The Foul Smell of Whores (finale)

"Put it down; don't touch it!" I yelled to him.

My pleas fell on deaf ears, and this glittering diamond became a spiked sphere that shot its quills into his eyes. A shrill scream pierced my eardrums as he tried his best to pull the awls out of his eyes. The blood trickled down his cheeks and the streams of crimson intertwined with each other, creating a series of eights down his neck. It was beautiful--in an odd sort of way. I must admit, there was an art to murder, and though I could not fathom taking a living soul, a part of me desired to administer fine strokes upon a milk-white canvas. He could not pull the objects from his eyes; he resorted to taking his pinky fingers and proceeded to dig like a dog. All I could remember was the sound of grunting and the intense exhalation of breath. I prayed that shock would induce coma, leaving him dead in his slumber. Unfortunately, there was no such peace for him, and his fingers dug deep into his oculus and pulled these thorns from below.

"It will be okay! I'm going to get you to a doctor!"

Did I say these words? I did not believe what escaped my breath. I made my way on hands and knees toward him; my vomit was still lukewarm from my stomach, and on a cold night as such, the feeling of warmth on my ice, cold hands felt like relief. He writhed in pain holding his eyes. For some unknown reason, I extended my arm toward him, with the hope that I could reach out and touch his shoulder. I knew that there was no possible way, but I wanted to defy logic and science. I was afraid. I was afraid of what was next, for I knew the consequence of taunting this foul whore of Satan.

"It hurts so badly! I can feel my nerves; I can feel everything, and I want it to stop!"

"You mustn't thrash! You need to keep pressure on the wounds, please!

I made my way to him. His flesh was becoming cold from his life slipping away. It would not be long before he bled to death, and I would remain alone.

"Shh," I tried my best to console him, "place your hands harder on the wound. Keep the pressure so that you may not bleed."

His blindness looked toward me. There was a discomfort about knowing that he could only discern the sound in my voice. I asked myself if there was truth in gaining more strength in one sense in the loss of one. Perhaps I would never know, but it was clear that he knew where to turn his head.

"Am I to die? Will I live past the night?"

What could I say? I could not lie to him.

"You will most likely die, but before you slumber into the darkness, it's best to have a little light with you to brave the path alone."

If tears could fall, they might have, but the lack of eyes in his sockets forbade him from such, and I hovered my hand over his head to ease his pain. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this ball of light once more. I backed away from the light and fled into the shadow once more. The fire burned harder, despite the onset of winter. It was during this time of year when the frost covered the land in eternal darkness and winter. I felt warm, but I knew as soon as the fire dwindled, hypothermia would set in and kill me, if not the witch's gift unto us.

"It's going to become cold, boy. Best you think about food, shelter, and survival."

"Who goes there!"

This thing spoke as if it knew my fears. It fluttered its way back to its origins within the beast. What was a white light became a red glow, and as quick as it had appeared, it was just as quick to vanish.

"Hello..."

There were no words. There was only the sound of the fire crackling in the background, and the last remnants of human skin burning to ash.

No owls hooted; no loons screamed into the night. The wilderness around me stared at me in my solitude, and for the first time in my life, I was afraid; petrified was not the word to describe what I felt, but it was accurate in the fact that my body had refused to move an inch.

"Does the silence make your skin crawl? The feeling of fingers touching your skin and caressing the hairs is nothing compared to the soul penetrating your skin."

"Who goes there!"

My heart thumped in my chest like a war drum. The sound of the fire was diminishing as the last flames dwindled into smoldering ash. The chill of the night blew through the trees and put out the light. Like a child, I was left alone, stranded, and I was becoming cold. My companion was silent now. I had presumed he had succumbed to his wounds, but the faint pulse in his neck deduced that he was still alive. I felt pity, but maybe he felt no pain. Perhaps his hanging nerves that slumped over his cheekbones stopped sending signals to the brain.

The whore's body was now a black skeleton that looked like charred reptile. I could not make out much in front of my eyes, but I was scarred with the sight of what was, and the smell of pustules, intestines, and the bile of liver pulled at the hairs in my nostrils. I made my way past my companion--crawling on hands and knees. Things pushed in-between my fingers and I dared not look down. I knew that the sensation of popped grapes, with each move of my hand, was more than likely a kidney, or a pancreas that had escaped my companion's crushed bodies.

