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    Nemesis: Otherwise "The Raven's Will" And Other Short Stories
    Nemesis: Otherwise "The Raven's Will" And Other Short Stories
    Nemesis: Otherwise "The Raven's Will" And Other Short Stories
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Nemesis: Otherwise "The Raven's Will" And Other Short Stories

    By C.S. Noel

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    About this ebook

    Nemesis tells the stories of mankind as he is tormented by demons tangible and intangible. From the mind of a young boy, the doll of a little girl, and the overseer of a maturing man, the belligerents for humanity in "The Raven's Will," "Dollhouse," and "Born" refuse to go down without a fight.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateMay 19, 2017
    ISBN9781543901993
    Nemesis: Otherwise "The Raven's Will" And Other Short Stories

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      Book preview

      Nemesis - C.S. Noel

      Born

      Nemesis

      The boogeyman, the devil, and the common serial killer. They are all, in their own way, monsters, yes? They seek out man to throw a wrench in his plans. They crawl all about the earth, like headless roaches, coming back again and again even after stomping them flat. All the bug spray in the world cannot keep them out of our shadows.

      This book began insidiously over the summer of 2016, a truly awful blotch on our history. If you’ve forgotten why, then that’s no surprise to me. I had plotted out the mini-stories like a jacket full of patches; it could keep the wind off of your skin, but it wasn’t anything you would wear to a royal ball. It was good for a first book, but lousy for a long, drawn-out project. I had this thought in my mind as I changed gears and decided to make one of my short stories a full-length novel. Then there was another full-length novel, to replace the first when it got tough, and after chapter 1, I looped all the way around to this compilation. It’s a miracle I even completed this fourth attempt, coming on a year after I had planned to finish.

      Someday, I’ll look back on this work and cringe. I can already see my face, ripened like a grape yet wrinkled like a raisin, wondering what the hell I was thinking with this nonsense. It makes me happy to imagine that I would have grown so much that this work will be nothing but kindling for my fireplace.

      For now, a journey awaits. Tales of woe and conquest have burst from my mind and splattered onto the pages in ink before you. The best I can do now is wish you luck.

      To each man, his own demon. How bored would we be otherwise?

      The Raven

      He came as a reminder that the world needed to clean up its act. Yet we have a little more to clean up now that he’s been here. In truth, Port Chernabog was an emissary from someone out there who cared about mankind. Unfortunately, all the care in the world couldn’t save us from our savior, much less ourselves.

      The dark angel descended upon our humble planet cloaked in a cocoon of feathers so black that they strained the eyes just to look at. None of the first responders knew why, but the descendant had a strange smirk on his face before he leaped off into the horizon, leaving behind a charred crater in the middle of Zion National Park. By the time I had clambered past the orange rock, the pitch-black spines laced into the ground that folks described had gone to a sour violet powder. Where I once pictured Angel’s Landing Mountain’s clay valleys sculpted by greenery, I found stained-glass caricatures tossed carelessly into the soil, threatening to pierce anything that stepped on it.

      Reports of a black scar that streaked across the sky flew in like crows, as if we couldn’t walk outside and see it for ourselves. I was a humble reporter on that Friday the 17th. Tomorrow brought about even more shocking news: Raven Slaughters Falcons in Gluttonous Frenzy. This and similar titles would conquer the headlines until 1945 came around. I suppose the uproar over the defeat of Nazis made me feel somewhat safe, but as a local news reporter, I couldn’t squeeze past all the clamor with my bake sales and sex offenders.

      Finally, the angel had returned to Utah for what we supposed was a victory party but turned out to be much more official—and tyrannical—than anyone would have guessed. In language that likely stumped any old joe–America’s staple inhabitant–the creature addressed the nation with domineering grace and an ominous peace offering. He proposed to ascend to the head of the state under the title Chancellor Chernabog, claiming that, under his firm grasp, he would defend those who could not afford to defend themselves. We never knew what would have happened if we had said no, but nobody called that judgment into question.

      The new regime seemed well and good, and for a long while I had enjoyed it. Hand in hand, the angel and his followers snipped the links between the hateful orthodoxy and the common American. Yet even in the garden of justice can a weed blossom.

      Although Chernabog’s near-omnipotence granted us safety and freedom, it also struck horror into the hearts of less unified minds. Port did not hesitate to shun his social enemies from society, for the ideological outlaws worked just to drive people apart. If only I had asked myself where the line of hate was drawn in the sand, or better yet, if only I had kicked it away with my feet. Although it is easy and cathartic to see such a magnificent deity act out justice on behalf of humanity, what we call justice cannot make waves, nor vibrate out of place; it must remain a singularity, for it otherwise becomes injustice. Likewise, ideological outlaw is an unjust buzzword.

      Port had witnessed things first-hand that no human being should have to witness. He landed in Dachau right after his flight, appalled by the coarse earth so indecently lacking in grass. It seemed that I had forgotten to knock on Mother Nature’s door, he clucked, and accidentally stepped in on her in the middle of changing. This, of course, did not even begin to convey the hideous mistreatment of life by the Nazis, for as he flew over the nations, he ground his teeth at the dejected forms of human beings cast aside as little more than a waste of space. The angel implored of me, how could anyone watch this despair–their own fellow people yearning for God to take them–and relish in it? What kind of angel would I be if I had stepped aside and watched mankind devour itself, as if you had turned famished for your own flesh?

      Port once told me that humans had an allure to them and that he would have abandoned us if he didn’t truly believe that. Supposedly because we had so much in common with him, he could better relate to us.

      What else do you like? I wondered of him.

      The angel tweaked his head to the right. He must be thinking. Dinosaurs.

      I blinked. Why dinosaurs?

      We have much in common, he confessed, stretching out his talons. I immediately thought of a t-rex, quite frankly. The tools looked like mountaintops jutting up past the clouds on a mission to spew ash and slay the reptilian giants the world over. Imagine what it would do to a humble German soldier.

      It took a little while, but eventually, I found a peaceful life within Chernabog’s regime. The sky did

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