The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVIII - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Karl Edward Wagner (The Boy With The Bloodstained Mouth by W. H. PUGMIRE) #20

The Boy With The Bloodstained Mouth by W. H. PUGMIRE

W. H. Pugmire was born in Seattle, Washington on May 3, 1951, and he has been part of the underground scene there ever since. I mean, who else has managed a fusion of Lovecraftian themes and punk? For many years Pugmire has been popping up in the small press with his poems and short fiction, and he continues to edit a magazine of Lovecraftian fiction. Of his latest excursions, Pugmire says: "My first collection of short stories, most of it Cthulhu Mythos bullshit, will be published by England's Sarcophagus Press. Two of my stories are being illustrated for a local radical underground book, Taboo, illustrated and published by a way cool local beat artist. The cover for Taboo will be a full-frontal nude photograph of myself, surrounded by a home-made guillotine, petrified cat corpses, dead roses, and a harp."

I saw him in the smoky room, leaning against the pockmarked wall, indifferent to the noise and fumes. His thick dark glasses hid his eyes. I do not think he wore them for any reason of fashion. I think they were meant to conceal his eyes.

How I longed to gaze at those eyes. And — O! — how my soul trembled at what then might be revealed, there in the eyes of that dark-haired youth.

He raised those unseen orbs to me. I felt certain he had noticed me gazing at him. I was unable to turn my eyes away. He held me spellbound. Black flames of some nameless desire consumed my weary soul.

I went to him.

His hair was chaos, a mess of black and velvet rat tails protruding from the pale flesh of his scalp.

His mouth was stained with fresh blood.

That crimson liquid, gleaming in the misty blue light of the place, drove me mad.

My fingers caressed his brow. His flesh was like ice, as though he burned with death's fever.

He took my hand in his. Leaning toward him, I kissed his lips.

I kissed the boy with the bloodstained mouth. I felt nothing as our lips met, no rush of desire, no sensation of ecstasy.

I backed away, filled with sudden horror. His expression had not altered, but his mouth, his clean unstained mouth, mocked me horribly.

And when I licked my lips, I screamed with ageless terror.