Tag: Violence

Humble Pie

On By Shyla FairfaxIn Dark Realism, Horror, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

Yvonne Reached over the stove and closed the window, suffocating the sweet smell of baked goods within her tiny kitchen. The sun, unwilling to set just yet, let its orange light coruscate through the shutters.

The room fell still. Her silence was thick, her limbs heavy, and her fresh bruises sore. Yvonne sucked back the last of a cigarette, its sizzle screeching through the room until it was almost an echo. 

She stood wide-eyed; her consciousness watching  from somewhere outside of her body, floating among the tarred nicotine smoke and the swirling blueberry-scented heat. The fog grew heavy around her, but she didn’t bat an eye.

When Yvonne heard his car pull into the driveway, she dropped the wilted butt into the sink and exhaled the last of its unsavory fumes. Donning her oven mitts, she pulled the oven door open and peeked inside at her masterpiece. The blueberry pie was perfectly sculpted and was perhaps the most delectable image she had ever seen in her own home. She had been so patient with it, so tender and cautious. After all, any misstep would spell disaster, and Yvonne was through with disasters.

His footsteps thumped through the empty halls and trailed into a back room. He hadn’t even said hello. The nerve of him – it shouldn’t surprise her anymore.

Yvonne placed the pie on the white wooden table, a sharp edged spatula neatly at its side. There were no heart palpitations, no shivers; no indications of anxiety at all. Her peace had been made.

He entered the kitchen, sniffing his way to the pie like a dog. When he spotted the nectarous dessert on display just for him, he smiled. It wasn’t a genuine smile, or a thankful one. It was a smile of triumph. He was filled with pride at the idea that he had once again smacked some sense into his feeble little wife. The pie, he thought, was his reward – an assurance that she had been put in her place.

For too long, Yvonne figured out that morning, domesticity had been thought of as synonymous with docile. For too long, Yvonne realized that morning, she had let it be. Well, not anymore.

She picked up the spatula, gleaming in the dying sunlight still trying to seep through. She watched him seat himself, eager to be served, like a royal who thinks he has no enemies when the whole court is plotting against him. She almost smiled, but that would be a misstep.

The hunk of pie, perfectly cut, was surely a sight to remember. Its glazed crust, its prominent fruit filling – everything about it was so inviting. And, so deceitful.

Yvonne backed away from the table, faced the sink, and wordlessly set to work on the dishes. It was only when she heard the gurgling begin to creep out of his throat the she let herself smirk. At first, it was slight but as the sound of struggle behind her increased so too did her sense of victory. Soon enough, the smile had taken over her entire being.

Until that moment, she had forgotten what it was to be happy.

Shyla Fairfax-Owen ©

Droid Rage

On By Shyla FairfaxIn Sci Fi, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

Tully swung at Van’s jaw with as much power as he could draw up. The connection was perfect, sending Van down so hard that he kissed the doorknob before flopping to the linoleum floor. Tully took a second to admire his work – sturdy strength was his constitution – then he snatched the suitcase and took off down the corridor and out the side door, straight into the night.

The further Tully ran, the smaller the university became; until eventually the darkness swallowed it up whole. It was only then that he felt safe enough to send a d-note to his boss. He took cover in an alleyway and pressed the COMM button on his wrist. The holographic screen appeared. “Secured”, he whispered into it, and hit send. The message was sent directly to its linked COMM, Sera, who did not respond. The fewer the correspondence, the fewer the hackers knew.

Afterwards, he crouched and placed the suitcase gently in front of him. He was under strict instructions not to open it. Not that it would have been all that easy to if he had dared. The case was made of a metal denser than any Tully had ever encountered, and its bolts were DNA activated (something he didn’t have, anyways). None of that child’s play fingerprint recognition stuff – whatever was in that case was on lockdown.

The thing about being a professional thief is that you had to have a precarious nature to begin with. It meant that secrets were liable to get leaked. That’s why people came to Tully when they had something worth keeping plugged. He was one of the few who could get the job done, and be satisfied with the payout alone. Most people would not risk their asses without knowing what for. But Tully wasn’t most people. In fact, he wasn’t people at all. Being a droid had its benefits, and this was one.

Back at the safe house, the suitcase exchanged hands along with the money. Tully thanked his client – the man in white – and went on his way. Another mission down and another penny closer to Indigo. Yes, being a droid had its benefits, but Tully was sure being a man had more. Indigo was the only one out there with the technology to help him realize his dream, but she didn’t come cheap.

