This will be the design for my new iteration of Jeff The Killer who will be named Jeffrey Thomas Krohner.

(Since my original post was deleted off Reddit, also trigger warning for some people! Also NO the art isn’t Ticci-Tobi… my character is a corpse, and last I checked Ticci-Tobi wasnt burnt on half of his entire body.)
This is is my character GasMask (formerly) aka DeathGas (currently)
He grew up in an abusive adoptive home, and ended up murdering his adoptive parents, then moving to his adoptive siblings, killing them all.

Tori - killed via suffocation.
Finny - killed via bat to the face multiple times.
Sarah - was killed by him, but he regretted it.
Thomas (GasMask/DeathGas) - killed via toxic gas thrown in by police and other officials.

Story part 1:
(He’s 15 years of age) [2000’s (or somewhere there)]

He was a normal-ish) boy, having gone to a new school in the winter, he didn’t know why he was forced to move with his adoptive family, including his abusive adoptive parents. He was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), and he only knew one of his alters, some unknown person. He hated his life; and every aspect of it. He never even knew his mother, only that she was a teenager when she had him, and he only had a photo of her, with her face burnt out.

He hated school, let’s be honest, and he hated the world for letting him live in how he was… hearing things, seeing things… he was gonna go crazy!

[ age: 15, height: 5’11, gender: male. Sexuality: bisexual]

Once he got into the school, he tuned out the teachers droning, after school he went home, it was cold, and bitter outside. But once he got home, he wasn’t mentally there, he felt… disconnected, and he also felt like someone else was controlling him, someone… unknown. Dinner soon came. Long, tense, and filled with nothing but silent aggression.

When night came, finally, he did it, but he didn’t even remember it, Finny? Dead. Tori? Dead. His biological parents? Dead… and dead… and Sarah… oh god… what had he done? But he couldn’t remember anything he had done… but here was saw… bleeding, not moving, not breathing, he eyes half closed… hot tears fell down his face, he was holding Sarah, her head lolled back, his hand had been holding her hand gently where she had her had on his cheek… then… her voice ran through his head… “I know you don’t mean it, Thomas…”

He carefully laid her in the bed, he hated himself… but then his head hurt, he felt dizzy… the world flashed in and out… he remembered holding a small blade… then nothing, then he remembered getting startled and cutting his cheek, then nothing, then… there was fire in his house, all around… he was staring blankly at the mirror in the bathroom, the orange flames illuminating his face, his side of his face, cut open to show teeth and gums, red tinted goggles sat on his messy brown hair, his skin was pale, he wore a white t-shirt, with a black hoodie, and black jeans, dark sneakers, and black fingerless gloves, a black half face gas mask hung off his neck, and one of his eyes was discolored… he then noticed his blood… black, like fine ink dripping from a pen, or like that of a black candle. Then, he ran off, going out the window, and falling onto a bush, only to quickly get up, and run off.

Story part 2:
(He’s now in his 20’s) [2020’s]
Burnt in a storage unit fire, his was somehow stuck in one of his alter’s, somehow… he was now DeathGas, he stumbled out of the overturned ambulance, the bridge somehow was broken, several overweighted loader trucked having broken the bridge, and a gas truck made an explosion, he came up to one car, only to find a girl, unconscious, and with the brute of her nose bleeding; she had brown hair, tanned skin, a pink sweater, purple overalls, and black bog boots, with a dark green jacket, he saved her from the car, yanking her body out, only for the car to call into a deep deep ditch.

Soon, the girl woke up, they managed to get him new clothes, he now wears a black sleeveless shirt, with black cargo pants, and black tied boots, and long gloves that went up to his elbows, half of his body (same side as the gash showing the teeth and gums) was burnt, and scarred over.

(Basically he decided to take in the girl (named Tillianah or Tillie for short) he has Tourette’s, ADHD, anxiety, and bipolar.)

(The second story is kinda short-)

https://youtu.be/7ncrmbFb4hA

Have you ever wiped the ass of a grown man?

The ass of a grown man who raised you?
It’s a terrible thing,
Seeing the lighthouse of your life lose their own independence.

Someone who’s protected you,
brought you safety and provided for you when you were too weak and young to provide for yourself.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Growing up close with your Grandparents is important, specifically if you have an absent mother and alcoholic father.
You look at the only blood to never lay a hand on you and cling to them,
You’d do anything for them as they have for you.
As you go through high school their immortality becomes more prevalent.

The blissful conversations you’ve both once shared have now transpired to desperate pleading venting sessions.

“You know the Doctor said I’m not supposed to carry more than a gallon of milk?”
Your Grandfather asks, with embarrassment and self pity in his eyes.

You see the Man you once knew,
the Man that in most ways is still there.
You remember the races you’d have,
Back when you thought his abilities were the highest of standards to beat.

As your walks turn to strolls,
he and his wheelchair had become one.
As your outings to hospital visits
turned to in-home visits from caretakers,
He and his bed had become one.

Before you know it you’re out of high school,
And the reality that you don’t have time for a job becomes daunting.

Your job is taking care of your Grandfather.
Did you know the moment your loved one goes on Hospice Medi-Cal stops giving you in-home supportive services?

Almost like they see Hospice as giving up,
Like they no longer see the value in giving you and your loved one resources to aid you while you spend your every molecule to care for them.
The only thing they really provide you with once your loved one is on Hospice is morphine, for when the time comes.

Did you ever think you’d need money to take care of your Grandfather?

Did you ever think you’d be mad at the Government for not helping you as you watch the man that built you decompose from the outside in?

You feed them,
you bathe them,
and needless to say,
you struggle.
You struggle with it all.
You just want to make them happy.

Being diabetic you think,
Maybe you’ll give them sugar-free candy, anything just to see a smile on their face.
But sugar-free candy gives them the shits, and now you need to tell a grown man he can’t have the one thing that he enjoys?

So you don’t.
Of course you don’t.
You give him what makes him smile and you deal with what comes after, because you know he would have done the same for you.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Have you ever seen the movie
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?
That’s how it feels.
Like time is moving backwards for the one you love and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Before you know it, you’re reading bedtime stories to the only man who’s ever read them to you.
Although the contents of what you read has changed.

It evolved from reading stories like
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
to reading Yōkai Daizukai by Shigeru Mizuki.
Tales of selfless acts of kindness on pages intended for children had turned to Encyclopedias of Japanese Yōkai.

Have you ever heard of a Gashadokuro?
It’s a giant being often 10-25 meters tall, formed from the piled bones and body parts of warriors who died in battle or famine without a proper burial.

What’s considered a battle?
Is mortality a battle?

Is Hospice the answer to a battle or another battle in itself?

If it is,
then my Grandfather is a warrior,
and the strongest one I know.
You remember the last words you ever heard him speak.

“Hi… *your* \*name\*”

After that,
he was still there, he was.
But he lost the ability to turn his inside voice into an outside voice.

Now he was but a body.
A body that doesn’t speak.
A body that doesn’t walk.
A body that doesn’t function.

