LitWit Challenge: Write a story about a magical object that must be destroyed. (We have a winner!)
There were three finalists in this LitWit Challenge: jaime, Cacs and joyeah.
jaime’s story is well-written and gross, which is not necessarily a bad combination except that it doesn’t have actual magic in it.
Cacs’s story is our favorite because we like big intergalactic battles, but the magical objects aren’t actually in it. It’s really a trailer for the magical objects story.
joyeah’s story has character, plot, movement. It has a sense of place. We can see the tale unfolding like a movie.
The winner is joyeah. (Applause.) Congratulations, joyeah! You can pick up your prize at the Customer Service counter of National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati any time in the next 8 weeks. Just give your full name. Their number: (02)8974562.
Watch for next month’s LitWit Challenge. If you have any suggestions, let us know.
The LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our generous friends at National Bookstore.
* * * * *
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy are available at National Bookstores. These editions, about Php565 per book.
The assignment: Write a story of at least 500 words in which the character/s must destroy a magical object.
The prize: A set of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic about a magical object that must be destroyed.
Post your entries in Comments. Entries will be judged soon after they are posted. As always, cliche openings will be mocked most cruelly. Remember: It’s not easy to destroy a magical object. It will defend itself, or find defenders.
We’re accepting entries until 12 noon on Sunday, 28 April 2013. The winner will be announced shortly after that.
This LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
April 20th, 2013 at 00:45
Oooh…no entries yet??? I would post an entry but i can’t write worth a damn. Someone write something!
April 20th, 2013 at 18:37
The Magic Rock
My mom is a monster…No! I mustn’t think of her as mom, otherwise, I would fail to kill her. She’s no longer my mother, she’s been warped by that…thing! Rock! Pebble! I don’t even know what to call that shit she ingested. All I know is that rock made her superhuman. She does not need to eat or sleep but she can overpower me. Oh, how she can overpower me. I refuse to believe it was my mom who helped tie my hands and feet just to feed me to the dogs. You see, the rock demands that she feed it money. And when almost every piece of appliance has been sold, my mom had nothing left but me to sell.
I tried to see whether she felt remorse at what she did. I failed to see it. The rock made her complete. This was a magic rock that she took and it made her happy, and strong, and content, and all those things that we can’t give her. I don’t want to inherit the rock, I don’t want to be a magical creature, I just want to be normal. But I know that if I don’t do something about it, I will go my mother’s way.
Shh!! I hear the lock! Must act normal, must smile at her, uh, should I smile? Or would that be overkill? Overkill?! Hahaha, fuuun nee! Wait, I don’t have anything planned, damned fucking idiot. What’s important is that the rock be cast out into the fire. I don’t want to kill her by stabbing her. She’ll have blood splattering all over the place…hello, only person to clean that would be moi. Should I strangle the monster with the nylon cord? Carotid artery : blood = plan discarded. A rope would do. How? I’ll ask the monster to look under the bed and jump on her while slipping the rope under her head. I have to be quick as she’s fast, and, let’s repeat, strong. Quick, put the rope on the bed!
“Ma! (nster), help me look for grandma’s ring. I dropped it near the bed, I looked everywhere for it but I can’t find it.”
The rock may have made her superhuman but it didn’t make her any smarter. I held on for five more minutes after the monster stopped struggling. I looked at the wall clock to make sure. It was hard to hold on while my snot dripped, but I dare not let go lest the rock revived the monster.
Now, for the rock. It’s a pity I didn’t learn how to hone the edge of a knife, otherwise, this would have been a lot easier. It’s also a good thing this monster is a small woman, she and I can fit inside our small bathroom. She smells like raw pork, that is, after I hosed out her shit and piss and most of the blood. I failed to find the rock, but I can still destroy it by putting all of her guts into the oven and cooking it until it turns to ashes. Thank God she hasn’t sold it yet.
April 21st, 2013 at 22:25
Ronigurl: We hate the opening sentence…Yes!
The nature of the magical object is unclear. The only creature we want to kill is the narrator, who sounds like the sort of teenager who tweets every boring detail of her life.
OUT.
April 24th, 2013 at 05:25
“It’s not you,” said Jamie. “It’s that oven toaster hiding under your bed.”
Jamie wanted to add “monstrous” and “self-loathing pig” to describe the toaster, but he’d likely get more lashings if he did, so he kept them to himself instead. He sat bound to the chair; his legs and arms, red and sore.
Carlo slumped on the carpet; his back on the bedroom wall. His eyes shone with tears. “You don’t want to be friends anymore, is that it?”
“Why would I want that? Listen to yourself!” He definitely didn’t want to be friends with Carlo anymore. Not when he was tied, whipped, and threatened to have the oven eat his cat. “I wouldn’t throw all those years of friendship! We’ve known each other since high school and we went everywhere together! I even lent you my shoes, remember?”
“When was the last time you came here, huh? Six months,” exclaimed Carlo. Fat tears rolled down his grubby cheeks.
Jamie wondered when Carlo bathed last. He stank. He smelled like his room: wet socks. And everything was in disarray.
Carlo’s mom called him two weeks ago, asking if anything happened to her son in school. He didn’t want to go out of his room and wouldn’t talk to anybody. Jamie didn’t care about him anymore; but Carlo’s mom had always been nice to him, so he dragged his feet to their house when he couldn’t find another excuse not to go. How he regretted that decision.
“I stopped talking to you because I was jealous of Mel.”
“Why would you be jealous of an oven toaster?”
“Because every time we’re together, you talk about her! You always want to bring her with you! You even feed her chicks and rats. And you know I fight for animal rights.”
Truth was, Carlo only spoke to Jamie about the oven a couple of times (although the chicks-and-rats part was true). Jamie stopped talking to him because the other students thought Carlo was a loser, and he didn’t want to be associated with losers. So when a travelling salesman offered him an old, English-speaking, Japanese toaster for P100, he bought it at once and arranged for Carlo to “accidentally” find it in Toby’s Antique Store. Toby sold it to him for P50. Thinking Carlo wouldn’t miss him now that he got a new friend, Jamie cast him aside, little by little, until one day, they stopped all communications.
“Liar!” cried a voice from under the bed. Melissa rolled to the light, sitting on Carlo’s battered skateboard. “You lying samamabitch! You left him on purpose, you liar!” Melissa slapped her cord on Jamie’s legs six times (Jamie resisted the urge to shout) before Carlo sprang and swiped Melissa’s cord away. “That’s enough, Mel,” pleaded Carlo.
