The Spirit of Sulphur
A Louise Blackwick short-story
A secret door inside a mountain reveals an ancient secret. Inside, a man who has violated the most sacred law of nature. A cosmic horror mystery story of life, death and immortality, spun through the prism of alchemy.
‘Here’s your coffee, ma’am. Black, two sugars, no milk, as requested,’ said the woman in the yellow blazer. ‘Make yourself comfortable, if you please. We’ll shortly begin our psychiatric evaluation—’
But before she could even finish her request, the woman’s head fell clean off her shoulders.
I shrunk back into the sofa in shock, my eyes swivelling in every direction. The woman’s blood pooled at my feet and quickly reached my socks. I found the sudden dampness unnerving, so I brought my knees up on the pillow and close to my chest.
Oh, how I hated the sight of blood! One of the few reasons I hadn’t yet opted out of this bothersome life.
The psychiatrist’s office was an impenetrable gloom. I didn’t want to look at her. I wasn’t terribly fond of disembodied heads as it were, even when they belonged to women who 5051’ed me on three separate occasions. I merely figured I had experienced enough trauma to not need a total decapitation burnt into my long-term memory. And yet a curious sense of macabre overwhelmed me, and my eyes began searching for the bodiless head of my shrink.
It wasn’t there! In effect, it was nowhere.
I peered down, at my blood-soaked socks and found them dry and unbesmirched. Come to think of it, all traces of the woman’s body had gone!
Still, there were oblong shapes pressing against the black canvas, and the darkness of the room teemed with unexplained sounds. I soon became aware that not all the shadows were still. My mind moved curiously across the blurry office, taking count of everything that stirred. Two, three, four – four shapes! Three short ones and a rather tall, burly figure.
‘W-who’s there?’ I asked the darkness.
......
The full short-story can be read for free on Louise Blackwick's Patreon page.