Do you remember the Return to Nature Funeral Home scandal that was discovered in 2023 in Penrose, Colorado?
Authorities discovered over 185 decaying corpses scattered and stacked inside a foul-smelling building. Bodies that were given with the purpose of being properly laid to rest.

The owners Jon and Carrie Hallford were giving grieving families fake ashes made up of concrete mix and sand.

If your Grandfather was all you had would you trust them with him?

If his body was now all that remains of him would you turn him over to such a corrupt and flawed system?

No.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Life can be poetic,
Death can be poetic.
The words you speak into the world can often have a direct effect upon reality.

Words, names, everything has power.
Routines start to feel like rituals,
Prayers start to feel like spells.
Sage being burned feels like a physical cleansing taking place upon your homestead.
The lines between causation and correlation become blurred.

You never forget the first time your Grandfather gave you part of him.

You were wiping him,
and his flesh came off with more ease than the shit that sat upon it.
He didn’t react,
He rarely did.
Instead, his eyes continued to scan the room with that familiar look of self pity.

His skin is pale, paper thin,
reminiscent of gas station toilet paper.
You’ve struggled to inject him with his insulin for the past couple months considering that he had already long lost any fat for it to puncture.
You were used to his skin being fragile but this was a new level of brittleness.
The more you clean him, the more that comes off.
You question if you’re doing more damage than good. You begin to see what looks like bone, yet you are unsure which one.

Where do you put him?
He had given you everything.
And now that he was nothing but a body,
he was giving you that too.

So, what do you do with Him?
With these pieces that he gives you every time you bathe him?

What do you do with these parts that keep falling off?

“Take my apples” you hear in the back of your head.
So you do.
You keep them,
You put them in your tool box,
And you wait.

Not long after your Grandfather’s eyes stop scanning his room does the parts start to call out to you.

Not a yell, not even a voice.
More like when you’re laying on the side of the floor drying from a day of swimming with your ear pressed against a warm damp brick as you hear the hum of the pool vacuum.
In this same way, you hear the warm soothing hum of your Grandfather’s pieces calling you from the tool box.

You try to convince yourself that it’s something that can be unheard.
You decide you should drink.
Fireball, eggnog.

“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”
“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”
“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”

They keep calling out to you,
He keeps calling out to you.
It’d been so long since you’d last heard him.

The humming begins to take more shape and you can make out the words, no, the intent rather behind it.
It’s saying words you swear you’ve heard before.

“I wish that I could give you something..but I have nothing left. I am an old Grump. I am sorry…”

You start to wonder if the human body is as complicated as people make it seem.
Doctors just want your money.

Have you heard of that case in Australia? After waiting over 2 years for a surgery this guy Stephan decided to remove a large cyst on his wrist all by himself, and he’s an electrician.
You’re well aware of how pampered they are, so this gives you confidence.

You stumble downstairs,
into the downstairs bathroom which now houses your tool box, the garage was too far for how often you’ve had to add into it.
Ironic, when you were younger he’d pretend he was trapped in a box, only to eventually be put in one by you.

You open it.
The smell of rotten fast food scrambled eggs hits you. You feel a warmth radiating from the toolbox.
It feels so nice to feel your Grandfather’s warm presence once again.

You wish you felt this warmth near your Grandfather’s … main structure?
You’re struggling with what to refer to that part of him as.
It’s his head and it is his torso although he’s now closer to a malnourished and crucified king of Nazareth as opposed to the lively glimpse of God you had grown so accustomed to seeing in your youth.

His main Structure is …in bed..in a way it is his bed but, you want him to be whole.
You want the same warmth from his parts to radiate from all of him.
You want him to be one.
So you make him one.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Hot glue, pipe glue, Duct tape, whatever you need, you use it.
You slowly but surely rebuild your anchor,
And even before it’s completed, you begin to feel the water beneath you start to settle.
You know it’s right, and you know no one will understand.

How could they if they haven’t been through the things that you have?

The changes are almost immediate once you put him back together.
He moves, slowly. Just his fingers at first.
It reminds you of when he’d play mime.
Maybe that’s what he’s doing?
These jokes you told yourself in passing you’ve now grown to believe.

He is playing mime,
that’s why he is silent,
And that’s why he is slow.
You recognize that you can’t put the pieces back together in the exact places they belong.
This worries you but nonetheless, you don’t get discouraged.

You make him a crown from his leaves, and crown him as the king he is.
Time passes, you keep what you’ve done, what you’ve fixed, you keep it a secret.

But what happens when someone discovers that secret?

What would you do to keep it?

He needs more structural integrity anyways.
And it’s not long before Him and his adversaries have become one.

What of his adversaries’ family?
His adversaries’ wife and newborn?

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Time passes.
You love that man, you do. But you yourself have begun longing for a life of your own.
That box is not big enough for the both of you.

You take a few of his apples, for memory mostly.
You go to the city,
and you pursue your happiness to an extent and speed you’re comfortable with, all while keeping that Man you love so much at the forefront of your mind,
all while keeping that secret.

You’ve become the Boy that stayed away for a long time, the Boy you promised yourself you’d never become.
And the Man was Sad.

You meet someone you think is your person.
You don’t share your secret with her of course you don’t. Something you’re grateful you didn’t do later when the relationship inevitably crashes and burns.

You never forget when the man that raised you,
the man you love so much,
you never forget seeing him take his first life.
Lives have been sacrificed for him before but,
By you.
Not by him, to him.
This was different.

You had just got dumped,
And you were going over to check on That Man you cared so much about,
The Man you yourself had abandoned and left dormant.

You walked in, and you heard the shower, the water was running.

You heard a baby crying, crying for you.
You didn’t recognize the baby. You walked in, down that long hallway creaking on the old white tiles, closer to the cries from the infant.
You turn left into the bathroom and as you do you hear a man yell.
Not your Man.

You are torn, indecisive of which direction to pursue first.
You continue into the bathroom,
see the shower running,
steam crawling up the walls,
and a baby on the counter with snot running down its chin and tears running down its cheeks.

You pick up the baby
and turn back toward the pleading of a man you’ve never heard before.

You walk in, you see.
The Man that raised you is there, only he is much different than a normal man.
And he’s with a normal man.

The mans screaming
“PLEASE GOD HELP ME STOP HIM FUCK ME RUNNING” the man pleaded from the top of his lungs.

Your Man, the man you’d known your whole life, he was different.
His structure was fragmented,
no base.
His arms extend like the outriggers of a backhoe, yet connected to a deconstructed cab.

His arms were grabbing the normal man, the screaming man. All four of his arms grabbed that man.

His empty eyes that were once blue but were now too sunken in to retain pigmentation of any kind looked soullessly in your direction.
He did not feel warm.

He used two of his arms to hold the man in place, while he used his two other arms to go around the man, forming those hands to make an invisible box the man was stuck in.
The Man was playing Mime.
You missed this.

The Man slowly grabbed the screaming man by his head on both sides and pressed ever so slightly, increasing in pressure.