My stomach started growling, "Evil is the man that has gluttonous thoughts."

That's what I told myself. How on this earth could I crave nourishment, during such a scene of carnage?

"...boy..."

I quickly turned, "who goes there!"

Alas, there was nothing; and again, I was pit with the horrible reality of isolation. Suddenly, I felt a tickle in my ear. I put my finger inside my ear canal to remove a misplaced hair. It was not hair. My god, what was it? It was irritating me so terribly that the tickle began to turn into an itch. The itch penetrated deeper into my ear, and I practically buried my finger so deep that I could feel my uncut fingernails cutting skin. My ear bled out as I tried and tried to sate my irritation.

"Careful those sinful thoughts become an earworm..."

I did not speak. I could only focus on the sensation ever-growing inside my ear. I turned my back away from the emptiness of the woods and looked back. I expected to see a reptilian-beast--ashen, dead, and petrified. My eyes deceived me, for there was nothing but a lone pole erect in the darkness. The wood was cindered as it was before, but my god...the whore...it was nothing but the foul smell of whores.

"O, God! My GOD!"

Blood spurted out of my ear like a cannon. I cupped my ear in hopes that the bleeding would subside. No such thing existed, and I felt something exit my ear as quickly as it had entered. My body hunched over in pain, and I could not muster the strength to get up. My companion continued to lay lifeless on the ground. His pitiful sight was like Christ in surrounded by Peter and the thieves. Selfishly, I could not care in those moments. I felt the wriggling of something squirming from the canal. In a last-ditch effort, I pulled this--this thing--from my ear.

"But by God, what is this foul devilry!" I cried out in pain.

It was not a worm; nor was this thing anything of my comprehension. It whipped violently around like an annelid, but its disproportionate form glowed like woodland firefly. The veins inside it pumped what appeared to be blood to its back end. The suctioning black mouth was pumping my blood through its system.

"Damn you!" I gathered my wits and stood.

I stomped this vile atrocity into the ground. The ground was hard as ice from the onset of winter. I held my ear in pain. The warmth of my own blood felt like relief as the temperature around me began to drop.

The pangs in my stomach refused to subside. I crawled my way back to my companion, after this abomination slithered its way out of my ear. The cold ground below me was now saturated with my own blood. I no longer felt the appetite to watch the human body bend beyond the limits of physics...but now...now...I just wanted to eat.

"Rest now," I whispered to him.

I placed my hand over his faint heartbeat. The shallow breathing was rhythmic, pastoral; it was almost...intoxicating. My stomach growled. The snow began to fall, blanketing the carnage around me. Flecks of white fell to the earth and turned to the color of a rose. I could feel my lips starting to become wet from salivation. The voice that asked me to eat was nagging at me from behind, and I could not recant what had happened.

"Was this just a dream?"

No, how could it be? I could still feel the warmth of my comrade's urine on the ground. Even an intellectual as I could not fathom the act of a grown man pissing and defecating on himself. Did they feel embarrassment? Perhaps I will never know, but one wonders in those final moments if shame is a player. I removed my hand from the shallow beating of a dying heart.

I teased the rim of his orbitals with my finger, "You bleed a lot, I have not smelled such a fragrant aroma as such."

My face lowered, lowered; it lowered until I found myself prodding raw nerve with the tip of my tongue. My companion's grunts were but a failed attempt at stopping me. I cared little for his disposition toward me, and truthfully, the taste of blood on my tongue was as sweet as ambrosia tapping my uvula.

"Just one taste," it was suggestive in appearance, placing my tongue inside his absence of eyes.

I found my disgrace now nose deep inside his face. The feeling of bone grinding against bone felt good. I bared my teeth like a coyote and began gnawing on exposed veins, blood vessels, and tugged at loose nerve. The convulsions in his body were presumed to be his last attempts at life, but even if they weren't I delighted in the feast.

"God, forgive me, but I must eat."

I said a prayer in my head, but God had no part in this treachery against fellowship and man. My teeth began sawing into tough flesh; I tasted my friend's flesh as if it were my last meal on earth--and perhaps it was. Perhaps, this final act of debauchery would be the last meal my taste buds would caress. I pulled his meaty skin up with my incisors and watched how it detached like the threading of cloth. It was beautiful; the splatter of blood across the snow, and the mastication of warm meat was lovely.