Jaime cursed Melissa silently. He hated how she got goody-good Carlo under her iron control. From the moment he entered the house, he felt something queer going on. And when he saw how disheveled his former friend was, he knew the toaster had to do something with it. He felt so guilty. He brought the evil toaster to this house after all, and promised himself to smash it into tiny little pieces.
“He’s right. I should have given him more importance,” said Carlo.
Melissa’s wide mouth hang in disbelief. “After all that I’ve done for you…” she said accusingly. “You don’t need me anymore!” She threatened to insert her plug to the wall outlet.
Carlo froze. “Mel, I’m sorry, don’t do that, please… I don’t want you to die.”
“Oh, please,” cut Jamie. “Mel puts the mel in melodrama. She’s an oven toaster, how could she be electrocuted?”
“He’s lying, Carlo! I can only survive if its 110 volts and –”
“It doesn’t matter, Mel. Please don’t do it,” said Carlo. “Jamie can go to hell.”
Melissa would have cried if only she had tear ducts.
Carlo crawled towards the wall and pulled the plug ever so gently. And then pushed it firmly into the socket. Melissa barely managed a yelp. Smoke rose from the oven.
“Bitch ate my duck,” said Carlo, his voice as cold as ice. He proceeded to cut the nylon cord binding Jamie. “She terrorized my family, bossed all the other appliances, staged a coup, threatened nuclear war, scared the pets, extorted food, everything. She used to be nice, until I refused her marriage proposal.”
Jamie massaged his wrist when he was freed. “Why didn’t you just get rid of her?”
“She was suspicious about everything. I couldn’t go forward with any plan because she’d discover it and take revenge. My only chance was really to stage this drama and get you to come over. Long time, dude. And you never wanted to speak to me. I almost gave up.”
Jamie’s throat felt dry. “Why me?”
“Because I know you’d out-evil her.”
Guilty laughter. “Well, glad I was of assistance.”
Carlo looked him in the eyes. Jamie realized he knew everything.
“I’m sorry –”
“Just don’t do it again.” Carlo walked towards the door and pushed it open. “And thanks for your help.”
April 26th, 2013 at 07:55
THE HORNED COMB
Jerome Marasig looked at the comb, hypnotized. He could hardly breathe, the wind in his lungs seemed unable to circulate through his system.
It was a thing of immense beauty.
Cool to the touch and holding his gaze; it looked like it was made from the shell of some long ago extinct tortoise, mottled brown, with splashes of gold, it looked like two half moons attached together. The lower half moon was adorned with six pearls alternating with six diamonds. The upper part was decorated with what appeared to be deer or goat horns, the teeth of the comb made a V shape.
It looked to be at least 150 years old.
Jerome Marasig was a PO2 who was assigned to take pictures of crime scenes. A stocky guy with a deeply tanned complexion, he became a police officer because he wanted a life of excitement, and because he failed the law entrance exam.
He was also assigned to take pictures of crime scenes for documentation.
Not because he was a professional photographer, but because he had a brother who was a professional photographer who gave him hand me down cameras.
The first crime had been in November 4 2008, Lydia Montero, 26, the most lovely woman he had seen; and a seasoned estafa artist, was found dead of a cardiac arrest, the comb was on her dresser. Her maid of seven years had found her sprawled in her bedroom in one of the priciest condos in the heart of the business district.
Jerome fell in love when he photographed her thick mass of curls forming a chestnut halo around her head; he gently posed her face with gloved hands.
She was a natural born beauty. Framed pictures all over the condo showed a teenage career as a model. The grand slam winner of a genetic lottery.
The condo showed good taste, elegant but pricey furniture was professionally arranged to make use of the little space. He peered out of the huge picture windows.
He could see their dilapidated precinct from her unit.
He did not find his curiosity morbid as he searched for tell tale scalpel marks or poked her Spanish nose. Her hazel eyes did not come from contact lenses.
She was clad in an old fashioned white nightgown, one that almost touched the floor and was frothy with French lace. The light fell like on her dappled sunbeams caressing her alabaster skin.
She looked like an angel in repose.
He felt that familiar tug at his chest, he half expected her to wake, but as he touched her cold face and felt the claim of rigor mortis on her flesh he knew he was doomed never to have met her when her heart still beat. Her eyes were bloodshot. He gently closed the lids on her thickly lashed eyes.
It hardly mattered that she had perpetrated a massive pyramid scheme.
She was dead now.
He clucked his disappointment like a pensive hen and continued to take pictures. There was no foul play, nothing was lost, the maid who had discovered her was still in hysterics. The other cops could hardly pocket anything of value; the condo management had sent their security to the condo before they had arrived and were filming everything. It was getting hot with all the bodies cramped in the tiny space.
Supt. Vasquez, his arthritic superior, stared at her, and whistled under his breath, “What a waste. You call her family and ask if we could have an autopsy done. She could have been poisoned. Keep the maid for questioning. Label everything in the ref Marasig.”
After three hours SOCO came and he soon thought he could forget about her.
January, 2009.
It was on the second day of January when Jerome was busy reading the online news on his battered office PC when the call came. Another death, this time, the popular actress Heavyn Tenorio. She had accidentally fallen from the top of the stairs in her Tagaytay rest house. Heavyn had recently been in the news, being embroiled in a scandal that revealed her to be an extremely expensive call girl to political personalities and entertainment industry bigwigs.
The comb was found clutched in her hand.
To Jerome’s surprise, she was cousin once removed to Lydia.
He photographed the body, quite dismayed to find out that Heavyn’s slutty looks owed much to very imaginative makeup artists. She looked like a fresh faced, twenty something girl with perfect skin. He hardly recognized her. Her body was twisted in a grotesque position. A pool of blood framed her head, this time a scarlet halo.
Jerome looked at the comb this time, and took a close up picture. He wanted to confiscate it as evidence. But an emotionally unstrung personal assistant hovered around like a noisy, slightly high strung, and over weight butterfly.
He smelled of grocery store cologne and wore his hair in faux hawk.
“She said she was having the strangest dreams, Sir. She said she dreamt of…”
“Blood?”
The personal assistant shook his head, wiped off tears and sweat from his pudgy face.
“No, Sir…”
“Her impending death?”
The PA looked very confused and started sobbing.
“No, she….she…. she said she had everything she ever wanted. She said… it said things to her. “
“What said what? What things?”
He took out his tickler and began to scribble away quickly.
“That!” The PA pointed a finger at the horned comb.
Jerome’s hackles rose.
He had felt it before.
A slight breath of sinister intent. The comb exuded it. He had seen evil objects before. He knew there were some things that had some demonic nature.
A drug addict he had once interviewed told him that this marble statue had whispered him to kill his former employees in cold blood. He believed in the drug addict. The suspect had passed out when he saw what happened to his victims.
