thriller

Don’t Tread on Me

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Click here to read the part before.

The crowd was bigger than expected, but so was the news.

The signs read a variety of slogans: Fuck the Chinese, Fuck the Government, Fuck Newsom. Basically the same as usual protests. But this was not a usual protest.

Everyone was brandishing their rifles openly, unslung. Someone even drove a technical, having converted a Dodge Ram into a badass anti-air gun. R.J. was just as quiet as usual. But behind his stoic face was a tense fear. A fear that seemed to make the shadows wet and darker than usual.

“So much for that stupid fucking stay at home order!!” Someone shouted. The crowd gleefully responded.

“They can’t tell Americans what to do! If the government doesn’t serve our interests…”

“Right! To! Revolt!” The crowd responded and cheered.

“That’s right!! It’s in the Constitution!!!” He pumped his fist in the air, spit flying from his mouth.

It actually was from the Declaration of Independence, R.J. thought to himself. But it didn’t matter. He agreed with the sentiment. The hand resting on his pistol trembled a bit, and he gripped it tighter. What if the Chinese really were invading?

“If the CHII-NEESE are invading… Why is it so quiet out here except for us?!” The crowd roared in response. One person, R.J. noticed, was not cheering, and was looking down at their phone. He continued chanting “U.S.A.” as he walked over to them. His job was to keep an eye out for Fed plants. Robert was always the observant one of their group.

“What is so interesting?” R.J. said as he grabbed their phone. They looked up in a jerk, the movement removing their sweater hood. It was a young man, maybe 15.

“I can’t tell what is real anymore, and what… isn’t…” The kid couldn’t be heard, but Robert could read his lips.

“Sorry kid, I thought… Wait what is this?” Robert looked at the phone screen, and was seeing a news broadcast of San Francisco burning. He radioed for Stephens to come over, away from his post at the edge of the protest. Stephens could barely hear his radio crackle over the din of the crowd, but he made it over.

“Probably fake.” He dismissed quickly. They all watched together as the Golden Gate Bridge slowly bent and collapsed into the bay. The kid snatched his phone back.

“I need to find my mom.” He said as he pushed away into the crowd. His own phone went off again in his pocket. So did everyone’s, apparently. Everyone stopped for a moment, the sound dying a bit as emergency alert sounds buzzed and beeped.

Warning. Please evacuate immediately. Stay at home order in effect. Barricade doors and windows. Turn on news radio.

The quiet began to give away to quiet chuckles and curses of skepticism and disbelief. But before the crowd got loud again everyone could hear it. A loud, constant whirring sound seemed to fill the air, growing louder. Men brandished their rifles in confusion.

“Everyone get behind the trucks.” Stephens spit into the radio. They set up a semi circle of trucks outside the Courthouse to protect from the cops that never came to stop their protest. Flags mounted in the back of some hung listlessly in the stagnant, hot air. “Everyone, stay calm!” he boomed. “They’re trying to scare us”.

Robert saw it first. High in the sky, a drone seemed to hang overhead. Something fell from it.

Orange. Red.

Ringing in his ears and an intense pressure in his head, he thought he would pop. His heart seemed to stop in his chest.

Black. Brown. Smoke, dirt. Red blood on a flapping yellow background, a snake seemed to spit blood.

“What the fuck is happeni-” Robert suddenly realized he was probably deaf now. He felt blood coming from his ears as he realized what had happened. Stephens strong arm stuck out from under a torn piece of metal, twitching slightly, finger on the trigger of his rifle. The gun was pointed at R.J., but he just stared at it for a moment. He could not hear, but he could smell. The smell of piss came from him. There was another smell though, something familiar.

Coppery. Blood. The area around him was a moving crater, filled with a sea of gore that twitched and moaned.

“What the fuck” Robert could feel himself crying but could not hear himself sobbing. He saw an eye floating, looking at the sky filling with dust and smoke. The cornea rotated downward to stare into blood and dirt. Robert vomited and tried to pull himself up.

The shadows were darker that day. It was not R.J.’s imagination. They watched. They were the real reason he felt so cold, it was not his terror. Not his disgust. Their eyes were innumerable, and they relished in the feast of flesh. They stared through Robert, some even using Robert to see. He felt his mind twitch inside his skull and he began shivering uncontrollably. He started to crawl away, pulling himself over a body that begged for help. Robert couldn’t hear, but he read the lips that bubbled and trembled as he passed over half of a face.

A boat off the coast of California bobbed easily in the waves.

An officer looked over the shoulder of a young man, and they congratulated each other as they looked at the computer monitor together. A greyscale view of a smoking city. Hot white flashes of white popped intermittently. Other young men at other computers were engrossed in their work. The sounds of computer fans whirring and clicking filled the room.

With a pat on the back, the officer walked briskly back to the CIC, informing the communications officer to relay the operation’s success. While the bulk of the forces made their land invasion, his detachment was already whittling away at the insurgency they knew would come after their initial invasion. There might even be a promotion, if the drones all make it back safely.

An officer in the August 1st Building in Beijing hung up his phone, smiling as he walked out of his office to relay the news. He nearly trotted down the hall, past rooms filled with personnel on computers, using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Helping to organize more “Freedom Rallies” in the United States and disputing the facts that American news services were sharing. A rumor had already started that the massacres of rallies in California was a False Flag attack, as was the invasion itself. Naturally.

Shadows hid inside of the keys of each computer, laughing as they greased them. Helping them type faster.

“This is… Fun.” A voice echoed in the infinite darkness between worlds. “Truly… Entertaining.”

“Yes. What a terrible universe.” Another shadow mumbled and muttered. “Terrible” the void echoed.

“Can we play more here?” Others hissed in agreement.

“We have work to do elsewhere. Another scenario. Requested.” The first voice rumbled. The others hissed and hushed.

“Work is pleasure.” Rumbles.

“Work is pleasure.” Replied.

Click here for the next part!

Grisly Glee

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The part before.

The crowd shifted and ebbed and flowed and Lowman felt sick to his stomach.  Grabbing his head he also steadied himself on a bulkhead nearby, letting his gun dangle by its strap.  If he wasn’t careful, he would blow what little food he had inside him all over the fucking place.

Breathe in.  Hold it.  4 seconds.
Breathe Out.  Keep it out.  4 seconds. Focus. 

SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

The crowd chanted as it pushed forward, the poor folks in the front screamed as the electric wall crackled and bulged against their flesh.  Kinsey was pissed.

“Get your shit together!” He hissed as he raised his weapon at the crowd.  Lowman did the same. A loud whirr came from behind them, like a gigantic RC car.

“Hello.  I am here to distribute the bio-suppressant.”  The pleasant and bright voice chimed out of the gigantic box robot.  Robert walked up to its side and pounded his fist on the opening mechanism.

“Thank you for your asssistance!” it chirped with glee.  “Here are the syringes.”  The crowd clamored forward again, the folks in the front were already pressed to death.  The electricity singed their lips away, crackling at their teeth.  Some were already showing skull.  Robert was feeling good for a minute but the smell…  He burped.

He couldn’t tell what was making him more sick, his hunger or the smell of burning flesh.  Or the screams?  The robot extended its tray out into the crowd, and Robert loaded the syringes onto the conveyor belt as it rolled into the crowd.  Some got caught under it.  People were rushing to inject themselves with the bio-suppressant.  Once injected, they helped distribute.  The roar of the crowd became a moan.  Wailing and hushed breathing.  Waiting and crying.  Then murmuring.

“Is there no more?!”  Someone shouted.  “We are out?” cried another.

Robert and Kinsey both looked at each other as a red light flashed to the horrifying blue.

“Biogenic weapon signature detected.” the ships computer coolly chimed. “Please take proper precautions and – – — ——————”

A silence filled the air as a bright green light swept through the ship.  Every deck was scanned from top to bottom then from port to starboard, the shields did not block anything.  Roberts stomach churned and his throat burned with acid as the crowd screamed, children wailing shrill and panicked.  One was staring with no expression, his mother smoking before him and writhing in pain.

His face bubbled and twisted, his eyes falling out and pooling into the puddle of flesh that used to be a little boy.  The pile moved and twisted and the people around were rushing and scrambling to get away as a large fleshy proboscis shot out of the mush, grabbing a man by the leg.

