Horns Wings and Other Things

By Kelly Glenn and James Glenn

There are things so terrifying that come from
the darkest places in the human mind that should never be allowed to escape. Minds that are so gnarled and morbidly deranged that they should be lobotomized. They are tales that your mother warned you about from the place where nightmares are born. Things that once heard or seen will only grow into fears you never thought could exist.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312010260

Book preview

Horns Wings and Other Things

HORNS WINGS AND OTHER THINGS

By

James Glenn and Kelly Glenn

Copyright © 2014, Glennbooks

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

First Edition

ISBN# 978-1-312-01026-0

This work is licensed under the Creative

Commons Attribution-SharAlike 3.0 Unported

License. To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/

or send a letter to:

Creative Commons

171 Second Street, Suite 300

San Francisco, California 94105

USA

http://www.lulu.com

Dedication

We dedicate this one to our children, our offspring, those fine young lasses and lads who are going to have to struggle after we are done doing it.  We love them above all else (despite killing most of them off in the first book)

We love you:

Abigail

Alex

Becky

Justice

Mark

Malissa

Nick

Samantha

And the little bits:

Everett

Matthew

Phoebe

(They did not die in the first book, but you never know…)

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for other authors who have paved the way into writing horror.  Starting from way back with writers like Rod Sterling to more daring writers such as: Dean Koontz and Stephan King.  Stephan’s work has inspired our imaginations.  We can only hope that one day we can meet the Master of Horror himself.

We would also like to thank the brave souls who have allowed us the privilege of slicing and dicing them with our words and being able to laugh about it.

Index

The Devils Defense - James Glenn

Idol – Kelly Glenn

Horns or Wings – James Glenn

Good Things Come - James Glenn

Monster in My Ear - Kelly Glenn

Here Be Gods – James Glenn

First Communion – James Glenn and Kelly Glenn

The Loop - Kelly Glenn

Mr. Right - James Glenn

Mystery Grinds Café - Kelly Glenn

Speed Demon - James Glenn

Musical Stones – James Glenn

The Flavor of Flesh – Kelly Glenn

Food Fight – James Glenn

Dying to be Perfect - Kelly Glenn

Lazy Bones - James Glenn

Things That Float – Kelly Glenn

Bedtime Beasties – James Glenn

A Change in Management-Kelly Glenn

The Devil’s Defense

I was a talented runner until the day I died and all hell broke loose.  I had

a promising career as a tailback in college and my dream was to move on to

the National Football League, this after breaking a few college records.  Things don’t always go as planned.

I didn’t know about my heart but it knew all about me.  I was having the best game of my life when it happened.  I had piled up one hundred and five yards and two touchdowns when the Quarterback called yet another play for me.  My heart was beating uncomfortably hard in my chest but I ignored it.  I wanted the glory so I didn’t listen to its frantic message.  I got the ball and busted through the line only to find a wall of a different kind.

A wall of blackness that soon became a lake of fire.  The heat was so intense that I could feel my skin peeling right off my body.

I began to scream.  I screamed until my voice was raw and only a small rattle issued forth from my charred vocal cords.  Then I noticed the screaming all around me.  A chorus of agony that was horrible.  I thought at first that someone had bombed the stadium.

Soon I realized that there was something more sinister at work, something scarier than dying in an explosion.  The fact that I didn’t feel dead sent warning bells off in my head.

I moved forward though the inferno, a feat that seemed impossible for any living creature.  But I was no longer living.  I was in hell, a place prior to that day, I did not believe in.    I believe it now with all of my heart.

My eyes were gone, boiled right out of my skull, but I could still see.  Images were just ghostly outlines.  I began to notice others moving through the flames.  They looked as pitiful and horrible as I imagined I myself looked.  I was horrified but underneath the horror there was anger.  I was at one moment a bright, young athlete with a promising future and at the next instant I was lost in the fires of hell.

As a trained athlete, I should have known better than to continue playing with my heart freaking out.  Staying on that football field for another minute of glory was pretty damn stupid.

I think it was my anger that got the Devil’s attention.  Maybe Satan feeds solely on things like fear and pain and a paltry little thing like anger didn’t fit into his kingdom.  Unless, of course it was his own ire.

Suddenly something with sharp claws and long, leathery wings whisked me out of the fire.  Its claws dug deeply into the cooked flesh of my shoulders and upper arms.  The pain was a relief compared to the inferno's hot caress.

As I sailed over the landscape of hell I beheld the endless fiery terrain.  The scene was a collage of reds, oranges, yellows and blues.  There must have been millions of souls in the abyss.  Above them the flying monsters soared, keeping vigil, although I couldn't see how anyone could hope to escape.  There was nothing but fire.  Finally I was deposited on a shelf of rock.

