The Skeptics Curse
By Stormi Donnelly
In the dark, in a small town, where people bed down early. It is not really a good idea to walk the back roads alone. Even for a man of reasonable strength and self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, for Mathew, when ever he was unable to fall asleep or relax at night that is just what he did. He would walk, lazily dragging his feet along the rutted dirt roads. One wrong placement of foot and you could break you leg clean in half. He had come close a time or two no doubt. Even still, he was very conscious of his surroundings. Very alert at all times when off on his own. Where there were no streetlights, or houses for nearly a mile in each direction, he had to be cautious. Mathew was more concerned with the wild animals he could hear howling and scratching in the dark than a violent person coming upon him. That's just not something you would think to fear in an area such as this. The kids stayed away from these roads. Now, the air was thin and cold, most of those animals were hibernating, so there was nothing to fear at all out there. Everyone in town was afraid of the woods. This one section in particular. Rumors of satanic cults, and buried bodies filled there conversations about this place, so near to where he lived. How horribly terrific it would be he thought so many times, to be walking down this dusty road and happen upon one of these legends in progress. He chuckled softly to himself at the thought every time. He often wandered threw these woods in the light of the day. He had never believed in any of those stories, not even when he was young. Though as most people know, just as there are thing we can see in the day that cannot be seen in the dark, the same is true for the night. The light of the moon dose reveal things not seen by the sun. He decided to take a walk threw the woods that night. In the same area, he usually went in the daytime. He felt urged to do so. He almost heard someone calling to him, from inside his head. Mathew had a restless spirit. Most likely that was the reason he had difficulty finding his way into sleep. He moved about by touch, he felt the trees, the rough bark. The ground softened as he walked. It was freezing cold out now, mid January. When you have adrenaline, pumping threw you as you embark on an adventure such as this, you do not notice the weather. Suddenly Mathew felt something sharp make contact with the toe of his shoe. He gasped as he tumbled to the ground. His knee slammed down onto a stone slab. He felt around with his hands, it was huge. How could he have not seen this before? It was bigger than three of him. He rolled over on his side and tried to straighten out his leg. He felt the warmth and wetness on the blood on his jeans. He held his leg out with his hands he was bleeding rather excessively. He let out a deep sigh and attempted to stand. He placed one hand on the stone slab and the other on the tree next to it. As he pulled himself up, he heard a strange sound. A sound like the combination of rustling bushes and digging threw loses soil and rock. Not with a shovel, more like an animal clawing at the dirt and bushes. He pulled himself up quickly. He stood up on one foot gripping the tree. He stood and listened as the sound grew. He stepped off the stone slab and attempted to hobble to the next tree. Suddenly he felt the ground rustle beneath him. He leaped forward grabbing in haste for the next tree. A few jumps that are more forceful and he made it to the edge of the street. Now the moon coming out from behind the clouds shown down threw the leafless trees onto the shaky ground. Mathew stopped at the street and looked back. He vaguely saw something stirring in the dead leaves on the ground. He stood and stared at the feeble movement. He blinked the cold stinging wind from his eyes as they watered immensely. His eyes widened as the figure became clearer. “Is that…?” he thought to himself. “What the hell is that?” he said softly to himself. He gasped deeply realizing his eyes were not deceiving him. It was a human hand reaching out from the very piece of earth he had just been standing on. He was frozen, his whole body, he just could not move. He just stared in horror. He held his breath until he realized that he was not breathing. He saw the arm pull further out of the ground, grabbing and fumbling for something to grab. Just in front of it, he saw another hand emerge. He gasped in fright and ran stumbling down the road. He thought about stopping at the Johnson’s house, knowing that it was much closer. However, he decided against it, mainly because he figured they would hear his ranting and think he was crazy. Therefore, he decided to keep going until he got to his back door. He opened the door and half collapsed inside kicking the door shut. He climbed up on the couch and looked down at his blood soaked pant leg. He remembered the legends of those woods, the rumors he had so readily dismissed as campfire stories. At least that is how he had heard them, on camping trips with his family and friends. He remembered his uncle Curtis telling him as a teenager that the cult that used to worship Satan and hold there rituals in those woods had kidnapped and killed many people. They had drained them of there blood and drank it and bathed in it as part of there dark workings. Moreover, that those bodies buried there still thirsted for the blood that had been stolen from them. Had his blood woken them up? The same bodies that had been in the ground for over fifty years? Could they still be there? Zombies? It cannot be true, can it? Would they not be skeletons? Whatever the reason he knew, he must remember what his uncle had told him. Curtis was a true believer in the supernatural, superstitions, and local legends. Mathew often joked about him, but so did everyone else. And now every detail that he had shrugged off as a way for adults to keep kids out of the woods, had to be dug up from the depths of his mind. It was all true, or he must treat it as such, for it was all he had to go on. He knew he had heard