The Demonic and the Eldritch

By Fidel S. Arbolaez

What if humanity's demons encounter the unnatural and unknown?

Six stories in this sci-fi/fantasy horror anthology will answer this very question ---

- A Foot Rots From Inside:

After her daughter goes missing along with others, her politician mother leads a mob of vigilantes to track them down. The trail takes them somewhere otherworldly deep in the mountains.

- AudioFile 48:

An intern retrieves the flash drive of a scientist who disappeared and give it to the editor-in-chief boss. It is said that it holds vital information on secret fringe research. In a way it does, but not as one would expect.

- The Demonic and the Eldritch:

A mass murderer kills the participants of a summoning ritual at a Halloween party. His interruption would unknowingly bring about an entity older than time and more malevolent than he could ever strive to become.

- Nuckelavee:

A saboteur is placed on trial for the destruction of a controversial laboratory and the deaths of all present during the action. What she recounts, may not only prove her innocence, but reveal something truly evil that happened behind security doors.

- Off Alchemy Way:

An assassin is hired to hunt down and kill a slum lord, who has been causing her employer trouble. It won't be an easy task, since this slum lord is likely behind a string of strange and grizzly murders racking the city with fear. Will she succeed in the hit, or will she become another of her target's victims?

- The Stud of the Hour:

A lifestyle influencer is kidnapped by a family. They want him to become part of their clan... if he's willing to do them a favor that is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350923957

Book preview

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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 9798350923957

Acknowledgements

There’s too many to name, so I’m going to keep this as short as possible. Just know if you personally know me from Discord, web fiction forums, or real life, the following surely includes you too:

Thanks to my friends, family, and fellow aspiring writers who read, helped edit, and gave feedback on these stories and the book’s cover. Also, thanks to the many movies, musical artists, and online personalities who helped give me the further inspiration to imagine these nightmare scenarios.

Last but not least, special thanks Breno Girafa for the awesome cover art, and Brian Keene for getting me into horror books with The Conqueror Worms.

Table of Contents

AudioFile 48

Off Alchemy Way

The Stud of the Hour

A Foot Rots from Inside

Nuckelavee

The Demonic and the Eldritch

For my fellow workers around the world, who know too well the struggle of living under systems that seek to break us, turn us against the less fortunate, and aim to empower and enrich the unscrupulous off our hard work.

AudioFile 48

I never felt appreciated by most of my colleagues in the offices of Insightful News. I worked hard as an intern to disprove them, despite my own family and friends telling me that I didn’t have to prove anything. I just needed that one assignment; my chance to make the big break I needed to move up the corporate ladder for an actual big paying job at the firm. From there, I hoped I could clean house of the corporate culture from the inside.

That perceived chance came to me one night, when my editor-in-chief sent me to meet with an anonymous contact to get a package. He was scant on the details, but it seemed like something very big, and he wanted to be the one to claim it before someone else did. I knew this could be it. The big assignment. I was more than happy to run this secret errand for my boss.

Keeping my eyes open, I sat on the bench under the streetlamp, which was the chosen meeting spot in the park. There were a few folks that passed by earlier – a night jogger, and a small group of friends – but no one who could’ve been the possible contact. While looking down one of the pathways, someone whistled for my attention, startling me enough to swing my head towards the noise’s direction. In the dark across from where I sat, was a man wearing expensive clothes, shrouded in shadow. There was still a little light to see that he held a small box in one of his hands, which he tapped with his middle finger.

After calming myself down to keep my composure in the face of this stranger, I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked, That it?

The man nodded.

I pulled out the envelope of cash and then said to him, Trade the package first, then you get your pay.

The contact tossed the box to me, which I caught. I then tossed the money envelope over to the stranger, who missed catching it. As he picked up and dusted off the envelope, I noticed a piece of paper tucked between the box folds. I pulled it out, unfolded it, and read the message:

Do not listen to AudioFile 48.

I looked up at the contact and asked, "What’s ‘AudioFile 48’?"

The stranger grinned, baring what looked like sharp teeth, before retreating deeper into the darkness until he disappeared. I felt what would be expected of me at this moment, as an aspiring journalist, would be to pursue him for more answers. However, my instincts told me that since I felt weirded out by this exchange, I should just skip the scoop and take the package to my boss as originally planned.

---

I rang the doorbell to my boss’s residence and waited. Editor-in-Chief Milo Blatt opened the door and looked around behind me. Were you followed? he asked.

No. I responded.

You sure? he followed up.

I made sure of it.

You have it?

I flashed him the box before hiding it again.

Come on in.