The pain was overwhelming but something kept me aware when I should have passed out.  It was like unconsciousness was against the rules or something.  They wanted the customers to be aware of the constant agony.  I don’t know how long I was on that shelf, curled up into a throbbing ball of pain.

I was aware of nothing but my own torment until I heard an evil chuckle.  It reverberated throughout my entire body, bringing the pain to an even greater crescendo.  I popped my head out of my tightly curled body and chanced a look around.  I felt like the curious turtle that was just tossed into a boiling pot of water for the evening’s soup.

There he was in front of me, the devil--at least I thought it was he.  He sat on a mighty throne made of screaming human skeletons.  He was being serviced by a number of scary, naked women.

The devil himself is hard to describe because his features seemed to constantly shift and melt.  He lifted one of the women off of his lap and shoved his arm into her guts all the way up to his elbow.  A thick vile paste came out of the hole around his arm.  There wasn’t enough space inside the girl for her internal organs and the mighty arm.  She screeched in pain, shuddering violently as she was carelessly tossed over the cliff into the distant abyss.  Suddenly I found myself wishing I were still down there instead of up here.

So you feel you have been cheated?  You don’t believe that you belong here?  I have been cheated far greater than you by a being much greater.  You see, I don’t belong here either but have no choice.  So I will give you a chance.  An opportunity I was not granted.  I will give you a test and if you pass you can return to the world of men.  If you fail then your agony will be tenfold.

I was shocked into silence, amazed at the turn in events.  The devil was giving me an option but could I trust him?   There’s probably a good reason he’s called the prince of lies.   I didn’t trust him, but I wanted out and this was the only chance I was likely to get.

I couldn’t speak because what was left of my tongue was fused to my jaw, so I nodded my acceptance.  The Devil clapped his hands together in apparent glee and the scene changed.

It was a familiar place.

It was a football field.

The field was scorched and the down lines were made up with skeleton pieces but other than that I would have called it a football field.  The stands were full of screaming fans.  Not cheering but screaming because they were in the fire.  Out of the inferno on the far end of the field came ten tubby four-foot monsters wearing orange helmets.  One of them approached me and handed me a helmet.  It was a loose fit but it was better than nothing.

All of my teammates fell to the ground in terror when the devil appeared on the sidelines.  They reminded me of pigs the way they groveled and squealed.  The boss had a nice seat at the fifty-yard line.  He clapped his mighty hands and the screaming stopped.

Here is what you must do to get out of hell.  Your team will start on your twenty-yard line and you will get only one play.  You must get through eleven defenders who know you are getting the ball and go eighty yards for the touchdown.  There will be no other chance.  If you make it to the end zone you will be returned to the place where you died.  Do you accept these terms?  I just nodded my head again.

Suddenly my body was whole again.  The burns were gone and I could flap my tongue if I wanted to.  I choose not to because my big mouth had landed me in deep dodo before.  He really was giving me a shot and I was planned to run like never before.

My blood turned to ice as the defense trotted onto the field.  They were huge and ugly.  Over eight feet tall with long arms, long tails and long claw tipped fingers.  They were wearing great black helmets with the letter D burned into each side.

Maybe old scratch didn’t lie but he sure stacked the deck against me.  My teammates got into a loose huddle without me, which didn’t matter one bit since we all knew the play.  All I wanted to know was who the quarterback was.  A lot of grunting went on in that huddle before they broke and formed a crooked line right around the twenty.  I spotted the quarterback and lined up behind him.

I admit I was scared.  I had never been more scared in my life but when that ball, (which happened to be someone’s head), got hiked, something else kicked in.  I tuned out everything but that ball/head.  The quarterback said something that might have been hike and then tossed the ball in my general direction.  I missed and the ball hit the field five yards behind me.

Some of my teammates raced past me and I assumed that they were getting the ball back but I was wrong.  They were running from the opposing team who were actually chasing the little guys down and ripping them apart with their claws and teeth.  One of big monsters was scooping out and eating the entrails of one of my teammates.  Most of them were ignoring me so I went after the ball and scooped it up on the run.  I raced around toward the right sideline because there was a clearer lane.  Most of the little pig demons were fleeing the other way, drawing some of the defenders with them.  There were still plenty of defenders with an eye on me but at least I didn’t have to worry about all eleven of them.

One of them was bearing down on me as I cleared the thirty-yard line.  I heard a grunt behind me so I turned my head just enough to catch a glimpse of another coming up my rear.  Things were looking kind of grim so I raced strait for the one in front of me while allowing the other to close the distance on my tail.  At the last second I stutter-stepped and spun to the inside and was free in the middle of the field.  The two defenders collided and then began to fight each other.

I could see three of my opponents in front of me and one closing in on my left side.  I turned on the jets and cut right, leaving the latter one behind.  Two of the three defenders who were left were waiting near the Devil’s twenty.   They looked ready to kill.  I ran along the