that they favored young women, girls, and babies in there rituals. Virgins and beauties. They would stalk them as a panther would stalk a gazelle. Then in the dead of night, they would pluck them from there homes in the village that was there before it was his home town, never to be heard from again. It was also there way to kill anyone who got in there way or stumbled upon there secrets. He hurriedly discarded his bloody jeans in the fireplace, locked up the house, washed, and bandaged his wound. He turned off all the lights and sat at the kitchen table watching for any movement at all. Mathew sat, watched, and wished he had not been such a skeptic throughout his life. It was surely biting him in the ass now. He tried to remember more of the stories. He thought about sitting around that campfire. Stories about men with hooks for hands, and escaped mental patients. They were all running together now. He thought about how it all had happened, him bleeding and then they arose. They seemed to have the nature of eternal guardians of that place. Could it have been one of there alters that he fell on? He knew that the cult had been massacred and driven out by an angry mob. After thirty years of taking people from the village. No one believed that there were people in those woods that could be capable of such things. He sat up straight and began to blink rapidly, he saw someone. Someone was walking towards his house. Indeed, it was what appeared to be a young girl, fifteen years old or so. When she came into the light of his carport her skin appeared grayish blue, her lips were purple, as if she was frozen. Her eyes were as black at the night sky, as was her hair. He looked at the ground where she was standing. There were a few small drops of blood on his drive way. He had left a trail straight to his back door. She walked slowly, but gracefully, not stiff and jerky as he expected. She was dressed in a long white gown. She was almost beautiful, sort of mesmerizing. You could tell she had been beautiful at one time. As she approached the house, he saw that she was holding something in her arms. He leaned close to the window it was… a baby. Also bluish in color and barely moving. He became nauseated and filled with dread by the site of this. He watched as another figure emerged from the darkness, and another. He moved from the window into the shadow of the corner. He watched as the first girl approached the kitchen window and appeared to sniff at it. She stood there motionless. He went to his bedroom window. And saw another young woman, maybe twenty years old. She looked so much like the first girl. It was hard for him to look away. He ran to the bathroom window, he gasped as he peered out. It was Courtney, the Johnson’s daughter. Only not like, he had ever seen her; she looked like them now, cold, blue, and soulless. He ran to the living room and peeked between the shades, he saw Courtney’s parents, Mr. & Mrs. Johnson. They were all… dead. Mathew sat in the Living room floor. The more he looked at them, the harder it was for him to look away. They were captivating, but they where there to kill him. This he knew for sure. He could hear the scratching at the windows. His house was surrounded; he was in a state of shock and panic. He covered his ears and closed his eyes and tried to think of a plan. He decided that his only chance was to go to the front door where there was only one of them and try to run to his car. He stood at the door for a moment. All at once, he flung the door open and ran for his car. The first girl he had seen turned her head in a quick sharp motion noticing the movement. They all flocked towards him, moving much faster now. Mathew got to his car and jerked on the handle, LOCKED? NO! How could he have forgotten the keys? It was them, the tricks there faces played on his mind. He yelled for help as he was surrounded. He swung his fists as they closed in on him. Something inside him made him feel as though he was not fighting them off as hard as he could. But why? “There beauty was there curse and you woke them.” Mathew heard in his mind. Instead of his life flashing before his eyes as he thought it would. He thought only about events pertaining to the way he was about to die. He had always walked alone at night. He felt as if he had been lead into the woods. He felt as if they wanted him more than others. As he screamed from the pain of his flesh being torn away from his arm he thought of the death of that baby he had seen threw his window, and how it was people like him who had caused it. All of it. Non-believers.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
A Story of mine
Having Mercy
By Stormi Donnelly
He came from deep in the woods. Where there was nothing but he and his people. Some of them had been exiled. Banished from the villages and towns where there free ways of thinking were not accepted. There dark and mystical workings were feared. Some of there brutal behaviors invoked retaliation. Though it was a fate far better than the alternative. Many had been burned, stoned, drowned, and hung for refusing to leave or run and hide. They faced death out in the open, cursing the people who ran from oppression to spread more seeds of hate and intolerance, and the god that made them do it. Everyone in the village was accustomed to the sounds of torture. The snapping of necks in ropes, the gurgling and sputtering for air, the breaking of bones and the ripping of flesh from being drawn and quartered. The banished wandered the woods just across the river. You could catch a glimpse of the hooded figures on bright full moon lit nights. But it was forbidden to get close enough to the waters edge for that to be possible. It was on those nights that the executions were carried out and the banished gathered to hear the screams and morn those of there kind that gave there lives so that others could see. Mercy had seen this, not many had. No one went there, never across the river. But she had always been curious. Even still she felt for them, having been turned away from there homes and families.