Robert and Kinsey opened fire, drowning out the terror before them.  Some folks were partially transforming, the larger people need large doses of the suppressant it seems.  One woman was half melted and moaning as the child-blob finally was dispersed, chunks of fleshy matter scattered and smoking.  No blood.  All chunks.

What used to be the woman’s hand had twisted itself into a rudimentary mouth and was attacking her torso.  She used her other arm to try and push it away as Kinsey walked up to her.  The electric wall parted smoothly as he walked toward it, closing behind him and Robert as they moved into the cargo bay.  Kinsey kicked her down and stood with one boot on her chest as he aimed his rifle and did a battlefield amputation on the affected limb.

Her eyes were wide with shock and the screams were honestly unheard at this point.  The whole cargo bay was now flooded with soldiers now, amputating and finishing off halflings.  Luckily there were no other full transformations.

“Robbie, get a look at this shit.”  Robbie didn’t really want to see, but he felt himself moving there.  He felt like he was floating now, empty almost.

“Now what?”

Kinsey was crouching in the far corner of the cargo bay, behind some wooden boxes.

It was a horrible pile of fur and claws and eyes, pulsing.  Purring.

“Looks like that shit blends cats too.”

Robert stared.  He remembered the cat he used to have.  A hand tapped his shoulder, and he turned to see the old man from before.

Shockingly white hair he had, was all Robert really noticed as he raised his gun at the man.

“Get the fuck back.”

“R.J.  We meet again.  How is your wife?”  Robert stiffened up and pushed his gun into the man’s chest.  The man stared into Robert’s eyes with a remarkable warmth despite their iciness.

“What are you talking about old man?  How do you know my middle name?  I don’t have a wife anymore.”

“Think of the fence.  The house.  The place that was filled with love and despite that you still lost hope.  Do you remember yet?”

A klaxon fired off, lightning shooting through his arms.  Robert pushed the old man down and he still did not break eye contact.

“Think about her R.J.  she misses you.  They are all looking for you right now and they can’t find you because you aren’t there anymore.  You are nowhere right now.”

Please brace for impact.  

The computer calmly chimed over the roar of the crowd again.

“We gotta get the fuck out of here Robbie!!” Kinsey grabbed his arm and started hustling him away, shooting a large man trying to wrestle his gun away from him.  Kinsey was dragging Robert behind him, he was still staring at the old man he could swear he had known before.  Before all of this?

Think of her

Robert wasn’t the best at reading lips and he didn’t have time to ask the man what he said.  An alien Marauder slammed into their ship, tearing open the cargo bay.  The room sounded like a giant vacuum cleaner for a few moments, then silent as everyone floated into space.  A final cold embrace.  Robert saw the old man floating, and read his lips again.  He seemed calm and pristine despite the swirling hundreds of near-dead people fighting to breathe in an empty place.

“Think of her?”  As he slipped away, he saw someone with long dark hair.  A woman he had dreamed about?

He wanted to shout.  He tried and heard nothing.

A chuckle..?  

Click here for the next part! 

Probably Just a Bug-Bite

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I was working late in a rural school, when the power went out. I was the night janitor, a job I had always enjoyed because of the relative solitude. I could sleep all day and relax for a bit before driving to work. I would bring my headphones and listen to some Silversun Pickups or Andrew Bird while I swept and mopped up the refuse from the day. Every day the halls were left filled with broken pencils and crumpled up papers with forgotten love scribbled inside. Sometimes I read the notes, and chuckled at their eager egos reaching for some strange ideal of romance. Sometimes I just sneaked a quick bowl and zoned out into my work and the music. Each day blended beautifully into the next. Rent was paid, snacks were bought, and small bits of my check I managed to save. I was content with my confident mediocrity.

Until the night the lights went out, I was enjoying the relaxing waves of soft rain on window panes.

The darkness washed down the hallway I was standing in like a splash of obsidian. It’s difficult to describe the feeling I had, but it was not a normal, healthy fear of the dark. I felt… Unnerved. I knew it wasn’t true, but I felt like I was being watched by the inky black that surrounded me and touched by the silence that swarmed and swirled.

I stood still for some time, expecting to hear the backup generators kick on or the clicking drone of emergency lights. But the only thing I heard was a loud metal clanging that shot down the hall and into my bones. Frozen. Reverberations shook my bones. Helpless. I stood as if locked in a dream. I felt like a child, confused. Silence finally began to echo and ring and ring and ring in my ears.

It must have been a dream. I must have fallen asleep. This must have been a dream, right? I don’t even believe myself as I begin to think of how to write this…

The lights finally kicked on as the sound ended, with a hum and a flicker. And I saw I wasn’t alone.

I caught a glimpse of a large hominid whirling away around a corner. Legs were too long, and the arms were longer. Slender. Pallid. Vein-y. I remember the veins. Thick and purple on a skinny frame. I could have sworn I saw them throb hungrily.

Next thing I knew, I was sitting in a chair in a classroom. I felt cold, and I shivered. I felt disoriented and my vision was blurry as a soft lightning flash illuminated the room with the slightest gleam. Slowly getting to my feet, my eyes noticed the room number posted on the board amidst reminders and notes. The room was in that hallway I was in, or that I thought I was in before…

I found my coworker after running outside into the breezy night rain and into another building. I must have looked wild, because he asked if I was OK. I wasn’t. I’m still not.

My partner said the lights never went out.

And it’s been two days, and I thought it was an exhaustion-induced hallucination because I hadn’t been sleeping recently. My dog has been constantly barking at the clouds and the squirrels that have moved into the roof of my home, constantly scratching and squealing.

But now I have a unusual dot where my bicep meets the forearm. Sight bruising, too. As if I had gotten stung or poked.

Now that I look closely, it’s starting to seem infected. The bruising is a dark hue, darker than even when I broke a bone as a child. And the veins are thicker around that dot. And my head… aches. Constant throbbing.

Maybe I should drive to the city hospital, an hour’s drive away. Those big-city doctors will know what this is.

Probably just a bug-bite, mixed with this fever and paranoia.

Yeah. That’s it. Still gonna go check and make sure.

Make sure it’s nothing serious.

Shooting Stars

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Click here for the part before.

The hum of the engine filled the passenger cabin and Robert stood frozen, clutching his suitcase.  He stared at the corpse of his friend as it floated eerily just above the floor, dead nose inches from the tacky carpet.  Gulping with a dry throat made him cough, and Robert covered his mouth involuntarily.  The man with the gun turned his sneer to a frown as he tightened his aim on Robert’s face.

“Don’t.  Move.  Slowly toss the suitcase down and put your hands up.”

What can I do?

Moments passed, and he tossed the suitcase to his side just as the man began to bloat with rage.  It quickly floated away and bounced around in the seats across the aisle.  He was in no position to negotiate here.

Here goes nothing. 

“You’re not going to get out of here alive if you don’t put down that gun.” Robert leveled his eyes at the man with a monotone drone his father used to use on him.  The man was defiant, like Robert used to be.

“Pfft!” The man expelled air in disbelief.  “No one in the U.E.R. knows this is happening right now.  No one but you.  And you have no way to contact anyone.”

He was wrong there.  This entire time Robert had been using his mobile to send a live stream of this attack to executive officials at the Consortium.  The communicator was floating now, dangling from his suitcase that hovered off to the side, above the seats.  If the man looked close, he could easily see a red light blinking softly.  But his attention was wholly on Robert, who continued his speech craft:

“Doesn’t matter.  You get to Persephone on schedule, you have security waiting.  You deviate from this shuttle’s flight path, you have military personnel just itching for action.”

The man stared with an empty face at Robert.  Slowly, the gun went to his side. Relaxing.  His eyes were deep in his face, and when the lights flickered for a moment he looked like a skeleton.  A slow smile found its way onto the tired man and Robert’s blood turned to ice as he spoke.

“We have seized Persephone, and the Prime Minister’s office there.  He’s surely been executed by now.  Justice… Justice is almost here.”  The man’s whisper was below a breath, and Robert only saw his lips move:

“Any minute now.”  The man was very assured of himself.

“Justice..?  What “justice” is this? Whose justice?  Who are you?!”  Robert shouted now, and the gun raised again in response to his agitation.

“We are the remnants of those you sent into space — those you sent to DIE!”  The man shouted at him, gun flinging wildly around with each gesticulation.

“What are you talking about?  Forced colonization ended over two decades ago!  Reparations were made!”

