HER HORRORWEEN - We Are But Conduits

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01] Listen up, thrillers. A quick note. Tonight's Devious Audio Delight contains adult content and language. Please see the content warnings in the show notes.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_01] Coming back to something long gone is always painful. At first, there is only darkness and the stench. Burning hair, rot, and mildew.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01] Then, wave by growing wave, consciousness returns as a trickle. Then a flood, slick with river clay and disease, and dead, floating vermin. I'm sinking. I'm drowning. My eyes will not open and I cannot breathe. I cannot scream.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01] My body surfaces shortly after my mind. The flood boils and begins to drift away as steam. Every inch of my skin bursts into the kind of infernal, blistering pain that comes in the moment after touching fire.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_01] And dulls to nothingness just as quickly. A series of wet, irregular thuds force themselves up my throat. Strange coughs I cannot clear. They even out. Like something heartbeat-shaped, but not completely realized. The whistle of my breath is thin and watery. A waterlogged bellows plucked from a silty puddle.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_01] This is how I awaken from the sweetest sleep imaginable. A sleep akin to drifting down river on a perfect midsummer morning. The air scented with warm thistle. Time dissolving on my tongue like candied violet.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01] A memory plucks at the untuned harp strings of my awareness. Holy water mixed with mud from village river spread over every inch of me. It dries and cakes into powder brown dust, pulling out the hairs on my arms and scattering throughout the hay mattress like little stones. The mud bakes the fever into my skin.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01] There will be no city medicine for me, though I long to taste it. I long for it to clear my veins of sickness like holy water running through the aqueducts. There is a sister whose name I cannot remember. And a mother. And a father. And a priest.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01] Heavenly petitions rain down on me in Latin. Incense. Coughing. Murmuring. Soft crying. Softer prayers. The ratcheting heave of my last breath. Fingernails dragging tracks through the brown crust on my neck, desperate for the next that never comes. And then...