They could since when someone was near, someone not of there own. She knew there was danger, but she also knew that the banished had all been warned, told to leave her to him. Donovon, the youngest son of a long past elder. They respected him, they listened. He knew they would never ask why. She crept threw the woods toward the base of the mountain. He appeared as if from thin air behind her, a cold dark glare on his face. He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and leaned into her. His massive frame covered her twice over. He looked like a demon, she looked like a doll. She still wore the scar from there first meeting, the blade he had held to her throat still vivid in her mind. This young woman, so fragile, so soft. He could hurt her. Indeed he wanted to. To be rid of her. He hated this girl. If she were gone he would not have to hide his transgressions. He looked down at her and she up at him. She smiled seemingly unaffected by the overt aggression and persistent hatred in his eyes. He sighed and leaned down to press his forehead to hers.
He thought about what her presence had done to him for the past year, how weak he felt around her. He wanted to put fear in her, to drive her away, to rip her tender flesh and leave her to die, blood soaked and writhing in agony on the forest floor for what she had done to him. So many other village girls had wandered to far from home and been ensnared by the web of the woods. No one would come for them, they knew that. They where made to be servants, whores, or sacrifices. He himself had defiled and even taken the lives of young women that Mercy would have called friend. He had raked his blade across countless necks, he so enjoyed the warm blood spilling down his arms and the begging, the crying, the pleading. There pain, so intense he could almost feel it inside himself. So why then could he not do what he desperately wanted to do to her, what he was raised and trained to do to “Those people” the ones who made him and his people what they were. How was she able to keep him at bay with a glance? Why when he looked into her eyes did he not see fear?
“Tell me something Mercy.” he whispered. “Do you fear pain? Do you fear death?” She tilted her head and replied, “It matters not if I fear these things here, I know in my soul that I will suffer no harm at your hands.” He stood up straight and looked away with a sigh. He knew in his soul that her words rang true. He could never harm her, had he the strength he would have already. He took her hand in his and lead her down the long narrow path around the base of the mountain. A path that they had walked together many times. He knew the way without steeling a glance. Down the steep hill into the thick of the woods. Down where the wind had arched the trees to the extreme left. They walked hand in hand, he stared at the ground and she at him. They were there again, he didn’t need to look to see, he knew. Back at the place where he took her when he could not fight his weakness for her. Where he let her make him smile, and laugh, and yearn for a life with her out of secret. Where he could take her in his arms, let her touch him, and they could roll together in the leaves. Where he told her he loved her and filled her with his seed, over and over. Where they spent there nights hiding from both there worlds, sinning against the gods of both of there people.
To many times to count. There was nothing else, just the two of them in there passion. They knew the consequence of there actions, she would be burnt as a witch by her people, and he buried alive for not killing one of “Those people”. More than once some of the villagers had seen Mercy wandering to close to the forbidden areas and she had been chastised for it. Locked in a small room in the church and forced to fast and pray for days for forgiveness for her disobedience. While in seclusion she thought of the things her lover had done, things that she had seen with her own eyes. Like when the farm boy had followed her into the woods and Donovon had leached out at him from a tree where he had been perched, waiting, the blade like claws that all his people wore on there fingers ripping the boys flesh from the side of his face, and the joyous look on Donovons face as the blood splattered across him, the way he licked his lips when the blood hit his mouth. But she always came back to him upon her release to revel in his embrace once more. Her people called it witchcraft, his people called it treason. He could never explain this away, nor could she, it had been to long, they were in to deep. Her people would try to kill him too no doubt, for defiling the innocent young women of there village. She was already close to trouble, some of the people felt she would corrupt the other young women. Little did they know, in there secret place, where all was safe, they had been found out.
Glacier, Donovons’ older brother had followed the two sets of foot prints in the loose soil down the slope to find with complete shock, his brother, in the trawls of ecstasy with this beautiful young woman. His brother had been mysteriously vanishing for hours at a time for over a year and refused angrily any request for explanation from anyone who dare inquire. He had seen the look on his brothers face while he was with her. He knew right away, exactly what was coming. He had heard the elders speak of there hatred for the village, and vow there vengeance for the death of so many of there people. He had heard the reverend preach his hatred of the banished, and how they should have been delivered for judgment to god rather than just sent away to spread there evil. For over thirty years the banished had been slaughtering the farmers livestock, defiling there young women, and tempting there youths. In retaliation the villagers had made a public spectacle of the pagan execution, screaming and taunting “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live!” This union would be a match to ignite a war.
