Dark Arts: Rising Read online

  Books by Randolph Lalonde

  Fate Cycle Dead of Winter

  Fate Cycle Sins of the Past

  First Light Chronicles Freeground

  First Light Chronicles Limbo

  First Light Chronicles Starfree Port

  First Light Omnibus (Collected Edition of the First Light Novellas)

  Spinward Fringe Resurrection

  Spinward Fringe Awakening

  Spinward Fringe Triton

  Spinward Fringe Frontline

  Spinward Fringe Fracture

  And Other Books In The Spinward Fringe Series

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2009 by Randolph Lalonde

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Thank you for purchasing this eBook. The continuation of this story is wholly dependent on the support of the readers. Enjoy the experience and share your opinion where you purchased this in the reviews section.

  If you would like to read more of this series or contact the author please visit www.randolphlalonde.net

  Dedication:

  To my flat mate and friend of many years. Maxwell wouldn’t exist without you.

  Foreword

  This short novella was written to be serialized under the name L.S. Randolph, a pen name adopted for publishing in the horror genre. It was released for free on the L.S. Randolph blog (http://lsrandolph.blogspot.com/) over a period of seven weeks. It was great fun even though very few people visited that dark corner of the web during the time of its release, and I’m happy to present this short in eBook form now.

  The premise behind this offering is to offer it for free or for a very small cover price and continue the story if enough readers show support through small donations. If you enjoy the story and can’t afford to donate, a short review where you found this story is a good alternative.

  My flat mate, who happens to wear a rain proofed brown duster, isn’t a fan of science fiction novels, so I thought I’d try my hand at horror for the first time in years. After hammering out a few outlines for completely different story lines, I chose this one because it was the most promising where serialization was concerned. That’s not to say that this short doesn’t include an entire story, it does. Dark Arts Rising isn’t about screaming “Fire!” in a theater and being the first one out the door, so to speak. There isn’t a cliff hanger at the end, though there are openings for the story to continue.

  In any event, I’m happy I’ve penned this short novella. I think I’ve conjured up some seriously interesting visions for everyone to darken their dreams with and hope that you all enjoy my little trip through the dark.

  Randolph Lalonde

  a.k.a.

  L.S. Randolph

  Dark Arts

  RISING

  Copyright 2009 by Randolph Lalonde

  Part I: Zachary Ellison Reborn

  “Evisceration!” Cried the stout, grizzled middle aged man in celebration. “That’s a word you don’t hear enough these days!” His shirt tails hung out from under his blue wool sweater. The sensible brown loafers and the hems of his cheap trousers were mud encrusted.

  The manequins played mute witness to the scene unfolding in the back corner of the darkened warehouse. The wind whistled in through a high broken window, causing the loose tarpaulins clothing the few generic plastic forms to ripple and billow. The white, beige and multicolored display drones were arranged in a circle around the scene.

  Partially assembled clothing racks were piled in a circle like a barrier, their silver surfaces partially spray painted black and red. The pockmarked concrete floor surrounding the old shop tables in the center was covered with symbols from dozens of languages.

  The disheveled man leaned on the chipboard shop tables in the center, chuckling at the long dried corpse laid out in front of him. It was nude, all signs of identity had been removed by decades of decay. Between its ankles was a bag with a new suit, shoes, wallet, and a fine black hat. The sounds of rain striking the steel roof echoed throughout the massive high space.

  “Please, let me go,” begged the young man hanging above the corpse from a roughly welded frame. The thick chains bearing it ground against the pulleys as he swung slightly. His wrists, shoulders, legs, ankles and arms were duct taped firmly to the former clothing rack. He had been stripped to his kiss print boxers, the cool air from the oncoming storm gave him goosebumps. Football practice seemed like ancient history even though he’d walked off the field only hours before. The disheveled middle aged man had stepped out of an alleyway right in front of him. He’d tried to sidestep the fellow and felt a pinch in his side as they collided. The next thing he knew he was on the ground. When he woke up the first thing he saw was the corpse.

  Those dry, ruined, empty eye sockets stared up at him hollowly as the man who’d captured him sliced his upper thighs, his chest, his arms. He’d tried every form of begging. Offered money, favors he hoped no one overheard, tried to bargain, and finally he wept. Telling the man his name was Carl and he had a younger sister, loving parents, didn’t seem to make any difference whatsoever. The middle aged man was too busy with incantations, inscriptions and torture. He felt light headed and dizzy before long. The corpse began to look thicker, more robust he remembered thinking right before he vomited in a sudden gush. It came as a surprise, and he couldn’t seem to stop the room from spinning as the disheveled man kept poking at his wounds, coaxing the blood to drip, drip, drip onto the splayed, gray corpse below where the crimson droplets faded and disappeared one by one.

