Angels in Black and White (Horror Short Stories) Read online

  *The old Gods largely comprised of the Anti-Christ’s school chums from his time at Eaton, where he studied ancient Latin, Greek and buggery. He often regaled the underworld with tales of the time when he, Berty Cutthroat (God of Swiss Knives) Oswald Kettlefish (Son of Bertram Kettlefish, Lord of the Seventh Plane and Godfather of STD’s and cough medicine) and the God of Unwashed Undercrackers had doused the chemistry teacher in ether and brimstone and burned him for all eternity.

  Y’pscrsis wished he could remember more.

  He wished he could remember the name of his first girlfriend. He’d been twelve, she’d been fourteen. A coup, and no mistake. His old mate Rummy Gnatbottom had been so jealous he’d stabbed himself in the left nut with a biro.

  He wished he could remember that, then realised he’d just thought about it, so really, wishing he remembered stuff that wasn’t pertinent at all to the case seemed a little pointless.

  Instead he wished he remembered who killed him, and how the hell he was going to get out of the earth.

  So, Y’pscrsis, he said to himself silently in his head in a way more reminiscent of thinking to himself, rather than speech. So, who killed you?

  He remembered closing his office door for the night. He’d been balling his secretary, Samantha…he remembered that fondly. Damn shame. Breasts you could juice a lemon on. It had been a cold night, unusual for March in the south of England. Cold nights were a thing of beauty when Samantha had forgotten to wear her bra. She often seemed rather forgetful in that department.

  The streets had been quiet. Even city streets these days were quiet. There was a curfew for the normies. The night belonged to the Legion, and to the angels. Daylight still belonged to people. You had to let them have something. And, at the end of the day, if they were too stupid or too proud to pick a side then they couldn’t bloody well bemoan their lot.

  Y’pscrsis was just as happy for them to be picking potatoes and working the furnaces as he was for them to become food for demon kin. It made no difference to Y’pscrsis. He was, he thought, a made man. The big boss had a soft spot for him. He was the golden boy of the Anti-Christ himself. You didn’t get more made than that.

  But someone had dared to come gunning for him.

  Oh, he thought. Another clue.

  Firstly, dead, buried, shackled. Second, the modus of death...the mode...arse...method:

  Gun.

  He knew it had been a gun from the tell-tale great big hole in his guts.

  There wasn’t any pain and the hole was full of dirt, so he wasn’t worried about his inside bits suddenly becoming outside bits.

  Not, he imagined, that it would matter to him much, apart from the obvious inconvenience of having to skip over your own guts every time you took a step.

  He was a zombie. He didn’t know if he’d been made, or if it was just a gift from the Anti-Christ, known by some as Be’laalin, or to some, more simply, the Bastard.

  Y’pscrsis swallowed without thinking.

  Then he thought for a while. After that, he thought for a while longer. Thinking didn’t hurt, and it wasn’t like he was in any kind of rush. He was about to go on thinking, but then he felt something dribbling out through the hole in his stomach.

  More dirt.

  He pondered that for a while. A zombie has little else to do but ponder. Contrary to popular belief, they are actually quite smart. There is little to distract them. Some of the finest members of the Anti-Christ’s adult education centres are zombies in good standing. Well, perhaps not good. A little lopsided, more often than not.

  He chewed the cud. It was dirt, but he couldn’t think of a better pun. Chomp, chomp, gurgle, gurgle…the swallowing action was more of a reflex than anything else. Dirt hit the back of his throat and there was an automatic tightening and contracting of various muscles and bits that he didn’t know the name for.

  After about an hour, he felt he had accomplished something. His belly was being pushed up by the constant expulsion of dirt, and at each bite he thrust his head forward.

  It’s a long lonely business, being a zombie. Most zombies are made by design, and hence people are kind enough to bury them in a shallow grave, or with just a sprinkling of dirt over them if you don’t want them coming back too grubby. Unhallowed dirt is essential for the process, as it is by nature occult.

  Y’pscrsis wasn’t even slightly bored. He let his mind wander off on its own for a long weekend break and concentrated on his munching.