The cold had just set in when her belly began to grow. She began making her cloths larger, she wore a long heavy cape that hung loose. She had just come out of a long seclusion, nearly a week she spent locked away for her inability to conform to the ideals of the family and church to which she had always belonged. She was whipped repeatedly and bound in a kneeling, praying position. As soon as she was released she went straight home and told her father that she needed more time to pray and fast before she could come out among the people. Her father was pleased, he felt as if this time his daughter truly would reform herself, something for which he had longed her whole life. A few moments after she went into her room her father came to give her a family bible for some inspiration. There he saw her climbing out the large window in her room. He became furious and began to scream that she would never see the light of day again, he would have her locked away forever as he stomped angrily from her room. Mercy could not bare this thought, she picked up her hand mirror from her chest and broke it on her bed post. She picked up a large broken shard and ran down the hall after him. She jumped on his back and dug the glass into his neck, over and over she flailed the glass across his throat until he stopped moving.
As soon as she realized what she had done she ran back down the hall and slid out the window and ran as fast as her cold bare feet could carry her. She found Donovon walking the woods, his face stained with despair. He had feared the worst. That something terrible had happened to his love. His blood boiled at the thought of what he would do to “those people”. He saw her running toward him, her nose and cheeks bright red from the sting of the cold wind. He ran to meet her and threw his arms around her. He lifted her to his face and kissed her deeply. He sat her back down to ask where she had been, what had happened, why had her gown been spattered with blood, he had so many questions. But before he could utter even one she grabbed his wrist with one hand and lifted her gown and cape with the other. She placed his hand on her swollen belly and whimpered. “Look what we’ve done.” Donovon looked shocked. Just then they heard a voice.
“The seed of evil planted in the soil of innocence” Donovon spun around to draw his blade. It was Glacier.
“And the deed of betrayal in the form of love” he continued as he walked, “Your bible sentences you to death and damnation for what grows inside you girl”. Donovon kept his hand on his blade, he never thought it would come to this, but he was ready to sleigh his own brother to protect his love. Glacier spoke softly as he drew nearer, “If I lunge you would bury that dagger to the hilt in my heart no doubt”. “But I have known of your indiscretion for quite some time, and you are not as innocent as you once were are you girl?” Donovon spoke out, “Then why until now have you remained silent on this matter”? “There is going to be a war little brother, this child, from this union, that should bring new peace, will bring death and it will rain hell upon us all at dusk… tonight”. Glacier insisted.
“How do you know this brother”? Donovon replied. Glacier continued, “The elders ordered a servant girl raped, murdered, and mutilated and left her on the church steps. The villagers ready there soldiers”.
“They thought the girl was Mercy, brother, you must hide her”. Donovons eyes widen, he looked to his love, the glow of the life inside her apparent all around her. “Take her to your hiding place, Kia will be there, she is gathering those who wish no part in this fight, Winter is doing the same with the villagers.”
Glacier ended as he walked away hastily. Donovon took Mercy by the hand a raced her down the path. They saw Kia sitting there inside the trees waiting for them. Kia was in line to be an elder, she was a healer, why was she doing this Donovon wondered. Donovon wrapped his arms around Mercy and kissed her passionately. “Stay here, the others will be here soon”. He said as he walked away. “Where are you going”? Mercy cried out. “This is our fate, I must defend it”. He ran into the woods before she could say another word.
Mercy paced around weeping for several minutes. Then they heard it. Men with cycles, bows, sabers and stones from the east, shouting curses of hatred, oppression and vengeance. Men with crossbows, pitchforks, and muskets from the west, and there cries of revenge, cleansing, and evil. It had begun.
The others who wanted no part in the fight had begun to arrive as well. They could see the flicker of the torches threw the trees, they could hear the clang of the blades, the shots fired, and the screams of pain.
Where was Donovon? Mercy looked at a young boy holding a dagger hiding with them, she knelt beside him and asked him gently if she could use it for a little while. The child nodded and Mercy took the dagger and placed it in the waist tie of her cape. She grabbed a torch and slipped out the back and headed toward her village, away from the fighting. Once she had reached the church, the place where she had been starved, beaten, and locked away so many times. She walked threw the front door and picked up a lantern from the high table by the door. She threw it at the pulpit where that reverend had filled so many heads with lies. She took the torch and set fire to the drapes. She walked away watching the women and children left behind there scatter in fear. She then walked to her own home and did the same.
The fire spread quickly threw the village, the hay, the dried leaves, it all went up in flames.
She stood by the river bank watching the flames in a trance like state, the crackle of the roaring fire in front of her and the swords banging and muskets firing in back. They all deserve to die she thought, everyone here, all bigots, rapists, killers, or cowards. But then maybe so do I, I’m no better, she thought to herself.
