Pandemonium: Chapter Four: Refuse/Resist!

by Mark Anthony Pritchard (aka Rorshach)



Everything has changed.

'Get up.’ I screamed, as the creatures lurched into the room, dog-like paws grasping the window sill, lifting their large bodies through the battered frame, and revealing the hirsute forms behind the terrible eyes that had awoken me to their presence.

The creatures were different in form to the troglodyte monsters of my first night, but just as terrible. Seven feet (at least) in height, emanating a wet dog scent that I dimly recall from a brutalised memory of my life before this, standing on two crooked legs, the creatures formed a wall of assault, and prepared to attack.

Waking at my cry of warning, the sleeping people reacted as they did on the first night, and began to scramble for cover, heading towards the main door in the room. The beasts, angry at my warning cry, let them flee, and immediately set their sights upon me, striding awkwardly on two crooked canine legs towards my supine location on the damp mattress, their intent was murder, and I was to be their prey.

But, just as my bloody and violent demise seemed imminent, something most peculiar began to manifest itself, a sense of defiance that came from a place that I still cannot locate.

Whereas before, when confusion and fear took hold of me, and I ran with the others, this time, I refused to fly into the night, and instead made the immediate decision to stand my ground, and fight back against the intruders.

Why I chose such a seemingly suicidal course of action, I do not know, but my mind was made up. I would fight, and I would fight to the death. I would not run, and I would not cower in fear. I was going to take them down, one bloody beast at a time.

As amazing as it might sound, this is what happened next.

The first beast threw itself at me with the force of Armageddon unleashed, aiming for my throat, but in doing so took it’s eyes away from the pencil that I still held in my right hand, which I used to devastating effect. Side stepping it’s awkward, blood-crazed lunge, I deftly pivoted my bodyweight backwards, then violently forwards, thrusting the pencil through it’s left eyeball, a strike that elicited a howl of rage from the surprised beast, that rocked the room to it’s very foundations.

With the beast writhing on the floor, incredulous in pain that it had never suspected would be forthcoming, it’s comrades, equally shocked, howled to the ceiling in a gnashing wail of rage that spoke of utter surprise.

This was not supposed to happen.

Why was one of the victims fighting back?

Surveying the room, as my fellow refugees continued to flood through the door, and the motionless beasts slobbered and growled in stilted incomprehension, the one thing on my mind was, find a weapon, and use it, now.

There it was, on the floor, exactly what was required, a plank of wood, four feet long, and a discarded old T-shirt.

With a surge of aggression thundering through my body, a jolt of electric life that thrilled me more than I could ever possibly describe, I took the plank of wood, wrapped the shirt around it, and lit the cloth with the candle at my bedside. With fiery implement in hand, and with the beasts dithering with indecision, I set to the pack, determined to press home my early advantage.

The first beast, howling on the floor at the treatment I had dealt out, was my initial focus of attack. The thing was wounded, not deceased, and death had to be dealt out, as a warning to them all. Mess with me, and I will leave you dead on the floor, a bloody corpse of permanent extinction. That was the message, and I was the perfect vehicle of delivery.

Kicking the fallen form of the wounded beast square in the groin, a strike that elicited a squeal of complete surrender, causing it to squirm over onto it’s belly, I thrust the flaming torch directly onto it’s hairy back, and stepped back to enjoy the result.

The monster burst immediately into flames, creating a bonfire effect that illuminated the entire room in bright light, a fiery spectacle accompanied by deafening screams of the dying beast, a death cry rattle warning it’s brethren of what was to come if they continued their attack.

As the creature burned, a rage enveloped me, a ferocious frenzy that is beyond explanation, a blood-lust of violence for the pure sake of violence, and a desire to smash and burn until nothing was left.

Screaming my battle cry, a genetic memory from another time, another life, another existence, the beasts, seeing the madman roar before their fallen comrade, completely unafraid, began to back away. My immediate instinct was to charge, and so I did, straight at them, six awful beasts versus one ferociously determined man.

It was no contest.

Discarding all concern for their fallen soldier, the creatures panicked into a hasty and ill-disciplined retreat, and began to fall back out of the very window where they had made their initial incursion.