He had no idea of what happened. Jerome thought was he was saying was true. The resident medico legal told him that it was the drugs and chuckled at his idea.
He kept his opinions to himself pretty much after that.
And then there was that annoying case of the piano.
This lovely antique piano figured in two cases of family massacres. It was of an old German make, with ivory keys and brass candleholders. The only survivor of the first slaughter was an old housekeeper. She was put in a mental asylum since she kept saying that there was a ghost who owned the piano and she killed the family that she worked for. The police figured it was the old lady who had a nervous break and killed the entire family. Even the family cat.
The other massacre had happened five years later.
This time, no one went to jail.
No one survived.
He kept his distance from that damned thing. He felt a heat, imperceptible to others, rise like a miasma from that piano. He could hardly stay long enough in its presence without breaking into sweat.
Lost in thought, he stared at the bawling PA, and automatically handed him a kerchief. The PA gratefully took it and dramatically blew his nose.
“What did it say?”
“She said she was going to be…. rich and ….powerful if she …..did everything that it said. It made her… do things.”
“Like?”
“At first it was easy…she made me buy these …lovebirds… then doves…I thought she was going to keep them as pets….. I found out later… that she was killing them! She would slit their throats….” The PA started gasping frantically. Oh great he’s having an anxiety attack, Jerome thought as he held the shoulder for support. He assisted the PA into a plush chair.
Another cop came to their side with a glass of water.
The PA drank it in a gulp.
“….and…and… she’d put the blood in a bowl and…put that comb in it…the blood.. I’m not sure if it evaporated or what….the blood would be gone in about… a few minutes…sometimes up to half an hour.”
Jerome shuddered.
He had seen awful crimes. Some were crimes of passion, some of idiocy, some of necessity (like an unemployed construction worker holding up passers by to put food on the table), but he loathed those who killed the innocent and those unable to fight back. Specially animals. He had a soft spot for pets.
“She started getting attention.”
The PA had finally calmed down. He stared at Jerome, his pasty, pimply face pale from all the emotional effort. His voice lost its’ girlish squeak, and he spoke more softly.
“You know, she had been in showbiz for 7 years. Only bit parts, supporting roles, she’s a single mom to a 9 year old in a private school. She needed money. When she started….offering these animals, things got better.”
The PA paused.
“She got invited into these high society parties, you know a few months later she couldn’t even get in. She was getting all this attention. She was paying for this small house so that she could quit in a few years and go back to college. I think this happened….because that comb was asking for too much.”
Jerome stared at her with a raised eyebrow.
“The comb had leveled up, before it was content with birds, lately the animals got bigger roosters, cats…last week she sacrificed 3 dogs we claimed from a pound. She was asking around where to get a monkey….she tried stopping, but she couldn’t sleep. She’d get these awful nightmares where she’d dream of her offering her daughter’s blood. She told me last night,“ he fished for his cellphone from his jeans pocket, and retrieved a text message “that it wanted …human blood.”
Jerome swallowed hard.
“Take it Sir, “ the PA had picked up the comb gingerly, holding it with the kerchief Jerome had handed him. The PA’s face was stony now. There was grim determination all over his soft features. The PA put his soft hands on Jerome’s chest pushing him and comb away.
“Take it as far away as her from possible. Burn it, have it run over, destroy it.”
Jerome pocketed the comb.
He felt it throb in his uniform pocket.
It seemed to have a minuscule pulse. Like it was alive.
He felt it murmur, a soft woman’s voice, much like his dead mother’s.
He could hardly drive back to the precinct, the murmurs sounded more like whispers, the voices indistinct and seductive.
He could not resist.
It spoke of an instant promotion.
It spoke of finding the woman of his dreams for him.
It spoke of sending all his three siblings to college.
He rushed to the precinct restroom, and before he knew what he was doing, he gently combed his hair.
April 27th, 2013 at 05:57
Seated around the kitchen table with three of his friends, Paul pressed his face against the wood and began to laugh. The tornado warning had forced the Iowans indoors, compelling them to make use of the Saturday afternoon as though they were in college. It had only been minutes since Rico lit up the bong sprinkled with pixie dust.
“The old drab down the street said it’ll make you more intelligent,” claimed John as he munched on his third shawarma.
“He’s already fucking intelligent,” Rico asserted squeamishly.
Will, who had just finished his turn inhaling the magic powder, claimed that he saw someone in the living room.
“I think someone’s watching us,” he said nervously. “I better go check.”
He had barely taken two steps from the table when he billowed a frantic scream.
“You monster! Get away from my cat!”
“What the fuck is going on?” asked Rico squeamishly.
“There’s a monster in the living room and it took my cat; and he said that if I wanted my cat back, I would have to go on a journey to Ivengarst, destroy the magic powder, and fight him in a duel to the death!”
“Where is Ivengarst?” remarked John on his fourth shawarma.
“Funny, I know where it is,” said Paul blithely, pressing his face against the wood. “It’s two blocks down the road.”
The four look at each other as brothers and promise to return Will’s cat. They take on the arduous journey down the street, passing ponds and street bumps along the way. The late afternoon gloom provided a divine backdraft to their crusade. After a couple of minutes, they arrive confronted by a graffiti-littered brick wall.
“Ivengarst!” Will exclaims, reading one of the markings.
“Funny name,” whispered Paul gaily, pressing his face against the wall.
“Ivengarst,” echoed John, now on his eighth shawarma.
“Fucking Ivengarst!” voiced Rico squeamishly.
The four men offer the magic powder in exchange for the cat, receiving no response. Erstwhile, losing patience, they charge against the brick wall, bruising themselves as they kicked and punched the facade.
After a nano-second, they are defeated.
Will knelt before the wall, tucked the magic powder back into his underwear and wept.
“What else do you want. We already brought the magic powder.”
“It’s over, Will.” consoled John while eating his twelfth shawarma. “Let’s go home.”
“This is not funny anymore,” said Paul who had begun to shed tears, still pressing his face against the wall.
It was upon this moment that Rico whimpered squeamishly, “Fucking Ivengarst!”, looking towards the funnel cloud over their heads.
The four looked nervously at the forming tornado above. Will stood up and addressed his comrades with a quote from one of his favorite films, Braveheart, using the same fake, drunken-Irish accent that Mel Gibson used.
“Fight and you may die. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now,
would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one cahnce, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!”
And to that, even as it made no sense, the four men each clutch to debris fallen from the same wall they scratched earlier as a tornado whirled forth facing four men under the influence of a missing cat.