She sat on the ground in the dark, dagger in hand for several hours. The flames and anger raged all around her. As the dawn approached and the senders dwindled, she took the foot bridge back across the river to the woods. When she reached the top of the hill, it was a blood bath. The ground littered with bodies, some dead, some on there way. Less then a half a dozen men still stood. In one night the two colonies had wiped themselves out. Themselves or each other, no matter now.
As she walked the battle field looking for Donovon a man reached up and grabbed her leg, “Help… Me” he sputtered blood on her foot. She leaned down and took the mans hand, with one quick thrust she gave him the only help she could. She slit his throat and ended his suffering. She continued down the path thinking how it dose get easier every time. There in the path nearly to the hiding place she saw Glacier consoling Donovon. She walked to them slowly. Donovon looked up quickly hearing her feet in the leaves, he gasped out and scooped her up in his arms. He buried his face in her neck and whispered “I knew you weren’t dead, I thought they had taken you”. She looked into his eyes, he could see what she had done.
At the end of all the blood, smoke, and ashes there were 18 people left, people that would one day be the same as the others, just as she had been. And no one was sure what they had saved.
By Stormi Donnelly
He came from deep in the woods. Where there was nothing but he and his people. Some of them had been exiled. Banished from the villages and towns where there free ways of thinking were not accepted. There dark and mystical workings were feared. Some of there brutal behaviors invoked retaliation. Though it was a fate far better than the alternative. Many had been burned, stoned, drowned, and hung for refusing to leave or run and hide. They faced death out in the open, cursing the people who ran from oppression to spread more seeds of hate and intolerance, and the god that made them do it. Everyone in the village was accustomed to the sounds of torture. The snapping of necks in ropes, the gurgling and sputtering for air, the breaking of bones and the ripping of flesh from being drawn and quartered. The banished wandered the woods just across the river. You could catch a glimpse of the hooded figures on bright full moon lit nights. But it was forbidden to get close enough to the waters edge for that to be possible. It was on those nights that the executions were carried out and the banished gathered to hear the screams and morn those of there kind that gave there lives so that others could see. Mercy had seen this, not many had. No one went there, never across the river. But she had always been curious. Even still she felt for them, having been turned away from there homes and families.
They could since when someone was near, someone not of there own. She knew there was danger, but she also knew that the banished had all been warned, told to leave her to him. Donovon, the youngest son of a long past elder. They respected him, they listened. He knew they would never ask why. She crept threw the woods toward the base of the mountain. He appeared as if from thin air behind her, a cold dark glare on his face. He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and leaned into her. His massive frame covered her twice over. He looked like a demon, she looked like a doll. She still wore the scar from there first meeting, the blade he had held to her throat still vivid in her mind. This young woman, so fragile, so soft. He could hurt her. Indeed he wanted to. To be rid of her. He hated this girl. If she were gone he would not have to hide his transgressions. He looked down at her and she up at him. She smiled seemingly unaffected by the overt aggression and persistent hatred in his eyes. He sighed and leaned down to press his forehead to hers.
He thought about what her presence had done to him for the past year, how weak he felt around her. He wanted to put fear in her, to drive her away, to rip her tender flesh and leave her to die, blood soaked and writhing in agony on the forest floor for what she had done to him. So many other village girls had wandered to far from home and been ensnared by the web of the woods. No one would come for them, they knew that. They where made to be servants, whores, or sacrifices. He himself had defiled and even taken the lives of young women that Mercy would have called friend. He had raked his blade across countless necks, he so enjoyed the warm blood spilling down his arms and the begging, the crying, the pleading. There pain, so intense he could almost feel it inside himself. So why then could he not do what he desperately wanted to do to her, what he was raised and trained to do to “Those people” the ones who made him and his people what they were. How was she able to keep him at bay with a glance? Why when he looked into her eyes did he not see fear?
“Tell me something Mercy.” he whispered. “Do you fear pain? Do you fear death?” She tilted her head and replied, “It matters not if I fear these things here, I know in my soul that I will suffer no harm at your hands.” He stood up straight and looked away with a sigh. He knew in his soul that her words rang true. He could never harm her, had he the strength he would have already. He took her hand in his and lead her down the long narrow path around the base of the mountain. A path that they had walked together many times. He knew the way without steeling a glance. Down the steep hill into the thick of the woods. Down where the wind had arched the trees to the extreme left. They walked hand in hand, he stared at the ground and she at him. They were there again, he didn’t need to look to see, he knew. Back at the place where he took her when he could not fight his weakness for her. Where he let her make him smile, and laugh, and yearn for a life with her out of secret. Where he could take her in his arms, let her touch him, and they could roll together in the leaves. Where he told her he loved her and filled her with his seed, over and over. Where they spent there nights hiding from both there worlds, sinning against the gods of both of there people.
