Showing posts with label #Supernatural. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Supernatural. Show all posts
Monday, October 14, 2013
NFTF: Conflagration II
For a time, there is only silence. The world is breathing, taking stock of its injuries.
A great rumbling is heard, then felt. Several of the soldiers, the two wounded monks, even the creatures being herded toward the barns and their pursuers are thrown to the ground.
The monks feel it the moment their hands touch earth.
East of them, beyond the raging inferno of Mt. Diablo, another fault has slipped. Reaching well into the delta via Marsh Creek, this fault has opened a gorge larger and deeper than the one which devoured 580. It extends from the delta along that fault into the far eastern end of Livermore and Trevarno (the town that time forgot, clearly sensed by the monks, a mystery within a Quincunx conundrum), right up toward Del Valle and along the canyon next to Mines Road where it curves up toward San Antonio Valley. Old gas mains under vineyards are ruptured. Entire neighborhoods are destroyed in seconds.
Water from the delta rushes into the gorge. It will begin to fill the valley from that end within hours.
An old man, his beard grown long in the time it has taken him to get back to this place and step into a house recently vacated by his younger self, sips his tea as the walls crack and just keeps writing. If I can only get to her in time, he writes. Can the rift hold?
A canny old witch in Trevarno sees all of this in her obsidian scrying ball. The monks see her see them. She winks. They've heard her radio show.
Hordes of beastling creatures swarm into the area between the barns, and battle is engaged. The monks stagger to their feet, dizzy and disorientated. All around them are vintage soldiers and nurses, the howling wolflings in various sizes, and two elephant-sized dogs, both favoring their back left legs.
The monks stumble to the dairy barn, pulling open the very door Veronica used to get in. A great deep bark sounds and the wall is blasted apart as Max the Wonderdog leaps through.
Veronica sits astride his shoulders, holding tight his gigantic red collar. A shiny brass dog tag jingles against two copper amulets covered in esoteric symbols. He howls. The other two Wonderdogs howl.
The sky bellows thunder of the gods, ripping open as a vast zeppelin noses through, wreathed in lightning and firing precise bolts of copper-colored energy from galvanized Tesla guns. Wolflings are incinerated by the hundreds.
A man's voice cries out from the firelit night in the field, "Dirigibles, now?! Really?!" This is followed by a woman's laugh.
The monks sink to their knees as the three giant dogs, under the command of the fierce crossbow-wielding woman astride one of them, join the forces from another time to lay waste to the creatures of nightmare.
From within the fire which has devoured most of the field now lumbers the impossibly tall, burning, screeching figure of the Oaken lady. Before the Wonderdog closest to her can smack her back into the fire, she launches herself at the zeppelin, her flaming, jagged branches tearing into the envelope near the aft propellers. The zeppelin bursts into flame, falling to the ground.
Lady Henrietta cries out to her forces to fall back.
The three Wonderdogs leap back toward the barns, one grabbing Petherbridge and Elfie, the other grabbing an old man. These are hunting dogs. Their soft mouths do not hurt the people in their care.
The man and the woman sprint after Max the Wonderdog as he picks up Talmadge, the flaming dirigible coming down above them as they run. They can hear its crackling Tesla guns, the shriek and whine of propellers tangled in broken branches. Wielding their machetes in a ballet of deadly grace, they slice through every evil creature they pass, taking off heads, arms, faces, engorged and thorny cocks. This pair are torn, ragged, bloody, bruised. But they run. They run and they do not stop, even as they hear the back end of the zeppelin crashing to the ground just behind them, even as they know that it must fall and crush them in the next few seconds.
The world is fire and ash and screaming metal. An old stile still stands next to a cattle fence and the couple throw themselves up it, leaping from the highest step and simultaneously beheading two full-grown wolfbeasts who rear up to attack from where they've been devouring vintage nurses.
The zeppelin, caught in the branches of Oaken Iron Rachel, misses crushing their skulls by milimeters. They land, rolling forward, coming to their feet in battle stance as the airship crashes to the earth behind them, dealing death to the majority of the nightmares still on the field. Just as it erupts in a final ball of fire, the front hatch explodes open in smoke and sparks, slamming to the ground a little tilted, its inner side a set of steps now leading to the burned and bloody earth beneath.
The woman astride the giant dog raises her crossbow.
The Rancher hefts the axe he's acquired since leaving the ridge.
The man and woman crouch, ready to attack.
Lady Henrietta inhales to give the order.
A man in a aviator cap, goggles and flight leathers steps with his back to them from within the control car, coughing and waving at the smoke with his white silk scarf. The control car is belching smoke. He turns, takes a step down, holding on to the railing of the hatch door.
Every weapon in the hands of every survivor is pointed at this man.
He laughs aloud, tossing his head.
"Now how's that for a Deus Ex Machina!?" he shouts. Something explodes behind him and he's thrown forward to the ground, shouting, "Motherfucker!"
The assembled survivors make a collective gasping whoa sound at the explosion. All but three of them. One of those three is hardly breathing, trying to keep her crossbow still.
The man climbs to his feet, shaking his head. Once he's steady, he lifts his goggles. There is at least one gasp from within the assembled crowd.
"Oh, come on," he says, grinning from within his singed goatee and moustache, his face clean around his eyes, blackened by soot and dirt where the goggles didn't cover. "Isn't anyone going to acknowledge the inherent awesomeness of me landing in a dirigible?"
"Tad?!" this from at least two voices.
"Hold your fire!" shouts Lady Henrietta.
The three giant Wonderdogs leap forward, knocking him to the ground and kissing him with many good dog kisses, pinning him down. Veronica is trying to dismount, but her steed is too full of canine exuberance.
"Good God, there's three of you!" he shouts. "Pfaaaawh, are you all determined to put your tongue in my -- khougggh -- I guess that's a yes."
The burning airship sends up another gout of flame. Veronica's mount carries the newcomer in his mouth toward the barns, away from the heat; the other dogs and the remaining survivors follow. Veronica throws herself to the ground and into the newcomer's arms as the warrior wife and her husband arrive behind her. Lady Henrietta stands a little behind them.
"Edward's trajectory has changed," she says. "New growth from the very old bark of this saga." One of the Wonderdogs turns, looking her in the eyes, and grins, drooling. Dogs are the only species who can drool and look intelligent at the same time, she thinks.
At long, long last, Edward and Veronica kiss. And though his facial hair is burned and their faces are smeared with blood and soot and dirt, their tears make it the sweetest and best kiss, the most true kiss either of them has ever known. Or ever will.
"I told you I would come back," he says, and she hugs him so hard his back pops like a stretchy straw. "Wow. Thanks, I needed that," he says, and sees the couple behind her. "Joshua," he says to the man. "I see you got here on time."
"We had a little trouble on the ridge," Josh says. "Your sister almost beheaded me twice."
"I told him to bring the fucking rock salt," says the woman.
Veronica has only had eyes for Edward. She turns at the sound of this voice and cries out, delighted, throwing her arms around the other woman. "Hillary!"
"Damn right," says Hillary. "Sorry it took us so fucking long. Oakland? Obstacles. That's all I'm sayin'."
They laugh, the burning airship sends up another gout of flame. Some of the crowd laugh too, and they all move back toward the barns, away from the heat. Quiet voices murmur amazement, too uncertain of their victory to speak loudly. Edward steps up onto an old wagon, limping a little. Veronica and Lady Henrietta each see this, exchanging a glance that says, It's really him. Veronica sees something in Lady Henrietta's eyes that makes her wonder exactly where Tad has been while he's been elsewhere. Then he holds his hand out to her and she takes it, stepping up onto the wagon next to him.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he calls out. The murmuring ceases. "We have limited time. By now, the Greenville / Marsh Creek Fault has broken open at the eastern end of the valley. The Livermore end of the valley will flood entirely within the next three days. If any of you are Rachels or Ezekiels who still have family or loved ones in the region, we need to send rescue parties to them immediately. This is, I'm sorry to tell you, only the beginning. The coming changes will alter this nation, and this world, forever."
One of the Rachels speaks. Veronica sees that it's Nice Rachel, the first one to help her back, what was that, a week ago? Before the world went insane, at any rate.
"How do you know all this?" Nice Rachel calls out. Edward turns to her, smiling, his left hand around Veronica's waist.
