Fantasia’s Lucid Silhouette:
Red Nails[1]
“Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.”
Coleridge “Rime of the
Ancient Mariner”
Every night I have a nightmare. It begins as such:
There is a dark hallway. It breaks somewhere outside my vision, t-boning into yet another hallway, though I can neither see the far wall nor determine the dimensions of it. The hallway is of a granite construction, or some similar inconsequential stone, though I understand it to be artificially constructed, though primitively. Cinematically, I can see myself tentatively creeping. The image is that of my mind’s eye, though clearly that eye is blinded by some opaque curtain of fear. My knees quake and my heart falters. In short, my whole person is that of a man in terror. Then, as if I am traveling, I am in a room with two other people. Similar to the tunnel, I know them as people, though I cannot determine those personal traits which awaken a familiarity. Something is coming. Terrified, a feminine shriek enlivens the darkness and the shadows become mass. In an infinite time, something wakens…
…and I too find consciousness. No stranger to the darkness, I, in what little bravo remains, seek in the early hours to clear my mind. Purge with me, dear reader, and embrace the terror that has repeatedly found me its victim. Again, I pull you into the world of sulking silhouettes and the temporal terrors.
It is with sincere gratitude that I, at the time of this composition, still find myself in the corporeal world. Twice confronted by those abominations outside of our Lords control, I must truly live a binary life, one both blessed and cursed by survival through perilous probability and merciless monstrosities. Not that I seek some sort of compassion or praise. It is I that must thank you for your readership. It is your patronage that has kept the insanity of my compositions from their truly insane proportions.
With one note on style, I begin my tale. As with my first catharsis, forgive me that rather ostentatious prose writing. It is not for pleasure I turn to the artifice of sentence construction, and only through the meticulous, though monotonous, construction of logos, can I place pinions upon the vulgarizes I have experienced and become, fore those vile forces taint even my muses. Jaggedly, the narrative line will weave in and out of my latent/manifested design. Instead of construction, think of the perfectly erratic antithetic mural which, a far seems misplaced and up close grows visible. Let us begin with the beginning, and string along those prior, awoken dreams.
Whatever creature first began fortune’s wheels churning had marked me as peg on its celestial course. I fall victim to misfortune far to regularly to be chance inspired. Here is another manifestation of ill fortunes wicked smile. Like the previous latent, psychosomatic adventure portrayed itself as a tragic interlude into those hidden races of man, this foul trip leads to the illuminated underworld. But, the all-to-forgotten adventures still bear upon our new travesty.
What had
previously occurred as my psychotic adventures in
Enough, the dark dream needs told. The present must wait for the past to be rectified, as the future holds the present’s fate. Weave, weave, weave: With all my prayers, I urge it to be the last great vestige of mystery and terror in the American Northeast.
Two years had past from the period I called “the inferno”—after Strindberg’s illness and not that political farce by the same name. To those readers unfamiliar with my unpleasant Irish adventures, know that I found the darker aspects of my own humanity wrapped tightly in the bound, fallen wings of a lost civilization, one best left in the prison of my mind. As it were, I had again settled into the cycle of going to work and studying, the former occurring as a morning ritual of no small pains, and the later, well, manifesting itself as an evening ritual of similar distaste. There were again the pleasant minutes of the day far drowned out by the lumbering displeasures of daily life. It was as if all my bright flowers stove vainly in the wind and rain of Pennsylvanian disgust. Fortunately, the miserable school year passed quickly and I again accomplished something more then living, but far less than succeeding. As the summer sun now joins us, brightly setting on cold may morning, I remember pulling into the gravel road of my cousin’s house.
We were meeting on familiar ground, all agreeing to leave our vehicles in my family’s open land until we were to return, one week later, from a camping trip none of us were particular prepared for; I alone had no illusions in the matter. Packing all those old, unused items from my youthful days as a boy scout, I relied heavily on a past preparedness that came natural to me and far less on any specific plans. Pulling down into the drive way, K___ (whose name I again leave out for fear of dealing her a far-less splendid light than she still deserves) tapped me exuberantly on the leg. She beamed the smile I had always swore seemed celestial in its brilliance, before shifting to first and turning her vehicle off.
Standing lonely in the gravel was my distraught cousin, Blake, and his dancer girlfriend, Stacie. Raising a carefully polished hand, her friendly wave juxtaposed quietly next to his hesitant disposition. Though I would not openly tell them, they stood a typical pair of opposites trying towards similitude. Where she looked lithe and eager to be on the way, he shyly stood in a well-built stance, hoping the trip would be canceled. Hefting both their bags into a long dully truck, he approached cautiously, as if expecting his girlfriend to reproach him. After it was obviously she was too taken with her travel bag, he slunk towards the car only to be interrupted by the noise of an approaching vehicle.
Violently pulling down into the driveway, the two final campers swerved quickly around our parked vehicle, and slid violently next to our vehicles. The driver, Jason Arknaught, was an acquaintance of Stacie’s. Though never working a day of construction in his life, he was an engineer out CMU with more money than education and more desire than reservation. He was notorious for driving far too quickly in the wrong direction, and somehow, mostly the intervention of his parents, pulling himself around. The actual effectiveness of this strategy remained to be proven.
Our final cohort was to be a young acquaintance of Arknaught’s. Truthfully, I had never laid eyes on her docile face before that chilling evening. Even with the first glance, I knew her as a passive innocent, a child used to being led with little heed to her own opinions. It was a shame, I thought to myself, that her flamboyant scarlet hair screamed iconoclastically next to Arknaught’s insipid brown.
With little more energy spent packing, and a brief argument over seating, our camping adventure began. Unfortunately, as it was decided that K___ and I were the least argumentative, she sat in the middle of the backseat and I sat in the middle of the front. Thought it annoyed me to sit alone, especially while I knew K___ became carsick when traveling in the backseat, I found pleasure in separating the other couples. It’s wasn’t out of spite, I swear.
The trip was a dull as can be. Had the seat allowed it, I would have slept. Instead, I grew grumpier as the time passed. Eventually, after listening to Stacie and Arknaught argue about the importance of a liberal education for countless restless moments, I could stand no more. Stacie, arguing from a rather informed —given her studies at Pitt were undertaken with the least amount of enthusiasm and receiving the least amount of acclaim—opinion was debating the issue of “studying canonic texts.” This of course was met with Arknaughts bombastic ejaculation, “Yeah, and this is why I’m making 60 k a year, and you’re still in school! All you English majors do is climb the ladder to procreated and then to die. Just like ants.”
Stacie countered, “Oh my god, way to reduce 1000 years of English literature into a poorly thought-out metaphor!” It was almost unbearable to endure; the cliché battle between the lofty intellectual versus the realistic capitalist roared like the gray flames of hell: hot enough to burn, but not illuminating enough to enlighten. In defeat, I hung my head over the back of the seat and exposed my jugular...hoping for a quick(ier) death; yet, the bickering continued. Blake, in desperation, turned the radio louder, blaring “Surfin Bird” almost to distortion. I allied with the distracting beat, and sang as loud as I could, drumming frantically along. The 70’s rock bliss lasted only a moment, and Blake, preferring to ignore Stacie/Arknaught’s argument over my erratic ‘air drum’ and poor vocal talents, turned the radio back to an ignorable level.
The trip continued in this fashion, and it is dull even to think of now. Thankfully, out voyage was nearing an end, and the heavens smiled down on us. In the distance, the slowly looming Appalachian peaks contrasted against a gas station. Blake steered his father’s dually onto the asphalt. He quietly said to me, “We’re low on diesel.” I peered at the gauge, much to his annoyance. “We’ve got about a quarter tank…You think this place has any?” I shook my head ‘no’. With a jerk, the vehicle lurched back onto the narrow highway—since I was not driving, I must apologize for forgetting the highway name. At this time it slips my mind—where we pressed onward. It had been the least relaxing rest stop imaginable.
We traveled on for the remainder of the tank, and an evening sun met the diminished fuel gauge somewhere near the bottom of the horizon. The cab was full of sleeping people, all save Blake and myself. Instead, we busied ourselves with prayers and anxieties that we did not run completely out of fuel, considering the hardships faced with refueling. Unlike a gas vehicle, the diesel would need refueled, primed and its fuel lines bled of air. Had my other cousin been along, I might have worried less, but neither Blake nor I were the most mechanically savvy men in the world. It just added to the frustration in an already unpleasant experience.
Another ten minutes passed, and our anxieties turned to real fears. Not necessarily as precarious as I had experienced before, but the type that makes breathing calmly more difficult. In the newly arrived darkness, a sign appeared. Slowly, the headlights crept higher on blacken letters on a red landscape. The sign itself was that of a Red delicious apple, complete with proper green hat and a wooden stem. It read, “Wayland Farms.”
A dismal chance presented itself. “Let’s take this road, run it to the farm and see if we can buy some fuel,” I urged Blake. “They’ll surely have diesel, if anything for their tractors and fruit trucks.” Blake hesitated for a second, mind seconds behinds the hand steering. In the end, the dully truck steered into the newer gloom of gravel stones and oak canopies.
I
“The manifest dream, which you
Know from your memory when you
Wake up, can therefore only be
Described as a disguised
fulfillment
Of repressed
wishes” –Freud, Five
Lectures on Psychic-Analysis
We pulled along a simple farmhouse made of brick—though, honestly, I believe I thought it should have been wood, for it seemed almost the exact representation of a farmhouse. Though, considering it was a farm house, I suppose it is a moot observation. The house was surrounded on three sides by apple orchard, giving the place a rather seclude (and eerie) feel. The fourth side, or the front side I should say, was open enough to see a few windows and the front door. I hesitate to say the house was dilapidated, but a wolf would assuredly have found easy bacon within. Add in the scent of fermentation (or rot?)—disregarded apples idly liquefying—and you’ll understand the rural condemnation.
Pulling along the house, Blake looked passed me at the front door. “Do you want to go knock?”
Giving the house a once-over, I shrugged, “If anyone is home. We might just have bought ourselves an uncomfortable nights sleep at the Bates motel.” No one laughed. “I’ll be back,” I nudged Argnaught’s sleeping girlfriend, whose name I had yet to learn. With a slumbering surprise gently awakening on her face, she opened her left eye. “I need out,” I said, unceremoniously opening the door and crawling over her. Thinking better of my actions, I turned to introduce myself, but was met with a rather annoyed look on Blake’s face, urging me to waddle up the stairs.
Rapping loudly on the door proved useless. Either the occupants were fast asleep, or were engaged somewhere deep within the residence. I peered in. A heavy curtain of solitude suffocated the house. With no furniture to speak of, the first room resembled a storage room for waste and magazines. In fact, only one lonely chair sat upright in the room, as if awaited its owner to enter and post. I returned to the truck certain the establishment was deprived of life.
“The place is a tomb.” I quoted, before climbing next to the scarlet-haired girl and Blake. In my absents, the cab had been awakened and informed of our present predicament. As with most minor emergencies I had been involved in, the cab was presently in a turmoil. Presently, I say, and was from that period forward.
“What are we going to do?
“Find fuel, I guess”
“But where?”
“Well…”
It continued on for a few more minutes of nauseating question asking. Surprisingly, it was Arknaught’s chiding voice that interrupted the inquiry. “Okay, these people are obviously out on the ‘town’ and we’re sitting here babbling. Can we just steal some fuel and get the fuck out of here? I mean, Jesus. We’re sitting here arguing and there’s a tank of fuel” he comically gestured with both hands, “sitting right there!” A hundred or so gallon fuel tank sat beside a large wooden hay barn.
“What do you think?”
“Well, if we just grab a few gallons and take off...” Blake reassured himself. Firing the engine, he slowly, quietly drove to a red tank. Blake and Arknaught stepped out of the vehicle, followed noisily by the girls. Sliding over to the driver’s seat, I kept the engine running.
“Aren’t you going to shut it off?” K___ asked in her best hushed voice.
“It’s fine,” I bluntly assured her. “Besides, I don’t know if I want to get salt-pelleted today when this guy opens both barrels up on us.” Starring behind us at the house, I fully expected to see an old gruff farmer firing a double-barrel through the empty window.
There was a fear lurking, though, just behind that loony-toons image. It was the hidden image I has lost somewhere 2000+ miles away. Had those dark spirits tracked me to my home soil? Were they to be revenged? I could again see the tentacles and tendrils of my fear spreading like a blight meticulously, consciously into my self.
A hushed argument pulled me from those deliriums. “all I’m saying is that it last in your tank for 3 fill ups. It’s a 10,000 dollar fine if they catch me again!”
“Jesus man, we’re stealing fuel! You think they’re going to be concerned about the tax when they stick us in jail for theft!”
“Well…” Blake’s notorious uncertainty slowed our criminal pursuits.
“Blake, just fucking steal the gas. I’ll drive. They’re not going to do a random dip-test in the middle of bum-fuck-Egypt. Who cares if it’s dyed, tax exempt, or made of milk and honey as long as it gets out of here.” Blake mistook my tone as being hostile, and he leaned over to me to verbally disagree. “I’m sorry, let’s just get out of here,” I urged. I never even thought to ask how they noticed the red-dye in the dull moonlight.
“Whatever, but you’re helping pay when they catch us,” he shoved the handle into the tank spout. Arknaught slowly cranked the pump handle. In the darkness, its shrill cries sounded far too similar to an alarm. Six bodies shuddered in the shrieking victimization of the pump, until eventually fuel vomited from the tank. Arknaught alone broke the silence, expressing a guttural sympathy for his own sore arm. Hastily, the former occupants of the cab crawled within the vehicle. One by one they fastened their safety belts awaiting our departure. Each body physically urged our departure, and yet I hesitated.