Shrieking, crying, punching and beating each other, they were a routed army in full desperate flight, it was each beast for itself. Comradeship vanished, and the desperate need to run and hide was now, finally, being experienced by the predators themselves.

Watching their retreat was not an option, and I chased after them, determined to wreak my violence upon them once again, which I did, catching one of the beasts as he fell onto the ground. With it’s large muscular arms raised in terrified surrender, I refused all notions of mercy and thrust my flame encased receptacle straight through it’s mouth, staking it into the muddy ground, as I roared my final victory song at it’s fast retreating, escaping troop.

Now, an hour later, with the adrenaline of battle slowly subsiding, I sit comfortably in the centre of the same room, two dead predators cooking on a bonfire outside, a meaty feast for my hungry human companions, and everything has changed.

The people, individuals no more, they want to talk to me now.

They have wanted for me to talk to me for a while, but first, they must wait, as I write, and record, the great victory of today.

In a few short sentences my pencil shall go down. The pencil is a weapon, and the lesson here is to use it well. There is blood on my hand, on the page, and my rage is simmering down. It is time to address my tribe, and this is what I shall tell them.

When attacked, you do not retreat, and scurry away as individuals to be picked off by the advancing tribe. Do so, and you lose, and losing is no longer an option, not here, not now that I am fully awake. The time for retreating is over, now is the time to attack.

I look now upon this bloody stump of pencil, extracted from the eye of a dead monster, and finish the final line of my journal, before the speech is made.

It’s time to talk to my men, to feast on beasts, find lieutenants, and plan for the next stage of our joint operation. For together we REFUSE to lose, and together we violently, aggressively, triumphantly RESIST.

Pandemonium

Part 1- Whisper in the Darkness 

by Mark Anthony Pritchard (aka Rorshach)



I woke with orders screamed into my ears, ‘Get out, get out, get out,’ and before I knew what to do, where I was, or who I was, I obeyed.

Terror makes you do that, follow orders, blindly, unthinkingly, as the genetic instinct to preserve body, heaven let us not speak of the soul, kicks in, and we the animal, care only, for the moment, and the potential for pain, or worse, to come.

Cold and naked, I scrambled for my clothes, found them on the dark floor, put them on, haphazardly, my jeans loose without a belt, and my T-shirt inside out, shoeless, adrenaline crazed I cared for nothing but escape.

I saw a light, and that was my destination, helped along by the screamed cries that beckoned me to follow, already distant as they rushed ahead to save themselves, but from what?

I was shortly about to find out.

A drumbeat of terror enveloped the room in further alarm, as screams of the unfortunate cried for mercy, their location the floor below my own, and I ran, finding myself heading towards an open window, a fire-escape, with steel steps leading to the rain-soaked pavements on the ground below.

Searching for that initial voice of warning, hoping for recognition, a friend, anybody, I found nothing but scurrying human forms, wet hair, panic, the people half-naked, like myself, falling over themselves in a desperate bid to escape.

A lady in front of me, aged and weak, crumpled to the floor, and, to my eternal shame, I did nothing to help, but stepped over her prone form, throwing myself down the rusty steps, and the haven of potential safety below.

Hitting the wet pavement bare feet bleeding and sore, guilt kicked-in, and I paused, for a second, and turned back, thinking of the fallen lady, only to witness a vision of the horror that we were escaping from, and as self-preservation returned, I turned again, and shamefully, ran.

I did not get very far.

Inexplicably, my legs began to fail me, and the paralysis of fear was fast shutting me down. Freezing up, I searched for a place to hide, quickly, and found one, fifty yards from the building, behind a dumpster spewing a stench of rotting meat, a vantage point where I will shiver in fear, and watch as events unfold.

From behind my rank hiding place I see the squat dark shadows of our pursuers emerge from the building, and feel a sense of almighty relief when instead of descending the metal steps to pursue us further on the ground below, they remain, stationary, on top.