"Rachel, don't you know?" he asks, grinning and cocky as ever, his arm suddenly light on Veronica's hip. She turns to look at it, sees his hand growing translucent. She turns to look at his face as he says, "I'm a Time Traveler, and I don't even need a little blue box!"
Edward throws his head back, laughing.
Then he disappears. Not with a pop, like before. He simply winks out of existence.
*********
[The following is an excerpt from an audio journal of voice memos made some days after the quake. It was made while driving around to every known road out of Livermore, including those leading into Trevarno, to see which would be the best route. Though originally posted some time ago, it is included here because the transcriber has noted some slight alterations in the text. Any theories aimed at an explanation are welcome. Only the altered portion of the transcript is included.]
[Sound: We hear Veronica walk around to trunk of car. As she does, we hear the engine of a large pickup truck as it pulls up nearby.]
Voice in Truck: Now, are you folks okay?
Edward: We're ... fine. I just got a little dizzy, is all.
Voice: In trying times like these, faith ... can be its own reward.
Edward: Thank you.
I'm Edward. Edward --
Veronica: (interrupting) Water.
Who's this?
Voice: Mayberry. Torvald Mayberry. Doctor of Divinity.
Veronica: Like the candy?
Mayberry: Oh, sweeter. Surely. And the Lord's work may be done any day. No matter the weather.
[A silence. Ravens cry in the distance.]
Mayberry (cont.): The candy, I understand, requires low humidity.
Edward: Dr. Mayberry is correct, honey.
Veronica: We should be on our way.
Mayberry: Wouldn't want to keep you.
Edward: Do you ... do you know the best way West from here? We're trying to get to Hayward.
Mayberry: I hear Bollinger is the safest way across 680. Head there directly, the sooner the better. I can't guarantee that it will be safe when you arrive, of course. We all have our trials to bear, don't we, Veronica?
Veronica: Yes ... of course.
Mayberry: And they do ... take their toll ...
Veronica: We should go.
Edward: Yes.
Mayberry: See you farther on down the road, then.
Edward: The way things are going since the quake, I'm not so sure.
Mayberry: Oh ... it's a date. I promise.
Veronica: Dr. Mayberry, are you okay?
Mayberry: I can honestly say that I haven't felt this good in a long, long time. Why do you ask?
Veronica: For a moment, you looked like you were in pain. Your face, it looked ...
Mayberry: I have this beast of a headache. Sometimes it feels like my skull's fit to crack open. I'm actually headed back to stop it right now, good people.
For Lo, he did see that the harlot was perceptive
And it did fill him with lustful dread.
So saith the Prophet ...
[Nobody speaks for a moment. Ravens cry in greater numbers, closer.]
Mayberry (cont.): So Saith The Lord. You would do well to remember that.
Veronica: Thanks. Drive carefully.
[Sound of car door opening.]
Mayberry: Bye, now, Tad.
[Sound: pickup truck revs, drives away.
We hear Edward and Veronica getting back into the Honda. Edward in driver's seat. Honda starts, pulls forward to stop sign, brakes, left turn signal clicking.]
Veronica:That guy was creepy.
Edward: Did you hear what he just said? He called me Tad.
Veronica: What? No.
Edward: He did. He called me Tad. How did you not hear that?
Veronica: Definitely a weirdo. But maybe you were hearing things.
Edward: People who are sane do not just "hear things."
Veronica: And you would be ...
Edward: Hey, I'm not the one advocating a trip to Hayward. Did we introduce you? I think he called you by name as well.
Veronica: Huh. Wow. I think you're right. Creeper of Divinty.
Edward: This makes me reconsider heading to Hayward.
Veronica: I thought we'd agreed.
Edward: When Reverend Creepy grins at me like he wants to tongue my soul, I question the validity of his directions.
Veronica: You have a point. Maybe we can cross 680 farther North?
Edward: Maybe.
Veronica: We'll discuss it. For now, let's go to Safeway, see if the lines for gas are too long. Then I think it's lunchtime.
[Sound: Honda accelerates, turning left, turn signal stops clicking.
Wind in open car windows.
Alison Krauss, 'I Will'. Veronica hums along.]
When the song is over, Veronica sighs.]
Edward: Why such a sigh?
Veronica: Because even when it feels like the world is ending, I am happy just to be here with you.
[Sound: a smooch on a cheek.
Driving.
Ravens via Doppler effect.
Recording cuts out.]
The End
Friday, October 11, 2013
NFTF: Conflagration
Brothers
Oswald and Johannes sit, pale and unmoving, breath shallow as each
clutches an open wound in the shadow of a big red barn in which Oak and
Bay saplings have begun to grow into full-fledged trees. They can feel
the roots pushing down into the earth around them, they can hear the
timbers protesting as the branches push out, seeking release. Each monk
knows it is only a matter of time.
Focused thus on time, they have each gone inward so that, following the roots of the new and powerful trees springing up around them, they may sense and understand that which is occurring everywhere else in this battle. Their hope is that, by leaving their mark upon the energy of the trees, others in their brotherhood will be able to see, and by seeing, know. Sensing change, sensing the approach of a powerful force, they push their awareness down into the network of roots and allow it to ripple out, like a stone of inquiry in the still pool of existence. What comes to them, in responding ripples, is a picture painted in grim, dark colors.
On a ridge above, behind and to their left, three people fight the same beasts which have torn holes in Oswald and Johannes. The beasts pour from the forest to the North of the ridge where a man and woman trip a lethal fandango of gunfire, a dance certain to end in moments. Behind them, on the ground, an old man struggles against his own tide.
The branch is just beyond Talmadge's reach. His elbow slips and he feels the beastling's teeth tear into his tricep. He cries out (Oswald and Johannes echo his sound, faintly, their blood soaking the ground and feeding the roots beneath them), his pain and fear spurring his reach and grasping, hefting and swinging of the branch, ignoring the pain in his arm and legs abdomen where they're biting into his muscle, bellowing one phrase as he sweeps the branch in a great clubbing arc; his words are not planned, they are his last desperate cry before his life ends, the final thought before he is overcome:
"I am the Steward of the R.M.S. Ruritania!" the sharp broken twigs of the branch slice and pierce the creatures as they are thrown back into the ranks of their advancing fellows. He struggles onto one knee, impaling the creature feasting on his left arm, seeing his own bloody flesh and the wool of his shirt in its mouth. "Long has it traveled! Lost in lagoons and wand'ring in waterways!" Talmadge swings the branch back against another onslaught, amazed at his sudden strength as the creatures are thrown like rag dolls. He has a moment of rest, an instant to breathe.
Bracing himself against the branch, in that instant Talmadge hears two things: the galloping crash of a much larger creature approaching from behind, and the telltale click of an empty firearm; he sees the husband switch the shotgun in his hands, crying out as his fingers burn on the hot metal, clubbing the beasts as they surround the couple. The wife has one handgun and a machete, now; a gash in her brow bleeds, obscuring her vision. All this in a glance as he stands, bracing the branch under his right arm, staggering forward and bellowing his rage to the night, ready to die with these words on his lips:
"Protected by passengers, I call on its Captain! Ruritania! Stands! Defiant!"
Johannes and Oswald, their blood nourishing the roots of the network into which they currently delve, sense two things; the first is that the Rancher's words have triggered a fissure, an opening -- not in the earth, as has been the case in so much of this region of late, but in the fabric of time and space. There is something, something large, beginning to nose its way through that fissure. As they sense this, they realize that there are other such fissures -- they are in fact surrounded by these cracks and holes: the 1913 soldiers and nurses, the creatures that have attacked them ... all of these things are here because of holes that have opened . From where, and how, and how to close the holes, they do not yet know. As they sense and understand these things, they also understand that they are not likely to live long enough to tell Father Michael directly.
In that moment they are distracted by the second thing: the whatever it is that approaches from behind the Rancher. Seeing it now through the perception of the trees from amongst which it launches itself at the Rancher's back, they are shocked. This thing is impossible. It cannot be. And even as it leaps toward the Rancher, even as he senses it and turns his head, their attention is drawn to
A lone soldier, Petherbridge, silhouetted against a wall of fire, wielding an old pitchfork with the skill of a Master of the Quarterstaff, whips it to the right, flinging a dead wolfling to land in the flames which tear their way into the field from the hillside behind him. This is the three-hundredth monster he's dispatched, and none of those burned can fuel the growth of their fellows. He dashes forward, forking and pitching three wolflings one after the other, flinging each into the fire as he spins -- or so he thinks. The first lands screaming in the fire, the other two are thrown wide of the mark, each impaled in the branches of the monstrous tree woman as she crouches over a screaming Nurse -- is that Elfie?! --, their blood and shit smearing her horrific branches.
