CHeSHiRe-CaT
A Curious Breed
This story is Rated R for Violence, Gore, Blood, Insanity, Language, and Drug Reference (huzzah for the Caterpillar's hookah). It is based largely off of American McGee's Alice, a video game created in autumn of 2001, depicting Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass in a sequel that drives sanity to its limits. Many thanks to Scrap for inspiration.
~*Voted Best Chaptered Horror Fiction in the Winter Awards 2005*~
Thank you to those who nominated and voted!
Table of Contents
.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.
Prologue: Taking Tea in Dreamland
Chapter I: Down the Rabbit-Hole
Chapter II: Village of the Doomed
.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.
Gather all who nestle near
Willing eye and willing ear
Settle for the tale to hear
Wonderland is torn apart
Darkness spreads throughout its heart
Darkened dreams begin to start
Down the rabbit-hole we go
Falling down to lands below
Through the lake of black we row
Sanity is shattered so
Alice hears the Rabbit's woe
Down the rabbit-hole we go
Gather all who nestle near
Willing eye and willing ear
Settle for the tale to hear
†
~*Voted Best Chaptered Horror Fiction in the Winter Awards 2005*~
Thank you to those who nominated and voted!
Table of Contents
.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.
Prologue: Taking Tea in Dreamland
Chapter I: Down the Rabbit-Hole
Chapter II: Village of the Doomed
.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.∙•∙♦∙•∙.
Gather all who nestle near
Willing eye and willing ear
Settle for the tale to hear
Wonderland is torn apart
Darkness spreads throughout its heart
Darkened dreams begin to start
Down the rabbit-hole we go
Falling down to lands below
Through the lake of black we row
Sanity is shattered so
Alice hears the Rabbit's woe
Down the rabbit-hole we go
Gather all who nestle near
Willing eye and willing ear
Settle for the tale to hear
†
. . ..:
rologue: Taking Tea in Dreamland::.. . .It was a frosty, cold evening in the month of December. Soft patches of snow littered the green grass that had been there for most of the seasons. White tufts of the stuff floated from the skies above, landing on the country roofs of the small village near Oxford. The river that ran along the university was frozen solid, and not many were out during the daytimes of winter. Few had anything to keep themselves preoccupied with, and all carriage services had been closed until the end of the onslaught of snow. Indeed, one would feel very tiresome and bored of the place. However, there was one single person that was actually enjoying themselves as the latter part of the night began to set in. In fact, she was a little girl living in a house on the campus of Christ Church. Her name was Alice Pleasance Liddell.
The tiny, but comfortable cabin the Liddells owned was very close to the school, for Alice’s father, Mr. Liddell, was a minister and a professor at the college, teaching young and bright faces enrolled there every year. Another minister of the university, named Charles Dodgson, or as Alice liked to call him, Mr. Carroll, was a family favorite of theirs for a very long time. During the summer holidays, the Liddells could be seen rowing boats down the river, and sitting next to the stream beds with Mr. Carroll, picnicking and telling grand tales of places underground, and fantastic worlds beyond your wildest imagination. In fact, Alice had visited a place such as this with the assistance of Mr. Carroll.
This marvelous world underground was full of talking animals. One that Alice had been particularly fond of was a creature known as the White Rabbit, who was always so punctual, yet kind and understanding at the same time (though his regards lie in his pocket watch). Another that she had discovered in the kitchen of an ugly Duchess and her pepper-cured home was the Cheshire-Cat, a cunning feline with mass amounts of ginger hair and a colossal grin that would put anyone to shame. The large, talking cat could be very whimsical, puzzling, curious, and terribly evasive (he had a rather unembellished tendency to vanish into thin air). Along her trips to this brilliant place underground, she had collected many companions (though mad as they all claimed to be), and ventured into places with mass amounts of mushrooms, mazes, and forests galore. Alice loved the land of her childish splendor, madness, and mystifying amazement.
Alice loved Wonderland.
