his backbone when he heard the little girl talk, her voice just as raspy as the coated man’s “I didn’t separate from him to protect him from you. I did it to protect you from him, at least for now”. Joe had quite enough of all that nonsense ”Okay, ‘nuff is enough. What the hell do you want from me?” They both started to talk in unison “Oh, he’s asking us what we want. We know what you did, Joe. Everything. You have been quite naughty recently, haven’t you? We gathered you have some sins to confess, don’t you. What would Don Marcelli say if he’d knew about it?” “What? How? How do you know I’m christian? How do you know my priests name?” The coated man answered: “A little bird told us, didn’t it, Agony?” “More like a little bug. Heheheh” Agony answered. Joe angrily shouted: “Alright, so you know a couple things about me. Big deal. If you know who I am, you know what I’m capable to do too, so you better leave me alone, or else...” “There is no need for elses” Agony interrupted him “there is no way you are going to be any threat to us”. The caped man agreed “You are harmless compared to us”. “Ok, I had warned you. I can’t stand your raspy voice anymore. Prepare to meet your maker you skeleton man fiasco halloween costume wannabe”.

After that he started to run towards the caped man, a knife sudden appearing in his hand. As soon as he started running. Agony shifted aside, her shape deforming and reforming out of Joe’s way, while the caped man started drawing weird symbols in the air, leaving a visible track behind him. “Call me…. REGRET” he uttered a second before Joe stabbed him in the face.

Joe was surprised by the fact the knife passed all the way through the head of the man: he was expecting to feel at least some resistance to the stab, instead he felt nothing for a fraction of second, before hitting something that got ripped, like silk, or cotton.

He thought he missed the shot, so he opened his eyes and raised his head to look at what happened.His expression passed from confusion to pure terror in a fraction of a second.

The hood, now ripped, was dangling from the back of the cape, fully exposing the caped man head to the light of the streetlamp. Except it wasn’t a normal head. Joe’s arm was introduced up to the elbow between the jaw and the mandible of a skeleton. A real skeleton. His white opaque skull reflected a bit of the lamp post’s light, his left orbit had a clean crack, like a wide dagger or a  broad sword had been jabbed obliquely in his eye socket. The wispy light was actually glowing inside his right orbit, dimly lighting the entire cavity of the skull with a spectral soft green tone. Looking down inside the cape Joe didn’t see any flesh, only bones and more bones.

Regret gave Joe all the time to look at him up and down, before biting his forearm off with tremendous strength. Joe yelled at the top of his lungs for the pain, but no one seemed to notice. He then noticed something was wrong: an arm wrecked like his should spurt blood like a fireman’s pump would spray water, his arm instead was just letting some drops of blood out. When he looked up he felt the earth shake a bit, just as he saw two cars crash into each other; he was surprised  that he didn’t hear any sound at all. Fighting his urge to faint, he groaned “What is happening’ What did you do?”. Regret answered:”Oh, nothing. Just made sure no one was coming to save you”.

“I’m going to kill you” Joe said, spitting a bit of blood. “Been there. Done that. Now it’s time for you to met my pet: I’m glad to introduce you the Duchess Snugglypuffs” Regret said, in a serious tone. “That is... the singular... most stupid... name I have ever heard ...in my entire life” Joe angrily remarked, his whole body shaking for the shock of the pain he was feeling.

“Oh, you don’t even know how big of a mistake you just made” Regret said “looks like you are going to have fun too, Agony, doesn’t it?” She replied“Yeah, but let’s Duchesse dine first. She looks hungry”.

