E.A. Black
My name is E. A. Black, and I’m delighted to be here for Women In Horror Month. I have been writing short horror stories for several years. My horror has been appeared in Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales Of Body Enhancements Gone Bad, Teeming Terrors, Mirages: Tales From Authors Of The Macabre, Midnight Movie Creature Feature 2, and Wicked Tales: The Journal For The New England Horror Writers: Vol. 3. I shall soon work on a novel. In addition to writing horror, I write erotic fiction with the pseudonym Elizabeth Black.
You can find E.A. Black and her work in the following places:
Blog and Web Site: http://eablack-writer.blogspot.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethABlack
Amazon Author Page: http://amazon.com/author/eablack
Featured Works:
INFECTION – TEEMING TERRORS
My story, Infection, which appears in Teeming Terrors, was inspired by my husband’s stay in the hospital due to an infection he had in his leg. The doctors are still not sure what caused it. Several nurses suspected a brown recluse bite. If you know anything about the brown recluse, those things are nasty. The wound was ugly, deep and full of puss. I joked with him that if he lanced it, spiders would come crawling out. I’d seen far too many horror movies. He had to return to the hospital at least once per week to get the thing scraped out and cleaned, which hurt like a son of a bitch. I got to see this the first time the doc dug into his leg. The doc shoved his metal scraper at least an inch into the wound. Gross. The pain was intense – so intense it brought tears of agony to my husband’s eyes. The doc feared MRSA and told my husband to keep it elevated and to stay off it, otherwise there was a good chance he could lose that leg. It took over a month, but the thing finally healed. He has an angry scar.
Here’s an excerpt from Infection:
The wound nurse prepared the injection and handed the syringe over to the doctor, who injected close to the wound’s opening. A high-pitched but faint buzzing droned around Mrs. Jones, as if it came directly from the wound but much like a cricket’s chirping it was hard to tell exactly where it came from. It sounded similar to air being let out of a balloon. The noise was shrill and angry, but so faint she thought she imagined it. Maybe it was an I.V. alarm going off down the hall. The nurses let those things beep forever, but somehow, Mrs. Jones doubted that was the case. That noise came from her husband’s wound, and it scared her.
“Did you hear that?” Mrs. Jones whispered.
The doctor looked up. “I’m not sure what that was. Let’s get the wound opened and cleaned out. Scalpel.” He said.
The nurse opened a small package to reveal a sterile scalpel, which she handed to the doctor. Mrs. Jones held her breath as the doctor’s steady hand approached the wound, which by now had turned a deep shade of rose with black edges and yellow pustules erupting on the surface. Mr. Jones gripped his t-shirt in his fists so hard his knuckles had blanched. Terror etched across his face. What the hell was wrong with his leg? Was it a brown recluse bite after all?
The doctor leaned over his leg and cut down the center of the boil. Blood gushed out, running down his leg and staining the bed linens. Creamy yellow pus filled the wound. As the doctor picked up the instrument to scrape out the infection, that shrill keening sounded again, coming directly from the opening he had cut.
Mrs. Jones backed away, closer to the bathroom.
The doctor inserted the instrument into the wound, and Mrs. Jones was shocked to see it disappear nearly an inch into his calf. When he scraped along the inside, Mr. Jones cried out in agony, but Mrs. Jones barely heard him. Hundreds if not thousands of tiny mites flew from the wound’s opening, covering the doctor’s white jacket so thickly it appeared to be crawling. They flew onto the nurse, who swatted at them, screaming and howling with surprise and terror. Mr. Jones screamed and crept up the bed towards the wall, but the mites surrounded him, flying in his face and against his arms and legs until they held fast.
Then they began to bite.
FOG OVER MONS – WICKED TALES: THE JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND HORROR WRITERS, VOL. 3
My story Fog Over Mons appears in Wicked Tales: The Journal Of The New England Horror Writers, Vol. 3. I’ve long been fascinated by World War 1 from the Christmas Armistice to the story of the Angels of Mons. Fog Over Mons is inspired by the Angels of Mons story, a touch of Lovecraft, and All Quiet On The Western Front. My husband is a history buff, and he helped me with the minute historic details such as the horrors of war at that time and uniforms such as German pickelhaub helmets. The result is my realistic tale of the Great War and cosmic horror.