“Fool!” The man screamed. His teeth were bared with his lips pulled back in a snarl.  It took all the will he had left to keep his finger from the trigger.

“You think that those “contractors” you use are willing employees?!  What man would willingly take his family on the first deep space colonization?”

Families?

Robert only knew that the contractors the Consortium used for deep space were paid well, and supplied well.  He was under the impression that they were all willing scientists and engineers and workers.  Everyone in the world was.  Robert could only stare blankly at the angry terrorist, too confused to speak.

“What do you think happened to the colonists from before?  They just lived on like usual!?  Why did we need to have mass incentivized immigration to the Lagrange colonies then?!  They should have had plenty of people there already!  Are all of you so stupid?!”

“We thought there were casualt–”

The man slammed his fist into his chest loudly, grabbing at his heart.  His teeth were grinding, and Robert could hear them.  They sounded as if they would explode into dust any second.  Several seconds passed.

“You had… no idea?  No one did?”  Tears poured from his eyes in steady streams.  He did not sob, but the tears would not stop.  Robert shook his head.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.  We thought the contractors were all professionals looking for new frontiers.  ‘Pioneers and Adventurers!’ Haven’t you seen the promo commercials?”

“Good God.  It was only the execs who knew?   How could they keep such a secret, so many military personnel were used to move us all…” The man’s voice cracked.  He looked even more tired now, older.  Weaker.  Smaller somehow.

“Jason got us so riled up.  We were away for so long… No contact, or news… We just thought you all had forsaken us, and just used us up and tossed us aside.  But…”  He trailed off, staring out the window just over Robert’s shoulder.  The Earth stared back at him pleadingly.

“Hey… What is your name?” Robert asked quietly, with caution.  He slowly lowered his hands, and the man did not react.  His unblinking stare reflected the glow of the lights inside the cabin.

“It doesn’t matter.  All of this will be over soon.”  He sounded if he had already died.

“What do you mean?”

“Axis is coming.  It’s probably almost here.” The man whispered with great reverence, as if speaking of a mighty, vengeful god that could hear him.

“Axis?  What is that?” Robert asked, egging him on for more information.  If he noticed that comm device, all of this tenuous trust would fly out the airlock.  Robert needed more information.

“Axis is the reason you came up here, Robert.  But we lied to you about the specifics.” A sardonic snicker.  The man looked down and shook his head.  Robert was confused still but the shuttle’s autopilot interrupted, announcing that they would soon be docking at Persephone.

“I’ll get us away from the station.  There’s no reason for you to die there anymore.”

“Wait!!” Robert exclaimed as the man began to duck back into the cockpit.  “Why did you want me?  Why me?”  The man paused for a moment, and without looking back he spoke to Robert.

“I’m sorry about your friend.  I am.  And your family on Earth.  But there’s nothing we can do now.  Looks like you’re coming to space with us.  We will find a way to make you… useful.”  The door shut behind him, and the man whispered to himself in solitude as he flipped switches.

“Maybe.  I believe you enough to let you live, but my friends…  They probably won’t.”

shooting-stars-1

Robert drifted over to his phone, and ended the live stream.  He pulled himself into the seat and looked to his left out the window.  The vastness of space stretched itself before him, and he could see the blockade of frigates created in response to the alien discovery on Luna.  Something wasn’t quite right though, and he couldn’t place his finger on it.  He stared, confused at a shadowed part of space behind the ships.  A large place without stars.

Impossible.  Must be a trick of the light. 

He stretched his vision to see as best as he could toward the ominous darkness out there, beyond the frigates.  Robert passed several painful minutes in silence and he saw the shadow slowly grow.  A couple more stars disappeared within it. The darkness had been gathering its strength beyond the blockade.

“Fuck.  It’s a giant asteroid.” Robert breathed.  He pounded his communicator’s speed dial and reached electric along with his soul for his wife, searching.  Hoping.  He begged for her to pick up, but it was a Monday, and she was probably still in class.  Looking at his watch as the phone rang, he pleaded for some cosmic being to tell her to pick up the phone.  But nothing was listening.  Nothing good, at least.  Unknown to Robert, his extreme emotions and fracturing psyche were the source of macabre delight to the demons that placed him here in this universe.  He was nothing more than a pawn.  His fear and frustration and existential horror tingled the shadows and made them dance with delight.  Lights flickered in the cabin.  Whispers of their ritual leaked into his mind and tickled his ears, and Robert whipped around to find what made those sounds.  A language he had never heard but for some reason found too familiar.

Ko’se lano makora kojani noss’e

In this moment he finally reached the front desk of the school, and he asked to speak to Mrs. Lowman, with as much normalcy as he could muster.

“Linda… You need to dismiss class and get everyone out of there.  You need to go to the emergency shuttle outside the city, a panic will start soon.  I know it.”

“R.J., wait, what are you talking about?  Everything is fine here.  Nothing is wro–“

“Listen to me, Lin.  You have to trust me.  Get out of there, please.  Please.”  Robert began to cry.  “There’s an asteroid coming.  It’s terrorists.”

“Robert James, this isn’t funny, ” Her voice cracked and gave a nervous laugh.  “You got me, OK?”  Suddenly he could hear a siren go off in the background, and the kids all screamed in unison.  “Robert, oh my god. It’s on the Persephone camera feed.  You weren’t lying!  I have to go, but how did you know?!  I can’t do this alone R.J.!  Where will I meet you?!”

“I’ll find you!  Don’t go to Persephone! It’s a trap!  Linda?  LIN?!” But the line was already dead.  He looked at the communicator and saw that there was no service at all.  The Consortium must have alerted everyone, just like he had hoped.  But there was no way to prepare for something like this.  A mass evacuation plan had been discussed, but there were nowhere near enough shuttles available for an exodus like this.  He could only imagine the chaos his wife would have to endure trying to escape.  If she could even get out of the city.  But why was the service cut off so suddenly?

He floated over to the other side of the empty passenger cabin to look at the Earth.  He felt cold as he stared at massive shooting stars entering the atmosphere, and he couldn’t understand what they were.  But then he realized that they were the various O’Neill colonies slowly falling into the atmosphere.  New Sydney, New Beijing, New London.  They were being ripped apart by the Earth’s last line of defense.  Several million people lived in each of them.

Something suddenly slammed into the window Robert looked out of, and he screamed at the unknown horror as it drifted away.  Then he noticed that it was a human corpse.  More of them were tumbling by, and it sounded like a hail storm outside.  The ship turned away from Earth as he watched the burning colonies returning home.  A bright flash lit the night side of Earth below him, as one cylinder hit the Indian subcontinent.  His view turned with the ship, and he saw what was left of the great crown jewel of humanity’s first steps into space.  Persephone was now nothing more than a blossoming flower of twinkling glass and steel that spread partly into space, partly into orbit, and partly into tiny lines of fire streaking down to the Earth.

The hum of the engine filled the passenger cabin, a steady rhythm to accompany the sobs of Robert James.  The shadows watched him and trembled with pleasure at his hopelessness, whispering among themselves in impossible tones.

On the Earth’s surface, a child in a rural area stared up in wonder at the great streaks of light flying across the sky.  He giggled and laughed as he held out his arms like an airplane, running back to the house as fast as he could.  He wanted to share this moment with his mother, who waited inside crying as she watched an emergency broadcast repeat itself.

tales of a travelling salesman final

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Sea of Faces

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Click here for the Tale before

 

As the fog of oblivion filled Robert’s vision, he could feel the fishing boat tumbling farther down into the unnatural whirlpool.  It was as if a massive hole in the ocean floor had opened up like some great drain stopper, and now all of the world’s water was pouring down into the planet.  Robert was falling and suddenly found himself floating in that great infinite inkwell of in-between.  Apart from existence.

The darkness was not so complete this time, stars peppered the abyss from great distances, speckling and sparkling from afar.  Focusing on them, Robert felt as if he was being drawn in.  They twinkled and beckoned pleasantly.  He found one, pulsing alone among the millions, and his vision was focused on it.  He could not look away, and he had no eyelids with which to blink.  It pulsed louder, brighter.  He felt warmth emanating from it, a strong sense of comfort, safety, and a dash of happiness.  But those feelings passed onto an aftertaste that was a deep sense of… hopelessness?  Exhaustion laced with defiance?  Both.  Waves of emotion washed over Robert’s mind, and he felt a strong connection.

