The New Flesh

He lay on the bed, still, cold and stiff. Skin pale blue, lips purple, eyes open and unseeing. His arms hang off either side of the bed, palms out, skin ashen, fingernails long and cracking, yellowed. Golden hair lay about his head like a dead bride’s vail. His lips are parted, exposing a glint of white teeth.

A stained sheet covers him from navel down, leaving his bare chest for all to see. Other than his golden mane, he has no hair on his body, only scars, both old and new, some oozing blood, others crusted over.

Flies buzz and zig and zag about the room. Sometimes they take perch on any and all things that they can. Then they’re off again, buzzing and flitting about.

Few furnishings sit in the room; save the bed and a small table there is none. The floor is sticky with dried fluids that hide under picked clean bones,they litter the room in piles making it difficult to walk around without kicking one or two or five of them. Webs, spun in silver silk, drape the corners of walls and the cluttered bones throughout the room.

A sound appears; soft at first, but grows. A hum vibrates through the room. Bones shake, dance across the floor. They rattle as they click and clack against each other.

His eyes blink, lids closing and opening in rapid succession. Clear, now, he sees. He moves, rising as joints and muscles pop, creak, stretch and yawn. He edges his feet from the bed, pads touching icy wood, looks about the room. He should be horrified, yet he feels nothing. Nothing... nothing...

From under the bed where no light shines and spider webs dangle, the hum begins again. Soft; almost a coo from a child. A tongue, long and purple, flickers, a whip from a wide mouth edged with shards of teeth. It slithers between lips that aren’t there and nips one bare foot of the man. Slime, wet and sticky adheres to the his foot.

He nods, accepting what he is to do.

“Not long,” he says in a haggard voice. “Not long and you shall eat.”

He stands and the sheet drops to the floor revealing a mangled and mutilated body. He drags his feet through bones and cobwebs that plaster them until the door is at hand. It is opened and he is out of it, fading from sight and into nothing.

Eyes, once glazed and unseeing flow of the misty wind; along the foggy banks. They seek, find and stalk on silent wings pushed by the cold puffs of stale air.

A breath; soft, startles the pray. She turns her aging gray eyes. Teeth with no face comes from the fog; long, sharp... and hungry. A scream escapes... is cut down... ceases.

Blood, hot and rich fills his throat and stomach. He shakes in ecstasy, and pulls himself from the dead woman. Licking, flicking his tongue, he laps more blood, savoring the taste of fear permeating through it.

The journey home is short but tiresome. He enters the room dragging the woman’s body, cutting a path through bones and webs.

The soft humming begins again, increases. Bones rattle and dance once more. The body falls by the bed, a thud of dead weight among the hundreds of web-covered bones.

Picking up the sheet he lies back on the bed, pulls it up to his navel. His arms drop to his sides. His mouth and face are crimson stained. He blinks, lids shuttering in rapid succession. Laying there he sees nothing, feels nothing.

An impossible tongue flickers from beneath the bed, licking blood. It coils around the woman’s open throat and pulls her under the bed with several bumps and thumps. Spinning, twirling, the body rolls over and over, layers of silver silk cover it. There is slurping and grunting and belching.

The man, unseeing, stares at a ceiling a million miles away. He hears the feeding of the crimson monster. It will not want food for a time, but soon enough… He will awaken again. The crimson monster will seek, hunt and send him out to retrieve. For now, he hears the crimson spider, the crimson monster and he wishes for death that will never come for him...

"The Crimson Spider"
Copyright: © 2009 AJ Brown
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AJ Brown is a southern born writer with constant headaches and a limp acquired from the beatings his muse gives him. Currently, he is sporting a broken nose, inflicted by one of her minions. As of the writing of this bio, she stands over him, whip in hand. He must get back to writing....