suspense

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.

 

whirlpool 2

 

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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My Late Uncle Clive (2)

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I’ve lived alone since the kids have grown up, and my wife left me soon after that. We stayed together to raise the family, but she never really loved me. I don’t resent her for anything at all, so lets move along as I correct myself. I don’t live alone, not really.

 

My dog Max was a big ol’ Golden Retriever, and in his prime he was rambunctious and would bark at everything. But as time went by, he became more reserved. Some people follow the same pattern. I’m just glad he didn’t follow the terrible pattern that is senility. Max was my best friend, and he always managed to find his way up to my lap no matter how tired he was.

 

I got home, and I was greeted by the familiar thumping of his tail on the hardwood floor of the hall. I flipped lights on and kicked my shoes off and scooped all the old boxes of take-out off of the kitchen table and into the trash. I threw down the old manuscripts and papers, and took some fresher take-out from the fridge to sate my growling stomach.

 

Max found his way in with me, and sat eagerly by his feeding frenzy area. His tail was uncontrollable as I poured fresh food into his bowl. We ate together in silence as I looked at these strange documents. The night was steadily growing darker, but I forgot to turn on the lights and my eyes adjusted without my knowing. They were too fascinating to peel myself away from. There was something about the strange, completely foreign symbols. They were unlike anything I had ever seen before. Pictographs and dashes and curls all blended together into some forgotten story.
Some of the scrolls were something similar to ancient Sumerian. But they were also not quite like what Google searches spat back to me. There were flourishes here and there, and odd pictures blended in between some of the lines. The text spiraled around some of these eldritch images. One in particular caught my eye. Some strange octopus, turned upside down but with angry eyes carved right ways up in the head of it. The tentacles held different items: A cross, a strange “Y” with two dashes in the botttom, and knives. I stared at the image for longer than I thought, because Max’s whine broke my concentration. He stared at me with keen interest and tilted his head. I took another bite of my food and it was already cold! Time was passing by with unusual expediency.
The night had fallen completely by this point, and to see I had my face pressed up all the way to the papers. I didn’t even notice! I stood and flipped some lights on to continue, but then I heard Max begin to bark at the front of the house. Extremely out of character for him, the barking was persistent and growing louder. He never barked at anything anymore, not even the mailman. But something had grabbed his attention with an eerie tenacity. A loud knocking broke the silence from the front door, and Max’s barks turned to growls. No one ever visited me, not even my kids. And at this hour?
I grabbed the bat that was by the front door and looked carefully into the peephole. On my front step was that strange man from before, his brown hair was carefully combed in a modest pompadour, and he was wearing a dark coat. He looked nervously over his shoulder and reached up again to knock when I popped the door open a crack. My eye was the only thing he could see when I asked:

 

“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I… Haven’t been honest with you, sir.”
“Well anyone could have figured that out, buddy. You’re not a good liar.” He chuckled and reached into his back pocket, at which I slammed the door shut thinking he was going for a gun.
“WAIT! I’m a detective! I was getting my badge!” he shouted with frustration. I carefully peeped out the peeper, and sure enough there was a gold shield there, held up next to his sheepish grin.
I opened the door again, this time unlatching the various locks all of the way so that I could let him in.
“Well, why didn’t you just start with that yesterday? Would have been much easier for both of us. Plus I thought you were some creepy and stuck up asshole.” He laughed at that as he stepped inside, hanging up his coat.
“I get that all the time. There’s a lot to tell you.”
I cleared the manuscripts off of the table hurriedly, putting a pot of water on to boil for a french-press brew. All the while trying to think about why a cop would be interested in my late uncle.
“I’m just going to dive right into it, sir. I’ve noticed a pattern in some recent cases, as well as some cold cases going back… quite some time.” He produced a file from thin air, it seemed.
“Oh, by the way. My name is Detective Jackson, call me Trent. I’m sorry for yesterday. I’ve had to be extremely cautious. I’ve been receiving death threats for my work, which is unusual, because I thought only I knew about it. Even my boss doesn’t know I’m here right now. I’ve kind of become obsessed. But hear me out.”
“Sure. I have nothing else to do, and I haven’t had company in years. Plus I like stories!” I smiled and he gave a thin smile back.
“Women have been disappearing from this town for hundreds of years. But people always assumed they were runaways, or something along those lines. Because there was no discernible pattern or similarity. Until I took the time to do all this work. Every 4 years, a young woman vanishes. She is always between 16 – 25, and according to the reports that are complete, they have no real close friends, and their family is broken. Fathers or mothers gone or addicted to drugs, you know. Very sad situations.” He spread the thick file out on the table this whole time, laying out photographs from recent years, and ending with one from a very long time ago. The type of photograph from when folks never smiled. Her hair and eyes were as black as the underside of the clouds outside that wandered through the night.
“People always assumed that because of their home situations, and their ages, that they simply ran away, or killed themselves. No one had ever been found, and so without a body they remain a missing-persons case. Never able to warrant a full on homicide investigation. There were never any witnesses to the disappearance, it was like they just walked out their homes one day and never returned. But this is where it gets weird. All of these disappearances began when the college was founded. I’ve even found old primary documents from colonial eras about some disappearances, but those were assumed to be Indian kidnappings or the like.”
The sound of my phone timer exploded into the kitchen, and scared us both. He actually stood completely upright and drew his gun, which he now awkwardly put back into his holster. The coffee was ready.
“But I have made a map of the disappearances, and they all are within 30 miles of the college. I had been researching strange disappearances like this, and apparently there was something similar going on in Louisiana a long time ago, and it had to do with some strange cult that required human sacrifice. Throats were cut, then burned, or simply just burned alive. Really horrific stuff. But your Uncle intrigued me because some of the records from that case had strange manuscripts remarkably similar to what he was working with when I went to canvass the staff at the college. He said that he wanted to meet me, that he had something to tell me that would blow a hole in this case but… He died within 48 hours of talking to me. That is how I know something is seriously amiss here. Of course there were the death threa — ”