April 28th, 2013 at 09:35
“The Great Object never hurt anyone. Go ahead. Stick it in your flower.” The Grand Mistress said with all care and attention. She was in her chambers with a new recruit, a girl of seventeen with ribbons in her hair and confusion in her eyes. The neophyte was called Elisha. She was invited into the sisterhood by her long-time friend, who sought comfort in the Sisterhood of the Great Object when a romance of two years had gone sour. Elisha, too, had just ended a relationship, and asked her good friend to pledge her into the sisterhood.
Elisha rested the Great Object in her palms. It was nine inches in length and five inches in girth. If it never hurt anyone then all of the sisterhood must be numb, or the Grand Mistress was lying. She assessed the situation. She was completely naked on a four-post bed with a woman she had met only six hours earlier. There was patience and gentleness in the Grand Mistress’ voice, but also a sense of authority that never accepted rejection. Her eyes met the Grand Mistress’. The woman smiled reassuringly. In the days leading up to that moment Elisha had used the Lesser Objects. Other members of the sisterhood had trained her to use them, and had given her instruction on their tenets. This was her last task before becoming a full-pledged sister. Elisha knew she had to do it, or walk out of the chambers and never return.
She began to lower the thing. She held it tightly with both hands, her fingers wrapped around its thickness. Just as she was to do the Preparations for Union, the double doors of the chamber opened forcefully. A voluptuous blonde girl stood in the doorway. “Stop!” she ordered. Her blue eyes were looking directly at the Grand Mistress.
“Savannah,” said the Grand Mistress, the contempt clear in her voice.
“This has to stop. Now.”
“This is a sacred place. Your sacrilege is not welcome here.”
Savannah had left the sisterhood twelve moons ago. She had made a new friend from the followers of The Books. She attended one of their worship sessions, where she claimed to have met her true purpose. She began to attend to the needs of the sisterhood less and less, and started to persuade other sisters into her new-found way of life. She spoke to them of salvation, and how life could have meaning apart from an object, and such other philosophies not in the tenets of the sisterhood. When she was given the choice between the sisterhood or the congregation of The Books, she left with a heavy heart and a promise to open the eyes of her sisters.
“The only sacrilege is the one you are doing here. You speak of empowerment, yet rely on an object to give you a sense of identity. Tell me, does that little girl truly understand what it is she is about to do? You are taking away her being and replacing it with an unnecessary need.”
“My dear sister, do you remember when you first came to us? You were a heartbroken little thing, barely able to tell her story without breaking in a fit of whimpers and tears. The sisterhood showed you your true power. The sisterhood liberated you from your reliance on men, and placed your power into your hands once again. Now tell me, dear sister, why must you stop this poor innocent flower from taking control of her destiny?”
“You speak of liberation from men, yet that thing is in the shape of a man’s members.”
Other sisters had assembled by the doorway. They looked upon Savannah with a mixture of wonderment and repugnance. Savannah walked to the bed, and snatched the Great Object from Elisha. Those gathered in the entrance to the chambers gasped in shock. The use of the Great Object is a privilege granted the by Grand Mistress only, and a banished sister certainly had no right to handle it.
“This,” began Savannah, “this has paralyzed all of us. We should not rely on such objects to show us our power. Our true worth lies within us.” Her statement supported a teaching of the sisterhood, and at the same time twisted it. The sisterhood taught that the Objects are tools to help one discover her true self.
“Surrender the Great Object, Savannah!” ordered the Grand Mistress. She stood beside the bed. At six feet, two inches, she towered over all the others.
Savannah took out a silver balisong from between her breasts and unfolded it. She held the Great Object in front of her and screamed. She slashed and cut it in half as everyone cried in horror. It squirted blood. No one expected this, not even the Grand Mistress. Savannah dropped the silver knife and the two halves of the Great Object on the wooden floor. Her faced looked battle-worn. “It is finished,” she declared.
“Finished, you say?” The Grand Mistress was not pleased. She ordered the others to restrain Savannah as she picked up the two halves of the Great Object and put them back together. Before their very eyes the Great Object healed itself completely. She ordered the sisters to pin down Savannah on the bed.
“How dare you come in here and preach to us your lunacy! How dare you defile this holy place! You have never been one to take the teachings of the sisterhood to heart. Now you’re taking a refresher.
“Little darling,” she said to Elisha. “These will be your final initiation orders. Get several retired Lesser Objects, and use them on her.”
“Yes, my Mistress,” Elisha answered. Whatever doubt and fear she had before Savannah rudely interrupted the ritual had been replaced by determination.
As her former sisters pinned her down on the bed, Savannah focused her thoughts on her cherished teaching from The Books, “Sacrifices must be made for the Greater Good. How lovely it is for one to make these sacrifices.”
April 28th, 2013 at 10:40
The Keeper
“Admiral, we have lost another attack cruiser.” The lieutenant delivered the news matter-of-factly, coldly, in as military a manner as he could. Yet however firm he maintained the tone of his voice, Admiral Rodion sensed the hopelessness in his words.
“How many men were in that cruiser?”
“Fifteen hundred, Admiral.”
“And how many have we lost?”
“We have lost all the men, Admiral. Reports from our ground commanders indicate that the enemy has managed to commandeer our heavy artillery. One of our argon cannons struck our own ship. I have ordered our remaining cruisers to fall back towards the planet’s southern hemisphere, away from the range of the cannons.”
Admiral Rodion kept silent, his gaze remained fixed on the combat simulator. The young military chief of the republic knew the battle for the great flatlands of Sri-Hor is lost. The admiral hoped to gain a decisive victory on Sri-Hor against the armies of Cedeus. But twenty legions of Horac warriors poured into the frontlines to reinforce the ten legions of Red Guards fighting for Cedeus. The fifteen legions of the republic under the admiral’s command were decimated.
“Lieutenant, order a retreat. We cannot afford to lose any more men and materiel. Have our forces routed to our forward bases in the Degaraan System. Have an accounting of our remaining forces, weapons, and spacecraft.”
The admiral turned to leave the command ship’s bridge. But not before a final order.
“Have the wounded tended to, lieutenant. And see to it that the holo-memoirsof the dead reach their families immediately.” And solemnly he muttered, “include a message of gratitude for their service to the Republic.”
Admiral Henrik Rodion made his way to the communications pod, a gun-metal spheroid located deep within the belly of the interstellar fleet’s battle cruiser. A blue glow from the pod’s control panel bathed the young admiral’s face. On the holo-projector awaited the emperor, his father, Harald Rodion.
“My Lord, our offensive on Sri-Hor has failed. Our forces were overwhelmed by Cedeus’s battle-hardened Red Guards”. The young admiral paused. “They were aided by twenty legions of Horac warriors, my Lord.” He added.