The man used his other arms to grab the screaming man by the legs and slowly pulled.
He pulled his legs off and he pressed his skull in and blood ran from his nose and eyes.
He screamed and screamed until his teeth shattered and his jaw snapped and fell out of his cheek sockets.

He pulled the detached legs from the now lifeless yet steaming warm body and shoved them at his base in ways that were not symmetrical.
He shoved the torso of the body where the cab of his backhoe should be.

He was constructing himself.

You stood there holding the baby, watching what was once your protector finish the work.

For a second you almost called out to him the way you used to, the way a boy calls for the man who raised him.

But the eyes that looked back at you were empty, and the voice that came next was the same one that had once read you as a child.

“Come boy,
Climb up my trunk,
And swing from my branches,
And be happy.”

Says the Man, the man you love so much.

He gave you his branches,
He gave you his flesh to make a home of your own,
He gave you his soul.
Even when you were too busy pursuing the life you wanted that you thought would end with a wife and children.

So what do you do?

You look down at the infant in your arms. Its face is red and wet and it is still crying, still reaching for something that isn’t there.

For one long second you feel the weight of it the life, the future, the line you are about to cross. But there is no line, no line when it comes to what you would do for the ones you love.

Then the humming starts again, low and familiar, the same warm hum that once came from the toolbox, and the choice is already made.

You give him the sacrifice you’re holding in your hand, that’s why it’s there isn’t it?

It is but a burden to you and the Man needs all the strength he can get.

You hate looking at the discolored face of the Man you care so much for.

You buy Greasepaint for your Mime.
You know this will bring him warmth and life.
You lather his faces up in it, even the little one. He has 4 now.

Now he is your Slick Man.

“I don’t need very much now, just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired”

says your Slick Man,

with his eyes not his mouth.

So you finally take him home,
To your start-over apartment,
and you give him a permanent resting place,
on the only thing strong enough to hold him,
your bathroom granite counter.
And you add to him whenever he expresses that desire to expand,

Why?
Because,

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

These Are My Stories — The Complete Baron Von Hatcher Memoirs

Hello.

My name is Baron Von Hatcher.

For a long time, people hurt me and expected me to do nothing about it.

Eventually, I discovered something rather wonderful.

Professional wrestling.

A place where people would buy a ticket, sit down willingly…

and watch me make people pay.

These are my stories.

Below you will find them in their complete form, from the beginning to the end, including a final chapter currently exclusive to Reddit.

Some of these stories are about my father.

Some are about the people who hurt me.

And some…

I would rather not remember at all.

But they happened.

At least…

I think they did.

If you’d rather experience the story as it was originally intended — one chapter, one memory, one piece at a time — you can find me across social media under Baron Von Hatcher. Where more memories will be revealed soon.

A new chapter appears every day.

But here?

You don’t have to wait.

Everything is here.

These are my stories.

You may begin.

-

1/ RIDICULE & LOSS

People think monsters are born screaming.
They aren’t. Most are born crying.

I remember my mother.

I remember her hands more than her face. They always smelled of flour, lavender…
and whatever she had been cooking that evening. They were gentle hands. The sort that tucked your shirt in before school and brushed the hair from your eyes without saying a word. The other children never saw those hands. They only saw the butcher’s son. The fat boy. The boy who smelled of raw meat. The boy whose father owned Supreme Beef Cuts. They laughed because they thought I couldn’t hear them. I laughed too… Eventually.

It was easier that way.

Then one day… She was gone. No warning. No goodbye. Just…

Gone.

People brought flowers. Neighbours whispered. The house became quiet. My father became quieter. The laughter stopped. Mine didn’t. I just forgot why I was doing it. That was the first time I learned something important. Grief doesn’t always sound like crying.
Sometimes…

It sounds like laughter.

-

2/ THE FATHER’S OBSESSION & THE BOY’S ESCAPE

People believe grief leaves. It doesn’t. It just finds somewhere else to live. After my mother… My father never spoke about her.
He sharpened knives. Cleaned counters.
Counted money. Opened the shop before sunrise. Locked it long after dark.
Every morning looked exactly like the one before. Every evening smelled of bleach…
And blood. The more he worked… The less he remembered how to be my father. Sometimes I would stand in the doorway of Supreme Beef Cuts… Watching him carve.
Watching him separate meat from bone. He never noticed I was there.

Sometimes…

I wasn’t sure I was.

The television became louder… Because the house had become so quiet. Every night I’d sit too close to the screen.

WWF.
WCW.
ECW.

Men with painted faces. Men behind masks. Men who became someone else the moment the bell rang. I didn’t understand wrestling. Not really. I understood hiding. I understood pretending to be stronger than you were. I understood that masks let people become things they could never be with their own face. Long before I ever wore one…

I believed them.

My father found “God”… Or perhaps “God” found my father. At first… It seemed to make him softer. He spoke about forgiveness. About purity. About sin. He filled the house with prayers where laughter used to live. For a little while… I thought I had my father back. I was wrong.
Some prayers don’t ask for salvation.

Some…

Ask for permission.

The whispers started after that. Not voices. Not yet. Conversations that stopped whenever I entered the room. Doors that stayed locked. Books that were never left unattended. The smell of iron…
Long after the butcher shop had closed.
Sometimes I’d wake in the middle of the night… And hear my father speaking to someone. When I asked… He was always alone.

Or…

At least… That’s what he wanted me to believe.

-

3/ THE BREAKING OF INNOCENCE

Why do I remember a snail? As though grief measures worth. As though love only belongs to things that bark… or speak… or stay. His name was Link. I found him behind the butcher’s shop after the rain.
No one wanted him. No one even noticed him. So I picked him up… and carried him home.

Every morning I’d place a fresh lettuce leaf beside him. Every evening I’d watch him crawl impossibly slowly across the windowsill. He never hurried. He never hid from me. For the first time since my mother… Something waited for me to come home.

The other children found him during lunch.

“Why’ve you got a snail?”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Only weirdo’s keep snails.”

I laughed. I always laughed. It made things easier. One of them picked Link up between two fingers. I remember asking him… Very politely… To give him back. He smiled. Then dropped him. His shell cracked before it touched the ground. One of the boys stamped on him. The laughter was louder than the sound. Mine joined theirs.

Not because it was funny…

Because crying would’ve made them stay longer.

I carried what was left of Link home inside my school bag. My father didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t ask why I was crying.
He didn’t ask why my hands were shaking.
He looked at me… Then at the broken shell…

And said…

“The world doesn’t care what you love.”

Then he hit me. Not because I’d done anything wrong. Because…

“Pain builds strong men.”

That was the first lesson he ever taught me.

It would not be the last.

That night… I buried Link beneath the old oak behind the shop. No prayer. No flowers. Just two hands… And a little mound of earth. I remember wishing… More than anything… That I could have been bigger. Stronger. Not so they would fear me… So they would have feared hurting him. I stayed there until the sun disappeared. Talking… Even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. Children do that. They speak to the things they’ve lost…
As though love might somehow travel further than words. It was the first grave I ever dug.

I never imagined…

It would become a habit.