Here is an excerpt from Fog Over Mons:
I looked skyward. The same sickly maroon permeated the mist. The sun hung inflamed in the sky; the moon hid behind blood red cloud curtains. Warm rain fell, smearing grease and oil on my skin, and soaking my uniform through until it felt as if it weighed twenty pounds. Each movement became more difficult than the last. The noxious scent that overpowered the stink of cordite, shit, and corpses littering our position smelled much worse by now. Hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
We lined up, guns at the ready, prepared to rush over the trench. Most of the men muttered under their breath. Their voices raised in prayer, some in song. All in unison, their voices carried to the heavens.
“Harow! Harow! St. Maurice, succour us.”
“Heaven’s Knight, aid us!”
“St. Maurice for Merry England!”
A deafening howl filled the air around us as if a host of monstrous beasts had been disturbed from their slumber and shrieked in outrage. The sound of drums beat from far above. Strains of a blasphemous flute sung from angry clouds. I looked over the top of the trench. Lights unlike anything I had ever seen before flashed in the sky. They weren’t flashes caused by flares, gunfire, or shells. They seemed to come from the heavens.
The sounds of war were replaced by the guttural screams of German soldiers appearing as a phantasm out of the mist, right in front of our trench. Grotesque shapes appeared further inside the mist amid the lights; dark grey wings beating against the misted sky.
Had the Germans decided to attack us as we were about to attack them? No, they looked disheveled, unprepared; one man still had shaving soap on his face. Had Saint Maurice delivered us from evil after all?
Before I had time to ponder the possibility, they poured into the trench. A dozen men acting as one. I recognized the uniforms. Backpacks. Grey jackets. Pickelhaube helmets.
Germans.
Without thinking twice, I lifted my rifle, bayonet aimed and ready to stab any Alleyman who came too close to me. All the men in the company lifted rifles and pistols, prepared for the inevitable attack.
The Germans waved their arms about them, shouting words I could not understand except for an endless chorus of “bitte”s and “Hilfe”s. I cornered one against the dripping wall, my bayonet aimed at his throat. He only stared at me, mad and wild-eyed, begging me in foreign words I understood perfectly well to not kill him. He couldn’t have been more than 14. How the hell did he end up all the way out here? Didn’t anyone notice how young he was?
“Stand down! All of you!” Lt. Ayelotte yelled. “Rigsby, you understand what these Huns are saying?”
“A bit, sir.” Rigsby searched the frightened faces until he found their leader. He and the German conversed in staccato tones, and then he turned to the rest of us.
“Sir, they aren’t here to attack us. They’re fleeing the battlefield. Something about shining lights and something in the fog.”
We looked at each other, having seen the same thing, wondering what Saint Maurice had unleashed upon us.
“Deserters?” Lt. Ayelotte asked.
Rigsby shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
The German in charge spoke again, his voice shrill with terror. He repeatedly looked over his shoulder, beyond the trench, into the heavens. He pointed overhead. Amid his shrieking I heard the word “engel”.
Angel.
A crash resounded over the battlefield. At first, I thought it cannon fire, but it was far too loud and too high overhead. I looked skyward and saw more lights shining through the fog.
“What in Heaven’s name is that?” I asked the young soldier at the end of my bayonet. He only shook his head, not understanding what I said. I nodded towards the sky and he repeated what his leader had said.
“We… we are not here to harm you.” The German leader’s English could have used some improvement, but his message was clear. “We hide. Run.” He pointed towards the mist. “Out there. Bad. No go back.”
Another crash, louder than the last. Howls of outrage from the heavens. Gunfire ceased immediately. A few shells exploded but all was silent in moments. Even the injured ceased crying out in pain. The battlefield went more silent than the tomb it already was.
Through the fog I saw tentacles far overhead. I squinted my eyes tightly shut and opened them again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things in the mist. My sanity strained as my eyes tried to decipher what stalked in front of me. A glimpse of large, luminous bodies broke my mind. Gigantic reptilian wings flapped so hard I felt the air whip against my face. These were unlike any angels I had ever heard of. They flew in the maroon mist, driving back Germans and English alike. Startled, I lowered my bayonet. The German boy in front of me did not run. He sank to the ground and curled into a ball, unwilling to glimpse the evil that filled the heavens.
It was then I understood what the German leader had actually been saying. It was not “engel”. It was “Engel des Todes”.
Angel of Death.
Spreading the Writer's Word 