However, her realm of looking-glasses, tea parties, and magical enchantment was not without a downfall. In the time she had ventured to Wonderland, Alice met someone who was among the most arbitrary and savage people she had ever encountered. The dreadful woman was always ordering her guards (a pack of cards) to run around wildly, doing her dastardly bidding while she sat upon her conceited throne, yelling and commanding to everyone who served under her rule. Those who oppressed her confusing and horribly unforgiving laws were strictly executed to lose their heads. All would whisper of her disgusting and foul rule over Wonderland like a quiet plague, but if word ever traced back to her, it was most certain she would have every single inhabitant’s head.
Alice loathed the Red Queen.
But now, as she lied down in her soft, downy quilts in her bedroom, nothing could disturb her most wonderful dreams; not even the Queen of Hearts. The little girl’s sleek, golden brown billowed over the pillows in a lazy sleep, with her arms tucked underneath the warm blanket as a balmy fire spat and crackled in the fireplace a few feet away. She wore her day clothes beneath the covers: a charming blue dress, undergarments, and a white apron given to her by her mother. Directly beside her, she held an old rabbit doll with button eyes, a nose, and a stitched mouth.
It had been her older sister’s doll as a child, and from the moment she inherited it, she would do nothing but keep it with her at all times. Dinah, Alice’s black cat, was resting against the girl’s ribcage, a pretty blue ribbon wrapped around her neck. The smell of delicious flowers heated by the temperature of the room filled Alice’s subconscious senses with bliss, roses resting in a vase adjacent to her bed on the top of a book shelf. Chess pieces from playing a round with her father were scattered about the floor, cold and dead as statues staring on for eternity as the thick, smoky air filled the room. Also upon the book shelf was a kerosene lamp that was dimmed so perfectly that one could have such magical dreams under the conditions. Portraits and photographs of the Liddells were strewn on the ledges, along with a ticking clock that faced the fireplace with envy.
And this is all that Alice was doing. Sleeping away with peaceful cheer, and with a book, a gift from Charles Dodgson to Alice; an illustrated tale with the entire story of Alice’s first visit to Wonderland, open very close to where she slept. It was a magical book. Alice knew it was, for through this mysterious manuscript, she was able to visit her old friends in her sleep. At the very moment she was dozing off peacefully, and was transported to another world… She was there with an odd little man who appeared to be smiling fondly to himself as he sat at a table, accompanied with guests, closing his eyes with content as he raised a cup of tea with his short hand, buck teeth extruding from his upper lip. Situated on his matted head was a top hat, accompanied by a ticket marked “In this Style: 10/6” tucked into the brim.
Adorned with a polka-dotted bowtie, a flailing waistcoat, and checkered trousers, the little man seemed to be enjoying himself, while a hare dressed in a similar outfit (excluding the hat) strung with wheat around his long ears happily slurped at his own cup. Between the two characters was a rather large and bashful mouse, which also seemed to be drifting off to sleep. Directly down the long table was a little girl of about seven years leaning back in a leather comfort chair. Dressed in her grand blue dress and apron with flowing hair was the smiling Alice.
Upon the table, there was set many dishes, some of which were broken, and an endless supply of tea cups. The Dormouse popped its head out of the sugar bowl every now and then to glance upon their activities, but would faint back into an overpowering hibernation. The Hatter, with his oversized top hat and abnormally large nose would pass about the kettle to Alice, and then to the March Hare, whose ears were as erect as a happy chap celebrating tea parties for no particular reason. They sang and passed the tea around wonderfully, sharing the goodness of company, while Dinah the cat was beginning to get uncomfortable in her bed with Alice.
The March Hare suddenly exclaimed, “My, my, my, we shan’t go on without the Dormouse!” The Hare would then bound over to the other side of the table, knock on the porcelain kettle, and shout, “WAKE UP, DORMY! It’s time for the tea party!” This would be replied to by the rodent inside yawning disdainfully as it popped its little head from underneath the lid of the pot. Meanwhile, Dinah tried to sleep on the pillow across from Alice. She clawed and scratched all she wanted, but still, she was rather edgy and did not feel comfy enough.
