Post by The Evil Biscuit on Oct 1, 2011 22:21:14 GMT -5
Welcome to the first annual Halloween Horrortacular! I'll be posting an installment of this complete story every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday up until Halloween. Enjoy it!
December, 1916
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Petersburg, Russia
“Irina.”
The basement of Moika Palace was a cozy room separated into two parts, a dining room and a small living room. Two small windows opened to the courtyard at ground level. A fire was ablaze in the large fireplace and in front of the fire lay a polar bear skin. Pastries and wine adorned the table.
“W-what?”
The monster had not worn its clerical robes tonight, which was particularly surprising; Felix Yusupov could not help but wonder, as he rolled his hands nervously in his lap, if he could ever recall a time the starets had ever not worn its Orthodoxy vestments. He glanced across the table at Purishkevich, who was standing – no, leaning - against the wall to the monster’s left. The politician’s face had lost all its color, and his jaw hung open in an expression of unconscious disbelief. The prince felt a bead of cold sweat dribble down his cheek, evaporating in the waving heat of the fire and tickling the coarse stubble on his jawbone. The monster tilted its head, setting his half-eaten pastry on the plate in front of it and folding its broad, heavy hands over each other. Its eyes still had the same glassy film, like great rotting cataracts, and now they rolled in their sockets and fixed themselves upon Felix. The green rings around the red-flecked pupils, so grossly swollen and misshapen, nauseated Yusupov.
“Irina. Your wife. Who calls at this hour and delays her so?”
The prince felt his stomach twist violently and fought back the overwhelming urge to vomit, politely placing a fist to his mouth and mustering a stifled cough to play it down. “My wife… yes.” Irina Yusupov. That was how they had lured the creature to the Palace. Felix’s wife was in the Crimea, but with no other way to draw the monster into close quarters, the prince had fabricated the story of his wife’s return, and piqued the monster’s interest in meeting her. Now he found himself quickly losing control of this ruse. The monster was not dead, as it should have been already.
“I’m afraid you were not the only one anxiously awaiting my wife’s return, Grigory. Her cousins, Tatiana and Olga, they insisted on being here at the palace to greet her when she arrived.” He breathed a nervous chuckle, “You know how long-winded women can get.”
The monster’s thick beard rustled – a smile. In the wire-gray thatch of hair Felix could make out the dull yellow of teeth, and a smear of red. Blood? Or just the remains of the poisoned cakes? Why is it not working, his mind repeated over and over, what did Lazavert not do? His thoughts turned to the gun, but the gun was upstairs, and at present he could not devise a way to get up there and fetch it without raising the monster’s suspicion.
A shuddering breath from the right of the table; Dmitri Pavlovich swooned in his chair. Felix exchanged another worried glance with Purishkevich as the Grand Duke nearly fainted, but recovered shakily. The monster shifted its disfigured stare towards the white-faced Dmitri. “Are you alright, your Honor? You seem ill.” It gestured towards the table, still heavy with the secretly tainted food. “Something you’ve eaten, perhaps?” At this, Purishkevich let out a low moan and quietly excused himself into the low hallway, his heavy boots quickly padding up the staircase to the upper floor. Felix could tell by the quick cadence of Vladimir’s steps as they passed overhead and away that he was rushing to the bathroom to throw up.
The monster picked up another pastry, the red velvet crumbling in its square fingers, smearing into its blackened nails. Again it turned its eldritch eyes to Felix, transfixing him as its beard folded in around the cake, taking a healthy bite of the poisoned dessert. The monster smiled, showing the crumbled, gooey mass of red cake mixing with the tarry black oil that seemed to be oozing from his rotten gums.
“As above, so below. Am I correct, arkangel?"
June, 2009
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaliningrad, Russia
“Sergei.”
“Hm?”
“Phone for you. Filyukov says repairs are done.”
Sergei Zaretsky took the cell phone from Chief Eugene Falin and cradled it against his ear, returning his hands to the sea chart he had been so intently focused on for the last hour and a half. “Zaretsky,” he answered.
“Sergei!” Itzak Filyukov even sounded fat, which he was. Zaretsky had little faith in fat mechanics. “Looks like the oil pumps were the only things we needed to replace. The engine’s practically brand new. You should be able to ship out tomorrow morning.” The fifty-year old captain of the Arctic Sea shifted his head to readjust the tiny phone, “Excellent, good. I’ll let the men know. You, ah, you have the billing?”
A faint whistle and crackle on the line – Itzak was rummaging through his papers. “Yes, yes. We bill to Solchart. They faxed the invoices this morning. Everything should be good to go, just be sure to drop by the yard office before eight tonight to pick up the paperwork and the keys.”