The beastlings behind her, smelling and seeing their fleshly ambrosia, fling themselves into her branches, pulling her head up and back with the weight of the first ten of them. She screams, the sound of straining timbers and wanton cruelty frustrated, turning away from Nurse Elfie, who scrambles back and runs as the tree woman shakes her head, impaling those creatures who have leapt into her branches to feast.
Petherbridge darts to his right, noting but not heeding the sound of something massive approaching from the South, forking and pitching as many wolflings as he can into her branches. One lands in her deadly ladymouth. She tries to spit it out, her leathery, birdlike tongue tearing on her myriad splintry teeth. She screams, stomping toward him, crushing hundreds of the creatures who swarm around her in their craving to be the biggest. Petherbridge trips over a dead comrade, slipping in the other soldier's entrails, landing on his back amid shit and torn flesh, the pitchfork slipping from his grasp as the oak lady towers above him, her branches and face running red and black with blood and shit, spreading her legs to open her creaking, groaning, hissing sex which gleams with the sap dripping from its walls, a deep and malevolent green light pulsating within to light the struggles of still-living soldiers pierced and screaming by the barnacle-like spikes chewing into their faces, their genitals, their eye sockets.
Oswald and Johannes are startled nearly to waking by what approaches from the South. How can that be?, they want to ask aloud. In that same moment, in those billionths of seconds which have passed, their attention is drawn now to a place with no living trees inside of it, a place surrounded by saplings and soldiers from another time, a place which gleams in the perception of the trees with the hot, red, screaming light of cruelty, torture and despair.
A woman is trapped in a living mirror box in that place, as countless others are abused and assaulted in a ritual focused on raising a massive amount of negative energy, and Johannes and Oswald understand even as their minds' eyes are burned by the heat of the light of such pain. They understand and they cry out as the woman inside opens her mouth to a warm spoonful of brains, and the commander of the soldiers from another time who cannot get in to help the spellbound woman cries out, hearing a great beast now attacking from the South.
"Petherbridge! Where is Petherbridge?!" Lady Henrietta shouts. She sees the beast top the hill behind the dairy barn, this rickety old building she's been hacking at, screaming at, assaulting with every weapon and strength available to her at this time -- to no avail. Firelight reflects in its great dark eyes and it howls, the roots of the howl so deep in its chest that she feels her bones vibrate. They cannot fight this creature. She suspects that they are done -- she dies here, tonight, and all her history will end. No great journey, no escape to the New World, no secret compound in the golden hills of California. She accepts this, setting her stance and ready to attack.
Then a second howl, to the West. She turns in time to see, on the ridge above and to their right, a great black shape leaping firelit toward -- the back of an old man?
A third howl, overlapping with the first two, draws her attention to the burning field behind them to the East as
Brother Oswald and Brother Johannes see it all, perceiving the unfolding of this moment in simultaneous awareness through the network of roots connecting all trees, sensing its movement through the roots of the world, knowing now that all trees share all experience simultaneously with all other living, growing plant life.
Even the burning brown grasses of the field tell them of where a great black dog lands unsinged in the fire itself, its howl overlapping with the first two and echoing among the hills around them, its eyes reflecting the purifying flames, its body lithe and powerful as it raises up on its hind legs, towering above Petherbridge, its black claws gleaming in the light of this fire that does not burn it, ready to slam down and crush anything beneath. The monks sense this even as they sense
Leaves of Bay and Oak, falling from broken branches as another gigantic black dog leaps toward the back of the old Rancher fighting for his life, the Rancher's eyes widening as he turns -- and the black dog sails over his head to land, skidding, turning, deadly and precise, among the wolflings, facing the old man as
Saplings around the dairy barn and fully-grown trees on the hill above it shudder at the impact of each massive paw as this giant black dog throws itself down the hill, tongue lolling wild and pink from the left side of its foaming jaw. It will be upon the dairy barn in three great leaping strides. Roots beneath the dairy barn sense the blood spilled above, but unlike the blood of Brothers Johannes and Oswald which soaks down to nourish this network of awareness, the blood in the barn is held, it is separate and that which holds it from soaking into the earth is also that which is driving the women and girls in the barn to scream and scream and scream, inarticulate terror that stains the earth around it, causing the roots below to shrink back, the branches above to lean away. Even the dry brown grass around the barn in this moment loses its substance and puffs to dust as the women and girls trapped in that barn see something they should never have seen and the woman trapped in the living mirror box tilts the spoon up into her mouth, tears streaking her face to rinse just a little of the spattered blood away. The roots sense and absorb and transmit these images from the minds of the women in the barn just as their horror reaches a peak, exploding outward in a sudden and scalding supernova of pain, hatred, suffering, horror, terror and dread. It expands to encompass all the pain and fear and death in this little vale, from the dairy barn to the dead and dying creatures on the ridge above, to the soldiers and nurses in the field, to the creatures in the branches of the oak monster lady and the soldiers and nurses she's stuffed into her trunk through either hole.
The great black dog on the hill smells the figure it intends to attack and kill, aiming its final leap so that it can crash through the back wall of the dairy barn, ready to tear the throat from the figure in the spot to its left.
The massive black dog on the ridge attacks those nearest, tearing and throwing and snarling and breaking.
The immense black dog in the fire, red sparks swirling up around him like the blessing of an ancient lady in mountains two continents away, brings his front paws down to crush, and kill, the wolflings surrounding Lieutenant Petherbridge, who sees the terror in the eyes of the Oaken lady as the giant black dog lunges out of the fire, snatching her into his mouth and throwing her in the air like a bone, snapping her in half and tossing her into the inferno behind him, then bounding into the field to destroy every wolfling, every darkling spawn now fleeing in terror.
Petherbridge leaps to his feet, pitchfork in hand, shouting the only words he can think in that moment, "Good boy!" For he has heard the stories, the whispered words, the half-hoped-for tales of the trusty companion, the mythic savior, the noble and powerful beast who came to his Alpha's aid when all was thought lost.
His words are echoed by the Rancher on the ridge as the massive black dog tears into the wolflings, rending and scattering them before they can devour the dead, this giant powerful dog leaping up to bring his front paws down exactly like the Boxer of which he is half, piercing and crushing evil creatures by the score, barking his great deep barks to scatter them like cockroaches. The old man laughs and calls his praise as he, too strikes at the creatures, emboldening and empowering this astounding dog with these two ancient words, "Good boy!"
The woman and her husband see the scattering beastlings. They turn. They see the giant dog and the woman cries out, "Oh my God! What the fuck is that?! Wait, is that -- ? It is! It's Max! Good boy, Maxwell! Kill those little shitfucking evil motherfuckers! Kill! Kill! Kill them all!" Brandishing her machete, she sprints into their midst, followed by her laughing husband, his own machete drawn now, the couple joining the old man and the giant black dog as they chase the creatures to the North, into the trees and back down the hill toward the burning field, destroying as many as they can.
Brothers Johannes and Oswald gasp as the back wall of the dairy barn explodes open, the great black dog shattering the wall and the dark enchantments which have ensorceled the building against any other attack. He lands, skidding a little in the bloody straw, his jaws open even as he finds his footing, turning to his left. The monks see the interior more clearly, now: crazed women stand supporting six large, heavy, wood-framed mirrors, their bodies covered in cuts and gashes, bleeding freely. These women are whispering, screaming, laughing, lost in pain and madness, penetrated by the monstrous full-grown wolfbeasts that grind behind them, holding their hands in place on the mirrors or tearing into their flesh with razor-sharp claws and teeth already caked in blood and chunks. Beneath each wolfbeast and woman is a sizzling, smoking puddle of blood and other fluids. Distracted by the arrival of the gigantic black dog, the women and the wolfbeasts turn, even as the dog is turning and launching himself toward them, jaws wide, powerful muscles flexing.
In that instant, the supernova of pain and dread, expanding to just beyond the little vale in which all of this has come to pass, reaches its breaking point.
