Read Online Gathered Dust and Others by W. H. Pugmire - Free Book Online
Authors: W. H. Pugmire
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rubbed the ashes onto his soiled mouth, and his tongue played over her fingers as his tubes of colorless hair swayed and lengthened. The lad shuddered spasmodically for some few moments as I held the lantern high enough to clearly study his countenance – and thus I witnessed his black spectacles as they tilted on his vibrating head and slipped partially down his nose; and I saw his eyes, one of which was newly blemished. My blood became like ice.
The artist bent low and placed the box onto the ground, clutched the razor within it and stood erect. I watched as she lifted her arms, as the sleeves of her gown slid down so that her scars were revealed, some of which she kissed. Then her mouth moved to one of the tube-like extensions of Carter’s impossible hair as the puny fingers of one hand pushed his spectacles back in place over his eyes. Portions of his hair, the tresses of which had lengthened so that they reached his waist, wound like amorous things around the woman’s wounded arms. I watched, nauseated, as she sliced into one arm with razor blade, and I fought sickness as a tube of hair lifted to the wound and pushed through it into Julia’s arm. Dark fluid began to flow inside the tube-like extension.
Carter raised a hand in which he held dirt, bent back his head and opened his mouth, from which there issued a familiar wailing sound. He turned his hand over and let the soil fill his eager mouth, and I shivered as the tubes that extended from his scalp grew dark with the fragments that filtered through them. Julia laughed and the tube that had entered her arm filled with flowing debris that washed into her upraised limb. “More,” she begged, “more. Nourish me. My arm hungers.” My knees, weakened, bent and I fell onto them. This caught their attention, and the creatures turned to me. “Hayward,” chanted the young man’s choked voice, and I could not resist its lure. I crawled to where they stood and watched the winding tube-like tresses as the young man removed his spectacles, revealing fully his blemished eye. “Hayward,” he laughed, licking his mouth with a soiled tongue. I set my lantern and book onto the ground as the mist that rose from the slab that was Obediah Carter’s grave began to shape itself into a cruel and rapacious phantom, a ghost that sang my name. I raised my arms toward it, one of which was found by the smooth blade of Julia’s antique razor.
Your Kiss of Corruption
I leaned against the cool wall of stone and listened to distant music. My brother had squandered his inheritance by purchasing the ancient Gothic church that was now our home and the show place of his vast collection of esoteric art and objets d’art. I had inherited father’s magnificent library, and thus I spent my time alone, in my chilly chamber, reading and dreaming. The fortune that had been bequeathed to me was the money on which we lived; and it was also that which financed Christopher’s lavish galas, the events that bored me but which I listlessly attended because I my brother decreed that it be so. It was at the last such affair that my brother had unveiled his latest acquisition, an ancient full-length mirror encased in a frame of white gold. Never before had such an unveiling been more successful; for the idiots who were his conceited friends lined up so as to admire themselves on the surface of polished glass. The sight of their uncouth cavorting, and the sound of their nonsensical shrieking, was too much for my nerves, and thus I walked out to the strange and venerable burying ground, to the queer and time-worn arched entrance of a buried mausoleum. Above its cavity of ingress was chiseled this curious inscription:
Mors Janua Vitae.
I leaned my brow against the cool rough stone of the neglected tomb and listened to the cry of night-birds. Quietly, I whispered the words of the inscription into the absolute darkness beyond the arched
The artist bent low and placed the box onto the ground, clutched the razor within it and stood erect. I watched as she lifted her arms, as the sleeves of her gown slid down so that her scars were revealed, some of which she kissed. Then her mouth moved to one of the tube-like extensions of Carter’s impossible hair as the puny fingers of one hand pushed his spectacles back in place over his eyes. Portions of his hair, the tresses of which had lengthened so that they reached his waist, wound like amorous things around the woman’s wounded arms. I watched, nauseated, as she sliced into one arm with razor blade, and I fought sickness as a tube of hair lifted to the wound and pushed through it into Julia’s arm. Dark fluid began to flow inside the tube-like extension.
Carter raised a hand in which he held dirt, bent back his head and opened his mouth, from which there issued a familiar wailing sound. He turned his hand over and let the soil fill his eager mouth, and I shivered as the tubes that extended from his scalp grew dark with the fragments that filtered through them. Julia laughed and the tube that had entered her arm filled with flowing debris that washed into her upraised limb. “More,” she begged, “more. Nourish me. My arm hungers.” My knees, weakened, bent and I fell onto them. This caught their attention, and the creatures turned to me. “Hayward,” chanted the young man’s choked voice, and I could not resist its lure. I crawled to where they stood and watched the winding tube-like tresses as the young man removed his spectacles, revealing fully his blemished eye. “Hayward,” he laughed, licking his mouth with a soiled tongue. I set my lantern and book onto the ground as the mist that rose from the slab that was Obediah Carter’s grave began to shape itself into a cruel and rapacious phantom, a ghost that sang my name. I raised my arms toward it, one of which was found by the smooth blade of Julia’s antique razor.
Your Kiss of Corruption
I leaned against the cool wall of stone and listened to distant music. My brother had squandered his inheritance by purchasing the ancient Gothic church that was now our home and the show place of his vast collection of esoteric art and objets d’art. I had inherited father’s magnificent library, and thus I spent my time alone, in my chilly chamber, reading and dreaming. The fortune that had been bequeathed to me was the money on which we lived; and it was also that which financed Christopher’s lavish galas, the events that bored me but which I listlessly attended because I my brother decreed that it be so. It was at the last such affair that my brother had unveiled his latest acquisition, an ancient full-length mirror encased in a frame of white gold. Never before had such an unveiling been more successful; for the idiots who were his conceited friends lined up so as to admire themselves on the surface of polished glass. The sight of their uncouth cavorting, and the sound of their nonsensical shrieking, was too much for my nerves, and thus I walked out to the strange and venerable burying ground, to the queer and time-worn arched entrance of a buried mausoleum. Above its cavity of ingress was chiseled this curious inscription:
Mors Janua Vitae.
I leaned my brow against the cool rough stone of the neglected tomb and listened to the cry of night-birds. Quietly, I whispered the words of the inscription into the absolute darkness beyond the arched
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