Story Fragment
Oct. 4th, 2009 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
realsorienThis is a scene from a vignette that I've been pondering writing about my character Bill Vicklin from the Horror Campaign I'm in on Sundays. Its the 'core' scene of the story, so I'm interested in what people think of it. Its not long, not even a page... But I'm hoping that I've caught the feeling of the scene. I kinda think its a bit too much Clive Barker- too mild and 'English' in feel, if people understand what I mean by that. Let me know!
Ahead of them, the narrow passage abruptly widened into a much larger chamber, the hideous, sticky reek a suffocating blanket about them. A dim light was somewhere ahead and above. Now moving almost without conscious design, the five boys passed into the chamber.
The first thing that registered to Bill’s overwhelmed mind was Ernie’s lifeless face, staring at him in a silent, eyes-wide-open gape. Everyone stopped, and the image before him widened out to include the true insanity of what they’d found. Ernie wasn’t alone. He lay atop a vast reeking pile of the dead, all with similar hideous grimaces on their faces. Ernie’s arms and legs had been broken, not once but many times- he hadn’t been dead for long. Worse, all over the exposed parts of his skin there were little paired sets of punctures...
There was no blood at all on him.
The smell seemed to pulse within the room almost as if alive- the chamber, a vast sphere with a walkway around it, was obviously artificial. The upper part of the sphere arched above them, and far above there was a single dangling light that was powered by god-knows what source. The lower part of the sphere... Was filled. Heaping up in a grotesque hump were the rotting, oozing remains of hundreds upon hundreds of the bloodless dead. Wet gurgling and bubbling sounds came from deep within, as with time the horrid pile liquified and settled under its own weight; the clothing that could be seen, stained with the fluids of decay, ranged from days old to the styles of decades long past.
The air, damp and thick, clung to their skin like oil. As the tunnel had been, the chamber was far warmer than natural, decay providing a fetid source for the heat. Nobody moved... In truth, none of them could; frozen in their tracks by the nightmare they’d found.
And still Ernie stared into Bill’s eyes.
Ahead of them, the narrow passage abruptly widened into a much larger chamber, the hideous, sticky reek a suffocating blanket about them. A dim light was somewhere ahead and above. Now moving almost without conscious design, the five boys passed into the chamber.
The first thing that registered to Bill’s overwhelmed mind was Ernie’s lifeless face, staring at him in a silent, eyes-wide-open gape. Everyone stopped, and the image before him widened out to include the true insanity of what they’d found. Ernie wasn’t alone. He lay atop a vast reeking pile of the dead, all with similar hideous grimaces on their faces. Ernie’s arms and legs had been broken, not once but many times- he hadn’t been dead for long. Worse, all over the exposed parts of his skin there were little paired sets of punctures...
There was no blood at all on him.
The smell seemed to pulse within the room almost as if alive- the chamber, a vast sphere with a walkway around it, was obviously artificial. The upper part of the sphere arched above them, and far above there was a single dangling light that was powered by god-knows what source. The lower part of the sphere... Was filled. Heaping up in a grotesque hump were the rotting, oozing remains of hundreds upon hundreds of the bloodless dead. Wet gurgling and bubbling sounds came from deep within, as with time the horrid pile liquified and settled under its own weight; the clothing that could be seen, stained with the fluids of decay, ranged from days old to the styles of decades long past.
The air, damp and thick, clung to their skin like oil. As the tunnel had been, the chamber was far warmer than natural, decay providing a fetid source for the heat. Nobody moved... In truth, none of them could; frozen in their tracks by the nightmare they’d found.
And still Ernie stared into Bill’s eyes.