From the high vantage point of the fire escape stairs, their yellow eyes briefly scan the darkness below, piercing white beams from soul-less orbs lighting up the murky streets below, but they miss me, their scan being merely perfunctory, and they turn their attention to their captured, elderly prey.

Shivering in the wet gloom, the cold rain splattering painfully through my barely dressed form, confused by remnants of sleep that have morphed into a world of horror that is all too real, my attention is immediately fixated upon the nature of the creatures themselves.

There is a simian aspect to their forms, standing as they do, on two legs, their bulky torsos leaning forward, with unnaturally long arms that almost touch the ground, muscular appendixes that seem designed for pursuit on all-fours, at tremendous speeds that are beyond human capacity.

In colour they were black, unclothed, as the beasts that they are, and as the rain fell on their broad shoulders and backs, the moonlight revealed a fur-like texture, almost a coat, but patch-bare, like a moulting animal suffering from a terminal disease.

Two of them were on the floor, securing their elderly prey, one at her neck, the other at her feet, holding not to kill, but to control. They appeared to be waiting, and I could heard strange grunted conversation emanating from the four creatures that circled around their grounded companions, discussing something perhaps, but in a form of language that was unrecognisable from anything that I have ever heard before.

As the horrifying pursuit lulled into a temporary lull, a flash of lightning crashed through the dark night sky, and for one horrifying moment I saw the facial features of one of the creatures clearly, the horror enough to drive a sane man into unrecoverable madness.

How to describe such figures of inhuman cruelty? How to convey the monstrous aspects of the form that I was witness to? How to describe what surely cannot be described?

Heaven preserve my sanity as I try to reconstruct, in mere words alone, the grotesque horror that was revealed to me by that strike from the heavens.

The face, that appeared black as night in the shadows, was as pale as death in the light of electric revelation. Hairless on top, bulbous of frontal lobe, the eyes were set cruelly deep, black orbs with pins of fiery damnation burning with a hell-fire intensity of nihilism realised. The mouth was too big for the face, stretching from stubbed ear to stubbed ear, a wicked joker grin of malicious intent, lined with jagged fangs, teeth designed to rip and tear. The nose was that of a tracker, large, drooping downwards, designed to sniff, hunt down, and capture the scent of it’s prey. But as demonic as the face indeed was, there was something all-too recognisably human about it as well. Perched atop the body of a simian monster, with eyes and mouth of intense cruelty, it was the smirk on the face that scared me the most, as it was a scarred reminder that the most sinister and evil creature in existence, is, often-times, as history shows, humanity itself.

Swallowing down the urgent need to vomit, I steadied my nerves, and struggled to regain my composure in the wet filth of waste, the stench becoming a background inconvenience as the horror before me continued to unfold.

My initial theory, that the monsters, for monsters they most certainly were, had paused for the arrival of a higher authority, was confirmed in an instant. Another figure, with a body like the rest, only larger, emerged from the shadows of the building, barked what had to be orders at the standing members of the group, and approached the grounded figure of the elderly lady, still held securely in place by two of the creatures.

Releasing their grip on the lady, the two creatures nodded in supplication to their commander, and returned to the building, leaving just two forms at the top of the fire-exit, the largest monster of them all, and an elderly human who I could now hear was gently sobbing in fear.

Seeing just the two of them there, something akin to my old courage began to manifest, and I felt anger rising within me, and the urge to rush back up the metal steps, and engage the creature in hand to hand, mortal combat.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ whispered a voice from behind me, anticipating my desire to intervene, and I turned to see the face of a child, a young girl of no more than ten-years of age, blonde of hair, and inexplicably fierce of attitude and demeanour.

Her lack of fear instantly confused me, and I was about to question her when a terrible scream erupted from atop the fire escape. Turning back, expecting to see the bloody demise of a human being that I had stepped over just minutes before, I instead was witness to a bizarrely supernatural spectacle that was too unreal to be real.

Electricity concentrated in a circular form around the elderly lady, and she floated high in the air, twenty yards above the kneeling figure of the monstrous creature, on it’s knees now, it’s long arms raised high in what appeared to a religiously inspired supplication to a power greater than itself.

