Nightmare Stories

By C. C. Blake

Nightmare Stories presents five of C. C. Blake's most terrifying excursions into mystery and the macabre.

Mad science and one man's desires mingle in Victorian Europe, seeking to find "Divinest Sense" from horror.

The Inquisition demands an ingénue's pain while her lover races to her side in the contes cruels inspired, "Confess, Witch!"

A World War I pilot is trapped in a terrifying war torn underworld, haunted by a spectral nightmares leading the way to destruction in "Bearing a Red Scarf."

Concert going teens learn the chilling price for "Free Parking." This will be one killer show...

And finally, a washed up journalist returns home and finds the biggest scoop of his life, provided he is willing to make "The Sacrifice."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twice Told Tales II
• Release date: Jan 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301355570

C. C. Blake

C.C. Blake has lived across the United States, starting in the suburbs of Detroit, to Massachusetts’ second largest city (Worcester) to the country’s seventh largest city (San Antonio, Texas, that is). He’s has a variety of jobs, working as a substitute teacher, the graveyard shift dishwasher at a haunted Denny’s, lab research monkey and teaching assistant at a second tier college. Currently, he works as an automation consultant for a chemical company on the Northeast side of SAtown (which isn’t as Hellish as it sounds). Blake’s most popular character, irrepressible adventurer Chuck Cave, has appeared in over two dozen stories, including the 2005 Man’s Story 2 Story of the Year Award winner “Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen.” The character’s supernatural thriller stories (which began with the seminal “Cave and the Vamp”) are all being released as a part of Vampires2.com’s initial foray into e-books. These new versions are presented in expanded and revised versions, all are the author’s preferred texts. Be sure to collect them all! In addition to his pulp stories for the 2-Empire (Man’s Story 2, Vampires 2, Androids 2 and Paranormal Romance 2), Blake’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Unparalleled Journeys II (from Journey Books Publishing) and Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias (from Library of Horror Press).

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Nightmare Stories

A Mini-Collection of Dark Fantasy Tales

By: C. C. Blake

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Confess, Witch! appeared in slightly different form in Man's Story 2 magazine.

Copyright 2012 by C. C. Blake

Cover Image © Joe Ng | Dreamstime.com

Smashwords Edition

Published by Twice Told Tales

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Table of Contents

Divinest Sense

Confess, Witch

Bearing a Red Scarf

Free Parking

The Sacrifice

Further Reading

About the Author

Divinest Sense

"Much Madness is divinest Sense—

To a discerning Eye—

Much Sense—the starkest Madness—

’Tis the Majority

In this, as all, prevail—

Assent—and you are sane—

Demur—you’re straightway dangerous—

And handled with a Chain"

-Emily Dickinson

The Present: 1864

Victor cupped the small glass vial of iridescent green syrup in his palm so Elizabeta would not see it.

He need not have bothered. She lay on a pallet, her back to the door, weeping into her hands.

Five months ago, she tried to smile, when he visited this claustrophobic cell of rough stone walls, mildew blackened mortar and rusty iron bars. Now, she cried continually, often unaware of his visits.

Liza? His voice no longer trembled as it had the first few visits.

He wore the same suit and shirt as on their wedding day eight years ago, in the year of our Lord 1856. The suit was somewhat tight around the middle, but not awkwardly so.

He wore new white gloves to protect the vial. Nervous sweat slicked his hands. The vial might slip, might shatter or, worse, land without incident save Elizabeta’s noticing it. That would lead to suspicions about the contents.

Liza, dear?

Abruptly, her sobs ceased. She glanced back with nearly feral speed.

Her eyes were a bright blue, though not quite as brilliant as they had been eight years ago. Ragged gashes and bite marks covered her lips. A scratch creased the pale skin of her right cheek. Her fingernails were clipped to less troublesome lengths, and her hair was now only stubble, the color of fertile earth.

In an instant, quiet innocence filled her features. Victor? Clarity returned to her eyes, as fresh tears fell.

Victor read them as tears of shame. She claimed no recollection of her actions during the Fits, but he could sense guilt inside her.