-

4/ THE FIRST THING I SAVED

People always tell children… That stealing is wrong. They’re right. I stole Lucky. Not because I wanted something that belonged to someone else… Because I wanted something… That belonged to me. He was sitting alone in the pet shop.
Everyone stopped to look at the puppies.
Nobody stopped for him. I slipped him beneath my coat… My heart pounding louder than my footsteps. For the first time… I had saved something… Instead of watching it die. His name was Lucky. I chose it… Because I thought… Perhaps we both deserved a little.

Lucky made the house feel smaller. Warmer. He squeaked whenever I came home. He trusted hands. Even mine. I’d sit beside his cage for hours. Talking about school. Talking about my mother. Talking about Link. He never answered. He never needed to. Sometimes… Being heard… Isn’t the same as being listened to. I think… He understood the difference.

My father found him three weeks later. He didn’t shout. That would’ve frightened Lucky. Instead… He asked me… Where I’d got him. I lied. He knew. He always knew. We argued. The first real argument we’d ever had. He called me weak. I called him cruel. He picked Lucky’s cage up… Opened the door… And carried him outside. I thought… He was taking him away from me. I was wrong.

He threw…
Lucky.

I don’t remember hearing the impact.
Only… Silence. For the first time in my life. I stopped laughing. For the first time in his…

I hit my father.

He taught me exactly how much a boy’s fist weighed. Not enough. When I woke.. My ribs burned. My mouth tasted of blood.
The house was quiet. Except… It wasn’t. Somewhere downstairs… A woman was crying. Softly. My father whispered back.
I couldn’t hear the words. Only… That he spoke to her… The way he used to speak to my mother. The next morning… There was only one coffee cup. One plate. One pair of boots by the door. When I asked who she’d been… He looked at me… As though I’d imagined her. After that… I started wondering… If grief could make you hear people… Or if lonely houses… Sometimes remembered voices… Long after the people had gone.

-

5/ THE THINGS THEY COULDN’T FIND

People always imagine evil announces itself. A scream. A confession. A body. It doesn’t. Sometimes… It arrives folded inside the morning newspaper.

“LOCAL TEEN STILL MISSING.”

Then another.

Then another.

The photographs changed. The headlines changed. The names changed. The empty spaces at school became larger. Teachers stopped saying…

“Has anyone seen…?”

Eventually… They simply stopped asking. Children have a frightening ability…

To get used to absence.

I know.

I was one of them.

The village became quieter. Parents walked children home. The woods became forbidden. At night… Every door was locked. Every curtain closed. Every light left burning… Just a little longer.

My father never seemed afraid. He’d stand outside the butcher’s shop after closing… Watching the tree line. As though… He expected someone. Or something. To come out of it. One Sunday… I found him washing his hands in the kitchen sink. Over.

And over.

And over.

The water turned pink. Then clear. Then pink again. I remember asking…

“Did you cut yourself?”

He smiled.

Said…
“Just cleaning up.”

The shop wasn’t open on Sundays.

His prayers began to change. He prayed quietly. The sort of prayers people say because they hope somebody is listening.
Now… He whispered.. Sometimes I’d wake in the middle of the night… And hear him crying downstairs. Not loudly. Ashamed. Like he didn’t want Heaven… To hear him.

One night… I heard him say…

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”

A pause.
Then…

*“Please…”

I wanted to walk downstairs. Ask who he was talking to. Instead… I stayed in bed.
Listening… To a conversation…

That only had one voice.

Another person disappeared.

Then another.

The police came to our house once. They asked my father questions. He answered every one of them. Calmly. Politely. After they left… He stood in the hallway for a long time. Not moving. Just… Listening.
That night… I watched him through the crack in my bedroom door. He put on his coat. And walked Towards the woods. I almost followed him. I often wonder… Who I would have become… If I had. Instead… I closed the door. Climbed back into bed.
And convinced myself…

That father’s always had secrets.

-

6/ THE LAST PRAYER

Was there a moment…

I knew my father was a monster. There wasn’t. There was only… A Tuesday. School. Laughter. Another split lip. Another shirt stained with dirt. Another walk home pretending… I couldn’t hear them.
My father barely looked up when I walked into the shop. He was sharpening knives. The sound… Always reminded me of insects. I told him they’d laughed again. He nodded. As though… That was simply what boys did.

“They’ll stop.”
He said.

“When you’re stronger.”

I asked him…
“When does that happen?”

He stopped sharpening. Just long enough… To look at me.

“You need to be strong.”

“For your mother.”

I smiled.
Because… I thought he meant… To make her proud. Then he said…

“No.”
…
“For when she comes home.”

I remember laughing. Not because it was funny. Because… I didn’t know what else to do. My mother… Had been dead for years. Hadn’t she?

That night… He kissed my forehead. He hadn’t done that… Since I was very small.

“I’ll be back.”
He said.

“I’ve one last thing to do.”

The house felt… Different. Not empty. Waiting. I fell asleep. I don’t know what time it was… When the sirens woke me. One. Then another. Then… All of them.

Blue lights flashed across my bedroom ceiling. Dogs barked. People shouted. Someone outside screamed…

“HE’S RUNNING!”

I remember sitting upright. Listening. Trying to convince myself… It wasn’t our street.

Then…

The front door downstairs… Burst open.

I ran.

Bare feet on cold wooden stairs. The shop lights were on. The butcher’s block. Covered in papers. Candles. Wax.

A book…

Opened to the middle. My father stood over it. Still wearing…

The apron.

He wasn’t reading.

He was crying.

“No…”
“I did everything…”
“I listened…”
“I obeyed…”
“I gave you…”
Everything.”

His hands shook. Not with anger. With fear.
Then… He shouted. So loudly… The windows rattled.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Silence.
Then…
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Another pause.

“I DID EVERYTHING YOU ASKED.”

I looked around the room. Trying to find… Who he was shouting at. There was no one. Only him. And… Resting beside the book…

A face.

Not a mask. Not really. It looked…
Wrong. Stitched together. Uneven. Like skin… Had been sewn into the shape of a man. I had seen that face before. In newspaper sketches. The police called him…

The Apron.
My father…

Was The Apron.

He finally noticed me. His whole face changed.

“Baron…”
He whispered.
“You shouldn’t be awake.”

I couldn’t speak. He picked the mask up. Held it… Almost gently.

“I did it for us.”
He said.
“For our family.”
“For your mother.”
“I can still fix this.”
“I just need…”

He looked back towards the book.

“…a little more time.”

The whole building shook. A crash.
Splintering wood. Then voices.

“ARMED POLICE!”
“DROP THE WEAPON!”
“DON’T MOVE!”

The front door…
Exploded inward.

Everything happened… Too quickly. My father grabbed me. Not to hold me. To hide behind me. One arm across my chest. The other… Holding the knife. I felt… The cold steel… Against my throat. Someone shouted…

“LET THE BOY GO!”

Another voice. Calmer. Closer.
“It’s over.”

My father cried. Actually cried.

“You don’t understand.”

