An Exercise in Micro-Fiction: KRIEGHUND

I’ve got lots of prose fiction I’ve written over the years that’s just lying around in digitized piles. I thought I might try something new and start posting some of it here and on our sister site, VAMPIRES.COM, from time to time, to see if you all might enjoy it. The following story is one I concocted a few years back for a micro-fiction contest. I didn’t win, and the piece that DID win, I thought, sucked. Ah, well. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I have no taste. Then again, maybe the story they ended up choosing really did suck. Whatever the case, they weren’t paying beans for it, anyway, and I can reproduce the story for you here, so it all worked out. I trust you’ll tell me if the story blows–but I suspect you’ll like it. Here goes:

KRIEGHUND

Otto did not fear death half so much as he feared the Hund.

He, like all soldiers in those days of the Great War, had seen enough death to become inured to it. He laid there in the darkness, in the mud, rain spattering his face. He didn’t know how many bullets he’d caught. Enough.

(God, let me die before it finds me!)

The beast prowled the barren fields between the trenches, feeding on dead and living alike, summoned from Hell by thundering artillery, the screams of dying men, the stench of fly-blown corpses. Otto had seen it—big as a horse, blacker than the inside of a coffin, jaws drooling bloody froth, belching smoke from mouth and nostrils with each breath. The Hound of Hell, they called it. Helhund. He’d heard the screams of the men, wounded but alive, when it found them. Heard their screams, then the crunching of their bones.

(Please, God, let me die!)

Smoke hung like fog over the field, the rain unable to disperse it. Through the fog, Otto saw two lamps approaching, burning, growing larger, brighter, hot and red. Getting closer.

No. Not lamps.

The eyes of the Hund.

(No! Please!)

It trotted towards him, enormous paws splashing in the mud. The growl that rumbled up from its chest mimicked the angry thunder.

Otto feared the Hund more than death. For the Hund, like War, devoured not only men’s flesh, but their souls.

The Hund would eat well tonight.

By The Evil Cheezman

WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 MORTUI VELOCES SUNT!

2 comments

  1. Hi, Sir.
    This is Tomas. We’ve communicated before. I would have given you a prize for KRIEGHUND. It grabbed me. I mentioned earlier that I also write but I don’t let too many people read any of it. Here is a piece of microfiction I would like to share. I wrote it about a year ago. I kept it very short because I wanted it to seem like it needed to happen quickly. Pleases feel free to comment. Here it is:

    RUFUS

    “Quick, Rufus! I can’t talk loudly or Dad will hear me. We have to work fast.”

    Wiping tears from his eyes with one hand and blood from his mouth with the other, Jimmy hurried over to the big manikin he kept in the center of his bedroom.

    “Dad called me a big baby and hit me in the mouth because I started crying. He wants me to destroy you. He’s sending me away. He says only crazy losers talk to manikins. He doesn’t believe me when I tell him that you’re alive. Everyone laughs when I say you can move and talk and that you’re my friend. You’re my only friend, Rufus. But I have to work fast. Dad is getting a sledge hammer and chain saw. He wants me to bring you out into the living room and destroy you and then he’s taking me somewhere. I can’t go there. It’s a place where everyone calls you a crazy loser and I won’t have any friends. And I can’t destroy you. I would rather die, Rufus. Where’s my pen knife. Here in my drawer. Rufus, you don’t think I’m a crazy loser, do you? If I kill myself they will say that that’s what crazy losers do. But there’s no other way out of this.”

    Jimmy’s dad came up from the basement with a sledge hammer and a chain saw.

    “Get out here, Jimmy! Get that thing out here and get started. I’ve got everything you need. Make it fast.”

    Dad waited. He looked over at Jimmy’s bedroom door. “I’m waiting, kid. Let’s go.”

    The door slowly opened.

    The big ugly manikin stepped out of the room carrying Jimmy in his arms. Blood poured from the boy’s wrists and throat.

    Dad gasped and took a step backward. Rufus came toward him with slow, robotic steps. Dad stepped back until he was against a wall but the manikin continued to approach. He stopped in front of the trembling father and then gently laid the dead boy at the man’s feet.

    Dad screamed with all the breath he had in his lungs. The manikin raised his hand and slapped the man hard across the mouth. Dad clasped both hands over his bleeding mouth. Rufus spoke with a very calm but authoritative voice. “Stop screaming… Big baby…”

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