Visions of a Dark Horizon

Last week at NecronomiCon Providence, I purchased a new version of ‘Reckless Deck‘ called ‘Psyche‘ (I paid full price, this is not a paid advertisement or sponsored post or anything) – for anyone who doesn’t know what ‘Reckless Deck’ is, it’s a wonderful artists’ tool consisting of decks of cards that can outline a character. In the original version it was all about what the character looked like – genre, accessories, cybernetics, that kind of thing- and is an excellent source of inspiration for visual artists, but in this new version ‘Psyche’ it goes into actual in-depth character and even story creation, so I wanted to try it.

I chose the cards required at random – 4 from the genre (Horror / Urban Fantasy, of course) and then 4 cards from the ‘core’ attributes, and I got the character and scenario pictured above – an inquisitive, selfish protagonist with a fear of bugs, some deep family trauma that may or may not be supernatural in nature, and she’s a podcaster in the woods at a ruined old farmhouse. Here’s how building out that profile worked:

I took all that and spent about two and a half hours writing, and came up with the story below, ‘Dark Lineage’ – just over 3,000 words, so it’s a good length. I am really impressed with how this came out, and REALLY impressed with the details and ideas that this deck includes. I can’t wait to play around more with this! This is a great tool for everything from writing exercises like I do here to detailed character and background creation for TTRPGs and other similar games. They even have a ‘Lovecraftian and Noir’ genre, as well as horror, urban fantasy, steampunk, sci-fi, dystopian, and more. Talk about a great way to break out of a slump or help overcome writers’ block!

Finally, here is the story that was created from the above Reckless Deck prompts:

Dark Lineage  By Chad Anctil 

“OK, pull off here,” Erica said, indicating a patch of grass and dirt off to the side of the narrow back road they were driving down. 

“Here?” Janet asked, eyeing her passenger. “We’re literally in the middle of nowhere, Erica. What the hell is out here?” 

“Hopefully the biggest story of our lives.  Grab the gear, OK?” Erica ordered, consulting notes on her phone.  

“We’re podcasters, and not very good ones…” Janet mumbled, grabbing the padded black shoulder bag that held their recording gear and other various tools.  “Spooky Stuff? I still think the name is really limiting our-” 

“That is all about to change,” Erica said with an excited grin.  “This is going to put us on the front page of every viral list for the next month.” 

“And you still won’t tell me what it is, or why we are literally in the middle of nowhere Massachusetts.  Seriously Erica, what the hell is this place?” 

“Just follow me,” Erica said, consulting her phone again and heading into the underbrush and trees that lined the road.  

“Erica, if you get me lost…” Janet said as they trudged through thicker brush. 

“We’re not going to get lost, it should be right-” she stopped, scanned the area, then exclaimed “There!” and headed off at a hurried pace.  She stopped at a low stone wall that was barely visible, heavily overgrown with vines and bushes.  

“Great, an old wall, this will get us headlines,” Janet said sarcastically.  It was getting humid and sweat beaded up and ran down her back. 

“We’re not after the wall, we want what’s behind the wall.  We have to follow it until we find the entrance.” 

“Entrance to what?  Erica, tell me what we’re doing out here, or I’m going back to the car. It is hot, I have not had a single latte today, and you still owe me for gas money,” She stood there staring at Erica, brows furrowed.  “And I shouldn’t have to remind you that all of the equipment for our ‘joint venture’ podcast was purchased by me.” 

Erica sighed.  She knew if Janet was bringing up the equipment again – it had been expensive, she knew that – meant she was serious about heading back to the car.  She was mad, and Erica couldn’t really blame her; she knew she was a shitty friend, and Janet was pretty much the only person who still talked to her.  There were a lot of reasons for that, sure, but she knew she had to be honest.  It was time.  

“Ok, I will tell you the first part, where we are going, and then we’ll go there, we can’t be more than ten minutes away, and then I’ll tell you the rest as part of the podcast, OK? I just – it’s really personal, Janet, and I want it all fresh for the recording, I don’t want to have to say it all twice.” 

Janet hesitated, but finally relented.  “OK – tell me where we are going, and I’ll go there with you, but if this is some bullshit, I’m leaving.” 

