Sample Sunday: The Writhing by G.R. Yeates

Angrisla Castle was a mouldering cluster of grey teeth thrusting out of the dark ground against the whitening dawn. The coach, dulled by years of use, hissed and creaked to a stop in the grounds. Feet squelched down into wet earth as the tourist party disembarked. Hearty American accents sounded out, too bright and heavy for the thin greying English air.

Elly could see it in his eyes, his resentment at being here. Barry was not a morning person by a long way and she could see his irritation as he made grand gestures of plucking the grains of sleep from his eyes. But she had so wanted to see Angrisla Castle. According to the guide, Mr Phillips, a pale-faced gaunt, the Castle was a very spooky place. There were stories about the last owner, a doctor of some sort, experimenting with this and that, making new kinds of animal. Just like in the stupid old movies she used to watch with her brother when they were kids. The stories, according to Mr Phillips, said that the doctor was arrested and put in the madhouse. They never found the things he made.

"His children," Mr Philips had said, "His children, no, they never found them. Not one of 'em left alive, no."

Probably all bullshit but it gave the place some atmosphere, a touch of awe, she thought.

Barry trudged along beside her as the party followed Mr Phillips up the path cut into the hillside to the castle entrance; a gothic arch that made Elly's heart quicken. There was something in this architecture that got her going, the weathered curves and old lines. Reaching out as she passed through it she felt the roughness of the stone under her fingertips, she felt a frisson, a pebbling of the skin.

Oh yes, she thought, I want to do something here.

 

Mr Phillips' voice was an insipid drone as he led the tourists from one open chamber of the castle to another. Limp gestures of the wrist indicating worn-out gargoyles and water-battered carvings, triggering mutters of varying interest and a clicking staccato of camera flashes from the crowd. Elly's hand was in Barry's and she was tugging him after her, away from the party.

"Elly, what're you doing?" he whispered.

"Didn't you see that small archway back there?"

"The one to the crypt?"

"Yeah."

"Mr Phillips said not to go down there. There's a chain across it, 'member?"

"Come on, Barry. I want to do something here."

"Do something? You're joking, Elly. Not now."

"Yes now, I want you to go into the crypt and do something."

"But he said it's dangerous down there. Loose stones. The ceiling's not safe."

"You either come with me, Barry, or I'll go down there myself and have a good time."

"Elly-"

"You try to stop me, I'll punch you."

"For God's sakes, why're you being such a hard-ass about this? Can't it wait until we're back at the hotel?"

"No, Barry. That's why I want to do something different, right here and now. In England. In this castle. In the crypt."

Barry sighed, rubbing his eyes, "Okay, Elly. You win. Let's go."

Elly beamed, leaned in, kissed him on the cheek and led him away.

 

There was a wicked deliciousness to ducking under the loose chain hanging across the crypt archway and setting her feet on that first step. As she went down into the emptiness below, Elly could smell the mould in the air; feel the soiled dampness of the space. This place was so old, older than anywhere back home in the States. That was the attraction. Doing something bad on this hallowed ground, made sacred by its ancient age. She could hear the reluctance in each footstep of Barry's. He was a sweetheart but he needed his training. There was no denying she was the alpha in their relationship, the one who liked to do things like this.

Elly reached the flagstones of the crypt itself and stopped, waiting for Barry to finish his descent. Through the gloom, she could see the oblong hollows in the walls of the crypt, where dust that had once been bones resided. Her eyes came to rest on what she had hoped would be there. A long, raised central stone, possibly a tomb, just what they needed.

"So, what now?" Barry said, carefully, into her ear, not wanting to upset the stones hanging overhead.

The whistling of his breath, so warm, so close, made her nibble on her lip. Already getting excited by what was to come. Her palms were clammy as she took Barry's fingers and squeezed them, "Wait out here, sweetie. I'm going to make myself comfortable over there," she pointed at the central stone, "and then you come in and we do it."

"You want me to be like a monster in one of those movies?"

"If you like, sweetie," she kissed his fingers and then let them go, "if you like."

