Tales of the Fallen Book I: Awakenings Read online

  Tales Of The Fallen

  David G. Barnett

  Kindle Edition

  Necro Publications

  2011

  — | — | —

  Tales Of The Fallen

  Book 1: Awakenings

  Kindle Edition

  all stories © 2010 David G. Barnett

  cover art © 2010 Travis Anthony Soumis

  this digital edition March 2010 © Necro Publications

  Cover, Book Design & Typesetting:

  David G. Barnett

  Fat Cat Graphic Design

  http://www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

  a Necro Publication

  5139 Maxon Terrace • Sanford, FL 32771

  http://www.necropublications.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to an eBook vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  —

  This is dedicated to all of my peoples,

  I give bigtime love, huggie huggie!

  Bounce!

  Oh, all right, let’s get somewhat serious. Special hugs for the brilliant Gerard Houarner, mastermind behind Painfreak, for allowing me to play inside his creation. To Edward Lee, mentor and friend. To Charlee Jacob, whose literary genius I could never even hope to come close to with my writing.

  To my boys, Stefan, Scott R., Robert N. and Sean, who got my back when I become an idiot. Scott R. for driving my drunk ass home and holding onto my belt so I wouldn’t splat face first onto I-4 as I puked out his passenger window. For Stefan who at least threw a blanket on me when I passed out in the Ybor Hilton after too many of Ms. Tia’s vodkas with Red Bull and shots at The Castle. To Robert N. for having even more fucked up hours than me so I have someone to play World of Warcraft with after midnight.

  And finally to my lovely women that decorate my life with their beauty: Audrea, Amanda, Amy, and Angel. Why do they all have names that begin with the letter A? Weird.

  And finally, to my family, who just simply rule.

  —

  Book 1:

  Awakenings

  Introduction

  Of Angels Fallen

  Daddy Demon’s Day Out

  Sleeper Agents Awaken

  —

  Introduction

  By Edward Lee

  In a world that can often be viewed as a symbolic pile of excreta—depending on one’s perspective, of course—we all need our modes of escape. Fiction serves as one such escape, and in my opinion it’s the most effective, because it invites all of the participant’s sensibilities, unlike, say, film, which only requires the viewer to point his or her face at the screen and pay attention, or, I suppose, drugs, which not only turns people into losers, it merely requires the induction of said drug, then you get high, then the high goes away, and you’re still a loser. But the high of good fiction NEVER goes away. It’s always there, long after the final page is turned, recurring to our faculties, replaying its thrill, and maintaining its invitation to provoke not just thought in general but deep, thematic, and even philosophical speculation. This is very important when one considers the sheer function of escapism; i.e. GOOD fiction gives us that very special bonus—or double-whammy: entertainment, PLUS an ethereal fulcrum, so to speak, on which we are entreated to weigh the subjective “in-betweens” of our world-view, and—dang it!—the best stuff out there always seems to be negative or even nihilistic. It is my judgment, then, that the fiction that we like the most provides our avenue of escape from this enormous hock-ball of the gods—this symbolic pile of excreta—called the world, or, more broadly, the modern human condition.

  Gee, Wally, isn’t that pretty fuckin’ cynical?

  Well, yeah, Beave, I guess it fuckin’ is.

  Personally, cynicism doesn’t suit me, or at least, I find myself growing more and more optimistic as my fifty-year-old ass trudges ever onward toward being a fifty-one-year old ass. Ultimately, however, it occurs to me that the fiction of today which offers the most mental meat to the reader is modern, cutting-edge material such as David G. Barnett’s Tales of the Fallen. This is cynicism and then some, brothers and sisters. In fact, these three intertwining stories propose a work that may well be the Mother of All cynicism.

  Think Tarantino meets John Fowles’ The Magus, with a dash of Bosch and a shot of Count Cagliostro, all mixed up in Macbeth’s cauldron and distilled down to a phantasmal mental ichor, a wild mix indeed. Populated by supernatural killing machines, snide demons, monstrous apprentices, anti-Godheads, and aspiring sorcerers, Barnett shows us the crumbling, corrupt vista of our own world made grimmer by a coal-black antithesis of spirituality. Here a trine of plots twist about our inquiring minds like Cthulhuian tentacles, only to merge into not just a singular denial of status quo religious thesis but also in a proposition of a Heaven-Hell mythos so far-reaching you’ll get lost in ensuing contemplation for some time to come: a very dark wonderworld of subjective opposites which all seems to function as a character itself. If you’re into literary symbolism, look harder between this book’s ornaments (the staunch gore, the gritty naturalism, the belly-busting sarcasm, and a wonderful modernized M.R. James-like occult science) and you’ll be left with something staring back at you darker than the visage in Nietzsche’s Abyss. It’s not everywhere you can find such theologic gems packed into one break-neck occult thriller.