The man toward which the black dog leaps, the man whose cruelty and madness have shaped this pit of torment for these innocent women and girls, sees the leaping dog -- a dog many times larger than it was the last time it leapt at him -- and opens his shattered mouth to scream. Not a scream of fear or pain. No. A scream of triumph: the mirrors, the pain he's created in these whores and harlots, all of this serves his victorious purpose, and as he feels the great globe of torment collapsing back in on him, he is screaming in delight, in Holy Rapture, ecstatic that he'll kill the dog, too, as he stretches his left arm out, reaching for the woman he's trapped with him in this mirror box.
Oswald and Johannes understand, now: the mirrors are meant to reflect, magnify and multiply all that happens within them. It's an infinity box. They gasp, sitting up, eyes open, all pain faded as they realize what he's done. Leaping to their feet, the monks do their best to run to the dairy barn before Torvald Walter Mayberry, former pastor of Three Square Christian Church and Missionary Bible School in Castro Valley, can succeed in his dark task.
All of this is happening in the same instant that Max the Wonderdog is leaping to tear out Torvald Walter Mayberry's throat, and as Mayberry himself is reaching for Veronica's hand.
For what delight, Mayberry is thinking. What delight to take her with me, to tear her from this world as she tore me from my flock? To hold her down and treat with her as a whore should be dealt? The pain, the fear, the fluids, the whores, the brains, the mirrors --
His scream of triumph catches in his throat. The mirrors!
"Nerrrr! Terrrrhhnng!" he bellows.
The mirrors are all angled toward him. He looks for the whore.
The monks have taken three steps.
The commander of the forces outside has raised her sword.
The myth-imbued dog is mid-air.
The woman has thrown herself to the floor.
The mirrors reflect only Torvald Walter Mayberry.
The supernova of anguish snaps back --
-- collapsing --
-- to its center --
even as Mayberry tries to smudge a sigil off the closest mirror, the Mana he has tapped slams into him and every dark working he has crafted ignites with the power of the agony of his victims. The mirrors explode with crackling heat and red-black energy -- blasting into him as a swirling counter-clockwise vortex opens behind him.
Max the Wonderdog tries to change his trajectory in mid-leap, latching onto an old rope hanging from the rafters with his teeth.
The vortex expands to envelop the broken, bellowing, terrified man trying to escape it. His eyes fix on an object on the floor as the superheated shards of mirror glass slice through his flesh and into his soul: the plastic spoon, a scoop of brains still in it. The last thought in his head is, She never ate the brains! Then the vortex sucks him in, ripping him in half as the mirrors and the now mostly dead women and rutting wolfbeasts are pulled in after, all clogging the vortex for a moment like too much shit in a toilet. Max the Wonderdog struggles to maintain his hold on the rope, his jaws aching as the vortex pulls at him, pulls at the barn and all people and things in and around the barn. Even the hillsides begin to lean in toward the barn until, with a wet, splashing thud, the pile of dead flesh and the gigantic mandoline smash into the vortex and shove everything through.
Max the Wonderdog yelps as his back left dewclaw is torn from his leg, the last thing to hit the swirling maeslstrom of energy.
The vortex snaps shut.
Max the Wonderdog falls to the floor of the dairy barn.
Every beam of the barn, every tree, every speck of dirt and every living and unliving thing relaxes back, the pressure of the vortex released.
For a time, there is only silence. The world is breathing, taking stock of its injuries.
Focused thus on time, they have each gone inward so that, following the roots of the new and powerful trees springing up around them, they may sense and understand that which is occurring everywhere else in this battle. Their hope is that, by leaving their mark upon the energy of the trees, others in their brotherhood will be able to see, and by seeing, know. Sensing change, sensing the approach of a powerful force, they push their awareness down into the network of roots and allow it to ripple out, like a stone of inquiry in the still pool of existence. What comes to them, in responding ripples, is a picture painted in grim, dark colors.
On a ridge above, behind and to their left, three people fight the same beasts which have torn holes in Oswald and Johannes. The beasts pour from the forest to the North of the ridge where a man and woman trip a lethal fandango of gunfire, a dance certain to end in moments. Behind them, on the ground, an old man struggles against his own tide.
The branch is just beyond Talmadge's reach. His elbow slips and he feels the beastling's teeth tear into his tricep. He cries out (Oswald and Johannes echo his sound, faintly, their blood soaking the ground and feeding the roots beneath them), his pain and fear spurring his reach and grasping, hefting and swinging of the branch, ignoring the pain in his arm and legs abdomen where they're biting into his muscle, bellowing one phrase as he sweeps the branch in a great clubbing arc; his words are not planned, they are his last desperate cry before his life ends, the final thought before he is overcome:
"I am the Steward of the R.M.S. Ruritania!" the sharp broken twigs of the branch slice and pierce the creatures as they are thrown back into the ranks of their advancing fellows. He struggles onto one knee, impaling the creature feasting on his left arm, seeing his own bloody flesh and the wool of his shirt in its mouth. "Long has it traveled! Lost in lagoons and wand'ring in waterways!" Talmadge swings the branch back against another onslaught, amazed at his sudden strength as the creatures are thrown like rag dolls. He has a moment of rest, an instant to breathe.
Bracing himself against the branch, in that instant Talmadge hears two things: the galloping crash of a much larger creature approaching from behind, and the telltale click of an empty firearm; he sees the husband switch the shotgun in his hands, crying out as his fingers burn on the hot metal, clubbing the beasts as they surround the couple. The wife has one handgun and a machete, now; a gash in her brow bleeds, obscuring her vision. All this in a glance as he stands, bracing the branch under his right arm, staggering forward and bellowing his rage to the night, ready to die with these words on his lips:
"Protected by passengers, I call on its Captain! Ruritania! Stands! Defiant!"
Johannes and Oswald, their blood nourishing the roots of the network into which they currently delve, sense two things; the first is that the Rancher's words have triggered a fissure, an opening -- not in the earth, as has been the case in so much of this region of late, but in the fabric of time and space. There is something, something large, beginning to nose its way through that fissure. As they sense this, they realize that there are other such fissures -- they are in fact surrounded by these cracks and holes: the 1913 soldiers and nurses, the creatures that have attacked them ... all of these things are here because of holes that have opened . From where, and how, and how to close the holes, they do not yet know. As they sense and understand these things, they also understand that they are not likely to live long enough to tell Father Michael directly.
In that moment they are distracted by the second thing: the whatever it is that approaches from behind the Rancher. Seeing it now through the perception of the trees from amongst which it launches itself at the Rancher's back, they are shocked. This thing is impossible. It cannot be. And even as it leaps toward the Rancher, even as he senses it and turns his head, their attention is drawn to
A lone soldier, Petherbridge, silhouetted against a wall of fire, wielding an old pitchfork with the skill of a Master of the Quarterstaff, whips it to the right, flinging a dead wolfling to land in the flames which tear their way into the field from the hillside behind him. This is the three-hundredth monster he's dispatched, and none of those burned can fuel the growth of their fellows. He dashes forward, forking and pitching three wolflings one after the other, flinging each into the fire as he spins -- or so he thinks. The first lands screaming in the fire, the other two are thrown wide of the mark, each impaled in the branches of the monstrous tree woman as she crouches over a screaming Nurse -- is that Elfie?! --, their blood and shit smearing her horrific branches.
The beastlings behind her, smelling and seeing their fleshly ambrosia, fling themselves into her branches, pulling her head up and back with the weight of the first ten of them. She screams, the sound of straining timbers and wanton cruelty frustrated, turning away from Nurse Elfie, who scrambles back and runs as the tree woman shakes her head, impaling those creatures who have leapt into her branches to feast.
Petherbridge darts to his right, noting but not heeding the sound of something massive approaching from the South, forking and pitching as many wolflings as he can into her branches. One lands in her deadly ladymouth. She tries to spit it out, her leathery, birdlike tongue tearing on her myriad splintry teeth. She screams, stomping toward him, crushing hundreds of the creatures who swarm around her in their craving to be the biggest. Petherbridge trips over a dead comrade, slipping in the other soldier's entrails, landing on his back amid shit and torn flesh, the pitchfork slipping from his grasp as the oak lady towers above him, her branches and face running red and black with blood and shit, spreading her legs to open her creaking, groaning, hissing sex which gleams with the sap dripping from its walls, a deep and malevolent green light pulsating within to light the struggles of still-living soldiers pierced and screaming by the barnacle-like spikes chewing into their faces, their genitals, their eye sockets.
