SoulScape (standard:horror, 3798 words)
Author: A.M. Snead	Added: Oct 21 2002	Views/Reads: 3647/2618	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
When a psychiatrist's patient is put to death, he realizes that the evil is not dead, but just beginning to live.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


The poison flowed into his bloodstream with a fierce burning sensation
and the muscles in Alec's stomach churned and convulsed.  His throat 
constricted and worked desperately to draw in air. 

But his struggles for survival were merely instinct;  he wanted to die. 
For in death, a great freedom awaited him. 

Freedom and vengeance. 

BLACK MOON ASYLUM 

2-  Frank Harlin sat in his dark office and waited for the call to come
in. He couldn't get Delaney's face out of his mind.  She had insisted 
he let her speak to Alec alone, but it was still his fault she was 
dead.  He knew Alec better than anyone, and he knew what the patient 
was.  Backing down should have never been an option for him.  He'd left 
her vulnerable.  She hadn't known what she was getting into, because he 
hadn't properly informed her. Alec was evil.  Pure evil, in the flesh. 

When Amanda Stuart first brought the young child to him, Frank had
looked in the boy's eyes and seen the darkness pulsating inside him.  
It had been like looking into a black hole, through a window to hell.  
And that was surely true, for Alec possessed a black soul.  Something 
Frank Harlin had heard about but had never truly believed until he met 
Alec.  Children born evil.  Badseed.  Demon spawn. Whatever Alec was- 
he was better off dead. 

Frank left his chair and went to the window.  Black Moon County had been
appropriately  named, for there always seemed to be a dark haze over 
the moon, even when it was in full.  And many nights it was like a 
piercingly black shadowball in the sky, darker than even the night 
itself.  It was strange and neither Frank- nor anyone- had an 
explanation for it.  Everyone had simply written it off as one of those 
phenomenons. 

But the eerie echoing whispers of the voodoo drums that drifted down
from the foothills in the twilight hours made Frank wonder if it wasn't 
dark spirits that shadowed the moon.  Voodoo was weaved through Black 
Moon County as surely as a piece of string in a woven rug. 

The train of thought led back to the strange man down in Alec's room. 
He had visited Alec at the prison two nights ago, but Frank hadn't see 
him before that night.  Frank knew his kind, though they rarely came 
down out of the foothills.  The man was a voodoo priest, and Alec had 
requested him as his spiritual advisor.  None of it set well with 
Harlin, he didn't like their practiced religion.  He found it dark and 
malevolent.  But legally, he couldn't refuse a patient a religious 
counselor of choice. 

Frank Harlin tried to will the phone to ring;  what the hell was taking
so long?  The call should have come in twenty minutes ago.  He tried 
not to think of what might have went wrong.  Didn't even want to 
entertain the possibility that Alec had somehow escaped the- 

The phone rang, loud and shrill. 

Frank stared at it through the third ring without moving.  He'd wanted
it to come, wanted to be done with all this once and for all.  But now 
that the ringing filled the dark office, he wondered at the news that 
waited to flow through the receiver.  He considered not answering, but 
even before the notion became a conscious thought he was scooping the 
receiver off the cradle. 

"Harlin?" 

Harlin cleared his throat.  "Uh, yes." 

"It's Warden McNeil."  the voice informed with an uncharacteristic
quietness.  "It's over, Frank."  Nothing else was said, and Frank was 
left with a hollow dial tone humming in his ear. 

Alec Stuart was dead;  the evil snuffed out. 

Frank sank down in his chair and leaned his head back, closing his eyes.
 A measure of relief coursed through him, but not like he'd expected.  
He realized, though, that it would take time to relax after such an 
ordeal.  By morning, perhaps. 

He left his office and went down to the room Alec had nearly grown up
in.  The door was closed and he had no idea whether or not the priest 
was still inside.  Frank found it difficult to picture the voodoo 
priest on his kness, praying for such a dark soul as Alec Stuart's in 
the standard christian way.  But he supposed the priest had his own 
ritual for resigning a soul to death.  Could anything but Hell be 
waiting for Alec, though? 