In a language of guttural moans, screams and impishly malign evil incantations, the creature offered up the suspended human sacrifice, with a voice that rose and rose and rose, until finally, an answer for what must have been cries for recognition, arrived.

Invisible evil screeched through the black, rain drenched night sky, creating a white noise din of terror that knocked me back from the safety of my observation post. The impact upon the suspended lady was as a hammer on a fly, terminating the electric charge that surrounded her, as all trace of the lady herself disappeared into the ether of the night.

Stillness hit the cold air, as some unspeakable deed had been completed. The monster at the top of the steps paused, roared a deep sigh of self-satisfaction, and re-entered the building.

Paralysed by fear, my body fast shutting down in frozen disbelief, I felt a small hand on my shoulder, and turned to see the face, once again, of a fearless young girl.

‘Come on mister,’ she snapped, a chord of irritation in her tone, ‘Sort yourself out mate, it’s time to go.’

Pandemonium is an ongoing series. Part Two will be released next week. If you enjoyed the story, please share on social media. Thank you.

Outside: A Free Webcomic about what lurks on the other side of the door

Miss Morality in ‘The Tunnels of Intolerance’- Part Four (The Conclusion)

Written by: Mark. A. Pritchard

Released on: The Rorshach Rant- 25th March 2015



‘The tunnels of intolerance are everywhere my silly, muddled headed little daughter. When you think that you have closed one, another two open. That’s how it works, that’s how it has always worked. You might know me by another name….THE DISSENTER….Yes, it is me. The gang of criminals known as the ‘Politically Incorrect Scoundrels’ is my little group. I set it up when I faked my death and abandoned your stupid mother to get away from you. How is your mother nowadays anyway LOVE? Ha ha ha. Yes it was me who forced her to take those drugs; it was me that drove her into an early heroin induced grave. Ha ha ha ha, you women don’t know what you are up against. Your feminist resistance is doomed to failure, doomed I tell you, ha ha ha ha ha’

The dull grey glint of evil, white middle class privilege shone like a dirty cancerous tumour in his eyes as Miss Morality’s father spat his horrible, nasty, intolerant truth into her beatific, innocent face.

‘Daddy, I…. I…I…I can’t believe it…’ she stuttered, unable to respond to the hatred laced revelations coming from her own father.

‘Shut your cake hole, you spoiled brat. If you can’t talk without stammering, don’t talk at all. Did you really think that I was dead? Did you really think that my kind had simply died out, gone extinct like the dinosaurs? No, I simply bided my time, laid my trap, and you fell straight into it, like the stupid GIRL that you always were.’

Now he was bragging, really starting to enjoy himself and his final victory. Miss Morality slumped to the floor of her prison cell, unwilling to look into the face of evil, the face that was her father.

‘Get up LOVE,’ and he spoke that last word with particular spiteful relish, enjoying the connotation of sexist degradation that the word carries.

‘I have another surprise for you SWEETHEART. Stand-up, take it like a GIRL. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

And as his callous laugh taunted the very air around him a familiar voice spoke up from somewhere very near.

‘Sister, sister, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, sister indeed.’ 

‘Brother? Is that you?’ 

Miss Morality had bravely found her voice, and as she stumbled to her feet, there waiting, at her tiny prison-cell window was the leering face of her brother Ruthus.

‘The tunnels of intolerance run deep Sis. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yes, I am one of them now. Daddy has cured me of my evil homosexuality. I am a real man now, and the Politically incorrect scoundrels have welcomed me with open arms. I even have a girlfriend. Her name is Claire. She is reaaaalllly pretty, ha ha ha ha. She is a secretary, ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

Miss Morality was on the verge of passing out. Her father always was an evil bastard, but he was a dead evil bastard, or so she had believed. Now, not only had he had returned from the dead, but he had brainwashed her poor innocent, homosexual brother Rufus as well. This was simply too much for her to take.

Rufus was no longer the confused, bumbling, effeminate sweetheart of a man that she had known and loved. He had been brainwashed, changed against his will (presumably) into something evil, something beyond human. Yes, those monsters had changed him into that worst of all creatures, the straight, white male.