 

 

Max began barking again, furiously. He had barked more this night than in the last few years all together. I stood and looked for him in the front, and saw he was foaming at the mouth and barking like a wild animal. His eyes were crazed and my heart was pounding as suddenly the window shattered inward, and the room burst into flames. The curtains caught fire and the fire spread over pictures on the wall and an old couch as Max bolted from the living room and into the kitchen, barking and barking and barking. Trent stood and had his gun drawn just as another Molotov cocktail burst into the opposite end of the house. The heat filled the air as flames began to cover everything.
“Save the manuscripts!” I shouted at him, as I grabbed an old family picture of mine. From a time when we were happy. With the picture in one hand, I scooped the massive retriever under my other arm, and followed Detective Jackson as he kicked down the back door and covered the flames there with a blanket he had found. We tumbled out into the dewy grass and stood in the night, watching the flickering flames spike up high into the sky. Tires squealed out front as the culprits got away. No time for even a glance.
“Well, I guess we should go to…. well my place isn’t safe either.” He looked at me, then the ground. Within an hour we awkwardly were checking into a hotel together. He passed out in one of the twin beds, and I sat in the other, typing this. I will update soon.

 

Something is afoot.

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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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Escape to Dream

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Knuckles aching on the wheel, Robert glanced again nervously into his rear-view mirror.  His imagination had been playing tricks on him – the police officer was exactly what he appeared to be.  Not a horrifying demon aching to consume him.  Merely a man.  Robert began to pull over, the black truck crunching onto the gravel shoulder of the road.  The cop’s car eased in behind him, and rolled to a stop with a loud creak.  Dust settled around them both as Robert looked again at the policeman and his dark sunglasses.  He was still just a man.

For now.  I have to make this as quick as possible.  

With an involuntary sigh, Robert stared at the road stretching itself out in front of him.  The trees swayed lazily in the breeze, the clouds slowly tumbled over each other across the bluest sky he had ever seen.    This was a day to stretch out somewhere silently in the shade of a great oak – maybe in a park somewhere – and dream.  Sitting in the quiet of the truck’s cab with the windows down, a cool draft of clean air caressing his beard and hair made it almost impossible to keep awake.  He snapped himself alert and rubbed his tired eyes.  Falling asleep was exactly what the darkness wanted.  For a reason unknown.  Something they desired was dependent on his being unconscious.  They needed him to fall into strange and impossible universes.  They wanted him to descend further into the endless depths of thirsting darkness echoing with the laughter of forgotten gods.  But his eyes were so heavy now.  Too heavy. The lazy air was laced with the faint scent of wild flowers.

wildflowers

The cop knocked on the roof of the cab and shocked Robert back into this reality.  Quickly jerking awake, Robert began to apologize:

“Officer, sorry for spee–“

“License and registration.” He cut Robert off with a blank expression that was somehow laced with suspicion.  No doubt earned through countless stops just like this one.  Countless apologies that fell on deaf, stoic ears trained by years of experience.

