Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. The Chosen Sword Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

THE CHOSEN SWORD

“Quiet down!” Alban Carruthers shouted over the din of his people, even as he teetered and swallowed rising vomit. “I am not above thee. I am with thee. Do not meet their violence with violence, join me in peace until the moment is right. Join me until the time has come, when Hell surges up through the floor of this Earth and burns the sinners and empowers our mighty sword!”

Beyond the walls of the barn, military vehicles were gathering and every few minutes one of the soldiers would make a demand. The Chosen Sword would heed no demands from a godless system or its messengers.

“Please, now is the time for our slumber. We shall pass this realm and linger in silence, awaiting the final battle between God and His Chosen Sword and Satan and his brethren. Come and drink.” Alban lifted the bottle of poisoned Coca-Cola he’d been sipping for the last hour. He put it to his lips and drained what remained. “Now, come sip of me and we shall be one for eternity. Only to return when Hell has risen, and our power is true.”

Alban’s righthand helped the prophet settle onto the functionally carved throne. His neck stretched out like a goose on Christmas morning, awaiting the cook’s cleaver, and his ankles rose to a foot above him. He nodded to his faithful servant. The knife played along his throat and beneath him, a copper bowl began to fill. The members lined up at the copper straws playing out from the bottom of the bowl.

“Drink…drink,” Alban said, gargling his last words.

Just as the first trio accepted mouthfuls, the soldiers pounded through doors and the windows high up in the former haylofts, rifles in hands, mouths shouting demands.

—

Distantly, the sky rumbled with thunder.

“You have me centered?”

“Yeah, Dad. What if it starts raining? We won’t be able to hear nothing.”

“Worry about that if it rains before we’re done. All right, three, two, one: my name’s Ronald and today my son, Kirk, and I are going to test out this forge from Amazon.” Ronald was a lanky man with a thick moustache and a pointy nose. “Now, why did I buy a forge? Well, I’m a plumber and I have endless scraps of copper and aluminum. It seemed like a no-brainer; maybe I can make a few bucks.”

“And Mom can get off our butts about quality time, right?” Kirk said.

He was eleven and the oldest of three kids. He had two sisters, one was nine and the other was ten months—a happy accident and part of the reason Ronald was getting into forging; he’d said it was for a little extra money, but mainly it might prove to be an additional refuge from newborn fatherhood.

“Keep up the cracks and you’ll have more to edit out before this goes on YouTube.” Ronald took a handful of steps to his left for the blue bin of copper odds and ends, as well as some scraps he’d picked up on jobs. “Now, since my handy helper forgot to strip the coating off the wire bits, we’ll start with this weird bowl.”

“What’s that from?” Kirk said.

Ronald pouted his bottom lip and shook his head gently. “No idea. I picked it up behind a barn needing toilets—one of those wedding upgrades.” He put it on the ground. “First step is to make it fit in that little hole at the top of the forge.” He stamped his right foot, flattening the copper bowl. He stamped again, breaking off each straw. He picked up the smashed bit of metal. “Follow me,” he said and stepped to a vise mounted to his big and busy workbench. He pinched it in place with a dozen turns of the handle, then began jerking it and folding it until it eventually split.

When he began to repeat this step to make smaller pieces, Kirk walked back over to the forge and filmed down the hole. The heat coming out was intense, so much so that he wondered how long the propane tank was going to last.

“Hey, pay attention!” Ronald shouted.

Kirk returned the lens to his father’s busy action. The man was sweaty and dirty, and they hadn’t yet melted anything. He picked up the eight little pieces and walked over to the copper straws he’d already broken off the bowl. He dropped the pieces into the forge a couple at a time, flames and sparks jumping from the opening like shouted words from a mouth.

“Did you get all that?” Ronald said, grinning.

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Better get some more ready.” Ronald turned from the forge to the big blue bin of scraps. “You can go ahead and pause recording and help me a bit. We’ll need much more to make a brick.”

Kirk pretended not to hear and stood over the forge, lens focused on the liquifying metals. “Holy sh—smokes! There’s an eye!”

Ronald hurried over, all smiles. “Sometimes impurities on the metal cause…” he trailed upon seeing the eye. He put his hand out and backed his son up a few steps as the eye seemed to rise, bringing with it a strange new smell that overpowered the propane, the molten copper, and grease scents of the big garage.

Blood.

“Why’d it do it?” Kirk said, making little sense.

Ronald didn’t get the chance to answer because the eye bulged from the forge’s access vent like a tentacle. It touched the cement floor, blackening it, the heat sapping the moisture and dulling the finish. The forge tipped behind it and the glowing form with its singular humanistic eye began pulling itself along the floor like a worm. It reached the blue bin, rising up to look with that eye, before touching the plastic and boring a fresh, smoky hole through.

Kirk brought the phone up in time to catch the form burn away all the plastic coating from the wires and the entirety of the blue Rubbermaid container and rise five times the size it had been. “There’s a second eye,” he whispered.

“And it’s bigger,” Ronald whispered in return.

The molten blob had become like a gelatinous humanoid, with two tentacle arms and a bulb head. It pulled itself across the cement floor to Ronald’s work van.

