It was a day when the light seemed to shimmer at the edge of buildings and the wild spirit of nature beckoned you from the undergrowth.

I was driving to meet some friends deep in the countryside and feeling hungry I decided to stop for lunch. I found myself meandering through a stretch of road that was banked on both sides by hills and suddenly came upon the inn.

The glow in the windows welcomed me and I parked the car and went inside.

I stood below the dark beams and inhaled a smell I will never forget. Someone had been boiling oranges and sugar.

That was when I saw her.

She appeared at the doorway wearing a long gown and ushered me into the dining room which was decked with silver and a fine array of foods. The entire room was lit by candles.

‘Please make yourself comfortable’, she said, ‘I will bring some wine.’

She had a radiance about her and her skin seemed pale blue and her eyes were of some unnatural colour I could not define.

‘May I see the menu?’, I said.

‘The food is set and ready to eat, you won’t be disappointed.’

Her voice came from far away, as if something other than her throat was producing it, and I waited for her to return.

When she did she bent and poured some ruby red wine into my crystal glass and I sipped it and watched as she sat next to me.

I ate the meat which was rich and tender and watched her slow carnivalesque movements, as she dipped her head slowly to raise the food to her mouth. It seemed the product of some rehearsal, as if she was unfamiliar with the act of eating.

‘We have been here for many years’, she said, ‘and passing travellers such as yourself often stop. They never forget the delicacies we serve.’

‘Do you always eat with your guests?’, I said.

She looked at me with curiosity.

‘Of course.’

‘You have an excellent chef.’

‘He has always been here, we have our own lambs which we butcher with pride, their tiny screams are like a morning song.’

‘I wasn’t aware there were lambs in these parts.’

‘Their flesh is sweet and easily rent.’

As I put fork to pink meat I caught a movement at her shoulder.

Some black shape seemed to wriggle there and vanish as I turned my eyes in her direction.

I became lulled by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway, a soporific sound that brought with it an attendant unease, as if some soothing metronome were working a narcotic into my brain.

I struggled with sleepiness as she left the room and returned a few minutes later.

My hostess leant forward and loosened the top of her gown, revealing a portion of soft white flesh before placing on the table an array of small plump ducks and pigeons which she began to prod and poke with her fork, a drop of spittle on her lip.

I’m sure I heard one of them issue a shriek before it happened.

I looked at her and again saw a movement at her shoulder.

Something was moving inside her ear, a black leg was poking out of it and it was curling like a tendril in search of light.

I watched her as she continued cutting the meat with an obsessive glare in her face.

And the leg reached out and touched her cheek. It was followed by another and then the plump body of a large black spider wrestled itself from inside her head.

It crawled down her face and dropped into the food, scuttling away across the tablecloth.

And still she continued cutting.

Now another spider left her head followed by a swarm of moths that flew into the room and bombed the candles.

I stood and began to leave when she laid a hand on my arm and I felt ice.

I looked into her eyes and saw beneath their translucent surface the moving shapes of a thousand insects. And she seemed as empty as a shell, her skull no more than powder.

The table was full of rotting meat and worms and maggots were wriggling across the tablecloth and through its holes. It was moving with their coiled and creeping bodies.

I tried to pull away but she was strong. Despair made me cruel.

Picking up a candle holder I pressed it against her face and watched as her hair ignited and she exploded into a fireball, running shrieking from the room, her dress and body in flames.

I left.

As I was passing through the doorway into the open air she grabbed my legs and I dragged her out of there, across the gravel path and watched her dress ride up and her legs begin to cut and tear to nothing and issue no blood. Her skin seemed to tear like a pus-filled wound, small bits of gravel lodged in there and oozing fluid.

She was holding on tight.

Over by the well in the yard was a rusty spade and I picked this up and hit her across the head. It came away with the first blow.

The sight was nauseating and her body began to decay before my eyes.

I ran from there and the stench and got in my car.

I started the engine and drove back into the deep countryside.

In my rear view mirror I caught a final glimpse of a burnt out building with no roof.

"The Inn"

Copyright: © 2010 Richard Godwin

----------------------------------

Richard Godwin writes dark crime fiction, and he lets it slip the net like wash into horror.

His work has appeared in many publications, places like A Twist Of Noir and Pulp Metal Magazine, as well as in two anthologies. His story 'Pike N Flytrap' is in this Fall's issue of Needle Magazine, his story 'Face Off' is in the latest Crime Factory, issue #5. His play ‘The Cure-All’ has been produced on the London stage. All his stories and poetry can be found at his blog here http://www.richardgodwin.net/

His first crime novel ‘Apostle Rising’ is about to be published and will be released for sale onto the market on March 10th 2011. Use the link to watch a video ad of it.

