Saturday, 14 April 2012

IN ADORATION - Cabaret of Dread stories revealed

Artwork (c) Laurence Ranger
Every Saturday I’m revealing the tale behind the tale of Cabaret of Dread Vol.1’s main stories, together with a short excerpt of each to whet your appetite.

IN ADORATION


In Adoration is yet another unpublished story. Not for want of trying. No-one accepted it; no-one explained why they didn't want it. Sod it - I love this diabolic tale. So please take it anyway by downloading Cabaret of Dread for a pittance.


So – what’s In Adoration about? 


Demons. Deities. Sex and horror. Pure and simple.

Mr Fucker is today's pseudonym of aged demon, Reuben. Reuben is bored. Reuben steals souls and has had just about enough of Seabourne's twee congregation.

Father Judas takes the demon under his twitching cassock and together they bring bloody rebirth to England's green and pleasant land.

Inspiration

I'd be a liar if I told you I remembered what inspired me to write In Adoration. What I do recall is regularly seeing a tall, creepy character leaving one of our seaside churches and lurching up towards the seafront, belching and seeming to fondle himself on the way. Dirty old bugger.

I am a very spiritual person who was expelled from Sunday School aged eight for asking "inappropriate" questions about the Gods other peoples and tribes worshipped. I have too much to say about this for this particular post but hell, demons, deities and even the devil - there are a thousand explanations - and none is right or wrong.

Excerpt

*Warning: offensive content - it is 'horror' after all.

“Excuse me sir. Are you alright?”

The voice breaks his reverie. He is not amused.

“I need to get to church,” he grunts. The couple bent over him regard one another, smug in their faith in the Lord.

“Of course.”

He watches the woman in her expensive print dress and pink safari jacket. Orgasm plays between her legs in satisfaction at being such a good Samaritan.

“We’re off to late Mass,” she says. “‘Would you like to come with us?”

Reuben squirms within the new flesh that moulds itself across his skull; it tightens around his throat. Believing the poor man is choking to death, the pristine couple help him to his feet, just about tolerating the stench of his soiled underwear.

“Our car is right here. Wait, let me…”

The man places a plastic-backed picnic blanket on the rear seat before strapping the old man in. Reuben spends the journey breaking wind. His hosts open all the windows and still they grin their evangelist smiles, clapping their hands at the Jesus music that speaks to them through the stereo. Frustrated with the overbearing pleasantness Reuben takes the time to vomit down his borrowed suit at regular intervals along the journey. Sirens continue to wail in the distance, disturbing his benefactors.

 “Oh dear,” Mrs Godsquad utters as the screaming grows louder. “I wonder what’s happened. Why don’t you turn the radio on, dear?”

She looks fifty, sounds sixty. Reuben gets inside her head - she is thirty-eight years old. Her husband obeys, flipping the CD off.

“…murder at St. Saviour’s Church, Seabourne. Brian Guilroy, lay-preacher. Husband to Maria and father of Nigel, Constance and Belinda was found in the pews after this morning’s early mass. It is believed the body of Mr Guilroy had been stripped of clothing and his neck broken. Unconfirmed initial forensic reports suggest that stab wounds were found at the base of his skull and at his groin.”

“Ha!” Reuben barks. They don’t know the half of it.

Mr Godsquad gasps in horror. He stares at his wife.

“Brian. Oh shit Barb, it‘s Brian Guilroy.”

Barb glares at him, ready to admonish him for the cuss-word. Instead, she turns in anger to their passenger who is roaring with laughter.

“I really don’t think this is appropriate behavior, Mr…?”

“Mr FUCKER,” Reuben shouts.

The driver pulls over, parking on double-yellows, much to his wife’s consternation. The passenger feels his groin pulse with the scent of the sea, salty in his mouth - in all their mouths. He leans forward.

“Can you smell it, sister?”

The tidy woman recoils yet can‘t take her eyes off him. Reuben unbuckles his seatbelt, staring into Barbara’s pale blues. He moves towards her.

“It’s the stink of my sex. Look at it – it’s hard and it’s fat.”

He shoves his hand between his legs and nods at the woman’s husband. “It’s what he can never give you.”

The wife says nothing. She stares him in the face. Disgust and revulsion don’t stop her gaze straying to his crotch where the mound twitches, filling the old man’s trousers. Despite herself, she flicks her own seatbelt off and reaches for him.

“Barbara. What do you think you’re doing?”

Angry at the interruption Reuben grabs Mr Godsquad’s fine head of hair. Yanking backwards, he quickly snaps the man’s neck. Benevolent Barbara sneers momentarily at her husband before crawling onto the back seat.

The passenger declares himself ‘open’.

With Barbara choked to death between his legs, Reuben decides to take the rest of the journey on foot...


*************

Like the excerpt? The full tale is waiting for you in Cabaret of Dread!  By visiting the book's 'Look Inside' feature on Amazon you can also read the opening tale DRESSING-UP BOX, a few pages of SMILING CYRUS and a handful of mini-tales.

Of course, the best way to read this - and the many other stories in Vol.1 of Cabaret of Dread, is to download it. If you do, I am ever thankful... 

Buy/Download Cabaret of Dread from
Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

3 comments:

  1. I loved this tale, Lily. Truly horrific, shocking and - yes- film-able. I could see the scenes in vivid HD Technicolor.

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  2. I was mad for this tale the moment you first announced a character named "Mr. Fucker." Stellar writing, Lily.

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  3. This just may be my favorite of the collection, Lily... you truly have made horror your 'bitch'... weaving such dark and delicious tales of man's weaknesses and perversions... lost souls spiraling down...

    I should think In Adoration would make an especially fantastic bit of cinema.

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Lily Childs is a writer of horror, esoteric, mystery and chilling fiction.

If you see her dancing outside in a thunder storm - don't try to bring her in. She's safe.