Spring/Summer 2016
THE ANGEL OF DREAD
by Mark Slade
When you see the sun hide in the shadows and the darkness overtakes the light, rest assured I will be on
every street corner watching those that are lost and abandoned. The derelict, the traveler walking the road
of despair, they never pause to think, I am ever present. That I am devouring their every dread, swallowing
their fears with fever dreams of passion. They are out past their time, on an abandoned street corner, dark
playground, until an internal voice advises them to run along home.
I slip in and out of third eye knowledge, a sense of foreboding that prickles cold hairs. I follow,
gliding across wicked gutters, dark passageways, creeping around still born buildings.
They know nothing of my history. How I was created from the depths of hell, reborn time and time, and
bred for the hunt. How my master fell from the heavens to be lord of his own fiery chasm. How he handpicked
this evil abomination of perversion. How I rose in the ranks with the many trophies I had acquired for him.
Just as your child, sister, brother, mother or father, turn a nervous head to find me, I appear in front of
them, asking: “Would you like me to take you to home, dear sweet child?” I offer a comforting hand.
I offer them many pleasures in a reassuring voice. I appear in many forms…. even sometimes as their
parents. They take my hand and I open my coat for warmth and they are lost in my cold, dark, putrid body.
They cry out as I steal through the shadows to my many horrid abodes.
It is there, in my cellar of horrors, they will know my true nature and the flesh games I love to play.
And they feel the love of my torture hands. They see this angel of dread ascend upon their miseries to take
delight in their ravaged bodies, strip their beautiful souls for my treasure troves gifted to my master.
They hear me whisper my true name.
They see the true face of this angel of dread.
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