Even at the end, with that single thought in mind, Frank had chosen the
least painful method of capital punishment for his patient.  He 
could've opted for the electric chair, or the gas chamber.  But Frank 
Harlin had had no desire to inflict pain or torture, he knew Alec's 
soul would reside for the rest of eternity in that dark, sulfuras pit 
where pain and anguish developed an all new meaning- where Hell  itself 
became a reality.  Frank Harlin wished only to be rid of the shadow of 
evil that had been hovering over Black Moon Asylum for the past 
twenty-five years.  And now he was. 

He had no clue as to the cause of the delay at the prison, and he didn't
wish to know.  He only prayed it hadn't caused his patient undo misery. 
 In a strange way he didn't quite understand, Alec had become like a 
son to him;  a disturbed and dangerous child for which there was no 
help- yet one you longed to help anyway. 

Frank twisted the doorknob and eased the door open.  He recoiled
physically at the sudden chill that stretched out to touch his face 
like fingers of ice.  A strange pungent odor invaded his nostrils, and 
he discovered its source in the small candles arranged on the floor 
around a weird pattern that resembled a Veve; a large cross with a 
skull at the top and a swirled X near the bottom, the letter B at the 
tip of the left cross beam and a backwards S at the tip of the right.  
This particular symbol, drawn in the center of the floor with what 
appeared to be black candle wax, was the symbol for Baron Samadi, the 
lord of the graveyard and death.  The candle flames cast flickering 
shadows up the walls which were covered with more eerie symbols and 
designs; Hexagrams and Thaumaturgic Triangles being the most widely 
used.  Frank was no stranger to the occultic symbols and their uses in 
the black art.  The heart of Black Moon County pulsed black and evil. 

"Sweet Jesus."  Frank breathed.  The candles flickered fiercely as if a
sudden gust of wind had swept over their tips, then calmed.  Frank 
stared at the tiny fires atop the melting wax sticks; what in the name 
of God was going on?  He frowned as his eyes narrowed.  "Jesus."  He 
murmured aloud.  The flames jumped and swayed briefly. 

A swelling fear gripped him. 

Frank stepped deeper into the room and turned in a slow circle, studying
the walls.  What the hell had the voodoo priest been trying to 
accomplish?  The strange cold inside the room reached through the 
surface of Frank's skin and down to his bones.  He could feel it trying 
to press into his mind like some sort of supernatural force- 

"Oh, God."  He shuddered as he suddenly understood the purpose of the
symbols, the candles, and the Veve.  "No."  He lunged towards the door, 
but an unseen hand slammed it shut. 

Frank turned slowly.  He could feel the invisible force all around him,
pulsing, alive.  "Alec?"  he whispered uncertainly.  The candle flames 
flickered softly and he watched their wisps of smoke being pulled to 
the ceiling.  Frank raised his eyes slowly and felt a painful tightness 
squeeze his chest. 

The candle smoke gathered and swirled like gray mist in the center of
the ceiling.  As Frank Harlin watched with mounting horror, the mist 
shifted and swelled.  A face he wasn't certain he was truly seeing 
formed in the grayness.  A face he knew too well. 

The voodoo priest had used his dark, unholy magic to catch Alec's soul
as it left his body- and turned this room into its haven.  Frank 
watched the face in the candle smoke shape-shift, dissipate, then 
reform.  And now . . Alec wanted out. 

"Leave me be."  A violent tremor shook him as the face of his most
feared patient shifted contours and became something hellish, an image 
from a darker realm.  Frank's scalp prickled and he felt his very soul 
harrow.  He opened his mouth to scream but the only sound he heard was 
a hollow whirling like wind spinning through a tunnel as the smokey 
mist poured down his throat.  His mouth stretched wide, Frank sucked in 
the evil that had embodied his patient, unable to exhale. 

Frank's knees buckled and he hit the floor hard, his back arched at an
unnatural angle.  His arms shot out to the sides in a semblance of a 
crucifixtion and the most unholy laughter erupted like vomit from deep 
inside him. 

3-  The figure moved through the darkened halls of the Asylum. 

Silence filled the structure like a mausoleum and truly the souls that
resided here were deceased, though air still sucked into their lungs 
and their bodies moved about in the manner of the living.  But he knew 
otherwise. Black Moon Asylum was the house of the walking dead. 