  “You know, I’ve seen one of your schools from the inside. Imagine my surprise when I walked in and didn’t see a single person. I even asked after the librarian and found that the teachers took turns taking care of the place part time! Knowledge is power, it’s true, and I couldn’t have chosen a better time to come back. In this age of ignorance I’ll be like a God! I mean, look around you boy! Look at the floor and all it’s beautiful, useful inscriptions! All those symbols, all those languages, some of them thought dead for centuries. You realize how many people I had to possess to learn them all? Imagine the priest dodging, watching for natural sensitives who could get just a whiff of me and realize; ‘oi! There’s somethin’ off about this one ‘ere! Looks like he’s been possessed!’ Thanks to all this book learnin’ it’ll all come to an end. You’ll be the very last young man I have to use up. Your blood sacrifice will restore my body, that dry corpse there, and when I slit the throat of this fat businessman I’m using as a flesh suit I’ll finally be resurrected, back in my own skin, in defiance of death himself. Bloody ponce has gotten a little over confident if you ask me, it’s about time someone found a way around the rules.”

  “You can’t. That’s not real,” he blubbered. He felt heavy, drowsy. His lips felt like mush as he spoke.

  “That’s not real,” the middle aged man mocked. He picked up a long, razor sharp kitchen knife and brandished it with a smile. “In a few seconds I’ll spill what’s left of you all over my corpse and there you’ll go, straight up or straight down. Someone as young as you won’t be headed to purgato
ry for long, probably won’t get lost on your way to God either. While you’re realizing how sweet and innocent you really were, how little your Nike or Polo brand clothing mattered, I’ll be laying the foundations of a kingdom unlike anything the world has seen in three millennia. I’ll remember to have your name scrawled in the margin of some history book.”

  Carl struggled vainly, forcing the frame to wobble slightly. “You’re crazy!”

  Lightening struck nearby. The thunder shook the remaining windows in their rotting frames. “Oh, seems someone up there’s taking me very seriously,” the middle aged fellow laughed, removing his glasses and tossing them across the room. In one sweeping motion he sliced the young man from sternum to the top of his boxers. The cut was deep and bled freely to the beat of his heart.

  Carl screamed mindlessly, filling the warehouse with inhuman wails.

  “Didn’t get all the way through that stomach muscle! Here we go again!” shouted the middle aged man over the din as he sawed through the thick tissue. Entrails showered the corpse in a grisly downfall as the unwilling sacrifice twitched, howled and screamed. As the final cut was made Carl fell silent.

  Without pause the disheveled man knelt beside the table and drew the knife across his own throat, leaning over the gore covered corpse to add his own blood to the pooling mess.

  The pain was gone. Carl was looking down on himself, feeling distant, detached. He didn’t want to watch as his body twitched involuntarily, rattling the chains, swinging to and fro lightly, but he couldn’t look away. The old corpse laying on the table thickened and twitched as white bone, pulsing organs and crimson flesh clothed it from within.

  The scene seemed to fade in clarity and importance. A sweet peace washed over him. Carl knew where he was going he wouldn’t need anything he’d treasured in life. Where he was going he wouldn’t have to deal with school, or graduation or his brat sister. Where he was going he wouldn’t have to worry about how the world was about to change because of the corpse standing up from the table.

  The chill rain came down in heavy drops, washing the street and Max in wind driven sheets. He adjusted his stetson and closed his dark brown duster as he watched a discarded snack bag turn into a little boat running down the gutter. “Bit like old London, this,” he muttered to himself as he trudged on down the sidewalk. A buzzing on his hip told him he had a message. He stepped under the overhang of a cigar pub to check it. He looked around as he fought with the device’s belt clip.

  The rain slicked street was quiet. Most of the street side shops closed at five o’clock. There were still a few people about, most of them trying to rush to their parked cars or to the nearest door as the sudden downpour soaked through their clothing. The frantic clicking of high heels sounded the approach of one of the water dodgers and he stepped to the side.

  She stopped under his shelter, noticing him only at the last minute. Her flashed smile was motivated by Canadian politeness. “Oh, sorry,” she uttered.

  He smiled back; “Not to worry lass, glad for the company.”

  “Oh, you’re from England?”

  “Bit of everywhere. Just stepped in to check my office,” he produced his beaten pager, a little black box with a gray display strip.

  “Do you mind if I just wait out the worst of it here?”

  She was dyed blond, wore high heels to make up for her height, a little over five feet, and wore a matching dark blue skirt and jacket with a cotton blouse underneath. All purchased at a department store, he guessed. She was just above the rank of shop girl, and there was nothing wrong with a shop girl. “Room for two in this door. No worries Miss…”

  “Darcy, Elizabeth Darcy.” She offered her slender hand and he shook it.

  “Just a minute then.” He turned and looked at his message. His mood darkened immediately upon seeing it. “Bloody hell,” he cursed quietly.

  “Bad news?” She asked, genuine sympathy in her voice. “I could buy you a drink to soften the blow.”