“Twenty legions of Horac warriors, you say?” The emperor’s voice bellowed with incredulity.
“Yes, my Lord. Our ground commanders were positive.”
“Son, Horac warriors are part of legend. They exist only in the imagination of our storytellers.”
“I have read the books, father.” The admiral subtly reminded the elder Rodion that he was no longer addressing an innocent child yet to be schooled. “But there they were on Sir-Hor. Tens of thousands of well-armed Horacs massacred a third of our troops, my Lord.” The young Rodion could not have made it more clear to the emperor that the Horacs, merciless half-men, half-demons, have come to life on the plains of Sir-Hor.
“You have to forgive me, my son. You must understand that I have been made aware before of accounts of Horac warriors fighting under Cedeus. I have refused to believe these stories as you are as aware as I am that Cedeus once used lunamir against our troops.”
The emperor and his admiral son were both aware of the damage wrought by lunamir. The young Henrik Rodion was still a captain in the elite Gorkhan Brigades when the insurgent war broke out. Lunamir was a hallucinogenic nerve gas first unleashed by Cedeus’s troops in the Battle of Karst. Republican troops who were exposed to lunamir returned from the frontlines with minds permanently unhinged. The soldiers were violent and were tormented by visions of horror and evil. It was a particularly cruel and pitiless choice of weapon as it left the republic with no choice but to put down legions of its own soldiers.
“We have destroyed their lunamir factories long ago, father. We have broken the insurgents’ capacity to use such weapons on a large scale, my Lord.”
“Yes, of course. And this was precisely the reason behind my sending you to the frontlines to verify accounts of Horac warriors becoming flesh. So it seems there is no new hallucinogenic weapons being unleashed against our armies.” The emperor struggled to come to terms with what his own son has just witnessed. “I therefore find no reason not to accept the Horac accounts—however beyond belief it may be”, the emperor conceded.
“Father, I believe it is time to consider the legends that have been told by Lotherren monks. This war is no longer being fought by men and weapons alone.”
“Henrik. Son. You are a man of great intellect. I find it disturbing that the republic’s military chief considers the possibility that our enemy has in his possession the Tome of Chaos.”
“Father. My Lord. I am indeed a man of intellect. But I can no longer deny what my own eyes have seen.”
The emperor fell silent for a long time. Only the drone of the holo-projector filled the void between father and son. The emperor was a descendant of fierce warriors. Under the Rodion Dynasty, the Ruskovlian Republic saw itself become the mightiest empire in the entire galaxy. The elder Rodion finally spoke. “If indeed Cedeus has at his disposal the Tome of Chaos, then we cannot possibly win this war.”
It was the first time Henrik heard his father consider the possibility of defeat. But he could not refute the reality before them. The young Rodion was as steeped as any Ruskovlian in the legend of the Tome of Chaos. Lotherren monks referred to the tome as the Master Script. It was an ancient book of incantations that had the power to bring to life evil men and creatures contained in war legends and stories. Horac man-demons, vicious wrathhounds, and predator terrabeasts could soon be destroying the armies of the Republic.
Yet the emperor’s son and heir, a brilliant military mind and a great student of war fiction, still saw a path to victory. “My Lord, all may not be lost. Cedeus may have at his calling the Tome of Chaos. But the Ode to Heroes is not with him.”
The emperor looked intently at his son. He knew what the admiral meant. As darkness meant nothing without light, as evil could only be defined in the presence of good, so too could the Tome of Chaos only exist so long as the Ode to Heroes did.
Destroy the Ode, destroy the Tome.
“Henrik, no man has ever laid eyes on the Ode. We have yet to discover how the Tome came to the possession of Cedeus.”
“If Cedeus succeeded in finding the Tome, then the Ode must exist”, the admiral concluded.
“We have no manner of knowing whether the Ode is yet to be in the hands of the enemy.” The emperor doubted his son’s supposition.
“My Lord, as the Tome could only be in the possession of purely evil men, so too, could the Ode only be in the hands of noble men.”
The admiral’s words have parted the veil of uncertainty clouding the emperor’s mind. His son spoke the truth. Though Cedeus has succeeded in unleashing the wickedness of the Tome, only a righteous man could hold sway over the Ode and destroy the darkness let loose my the Tome.
The Keeper of the Ode is out there. And he must be found.
April 28th, 2013 at 13:51
Feast Day
– Sa manga guibo mong milagro, minadolog gabos simo,
cahelangan man o ano, gabos pinagraranga mo.
Manga buta binulong mo na baga entermero.
Vicente aranga cami, an simong ugay halat mi. –
The whole of San Vicente was abuzz with activity. It was the eve of the Barangay Fiesta and the festive air was a fever spreading over everyone and everywhere. Colorful ‘banderitas’ hung from trees and over each street. Pigs were being butchered and roasted into succulent Litson. In every other house, someone was singing “Pusong Bato” with earsplitting loudness on videoke machines.
Inside the quaint barangay chapel overlooking the sea, the devout were busy with their own preparations. Marsya and Coring, two middle-aged housewives, were decorating the ‘karo’ that was to convey the statuette of San Vicente Ferrer during the nightly processions. The statuette itself was newly painted, ready for veneration.
Bins did not plan on venerating the saint’s image.
He was, on the contrary, hell-bent on destroying it.
Bins wasn’t a violent sort of person, and neither was he the type who does things in order to bring attention to himself. He was actually considered by most to be far more decent and well behaved than any other fifteen-year-old boy in their far-flung barrio-by-the-sea. He had never been accused of stealing, he never played truant at school, and he had never gotten any girl pregnant. His aunt and guardian, T’yang Belen, although regularly complained of his laziness, nevertheless considered him indispensable, and thought herself lucky to have such a dutiful helper around the house.
Bins knew what he was about to do might lose him his aunt’s favor, not to mention earn him the reputation of being the blackest rascal there ever was in San Vicente.
But he really didn’t have a choice, not after what Sinta did.
Night was falling and the humid sea breeze clung to his sunburnt skin so that even though it was a cool night, he was soon feeling sticky and sweaty all over. He walked with long, determined steps along the seashore towards where the chapel was. From afar he glimpsed a glow of light; the gleam of a hundred lit candles growing larger as the procession approached him. He could hear them too: the plaintive voices of white-haired and bent-backed old women, clutching the yellowed pages of Novenarios as ancient and decrepit as they were, and the more eager, lilting tones of the younger devotees.
He reached the advancing procession and fell in step with it, walking alongside ‘May Pransya, who handed him a candle and smiled gap-toothedly. He thanked her and smiled back, but his attention was elsewhere.