Oswald and Johannes are startled nearly to waking by what approaches from the South. How can that be?, they want to ask aloud. In that same moment, in those billionths of seconds which have passed, their attention is drawn now to a place with no living trees inside of it, a place surrounded by saplings and soldiers from another time, a place which gleams in the perception of the trees with the hot, red, screaming light of cruelty, torture and despair.
A woman is trapped in a living mirror box in that place, as countless others are abused and assaulted in a ritual focused on raising a massive amount of negative energy, and Johannes and Oswald understand even as their minds' eyes are burned by the heat of the light of such pain. They understand and they cry out as the woman inside opens her mouth to a warm spoonful of brains, and the commander of the soldiers from another time who cannot get in to help the spellbound woman cries out, hearing a great beast now attacking from the South.
"Petherbridge! Where is Petherbridge?!" Lady Henrietta shouts. She sees the beast top the hill behind the dairy barn, this rickety old building she's been hacking at, screaming at, assaulting with every weapon and strength available to her at this time -- to no avail. Firelight reflects in its great dark eyes and it howls, the roots of the howl so deep in its chest that she feels her bones vibrate. They cannot fight this creature. She suspects that they are done -- she dies here, tonight, and all her history will end. No great journey, no escape to the New World, no secret compound in the golden hills of California. She accepts this, setting her stance and ready to attack.
Then a second howl, to the West. She turns in time to see, on the ridge above and to their right, a great black shape leaping firelit toward -- the back of an old man?
A third howl, overlapping with the first two, draws her attention to the burning field behind them to the East as
Brother Oswald and Brother Johannes see it all, perceiving the unfolding of this moment in simultaneous awareness through the network of roots connecting all trees, sensing its movement through the roots of the world, knowing now that all trees share all experience simultaneously with all other living, growing plant life.
Even the burning brown grasses of the field tell them of where a great black dog lands unsinged in the fire itself, its howl overlapping with the first two and echoing among the hills around them, its eyes reflecting the purifying flames, its body lithe and powerful as it raises up on its hind legs, towering above Petherbridge, its black claws gleaming in the light of this fire that does not burn it, ready to slam down and crush anything beneath. The monks sense this even as they sense
Leaves of Bay and Oak, falling from broken branches as another gigantic black dog leaps toward the back of the old Rancher fighting for his life, the Rancher's eyes widening as he turns -- and the black dog sails over his head to land, skidding, turning, deadly and precise, among the wolflings, facing the old man as
Saplings around the dairy barn and fully-grown trees on the hill above it shudder at the impact of each massive paw as this giant black dog throws itself down the hill, tongue lolling wild and pink from the left side of its foaming jaw. It will be upon the dairy barn in three great leaping strides. Roots beneath the dairy barn sense the blood spilled above, but unlike the blood of Brothers Johannes and Oswald which soaks down to nourish this network of awareness, the blood in the barn is held, it is separate and that which holds it from soaking into the earth is also that which is driving the women and girls in the barn to scream and scream and scream, inarticulate terror that stains the earth around it, causing the roots below to shrink back, the branches above to lean away. Even the dry brown grass around the barn in this moment loses its substance and puffs to dust as the women and girls trapped in that barn see something they should never have seen and the woman trapped in the living mirror box tilts the spoon up into her mouth, tears streaking her face to rinse just a little of the spattered blood away. The roots sense and absorb and transmit these images from the minds of the women in the barn just as their horror reaches a peak, exploding outward in a sudden and scalding supernova of pain, hatred, suffering, horror, terror and dread. It expands to encompass all the pain and fear and death in this little vale, from the dairy barn to the dead and dying creatures on the ridge above, to the soldiers and nurses in the field, to the creatures in the branches of the oak monster lady and the soldiers and nurses she's stuffed into her trunk through either hole.
The great black dog on the hill smells the figure it intends to attack and kill, aiming its final leap so that it can crash through the back wall of the dairy barn, ready to tear the throat from the figure in the spot to its left.
The massive black dog on the ridge attacks those nearest, tearing and throwing and snarling and breaking.
The immense black dog in the fire, red sparks swirling up around him like the blessing of an ancient lady in mountains two continents away, brings his front paws down to crush, and kill, the wolflings surrounding Lieutenant Petherbridge, who sees the terror in the eyes of the Oaken lady as the giant black dog lunges out of the fire, snatching her into his mouth and throwing her in the air like a bone, snapping her in half and tossing her into the inferno behind him, then bounding into the field to destroy every wolfling, every darkling spawn now fleeing in terror.
Petherbridge leaps to his feet, pitchfork in hand, shouting the only words he can think in that moment, "Good boy!" For he has heard the stories, the whispered words, the half-hoped-for tales of the trusty companion, the mythic savior, the noble and powerful beast who came to his Alpha's aid when all was thought lost.
His words are echoed by the Rancher on the ridge as the massive black dog tears into the wolflings, rending and scattering them before they can devour the dead, this giant powerful dog leaping up to bring his front paws down exactly like the Boxer of which he is half, piercing and crushing evil creatures by the score, barking his great deep barks to scatter them like cockroaches. The old man laughs and calls his praise as he, too strikes at the creatures, emboldening and empowering this astounding dog with these two ancient words, "Good boy!"
The woman and her husband see the scattering beastlings. They turn. They see the giant dog and the woman cries out, "Oh my God! What the fuck is that?! Wait, is that -- ? It is! It's Max! Good boy, Maxwell! Kill those little shitfucking evil motherfuckers! Kill! Kill! Kill them all!" Brandishing her machete, she sprints into their midst, followed by her laughing husband, his own machete drawn now, the couple joining the old man and the giant black dog as they chase the creatures to the North, into the trees and back down the hill toward the burning field, destroying as many as they can.
Brothers Johannes and Oswald gasp as the back wall of the dairy barn explodes open, the great black dog shattering the wall and the dark enchantments which have ensorceled the building against any other attack. He lands, skidding a little in the bloody straw, his jaws open even as he finds his footing, turning to his left. The monks see the interior more clearly, now: crazed women stand supporting six large, heavy, wood-framed mirrors, their bodies covered in cuts and gashes, bleeding freely. These women are whispering, screaming, laughing, lost in pain and madness, penetrated by the monstrous full-grown wolfbeasts that grind behind them, holding their hands in place on the mirrors or tearing into their flesh with razor-sharp claws and teeth already caked in blood and chunks. Beneath each wolfbeast and woman is a sizzling, smoking puddle of blood and other fluids. Distracted by the arrival of the gigantic black dog, the women and the wolfbeasts turn, even as the dog is turning and launching himself toward them, jaws wide, powerful muscles flexing.
In that instant, the supernova of pain and dread, expanding to just beyond the little vale in which all of this has come to pass, reaches its breaking point.
The man toward which the black dog leaps, the man whose cruelty and madness have shaped this pit of torment for these innocent women and girls, sees the leaping dog -- a dog many times larger than it was the last time it leapt at him -- and opens his shattered mouth to scream. Not a scream of fear or pain. No. A scream of triumph: the mirrors, the pain he's created in these whores and harlots, all of this serves his victorious purpose, and as he feels the great globe of torment collapsing back in on him, he is screaming in delight, in Holy Rapture, ecstatic that he'll kill the dog, too, as he stretches his left arm out, reaching for the woman he's trapped with him in this mirror box.
Oswald and Johannes understand, now: the mirrors are meant to reflect, magnify and multiply all that happens within them. It's an infinity box. They gasp, sitting up, eyes open, all pain faded as they realize what he's done. Leaping to their feet, the monks do their best to run to the dairy barn before Torvald Walter Mayberry, former pastor of Three Square Christian Church and Missionary Bible School in Castro Valley, can succeed in his dark task.
All of this is happening in the same instant that Max the Wonderdog is leaping to tear out Torvald Walter Mayberry's throat, and as Mayberry himself is reaching for Veronica's hand.
For what delight, Mayberry is thinking. What delight to take her with me, to tear her from this world as she tore me from my flock? To hold her down and treat with her as a whore should be dealt? The pain, the fear, the fluids, the whores, the brains, the mirrors --
His scream of triumph catches in his throat. The mirrors!
"Nerrrr! Terrrrhhnng!" he bellows.
The mirrors are all angled toward him. He looks for the whore.
The monks have taken three steps.
The commander of the forces outside has raised her sword.
The myth-imbued dog is mid-air.
The woman has thrown herself to the floor.
The mirrors reflect only Torvald Walter Mayberry.
