Here be my entry into this #50 edition of Finish the Story Contest with our guide @bananafish.
If you don't like horror, I won't be upset if you only press the upvote button and move on.
The Abysmal Biscuit
by @F3nix
The awareness of the box's contents dripped slowly in Joelle's mind, coagulating like a graceless Rorschach's blot. Bones. Tiny tapered bones, standing out against the mahogany bottom.
The unusual item jolted on the worn chair, reacting to the vibrations of the old diesel-powered train. The convoy, the last of his lineage, still fulfilled its duty along the Brașov-Sighișoara route allowing students to return to their homes every weekend. To the rhythm of joints and sleepers, the whiteness of the remains continued to dance tremulously before the eyes of the young woman as the frames of her glasses slipped slowly from her nose.
In a tinkling clink of bracelets, the student closed the lid of the box and moved away as far as possible from it, crushing herself against the seat's padding. The lazy air of the air conditioner stuck to the bottom of her dry throat an acrid plastic taste.
And then she saw him. The old passenger had returned and was staring at her through the windows that led from the corridor of the car to the cabin. She listened to her own scream erupting and fill the cramped cab.
"I didn't want to scare you, young lady."
"N-not scared. No worries, sir." Somehow, Joelle managed to gather the few polite words her manners demanded. She could not have said how long he had been watching and if he had seen where curiosity had taken her. The glasses, temples up in the air, laid on the seat beside her.
The old man was tall and lanky, his burnished skin resembled the ancient scales of a dragon. Dressed in work trousers and a raw cotton shirt, he gave the impression of being one of those peasants whose families had inhabited the Carpathians for centuries.
Joelle's gaze passed involuntarily from the man to the funeral urn disguised as a biscuit tin: the representation of a merry-go-round in a lacquered colored wood and graceful workmanship. The children were swirling with their bent busts, perhaps because of the speed of the carousel. Their mouths were wide open and their hands clung to the poles skewering the horses. With a lump in her throat, she remembered the fleeting memory of just a few hours before, when a train was huffing at the central station and a gentle old man asked her help because he couldn't open the cabin door. She felt like something ruined down from her lungs to her guts.
"I see that you like my craft." In the silence, she could detect the old man's fingers caressing the box inlays.
"It's adorable. A gift for a grandchild?" Joelle realized only now that the object was his only baggage. In the warm twilight, the colors of lacquered wood seemed even more lively. The conifers thickened on the sides of the train, sliding quickly to the edges of her field of vision.
"Oh. A gift, says the young lady. Like a toy, perhaps?" The old man's eyes were two black bottomless pits. His gaze had slowly become vitreous like that of a deep-water fish, yet at the same time penetrating.
"Yes, a toy. I like how you see it, miss." The passenger continued, his voice getting thinner.
Only then, Joelle realized where they were heading: the train had just passed the old mill and would soon pass through the tunnels beneath the mountain.
"You may have noticed how I depicted all these children. Observe, miss, between a horse and the other: they are not alone." By pronouncing the last vowel, which he abnormally prolonged, his voice tone had become a slow and drawling rattle.
It was still too early for the wagons' lights to turn on and the tunnels were preparing to swallow the convoy.
A sound of nails carving into the wood tore the thoughts of the young student.
My Ending
"I need to go to the bathroom." She fumbled around with her hand searching for her glasses and knocked them off the seat onto the floor. She didn't dare bend over to pick them up.
"Joelle, you saw the tiny fingers within the box, didn't you?" The man's voice sounded like rough sandpaper opposing a cat's tongue.
"No," she said, sizing up the brittle looking man. Joelle, as she'd done time and time again, convinced herself there was no way to push herself past him. He was old but he stood with an air of superiority that reminded her of her father and the boyfriends that came thereafter. She dared not to think about ... the children.
The tunnel swallowed the train like a snake engulfing its prey whole. The lights started to flicker rapidly on and off.
His skin shimmered like a fish reflecting light.
"I can always tell by the face and the tone of voice who looks in. Call it a gift." His maniacal eyes smiled at the memories held within the box.
Then, Joelle felt his energy raping her soul. She winced with her whole body, attempting to be sucked into the pores of the seat's padding so that she could disappear into the black hole that swallowed the train. The train's wheels squealed as it went into a left bank, which counter-attacked Joelle's wishful thinking. She felt as if her blood was going to leave her body and cover the whole area in a blanket of red.
The man, clearing his throat, asked again, "Did you see the fingers, Joelle?" He held the last sound an extra few seconds, moving it from the crest down the trough and back up again. His eyes sunk further into his hollowing sockets. A fog of a reddish-brown color begun to flow out from the bottom of the man's trousers, filling the room.
The lights stopped flickering and stayed on.
Joelle covered her airways with her shirt, but, as she drew in a breath, she felt the air chastising her lungs as if there were alcoholic executioners hacking away with blunt objects within the bronchi. Coughing, her vocal cords violently crashed together like symbols being hit with a pure steel mallet.
She felt wet stool ooze out of her anus and down the backsides of her legs. That smell gagged her, but the coughing fits persisted, forcing her to breathe in more of the stench and the fog, repeating the cycle.
The merry-go-round started up when the man pointed his finger and sent out an electrical current from himself to it. The bent over children now had carrots sticking out of their butts. With the horses neighing in the background, the children cried out in unison:
Mother, take this. - crap;
you monster!
The voices drilled into her ears like an amateur doctor's precision when using an ice-pick to perform a necessary surgical removal by any means necessary.
March 20, 1809
Mover and Shaker Monthly Magazine #101
Top Conspiracy Story: Death by smoke from diesel-power train takes the lives of 46 passengers in Piper's Pass making bandits rich.
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Town That Changed | Even the Clouds Smile | The Border | Horror Vacui | |
| Black Star | Quitting Life | LER | It Awakens | |
| Apocalypse and Pretzels | Metallic Kisses | Curie upvoted The Battle of Bloodneck Valley | Awakening | |
| Curie Upvoted Obstinancy | The Last Will and Testament of Geralda Connors | Curie Upvoted Pirate Hunters | Spoon-fed Memories | Lucid Dream |
| The Taste of Chicken | Curie upvoted Hunt More Precious Than a Green Stone | Kayla | Curie Upvoted The story of Mr. Renhe Ren | Second Prize Winner Blue Inferno for Tres Culos |
| Leitner | Collaboration A Game in the Hall | Curie upvoted The Extraodrdinary Café | The Package |
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