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01] The sweet, violet sleep. Painfully aware of the fact that I blissfully dream no more.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_01] I take inventory where I can. My chest rests on a stone floor. Chin half-submerged in a large, slimy puddle. My spine is corkscrewed, pushing my pelvis skyward. Legs bent up underneath me. Confusion simmers in my chest.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_01] I am utterly broken. In the air. Like a swarm of furious bees. Sluggish synapses prick phantom stingers into my flesh. Tendrils of strange blue light crawl over my body and chase each other across the surface of the puddle.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_01] A whimper is imprisoned behind my lips. I do not know where I am. I do not know who I am. I do not know why I am. I only know this broken body and this stone floor.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01] I strain to open my eyes. Once my lids respond, I blink furiously until they are clear of film and grit. They have been closed for a very long time. They feel unusual. Like the yolk of an egg just underboiled. I rock my head from side to side, gently, waking up my neck and shoulder muscles.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01] I can't feel them. Only a faraway sort of agony. But they move. Ripples spread in watery halos from my skull. That same eerie blue light flickers across the dripping, hewn rock ceiling. Strands of it flit atop an enormous glass sphere that rests in a metal housing. A strand of it flit atop an enormous glass sphere. A strand of it comes close enough to raise the hairs on my arms.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01] I taste the charge. Bright, metallic, and sour like rolling summer lightning. My congealed heart thumps in recognition. Across the room from the ruined heap of myself is a ruined heap of bodies.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_01] It takes me a minute to understand. They're dead. Some of them look so old they sag with damp. Others are mostly dust. And others are hardly decayed at all. My brain screams run. But the speed of the signal to my body is like a grinding clockwork. The table in the center of the room comes into focus as my eyes adjust to the dim.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01] It looks like the altar in Our Lady of the Assumption. Only without the golden, embroidered purificator. There are no pews here. There is no salvation being offered. This is not a place of worship, but of desecration.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_01] The altar is a great silver slab, shining and bare. Held up by the dark palm of a metal platform. Atop the table, supine is a person. Hovering over them, observant and tense, is another. Behind them, a glorious stone arch cut into the wall. With a heart of a weathered oak.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_01] The door. I attempt to call out for help. To push myself from the ground, but the standing person strides over to the buzzing mechanism and pulls a long, silver lever. Silence slices the air like a sickle. The person on the table bursts into an ungodly wail that makes my jaw clench.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_01] One of my back teeth crumbles like a pulpy sugar cube. I push all of it that I can from my mouth with my clumsy tongue. I lower myself back down and stay very, very still. Accompanying the scream is a flailing of limbs so strong the table shakes. It's not coordinated enough to knock the body from the slab.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01] A string of curses float down to me on the floor as the standing person races over to the altar. They secure their limbs one by one, grunting from the effort of pinning them down. The struggle is out of my sight. Leather straps tightening in a soft voice murmuring assures me the violent creature has been restrained. Their anguish trails off into a low.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_01] The standing figure places their hand near the creature's head, their shoulders hunched, hands gentle. They whisper earnestly, lovingly. The room is thick with the scent of body odor, excrement and fear. The person on the table's chest rumbles in a feral growl. The leather bracings buckle and shake against the iron table, punctuated by pained winds.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_01] The standing person suddenly rounds and slams their hands into the damp stone wall in frustration. Another failure. The words fall to the floor like stones. The love in their voice evaporated. The thing on the table only pants like an animal, letting this judgment sink in. Or, maybe, biding their time.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_01] The standing one spins on their heel and leaves the room. As soon as the door closes, I move my shoulder again, then bend my elbow, wriggle my fingers. I do not know how much time I have before the one returns, before the other manages to free themselves. With great effort, I extend and retract each of my arms a few times. Elbow joints clicking, but functional.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01] I arrange my hands on either side of my chest and push against the stone floor, grunting and leveraging my upper body away from the wet slate. I ignore the sensation of something snapping and letting go in my left wrist. It's surprising, but not painful. Once sitting, I rotate my upper body, wincing as more pops and squelches croak from my spine.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_01] I stop to rest, sitting with my legs stretched out in front of me. Only, my left leg is gone. The raw, crag of skin is starkly outlined by the dark floor. My thigh sawed in half. The cut as clean as a butcher's. The dress I was buried in has been torn carelessly away. I can only half remember who it belonged to before me.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_01] The roughness of the fabric substitutes a face from memory. But both are pale. Both are worn down. The wound isn't bleeding. But this comes as no surprise. The dead don't bleed. My throat spasms in a muddy gag and surrenders a sob. The half of me that has been forced awake is howling.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_01] The half of me that has known since rising up in that fiery flood is silent. I am so numb. The contraption hums next to me. In consolation or remorse. A residual spark reaches out to touch my shoulder and narrowly misses. My heart skips a beat of the proximity. Like a swallowed hiccup.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01] I abandon the broken promise of the door leading to a second chance, and of matching a face to the dress. I am so, so tired. Quickly, as my body will allow, I drag myself across the floor toward the slab. Arm over arm. All of my joints creak and I worry my left hand will snap off.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_01] But my muscles are not too far gone and still hold the memories of past wheat harvests. I slide against the base of the altar and reach up to grab the edge of the iron tabletop, maneuvering my remaining leg underneath myself, ensuring my foot is steadily planted. I push my body to a wavering stand.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_01] My wrist cracks dully, reminding me that I am still at the mercy of what's left of me. On the table is no creature, but a woman. She has black, curly hair and bloodshot eyes. One is hazel, and one is a deep, chestnut brown.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01] The brown eye is too large for the socket, insecure and roving. At the sight of me, she struggles in her bindings, a dark stain of fear spilling across her face. Her arms are mismatched as well. One pale. One the color of ash and honey. The stitches that attach them to her shoulders are stiff, black cording. She is naked.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01] Her torso is deep brown and flecked with a constellation of beauty marks. Her right leg, attached to her segmented thigh with the same thick stitching, is mottled. The color of spoiling milk. Smells of it too. Her left leg has sandy, olive skin with a birthmark right above the kneecap. My birthmark. My leg.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_01] Perhaps something rode my soul back up from hell. Because I have the urge to rend it from her body with my bare hands. But her eyes are glazed. Dull with pain and terror. There is something else there too. Desire. Or worse. Hope.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_01] She is ready to go back to sleep too. The leg is no longer mine. It is neither of ours. We are elsewhere. Dreaming. I release the leather straps on her wrists and ankles. We stare at each other.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_01] Studying the degree of what has been stolen. I do not have the stomach to match the rest of her with the pile of our slumbering kin. I tear my dress skirt in two wide swaths, which she ties around her hips and chest. She offers a groan in thanks. The device in the corner flickers half-heartedly, illuminating the black puddle.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_01] I can still taste my revival. By the way she opens and closes her mouth. Tongue swollen and awkward and mostly dead. I know she tastes the same. I touch her hand. Our hearts beat sluggishly as one, and she meets my gaze. She holds it, and her fear melts away in the set of her strong jaw.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01] She tucks a strand of filthy hair behind my ear. She is pure beauty in her strength. And I am happy to be imprisoned in this once precious sack of rot, if only to have beheld her for an instant. The thief, though, will be back. And we are awake to a future that cannot hold.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_01] Our covenant, then, requires nothing spoken. Only the brief, electric connection of eyes meeting. Of purloined heartbeats. Of suffering. The woman swings her legs over the edge of the table. Wobbles as she tests a stranger's joints. We take up positions on either side of the door, the world itself holding breath. Time passes, and we remain.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_01] Gatekeepers. Sentinels of stinking flesh. There it is. The shudder of a key sliding into a lock. The creak of unoiled hinges. The thief enters swiftly and is momentarily rendered immobile by the shock of the empty table. The abandoned restraint. It is time enough. We are on them before they can exclaim,

