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“Song Of The Guillotine” by Lamont Turner

     It was several years after that  season of madness when the shadow of the guillotine had loomed over us all, and the blood of nobles and commoners alike ran in the gutters of Paris, that I found myself standing alone before a chateau  in the heart of the Gourge d’ Asque.  Relieved to find the incongruous domicile, for I had foolishly forsaken a guide and had become hopelessly lost, I resolved to intrude upon the solitude of the building’s occupants. That there were occupants I was certain due to the wisps of white smoke emanating from the chimney, but had the day been warmer, I would have passed on, for, other than the smoke, there was no other sign of habitation, and the aspect of the chateau was foreboding enough to discourage any curiosity I might have entertained.  Perhaps due to some flaw in the foundation the entire building leaned away from the setting sun and, as best as I could discern from my position on the glen, was entirely devoid of windows. Only a large door broke up the monotony of the moss encrusted walls, which was composed of stones of a singular uniformity. 

     Anxious to get directions, or perhaps a night’s lodgings before the darkness over took me; I tapped on the door, conscious that I might not receive the warmest welcome from someone who had gone to such great lengths to ensure their isolation.  I assumed they would be as astonished to receive a caller in such a remote place as I had been upon discovering their abode.

     I would, of course, have to invent a tale to explain my presence in so remote a locale.  I would not tell them that I was on a quest to kill a man, though to refer to such a monster as a man would be exceedingly charitable.  M. Fourniret had none of the finer qualities that make men superior to the beasts. While many of the atrocities committed during those dark days were born of a genuine conviction that liberty was to be gained and held by any means, Fourniret was a man of no such convictions. He was a crass opportunist, using the Revolution to further only his own goals. Seeing an avenue for personal enrichment in the role of public executioner, he sought out and obtained the position, henceforth wielding a considerable degree of influence over his department.

     For no other reason than his success as a merchant, my father came under the scrutiny of the Committee of Public Safety, and was led to the M. Fourniret’s guillotine.  It had previously been arranged that all of my father’s estate would go to his executioner as payment for his services, leaving our family with nothing, save for my father’s headless corpse.  Risking my own head, I confronted the authorities, demanding my father be made whole, but my demands were rebuffed, and my father’s head was never restored.  I later learned it was always so with the victims of M. Fourniret, though no one could say what he did with the heads he took. 

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     As the Republic gave way to the Empire, my fortunes changed, as did those of my nemesis. I again found myself in a position of wealth, while he was forced to flee the city amid accusations of acts so blasphemous even a secular society would not tolerate them.  Vowing to deprive him of his life, I had tracked the villain across the Pyrenees before losing my prey, as well as myself, in the wilderness.

     Receiving no response to my initial summons, I knocked slightly harder with my fist, producing the desired effect. The door creaked open a crack, allowing the occupant to peer out at me.

     “What do you want,” growled the voice from within.

     ‘” I apologize for the intrusion,” I responded, taken aback by the ferocity of the greeting. “I am lost, and merely seek guidance, and perhaps, if you can spare it, some bread.”

     For several moments there was silence as the man studied me, then the pale blue eye widened, and the door was flung open to reveal a grizzled old man.  His face was obscured by the matted hair that extended down over his shoulders to merge with the thick chest length beard.  His garments were little more than rags, hanging on his bent frame in tattered strips. He ushered me in with unbridled enthusiasm, going so far as to tug at the sleeve of my coat.  Taken off guard by the marked contrast in his behavior, and by the deplorable state of the man, I hesitated.   

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              “Forgive my rudeness,” he exclaimed, grabbing my arm with a boney claw and almost dragging me in. “Rest here, my friend while I prepare you a meal.”

     I was led into a large chamber, lit only by the fire blazing in the hearth, and offered a seat at the head of the table where I sat, surveying my surroundings while my host occupied himself with the large pot simmering over the flames. The walls were draped from ceiling to floor in tapestries of the most ornate design, scarlet, with arcane symbols embroidered in white across the entirety of their surface. The sparse furnishings were opulent, though neglected, dust and mold marring the expensive fabrics. 

     The old man said nothing, but chuckled to himself occasionally while stirring the stew, which, I admit, I was eager to sample, my hunger being almost equal to my apprehensions. At last setting a bowl before me, he situated himself in the chair next to mine, watching with satisfaction as I wolfed down the stew without waiting for it to cool.

     As he refilled my bowl I was startled by the sound of an uncanny moan. It seemed to come from all corners of the chamber, echoing off the walls for several seconds before fading to a whisper. Seeing my distress, the man put his hand upon my shoulder to calm me.