The supernova of anguish snaps back --
-- collapsing --
-- to its center --
even as Mayberry tries to smudge a sigil off the closest mirror, the Mana he has tapped slams into him and every dark working he has crafted ignites with the power of the agony of his victims. The mirrors explode with crackling heat and red-black energy -- blasting into him as a swirling counter-clockwise vortex opens behind him.
Max the Wonderdog tries to change his trajectory in mid-leap, latching onto an old rope hanging from the rafters with his teeth.
The vortex expands to envelop the broken, bellowing, terrified man trying to escape it. His eyes fix on an object on the floor as the superheated shards of mirror glass slice through his flesh and into his soul: the plastic spoon, a scoop of brains still in it. The last thought in his head is, She never ate the brains! Then the vortex sucks him in, ripping him in half as the mirrors and the now mostly dead women and rutting wolfbeasts are pulled in after, all clogging the vortex for a moment like too much shit in a toilet. Max the Wonderdog struggles to maintain his hold on the rope, his jaws aching as the vortex pulls at him, pulls at the barn and all people and things in and around the barn. Even the hillsides begin to lean in toward the barn until, with a wet, splashing thud, the pile of dead flesh and the gigantic mandoline smash into the vortex and shove everything through.
Max the Wonderdog yelps as his back left dewclaw is torn from his leg, the last thing to hit the swirling maeslstrom of energy.
The vortex snaps shut.
Max the Wonderdog falls to the floor of the dairy barn.
Every beam of the barn, every tree, every speck of dirt and every living and unliving thing relaxes back, the pressure of the vortex released.
For a time, there is only silence. The world is breathing, taking stock of its injuries.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
NFTF: Rancher II
"That's our signal," the woman says. The husband takes his shotgun from the scabbard on his saddle, checks it, his wife doing the same with her longbow. Silent, competent, prepared. This couple might not be as city-slick as they pretended. Jury's still out.
Shaking his head, he grabs his Winchester and joins them on the stony outcropping at the edge of the ridge. "What now?" he asks.
They're silent for a time, the roar of the fire loud and getting louder. The husband looks at him, a little smile in his eyes:
"We wait."
A howl sounds, far off to the South, and they all three turn their heads in that direction. The woman has given a little gasp, whispering a word he doesn't hear clearly, and he wonders again if they know about anything beyond the freeways and coffeehouses of the young.
"Not a cayute," he says, but his words are lost under the keening whine of something to the North. The horses are disturbed, whickering and stamping. Turning to look for the source of the noise, he sees only that there is something moving in the grass, coming toward them. The light of the fires to the East is not enough to make anything clear at that distance.
"Why would anything that small be running toward us?" he murmurs. It reaches a low, pebbly hillock and they see it more clearly: small, maybe the size of a small child, but somewhat hairy and oddly shaped -- and its face ... something is wrong, there. It stands, panting, sniffing the air, tongue lolling between what look like very sharp teeth.
"Is that ... a little kid?" the woman asks.
"I think it's one of the things we were warned about," the husband says.
"It looks like a toddler in a monster mask," she says, and her voice is a little loud, a little mocking. The rancher would never have spoken so loudly, but then he also wouldn't have come here on a lark. The thing seems to hear her, its head snaps in their direction and it licks its chops, hunkering down, one hand going to its crotch where it fiddles as it shits out a pile of something greasy and foul enough to make their eyes hurt from a hundred yards away. The horses are near panicked, and he glances back to see even Beulah with her eyes wide, pulling and stamping.
Smiling at them, the creature reaches back for a handful of shit which it then smears over the tip of what is clearly a very erect cock. Raising its head with a high, screeching, keening howl, the creature points at them -- but more at the woman.
Instinct sets in and he has raised his rifle and sighted the tiny creature, when he realizes that the woman and her husband have done the same with their weapons.
"Should we just kill it?" she asks, calm, her bow drawn taut.
"Probably," her husband responds.
"Ladies first," he murmurs.
Two more creatures step from the grass behind it, already stroking engorged cocks. One of them drops to the ground and actually fucks the pile of shit for a few thrusts, as the third dances about with its fists in the air, uttering guttural barks that sound like laughter.
"He wasn't kidding about the shitfuckers," the husband breathes.
"He wasn't kidding about any of it," the woman sounds a little annoyed.
"I'll take the one on the right," the rancher murmurs.
Three more creatures step from the grass, heading directly for the shit, which only seems to be growing stronger in intensity, burning the eyes as well as the nose and lungs, now. He coughs, his eyes watering.
"Fuck this shit," the wife says, then gives a little laugh and looses an arrow. Her aim is true: it plows through the head of the creature in the lead, as well as two behind it. Two more! Where did they come from?
All of the creatures stop what they are doing.
He sets his sights on another one, shifting his stance, sensing more than seeing that the couple to his left have done the same.
The creatures fall on their former leader and the two behind, ripping, biting, devouring, tearing, even greedy in the gobbling of entrails -- unleashing a wave of stench so foul that he is fighting back puke. The horses are screaming their alarm, and he glances back at them to see if he should go cut them free. But Beulah, blessed Beulah, is watching him. Stamping, whickering, but calm.
The wind changes for a moment, smoke less burning than the shit of these creatures, and he realizes he smells sage. He breathes deep. The urge to vomit passes, his eyes are clear.
"Breathe," he says. "Deep. That sage will help."
They do, and he again senses them resetting their stance, more secure now.
Focusing fully on the creatures with eyes clear, he sees that they have made quick work of their three fallen comrades and ...
"Good Lord," he breathes.
"They're growing," she whispers.
A new creature takes the lead at the top of the low hillock, this one appearing to have eaten the most of its dead fellows: it is large and growing larger than the creatures around it, its bones cracking and growing and realigning as its flesh tears and re-heals around them until it is the size of an adolescent human. For a moment its face is bare bone as the flesh and other tissue is torn away before re-growing, the eyes receded to embers in the hollow sockets, but still smiling at them as it rocks its head from side to side like a carnival automaton.
Like a Halloween nightmare.
October, 1946, Betty's attic.
"Mama says it's heavy enough to cut off a finger," she'd said, and he'd held the trunk open as she rooted around inside of it, finally coming up with an old, leather-bound volume, the binding broken and papers bulging from the front and back, held together with an iron band which clasped and locked in the front of the book.
"You have to promise not to tell," she'd said, looking at him with the book on the wooden floorboards between them.
"I promise," he'd said, his crush on Betty strong enough to get him to promise anything.
"You also have to share a secret with me, since I'm sharing a secret with you," she'd said. His first and fervent hope had been that this secret would involve a kiss. "Do you promise to share a secret with me?" she had asked.
"Yes, I'll share any secret you want," he'd said.
From down below, music: someone, Betty's mother probably, had put on a record. It was Dunkelheit's Dance Of Lost Shadows, the perfect music for that late Halloween afternoon. A little scratchy. He shivered.
"Tell me what Ben said to you before he ran away," she had whispered. A violin shriek in the music had sent goosebumps up his arms. He'd needed, then, to pee, but had no idea how to tell her that.
"I can't --" he'd started, but Betty had laid a finger across his lips.
"Here's a free secret. My name isn't Betty," she'd said. "My name is Leah. My family, we're ... different. We're being looked for. There's someone out there in the world who wants to find us, and Mama says it's very important that we not be found. I think this book is one of the reasons that we have to hide."
She had unlocked the iron binding on the book -- he hadn't seen a key -- and had opened the cover to reveal a page covered in handwritten symbols and shapes, words surrounding every image written in a precise, beautiful, and incomprehensible language. He had reached for the paper, but she had stopped his hand. Then, with her left hand, she had tapped three times in the center of the largest symbol on the page -- circular, with points extending like an X -- three times, tap - tap - tap, and whispered a word that sounded like Abracadabra but was older, thicker, made him think of twisted roots clinging to bright gemstones deep underground.
Then she'd said, "Show me what I saw."
From the circular symbol arose a globe of blue light. Bright enough to light the entire attic, though it affected their candle: the flame had begun to sputter and send little sparks into the air. Presently, the center of the blue globe, no larger itself than a grapefruit, resolved itself into a picture: a window, looking out into a gloomy September evening. Focusing on a house that looked familiar.
"My house," he'd blurted. "That's my house ..." His words faded as he recognized the boy sitting on the porch, the car pulling up and himself getting out, Mr. Packer helping him with his knapsack. This was not his house anymore. Betty lived near his new house.
