FicWad

Jeffery walked down the changing hallways as his taint took hold of them like a ravenous cancer. The darkness covered the once white walls with the black tar from Jeffery’s soul. He could hear panicked scream from the floors above as students and teachers alike were engulfed by his hate. He walked past swellings on the ground which he knew to be the remains of his former schoolmates awaiting to be reborn. As Jeffery approached where the lockers used to be, he heard the sound of a girl whimpering. He looked around but didn’t see anyone alive.

“Whose there?” Jeffery asked calmly. The reply was instant.

“Oh thank god! I’m over here. Help me,” a girl cried. Her voice seemed to come from the wall. Jeffery approached the sound of the voice slowly. “I hid in here when that stuff came through the halls, but now I’m trapped!” The girl banged helplessly at the locker door, now sealed behind the black stone. Jeffery stepped closer and saw slits in the wall where the girl was sealed away. She was terrified. He wasn’t sure what to do with her, but before he could decide, the girl backed away, and as she did so, Jeffery recognized her face.

“You’re Sarah Stevens, aren’t you.” Jeffery said slowly.

“Y-yeah, so?” the girl asked, caught off guard by the question.

“You had me beaten by your boyfriend and half the football team when I refused to do a homework assignment for you. I was in the hospital for a week with two cracked ribs because of you.”

“What?” the girl asked, confused. She looked like she was on the verge of tears as she tried to think of a way out of the situation but in the end could only say, “Look I’m sorry ok.”

Jeffery remembered how she had sneered down at him while he had been on lying on the ground, bloodied and helpless. He looked at her now and saw fear in her eyes, now that she was at his mercy. “Too late,” he said, and he turned and walked away, leaving her entombed. She screamed in despair, and her cries forced a smile to curl Jeffery’s lips.

One of the mounds on the ground broke open as Jeffery approached. Dark red liquid poured onto the ground as a demon spilled out. It was a thin, sickly looking little thing. Its pale skin sloughed off, revealing a black carapace underneath. It looked at Jeffery and cowered before him, prostrating itself on the ground and backing away. The creature quickly crawled of as Jeffery walked past. He only briefly wondered who it had once been, but decided that he didn’t really care. There was no one in this school that he would ever waste pity on.

Jeffery should have been terrified of the nightmarish horror surrounding him, but he felt disconnected as if he were walking through a dream. He made his way to the top floor where he found a room not yet consumed by the darkness. He pulled a chair over to the window and sat down as he watched the changing landscape outside.

The darkness coiled up the trunks of trees like massive snakes, causing the leaves to wither and die. The sky was full of birds that had taken flight to escape the encroaching danger, and dogs chained up in yards or locked in houses barked furiously until they were silenced. Cars, houses, people, all were swallowed up by Jeffery’s manifested misery. Sirens could be heard in the distance rapidly approaching. It wasn’t long before Jeffery could see the flashing lights of squad cars stopping short of the leading edge of the ever advancing blackness. It was clear the police didn’t know what to do about the changing terrain, but when the demons rushed towards them, the police opened fire.

Jeffery watched as the demons ran fearlessly into a barrage of gunfire which hardly seemed to slow them down. Only two of the creatures were felled by the attack while the rest descended upon the officers and tore them to shreds. Jeffery felt an odd sense of pride as he watched the deformed monsters fight. It was like watching a pet perform a trick to please its master.

At that moment, Jeffery noticed that the darkness had entered the room he was in and was slowly creeping up the legs of the chair he sat on. The thick black liquid began to engulf Jeffery’s shoes, and he said, “No.” but his voice was not fearful or panicked. It was a command, and the darkness obeyed it. It hesitated for a moment before slowly withdrawing like a dog that had just been scolded. It still devoured the chair on which Jeffery sat, but it did not try to envelope him again. He smiled t himself, reassured that he was in control. Jeffery suddenly felt very tired, as if the energy had been drained out of him. The darkness also seemed to slow its progress, but it did not stop. Jeffery leaned back in the chair that was how a black, charred version of what he had originally sat in, and he closed his eyes which had become very heavy. Jeffery drifted off to sleep, comforted by the distant screams of his former tormentors.


When Jeffery opened his eyes again, a very different landscape greeted him beyond the window. It was now dark outside, but Jeffery could still see that his taint had spread out several miles. Buildings in the distance were now black twisted spires with jagged towers stabbing the skies highlighted by fires beyond them.