“You know,” Alice would suggest, “I would very much like to talk about something rather than all this posh and tea. After all, it is our Un-Birthday today!” At this, the Hatter and the Hare would gasp with excitement, and shriek, “And indeed it is!” They began chanting the Un-Birthday song frequently over and over again, whilst the rabbit kept saying, as though he did not realize he was repeating himself, “You only get three hundred and sixty-four of these in a year, after all!” Dancing and drinking, the Hatter would spray a flurry of riddles, including, “I have another! Why is a raven…like a writing desk?” And of course, he and everyone else there did not know the answer.
Dinah was growing very antsy, and her four legs were stinging with aches. The cat became bored of Alice’s country on the bed, and decided to venture to new lands. While the little girl slept and had glorious tea parties with her friends, Dinah climbed up onto the book shelf next to the frame, landing next to a line of study tomes and a few delightful stories that Mr. Carroll had given the young girl. One included was a poem book, which wove the story of the Jabberwocky. However, you had to hold it up to a mirror, for the letters were backwards. In Looking-Glass Land, you could see everything backwards frontward, and everything frontward backward.
The three friends had jumped onto the long table near the Hatter’s house, pounding their feet all over the boards, tossing their glasses and flinging liquid everywhere, including on the poor Dormouse, who had actually come out to take some tea with them. Dinah, outside of Alice’s dreamland, dug her long nails into the wood of the book shelf. The scent of the roses from the steamy vase rattled the cat’s senses, making her feel surreal with drowsy placate. The feline felt a great comfort in this spot above ground. Getting prepared to lie down and wait for the morning sun to rise, the cat’s spine tingled with a stretching sensation, pushing back Dinah’s rear in response to the nerves. She let out a long, toothy yawn, before she bent over.
The moment her tail and hindquarters touched the fragile stack of books compiled on the shelf, the one nearest to her thick, black fur shook on impact. Dinah whipped her head around, glaring at the book behind her with slit pupils. The tome began to stagger for a moment, rocking in either direction. It would then tilt toward Dinah, back to the other row of books, and back toward her once more, making the cat’s heart tense with fear. In one last moment, the feline watched as the book swayed near the center. It stopped, in the very climax of the pendulum, and then, with a fright that writhed of ugly circumstances blooming in an aura of darkness, the book tilted toward its siblings.
With the mighty force of gravity, the leather-bound book slammed against its counterpart, pages within every piece of literature flittering. Dinah’s eyes widened with overtaking shock, fused to her spot by atrophy whilst little Alice slept. The next book slammed into the next such as a cruel domino pattern would, words from the pages screeching with pain. It was then that the last book had reached not another piece of prose, but a different object…the vile, grueling object that, by horrifying chain reactions, would be just another link in the grotesque plot of a wandering evil.
It was the kerosene lamp.
“The Jabberwocky,” boasting a devilish scarlet from its cover, was knocked viciously against the glass container with the oil inside, rapping it with a tinkling sound, and causing the thick fluid inside to waver. Dinah watched in awestruck anxiety as the lamp twirled from the impact, the book sending itself soaring to the musky rug on the floor below. The cat stared at the glass container as it swung ‘round and ‘round, swirling the liquid inside like a taunting mixture of death tonic. The gas flame on the inside had burnt out from the mere wind of its vigorous spinning. Then, as if it were giving into the force that had pushed it, the bottle swerved and veered off to one side, favoring the direction with distasteful desire.