“This is my great, great grandmothers’ house,” Erica admitted with a shiver.  

“Your great great grandmother?” Janet looked at her.  Erica nodded. 

“On my mom’s side.” she said, and Janet’s eyes went wide.

“Shit,” she said.  “Ok, let’s go then.” 

“You sure?” Erica asked.  

“Are you?” 

“Not really.” 

The women stood there by the old stone wall for a solid minute, looking at each other and the surrounding forest, and then began following the ancient stone wall deeper into the brush.  

“We’re here,” Erica said finally.  They had followed the stone wall until they found a break in the stones that was clearly created as part of an entrance or driveway, and they followed the barely visible cart path another three hundred feet to find a crumbling stone foundation and the remains of an ancient chimney and burned out hearth.  

“There’s not much left of the place,” Janet said, looking around cautiously.  “How did you even know it was here?” 

“That’s part of the story I’ve got to tell. Set up the gear, I need to look for something.” 

Erica wandered off into the ruins as Janet connected wires to the advanced digital recorder they used for their podcast and tested the microphones.  

“Test, Test,” she said repeatedly, tweaking dials and checking levels.  “Erica, we might have some trouble with all the background noise, whatever the hell it is.  Tree frogs?  Cicadas? Are you Ok with all the bugs? Whatever is making noise out here, it’s getting picked up by the mikes.” 

“I’m trying not to think about the bugs. The background noise should be OK,” Erica said as she returned. “It will give it more authenticity.  Are we ready?” 

Janet checked the sound deck one more time and gave her the thumbs up. “We’re ready and recording. So why the hell are we out here in literally the middle of nowhere?” 

“You know about my dad, right? And my mom?” 

“I know your dad died when you were little. He, um, he killed himself, right?  And your mom found the body and she went a little…” 

“Crazy?” Erica said, shaking her head.  “That’s what I always thought, yeah.  That’s what I was told, and I was only six, what did I know? But it was a lie, it was all a lie, and I finally know the truth. My mother killed my father in front of me, when I was six years old. She murdered him, and made it look like a suicide. I saw the whole thing, I watched it happen, and now I finally understand why she did it.” 

Janet stared at her friend. “Erica, should we be recording this, I mean-” 

“Keep recording,” Erica said, stone-faced.  “I have to tell the whole story.” 

Janet nodded but stayed silent.  

“I never fully understood what I saw – as I said, I was only six, and it was late at night. It might have all been a dream, and mom never spoke of it. She was always different after that – you know all that I deal with living there with her. The screaming, throwing things, the suspicion, always going through my things. Everyone gives her a lot of space, because of what happened to my dad, because of what they think happened to my dad, but the truth, it’s so much worse.”

Erica looked at the crumbled remains of the old house. The sun barely penetrated the dense tree canopy, so that the whole area was bathed in a kind of dappled gloom, with beams of sunlight dancing about, but instead of charming, it felt sinister.  

“When I was fourteen I snuck up into the attic when my mom was at a psychiatrist appointment; court mandated at that point, I think. I was bored and decided to pull down the overhead drop-ladder and crawl up into the attic with a flashlight, just to see what was up there.  It was hot and dusty and hard to breathe, and all I could see were old boxes, Christmas decorations, a bunch of junk. I was about to leave when, out of the corner of my eye I saw something that looked like an old steamer trunk, but bigger. I crawled over to it and it had a lock on the front and a bunch of strange writing all over it. I realized the lock was open, unlatched, so I pulled it off and opened the trunk.” 

“What was in it?” Janet asked.  She was riveted by the tale.  

“Books and papers, really old ones. Books on magic, and demons, and curses. Crazy stuff,” Erica said, closing her eyes as if she was seeing them all again for the first time. “And one of the books on the top was a big heavy leather journal. It was old, and all hand-written in different handwriting, but as I flipped through it I recognized my mother’s handwriting, the most recent entries were in her careful looped cursive,” Erica looked like she was starting to cry, “And one of those entries, was all about how she killed my dad.”

“She wrote it down? Admitted to it?” Janet was stunned. “Why did she do it?” 

