Joe Gallows - An Excerpt

An excerpt from one of my more brutal stories, Joe Gallows, one of the stories in Wakeful Children: A Collection of Horror and Supernatural Tales. N.B, This is horror. I am always surprised when people read my work, knowing I write horror and dark fantasy, and then complain to me that it is 'not very nice' for want of a better phrase. Well, no; it's horror... Anyway, enjoy, hope it tempts you!

"Gallows smashed against the parked car, twisting mid fall. His face hit the front tyre, sending blunt shafts of pain into his forehead and leaving a tarry black smudge across the bridge of his nose. The road beneath was unforgiving; small, stinging shards of gravel embedded themselves spitefully into his palms and his knees throbbed with pain, yet he did not attempt to rise until his tormentors had moved off.

They appeared oddly subdued as they went, the man who had shoved him pushing his hands deep into his pockets, Debs arms folded about herself as if seeking reassurance. She turned to look back once, hurrying onwards as fast as her ample frame could carry her when she saw Gallows was watching.

Gallows had forgotten the other man; he didn’t see the kick to his stomach coming as he finally tried to stand. The blow drove the air from his lungs, winding him. Waves of agony rippled the length of his body, rendering him paralysed. A second kick followed, snapping something loud in his pocket and pitching him heavily forwards. His forehead hit the road, now as pitted with stones as his hands; it felt like a thousand rodent teeth trying to burrow into his brain.

His eyes were streaming, his kidneys aching beyond comprehension, his stomach cramping. It felt like an eternity that he lay wedged between the kerb and the car, willing the white waves of agony to end. They subsided at last, allowing him to sit cautiously back on his knees; he could tolerate the pain now, but the snap had worried him.

He fumbled clumsily in his pocket and pulled out his catapult, snapped in two places and dangling like a broken limb from a stretched and useless tendon.

Gallows moaned, the grief of this loss worse than the physical pain; it didn’t matter that he could always make another. This was his; his belonging, his possession; the man might as well have stolen it from him."

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