I couldn’t leave. With an observant eye, I watched the doorway of the house, half still expecting it to open. Something foreign held my foot from the gas, though perhaps that is not the right word for it. I recognized the hesitative qualities to the foreign argument. Latent…spiritual even, it rested its clinging hand on my mind. As it were, I would forever have been content to lay within its grasp.
Again, an interruption pulled me from those delusions. Violently I shook away the catatonia. A chorus of “What the…” and sporadic shivers erupted within the cab. I looked cautiously at K___. Our eyes locked; her face of fearful curiosity drained to one of manifested fear.
“Christ,” I thankfully muttered. Panic already salivated over our vehicle, I tired not to invite it open reign. “We’re going,” I yanked the column shift to overdrive, and hammered the gas.
“Wait, someone’s hurt!” The door was open, even as I fished tailed the truck around. Arknaught was on foot away towards the house. He was on the steps before I had even slammed on the brake, and behind the ranch style porch before I had remembered park. Blake bailed out of the truck as well, followed by Stacie.
I turned to K___ and the scarlet haired girl. “My bag,” I pointed to the green bookbag on the floor. Nestled near the bottom, under a copy of Mathew Lewis “Journal of a West India Proprietor”—a novel I was reading, and rather enjoying at the time—was a Glock .40 cal. Opening the box, I removed the oiled weapon and mechinally checked the high capacity clip. There were feminate exasperations echoing form the backseat. I turned to K___ and ignored her disapproving look. “Get up front, lock the doors, and stay here.”
“Why did you bring that!” K___ cried.
“Get up front!” I commanded, slamming the door. Quickly sliding a round into the chamber, I stuffed the pistol and spare clips into my coat. In my defense, though I offered none then, I had been in one gun fight already. I would never rely on dues ex machine or that bitch Fortuna again. Looking back on it now, I feel rather silly: A leather coat, black iron cross hat, and a .40 cal in my hand. Add a ‘shit eating grin’ and I would have looked like a reject from the Hell’s Angels’ school of violent crimes.
Rounding the corner of the porch, there was a gunclap. The sliding, mechicle noise of a pump shotgun crept along with several more gunclaps. I found myself huddling on the floor of the porch. Above my head, a chunk of the house was missing. I belly crawled forward, and peered around the corner.
Blake was knees to chest behind a blue Buick, all four wheels on the floor. Arknaught swore impatiently next to him. Stacie was no where to be seen. On the other hand, I heard a pump from behind a wooden shed to the right. There, in the not-so comical darkness, stood my loony-toon farmer.
A gray-bearded farmer aimed his pumpgun carefully at my cousin. I pointed the .40 cal at him, and, with all intentions of scaring the furor from his aim, I shot him. The calm of my actions rushed in from the suction of the gunclap. I stood still on the other end of the Glock’s sights; my target, the gray-beard, flailed amidst his own life blood. Muffled shouts and distant beckonings awakened in the lawn. Cautiously, I put the loaded weapon into my coat pocket. “Blake?” I called.
“Jesus Christ, Jesus, jesus…Jesus Christ!” Someone summoned from the grass. I almost wish now that the reckoning had been invoked, for I might have argued more clearly my unclear perceptions. The old man had been threatening my family; yet, a convoluting energy held my calculating mind. There were no moments, I would later assure myself, for a liberal man to intervene rationally. Brutal, irreverent violence, the enemy of all things rational, lurked just behind my instinctual morality…and of course it was the first card drawn. Standing timidly alone, I believed myself guilty of murder—well, manslaughter at least—and all those old laws of man found me again their victim.
Visions of a red-haired youth sprawled about Gaelic ruins rushed into my mind. Was this another schizophrenic murder on behalf of a presupposed danger? I worried, distantly focusing on the dying human. Two figures ran towards the bleeding old man. One, pulling the shotgun from the ground, pointed it down at my victim. The other, seeing the violent intentions in his companion’s actions, kicked the gun barrel away. They began to argue. The gun rose and declined depending on the arguers, one diligently attempting to aligned it with the old man’s body, the other intently removing it.
Somewhere behind me, something was breaking glass. I blinked away the moment’s opaque morality. My hand was shaking, but the conscious notion of my own crimes demanded I investigate the body. Now, with my greater facilities returned to me, I hurriedly rushed to Blake and Arknaught, both bent low over the man’s head.
“Your son?” Blake repeated some unheard whisper as I approached.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized.
“Shut up!” Arknaught gesticulated with the shotgun awkwardly pressed against his knee. The barrel wavered unsafely in my direction. I ignored the ironic thoughts which came to my mind. It was no time for fictional theory and literary conceptualization.
“My son…taken into the cellar two days ago…the root celler” As if trying to point, he tapped his limp hand painfully against his chest. With one last clear articulation, he breathed, “save my son, please, save him from them.” Romantically, his dismal eyes lost the vivacious glint of existence.
Reaching down, I sought to close his eyelids. “O Father, our friend has sunk in the deep waters of death…” I unconsciously quoted; Arknaught violently slapped my hand before I could close the old man’s eyes.
“Are you fucking mad? Don’t touch him! You’ll leave finger prints all over his face!”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” I calmly asked him.
“I’m not worried about anything, okay. I was worried about 15 minutes ago when I’m getting,” he deliberately picked up a spent shell and examined it, “Quail load shot at my head!”
“Well, you’re fine and he’s dead. So get over it, okay,” Blake said. “What do we do now? Are we in trouble?”
Arknaught, resting the shotgun on his shoulder like some game hunter, said “Of course not. It was clearly self-defense. Well done, Jeff, by the way. What the hell did you hit him with?”
“Forty.” Though, the FMJ only cost me about twenty-six cents.
“Where’d you get it?”
“Who cares!” Blake interrupted. “Is it yours?”
“It’s mine.” I pulled it from my pocket. They both studied the weapon, careful not to lean near the barrel, as if proximity to the weapon would give them lead poisoning. Sated, they turned back to the body.
“Should we bury him?”
“Bury him? Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Should we tell the girls?”
“No,” I urged, “No time for more onlookers. Let’s just get out of here.” I walked away. It felt wrong not to bury the old man, especially after I killed him. Self-preservation told me that the less time we spent with the corpse, the less likely anything will come of it. After all, it was unlikely anyone would find the body for days if not weeks out here. The farm lacked a retail market in sight, and, from the looks for the apples, the orchard had been closed for some time. I walked away from the farm feeling both weary of what I had done, and uncertain of its greater reckonings. Part of me felt too similar to Camus’ Stranger; the other part didn’t buy the analogy.
II
“Lodovico- O
thou Othello, that was once so good
Fall’n in the practice of a damned slave,
What shall be said to thee?
Othello- Why,
anything:
An honorable
murderer, if you will;
For nought I
did in hate, but all in honor.”
-
Shakespeare, Othello Act V
Forgive me, good reader, another moment of contemplation. Though, it is within the next section I will elaborate the damnation of our Dramatis Personae, I wish to stress the importance of my actions against those spirits to be visited: ‘‘I do not combat against death, but thee and thy surrounding angels.” It became clear, as it will to you, good reader, that the world we were engulfed by, was never meant for mortal eyes, and those which dared sight upon it, were so drastically changed that they were never called by their same names. Therefore, the names of the cast have been changed, though have opted to keep my name. While its absence was urged, perhaps via the honorable pseudonym, I refrained from removing it. The next section details the horrors, the tribulations, and the tragic awakenings of ‘the worst visions of my woe’ played out upon those I held dear. Their suffering, O to have rework it, I would have placed upon my own psyche had it been within my power…and yet I visit it upon you. Judge as you will, the dissention of so many good stars into a world of degradation and absolute evil.
The only prominent thought I remember from seeing our vehicle, was a bewilderment at the missing door. It had been torn violently from the jam. A large gap awkwardly traveled from the right corner of the driver’s side straight across to the second door. This door, though still attached, had been roughly treated as well. All six windows of the compartment lay scattered in small, glass blocks about the grass. Almost comically, as if designed by a B-movie studio, blood dripped in pools along the torn door. I recall hesitantly blinking. Surely the vision would clear, and both former occupants would demand a report on our firefight.
“What…” Blake pushed past me, “Where’s Stacie?” He turned violently to me, as if I had torn the doors from the car myself. “Where is she,” he demanded.
“I’m sure with K____ and the other girl,” I lied for I had seen her run after him. In truth, I knew she was with K___ and the other girl, wherever they were.
Arknaught stooped near the puddle of blood. “Human blood?”
“I doubt it,” I answered.
“Bear?”
“Doubt that too.”
“Well, Jamie’s got to be with the other girls,” he concluded. I made a note of her name. “When we find one, we’ll find all three.”
Blake ran his fingers through his mop brown hair and urged an exploration of the area. After a quick search of the vehicle, we discovered a loaded mag light. Within moments, a trail was uncovered heading around the farm house, and towards the same root cellar we had ignored. When it finally occurred to us, that the dying (now dead) farmer, the irrationally of our violence, and the seemingly fated confliction of our parties all surrounded the cellar, we were left dumbstruck.
Our tribunal rested upon the blue Buick, and starred uncertainly at the root cellar entrance. We bickered over the old man and accused each other of faults—thought it seemed to me that I bore the most of the blame. They eventually decided on my guilt as well, and urged me to inspect the door.
“I’ll go first, but I want to know what the farmer said. Exactly what the farmer said,” I clarified.
“All he was doing was mumbling about his son being kidnapped. Some load of shit,” Arknaught said. The twelve gauge rested ominously on his shoulder. I had begun to distrust him, the pumpgun only adding to my weariness. He appeared far too certain of his perceptions, and far less weary than I thought advisable. “Just go check out the door.”
I turned my back on Arknaught. “Blake. The son?”
“Well, I’m not certain…it sounded…” he wore a troubled brow. “It almost sounded like he thought we were someone else? When I got over to him, before Jason tried to blow his head off, I thought he looked shocked or something.”
“That’s because Jeff put a round in his chest! Wouldn’t you be—”
“Yeah, but this was different. I thought he said something like, ‘not them’ or maybe ‘you’re not them’ or even ‘you were suppose to be them’.” Each sentence seemed more conclusive and Blake continued to talk even into Arknaught’s further complaining.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Can we just go into the goddamn celler already?” And he rotated the shotgun into position, marching off towards the root cellar.
I took a step closer to Blake, “I have something to tell you quickly, but later. Let’s look for the girls first.” Blake nodded, most likely uncertain it even mattered what I had to say. From his face, I could tell he bore inside the same churning fear I too bore.
Pulling the club-like mag from his coat, Blake pointed the light towards the door. An artifical aura emblazoned the door, giving it the eerie glow all to familiar to a haunted cellar. Given the present terror, I almost wished to be again engulfed in the already experienced darkness, rather than the manufactured light.
Though it never occurred to me to protect myself with my own weapon, Arknaught brought the twelve gauge to bear on the doorway. With a steady hand, he motioned for me to open the wooden structure. Slowly, even patiently, I wrapped my hand around the handle. We sucked in as much air as we could. I threw open the door.
Deep, enlivened darkness pressed against us on a subterraneous current. Fresh on this wafting air, rose a damp smell of molder, and perhaps even a sweet, flesh rot. Deeper still, the sound of something churning further into the gloom arose in an aural assault. It was this sound that proved the most troubling, for its mechanical repetition seemed artificially induced, or at least unnaturally disturbing in the primordial darkness. .
“Going in light first?” Arknaught asked.
Blake shook his head, “Barrel first.”
Pulling the handgun from my pocket, I offered my open palm to Blake. “I’ll go first. Just don’t shoot me when you slip.” I shouldered my way into the dark, only turning on the mag when I was in front of the other two. With my conventional right hand, I carried the loaded .40 in front; with my enlighten left, I alleviated both the weight of my right and the moving lamp. Together, we three moved down the slick, uncertain wood.
I descended down the wood only to find that, other than the cavern ambiance, the root cellar proved a mundane basement. A rotting smell, produced by scattered potatoes, engulfed the room, but proved only a minor nuisance. Another door lay off to the right side of the room where the mechanical hum of a generator sputtered within.
“What a bust,” Arknaught said, kicking a glass jar of preservatives.
“No sign of the girls.” Blake walked to the unopened door. From the tearing which soundly erupted behind me, whatever creature lurked within the unexplored room shredded the door. With the first shout, I dropped the mag light to the floor. After the second, something blunt crashed against my head. With the final cry, one dwindling from my own throat, it was clear that all my dismal dreams had against manifested. Before I lost consciousness, something warm splashed along my face…and I thought I felt sharp teeth bite lightly into my boot. Any other experience went by the way of a darkness…
I awoke (the first time) in a room full of long tables and odd shaped, wooden devices. Someone was screaming in broken French.
The second time I awoke, I had been hung from the ceiling. My fingers and wrist bled and the rest of my body ached. A dark, long haired man repeated hit me in the stomach. He asked me something I could not hear, and he hit me again. Finally, he hit me so hard I passed back out.
The third time I awoke, I saw through bloody eyes, the same torture being inflicted on a naked women, her lithe frame twisting under the blows. Again, a French voice demanded something. She cried, her shrill tearful voice breaking throughout. In a young, broken English, she managed, “O lord, if thou be kind, kill me now”.
I don’t know if he understood her, but the man turned to face me. He was tall, maybe 6’5”, with a heavy frame. Muscle moved on muscle and his thick corded arm reached for a rusted tool, encrust blood and all. A sinister smile split his sunken face when he turned to face her. Extending the executing weapon before him, he slowly pushed just the tip of the blade into her bicep. Head hung low, she groaned in her submissive agony.