“Uh oh,” Kirk said.

The arms and head hugged the front end of the van, melting into and through the steel. Smoke from melting rubber and steam from boiling fluids filled the garage with noxious gasses. Ronald grabbed Kirk by the collar and yanked him the rest of the way outside. The van was no longer a van but had become a piece of the thing.

“Come on, we have to get your mother and…and go somewhere,” Ronald said, walking backward quickly.

“How’s it—” Kirk began but was silenced when the oxygen and acetylene tanks from the welding setup blew in a great show of burning gases.

Father and son ran to the house.

“Something’s happening. Grab the girls, let’s go!” Ronald said.

Kirk was in the doorway, filming as the shed collapsed. The wooden beams lit with tremendous flashes of light and the sheet metal of the walls and roof began to glow orange, the paint oozing off like blood.

“What’s happened?” Cynthia said—Ronald’s wife and Kirk’s mother.

“No time to explain now. We have to hit the road.” Ronald scooped Baby Roxy from the floor and held her to his chest.

“Dad, where’s the shed?” Jesse-Ann said—the other daughter and Kirk’s sister.

“Don’t worry, honey. Get in Mommy’s van,” Ronald said.

Cynthia had the baby’s travel bag strapped over her shoulder, in her hand was her cellphone. “Do I call nine-one-one? Who do I call?”

“Just let’s go,” Ronald said, grabbing the keys to the minivan from their hook ring next to the door.

Outside, Cynthia took the baby and got into the middle row of the minivan. Jesse-Ann was already there waiting, also in the middle row. Kirk was still filming, and shouted, “Look! Look!” Ronald gave his son a shove toward the shotgun door.

They got moving quickly. The lane was a half kilometre-long and in the rearview, a molten man rose to the height of hydro poles. In his right hand was a blazing sword.

“What’d you do?” Cynthia said, eyes narrowed at the back of Ronald’s head. “Is this from the metal thing you bought?”

“Not now, honey.” Ronald said to his wife before meeting Jesse-Ann’s wet and terrified gaze in the rearview. He offered up a pitiful smile that was in no way reassuring.

“Dad, it’s gaining!” Kirk had spun around in his seat and filmed through the minivan, through the back window to the dusty road and the sprinting thing behind them.

“Seatbelts,” Ronald said.

Everyone strapped in but Ronald. He held the belt by the coupler, watching the rearview mirror, too shocked and terrified to buckle-up.

“Dad, watch out!” Kirk said at the same moment Cynthia yelled, “Eyes on the damned road!”

Ronald let go of his belt and yanked the wheel to avoid hitting Boris Medenov’s Prius. Boris was behind the wheel, honking before he braked. Ronald slowed the minivan, righting its path on the loose gravel.

“Uh oh,” Kirk said.

The molten figure jumped ten feet high and came down on the Prius, instantly shattering the windows and popping the tires. The steel began to liquify and Boris’ shrieks were audible, even 10 metres away and inside a vehicle. Ronald hit the gas.

“It’s getting bigger!” Jesse-Ann wailed through a wet and boogery sob.

They were coming up to the highway, which led to town, which led to help. Cynthia still held her phone in one hand but hadn’t called anybody. What could be said? How did one describe this horrid oddity and sound sane?

Ronald slowed at the stop sign, not at all willing to commit to a stop. Lane clear, he slammed the gas after picking his direction. The skies were charcoal, and spit began to pelt the windshield. In the rearview and through the back window, the thing was gone and the family collectively eased.

Until they rocked to a stop and Ronald flew out the front window. Glass shattered. Tires popped. The back of the minivan quickly disappeared in a boiling mass of metals and plastics. Cynthia yanked open the sliding door, already drenched in sweat, and sunburnt. Jesse-Ann’s hair had singed. She screamed, the sticky hairs clinging to her palms as she tried to protect her head as she ran. Kirk climbed out and began running for his father, filming the scene blindly over his shoulder. Ronald was road-rashed meat on the asphalt, torn clothing and blood and bones. His hands shook in agony. His mouth was open and drooling. His eyes were as wide as the whole damned universe, drinking in the complete consumption of the family minivan to the ever-growing thing.

“Ronald, Ronald, can you move?” Cynthia said, holding a screaming baby to her chest.

The rain thickened. Thunder and lightning crackled and rumbled almost right above them.

“Nuh-nuh-no,” Ronald said amid his shakes.

The thing walked toward the huddled family, its sword raised to behind its head—the face, though liquid, looked strangely familiar. Its mouth opened as if speaking but lacked the necessary vocal cords to produce sound. The sword began its violent arc downward, and the family collective closed their eyes.

One second passed.

Two.

Three.

The rain fell in buckets. Kirk was the first to look. The sword had stopped no more than a dozen centimetres from the family. The glowing orange metal had gone ashy grey. The liquidity had gone solid. Steam rose from the form—firmed, though those eyes remained aglow and fluid, seeming demonic and furious at the same time, for five more seconds before going stiff and lifeless.

Kirk hit stop on his phone, only then realizing that he’d paused it less than a second after his father asked him if he was centered. He’d recorded none of it. With 16% battery, he called for an ambulance for his dad.

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