To many times to count. There was nothing else, just the two of them in there passion. They knew the consequence of there actions, she would be burnt as a witch by her people, and he buried alive for not killing one of “Those people”. More than once some of the villagers had seen Mercy wandering to close to the forbidden areas and she had been chastised for it. Locked in a small room in the church and forced to fast and pray for days for forgiveness for her disobedience. While in seclusion she thought of the things her lover had done, things that she had seen with her own eyes. Like when the farm boy had followed her into the woods and Donovon had leached out at him from a tree where he had been perched, waiting, the blade like claws that all his people wore on there fingers ripping the boys flesh from the side of his face, and the joyous look on Donovons face as the blood splattered across him, the way he licked his lips when the blood hit his mouth. But she always came back to him upon her release to revel in his embrace once more. Her people called it witchcraft, his people called it treason. He could never explain this away, nor could she, it had been to long, they were in to deep. Her people would try to kill him too no doubt, for defiling the innocent young women of there village. She was already close to trouble, some of the people felt she would corrupt the other young women. Little did they know, in there secret place, where all was safe, they had been found out.
Glacier, Donovons’ older brother had followed the two sets of foot prints in the loose soil down the slope to find with complete shock, his brother, in the trawls of ecstasy with this beautiful young woman. His brother had been mysteriously vanishing for hours at a time for over a year and refused angrily any request for explanation from anyone who dare inquire. He had seen the look on his brothers face while he was with her. He knew right away, exactly what was coming. He had heard the elders speak of there hatred for the village, and vow there vengeance for the death of so many of there people. He had heard the reverend preach his hatred of the banished, and how they should have been delivered for judgment to god rather than just sent away to spread there evil. For over thirty years the banished had been slaughtering the farmers livestock, defiling there young women, and tempting there youths. In retaliation the villagers had made a public spectacle of the pagan execution, screaming and taunting “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live!” This union would be a match to ignite a war.
The cold had just set in when her belly began to grow. She began making her cloths larger, she wore a long heavy cape that hung loose. She had just come out of a long seclusion, nearly a week she spent locked away for her inability to conform to the ideals of the family and church to which she had always belonged. She was whipped repeatedly and bound in a kneeling, praying position. As soon as she was released she went straight home and told her father that she needed more time to pray and fast before she could come out among the people. Her father was pleased, he felt as if this time his daughter truly would reform herself, something for which he had longed her whole life. A few moments after she went into her room her father came to give her a family bible for some inspiration. There he saw her climbing out the large window in her room. He became furious and began to scream that she would never see the light of day again, he would have her locked away forever as he stomped angrily from her room. Mercy could not bare this thought, she picked up her hand mirror from her chest and broke it on her bed post. She picked up a large broken shard and ran down the hall after him. She jumped on his back and dug the glass into his neck, over and over she flailed the glass across his throat until he stopped moving.
As soon as she realized what she had done she ran back down the hall and slid out the window and ran as fast as her cold bare feet could carry her. She found Donovon walking the woods, his face stained with despair. He had feared the worst. That something terrible had happened to his love. His blood boiled at the thought of what he would do to “those people”. He saw her running toward him, her nose and cheeks bright red from the sting of the cold wind. He ran to meet her and threw his arms around her. He lifted her to his face and kissed her deeply. He sat her back down to ask where she had been, what had happened, why had her gown been spattered with blood, he had so many questions. But before he could utter even one she grabbed his wrist with one hand and lifted her gown and cape with the other. She placed his hand on her swollen belly and whimpered. “Look what we’ve done.” Donovon looked shocked. Just then they heard a voice.
“The seed of evil planted in the soil of innocence” Donovon spun around to draw his blade. It was Glacier.
“And the deed of betrayal in the form of love” he continued as he walked, “Your bible sentences you to death and damnation for what grows inside you girl”. Donovon kept his hand on his blade, he never thought it would come to this, but he was ready to sleigh his own brother to protect his love. Glacier spoke softly as he drew nearer, “If I lunge you would bury that dagger to the hilt in my heart no doubt”. “But I have known of your indiscretion for quite some time, and you are not as innocent as you once were are you girl?” Donovon spoke out, “Then why until now have you remained silent on this matter”? “There is going to be a war little brother, this child, from this union, that should bring new peace, will bring death and it will rain hell upon us all at dusk… tonight”. Glacier insisted.
“How do you know this brother”? Donovon replied. Glacier continued, “The elders ordered a servant girl raped, murdered, and mutilated and left her on the church steps. The villagers ready there soldiers”.
“They thought the girl was Mercy, brother, you must hide her”. Donovons eyes widen, he looked to his love, the glow of the life inside her apparent all around her. “Take her to your hiding place, Kia will be there, she is gathering those who wish no part in this fight, Winter is doing the same with the villagers.”