Awakened by the sound of her broken will, I found what little strength I had to stand. With his attentions wholly taken up by filthy pleasures of torment, the sound of my fall fell on deaf ears. Again he parted her flesh, and again I struggled to rise, this time finding feet beneath my frame. Just about the time I rose to my fullest extent, she opened her eyes for one last painful push; her tormentor, pleased to comply, drew back his blade point. Despite the measures of torment within my body and psyche, I fleetly stole a sharpened edge from the table—thought, it might as well have been a sharp shiv or shaved screwdriver for all it resembled a tool—and approached him. Silently, I slide behind him, stealthy poising the blade near his juggler. For the second time that night, blood spilt upon my hands.
To my utmost horror, the monstrous man did not die but instead reached a powerful hand into my hair. In fear more than strategy, I pressed my knee into his back and wrenched with all my might the shiv, rotating the blade in circles. Still, the creature pulled and roared. In desperation, I slide the blade back only to again plunge it into the beast. Like some great tree, I rode the Frenchmen down onto the floor. There goliath lay whilst I stood. Even today, I shuddered to think what ‘works of destruction’ he was capable of when not mortally wounded.
The young girl against the wall wept to see me stand over her tormentor. I approached her gently. From her condition, I was not certain she would not die from shock before I cut her down. “It’s okay,” I said, “Are you hurt?” She shook her head ‘no,’ and obvious lie considering the amount of pain in my stomach. Had not the extra fat have been there, I feared my intestines may have ruptured.
“I’m going to cut you down,” I approached her with the blade. Surprisingly, she did not flinch when I positioned the blade near her wrist. In fact, she seemed almost conditioned to the torturer. “How long have you been down here?” I asked, though thinking back on it, I should have asked her how we ended up in a French dungeon.
“four chimes,” she answered.
“What’s a chime?” I asked her. the roped of her right wrist snapped as I carefully sawed through it. Putting my right arm around her small frame, I quickly cut away the final rope. The dead weight of her abused body fell violently into my weak arms. Together, we crashed comically to the floor. The blow to the floor left me reeling, but as fast as a unleashed, feral animal, the girl ran into the dark of an ajoing room.
It was only then that I realized I had only the remains of my boxer shorts covering my genitals. Whoever had stripped me had obviously discarded my clothing somewhere else; the room contained only the tools of the Inquisitors profession. Though, the Inquistor would hardly have need of his ‘tools’ any longer. With my sick sense of humor in tact, I set myself about the grueling duty of stripping the French corpse. Thankfully, given the bulk of his frame, his pants slid tightly on my waist. It was then my duty to collect a weapon. Somehow, despite all my adventures, I found my ability to make use of any object as a weapon to be my only quality. It surely wasn’t my persuasive wit. Instead, I opted for the same sharpened metal which formely had found an unwanted home with my allies body. Still, her wet blood clotted upon the blade. Shaking way this discomforting thought, I moved away from my former housing.
I stalked quietly into the empty halls, my bare feet barely touching the glass like surface when I stepped. Surrounding by a emerald phosphorescence glow, the hallway seemed richer than even Caesar’s palace must have. The walls were askew with various precious minerals, lapis lazuli its chief element. Obviously, the ceiling had been worked, but primitive in manner or method, similar to those (unweathered) stones. As to the green hue engulfing my vision, I can only say it escaped from the very stones themselves. If I did not know I was underground, I would have sworn I was in a city of sorts.
I did not wish to waste the time to safely explore my enemies hall, but, given the confusing glow of the halls, my senses were surreal at best. Placing the sharpened metal before me, I walked into the gloom.
Many hours past this way. I walked, I feared, and most of all, I thought. Were theses the ‘ancient abominations’ I had once fought, come to make victims of my friends? No, for they appeared as disfigured monstrosities. Gargantuan, the Frenchmen, had been human. Even so, he lacked the sense of pious honor so characteristic of my former enemies. Where they had duty, he had pleasure. Hedonistic he lived, and painfully he died. I, of course, somehow found myself still contemplatively alive. I fear it is very presumptuous of me to say that, while I was certain at the time I would die, I was glad for the chance to slay the creature. What world had I been awaken into, where men so enjoyed the domination of women? Had we no respect for the captive, that we could treat them so poorly without a thought of their humanity? To kill an enemy was tolerable, to slowly destroy his flesh while enjoying the spectacle, was bestial at its finest.
With my train of thought driving my furor quickly towards lustration, I worried not of my capture, but urged further confrontation. I wished to dispatch more of the Frenchmen’s allies for their victimization of the girl. It was, though, my only hope she had not poisoned the Frenchmen’s son. I did not wish for any conflicted angst to interfere with my bloodletting. True evil was so hard to come by.
It was not long, thankfully, that I got my wish. I had wandered deeper into the installation, traveling both away and below my starting point. It was behind a locked door I found out the secrets to this entire nihilistic inferno.
The door was large and ornate, with what could best be described as an ornamental, scrawling language covering its frame. Despite the green hue, I knew the door to be of the darkest arterial crimson. Its handle resemble no normal device. Instead, it looked most similar to an Asian pear, both in its round nature and textured feel. When I turned the ‘pear’, the door sprang upwards in great haste.
A battle roared within, where a titanic man smote two smaller men in rapid succession. The blows of his steel cudgel splattered blood over the gulf separating us. Two men died before my eyes even had time to focus on their assailant. Under his dark blond hair, his eyes gleamed in a verdant flame. With all the finesse of a fencer, the man raised his cudgel before him.
I saluted him with the faux sword, and kept the center of my body low to the floor. There was a tension to my frame, and I expect to die with his first blow, but all the muscles in my body ached to see the lithe female revenged. Keeping the edge of the weapon as far from my body as I could, I thought to drive it menacing point through his chest at the first sign of movement.
It did not come. Instead, his long hair wavered in so unseen current and he waited. We stood for some time transfixed within each other’s gaze.
“Come for death…” he demanded, tagging on some unknown insult or profanation. Most importantly, he demanded in English—An archaic, British English, but definitely English. It sounded off, even for its foreign accent[2].
“You speak English?” I asked him. I noticed, even in his comprehension, the weapon never wavered in its position. It was obvious he trusted me about as much as the dead men on the floor.
“I do,” he said, “as do you?”
“Obviously! What’s going on here!”
“Where’s
“
“My sister,” he took a step closer; I sprung back. “Where is she.”
“Listen, You stay over there for now, or you’ll be plucking this thing out of your chest.” He stopped moving, though his shoulders arched forward ever-so-slightly. “The only girl I’ve seen was getting her ass kicked in there and I freed her.” He did not comment, so I repeated, “She’s was being tortured. I set her free.”
“You
freed
“Who
is
“A Briton. She was captured on patrol four chimes ago.”
“Well, buddy. It looks like I just saved your sister’s life. Now, can you get me the hell out of here?” I lowered my weapon point enough so that the blade appeared to split his face.
Noticing my stand-down, he slide the cudgel onto his back. “You come with me back to the King.” Given the circumstances and his destructive capabilities, it seemed as pleasant an option as afforded me.
It
turned out the massive Briton was a soldier named Joseph—who did not enjoy me
pet name of ‘Joe’. I quickly dropped it. When I asked him how he came to be
under a farm, he seemed confused. I asked him where he was born, he said under
“King James.” It was my turn to be confused. It seemed that his local king
‘james’ was somehow a ruling monarch within the cave. He did not answer any of
my questions about how he came to
He did mention an intruder three Chimleks earlier.[3] This intruder had an alien dress about him, and was found bodily injured by patrols. It was only after they discovered he too spoke English—very similar to my own experience—that he was taken captive. King James (the son of Joseph’s ‘birth-king’) granted him a citizenship, but only if he swore the French as his enemies and a death to their Regent. When I asked Joseph to speak to the ‘intruder’, he said I would have to “beg our lord’s leave.” “Imagine,” I thought, “an American begging for anything.”
It took us what seemed like hours to arrive at James’ court. Much like I had expected, it was a revere as Dionysus could have demanded; James, the head bacchant, sat upon an emblazoned emerald throne, two skulls fixed under his hands. His carnal Queen was a fearfully exotic creature lustfully draped around his shoulders, her serpentine features poisonous to the sight: Drunken men fell intoxicatingly over scantly clad women. Weapons of all varieties skewed amidst ‘tables spread with all dainties’. Ulcerous persons infected the room in various postures of hedonistic pleasures, their shocking honesty left even my vulgar eyes reeling.
“So this is paradise,” I said aghast. The court, having heard my oral protestation, aroused itself.
“Joseph,” King James look troubled on his throne, “What is the meaning of this intrusion.” He had the voice of a conquerer, both bold and assured. Even in inquiry, his question sounded engraved in a tome for centeries. Above all else, his tone was above all contestation.
“He brings news of my sister.”
“Your sister?” Funny how a man would spend so much time explaining (barely) his settlement, and fail to mention his sister was rescued. I suppose it is of consequence he did not thank me either.
“Silence!” the ground shook and the giant raised his eyebrows to reveal the very soul of discontent. A fury rose barely checked within my heart. I was no monarchist. “When I bid you speak, you may speak! Continue.”
Joseph detailed my impromptu assault on their enemies, including mentioning my slaying of “one of the three.” From the expression on the King’s face, it became clear that this was a beneficial turn of events. He continued by describing the very act of the smiting, gratuitously explaining the puncturing of the wound and the brutally of ‘One’s death.
When Joseph finally concluded, King James stood. Behind him, the serpentine queen stretched leisurely on the throne. Majestically, Mar’s avatar descended the dais. Raising a massive hand larger than my head, he squeezed my shoulder. Despite the pain, I knew it a congratulatory grasp. “You have done well for us, friend. Pray tell, what are you called?”
Picking up some microcosmic xenophobia, I quickly introduced myself as “Jeff of America, not France. “ The King took interest, waving his queen to descend the stairs.
“
“A new country named in jest. It is written in the Book, a great war raged between the ancients, your forefathers, for control of this new kingdom.” She spoke in harmonious notes, as if the celestials themselves sang from her tongue. “They are savages of my mother’s blood,” she leaned over her king’s shoulder to rub a solitary finger against my chin. “Barbarians.”
“Kiss my ass, lady” I said, before biting down on my jaw. While expecting a blow to shake my skull, I mumbled an apology, which came out, “Even barbarians are capable of great things.”
“Indeed they are,” she answered. I did not like the succubus’ enticing gaze.
“What is going on here,” I asked of the king. This time, he did not scream at me. “Why are you trapped in this subterranean hole?”
“Trapped we are, Jeff of America. As we have been for many chimiek. Tascela,” he turned to the lotus behind him, “Weave our tale, Queen.” Despite the declaratory tone, it was ambiguous whether it was a plea or a command.
Tascela related the turmoil of their world. Given the seductive charm of her annunciating, I could not maintain any real concrete grasp. Much like the ecstasy of a shaken car crash victim, I recall only the minimal of all I heard. Recalling now, the history appears to me as a mythos more than any factual material ever could. It began as most epics did, in the midst of chaos. There had been a great battle above ground some hundreds of years ago. There, the two great armies—comprised, as I would later find out, of the British and French forces. Unlike warfare of the times, this specific battle began and ended in the Appalachian forests. Both sides confronted each other. A great battle ensued. Many died. The pyrrhic victory left both sides wandering the forest, bleeding and carrying their dead. Though enemies and separated by mere minutes, a dark abode offered both parties comfort, and, together, they entered into what would be their eternity. There the reminents of the British army found comfort in the eerie glowing halls, breeding and dying beneath its cavernous expanses. This was the end of her brief mythos, leaving much to be questioned.
Though I implored, the King silenced me with a titanic, raised hand. “Before you will no more, you must answer me two questions.” He stood, grasping an previously unseen cudgel. The weapon, a bronze mass of religious décor, rose and sat menacingly upon his shoulder. “On whose side do you declare?”
“Side?” He raised a feral eye brow almost as menacing as his deep scowl. “I am on my own side, your lordship.”
“There are but three sides,” he spoke, The pious nature of his voice filled the room in a serene manner, its invocation though filled the eager ears perking about me. “My Kingdom,” he boomed, sweeping his arms wide. The encompassing gesture thrilled those onlookers, who almost crawled over each other in wormlike excitement. “And Those across the hall, and those beneath the realm. Of which party do you declare.”
Though my ego rose threatening in my throat, some greater intellect urged my self-preservation. “I serve the strongest, mi’ lord. I serve the Throne of King James.” Despite my best efforts, I could not help but feel hypocritical. In the dreaming world of my self-worth, I swore I would die before I gave into tyrannical demands. I suppose to keep my head, I had to lie upon it. Standing before the king, I found myself genuflected and supplicating, before I understood the dire situation I faced..
Looking up at the dais, the great king loomed above me. With one large hand, he grasped the top of my scalp. “As my man, You have obligations to the realm.” Stooping low, his shaven face brushed my beard’s wiskers, he whispered, “I fear your obligations though must wait. You will come to my quarters after the four and twentieth chime.” Standing again to his fullest height, he addressed his ‘court’. “The Nails!”
Frantically, operatic music poured from behind a dark screen unacknowledged off to the side. Like some great masque, the denizens of James court pranced about in practiced revelry, swinging surreally their feet and hands about them. A great warrior entered from stage right wearing a goat’s head; in his abominable hands, a twin-faced axe rose high above his head. With one sweeping motion, he struck the ground with the wooden shaft, and a call echoed through the stone throne room. Two scantily clad women pushed a monolithic pole across the floor. Jagged, like bent vertebra, red nails patterned the ebony-wood pole, giving it the demonic shape of a massive centipede; its shadowy, frenzied feet scurried in the green, phosphorescent gloom.
I could not help by laugh half-heartily at the odd, pagan ritual being performed. It all seemed to King Kong for a straight face. Certainly, had it been filmed, it would have been directed by some hack director with no idea of his own worth. Unfortunately, my jovial spirit ended with Joseph’s approach.
“I’ve come to explain the ceremony,” he offered, the large cudgel still strapped to his back. “It is with pride you behold our totem, fore each jagged nail is the death of our enemy,” He turned to behold the pole himself, his long hair draping over his shoulders.