  Y’pscrsis worm squiggled and snuggled away in his brain while his mind wandered. It didn’t really make much difference to the thought process, after all. Plus, thought Y’pscrsis, it was nice to have a pet. He didn’t know how long worms lived for. If it was like, say, a dog, and one year was really seven. Or if it was like a turtle, and might live to be two hundred years old or something.

  But really, it was just a worm.

  Two days later, a clump of grass broke free and a small bird, perhaps a swallow, alighted into the sky and promptly fell off, because the grave was, in fact, upside down. It is very difficult for a bird to fall off of the sky, but it can happen. Whenever a bird flies into glass and leaves a greasy surprised imprint behind, it is because they fell off the sky.

  This may even be true, but it probably isn’t.

  The clump of grass popped up, then it was sucked back down into a hole. Chomping sounds would have been heard throughout the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Mk II) had there been anyone there.

  “Mwaugh!” said Y’pscrsis as he was born and took his first breath of fresh air. He heaved himself up from his early womb and roared into the night.

  “Ruawaph!” he cried. His only reply was a small wet dribble of dirt from the hole in his abdomen.

  He spat out some dirt and licked around his teeth.

  He hated being a cliché. There was no good reason a zombie couldn’t speak if he set his mind to it. Breathing was a bitch, but if he could figure eating, he could figure speaking.

  He spat out some more dirt. Opened his mouth to let some breeze in. Tried to swallow the air. It didn’t really work. Then he spat out some more. He couldn’t really work up any saliva, but that might just be because he’d eaten three times his own bodyweight in dirt.

  Air wheezed out.

  He figured if he could wheeze, he could shape those wheezes. He thought he’d try some words out for size.

  “Ha. Hey. Hello?”

  It was gloomy. He looked around and saw he was in a beautiful park. The park was well-tended, full of lots of expensive and beautiful plants. Someone had taken great pains to make it look infinitely amazing. It was a kind of...erm...kind of...he thought it looked sort of like one of the wonders of the world he’d seen in books.

  A sneaky bastard of a suspicion loomed that it was, in fact, one of the wonders of the world.

  He didn’t really want to confirm it, but he didn’t really have a choice if he was going to go looking for clues. So he looked. Looked above.

  And found himself staring at a bustling metropolis and suddenly felt vertiginous waves of sickness wash over him. He fell to the ground…the ceiling…and tried to hug it.

  He was in the bloody Hanging Gardens of Babylon! (MkII)*

  Then he jumped a screamed a little bit like a small girl who’d just been given a pony for her birthday, because someone took his hand.

  With his face in the dirt he couldn’t see whoever it was that took his manacled hands in theirs. There was a metallic clink as a key was inserted, and suddenly his hands were free.

  “Oh, thank you…fuck!” he said turning.

  *The garden was based on the paradox principle, invented by Marx Dostovostokov in 8450 A.A.C. Dostovostokov was believed to be working on a unified theory of everything when paradoxically he disappeared up his own arse. Paradigm, the God of cripples, small change and Perspex laughed so hard that he gave birth to the Mistress of the Seas.**

  **Before the advent of seas, sailing had been a rather arduous task much hampered by large quantiti
es of mud.

  Be-laalin smiled at him. It was a rather toothsome smile. He was like some kind of batman, hanging upside down as he was. Flames flickered over precise incisors. The Anti-Christ patted Y’pscrsis on the shoulder. Y’pscrsis didn’t burst into flames, but his suit jacket smouldered.

  “Ah, Y’pscrsis,” the upside-down Anti-God said. “I’ve had much fun watching your antics. Most amusing, what?”

  “What?”

  “Yes, most amusing, old chap.”

  “Yes,” said Y’pscrsis mildly. His stomach wanted to cramp up in fear, but the only fear he felt was in his mind. There were no reassuring farts or sweaty palms. Just imagination.

  “So, ah, it was you?” said Y’pscrsis carefully. The boss wasn’t a cruel God, per se…it was just that sometimes he got a little carried away. Like that time in New York with the plague of cucumbers.*

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “No, I can’t say that I do.”

