The following is an excerpt from the short horror story “Under the Skin”, which is featured in the collection Blood, Magic & a Concubine. It is available through Smashwords, Kindle, Nook, Diesel, Xinxii , ibooks and at other online sellers. Be warned: you will find a bit of graphic content in the story.
“Under the Skin” – excerpt
Randall Kagan ached. A rotten, soreness crept over him as he woke and his eyes adjusted to the motel room’s darkness. His muscles felt as though they were trying to knit themselves back together, ripped fiber by ripped fiber. As he edged closer to wakefulness, he realized that a sticky glaze covered his pained body and aching fingers. The scent of blood and flesh crept into his nostrils and seeped into his brain.
“Jesus, not again,” he whispered into the blackness. He sat up quickly and flicked on the small table lamp next to the ratty bed. A bloody stump, a slender thumb with a painted blue nail rolled from his chest down to the blood soaked bed sheets.
His heart beat faster, thrumming in his chest and keeping almost perfect time with the steady flicker from the lamp’s pale light. He panned the room and saw the fullness of the atrocity and the horrors that he didn’t remember committing.
A bloody smiley face grinned down at him from the far wall. Intestines lay draped around the television and dresser like strands of tinsel on a Christmas tree. The rest of the dead girl’s body lay in pieces here and there around the room.
Kagan leaned over the side of the bed and vomited. How could a person do these things and not remember? He’d asked the familiar question a thousand times over the last two months. The answer was in front of him every time he stepped in front of a mirror. He’d peered into himself and seen the monster; he’d gazed upon the anatomy of the terrible that made a home deep within his wretched mind. He could feel it, the thing within, writhing inside of him even now, wanting to be let out to play. Even worse, he could feel them calling to him, pulling him somewhere.
The desert.
The desert had been calling him ever since the killings began. Even Ahiga, Doli’s grandfather had told Kagan that he needed to go into the desert and that it might be the one place that could purify him.
It didn’t make sense to Kagan, but none of what was happening really did. The blackouts, the murders, the crimson eyes watching in his dreams whenever he dared fall asleep… it was all the workings of a crazy mind, he feared. If the desert didn’t bring answers, he hoped that it might at least be able to grant him death.
He glanced at the clock – two in the morning. It was still early and that was good. He needed to make a stop in Albuquerque to say goodbye to his sister and then he would listen to the voices within that urged him into the wilderness. He had to move fast too. The law was after him. Every cop and meter maid in the West probably knew his face by now and he didn’t figure shaving his head had provided him with much of a disguise.
He turned off the lamp so he wouldn’t have to look at the mess.
To find out what Kagan discovers in the desert, you can head to one of the retailers above and grab the collection. It’s currently only 99 cents, and I truly appreciate it!