Dinah loomed as she watched the bottle toss itself through the air, falling and tumbling past the humid heat of the room. With a disturbing explosion, the transparent glass shattered, shooting sharp pieces of the stuff in every direction, a screech of dark surprise burling from Dinah’s throat. The glass was everywhere all around the floor, broken and jagged with deadly satisfaction, and Dinah instinctively leapt away from the book shelf, as though it were taboo. The cat then sat upon Alice’s bed, watching the blown-apart lamp, as if it was going to resurrect itself and fling back up onto the book shelf. But that never happened. Instead, the seeping kerosene was free to roam the wood of the floor, drifting to where it pleased. Dinah glared as the oozing chemical trailed…moving toward the fireplace with inclining speed.
As little Alice heard not a speck of what had been going on, she still interacted with her glamorous friends of mischief and delight. The Hatter, the Hare, and the Dormouse joined hands and began to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat,” swaying drunkenly and gaily with their teacups sloshing from side-to-side. Alice sat at one of the tables, watching the insane short man, the overgrown rabbit, and the shy rodent kicking their feet and gnashing their teeth with the lyrics. She clapped lovingly, encouraging for an encore. The rich, green trees of Wonderland peered above them, letting in streams of sunlight from gaps between branches and leaves.
The trio was compelled to perform the un-birthday song for the umpteenth time, and the Hatter started roll the first words of the song on his tongue, when his throat suddenly croaked. His eyes went blank, and his mouth fell ajar with his two buck teeth hanging from his upper jaw. The March Hare laughed uncontrollably, slapping the Hatter on the back with a modest nudge, while the little man with the large hat did not move a muscle.
“AHA! That was a GLORIOUS sort of expression, old chap!” the Hare declared, smashing his teacup against the Hatter’s mug held stiffly in his white hands.
“Why, I do believe something is wrong with him!” Alice shouted from the chair, rising and jumping onto the table. “Did you swallow a nasty fly in your tea?”
The Hatter remained frozen and stiff with the same, overwhelmingly startled face. His lower lip trembled, his front teeth pointing downward in a horrible frown. His large, cow eyes turned to Alice, turning his neck with a creak. The Dormouse was already frightened, and leapt its head back into the tea kettle it had once been hiding in before. The Hare stepped forward as the girl placed a soft hand on the Hatter’s shoulder.
“Hatter…are…you all righ—?”
Before she could finish her sentence, the man unexpectedly seized her hand that was placed on his shoulder. Alice let out a sharp cry as the Hatter grabbed and painfully squeezed it, his face mumbling, jittering, and wobbling uncontrollably as he drew his head nearer to her. The Hare let out a dark gasp, and they realized it had not just been a fly. They stared down at the little man’s body, and saw a most despicable and wicked transformation taking place before their very eyes.
The Hatter squirmed with seizures of mutation, and Alice watched as the pale hand on her wrist suddenly became a large, white-gloved fist tightening on her veins every second. The little girl moaned with pain, and started to cry as she still watched her friend. His coat was flailing about as a piranha would at the smell of fresh blood, streaming everywhere before them. Before they knew it, his coat was becoming less of a coat. The fibers had gone thick, crusty, and white, strung in layers clipped tightly by chains and belts. It appeared to be a straightjacket that dug its thrusting grip into his skin. And oh, his skin…oh, his poor, miserable soul…
Alice witnessed in horror as the Hatter’s skin tone withered rapidly, starting to rot with decrepit decay, shriveling into a color of sour green. The March Hare ran up to the girl’s side, and with his paws, tugged away the Hatter’s grip from the dismal child. Still, his contractions continued as his skin sagged with wrinkles, with the only tight features of his body being the flesh that was strung to his face, clamped to his skull with a revolting snap. His eyes were livid and fluttering, his pupils beads of black, wobbling, but turning to face the frightened girl and the rabbit. His mouth continued to tremble as shivers of metal jut from nowhere into his insides, the sound of ticking clocks pouring into his soul.