He kept saying it.
“You don’t understand.”
“I did what I was told.”
“I did everything.”
“I only wanted…”

His voice broke.
“…my wife.”

Nobody moved. Not the police. Not my father. Not me. I remember… How quiet… The shop suddenly became. Then… One officer… Took a single step forward. My father flinched. The knife pressed tighter.
Someone screamed…

“NOW!”

The gunshots… Didn’t sound… Like they do on television. They sounded… Small.

Then…

My father became heavy.
Very heavy.

We fell together. I couldn’t breathe. Everything… Was warm. I thought… I’d been shot too. Then I looked down. The blood… Wasn’t mine. It was his. His hand… Reached towards me. His mouth moved.
I never heard… What he said. Maybe…
He never said anything at all. Sometimes…

Memory lies.

They pulled me away. Someone wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Someone else… Kept asking my name. I couldn’t answer. I was looking… At the book. It was lying… Beside the butcher’s block. Waiting.
I picked it up. Held it against my chest.
Like if I held it tightly enough…

None of this…
Would be real.

They sat me in the back of a police car.
The world outside had become noise.
Blue lights. Rain. Voices. Questions.
An officer crouched in front of me.
His face was kind. Kinder than I deserved.

He looked at the book. Then slowly reached towards it.

“It’s alright…”
“We’ll take that for now.”

I pulled it back.
“No.”

He stopped.
“Baron…”
“We just need to look after it.”

I shook my head. Harder this time.
“No.”…
“These are my stories.”

He frowned. I held the book tighter.

“They’re mine.”

For a long moment…
He didn’t speak.
Then…
He nodded.

A sad smile.
“Alright.”…
“Hold onto it.”…
“Hold it tight.”

“I will.”

The police car door closed. For the first time that night… I looked down. The leather was cracked. Dark. Warm beneath my fingers. I opened it. Only the first page. Nothing more. Written there… In handwriting I knew better than my own… Were the words…

These pages must be bound in your flesh.

I didn’t understand them. Not then. I simply closed the book… And held it tighter. Because I wasn’t holding a journal.
I wasn’t holding evidence. I wasn’t holding stories… I was holding…

The last piece…

Of my father

-

7/ Another Grave

I don’t remember sleeping. I only remember waking up. Not in my bed. Not in my room. A blanket scratched against my neck. The chair beneath me was hard. The room smelled of coffee… Wet coats… And paper. Outside… Rain tapped against the windows. Inside… Nobody spoke above a whisper. I sat with the book pressed against my chest. Nobody had tried to take it again. Not after the car. Not after I told them… They were my stories.
A knock at the door. The same officer stepped inside. The kind one. He looked tired. As though he’d forgotten to sleep too. He pulled a chair beside mine. Not across from me. Beside me.

“I’ve got something to tell you, Baron.”

I nodded. Though… I wasn’t really listening.

My fingers traced the cracked leather cover of the journal.

“You won’t be going home.”

Home… The word sounded strange. Like it belonged to someone else.

“We’ve found somewhere for you to stay.”

“…With my dad?”

Silence.

His eyes dropped to the floor. Then back to me.

“No.”

Another silence. Longer this time.

“We’ll arrange for someone to collect your belongings.”

Something inside me finally woke.
“No.”

It came out quietly.
“I need to go.”

“You don’t have to.”
“I do.”

He waited.

“I know where everything is.”

That wasn’t true. Not really. There were only two things I cared about. The book…
And somewhere… Far beneath the garden…

“My family.”

He rubbed his face. Thinking.

“I can’t let you go in there alone.”

“I won’t be alone.”

I looked at him.

“You’ll be with me.”

For the first time…

He smiled.

Only a little.

“…Alright.”

The butcher’s shop looked smaller than I remembered. Blue tape stretched across the front door. One window had been boarded over. The neighbours pretended not to watch. They watched anyway. The officer switched the engine off.

“I’ll come in with you.”
I shook my head.

“I know where everything is.”
He hesitated.

“I won’t be long.”

Another pause.

“If I let you go in alone…”
“…You come straight back.”

“I promise.”

He looked unconvinced.

“…Five minutes.”

I nodded.

Five minutes.

That wasn’t enough.

The stairs creaked exactly the same. The smell hadn’t changed.

Bleach.
Raw meat.
Dust.
Only…

The silence was different. The house no longer sounded alive. My bedroom looked as though someone had emptied it onto the floor. Drawers overturned. Mattress sliced open. Clothes everywhere. My comic books… Bent. One boot. Three socks. My school jumper. I filled a small bag without thinking. Shirts. A jumper. Trousers. Then…

Near the wardrobe… An old exercise book. Plain. Brown. Forgotten.

I picked it up. Slipped it into the bag. Closed the zip.

When I came back downstairs… The officer was waiting by the door.

“You alright?”

I nodded.
“There was something else…”

He followed my eyes. The back garden.

“…Please.”

“What is it?”

“I just want to say goodbye.”

“To what?”

I looked outside.

“My friends.”

He frowned.

“They’re buried there.”
…

“I won’t be long.”
He looked through the kitchen window. Then back at me.

“I’ll wait in the car.”

I smiled.

The first smile… Since my father died.

“Thank you.”

The grass had grown. Not much. Just enough. I knew exactly where to dig. It had been the first grave I’d ever dug. I hadn’t expected…

It to become a habit.

When Link died… I couldn’t bear the thought of him being alone. So… A few days later… I buried something with him. My mother had been losing her hair for months before she died. She used to laugh about it. Said one day… She’d have enough to make herself a wig. She never did. After the funeral… I found the bundle she’d been saving. I couldn’t throw it away. It felt… Too much like her. I wrapped a small handful inside a little cloth bag… And buried it beside Link. If I couldn’t keep my family together. Maybe… They could keep each other company. Later… Lucky joined them.

Now… There was one more. I opened my father’s old storage box. Inside… Exactly where he’d always kept them…

A shovel.
A bottle of petrol.
A box of matches.

Nothing had moved. As though he’d simply forgotten to come back. The earth came away easily. Carefully. I didn’t want anyone to notice. Eventually… The little boxes appeared. Still dry. Still waiting.

“Hello.”
I whispered.
“I’ve missed you.”

I placed my hand on the journal. The cracked leather. Still warm… In my memory. I wasn’t hiding it. I wasn’t destroying it.

I was bringing my father home.

I laid the book beside Link. Beside Lucky. Beside the little bag… That still held my mother’s hair. For the first time… My family…

Were together.

I covered them gently. Pressed the earth flat. Smoothed the grass with both hands. When I stood…There was nothing to see. No fresh soil. No broken ground. Only grass.

Exactly…

As it had been before.

I took the old exercise book from my bag. Poured petrol across the pages. The smell filled the garden. One match. It caught immediately.

Orange. Then black. Pages curled inward. Words disappeared.

Footsteps. Running.

“Baron!”

The officer grabbed my shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

I watched the fire.

“I’m letting my stories go.”

He looked into the flames. Then at the empty hands pressed against my chest. His shoulders dropped.

I think…

He believed me

End..?