 

Elly shucked off her shoes and peeled off her socks. The cold kisses of crypt-stone were like crushed ice being pressed against her soles and toes, it made her fidget with her fingers and thumbs, enjoying the moment. She finished undressing her legs, leaving her shirt on, for now. She reclined, giggling in her throat, onto the central stone, peering up into the black static of the ceiling and its corners, throwing her arms about dramatically, giggling some more.

She caught a glimpse of something, white, wet and tuberous. It was moving with uneasy, trembling motions, strangely bulbous in places, like a malformed albino caterpillar.

Weird, she thought.

Then it was gone, lost amongst the shifting underground shades.

The central stone was an arctic block under her buttocks, she could feel them growing gooseflesh as she waited for Barry to make his entrance.

Come on sweetie, she thought, don't get cold feet on me now.

From the darkness of the entrance there came a sound. A punctuation of the dismal air. Barely begun, then stopping so suddenly. Elly felt her ardour diminish, her loins becoming less eager than they were. She closed her waiting thighs together and sat up straight, pulling her shirt back down over her bared stomach.

"Barry?" she called, low and hoarse.

A footstep, a pause, then another. Then another pause, then another step. There he was, steadily stumbling in, emitting soft, throaty groans.

Oh, I see, she thought, playing zombies, are we?

"You are so bad," she said.

Barry came slowly towards her, his legs and feet as bare as hers. His manhood was already arching out, long and swollen. The head glimmered in the dim light, thoroughly moistened. A single sticky white tear wept from its tip.

That's what was holding you up, she thought, you were getting yourself ready for me over there.

"Good boy."

Elly lay back across the stone and parted her thighs for him, closing her eyes as she did. She heard his breathing, still stopping, starting and stopping.

"Really working hard at the zombie thing, aren't you, hun?"

She felt him kneeling, then his hands moving across her feet, ankles, reaching up her legs, brushing over her upper thighs. His fingers had grown cold. They made her gasp as he teased the dampening lips of her vulva apart with them. They were rough too. Cool and rough like the stone of that arch she touched earlier.

Odd thought, that. No, don't be ridiculous, stop thinking dumb shit, let go, relax, enjoy.

Those rough, cold fingers of his, they pierced her, one at a time, and she let out a cry, then a long shuddering breath. He was drawing himself up over her, she could feel his weight, so familiar yet somehow different. There was something he was doing, a halting motion in his rhythm as he pushed the hard meat of his erection into her, that made her still wonder, want to pull away, make him withdraw.

It's just the zombie thing, she thought, nothing to worry about. He's doing what you said to do. He's going at it steadily, taking his time, making it last out. Being a good boy.

Christ, he was so hard though and so cold. And his cock felt rough inside her, like his fingers had been, like the stone underneath her. Elly's breath quickened, because of him, because of what she was feeling, thinking.

Rough, cold, stone.

Dead.

Everything stopped, all of it, she could feel space closing in around her, going black, growing tight. Her heart was beating in her ears. Her throat was a whistling pinhole. Her breath became as halting as Barry's. She tried to move, raise her arms up, but she was caught under him, him inside her, spearing her, keeping her in place. This was not how she had thought it would be. This didn't feel like fun anymore. This was too much like those stupid old movies she used to watch with her brother. The crypt, the damsel, the monster, the ritual.

The sacrifice.

Her eyes were now as wet as her nethers. It hurt inside, his cold, hard stone abrading her soft, tender layers.

She opened her eyes.

"Barry, please."

She looked into his eyes. She went as limp as one of Mr Phillips' hand gestures. Barry's eyes, his dead eyes, were as cold and rough as stone. His mouth hung open and, from between his lips, she saw long, white things dangling. A host of thin tubers writhing in the musty air that was coming from his broken mouth, strangely bulbous, trembling uneasily. She saw the deep gash on Barry's crown, a piece of bone showing through the flesh there, where a stone had fallen. No, where a stone had been dropped. By something that looked like a malformed albino caterpillar, something that had not been found when the authorities searched the castle.

One of his children.

The voice of Mr Phillips spoke the words inside her head.

Then, with a grinding granite groan, Barry came inside her, hard and cold.

And, whatever it was that came out of him and went deep into her, burrowing away, she knew it wasn't semen. There was no warmth there; no rush to the motion of ejaculation, there was only the writhing, insipid and slow.

Nothing but the writhing.

END

© G.R. Yeates 2011

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