Joe suddenly heard a skittering sound, followed by snapping sounds and the creepy feeling of a presence towering him from behind. He very slowly raised his head and nearly got an heart attack: He saw a gigantic yellow and black vespine face, with vespine black mandibles lightly tinted of red, but with features taken from other insects and arthropods: eight dark blue eyes like a spider and additional yellow and black striped palps (i.e. articulated protuberances situated near his mouth )to more easily bring stuff into its mandibles. The palps were covered in a green goop, a venomous substance, Joe thought  

At the sight of that monster, not wanting to make its job easier by giving his back to it, he immediately turned around to face it and a quick look at the creature confirmed that it wasn’t like anything joe had ever seen before: its whole body was covered by a black chitinous exoskeleton  tinted of red adorned with bright yellow stripes. Its body was shaped like a mantis, but the back had eight spider legs and an arcuated tail ending in a scorpion stinger. The creature moved around like a spider, using the front legs, or was better to call them claws, to move around better. These claws resembled a perverted mix of a scimitar, crab claws and digger machine’s bucket: the smooth sharp and curved part extended from the wrist in both directions, basically making a back claw hit into a sword slash, on the other side they became big crab claws; the front view was an elegant leaf-shape. The  legs were clearly spider ones, but the claws at the end were much bigger than normal, and they were flat, sharp and irregular like a mountain chain. They looked like a rusty axe, made for shredding and climbing rather than slashing. Black and yellow segments alternated along her body, up to the tail, ending in a black-red tear-shaped stinger.. Lines on the back suggested the creature had wings as well.

Joe  was terrified by the thought of having to dance the boogie with the beast, but he become even paler when he heard the creature utter with a voice that sounded like it came from a 50’s radio: “Is he dinner?”. Regret and Agony answered at the same  time, like they had a mental connection: “Sure, it’s all yours. Just remember to take little bites, we don’t want to need to go fetch some of his pieces inside there.”. Duchess was  delighted to hear that, and showed it by scratching her palps together before saying “Don’t worry. It’s only going to hurt until you’ll loose your mind.”.

Swiss. shlourgh, crunch, splaft… the night air got filled with all those sounds, and a scream of such suffering it would be obscene to even try to write it. After a while other sounds could be heard, a frying sound, like a chicken left to cook for too long

Joe was walking through the town helplessly, trying to remember what was the way to his home from the point he encountered the dark. He was also trying to mind every vibration he felt on his scorched soles, that hurted like he was walking on embers. Suddenly he felt  hands grabbing him from behind. Startled, he tried to free himself from their grasp, that was also hurting his live flesh, exposed to the cold air of the morning. He didn’t knew if it was one of the dark’s member came to inflict him more pain, or maybe even worse,  if it was somebody trying to bring him to the hospital, but he surely didn’t want to find out. He tried to make sudden quick moves to free himself, every movement feeling like a knife stab, but after a while, since he wasn’t making any progress, he gave up and let whoever was grabbing him conduce him away.

Meanwhile back at his home, his disembodied head was mentally cursing, ‘cause he was stopped before he could get home He although didn’t think that he was completely naked, and so his body would have never been able to pass through the door anyway. A cruel prank Regret had planned for him “Regret, regret” he kept faintly whisper, since the skeleton assured him that if he said his name enough times consecutively, and if he was really really sorry, Regret would have known that and he would have come to restore him back.

That was his only hope, other than confessing and lead the police back to his home to retrieve his head, so he was trying with all his force of will to feel sorry for what he did and ask for regret’s forgievance.

Opening his eyes, he looked at his current prison’s companions, the half eaten kid’s arm and the silent screaming girl’s head, staring at him with those eyes filled with horror. Joe knew that now he never would forget those eyes, that they will haunt him in his nightmares forever.

He was surprised to hear that his tv was on, and the news were back on air. The reporter of yesterday’s evening news was saying “And that’s a wrap. Policeman managed to capture the zombie, the second in two days. The operation was made easier by the fact the zombie was completely headless. Since we are in a protected time zone, we can’t show you the body of the zombie, but here’s a short description: it has no flesh, and almost no meat too. He lacks every internal organ, all his left arm besides the bones, and his head had been torn away, with half of the neck too….” the reporter continued to talk, but Joe stopped listening, apart from the fact he was now being brought to the hospital. Knowing that his fate was settled, Joe started to cry.