He went to the office of Frank Harlin and moved through the darkness of
the room as efficiently as if bright flourescent light glared down from 
the ceiling.  He needed no guidance, for the strange light of the black 
moon was his guide now.  He'd been to a place where darkness could be 
felt, touched like thick tar.  And he'd breathed that darkness into his 
shadowed soul. 

In the bottom drawer of the metal file cabinet he found what he was
looking for.  As silent as stone, he opened the file marked Stuart/Alec 
and read the entries marked down in Harlin's handwriting.  Certain 
words were repeated throughout the file. 

Unnatural behavior. 

Detached. 

Evil. 

He read the psychiatrist's last entry, dated the day of Dr. Delaney's
death.  Harlin had noted his own personal grief and anguish at being 
unable to help the patient, wondering if he himself had somehow been to 
blame for Delaney's death because of his ineffectiveness to treat Alec 
Stuart.  He stared at the last line of Harlin's final entry:  'I regret 
that my efforts have been futile.  Had he been treated under another's 
care, perhaps . .' 

The silent figure sensed the presence of an emotion he wasn't accustomed
to;  pity. 

He closed the file and tucked it under his arm then turned towards the
door.  A strangled cry burst forth as the lights were suddenly flicked 
on.  His free arm swung across his eyes as he felt the retina's begin 
to burn. 

"Dr. Harlin."  A surprised voice clamored.  "I didn't realize you were
in-" 

"Turn off the damn lights."  he hissed coldly. 

"W-wha-" 

The file squeezed tightly into his armpit, he lunged across the room and
swept his palm down over the switch, casting the office back into heavy 
darkness. His face lost in the deep shadows, he smiled darkly.  "You're 
. ."  he shook his head once.  "I forget your name." 

The man in the doorway looked at him uncertainly.  "Weslow, sir."  he
said slowly.  "Chuck Weslow." 

"Ah, yes.  Weslow."  He looked the younger man over slowly.  He remember
Weslow now.  He was what some might call an apprentice.  But he had a 
cool indifference towards the patients, as if he secretly despised them 
for their problems.  But Alec Stuart he had despised most of all- 
because Alec had frightened him.  How thrilled he must be now that the 
patient was dead.  How thrilled, indeed. "Dr. Harlin . . are you all 
right?"  There was a submission that resonated from his voice when 
speaking to the senior psychiatrist.  But then, after all, Harlin could 
make him or break him. 

"Fine."  He assured the young man.  "Never better.  Just taking a moment
to relax after tonight's incident." 

Weslow visibly relaxed as some of his arrogance seeped back into his
voice.  "Stuart give them any problems?"  he wondered around the butt 
of a Marlboro he'd produced out of his  shirt pocket. 

"None."  he murmured lightly, squinting at the sudden bright flick of
Weslow's lighter.  "Took his poison like a good little killer." 

Weslow snorted and blew smoke out the side of his mouth.  "Shoulda gave
him the chair."  he muttered.  "Lethal Injection was too humane for a 
monster like that.  At least that initial 2500 volts woulda prepared 
him for the fires of Hell."  He snorted again and leaned his shoulder 
against the doorframe.  "Good Lord, what's this world coming to when 
people start worrying about torturing a killer while they're snuffing 
out his worhtless life?" 

"You and me."  He reached out and squeezed Weslow's shoulder.  "We're
going to get along just fine." 

Weslow grinned around his cigarette.  A grin that quickly twisted into a
grimace as Harlin's hand slid around his throat and squeezed just 
enough to let the man know he wasn't fooling. 

"Dr. Harlin?"  he choked.  "What the hell?" 

Harlin winked.  "Precisely."  He yanked the younger man forward and
pressed his fingertips hard against the crook of Weslow's jaw, forcing 
his mouth open.  "So you're fond of Ole Sparky, are you?"  he murmured 
down the stale smoked depths of Chuck Weslow's throat.  "Maybe I'll 
introduce you.  After we have a little nasty fun, of course.  In say . 
. Nebraska, where Sparky lets you set on his lap when you take innocent 
lives without a shred of remorse." Weslow's eyes bulged.  "No."  The 
protest was little more than a gurgling in his constricted throat. 

"Oh . . yeah."  Harlin's grip tightened and he forced his mouth down
hard on Weslow's and closed his eyes as a noise like a distant 
whirlwind echoed faintly through the office. 

4-  Frank Harlin opened his eyes. 

