Here, my short story done in a similar style to H.P. Lovecraft. (The style similarity was incidental. Don't sue me.)
It isn't finished by any stretch of the imagination. Just thought it would be fun to post. It's freaking long though. So yeah. Here you are.
Matthew McIsaac January 22, 2009
The Rose Gate
A strange thing began occurring the day my daughter planted that black seed in the back yard. The first thing that I noticed on that next sunny morning was that the birds had left. We normally had a great deal of small birds in our large oak tree. Colorful birds that sang the song of flight. That next morning I stepped out onto the deck to enjoy my coffee to the tittering of the wild. However, it was eerily silent. The great oak tree sat lonely in the yard. All of the birds had gone. Also confusing was that none of the other wildlife that frequented our yard were present either. Flustered by this strange happening I returned inside and continued with my day.
The next day, I went out having forgotten already about the missing birds. Once again I was startled by the lack of wildlife, but furthermore a single rose was growing where my daughter had planted that seed. Two days since planting it and already it had sprung up. I had not yet bloomed, but it was nevertheless possessing of a powerful dark beauty. The rose was black, but not that black perceived when you close your eyes. No. It was deeper than that. It was so dark that it almost seemed to be absorbing the light from around it. This was the black that existed before creation. Utter nothingness. This small rose filled me with such an unprecedented loathing. I returned inside quickly. My daughter was sitting at the kitchen table enjoying her breakfast. She looked up at me and asked me what was wrong. I told her that the seed she had planted the day before had sprouted. She was ecstatic. She jumped up to her feet and kissed my cheek. She then ran to the door and threw it open. Almost leaping out onto the deck. An audible gasp came in from the porch.
I followed her cautiously. She stood on the deck, hands clutching her breast. Her face, white as bone. I gently laid my hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me once more. She told me that it was the most frightening thing she had ever seen. I agreed with her on that note. I then proceeded to tell her that we needed to do anything in our power to get rid of the monstrosity. Even though there was nothing obviously wrong with it. She promised me that it would be done the next day.
That night I had terrible dreams of the darkness that the rose seemed to epitomize. I woke suddenly in a heavy sweat. It was late, 3:33 to be exact. It was reassuring to sit in the darkness of my room. As it was that normal darkness we are used to. That we know holds normal fears. It was not the darkness, the black in the flower. That black that seemed to radiate from the rose as much as it sucked in light. After what seemed an eternity I managed to fall back to sleep, although they were still plagued by dreams of darkness.
I woke up the following morning in the same state as I had awoken in the night. Soaked I quickly showered before heading downstairs. I opened the back door. Trepidation coursed through my bones. My stomach rebelled against me as ill feelings stole over. Every fiber of my being urged me to run in the opposite direction and to never glimpse back. Steeling myself I opened the back door. I vomited instantly and in the same motion fell to the porch wood. The grass and plants surrounding the rose for twenty meters was dead.
It was then that I knew the fear in my heart had saved my life. If I had attempted to uproot the rose with my hands I surely would have perished. My daughter likewise. I had not yet warned my daughter. The haste with which I returned inside was fueled by an undying fear. I ran through the door and slammed it shut behind me. I proceeded to warn my daughter. We both decided that the best course of action would be to destroy the rose utterly. Both of us were terrified to leave the rose to grow any longer, but we had no choice in this matter.
The remainder of that day was spent abroad. We gathered a large quantity of flammable liquids in order to burn the rose out of existence.
The final day fast approached us. It was a fortuitously bright Sunday morning when we stepped into that abysmal backyard. By this time, the entire yard was dead. Everything. Dead and rotting. The blight spread as far as the very front of the porch. Where the blight touched the deck, the wood rotted. My beautiful backyard had become a cemetery. My daughter and I wasted no time pouring the gasoline all over the grass. Everywhere the blight had destroyed was soaked in something. After covering as much as humanely possible without touching the blight, I dropped a match and watched the inferno solve our horrible problem.
The inferno made quick work of the yard. All of the dead brush catching instantly. The gasoline must have only helped. I wish I could say the story ended here. With my daughter and I leaving that house and the memories gathered there behind. A blaze of saving fire behind us. Unfortunately, this tale is far less joyous.
In a moment of idiocy on both of our parts, we stopped paying attention to the true goal. The rose. That wretched rose. It was absorbing the heat from the flame, and was creating a tunnel to us. The blight seeped through the flame and absorbed it into itself. I turned to my daughter just in time to see that terrible darkness rear up and fan out. If I had not been utterly paralyzed by terror, the scream that would have ripped through my mouth surely would have shaken the foundations of the earth.
The living darkness fell upon my daughter and both were gone. At that same instant, the fire all but died out. With no time for thought I spun to look at the rose. As the last tendril of blight returned, all of the horrors of the universe came into being.
The rose bloomed.
An antediluvian hell burst forth from the darkness. The world around me twisted and warped in unimaginable ways. Colors seeped away from the landscape, the bright blue sky faded to a ruddy brown. Cracks of darkness split the same sky like shattered glass. All of creation distorted. The buildings around me collapsed in upon themselves. Rust, rot and ruin were everywhere. My great oak tree had become an evil entity. A skeletal hand reaching into the sky, trying to return from whence it came.
There it was, the rose. Surrounding the rose were the skeletons of the wildlife that had belonged in my yard. Dark stains were evident on the parched earth everywhere. However, one thing drew my eye faster than anything. My daughter, was floating in front of the rose. As my eyes met hers I saw what she felt. The most abhorrent terror one could ever feel was coursing through my daughters soul. I was devastated. Completely. There was nothing I could do to help her.
A moment later, the cthonic beast tore through her body and into this infected world. A great thing it was. The splendor of creation lay before it. It's true goal seemingly to annihilate all unworthy life. All life is unworthy in it's eyes.
All life is unworthy.
I also apologize for the inability to format documents on blogger. If you want a copy of this on Word, let me know.
