Post by Grimm on Apr 5, 2014 8:50:01 GMT -5
(Please read the other post first)
The true and living Omen of destruction stood at the threshold of the door to the cellar.
Grimm was tired.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the door. Scraps of wood salvaged from one of the old corn cribs. His head on his forearms. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Phinehas smelled earth from behind the door. Earth, and root vegetables, and a soup of rain water and last year’s leaves. And under all of that he detected hints of malice and fear.
Ruth was gone, and a madman had taken her. A madman of their own creation.
It had all gotten tangled in his mind, like the maze of roots sprawled out within the cellar just on the other side of that door. Many things in this world, in this accursed business, were beyond anyone’s control. But then, of course, sometimes aspects of it were completely your fault. Maybe Michael Wryght’s condition, and in turn, Ruth’s kidnapping, could all be laid at his feet.
There was no maybe about it.
But in Grimm’s ever-waning defense, Wryght wasn’t leaving him with much choice in the matter. And so the Abomination of Desolation would do whatever had to be done to accomplish his task…as had always been the case.
The expectations could be considered a burden by lesser men. Even the Hangtown Horror oft times felt beaten down by them.
Even so the federation insisted on looking forward to the impending pay per view. As hokey as he knew it sounded, if there was anything Grimm had displayed mastery of, of which he had continued to grow in knowledge, it would be mass destruction. He cultivated it like a landscape architect, curated like some end-of-days-archivist, until he could look out over the wastes with satisfaction. Grimm knew not what would come, but he recognized the here-and-now.Carpe Diem. Seize the day and thereby seize the doom.
Phinehas wrenched open the door and stepped into the cellar. It was quiet down here among the spores and worms. Nothing but the pounding of blood in his ears. He knew now that he would have to step through that second door, pass into the bowels of the hollow, and follow the paths under the hills. The air was different behind that other door. It was the cold of the cold dark places.
He moved to take a candle out of one of the wall sconces, but then Phinehas felt him before he saw him. The man in black stood in the corner among the boxes and piles of screwdrivers, corkscrews, tweezers, awls, fountain pens, rulers, nail files, counterweights, and other implements indescribable to decent folk. There was the same old pained smile of too many teeth. The flash of a silver cane tip. The big black hound stood at its master’s side. Its master flashed an even wider knowing smile, nodded, and they were gone.
His brother whispered his name.
Phinehas sighed. He held his hand up to the candle and strained at the lines crisscrossing his palm. Cards, entrails, flocks of birds, a maze of tree roots and their ill-boding patterns – each just one of a thousand ways to herald a destruction. Grimm as a destroyer of worlds. A destroyer of Mr. Showtime’s world. He regretted it had come to this. But joy and sorrow, hope and fear, had all alike been drowned beneath Grimm’s latent wellspring of rage. And there was no stoppering it once it had been tapped.
Phinehas opened the second door and looked into the abyss. The abyss looked back.
The true and living Omen of destruction stood at the threshold of the door to the cellar.
Grimm was tired.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the door. Scraps of wood salvaged from one of the old corn cribs. His head on his forearms. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Phinehas smelled earth from behind the door. Earth, and root vegetables, and a soup of rain water and last year’s leaves. And under all of that he detected hints of malice and fear.
Ruth was gone, and a madman had taken her. A madman of their own creation.
It had all gotten tangled in his mind, like the maze of roots sprawled out within the cellar just on the other side of that door. Many things in this world, in this accursed business, were beyond anyone’s control. But then, of course, sometimes aspects of it were completely your fault. Maybe Michael Wryght’s condition, and in turn, Ruth’s kidnapping, could all be laid at his feet.
There was no maybe about it.
But in Grimm’s ever-waning defense, Wryght wasn’t leaving him with much choice in the matter. And so the Abomination of Desolation would do whatever had to be done to accomplish his task…as had always been the case.
The expectations could be considered a burden by lesser men. Even the Hangtown Horror oft times felt beaten down by them.
Even so the federation insisted on looking forward to the impending pay per view. As hokey as he knew it sounded, if there was anything Grimm had displayed mastery of, of which he had continued to grow in knowledge, it would be mass destruction. He cultivated it like a landscape architect, curated like some end-of-days-archivist, until he could look out over the wastes with satisfaction. Grimm knew not what would come, but he recognized the here-and-now.Carpe Diem. Seize the day and thereby seize the doom.
Phinehas wrenched open the door and stepped into the cellar. It was quiet down here among the spores and worms. Nothing but the pounding of blood in his ears. He knew now that he would have to step through that second door, pass into the bowels of the hollow, and follow the paths under the hills. The air was different behind that other door. It was the cold of the cold dark places.
He moved to take a candle out of one of the wall sconces, but then Phinehas felt him before he saw him. The man in black stood in the corner among the boxes and piles of screwdrivers, corkscrews, tweezers, awls, fountain pens, rulers, nail files, counterweights, and other implements indescribable to decent folk. There was the same old pained smile of too many teeth. The flash of a silver cane tip. The big black hound stood at its master’s side. Its master flashed an even wider knowing smile, nodded, and they were gone.
His brother whispered his name.
Phinehas sighed. He held his hand up to the candle and strained at the lines crisscrossing his palm. Cards, entrails, flocks of birds, a maze of tree roots and their ill-boding patterns – each just one of a thousand ways to herald a destruction. Grimm as a destroyer of worlds. A destroyer of Mr. Showtime’s world. He regretted it had come to this. But joy and sorrow, hope and fear, had all alike been drowned beneath Grimm’s latent wellspring of rage. And there was no stoppering it once it had been tapped.
Phinehas opened the second door and looked into the abyss. The abyss looked back.