Jeffery heard a noise behind him and turned to find, much to his surprise, a human standing in the doorway. It took him a moment to recognize the disheveled man as Mr. Huxley, a gym teacher. His clothes were torn, and he had several bleeding cuts on his body, one particularly nasty gash was on the top of his bald head. There was also a green liquid splattered on his shirt. He held a piece of flat metal that seemed to have been hammered into an improvised blade which was dripping with more green liquid that Jeffery guessed to be the blood of his monsters.

“You’re the cause of this you little monster!” Huxley said as he stepped closer. He was clearly exhausted, but a madness in his eyes seemed to drive him on. “I saw what you did outside. I watched this black shit pour out of you. If I kill you, this will end!”

“That’s not entirely true,” Jeffery said as he got out of his chair and faced off against the older man. “You caused this yourself. Remember all those days in your class that you looked the other way while I was pushed around and beaten. Remember how you laughed at me and dismissed my complaints, telling me to suck it up and be a man. You all deserve this, and worse.”

Huxley stepped forward menacingly, raising the makeshift machete for a strike. He clearly did not care for Jeffery’s argument. Jeffery prepared to defend himself, and wondered if this was what his future held. Was he doomed to be hunted down by the entire world now? The thought made him angry. The world would condemn him for something that it was guilty of. He hated them all, and trembled with the thoughts of what horrible things he wanted to do to them all. The moment Huxley made a move to attack, something burst through the floor behind the older man and caught his head in its jaws, pulling him to the ground.


It took Jeffery a moment to recognize the beast as the large white wolf he had seen outside. It stepped down on Huxley’s right arm which held the machete, pinning it with one of its massive paws. Huxley screamed and struggled, but the wolf held him fast. The beast glanced up to Jeffery as if waiting for his order. Jeffery looked down at Mr. Huxley and felt nothing. No pity or mercy stirred his heart. He felt nothing but cold resentment for those that would condemn him. Why should he care for someone who had never lifted a finger to help him the countless times he had been abused under this man’s watchful eye? Jeffery slowly turned his back, and listened to the sickening crunch as the wolf’s jaws crushed Huxley’s skull.

A moment later Jeffery felt fur against his right hand and looked to see the wolf lying beside him with its head resting on its front paws. Jeffery reached out and stroked its ears. The beast tilted its head towards him, enjoying the attention just as a loyal dog would. The wolf opened its mouth and began to pant, and a piece of bone dropped to the ground. Jeffery looked at the wolf and said, “I think I’ll call you Marrow.”

He heard a wet sloppy noise behind him, and turned to see one of the demons chewing on Huxley’s corpse. It was an ugly, deformed creature. Ghoulish and grotesque. It looked up at Jeffery with its misshapen head. Its left eye was much larger than the other and twisted up and away from the hole where its nose had once been. Jeffery imagined it would look more pleasing if this deformity was corrected. He blinked in surprise when the creatures skull reshaped itself as if in response to his wish.

Jeffery walked over to the monster which bowed down before him out of fear or respect. Feeling inspired, Jeffery said, “Wings,” while picturing them in his mind. Sure enough, a pair of large, leathery black wings sprouted from the beast’s back. It gave a shriek of pain, but made no move to flee or attack. Jeffery smiled, his eyes alive with excitement. He looked at the creatures thin tail laying lifeless on the ground. Jeffery waved his hand over the appendage while envisioning it as a thick and powerful muscle, and it obliged him. Jeffery then added rose-like thorns along the tail’s length, pointing backwards with the outside edges as sharp as a razor. He also gave the rapidly evolving beast spikes protruding back out of its elbows and up from its knees. When Jeffery was finished, the once sickly, ghoulish creature now stood as a truly formidable monster.

Jeffery’s mind swam with the creative possibilities as he returned to his chair. The demon returned to eating its carrion, and Marrow, curled up beside Jeffery’s seat with her bed-sized head pointed toward the door. Her reached down and stroked her bristly fur absentmindedly while he formed plans. If all of these creatures obeyed him as much as these two seemed to, and he could shape them to his will, he could mold the world itself as he saw fit. Curious as to just how much control he could exert, Jeffery focused on the chair he was sitting in. It looked like a half burned, half melted piece of refuse. After a moment’s concentration, it twisted and morphed under Jeffery into a smooth, black-stoned throne fit for a king.

Jeffery’s fingers stroked the arm’s surface, and he smiled to himself and said, “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”