Triple Threat (RB Vs. The Shadow God, Chapter 4) · 5:28pm Jun 29th, 2022
Previously, on The Shadow God:
Werewolves!
And now:
Health update: surgery's on Friday. I'm getting a plate put in my hand, fulfilling at last my childhood dream of becoming a bionic man.
In other news...
You'll recall in the prologue that I said I had initially wanted to read a different book by Mr. Rayburn, Spiritual Sorrow, but couldn't because it had been wiped off the face of the internet. Well, I gave it another go, and, while I didn't find a copy of the book...
I did find a Google Books preview.
You can find it here. It's forty-seven pages long. And what's in those forty-seven pages is, uh...
Well...
I'm going to spoiler this out, because it's gross. Trigger warning for child and spousal abuse and sexual assault.
Within the first few pages it contains a drunk and drugged-up abusive father forcing himself on his wife (who is covered in bruises) in the kitchen of their house while their five-year-old son watches.
When the father notices the son, he attempts to force him to perform cunnilingus on his own mother.
There's a scuffle. The mom stabs the dad. The dad shoots the mom. The kid sees all of this. Then the kid gets possessed by a demon and gets the dad killed.
That's the entire first chapter.
Rape and abuse are serious topics that need serious thought and care put into how they are used in a story. What Mr. Rayburn has done, here, is not that. What it is is shock value. The author wants you to know how twisted and messed up he thinks his imagination is. Well, congratulations. You win the biggest edgelord competition. I yield.
Well, you would, if there was any originality to be found in the first chapter. It's all cliches, right down to the dialogue, which I will not repeat here. You've seen how this guy writes. You can guess how clumsily it's put together.
It's gross, folks. Not scary. Not interesting. Not edgy. Just gross.
Anyway. Enough of that. Let's get on with the show.
As the chapter resumes, we meet up with Craig, who has just woken up in a lot of pain on the stone floor of a dark room. He fumbles around in the dark for a bit while the narrator tells us how ridiculous this all is.
“The blue light,” he said under his breath, realizing that he did indeed step through/into it last night. But that was crazy, wasn’t it? Who would believe such a ridiculous thing like that could actually happen? The blue light itself was such an absurd idea. And to think that this place—whatever it was—was a world the blue light led to?
It was preposterous! If it was so preposterous, then where was he? Craig continued walking, his arms hanging out in front of him like guiding sticks.
Craig runs around blindly for five minutes before giving up, sitting down, and praying.
“Dear God,” he said, truly believing God was listening. “I know you are listening. I know I haven’t been the best Christian in the past, but I’m willing, under these extreme circumstances, to fight for your will.” Craig wrinkled his eyebrows. If he didn’t believe a word he said, how did he expect God to? Even if God didn’t, Craig had to at least try…for his life’s sake.
“Please get me out of here,” he begged, wetness stinging the corners of his eyes. “I don’t deserve to be here.” He paused, thinking of something else to plea. “And, since I’m here, could you send my friends to me. At least for a little while?” Craig knew it was a selfish thing to request, but he was desperate for companionship. On the other hand, he didn’t really expect God to do anything, didn’t really believe in him. It was just something to say.
Craig can't seem to make his mind up about whether God exists. I guess that makes him an agnostic.
I kid. But on a more serious note, why is the first thing after "get me out of here" "send my friends here so they can be stuck like me?" That's like if you were being eaten by a family of bears and you wished more people were there so the bears could have a decent meal.
Anyway, Craig has a bit of a meltdown, screaming (in all caps!) for someone to please help him. He begins to cry. Then, he feels a slight breeze. He decides to follow it. As he approaches the breeze's source, it becomes more powerful and colder. He gives up and has another little screaming fit. As he finishes up his acoustic outbursts, he spots a speck of light in the distance, and heads for it. As he gets closer, he realizes that it is a ball of fire floating in the air.
The flaming sphere flickered, then a change began. The flame dulled from the bright orange to a glowing azure. Suddenly, it began to sprout limbs. It’s changing into a monster.
The burning, blue fire was transforming into a figure. Craig stared transfixed as the object propagated a head. The head stretched the taut skin of its shoulders as it came up and out. It was bald with dominant features, short horns where its ears should have been, and piercing, black eyes, and a large fat nose. It growled softly, lifting up its arms.
It’s a demon, Craig thought on the verge of fainting.
The demon tries to tell Craig where he is, but is apparently physically unable to. Instead, it tells Craig to "seek the pillar". Then it falls to the ground and curls up into a ball, hurt, and begs Craig to help him.
And then things get confusing.
“Help me,” the dying man said again.
It DID try to help me, Craig thought. But why is it dying? What did this to it? He didn’t know, but he knew sure as shit he wanted out of this place … this … Dark World.
“No danger,” said the cringing old man. “Help me.”
Craig always had a soft spot for helping the elderly. How could he let this poor old man lie shivering on this cold pavement on the verge of death?
There's no explanation for how the demon goes from being a demon as described above to being like an elderly man. No connective tissue between one description and the next. I thought I misread it, and had to go back a few paragraphs, but no, that's just how it's written.
Anyway, Craig touches the demon... senior citizen... whatever, on the shoulder. It crumbles to dust under his fingertips.
We cut to Mark, who has also found himself in the creatively-named "Dark World". He assumes at first that he is in his basement with the lights off, then decides this must be Ridley and The Satanist’s Group Association trying to initiate him.
Mark had it in his mind that Ridley brought him here to be initiated by the other members of the TSGA. How could he bring it to Ridley’s attention that he no longer wanted to be a part of the Association? He tried his voice again.