Alice was distracted from this most sickening twist of fate by the scenery around them. The table they were standing upon began to stretch, becoming wider and farther away than it was. A sickening cracking noise echoed along the table as the boards extended. But the trees were no longer there. Instead, there was darkness. And fire. Fire billowed from the depths of the nothingness, flaring up in shooting balls of Hell, lacerating the edges of the table with flame. The characters’ faces were stung in the heat and golden-red light that surrounded them, the smell of smoke twitching their noses. They looked back to the Hatter, and watched him fall to his knees, though he still peered into Alice’s facial features.
“This…this isn’t right!” the Hare shouted. “By GOD, WHAT IS GOING ON?”
The Dormouse lifted its head from the tea kettle, staring with a non-stop shake that wriggled its intestines to mush. It glanced upon the March Hare with glazed, sobbing eyes.
“NO TIME! YOU MUST SAVE ALICE!” it shrieked, watching the onslaught of terror continue, then glancing at the terrified little girl.
“But…HOW?” the March Hare screamed, he himself falling to the ground at his knees, collapsing with undeniable fear. “Wha…WHAT IS THIS? INSANITY…DARKNESS…the screaming…THE FIRE!”
Alice’s face began to stream with tears as the blaze erupting beneath the darkness was beginning to fall upon the gargantuan table. It was swallowing them whole… But as though he were a martyr, the Hatter grabbed Alice by her arms pressed at her side brutally. It made the girl scream even louder as she wailed and cried. The grotesqueness of his corpse-like face was too much to bear as the man glared into her eyes. But…his lips were moving, just as quickly as the fire. He was trying to say something.
“WAKE UP, ALICE,” he finally choked in a voice that was not his own. “WAKE UP.”
The girl bolted upright in her sleep, and found that Dinah was curled at the foot of her bed, spitting and hissing without end as the feline’s ribbon once upon its neck was now being reduced to a pile of ash. Immediately, she noticed that the heat in her dream was still present, and the minute she opened her eyes to the inferno of chaos swarming her bedroom with embers and flame. Her fairy-tale had become nightmare. Alice screamed as she saw the fireplace had completely eroded away from the hot, flaming element, with the metal keeping it in place charred and blackened by its fiery grip. When Dinah realized her girl was awake, the cat slinked quickly to Alice’s side, stepping on the story book that had been left out and leaving footprints of charcoal on the pages. The poor, frightened girl scooped up the cat, and snatched the book, and most importantly, her rabbit doll.
Alice jumped off of her bed, her feet instantly meeting the shattered glass on the floor, along with the extreme warmth that resonated from the hearth. The razor-sharp pieces stabbed the soles of her feet, wrenching screams of pain and curses as blood seeped from wounds. It was much worse, as Alice found, than stepping on jagged rock which she had so done before, but she felt that though horrible it was, she could endure it for anything. Holding the three most cherished and loved possessions to her, the girl stepped away from the splintery, bloody mess on the floor, watching the trails of fire burning all along the walls. The scarlet liquid dripped, and she could feel her feet becoming numb. She had to move…
The second she felt the tingling sensation, a most startling discovery made her glance down to the ground where the glass had broken. She did not realize it, but it had been the kerosene lamp she had trusted to give light to scare away the sorts of nightmares she feared that had betrayed her. Now, she saw the oil had leaked underneath her own door, allowing the tongue of Satan to lap it up with a licking distortion of sinister fire, as though it were scotch to satisfy the belly of the wretched beast itself. Among the shattered shards, she leaned down, ignoring the trail of the bleeding oil, to a picture. It was a black and white photograph of herself, sitting between her mother and father, holding her rabbit doll and smiling brightly. The flames reflected against the kind faces of her parents, and she instantly realized she should not have been thinking only of herself.
Alice, carrying Dinah, the doll, and the book ran over to her door. She clasped her trembling hands to it, sobbing as she felt it warm with the acetic heat of a carnivorous blaze.
“MOM? DAD?” she screamed, laying her head against the wood, bleating much like an innocent lamb about to be slaughtered by a lone wolf. For a moment, no answer returned. Then, out of the blue and hope, she heard the female voice of her own mother, as if it were a faint whisper.