"Are you but a liar among friends?"

My perched position relaxed, "You were not there, foul beast!"

"I am no more beast than you...boy. Do you enjoy tasting the flesh of the helpless?"

I turned my attention back toward my cohort who was now nothing more than a pile of chewed meat, sinew, and nerve. He appeared to look like my grandmother's meatloaf, before shaping and baking. A part of me felt sick and I knew deep down that my regurgitation would not be an innocent breakfast, but the remains of my friend.

"I was hungry...the taste of his skin...it was--"

"--delicious? Insatiable? And you can have more, but you must free me, boy."

I crawled on hands and knees towards this glowing, red mist that hovered over the snow like a whore's red light. What was nothing more than a smell was now an illumination that lulled the most hardened man to sleep. My hands felt numb to the touch, but I clambered to this once scorching pyre. Betwixt and between, my fingers grasped branches that were as old as the forest itself. I made my way to my feet and stood before this hovering rose.

"Is desire not as luscious as the Picasso lily that curves like a woman's body?"

Her words sounded like honey falling from the comb. I knew deep down that a swarm of bees would be sure to follow, but I could not resist the soft tones of this whore.

"As luscious as the words she speaks."

I found myself laying down on this cold pyre. The snow fell harder atop everything that had happened. In the blink of an eye, everything seemed to fall into silence, and all was made anew again. I gripped the pike with my hands. It was as cold as ice, but my hands were already numb to feeling--much like my emotions and wits.

I settled myself on cold limbs and closed my eyes. "When I awake, shall I be as warm as the sun, with a belly full of a feast?"

"You'll be exactly where you need to be..."

My eyes squeezed tighter, and I swear... I could feel the warmth of the summer soon beaming down on me. It was so warm and inviting--I felt like I was that child again, before burning witches and their foul presence. The sun was so intense, though. I held my hand in the sky and shielded myself from the rays.

"Aye, this is like a dream, but I'm starting to become hot."

My skin was turning red from the intensity. I could feel myself itching at the sensation of my nerves going into override. My eyes struggled to open. All I could feel was my eyelashes becoming glued together, preventing me from opening my eyes.

I smelled smoke, and that smell of roasted pork became all too clear again. My eyes tore open, and I was now tied to the pole.

"Oh, God, no! No! Help! Someone help me, please!!!"

The rope that bound me was rubbing into my melted skin. Though the flames were before my ankles, the ferocity of the flame caused the heat to intensify--boiling me like a potato. My eyes were beginning to burn from the smoke and my lips were starting to feel like gelatin smacking between fingers. I looked out into the cold, dark forest and yearned for the relief of it. A small, red glow bounced across the night breeze nonchalantly. Its mellow demeanor hovered above the ground where I once feasted, and before I could watch its descent into the icy ground, I could feel my eyes turn to soup.

I was blind. I was in pain, burning alive, and feeling every ounce of pain rush through my body at a million miles per hour. I was becoming a human barbeque, and all I could remember was the smell of foul whores.

"Metamorphosis at its finest. The caterpillar that falls from its chrysalis begins its transformation into that beautiful butterfly."

I knew the voice. It was this whore, this creature of some world beyond our own. Her words were louder, more vicious and in my face. She had come back--or so I believed. Her soul penetrated mine, and the worm that escaped my ear was indeed her vessel, from which she would return to exact revenge. I was dying, and along with my death, this witch would continue living out the rest of her days in the forest. She would snatch her children, have her way with innocents, and live a life away from the village. And, without the safety of our fellowship, she would bring the terror of the Devil himself.

Before my last thoughts, I remembered my companions and their smashed skulls. I remembered eating my friend alive and still having pieces of his skin stuck in between my teeth. My last, dying memory would be vile acts of evil, and my fellowship ascending to heaven.

...I saw the Devil in front of me, and his hand extended to mine. I watched the souls of my kin pass by us as their heads hung with disbelief. My soul knelt before my melted corpse. I looked up at the Devil himself and my heart sank with grief.

He spoke in a calm tone and held out his hand to reveal fresh meat.

"What say you, human?"

I looked up at him, and with a desperation in my tone, I could only think of one thing:

"May I please eat?"