That night, Tully was mimicking sleep as he always did, when the d-note came in. “RETURN TO BASE.” It was an odd request at this hour, but Tully was only self-aware enough to notice that, not to question it. He certainly hadn’t been programmed to challenge Sera or her orders. So, he picked himself up and headed to base. Once there, Tully waited longer than he had expected to for Sera to arrive. When she finally did, she did so with a clatter, swerving in without elegance. Her hovercraft was noisy and dented, and she poured out of it dizzily.

“Accident? Are you in need of medical assistance?” Tully asked.

“You could say so. My hover was used as target practice this evening. A war with the Looters is inevitable, unless we beat them to the kill.”

Tully tilted his head and sent a signal to his chip to decrease room tone. He was unsure he had heard her correctly.

“One kill, Tully. And you’ll have your Indigo money.”

“But – I’m not programmed to -”

“You will be.” Sera hailed over her mechanic, Whisk.

It took only an hour of programming and rebuilding for Tully to be mission-ready. He was excited. His propensity for violence had been amplified, and he was that much closer to buying Indigo’s services.

“I don’t know why that’s so important to you,” Sera sighed as Tully geared up. “You have everything you need now – strength, intelligence, and as much reason and emotion as any person would need.”

“I only have what I’m programmed to have. I want to exist outside of this,” he pointed to his head, indicating his personality chip.

“Nobody exists outside of their heads Tully. We’re all just programmed. And the irony is that your desire to have the impossible – well, that makes you as human as they come.” Sera smiled, and sent him on his way.

Tully found the Looters exactly where he was told he would. From outside of the warehouse, he had to increase his ear chips to be sure, but once he heard their riotous thunder he was all systems go. With his leg and arm power set to max, he kicked in the steel warehouse door, sending it flying across the room and into a Looters’ throat. The rest of the gang raised their firearms which were some of the most sophisticated Tully’s info-read had ever picked up. A danger warning displayed in his line of sight for a moment, before his new ultraviolent programming overrode it.

It was a massacre. Five on one, but the Looters didn’t stand a chance. They were all at one time state-funded criminals, trained for battle in a time of less efficient droids. Some had even been backseat drivers, controlling droids in battle from a safe distance, which meant they had rarely even put their ill-training to use. Tully came at them with a force they could not have predicted. He was stronger, faster, impervious. Their fire bounced off of his strong metal skin. In hand-to-hand combat, his blows were fatal, while their caused more harm to themselves than to him. By the end, the five men lay mangled, sodden in their own blood.

Tully took a second to admire his work. His last job. Tonight, he would pay a visit to Indigo, and she would give him what he wanted – or else.

Shyla Fairfax-Owen ©

Haunted

On By Shyla FairfaxIn Dark Realism, Horror, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

There was no way to undo it. That’s the thing about surviving. The medley of blood, hair, and fingernails just kept swirling about in Jordan’s mind, imprinted behind his ocular nerve. Tugging and pulling so that the recalled sight of it was accompanied by physical pain. It was all he could manage to spread his eyelids every now and again; check if the world was really still there – wondering if he had really made it out, wondering if Jess and the others really hadn’t.

The melody of the epidecium hummed deep in Jordan’s ear drums, rattling them back and forth no matter how unpleasant. This was what it was to be haunted. The ghosts were only inside of his head, but they were real. They were persistent. They were his friends; all of them dead, along with the biggest part of him.

“Jordan Marks?”

Jordan looked up, surprised he had recognized a sound outside of himself. The secretary was trying to smile as she held the door open for him. “Dr. Casey will see you now.”

The doctor was gentle, but rushed. There were a lot of patients in the waiting room, so it came as no shock to Jordan that getting the prescription had been so easy. Anti-depressant experiment number 4. Maybe this one wouldn’t make him tear at his skin, drool on his sheets, or mix-up his words. Maybe.

The first few hours were good. Relief came like a tidal wave, throwing him off balance then gracefully carrying him away. He didn’t think about Jess; about the blood, the hair, or the fingernails. Instead, he thought about the beach on a sunny day. But once the high dulled, so did the sunshine, and Jordan was back in his dark, damp, room. No – he was back in the dark, damp, cave. And there was the medley of gore he just couldn’t escape. He thrashed in the swamp of sewage and bodily fluids. He clawed at the rocky walls, and screamed so loud he hoped he might break, and somehow blind himself from the horrors before him.

Jordan’s mother crashed through his bedroom door and eyed her son helplessly as he scrambled violently in his bed. She cried out his name through a tear-soaked tongue, trying to remember a time when he was just a normal teenager, vibrant and brave and full of life, seeking an adventure. A time before the monsters came.

