I walked through the door, right up to the horrible hill of flesh. As I reached out, about to touch it, Maria hurried up to me and grabbed my hand. “No metal,” she said. “Never metal.” She pulled a ring off my finger and put it in the breast pocket of my jacket. I touched the side of the mound. It vibrated slightly, and pulsed, too. It was rubbery and very warm, almost feverish. A glob of the blue slime trickled down the meaty hill and wet my index finger. I raised the finger to my nose for a sniff. It smelled like a mixture of sweat and rice pudding with cinnamon. “Do not taste it!” Maria whispered. “It is highly addictive.” I had no intention of tasting it, though I did appreciate the warning. I wiped my finger on my pants. One of the old women carried a full wooden bucket out of the chamber through a side door. A few seconds later she returned without the bucket, with another woman by her side. They talked for a moment, and then they began the whispering chant. They raised their arms and began to circle Der Fleischbrunnen – the meat fountain. I pointed toward the side door. “Where does that go?” Maria took a newly filled bucket from one of the women and walked toward the door. “Come with me,” she said. “You deserve to see it all. The miracle belongs to you!” This new room was a candle-lit laboratory. Maria walked to the center of the lab and dumped the contents of the bucket into one of three stainless steel vats, all heated by gas jets. “You’re putting that juice in metal containers,” I said. “So how come you had to take my ring off?” “The ‘juice’, as you call it, is the Milk of Time,” Maria said. “It can be stored in any type of container. But the source of the Milk cannot be allowed to come in contact with metal. Do you like our laboratory? We are very scientific, yes?” -- An excerpt from Der Fleischbrunnen, one of the 25 weird and wild stories in BEST LITTLE WITCH-HOUSE IN ARKHAM. Available for Kindle or as a trade paperback: Kindle: amazon/Best-Little-Witch-House-Arkham-ebook/dp/B00DAJEODW/ Trade Paperback: amazon/Best-Little-Witch-House-Arkham-McLaughlin/dp/143444208X .
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 03:56:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015