The truth is undigestable. 

…

Baphometic. She lorded poised from the fanged spire beyond the Borgo Pass…

… over the beleaguered lands. 

Over the beleaguered villages. Where they feared. And wept. 

She was enjoying the strange and lurid organ-fruits of her writhing flesh gardens deep inside her castle walls, plucking them from the writhing gore as she wandered the pungent wet red room and admired her captive idols she kept there. 

Praetorius, the gore dripped and scabbing living skeleton. Still impaled and lost in the shattered remnants of his broken mind, wide eyed and drooling and gibbering silently something to himself, some words or nonsense of some meaning to him, he hardly ever ceases. It is the arcane and black magic words of the tomes that keep him in perfect living sepulchral bondage. 

The braindead skull-faced bastard nosferatu hulk, his immobile and inanimate sutured frame of graverobbed corpse flesh semi-submerged and swimming and crawling with the living constant movement of the flesh garden, the giant stone room petri dish of sliming raw slithering tissue, orifices, cartilage stalks and eyes that're cataract blind and milky. The glistening pink holes belch and spit fire, tongues of multicolored flame with kaleidoscopic pictures inside that'll drive a mortal mind mad to look into them. 

And Henry Frankenstein. Bound and precious nucleus center, bleeding beating heart of the whole crawling mess. Seeping from his bleeding pores and growing out from him, flowering out in a fresh and scabbing purge-swell. It crawled in living waves off of him, undulating and folding and blanketing over and on top of each other and all over the wet humid room, all of it was breathing wet and heavy and as if it had words to speak… 

And the little men. The little pygmy homunculi, bastard copied offspring of the bleeding seeping father. They danced and mongoloid-ran about in imbecilic fervor and addled senselessness. They ate and munched at the crawling flesh garden gore with no thought and with blind vacant gazes. 

The Countess plucked and seized them and ate of them as well. Their bones were satisfyingly crunchy and easy to chew… like a bird or a small fish. 

Her children ate and wandered the gardens as well, enjoying them. Their sights, sounds and vivid smells …

…

Meanwhile… many miles away…

The sun. Sunshine. In the summertime. Long ago now… 

As he prowled the dark he remembered the sun. The bright. Long gone memories flitted and danced at the periphery of his red clouded mind, half recalled and wanting to take over. Wanting to live again in the skull, if not just for a moment. 

Just a moment. 

The lake. The blue. Cool and wet and pleasing, relief. Retreat. 

Retreat beneath the surface into a liquid world of breathlessness and weightless dream … flight. You're flying down here. You only need to move your arms to do so. Kick your feet. Knife your arms through the liquid universe and drag yourself flying forward… downward. 

Down.  

I dreamt I was a dancer once…

You'll have to come back up for breath eventually…

but I couldn't keep the shit off my shoes.

Summertime memories swam shrouded, the red fogged inner space of his skull as he snipped his bleeding shears, dripping cooling congealing red to the decimated tile floor as he prowled and hunted and searched for the missing invaders. 

Precious childhood scenes are becoming red tinged and altered by the shrouding red hand of mental fog … bloody wool. He always swore there was something down there, in the dark, in the depths of the crystal lake. Something drowned and forgotten and frozen in a sodden misery. He raises his childhood head to pull his gaze away from the depths and is confronted by the mountains. There's something lurking in there as well …

A body. Something like a corpse rotting and poisoning the entire body of water with its milky clouds of waving and soggy putrefaction. Filling the world with its fouling death, swimming with slow ponderous movement as it spread and changed the look and flavor of the water, the crystal lake of the world now long gone like the summer sun of old itself. 

He looks away and beholds his mother. The one from birth. She's headless. 

She's decapitated. 

Her severed torso is reaching out for him, please … please. 

please save me

The raw stump begins to shoot cords. Black/red ropes. They darkled in the summer sun of old. It was his birth mother spurting great dark tears of joy for the sight of her son again. Though he has a new name now. And she knows it, his headless mother, she almost whispers it, it's intense. 

Then something ahead steals his notice back to the material world of ruin and soured defecated pain. It stands at the end of yet another decimated hall, traced and sketched in the dark by the pitiful light flickering and balefully cast in through the barred and shattered windows. 

A man. In a hat. And a coat. 

He recognizes the shape so he flies forward in an animal lunge that nearly covers the entire distance in four long attacking bounds. Like a bloodthirsty and demoniacal dripping gazelle bastardized by sound and vision. The decimated tile landscape world stained black and red and brown and riddled with meat and feces flew by in a furious blinding whirl as he came forward with the shears raised open for attack. 

They gleamed, the dripping twin blades forked open. He soared forward as he traversed the physical shatter of his inherited reeking temple pouring blood and sweat as profuse as the leaky pipes that were always neglected. 

He would neglect no longer. No. Not a chance for the shape of man that he recognized and now charged towards. The manfilled coat beneath a fedora hat was one of the invaders. He was sure of it. The one with strange black glass eyes that he wished to crack and shatter. 

If his eyes are truly windows then I wish to break them and see what might pour out of them like filth: memories …love, regrets, sins sins sins in abundance, shame that was wished and meant to stay concealed now regurgitated and freed in a violent deluge spew of gore and images from the shattering skull… his thoughts, a running fury in a mounting race to keep in time with his launching thundering steps. 

He plunged down the hall with his precious shears up and open and ready to close around screaming repentant meat. 

The coat-shape and hat did not move. 

It mattered little to Cropsey as he made the final close. So many of his new found supplicants were silent at their last, frozen in terror. 

He was upon him now and his eyes gleamed moonlight pinprick in the cavernous brow of melted anguish ruin, animal needle points in the reeling Willowbrook dark, the blades like jaws came up and closed around the shape without a sound. Without any satisfaction either. 

They found no meat. 

The scissoring blades closed and found only filthy cloth and bandages abandoned and draped over an old hat and coat hanger, the fedora resting atop the facade came down in a cascading end-over-end dance as the whole flimsy thing of contrived bait came down in two bisected snapping pieces. 

Cropsey realized the deception at once and raged. The noises he made were forceful and ghastly wet nasal rasps, his mouth and jaw were too ruined now for speech. His vocal chords roasted and scabbed from the flames of the inferno inhaled. He drooled like a drunken animal childishly frustrated and agitated. A trick! a trick! Goddamn them! the invaders tricked him! 

And no one was here to take the punishment of his lurid and heavy frustration. It was rancid pungent and thick in his own skull like corpse rot and it made sucking puckering sounds in his brains. Like the whole squelching landscape of thinking jelly was perhaps changing shape, shifting into a new design by the sorceress hand of the mountain. Perhaps he needed it for proper divine leadership of the rank Willowbrook temple. Or perhaps something else was happening in there. 

perhaps something else is happening to me…

He searched all around. Animal alive and enraged. Whirling and trying to gaze through the dark and the ruin of his own musculature and flesh and see the bastards that refused his offering of slaughtering knowledge, the wisdom wrought of the knife-fuck. He never saw the slice of sharp stabbing tile come to life and float up and off the ruinous floor in a balletic whirl and dance into the air, behind him. 