It was not pride but abject horror which overwhelmed my viewing of that dreary pole. Thousands of crimson nails pierced the nightmarish totem, a monolithic anomaly for it marked death and not time’s passing. Some lofty part of me wished to smash the pole into pieces, to see the bloody nails fall away. Perhaps, if they were to mark nothing at all, those souls caught in the social conflict might rest easier. Perhaps, though, it wouldn’t matter at all. Subjective destruction, I thought, would at least ease my own viewing pain. Was this the civilized world? Destruction and memorial? Death and Memory? To be eternalized as a conflicted artifice for the viewing woes of others….Only more shocking was the realization that, somewhere in the ‘Those across the Hall’s’ side, thousands of nails marked the triumph over the lost British’s dead. Partly, the barbaric ID felt vindicated for no manifested memorial marked the joy of its terror’s passing.
“We now mark the slaying of ‘Those across the Hall’.” He pointed one callused finger to the minotaur, who buried two nails together into the wood. He then rose a solitary nail, and positioned it to be hammered. “And, here my friend, we mark your slaying of ‘One of the Three’.” How could one nail enumerate the horrors I felt, and will forever feel, involving slaying and murder?
“Fantastic.”
“It is fantastical, is it not?” Said the King approaching us. “How many more are left across the hall?” From the sense of Joseph’s stiffening, I could see there was little love loss between the two. “Joseph has been doing his best to find his sister, and manages on two Nails’ addition?”
“It’s beating me by fifty percent,” I responded. “Mi’ Lord, may I ask you a favor of you?”
The Great king laughed in what could best be described as honest glea, “A favor? You, ask a favor of me?”
“Several of my friends are missing within the ‘Realms’. Have you any news on their location? I worry…”
“Ah, so the foreigners are your friends?” The King questioned. Joseph too seemed intrigued.
“They are my friends, more than likely. There’s one, a blondish…”
“I have seen them,” he interrupted. “In fact, I have them.”
“You what?”
The king turned away from us and walked away. I started after him, revived hatred rising within my chest, only to be stopped by Joseph. “For my sisters rescue, I warn you now. The king is no ally of yours. Beware both his envy and his guileful queen. Both have burning desires for you, and neither means to keep you alive.” Joseph’s brutish strength was undercut by his sentimental concern. Had I not seen him decimate two French soldiers, I might have believed him.
“Thanks. Do you know where my friends are?”
Joseph turned gray, his disposition yielding to an unnatural yellowish blight. “Do not ask me of such things. Only death lies with your friends. Agree to the King’s request, and you might save yourself.”
“What does he want me to do?”
“He wishes for you to die. He will send you to “Those Beneath Us” to seek some unobtainable stone. When he does so, you will be left to enter into the darkness. If you press past “Those Beneath Us” you may be able to again reach your entrance point. Flee, Jeff, and forget this place forever.” Raising his cudgel from behind his back, he dashed gloomily into the tremulous darkness surrounding the throne room.
As Joseph fled, I agreed upon one stipulation he gave. When I departed from this hell, I would forever leave the realm in the dusts of oblivion. Sinister gamesters spun the passions within my tactical mind, and I too made my way into the darkness, only after a envious king and a dangerous spider. Both of which I planned to see crushed in my newfound prison, even at the expense of my life….
III
“The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other’s aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon those brow
Famine had written Fiend.”—Lord Byron,
“Darkness” l. 62-69
Pause briefly, dear reader, and let us commiserate. How long have we come in our journey? Do you still yet remember the horrors manifested as I originally awoke, the reoccurring nightmare haunting my dreams? Then let us begin the end of my story, and the beginning of these reoccurring hauntings. For the sake of the descending moon, I will elapse this dreadful tale to my tasks. For concisions’ sake, we begin again with the first steps into darkness.
Joseph spoke true of the Kings’ wishes. Behind his throne was a door locked fast by a ‘magic’ seal—a complicate device I had neither the time to investigate or the patience to ponder on. The door was opened to the distress of the idle dust, and I was pressed towards yet another dim hole. The only instructions came from the barely controlled Queen: “Search for a radiant blue gem…”
I knew a snipe hunt when I heard one. Dared I then resist? Knowing nothing of martial combat, was I to be slaughtered upon the dusty floor? Unseen, the door was sealed behind me and the gloom again found me its captive. An old, passionate friend of late, the darkness frightened me all anew.
Weaponless, lightless, and desperate, I was locked in what turned out to be a hallway. Some wet air traveled up to great my perspiring face. I knew fear, as everyone does, and yet I did not feel the impending nature of its oncoming. Instead, I put a hand to wall and traveled forward. There was a stiffened pace to my gate that frightened even me, as if traveled under another’s accord. And then, perhaps to remind me that peril was my ownly true companion, I pitched forward. Though ‘I did not immediately apprehend a somewhat startling circumstance’, I felt every few seconds pain, which greeted me with a silent thump.
Stairs. Horrid stairs. My own body crashed against itself. Still to this day I bare the burdensome spinal reminders of the daft plummet. Grunting and grumbling, I arose again a broken men. If something did not happen shortly, I would have eventually bludgeon myself to death solely by accident. It seemed contradictory to my body that I was able to move, but slowly the four sense returned to my possession. I was greated, of coruse, with only the vast darkness to sate my scopophilia; my only pleasure lied in the comforting emptiness laying before me, for all other senses jittered in terror. The terror of nothingness filled my mind. Those threatening stairs behind me, what worst terror could have presented itself? Determined, I again briskly walked into the emptiness.
But my determination could not dissuade the abyssal demons from awakening. All those thundering storms of empty silence awoke within my audible perceptions. Demons, insects, machines, and what-have-you stealthily moved. Were there demons, those lurid flames of hell teasing the senses to terror? There? Perhaps behind the unseen bends? No, I realized. No beast would wait with fear so tantalizingly ejaculated before them. Reason, man’s greated gift, strove before me…and was halted with the bestial protests of the ID. There was a terror in the unseen that so grafted man’s primordial that a war awoke within my chest. Both a hand and feet moved on, while my head leaned as far back from its own projections as it could. Eventually, some hierarchal feeling shook its undaunted head. Abject as it was, there was nothing to the fear but unknowing. Hell, hopeless hell, sought to conquer my ‘self’.
Stooping low, pain flourishing in the wounds of my back and stomach, I felt the floor with my hands. Smooth, polished stonework. It was no cave, or forest. No beast roamed. Artificial comforts as they may be, I found myself comforted by the minor pleasures in them. Men had came and paved their way into the gloom; I followed civilization into the barbarous darkness.
What was it for: all those perceptions and reasoning’s, all the terrors and moot observations? It was enough to drive a man insane. I stood, raising my arms above me, and roared some guttural protest. No language could contain the sheer protestation which tore from my throat. I gave up thought, leaving behind those greater rationalizations of the soul. Like the villainous projections of my mind around me, I became one kinetic piece of engulfing gloom, with only self-preserving, murderous intentions. I gave into the primitive, to the barbaric, to all those things safely contained by the ego. To survive, to live beyond the perilous moment, to breath fresh another day because of one’s own barbarisms, these were the things of a nomadic, un-manacled mind. In the times of hell’s upheaval, I knew myself more bestial than man.
I stalked low to the ground, each finger a million sensations and reactions. Many moments passed, though I cannot determine either their length or their latent passing. It was only the knowledge that I still could not see which reminded me I was in the dark. Heedless and fearless, I stalked until I was discovered by another Hunter. In the gloom rose a wind and on its current I felt heat. Then more motion. We struggled. Pain erupted in my face, I felt the wet warmth of my own blood. Then both quaking hands found anchor about the pulsing, elliptical things’ neck. I squeezed tight with all those now murderous intentions pouring from my mouth via saliva and blood. I squeezed tight for my life. I squeezed until there groaned a breathless beast before me; yet still, I did not stop until I felt Atlas release his vivacious globe. Plummeting, death fell unseen away.
“Are you not then becoming a skilled
killer?” a forboding voice echoed over the thing’s body. “Alas, poor
I tried to escape. I pushed away from the wall, tripping backwards onto the corpse of Benito.
“Have you lost your tongue, brave warrior? Perhaps one phallic has been served, a scapegoat for the other?”
“no.” I managed.
“No? Well, my friend, before we slay you…”
“No,” I struggled to stand, but the wet skin hindered my motion.
“You do not wish to die? Cowardice so unbecoming such a slayer!”
“I’m not slayer!’
“And yet I say you are then equipped with two vices. Shall I enumerate them, for you are both a slayer and a liar!”
“I am both, I suppose. Who are you?”
Distantly, the sound of grating slipped in the gloom. “We my boy, are all that is left of,” it paused, “We are all that is left.” The grating continued, off to the sides. I feared what was slowly approaching.
“Left of what? Are you “Those beneath us?” A great laughter occurred from all sides, many voices so congealed amongst the one, great voice.
“You mean we leave beneath those fools above? Let us correct this hierarchy, for though we live subterranean, so do they. Have they yet escaped the spiral oubliette? Of course not, there’s no escape... “
“For any one?”
“For anyone.”
“Hells.”
“Whisper in poor Benito’s moot ear. Tell him how he died by your fearful grip, pissing itself to see him alone and enshrouded. Tell him your craft, boy, that he might know his slayer!” A endless force pushed me next to the cooling body, a single sharp point pressed idly against my back. Slowly, like a drill point, it began a slow descending plunge into my back.
“Enough!” I cried, “Enough, I am no killer.” Tears stung my eyes, each salty drop seeping solitary. “I am no killer. I’m not a killer. I’m no killer,” I shrieked. Hysterically, I wept.
Time elapsed before I realized the point no longer descended into my back. I stood, slowly, thinking my pain a delusion.
“Who are you? You are not one of those fools.”
“No, I was…” And suddenly, I realized I had forsaken my friends. Again? It seemed to me so treacherous that I almost fell to the floor. “My friends, I’m trying to save my friends…Jesus Christ. I hate this place.”
“Ah, you are from the outside. I thought as much. I would have killed you…” The voice leaned towards me, almost familiarly, “the girls from the blue metal?”
“You’ve seen them! Where are they?”
Hushed whispering erupted from behind the walls. A lengthy hiss occurred, and some thing was rushed forward. “Who sent you?”
“Where are my friends!” I demanded.
“It depends on who sent you.”
“The dick James, who I plan to murder…” I squeezed tight again my tired fist.
“You want the gem for the Queen.” The voice sighed heavily. “Will she never stop? Quickly, we haven’t much time. Already the French move on the James. This is the endgame, boy. Will you help us?”
“Help you?”
“We haven’t the time. Take this.” Blinding light roared a devastation through darkness. I smashed my palms into the soft flesh of my eyes, frantically rubbing away the pain. “Take this,” the voice repeated. I opened a slit eyelid and stretched my right hand. Calloused fingers gently brushed against mine. Hesitantly and through the fog of blinding light, I saw the sutured face of a black man, his tight lips compressed in what might have been pity or mercy. Scars and horrors pocked the humanity before me. Stupefied, I did not know whether to fear or accept…
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“We are the captives of an imperial society; yet, no longer. Where once we held our identities on the tips of our tongues, we rule. We rule, govern, survive, and kill. There isn’t the time for moralistic souls and moral mysteries, you must take the gem to the Queen. When you hear the signal, you must travel to the great red door and unlock it. Then, you too will be freed of the oubliette. Now, without further delay, take the gem, return on from your quest.”
“And the French?”
“They are moving, all of them. We’ve come to the end of Hell.”
“Why does the Queen want the gem?” I tried to further open my eyes, only to be completely blinded anew.
“It is the gateway to her paradise. Enough, you must go. Take this,” he pressed a fabric into my hand. Follow the blue light out of the darkness…It has been to long our curse to be not but a pleasure. Go, Go, Go…And make you bring the sword to all those brutal fools which think themselves gods. Go!” There was a thunderous clap. I recall a spinning… and then I fell away from a painful contact…
“Does he live?”
“He has the gem.”
“Does it matter”
“Take the gem to the Queen; Leave him in the wastelands…”
I awoke, barely recalling the brief—though at the time pointless—conversation. Who spoke? I did not know. I felt new bruises on my back, perhaps from the fall on the stairs, perhaps from being drug. Either way, I knew the muscles in my back swelled from the damage. Openning my throbbing eyes, I saw I was in a room full of decomposition. Strange statues where covered in what appeared to be bile and feces. Looking at my hands, I realized I too lay in the muck. The sludge was a half a foot thick; its putrid smell wafted everywhere in the room. Somehow, I did not wretch.
“This is a vomitorium” said a femine voice. Turning, I saw a familiar but unrecognizable face. “Or at least it was centuries ago. The high of gluttony, they didn’t even dare enter the place. The slaves would come and empty our pans, dump the filth we refused to acknowledge.” Her dark hair lay haphazardly over searching eyes. From her lithe thought powerful statue, I knew she was dangerous. “They rebelled, you know. 35 years ago. My mother…My mother fell during their flight. We tried to regain the fleeing possessions, but they were far more able in the dark. Now, only the bravest enter into the gloom to seek their stolen goods.”
I stood as best I could. “What did they take?”
“Predominantly themselves” She paused to drag a small, nimble blade from behind her body. “and the Queen’s vile gem. I hear you recovered it?” She approached me slowly, meticulously emphasizing each swaying step. The blade drug nonchalantly along, dipping its jagged point into the muck.
“Recovered? You make it sound like I stole it.” I watched the point, waiting for its infectious point to rise. “It was given to me.”
She stopped. “Given?”
“I guess.” Thinking back to the Gem, I realized I still had the unacknowledged fabric. It was my coat, and from the weight, my lost Glock. “Why do I know you?” I slid my fingers into the leather coat’s pocket, closing my eyes in relief at the non-slip grip. “…”
“My name is
I dramatically pulled the coat aside and put the .40 between us. “I don’t serve anyone. Where are my friends?”
