Grueberfest Round 3 - Whispers (461 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.91 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by JoeyG (View user info) at 2008-10-12 13:36:51 EDT
It was sunset when Lucy ran into the woods, screaming.
The sky was mottled with bruises of amber and purple, and the last rays of sun cast a serene orange radiance over the horizon. The dark of night was falling faster than the sun, an inky curtain which drizzled down the universe, as if an alchemical wash was purging the existence of colour in the sky.
By the time Lucy reached the stream, the last fingertips of sunlight had disappeared, and were replaced by the pinpricks of stars which carpeted the black void above the forest, dripping their ancient light through the tree-top canopy.
As her breath misted in swirling clouds from her mouth, Lucy noticed the cold that had descended with the nightfall. Her white gown was wet and muddied around the hem, and the garment was too thin to provide any protection against the late Autumnal chill.
Goosebumps were spreading down her arms, and the erratic thumping of her heartbeat filled her head with a sense of terror and fear, as she tried to regain a sense of composure to her situation.
....watching you....
Lucy spun around to the source of the breathless words, and saw nothing. The blackness in the woods was deep, but Lucy could sense the eyes, could sense the slinking movement of something beyond the trees.
As she studied the foliage in front of her, the giggling sound of a small girl forced her to whirl around and look behind her.
Nothing.
The whispers were Lucy's cruellest tormentors, and she had suffered enough of the maddening hush which seemed to drift too easily between the mouths of others. The village of Colne was now behind her, a place where people would mutter any manner of filth and conspiracy amongst themselves.
For too long, Lucy had endured the ceaseless susurration of murmured jealousy and spite, a poison which trickled from one ear to the next, accompanied with stealthy glances of pity and detest. She would only ever catch these from the corner of her eye, before the looks were withdrawn in a malicious display of elegant contempt and merriment.
As the rich Mayor's daughter, she had expected to be viewed with such lamentation in a village like Colne, and she had held her head high.
Too high, for the residents of Colne.
Lucy was aware of the resentment that was poured forth toward her, but never directly. She could feel the ugly rumours and remarks floating, unseen, through the air around her, as she glimpsed hushed conversations in corners, wicked comments slipping from tongues and the lurid suggestions that passed in breathless whispers between the villagers.
....Evil woman....
....No respect, that girl....
....Some say she's a witch....
Lucy refused to bow down to such infantile commentary, but her head became lower and lower as the remarks became more evil, more devilish with intent.
....She keeps looking at my baby....
....Well, we all know what happened to her child....
At fourteen years old, Lucy had become pregnant. Her father stood by her, and when the tot was born, he provided her with everything she had needed. When the child was a week old, Lucy awoke from a brief slumber, and baby Luke was gone.
It was a month before Ellie-May, the dairy maid, found Luke's dismembered corpse in a butter churn.
Four years later, no-one had been charged with the crime, but the intimation and accusation still hung around Lucy in a thinly veiled haze of hostile thoughts and feelings, looks and whispers.
In those four years, a craze had raged inside of Lucy's heart and mind, a constant reminder of the hatred and envy of those around her. An icy charm of illicit chatter coursed her blood into frozen rivers, and spread a freezing madness into her heart and marrow.
Every breath from every villager became nothing more than acidic malice, a toxic attack which filled her mind with paranoia and prostate thoughts of loathing towards the source of such venomous iterations.
Chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter,
Baby's gone but doesn't matter,
Evil Lucy casts her spell,
Sends her baby straight to Hell.
When Lucy fled the village, the whispers followed her relentlessly, teasing and toying, playing over in her mind.
And now, in the cold of the woods, the whispers continued.
Lucy ambled in the direction of the deadly breeze of darkened words.
....Lucy....
....We can see you, Lucy....
....Can you see baby Luke, Lucy....?
She stumbled into the middle of a clearing, and trying to locate the source of the muffled melancholy, she realised it was all around her.
As Lucy twirled around like a dervish, a spectral figure emerged from one of the age-old oak trees. The face was clearly recognised as that of Ellie-May's.
How could you do such a thing? He was just a boy, how could you be so wicked?
The phantom Ellie-May melted away, leaving nothing but a sliver of mist in the clearing.
Chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter,
Baby's gone but doesn't matter,
Evil Lucy casts her spell,
Sends her baby straight to Hell.
As Lucy turned to face the ghostly congregation of villagers behind her, the last senses of feeling drained in torrents from her soul.
"I didn't do anything! He was my baby!" Her voiced was ebbing away into sobs, and as she blinked, the spiritual crowd faded.
After a few seconds, a familiar voice whispered behind her.
My little Lucy, baby girl,
My glowing star, my shining pearl,
My darling daughter, the little slut,
Who fucked that fucking nigger mutt!