A few steps ahead of them, San Vicente’s karo rolled along, pushed by a gaggle of giggling teenagers and rowdy children no older than six. Plastic flowers surrounded the foot of the statuette and a single, thick candle illuminated its features. From where he was walking, Bins could see only its white wings and black cape; but he knew that the image had a book clutched in its left hand, a bald pate, and a string of rosary beads on its waist. In fact, Bins had long ago memorized every little detail on that statuette, so often did he see it.
He didn’t actually hate the thing. How could he, after all that it did for him? He owed everything to that little statue.
There was his abusive, alcoholic father. That was where it all started.
He had discovered the trick purely by accident. It was the eve of the saint’s feast day, much like it was now, and he was suffering from the worst beating he ever had in the entire six years of his life. He had crawled under the seat of a pew inside the chapel, having run away from his rampaging father. That was when he saw the statue on top of the altar and a kind of madness seized him.
His broken ribs throbbing, his young mind crazed with fear of being found, he limped towards the image and, touching it, whispered
I want my father to die
I want my father to die
I want my father to die!
Please, please, take him away!
On the day of the fiesta, people from all over their barangay flocked to the chapel to attend the mass, his father included. For San Vicente Ferrer was also the Patron Saint of the sick, and the very statue Bins had touched only the night before was believed to have miraculous healing powers. After the mass, people would gather to the front of the altar and the priest would touch each one with the saint’s image.
His father had kidney stones and no money for an operation.
The priest touched the statue to his father’s head, rubbed his chest and back with it, and asked him to kiss it.
The very next day, they found his cold and stiff body by the seashore. He had a heart attack, or so everyone thought; but Bins knew better.
After his father came Kano. Kano was T’yang Belen’s son with an American soldier, and he had the bluest of eyes. Bins resented his blue eyes and fair looks and the fact that as Belen’s son, he wasn’t given as much chores as Bins was, was fed better food and bought better clothes.
I want Kano to die
I want Kano to die
I want Kano to die!
Please, please, take him away!
He was ten by then, and was half-expecting it not to work.
The food was particularly sumptuous that year, for his aunt had been able to borrow quite a sum of money the week before from the resident Bombay. T’yang’s double-chins quivered and jiggled as she laughed and ate and gossiped the whole day and long into the night. It was dawn before any of them went to bed. By mid-afternoon the next day, Bins awoke to his aunt’s screams.
BINSEEEEEENT
CALL FOR HELP BINSEENT
MICHAEL WON’T WAKE UP
MICHAEEEL
MICHAEL ANAAAK
The third one was Mr. Santos and he died only last year. Mr. Santos was his P.E. teacher who had the bad habit of sliding his hand down Bins’s trousers when no one was looking.
I want Mr. Santos to die
I want Mr. Santos to die
I want Mr. Santos to die!
Please, please, take him away!
On the night of the fiesta, his wife saw a drunk Mr. Santos wade out to the sea to bathe. That was the last time anyone ever saw him.
Everything was perfect. Everything was going well. If only he hadn’t told Sinta!
Bins looked behind him presently, scanning the crowd of faces for one with a broken chin, a pert little nose and wide, expressive eyes. He spotted her on the far end of the procession, walking with her mother.
She was older than him by a year. He only wanted to impress her, to make himself seem dark and mysterious. So when she saw him that time he asked for Mr. Santos’s death and asked him what he was doing, he told her everything. How was he to know she’d later use it against him?
But she did, damn her. She did!
Saaa manga guibo mong milaaagro,
sang the horde of devotees. Bins tried his best to sing along.
Minaaadolog gabos simooo…
She was deliberately avoiding his eye. Sinta was wearing an off-shoulder grey top and dark-blue jeans. Bins could still recall how those shoulders felt like against his mouth, how smooth her long legs were, rubbing against his hips.
Don’t, she had said, her words slurred by the alcohol. Please, stop, I don’t want…
But Bins was already deaf to the world.
She wasn’t there when he woke up and two days passed before he saw her again. Her face had looked blank and calm but in her eyes he saw both fear and anger. He knew, then, what she had done.
I didn’t want to, she told him, I told you to stop, but you didn’t.
You liar, he snarled, you wanted it! You went along!
I was drunk.
That’s no excuse!
I hope you burn in hell, Vincent.
The moment he realized Sinta had asked the statue to kill him, Bins resolved to destroy it. He would take it and throw it into the sea, that way it would look as if someone stole it, and no one need ever trace the deed to him.
But the plan turned out to be not as simple as he thought it would be.
After meeting with Sinta, he had gone straight to the chapel, climbing over the back fence to make sure he wouldn’t be seen. Upon stepping inside the chapel however, he felt a horrible, crippling pain in his stomach. It worsened the farther he went into the chapel. By the time he reached the altar, he was screaming like a madman. People were rushing inside to see what the matter was. Bins was bed-ridden for days and when he could finally get out of bed, the fiesta was only a day away.
It was a desperate but resolute Bins who joined the procession that night. If he couldn’t get to the statue when it was inside the chapel, he would have to destroy it while it was outside. A simple, stealthy push was what it would all take, and San Vicente’s fragile image was sure to come tumbling down. If the ground doesn’t break it, then the karo’s wheels would surely crush it. Who’s to say it wasn’t just an accident?
Bins walked faster, moving forward and joining the ones pushing the karo. He elbowed away a few people until he was positioned as close to the saint’s image as was possible.
The statue was finally within his grasp.
OUCH, he cried suddenly. A drop of melted wax had fallen on the back of his hand.
Sorry po, said the girl whose candle it was that fell on him.
To Bins’s horror, the wax, instead of cooling and drying up, began to burn through his skin. He held up his hand and watched with shocked terror as the spot where the wax fell turned into an angry red welt, popped, and started widening. The wax was eating his skin like acid, spreading to his fingers, and pretty soon the back of his hand was reduced to raw, exposed flesh.
Beeesentee araaaanga caaamee, the crowd sang, an simong ugaaay halaaat mi!
Bins screamed.
Hesusmaryosep! exclaimed a few old women.
Ay! Ka Escandaloso, cried another.
His hand was smoking. His own flesh smelled so astonishingly like barbeque that to his utter revulsion, his stomach rumbled.
With a last, frantic effort, he grabbed San Vicente’s image with his other hand and flung it away as hard as he could.
I did it! thought Bins, exulting.
That was the last thing he ever thought of.
This time, it was the old women in the crowd who screamed as poor Bins suddenly combusted, bursting into flames much brighter than any candle.
May nasusulo, may nasusulo, they shrieked in alarm. Tubig, tubig, tubiiiiig!
