Tagged: Unholy Trinity

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Burn In…, Fire, and The Real Evil by Kellee Kranendonk

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

Burn in…

 

Tied to a post. Flames ignited in straw beneath me. Placid faces in the crowd. Some jeer, throw obscene gestures at me. They believe I deserve to be roasted alive.

Fire licks up my legs, sears my flesh. My thin cotton dress catches. The blaze encases me, eating skin and meat off my bones. A fiery face appears, looks me in the eye. A leering grin appears. He beckons me as the crowd cheers. I will not go to Hell, I try to scream. But my soul has left my body and I realize that’s not where he’s taking me.

 

Fire

 

Her charred body lies there, still smoking, totally ignored. I cannot mourn for if I do they will kill me too. But if I do not… will she be angry?

The last one to remain, I walk quickly away. Before I reach home, scorching hands wrap themselves around my head, cover my eyes, burn away eyelids. I know it’s her. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, even a dead one.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

It’s not enough. Licks of fire jump into being, destroying the home we worked so hard for. I cannot close my eyes against it.

 

The Real Evil

 

They’re lined up on the bridge, thirteen of them, each vile woman as guilty as a whore. Evil lives within their blackened souls, corrupted by Satan himself. They’re gagged and bound as they deserve. Shoved in the water, they will drown only if they are innocent. None will. The power that resides in me will not allow it. They are all impure. I wait, pleased that I myself discovered these ones. They will rise to the surface and come to shore soon, I’m certain of it. They don’t. But I cannot be wrong. No regrets. Satan has claimed his own.

 

 

Kellee Kranendonk

Kellee Kranendonk has spent a lifetime writing. According to her late grandfather she was born with a pen in one hand and paper in the other. She’s certain that these days he would have claimed she was born clutching a laptop.

She’s had over a hundred published stories, poems and non-fiction pieces. Her work has received honourable mentions, been shortlisted; she’s been a spotlight author and some of her pieces were to appear in a school book project, though that didn’t pan out. Kellee has been an editor, has managed online writing groups, and one of her stories appeared in a best selling anthology. She lives in a brand-new merged municipality in New Brunswick, Canada with her family and a variety of animals. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: The Dunwich Romance by Shawn M. Klimek

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

The Dunwich Heartthrob

 

The stranger lurked outside the clubhouse door wearing a hooded cloak, exposing only his hairy, goatish, albino, face. Eventually, he pushed open the door with a clammy hand, then lumbered through the gap. Conversations froze as those within, mostly women, connected his grotesquery to the source of a tormenting stench. 

Before he could speak, he was interrupted by a lumpish woman with sloped eyes and a drooling, beaver-toothed pucker. 

Pointing an accusing claw, she croaked, “Dunny, aintcha?”

“Yessum.”

“Wicked pissah! We need more men,” she said. “I’m Ingrid Clout.”

“Wilbur Whatley.”

“Welcome to the Dunwich Village Lonely Hearts Club, Willy!”

 

The Dunwich Passion

 

Ingrid reached both arms around the misshapen boy’s naked torso, his bony rib cage heaving with each grunting exertion. Digging her fingernails into his scaly back, she groaned in ecstasy. 

“Oh, Wilbur,” she cried, staring passionately up into the sweaty, chinless face above her. “Whatever you’re doing to me down south, it’s driving me crazy!”

“Say again?”

Momentarily too preoccupied by his own appetites to make out her words, Wilber Whatley paused manoeuvring the lamprey-like tentacles extruding from his furry waist, only to trigger her protests.

“No, don’t stop!” she pleaded.

“Oh, okay,” he said, then resumed suckling her blood.

 

The Dunwich Dinner

 

“I hope your mother likes me,” Ingrid Clout whispered as they arrived at the Whatley home.

“Dinner was her idea,” Wilbur reassured her.

The front door opened to reveal a woman shrouded in black.

Ingrid recoiled. “Has someone died?”

“No. The sun hurts her skin,” Wilbur explained. “We all suffer. Especially my brother. He never leaves the basement.”

“Poor thing.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll dine downstairs. This way,” said Lavinia.

Ingrid followed. “Nice place. A bit dark.”

“We’re here. Watch your stop,” said Lavinia, giving her a shove.

Her screams faded quickly.

“Mother!” Wilbur was inconsolable. “You know Yog doesn’t share!”