“I’ll get to that, I will,” Erica said solemnly, looking up at her only friend. “He didn’t abuse her, he wasn’t depressed. From all I can remember, he was a good husband, a good dad, and she killed him.” 

“You should go to the police!” Janet said. “Show them the journal. They know she’s unbalanced, this could finally help get you out of there, if she goes to jail you-” 

“I can’t do that,” Erica shook her head. “There’s more, you’ll see. Follow me.” 

Erica headed across the ruins of the old house and made her way down a stone staircase that was completely choked with vines.  Janet struggled to follow her, almost tripping down the narrow stairs. 

“What the hell is this?” Janet asked. 

“As I read through the journal, I saw a pattern, with female ancestors on my mother’s side, going back generations. I think – no, I know – it started here.” She began pulling vines and leaves off of an old wooden door set into the stone foundation. Janet could make out strange symbols that seemed to be scratched into the worm-eaten wood.  

“Erica, you’re freaking me out.”

“My great, great grandmother Mabel and her husband Thomas settled here with a small farm. They worked the land, they had a bit of livestock, and they were pious, religious people. One year, they had an overabundance of crops – potatoes and turnips and such – and so my great great grandmother Mabel asked her husband Thomas to put in a root cellar. It would have been a common request back then, long before electricity and refrigerators, but that’s when something happened.” 

Erica suddenly jumped back and screamed, swatting at herself and frantically brushing her hands over her hair. “Spider!! Spider!” she yelled.

Janet calmed her and had to check her for more spiders before she could continue. Shaken, Erica finished clearing the roots and vines from the door and pulled on the time-worn handle. The door shook in its frame, then swung slowly open, grating against the rough ground. A cool, damp air rushed up at them, making both women shiver.

“What… What happened in the root cellar?” Janet asked, but Erica just turned on her flashlight and started heading down the narrow staircase, into the dark abyss that opened before them.  

“They found something here, digging down into the ancient earth. She described it in the journal as a vessel made of a black stone, like onyx, icy cold to the touch. Her husband wouldn’t go near it, but she was curious, too inquisitive for her own good…” 

The pair reached the bottom of the stairs and Janet could feel the hard-packed earth beneath her sneakers. The old root cellar was freezing, much cooler than she expected, and she turned on the light from her phone to get a better look.  It was a larger space than she expected, at least twelve feet square, and there were thick timbers framing the room and keeping the low earthen ceiling from collapsing.  She shined the light towards the far side of the room and froze. This time it was Janet’s turn to shriek.   

“She opened the vessel, you see,” Erica stood over a heavy black stone jar of some kind, with symbols and sigils carved into it. Sitting against the wall next to the vessel was a corpse, nearly mummified, still wearing tattered farm clothes. “She opened the vessel and let out a demon, let out Abazel.” 

“Erica, is that-” 

Erica nodded. “The vessel had been used to trap the demon centuries ago, and it was buried here where no one could ever find it. At least so they thought – whoever it was who did all this.” Erica picked up the heavy stone lid, turning it over in her hands. “It killed my great great grandfather as it emerged from the vessel, put its shadowy black hands right through him, and he just died, and the thing laughed. A laugh that nearly drove my great great grandmother mad. And it has been following the women of my family ever since. A malevolent shadow across my entire bloodline.” 

“Erica, you can’t be serious?” Janet said, but Erica was suddenly holding a knife. “Erica?” Janet backed away.  

Erica cut a gash across her hand, the blood welling up and flowing in a crimson river in the glare of the flashlights.  “It haunts us, torments us, the women of my family. This is why my life is so shitty, why my mom’s life is so shitty, why my grandmother lost two husbands and three children – my mom was the only one who survived from that generation. Every generation, actually, has only one surviving child, a girl. My mom figured part of it out, she decided it would die with her, that she would never have kids, but guess what – here I am!” Erica was rambling now, the blood still pouring from her hand into the vessel. 

“Erica, I think you’re having a breakdown…” Janet said softly, terrified for her friend. 

“My mom finally figured it out,” Erica said, her smile manic in the flashlight beam. “All those books on demons and magic. She figured it out, I read it in her journal. And that’s why Abazel killed my dad, killed him right in front of her, to show her she was powerless to stop it.” 

