Unholy Trinity: It’s a Long Way to the Top by Marc Sorondo
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.
Author’s Note: These stories were inspired by the music of AC/DC. I think music and horror pair so well together, and AC/DC in particular has so many songs that could work as inspiration for horror stories.
It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll)
The price of fame was high.
At first it was a soul for a hit song, freed with a blade across the neck. When it was time for an album, we had to sacrifice an entire family, children first so the parents last image was their children dying.
We paid for successful tours and glossy magazine covers with innocent blood…and it was worth every crimson drop.
When the dark man came and said it was time to pay again, that the price of being legends was the life and soul of our frontman…well, that was worth it too.
Back in Black
The price of resurrection is high, a price I’ll pay for eternity once I’ve had my revenge, but I will have it…and then some. Those bastards forgot…Ol’ Scratch will make a deal with anyone if they make a handsome offer, and the offer I’ve made is almost as handsome as me.
Those backstabbing assholes traded my life to be rock legends. Soon, they’ll be dead and I… risen like a phoenix, covered in the black ash of hellfire…I will take the stage. I will be a rock god.
Even everlasting torment is a small price to pay.
Highway to Hell
The time had come. With one final act it would all be over. I’d taken the reigns of my own destiny and become a legend.
It was time to give the devil his due in a moment of violence and chaos, an ultimate blaze of glory.
I floored the gas and lit a final cigarette. I turned up the volume on the radio and laughed. I’d die to my own song blasting.
I hit the curve going just over a hundred miles an hour, and smiled the ground rushed up at me, knowing I’d see my old bandmates in Hell.
Marc Sorondo
Marc Sorondo lives with his wife and children in New York. He loves to read, and his interests range from fiction to comic books, physics to history, oceanography to cryptozoology, and just about everything in between. He’s a perpetual student and occasional teacher. For more information, go to MarcSorondo.com.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Stephanie Ellis writes dark speculative prose and poetry and has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. Her longer work includes the folk horror novels, The Five Turns of the Wheel, Reborn, and The Woodcutter, and the novellas, Bottled and Paused (all via Brigids Gate Press). Her dark poetry has been published in her collections Lilith Rising (co-authored with Shane Douglas Keene), Foundlings (co-authored with Cindy O’Quinn) and Metallurgy, as well as the HWA Poetry Showcase Volumes VI, VII, VIII, and IX and Black Spot Books Under Her Skin. She can be found supporting indie authors at HorrorTree.com via the weekly Indie Bookshelf Releases. She can be found at https://stephanieellis.org and on Blue Sky as stephellis.bsky.social.