 

End

 

 

Shawn M. Klimek

Shawn M. Klimek is the multi-genre author of more than 240 stories and poems in more than 80 anthologies and e-zines, including previous Unholy Trinities in Horror Tree. He is also the solo author of Hungry Thing an illustrated fantasy saga told in poems.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Trilogy of Light by Christina Nordlander

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

Sparkle

 

My hand and arm had several opaque, shining facets, without pores. I thought they were attractive, like crystal scales. I preferred them to my first constellations of liver spots.

I didn’t go to the doctor. I wanted to see whether they would make me sparkle.

During that time, I never thought about what was underneath. There are tree galls that push out shoots once the larvae inside are mature.

One morning, one of the facets slid out, a slim-lined ice obelisk. It pierced my watch-strap, I had to tear it free.

I stumbled to the mirror, feeling others pushing through.

 

Reflections of the Sparkling Vampire

 

The sparkle is his immortality surfacing. He can still move, but within decades his joints will seize up and his fibrous lungs will stop expanding. He already has diamond skin and ruby organs.

After each hibernation he wakes with more of the crystal facets. Sometimes one clogged pore flips, like a tiny manhole cover, revealing its shining underside.

He drinks the blood of maidens and youths: messily, uncleanly, to show himself that he loathes it. He doesn’t know whether it slows the process, but he wants to have something alive inside him, regardless of origin, sloshing between the crystallised walls.

 

The Shining Plague

 

The crowds in the streets slowed. Hair grew more burnished, then longer, as if it poured from their scalps. It turned jewelled colours; it grew out in curls and ringlets. Skin turned clearer, more mineral. Ears and fingers grew more slender, eyes huge and fragile.

Bodies attenuated, as if the violent growth of hair had sucked out their juices. They shot to such height that they started tottering, then snapping. Fingers twisted longer, tears – and now blood – sparkled, and still whirlpools of hair flowed through alleys, meeting and intertwining.

From a high enough vantage point, it would have been beautiful.

 

The End

 

 

Christina Nordlander

Christina Nordlander was born 1982 in Sweden. She now lives outside Birmingham, UK, with her husband, and works for a car leasing company. She has published over 20 stories and other pieces, most of them on the speculative fiction spectrum. She also dabbles in visual art and game development. Her most recent publication is the drabble “The Factory Grounds” in Trembling with Fear. She also holds a PhD in Classics and Ancient History from the University of Manchester. Follow her on Facebook or Patreon. 

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: A Juvenile’s Tales by Haji M.

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

Bump In The Night

 

I used to be a brave lad, not afraid of the dark at all. In fact, I’d often challenge myself, wandering alone downstairs in our basement, groping in the pitch darkness, before my courage failed, and I’d scamper up the stairs. 

But ever since that fateful night, when I overheard my Mam whispering to her best friend, I felt my spirit leeching away, never to return.

Of a monster that creeps into people’s basements, grunting as it rummaged for food. What terrified me most was the description of its grotesque visage: half man, half hog. 

The dark scares me now.

 

Sleep Paralysis

 

I awoke in the middle of the night, feeling terribly wrong. I couldn’t move a muscle, no matter how hard I wriggled my body, my mouth clamped shut. 

My breath came in short gasps, my lungs burnt fiercely. Something heavy was sitting on my chest. I could feel cold slime and sharp claws digging into my flesh, icy numbness creeping up my neck and jaw. 

I screamed silently in horror, as a creature the size of a large cat crawled into my mouth, plunging down my throat. 

Deeper it burrowed, homing in towards my fat liver, devouring it from within.

 

The Chaser

 

“That road that goes by the old museum? Never travel there by night. If you must, don’t look in the rear-view mirror, ‘cos you’d be sorry.”

Midnight. Eyes glued to the road; I floored the accelerator. Something flashed by, even as my stomach clenched tight in fear. Why did I go this way?

I whimpered at a loud thump on the roof, my car swerving precariously. A shriek erupted by my ear, as a pale withered face peeked in from the side window. 

At least its outside, I thought, until a taloned finger tickled the back of my neck.

 

Haji M.

Throughout my younger years, I’d heard more than my fair share of spine-tingling stories, tales that still resonate with me decades later. Here are three of such stories, interconnected by my own vivid memories of them, entitled: A Juvenile’s Tales.