“You said your mom killed your dad…” Janet said, her hand shaking in the darkness. 

“Oh, she did, and she wrote about it in the journal. Abazel entered her, forced its way into her body, and forced her to kill him. Forced her to do it in front of me. I told you it was late, right?  She woke me up. That malevolent son of a bitch made her wake me up, and made me watch my mother kill my father. Watch the blood run down his arms and pool across the floor. And she knew it could make her do worse, if she kept trying to banish it, exorcize it or whatever.” 

“And now…,” Erica said, her voice heavy with regret, “I’m pregnant.” 

Janet stared at her, mouth wide open. 

“That’s right.  Not even sure who. Must have been a one night stand. I think Abazel may have forced me to do it? It needs a bloodline, right?” she rubbed her belly, tears in her eyes.  

“Erica, I don’t-” 

A stench filled the chamber suddenly, like rotting meat and low tide, causing Janet to gag. 

“What is that? Ugh,” Janet pulled her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth, but it didn’t help.  

“It’s here. Abazel,” Erica said, her eyes scanning around wildly.  

As both women watched, a slinking, putrescent form coalesced out of the shadows and stood there in the room with them. The temperature dropped even further, and there was a low, hideous rumble that they could feel in their bones, followed by a terrible insect-like chittering. It opened a glistening maw and its eyes, glowing like witchfire, scanned both women.  

“It couldn’t be exorcized, though,” Erica said, staring right at the blasphemous thing that now stood before them. “I studied the books, studied all of them over the years, though I had to be careful to make sure Abazel didn’t know what I was doing. It has to be trapped, you see, and the only way to get it back in the vessel is to recreate the ritual that released it.” 

“So, do it!” Janet said, terrified, not taking her eyes off the creature. 

“I will, but first you have to play your part!” Erica said, suddenly turning her eyes to Janet. 

“What’s my part?” she asked, not knowing what was happening or where to look. 

“When it first got out, it killed my great, great grandfather Thomas. Thomas Osterman.” 

Janet looked at Erica, a chill running through her blood.  

“My name is Osterman,” she said. Erica nodded.  

“You’re his great, great grand niece. Same family line. Same bloodline. It’s all about the bloodlines, Janet.” 

The creature looked at Janet, an expression of hideous malevolence on its face.  

“Erica, no!” Janet screamed as the creature lunged for her.

“I’m sorry, Janet,” she said as her only friend, a friend she made when she was seventeen after months of deep genealogical research, fell to the dirt floor, her lifeless eyes staring at the earthen ceiling.  

“And now for you,” she stared at the entity and held the lid of the vessel before her like a talisman, pushing the creature back to the carven onyx vessel.  The shadowy demon hissed and spat and lashed out with cruel black talons, raking icy claws across Erica’s face, but she kept her focus and the demon was pushed back by the carvings on the lid, then drawn into the vessel by the blood Erica had poured into it.  

Finally, Erica fitted the lid back onto the trap, turning it counterclockwise until it was once again locked in place.  She rubbed her own blood across it to hopefully complete the seal. 

Her task complete, Erica sat against the cool, damp wall of the root cellar, looking at Janet’s corpse. The podcast recording was still going, she could see the little green lights on the digital recorder glowing in the darkness.  She reached out and picked up the microphone that had fallen out of Janet’s bag.  

“This is Erica and Janet from the ‘Spooky Stuff’ podcast, signing off… forever.” 

Erica walked up out of the cursed pit, holding fast food napkins across the left side of her face where Abazel had gouged her. She was missing her eye, she could tell, but as she breathed the clean forest air she realized she felt lighter, the curse lifted. She had paid a heavy price, but the curse was lifted. She rubbed her stomach, thinking of the daughter growing within her. She would have a chance at happiness.  At long last.  

She pulled a lighter out from her bag and leaned down, finding the fuses connected to the homemade explosives she had hidden at the entrance to the root cellar – it’s amazing what you could learn on the internet. She had to collapse the entrance to the root cellar to make sure no one could find it, or the curse that it contained, ever again. She lit the fuse and hurried her way back in the direction of the car. The explosions – muted in the deep forest – rang out a minute later.