“And they say to this day, in the dead of night when the moon is at its highest peak, you can still here his cries, and some have even told stories of meetings made between them and the Baron himself,” Stolzen says with a wry smile across his lips, as he looks around the campfire at the others, until his eyes fall upon as set his is unfamiliar with. He pulls his head back and twists his jaw in contemplation.

“A charming story I must say, but you left out so many juicy pieces of the overall puzzle that what you hold before us is a bland colourless version instead of the utopia we sought and were promised,” the man says with a stony gaze, and chiseled jaw.

Stolzen laughs nervously as he breaks out in a cold sweat, “Y-Y-You come for t-the smile b-but e-end up staying f-f-for the r-r-roast beef.” he stammers as he looks around at the sea of eyes that stare towards the interloper with curious intent .

“I’m not going to even pretend to understand what you just said, as it makes little to no sense on any level. All I will say on any matter that is left to discuss is how epic this all feels, and poignant it seems that you were to discuss such fancifully things while introducing everyone to my land.” he says with a confidence that oozes from each word.

“T-T-This land b-belong to no one, and th-the stories I j-just told are on-onl…” his words find themselves lost in his throat as the stranger smiles broadly seconds before the campfire is swallowed by the very ground itself.

“This land, is MY LAND! AND MY REACH IS FAR GRANDER THAN THAT OF STORIES, FOR I AM THE HYRDA AND THE OMEGA!” he roars as the very earth beneath them trembles while the others scream in terror.

Stolzen thrusts himself quickly to his feet a pulls his revolver free as week as a torch, shining it to where the strange sat moments ago, only to now find the bloody corpse of one of his men. He arches up and forwards, sweeping the area before him with the torches light, passing over body after body of his soldiers until he finally comes to a stop upon the huddled mass of the stranger as he crouched over a withering captive. Without a moment of contemplation her squeezes the trigger and drills do shots into the figures back, but it fields no results.

He squeezes again, emptying the remainder of the guns clip into the strangers back, but it still doesn’t persuade him to leave, in fact it only seemed to encourage his attack, as he drops the lifeless corpse and roses slowly to his feet.

As he turns to face Stolzen he wipes the sea of red that is painted across his face, and smiles a mouth full of pointy white teeth while proudly striding towards him.

“The tales tell of so many things, so many deeds done without remorse, so many lives drained away and taken proudly. All these stories and all these deaths, yet you seem to have learnt nothing but ignorance from the source material. No valued piece of information, no nugget of gold that houses my undoing. You are an…” He stops in his tracks as his brow furrows and his lips twitch. “Why do you smile when faced with defeat?” he asks curiously of the smiling Stolzen.

“Because it is you who has underestimated me, for there is no life worth rise of my family, not even my own, especially when it has already began to expire.” he says with a nervous grin as he proudly raises his hand to reveal a dead man’s switch tightly under his grip.

The strangers nose twitches and his eyes open wide with surprise. “I-I-I, I can smell your cancer from here.”

“And I can smell your urine!” he says he releases his grip.

***

Follow the below link to purchase A Twisted Halloween 2021 to read all 31 five minute short stories.

Before you lies a piece of a puzzle far grander than you could ever know or imagine. For scrawled in blood upon the pages hidden within the above tome is stories twisted thirty-one in all, soaked in the embers of my insanity. Five minutes to glimpse inside the eyes of someone new, five minutes to answer, five minutes to sin, five minutes to do almost anything. A god, a demon, a harlot, a whore. A fascist, a killer, a sinner, a door. Death and division, humanity askew. A belfry of bats, a sea of black cats, so many moments out there to see, so many things you could see with me. So take a seat beside me and call it voodoo, because now you ride with me too…

 

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