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_01] and although they instinctively buck, seven limbs are more than four. And we slam them onto the altar with the sheer force of our weight and momentum. The look in their long, lashed eyes is sheer confusion. Especially when they fall upon my face. The one that should be in the charnel mound with the others. In that moment, I realize the weight of my desecration.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01] Disinterred. Dismembered. Discarded. When their delicate head with all of its golden, radiant curls meets the iron with a wet smack, and their eyes roll back, I do not fight my smirk. We wrestle their limp wrists into the straps, then their ankles. My left hand finally snaps off in tired relief.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_01] But my other bones are strong. My river and my flame. This angel of vengeance beside me tears the strip of cloth from her chest and shoves it between the larceners' teeth as they blink back from twilight. She leans in very close to their face as they release muffled yelps into the gag. Her crooked mouth garbles something utterly unintelligible.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_01] They wince at her death-scented attempt at rebuke. I touch her shoulder gently. When she places her fingers on the back of my hand, I remember that there was something in this world other than agony. If my eyes could produce tears, I would cry. For myself. And for her.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_01] It is all too late now. We take our place in the puddle next to the machine. Hand in hand. Ankle deep in resurrection. On the machine. A switch. A button. The angel places one of her hands tentatively on the silver switch. She throws it and sparks with the outside of the apparatus.

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_01] The corners of her mouth curl upward and when her eyes fall on mine, I know the world is ours. The plunderer screams again, louder this time, but with the fabric of my past in their maw and the taste of failure on their tongue, we are left to our experiment. The angel places her hands on the large silver lever and looks back at me. I reach for her cheek,

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01] which she places softly into my palm. It is cold. She thrusts the lever downward with all of her strength and our three bodies light from within like stars. The screaming stops. The harsh song of the machinery reaches its climax. I taste candied violet and feel the warm breeze ushering me back into the darkness.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01] Someone calls my name through the veil, but I cannot remember theirs. I pray someone is calling her name too. Thousands of tendrils dance between table and floor, spidering on the surface of the puddle, the surface of our bodies. They explode from her back like wings. She is divine. I hold her with my eyes

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01] and she holds me and we descend back into our thistle-scented midsummer together.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_00] We are but conduits. Written by H. Marin. Performed by Allison Cossett. You've been listening to Ominous Thrill, Her Horrorween. It's created, produced, directed, and sound designed by myself, Jeff Schmidt. If this is your first Ominous Thrill episode, please look back in the feed to find other stories you might enjoy. There's plenty of devious audio delights to choose from. The best way to help support making more Ominous Thrill

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00] is to subscribe to the ad-free feed, The Red Room on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. Find links in the show notes. It's greatly appreciated. Next best is to share this story with everyone you think might enjoy it. Help spread the word. Use the share icon in your listening app of choice. And the easiest way is to leave a five-star rating and a positive review. It doesn't do much for the algorithms, but it helps other listeners decide if they'll listen. Thank you.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_00] This has been Ominous Thrill Her Horrorween, and until next time, thrill you later.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01] The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish.