Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

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nachtjaeger
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Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

Postby nachtjaeger » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:36 am

Good evening, my friends. Join me as we pay tribute to he who writhes endlessly in the stupefying darkness. He watches, lurking beneath the sea, the Hunter of the Shadows.


The Bogs of Madness

(M, F, grim, dark)

Copyright 2006 by Ostlandr

I have to write wright right all this down before the madness takes me completely. In case anyone survives- in case there's ever a sane mind left to read this- I want them to know that I fought. Me! I stood alone against the Great Old Ones!!!
Curse that writer right r - you know his name. Damn him! What did he create? Nothing! Just meaningless scratches on paper, banal Gothic horror- but what he did, curse him, was to give name and form and attributes to that which writhed formless in the outer darkness, banished there by human mages before the dawn of human history. And when in this cynical sin I kill modern age foolish mortals began to take his drivel as gospel- Damn them most of all! They worshiped the false gods he created! If you suffer deathless and formless in the void beyond the world, and you hear a call- do you not answer? Do you not say, "Yes, that is my name, those are my attributes, that is my worship. Fulfil my commands and I will reward you when I am free!!
But now it is too late. The Hunter of the Shadows is free. Oh, yes, they all gathered at the seashore, and they read the false words from their false copies of a false book, and they sang that thrice-accursed worship song that filthy rock band banned bane de em de. . That band wrote for him! They all sang it to him, and HE came! The madness took them all- the police say it was bad drugs, they suspect- without evidence!- some new designer drug, but I know. I know! Me! Not them!! And "Morgellon's disease" came into the world that day, too*- that is one of his 'gifts'- to mankind- no known cause, no known cure, only the black corruption oozing from his victims' pores, and then the lesions that never heal, and then the strange fibers growing from their bodies, like nothing seen on earth! And the pain, and the constant illusion that insects are crawling beneath one's skin!! And once the doctors had to admit that it was REAL, and not the delusions of the mad (for most of the victims are driven mad, most take their own lives) then the doctors too two tow wot. . . the doctors began to go mad themselves. Madness as a plague! That is His sign.
But I fought!! I had seen the signs. I hunted and harried his worshipers where I could, burned their books, smashed their altars, drove off or destroyed the lesser evils- and yes, killed! But Mankind must live, in freedom and light and sanity, no matter how many have to die!! And then He noticed. and He came for me.
That vast, twisted mind reached into mine- mined my mind mein mined mind mine. . .found both my greatest fear and my darkest passion, and turned them against me.
It was an ordinary day. My office (for my dreary dearie deer re reedy day job) was in a corporate park, built on what had been a swamp before it was filled and paved. And at five o'clock, on an ordinary day, the madness came. I got to watch it all. I had stopped on the concrete island to light a cigarette. A huge bolt of lightning came down and struck the flagpole on top of the building. Then there was a ripple in the air, like heat waves over a road in summer. And following the ripple out from the building, the asphalt of the parking lot turned from well-worn gray to glossy black. While everyone else stared dumbly, I reached down and held my hand just above the asphalt, fearing the worst- but it was cool. At least no one would burn alive in hot asphalt. Maryellen, the secretary from my office, was standing in the roadway near the island where I had stopped. She shook her head. "That was weird," she said. Then she tried to walk to her car. She couldn't move. She looked down, and I saw the fear in her eyes. The once-hard asphalt had turned soft, and had swallowed her to the ankles of her broad-heeled high boots in a seething mix of soft tarry ooze and gravel. She tugged at her right boot, but it wouldn't move, and her left boot sank to her calf. She grabbed her left boot with both hands and pulled. It slowly came free, but her right sank almost to it's top. Her face was deathly white, and she was crying, tears streaming down her face, muttering "no no no" under her breath over and over. "Grab my hand!" I told her. I could reach her- barely- and in five minutes of a desperate tug of war against the deadly sucking ooze I had her free and safe beside me on the concrete island. I looked around. I had heard the startled outcries, the swearing, the screams, and finally the struggling and weeping. All around, my colleagues and coworkers were sinking into the parking lot. All the cars and trucks were stuck truck stuck suck tuck truck. . . I left Maryellen there, and began jumping from car to car, saving who I could. Or rather, who I wanted to. There were some- pointy-haired weasels or cold bitches, all- that I left to their fate, though I could reach them. Ms. Pynchon, our sadistic human resources manager- her I left screaming and cursing within inches of her Mercedes, her hundred-dollar shoes and silk stockings claimed by the slop. Jim, that thundering incompetent boot-licker from Audit, I left him also, trying to climb out using his slutty girlfriend as a stepping stone. She was screaming and clawing at him with her long nails as he forced her face and chest closer to the mire so he could try to climb on her back. Small hope- he was already up to the thighs of his custom-tailored trousers in the deathbog.
I saved the innocent and the good first- but I could not save them all. The Light forgive me, I could not save them all! Kristi, the clerk from across the hall, was in the middle of an aisle, and I could not reach her. She was holding her white sun dress up so the foul muck would not touch it, and the black ooze had swallowed her white stocking clad legs to her thighs. She struggled, in sheer panic, though I shouted at her not to move. Eagerly, the black slime claimed her to her hips, then her waist. I had to turn away- there were others, near to cars in the two rows I could reach, that I could save. Liz I could save- she had frozen in fear, and the ooze was only to her knees. At my suggestion, she slid out of her pantyhose, and that broke the obscene grip the slime had on her skin. Together, we freed her husband, Frank- minus his tweed trousers and Botany 500 shoes. I couldn't help but laugh at what was revealed- black boxer shorts, with little glow-in-the-dark Death's Heads! Ha! Haaahaahahhaahhaahhahha. . . And while all this happened, I was at war with myself! My most secret sexual fantasy- women in quicksand. Beautiful women, in office wear, struggling in the inescapable grasp of a sucking bog. Fantasy, nothing more- and here I was, trapped in the middle of a hundred-yard circle of impossibility, being forced forced forced forced. . . to watch this! Watch women I loved, or liked, or cared about, sink to their doom!! God forgive me, I loved it even as I cursed the ancient obscenity who had visited this on them- in order to harm me. Would it not drive a strong man mad?!? As the rescue squads tried to make their way to us with planks and pallets, I watched little Reese go screaming under the mire, just out of my reach. Pretty blonde Reese, just out of college, wearing her brand-new white business suit with a pink silk blouse beneath, barely covering her perky breasts- I watched her die, saw the fear in her eyes fade as her last breaths and her cries were stifled by the black slime. Jayne, our office manager, motherly but with feline grace and the fading traces of a luminous beauty, was having a heart attack. The effort of her mad struggles had killed her before the bog could take her, and I was powerless to help. I watched her, breast deep in the sucking ooze, gasping for breath as the pain crushed her. And it went on for hours! HOURS!!! Until at sunset the last victim drowned, and rescuers and rescued were plucked from the roofs foofs doofus of sinking stinking kinking cars and trucks.
After, I went home and watched the cable news channels. All over the world, reality had broken down. Science and reason were dying as madness rose from the earth like foul bubbles of swamp gas and warped the world. I drank ancient whiskey, until it made me numb enough to wright wite white wight this. Be afraid. Be very afraid. It's the end of the world.

Finis omnes


*Editor's note: Morgellon's Disease is all too real- see this article.

http://www.healthsciences.okstate.edu/morgellons/research.cfm
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Chimerix
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Re: Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

Postby Chimerix » Wed Oct 01, 2014 9:33 am

Nice! So glad that this has resurfaced!
The difference between theory and reality is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and reality.

Lomax
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Re: Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

Postby Lomax » Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:48 am

Wow, I must have missed that the first time around. This is the way the world ends - not with a bang but with a sinker.

Interesting literary technique to suggest a descent into madness, by the way. I may steal - I mean pay homage to it some time.

Well done, thanks for posting - and thanks for luring me out of the shadows (you'll see what I mean in a moment or three).
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you first have to create the universe.

cnelson566
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Re: Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

Postby cnelson566 » Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:38 pm

Agreed,excellent! I sure wouldn't complain if you revisited this dark reality again in the future :D

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PM2K
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Re: Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

Postby PM2K » Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:56 pm

Always great to see the stories of Ostlander! :D

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nachtjaeger
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Re: Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

Postby nachtjaeger » Thu Oct 02, 2014 5:22 am

Thanks. Remember- when you steal from one, it's plagarism; when you steal from many, it's scholarship. ;)

Lomax wrote:Wow, I must have missed that the first time around. This is the way the world ends - not with a bang but with a sinker.

Interesting literary technique to suggest a descent into madness, by the way. I may steal - I mean pay homage to it some time.

Well done, thanks for posting - and thanks for luring me out of the shadows (you'll see what I mean in a moment or three).
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Lomax
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Re: Lost story found again! "The Bogs of Madness"

Postby Lomax » Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:15 am

nachtjaeger wrote:Thanks. Remember- when you steal from one, it's plagarism; when you steal from many, it's scholarship.



"I've read books by hundreds of authors, and have stolen from every single one." - Philip 'His Dark Materials' Pullman.
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you first have to create the universe.


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