He tried to stare into the light, which was not any closer but pulsed more and more and faster and brighter and faster and then he was sitting on a steel park bench, the sun above pulsing with warmth.  Almost throbbing.  A cosmic heartbeat comforting him.

 

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The skyscrapers towered all around him, covered in shining glass and chrome.  They looked differently than any he had seen before.  Some sides were straight, others sloped up to make a curved edge.  Many of the buildings were connected by several bridges, and on top of the bridges trees grew tall and leafy.  As he looked around, he noticed every building’s top in view had veritable forests growing from their roofs.  Many buildings had large vines growing up the side, making this strange landscape seem as if the civilization had collapsed, and nature was claiming what was rightfully hers.  Robert stared in wonder and fear, searching for familiarity.  The architecture was completely foreign, and as he stared more and more it became familiar.  The way the trees curled around corners, and climbed with the steel.  Flowing naturally through concrete tubes cut into the sides, guiding their growth.  Nature seemed in control of this world.

The streets were bustling, people wore business suits cut differently than Robert was used to.  They looked cool and crisp though, hip.  He was looking around in awe and listening to birds chirp triumphant as he noticed each person had a red tie, and wore gray suits.  One group wore blue ties.  Robert looked down at his own clothes, and noticed he fit right in.  The place around him was remarkably clean, no trash on the ground or any stains on the street.  The familiar cleanliness of a civilization with pride.  Robert felt a warmth in his chest swelling up.

Vehicles that he had never seen quietly swooped around the streets, and he noticed that they hovered slightly above the ground, rising and falling with the terrain.  Robert had never seen anything like this before, but inside he felt strangely acquainted. Staring at one hover-car, he moved his eyes over its smooth blue frame, shaped like a teardrop.  He felt confused, as he knew that this was all wrong, but how could it be?  He had lived near this city his whole life.  His wife worked here too, at one of the schools.  As he thought about the civilization he found himself in, he grew more familiar with it.  He had a job here, and he was late to work.

Robert stood up quickly and straightened his red tie.  This was the Port District, and he had to make it to the office in time to catch the ride to Persephone.  He hailed a cab, and felt the familiar dip in the hovering as he sat inside.

“To the Main Port, please.”

 

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The cabbie nodded and smiled and merged into the traffic with the nearly identical hover-cars.  The styles were all the same, save for the colors.  Robert remembered how thankful he was for the efficiency of it all.  The cars used hyper-solar panels, the technology that made the Second Industrial Revolution possible.  There was no longer any need for mining fossil fuels, but the rare-earth minerals used in cities and machines were nearly gone.  Lucky for Robert, he worked for the United Earth Mining Consortium, which specialized in mining near-Earth asteroids for the metals used in every aspect of society.  A extremely lucrative business and a near monopoly that was subsidized by the United Earth Republic.  Robert was lucky enough to snag a sales representative job and earn the red tie just in time for the mining boom of the last 20 years.  His wife taught at the local private academy, and they lived a picturesque life in a home with a view of Millennium City, where the great Port District in this hemisphere was.  On a clear night, they could see the twinkling of Persephone in the sky, hovering in geosynchronous orbit high over the Port.

The Port District was filled with Consortium employees with their red ties.  Color-coded ties for job sectors, color coded cars for different services.  All moving cogs in the wonderful machine of Terran society.  As he passed through a service industry bloc, he saw how drab a gray suit was without a tie.  He almost pitied them, but then the grand vista of the Port came into view.

From far off, the Port’s elevator seemed like a strange line dividing the sky in half before disappearing into the clouds.  Up close, the sheer immensity could begin to be appreciated.  Like a child looking up at a theme park ride, Robert strained at the cab’s window to discover how high up he could see.  The Great Elevator stretched up higher than his eyes could strain.  He knew that Persephone was up there, nearby the orbital station connected to the elevator that acted as a counterweight and allowed it to stay in place.  Truly a marvel of modern engineering, Robert could not help but feel proud to be a part of a civilization that had conquered such heights.  Both he and Linda would share that awe sometimes, each sipping their nightcaps and staring up at Persephone and the other orbital stations that twinkled with the stars.  He never noticed, but she always held his hand a little tighter when they looked up together.

After paying the cabbie, Robert made his way through the military checkpoint.  He never understood why, in such a peaceful time, they still felt the need to strip everyone down and comb them over.  It wasn’t even degrading to him anymore, but just a hassle.  And no matter how many times he saw the same soldiers, they never got any nicer.  Humorless as they always were, Robert still tried to make them laugh.

“Geez, you aren’t even going to take me out on a date first?”

Awkward silence, save for the sounds of the metal detector and the shuffling of boots.  Robert was irritated at being even later than he already was, but he buried it deep down.  He didn’t want to cause a scene with the soldiers.  They always pointed their rifles at the crowds and at who they were searching, and Robert remembered his first time and how mortified he was to stare down a half dozen barrels.  He nearly pissed himself.  But now, it was just business as usual.  The cost of security.  They treated everyone as if each was about to detonate a thermal charge at the first opportunity, even though terrorism hadn’t been an issue for some time.  After Unification, and when the orbital stations finally began producing food and water for everyone, times got more peaceful.  Sure there were whispers of workers on Earth and in Orbit that were treated unfairly and exploited, but those were just rumors.  No concrete evidence, and certainly no terrorism came of them.

Finally the soldiers finished their duty, and he slipped clumsily back into the gray suit and red tie.  Catching a quick glance into a mirror as he walked by to make sure he looked dapper, he made his way into the large sphere that was the vestibule of the Great Elevator.  Shockingly white on the outside, he always wondered how they kept it so clean.  Crowds meandered through the concourse as a monotone voice spoke about travel times and departures.

“The next run will begin at 2100.  The next run will begin at 2100.”

A man at the bar nearby laughed louder than he needed to.  A mother tried to comfort her child across the hall.  The miniature human stood crying in the middle of what appeared to be their entire family’s belongings, clutching an over-sized stuffed bear.  Robert stood as the crowd moved around him, and his legs would not move.  He had no need to, and he felt unnatural.  Out of place.  An observer.  Like he did not belong, even though he had been here countless times before.

He stood there, alone and isolated among the sea of faces that swirled and twisted around him.  Countless conversations blended together in one unearthly chorus, and Robert felt confused for a moment that seemed to be a universe of its own.

 

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tales of a travelling salesman final

 

My Late Uncle Clive (Final)

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It was impossible to get any sleep.  Even though Trent left to go do some snooping around the college.  Even though Max was dog-snoring loudly next to me, normally a comforting sound.  I was restless, and wired.  I wasn’t sure if it was from the excitement of the impending investigation, or from my compulsion to try and look at the… stone.  When my eyes were shut, I imagined it’s curves and edges.  Tracing with imaginary fingers, I felt its cracks and grain.  My back ached, and my shoulders were so tense that I tossed and turned.  Tired as a 90-year old man, but wired like a child before Christmas.

Of course the whispers did not help.  As I put one leg out from underneath the blanket – the perfect temperature finally achieved – I noticed them.  Their syllables were guttural and foreign and yet… Familiar.  I paid attention as best as I could, they grew quieter as I paid attention.  They must sense I am listening.

“Ft’ngluii maglwf’nafh…”

It was all I could catch at the time.  Later, I would hear more.  But first, the dream that came while I could not sleep.

A darkness fell over the room as if the sun was suddenly covered by some great tapestry of storm clouds.  But what happened next was more of a prophecy, or something.  I don’t know.  I was awake in bed, and abruptly a great ocean stretched out, tumultuous and awe-inspiring.  Waves of titanic proportions crashed into each other, greater than any other waves this world had seen.  Their collisions shattered the song of the rain with thunder.  A city suddenly began to appear, with gargantuan stone blocks stacked irregularly to create strange structures that were nearly Escherian in geometry.  A strange tone blew from beneath the waves as the city rose higher, water falling from sinister stones covered in algae and rumbling into the sky.  The tone was a thousand screams blended into one voice, somehow.  The cacophony grew so loud and impossible to block out, and then just as suddenly as the vision came, I was back on the bed, sitting upright and sweating.  My legs shook from the fear that comes from a lack of understanding, and when my eyes finally focused, they found their own way to that bas-relief of the horrible being.  A chill tingled its way down my spine, and shivering, I left the hotel to meet up with the detective.