Glacier ended as he walked away hastily. Donovon took Mercy by the hand a raced her down the path. They saw Kia sitting there inside the trees waiting for them. Kia was in line to be an elder, she was a healer, why was she doing this Donovon wondered. Donovon wrapped his arms around Mercy and kissed her passionately. “Stay here, the others will be here soon”. He said as he walked away. “Where are you going”? Mercy cried out. “This is our fate, I must defend it”. He ran into the woods before she could say another word.
Mercy paced around weeping for several minutes. Then they heard it. Men with cycles, bows, sabers and stones from the east, shouting curses of hatred, oppression and vengeance. Men with crossbows, pitchforks, and muskets from the west, and there cries of revenge, cleansing, and evil. It had begun.
The others who wanted no part in the fight had begun to arrive as well. They could see the flicker of the torches threw the trees, they could hear the clang of the blades, the shots fired, and the screams of pain.
Where was Donovon? Mercy looked at a young boy holding a dagger hiding with them, she knelt beside him and asked him gently if she could use it for a little while. The child nodded and Mercy took the dagger and placed it in the waist tie of her cape. She grabbed a torch and slipped out the back and headed toward her village, away from the fighting. Once she had reached the church, the place where she had been starved, beaten, and locked away so many times. She walked threw the front door and picked up a lantern from the high table by the door. She threw it at the pulpit where that reverend had filled so many heads with lies. She took the torch and set fire to the drapes. She walked away watching the women and children left behind there scatter in fear. She then walked to her own home and did the same.
The fire spread quickly threw the village, the hay, the dried leaves, it all went up in flames.
She stood by the river bank watching the flames in a trance like state, the crackle of the roaring fire in front of her and the swords banging and muskets firing in back. They all deserve to die she thought, everyone here, all bigots, rapists, killers, or cowards. But then maybe so do I, I’m no better, she thought to herself.
She sat on the ground in the dark, dagger in hand for several hours. The flames and anger raged all around her. As the dawn approached and the senders dwindled, she took the foot bridge back across the river to the woods. When she reached the top of the hill, it was a blood bath. The ground littered with bodies, some dead, some on there way. Less then a half a dozen men still stood. In one night the two colonies had wiped themselves out. Themselves or each other, no matter now.
As she walked the battle field looking for Donovon a man reached up and grabbed her leg, “Help… Me” he sputtered blood on her foot. She leaned down and took the mans hand, with one quick thrust she gave him the only help she could. She slit his throat and ended his suffering. She continued down the path thinking how it dose get easier every time. There in the path nearly to the hiding place she saw Glacier consoling Donovon. She walked to them slowly. Donovon looked up quickly hearing her feet in the leaves, he gasped out and scooped her up in his arms. He buried his face in her neck and whispered “I knew you weren’t dead, I thought they had taken you”. She looked into his eyes, he could see what she had done.
At the end of all the blood, smoke, and ashes there were 18 people left, people that would one day be the same as the others, just as she had been. And no one was sure what they had saved.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Friends?
I tend to be very choosy about who I befriend. I am a very jealous person and a woman needs only glance at my husband in a way I would deem as inappropriate in any fashion and I am likely to fly into a fit of rage. In addition I am not a fan of fake people. I don’t feel as though they could ever be my friends because you never really know them, only what they want you to know, which is usually farthest from the truth. But now I am having difficulty communicating with people that are supposed to be my friends. I feel as though I am neglecting or depriving myself of intellectual stimulation of any kind simply by the company I keep. The friend that I spend the most time with presently had a vocabulary of maybe fifty words and most of them are vulgarities. I said the word “condiment” the other day and her response was “he he you said condom.” my 15 and 17 year old step children can hold a more scholarly conversation then her and she is 25 years old. I have one friend that dose not make me feel as though my IQ is dropping with every visit, my neighbor, and she has been so busy lately that we have had very little time to spend together. Is it really so much to ask to be granted a few friends that are not licentious or stupid?
Saturday, September 5, 2009
The Manson Family 40 years later.
Ok so my first rant is going to be about something that i probably know a bit to much about.
Starting out on August 8th and 9th of this year (2009) was the 40th anniversary of the Tate/Labianca murders committed by the infamous Manson family. One week later Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme the most avid follower of Charles Manson was released from The Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, after the 1975 attempted assassination of then president Gerald Ford. Though it was secret service agents who subdued her and took the loaded weapon from her since there was no bullet in the chamber she was given life with the possibility of parole. On the 16th of August that possibility became a reality. It was speculated that she never really intended to kill the president but was merely attempting to lunge Manson's name back into the headlines. She was obviously idolized by much of the family after Charlies incarceration as she was openly his favorite of them all. She has since been idolized by another icon. She was named as "The hot Manson chick" in the Rob Zombie film "House of 1000 Corpses" and the lines in the movie recited by Baby Firefly (Sherri Moon Zombie) "What ever needs to be done, You do it. There is no wrong. If somebody needs to be killed, you kill em' " were actually taken from the opening lines of a 1973 documentary on the Manson family staring several of the original family members.
