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    Mask of Sanity
    Mask of Sanity
    Mask of Sanity
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    Mask of Sanity

    By Charles Dante

    ()

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    About this ebook

    What is the madness that lies within?
    Does everyone wear a mask?
    This collection of depravities narrated in the gothic style of Poe, includes the feature novelette, seven additional short stories, and seven experimental poems.
    A family suffering a desperate loss, a house in a state of disrepair, and an unknown deranged killer lurking in the shadows.
    Who is the monster behind the facade?
    The feature story—Lovecraftian horror at its finest in a modern setting—explores the bizarre happenings within the house and its eccentric occupants.

    These Tales of Depravity also feature:
    The Oppressive Limits – A violent workplace shooting with a bizarre twist.
    Romeo – a slow descent into madness and murder.
    My Other Self – Two sparring personalities compete for the affections of a captivating coquette.
    The Locusts – A poem about madness within that manifests itself externally.
    Also includes additional prose — The Oppressive Circle, Anatomy of a Double Murder, The Art Teacher and The Architect, and The Pornographer
    And more poetry — Colors, Impossible, Fuzzy, The Architect, The Key and Limits

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles Dante
    Release dateApr 30, 2023
    ISBN9798215830437
    Mask of Sanity
    Author

    Charles Dante

    Charles Dante is a nameless faceless vessel who serves as the transcriber for the Entity—a malevolent force that transcends this world and will ultimately poison all of humanity with its disgust. The Entity has chosen this unknown scribe to spread its venom throughout the universe.Stories of despair, violence and horror are all dutifully recorded, but the insanity and visions of the fantastic has a sinister effect on all those chosen to reveal the Entity’s thoughts.There were others....H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, just to mention a few, were well known authors who penned these visions of the grotesque that have spread the tentacles of fear across all of humanity.Do not read the works of Charles if you prefer the mundane safe spaces of limited thoughts or prefer to be led around like mindless sheep. Just remember that the cauldron of white hot insanity will eventually explode and invade the world as you now know it—be warned!

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      Book preview

      Mask of Sanity - Charles Dante

      Mask of Sanity

      Tales of Depravity

      by Charles Dante

      Copyright 2023 Charles Dante

      Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/Island

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,

      Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before"

      ― Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

      Table of Contents

      Mask of Sanity

      Colors

      Romeo

      Impossible

      The Oppressive Limits

      The Locusts

      My Other Self

      The Key

      The Oppressive Circle

      The Architect

      Anatomy of a Double Murder

      Fuzzy

      The Art Teacher and the Architect

      The Pornographer

      Limits

      About the transcriber

      Other Books

      Mask of Sanity

      Once a beacon of life, it now rotted within its lair—a decrepit mansion, waning from years of decay and suffering. The festering walls and grimy windows did not trouble Christian as he gazed up at his home. No, something else did—that ominous humanlike aura exuded by the building, that thing manifesting itself as a shadowy ethereal being. He heard it too. Those screams, those wretched screams of a tormented soul ascending from the bowels of hell. Oh, the suffering!

      Even the wide expansive lawn was suffering. Left to the treacherous wilderness, ugly brown weeds saturated the grass with dirty splotches, while repulsive creatures scavenged around the refuse strewn in the vicinity.

      One thing was certain; his home—his gloomy fortress—was suffering because of its occupants. The misery of his mother Madeline, his father Rupert and himself had persisted for so long that even their dwelling was infected with this pestilent virus of human emotion.

      But the uninvolved are immune to the sickness, he thought, thinking of his uncle Frank. Frank lived among their misery too, but his odd demeanor could not be characterized as being sorrowful. And their family physician Dr. Hong Lee lived in an adjoining construct that also functioned as a clinic. Lee was far removed from the sorrows of the family, and even his living quarters, which they rented out to him, displayed none of the misery and decay exuded by the building.

      Christian stepped into the old run-down shack that was once an enchanting little playhouse for his sister. He was close, so horribly close. He flinched when he saw the grimy dismembered dolls that lay scattered, untouched for ages—their sad vacant eyes having borne witness to the Horror that had swept his family.