"How did you ... how did you see this?" he asked.
"Shhh," she'd said, and the picture in the globe took on what little color that dark evening had carried. He'd unlocked the door, run inside, Ben waiting outside as his first cry of, 'Mom, I'm home ... !' had echoed in the now-empty foyer. He'd dropped his pack and run through every room, more frantic with every step. He knew he'd been yelling 'Mommy?! Where are you!?' and the realization that Ben was on the front steps sent a spike of shame from his balls to his heart. But maybe he was in the wrong house? Maybe it was all a mistake. He returned to the front door to find Ben. He checked the house number, he looked around at the neighborhood: it was all as he knew it should be.
In the globe of light, they saw him run in. They saw Ben watching, waiting, dressed in rugged travel clothes but wearing, oddly, a yellow rain slicker and hat over it. Ben never looked around, standing now. Patient.
When he comes outside, they speak for a moment after he has looked around. He sits down, tears unavoidable. Ben sits next to him. After a time, Ben says something. He turns to Ben, his tears sliding into a scowl of disbelief.
They'd watched the conversation from a distance, through a window, through a globe, Talmadge and Betty -- Leah -- in the oddly lit attic as her mother put the finishing touches on the best -- and last -- Halloween party he'd ever attended.
The two boys head off together, both wearing knapsacks -- the one returning from a journey, the other only just beginning -- and the bubble bursts, a flash of blue light, shadows leaping high as the attic returns to darkness lit by a single stub of candle in an old saucer.
"Betty --"
"Leah," she'd corrected.
"Leah. Right. Sorry," he'd mumbled, abashed. He had looked her directly in the eyes, quiet for a moment before asking, "How did you do that?"
"It's one of the reasons we're being looked for," she'd whispered. "Now tell me, Tal: what did he say?"
He is snapped back to the present by another howl, from the South again, closer this time. Nothing like the keening, shrieking howls of these creatures amassing on the hillock to the North of them. The howl from the South sends a susurration of alarm through the creatures; they begin looking around, suspicion clear in their torn, half human faces. The horses calm, but only a little.
"If we kill them, they eat each other and get stronger," the husband says. "We were not aware of that."
"Do we have any ammunition that may work better?" the wife asks, bow drawn taut again, the point of her razor-sharp arrow never wavering.
They are silent. There is nothing. Then it hits him, bubbling up from within the memory of that Halloween night, in 1946. The thing that had come in to their party, the thing that had come through.
Shaking his head, he grabs his Winchester and joins them on the stony outcropping at the edge of the ridge. "What now?" he asks.
They're silent for a time, the roar of the fire loud and getting louder. The husband looks at him, a little smile in his eyes:
"We wait."
A howl sounds, far off to the South, and they all three turn their heads in that direction. The woman has given a little gasp, whispering a word he doesn't hear clearly, and he wonders again if they know about anything beyond the freeways and coffeehouses of the young.
"Not a cayute," he says, but his words are lost under the keening whine of something to the North. The horses are disturbed, whickering and stamping. Turning to look for the source of the noise, he sees only that there is something moving in the grass, coming toward them. The light of the fires to the East is not enough to make anything clear at that distance.
"Why would anything that small be running toward us?" he murmurs. It reaches a low, pebbly hillock and they see it more clearly: small, maybe the size of a small child, but somewhat hairy and oddly shaped -- and its face ... something is wrong, there. It stands, panting, sniffing the air, tongue lolling between what look like very sharp teeth.
"Is that ... a little kid?" the woman asks.
"I think it's one of the things we were warned about," the husband says.
"It looks like a toddler in a monster mask," she says, and her voice is a little loud, a little mocking. The rancher would never have spoken so loudly, but then he also wouldn't have come here on a lark. The thing seems to hear her, its head snaps in their direction and it licks its chops, hunkering down, one hand going to its crotch where it fiddles as it shits out a pile of something greasy and foul enough to make their eyes hurt from a hundred yards away. The horses are near panicked, and he glances back to see even Beulah with her eyes wide, pulling and stamping.
Smiling at them, the creature reaches back for a handful of shit which it then smears over the tip of what is clearly a very erect cock. Raising its head with a high, screeching, keening howl, the creature points at them -- but more at the woman.
Instinct sets in and he has raised his rifle and sighted the tiny creature, when he realizes that the woman and her husband have done the same with their weapons.
"Should we just kill it?" she asks, calm, her bow drawn taut.
"Probably," her husband responds.
"Ladies first," he murmurs.
Two more creatures step from the grass behind it, already stroking engorged cocks. One of them drops to the ground and actually fucks the pile of shit for a few thrusts, as the third dances about with its fists in the air, uttering guttural barks that sound like laughter.
"He wasn't kidding about the shitfuckers," the husband breathes.
"He wasn't kidding about any of it," the woman sounds a little annoyed.
"I'll take the one on the right," the rancher murmurs.
Three more creatures step from the grass, heading directly for the shit, which only seems to be growing stronger in intensity, burning the eyes as well as the nose and lungs, now. He coughs, his eyes watering.
"Fuck this shit," the wife says, then gives a little laugh and looses an arrow. Her aim is true: it plows through the head of the creature in the lead, as well as two behind it. Two more! Where did they come from?
All of the creatures stop what they are doing.
He sets his sights on another one, shifting his stance, sensing more than seeing that the couple to his left have done the same.
The creatures fall on their former leader and the two behind, ripping, biting, devouring, tearing, even greedy in the gobbling of entrails -- unleashing a wave of stench so foul that he is fighting back puke. The horses are screaming their alarm, and he glances back at them to see if he should go cut them free. But Beulah, blessed Beulah, is watching him. Stamping, whickering, but calm.
The wind changes for a moment, smoke less burning than the shit of these creatures, and he realizes he smells sage. He breathes deep. The urge to vomit passes, his eyes are clear.
"Breathe," he says. "Deep. That sage will help."
They do, and he again senses them resetting their stance, more secure now.
Focusing fully on the creatures with eyes clear, he sees that they have made quick work of their three fallen comrades and ...
"Good Lord," he breathes.
"They're growing," she whispers.
A new creature takes the lead at the top of the low hillock, this one appearing to have eaten the most of its dead fellows: it is large and growing larger than the creatures around it, its bones cracking and growing and realigning as its flesh tears and re-heals around them until it is the size of an adolescent human. For a moment its face is bare bone as the flesh and other tissue is torn away before re-growing, the eyes receded to embers in the hollow sockets, but still smiling at them as it rocks its head from side to side like a carnival automaton.
Like a Halloween nightmare.
October, 1946, Betty's attic.
"Mama says it's heavy enough to cut off a finger," she'd said, and he'd held the trunk open as she rooted around inside of it, finally coming up with an old, leather-bound volume, the binding broken and papers bulging from the front and back, held together with an iron band which clasped and locked in the front of the book.
"You have to promise not to tell," she'd said, looking at him with the book on the wooden floorboards between them.
"I promise," he'd said, his crush on Betty strong enough to get him to promise anything.
"You also have to share a secret with me, since I'm sharing a secret with you," she'd said. His first and fervent hope had been that this secret would involve a kiss. "Do you promise to share a secret with me?" she had asked.
"Yes, I'll share any secret you want," he'd said.
From down below, music: someone, Betty's mother probably, had put on a record. It was Dunkelheit's Dance Of Lost Shadows, the perfect music for that late Halloween afternoon. A little scratchy. He shivered.
"Tell me what Ben said to you before he ran away," she had whispered. A violin shriek in the music had sent goosebumps up his arms. He'd needed, then, to pee, but had no idea how to tell her that.
"I can't --" he'd started, but Betty had laid a finger across his lips.
"Here's a free secret. My name isn't Betty," she'd said. "My name is Leah. My family, we're ... different. We're being looked for. There's someone out there in the world who wants to find us, and Mama says it's very important that we not be found. I think this book is one of the reasons that we have to hide."
She had unlocked the iron binding on the book -- he hadn't seen a key -- and had opened the cover to reveal a page covered in handwritten symbols and shapes, words surrounding every image written in a precise, beautiful, and incomprehensible language. He had reached for the paper, but she had stopped his hand. Then, with her left hand, she had tapped three times in the center of the largest symbol on the page -- circular, with points extending like an X -- three times, tap - tap - tap, and whispered a word that sounded like Abracadabra but was older, thicker, made him think of twisted roots clinging to bright gemstones deep underground.