The horror was almost too much for her to bear. Everything about him seemed different. He was wearing a football shirt. He smelt like cheap lager and his nails looked absolutely awful as he gripped her prison bars before delivering this final taunt to his despairing sister.

‘Hey Sis, before I forget. Your brat kid. She is ours now. The BBC Jimmy Saville Care-home for abandoned and vulnerable young girls is doing a fine job, but we need to bring her into the fold. She will make a fine housewife for one of our members, a fine housewife indeed, ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

The evil lager enthused laughter was punctuated only by the screams of a desperately clawing at her cell bars Miss Morality.

‘Noooooo, you monsters, you monsters, nooooooooo.’

‘See you in the pub later Dad. Champions League tonight, later mate.’ 

And with these final Hellish words coming from the now obscenely manly lips of her unrecognisable, brainwashed, not gay anymore brother, he was gone.

The last words in this awful scene of patriarchal brutality came from the woman hating mouth of the uniformed Police officer standing infront of the cell that contained a now curled up, weeping, convulsing Miss Morality.

She could no longer speak. All she could do was cry, and the evil incarnate that was her father, THE DISSENTER, delivered his final words like a knife in her back.

‘I’ll have custody of your darling baby girl in the morning LOVE. My Politically Incorrect Scoundrels own the courts. We own everything. Baby Sojourner will be taught to respect her man. No more feminism for her, she will never, ever taste the sweet, sweet air of emancipation and freedom away from our manly, hairy mitts. Goodbye DARLING, and remember. You can BITCH, you can whine, you can moan and complain, but the tunnels of intolerance run deep. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. The tunnels of intolerance run deeeeeeeep.’

END (Or, is it?)

And so ends my story. The message that it contains should be very clear. The tunnels of intolerance run very deep indeed dear reader. The world is a terrible place, but together we can break down those tunnels of intolerance, those hidden, underground networks of sexism, of racism, of homophobia and err, all of the other evil stuff like that. We can stop the evils of white, male, middle class, straight, privilege. Together, we can free female warriors like Miss Morality. We can save young girls from the evils of marriage, from motherhood and a wasted life loving and caring for their patriarchal prison construct called ‘family.’ It’s going to be a tough battle, but we can do it. Join the social justice warrior movement, and together we can rid the world of the evil that is patriarchy, forever.

* If any artist would be willing to illustrate this story, then please let me know.

Miss Morality, in ‘The Tunnels of Intolerance’- Part Three

Written by: Mark. A. Pritchard
Released on: The Rorshach Rant- 13th March 2015


Screaming and crying from the back of a Police van, a dishevelled, distressed and disturbingly inebriated Miss Morality railed against the injustice, the misogyny and institutional sexism of the Police force.

‘Ya f*****g b******s, I’m gonna f*****g sue every single last one of you c**** *** **** ****, if it’s the last thing you do, you rapist m***********s.’

It was a sad sight indeed as our brave feminist warrior was carted off to the nearest cell to sober up, calm down, and sleep off the half a bottle of vodka and six beers that had reduced her to this sorry state of inebriation.

As she was taken away the watching criminal mastermind known as ‘The Dissenter,’ enthusiastically detailed the next stage of his plans.

‘Good job mate. Keep her locked up for a good ten hours and that should be enough for us to sort her out for good. Her days of social justice campaigning are over forever, ha ha ha ha ha.’

‘Ha ha ha ha ha,good one boss,' replied the pig like arresting officer as he struggled to regain his composure. ‘Ding, dong, the witch is dead, ha ha ha ha ha.’

The hateful patriarchal laughter of the two women hating villains rang sinisterly throughout the early evening traffic. They enthusiastically shook hands, winked the secret wink of patriarchy to each other, and left to complete the remainder of their evil plans. The arresting officer going back to the Police station to make sure that poor Miss Morality spent the night in the cells, and the Dissenter off to cause more mischief and put the next stage of his evil plan into operation.

When social services arrived at the now deserted home of Miss Morality they were alarmed (but not surprised) to hear the distressed cries of a hungry baby girl. Her mother was in jail, but where was her uncle?