I am a new writer based in Dublin, Ireland. I had a couple of flash fiction stories published previously, in Books Ireland Magazine, and Every Day Fiction Magazine.

 

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Monster Friends and Lost Girls by H.V. Patterson

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

Missing Animals

 

The stars were out, and Marie’s stomach grumbled. She’d been trapped in the pit for hours when the monster returned.

It was shadow without form or substance. But it was real, not a figment of Marie’s imagination. 

“Want to be friends?” the monster asked. 

Marie’s eyes shifted to the piles of blood-matted fur around her: remnants of unlucky animals. Instead of fear, she felt excitement. 

“Yes,” she said.

Insubstantial fingers inked across her palm: a covenant.

“Marie!” yelled her friends. A flashlight blinked across her face. 

Hours later, rescued and safely in her dorm room, Marie dreamed of toothed shadows.

 

Missing Coeds

 

“What the hell Marie?!” Kat screamed from the bottom of the pit. “This isn’t funny!” 

“Say ‘thank you,’” Marie said.

Thank you, gurgled the monster. 

Tendrils of shadow oozed over Kat, muffling her screams. 

Marie watched Kat’s body deflate. She listened as the monster ate Kat’s insides. When it was over, she threw down the rope. The monster climbed out, wearing Kat’s skin. 

“I like this one,” it said, wiggling Kat’s manicured hands.

“Don’t wear it out,” Marie warned. “I’m running really low on friends.” 

The monster laughed. It linked Kat’s pinkie with Marie’s: a promise. 

“You’ll always have me.”

Missing Skin

 

The first time Marie sloughed off her skin was an accident. 

She’d dreamed of blood and shadows, and when she awoke, she was hovering above her deflated self. Free and filled with hunger, she and the monster prowled through the night, twin shadows.

After a year of slipping away, Marie couldn’t return. Her loose, desiccated skin wouldn’t stay on.

“What happens now?” Marie asked. She was cold and so very, very hungry.

Shadow fingers entwined with shadow fingers. The monster leaned close: breath a funeral sigh. 

“Wherever you want,” it said. 

Two ravenous monsters rose like smoke from the pit.

 

H.V. Patterson

H.V. Patterson (she/her) lives in Oklahoma and writes speculative fiction and poetry. She has work published or upcoming in Etherea Magazine, Siren’s Call, and Wyldblood and anthologies from Sliced Up Press, Eerie River, Creature Publishing, Flame Tree Press, and Black Spot Books. Her poem, “Mother; Microbes,” was recently selected for the inaugural volume of Brave New Weird from Tenebrous Press. She promotes women in horror through Dreadfulesque (@Dreadfulesque on Twitter and Instagram), and you can follow her on Twitter @ScaryShelley and on Instagram @hvpattersonwriter. 

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Witch Hunt by Deborah Tapper

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

 

They dragged Tolly away and tortured him for days, crushing his feet until bones shattered and the relentless boot-like vise drooled scarlet. He was chosen because I made the poppet, adding a thread stolen from the witchfinder’s cloak and mud scraped from his footprints. I named it, sewed those watchful eyes shut and buried it under the blackthorn.

Tolly crawls from the shadows again tonight, sobbing and clutching with desperate hands, his lower legs a bloody ruin. If he knew about me, he’d turn me in. But he doesn’t.

He’ll hang soon. Or burn.

Then he’ll leave me in peace.

 

Three, Four, Knock At The Door

 

The witchfinder’s men are pressing Adelise with her own door.

She’s already stretched out on the muddy ground, ropes pinning her wrists and ankles. She screams and begs as the heavy door covers her, incoherent with terror. She’s a good woman who works charms for childbirth and sickness, but that doesn’t matter.

Now they’re piling stones on top. I cover my ears. Still feel every thud, every airless wail. She’ll come tonight, writhing into my nightmares. Shapeless, smashed, eyes flopping in her wrecked skull, her broken mouth demanding justice while condemning me with that one last, suffocating word.

My name.

 

Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks

 

They’re building my pyre.

They half-drowned me. Beat me. Stabbed me with long iron nails, searching for witchmarks. Crushed my hands and feet. Tightened ropes around my head until my eyes bled. Signed the confession that I’d spat on and left me alone in darkness and filth.

Waiting to burn.

They have to carry me to the stake. Rope me up like a child’s toy, kindling piled around my legs. Spectators jostle and jeer, eager faces squeezing closer, hungry for entertainment.