      God rest her soul, he whispered.

      The broken mirror inside, like his home, reflected the same inalienable marks of pain. There was no hope in the reflection that gazed sadly back at him. He saw a face that bore a terrible paleness—the face of a wretch with sunken cheeks, lusterless eyes, and a grotesquely emaciated body.

      Still, everything could be fixed. The mirror could be replaced, the playhouse could be restored and even the building could be brought back to its original splendor, but what amount of restoration could take away the pain, the suffering, and the anguish of having lost a loved one?

      His father had found her first. Body part after body part lay strewn in the backyard as if some vicious predator had indulged in a tasty snack. Christian followed his father, thinking perhaps that his sister was playing hide and seek. She had always been good at this game, and his face had always swelled with pride when boasting of her prowess in this game. But now, something was terribly wrong.

      Whose hand is this Daddy? Christian asked, unsure of what he had seen. His father said not a word. He had been too bewildered and too worried to answer for his lip was quivering, and his eyes, though hard as stone did not conceal the fact that despite his courage, his tremendous courage, he was very, very frightened.

      Everything was a blur from then on. There were more body parts: a piece of her leg, a nose, and an eye staring with a mixture of terror and sadness, while still gleaming with the childlike innocence that she had never lost. Then, the sirens, his mother’s wailing, his father’s stony silence, the pandemonium caused by the media people camping out on their lawn, and a thousand other awful images that Christian wished he could forget.

      It had been a terrible nightmare, and all that remained of his lovely innocent sister were memories. Memories of her in all her splendor and beauty for the seven short years that she lived before being brutally cut down by a savage beast—some monster who scattered her body parts on their lawn.

      Christian looked at the mirror one last time, sighed as a tear rolled down his cheek, and walked out of the playhouse towards the house, carrying his broken-down and stooped seventeen-year-old body with him.

      ***

      Remember the English? They were masters of the world before they abandoned their glorious empire to the savages. Now you see them on tv, kissing the Americans’ derrieres all the time. What are they now? Polite little sniveling wimps.

      Frank’s vociferous voice filled the entire living room, breathing life into its barren air. But even as he paused, the oppressive silence seeped in, saturating the air with nauseating gloom.

      Christian glanced over at his mother seated across the dining table. She sat still in silence, her eyes cast downwards. The pallor of her face and the deathly whiteness of her hair saturated the drab surroundings with a stark reminder of their sorrow.

      Rupert drummed his fingers on the table incessantly, looking down, not showing those angry sorrowful eyes of his, while rays of light bounced off the balding front of his head. Christian sensed that his father, ominous in silence, was like a dormant volcano, explosive when triggered.

      Same story with our society, our family too. What’ve we become? Slaves of slaves! That’s right. Slaves of slaves, and we go around talking about equality.

      Frank slowly moved his head, focusing on Madeline, then Rupert, and finally resting his eyes on Christian, who managed a smile though he had no idea what his uncle was saying.

      Still, his uncle seemed gleeful with that upturned smile of his. Despite the long white beard that hinted at his age of sixty-seven, Frank’s countenance was vibrant in contrast to the others, his eyes gleaming as bright as those of the dreadful black cat that Christian saw roaming their lawn earlier.

      Please, we need to say grace, said Madeline, her voice faltering.

      Rupert raised his head to look at Madeline with a sigh.

      What’s the point? We’ve lost the light of this house a long time ago.

      C’mon! Let’s thank God for all the wonderful things we have—tons of money and no happiness. What a hoot!

      Frank waved his hands in the air like a symphony conductor while his effervescent face twitched in unison with his words.

      Don’t ask me to sympathize. I say we go back to the good ol’ days of lynching! You never had no crime back then. Some vagrant decides to kill or rape a girl—it’s the lynching squad for the sicko. Now, we got these little wimps talking about equality while their women get raped and murdered by the trash of the trash. Where’s the justice in that? And the murderers and rapists. They’re the victims of society—you know, society was so mean to them that they’d no choice but to rape and murder some girl. No backbone—that’s what’s wrong with the whole bunch of ya! If I had my way, I would...

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