Flesh

WARNING! Do not read on if easily disturbed by the gory side of horror fiction!

Flesh

As soon as I passed through the gateway, standing slightly ajar as though slyly daring entrance, I felt something turn deep within my gut. Three years on the force cautioned against ignoring these feelings, yet there was something else competing, something more atavistic, that impelled the forward motion above the call for backup. I didn't have time to analyse this feeling, but a retrospective suggests that some abysmal kernel of my soul recognised a unique opportunity to confront its nemesis, in the flesh as it were, rather than through a safety-partition of numbers, and restraints, and the sterility of protocol.

The farmhouse yielded no response to enquiry. Around the back, it gave onto a traditional quadrangle of farmyard. Yet this was no picture postcard, despite the high summer weather: there was an air of desolation, of something beyond mere neglect, a kind of depravity of the old stones. Still no answer to my vocal enquiries. Not even a dog, most unusual for such an isolated location. Was I mad to go on? The question was meaningless: Fate was now at the helm. I moved towards a low brick outbuilding, once a stables, and peered through the open top half of the door: a couple of large chest freezers, purring away, plus some assorted and unidentifiable junk. This wasn't it. I left and tried the next outbuilding, an old stone barn structure more recently augmented with brick to shore up time's erosion. This was it: the light admitted from sliding open the door illuminated something suspended from a beam, a something I initially took to be the butchered carcass of some unfortunate ruminant. Two steps in disclosed a different tale: this had once been human, the arms amputated at the shoulder and most of the head missing. Worst of all was the fact of the skinning, the exposed tissue now a magnet for flies and in parts already seething with maggots. Shock had cancelled out the stench, but that now began to impinge. As I turned to exit that charnel chamber (oh, how easily that old word from childhood horror fiction returned!), I became aware of the faint sound of a fan. The freezers next door? I had no doubts now concerning their contents. Had I ever? No, on a large wooden bench to the right, perched, in utter incongruity, a large monitor screen. Also on the bench was a stills camera and a video camera. In the semi-darkness, I clumsily nudged into the bench and the formerly quiescent monitor burst into light. The files visible were all .jpgs - I opened one and began to scroll through the folder, seeing a progressive record of post mortem activity. Exiting the image software, I noticed a large .mpeg file at the bottom of the list. Automatically, I opened it... to observe what was most likely a perfectly ordinary-looking man at any other time, now distorted into a hideous daemon of bloodlust and something beyond, nameless, dragging the trussed and frantically struggling form of a boy, probably IC2, into this building, and beginning his work. I watched until the skinning commenced then closed down the viewing software. I wouldn't have lasted so long with sound - the boy was still alive at this point.

Sick inside, shaking, head full of flashing lights and high-piched whining, I finally stepped outside and vomited relentlessly. I became aware of another noise, external, mechanical. A colossal shadow stole steadily across the yard, and I passed almost thankfully into unconsciousness.

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

Technical - inspired by these Sunflowers, I set out to create "something with popcorn2". This is the result, made entirely from the eponymous variation. The ability to tweak parameters is what gives this version the advantage over the original. Rendered at medium-high quality with large filter radius, it just wasn't quite 'painterly' enough for requirements so in common with its inspiration, I enlisted the GIMP: a second render at ultra-low quality and small filter radius was layered in at 20% to provide the desired 'distressed' look of well-worked oil paint.

My entry for the June contest 'Fractal stories'.