There are two wizards, brothers. One lives on the top of a mountain, the other on the top floor of a skyscraper, a tower. They don't speak, there is resentment there. Until one day the wizard in the tower commissions his brother to create a relic, a skull he needs for a ritual he plans to perform. The wizard on the mountain agrees.
The skull is delivered to the cabin on the mountain by men in suits and sunglasses. The wizard takes it and tells them to return in three days. Over those days, the wizard works, carving hymns into the inside of the skull, chiseling runes into the bone and painting it with black ink. It is a beautiful thing, when it is finished, a lovely piece of art and a job well done.
The men return, pleased by the look of the thing, even though they do not know what the sigils mean, or in what languages the songs are written. There is a foul air of unearned arrogance about them. They pass along a briefcase full of money. Significantly less than what was agreed upon.
"You'll take it and like it, old man." One of the men says, foolish.
The wizard on the mountain takes the money and stays silent. Only passing a thumb over the brow of the skull, smudging it with gold paint. He says one word to it, before passing it over to the men who place it in a velvet lined box and bring it out to the car. The Wizard grins as he watches them go, teeth sharp.
The car makes it halfway down the mountain before the box begins to shake. Within it, the skull has already begun to reform its tissue, muscle and fat.
"What the fuck is going on back there?" the driver calls.
The box explodes.
Bone stretches and cracks, growing into spine and arm and shoulder held by bleeding wet muscle and flesh. There is screaming from the men in the back as blood and fat explodes from the growing body onto their clothes.
"What the fuck-!?"
"Stop the car!"
A panicked arm shoots out for the steering wheel from behind and in a craze, the driver swerves, slamming into a tree on the side of the road. The horn drones into the night, joined, at first by two screams and soon three.
The skull had grown its lungs and vocal chords.
The two surviving men in suits (the driver died on impact) clamber out of the car, white shirts soaked with blood and fluids. They scream and cry out for help until they see lights coming down the road. They wave their arms, shouting their horror and "pull over, please! Pull over!"
The car pulls off the road, an old blue pickup truck. The door opens and a figure steps out. The faces of the men fall.
"please."
BANG
One gunshot
BANG
and another
Now only one voice screams in the darkness and the Wizard on the Mountain picks his way through the bodies and debris of the crashed car towards the sound. He crouches low and pulls the once corpse-then skull-now body out from beneath the wreckage.
He drops the body into the bed of the truck before climbing into the cab. The soft start and sudden jolt makes the corpse's breath hitch and as the truck trundles back up the road to the top of the mountain, it's screams turn to quiet gasps and whimpers. The rain starts about then and its painful on the corpse's new skin. It can hear the sound of a radio from inside the truck. It can also feel the heaviness of a heart that had not been there a half hour ago, and something itches inside its head.
The car stops once they reach the cabin. When the Wizard comes around and lays a hand on it's ankle, the corpse tenses, and rightly so as it is pulled off the bed and onto the wet ground. The wizard drags it through the mud towards a small shed beside the house.
"The axe'll be easiest. You won't feel a thing."
The corpse kicks out, immediately understanding the words the Wizard says to it. Alas, it is weak and newly born, there is nothing it can do as it is brought before a large stump. It's leg is dropped as the Wizard goes to collect the axe and the corpse wastes no time in beginning it's escape, not that it gets very far.
"Ah," a sharp sound from behind, "where do you think you're goin'?"
A large arm hauls the corpse up, not gentle but not needlessly violent. Like pulling the leash on a big dog.
"Come on, don't make this difficult."
"No," the corpse croaked, squirming in the Wizard's grasp, "no."
"You got to see the stars, feel the rain, breathe," the shed was getting nearer again and the corpse felt its horrible, horrible heart slam against its chest, "What more could a dead man want?"
More. Everything. Anything more. Adrenaline coursed through new veins and it felt, to the corpse, like its body was on fire. It clawed at the skin that held it, not knowing the strength it had. Its teeth sunk into muscle and the Wizard, for all his great size, shouted out, dropping the corpse like a hot loaf tin.
The corpse moved, pushing itself up onto unsteady legs and running towards the light of the house. The Wizard's grin had turned to a snarl now as blood trickled down his arm and neck. Fingers curled around the axe handle and he pulled the blade from the block of wood before following the skull to the house.
"Fucking bodies. More trouble than they're worth."
This is an introduction to a story I'm currently working on called Freakdom. The aesthetic is based heavily on death metal and heavy metal music and art, movies like Mandy, Hellraiser, The Void, etc, and so far it's pretty cool! The resurrected skull is named Lazarus (appropriately) but I haven't gotten names for the Wizards yet. I'm having fun though!
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