“Sure! Just, uh, bought this truck, actually.  So the registration is not updated yet but let me give you the card of the fellow that sold it to me.  It’ll check out.”  A nervous grin spread on Robert’s face.  His normal salesman smile probably wouldn’t have helped him anyway.  Not with this statue of a man.  He looked at Robert’s license, then at his face.  Without a word he turned and walked back to his squad car that looked freshly cleaned and waxed as it glistened in the shimmering sunlight.

Hands on the wheel at 10 and 2, Robert’s hands tapped with the rhythm of war drums from a far-away land that he had never even thought of once in his life.  He stared straight ahead as best he could, watching the clouds roll over the world in front of him.  The cop was probably far enough away that he was safe.  Both Robert and the cop were safe.  With a sigh and a stretch he eased his head back to look into the rear-view mirror at a towering juggernaut with black armor walking toward him.

Goddammitholyshitwhatthe —

His hands fumbled clumsily for the keys and they flew up into his beard and got tangled in the wiry hair that he was still not used to.  Swears turned to pleas for mercy as he finally just ripped the keys out, taking a chunk of hair and skin from his horrified face.  Blood trickled down from his chin as he shakily put the keys in the ignition, the car growling instantly with desperate fury.  As he peeled away, throwing up gravel and dust, he stared at this new creature.  Towering and slow, the armor was shining shadows, absorbing light and yet glistening like folded steel.  It came to a stop and stood with its freakishly long arms crossed, the sharpened smile so familiar to Robert now adorned the black space that was its face.  Tires gripped the pavement and pulled Robert away, and he looked again at the monster.  It pointed now in front of his truck, and he followed its gaze to a billboard that read:

We will always find you.

 

He slammed his fist on the wheel in rage.  Tears welled up in his eyes as he fought off accepting the truth of his situation.  The roads were familiar now.  He was almost home, where his wife waited patiently to find out what happened to her husband.  She must be either terribly scared or terribly angry, and Robert felt terrible to be the cause of either.  The truck roared down the road, going around one curve on what felt like two wheels.  The air whipped into the cab through the open windows, flicking drops of blood from his chin onto the windshield and all over the place.  A red, macabre version of Jackson Pollock’s work.  The wind smelled impossibly fresh, the rain’s scent still strong from the night before, mingling in along with the growing sound of sirens behind him.  The cop car began to pull itself closer to him, and Robert glanced to try and catch a glimpse of the demon, but it was the policeman again behind the wheel.  He was probably oblivious that Robert was fleeing because he had turned into an armored hell spawn moments before, with arms that dragged the pavement and threw sparks with each step.

The policeman pulled the cruiser up close to the truck’s bumper, and nudged it.  At the speeds they were going it caused Robert to nearly crash, a horrifying lurch to the right and then straight again let him have a moment of relief.  Robert had almost over-corrected, nervous and exhausted as he was.  Even in this situation, with tons of steel and fire rushing down the road – trees whipping by – the roar of the engine was more like a hum trying to coax him into sleep.  The cop was gaining again, and moved to try and hit the side of Robert’s truck inside of the next curve on the right.  A near-miss that could have been the end, Robert looked to see a familiar block up ahead, he was so close to home now!

So close.

An amazing tree stood towering on the corner of his street, a tree that his son had played under all those years before with the neighbor boys who were also grown now, working and living somewhere else in this universe.  As he began to slow and turn the corner, he could almost see the shadows of the life that he was racing back to: a football spiraling slowly through the summer air into the hands of a laughing child as the smell of slightly burnt hamburgers danced into their noses.

The cop almost caught his bumper again during the turn, but the maneuver was unnecessary.  Robert had taken the corner too quickly and over corrected, causing him to fishtail down his street.  The truck finally caught traction, but the angle of it threw his truck onto his next-door neighbor’s yard and into their apple tree with an immense thundering.  The windshield shattered and rained glass onto Robert’s head as it slammed into the steering wheel, and it was only through sheer will that he remained conscious.  Pain burned red hot throughout his body, pulsing.  The sun even seemed to pulse in tandem, high in the sky.

