Night Terrors Vol. 12: Short Horror Stories Anthology

FOR MY NEXT TRICK...

BY BRYAN CLARK

“For the first act, I require a volunteer. Who among you will aid me in parting the veil of night?”

A woman near the stage stood and lifted her hand. Lavant beckoned her and she walked to the stage, face blank, steps slow and measured, as if in a trance.

The stage before Lavant opened and what looked like a sacrificial altar rose up in a swirling of smoke, flickering with light from the burning obelisk. The sides of the altar bore still more of the hideous carvings that covered the other items on the stage. These were of a more narrative nature, showing not just ghastly creatures but human worshipers performing rites of obeisance to them.

Lavant gestured to the altar and the woman lay down on it. A gasp went up from the audience as he lifted an enormous ceremonial dagger with a twisted, curling blade and multifaceted jewels that caught the stage lights and glittered like baleful insect-like eyes.

The atmosphere in the theater was becoming thick with tension. James sensed the gasps of shock, which were at first playfully engaging with the dramatic act, quickly turning into genuine fear. Like a herd of prey animals realizing all at once that they were being stalked by a predator, the audience was picking up on the sense of real danger rolling out from Lavant. Any remaining doubt was soon removed.

Lavant plunged the dagger into the woman’s abdomen. Her somnambulist reverie was broken by the searing pain, and she screamed as the old man wrenched the knife upward until it lodged against her ribs with a horrible scrape which was audible even above the rising noise from the crowd and the helpless victim’s cries from the stage.

James could feel Clare’s nails digging into his arm as she startled at the unexpected violence. Many in the audience leaped from their seats, but only a few committed to their flight from the gruesome scene. The rest remained standing, or crouched over their seats in indecision, torn between the instinct to flee danger and their morbid desire to see what might happen next.

The gurgling croak from the woman on the altar as her entrails slithered to the floor removed any remaining doubt that Lavant was not performing a mere trick. As one, the audience broke for the doors while the woman’s corpse burst into an eerie purple flame and the mad Grand Guignol was broadcast into hundreds of thousands of homes across the country by the live feed television cameras.

Dozens of people were knocked to the floor and trampled as the crush of panicked theatergoers crashed against the doors of the auditorium. A fresh wave of fear coursed through the crowd with the realization that the doors were locked. A second group of people broke off from the main body and headed to the emergency exit on the far right side of the auditorium, meeting no more success than those seeking escape through the entrance.

James put an arm around Clare to keep from losing her in the mob, using his other arm to block careening bodies from sending them under the stampede. If that happened, he knew, they were done for. He had to get Clare and himself somewhere safe. His first instinct was to follow the flow of people and try to reach the doors, but they were clearly sealed and he had no desire to place Clare or himself in a position to be flattened. At the same time, he wanted to be as far away as possible from the stage and whatever Lavant was doing up there.

They managed to get out of the seating area and find a place along the back wall, a safe distance from the throng of people crashing against the unmoving doors.

The old magician had begun to chant a spell or invocation of some kind, his stern, hard-edged voice ringing through the cries of panic from the audience and so clear in James’ ears it was as though Lavant were standing next to him. He was calling out words and names that, though unfamiliar to James, filled him with dread.

“Ia! Ia! Ghanta zet’ton!

“Inagra, Sho-Yuggoth gesura!

“Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!”

The building trembled as if caught in an earthquake. An unlikely scenario in the heart of the Midwest. The emergency doors, which led to the street, crumpled inward, ripping free from their hinges and scything through the people pressed against them.