Trick Or Treat

[Robert Crisman]

She led him into the house, Lorelei, a naked, tortured Madonna, the girl he'd wanted to lay down in clover and fill up the deep hole inside him...

He stared at her shackles and welts, stigmata belonging in rooms with barred windows where guards chalk up rapes as just part of the job.

Lorelei looked at him once, with dead eyes; she'd gone beyond pain and now was a ghost just like he was.

Every room in the house was stripped bare and the walls were all nicotine yellow, and as they passed through, he heard this sort of a white noise-cum-natter, consisting of voices, crushed tiny voices, like giggles from every grave in the world.

They came to a room where a table was set, and there stood a woman, rawboned and gray-haired and gaunt, with a plate heaped with scraps in her hand; Lorelei sat, her head hanging, vacant, her hands dangling limp, and after the woman put the plate down, she looked at the welts on Lorelei's back, then stared at the man as her eyes burned to sockets and nothing.

Her laugh rasped like last autumn's leaves on a grate; she spit, "Trick or treat..."

 

[Jamie Hogan]

Yes, crushed voices. My oh my. It deserves as many mentions as it will get.

[Gita]

holy frankenfuck!  crushed tiny voices, like giggles from every grave in the world.

 

[Kristine_ES]

sinister. glad i read this one in daylight instead of my usual dark office.  !

[Jeanette Cheezum]

Wicked 6.

[Ron. Lavalette]

Beyond pain... the real walking dead.  Great writing.

[Stephen Torelli]

I agree, "giggles from every grave," are mind-numbing.

[Angela]

This is a vast dark world you have access to, Robert.  The "giggles from every grave in the world" was frightening to imagine and hard to stop thinking about at the same time.