Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

by Nathan Ballingrud

Now you are standing at the very crossroads of your life; and all your roads lead to strange places. —Mike Mignola, Hellboy: The Third Wish

There is only the lesson of the worm, delivered over and over again: All life is a mass of wriggling grubs, awaiting the transformation to the form in which it will greet the long and quiet dark.

he’d become so acclimated to his loneliness that eventually the very idea of human companionship just made him antsy and tired.

Every yearning for love rang like a bell in the chest, every lonely fear found its justification.

“No you don’t take on no highborn airs with me, you fancy bastard. I’ll peel you standing, fat purse or fucking not.”

He had become drunk on his position in the church, and his ambitions were about power, not service.

“Let us see how much of your blood I have to spill before He decides to make Himself known to me.” In fact he spilled all of it, and God remained absent.