  Hmmm, perhaps this preamble is getting a bit stodgy; there seem to be more run-on sentences than, say, an M.R. James story! But I’m weary of new millennial intros/blurbs/endorsements because they all sound so colloquial. Certainly I could say, instead, “Shit-yeah, Dave Barnett’s Tales of the Fallen kicks mucho ass, man, and it takes names! Dude, it’s got all kinds of cool shit, like incarnation spells in one of those 25-cent lick-on tattoo machines, and a devil’s whorehouse, and enough blood and guts to fill a fuckin’ dump truck, oh, and Bunklewarts, man, which are these slick little demonic shit-bugs that live in a monster’s ASS, man! Conjuration, masturbation, ejaculation, assassination, and GOD in a fuckin’ diner—yowzah! It’s got it all! No shit! It’s the best fuckin’ horror story I’ve read this year! Dude!”

  Certainly, all of the above are quite true but, lo, such exclamatory banter is not a reflection of my style. Such a tone is too inexorably commonplace, which supports an ultimate point. Barnett’s horrific ternary of words, places, and characters is anything BUT commonplace. Instead, it’s a unique and very refreshing vision, the perfect fruit to pluck off of horror fiction’s tree for the new dark age. So? Back to stodgy run-on sentences.

  Here’s my favorite line in the entire book: “For what falls from your diseased and worn womb will be the salvation of us all.” Ah, such exuberance! But there’s a joke hidden in there—a joke on us all—because when you think hard and consider the potential symbology of that line, Barnett leaves us with the book’s core truth: take the summation of what we typically want to believe and then turn it inside-out. There’s our truth. An inversion more perverted and depressing than anything we can imagine. And when we look at the world of the past and the world of today—and all its escalating outrage, prevarication, and horror—it may well be that the aforementioned womb proves far more than a vessel for birth. In fact, it seems to be gestating quite well in my opinion, and is perhaps quickly approaching the end of the last trimester. Barnett, either cruelly or gleefully, forces us
to envision what might come out.

  In a hip style and sharp, velotic prose, Barnett has unleashed a celebration of abomination, a pallet of mythological freight right to the readership’s front door. Cynicism and heresy has rarely been more provocative—or entertaining—than what you are about to read.

  Edward Lee

  March 23, 2008

  St. Pete Beach, Florida

  —

  Of Angels Fallen

  The woman’s body slid down the wall as if in slow motion—too slow. Mal put his finger on the bridge of her nose and pressed down hoping to quicken the descent. When her legs finally collapsed, she crumbled into a pile at his feet—forehead resting on the cum-, piss-, what-have-you?-stained carpet. Mal put the steel-tip of his Doc Marten into her temple and gave her a quick kick. No sign of life. Of course there was no real sign of life before he shoved the seven-inch blade in one side of her skinny neck and out the other. Just because she was breathing didn’t mean she was alive. Her heavy-lidded eyes had exploded at the realization that something was horribly wrong. Her left hand, which had been deftly stroking Mal’s cock, gave a sharp, hard squeeze as he unloaded onto the front of her filthy, pink PVC skirt. He placed his hand on hers and squeezed to keep the pressure tight on his shaft. He kept her hand moving along his cock to work out a few more drops while she hung there in the air stunned and bleeding out. “Finish the job, honey. Always finish the job.”

  From the other room Mal heard her crack-head baby crying for something he wasn’t going to be getting anytime soon. “Sorry, brother, momma’s tapped out.”

  Mal dropped the knife next to the “whore” and stuffed his slick-tipped dick back into his pants. At least with this one I got a good crank out, he thought. Even if I did have to finish it off myself.

  The kid wailed again, sensing something wrong in the air. Mal thought about paying him a little visit on his way out. Then shrugged it off. They would take care of him, her and everything else just like they always did. No concerns on his part. Mal’s jizz, his blood, his fingerprints… Didn’t matter.

  Mal walked by the screaming kid’s room and poked his head in. “Take it easy there, twitchy. Maybe they’ll take you in and save you like they did me,” he said before shooting him a quick thumbs-up and heading out the door.

  ««—»»

  Balance of power, that’s what they called it. For every good, decent life extinguished at the hand of evil, retribution is needed in the name of the righteous. This is what he had been taught since they had rescued him from the gutter.

  Twenty-two and already a bum—a bottle of whiskey a day for the past year left Mal numb and free of any concerns other than where the next bottle came from. Petty theft, B&E, a little assault here and there, blood siphoned into a bottle for some poor bastard brought into an ER after Mal had just beat the shit out of him for twelve bucks and some change.

  Yeah, Mal was leading the charmed life. Then one night of too much booze and too little thinking, he tried to force the wrong guy to give up his wallet. The guy was big, too big Mal would soon find out. But the alcohol and the need inside Mal made him feel as if he was even bigger. Mal came at the guy, stammering and wobbling, finger poking in his coat pocket pointing a cotton gun. The guy stopped but didn’t seem scared, instead he just stared at Mal through black watery eyes, his head tilted slightly, his brow creased. He looked like a confused puppy trying to figure out what his owner wanted him to do.

  “Give me your money, asshole. Now!” Mal screamed. Trying hard to be menacing. He puffed out his chest, trying to seem larger than he really was—larger than the stranger whom he now realized was a hell of a lot bigger than Mal first thought. It was a sad display.