We returned to the college, and the secretary had left for the day early apparently, as she was not in her usual spot at her desk.  Trent brought a crowbar under his coat, and we awkwardly hid together in the leg space underneath the great desk that belonged to my late Uncle Clive.  I couldn’t imagine what awaited us behind the secret door, what terrible dark secrets must be behind it!  We sat in complete silence for hours, neither of us wanting to take the risk of being heard.  Luckily we both remembered to wear our deodorant. We had fasted in preparation for this, so that we wouldn’t get the urgent calls of nature at the worst possible time.  A granola bar each kept our stomachs from growling as darkness began to chase the light away from the day.  Shadows spread around us, the already dark room becoming so black that we could scarcely see each other.  Silence was pulsing into the room, waves and waves of it washing over the darkness.  We thought that no one would show up, and just as Trent became restless, a slow creaking shot into the room.  The heavy wooden door to Uncle Clive’s old office began to swing open, letting in a dim light from the hall and several long shadows that belonged to members of this strange cult.

The footsteps tentatively found their way into the office, so quiet and careful.  A small crowd had bustled in judging from the sound, and the last in shut the oaken door behind them.  Darkness again found its home.  If we were discovered, my mind shuddered at the thought of the horrible tortures that would await us.  Flayed skin, peeled back from each finger like a hangnail from hell, curling up my arm and my neck and finally to my eyes.  My damned imagination made my heart pound with such force that I feared I would be heard by the anonymous crowd less than 20 feet from where the detective and I hid.

After an eternity, we heard the large picture of the sea monster attacking the old vessel swing to the side, revealing the doorway.  The sound of brass on brass clanked and I knew that the keys were slid into their locks, tumblers turning and hinges creaking as the door swung open.

In silence, the group made their way into the doorway.  Finally the door swung shut behind them, and their echoing footsteps down a stone corridor disappeared.  A moment passed, and then another moment.  Trent and I looked at each other and silently agreed to finally stand and stretch and complete our mission.  It was nearly the appointed time.

Trent stood first, and I hesitated to stretch my own legs from the sitting position first.  He stood, stretched his arms up, and a great cane with a large stone at the top cracked him across the face.  Blood spurted from his nose and sprayed onto his shirt as he fell backward, tumbling over the chair.  I quickly pulled my legs back and continued to hide, a cowardly move that saved my own life.  From where I was, all I could see were his legs twitching with each repeated swing of the cane onto his skull.  Each thick thud gave a spasm to his body, which finally went limp.  Silence again, and then the hidden door creaked one last time, swinging open then closed.

My entire body felt weak as I pulled myself up.  Trent’s face was completely caved in.  The copper smell of fresh blood was blended with brain and marrow.  Barely able to contain my nausea, I took the crowbar he had smuggled in.  I would have closed his eyes if there were eyes to close.  I would make sure he got a proper burial… But first there was business.

The crowbar worked well on the hinges, and I pried the door open with a surprisingly quiet splintering.  The vestibule was a wooden frame of decent design, remarkably clean.  I took out a small flashlight that I had brought with me, and I carried the crowbar in my other hand.  A smell rode on a small wind out from the darkness in front of me, and it grew stronger with each step down the old stairs.  The wooden structure gave way to stone, and I did not notice when that change occurred because of the sounds I heard.  The damp, musty air blended with strange incantations, and trills.  Drums.  Almost human sounds.  Sounds no person should make.  Each step into the tunnel brought them deeper into my mind, the echoes giving the impression that the sounds came from all around me.  Finally, a flickering light could be seen around the corner and up ahead, where the tunnel curved suddenly to the right.  Turning my flashlight off, I crept up to the edge and peeked around into the heart of madness.  The light that flickered was from a great fire.

The earthen hall had opened into a great cavern, who knows how deep beneath the school grounds.  The ceiling was so high up it gave me vertigo to look, with strange Byzantine patterns carved into the wall all around escalating the sensation.  The center of the room drew my eye, as the dark chanting grew more frantic and hurried, words echoing with fanatical glee.  A monolith of black-green blended stone towered in the center of the room, fires burning around it in a shallow pit.  Countless skeletons hung upside-down above the pyre, just beyond the reach of the flames.  I focused on the cultists, silhouetted and nude.  They danced and swayed erratically, each moving to the strange rhythm of the incantation that I will try to write again.  It is so clear in my mind… and yet difficult to write:

“Ft’ngluii…. maglwf’nafh…. Kuthluun…. Reh’lyeh… wvagah-najl… phutadjnn!”

As I heard the words from the disgusting lips of the raving cultists, I knew that they were the words that I have been hearing in my mind.  It makes me shiver to try and think of how it was possible.  Some stones are best left un-turned.  The flames leaped and I caught one face: A man I recognized from the funeral.  A colleague of my late Uncle’s.  And another.  And another.  This was the secret for which he was ashamed.  A scream broke through the maddening tempos of beating drums and foul syllables.  The drums became more frantic as a woman was dragged out from the other side of the cavern, naked.  Feet and hands bound.  My heart pounded and I watched helplessly as they brought her to the center, before the swaying nude crowd and the monolith.  The chanting grew louder as one man stepped forward, and raised an object high into the air.  The gold glistened from the strange blade that I was so fond of — the tentacled blade.  It was a sacrificial knife.  They broke in and made a mess to hide that they took just that.  The woman looked frantically around, crying for help, and as the man grabbed her hair to pull her head back I saw it was the secretary from before.  Blood squirted out onto the stone floor as the blade cut into her throat, and almost immediately she was hoisted up over the monolith and the flames, and I watched the blood drip down onto the black-green stone and I saw the familiar being from the bas-relief carved into the top of the stone, staring at me.  The chanting was frantic as she twitched and hung above the monolith, dying and flames licking at her skin, and catching her on fire.  Must have been doused in gasoline.  I could not help but vomit, and I felt powerless and I weakly made my way back the way I came.

The police did not believe me.  They nearly arrested me when I tried to get them to follow me to the school.  They knew of no Detective Trent.  His body was gone when I went back up to the room.  No blood.  I have done the best I can to write this clearly, and I fear I have used all the strength I have had just to stay sane.  The whispers still come to me.  The dreams come as well, repeated over and over again exactly the same during the darkest hours of the night.  A horrible conspiracy at this university, going on for generations.  I went back to my burnt shell of a house to salvage anything, and there was nothing.  I took Max from the hotel, and upon checking out the manager gave me a note that had been left from someone, though he could not remember who.  The camera’s footage from the night it was left was just static.  I am moving on, and fear I will continue to have to move around.  The note was on very nice paper, in a thick envelope.  The typed words stood harshly in contrast with the white paper:

“We know that you know.  We are watching.  We are everywhere.”

As I read it, the whispers began again.  At first they could have been a soft wind through the trees.  But now they are constant.  I have found a good home for Max, a safe place.  I won’t be around much longer.  The whispers won’t stop, and I know of only one way to stop them.

 

 

 

tales of a travelling salesman final

Whirlpool

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The alarm bell rang with intense fury as the storm outside the ship’s cabin faded into silence.  The ocean waves bobbed the vessel up and down, and Robert’s great fear of drowning blended into nausea.  The crew was shouting outside, working effectively even without their captain.  Robert stepped over Captain Gathers’ sleeping body and peeked outside at the deck.  The horizon was swallowed by the immense titan of the sea, with its riders perched on top, preparing for battle.  It was larger than he had expected, for it was still growing toward them.  Surprised that it hadn’t arrived yet, he realized that it must be impossibly large.  Even its riders must be gigantic.

Robert was startled by 2 crew men suddenly outside on the deck, but they were distracted by the .50 caliber machine gun that they were bolting into place, facing the direction of their impending doom.  A titanic rumbling was growing louder, and no one could tell if it was the sound the creature made on purpose, or if it was the sound of the massive water displacement as it came toward them.  Regardless, men were having trouble fighting off their fear.  One man alone by the helm clutched at a picture of his wife and young child, born just before he left on this mission.  His last mission.  Tears blended with the sea spray as he pushed the throttle down further, trying to pull away from his fate.  The engine roared over the crashing of waves on the bow.