“Hello? Ridley? If you can hear me, I just want to let you know that I no longer wish to be a part of this.” His voice echoed throughout the valley. Suddenly he wished he hadn’t said anything. Ridley and Sledge were liable to punish him more severely for wanting out of the Association.
God, Mark's such a nerd. He's the kind of guy I would have slammed into a locker in gradeschool. And I was the nerdy kid in gradeschool.
Mark spots a light in the distance. He follows it, and finds Riley and his bouncer, Sledge, standing over an old man. Sledge has a baseball bat in his hands, and Ridley is kicking the man in the ribs.
“Are you retreating from the pact you made with the Devil?” Ridley asked.
“No, sir!” replied the man with horror-stricken trepidation.
“Are you deceiving us?” Ridley demanded. “Are you aware of what happens to motherfuckers who want to become outsiders again?”
The frightened man rattled his head back and forth.
“You’re obviously not familiar with our motto,” said Ridley. “Once you’re in, there’s no end until the end.”
Ridley stooped down and put his face to the shaking man’s face. “You need to save your begging for the Shadow God. The one who you’ll be face to face with in just a few short moments.”
Ridley smashes his head open with the baseball bat.
Ridley and Sledge emitted hysterical laughter.
I, on the other hand, am emitting microwaves.
Anyway, there's no way Mark's gonna tell them he wants out now. Ridley offers up the man's body as a sacrifice to Satan. They do some chanting and some of whatever the fuck this is:
Their fingers circled through the air creating the number six over and over again.
Ah yes. Six. The spooky number.
Ridley then addresses Mark, who he must have known was there the whole time. He promises to answer all of Mark's questions, and then proceeds to half-answer one of Mark's questions by telling him that:
"...you are in a place quite unlike your own. I am not at liberty to disclose the name of it as yet, but I assure you, young Marcus, that if you do not cooperate with us, you’ll be spending your eternity right here. And that’s all you need to know at this point.”
Ridley tells Mark that he needs to "prove his worth" by killing someone. Mark refuses. Ridley isn't taking no for an answer, so Mark pulls out his gun. It predictably does nothing.
Ridley tells Mark that a man is coming, and that it's his job to make sure he breathes his last.
“Are you a noble man?” Ridley asked. “Does a human need a reason to die?”
Mark nodded, not sure if he did the right thing.
Ridley smiled, and then bowed slightly. “Very well. He fucked your mother.” He tilted his head to measure Mark’s response.
Mark gave none. He stood weakly on bent knees, taking in the most horrifying moment of his life.
“By force,” Ridley added. Sledge chuckled to himself. “With a thirteen-inch, black dildo.”
Folks, I legitimately cannot tell if Ridley is fucking with him or not, nor can I tell if Mark's taking it seriously or not.
Anyway, they leave Mark next to the fire, and then an old man shows up. And Mark's like, I'm so gonna kill this man, and pulls up his gun, and the old guy taunts him, and Mark gets mad like the fucking nerd that he is and shoots at him. The bullet passes right through the old guy. He keeps shooting. No dice.
“Oooh, what are you going to do with that? Shoot water out of it?”
The old guy runs off, and Mark realizes that it was a test. Except then he also decides to chase after the man because he really wants to kill the guy for laughing at him. Anyway, he goes off into the dark. He spots another dull glow in the distance, and finds someone standing there, but we don't get to see who because:
Todd Harris opened his eyes and instantly realized he was not in his bedroom.
We continue on with the third in the trio, who has also woken up in the Dark World.
It didn’t take much to scare Todd. And when he was, he usually cried. But not where anyone could see him. He had a certain amount of pride to uphold, being a young twenty-year-old male.
Thanks for telling us that, narrator. There's no way I could have determined that from his reaction to being in a scary situation at this present moment.
Todd reflects on how he ended up here. He considers the idea that the blue light brought him there, but:
Todd shook his head. “No way,” he mumbled. “I don’t believe in things like that. I’m a man of science. There has to be a scientific reason why this is happening.”
...which is not how science works. Todd then decides that Father Spiers must have sent him here somehow.
Somehow, Todd was going to make certain Spiers paid dearly for sending him to this … place. He may have already seduced his mother, but—
But then that inner voice spoke up: What if he had already impregnated her?
“Shut the hell up!” he told that inner voice.
Todd bumbles around a bit and eventually he starts to hear Spiers' voice. And also the growling of the animal from the previous chapter, which Todd has decided is a werewolf. Which, it turns out, was also Father Spiers.
“I’ve killed many people,” said Spiers. “There’s no fun in it any more. I like to play with my victims now. I get off on scaring the shit out of them.”
“What are you doing with my mother?” The question had been nagging at him for a very long time.
Spiers laughed in the darkness. “We’re fucking, naturally. Soon she will bear me a son, and then I will teach him the ways of the world.”
Todd runs off. Werewolf Spiers gives chase. Eventually, Todd gets tired and gives up, the werewolf pounces, and Todd falls unconscious, which is where this chapter ends.
See you tomorrow, folks.
Never a good sign when the narrator starts arguing with himself.
This entire chapter feels like a prolonged fever dream or drug trip. I wouldn't be surprised to learn psychoactives were involved in its creation.
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Would you believe me if I told you that Mr. Rayburn is straight-edge?
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That's honestly more concerning.
I feel like YOU could do an Edgy story and do it better. And not just a darker Detective Rarity and Rainbow Dash tale but just IN GENERAL.
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I wrote some really bad edgy shit back in the day.
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Same here. But I mean like the current you could do it better.
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To be honest, I do have one really edgy fic I want to write someday. It involves a psychopathic Lemon Hearts trying to woo Minuette. I call it "Bad Idea Fic", and I've tried to start it a few times, but I never manage to get very far.
Good fucking god, that summary.
Be sure to get that looked at when you go for the next health checkup. :B