Walking into the residence as Mr. Blatt closed the door behind me, I placed my phone in an awaiting faraday bag per his instructions for whenever visiting. I then moved into the living room and looked at the wall. My boss’s successful career milestones were framed and hung around an award plaque, celebrating the three-time top journalist of the year. There was Blatt’s first big story back in college, where he snapped a photo of a sexual encounter between two restaurant employees after hours. Despite not being at work when it occurred, the unaware coworkers both lost their jobs when the story was released as a public health interest story. There was the story that got his current position, when the old editor-in-chief resigned after someone secretly photographed her while she masturbated in private. Then there was the story he ran on a politician who was an opponent to Godfrey Gleason, our publication’s CEO’s chosen electoral candidate. The rival candidate was visiting sick children in hospitals to comfort and entertain them without the media present. Somebody took photos and leaked them out onto social media. My boss quickly obtained these and, due to the already drummed-up public hysteria over unfounded accusations against public servants, presented said rival’s visit as an attempted grooming of children. Overall, it all proudly said one thing: The sanctity of privacy is dead; here’s its head, stuffed and mounted.

The package. Give it. Mr. Blatt demanded as he approached.

I handed it over to him. Snatching it away, he opened the box and pulled out a flash drive. Looking at me, he excitedly asked, You know what this is?

I shook my head.

This is our holy grail, kid. Blatt continued. What we have here is probably something long sought after on the hush by many journalists. Before you came to work for Insightful News, there was this scientist by the name of Dr. Tristan Glass. Total whack job. Even reached out to me occasionally about giving his work some exposure, to elicit public interest and a drive towards funding. Unfortunately for him, he once rubbed Godfrey Gleason the wrong way over education vouchers or something like that, so Gleason convinced our CEO to place this guy on a blacklist for media coverage.

Why is there sudden interest in his work now? I asked.

Pointing at the award plaque on the wall, Mr. Blatt said, You see that plaque? Three-time top journalist of the year. You want to know how I got that? Other reporters chased after some story about a rickety coal mine collapse, while we uncovered a possible plot to brainwash our children using public education and healthcare.

Did that info end up being sourced from some author trying to build an audience to sell a book?

My boss walked towards a desktop computer nearby saying, Yes, but I lead our news team in dominating sweeps up to a month by dragging out coverage and keeping the lead buried. You can try drawing attention to a disaster, research, talk about how the miners were treated poorly, and debate about how fossil fuels should be kept in the ground for the sake of the planet’s future. People will soon forget and carry on, not giving a damn about all your hard work and never mentioning a word about it again.

As he spoke, he started up the computer. I took some hack writer’s need for exposure and gave him what was wanted. Did he suffer blowback once it was all revealed that it was all a promotional stunt? Yes, but I helped curate such a spectacular controversy that people bought his book; keeping their eyes on our reports to distract themselves from something as existential as climate change, and saving our corporate sponsors associated with the mine disaster from a media drubbing. More people talked about that for months after, than a bunch of Asian dirt miners in some godforsaken shithole country. People want mystery with their thrills. They want something close to home that they can yell about at their next PTA or townhall meeting, demanding someone do something immediately that won’t require any personal sacrifices.

Sir, I’m not sure what you’re saying.

Blatt then turned to look at me to say, They want to see a live car crash. Not the aftermath, not each step that eventually takes us to it, but the car getting crushed right in front of them. The more gruesome and detailed, the better. I can provide that to them.

He then held up the memory stick. This… this could be our next hottest spectacle. We are not interested in his work, but his disappearance.

Disappearance, sir? I asked.

Plugging the stick into the computer and running a quick virus scan on it, Mr. Blatt proceeded to explain, The last time Dr. Glass reached out to me, he was saying that he was on the precipice of a major breakthrough in his research. Ignored him per usual, but then a few days later, journalists were forced to stay behind the police tape as forensic teams visited his home.

He looked back to his intern. Official reports the officers gave was that they couldn’t find him, but there was the possibility of foul play. However, what we learned from bits and pieces at the scene was that they weren’t sure what they found was him. What they found was essentially meaty paste plastered all over the room he supposedly performed his experiments in. Since then, I’ve been looking for something that could shed some light onto what happened that night. No matter how much sneaking, snooping, and greasing of palms we did, we’d learn a little about what he was doing, yet were no closer to finding what could’ve been our money shot.

What was he working on?

Not sure. There were a bunch of experiments using different sound frequencies. I’m not interested in learning about nerd crap, and I’m sure no one else would be either.

I don’t know. Mad science experiments sound like a story we could have used.

Blatt’s tone turned annoyed. You’re not an editor-in-chief, are you? he flippantly questioned me. If you are, you make that decision on your own time instead of telling me what I should’ve or shouldn’t have done, okay?

Sorry, sir. I apologized.

If you knew better, you would realize that the public would be more interested in finding out what happened to the doctor himself. One day, however, I got this anonymous info about a significant lead on the incident. I ask for proof, they tell me about things the public wouldn’t know, we negotiate the trade, bing bang boom, here we are.

He stepped towards me and mused, Just think of it: The one piece to this whole mystery that could tell the best part of the story, the ending that ties it all together, only one person in the world holds it. It used to be the contact’s… and now it’s mine. I get to control the spotlight once more. Drip feed as much of the narrative at any pace as I please.

The computer pings a message that nothing malicious was found. Mr. Blatt returns to the computer saying, "All we have to do is look over what we