 

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Robert still struggled to remember who he was, and how he got here.  Collapsing into a chair, he held his head in his hands and tried to fight off his nausea.  He felt a ring on his finger and looked at the gold glistening in the flickering light.  Married.  He grabbed a wet wallet from his hip pocket.  Photographs.  Children.  He saw one of his wife from their wedding day.  It was almost ruined from the water, but he could still see her eyes, and the way her black hair fell over her shoulder.  As if an invisible artist took great care to make sure she looked perfect.

“…Let me help you clean that up, breakfast is on the table.  I took today off so I could try to cheer you up…”

He snapped upright as a memory shot electric through his body.  Eggs, over easy.  Toast, perfectly tanned, lightly buttered.  Bacon, crisped to perfection. Coffee, black, with cream waiting to be used in a cute little cup with a tiny little handle.  It all was coming back to him now.  His unemployment, his depression.  The reason he used dreams to escape his life each morning with a new nap under an old oak.  The way the sun shone through the leaves that day, when he fell into some terrible reality.  To escape, he must dream.  But to truly dream, he must escape.  The strange old man!  The words he heard, urging calm, must have come from him!  Did he know how to truly escape?   To truly dream?

The .50 cal exploded from outside the cabin, and Robert was so startled that he fell back down.  He almost hit his head hard enough to be knocked out, but it just throbbed red hot in agonizing waves of pain.  He knew what he had to do.  He had to get back and save his wife from his copy.  The Dark One.  It ate the tanned toast that should be his, and had the wife that he should be with.  Rage bubbled inside of him as he imagined the malevolent smile looking at him from his own doorway as himself.  Robert stood and looked out the window, the gun chugging bullets as the boat bobbed up and down.  The leviathan was still growing larger now, consuming the entire horizon.

How could something ever be so big? 

A sound came from behind Robert and before he could turn in time the Captain had his arm in a lock behind him and his face pressed up against the tiny circular pane of glass.

“You really fucked up now, bud.”

“Please, please knock me out!” Robert groaned out as his shoulder almost dislocated.  Tendons stretched and popped as Gathers squeezed Robert’s forearm higher up on his back.

“You don’t get out that easy, bud.  You cannot escape.”  Robert’s face paled as he saw the faint smile of a Cheshire reflected in the thin pane of glass his face was pushed against.

“We are everywhere.”

 

whirlpool 1

 

Robert struggled and slammed his head back into Gathers’ shifting face, and a half-human squeal erupted from it.  Whirling around to face his assailant, Robert saw shadows spiraling back into the ears, mouth, and eyes of Captain Gathers, who now stood before him.  He looked confused.

“Hey… You knocked me out!”  Robert breathed heavily and rubbed his left shoulder.  He saw his chance now.  Anyone else would have just thrown themselves overboard and let the sea take them, but Robert could not bear to face that fear.  Not yet.

“I’ll do it again if you give me the chance, boy.”  Robert straightened his back and put up his dukes.  He wanted to get the hell out of this reality before the sea creature swallowed him up whole along with the boat.  Gathers let out a huge laugh and gave Robert a straight kick to the chest, flinging him back into the bulkhead.  The wind was knocked out of him and he couldn’t stand up or resist.  Gathers picked up Robert by his shirt, and brought his feet up off the ground and slammed him back into the wall.

“I’m going to work you over, buddy.”  He sneered into Robert’s face as he raised a fist.  The .50 caliber erupted hot lead outside, startling the Captain.  He dropped Robert and looked outside, pressing his face against the glass.

“My God… I’ve killed us all.” Robert stood up behind him, and paused awkwardly.  Should he try to knock himself out?  He didn’t have to worry about it for too much longer, as the aquatic behemoth suddenly began to submerge itself just as it came upon the boat.  The men at first began to cheer, but then the sheer mass of the being going underwater created a massive maelstrom off the port bow.  The gaping maw of an ocean god pulled the boat in and as they went down the boat tipped onto its side, and the death screams of fishermen filled the rushing vortex of wind and water.  Filing cabinets tipped in the cabin, and the corner of one impaled the Captain against the door with a wet thud.

“I’m sorry… Eveline.. Junior… Forgive me…” Bubbled blood coughed from his mouth as he breathed his last.  A fire extinguisher caught Robert on the back of his head as he stared at the dead man who wanted a better life for his family.  Sympathy came easily as darkness filled his vision.  More darkness.  Infinite darkness.  Almost as black as his wife’s hair.

 

 

tales of a travelling salesman final

 

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Just Beneath the Surface

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A darkness so complete.

He felt cold.  Looking all around, there was nothing to see.  He could not even see his hands or his body below him.  He felt as if he were a solitary eye floating in ink.

A darkness that breathed.

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Dream to Escape

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anime rain

 

The lock turned on the wooden door as the rain began to fade.  A dull roar reduced to a whisper. Stepping away, he tried to control his heart’s violent thumping against his ribs, aching with each breath.    The door pushed open with horrifying slowness, opened just wide enough for the man’s words to come into the room.

“Maintenance?  Maintenance.  Sorry for coming so early but… uhhh… the water is out.  Still… uh… trying to find the problem” He trailed off awkwardly.  “Are you awake, mister?”  The door opened a bit wider so that the top of his head could poke in and look at Robert, who had just finished rumpling the bed to make it seem slept in.  Like a bed should be when one has paid for a hotel stay.

“Yes,  I’m awake now” Robert dourly spat at the handyman.  Exhaustion had whittled away at his typically affable demeanor, exposing the irritable asshole that lives within us all.  “Hurry with whatever you need to do.”  The man paused in the doorway after sliding in, looking around the room sleepily.  Robert watched this with vexation and repeated: “Hurry.”

“Fine, fine, jeez.  Sorry.  I’m still half in bed.  I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can, buddy.”

Robert was filled with a subtle fear.  However, the bile of irritability was thick in the sea of his emotions and he could not help but think:

I’m not your God-damned “buddy”, guy.  

 Taking his tool kit along with a new found irritability that Robert gave him, the handyman moved past Robert’s grim face and crossed arms without a glance.  Getting into the bathroom, he had a passing thought about how bad moods spread quicker than the common cold.  Facing away, Robert looked through a crack in the curtains at sunlight finding its way into a new day. Warmth. A distinct pleasure spread into Robert’s bones.  But it did not last.  Relief was fleeting, as that familiar tingle of ice wormed into his body. He knew he could not stay here with the man so close by. It was only a matter of time until the shadows grew a horrible cloud in the space around the stranger, an impossible geometry of spiraling ink that spread its tendrils around whomever it needed to use to get to Robert.  The word’s of his old friend, who had been consumed by a skillful demon right before his eyes without him even noticing, crept into his thoughts again.

“We are everywhere.”

Robert James felt his stomach writhe hungrily within his gut, searching for food that wasn’t there.  He decided to leave without a word to the man who’s face he had already forgotten.  Besides, the room seemed like it was growing colder already.  Darker, even. Jingling on the end table, the room key barely came to a rest when the door slammed satisfyingly shut behind Robert and he walked out into the breezeway.  The ground was slick with a rain that now was being pushed away by the warm eastern zephyr of the rising sun.

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He stood for a moment looking at the parking lot, as steam began to twist off of the gray asphalt, curling between a few cars that braved the storm from the night before.  One in particular caught his eye, a dark blue sedan with a white top. and white-walled tires.  A real looker of a vehicle.  Robert gave a long and admiring gaze at that car, as the sun almost made it glow with an aura.  One imperfection caught his eye though.  A cluster of thin parallel lines ran along the length of the car; a light color against the dark blue.  Like scratches in the paint.  From claws of onyx.

His stomach groaned again and he turned to the diner, which was surprisingly open at this early hour.  Eggs and coffee and bacon wafted into the warming air, and Robert walked in again to see the same bubbly brunette with the shining smile.

“Good mornin’ mister!  What can we get for you?”

“Cupocoffee” Robert mumbled, with a weak smile as he looked around him at the counter.  Mostly clean, a few big stains that surely had been scrubbed hundreds of times to no avail.  The main faded hue was a sad-looking tan.  It was a shame, Robert mused, when a business either doesn’t care or can’t afford to keep up appearances.  Glancing at the mostly empty restaurant, his eyes found a sight when they came upon an aged man with a shock of white hair on his head and a long white beard; An over-sized, worn and torn brown jacket covered his broad body. Blue eyes staring right at him.  Robert sat up with a start as he stared back at the frozen eyes staring ice through him.  Into him.  A blink and the man had vanished.