     “Don’t allow that to trouble you, Monsieur,” he said, grinning. “There are no ghosts here. It is just the wind, whistling through the cracks in the walls. I hardly notice it anymore.”

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     There was something familiar about his voice that chilled me more than the spectral wailing.  I studied the face of my host, the pale blue eyes, the beak-like nose, and the thin lips, contorted into a malevolent grin beneath the thick moustache. Could it be? Was it possible I was sitting across from the very man I had been seeking? Yes! I was sitting across from the devil himself!  He was saying something, but I wasn’t hearing him. I just stared in wonder at the wreck of the man I had so relentlessly pursued. The man I had known had been young, and full of vigor. The buckles of his shoes had always been polished, and the slightest stain was not to be tolerated on his person. Now it was as if his outer appearance had somehow come to reflect his true soul. 

     “I see you recognize me at last, Monsieur Bellegarde,” said my host, patting my hand as though I were a child he wished to comfort.  “I do not blame you for not knowing me in my current condition, though I recognized you at once.”

     “Then you must know why I am here,” I responded, jumping up from my seat and pointing my pistol at his chest.

      Again I heard the moaning. I spun around, prepared to fire my weapon, but saw no one. As before, we were alone.

     “What is that,” I shouted, pressing my pistol against the villain’s temple.

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     “It is merely the song of the guillotine and the cause of my current condition.” he responded, his gaze locked on the wall behind me. “No matter how I try to stifle them, they still sometimes manage to sing.”

     I resolved to blow the wretch’s brains out right then, and be done with it, but the moaning resumed, even louder than before, accompanied now by the rustling of the tapestries. I watched as they billowed out as though stirred by a strong breeze. Indeed, for a moment I assumed that was what had happened, before recalling I had seen no windows to admit such a wind. The moaning, and the rustling, continued as I advanced upon the fluttering fabric, determined to solve the mystery. Behind me, the executioner was shrieking.  While my gun had done nothing to alter his composure, whatever was behind those drapes filled him with terror.

     “It is only the rats,” he shouted, rushing to impose himself between me and the wall. “Come no farther. There is nothing to see!”

     Unable to contain my disgust, or my rage, I struck him, knocking him back into the tapestry. He screamed as it enveloped him, and, in his struggles to extricate himself from it, tore it from the wall.  I gasped. There before me, death grinned down at me a thousand times over. The wall, perhaps the entire chateau, was composed of human skulls! I hardly had time to reflect upon this horror before I realized it was from these dead relics that the mournful wail was emanating.  Fourniret groveled before them, covering his ears as the mournful chorus rose to a crescendo.

     “The talismans! They must be replaced! Without the shield they will sing until…”

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       Fourniret’s words faded into a sigh, followed by a sickening gurgling as his body began to shrivel. His gray hair turned white, and then fell from his head in clumps, and his eyes shrank back into their sockets. Fighting the urge to flee, I watched as he was reduced to bone. The transformation complete, the thing that had once served as the angel of death succumbed itself to the ravages of Azrael and slumped forward, dislodging its skull. I watched with mingled satisfaction and horror as it rolled across the floor to take its place among the others at the base of the wall.

     There are those who will insist I found M. Fourniret and killed him as I had pledged to do, and I can offer no evidence, other than this testimony, to refute their assertions. After the skulls fell silent, sated by the vengeance they had at last achieved, I stumbled back out into the wilderness, where I was lost for many days. Starving, and nearly dead, I was finally rescued by some hunters who happened to come upon me several miles from the scene of the executioner’s demise. No one I have encountered has ever admitted to seeing or hearing of such a place as I described, and, despite my best efforts, I was never able to retrace my steps back to it. 

     Perhaps Fourniret isn’t dead at all. Perhaps it was all a delusion experienced as I shuddered with fever in the huntsman’s cabin. If so, I leave Monsieur Fourniret’s fate to other hands. Surely there are others who seek vengeance against such a man.  For me, real or imagined, the end of my quest was good enough. I am satisfied. However, should anyone happen upon a lonely chateau, far from the places where civilized men hold discourse, I would caution them not to linger lest they too hear the song of the guillotine.

                                                                  The End

Lamont Turner, Author

Lamont Turner is a New Orleans area author and father of four.

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Original Series

Nightmarish Nature: Horrifying Humans

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So we’re going out on a limb here in this segment of Nightmarish Nature and exploring one of the most terrifying, most dangerous, most impactful species to walk this planet. I’m talking about us of course. Sure, as humans, we may not seem all that horrific to ourselves, but to many other creatures we have been a force of nightmares.

