FREE short story - The Midnight Garden

By Lana Lazar

© 2024

Danny's footsteps echoed hollowly around the deserted gallery. The flat taps of his shoes boomeranged eerily off the surrounding walls. His flashlight spun mechanically on a length of worn string that had been twisted around his finger. The walls soared to dizzying heights above and around him, chipped wood and hollowed-out breaks in the timber fashioned into an elaborate carving.

A timber gallery.

That was what they called it. A fancy name for a piece of carved wood. Or, as he liked to think of it, kindling waiting to happen. Danny had glanced briefly at it as he circled the expanse of mottled wood, blackened with age on his rounds. But he hadn't been much impressed. He could make something ten times as good with his eyes closed, of that he was smugly certain.

Danny stopped now and stood directly in front of the wall, staring critically at the timber gallery, hands buried in his coat pockets. Despite his reservations, he had never actually taken the time out to truly study the intricate, hewn art and it took him by surprise.

The sneer froze on his lips.

It was alive. Alive with the wonder of nature and night. The scene exuded an otherworldly allure. Towering on opposite ends of the carving rose a pair of trees, as gnarled and ancient as the wood they had been scored from, their twisting, contorting branches extending towards the other and tangling where they met in a gnarled embrace. Flowers - crimson red roses, budding orchids kissed with a hint of lilac, the merest whisper of green blossoming in a spark of colour - encircled the garden in an extraordinary, marauding blaze of light. A soft breeze seemed to float through the ethereal garden, wafting up below tender leaves and delicate petals, an eternal flicker through an otherwise tranquil oasis.

But was it a ruse? An uncanny subterfuge contrived by the nameless artist? How perfect was this paradise, this Elysium? An imperishable heaven on earth, a utopia of contentment as long as he remained fascinated by it. Yet, a pinprick of unease swirled unbidden around his stomach. It itched at his core and niggled at the back of his throat. Paradise, that's what this was supposed to depict. Then why did he feel so vulnerable? So . . . exposed?

A imperceptible flicker blurred at the corners of Danny's vision. He swivelled around immediately, his sharp eyes darting over the abandoned galley. Rows of paintings, carvings and oddments on display stretched out dizzyingly in all directions, but nowhere could he place the source of his unease. His gaze slid reluctantly back to the carving and a nauseated gasp choked in his throat.

Valhalla had turned into damnation on Earth.

Ruse. Deception. Trickery. The words gyrated soundlessly on his tongue as he goggled at Abaddon, mouth agape, his jaws working in silent horror. The trees no longer seemed benign, their warped branches grabbing at each other, scraping, gouging, blackened lacerations remaining where huge chunks had been viciously scored out of the blistering wood. Screaming, wailing faces contorted in anguish - licking flames - searing heat - charred flesh - a never-ending dirge of pain and torment howling in a cacophony of screeching lament.

Danny gasped, tried to look away, speechless with horror, but his feet remained stubbornly rooted to the spot, refusing to move. Soundless wails burned in his throat. Bitter tears pricked at his eyes. It was not just the trees that had mutated. Even the flowers seemed to be mocking him.

The crimson petals of the roses darkened with the red of blood. It pooled up from the centre and cascaded over the edges. It seeped into the woodwork below where it saturated the grass, choking the emerald-sage into a virulent crimson. The orchids mutilated with charcoal, blackened at the edges, the pleasant green of the grass fading into insignificance in the violence of the surroundings. Even the gentle breeze had morphed into something far more dreadful. It whipped, it shrieked, it tore through the nightmarish garden in a frenzy of destruction, hellbent. Petals shredded in its wake, the hellish blooms lamenting in a sea of blood, while barbed vines deformed and distorted, ensnaring the branches where they lay, shooting up and around the carving, freezing it in place like a demented snapshot.

Stare into the abyss, they say, and the abyss will stare back into you. Danny's gaze had drained sightlessly into its depths until the abyss claimed him. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. All he could do was gaze soundlessly at the fiendish abomination unfolding in front of him. His jaw was slack, spit drooling down the side of his mouth. Only one thing shifted in the motionless gallery. His eyes, sliding sluggishly towards the plague, set into a deep recess where the shadows embosomed it in their dark embrace.

It was called the Midnight Garden.

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Published Goodreads blog: March 16th 2024