Confusion edged along her brow. Seconds past. I worried she would test the power of the perceived unknown musket, but she slowly lowered the point. Thankfully, I did not have to shoot her to prove the accuracy of modern rifling. “You are friends with her capatives?”
“Her captives?”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. Sitting on a broken visage, she stabbed her weapon’s point into a wooden frame. “Tell me your tale, and I will explain your true plight.”
Lowering my own weapon, I began. Briefly, I outlined the horrid plot of my journey. I told her of the camping trip, the Gray Beard’s death, the attack in the darkness, Bacchus’ court, and the trip into a new darkness (leaving out my trip down the stairs). Fearing her reaction, I tried to illuminate the terrors of my person, to concretely illustrate all those horrors of my psyche. Most of all, I tried to emphasize my confusion with the cavernous civilization and the abominations contained.
Gestating, the thoughts visibly
troubled
I grunted, remembering both her bestial torture and the antinomy of her natural form. “And they captured us.” Fluttering fear found my memories of the event, sinking its vile talents into that already vile memory. Emphasizing my torture, I found myself concerned for even Arknaught. I hoped they were all unharmed. “You must show me back to the French camp…”
Suddenly, as if to punctuate my memory of the Gloom and the warning therein, screaming erupted from behind me. “Shit, the French were on their way! We have to help them!”
“There’s more,”
“What girls!” I tore from her grip, pushing her against the wall. The .40 worked its way against her chest, its trigger-safety pressed ever-so-slightly. I blinked away the instant hate, and quickly put the gun into my pocket, still holding her against the wall. “The girls are my friends?”
“Your friends, yes. They’ve had them. Even since they sent you into the dark.”
I knew James did. Didn’t I? Didn’t
he even say as much to my face? Impotent as I was, I felt victimized. Was this
again to be revenge? Without the words to express my rising anger, a shuddered
violently erupted in my body. Again, like the time in
“Zwound’, you don’t understand! The Queen means to steal their souls.” If not for the honest terror in her eyes and anger’s silhouette, I would have laughed.
“Their souls?” I managed a smile. “Magic? I suppose I should have expected it.”
“You doubt? How do you think the years have passed with hundreds of men trapped beneath the world? Fruit,” she walked to the wall, pulling an unseen berry from a vine. “Small berries have kept our civilization alive for centuries!”
“Is this what you call civilization?” I turned to walk away. I had no time for thoughts of magic, souls, and berries. I had time for blood alone.
“Where are you going! The French will be coming in through the western gates; That’s east!”
I had only time for regicide.
The
architecture of the underground expanded before me. Walls I ignored passed me
on all sides. Countless corridors and rooms passed. Various pleasures, arts,
libraries, lined these corridors. One such room contained armor and medieval
weapons of sorts, all out of place for
Hugging an outer wall, I snuck into the shadows of the throne room. The dark leather of my coat, and the dirt and grime of my pants added to what I thought was a sly appearance. It was the best camouflage I could muster. Stooped down with the pistol in hand, I slowly made my way into sight of the throne. The throne room itself was empty, except for the briefest suggestion of a person sitting in the giant skull chair of the king. Hair or something barely crested the stone back of the throne, just enough to put doubt into my mind. I moved further into the room, until I was sure of its emptiness. Sitting atop the dais, the chair was a pinnacle of solitude. Nothing abnormal stood out in its appearance; in fact, it appeared as typical a throne chair as would fit a king. Its skull handholds and stone architecture alone separated it from a cliché. Unadorned, the mundane seat stood out fro the lavish walls. If not for the hair fibers above the crest, I might have been tempted to solely walk into the room and sit upon it. Instead, training the pistol on the back, I rounded the chair.
It sat empty, except for an odd, open flower.
Small vine like tendrils searched longingly in an unseen wind. Devine as the
plant looked, my body shivered in a perceived pain. “I feared you meant to
sleep in those shadows,” a female voice spoke from behind. I tried to turn,
finding only the wistful will to turn answering. “the Black lotus, my young
warrior. Is it not alluring?” A subtle touch occurred on my spine. “Shortly now
you will fall a’ slumber, but I have some questions first. Why did you meet
with
My eyes grew ever-so-much heavier. I shook my head. “She found me. Asked me about my lost friends. That’s all”
“All you plan on telling me at least. That’s fine.” A wet movement crossed my neck. “Why did the blacks agree to give up their prize to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course not. Well spoken as you may be, you have been bumbling around here for days.” she inhaled slightly. “ ‘Those across the Hall’ are seiging the front gates. Why did you come here?”
“I plan to kill James.”
“A good, moot plan. He’s been disposed of. First, you will go and destroy “Those across the hall’. Then, you will return to me in my chambers….”
IV
“Man: Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked.
And all seems evil until I
Sleepless would lie down and die.
Echo: Lay down and die.”
-
W.B. Yeats “Man and the Echo” ll. 15-9
I came to in the midst. A long bloody blade stretched forward from my hand into the chest of a small, lithe woman. Gratuitously, the blood sprayed onto my face. Some still beating organ in her chest spewed the liquid from its form domicile. In reaction, I yanked the blood away; she collapsed upon the floor with cationic eyes. I stooped next to her. Her eyes closed. She died.
A yell came from my left. Not looking, I stepped away from the graveless corpse, barely missing a swinging axe. The crescent shape lodged within the corpse, serving an already destroyed form. I looked into the swinger’s face. He was a tall man, perhaps a half-a-foot above my own height. His features were distorted, almost confused. Somewhere, I knew hate for me and disastrous grief over the girls’ body met within his mind. Was he the girls lover? The grief over the body’s destruction seemed proof enough. He sullenly turned his gaze towards me.
“I’m sorry,” I explained. He did not respond. Instead, he pulled at the axe shaft. Begrudgingly, the body yielded the blade; he rose it before him. We two looked at each other, foreign eyes akin in xenophobia.
Fearful as I was, I knew I could not die. What had spurred the unconscious murder, seemingly unbelievable as it may be, was superfluous next to my own survival, As superfluous as the red nails slowly congealing upon the floor. Impending, the axe rose above our heads. I waited until the pinnacle of its ascent. Being low to the ground, I looked down at the small blade in my hand. It was fashioned not unlike the torturous blade, a rudimentary sharpen point. With its simple point, I stabbed deep into the man’s leg near the groin, serving the descending artery at the apex of its import. He brought his weapon crashing down behind me, just narrowly grazing the shoulder of my leather coat. With his legs apart, and the awkward angle of his swing, I dodged again the turning axe by standing inside his grasp. The short blade slid up and under his chin, slicing there another artery. The man dropped his weapon. With both powerful hands, he griped my neck. I stuck the blade inside his ribs, piercing it somewhere into his lung. Finally, on the third strike, the life in his eyes faded. Silently, he fell away from me.
Before me stood various stages of entropic reckoning. Everything before me was blood. At my feet was blood. There were small pieces of flesh about the wall, giblets strung from some well-aimed slash. It was impossible to imagine anymore-concealed destruction. Even the ceiling humidity was stained with crimson aggression. Massive body’s lay rendered in eclectic positions, each one more nail in the pole. There was no time for guilt, a luxury I now, penning the abominable actions, both abhor and endure as tribulations of the soul.
Staggering, I made my way towards the further sounds of destruction. I don’t know why I moved that way, perhaps I knew the living still existed, though in combat. I drug my worn, wretch frame though the hell, each boot step sticking to the solidifying blood. I wondered at how many gallons of wasted soul spread within the room. It was a rhetorical pondering which only sufficed to make me suppress reason. It was, after all, too burdensome an activity.
Tiptoeing my way around the disembodied forms about me, I saw only flesh and blood passed in my trudging. No distinction between the English and the French appeared before me, and I prayed none of them were my friends. Matted hair hung about the slaughtered bodies giving every man, woman, and child a familiar air. A wafting odor began to rise through the room. Its breeze carried on it the sounds of further conflict, growing louder with every gradual progression. Impending and inevitable, the sounds awaited my arrival. I rushed to meet the wanton apocalypse.
The room adjacent to the tomb I exited presented a similar morose scene. The minotaur swung a grisly axe strewn with ventricles. As equally abominable, a titanic man with triton lifted a young woman above his head. Though her mouth pumped, no sound exited her throat. Dumb silence itself parade about the floor, viciously muting the chaotic scene. Smaller conflicts frantically twisted about the room, giving the place a mechanized feel. Automatons struck each other lifeless, each mindless of the other’s demise.
I wondered of my own agency in the room. Should I enter? I recognized the Cretan Bullgod as British. Was he my ally? I had but one allegiance, I thought, and it was to myself….and to those missing friends. Neither parties would prosper by my entering the fray. Then thoughts turned to corpses behind me. I had done my part in this forced conflict.
I slinked along the wall until I could exit the battleroom. I entered into a hallway running along side the room. In passing, small clouds of dust fell from the stonework and fine jewels scattered about the floor. I could not help but wonder if the Bullgod fought the Titan, two great immortals at each other’s throats. It was not a battle I personally wished to see. Instead, I moved further into the compound, pressing towards what I hoped was the Throneroom, my daydream of regicide again consciously on my mind.
Unfortunately, it was in passing by an niche in the hallway that I again halted. The sounds of whimpering and guttural laughter awakened a honorable rage inside. I knew the misogynistic domination before I witnessed it. Pressing my back against the wall, I cautiously opened the oaken door. An effimant man stood demonically giggling, his long, serpentine tongue caressing his chin hairs. Saliva dripped venomously from his phallus, rolling unconsciously through his beard. The whimpering continued deep in the room. I slowly pressed the door further. Another Titan? A similar visage to the French Champion fighting the Bullgod rocked ideally behind a young, prostate girl. I blinked away the confusion rising inside. Did he not also resemble the Torturer? The long, black hair swung over his powerful shoulders. Realization struck me. So, these great warriors were “The Three” so idolized by the British. Tortures, murders, and rapists?
I looked down at the slim shiv in my hand. Could I kill another? Should I even get involved. I knew they were kill her afterwards. She was their enemy. Touching my hand to the heavy weight in my leather pocket, I felt the outline of the .40. How it remained in my pocket after so long escaped me, but a greater faculty begged me to use it. No, I thought, I might hit the girl. Subconsciously, my right hand tightened about the shiv.
I put my back against the door, watching the demon laugh through the slit. His tongue hung unrealistic down below his chin, licking euphorically at the air. I stepped violently backwards, forcing the door completely open. With a backwards slice, I severed his half his tongue and awkwardly through the jugular. Blood sprayed along my arm, dosing he knife in the incubus’ blood. The salacious beast grasped his throat, slinking off to the side to die. I rounded on the Titan.
I had never seen mass move so quickly. One large hand grasps my hair and lifted me above the floor. He leaned close, head butting my skull against the wall. My vision fell to stars and kaleidoscopes. I sank to the ground.
There was a femine scream. I opened my eyes. The woman had buried her teeth into the Titan’s neck, there she chomped mercilessly as one might except a barracuda. The titan reached over his shoulder, grasping her neck violently. With one muscular twist, he broke her neck.
Getting my feet beneath me, I dove forward. The Giant pulled a cudgel from his back, bring it to bare before him. Raising the weapon above his head, he meant to crush me as a man might a rat. Our eyes met as I sliced his hamstring. All three hundred plus pounds fell to the floor. Crawling over him, the warrior apathetically reached his arms about my neck, squeezing until all the small tendons rippled beneath the dermis. I raised the knife level for his eye, only to feel the creature begin to crush the radius to the ulna. Slowly, my grip slacken. I began to knee him violently in his naked crotch, driving the genitals violently against his pelvis. The titan grimace, squeezing tighter. My vision sank… My head spun. And yet the ball of knee collide again with his crotch; the pelvis began to creak then to crack. His squeezed turned into a pull, trying to throw me to the side. In the process, I was thrown against the wall.
I stood, painfully swallowing abrasive air. The Titan laid before me, both hands covering his penis. “Don’t even whimper.” I kicked him with my boot. Aiming the boot for his skull, I repeatedly stomped until the head gave way.
Prostrate again, the young, dead girl lay idle on a bench. My neck and arms felt broken, everything about me ached, and yet I lived. I stooped next to her. I had failed. Again. Sentimentally, I brushed the matted hair from her head. Some part of me wished to cover her in something, to clothe the nude, innocent part of her from the brutality of the room. How bestial I was, I think now. All an excuse in times of chaos. I tried to think of an apology to give, instead simply muttering, “’Fortune is my foe and it frowns on me’”. I left the room. There were more chances, I thought, perhaps even more opportunities to save prostrate lives.
Eventually, the warring tides ebbed. The sounds of conflict, once ringing every few hours, died away to nothing. It was at this time I saw two men sneaking in the dark down a parallel hallway. One, stooping low, singled to the other in my direction. I had been hiding in various rooms, slowly avoiding combat in search of my purloined friends. Occasionally, a chiming bell would echo down the hallways, though I did not understand its meaning. The two sillohets were my first encounters in what must have been hours.
They slowly moved on my position. One, coming down straight towards me, using the doorjams for cover, the other flanking me down the hallway I had originally seen them. I pulled the .40 and knelt. “Are you English?” I called. I figured, given my lack of French, I could use an English guide to the Throne. Voluntarily or not.
“Yeah,” came the short response. It was a familiar sound, a voice I had not heard in centuries. A trap? Perhaps the queen’s mystical minions?
“Blake?” I called, keeping the dark barrel between us. “Jesus, tell me that’s you!”
“Jeff?” the shadow shifted slightly. There was doubt in his voice. “What was my dog’s name?”
