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IT IS OUR PLEASURE TODAY TO FEATURE FABULOUS GUEST AUTHOR, IAN GRANT, WHO IS SHARING A BONE-CHILLING, HORRIFIC CHAPTER 3 FROM HIS NOVEL, 'THE REIGN OF THE BEAST'. BLOOD-THIRSTY FOR SURE!

Updated: Jun 22



Chapter 3 - The Killing


“PLEASE GOD, NO! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME!”


Tears of terror spilled from her panic-stricken eyes. Eyes that had been pretty only moments before. Eyes that were now fixed upon the most abominably horrific face only her worst nightmares could imagine. A foul, blood curdling, ghastly vision of absolute evil. Perspiration matted her hair to her forehead. Hair that had been pretty only moments before. Her heart pounded violently within her heaving chest as she gasped desperately for air.


Her piercing screams echoed around the foreboding, dark East London streets. She shrieked frantically for help. Screams so terrifyingly tangible as to wake the dead. Penetrating aniridial eyes returned her terrified stare. Black, shark-like eyes, soulless and devoid of emotion. The expression was demonic, a ferocious mask of ugliness that foretold the savagery to come. A single embodiment of evil.


“HELP ME! FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP ME!”


The monstrous vision loomed sickeningly closer, the Beast’s lips snarling back to unveil pink fleshy gums and sharp yellowing teeth. Its hot, putrid breath clung disgustingly to her face like a death shroud. She could smell its meat fetid breath and began to pray soundlessly for mercy. Its head now blocked out everything else, the faint amber of the gas streetlights that tried to penetrate the curtain of the London fog, lost behind a stomach-churning visage. Bubbling saliva dripped from the demonic mouth. This face was to be the last thing Mary Harrison would ever see.


“PLEASE GOD MAKE IT QUICK!”


The sharp, high-pitched shrill of several whistles penetrated the heavy, smog-laden air.


Running. Two men running frantically, pistols in hand, towards the screams that pierced the night. “Run, Pyke, we must get there. Faster, faster!”


Ba dum ba dum. Mary Harrison’s heart beat uncontrollably as the tongue of the Beast, long and slender, slowly licked at her jugular notch, up the front of her neck and across her jaw, then up to her earlobe. She shuddered, staunching the nausea, and screamed once more.


“PLEASE GOD MAKE IT PAINLESS!”


Legs pumping. Arms thrusting. The two men accelerated even further, their lungs gulping air to fuel their muscles. “Faster, Pyke,” again shouted the taller and more athletic of the two men, knowing that his shorter, stronger companion was quicker.


Ba dum ba dum. Mary Harrison’s heartbeat echoed those of her would-be rescuers. She kicked out violently and scratched frantically, trying to claw at the eyes of the Beast. Her wrists were grasped with such ferocity and force that she felt each of them snap in opposite directions with a bone splintering crack. She shrieked in agony. The Beast raised its eyebrows, threw back its head and laughed.


Sparks flashing from hobnail boots on cobbled streets. ‘Must get there,’ demanded Detective Sergeant Jem Pyke to himself. He gritted his teeth as he heard the tortured cries of the woman reverberate around the brick walls of Narrow Street. Where was she? North side or riverside? It was almost impossible to tell. The thumping of his heart and the bellows in his chest confusingly masked the exact source of the screaming.


Ba dum ba dum ba dum. Mary Harrison’s heart was now close to bursting. “Please don’t kill me,” she pleaded, her voice a trembling whisper, her mouth close to the Beast’s malodorous ear.


Calves screaming. Head bursting. Shoe leather skidding over cobbles. Detective Inspector Albert Wiggins could feel his diaphragm cramping, causing a stabbing, painful stitch to develop in his side. His lungs were burning, and his heart hammered out a rhythm like a Coldstream snare. ‘Need to get there,’ he ordered inwardly. “Go, Pyke, Go!” Wiggins encouraged breathlessly several yards behind his colleague.


Ba dum ba dum ba dum. “Please don’t kill me,” whimpering, Mary again beseeched her attacker, her body now paralysed with terror.


The shorter of the two men accelerated further, his coat tails flapping in his wake. He almost slid to the ground as he bulleted around a corner, steadying himself from falling by stretching his hand out onto the cobbles.


In a sudden outburst of fury, the Beast’s talons slashed and ripped at her flesh. Its teeth biting and wrenching at exposed skin, flaying it from her neck like one side of a peeled banana.


Ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum. Her legs thrashed and her arms flailed in a last despairing effort to free herself from the gnawing, feasting Beast. “OH GOD, NO!” she screamed. “Sweet mother of Jesus,” she then whispered.


Ba-dum. Blood gushed from her carotid artery as a bestial claw penetrated her abdomen and ripped upwards.


Ba-dum. Mary Harrison’s body convulsed, twitching violently as frothy blood-streaked sputum exploded from her mouth.


Ba-dum. The Beast lapped at the bubbling blood foaming from her lips.


Ba. Her heart worked its last, deprived of oxygen-enriched blood as her life ebbed finally from her now mutilated body.


Silence. The Beast smashed her ribcage like brittle dry sticks and pulled the now redundant heart from her chest cavity, holding it aloft like some victorious trophy. It howled at the night sky.


The two running men came to a breathless, skidding halt, crashing into each other at the entrance to Thames Path, just off Narrow Street. The dimly lit alleyway framed a gothic scene of unbelievable horror and violence. The two gasping figures stood in rigid disbelief at the incomprehensible sight they were witnessing. A huge, shadowed figure hunched over a lifeless bundle of rags. It rose slowly, deliberately, like a lengthening shadow. Its head turned, the motion almost imperceptible like the minute hand of a clock, to reveal the most frightening face imaginable, turning to stare directly back at their gaze. The face was that of a demon, its ink-black eyes beneath dark hooded lids were bordered by an immaculate silk top hat and the high collar of a black gabardine cloak; beauty framing its bestial countenance. Stygian pools of death locked upon shocked eyes. A grotesque half-smile played on the fiend’s salivating, blood-soaked lips. Deep grooves curtained the malevolent mouth as it bared its teeth and snarled. The Beast howled and laughed with an animalistic glee as it bit a chunk of the still-warm heart of Mary Harrison before hurling it towards the two exhausted policemen. It came skidding to a halt at the toe of Wiggins’ left boot. Both men looked disbelievingly at the object, instantly recognising it for what it was.


Both men looked up, each brandishing their pistols, but the apparition had gone, absorbed into the oily fog. The fiend had sprung away so rapidly and so silently that the men would later wonder if it had been there at all. This was all too much to process. They edged toward the bundle of rags only to discover the remains of the body of Mary Harrison encircled by an ever-increasing halo of blood. If it were not for the victim’s clothing, it would have been impossible to discern any gender. The face had been torn away and the throat lacerated into ribbons, whilst the torso had been ripped apart and eviscerated.


Detective Inspector Albert Wiggins made the sign of the cross and fell to his knees.






COMING SOON: On Monday, 23rd June, our team member, author Eva Bielby, will be sharing one of her 'Tales by Firelight' - 'That's Entertainment?'


 
 
 

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