  “Oh,” said Bel-aalin, sounding mildly miffed. “I was quite inventive.”

  “Yes,” said Y’pscrsis, not wanting to offend the boss. “The old hands behind the back lark was a bit tricky.” He felt something rooting around up his nostril and remembered the worm. He sniffed for a bit and decided it was, after all, quite comforting.

  *Or like the time in London’s Piccadilly with the plague of Picalilly which was much more piquant and confusing on a different level.

  “Left the hole in the stomach for you, see?”

  Ah, so that was the old boss being kind.

  “Very kind, Sir,” said Y’pscrsis, wanting to vomit from fear and hanging upside down over the metropolis but at the same time finding himself strangely detached from it all. Being dead’s great for emotional detachment, although Y’pscrsis was slightly perturbed at the thought of falling off of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (MKII!). He had a suspicion that a fall from such a great height might add more than an unsightly hole in his dead body, and he didn’t fancy being dead with every bone in his body crushed.

  “Bad business, Y’pscrsis, sending my cousin back.”

  “Sorry?”

  “So you should be,” sniffed the Anti-Christ.

  “No, I mean, pardon,” said Y’pscrsis, as though speaking to a child. The kind of child that people were determined to call ‘special’, when what they really meant was ‘thick’.

  Be’laalin shook his enormous head theatrically. “Bhaal. You remember? With the gammy leg?”

  Y’pscrsis’ mouth dropped open in an ungainly manner. “Is that what this is all about?”

  “Well, he was a bit miffed,” said Be-laalin, almost apologetically. He was rather like an offended public school boy. Unerringly polite and quite eloquent right up until they shot you with both barrels and claimed your death an unfortunate hunting accident.

  “But he was an angel!”

  “Ah, yes, but, you know how it is. Family. Naturally, I had to have you killed. Still, now you’re a zombie, I don’t suppose that will matter so much.”

  “No, Sir. I suppose not,” said Y’pscrsis, who had to admit that as time went by, he cared less and less about being killed. He’d had two days to mull it over, and he’d come to the conclusion that barring having to eat his way through another ton of dirt, being dead really wasn’t all that bad.

  “Good chap. On with the show.”

  “I’m sorry, Sir,’ said Y’pscrsis. “I’m not sure I catch your drift. Do you mean my job description has changed? Will I now be working,” Y’pscrsis imparted the next words with scorn, “the performing arts?”

  “No, no, dear chap. Just, you know...ah, well...consider it a promotion.”

  “What do you mean? I’m sorry if I’m being obtuse, your magnificent pestilence, but how is being eternally dead, say, compared to being eternally alive, a promotion?”

  “Well, I’ve got a heart, you know. It’s the form of the thing. I couldn’t very well let you get away with that nasty business with Bhaal, but I do have rather a soft spot for you, you know?” At this Be-laalin patted Y’pscrsis on the buttock.

  “I thought it’d be a bit lonely for you, you know, wandering around for years on your tod. Got your lady friend down, erm, up, here somewhere. You’d better get digging.”

  “What?! Samantha?”

  “Yes, that’s the lass. Nice breasts. Not a bit droopy. Bit of a waste, now I come to think about it. Oh well. Live and learn.” Be-laalin pursed his lips in what would pass as a thoughtful gesture for one in command of all his faculties. Be-laalin struggled to pull the look off. “Hmm. Poor taste, in your case. Sorry old chap. Father always said I was a bit insensitive. Anyway, you’d better get on with it. It’s been known to drive people crazy, you know, being buried. Wouldn’t want your lady friend to be all ‘ooh, wargh’ when she gets out of the dirt, now, would you?”

  Y’pscrsis pursed his lips, managing to look thoughtful where Be-laalin only managed to look toothsome and demented, and sighed. Thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where she is?”

  “Oh, she’s around here somewhere. Buggered if I can remember where. No rush, though. Now, how the bloody hell do you get down from here?”

  It was just like the Anti-Christ, all powerful as he was, to complete fail to figure out something so simple as falling. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (MKII!) were quite confusing, though. For an imbecile.