“Alice!” it cried, therein followed by a series of woops and coughs. Alice waited for another reply, but none came.
“MUM…FATHER?” she cried this time.
“BY GOD,” the voice of her father shouted, her mother still hacking in the crackle of the snaking fire, “GET OUT, ALICE!”
It was then that this warning was followed by a rumble from the book in her hands. Alice stared down into her arms, with Dinah clutching to her apron and the doll placed in one of her arms, she glanced to her hand, and to the book. The pages flapped, as though it were speaking. A voice reverberated from within, and she recognized it as that of a murderous cry from the March Hare and the Dormouse combined in one tainted harmony.
“SAVE YOURSELF, ALICE!”
“GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!” her father shouted. The little girl could hear the burly man heaving himself around in their bedroom upstairs, and it seemed he was trying to break down the door. But it was no use; the knob had melted away, welded in a thick putty against the lock. Alice banged her hands on the wood of the door, crying and screaming, sobbing with the rest of the moisture provided by her tear ducts. But up to this point, they had run dry from witnessing the blackened mutation of one of her greatest friends, and mourning for her parents. There was…a glimmer of hope they would survive. Yes, that was it. They would all be able to escape.
Alice obeyed her father’s wishes and glanced around the room, looking for an exit. She knew that her door was not safe to get outside from, for she would certainly fall victim to the holocaust of the smoke and the fire. Glancing around her room, she noticed many alphabet blocks littering the floor, blackened from the flames. Also were jacks, balls, and a few of her most juvenile toys that she had ever owned. Then she came upon her window across from her bed, allowing the cold, blue winter night to shine from outside. Alice knew she had to get there, but her curtains were swinging, draped in embers that swallowed the cloth whole. It was her only chance of survival…Alice glanced around the room again, and in desperation, found the rose vase sitting on her shelf, where a stack of books was lying, drenched with ashes and soot.
She had to step once more through the glass, sending chills into her bones from the points of her toes up, but managed to get her clutches on the pottery. Quickly, she bolted to the window, waiting for the right moment, placing the doll and book in her apron pockets while holding Dinah in one hand. She tossed the thin, ceramic pot, and it flung out a vast amount of warm water and red petals that dampened the flames a bit. It was not perfect, but it would certainly do. Trying to hold her breath so the smoke would not invade her lungs, Alice reached her slender hands onto the slide of the window. The moment she touched the wood, the window glass dropped out entirely, falling just about two feet below onto the snow, cracking a little. Alice then placed her red-soaked feet onto the sill, and with a great jump so she avoided the window, the girl heaved herself out of the house, and crunched into the cold, bitter snow outside.
The cutting breeze whipped through her greased, black hair, and she felt the moonlight on her backside. Dinah flew from her arms the moment of landing, spitting and weakened, crumpling to a heap of a tired cat. Alice gazed upon her house, illuminated by the starry sky, while showers of sparks and glass rained from the inside. Fire burst from the windows, biting and chomping on everything in its path. It was then that Alice saw the strong silhouette of her father, standing alongside his wife as they backed away from an oncoming army of lapping flames.
“AH! GODDAMN IT!” she heard her father yell through the open window.
Then, in a gust of blooming, sick horror, the blaze enveloped the two figures, burning and soaking their tissue with singing pain. A blood-curdling scream of a woman echoed from the window, booming from the entire house like a banshee screaming a doleful song of instant terror.
This was the last noise Alice heard that most unfortunate night, as her sopping, wet green eyes stared in adrenaline-pumped alarm at the maleficent deed that had ripped and torn her dreams apart into what was left: a nightmare. A nightmare she would never be able to escape. She pulled out her rabbit doll from her apron pocket, sobbing and choking into its warm, soft limbs, not being able to think straight. As she clutched the doll out of madness, she completely lost her sanity and hope, wailing away until the memory slipped by and slid behind her dark, twisted, and sickened eyes, disappearing for what seemed all eternity.
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