Shyla Fairfax-Owen ©

Ruby

On By Shyla FairfaxIn Fantasy, Horror, Shyla's Stories4 Comments

Across the town line, parallel to the stream, and a quarter of an hour through the forest, in a small wooden house – that’s where her mother had been hiding. Ruby knew the route well, and had been secretly slinking through it for weeks. However, she had not once approached the door. Her grandmother had been quite stern on the matter. Ruby’s mother was gone, and Ruby was to leave it be.

The night it had happened – the night Ruby’s mother had disappeared – it had been just the two of them at home. Monsters had stormed their front door, but upstairs mother had hid her in the closet and told not to come out until grandma came for her. “No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, you stay right here and wait for grandma.” So she did. Even when she heard the riotous commotion, and was tempted to investigate. Even when mother crawled out the window, which Ruby could just barely see through the slits in the closet door.

The intruders hadn’t stayed for long, but it took grandma hours to come to her. Ruby explained that mother had gotten away. Days later, she heard grandma tell Uncle Joe that mother was hiding at the cottage until “it” blew over. Uncle Joe said she’d likely die first – and soon. That stirred Ruby. If her mother was dead, she’d like to see it with her own two eyes; but grandma had many rules. No crossing the town line, EVER. No playing near the stream. No entering the forest, especially at night. Ruby had to successively break each and every one to find mother. But finally, she did, and was very pleased with herself for it. See, Ruby had always been underestimated because of her small stature, young age, and sweet smile. But Ruby was a smart girl, with keen senses, and a precarious nature. Each night, while her keeper slept, Ruby would sneak out of the house, using the very same window as her mother had. Crouched behind a heavy tree trunk, Ruby would watch her mother inside of the cottage – preparing needles, injecting, drooling, and sleeping. Some nights, Ruby would be certain of her demise, but the next night she would find her very much alive, repeating the steps.

On this particular night, something was different. Ruby had been stomping through the forest as usual, when she heard a sound. It wasn’t any of the usual suspects: a cricket, a crow, or an owl. It was something heavier, angrier, and foul. Ruby tried to silence her trot, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t avoid crunching twigs as she went. She stopped, and spun around, sure she had felt the shiver of someone’s breath down the back of her neck. But she could see no one. In fact, with the moon sinking behind the clouds, she could hardly see anything at all.

She breathed slowly, squeezed her eyes shut, and sprung them back open. Still, there was nothing. But in the distance came a howl that instantly spread goose bumps over her arms. Her chest heaved now, a result of her pounding heart. Of course, Ruby recognized the sensation not as fear, but as excitement. The same kind of excitement she’d experienced when she had been chased by a stray dog that she had to kick with all her might to slow down.

Ruby folded down to her knees and crawled cautiously across the dirt, grass, and rocks, until she found her special hiding tree. As she settled behind it, the noises became clearer, and closer. She heard feet pounding against the ground, stampeding towards her, and then they flew right by. The speed had blurred the culprits at first, but then Ruby saw exactly what they were. Wolves.

She watched intently as the three wolves approached the cottage. The biggest of them stood on its hind legs and crashed through her mother’s door. The wolves ploughed inside, and Ruby instinctively rose for a better view. She tried to keep her eyes on the rhythmic chaos inside of the house, but it was difficult from such distance. Capricious as she was, Ruby skipped her way up to the little house, knowing the wolves were preoccupied now, and squinted through the dirty windows. To her surprise, the beasts she had seen were men now. Well, two men and one woman. Ruby found it implausible that her eyes could have misled her so. But in that moment, they were definitely human; although more vicious than anyone she had known in her own seven years.

She watched the violence unfold, mesmerized by the ferocity before her. When the group had finished tearing Ruby’s mother apart, the woman turned her head slightly, as if catching a scent. Her eyes met Ruby’s, and she rose slowly from a crouched position over the bloody corpse, to a rueful standing posture. Ruby thought she should turn away – hide – but she couldn’t take her eyes off the woman. When the men whipped around to face what had stolen the attention of their companion, Ruby ducked beneath the window. Her mind was racing now. She wanted to feel sad for her mother, scared for herself; but she only felt that nagging pit of excitement deep inside of her.

What was left of the door creaked open softly, and the woman came gently towards Ruby. Ruby let her. Her eyes were soft, despite the blood smeared across her face. The men followed, just as gently. Ruby saw that the men had yellow eyes that were slowly giving way to waves of brown that seemed to liquescence their irises.

The woman knelt before her, smiling maternally, extending a hand. Ruby took it, and could suddenly feel inside of her a strong persuasion; a warmth that would never go away, as long as she stayed by her side.

Shyla Fairfax-Owen ©

Also Published by Horror Addicts.