MALEVOLENCE (PT. II)
II - ARRIVED
WARNING TO READERS: This section of writing below contains disturbing themes, violent imagery and horror-based scenery. Read on if this does not bother you.
E.B-L
(2025)
Author’s Note:
Special thanks to:
Author, Nathan Hatch – for reading the drafts, and whose discerning eye caught the shadows I missed.
Author (and friend), Brett McBean – for unintentionally inspiring me to write about the darkness.
My wife, Farah – for her patience and inspiring me to write about my own darkness.
Find Part I - GAMES here:
Here is some background music I made on my friend’s glockenspiel to set the mood. I recommend that you play this at a low volume so it doesn’t distract you.
II - ARRIVED
An hour or so into their slumber, Ned was awoken by a distant scream that echoed over the hills and up the valley. What was that? Night creatures perhaps?
Again! There it was!
He threw off his covers and walked to the window. The country at night was always an ever-stretching infinite cauldron of unknown terror. The light on the outside wall cast itself over the freshly mowed grass until it dissolved into black. He looked back at Josiah. Fast asleep. Ouija board by his side. Almost like he ‘Ouijed’ himself to sleep. He paused to reflect, watching him in this state, acknowledging that he should probably end the friendship, as harmlessly as possible, but then noticed his notepad. Josiah always had his large notepad with him, everywhere he went. Usually he would hide it. Now it’s sprawled open by his side, waiting for Ned to seize the opportunity to pry. Of course, Ned knew very well that if he didn’t take a peek now, he would likely live out his remaining years never knowing the scribblings that Josiah protected with such vehemency.
Ned crept closer, pretending in his own mind; a marine, secret service, or perhaps a samurai? Wherever he was, he was stealth. The open pages came slowly into focus, yet were confusing. Not pictures. Not diagrams. It was words, but not English.
Bolp ol Caosgin, ol Zin, ol Malpirg an rdZla. Bolp ol Zire
Ned lowered himself onto his behind, gently. Josiah did not twitch. He brought his focus back to the strange expression, reading it over and over again. Fascinated by it. Ned had seen other languages in the written form, he was no halfwit. But this – this he had never laid his eyes upon before. He proceeded to whisper it to himself ever so quietly, being careful not to wake the author. Once he had repeated it a number of times, becoming increasingly curious and frustrated about its meaning, he then noticed another shorter passage at the bottom of the page; still in Josiah’s writing.
eriZ lo ploB
He was getting used to the phrasing and sounds of the words, so whispering this one was achieved at first attempt. Ned fell into a silent glare. His mind scratching his head rather than is physical hand. He was conflicted. Did he ask Josiah about it tomorrow? Potentially a dangerous move. He would with no doubt feel violated at the snooping that took place whist he laid in slumber. The other option that permeated Ned’s decision-making process was to shut up. Keep it to himself. That option was chosen as soon as it presented itself.
Ned stood up, his youthful and well-lubricated joints hardly producing an audible crack or pinch. As he turned back to the window he was struck by the image.
A baby?! In diapers! A two-year-old, possibly younger, was just casually walking across the grass. He laid eyes upon the source of the mysterious screaming. Clearly too young to be out walking at night, his first concern – followed by the fact that the closest neighbour was three kilometres away on the far side of the valley. How was this infant even here!? He looked at the window sill twenty centimetres from his face, slowly trying to wake up. He raised his head again, daring to look back to where the child stood. Still there! And no longer walking, but standing there, facing the house. Breathing. In – out – in – out. Staring. From this distance, its eyes were like tiny black beads slapped onto its crown.
The small nameless figure jerked its head to the side; a movement shared by all creatures when noticing something they did not quite understand. It had seen him peering through the window. Ned, unknowingly, allowed his head to drop to the same side. When realising he was caught in an act of mirroring, the thought struck him that maybe, just maybe, it would conclude it was looking at its own reflection.
His hope was quashed. It screamed! Malevolent and multi-toned. Grizzly and piercing. Its vocal chords produced such a sound that its own bloody saliva curdled to the top, brimming over its lips.
Ned’s young heart felt the darkness spill over it. His sense of Self, safety and all things known was blown apart into the frightening cosmos; much of what could be viewed on this clear night. His ancestors and future kin heard the call, sensing the shift in his security. Cold held a new meaning for him now. He was forever changed with another layer of his innocence stripped away, his essence callously traumatised as it huddled into itself; lying on the floor of the universe – alone.
The child-like thing, having smelt the dawning of a new opportunity, slowly leaned toward the house – poised before launch. They fell into a motionless pause. Ned’s instincts that had been circling his third eye, screaming inaudible warnings, had now perched on each shoulder speaking clearly into his ears. Expecting to hear the words Run or Get Out, he was instead greeted with something far more foreign …
egavA Ned. It has been an Eon. We meet again.