He was standing in the center of his office in pitch black darkness; 
what the hell had happened?  He blinked then squinted and noticed 
someone turning away from  the open doorway.  He thought he recognized 
the profile. 

Harlin stepped forward.  "Chuck?"  Then he noticed something else;  a
file tucked under the younger man's arm.  "Weslow, where are you going 
with that file?"  The man ignored him as if he hadn't heard the doctor 
speak.  Harlin frowned as he realized something was different about the 
aspiring young psychiatrist.  His walk, that's what was different.  
Weslow had a swaggering, arrogant gate that had always secretly annoyed 
Frank.  But the man walking away from his office strode forward with 
confidence.  And Harlin knew that walk as well. 

"Alec?"  he breathed. 

Weslow paused then turned slowly.  "Ah, shucks.  You found me out, Doc."
Frank stared at the man;  why had Alec let him go? 

As if reading his thoughts, Weslow met his eyes steadily.  "You did me
right, Doc.  For that, you live."  He shook his head once.  "But don't 
try to stop me, and don't get in my way." 

Harlin watched him turn away.  "Alec."  he called.  Weslow stopped but
didn't turn.  "I'm sorry . . that I couldn't help you." 

"I am what I am, Doc.  You didn't make me.  You saw what I was and still
you tried.  And even a dark soul like Alec Stuart knows the value of a 
friend."  He shifted his head a fraction to the right.  "You were my 
friend . . weren't you, Doc?" 

"I was." 

Frank Harlin didn't attempt to keep him from leaving.  He didn't call
the authorities.  What could he have told the police anyway? 

He stood at his office window and watched the man walk onto the Asylum's
front lawn where he paused, turning his face up to the dark sky and the 
black moon and breathe deeply of the night air. 

The evil had escaped, after all.  But it was leaving Black Moon County,
and that's all that  concerned Frank Harlin.  Though deep inside he 
experienced an odd sense of loss.  Alec had been in his care since the 
boy was five.  And at some point during the twenty-five years since, 
he'd developed a love for the child, though one he had- until this 
moment- refused to admit. 

But the darkness inside Alec was, nevertheless, undeniable.  And he
pitied the poor souls who met up with it out there in Nebraska or along 
the way. And Chuck Weslow, when he shook hands with Ole Sparky. 

NEBRASKA STATE PENETENTARY 

5-  Chuck Weslow came to with a suddeness that rattled his pulse. 

A myriad of blurred faces swam before him.  He stared at them until the
haze dissipated and the faces were in focus.  "Shelly?"  he whispered 
uncertainly.  A frown pinched his brow as he stared at his wife through 
a large pane of glass.  Behind her, strangers were settling into 
chairs. 

"Why, Chuck?"  she mouthed silently through the glass. 

Chuck went to reach out to her- and that's when he realized he couldn't
move. He looked down at the thick leather straps securing his arms and 
legs. Something- an  electrode, he thought- was attached to his leg.  
As he raised his eyes slowly back to his wife's damp face, hands were 
forcing him back against the heavy oak chair and a metal cap was 
pressed down over his shaven scalp. "Oh God- no!"  The protest was 
ignored as a band was placed over his eyes and his wife's face was 
eternally replaced by darkness.  He knew the purpose of the band- it 
was to keep his eyes from bursting when the 2,500 volts boiled his 
brain. 

A hand squeezed his shoulder with sudden familiarity.  "How ya holdin'
up, Chuck?"  A voice murmured with dark amusement.  "Comfey?  Damn 
sweet reward, don't ya think, for those monsters who rape and murder 
little children?"  The hand loosened then patted his shoulder like an 
old friend.  "Told ya I'd introduce you to Ole Sparky- and Alec Stuart 
never goes back on his word." 

Terror coiled around Chuck Weslow and stabbed through him in the form of
a 2,500 volt of electricity.  His body convulsed and strained outward 
against the thick straps as smoke poured out from under the metal skull 
cap and beneath the face mask, and the scent of his own burning flesh 
invaded his nostrils. 

The last sound he heard before the second surge of electricity stilled
his erratic heart, was the bones of his fingers snapping as the deadly 
currents sought an escape. 

THE  END 

Soulscape / Snead / Page "1" 

Soulscape / Snead / Page "1" 


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