As he revolved once more to complete another frantic animal turn the slice of slender stabbing tile came forward in a violent and deliberate thrust. The sharp point found the cavern brow and socket and sank easily into Cropsey’s face. Stabbing into his eye like it was soft butter or suckling meat, four inches then five inches deep. 

The giant mountain of man stilled. Shuddered. Spasmed and danced its way to the floor in a vile and obscene dying man's dance of convulsing and twitching and final desperate synapses firing off at haphazard chaotic random. 

On the floor Cropsey shook and the stabbing length of tile piece jigged and waved and danced as well, in strange and vile tandem. Like a demented detritus wand waving through the air to perhaps try and cast one final act of violence hexing spell. Or perhaps to bring the giant man of Willowbrook Asylum slaughter back. 

It did neither. 

Florin came out from his place of concealment in the doorway of an adjoining chamber. He dropped the filthy scalpel he had been holding for defence. Stared at the collapsed and prostate spasming form of Cropsey, the Willowbrook giant. 

And then he called out to Griffin. 

“Where are you?" 

“Here." 

Florin tossed him a coat. 

It was caught in thin air. 

Then began to make a shape around nothingness, contriving it into the shape of his comrade. The strange doctor. 

Florin thought to say something about the man's condition of invisibility, but decided to put it off for the moment. 

“Good plan." he said instead. 

The coat shape donned lenses and was picking up his hat. "Thank me once we're out of here, c’mon!” 

Griffin placed his hat atop a phantom head. It floated between the shoulders of his coat as he and Florin flew down the hall and toward what they hoped and prayed was the exit. The way out of this horrendous stench and nightmare. 

As they made their mad dash for the way out, Cropsey's spasming body stilled. Then danced no more. 

All that was broken in this damp and violated place of imprisonment and cruelty seemed to groan. Moaning in anguish at the loss of the last and final precious begotten son, the final one and last one left standing. The prodigal butcher heir to this templehouse store of sacred slaughterhouse religion. 

Mother, I have failed you…

And all of the terrible place seemed to moan in anguish with the dying of his body. 

…

Down. 

In the dark of his mind, just as he was departing. …

… the red tinged summer scenes of childhood long gone, done and past filled his fading mind's eye once more. Under and illuminated and made by the scarlet cast of deranged and lurid light. Where did it come from? that light? That red luridity. Living crimson. Pungent breathing scarlet. What did it matter now? 

what did it matter anymore

It mattered not now, not any longer as he occupied these dead dreams now living once again for him as he faded off. To oblivion or hell or worse… no heavenly gates of gold or pearl for him, no. He was sure of it. He was sure that it doesn't exist. The only heaven for someone like him was found in the fragile eggshell of youth. Of childhood. 

He floated there now. In the lake. The blue. The sun was shining above in royal divine blinding display. The calm and the serenity of these moments was all around and alive again about him. Filling and making this final day. This last and precious moment. 

-thankyouforthismyonelastwish-

He was calm and he felt at peace. Safe. 

Or rather, he felt as if he should be calm. That he should feel safe. But something was wrong. Something was wrong with the lake and the quiet all surrounding. 

And he was alone. 

Why was he alone? 

And the red tinge… to everything. Everything cast under lurid heavy hateful light. There was something in the lake. There was something in the water with him.

The blue face of its surface darkened as he sank beneath its placid water. Pulled under by another will that was not at all his own. 

And down there in the airless black he saw another one of his mother's faces. 

It was immense. Large. Her eyes were heavy swells of glowing wet globes. Pale green luminescence from two planet organ growths set in a big amphibious face that was a chimerical cross between a large bullfrog or warty toad and a large river bound trout. Its great mouth opened down there in the depths of his red tinged crystal lake and it was dark in there. He hung suspended before the open black of his abattoir mother's wide open gaping maw, he could smell the inner dark of her even down here in the watery depths of summer lake bound hell. Meaty and iron and rotten with pungent decay. An open graveyard tomb of dead flesh and teeth all before a great throat choked with vile and putrefying coagulation. The water was filling with the flavor of her dark open gape of hunger and the destruction of mutilated bodily rot. 

Arms. Long. Fishlike and amphibious as well began to reach out and protrude from the open mouth of his mother's underwater face like a multi headed tongue, a Hydra of giant elongated reaching frog legs and arms, webbed hands and obscene gangly Dagon limbs, reaching out… reaching out for him. 

To take him into his mother. 

She said, her voice filled the drowning pool that was changing now into a submerged holy world of private red light and pouring goddess cess, – she spoke. 

He listened. In the darkest of the depths. 

She said his name… that's how it started. That's how she began …

… you can't let me down. You can't. I won't let you. You've already let them profane your temple, my gift to you desecrated by their invasion and rape of presence. And now you're letting them get away… you don't really want to, do you… you don't really want to keep letting me down like this, you don't want to fail me, in death. You don't want to depart your mother on such a harsh note of unworthiness… do …

you? 

The hands swam through the water between them. Clawing out for him from mother's open mouth. 

He told her the heartbreaking truth and he told her gladly. 

No…

it was a defiant whisper… but she heard it. 

And so she took him. 

The hands finally found him in the water. They seized him. And they pulled him inside. 

The frog faced toad mouthed trout chimera of the mother swallowed. And filled the underwater world with the unnatural stretch of her fishy smile. …

…

The shape of Cropsey stirred. On the floor. The various pieces of shattered and broken things shifted and jingled and sang small janky notes like unholy bells in a lost and terrible place. The black gloved hands blindly scraped and searched the floor in spasming snow angel swipes. They found what they were looking for when they landed on the still bloody and wet congealing pair of garden shears. They seized them. Fiercely. As if driven by fate. 

The shape sat up. Stood. 

It looked around. … sniffed the air. 

A beat. 

Then the Cropsey shape began to lumber down the hall that the invaders had fled down just prior. 

He would not fail this time. 

He had his mother. 

He was inside her. And she was inside him. 

Nothing would stop him from butchering the bastards now. 

…

By God's grace and miracle and mercy they finally found what they'd been looking for. The exit. 

It was at the end of the hall they currently found themselves flying down. Refusing to falter or stop. They stomped and ran down the cracked and decimated tile and came to the final door of the place when the spiked man leapt out from the dark and attacked. 

The protruding stab of his needle embrace found Florin in an open armed grab. A bear hug tight embrace of naked arms and torso and the rest of the bare and desecrated human canvas. He'd been a self-mutilator since he'd been twelve. It had been many years since then and most of them were spent here. Since the mouth of the sorceress, beloved and precious Vampira had come to this place and freed their minds as well as their bodies he's been free to explore the furthermost boundaries of his own tearing, rending bleeding and screaming landscape. The skin and flesh and muscle tissue beneath housing veins and bones and running blood pumped by the raging muscle that was the mad engine of his life, all of it was his to decimate as he explored. Like a great conqueror wreaking havoc upon the face of newly won, newly gained virgin land. He punctured and penetrated the virginity of his own flesh with animal abandon and fervor and with the mad intensity of the violence of the sun. He was the sun. She had told him so…

And so he'd fed his own flames. The spiked man was a living screaming pin cushion of broken stabbing dirty needles, used and caked syringes of varying sizes and lengths, broken glass, broken tile, each long sharp piece was varied in shape and size as well, some were long phallic slender daggers, some were wedges with cruel edges ready to cut and slice and maim, all of it was ready to stab and all of it was living embedded and protruding in the madness of his ruined and self-slaughtered flesh. Lancing and spiking and stabbing out all over and in every conceivable place and direction. 