Lightness flooded his chest. With this obvious recovery, might she stay well this time? Was the vial unnecessary?

No. Liza had appeared to recover before, but the Fits always returned. He should savor the brief interlude of lucidity.

That suit . . . she said, blinking rapidly. Why are you wearing that? Have you taken another . . . another bride?

No, Liza, he said. You are my sole desire.

Oh, can I come home? I dearly wish to— Suddenly, her hopeful smile froze. Her eyes widened with fright. She shouted, Victor. Listen. I dreamt. Envisioned my heartsick husband in the company of a promising devil. You will know him by his lifeless, soulless black eyes. He cannot offer you what you seek, no matter how he pretends otherwise. Bid him go, or thrash him to motivate him, but do not heed him.

The vial weighed suddenly heavier in Victor’s hand. A simple skipping stone's weight had multiplied into the sort of block designed for cathedral walls.

Just a dream. Not prophesy. Not a vision.

Then, why did it weigh correctly? Had lunacy granted her some strange clairvoyance? Had she somehow witnessed his conversations with the mysterious Dr. Waite, the man who gave Victor the vial and told him what he must do?

Impossible. Victor von Hielzin was a man of learning and rational philosophy. He could not grant validity to such preposterous ideas.

That was just a nightmare, my dear, he said. The words tasted sour.

She did not hear this because the Fit returned. Her eyes grew glassy. Her lips curled away from yellowed teeth, and she hissed at him and salivated in streamers.

Fueled with a fiery longing, Victor lunged. With one hand he grabbed the doppelganger by the lower jaw, held her against the pallet. The other hand unstopped the vial and drove it into her mouth.

The bottle’s silver lip cracked her front tooth, but the fluid flowed into her. She coughed and sputtered. Precious droplets sprayed her cheeks and nose.

Drink, dearest, he urged, tightening his grip upon her. Crack! Her jaw twisted horribly to the side, and she unleashed a gurgled scream. When the vial was empty, Victor threw it to the floor, and clamped the hand over her mouth, stifling her cries and trapping the fluid inside. He held her until she swallowed the syrup. Two minutes felt like twelve.

Spasms wracked her body. They passed slowly. Her body resembled a winding down clockwork.

Victor’s vision blurred in a flurry of tears.

What could lead a man to enact this terrible drama with his wife? That answer lies shrouded in mystery and in that one place we can never escape, but likewise never fully perceive.

The Past: From the Journals of Victor von Hielzin

Der Gefährlich Club were on holiday during the last week of September, at a borrowed house along the North Sea, a thirty minute walk from that sparkling jewel of Den Haag, the Dutch’s political center, when I told my fellows the news. We seven were seated in folding chairs, along the large rear porch, watching the sea’s surface roil with cataclysmic frenzy.

My God, Victor, what have you done? Hans demanded. My oldest friend in Der Gefährlich Club—or Dangerous Club, whose name derived from pedagogical concerns of our activities while in the last years attending University—revealed himself to be the loudest proponent against my deplorable choice of monogamy.

How, he asked, could you betray us so? How could you betray me?

I said, I’m terribly in love with her.

But to propose to a woman of letters? Damnation, man, do you hope to bicker and argue every night for the rest of your miserable existence?

I hoped so! If by ‘bicker and argue,’ he meant ‘debate and consider.’

You’ve gone and wrecked your life . . . Hans smiled as he wiped a hand through the air, between us. And you are only twenty-seven.

I believe Hans is trying to say congratulations, our smooth faced leader, Wilhelm, said. But why wouldn’t you mention this earlier? Everything changes, now.

I did not agree.

Quietly, Wilhelm said, This stands to be the last holiday, where we don’t have to mind manners and words. The last time when we can share manly endeavors and spirit.

At least until she dies, Hans added, whimsically. And then everything changes, again. Only for the better.

I could only smile and recall when I first saw Elizabeta Luftensia, first spoke to her, first understood her to be my equal in all things—something a younger, haughtier Victor