It looked like a small brown puppy. Its ears curled slightly at the sides and it panted irregularly.
They brought it home in a shoe box and laid it on the bed where they sat watching as they drank cool shots of vodka until dawn began bleeding.
"You look so nice in your orange suit", he said to her with that twinkle in his eye.
She was putting on her make-up and turned to face him and said "Johnny, we made this, ain’t it beautiful?"
"Sandra, anything that came out of you would be beautiful."
It moved a little on the bed and yawned showing stained yellow teeth and the curvature of a sharpened chiseled fang.
Soon they were lying next to their box of moving flesh panting.
Johnny moved with slow and ponderous lust across her swollen belly and she screamed until his ears were throbbing.
Afterwards he lay there smoking and she licked the top of the burning cigarette. There was the sound of sirens outside as she stood admiring her swollen tongue in the mirror.
Behind her Johnny tipped vodka on the head that jutted out of the shoe box.
"They like that", he said. "Tips them over towards humanity."
"You talk so clever Johnny, I can’t understand what you’re saying sometimes", Sandra said.
"Making them drink makes them human."
"Oh yeah?"
She walked over to him and stroked his head, running her long nails through his matted hair and resting his head against her breasts.
"Feeding time. I need to suckle it", she said.
"And when its mouth is full of your milk it will be human."
He lifted the small brown creature out of the box and Sandra took it and placed one of her nipples in its mouth. She rolled her eyes and seemed to inhabit some brief sphere of ecstasy before she began screaming.
She threw it down on the bed.
"Look what it’s done to my tit", she said. Blood was pouring from her nipple and she reached for the knife that lay on the dresser.

"I’ll hack its head off."
Johnny took the knife from her and held her until she started sobbing.
They did not hear the footsteps in the hallway.
On the bed the small brown creature bled.
Johnny had stuck it with the knife while he held Sandra in his tattoed arms.
The police cars outside formed an orderly line along the avenue.
Neighbours stood at their garden gates.
When Sandra saw that Johnny had stuck the thing they had brought there she poked and prodded the wound, listening intently to the shrill shriek like a child that has found an insect to torture.
"Do you think my tits will be all right?" she said.
"They’re always all right, you just keep em in that dress of yours when we go out."
"Oh Johnny."
"Well call me romantic."
"I’ll call you whatever you want."
"We do seem to make a lot of babies."
"An the doctors told me I was infertile."
"Just shows how wrong they can be."
"I’ve lost track of all the children I’ve had. How many a month is it?"
"Honey I don’t know, I never was much good at rithmetic."
She stood preening herself before the mirror.
"They’re never as good-looking as us", she said.
"We’s pretty neat, it’s a hard thing to do."
"How did we meet again Johnny?"
"I told you."
"Tell me again."
"We been living together for a year now."
"I know, but before that."
"You and I belong to a club."
"I ain’t no member of no club."
"Yes you are."
"Which club?"
"The Society For The Betterment Of Mankind."
"Oh yeah, I remember."
She put on her top and looked vaguely out of the window.
"Time to feed baby", Johnny said, and he passed it to her.
But the small brown thing wrestled free of his grip and shot across the floor and hid under a cupboard.
They got a wire coat hanger and opened it up until it was a sharp point and stuck it under the cupboard until the thing began shrieking again.
Just then the door burst open and two police officers entered.
They held guns pointed at them.
Johnny and Sandra lay on the floor while they cuffed them.
They led them out through the front door into the street where a swarm of neighbours stared and talked among themselves.
As the car sped away the only shapes visible to the prying eyes were the blurred outlines of their orange suits.
Two neighbours waited behind and talked.
"Escaped from a nuthouse", one said.
"What was that thing?"
"Sandra could never have kids and went crazy cause of it. She catches animals, thinking they’re her baby."
"What does the guy do?"
"He tortures animals."
"When she realises she ain’t holding a baby he kills it?"
"That’s about the sum of it."
"Fuckin sickos. Good thing they’re locking em up."
They went back inside their houses while Sandra and Johnny were being held down and injected with medication.
Sandra tried biting one of the nurses who hit her and stuck the needle deep into her buttock.
Soon she fell into a comatose sleep while Johnny lay tied to his bed and passed the night without stirring.
Outside the station the police officers were looking at the animal.
"Seems OK," one said.
"You’d think even a whacko like her would smell it ain’t a baby."
"That’s delusions for you, nuts like them believe their own fantasises and shape the world to suit them."
"Think he’ll survive?"
"Yeah."
They let it out of the box and it fled into some undergrowth.
Apart from the wound which was closing up it looked unharmed.
The next morning Sandra shuffled along the sterile corridor in search of Johnny.
She found him watching a nature programme on TV.
"Johnny?" she said.
"Yeah?"
"I think I’m pregnant."
"That’s good honey, that’s real good."

"Feeding Time"
Copyright: © 2010 Richard Godwin
----------------------------------

Richard Godwin is a produced playwright and his stories can be found at many magazines, among them A Twist Of Noir and Danse Macabre, as well as in the recent anthologies 'Back In Five Minutes' by Little Episodes Publishing and 'Howl' by Lame Goat Press.

If you want to check out his writing credentials further you can find them here at his blog, just click the portfolio link http://www.richardgodwin.net/