“Wonderful.” Zaretsky dropped the phone into his hand and closed it without another word. Faulty oil pumps again. Even with Solchart footing the bill, it still cut into his commission by almost fifteen percent. The ship wasn’t even that old, not by nautical standards. She was barely seventeen, still very much the young, rebellious teenager she was supposed to be. Faulty oil pumps? Sergei turned back to his charts. He’d spent most of the afternoon mapping the route, as was his ritual before any extended sea trip, except this time he was already two days into the trip. They had departed Jakobstad on time, only to have the oil pumps give out and leak into the bilge, clogging the seals and back-washing gallons and gallons of slimy, rainbow-tinged seawater onto the lower decks. They had to make an unscheduled port in Kaliningrad, and now Zaretsky was two days off schedule and a full day off course. Falin, who was reclining on the bed, was intently focused on the soccer match, which Sergei has insisted he put on mute. Every other minute the Chief would hiss, or pump his fist silently in triumph, which the Captain now found was more irritating than the steady drone of the television would have been in the first place.
“Have you spoken to the men?” Zaretsky asked, drawing another faint pencil line around Sweden.
“I will call them in a while. Volov and the engineers went into town to try and find those bottles of cooking propane they use in their space heaters – the commissary doesn’t have the small ones. Alexander… he’s probably still asleep. I don’t think he came in until about seven this morning, heh.”
Sergei shook his head. “What about the others? Petruk? The crewmen?”
Falin shrugged. “No one checked in with me this morning – I imagine they’re in their hotel rooms. Probably watching the game.” He cracked a wry smile, but Zaretsky did not turn around.
February 2034
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
New International Space Station (NISS)
"So you what?"
"I just...haha, I told him I'd call him in a week."
"Oh, yeah--- with what? Your cell phone?"
"Hahaha, c'mon Ted, cut me some slack. I didn't wanna let the guy down. I was being nice!"
"That's not being nice, darlin. That's being a tease, and it'll get you more stalkers than drinkin' buddies."
"Right. You would know, huh, Captain?"
Captain Theodore Marsh and co-pilot Lieutenant Kara Yu waited patiently in the Central Communications Hub (CH-01) for the rest of Able Team to arrive from their respective stations. Mission Control had sent Bravo Element to repair the Vosguv defense satellite one and a half clicks from the main station hub. Able Team was expected to report, or so Captain Marsh assumed. "Houston, how's the weather looking? We going home any time soon?"
"Salvation can take a couple snowflakes, Ted. You'll do fine."
"We're just on the edge of our seats, here." Captain Marsh replied with a sigh, floating up above his bolted-down commander's chair as his co-pilot continued to monitor communications.
"Never been a fan of the snow." said Ezekial Pastore, the Chief Engineer for the station having just arrived at the Central Communications Hub in time to catch the tail end of the conversation. The man held his diagnostic pad firmly in his hands as he entered the hub, smiling at his comrades as he did. "How are things up here, you two?"
"Bravo team's in phase two of redeployment, and Houston's being weird about who listens in on the report. I think something might be up."
"Yeah," Kara added, "they're probably only sending half of us back this shift."
"Not like Bravo doesn't need the alone time. Who wants some coffee?"
“I’ll take some.” The ship’s environmental officer, Alethea Simonidis, Simon to her team, glided into the command room, pulling herself along the rails that ran the length of every corridor. The New International Space Station boasted the Hellenic Republic’s newest addition – a massive, spheroid terrarium dubbed Environmental Sphere Module 07, abbreviated in the NISS database as ES-07, and commonly known as the Ecosphere. Simon was its caretaker, ensuring a steady oxygen production for the station and furthering Earthbound research on the growth of spaceborne flora. She brushed her black hair aside and smiled at Marsh, who winked back in reply and fumbled in a bev-cab for a few packs of vacuum-sealed coffee.
Kara turned in her chair to face the Captain and Pastore. “You heard anything about Bravo and their satellite?”
Pastore continued to swipe and tap at the screen of his pad, analyzing NISS’s real-time data as it swam across the interface at breakneck speed. “Last I heard they had to suspend the repair team because the solar cells were still remote-linked to New Moscow. Had to wait for clearance to disable the link and deactivate the cells. You know Gelgan had to be pissed.”
Marsh, Simon and Yu all laughed at this. Marsh tossed a coffee pack to Simon and carried two more to Ezekial and Kara. “Guess a page isn’t going to rally the troops. NISSA?”
The NISS’s artificial intelligence, NISS-A, came over the comms, filling the room with her metallic voice from every corner. “YES, CAPTAIN MARSH.”
“Bring all crew members not already present to the command hub, please.”
December, 1916
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Petersburg, Russia
“Irina.”