Along the seashore, the waves crashed and rolled as the tide began to ebb, washing up pebbles and seashells and all sorts of rubbish in the sand. Clumped together with brown coconut husks, a wad of dirty diaper and a broken glass bottle was the small, newly-painted statuette of San Vicente Ferrer.
-End-
a/n: I’m sorry if my entry’s a bit late.
April 29th, 2013 at 22:40
siege16: A talking toaster. That eats small animals. Interesting choice of magical object. We don’t believe a word of it. Why would a magical toaster have power over a person? Does it produce the most wonderful toast on earth? Why would it even eat small animals? Is it an advocate of carb rights?
Out.
April 29th, 2013 at 23:07
zoie: Thank you for the line, “He clucked his disappointment like a pensive hen.” The next time we feel sad or glum, it will bring us happiness.
Again, what an odd choice of magical object. By the title do you mean a comb with horns, or a comb made of animal horn? If the latter, it should be “The Horn Comb”, like “The Leather Shoe.”
So you have a comb. That drinks human blood. Look, just because this is a fantasy story doesn’t mean you can ditch all internal logic. Internal logic becomes even more important if you’re dealing with a weird subject. You need to convince the reader that bizarre as it sounds, it could happen.
Then there’s the discovery of the object’s powers. This is a vital part of the narrative, and you outsourced it to a nervous PA.
Also, the cop, who seems to be an honest guy, can’t just take the comb. He has to bag it as evidence.
OUT.
April 29th, 2013 at 23:12
pauljamez: “Seated around the kitchen table with three of his friends, Paul pressed his face against the wood and began to laugh.” Explain this sentence. How can Paul be seated around a table? Is he ten feet wide? Also, try pressing your face against a tabletop and laughing.
We asked for a magic story, not a drug story. Of course we’d make an exception if it were funny.
OUT.
April 29th, 2013 at 23:17
jaime: Wow, a dildo. It has no magic. Well-written story, though.
In.
April 29th, 2013 at 23:21
Cacs: Holy crap, actual magical objects!
We like the high language.
In.
April 29th, 2013 at 23:30
joyeah: Atmosphere, check. Strangeness, check. Object that may not actually be magical but which the guilty protagonist believes to be so, check.
In.
April 30th, 2013 at 07:26
Isn’t joyeah disqualified because they didn’t submit their story in time? The rules state that entries must be in by 12 noon on April 28. Cacs should be the winner.
April 30th, 2013 at 09:18
Congratulations, joyeah! Thanks for the notes, Jessica.
April 30th, 2013 at 11:20
ynigo: We overlook small infractions for good work. But since you insist: Bad joyeah for being late. Bad! Bad!
April 30th, 2013 at 13:17
Thanks for the notes. It was a comb with horns on top. Yep the Horn Comb would be a much better title. Congratulations Joyeah!
April 30th, 2013 at 13:25
zoie: Oh the comb has horns on top! Then Horned Comb is correct.
A comb that feeds on blood makes no sense. But a comb that grants favors in return for the grantee’s hair—that has a kind of logic. The corpses could be wearing wigs, and the protagonist discovers they are bald underneath.
Try to write simply, your descriptions are overwrought.
April 30th, 2013 at 15:16
Wow, I won. :DD
Thanks for accepting my entry even though it was a bit late.
Hehe…Actually nagbakasyon kasi kami ng mama ko sa hometown nya sa Albay…the very place from which I based that story from. Hindi na nga po sana ako sasama kasi yung unang story na sinulat ko (the object was a snow globe, ugh) ayaw mag-click. Hindi ako na-satisfy.
Tapos nung nandon na kami kila mama…wala lang. Hehe. Naisip ko yung story nung sumama kami sa prusisyon. Muntik ko na nga ulit i-give up kasi hindi ako maka-concentrate…pagkalakas-lakas nung sound system nila pag gabi D:
Kakauwi pa lang namin nyan nung sinubmit ko yung entry ko. Wala po kasing Computer dun sa pinuntahan namin kaya sinulat ko lang sa notebook yung first draft.. Ahaha.. Hindi ko na nga po na-edit.
Anyway, thank you po ulit! :D
May 1st, 2013 at 07:49
Ang galing ni joyeah. Aabangan ko ang ang entry mo sa susunod na challenge.
May 4th, 2013 at 16:25
To the dominatrix of the universe, thanks for notes! I tried to revise the parts which I could. I still lack the imagination to pursue your suggestion of having a comb doing favors for hair! My lack of a formal training in writing is showing through..the cat goddess Bastet sends you her love.
\
THE HORNED COMB
Jerome Marasig looked at the comb, hypnotized. He could hardly breathe, the air in his lungs seemed unable to circulate through his system.
It was a thing of immense beauty.
Cool to the touch and holding his gaze; it looked like it was made from the shell of some long ago extinct tortoise, mottled brown, with splashes of gold, it looked like two half moons attached together. The lower half moon was adorned with six pearls alternating with six diamonds. The upper part was decorated with what appeared to be deer or goat horns, the teeth of the comb made a V shape.
It looked to be at least 150 years old.
Jerome Marasig was a PO2 who was assigned to take pictures of crime scenes. A stocky guy with a deeply tanned complexion, he became a police officer because he wanted a life of excitement, and because he failed the law entrance exam.
He was also assigned to take pictures of crime scenes for documentation.
Not because he was a professional photographer, but because he had a brother who was a professional photographer who gave him hand me down cameras.
The first crime had been in November 4 2008, Lydia Montero, 26, the most lovely woman he had seen; and a seasoned estafa artist, was found dead of a cardiac arrest, the comb was on her dresser. Her maid of seven years had found her sprawled in her bedroom in one of the priciest condos in the heart of the business district.
Jerome fell in love when he photographed her thick mass of curls forming a chestnut halo around her head; he gently posed her face with gloved hands.
She was a natural born beauty. Framed pictures all over the condo showed a teenage career as a model. The grand slam winner of a genetic lottery.
The condo showed good taste, elegant but pricey furniture was professionally arranged to make use of the little space. He peered out of the huge picture windows.
He could see their dilapidated precinct from her unit.
He did not find his curiosity morbid as he searched for tell tale scalpel marks or poked her Spanish nose. Her hazel eyes did not come from contact lenses.
She was clad in an old fashioned white nightgown, one that almost touched the floor and was frothy with French lace. The light fell like on her dappled sunbeams caressing her alabaster skin.
She looked like an angel in repose.
He felt that familiar tug at his chest, he half expected her to wake, but as he touched her cold face and felt the claim of rigor mortis on her flesh he knew he was doomed never to have met her when her heart still beat. Her eyes were bloodshot. He gently closed the lids on her thickly lashed eyes.