Robert whipped his head around at the waitress, who was grabbing creamer from underneath the counter.  She obviously didn’t see what happened, and he asked:

“MISS! Who was the man sitting in the corner over there, just a moment ago?!”  She stood up quickly in surprise and looked at Robert’s wild eyes and tired face.

“Man? Which man?” She pondered, putting a finger to her chin and looking around the place.  “Him?”  Robert turned to look at a different man, a much younger one who was clean shaven and was actually Jim from the repair shop, face down gobbling up a plate of eggs and hash browns with a ridiculous amount of ketchup.  It was as if he actually added hash browns to a plate of ketchup, instead of the converse.  Strange.  Robert turned and shook his head, sipping carefully the cupocoffee that the nice young lady gave him.  She apologized for her memory and shrugged, going about her duties.  He gulped the hot liquid down painfully, a fire brewing in an empty stomach, and he realized he should eat something too.

“Miss, sorry, but could I also have a bagel with cream cheese?” He said sheepishly.  Jim had paid and waved as he stood to leave.  The waitress went to prepare the modest breakfast and Jim walked over.

“Hey, R.J.!  Should have gotten the eggs scrambled with onions and peppers!  Real good here.  Anyway, that starter of yours should be coming any time now, them boys out west get up earlier than me!”  He gave Robert a pat on the back, and they smiled at each other.

“Great!  Thanks again for helping me out, Jim.  I’ll be around here somewhere, maybe I’ll find a nice spot in the shade to slee — er —  sit in… for a while.”  Robert’s eyes were still heavier than anything he had ever lifted before. Despite the coffee.  It takes a while to kick in, really.  A bagel magically appeared before Robert, along with a smiling waitress telling him to enjoy it.  It quickly began to vanish as Jim disappeared out the door and into the waiting day.  It was going to be a big one for Robert, and one filled with mystery.  The darkness waited for him out there, in the hot sunlight.

It hid between molecules within the air, hoping to snare him around the throat and whisk him into itself.  Pushing the empty plate away and putting money on the counter, Robert thought of the darkness as a horrible, amorphous mass of squirming serpentine shadows, red eyes appearing and disappearing all over the quivering horror.  It grew, and pulsed.  The air swirled colder inside the diner, the curls of the young woman’s hair suddenly appeared darker under the fluorescent light that flickered above.  She was wiping the counter, and Robert stood to leave with his eyes locked on her as she suddenly froze during her cleaning rhythm.  He whirled around to leave, thinking that he saw her eyes flick up at him as he turned.  The door was heavy as he pushed his way out, and he turned to his right walking along the side of the restaurant.  As he walked past the last booth that was by the window, he turned to look in at a single coffee cup resting on a barren table.  The place where that strange man sat, eyes blazing cold fire into Robert’s mind.  Some strange sense of… urgency?  Staring from the corner of his eye was a new gaze.  He looked over his shoulder as he walked away, the waitress stoically stared after him as Robert fled from her sight.

He trotted a fair ways behind the diner, the dirt giving way to taller grass and the trees stretching to the sky.  The shade was still a bit wet from the night before, but not as hot as the sunlight.

This will be a good place to wait.  

The waitress never emerged from the restaurant.  The imagination plays terrible tricks on a tired mind.  But the coffee cup… That stood out to Robert.  The bubbly young lady said that she did not remember, but how do you forget someone as distinct-looking as he was?  And how did he vanish?  He thought hard about what he saw, and he rushed back into the restaurant.  There was a napkin there, by the mug.  Something was written on it.  His feet flew over the ground and into the diner again, breathing hard he moved to the booth where the waitress was finishing cleaning up.  The napkin was on the tray behind her, resting on a table while she worked.  He took it and read it to himself.  The short chortle of disbelief came from his mouth, and he crumpled it up and threw it back down.

“Dream to escape.”

Tell me something I don’t know.  Waste of — wait.  

The man had vanished into thin air like demons had.  And had an obvious interest in him.  Who was this man?  He left something behind – a message – to reach out to Robert James… What could this mean? Why did he stare so coldly, with such ice?  Robert shivered as the shade of the trees fell over him once again.  He stood with his back to one, and crossing his arms he looked at Jim’s place.  This would be a good place to wait.  Clouds slowly wafted overhead as the sun continued its march higher into the blue sky, a grand illusion.

~*~**~**~*~*~*~**~**~*~*~***~***~**~*~*****~*~*~**~*~***~**~***~**~*~~*~

It wasn’t long before a truck rumbled into the parking lot of Jim’s.  Robert stared as the dust cloud that once trailed behind the hauler now filled the air around it coming to a rest.  One man hopped out of the large truck while the other stayed inside with it idling.  Jim came out to meet them, a handshake and a smile produced a signature on a clipboard and a wave goodbye.  A sequence of actions as old as commerce.  Starting slowly, the giant truck lurched forward and gained speed away from this glimpse of a town.  Jim was unaware that Robert stared from afar as he rolled his tool box out by Robert’s new truck.  The starter is easy enough to replace, since he was done faster than Robert expected.  30 more minutes in the shade alone was almost therapeutic to him; the air idling between trees and leaves was clean tasting and invigorated his spirits.  The long walk across the grass made him think of childhood gambits as a knight, cardboard shield poised to defend.  His eyes were achingly tired and Robert had to consciously focus on holding them open sometimes, but he now felt a kindling of small fire within his soul.  He was this much closer to his wife, and he knew that he had no idea how to protect her, but maybe he could keep her safe somehow.  Move her around from town to town, give her a bit of excitement.  He stifled a chuckle and began to walk inside of Jim’s cluttered office, greasy footprints lining the concrete floor.

“Hey!  Thanks again, Jim.”  Robert shook Jim’s hand as he rose to greet him.

“No problem at all, R.J.!  Be safe out there!”

“You too!”  The door shut behind Robert and he nearly sprinted to the black truck.  It was pretty clean on the inside, despite some usual wear and tear.  The engine started and he rolled out back onto the road, pulling the motor for all that it was worth.  A new exhilaration found its way into his body, forcing a smile of clenched teeth to appear.  The highway stretched itself before him again, and he flew down it toward his home, to his great love.  He had to get back and he knew he would finally be where he belonged.  To the woman who – for whatever strange reason – accepted him.  Loved him.  Believed in him and supported him for no reason other than love.  He could never repay her for all the support she gave.  He had once found her platitudes about finding a new job obnoxious and annoying, but he knew she was doing all she could to support him through his overwhelming depression.  Love.  They say it makes the world go around, and that may be true.  But love undoubtedly was the reason for Robert’s life.

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Someone once said that we live life in the pursuit of beauty, and all else is just a form of waiting.  Robert knew all those years ago, when he fell in love with her, that he did not have to wait ever again.  Not as long as she was there by his side.  The fire burned strong in his soul again, like it did when he was a younger man under the stars on a beach at night.  The truck barreled down the road, passing cars fast and pulling the world underneath it.  A billboard stretched out on the right up ahead, and Robert stared with disbelief.  Alone, framed by a piercing clean white, were black letters that read:

Robert, go to sleep.

The cycle must continue.

Fury forced the truck faster down the road, and soon he passed another billboard, reading:

We will find you.

His chest was burning with tingles of love that quickly caved to the overwhelming fear. A fear that comes from facing a universe filled with a vile darkness permeating the physical world with its evil will.  A darkness that defies logic and reason, a darkness with intelligence. A darkness that has hunted Robert.  Stalked him.  Anger brewed again.  The anger of being toyed with by something beyond your control.  Imagine being an ant that is being fried by the magnifying glass of a horned demon-child with the shadowy cheshire smile of madness.  A siren came up from behind him along with the red and blue flashes of a police officer.  He was being pulled over, and looking in the rear-view mirror he saw red eyes and fangs that stretched over darkness.  A blue hat rested on its head.  A blink and a glance brought a normal human into frame, motioning to him to pull over.  Robert’s hands gripped the wheel and he squeezed them as hard as he could, knuckles growing whiter with each passing moment.

 

highway

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Scratching (Final)

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Click HERE for the part before.