Ned clasped his ears and yelped, tearing at the hair just above them, shaking his head like someone trying to release a bug that had lodged itself deeply to feast on his brain. Those were not his thoughts at all. Somehow, without moving its lips, it was speaking within him.
It remained standing, its tiny feet planted in the grass. “Get out of my head!”
Oh, I’m not in your head fair youth. You will know when I am. It will feel so much better. All of your worries will… hcoleT … into nothing.
Ned started whispering under his breath, allowing his words to spin around and occupy the real estate of his mind; desperately trying to ignore the shaking walls.
Ned! eP! roM! Stop your incessant prayer. Look at me!
Ned ceased, interrupted, opening his eyes to find the small beast closer to the window. Another ten feet. How? It must have walked. He could see its dirty, worn skin. Stretched and pained.
“Go away!” Ned screamed, as his own thoughts turned to his mother and Bryan upstairs – he sensed no presence. His home felt empty and void of protection.
A smile crept over its face, causing a deep red bile to appear and drip from its mouth’s extremities.
Oooooh you seek them? Mummy is A etaL now. oL ihodA. She was being naughty. andA-siD! It’s time for you to be moiaA. Come!
Ned sprinted from the window and up the first flight of stairs. His mother’s room was empty. Bryan! Up another flight of stairs as his petite lungs started to fail him. He reached the top and entered to find them together in bed.
The sheets were sprawled, presenting them naked and motionless. He ran to his mother’s side and reached for her shoulder, making contact with her cold, lifeless skin. Her head dropped to face him, her eyes wide open. The bleed in her left eye from the car accident they had endured together many years ago remained, as that deep black river burst from her pupil’s outer wall and ran its path through the sage and olive green fields of her irises – still holding Ned in place, even in death; a comfort and stability only a mother could give her child. The musky odour of her clothes that had been soaking in the country wash for what seemed to be an eternity, caressed her only boy. It was Mum. Ned could not pull his attention away to the reality of her throat, deeply cut from left ear to right. At least a gallon of blood had left her body, down the bed and onto the floor. He had not noticed he was standing in it. The moment smothered every ration of his character’s innate strength. His hidden robustness was brutally slapped to the soil below. Ned’s vessel here, his pathway to exist had packed up and left, leaving him to battle on through the void, the fog, the wall. She had been taken, forever.
There was no point in attempting to wake Bryan, he was most likely gone too and Ned was too scared to check. He was deadly still and that was enough. It was so cold. He shuddered, standing in a frozen fortress of loss. Finally, his silence broke –
“Mum!” he screeched, hoping his sharp and desperate beseeching would wake the Gods, as a plea to intervene.
He darted back down both flights of stairs and re-entered the bedroom to find nothing had changed. At least, he thought. The creature was still outside on the grass, waiting to catch a glimpse of Ned’s heartbreak. When it caught that glimpse, that reek of newly orphaned hopelessness, it hummed into the night air with satisfaction.
Well… do you nirB drailB now? May I devour your faith?
Ned ran to the window and snapped the blinds closed.
odO eD door! You posturing little cunt! Give me eD snonoM!
The vile entity exploded, pacing for the window. The sound of its feet pounding and squelching on the grass was not of this world; unhuman. Ned squinted and prayed. Heart racing! All of the blood in his body was coursing into every fibre, ligament and muscle.
The sound ceased abruptly – a second of silence –
A disgusting thud!
The window almost shattered as Ned recoiled, driven by dread and pure instinct. It had not bounced off! It was much worse. The wooden framing was being slowly crushed as it gripped the structure. Its silhouette was cast onto Ned, permeated by the moonlight. After a moment, the shadow dropped away, followed by a sickening wet thump – its body making contact with the ground.
Time passed with soothing resonances of the night. But the eye of the storm did not last long as Ned felt his glands under his jawline expand and gyrate. The taste of salt developed under his tongue. A smell of a rotten tooth abscess gripped his nose. As he reached for his mouth, a hot rush reached to his insides from his neck, feeling its way down his chest, grasping his most important organs; heart, lungs, stomach, and then into his bottom half. Once there, it squeezed and revolved within him. Ned could feel his organs touching. Slipping and sliding past each other. Something a human should never detect. He was being twisted in opposite directions, causing his bladder to burst the floodgates open. Urine swamped his legs. His small, innocent body had been violently entered. Helplessly violated. Consumed. He started to shake uncontrollably as his bowels excreted his lunch from earlier that day; no longer in control of anything.
He dropped to his knees in agony, his guts viciously churning, getting ready to launch its contents onto the old timber floor. As the acids climbed up his throat, he looked up toward Josiah for help.
He was gone!
Special thanks to my friend David who lent me his glockenspiel to create the sound / music for this story. Something dark was visiting my home studio on this night. EBL
Wow again
Brilliant continuation! The way you describe Ned’s fear and the visceral horror is so powerful and cinematic.