  The stranger just stood there as if studying the situation. Mal teetered on his feet and started to lean back. He blinked and when he opened his eyes no one was in front of him. Before Mal could make sense of what was going on, the bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey sitting on the ground where Mal placed it before rising to intimidate, was coming up the side of his head. The stranger’s motion was lightning fast and his aim was dead on. One second Mal was starting to jack this guy, the next he’s falling to the curb with a cascade of whiskey and blood covering the side of his face, then his body.

  Mal hit the ground, shook his head, stunned, and rolled onto his back. Blinking manically through the whiskey-stung eyes, Mal tried to look up. The guy looked down at him, his head still tilted slightly. A flash of orange appeared before Mal’s face, shadows danced for a second and in them he could see the stranger grinning—but only for a second before the grin vanished and the flame dropped down onto Mal’s body. One moment he felt cold, wet and dazed. The next he was completely sober, every inch of his body awake to the sensation of excruciating pain as his whiskey-soaked coat burned away, then his shirt, then…his flesh. The screams that erupted into the night seemed distant as if Mal were hearing them from blocks away. He wasn’t on fire. He couldn’t be. It had to be someone else. Someone else in this pain. Someone else screaming into the dank air. Someone else hearing the low murmuring of voices coming from right behind the wall of flames. It had to be someone else. Not him. Not…

  ««—»»

  He had killed the crackhead whore because they told him to kill a hooker. Actually, they said “harlot.” Guess it wasn’t as crude as hooker. They’re not big on the vulgar. Silly when you consider what they are big on. Whatever. Mal knew what the hell they meant.

  When he got back in his car, Mal quickly noticed the package sitting on his passenger seat. He knew immediately what it was by the mark—a flaming sword, red. Mal still laughed at their lack of subtlety. “It’s about fucking time,” he said opening the package. What he found inside confused him. So he picked up the piece of paper. “Finally!” Mal’s eyes filled with tears as he read the note another time just to make sure:

  This will be your last assignment.

  Your reward is nigh.

  ««—»»

  The sharp stink of rubbing alcohol mixed with shit assaulted Mal when he first awoke. He opened his eyes and immediately felt like someone had punched him in the face. The light seared into the back of his brain—pain attacking his skull like a jackhammer.

  Pain…

  Amidst the pounding in his head, Mal saw flashes—images—ricocheting through his mind.

  A bottle crashing into the side of his head…

  Face against the black top of a street…

  An orange grin…

  Then…

  … a flame …

  … falling …

  … falling.

  Mal sees himself…

  Screaming …

  … screaming …

  … through a wall of fire …

  … covering him in white hot pain.

  But only for a few seconds… Then only the screams remained. Mal heard them as if someone were standing next to him—mouth an inch from his ear—unleashing a banshee cry directly into his brain.

  Through the screams and the incessant thump-thump in his head, Mal managed to feel hands on his shoulders. They pressed into him, pinning him down. He chanced opening his eyes again. This time more cautiously. A fraction of light seeped through. A little more, he thought, as the cold white light pried its way into his eyes.

  The screams subsided, chased away by the light. The pain in Mal’s head settled into just a light pulsing. He gave into the pressure against his shoulders and settled back into the pillow behind his head. He blinked a few more times, trying to focus. He saw what looked like two hairy and thick tree limbs on either side of him. A blink later he realized they were actually arms. He followed them up and thought, Great, I’m being held down by a refrigerator with arms.

  On top of the living appliance was a head the size of a watermelon—a big fucking watermelon—with long, golden hair. Mal could have sworn he saw a glow behind the giant, golden head. Almost like a…

  Mal shook his head trying to clear his blurry vision. When he looked up ag
ain, the glow had abated somewhat leaving just a large—make that very large—man in a white suit, with golden locks cascading down around his massive shoulders.

  “What the fuck,” was all Mal could say.

  “Language, Mr. Branch. Language,” came a voice from somewhere in the room. Then: “Please allow our guest some room.” Mal felt the pressure on his shoulders disappear as the behemoth let go of him.

  “There. That’s better. Right, Mr. Branch?”

  Mal shoved himself up onto his elbows trying to figure out who was talking to him. He cocked his head and looked up at the guy who had been holding him. “What’s up, corn-fed?” he asked nodding to the big fellow. Then flinched as the guy moved, thinking he was going to shove him back down or crush him into a ball like tin foil.

  “Relax, Mr. Branch. Desmond won’t hurt you,” said the voice again as the room suddenly became brighter. The mass of human before him moved to the left as a moon passing out of an eclipse. Where Mal first thought the guy was glowing and wasn’t, there was no mistaking that the figure that appeared from behind Desmond…was glowing. A lot.

  ««—»»

  Should have realized this would be a hard one. Mal shook his head, lips twisted in aggravation. But soon he let out a huff of slight amusement. Fuck it. Go out with a bang, I guess.

  Mal had been watching his mark for a while now. And one thing was certain: this was no ten-dollar chickenhead whose skull he could smash into the grimy wall of a dead-end alley after the whore finished sucking him off. Nope, this one would take some planning.