Steam poured from the crumpled hood of the truck, and the crash lured neighbors to their windows to investigate the normally quiet suburb.  Sirens began to drone louder as he unbuckled his seat belt, and collapsed from the car in an exhausted heap.  His head hung low and he stared at the grass, vibrantly green and pulsing with detail in rhythm with his pain.  Blood trickled down his face and dripped slowly onto the ground, and he forced his head up to look at his house.  His wife’s car was in the driveway, and his heart nearly exploded with joy.  Tears welled up as he staggered to his feet, clutching ribs that felt broken.

Only… a few steps… 

He shuffled and kept staring at his house, at the windows and the door.  He knew in only a moment or two his wife would look out and see him like he had never been before.  A fear blossomed inside of him.  A fear that he would be a stranger to her like this, unrecognizable with the blood and the beard.  The suit that was once so fresh was sticking to him with sweat, and covered in stains.

A few… more steps…

A ringing in his ears began, and it drowned out the sounds growing around him: The shouts of policemen drawing their guns and telling him to get on the ground, the screams of housewives running back inside their homes.  But the wind blowing through the trees remained clear.  The calming rustle of leaves against each other, and the whispers of molecules winding their way through the branches.  The only other sound that was just as clear to Robert was the familiar moan of his front door that always creaked no matter how he oiled it.  A former source of frustration coaxed the tears of joy to flow harder.  The front door was opening, and his beautiful wife came out.  Her long, black hair flowed over one shoulder, and she stared at him in disbelief.  She recognized him!  But the recognition was tainted with something else.  Something familiar to him now after the last few days.

Horror.

She turned and went back into the house, covering her mouth with one hand.  The door stayed ajar.  Robert was exhausted, and he collapsed onto the grass and pain exploded in his chest from shattered ribs.  He used his entire strength to look up at his home, the one that he had fallen in love and raised his family in.  He looked, and he saw himself standing in the doorway.  Clean cut, wearing a fresh new suit tailored to fit.  A black suit with a black shirt and tie.  The Robert in the doorway smiled at him, with a horrible malevolence.  The smile of a sadist.  The Robert in the grass collapsed, and had no strength to lift his head more, so that his view of his doppelganger was sideways and distorted.  Robert could feel his hands clench into fists and his teeth grind together as the other Robert smiled and turned his head to match the angle of the true Robert.  The fake mouthed three words as the tunnel vision grew and unconsciousness gripped the real Robert:

“We are everywhere.”

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I Got My Foot Caught in a Bear Trap While Hiking

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This will be my first and last entry, I don’t have much time left. I don’t know when he will be back. So I will write as much as I can. From the start. I hope my phone has service enough to tell this tale.

 
I was hiking out in the woods, I took a semester off to be alone and take some time to myself. Finally put those old Boy Scout skills to the test. When I left it was a warm day, and the trees welcomed me into their fold. Being alone is one of the most therapeutic things to me, and so is being away from the hustle of day-to-day life. Something about how the emanations from old trees wonderfully change and and renew a weary spirit, so Robert Louis Stevenson said.

 
I hiked for a long time, far away from the small mountain town whose name I forgot. Damn my short term memory and my almost childlike excitement. No one will find me now, I’m sure. The bleeding has slowed, so I will live for a while longer I think. Panic is getting harder to fight off, but I have to recount this story. I must.

 
Birds flitted about the trees, strange modern dinosaurs screeching and cackling into the theater of the wild. Most probably begging for sex, but it was still awe inspiring. So inspiring that I did not watch where I was going. My right leg landed squarely in the middle of a large bear-trap. The crunch of bone was quieter than I expected, the steel instead clanging loud enough to send the birds into flight. Blood squirted into my eyes and I stared in disbelief at my mangled leg, splintered bone poking out of my shins and the ancient, rusty trap digging hungrily as tight as it could. I did not feel it at first. Shock, probably. But after I fell to my ass and stared at it for a while, the pain was immeasurable. I cried out into the forest for help, I don’t know how long I screamed. I didn’t even think about wolves or bears or anything but my own desperation. This trap had been here for a while, it seemed, and I was afraid I would have been forgotten out there. I didn’t leave my family or girlfriend on the best terms before this little adventure, yet my screams searched for their help. To no avail.