  Without a word he opened the door, sounding a bell hanging over the jamb. His boot heels were as loud as cannons as they clomped across the polished floor. Without looking around the empty common room Maxwell walked straight to the bar. “Double scotch neat and a bag of those bush rolled cigarillos,” he ordered as he sat down on a stool.

  The tall, thin faced, dark haired bartender presented his order along with an ashtray and a pack of matches imprinted with the establishment’s name; The Tobacco Mill. Max put his pager and a twenty dollar bill down and hastily opened the package of rough rolled, sweet flavored cigarillos. From a small pocket inside his sleeve he produced a silver lighter and flicked it on.

  “Miss a meeting?” the bartender asked as he took the twenty.

  Max turned his pager back so the message; TOO LATE faced him and puffed the sweet tasting, black cigarillo. “If it were your business you’d already know. Go on, ye git. I’ll tell you if I need another.”

  Part II: Marion Ellison

  It was just one of those afternoons to stay in, slip a tape into the VCR and enjoy an idle day off. Pulp Fiction, with it’s flashy, retro packaging and Uma Thurman staring back at her was irresistible. Her young friends at work wouldn’t stop talking about it, and when it first hit the shelves at the rental place down the street their seemingly endless supply kept running out. Months later Marion had finally gotten her hands on a copy, the pimpled attendant gave her a quizzical look when she approached as if to say; ‘but you’re so old, are you sure this is the right movie?’ She simply smiled at him and withheld her customary fifty cent tip.

  She’d just barely avoided the rain coming back from the Bronco Video, rushing through the apartment building doors as the first wave of the downpour washed over the street. Instead of turning the lights on she lit candles, the more prudent choice considering the weight of the downpour and the frequency of lightning. She hoped against it but knew a power outage was likely.

  Looking was forward to the loud, young spirited film but heated some soup and watched the news at noon instead. Marion watched the rain as the newscaster, a graying gentleman with a square jaw, droned on about events a world away . The top story was a bombing in Atlanta. Two people were killed and one hundred eleven were injured when a bomb went off in Centennial Olympic Park. Marion shook her head as footage of the aftermath played on the television. The images were taken from a distance and only lasted a few seconds, more than enough for her taste. Stopping between spoon fulls of warm chicken noodle soup she mentally wished everyone involved in the terrible incident the best.

  The second story was about the rain and she couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. “Only in Northern Ontario would the weather make a headline. I’d understand if it were raining puppies and kittens, but you’d think they could find something we’re not all seeing right out our window,” she uttered.

  She finished her soup just as the obnoxious, over spoken sports caster came on and turned the television off. The sounds of the rain pelting against the windows and rolling thunder were pleasant company as she put the kettle on and did the few dishes in the sink.

  Marion couldn’t help but think of Tracy, her best friend at work. Thirty years younger than her, she was still actively dating and was meeting a gentleman from the data center for coffee. It was dangerous dating someone from work, she’d done it once and regretted it, especially after the fellow she’d spent over a year with, Orson, was promoted and ended their relationship in the same week. She hoped Tracy’s luck was better. There were married couples who had met at work but they always seemed somehow engaged in the gossip of the place and Marion couldn’t imagine being married in that environment. Everyone she knew was at work, however, so she could understand how her coworkers kept getting drawn into the same dating pool.

  Shutting the thoughts out of her head, she put the last dish on the drying rack beside the sink and walked into the living room. Her hand was well practiced at popping the hard plastic tape case open after spending many a night in the compan
y of a comforter, tea and a video. The VCR lit up as she pressed the tape into the front, making mysterious clicking and whirring sounds as it considered playing the tape for her. The screen changed from the regular cable programming to blue then to black and as she sat down the FBI warning filled the screen.

  A flash of lightening lit the world outside. In that same instant the VCR, TV and lights shining dimly yellow in the building across the street died. Marion sighed and shook her head. “Well, I just hope the kettle finished,” she picked up a candle and headed for the kitchen where her electric kettle steamed.

  Shadows played against the plain white cupboards as she set the candle down and reached for a cup. A knock at the door sounded, firm and to the tempo of the first half of the old ‘shave and a haircut’ ditty. It reminded her of her brother, Zachary and for a moment she almost expected him to come walking in. It was amazing how it was impossible to forget some people, even nearly thirty years after they’d passed.

  “One minute!” she called out as she put down her mug, picked up her candle and went to the door as quickly as the flickering little flame would allow.

  The door swung open lazily at her approach and in the dim yellow light she could make out the shape of a man in a crisp, black suit. He removed his hat. Lightening flashed, illuminating the hallway with white light. Marion gasped. “Zachary?”

  Two long steps took him to her and he let the light of the guttering candle reveal his youthful face. “It’s me Marion.”

  Tears filled her eyes and at first she was too astonished to speak. He was exactly as she remembered him before he died twenty eight years before.

  He took her hand and brought it to his face. It was softer than he recalled, she had aged but her shoulder length blond hair was the same. “It’s been too long, dear sister.”