Welcome back to Dandy Darkly's Memoir Macabre! When last we left off, our conflicted protagonist prepared to combat the horrors of the dreaded Soul Eater...
Dandy Darkly returned that Sunday night to retrieve the essence of the young man who'd been discovered decomposing in McCarren Pool's utility shed. He stood before the massive carapace of the rotting building. Powerful emotions: hate, anger and even more hate poured from behind the cracked windows. Dozens of horrid faces floated in the darkness. They smacked their lips in hungry anticipation of the Dandy's grand entrance.
He sashayed toward the door - not quite runway but very, very close - and with a forgotten word from a forgotten time, blew the chained doors off its hinges.
He stepped into the darkness, "I'm here for the boy."
Lord, aren't I always? Hey everyone! It's me in the first person. I'm trying something new tonight because my witch doctor (of course I have a witch doctor) is treating a recent scrape I had with some pretty rockin' painkillers! Wooooooo! I know that speaking of one's self in the third person is a little un-hip right now. Thank you, Suede. But I'm tossing caution to the wind in favor of dramatic license. Enjoy!
Leering faces surged forward from within a wall of inky darkness. A sea of cruel mouths with jagged teeth swarmed towards Darkly. They snapped at him from every direction.
"Phyrex."
An opalescent bubble encapsulated the exorcist. The fearful faces of the Soul Eater reeled from the light, some screaming with seared lips and blistered noses. Others recoiled as though they hit a wall, now missing entire rows of teeth. Their drops of black blood turned to smoke.
Dandy Darkly stood with his eyes closed and quietly chanted to himself.
The white light became a faint yellow glow. The inky wall of hissing faces floated just beyond the amber aura. Judging by the the Soul Eater's size, it'd been eating Williamsburg's bleakest for decades. The many faces pushed forward to attack, to beg for release, to weep, to feed, to share their personal horror stories.
A gaunt woman's grim face appeared from the darkness. It strained as though escaping from tar. She had pretty, deep set eyes. A heroin addict. Her daughter died in childbirth. Some dude took her here on their second date. A homeless man was squatting here. A fight. She awoke hungry for souls.
A tiny ball of the yellow light pulled away from Dandy Darkly's protective circle. It pressed into the black. Darkly shuddered. The madness and misery of the entity was intoxicating, like pressing a golden fork into a slice of decadent chocolate cake.
Another face pushed from the black. An elderly man. Liver spots on his bald head. A World War Two veteran. Boom! His neighborhood became a ghetto. Boom! He cried every night in his pillow. Boom! The damn rap music. Non-stop. Non-stop! Boom! He found the pistol in the laundry. He walked to the pool which Margaret loved. Boom! He awoke hungry for souls.
Dandy Darkly's breathing quickened. A look of pain crossed his expression. A corrupted soul managed to press through the light. It bit Darkly on the hand. The golden ball darted through the blackness nonetheless.
Another snarling face. A cab driver. He sat his entire life in traffic. Streets full of cars. Tonight is the night I get held up. I know it. A car swerved into his lane. He awoke hungry for souls.
Dandy Darkly's hand bled freely. His blood dripped to the floor. Still the golden glow searched.
A murder. A young couple awoke hungry for souls. She was the head cheerleader and he was the high school quarterback who took the team to state. He called her disgusting names and demanded she perform degrading sex acts. Death cured her eating disorder as she frantically gnashed her teeth in Dandy Darkly's direction.
He continued to chant with his eyes closed. Another mouth snagged his pants leg. The tiny golden ball flickered from deep within the murky darkness, but didn't go out.
More pitiful images sought an audience. A suicidal beat cop. Two sisters so horribly burned from an apartment fire that their faces seemed to melt into one greasy wedge, like a floppy slice of pizza. A young man who'd stumbled into a shed looking for a blowjob. HIM!
"Phyrex Mundi!"
The tiny yellow flicker exploded into a brilliant burst of blinding white light. The silver image of a young hipster was sent hurling from the side of the terrible essence. The faces howled as one and turned in ravenous pursuit of the released soul.
"I OFFER AN EXCHANGE." The exorcist held a toothless skull before the black cloud which immediately halted its pursuit, but still hung near the silver form - like an ominous thunder cloud above a shimmering horizon.
What had so caught the attention of the Soul Eater? In the physical world the skull had belonged to a confessed murderer, but in the spirit world it chained a malevolent soul. The hulking figure still kicked and jerked just like it had in that Texas electric chair.
The petty soul of the mugging victim was a morsel compared to the hateful, murderous, sumptuously evil buffet which Dandy Darkly daintily dangled as barter.
"This one for him!" Forked tongues licked cracked lips. Pupils dilated as they examined the offer. The heads nodded as one. Darkly casually tossed the skull into the far corner of the room.
The Soul Eater lunged for its dinner.
The murderer's soul howled in pain as countless vicious mouths gnawed into him. Dandy Darkly briskly walked to the liberated soul. He swiped a small ring through the shimmering image. The young man's form vanished. Outside the building, the little Ghost Girl pointed and giggled as though to tattle on Darkly. He merely rolled his eyes and walked away.
The howls of the murderer echoed across McCarren Pool, but eventually became one with the satisfied burps of the engorged Soul Eater.
***
The next weekend I personally delivered the ring (his high school class ring - gag!) to the client who'd contacted me. She was a close acquaintance of the deceased. The soul wasn't exactly happy, but "he" was now able to receive a proper goodbye and ended up in a better place. The family too. And I got a nice wad of cash as payment. Oh, and my costly materials are included in the final bill.
Executed murderer skulls with soul attached are neither cheap nor easy to come by, ok?