 

Time crept by, my breathing was labored after a while and I was in shock. I could feel the color drain from my face and my anger bubbled up in a dream-like fury. How could someone leave a trap out here in this day and age? It was illegal, after all. As an environmentalist I knew more than most about random laws germane to protecting this planet and ecosystem. But right now, on the border of this small field surrounded by pines, I was mortified at becoming a lower rung on the food chain. My phone had no service at the time, calls failed as I frantically slammed digits and prayed for an electronic blessing. To no avail. I waited, and watched blood trickle into the leaves and grass and dirt. Dizziness set in as the sun began to fade behind the trees of a mountain and finally disappear. Fighting off the horror of the wild was nearly impossible, and the only thing that kept me from screaming more was how weak I was. And the knowledge that if i screamed more, it was more likely a wolf or the like would come and gnaw at my stomach as I laid helpless on the ground, entrails chewy and gristly on its large and happy teeth. I knew my last view would be the dead eyes of some animal who found an easy meal.

 
I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke it was morning. I began screaming anew, panicked at my own passing out. I could have died then. I must stay awake. I screamed and screamed as birds screamed and screamed and the horrible morning cacophony echoed into the warming light. A crash in the bushes off to my right and across the field caught my attention and silenced my cries. An orange hat poked above the bush, and a man’s face was underneath it, calm and clean-shaved. An orange vest appeared as he stood, draped over a green shirt. He was cradling a large rifle. A hunter. My fear gave to anger as I assumed this man had set the trap and was coming back to check on it.

 

“HEY!! Don’t you know that it’s ILLEGAL to set this trap here in the mountains?!??!?” I screamed at him as tears fell over my pained face. One fell into my wound and the salt burned, but not as hot as my fury. “YOU HAVE TO PROTECT THE ANIMALS!!”
The man walked through the bushes and trotted over silently, seeming to ignore my angry accusations. His footsteps made loud thumps onto the damp morning flora as he came to stand over me, examining me. A chuckle came as he stoically looked down at me with eyes impossibly dark.

“But I’m a cannibal”

 

I must have been knocked out, because I woke up chained to a metal pole holding up the wood floor above me. It’s dark here, and the room was a basement carved into the earth, dirt walls and floors. My eyes have adjusted so I can see old saws with thick tines and strong handles on a pegboard to my left. A table with dark stains. I know this is my last chance. I have one bar. To my family, friends, and my girlfriend: I’m sorry. I can hear him coming now, and i have to hide my phone again.

 

Goodbye.

dark trees 2

Cheshire Dark

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It was as if he continued to fall.  Even after the explosion of pain from when his head smacked into the roof of the car.  Falling, falling through a darkness that watched him.  He could feel something vile looking into his mind, its evil tenacity prying past his eyes and into his brain relentlessly crushing his will, peeking into his body and violating him. A sensation of spiders covered in oily hair that were crawling inside of his skin and skull.  Gnawing, scratching, nibbling, tickling.  Laughter erupted from the greasy arachnids, their mandibles quivering with devilish glee and dripping with saliva.  He fell into the black screaming, crying and clawing at his eyes scratchi —

A solitary heartbeat, thumping in the darkness.

Glasses clinked.  A toast.  Familiar music fuzzily found its way to his ears, that haunting tune:

“Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my kneeees)
And I pretend to praaay…”

Robert’s eyelids were heavy, and he blinked away the sleep.  He sat up and looked at a darkened bar, men leaning against a wooden wall talking.  A dart thumped into a board amidst mixed cheers and groans, and R.J. wiped at his eyes.  He felt like he was drugged, or still drunk from the night before.  A nausea twinged in his gut as he smelled himself.  He looked down at the ragged suit he was wearing, tattered and stained.  He really smelled like something that had died and sat in the sun for too long.  Robert mused about the witty comments Linda would have made if she could see him now.  The faint smile disappeared from his face as his past experiences came rushing back to him.  The bloody mess in the forest, the vacuum of space, the post-apocalyptic hell all filled his mind’s eye.

Where is this? Seems… Normal enough.   

There was an empty glass on the table in front of him, sitting on top of a newspaper that read the date.  Robert’s heart skipped a beat and he stood up with a start, looking for the bartender.  He noticed that his cheeks itched as he strode across the dark wooden floor.  A thick beard has found its home where his clean-shaven face used to be.  Odd.

“Say, barkeep…” Robert said with a wave of his hand as he sat at the counter.  The man turned and hesitated before walking over.  Picking up a glass to clean, he looked at R.J. and nodded.

