Sacrificing Virgins Read Online Free Page A
Author: John Everson
Tags: horror;stories;erotic;supernatural;Jonathan Maberry
hyacinth bulbs.
On March 21st, Eric was ready. He was as nervous as a boy on a first dateâso afraid that he might be stood up. But when the dusk came down after a warm day and the stars came out, once again Emma rose from her grave beside the willow, and walked towards the place where her life had loved.
Eric waited for her there on the couch facing the sliding glass door. He sipped a bottle of winter ale, and smiled as the glowing woman in white stepped through the glass and across the carpet to join him.
For a time, the two of them simply sat there, staring out the glass at the shadows of a hundred hyacinths blooming atop her grave.
And then Eric began to speak, quietly in the dark room. The ghost of Emma Hodgson turned her face to meet his own as he began to tell her the story of her houseâof all of the things that had happened here in the years that she had been away. He told her of the cycle of rebirth and death, again and again. She slipped a glowing hand into his own, as Eric told stories of love, and lossâ¦and spring.
In Memoryum
They say the memory is the first to go. That was his first thought as he turned his head from one side of the pillow to the other, and recognizedâ¦nothing.
Jayce got up from the sagging mattress and wondered where his memory had slipped away to. His lower back spasmed as he walked across the tiny room, nearly spilling him into the yellow-rimmed window shade heâd crossed to open. He caught himself with a shaking palm on the wall, gasping at the pain and the sudden dizzying speed of his heart. Two inches to the left and he might have fallen forward, full force, and put his hand through the glass, and after his hand, maybe his whole body, unless his neck hung up on a jagged shard and left his body dangling there on the inside of the room while his lifeblood spilled down his severed neck and the fractured glass to pool on the pavement below.
Or was there pavement? Jayce shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. He didnât remember. He didnât know where the room was or what was beyond it, or how heâd gotten there in the first place.
The shade pulled down and released like a slingshot, clattering around and around at the top of the battered wooden window frame. Jayce squinted at the sudden influx of sun. Blinking away tears, he leaned forward to look outside.
An empty parking lot. Tufts of grass split the graying surface. To the left, Jayce could make out the rusted base stanchions of some kind of large signpost, and to the right, a single car overran the yellow guidelines of a designated parking space. The lot seemed to end at the back of an abandoned field, which stretched on to disappear into a stand of trees far away on the horizon.
Jayce turned back from the window and took a closer look at the room itself. There wasnât much to look at. A single bed, with a thin mattress that had obviously seen the press of many a heavy backside. A green floral comforter dragged off to the floor where heâd thrown it, and the only other piece of furniture was a dark brown nightstand topped by a thrift shop lamp and a $5 travelerâs alarm clock. The red LED read 11:21. From the growl of his gut, he also assumed that it had been some time since heâd last eaten. Though he couldnât remember when or what that last meal might have been.
There were no other personal effects in the room, but Jayce found a set of keys in his pants pocket. The world felt skewed, everything tilted forty-five degrees. He stared at the keys and wondered what doors they opened. He wondered who he was. He knew his name, and when he touched his arms, they felt familiar. Right. But everything else felt gray.
Jayce stepped through a doorframe into a tiny bath, and plunged his hands into the water from the sink faucet, splashing his face again and again. When he looked up into the mirror, he saw a face dripping with exhaustionâ¦deep-set eyes ringed by shadowed
On March 21st, Eric was ready. He was as nervous as a boy on a first dateâso afraid that he might be stood up. But when the dusk came down after a warm day and the stars came out, once again Emma rose from her grave beside the willow, and walked towards the place where her life had loved.
Eric waited for her there on the couch facing the sliding glass door. He sipped a bottle of winter ale, and smiled as the glowing woman in white stepped through the glass and across the carpet to join him.
For a time, the two of them simply sat there, staring out the glass at the shadows of a hundred hyacinths blooming atop her grave.
And then Eric began to speak, quietly in the dark room. The ghost of Emma Hodgson turned her face to meet his own as he began to tell her the story of her houseâof all of the things that had happened here in the years that she had been away. He told her of the cycle of rebirth and death, again and again. She slipped a glowing hand into his own, as Eric told stories of love, and lossâ¦and spring.
In Memoryum
They say the memory is the first to go. That was his first thought as he turned his head from one side of the pillow to the other, and recognizedâ¦nothing.
Jayce got up from the sagging mattress and wondered where his memory had slipped away to. His lower back spasmed as he walked across the tiny room, nearly spilling him into the yellow-rimmed window shade heâd crossed to open. He caught himself with a shaking palm on the wall, gasping at the pain and the sudden dizzying speed of his heart. Two inches to the left and he might have fallen forward, full force, and put his hand through the glass, and after his hand, maybe his whole body, unless his neck hung up on a jagged shard and left his body dangling there on the inside of the room while his lifeblood spilled down his severed neck and the fractured glass to pool on the pavement below.
Or was there pavement? Jayce shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. He didnât remember. He didnât know where the room was or what was beyond it, or how heâd gotten there in the first place.
The shade pulled down and released like a slingshot, clattering around and around at the top of the battered wooden window frame. Jayce squinted at the sudden influx of sun. Blinking away tears, he leaned forward to look outside.
An empty parking lot. Tufts of grass split the graying surface. To the left, Jayce could make out the rusted base stanchions of some kind of large signpost, and to the right, a single car overran the yellow guidelines of a designated parking space. The lot seemed to end at the back of an abandoned field, which stretched on to disappear into a stand of trees far away on the horizon.
Jayce turned back from the window and took a closer look at the room itself. There wasnât much to look at. A single bed, with a thin mattress that had obviously seen the press of many a heavy backside. A green floral comforter dragged off to the floor where heâd thrown it, and the only other piece of furniture was a dark brown nightstand topped by a thrift shop lamp and a $5 travelerâs alarm clock. The red LED read 11:21. From the growl of his gut, he also assumed that it had been some time since heâd last eaten. Though he couldnât remember when or what that last meal might have been.
There were no other personal effects in the room, but Jayce found a set of keys in his pants pocket. The world felt skewed, everything tilted forty-five degrees. He stared at the keys and wondered what doors they opened. He wondered who he was. He knew his name, and when he touched his arms, they felt familiar. Right. But everything else felt gray.
Jayce stepped through a doorframe into a tiny bath, and plunged his hands into the water from the sink faucet, splashing his face again and again. When he looked up into the mirror, he saw a face dripping with exhaustionâ¦deep-set eyes ringed by shadowed
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