Humans male as drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Humans male as drawn by Jennifer Weigel

Why are we terrifying?

Humans are among those species that engage in massive modifications to our environment to serve our needs, like beavers who dam rivers, elephants who eat all of the new growth scrub to keep the savannahs tree-free, and so on. Yeah, all creatures have some impact on their surroundings, but some take it up a notch, and we do so at an order of magnitude higher still. And we have gotten so good at it that we have managed to exist and thrive in places that would otherwise be inhospitable. We are outwardly adaptive and opportunistic to the point of being exploitative. We are the apex predators now.

Sabertooth cowering as drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Sabertooth cowering as drawn by Jennifer Weigel

We have forced many creatures into extinction, intentionally and not, and have sped up these effects enormously. The National Audobon Society chose the egret as its symbol after it made a comeback from being hunted to near extinction, and it was one of the lucky ones. Many weren’t so lucky, especially if they came in direct conflict with humans, such as wolves and the big cats who were in direct competition, or those who were really specialized in really specific niche circumstances that we pushed out of the way. And this is in only a very very limited scope of our earth’s history, and has since been even more ramped up with industrialization.

Humans female as drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Humans female as drawn by Jennifer Weigel

But humans aren’t all bad are we?

Depends on who you ask… We have created all sorts of incredible opportunities for some species too. Take mice for example. And coyotes. And kudzu. And a whole host of animals whom we’ve domesticated, some of whom wouldn’t have continued to exist otherwise or certainly wouldn’t exist in anything resembling their current forms. And the most massive extinctions occurred long before our arrival, when the earth was still forming and underwent rapid catastrophic changes and swings, decimating critters as they were trying to get a foothold. Nothing is constant except for change; that has always been true.

Wolf begging for cheezborger drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Wolf begging for cheezborger drawn by Jennifer Weigel

So it isn’t my goal to get all eco-con​scious and environmentalist here. Just that I feel if we are going to explore some of the more terrifying aspects of nature, we need to look in the mirror. Because if a consensus were taken right here, right now of all living beings globally as to what is among the most terrifying creatures among us, I’m sure we’d appear on that list.

If you enjoyed this closer-than-kissing-cousins segment of Nightmarish Nature on Horrifying Humans, please check out past segments:

Vampires Among Us

Perilous Parenting

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Freaky Fungus

Worrisome Wasps

Cannibalism

Terrifying Tardigrades

Reindeer Give Pause

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Komodo Dragons

Zombie Snails

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Original Creations

Werewolf-ing It Well, Part 3 by Jennifer Weigel

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Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous two St. Patrick’s Days… Here are Part 1 from 2022 and Part 2 from 2023 if you want to catch up.


Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel

So apparently it really was my lucky day at that suburban gas mart last St. Patrick’s Day. I got the mother lode of all Scratchers. I hit it big time. I had no real idea of what that meant, but it looked promising. Maybe I could get a Cadillac to tour Route 66 AND a cabin in the woods… But who was gonna drive?

Now apparently you can’t just cash these things in at the register. You have to mail them in or something. Why does life have to be so complicated? Anything involving those good for nothing mailmen has to be rigged or part of some larger conspiracy, I’m sure. But I pocketed my prize and made some plans. I couldn’t rely on old Sal not to just pocket my prize for himself; he wasn’t the sort that would let me have my dream. Or even understood that I had dreams beyond just chasing rabbits (though those are the best).

The next full moon I whined and howled at Sal to take me in to work with him. Sal just patted me on the head. Didn’t even offer a treat or nothing. Seriously, I had to get out of there, this suburban situation was the pits. I couldn’t do another year of it, watching my life tick away. So, when that didn’t work, I gently grabbed my Scratchers ticket like I was retrieving a very important slipper and slunk over and hid in his truck under that ratty blanket he kept in the back.

I managed to creep into the junkyard office and hide there while Sal was sleeping on the job. Those mastiffs nearly ratted me out, but fortunately they were chained up, and they weren’t all that bright anyway. Just growled a string of profanities at my cur form, like I hadn’t heard that before. Anyway, I waited it out and before long I heard Monty’s car pull up, rattling like the dilapidated Honda Civic held together with duct tape that it was. Sal’s truck pulled off, spitting gravel and exhaust in its wake as always.