“Oreo,” I answered, though I had very vague memories of the black and white dog. It was hit by a car a month after he got it. “not that it lived very long!” I happily beckoned for him to enter the room. He jogged silently forward and hugged me, still cast in the veiling darkness of the hallway. “Christ, I thought you were guys were dead.”
He stepped into the lit room. There ran a long, jagged slice down his face, distorting his familiar façade. He turned and urged the other shadow in. A small girl entered, perhaps 5’2” with long red hair. At first I thought it was Arknaught’s girlfriend, but she seemed rougher, more unpolished. “Marie,” he introduced.
She nodded her head, “salut”.
“She’s French?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Yeah. Assholes caught me and Arknaught, made us come and fight against the other guys. She speaks English,” he motioned his hand.
“I do,” she nodded again.
He continued, “Anyway. We’ve been working our way around this place for a few hours. We were with this guys...um...Xavier and…um…” he turned to Marie, “a teenie?”
“Etienne,” she corrected.
“Anyway, we ran into some British about an hour ago.” He shouldered the twelve-gauge. “got pretty messy. Marie and I backed out when it got too hot…and have been looking for you ever since!” he smacked me on the arm. I was pleased to see him so enthralled. He always seemed to unnecessarily shy to me. “You look like the hells been beaten out of you.” He looked me up and down. “You seen the girls?”
“I have been looking for them for awhile. Things have been Hell, Blake. I got captured by the French,” I leaned into his ear, “I’ve killed a few of them, Blake. It’s been a mess. This place is going to blow eventually.”
He nodded, “Marie’s gonna help,” he nodded to her.
“I know where your friends are.” Her voice was soft, whimsical and treasonous. I pitied her.
“Why are you helping us?” I asked her. Blake shook his head ‘no’. “No, it needs said. What’s in it for you.”
“Do you know
“
“Then you know why I aid you. Both our brothers are next in line for the Queen’s gluttony,” she sat down on a chest.
“Wait just one second. Shut the doors. Okay, tell me about the Queen.” I sat down across from her.
“She has been playing both sides,” Blake supplied, “Both the British and the French have been killing each other over her for centuries.”
“He’s right. Every 20 chimera—”
“A Chimera’s a year,” Blake interrupted.
“She chooses the strongest man. He
becomes her lover and ruler of the Realm. The other suitors then die.” Marie
paused for a moment, rubbing the tips of her knee caps through worn, leather
pants. “
I slide my open palm under her’s “You’re singing my song, princess.” I turned to Blake, “She’s going to kill the girls.”
“We’ll see,” he distantly replies. Visions of Stacie’s agony opaquely crossed his face.
“Where is she now?”
Marie idly watched Blake’s face,
“She is in the wading waters between the two realms. She means to sink them
beneath the surface where they will be immortalized and their spirits absorbed
into hers.
“What about the French?”
She paused. “Xavier is there.”
“And the rest?”
“Dead.”
At first, Marie refused to follow Blake and I into the dark hallway. She seemed torn between finding her dead brothers, and leading us to the “Wading Waters.” I assured her that I did not know the location of her brothers’ bodies, and that it was dangerous to wander around looking for something pointless. Though I do not understand French, nor can I possibly reproduce her discontent, I assure you my sentiment was met with the proudest of French vulgarities. Even Blake look at me ashamed. The fact of the matter, I quickly reminded them, was that her brothers were in fact “Dead!” by Marie’s own assurances. When there was a chance to save the living, was not the memorial of the dead rather hindering?
Marie sighed, lamenting in a humble voice. She pointed to a side door, “We must head that way.” Blake shouldered the twelve gauage. I opened the door and we three strode into the darkness.
The path to the ‘Wading Waters’ was both narrow and circular, spiraling away from the British area in which I had been acquainted. The walls were polished granate and smooth to the touch. The eerie illumiscent green seemed to radiate more vibrantly from the wall, perhaps almost more brilliantly. A wafting odor of rot found us, and the moisture in the air picked up. It reminded me of a bog.
“We’re nearing the ‘Waters’.” Marie whispered. “These times are our most perilous. The Queen will have posted her Guard.”
“What guard?” Blake asked, thumbing the safty on the shotgun.
“It’s a great beast with an engulfing maw. Many times she has sent it to decimate her enemies, slowly dwindling a small number or so to remind us of her manipulative power,” her voice grew more hushed and more rapid.
“Great.” Blake summed up our mutual feelings.
“Any chance we can avoid this thing?” I asked.
“Possible, but unlikely. It will know you are here,” she pointed to Blake’s gun. “They stink.”
“Oil,” I guessed. “Give me the shotgun and go with Marie.”
Blake extended his left hand to me,
“It’s on our skin, ass. If it isn’t the Oil it’s the deodorant. Like ‘
“Like what?” Marie asked impatiently.
“A war. The enemy tracked our Soldiers by the smell of their sweat.” He informed us. “Smelled like meat.”
“Reassuring, Blake, very reassuring.” I said.
“Well, it’s better than your Rambo shit.” The green light shone on his polished teeth. “Let’s keep going.”
“And walk right into it?” I demanded.
Marie began to slowly step backwards, inching away from Blake and myself. All it took was one glance for Blake and I to start running. The sound of wet slapping resounded from the walls. Marie pushed ahead, followed by Blake’s athletic form swaying with the pumpgun.
I slowly fell behind them. I had never been build for speed, and slowly my face grew flush. A slow pain grew into sheer agony. Eventually, my legs grew shaky and sweat ran from my hair along my cheeks. I could just make out the white soles of Blake’s Etnes.
Worst of all, I could hear the swishing of something humongous behind me. It was fast, far faster and bulkier than I ever wished to know. There a heat radiated from behind, almost pulsing into my back. Worst, oh ever worse, an odor of decay rush into my nose, fumigating any sanctuary left to my senses. I could feel the great gaping beast salivating with every pounding beat.
Without looking, I pulled the .40 from my pocket. It did not occur to me that I could be out of bullets, nor that it was possible the gun might have been damaged. Instead, without even glancing behind, I angled the gun to my rear and fired. The recoil sent the weapon rushing past my hip. Again, I angled and fired. Something moist exploded onto my pants; yet, the swishing continued
“Quick! In here!” a voice called. My rubber soles slid on the polished stone. I threw myself towards the voice, where muscular arms greeted me. Somewhere, a door slammed.
The room was void. Again, my eyes yearned for the extinguished brilliance. Instead, greeting me as an unwelcome kinsman, loomed the abyss. Mechanically, my body sought an answer to the darkness. All in vain, I was helpless to a biological necessity.
“Illumination will not help.” A voice assured me. “The answer to your prayers will only come from your own doing. Such is savage life.”
“You helped me in the Gloom?”
“Yes.”
“And you helped me escape the Queen’s Guard.”
“yes.”
“Why?”
“Revenge is the last prayer of my dying race.”
“Dying race?”
“My brothers and sisters. Death has stalked them all in the gloomy halls of Lethe’s city, antagonistic memories all. It is to appease my own selfish spite that I aid you. Think nothing more of it.” A strong hand helped me stand up. “The Queen’s blood is payment enough for my help.”
It was the most terror I have ever felt: unknown mechanisms twisting outside one’s control, all Oblivion’s minions at work, and the distant reckonings of one’s unforeseen hand. “I am no assassin.”
“And yet you are. No time for moral qualms, my friend? This is a matter of personal debt. You killed my friend; yet, I spit on his blood to help his soul find rest.”
It occurred to me then the dangerous of my fright, and my immediate want of violence. Perhaps, as I type this brief recountment…perhaps I had been hasty.
He interrupted my thoughts—both then and now—“We are all guilty of one thing or another. It pains my heart to raise my hand in aid, but I know my powers lie in knowledge. It is all the agency I have left.” There was a soft press at the small of my back. I walked into the darkness, now completely at ease with the guiding vocals. Afterall, why would He confess his disgust for my actions, while I lay in his mercy, and yet not strike? If he had meant to harm me, he had all the opportunity to try to. “Your friends, as we speak, are being welcomed into the folds of Lethe’s waters.”
“Oblivion’s waters?”
A sound, which could have been
confused for a snicker, snuck from his lips. “Yes, the Grecian
“In
“In the Gloom, friend. Its waters are poisonous to the mind. Within hours, they will have forgotten their recent memories. It servers no purpose, mostly it’s a ritualistic pacifier guaranteeing willing sacrifices.”
“Can it be cured?”
“There is no cure for the loss of past history.”
“No, I imagine it is final enough, isn’t it.” We walked onward, mutual parities discussing the greater schism. “What would you have me do? Killing the Queen won’t stop the surviving British.”
“The Blue Gem, you must submerge it within Lethe’s waters. Then, my friends, the starless sky will fall upon our heads.” I imagined him turning to face me, the heat of his breathe against my tempered, dismal features, two unseen faces farcically conversing. “I fear we cannot catch dire Death in our plumb-folds, but this faux world of life will be destroyed forever.” He paused as if realizing a greater burden. “There is a greater party in which we must be careful. The Queen is far more powerful than this world could have spawned. She means to awaken a party your friends Marina and Marie are unaware of…I wish I could help you more. I fear there is no time.”
“There never is…” I pondered allowed.
The feeling of burden returned to his voice, “You are much like them.” He did not finish his thought. I feared he was right in all parties. “No choice is ever your own, my friend. Yours more than others.” He sighed heavily, and I imagined his tragic face grimacing.
With all I can manage of a smile, I hoped a hope that he would see me succeed. I extended my hand before me, groping blindly for his hand. “I will kill your queen, I promise you, but you have to get my friends out of here. I swear I’d rather bring the place down on my head then let the this place be exposed to natural air…there’s something infectious in the stagnant underground that turns modern man inside-out.”
He took mine, shaking it warmly. “I will personally lead your friends out into the Farmer’s orchards.”
“Then trust in me to be the author of this world’s final chapter.”
“It could be no one else.” He spoke, and spoke no more.
V
“Pray: V. To ask that the laws of the universe
be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.” Bierce, The Devils Dictionary.
I stood outside a door jam. The doorless jam opened to a platform. The platform was about twenty feet above another floor. The bottom floor stretched about 30 feet to stone dais. On the stone dais, stood my allies, my enemies, and my uncertainty.
“Here me!” She screamed into a crowd of mixed men. “Hear me! I am your Queen!” her shrill voice pierced the ears. “Decades have passed without the glories of our God! Glorious God do you hear me now? I have returned your azure heart,” she raised the blue gem above her head, sliding it smoothly into a great stone statue. Despite those passed decades, the circular object slid gently into its former abode. With the insertion of the stone, a great rush of water dumped from aquaducts fixed along the statues face; like great tear ducts, the statues worn head poured forth its cursed tears. The ducts emptied into a large opened pit in the middle of the dais. From the information provided me, I knew the pool collected Lethe’s waters. She continued, shouting over the rhythmic hum of the water’s fall. “I alone have returned your heart, to this no may contest! Oh dreaming god!” she turned to address the dumb crowd. “Here how he implores our actions! Bring forth the prisoners!”
I could not move. Twenty feet down, thirty feet across, stood three beautiful memories personified; my motivation and my triumph stood imprisoned only fifty feet away. I cringed to see beside them Blake, his arms tied tautly, and Marie, a bloody grimace deforming her face. Behind them rose the powerful Minotaur, the great war axe gripped in his enormous hands. Across the Dais, I saw the Titan looming over Arknaught and Marina. Together, the two men pushed their prisoners forward.
The Queen beckoned, and the guards manipulated their prisoners towards the large, gaping pool. Once near its ornamental brim, the prisoners were forced to kneel. A large man in a black, executioner’s hood, led King James, blood oozing from his eyes, before the prisoners. An exotic chain of gold ran from the King’s neck to the Executioners hand, dragging the king bumbling before them. A golden chalice was placed in the king’s hand. The executioner then forced him around the circle forcing each prisoner to drink Lethe’s brew.
Patience wrestled with desperation as I viewed their ritual. No greater faculties ushered in a plan of action, no strategy illuminated my conscious. Pulling my hair, I could not force my mind to work.
King James was handed off to a smaller, docile man, who led him out of a side door. The ritual then continued. I saw the water’s effects immediate. Each one of my friends took on a desperate, chocking position. Dry heaving, their bodies tried to vomit the poison from their bodies. To no avail, the liquid seeped slowly into their system. Stupefied, I stood.
To my right, a door opened and closed. The sound of someone…No, I thought to myself, there was more than one. The sound of footsteps began walking up some unseen stairway. I hugged against the wall, ducking low in the shadow.
A secret door opened. The small, docile man led his prisoner out of the passage. Falling back on my violent tendencies, I brained him with a balled fist. A shattering noise signaled the breaking of his jaw, and the docile man fell to the floor unconscious. Looking past the blind James, I saw a staircase that led to the Dais.
“King James,” I told the blind man before me.
“Savage?” He inquired, his muscular hands reaching towards me. I step aside quietly.
“Don’t try and touch me. I have a musket,” I pulled the .40 from coat, its weight reassuring my voice, “trained at your stomach. You know what a musket is?”
Like a Romero Zombie, The king stood with hands outstretched. “Burned, all of them when before we lost the underhalls to ‘Those beneath us.’ No one has seen one in years!”
“Well, You’re not going to see this one either, but I’ll blow your guts out your ass if you don’t listen to me. You’re going to help me rescue my friends…” I glanced over my shoulder. A large man walked along towards Blake with an ornamental knife, it’s serpentine blade twisting gaily in his hand. “Stay there,” I rushed to the doorway. Leveling the pistol for the man’s belly, I lined up the uncertain fifty-foot shot.
“God, I swear I’ll shoot more...often...just don’t let me hit anyone I like…” I squeezed the trigger. The control explosion forced the slide action back; another round entered the chamber. A great scream went out and the room jumped to arms. The Queen fell back behind a pillar, the three Champions unsheathed their eclectic weapons. In slow, dreary motion—a mind finally realizing its dismal fate—the knife welder dropped his weapon. Both his hands covered the hole in his chest. There he fell into the waters with a great splash.