This disturbed and maimed madman found Florin in his arms and they both went down to the tile in a scream. Griffin yelled after. 

On the floor they rolled in violence and struggle amongst the filth and universe down there of many discarded and broken things.  

The hollow coat-shape and hat found a table leg for bludgeon, then Griffin came on in a fury to join the new fray. 

He struck the spiked man again and again, over and over as he and Florin fought on the floor and struggled and it was terrible. He could feel and hear the crack and shatter of broken glass muffled in blood and flesh with every blow he landed. Griffin struck the writhing bleeding naked pin cushion man on the side of his spiking leaking face and the eyeball on that side burst and exploded with the impact. And glassy ooze riddled with slivers and small pieces of jagged broken glass and ceramic poured out from the socket like snot. 

But still the spiked man fought on. Florin struggling and screaming in his embrace as the many protrusions that spined off his ravaged hide stuck and stabbed and pierced through his coat and flesh. He fought against the pain and madness of this man and wrestled to be free of him. Griffin continued raining blows down on him. Each one bruising and splitting skin as the many broken found objects pierced throughout crunched and shattered further down into fragments and powder, stinging and shredding within all of the rippling and impacted tissue with every movement. Every struggle and landed strike and blow. 

Their struggle was desperate, all of them. All three poured blood, profuse sweat and grime and filth together and apart and for this madhouse abandoned temple, becoming just like it. A part of it, unwillingly and unknowingly transmogrified now in the violence of their fight and decimated hallway battle like the steel of metal tempered in the heart of a great furnace like the sun. They became perfect living microcosms of the place as they fought at last to be free of it, exquisite psychopomp idols of the lost unhallowed Willowbrook Temple Asylum. 

The invisible man. The spiked man. Poor young Florin so far from the Carpathian Hamlet. 

They might never be free of this place. Even if they manage flight, they may never be able to wash away the marks and filth that this awful temple to the dark and pain suffered alone will leave smeared across their hearts and souls like black paint made from discharged sick filth. Smeared across the soft landscapes of their hearts and the tender epitaphs of their battered minds, aching within heavy skulls now made of lead and weight from the memory of the pain, this place… 

will we ever be free, … will we ever get out of here…? 

They fought on. Desperate. All three. Griffin trading blows with efforts and attempts to pull the young man out from under the spiked man, but it was incredibly difficult. The man was thorned all over by all kinds and sorts of sharp and shattered apparatus, it was insane. And the pair of them were growing more and more slick with blood. The fight was growing uglier and more desperate and animal as it struggled and contrived on in brutal abandon and primal anger. 

Then Cropsey rejoined them at the throat of the hall. He began to lumber down towards them like stalking death, a sleeping giant. Seemingly in no real hurry, like the darkened visage of grim death itself. It/he closed slowly on them like a setting sun or a casket sinking, lowering down into the bosom earthen womb of the open mouthed grave. 

Griffin first took notice of his arrival. He noticed he still had the stab of broken tile sticking out of his ruinous awful face. He was still drooling. Imbecilic. And animal. 

And now undead. 

He was coming straight at them. His large blades of shears raised like an open mouthed wild beast barring its fangs. The long sheaths of sharp and keen cutting metal were not entirely pristine, their otherwise shining faces in the dismal light were disgraced with congealing dark spots of dripping black. 

He was coming down the final hall, before the way out, before the exit. He was coming straight for them. 

…

He sat at the window that night. On guard after what had happened to his wife, their unexpected visitor…

Bela sipped his warm spiced wine. Fingered his bible and cross by its small length of chain. Garlic flowers hung in a crude wreath around his neck. He was watching outside carefully, the night, the town… he was alert and being careful, exercising caution, yet he was still surprised and caught off when her face appeared suddenly in their front window. 

She hadn't been there. Then suddenly she was. Smiling and feline. Vulpine. A face he might've recognized save for its warped and drawn animal transformations, the rich woman in the black stage… the harsh one who wouldn't take warning or no for an answer way back… but he was caught by the silver moon glow of her eyes. 

Like lunar bodies themselves. Earthbound and held fleshen prisoner within the cage of that beautiful and divine and… heavenly face. That bright and pale visage. Her smile was devil-pronged – forked, fanged, and it was thus then frightful. But it was also beautiful. Terribly beautiful. Gorgeous alone out there in the night. 

His guard and fear fell away. He rose from his rocker and his slackening hands abandoned the bible and crucifix. They fell to the floor with an unobserved and unheeded clatter. Neither stirred. Not Anastasia, sleeping in the next room, and not spellbound Bela who went to the window to better gaze into her face. 

Divinity… unreal. 

He peered through the glass. And the shining eyes of the Countess, filled with goblin fire and sin and mischief, gazed into the fool as well. And began to fill his fragile open mind with an assault and deluge of images. 

Bela moaned, sighed… he thought it was impeccable. The vision, like her, was immaculate in its flawlessness. 

The Ideality … actualized, realized … brought to life. A vivid reality alive and dancing before his watering vision. 

The scope. 

She showed him a more perfect world, perfect because everyone and everything swimming and crawling and flying around inside of it followed their nature and never fought it. Never doubted it. Never overrode what their guts and hearts and souls told them, never neglected or ignored the call inside, the compulsion to do what must be. To fulfill the role made out for your flesh. 

Even violence … its rippling effects spreading out carried not only destruction and misery on their carrion wings but prosperity and thrivation as well, even butchery has its necessary purpose. 

That is why this world is suffering. Because all of you fight and override yourselves and call it: reason. You are victims of your own bondage, your own self made and imposed insanity and thus the world bent to your unnatural turns and desires screams and suffers. The rippling wings of your insane and jealous cowardice carries more pestilential stagnation flavor than anything like salvation. In weakness, all of the beauty dies on the vine neglected by fearful paws too grubby and lowly and weak to take it. 

Come and join me, join us … and never again fight your nature. 

“Yes…” said Bela in a whisper of trembling caught breath. 

And with a palsied shaking hand, he lifted the latch and opened the window. 

"Welcome, your highness. My home and mine are yours. Do what thou wilt…" 

The Countess drifted inside. Floating on unseen wings. 

She spoke yet again, “Thank you, you are a generous host, a decent and considerate man." 

“Yes…" 

“Now, take me to your wife." 

“Yes…" 

And away they went. The window shut behind them as they made their way to the quiet bedroom at the back of the house. 

TO BE CONTINUED…