17 days after Squeakys realease, on September the 2nd, Susan Atkins AKA Sadie May Gluts one member of the Manson family that was personally responsible for the brutal stabbing death of actress Sharron Tate and her unborn child was denied medical clemency having terminal brain cancer. The actual brutality of the murder was so terrible it really isn't surprising that she is still so horribly thought of. Sharron Tate was forced to watch her friends die before being strangled and then stabbed 16 times. But the media saturation was I believe due to her fame. She was young, beautiful, rich, and famous. An actresses fame that overshadowed what was really going on at that time. The police and citizens of California wanted to believe that it was drugs, devil worshipers, and scape goat they could find really. However after the eventual apprehension of the Manson family it was Susan Atkins bragging to her cell mates that ultimately lead the police to the evidence they needed for convictions. And though later in life Atkins claimed to be so under the influence of LDS, Belladonna, ect... and under the influence of Manson himself that she bairly remembered much of the 2 years she spent with Charlie. After doing work with churches and writing books and claiming to be a born agin Christian she never officially appoligized to the victoms families.
My problem with the situation is that i believe the reason Squeaky was freed and Sadie was not is because it was a much more public spectacle and much more media saturated when Sharron Tate died than when Squeaky tried to kill the president. Now my sister disagrees with me on the fact the one cost 2 lives, the other on ALMOST cost 1. I understand that point but I firmly believe if it had been a poor nameless person instead of Sharron Tate, that Sadie would have been free before Squeaky. Everything in life depends on what level of expendable you are. And had it been some junky prostitute instead of a movie star they probably would have never even broke a sweat looking for the killers.
Anyways i may add more later.
Starting out on August 8th and 9th of this year (2009) was the 40th anniversary of the Tate/Labianca murders committed by the infamous Manson family. One week later Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme the most avid follower of Charles Manson was released from The Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, after the 1975 attempted assassination of then president Gerald Ford. Though it was secret service agents who subdued her and took the loaded weapon from her since there was no bullet in the chamber she was given life with the possibility of parole. On the 16th of August that possibility became a reality. It was speculated that she never really intended to kill the president but was merely attempting to lunge Manson's name back into the headlines. She was obviously idolized by much of the family after Charlies incarceration as she was openly his favorite of them all. She has since been idolized by another icon. She was named as "The hot Manson chick" in the Rob Zombie film "House of 1000 Corpses" and the lines in the movie recited by Baby Firefly (Sherri Moon Zombie) "What ever needs to be done, You do it. There is no wrong. If somebody needs to be killed, you kill em' " were actually taken from the opening lines of a 1973 documentary on the Manson family staring several of the original family members.
17 days after Squeakys realease, on September the 2nd, Susan Atkins AKA Sadie May Gluts one member of the Manson family that was personally responsible for the brutal stabbing death of actress Sharron Tate and her unborn child was denied medical clemency having terminal brain cancer. The actual brutality of the murder was so terrible it really isn't surprising that she is still so horribly thought of. Sharron Tate was forced to watch her friends die before being strangled and then stabbed 16 times. But the media saturation was I believe due to her fame. She was young, beautiful, rich, and famous. An actresses fame that overshadowed what was really going on at that time. The police and citizens of California wanted to believe that it was drugs, devil worshipers, and scape goat they could find really. However after the eventual apprehension of the Manson family it was Susan Atkins bragging to her cell mates that ultimately lead the police to the evidence they needed for convictions. And though later in life Atkins claimed to be so under the influence of LDS, Belladonna, ect... and under the influence of Manson himself that she bairly remembered much of the 2 years she spent with Charlie. After doing work with churches and writing books and claiming to be a born agin Christian she never officially appoligized to the victoms families.
My problem with the situation is that i believe the reason Squeaky was freed and Sadie was not is because it was a much more public spectacle and much more media saturated when Sharron Tate died than when Squeaky tried to kill the president. Now my sister disagrees with me on the fact the one cost 2 lives, the other on ALMOST cost 1. I understand that point but I firmly believe if it had been a poor nameless person instead of Sharron Tate, that Sadie would have been free before Squeaky. Everything in life depends on what level of expendable you are. And had it been some junky prostitute instead of a movie star they probably would have never even broke a sweat looking for the killers.
Anyways i may add more later.
Dedication
This blog was suggested and inspired by my darling hubby and sweet tech savvy sissy!
MUAH! Love you guys
MUAH! Love you guys
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