AT THE HOTEL MONTICELLO

…an excerpt


There was a scream beyond the wall, and a rush of flame. Turned everything a deep orange for a moment. Then faded. The scream and the flame.

Chelsea reached for the gate. Fingertips touched the cold surface. Hesitant, and then she pulled away.

“It’s a bad world out there, deary. I’d think twice before going out that gate.”

Chelsea turned.

The words belonged to an old woman. Diminutive. She stood there. A smile on her face. A bow and violin in hand. More makeup plastered on than a whore down on 14th Street.

“If you plan on going out, of course,” the old woman grinned. Nodded.

Chelsea stared.

Silent. Surprised.

“You’re new here, aint ya?” the old woman sighed. “Oh, they come and they go.”

Chelsea glanced at the gate. “No no, I’m not going” she said. Soft. Uncertain. “And yes, I’m new here,” she added, turning shadowed eyes to the old woman. “Where is here?”

“The Hotel Monticello, deary,” she replied. She chuckled. “Where else would you be?”

The old woman shuffled around on her tiny feet, mumbled something to herself, and disappeared through a door into the dimly lit edifice that rose above them.

A shadow moved in the shrubbery.

A man.

Dressed in black pinstriped suit, crushed velvet Fedora tilted over an eyebrow. He looked every bit a gangster...

Chelsea’s assessment halted. A faint memory lost, something familiar, but distant. She couldn’t bring it forth, and brushed it aside.

The man stepped forward, hands shoved in his pants pockets. He smiled. Nodded.

Nice, Chelsea smiled back. First impressions and the lot. A thought flashed: screw this guy.

Not the professional kind of screw.

The pleasurable kind.

She was impulsive.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear,” the man said. He was still smiling. “You gotta forgive Gladys; her mind drifts...”

“Should I also forgive you?”

He was caught off guard. “For?”

Chelsea’s grin was taunting. “For lurking in the bushes and listening.”

He chuckled, bowed. “I apologize,” he said, and tipped his hat by tugging its brim.

Her eyes narrowed. Her head tilted. “I accept.”

They turned to the sounds beyond the wall. No distractions. Chelsea barely heard. Her thoughts were elsewhere occupied. She grinned. Hidden in the shadows.

“Not many are here now,” the man said. He sighed. “People get a hankerin’ about what lies outside that gate. They go, and don’t come back. People die out there.”

“How did you get here?”

He smiled, nodded at the gate. “Through that gate.”

“You said that people die out there.”

“Yeah, they do. Those that ain’t got enough wits to survive.”

“Like you,” Chelsea replied. Her smile widened.

“Yeah, doll, like me.” He winked.

“How long have you been here?”

“About a month,” he replied. “Not as long as the others here.”

“How many others?”

“Oh, a dozen or so,” he said. “I don’t know ‘em all. You met Gladys, the old dame playin’ a sad cryin’ violin. And the desk clerk that don’t take no money; the bartender who looks after the empty hotel nightclub; Reggie Johnson and Susie, the gay couple, Susie’s a former prison bitch; Philip Blayne, plays the blues on a piano in the nightclub; Dixie Davis, the singer; I’m tellin’ you, doll, she’s gotta voice as sweet as a nightingale,” he said, and blew a kiss to the dusk.

Or dawn.

“The desk clerk doesn’t take money?” Chelsea interrupted.

“No need to, not in a place like this,” he said, and nodded to the gate, “and a world like that. You just pick the room you want, tell the desk clerk, and he’ll give you a key.”

“If it’s so safe here, why a key?”

“You never know, doll,” the man said. “First night I was here, old Gladys wanted to leap in the sack with me.”

Chelsea’s eyes flashed. Her smile widened.

“I can see why,” she replied.

No mistaking her tone of voice.

Baited and hooked.

His eyes narrowed, looked down. Saw the light in hers.

“It’s getting’ cold out here,” he said.

“It is,” Chelsea said.

“Shall we go inside?” he said, and winked. “I got me a suite on the second floor.”

“Show me?”

The tone of voice was sultrier.

Seductive.

He knew he could have plastered her face first against the gate, and screwed her right then and there in the shadows of the edifice. But the suite was more private.

Afforded more uninterrupted entertainment.

And a chance to get reacquainted. She certainly didn’t remember.

“Certainly, doll,” he replied and offered an arm.

She hooked it. The two of them turned toward the Monticello door.

** **

This story has been accepted for Static Movement's forthcoming NOIR! horror anthology.

THE TOAD-WITCH

…an excerpt…

Tamsin Blight.

Former cheerleader. Former blood whore. Infected. Witch.

She had played with Barbie dolls as a child. Had played with football players as a cheerleader. As a blood whore it was vamps. Now, as a witch, the unfortunate people of Darktowne.

A willful blood whore, she had been an alley slut, one of those who lurked in alleys and byways to give themselves to vamps. Had lasted nearly eight months. Nearly turned a few times. Nearly killed by vamps to keep her from turning. But she hadn’t, and she lived.