“What city is this?” Robert asked, barely able to hide his hope.

city 3

Laughter swelled in the tavern as the bartender told him, and Robert’s eyes lit up with joy.  He was home!  Well, almost home.

“Pour me a cold one, friend.” Putting a bill on the counter he smiled at the fellow, and the fellow could not help but smile back at Robert’s happy face.  R.J. had one of those types of smiles: rare, but when they came you HAD to smile back.  Perfect for a travelling salesman.  He had closed a few big deals with this talent before.  The man poured R.J. a nice cold beer with a modest head, and he took a sip.  It was impossibly refreshing to Robert, and he felt he could cry he was so happy.  Finally he was safe.  Suddenly, the bartender’s smile became stretched almost…  like a caricature.  His eyes narrowed and changed somehow.

Did it just get darker in here?   Or…

“You… do not belong.”  The barkeep said with an ominous monotone.  The voice was distorted and had undertones of static.  Invisible ice crept over Robert’s shoulders and shot down his legs as  the man leaned toward him threateningly. Now Robert could see that darkness was emanating from the space around the being.  The shadows were pulsing, bubbling out from nowhere, and R.J. felt like he was making eye contact with it.  As an elongated tongue curled from the being’s mouth Robert leaned back from the demon barkeeper in awkward horror, and he looked to his left at the man sitting two chairs away.  The jovial fellow did not seem to notice this petrifying thing pouring drinks!  Robert felt as if he was freezing solid, and leaping from his bar stool he made his way to the entrance, clumsily weaving past people as they enjoyed their night. Passing back frenzied glances at a thing of madness.

“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE.” A roar blew from the darkened space swirling behind the bar, framing the shadowy humanoid.  Robert noticed how unnaturally tall it was, and that everyone around him seemed to not notice anything.  Talking and laughing, blissfully unaware that something had consumed the…barkeeper?  With the blink of an eye the devil vanished from existence, the darkness resting for now.  Glasses clinked again and conversations blended into a chorus of humanity.  Maybe he was seeing things.

A bell chimed as he left the bar, twinkling in the doorway with warmth.

So much for not escaping.

 Considering where he woke up the last few times, Robert felt at ease despite what he saw.  He looked at this old city, one he had grown to hate, and saw a paradise.  It’s amazing what peering into hell can do to your world-view.  It was a nice day out, and Robert walked briskly through the crowd with ease.  Folks were avoiding him due to his odor and appearance, and a light laugh came from his chest.  There was a homeless man in the window pane next to him, smiling back and wearing the same tattered rags.  He couldn’t let his beautiful wife see him like this!  She would make him sleep on the couch and bathe in tomato soup for a WEEK!  Her smile, with those ridiculously perfect teeth, filled his head with feelings of longing.  The beard could wait, but he needed new clothes.  Luckily his wallet was still hanging in the clump of threads that used to be his back pocket.  A storekeepers eyes changed from suspicious to thrilled quickly with some clean green bills.

As he walked out, buttoning his black suit coat, he could feel the owner watching him.  Casting a glance over his left shoulder as he strode away, he caught shadows of darkness surrounding a figure wearing the smile of a Cheshire.  Robert’s blood ran cold in his veins despite the sun shining onto the city streets, and he picked up his pace.  He felt his paranoia was getting the better of him.  Thinking back as he walked, he thought that this really must have all been some strange drug induced amnesia.  Robert felt certain that all that had happened had been just dreams, and he felt braver because of this.  Finally he was on his way home, to his wife who must have had every cop in the state looking for him.  He turned down a block and he could see the park that he went to each morning and —

My car!! Yes!! 

city 1

He produced car keys from his coat pocket and trotted to his sedan.  Amazed that it could still be here after what seemed like forever, he stood and looked around at this day.  It really was a lovely one.  Birds sat lazily on a wire, watching people going about their lives.

“Hey, R.J.,! Is that you?” A voice shouted out over the hustle and bustle of the city.  Robert turned quickly to look at an old friend.  The doctor he met once during a sales call, and R.J. tried to get him to buy several vacuums.  Several!!  At the time, Dr. Charley was incredulous to the point of hilarity.  He instantly had a soft spot for this bold salesman, rattling on about how useful it would be to have several vacuums — one for the house, the practice, and back-ups just in case the others broke!  Ridiculous!  Yet there was logic in his rhetoric.  And the only reason Robert did this was so that he could negotiate down to just the two.  Start high, they always tell you, set a high benchmark to set the tone of a negotiation.  Robert smiled at him as he walked over through the crowd.