The glowing figure of her Father floated just a few inches above the ground, with a beaming smile upon his face. One arm cradled the body of baby Luke, with a wide hole in his skull. The child's brain was pebble dashed across the rock against which Lucy's Father had swung the boy's head again and again.
Her Father's other arm pointed up into the trees, where the body of Nathan, the black stable worker from the village, swung by his neck. His hands were tied behind his back, and large metal bolts had been driven through his eyes.
As the whispers around her transformed into shrieks of laughter, Lucy turned, and fled back towards the stream. When she stumbled over a thick tree root, she ripped her slender gown on a bush of brambles, leaving her naked against the cold night air. Behind her, the whispers were getting closer.
Slut-bitch Lucy, little whore,
Had it once and now wants more,
Fucked a nigger, who now swings,
Evil Lucy's heart now sings!
When she reached the stream, she fell onto her knees at the bank and gazed at her reflection in the water.
....Some say she's a witch....
Lucy screamed at the shimmering image she saw in the surface of the stream, the starlight from above casting mystical prisms of refracted beams across the flowing water.
Lucy clawed at the skin on her face with vicious cruelty. The sparkles of moonlit water rippled as the tears fell from her cheeks into the slowly flowing stream. The droplets of salty tears were joined by russet strings, as her pristine fingernails pried their way under the skin around her temples.
Blood flowed down her porcelain features, as the fingernails took purchase beneath her skin, and the flesh began to part from Lucy's face. The fingernails sliced a crescent curve down around her face, like a keen blade would separate meat from a bone.
When her fingertips met at the base of her chin, Lucy grasped the skin and began to pull. With the whispers drawing in, she peeled the skin away from her face in strips.
By the time Lucy's reflection in the water was joined by that of her long dead child's, her face was stripped of all the flesh which formed her features, and she resembled a raw burnt hag.
Her Father's voice began to whisper above her.
Take a long look, Lucy.....the face of woman who scorns their family, the face which now drips and bleeds into the flowing waste of the forest....take a long, long look at what you've become....
Lucy clutched her nails against her eyelids, and gouged the aching orbs out into her palms. Shaking, she offered the organs to the misty figure floating above her, and screamed her final words.
"You can take my child, and you can take my eyes! But you can never take my soul!"
As her fingernails tore at her neck, the whispers melted into a soft lullaby of surreal sensation.
The phantom Father cackled above her, and dropped her lifeless baby's corpse into her dying arms.
Lucy's arms grasped around the body of smoke, and the whispers finally ceased.
User Reviews
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-12-06 13:38:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Of course it was Doodles, the only guy who could fuck up a wet dream.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-10-18 03:45:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh, it was Doodles. Isn't Doodles Method?
I am not mesing with him, I'm only 5ft2.
Guess my spamming Barrys post with multi +2's didn't help.
:(
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-10-18 03:43:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-18 07:41:08 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
You win!
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I wanted you to do it for the Brits! :(
Who dropped the less than +2 rating, and I shall e bully them for you?
*looks*
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-18 02:39:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
I lose
Submitted by peckerhead (user info) at 2008-10-16 17:44:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fantastic beginning and the rest was good enough. I found myself humming tunes from Alice Cooper's "Killer" album as the story unfolded. I'm not the best judge of good writing but I liked this. Good luck in upcoming rounds.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-10-14 14:24:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-10-14 13:47:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Not a lot to like in this round, but I liked this one.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-10-13 09:22:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-10-13 05:40:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Outstanding. Hope you win.
Submitted by Desz (user info) at 2008-10-12 22:00:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
exceptional!!!
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2008-10-12 20:53:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
YOU CAN TAKE MY EYEBALLS, BUT YOU CAN NEVER TAKE MY FREEDOM!!!
THAT IS UNLESS YOU LOCK ME IN A CELLAR OR SOMETHING. OR TIE ME TO A TREE.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-10-12 16:17:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
LOVE YOU!
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2008-10-12 14:56:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Well written and all but I didn't really enjoy it much.
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 14:36:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-12 11:32:35 PDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 19:25:05 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-12 10:44:57 PDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 18:42:00 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
first!
---------------
I always come first.
*ahem*
----------------
then you're no gentleman...
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Apologies. If it's any consolation I have 3 rounds left in the reserves, so we can start from where we left off...
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3 rounds left eh? multiples it is then.
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-12 14:32:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 19:25:05 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-12 10:44:57 PDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 18:42:00 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
first!
---------------
I always come first.
*ahem*
----------------
then you're no gentleman...
------------------
Apologies. If it's any consolation I have 3 rounds left in the reserves, so we can start from where we left off...
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 14:25:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-12 10:44:57 PDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 18:42:00 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
first!
---------------
I always come first.
*ahem*
----------------
then you're no gentleman...
Submitted by HateMudkips (user info) at 2008-10-12 13:51:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
bravo!
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-12 13:44:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 18:42:00 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
first!
---------------
I always come first.
*ahem*
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-12 13:42:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
first!