So I let the fire build and build before I turn it on them.

Give them what they deserve.

 

Deborah Tapper

Deborah Tapper is fascinated by folklore and the supernatural, lives in the middle of nowhere with her understanding partner and writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: The Beginning of the End of the World by Dana Vickerson

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

One: Dark Shapes Inside the Clouds

 

Lightning flashed, and Christine peered into the gloom. The sky was a deep, menacing gray, with overtones of sickly green. The cloud mass took on an undefined haze, save a few dark undulating masses. Christine thought of the ocean and huge moving creatures just below the surface.

A high pitch noise ripped through her head, and she looked around in panic. In every car, people jumped and pressed hands to ears.

Chaos. People ran through the darkness in all directions. More screams cascaded off the cars, and the distinct sound of crunching metal and breaking glass echoed through the night.

 

Two: Too Many People for the Party

 

“No!” Elijah screamed. “Stay back!” He pushed his body against the dumpster and threw out his hands, signaling to the approaching group.

The woman — their obvious leader, straight backed and loud when the rest looked hunched and exhausted — inched forward, her arms out in the universal we won’t hurt you gesture.

Elijah looked to the green gray sky, looking for signs of agitation. No matter her intentions, the woman and her group were a danger.

They moved closer, and Elijah looked back to the dumpster, to those he loved huddled inside. 

The sky roiled, and the pods began to fall.

 

Three: Suck It Up and Keep Walking

 

Dane moved slowly through the overgrown brush, wishing for a car, a bike, anything from the world before. His oversized boots thumped on the uneven ground, and he thought how much easier this would be if he could walk on pavement.

The pods had destroyed so much in the early days, and whatever freaky shit had leaked out when the huge things exploded made quick work of buildings, infrastructure, and every last convenience Dane had known.

Suck it up, man. You’re alive. 

He pulled down his bandana and kept walking, the toppled concrete overpass barely visible through the huge vines.

 

Dana Vickerson

Dana Vickerson is an architect and writer living in Dallas, though she’s most comfortable deep in the woods where she loves to sit and listen to the symphony of nature. When not crafting buildings or stories, Dana can be found analyzing horror movies with her husband or making elaborate paper dolls for her daughters. Her short fiction has appeared in Trembling with Fear and Tales to Terrify, and is forthcoming in Zooscape, Dark Matter Presents: Human Monsters and other anthologies. You can find her on Twitter @dmvickerson.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: What Can You Do? by Andy Martin

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

What Can You Do?

I.

Now…

Morning and the air was cool, the city still sleeping except for the birds, so when Kate got to 2nd and Reed she kept going.

She was three blocks passed her usual turn around when she skidded to a halt.

She’d never seen this little park before, tucked in on the west side of Two Street and in the shadow of 95.

She jogged in place, taking the statue in, then shook her head and turned for home.

*

“You ever see that crazy statue?” she asked Craig.

“The Band of Brothers one?”

“No, it’s like somebody’s Nona…and a UFO.” 

 

II.

Now…

“I thought you were kidding.”

She gave him a look.

“Sorry.”

The statue was indeed somebody’s Grandma. She was waving a rolling pin in front of a crashed UFO. A little, big-headed alien was crawling out-

1956…

Allied Bread was on fire, and Marie could hear air raid sirens over the fire trucks.

Marie was running toward the bread factory, she had neighbors, friends working there, what could she do? 

A silver disk spun out of the columns of smoking rising from the factory and poured narrow beams of green light into the street, flames exploding where they touched down-

 

III.

Now…

“This is like some weird art thing, right?”

“I don’t know. If any place can keep a secret, it’s South Philly.”

1956…

Confused screams in the street, no one believing what spun above Two Street spraying laser-death.

The saucer dove to incinerate a fire truck and clipped one of Allied Bread’s Egyptian Revival columns and skipped across Two Street like a stone.

The bubble at the top opened, a little gray bug-eyed thing crawling out-

Marie was running, remembering the rolling pin in her hand, neighbors, friends, burning up all around her and raised it high-

What could she do?

 

The End

Andy Martin

Andy Martin is an archaeologist and musician who lives in South Philadelphia with his partner and cat. His writing profile on Instagram is @grassapewritesandyells. His music can be found at clamfight.bandcamp.com and Instagram @clamfight.