From today’s work on the novel:

They passed the old gates that demarcated the Charnels, iron gates long since rusted permanently open. The slaughterhouses were huge, almost as large as Company superstructures. The stench of the district was powerful, sickening, rotten, the discharge of millions of animals mixed with the rotting remains of millions more; the warmth of the scabbing vats accelerated the decay and aggravated the foetor. Jumbles of hair, shards of bone, hooves, claws, horns, gristle, scales, feathers formed nightmare cryptids.

“Get back!” Cyrus hissed, drawing his pistol and knife. One of the gore-piles was moving, crawling forward, a ghastly slug pulling itself along on appropriated, mismatched feet. Feathers and curved horns jutted from it, and one long skinless horse’s leg protruded from the front, scenting left and right like a butterfly’s proboscis. Skeletal parodies of wings made of ribs unfolded from its back, and yellowed eyeballs surfaced and crawled in the folds of its ragged muscles.

Ain’t that lovely?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 9:59 am and is filed under Anomalous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.