“Barely recognized you with that beard, R.J. Lowman!  What are you doing with one? Found a job that let you keep it?”

“No… Just…” Robert paused and looked up to the sky.  A crow was flying against the wind, struggling and getting nowhere.  But it was beautiful, he supposed.  Sighing, he looked back to his friend:

“I’ve taken some time off, I guess.  From the search.  I’ve been meaning to ask you about those sleeping pills you gave me, are you sure that they were OK?”

“What do you mean?” Dr. Charley tilted his head and crossed his arms.  He looked as if he was still in the office, wearing his lab coat and stethoscope.

“I had some very strange… dreams, and I don’t remember the last…”  Robert sheepishly looked to the ground, “… I don’t KNOW how long.”  A moment of silence passed.

“That’s just too bad.” Dr. Charley replied flatly.  Robert looked at him in surprise.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s too bad’?!  You’re a doctor!  Sort it out!” The doctor burst into  loud laughter at him, gregariously throwing his head back.  After a moment he calmed down and caught his breath, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Robert, do you still think that I am Dr. Charley?”  He looked at the smiling doctor, who watched him with the gleeful curiosity of a child.  A bitter cold spread itself through R.J., tracing its path down his back to his feet.  He felt weak.

“We are everywhere, Robert.  You cannot escape us!”  At this, Robert backed up, reaching behind him for the door handle — eyes locked onto his friend.

“What are you talking about?  You’re Doc Charles!”  The doctor stared back at him in disbelief.  He chuckled and shook his head, looking down at the ground as if remembering some punchline to some joke.  Robert was horrified.  He knew now that what he looked at was not his friend.  There was no doubt.  He felt the tingling of fear again, surprised he was not desensitized to the feeling.  In one swift motion he swung himself into the car and shut the door, turning the engine on.  Dr. Cha — something leaned casually onto his car and stared into the window, looking right into Robert’s eyes with a knowing smile.  Like a friend would.

“Try as you might, but the cycle must continue, Robert.”

Robert slammed on the accelerator and peeled into traffic.  Glancing into the rearview mirror he could see the fake doctor, standing there waving at him with one hand while the other was tucked into his lab coat.  Robert whirled his car around the corner, tires squealing over the black asphalt.  Pedestrians threw themselves out of his way as he raced out of the city.  He had to get home.  He had to get to his wife before they did.

” We are everywhere.”

The city finally began to grow smaller in his rear-view mirror, and R.J. breathed a sigh of relief.  The radio quietly comforted him as did the dull roar of his engine.  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel over-zealously to the rhythm of the song, the same evocative tune from the bar:

“You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the coooold)
He knows I’m gonna stay (knows I’m gonna staa-aaay)

Caal-i-for-nia dreamin’
On such a winter’s daaay”

He drove for a while, and stopped for gas.  As he pumped he noticed a man sitting by his motorcycle in all black, watching him.  Dark sunglasses hid his gaze, but Robert could feel eyes on him.  R.J. cut the pump early, and got back into his car to leave.  The man kicked on his bike and sat on it as it rumbled, glancing at his watch.  Robert carefully turned back onto the main road, and got up to speed as fast as he could.  He felt uneasy after what happened in the city, despite attempts to calm himself down.  The rear-view mirror held no dark motorcyclist.  He breathed a sigh of relief, but still his heart pounded in his chest.  Thumping against his ribs.

The reflection off of the motorcycle’s chrome flashed in his mirrors.  The man in black was coming up on him.  Robert accelerated, pushing the gas down and shifting into gear.  There was no way that he could out run the bike, he knew, but maybe somehow he could cause him to wreck.  The man was barreling up the road, coming closer and closer.  Robert felt his heart in his throat beating mercilessly.  They were on a straightaway now, and the man in black flew up behind him, and passed him without effort.  Then he kept going.  Apparently, the only thing that man was looking for was the open road.  R.J. felt like a nervous fool.

But then the motorcycle stopped off in the distance, and turned around.  It looked like the exhaust was pumping out black smoke but he was surrounded by that darkness.  The same thing that consumed the others.  The motorcycle roared toward Robert, some kind of demon flying toward him with the throttle pulled back.  Robert pushed further on the accelerator as he wiped the sweat from his palms.

He had never played a game of chicken before.

But nothing was going to get between him and his wife.

Not even hell itself.

 

 road

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