  Imbecile or not, he was still the boss.

  “I think you have to chew,” said Y’pscrsis with a sweet smile.

  “Really? Oh well.” Bel’aalin shrugged expansively, hunkered down and buried his face in the dirt.

  One thing to be said for a public school education, it stopped the upper classes from having any real sense and let the intelligent people get on with the real job of running the world.

  “Thank you, Satan,” Y’pscrsis whispered under his breath in a small voice. If it hadn’t been for his father, Be’laalin would never have got into Eaton school for public boys and the crazy, stupid old Anti-Christ might have actually learned something useful.

  Like irony.

  And Y’pscrsis?

  Y’pscrsis did all his schooling in the school of hard knocks.

  Hard knocks he could take in his stride. Unlike walking, which was proving a little difficult now that his intestines weren’t held in by ten pounds of dirt. The hole in his gut – the telltale size of a point-blank blast with a double-barrelled shotgun – was just the right size for his guts to fall out through.

  But the school of hard knocks didn’t just teach you not to be a sissy about little things like your guts falling out. It taught you to be resourceful. So, until he could get his hands on some superglue or something that never rotted to stuff his hole with, like hotdogs, he tied his guts around his waist like a slightly horrific cummerbund. He looked like he was going to a zombie convention, or the zombie ball, but it would suffice.

  The school of hard knocks also taught you not to waste time going the long way around when there was a short one. He rooted around in his pockets for a minute until he found his phone, hit speed dial and followed the ringing.

  He wondered what being a zombie would do for his sex life. He didn’t know if he could figure out the correct passage of blood flow, but he did like to think positively – his whole body was in the throws of rigor mortis anyway…perhaps it would be like have a full body Viagra trip. A holistic stiffy. He felt, well, almost spiritual.

  He followed the muffled sounds of Samantha’s phone’s ring tone – some kind of Cuban sounding Bolero tune – to a small patch of shrubbery laid on the earth at a jaunty angle.

  With the city below, and the dirt above, or maybe the other way around, he tore at the clumps of grass, and then at the dirt below. He accidently took out Samantha’s eye while he was digging and she called him all the names under the sun, but she didn’t seem to mind, not really.

  At that point, his pet worm decided to fall out of his nose and into Samantha’s eye socket.

  He realis
ed, looking at her beautiful face, slightly soiled and with a worm for a right eye, that he was glad it was Samantha he’d spend eternity with.

  She really was a bit of alright.

  It took a while to dig her out completely, but toward the end she got her hands free and she could help a little.

  Her head was a bit floppy, thanks to the garrotte Be-laalin had used to kill her, but she wasn’t all ‘ooh, wargh’ when he finally got her out. She only got that way later.

  Even the boss, chewing with his mouth open, didn’t put them off for long.

  *

  This is my collection. Now we're all cosy together, got our feet under the table, let's play footsies.

  Erm, hang on. I mean let's get UN-cosy. Horror's all well and good, but I don't just write horror. I'm a man of many hats.

  So, here's one of those other hats. Ah, stories. Oh, fuck it, you know what I mean.

  I promise, we'll return to safe ground and some more horror, after...The Convocation of Planets!!!™

  The Convocation of Planets

  ‘Order! Order!’ shouted the seneschal, to no avail. Al-Wen Sparsi flicked a meteor at his head, which was burned up in the seneschal’s atmosphere before it ever got close enough to do any real damage.

  The younger planets in the galaxy giggled.

  The seneschal gave Al-Wen a filthy look, but he was unable to do anything about it. Al-Wen’s parents were both Galactic Rangers.

  ‘Just get to the point, you crusty old fart!’ heckled Al-Wen.

  ‘Bloody youngster! I can still see the pock marks from your teenage bombardment! You haven’t even got seas! Shut your mouth!’

  ‘Ah, cram it!’

  ‘Does your father know what comes out of your filthy mouth?’ said one old gas-bag planet.

  ‘What he don’t know won’t hurt him.’

  ‘Doesn’t, boy, doesn’t.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Hmm. Whatever indeed. I’m sure when I speak to him next he’ll be most understanding.’