Chapter 1
Warning: This Story Contains: Questionable Language, Extreme Acts Of Violence, Use/ Mention Of Drugs And Alcohol, Sexual Situations, And Other Things That May Not Be Suitable For A Younger Audience (Rating: M)
The dead have highways
-- Clive Barker, "The Book of Blood"'s opening line
He was vaguely aware that the ground his walking feet hovered over was covered in cold, wet snow. The snow was runny and filthy, most of it melted away with the weak, barely bright sun that peeked through the rusted piles of cars in the huge gated-off area near where he stood.
Horace looked up at the stacks of disintegrating cars, feeling a dull sense of relief at seeing familiar surroundings for the first time in the many long years. Since he had left the place where he had been imprisoned for many weeks, he had been searching for a trace back home. Seeing the name of his old town by a strange twist of fate one day three weeks ago had been a work of pure luck- it had been the first time in so long in which he could remember a time before his insanity brought on by death- then the power of those spells- engulfed his mind. He didn't remember much at the time, however, since being made to walk the earth because of the things he had done had also come with the price many other earthbound spirits encountered; losing his memories. It seemed that with each passing moment, he forgot more and more things, particularily when he was thrown into a rage.
It had been impossible to find his way back home because of the fact that as was the price of being on earth without a living body, he was losing touch more and more with his humanity. His thought process, his reasoning, and his temper fuse had begun mouldering since the moment of his death. He knew- somewhere inside of himself- that he was being punished by being slowly turned into a rabid beast.
In his life, he had usually picked his victims based on their treatment of him (Whether they laughed at him or seemed disgusted by him), but now, all it took for him to fly into a black rage was the sound of footsteps, laughter, or even someone glancing through him, as if sensing his malicious presence.
He had assaulted people on crowded streets and had even tossed cars with people inside of them off of roads, causing as many deaths and spreading as much terror as he could when he slipped into that hateful, haunted part of himself. As time passed, he found that he slipped more and more seamlessly into it. Truthfully, when he came out of it, however, he honestly felt twinges of guilt, especially if he had done anything overly sadistic or had harmed children or animals in his black-outs.
Whenever he passed through homes or buildings from time to time and went into an uncontrollable rage, he usually came to only after having done something heinous and unforgivable by polite society. Like wrapping a cheery, pregnant housemother's head in saran wrap, or chasing two children, and barely coming out of his rage before he killed one or the other. This was his burden now- to live his after life as a murderer. Even going as far as to kill for reasons his living self would have killed himself for having committed.
In spurts of "consciousness" (in times when it seemed as though the rage had disappeared, leaving him to sort out where he was and what he had done), he sometimes wondered how many people (innocent people) he had done away with. As well as that, he also wondered how many people he had sent to prison to pay for his crimes, how many children he had left without families, and how many people he had driven insane.
But now… but now he felt the faint stirrings of hope that he would finally be able to become conscious long enough until he felt he could handle the world around him as he was now, inside of the place he stood in front of then.
He stepped forward, his feet never really touching the ground his now otherworldy feet passed through. He reached forward, and felt the icy cold steel of the gate as he allowed his hand to materialize slightly to be able to feel the familiar metal. He wasn't able to be seeable to most living human beings, but he was able to be seen by psychics, people with specially made glasses, and most animals. But, he could become a part of the living world enough so that he could interact with objects, as he was doing right then.
Sure, he could degenerate back into his un-materialized self and pass through it, but he wanted to touch that handle after so long of not being able to. He was ready to hammer the gate down with his fists and legs if it was locked, but he was surprised to find it unlocked and open to anybody who wanted to walk in.
As he swung the gate open, then shut it behind him, he saw many things in his surroundings and from the left-over parts of whatever happened in places he came through. But, the left-overs in this place made him feel rage build up inside of himself. Many people had passed through that gate and had since his capture (and even a little bit before) had made it into a place of sin and ugliness. Even his past in that place barely shadowed the deeds of the many who had dared to enter his sanctum while he was away.
The sight of the garbage strewn about the area where he used to find his only escape in life by working single-mindedly on cars made an all-too familiar but completely turbulent darkness rise up inside of him. His consciousness was given a backseat as hateful, catastrophic anger took over. He was dully aware of his arms tossing cars around in his way as though they weighed no more than blocks of Styrofoam, and of the loud, banshee-like howling his own lips and throat formed. His now almost completely blood red eyes searched for a victim, alive, an object, dead, or otherwise, to inflict his rage on mercilessly. He soon found his victim further into the junkyard.--
A scrawny, emaciated homeless man sat in the kennel, which was somehow tidier than some of the other places in the junkyard. He was sitting in the dirt, his back against the chain link fence, swilling moonshine that he, himself, had made in an abandoned and overlooked part of the junkyard. With every sip of it, he cringed in disgust. Since it was made of dandelions, it tasted just as awful as the weedflower it was made of smelled.
He coughed into his hand loudly, and looked down at his wet palm, knowing what he'd see, but looking nonetheless. Splotches of red and lumps of a tissue-like substance thinly coated his palm where he had coughed into it. He winced, and tucked his red hand into a pocket in his long, filthy overcoat. His organs were all probably deteriorating. Shutting down.
He coughed again, this time just letting the blood that came spurting out with the wracking coughs go wherever the hell it wanted to go. When he opened his eyes after he got done coughing, the gate to the kennel swung all the way open, and slammed shut as hard as a gate like it could. He yelped, and fell backwards against the chain link fence behind him. He suddenly got the feeling that he was not alone, and was, in fact, in the presence of something powerful.