The basement of Moika Palace was a cozy room separated into two parts, a dining room and a small living room. Two small windows opened to the courtyard at ground level. A fire was ablaze in the large fireplace and in front of the fire lay a polar bear skin. Pastries and wine adorned the table.
“W-what?”
The monster had not worn its clerical robes tonight, which was particularly surprising; Felix Yusupov could not help but wonder, as he rolled his hands nervously in his lap, if he could ever recall a time the starets had ever not worn its Orthodoxy vestments. He glanced across the table at Purishkevich, who was standing – no, leaning - against the wall to the monster’s left. The politician’s face had lost all its color, and his jaw hung open in an expression of unconscious disbelief. The prince felt a bead of cold sweat dribble down his cheek, evaporating in the waving heat of the fire and tickling the coarse stubble on his jawbone. The monster tilted its head, setting his half-eaten pastry on the plate in front of it and folding its broad, heavy hands over each other. Its eyes still had the same glassy film, like great rotting cataracts, and now they rolled in their sockets and fixed themselves upon Felix. The green rings around the red-flecked pupils, so grossly swollen and misshapen, nauseated Yusupov.
“Irina. Your wife. Who calls at this hour and delays her so?”
The prince felt his stomach twist violently and fought back the overwhelming urge to vomit, politely placing a fist to his mouth and mustering a stifled cough to play it down. “My wife… yes.” Irina Yusupov. That was how they had lured the creature to the Palace. Felix’s wife was in the Crimea, but with no other way to draw the monster into close quarters, the prince had fabricated the story of his wife’s return, and piqued the monster’s interest in meeting her. Now he found himself quickly losing control of this ruse. The monster was not dead, as it should have been already.
“I’m afraid you were not the only one anxiously awaiting my wife’s return, Grigory. Her cousins, Tatiana and Olga, they insisted on being here at the palace to greet her when she arrived.” He breathed a nervous chuckle, “You know how long-winded women can get.”
The monster’s thick beard rustled – a smile. In the wire-gray thatch of hair Felix could make out the dull yellow of teeth, and a smear of red. Blood? Or just the remains of the poisoned cakes? Why is it not working, his mind repeated over and over, what did Lazavert not do? His thoughts turned to the gun, but the gun was upstairs, and at present he could not devise a way to get up there and fetch it without raising the monster’s suspicion.
A shuddering breath from the right of the table; Dmitri Pavlovich swooned in his chair. Felix exchanged another worried glance with Purishkevich as the Grand Duke nearly fainted, but recovered shakily. The monster shifted its disfigured stare towards the white-faced Dmitri. “Are you alright, your Honor? You seem ill.” It gestured towards the table, still heavy with the secretly tainted food. “Something you’ve eaten, perhaps?” At this, Purishkevich let out a low moan and quietly excused himself into the low hallway, his heavy boots quickly padding up the staircase to the upper floor. Felix could tell by the quick cadence of Vladimir’s steps as they passed overhead and away that he was rushing to the bathroom to throw up.
The monster picked up another pastry, the red velvet crumbling in its square fingers, smearing into its blackened nails. Again it turned its eldritch eyes to Felix, transfixing him as its beard folded in around the cake, taking a healthy bite of the poisoned dessert. The monster smiled, showing the crumbled, gooey mass of red cake mixing with the tarry black oil that seemed to be oozing from his rotten gums.
“As above, so below. Am I correct, arkangel?"
SPORE
[[[--------------------------]]]
A HORROR STORY IN FOUR PARTS
BY THE EVIL BISCUIT
PART ONE
[[[------------------------------------------------]]]
[[[--------------------------]]]
A HORROR STORY IN FOUR PARTS
BY THE EVIL BISCUIT
PART ONE
[[[------------------------------------------------]]]
June, 2009
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaliningrad, Russia
“Sergei.”
“Hm?”
“Phone for you. Filyukov says repairs are done.”
Sergei Zaretsky took the cell phone from Chief Eugene Falin and cradled it against his ear, returning his hands to the sea chart he had been so intently focused on for the last hour and a half. “Zaretsky,” he answered.
“Sergei!” Itzak Filyukov even sounded fat, which he was. Zaretsky had little faith in fat mechanics. “Looks like the oil pumps were the only things we needed to replace. The engine’s practically brand new. You should be able to ship out tomorrow morning.” The fifty-year old captain of the Arctic Sea shifted his head to readjust the tiny phone, “Excellent, good. I’ll let the men know. You, ah, you have the billing?”
A faint whistle and crackle on the line – Itzak was rummaging through his papers. “Yes, yes. We bill to Solchart. They faxed the invoices this morning. Everything should be good to go, just be sure to drop by the yard office before eight tonight to pick up the paperwork and the keys.”