Then that slug of a human, Albert Early, had found her, had taken her out of an alley. Off the streets. Had taken her to a city library where he had been hiding. She was out cold, nearly naked, bite marks everywhere. Big Al Early was a big husky heavy set glassy-eyed sneering son-of-a-bitch who only looked out for Big Al. Prick, bastard, arrogant, egotistical, stuck on himself were a few of the other ways to describe him. One time street thug, one time scavenger, full time dickhead. That was Albert Early. The few friends he used to have had called him DA for Dickhead Al. Affectionately, of course.

Big Al thought Tamsin would be easy pickings. Have some fun with her, and then toss her out on her ass. Didn’t quite work out that way. First night in the library, second floor, lying flat out on her back, Tamsin got slimed. An unhealthy dose of stark raving mad lurking in the shadows slime had slipped right up one nostril, and another piece into her left ear. Assaulted on two fronts. Made her a highly dangerous and lethal adversary once awake and provoked. Big Al found out the next morning when he tried to put the make on her. Tamsin beat his ass within an inch of his mangy miserable life.

Big Al took off like a scared rabbit, found a new place to hide.

Tamsin stayed at the library. She had friends there.

The mad slime turned Tamsin on to books. Found out some cool stuff in the library. Things about witches and cults and aliens and demons and other really weirdo shit that most people never heard about, and wouldn’t want to. Most would go ass grabbing ape shit mad if they ever did hear about the weirdo shit that Tamsin had taken to reading.

Ah, but not Tamsin. She just smiled and looked for more books on the subject. Got herself a rock solid spell casting interest in witchcraft.

First it was the normal witch shit. A little history here and there. People, places, things. Burnings and hangings and boulder pressings. All the normal ways to kill witches. Tamsin didn’t like it. Pissed her off. She decided right then and there that she was gonna be a spell caster. If some Tom, Dick head, or Harry ass prick would try to take her down, feel or fuck her up, she’d frog ‘em good.

She bubbled and toiled and troubled for days. Taught herself spell casting, people hexing, and potion mixing. She stirred human bones in a horrible magical mix of toad excretions, eye of newt, bat’s blood, and vinegar. Tried it on some bastard lurking around outside. The bastard blew a gasket. Eyes bugged out, tongue flapped in the wind. Put himself out of his misery by slamming his face against a brick wall ‘til there wasn’t much of a face left. Tamsin would have to refine her methods. And ingredients.

Then she licked a toad, and toad-witchery commenced.

Tamsin read all she could on toad-witchery which wasn’t much. Still enough to set her on the path to becoming the most badass bitch of a witch in all of Darktowne. There were others, spell casting witches, but none would compare to Tamsin Blight. Some would try to stand up to her, but she would fix ‘em. Turn ‘em into toads and frogs and grasshoppers and parking meters.

Well into her toad-witchery self-education, Tamsin began to hear strange whispering voices, eerie and airy and musically discordant voices. They spoke to her. Strange words she didn’t know, but somehow understood. They told her about the book. Thee Book. Under lock and key, hidden in a vault below. Down in the library’s basement. She fought off cobwebs and rats, turned a few rats into frogs and toads on her way down to the basement and vault.

She found the vault wide open and waiting for her, Thee Book just laying there collecting dust. It was a really old funky book. Leather cover (dried human skin, but she didn’t know that) and strange hand-written words and a title she couldn’t pronounce. Psychotic Manuscripts was close enough for Tamsin’s pronunciation. Though really old and creepy and strange, it was at least two, maybe three, dozen editions removed from the original.

Back upstairs, second floor, by candlelight the burgeoning toad-witch paged through the book. Her eyes lit up. She smiled. Be damned if the Psychotic Manuscripts didn’t talk about some big furry toad-god. A big black furry croaker called Sodagui. What could be more fitting for a toad-witch than a toad-god? Tamsin studied and studied and read and worked on those pages and chants and words. She was a toad-witch. Now she had herself a toad-god. And she was bound and determined to bring that toad-god to Darktowne.

LIEBSTER AWARD

Many thanks to Savannah Rayne for my 1st blog award as well…rules state to connect five. I searched, looked for some I thought would be grand, certainly worthy. Some that hadn’t yet been given the award…found three to start, and then ran out of luck.

Things got worse…I took a break, came back, looked at the blogs of the first three I had chose and found out they had since been given the award. It’s like death!

I’m cursed! Haunted, shadows following closely. The rules have been broken, and I am the culprit.

Was I chasing another’s wife? Girlfriend?

Should I be bricked up in some basement wall…ah the fortunes of Fortunato…or Reverend Trask.

Or watch the swinging blade of the pendulum swing. Back…and forth. Back…and forth.

The Rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them.
2. Give the Liebster Blog Award to five bloggers and let them know in a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award to your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all have bloffity-blog fun!

The beginning of my five chosen…

Lyn Croft (Outer realm horror http://outerrealmhorror.blogspot.com/)
Nishi Serrano (Wandering Hallows Night http://nishiserrano.blogspot.com/)
Jen Gunn (http://jenswritersblog.blogspot.com/)

**sigh** so now I wallow in the dungeon, a creepy place really, damp, somewhere in the dark the steady drip drip drip of water, multifaceted eyes staring…the grip of madness, howling madness echoing down stone corridors, and I pause, listen, find the howling mad laughter was my own. To have violated rule #2….

A word of warning to others…beware the rules. Beware.