From the sounds beneath me, I knew the world sought my demise. I started to rotate around, when two large hands grasped me from behind.
“Give the musket to me!” Roared the blind king. Stumbling, the great king, his blind eyes weeping blood and salt, hauled my weight against his. I felt my body resisting his lift, the sheer volume of my weight refusing to yield to the desperate pull. Instead, we both fell backwards down the stairs and, with a bestial groan, tumbled down the staircase. The darkness engulfed our plummet. Not that either of us could see, the world spun head over end. Again, the repeated painful descent awoken in me a smile that perhaps was as out of place as its bearer.
The entire descent, I felt his corded muscles about my neck, squeezing. This marked the second time my neck groaned under constricting pressure, twice yoked by ill-intent. Instead of attempting to free myself, I resisted the bodily urge to grasp his hands. Covering my head, I held my rattled brain inside my skull.
We struck the bottom with a resounding ‘thump’. I stood; he did not. Sounds of chaos broke through the stone door and flooded down the stairs. Gazing down at the King, I did not wonder if he was dead, but wondered why he had attacked. Blinded, how could he have even hoped to aim? I raised the gun to my eyesight. The weapon, black in a black room, stood pristine despite its abuse. It was a well-crafted destroyer. The frail form on the floor groaned. Suddenly, a rush of feeling poured into my physical form. I felt weary and abused. After so many hours of turmoil, I barely felt alive. Exhaustion itself threatened my consciousness, and my equilibrium remembered it was spinning. I leaned against the wall.
Sliding the gun into my coat pocket, I pressed my distant mind against the stone. Why, all of a sudden, my body abandon me is beyond my comprehension. I felt solitairy inside a weakened husk, for my mind knew there was no time to waste. My body just did not care.
The groan beckoned from the ground. I did not look down to answer it. “Savage.” The audible pain turned to simple language. “Kill her for me.”
“I’d as soon let her live,” I told the tyrant, “as kill her in your name. Die in your dark world, you’re no better than the rest.” I could feel the anger give me energy.
The broken monarch rasped a hoarse laugh, “We’re all men and we all die.” He did not speak again, though I heard his tortured lungs heave.
“For all that wish love from another; Joy in life with no hope for another.” I quoted.
I pause now, dear reader, for Luna blinks her dreary eyes. She is abandoning us for slumber, and I see I have spent the night in what might be violent discourse with myself. With deep regret, having not reread the nightmare, I fear my prose are too brutal and my telling to poetic to be of universal import. Thankfully, our weaving soon ends, my friends, and then I will rest my pen. One last thought, an irrational blip in my mind yet a fitting epitaph for that hedonistic tyrant, perhaps, I think to myself now, it is the only real objective moral in my life: live, love, die.
When I see a video or sports drink advertisement where they say “go the extra mile,” I wonder of the effects on athletes that pass out over the line. When there is no line to see, and no line to motivate, I wonder what exhaustion manifested itself as? Leaning against the wall, I told myself the line was almost in sight. It was not the end, for the race was always run, but it was a rest point. My arms moved mechanically. The door did not budge. I leaned into it with arms pressed. It did not budge. I pressed with the burning calf muscles, and slowly air gasped. With head down between my arms, I could feel the flexing muscles in my back pulse and flutter. I could feel desperate, angry energy flashing in the twittering muscles. Then, at my breaking point, the great stone door began to crawl backwards. It was, to say the least, happiness. The door slid backward, then fell into a grove allowing it to move sideways. My shoulders rotated as the door slid away to reveal the dais.
“He’s gone!” distant shouts roared. “Hurry, he’s gone!” the mob flew disoriented in some far direction.
Catatonic, all those important to me knelt as zombies. Feebly, their eyes twitched and strained to open. I dropped the clip into my hand: nine in the extended clip ‘and one in hole’.
“God, my day’s not done, not yet at least.” I couldn’t think of anything poetic, or anything worthwhile. It was a moot point, I guess.
Walking onto the dais, I dramatically pointed the .40 before me, certain I could at least distance myself from danger by its threatening maw. “All right,” I said. The conscious dais turned to me. “We’ve been screwing around enough. I should by all rights just shoot you all…but I’m not going to.” The minotaur, the Titan, and the Executioner—those three stoic champion enemies--turned to look at me. “Now, get against the wall before I cheapen this affair and shoot you all.” The Minotaur roared its best bestial impersonation and raised the great axe above his head. I cocked my head to look at him. “It would be unfair, my friend.”
The Queen strode forward, “What are you doing!” she demanded. “You were ordered to return to me!”
I shook my head. “Don’t push your luck, everyone is telling me you’re better off with a hole in the head. Get back against the wall!” I screamed. I had lost hold of my wit, and it daftly left irrationality at the helm. “There’s too much wrong here, you fucking fools. Now get against the wall before…” the gun rotated on the minotaur, sliding leather boots on the stone floor. “You’re pushin’!”
Whether it was the mad eyes in my head, or the Glock’s powerful gaze, matter not. The three champions pressed back against the wall. The Queen stood her ground. “Abstract thought your enemy? Get the hell against the wall!” She did not move.
“Or you’ll kill me?” she whispered, pursed lips visibility injured by the implication. Breathing sullenly, those purple eyes sank idly in her head. “How tyrannical you’ve become…I will comply, though your tone breaks my heart.” She even produced a tear to seal her act.
“Yeah,” I muttered watching her press her warm flesh against the cold stone. Keeping the weapon ever before me, I approached my friends.
Blake was the first on the right side, although he had been on the left when I originally saw them. Kneeling down, they positioned all the men on one side, the women on the other. Reeling, I saw K___ ‘s hair tangled and lifted in some unseen breeze. Seeing her familiar form in the dreary light, I knew I was capable of murder. I was capable of all those vengeful thoughts I had suppressed in the world above. I was dangerous and violent; I knew it would soon be time to awaken those barbarous tools. It would soon be time to see if I could again ‘slip’, to suppress, all those rancorous ‘dogs of war’.
I stood behind Blake, keeping one vengeful eye on my captives. “Blake, wake up bud. Come on,” I hollered into his ear. His shoulders sunk forward, chin to chest. Seeing his lungs slow their respiration. I slapped him across the face. His respirations came slower. I knew soon his heart would stop; I knew I would need to perform CPR; I knew I could not do that with one hand holding a pistol. With all the desperation of seeing my cousin die, I punched him full in the face.
Rational minds would agree that there was no correlation between the connection of my fist and his face reigniting the respiratory cycle; yet, his eyes flew open, and clear liquid violently exploded from his lips. Confusion awoke in his gaze, the confusion of a Somnolescent stumbling down stairs, the realization that the latent dream was in reality’ manifested pain. Life surreally stabbed via light into his dilated pupils and he extended a twitching hand before him.
“Blake, it’s Jeff. You’ve been drugged. We’re in the…” I did not know what to call our hell. “We’re still in hell. Do you remember the farm? Camping? Do you remember the Graybeard?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Do you remember the girls and,” I looked up at my captives along the wall, “do you remember those that captured them?”
“Yes,” he shook his head. “The queen—”
“I’m here,” she answered coyly
“Not for long,” I replied. Blake stood. “Wake Arknaught…I’ll wake K___”. I reminded myself to keep the gun pointed on the Champions, and rushed over to K___.
I saw her lithe frame bent completely over, her timid manner completely given way to sickness and fever. I ran my hand through her hair. The fingers of my left hand were grimy, covered with the dried blood of my murderous escapades, and skewed in twisted form. I was not made for domestic pleasantries and, I swore on that filthy, broken hand, I would never place K___ in such a world again.
“K___,” I whispered into her ear. Salted liquid poured from my auguring eyes, what damned prophecy they wept I did not know. Impending, I could only focus on the physical destruction those horrors had visited upon her. I shook her shoulders softly and again spoke her name. Like Blake, her face fell to her chest and those aerial sacks began to collapse. Raising my left hand above my head, I paused. Somewhere inside, a genteel voice urged Hippocratic reason. I forced all thoughts from my mind, hid all that was my person deep within my violent, hollow husk of a mind and with great certainty I struck her.
Immediately, intelligence protestation escaped her frowning lips. She rose suddenly with weeping eyes. “Why did you hit me!” she cried; my heart sank and I felt, for the fist time in my dismal nightmare, guilt.
It was short-lived, for in my culpable actions I had forgotten to watch the enemy. I had enough time to look up from K___’s emblazoned eyes, to see a great closed fist speeding forward. With a blood-splattering crunch, I passed out.
The emerald sky shone above my mind. I felt weightless eternity carrying me on its shifting shoulders. My gaze was filled by all the wonders of the celestial shroud: Great azure stars burned in foliage of purple dwarfs and crimson giants. All the Heavens were cemented in a fixed universal sight, time but a simple concept forgotten by a greater divinity as menial toil for worrisome mortals. Oblivion’s forsaken angels wavered in my gaze and I felt content to lie down for an eternity or two, bliss within the folds of forgottenness. Abruptly, a dark silhouette pierced the emerald sheen. Silent supernovas tore the tranquility, great flashing storms ejected from the silhouette, and noiseless brass tears, burning to the touch, descended on my lofty form….and a loving, yet concerned face hovered above my eyes. Four strong arms reached from their terrestrial ground, somewhere violently beneath the emerald heavens, and pulled me from my tittering rest.
When I awoke, I was knelling, sopping wet from the head down. Someone spoke to me, but I could make out the twisting façade. “Slow down, please,” I spoke. A gunshot pulled me to solid consciousness. K___ stood with my gun pointed towards two long stairs cases. “What are you doing?”
“Come on!” Blake pulled me to my feet. Standing next to him, Arknaught rested a long, bloody blade on his shoulder. “We got to get out of here! Wake up, Jeff!” He slapped me. Grimacing, I shook my head. “You fell in that pool after that minotaur blasted you.”
Memory returned to me…Was it a taste of Lethe’s fluid bliss which welcomed me into heaven? “What happened?”
“It’s a long story.” Blake said. He stooped, retrieving a hollow pipe of sorts. “They’ll be back; so, we’d better get out of here.” Gripping the pipe like a ballbat, he took a practice swing.
On the floor, the great minotaur still gripped his great battle axe in his cooling, dead grasp. A bullet hole bore into his bullhead, and a bleeding wound opened his insides to inspection. Form the vacant gaze on K___ face, I knew the .40 had done it’s work long before Arknaught had eviscerated the Cretan avatar. She sat down gently on the lip of the pool, still starring bewildered at the dead creature.
“You’re okay,” I wrapped two shaking arms about her shaking body. “We’re all right.”
“I saw him hit you…and you went down. And I saw Blake pick up the pipe..and everything moved so fast.” She looked over to Arknaught and Blake, who both ushered the other girls before them. “I thought it was going to kill me…and the gun was on the ground..and…”
“You did the right thing. He would have killed you, no questions asked.” I kissed her now reddened eyes. “No time,” I hugged her tight, “be strong for a little longer more.” I thought of taking the weapon incase it went off in her shaking grasp, but, seeing she had it pointed towards the outer wall, I left its strengthening weight in her hands.
“I have to talk to Arknaught and Blake. You watch those outer doors and shoot at anything that comes through it.” I kissed her again. Part of me wished to simply scoop her up and run, but the realistic side swore there was work undone.
I approached Arknaught as he smoothed the scarlet hair girl’s mattered locks. “Where are the other girls?”
“Fuck ‘em, let’s just get out of here.” He spoke in broken gasps, as if he was hyperventilating. “Let’s get out here, please, let’s just go.” I could see the flesh of his ear had been rend, torn from his face. Caked blood matted on his pullover.
“We’re leaving. Just stay together, you’ve done well,” I said. Blake knelt down next to Stacie, who wept into her open hands.
“Where are the other girls,” I questioned him.
“Went after their brothers. After you went under, K___ shot that bull guy, and things went to shit. I hit the guy in the black hood with the pipe, but it didn’t do anything…it just did nothing at all. I hit him hard, Jeff, hard enough that it should have spit him open.” He unconsciously rubbed Stacie’s shoulder, both distantly reliving the ongoing hell.
“Whose brothers? Blake, I got to go after the Queen.”
“The Queen? You don’t have to go after that bitch! We have to get out of here, not waste anymore time in this place!.” He demanded, keeping his eyes fixed on his girlfriend. “We’re leaving and you are too. I know you think you have something going for you in this place, but we got to get out before someone gets killed.” K___ walked over to us; I motioned for him to keep his voice down; he ignored me. “Jeff thinks he’s going after the queen.”
“We have to leave,” she demanded in panting breaths. “Jeff, please, let’s go.” Her voice took on the begging tone she used when I was clearly wrong.
“You’re all leaving. You’re going to go outside and you’re going to wait for me to get back. When I get back, we’re going to drive away and never think of this place again, we’re going to forget and be happy again”
“We don’t even know how to get out of here!” Blake hollered. “Last thing I want to do is come back looking for you in this maze!”
“Don’t worry, there’s a way out. You just go out that door and follow the man you meet. He’s a good man, a friend. He’ll take you back out of the way you came in.” I ignored the skeptical theories in my head about our capture. Part of me believed ‘my friend’ had a part in it. Faith, I remind myself. Unwavering, I told them more faux certainties: “He’s going to lead you outside into the orchard. You’re going to hear an explosion, that’s the sign I’ll be coming back up! Watch for me shortly after you hear it!”
Arknaught, helping his girlfriend to her feet, seconded my plan with a grunt. Stacie also stood and moved into a group with her friends. Blake caught my arm and leaned into me, “This is stupid. I know you want to be a hero, but let’s just go. We’ll call the cops or something. You don’t need to do this, you just want to do it”
I did not disgree, but then I did not agree. “Whatever, I promised I would.”