“Wonderful.” Zaretsky dropped the phone into his hand and closed it without another word. Faulty oil pumps again. Even with Solchart footing the bill, it still cut into his commission by almost fifteen percent. The ship wasn’t even that old, not by nautical standards. She was barely seventeen, still very much the young, rebellious teenager she was supposed to be. Faulty oil pumps? Sergei turned back to his charts. He’d spent most of the afternoon mapping the route, as was his ritual before any extended sea trip, except this time he was already two days into the trip. They had departed Jakobstad on time, only to have the oil pumps give out and leak into the bilge, clogging the seals and back-washing gallons and gallons of slimy, rainbow-tinged seawater onto the lower decks. They had to make an unscheduled port in Kaliningrad, and now Zaretsky was two days off schedule and a full day off course. Falin, who was reclining on the bed, was intently focused on the soccer match, which Sergei has insisted he put on mute. Every other minute the Chief would hiss, or pump his fist silently in triumph, which the Captain now found was more irritating than the steady drone of the television would have been in the first place.
“Have you spoken to the men?” Zaretsky asked, drawing another faint pencil line around Sweden.
“I will call them in a while. Volov and the engineers went into town to try and find those bottles of cooking propane they use in their space heaters – the commissary doesn’t have the small ones. Alexander… he’s probably still asleep. I don’t think he came in until about seven this morning, heh.”
Sergei shook his head. “What about the others? Petruk? The crewmen?”
Falin shrugged. “No one checked in with me this morning – I imagine they’re in their hotel rooms. Probably watching the game.” He cracked a wry smile, but Zaretsky did not turn around.
February 2034
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
New International Space Station (NISS)
"So you what?"
"I just...haha, I told him I'd call him in a week."
"Oh, yeah--- with what? Your cell phone?"
"Hahaha, c'mon Ted, cut me some slack. I didn't wanna let the guy down. I was being nice!"
"That's not being nice, darlin. That's being a tease, and it'll get you more stalkers than drinkin' buddies."
"Right. You would know, huh, Captain?"
Captain Theodore Marsh and co-pilot Lieutenant Kara Yu waited patiently in the Central Communications Hub (CH-01) for the rest of Able Team to arrive from their respective stations. Mission Control had sent Bravo Element to repair the Vosguv defense satellite one and a half clicks from the main station hub. Able Team was expected to report, or so Captain Marsh assumed. "Houston, how's the weather looking? We going home any time soon?"
"Salvation can take a couple snowflakes, Ted. You'll do fine."
"We're just on the edge of our seats, here." Captain Marsh replied with a sigh, floating up above his bolted-down commander's chair as his co-pilot continued to monitor communications.
"Never been a fan of the snow." said Ezekial Pastore, the Chief Engineer for the station having just arrived at the Central Communications Hub in time to catch the tail end of the conversation. The man held his diagnostic pad firmly in his hands as he entered the hub, smiling at his comrades as he did. "How are things up here, you two?"
"Bravo team's in phase two of redeployment, and Houston's being weird about who listens in on the report. I think something might be up."
"Yeah," Kara added, "they're probably only sending half of us back this shift."
"Not like Bravo doesn't need the alone time. Who wants some coffee?"
“I’ll take some.” The ship’s environmental officer, Alethea Simonidis, Simon to her team, glided into the command room, pulling herself along the rails that ran the length of every corridor. The New International Space Station boasted the Hellenic Republic’s newest addition – a massive, spheroid terrarium dubbed Environmental Sphere Module 07, abbreviated in the NISS database as ES-07, and commonly known as the Ecosphere. Simon was its caretaker, ensuring a steady oxygen production for the station and furthering Earthbound research on the growth of spaceborne flora. She brushed her black hair aside and smiled at Marsh, who winked back in reply and fumbled in a bev-cab for a few packs of vacuum-sealed coffee.
Kara turned in her chair to face the Captain and Pastore. “You heard anything about Bravo and their satellite?”
Pastore continued to swipe and tap at the screen of his pad, analyzing NISS’s real-time data as it swam across the interface at breakneck speed. “Last I heard they had to suspend the repair team because the solar cells were still remote-linked to New Moscow. Had to wait for clearance to disable the link and deactivate the cells. You know Gelgan had to be pissed.”
Marsh, Simon and Yu all laughed at this. Marsh tossed a coffee pack to Simon and carried two more to Ezekial and Kara. “Guess a page isn’t going to rally the troops. NISSA?”
The NISS’s artificial intelligence, NISS-A, came over the comms, filling the room with her metallic voice from every corner. “YES, CAPTAIN MARSH.”
“Bring all crew members not already present to the command hub, please.”