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Dusk was setting in and I could feel the change starting. Nothing to do for it, guess I’d just have to run with it then. Monty had settled in as usual, watching bad porn and staring off into nothing. He still smelled like day old jelly donuts (the kind you can get a whole bag for $1) and coffee, as usual. Good boy Monty, how I’ve missed you and the occasional stale donut, even if it wasn’t a cookie. I approached him from behind and coughed.

Monty nearly leapt out of his skin. He blanched as if he’d seen a ghost before he managed to find his voice. “Shit, that wasn’t a dream,” he stammered, pointing. As he realized I meant him no harm, he regained his composure and even offered me a day-old jelly donut, which I accepted gratefully. I think he could tell that my tail would have been wagging if I’d still had one at that time.

“Lucky, what in all of hell are you doing here?” he asked, eyes still wide as saucers. “And for Christ’s sake, put on some pants.” He offered up the spare uniform that still just hung from the hook behind the door. I guess in my fervor to talk to him I’d forgotten to dress. Oops.

Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel

“Monty, old friend, I need a favor,” I barked. I handed him the Scratchers. His eyes grew wider.

“Shit, where’d you get this?” That’s a lot of money,” Monty exclaimed. “They’ve been looking for the winner of this one…”

“I’d stashed it in my hidey spot under the place where the carpet peels up after I got it… It’s our ticket out of here,” I retorted. “You don’t think I want to spend the rest of my days laying around suburbia with tightwad treat-skimping Sal do you?”

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“I suppose not,” Monty quipped. “But what’d you have in mind?”

“You and me, we could get a cabin in the woods, live off the land. Get out of this shit-hole. Hell, you could even get a real car, one of those big-boat Cadillacs with the wide tongue-lolling windows…”

“Um, you could do a lot more than that with this, but I catch your drift. And I want out of this hellhole too. But, like…? I mean, you aren’t gonna bite me or anything, or get all weird.” Monty fidgeted like he did when he was nervous. “I guess I knew but didn’t want to admit it – dude you’re a freak show.”

“Gee thanks. Trust me, being a dog is better any day except that you can’t drive or get your own treats and crap,” I retorted. “And if was gonna bite you I’d have done so a long time ago. It doesn’t work that way, anyway. Seriously, you don’t believe all that werewolf mumbo jumbo on Netflix too, do you?”

Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel

Monty shook his head tentatively. “I don’t really know what to believe. I mean, I guess I always knew you were like this, but I didn’t let it sink in.”

“Well, get over it and help me get my dream cabin,” I snipped. “Seriously don’t just stand there gawking all night; I put on clothes and everything. I only have tonight.”

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“You mean before you turn back into a dog?” Monty asked.

I nodded, still licking the jelly off my lips.

“But I thought werewolf changes happened every full moon,” Monty asked.

“I do, but these Scratchers change like the wind. We gotta cash in quick,” I growled. “And if you try to turn on me, I’ll hunt you down. That’s OUR ticket outta here.”

“No, no, I get it,” Monty said. “I’ll make good on it, I promise. I can follow up on the ticket first thing tomorrow; it says to mail it in or go to the courthouse or something. I’ll figure it out… I guess you can stay with me until we get it sorted, but you have to be really quiet about it. I’m not supposed to have pets in that crap apartment for all that a little dog hair would be an improvement.”

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Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

Check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s writing here at Jennifer Weigel Words.

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Lighter than Dark

LTD: The Firing Squad

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So you’ve just gotten the pink slip.

Work is letting you go. Amidst all of the layoffs, you just didn’t make the cut. Well, I’m sorry to say, but it behooves you to go quietly. And quickly. Because you don’t want to stick around for the Firing Squad…

In fact, if your HR department is outsourced to one of those Eldritch contractors like so many are nowadays, get outta dodge NOW. Like seriously. Leave the lunch you brought in the fridge; leave the personal items in and on and around your desk. Hell, leave your coat and purse if you are not near them. You can get new ones. Maybe one of your ex-coworkers can help you retrieve your stuff later. Because you need to get out while the getting is still good.

The Firing Squad is coming.

And if they so much as see a pink slip anywhere in your immediate vicinity, it is complete and total annihilation…

Ready Aim Fire...  The Firing Squad appears digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Ready Aim Fire… The Firing Squad appears
Wing Shot...  The Firing Squad takes aim digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Wing Shot… The Firing Squad takes aim
Sharp Shooter...  You're a goner! digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Sharp Shooter… You’re a goner!

I warned you… Those Eldritch contractor HR departments mean business… It’s like going to the Library. Or making Jell-O.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

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