I’m writing this in the lobby of a Starbucks. I’m not sure how much time has passed, but I need to make a record of this before I finally lose my senses to the fear that is lurking behind my eyes. Or they catch up with me. My wife has left me and its my fault, all my fault. I’ve become obsessed. I should start from where I left off. Looking back at what happened there is so much gray, and not enough black and white. The people here are casting odd glances at me, they must think it strange for a homeless looking man to have a laptop and to be typing furiously while stifling the crazed laughter that keeps bubbling up into his mouth. No matter. Who cares what THEY think?? Th0ey have no idea of what lives out in the untouched woods east of this town.

 

OK, I need to focus. Focus.

 

I went back to the house. The house on the left, where the old man was, was embalmed with yellow CAUTION tape. Wind made it flutter and sound like some leathery wings above the din of the trees that swayed and twitched in the heat that blew through them. The humidity was so thick that I felt as if I was wading into some great, invisible sauna. The strange, seemingly empty house on the left stood silently. Staring. The trees all around us, being fairly far into the countryside, towered into the sky as they moved with the wind. I thought about how I wished I had enough money to buy a pistol. Buckshot and slugs would do.

I was going to move without hesitation today. I was going to finish this. It was going to be easy. I could corner them here and finally finish this. Oh, to be finished. Were that I could be and not a raving man holding on desperately to the cliffs of sanity — trying to save myself from the black waters of madness frothing below. I have to push their strange ritual out of my mind. That dark altar in the woods. Forgotten… Demanding attention.

Wait. The beginning.

 

I was about to re-enter my old home, the one that I had fallen in love in. So many memories were held within its walls; pale echoes of laughter glowed in my mind as I went to slide the key into the lock. The key barely touched the brass when a quick clamor and came from inside and I whirled to the window next to the door to see my white curtains obscuring my view. Shadows were all I could see, and one moved into the hallway and out of sight while another stealthily slithered to the kitchen on the right. A trap was in the process of being set and I had stumbled upon their devious workings. I would not become the next skull on their filthy shrine, cut into that wet colon of the earth. I would not be another trophy to be polished and displayed carefully in the foul darkness while they cleaned their rotting teeth with a splinter of my rib bone. I would not be, as it seemed more likely now, a sacrifice. It did not matter. I would not become another victim. Not today. Or ever.
I put a chair under the front door to keep it from being opened. Leaving it locked, I doused the front of the house in gasoline. Even the windows were covered in dancing flames as I moved around to the back. From the hole in the house foundation, rats came squeaking out into the dirt and into the underbrush. Then a black-nailed hand – elongated in a disgusting strangeness – pulled a pallid beast out as it gripped the dirt. I shot it and it wheezed and looked up at me as it gave its last repulsive breath. Hatred brewed in those obsidian orbs that stared unblinking as death filled its new corpse. Another came, and it was so fast!! It crawled out low to the ground as if this was another natural way that they moved — on all fours!! In one motion it had come out of the hole, and pulled its revolting counterpart over itself like a cloak. I fired 3 rounds into it, the buckshot only slightly penetrating until my final round – a slug – tore through them both and it fell into a steaming hump of grey flesh half into the brush and half in the dirt. Dark red blood began to pool and be absorbed by the planet. Mosquitoes and flies landed instantly on the macabre pile. A wafting of horrible smells from the body blended with the natural stink of a swamp. My house was engulfed in flames behind me, and while I was far enough away from the main part of town for it to take some time for police to get here, I had to work quickly — I knew I had to I had to finish them off now and here and forever and then leave this place and never talk again. There could be no more rituals. I had no clue – at the time – that these horrors were nothing compared to what I would find later. The blending of onyx and green in the moonlight… No. Not yet. I must write it all.
The house that had seemed vacant next to me all of those years was not, and the fire had grown out of control with the wind and spread to it. I checked inside the shed to make sure that my rudimentary barricade had held, which it did. A loud crashing and cries of the beings who had long been hidden echoed out. Melancholy and angry, animalistic and frightened. Unnatural, and yet… human. Almost. I moved just in time to see the last of them tumbling over each other into the forest, screeching and clicking and talking to each other… Maybe to me. Fragments of half-words and almost familiar tones drifted into my ears. I did see one that sat, staring at me from across the small field. It saw me, too. I raised my gun to fire a slug I had loaded, but it was gone. I knew that I could not leave them free in the forest, I could not pass the buck on to some other unsuspecting soul.

 

They were my responsibility. They were mine to kill.

 

I left the inferno raging behind me, screams of the damned erupting from the yellow blossoms of their funeral pyre. I crashed into the underbrush, and ran after the creatures. The fauna was thick on the ground, cutting and pulling and tearing at my arms and face and clothes. Ahead of me, I could hear the stampede of the hominids running through the forest. I caught glimpses of them standing upright, and I fired at them, missing. I don’t remember how long I chased them, my breath burned in my lungs and my legs were aching when I finally slowed down. It could have been an hour. Maybe even more. The adrenaline was endless, and my heart fluttered like a captured bird in my chest. I managed to slow my breath after a time, and listen. The sun was beginning to fall already. How long did I run? This part of the forest seemed untouched by man. A forgotten swamp. I began to walk, hearing silence around me. My crunching was stifled by the mud, for the ground had become much more damp. My eyes investigated every leaf and bush, tree and branch. I saw no signs of animal life in that place. No paths cut by boars in the brush. No scratchings from deer. Even the insect life was drained from this place, as the sun fell behind a clouded horizon. There was darkness now, and I was lucky to have packed a flashlight.
I moved through muck now, my boots almost getting sucked off by their sinking into a mire of ancient land. Spanish moss was thick in many places, choking the life from parts of thick oaks. Slopping through more and more, I was worried for gators, but saw none. I thought myself lucky for it, and stopped my breathing and strained my ears to focus on a sound I swore that I did not hear. But I did hear, and to think of it now makes me want to scream out at these fools around me who have no fucking clue what lives east of their suburbs and lattes.
The sound was chanting, words that I had never heard and wish to never hear again even if it means I have to take a spike to my ears. Half-human tones and alien syllables distantly found their way to my mind. Words meant to remain unheard — but I must try to make some sense of it all! some record so that people can know and avoid and perhaps… No. There is no defeating it I suppose. The dreams made it clear. The voices blended and clicked and did not make sense but here, I will try:

 

Ft’ngluii maglwf’nafh Kuthluun Reh’lyeh wvagah-najl phutadjnn

 

I heard these mumblings and moved closer, that is when the words became more clear to me. They chanted low, just above a whisper, and yet being in that strange silence of that old land it reverberated into my bones with every vile syllable. I moved quietly closer to observe a horrible sight and strange things that disappeared when I went back to look for them. I combed that same area for days and could not find anything. That glade was still there, a str a n ge island in the swamp with a river gliding around it murky and brown. It was still empty, when I went back. No animal life. But the shrine was gone, or invisible. Yes… The shrine.
The creatures swayed grimly chanting around a monolithic structure around 8 feet tall. Fires surrounded it, layers of sticks blended with a few headless corpses that crackled and popped and made me nauseous with a stench of charred flesh. The stone towered and was an odd color. Black and green and… yet not. Not obsidian and emerald though, it was almost as if the green had blended into the black, a disgusting and unknown color. Strange carvings were visible, unexplainable hieroglyphs and a malevolent etching of some strange being I cannot describe. Something from the sea. I stared upon the horror of this evil ritual, and raised my gun to fire. Slugs ripped into one and it fell suddenly, like a repulsive rag doll. The others looked around frantically and screamed with an overwhelming hatred as I fired again, and again, pumping rounds into the bush next to me. I think it was then I went mad, as some picked up strange amulets or totems from around the shrine and took off into the night, leaving the horrible fire burning flesh under the stars. The night was silent again, and I blacked out.
I woke up several days later, for I had grown a beard and bug bites covered my body. Maybe I came back into rational thought again, and repressed the time spent insane? I found my way back to that place and it was empty, no green/ black monolith jutting from the earth on that strange old island. Not even evidence of burnt grass. I laughed into the silence. Just empty dirt filled the island, and not even footsteps remained. I must be insane. I went back to the town, and I found that my wife had left the hotel without a forwarding address. Her number was disconnected. Her family’s was off. And so I went to look again at that place. It must be there!  But, there was nothing. I hunted in those woods for anything now, no boar or deer or ancient subterranean human cult lived there anymore. I googled my home address in the news just now. People disappeared 20 years ago from there, almost to the day. And 40 years before that. I have to leave now. The police are on their way, apparently. Something about arson. More like some sort of cover up. The people are whispering around me and I have to leave.