It hardly mattered that she had perpetrated a massive pyramid scheme.
She was dead now.
He clucked his disappointment like a pensive hen and continued to take pictures. There was no foul play, nothing was lost, the maid who had discovered her was still in hysterics. The other cops could hardly pocket anything of value; the condo management had sent their security to the condo before they had arrived and were filming everything. It was getting hot with all the bodies cramped in the tiny space.
Supt. Vasquez, his arthritic superior, stared at her, and whistled under his breath, “What a waste. You call her family and ask if we could have an autopsy done. She could have been poisoned. Keep the maid for questioning. Label everything in the ref Marasig.”
After three hours SOCO came and he soon thought he could forget about her.
January, 2009.
It was on the second day of January when Jerome was busy reading the online news on his battered office PC when the call came. Another death, this time, the popular actress Heavyn Tenorio. She had accidentally fallen from the top of the stairs in her Tagaytay rest house. Heavyn had recently been in the news, being embroiled in a scandal that revealed her to be an extremely expensive call girl to political personalities and entertainment industry bigwigs.
The comb was found clutched in her hand.
To Jerome’s surprise, she was cousin once removed to Lydia.
He photographed the body, quite dismayed to find out that Heavyn’s slutty looks owed much to very imaginative makeup artists. She looked like a fresh faced, twenty something girl with perfect skin. He hardly recognized her. Her body was twisted in a grotesque position. A pool of blood framed her head, this time a scarlet halo.
Jerome looked at the comb this time, and took a close up picture. He wanted to confiscate it as evidence. But an emotionally unstrung personal assistant hovered around like a noisy, slightly high strung, and over weight butterfly.
He smelled of grocery store cologne and wore his hair in faux hawk. His name was Jim but he had spelled it as Ghem.
“She said she was having the strangest dreams, Sir. She said she dreamt of…”
“Blood?”
The personal assistant shook his head, wiped off tears and sweat from his pudgy face.
“No, Sir…”
“Her impending death?”
Ghem looked very confused and started sobbing.
“No, she….she…. she said she had everything she ever wanted. She said… it said things to her. “
“What said what? What things?”
He took out his tickler and began to scribble away quickly.
“That!” The Ghem pointed a finger at the horned comb.
Jerome’s hackles rose.
He had felt it before.
A slight breath of sinister intent. The comb exuded it. He had seen evil objects before. He knew there were some things that had some demonic nature.
A drug addict he had once interviewed told him that this marble statue had whispered him to kill his former employees in cold blood. He believed in the drug addict. The suspect had passed out when he saw what happened to his victims.
He had no idea of what happened. Jerome thought was he was saying was true. The resident medico legal told him that it was the drugs and chuckled at his idea.
He kept his opinions to himself pretty much after that.
And then there was that annoying case of the piano.
This lovely antique piano figured in two cases of family massacres. It was of an old German make, with ivory keys and brass candleholders. The only survivor of the first slaughter was an old housekeeper. She was put in a mental asylum since she kept saying that there was a ghost who owned the piano and she killed the family that she worked for. The police figured it was the old lady who had a nervous break and killed the entire family. Even the family cat.
The other massacre had happened five years later.
This time, no one went to jail.
No one survived.
He kept his distance from that damned thing. He felt a heat, imperceptible to others, rise like a miasma from that piano. He could hardly stay long enough in its presence without breaking into sweat.
Lost in thought, he stared at the bawling PA, and automatically handed him a kerchief. Ghem gratefully took it and dramatically blew his nose.
“What did it say?”
“She said she was going to be…. rich and ….powerful if she …..did everything that it said. It made her… do things.”
“Like?”
“At first it was easy…she made me buy these …lovebirds… then doves…I thought she was going to keep them as pets….. I found out later… that she was killing them! She would offer them….” The PA started gasping frantically. Oh great he’s having an anxiety attack, Jerome thought as he held the shoulder for support. He assisted Ghem into a plush chair.
Another cop came to their side with a glass of water.
The PA drank it in a gulp.
“….and…and… she’d put the animal on this altar on the top floor of the her condo where she’d made this altar of sorts.. and…put that comb…like she was combing it. the…the poor thing .. I’m not sure what happened… what….the animal would be dead.”
Jerome shuddered.
He had seen awful crimes. Some were crimes of passion, some of idiocy, some of necessity (like an unemployed construction worker holding up passers by to put food on the table), but he loathed those who killed the innocent and those unable to fight back. Specially animals. He had a soft spot for pets.
“She started getting attention.”
Ghem had finally calmed down. He stared at Jerome, his pasty, pimply face pale from all the emotional effort. His voice lost its’ girlish squeak, and he spoke more softly.
“You know, she had been in showbiz for 7 years. Only bit parts, supporting roles, she’s a single mom to a 9 year old in a private school. She needed money. When she started….offering these animals, things got better.”
Ghem paused.
“She got invited into these high society parties, you know a few months later she couldn’t even get in. She was getting all this attention. She was paying for this small house so that she could quit in a few years and go back to college. I think this happened….because that comb was asking for too much.”
Jerome stared at her with a raised eyebrow.
“The comb had leveled up, before it was content with birds, lately the animals got bigger; roosters, cats…last week she sacrificed 3 dogs we claimed from a pound. She was asking around where to get a monkey….she tried stopping, but she couldn’t sleep. She’d get these awful nightmares where she’d dream of her offering her daughter. She told me last night,“ he fished for his cellphone from his jeans pocket, and retrieved a text message “that it wanted …people.”
Jerome swallowed hard.
“Take it Sir, “ Ghem had picked up the comb gingerly, holding it with the kerchief Jerome had handed him. The PA’s face was stony now. There was grim determination all over his soft features. Ghem put his soft hands on Jerome’s chest pushing him and comb away.
“Take it as far away as her from possible. Burn it, have it run over, destroy it.”
Jerome slipped on latex gloves and bagged and tagged the comb, it’s heat emanated right through the thin plastic bag. He marked it as evidence, but he didn’t put in the box with the other things from the rest house.
He felt it throb in his uniform pocket.
It seemed to have a minuscule pulse. Like it was alive.
He felt it murmur, a soft woman’s voice, much like his dead mother’s.
He could hardly drive back to the precinct, the murmurs sounded more like whispers, the voices indistinct and seductive.
He could not resist.
It spoke of an instant promotion.
It spoke of finding the woman of his dreams for him.
It spoke of sending all his three siblings to college.
He rushed to the precinct restroom, and before he knew what he was doing, he gently combed his hair.