Where was the blameless and pure Rufus? Surely he wouldn’t abandon his sister's baby at this most inopportune time? No, of course not, but that’s exactly what it looked like to the social workers. This was not good news for our brave social justice warrior at all.

After a quick call to the police, and a battering ram to the door, baby Sojourner was whisked away, and sent straight into the loving arms of the expert child-care specialists working for the BBC Jimmy Saville care-home for abandoned and vulnerable young girls.

‘Stage two of the operation is complete boss,’ said a hateful manly figure in black as baby Sojourner was delivered to the home. ‘We know what to do from this point on, same routine right?’

‘Oh yes, my conspiratorial colleague,’ replied the Dissenter.

‘Same routine as before, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

It was 11am the next morning when a sick as a female parrot Miss Morality woke in her Police cell. Suffering from a stinging headache and no memory of the night-before she banged angrily upon the cell door demanded to know what was happening.

‘Help, help where am I? What is happening here? I demand to see a female solicitor. I'm being held against my will. My female rights are being violated.  Help, help, help, help.’

Her cries for help were answered by a familiar whistling coming from the bottom of the corridor. The whistling got slowly louder, and louder as it’s source walked calmly, slowly, sinisterly towards the trapped feminist social justice warrior.

A trembling, terrified and deeply distressed Miss Morality recognised the whistling immediately. She knew it well. It was a whistle she had learned to fear as a small, innocent frightened and abused little girl.

‘Hello love,’ said a smiling, hairy, ugly brute of a man as he glared menacingly at Miss Morality through the tiny little window of her prison cell.

‘What do you think of my uniform? I look rather masculine in blue, don’t you think?’

‘Oh my mother goddess,’ replied an almost fainting Miss Morality.

‘No, no, no no, no. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.’

 ‘Daddy, it’s you.’


END OF PART THREE



Miss Morality will return next week (Friday 20th March) in ‘The Tunnels of Intolerance’- Part 4. Is all hope gone for our brave social justice warrior? Where is Rufus? Is baby Sojourner going to be safe in the BBC Jimmy Saville care home? How is Miss Morality going to escape the masculine oppression of her own father? All will be revealed next week. DON’T MISS IT.


* If any artist would like to illustrate this story, then please let me know.

Of triumphant isolation- A short story

Original story by: Mark .A. Pritchard
Composed and published: 26th February 2015


He sits upon the floor, a cushion, a blanket, fidgets around trying to make himself comfortable whilst the candle flickers, casting a shadow of interest upon his dull, now magical bedroom wall.

There is no plan, there never is a plan, for plans go wrong, and what’s the point in planning something that will only go wrong?

A book, a pad, writing down the important sentences that he quotes over and over again in his head.

‘You don’t like me, but I don’t like you either.’ 

Yes, that was a good one. She really managed to say something there.

Caught the essence, like a wasp in a jam jar.

Library just a hop, scrape and crawl down the road, past the shop, past the pub, past the old theatre.

Row after row of Heaven in dust.

It could be Hell.

Though the taste is of purgatory’s never ending circle.

Feminism, Marxism, Post-modernism.

Read, repeat, pass.

Read, repeat, pass.

Pat on the head for jumping through hoops.

The lonely, creaky old books hover over regimented lanes of blank faced students, headphones on, ignoring those around them, talking to a bucktoothed girl in Luxembourg, or however that old Smith’s song lyric went.

Typing, how do you do that frowny face again?

Back to the shadows that flicker.

Now that quiet, incessant rumble of traffic, crack, a snowball through the window, plops softly on the bed, rock laden, heavy to break, to cause damage as they run away laughing into the night.

Colder now, traffic louder, candle almost out, dawn breaking, business outside, sleep overcoming.

He waits for office hours, calls for repair, hangs up, settles down, book read, candle out, don’t forget a library visit at teatime, a book, a book, a book.



The snowy library picture used at the head of this poem/story/thing can be found here: http://moonlightrose44.deviantart.com/art/Winter-Library-193895942


*Quote is from a Jean Rhys book. Which one? I forget.