K___ hugged me about the chest, whimpering slightly as she did so. “Please, let’s just go, let’s just get out of her and forget!”
“I have to do this, I have to”
“You want to you mean,” Blake added. “There is no moral thought pushing you back after her. Let’s just get out of here and let someone else kill her. This place isn’t real! It isn’t real!!” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than me. “Why do you have to play hero now? Why are you putting yourself into danger for nothing! No one gains anything from this bullshit!”
K___ kissed the fabric of my coat, “they’ll kill you. They’re going to kill you. You didn’t see how hard Blake hit that guy…and he didn’t flinch. And those two guys are guarding that queen…They’re going to kill you,” she repeated.
“Enough,” I shook myself from the two of them. “Blake. Just get K___ out of her. Please, I wouldn’t be able to take it if she got hurt.”
K___ “Come with us, make sure if it yourself!”
I ignored her, “K___, I love you. I will and always have. Give my gun to Blake and you make sure you stay with them. Don’t you come back here, I don’t want to have to worry about you when I run out here.”
“This is stupid!” Blake swore, pulling the gun from K___ docile hand. “Whatever, I’ll tell your Dad how stupid it was” he stormed away, kicking the dead Minotaur on his way past.
“What are you trying to prove?” K___ asked. “Is it something to yourself? Or are you doing this for me? What? What desire is pushing you to go further?” she wiped her eyes. I could see it was a hostile fear that grew inside them now.
I could not think of a real reason to pursuit the Queen, other than to acknowledge the chaos she had provoked here. “She plans to leave the Oubliette.”
“The oubliette?”
“This is her prison. Someone put her down this well and paved it over and now she wants to get out. Well, I’m not letting her ruin up there” I pointed towards the emerald ceiling and all precious gems shining above our heads. “You don’t know what she has done, and there are past crime she must answer for!” I pulled away from her.
“Then I’m coming with you!” K___ stode towards me.
“No you’re not,” I begged over my shoulder. “Blake!” A strong arm grasped her from behind and pulled her away. He bent low and whispered something into her ear; she frowned and watched haphazardly as I walked away. I knew I was doing the right thing. I knew this was another battle I could not avoid…perhaps, perhaps after all, thinking back on it now, I wondered if I had again wandered by a niche in which vileness had gone on long enough.
“There’s still time to recapture them, my Queen. For the sake of all our lives, let us concentrate on their recapture. What will the Glorious Lord do if we fail? Those devils, “ Those beneath us,” are aiding them…” a pause ensued, then more words, “but give me a few men and I will retake them.” The Titan boomed, finding strength in his own predicted success. “I will spike their heads for what they did to you,” a softer side overwhelmed his voice. “Pig sticks for them all!” he swore.
Leaning from behind the pedestal, I knew the time for our final battle was coming. After I was certain Blake and the others had fled, I slipped back into the room to watch their escape route. Predictablely, the Queen returned to the dais with her two champion guards. Though I recognized the titan’s voice, he, like the Executioner, wore a black hood upon his head. From their physical features, they were identical. Even their weapons—great swords with golden hilts—were duplicates. The Queen herself sat on the skulled throne, which was not there before. Why they went to the trouble of moving such a heavy ornament was beyond me, but it she sat upon it with a troubled brow.
Lifting her weary head from her fist, she eventually spoke, “No. The savage is still amongst us. I can smell his wretched stench. Our primary purpose is his capture, and then his exploitation. We will need his help in leaving our home. The world outside our world has become one of unknown dangers. I fear we will not last long without a guide to avoid those savageries.”
I thought to interrupt their ceremonial discussions, but was interrupted from my plans.
“Enough, Queen,” a female voice managed to make the regal sound insultingly distasteful. “We’ve come to reckon the injustice you have reaped upon us.” Marie exited out of the far, darkened corner.
“A
long debt well past due,” answered
“And I suppose you two are Vengeful angels with Raven wings” her mocking cliché seemed fitting to their ceremonious entrances. The twin, titanic Executioners turned to meet their adversaries. The Queen stretched one polished, adorned hand before her and, with a flick of the wrist, spoke “Kill them.” She lifted her lavender eyes towards my hiding place. I quickly hid face, leaning my back against the wall. Needlessly, since she quickly commanded my death: “and the savage!”
A clash of metal on metal signaled their acceptance. I wondered at the importance of this battle. Dubiously, I could not confess those doubts in my own soul to K___ and Blake. To give them air cemented them. Instead, desperately I clung to the perception of my duty. I had swore, I remind myself, I had swore and what was I if not loyal? Rushing in on my hidden position, all those suppressed qualms and weary worries found me. I was a murderer, I was lier, and, worst of all, I thought myself more than what I knew I was. How had I overcome till this point? Surely no fate guided it, for why would it smile on something like myself? If it had been luck, I suppose I would have doubted it as much. Surely it must have been accident, quirky misadvised flukes! Had I willing lied to enable my suicide?
Enough, enough of those embarrassing self-doubts, good reader. They continued on in a flagless parade, all dark nimbi setting on mortal man’s mind. Let us continue with a slight skipping of this self-inquires into my skepticism of celestial intervention.
It was a purpose which awoke my confidence. Seeing off to the side a great arm, I was remind of the stone statue’s azure heart. Gazing up at the ‘mineral heavens’ above my head, I remembered my capital promise. An explosion? I thought, a self-consuming explosion might be enough to bring the heavens crashing down. Abandoning thought, for true reason would argue against self-sacrificial murder—though I sought to kill voluntary military enemies, unbeknownst innocents thoughtfully intact—I ran towards the statue.
“Stop! He’s going for the Lord’s heart!” the Queen shrieked in my peripheries. I slid before the bulging Lord’s stomach, and dug my nails into the soft mineral. Sliding forcibly backwards, I wrenched the azure stone from its solid chest. Somewhere off to the sides, violent groaning and miserable moaning seeped from the sounds of clashing blades. I did my best to ignore what I felt was abstractly wrong, and rushed to Lethe’s wading pool. Heaving the stone above my head, time slowed to a creeping crawl.
Ironic and contrived, I saw Marie biting her lip, her soft scarlet hair wafting behind her; into her stomach slid slowly the titanic, Executioners blade. Only the dead weight urged its course, for its former bearer wore only the sullen eyes of violent demise. Betwixt his pectoral muscles radiated a single, slight blade. It was enough though that the Dark executioner hood tilted back. Unrealistically, the two were fixed as a monolith, a diametric dichotomy both of moral abstract superiority and of biological anatomic construction. In death, they were lofty illuminated in my wandering mind. Pity awoken in me, only to be stamped quickly down by another realization: The Queen stood mystically before me.
“If you throw that into the waters, we will all die,” she softly spoke. Stepping lovely upon the water, her subtle frame majestically came towards me. “Why, Jeff? Why did you ignore K___ pleas? Why didn’t you rush off to your world?” And her skin slid gently along my unshaven face. “What wonders do you know about this realm? Think, think before you murder another culture! Think before you murder me!”
I wouldn’t. I couldn’t! Turning my head aside, I struggled against that charismatic bombardment, that ‘sly assault’ upon my senses. Slipping, my arms slowly lowered the mineral. “You’re right. I shouldn’t.”
“Give me the stone,” she smiled. Beneath those crimson lips, I swore I saw the fleeting flutter of fangs. Looking down, I saw her dirty feet standing on the ornamental lip upon which K___ had once fallen. She opened her hands, spreading them salaciously apart.
“You’re right, my queen.” I extended the stone into those soft fingers. “You should carry the stone with you…” and I shoved her with all the force of my broken spirits, “right back to hell!” Turning on heel, I did not watch as her shrieking frame fell into Lethe’s soon-to-be-enflamed waters.
By the time the wave threw me, I had already reached the exiting doors. A great force flung me into the flickering shadows where I landed roughly onto a leathery form. After finding out the ringing could not be shaken from my head, I pressed of the leather form. Beneath my hands, I saw the form of a monstrous alligator. Coiled with its great tale stuck inside its gaping mouth, the large reptile lay eternalized. Two fifty-cent piece holes bore into its brain. So I had accidentally killed another creature baring me harm?
It came to my attention that the ceiling was in fact falling when marble sized rocks slowly dropped onto my head, giving it yet another reason to ring. I ran. I ran blindly forward without any pause for directions. It was a mad dash to another unseen finishing line, one in which the line thoughtfully hid itself from sight.
It was in the flight that, yet again, I collided with another monster. Rushing forward, I stumbled into a great wall of a man. Together, I fell to the floor, stumbling over some warm piece of earth. It was the warmth of the wall that told me I had rush headlong into another battle. Rolling away, I expected any moment to be brained either by the Man or by the Ceiling. Neither opted to kill me.
Instead,
I saw
“Joseph?” I asked. “You’re the executioner?”
“Her bloody executioner.” He mindlessly answered. “Aye, and damned for my own pious zeal!” he balled his fist and punched his forward mercilessly. “Damned!” he shrieked.
“What are you doing!” I yelled. “What did you do!” the ceiling now fell in greater chunks. I feared the sky was falling more rapidly now, fissures in this underground world slowly realizing themselves.
Stooping, he pulled a gourd from the ground. Handing it to me, he turned away. “Take it and drink. Forget us, warrior. Forget us all!” he walked away from his dead sister. Great chunks of earth fell, striking the moving muscles; yet, I did not see him falter. It was as if no pain could ever compete with the hell inside his breast. Eventually, the swirling cloud swallowed his form, and the darkness became a sound of weeping collapse.
The tomb was caving in on itself, threatening to swallow me whole. Like all those that lived in the collapsing world, the great stones mudged without heed for color or creed. It was a great universal apocalypse. I was on my feet before I realized my feet were under me. Somewhere, my mind caught up with me as I ascended a flight of stairs. My eyes, though, were useless as I pressed again into a dark corridor. Suddenly, a familiar hand pulled me to the side and pushed me against a flight of stairs. I did not stop to thank it, but I could feel a sigh of relief as I rushed through a wooden frame. In the distance, a great world of light pulled at my widened eyes! Like an excommunicated patriot, I threw myself up and out of the collapsing hell, and hit the grass with an indignant thump.
Stone debris fluttered lightly in the suns welcomed rays! Oh, how I felt the warmth of the beautiful sky! In that moment, I knew how early man first swore himself
a pagan!
Passionate cries followed and a great heap of different people leaping onto me, all those distant memories of dark times worth one moment of loving embrace. Standing, I purposely hugged each one of them individually, kissing K___ one time for every sorrowful moment.
Short-lived pleasure as always, I heard sirens in the distance. “What the hell?” A groaning noise ushered in visible surface splits. Unintentionally, I was going to bring the whole house down on the underlying infernal civilization!
“The place is giving in around us!” Blake yelled, “Get to the truck!” they all tore off past the house, rushing towards the blue truck.
I ran towards the white house, seeking a past crime I could not hope to cover up. Rounding the bend of the house, I expected to see the Gray beard where I had left him; yet, nothing remained of the poor dead farmer. In a moment of pondering, I wondered whatever happened to his son. On my very life, I prayed he had eloped with a beautiful women, and had not been in the murderous world beneath me.
When I reached the truck, I remembered the goard in my hand. I knew what it contained without opening the cork, for why else would Joseph have waited for me to rush past. I suppose his dying gift was meant as redemption in a world of nothing but tribulation. Opening the door, I presented the prize to them. There wasn’t an argument. Each one willing placed the gourd to their lips and drank deep from its blissful solution. When it came to Blair, he smiled and tossed back the gourd. That left only K___ and myself.
“There’s I only enough for one more swallow,” I said to her. “I need to tell the police something. You drink this down.” I gave her the Oblivion waters.
“I can’t...What about…”
“I’m good at forgetting these things. Trust me, I’ve had practice.” She took the gourd. “I love you, K___.” She drank back the water.
Phoebus has reached his rightful place in the Heavens; how warm he smiles down on me now. I suppose, good Reader, after such a long trek you wish to see a summarizing sigh, an ending moment of pleasure? Well, I told the police how we had entered the root cellar looking for some fire wood. I don’t know why it occurred to me to say firewood, but it did. All of a sudden, there was this eerie creeking noise, and some great underground eruptions. I explained how we saw the generators and “some weird augers”. I allowed them to assure me it was probably just “mine subsidence, just some underground mine following in on itself.” I swore we did no see the Farmer Wayland, none of us remembered very much, “you know, with the following stones hitting us and stuff.”
They brought in a shrink, who told me it was only repressed trauma, a type of PTSD. You know, “like the vets.” We all seemed to be suffering from it. We were “lucky to escape with our lives” and “should have known better than playing in underground cellars!” The cops said it was an innocent mistake and that, though we were “trespassing and breaking an entering,” we had “been through enough” as it was. We thanked him, and, after they got the truck—full of stolen fuel and all—around the wreckage, we drove slowly back home.
It has been nine months since it happen. Nine months and every night I have been awoken by the dreams of some distant hallway, a dark gloom, and the vague sensation of terrible company. Nine months…and no hope for reconciliation. Park of me wished to have forgotten, and part of me has wished to have been buried in the falling debris. Then again, part of me was thankful there was flesh still to lament, and a mind willing to forget.
[1] This story was inspired by Robert E. Howard’s’ Red Nails
[2] Because of the difficult in simply understanding the language, I have taken liberty in the reproduction. For all intensive purposes, the dialogue is the ‘jist’ of what was spoken. If you wished to reproduce their accent, imagine a British accent muffled by a pillow. It was very similar.
[3] A chime, it turned out, was emitted once a day (‘ chimad’), and seven of these equal one Chimlek. All and all, it was a poor vocabulary swapping for ‘day’ and ‘week”.