Then she'd said, "Show me what I saw."
From the circular symbol arose a globe of blue light. Bright enough to light the entire attic, though it affected their candle: the flame had begun to sputter and send little sparks into the air. Presently, the center of the blue globe, no larger itself than a grapefruit, resolved itself into a picture: a window, looking out into a gloomy September evening. Focusing on a house that looked familiar.
"My house," he'd blurted. "That's my house ..." His words faded as he recognized the boy sitting on the porch, the car pulling up and himself getting out, Mr. Packer helping him with his knapsack. This was not his house anymore. Betty lived near his new house.
"How did you ... how did you see this?" he asked.
"Shhh," she'd said, and the picture in the globe took on what little color that dark evening had carried. He'd unlocked the door, run inside, Ben waiting outside as his first cry of, 'Mom, I'm home ... !' had echoed in the now-empty foyer. He'd dropped his pack and run through every room, more frantic with every step. He knew he'd been yelling 'Mommy?! Where are you!?' and the realization that Ben was on the front steps sent a spike of shame from his balls to his heart. But maybe he was in the wrong house? Maybe it was all a mistake. He returned to the front door to find Ben. He checked the house number, he looked around at the neighborhood: it was all as he knew it should be.
In the globe of light, they saw him run in. They saw Ben watching, waiting, dressed in rugged travel clothes but wearing, oddly, a yellow rain slicker and hat over it. Ben never looked around, standing now. Patient.
When he comes outside, they speak for a moment after he has looked around. He sits down, tears unavoidable. Ben sits next to him. After a time, Ben says something. He turns to Ben, his tears sliding into a scowl of disbelief.
They'd watched the conversation from a distance, through a window, through a globe, Talmadge and Betty -- Leah -- in the oddly lit attic as her mother put the finishing touches on the best -- and last -- Halloween party he'd ever attended.
The two boys head off together, both wearing knapsacks -- the one returning from a journey, the other only just beginning -- and the bubble bursts, a flash of blue light, shadows leaping high as the attic returns to darkness lit by a single stub of candle in an old saucer.
"Betty --"
"Leah," she'd corrected.
"Leah. Right. Sorry," he'd mumbled, abashed. He had looked her directly in the eyes, quiet for a moment before asking, "How did you do that?"
"It's one of the reasons we're being looked for," she'd whispered. "Now tell me, Tal: what did he say?"
He is snapped back to the present by another howl, from the South again, closer this time. Nothing like the keening, shrieking howls of these creatures amassing on the hillock to the North of them. The howl from the South sends a susurration of alarm through the creatures; they begin looking around, suspicion clear in their torn, half human faces. The horses calm, but only a little.
"If we kill them, they eat each other and get stronger," the husband says. "We were not aware of that."
"Do we have any ammunition that may work better?" the wife asks, bow drawn taut again, the point of her razor-sharp arrow never wavering.
They are silent. There is nothing. Then it hits him, bubbling up from within the memory of that Halloween night, in 1946. The thing that had come in to their party, the thing that had come through.
Friday, July 19, 2013
NFTF: Miss Leocadia's Fortunate Juju Hoodoo Show, Part V
FORTUNA: Holy Mother of God!
Professor Zingiber: Ah, yes: I can see that I startled you. But perhaps you can assist me in rescuing Magister Py?
SFX: Moans, squishing earth, mud.
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ...
Professor Zingiber: Oh, dear. It would appear that we've awakened the guard dogs.
FORTUNA: Who are you?! Where did you come from?!
Miss Leo: Zombies? Really?
MOANING VOICES: ... moan ...
Professor Zingiber: I am Professor Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Zingiber, and I think it in our best interest to skedaddle with alacrity.
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ... moan ...
FORTUNA: Let's go!
SFX: Two sets of retreating footsteps, running.
MUSIC: Banjo ba-ding-dang-dang!
ANNOUNCER: Meanwhile, on the other side of the house ...
YOKOHAMA: Most mysterious. This lock made entirely of noodle. What key for unlocking noodle lock?
Spandau: Oh my God ...
Miss Leo: It's better than pre-Romero zombies behaving like Romero zombies.
YOKOHAMA: Should I hit lock with rock?
Spandau: Not by much.
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ...
YOKOHAMA: Oh, hello honored undead visitors. Can you tell me what rock breaks lock?
MUSIC: Banjo ba-dang-dang-ding!
ANNOUNCER: And on the darker side ...
Miss Janelle: Did he just say that?
MOANING VOICES: ... moan ... moan ... brains ...
PEARLY WISDOM: Nah-ah, y'all betta keep back, now! Pearly got some Southern Dis-Comfort she about to throw down!
SFX: Two sets of running footsteps, approaching.
FORTUNA: Any luck, Pearly?
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ... moan ...
PEARLY: Nah, them zombified nasties come up outta the ground 'fore I could even shake a rattle. Hey -- who dat? He fine.
MOANING VOICES: ... moan ... groan ...
Miss Leo: Help the Professor!
FORTUNA: This is the Professor. I think we can help him.
PEARLY: I'd like ta help him outta that vest and those nice-fittin' pants ...
Miss Janelle: Good Lord ...
MOANING VOICES: ... moan ... groan ... brains ...
Miss Leo: Please, for the love of God, get on with it!
FORTUNA: No time for that now, they're everywhere!
PEARLY: I'm with you, honeychile: let's high-tail it for the Japster!
SFX: Three sets of running footsteps, retreating.
MUSIC: Banjo and harmonica ba-dang-ding-dang!
ANNOUNCER: Friends, let's take a moment for a nice, relaaaaaxing puff on America's Favorite: Fandango Jimijam's Healthful Tonic, the Cough-less Cigarette.
SFX: Match striking, lighting cigarette, puff-puff, inhalation, exhalation, "Aaaahhh ..."
ANNOUNCER: Yes, Fandango Jimijam's Healthful Tonic, the Cough-less Cigarette is recommended by doctors and movie stars everywhere. Even writers love it. Why, here's celebrated macabre playwright Cadwall H. Wearde!
WEARDE: Hello there!
ANNOUNCER: Mr. Wearde, can you tell us why you love smoking Fandango Jimijam's Healthful Tonic Cigarettes?
WEARDE: You know, I can't.
ANNOUNCER: You can't? What on earth do you mean?
WEARDE: That's just it, Mr. Trinculo: I have no idea why I love smoking these cigarettes so much. Even the name, Fandango Jimijam, it just gets my salivary glands working every time I hear it. Mmm. Fandango ... Fandango Jimijam ... the perfect companion at the movies or in an elevator or even sitting with the kids, right after dinner. Why, just the other day, do you know what happened?
ANNOUNCER: I certainly don't. Why don't you tell us?
WEARDE: Why, I dreamed I was smoking in my writing studio. And every puff was full of that Imported Kentucky savor, do you know what I mean?
ANNOUNCER: I certainly do.
WEARDE: And when I woke up, why, do you know where I was?
ANNOUNCER: No, I don't.
WEARDE: Well -- neither does my wife, and I'm not telling.
ANNOUNCER: [Laughing.] Oh, my! Well, that's just it, folks: Fandango Jimijam is the Cough-less Cigarette, and it's also the Cigarette for the Man's Man.
WEARDE: And that's me: bookish, tweedy --
ANNOUNCER: [Laughing, smiling] All right, Mr. Wearde. You can go now.
WEARDE: But don't you see? That's just it. I can't go. I can't go anywhere. I only exist in these commercials. I'm trapped. And these cigarettes ... they haunt me.
ANNOUNCER: Oh, come now ...
WEARDE: I'm not kidding. Every room I enter, every place I eat. There's always a sign, always a pack. It's almost ... supernatural. It's as though they are taking revenge on me. But for what? What have I done? What have I done?!
ANNOUNCER: Ehrm ... well, now --
WEARDE: I didn't mean to leave them there! I didn't mean to abandon those girls!
ANNOUNCER: Phil, can we cut him off -- ?
WEARDE: I couldn't help it, I had a deadline and their father, their father, that -- monster -- he, he had an axe. I was trying to make them safe, don't you see? I was trying to save them from their monstrous father and their mother's dark witchcraft! LOCKING THEM IN THAT ICE SHED WAS MY ONLY CHOICE! HOW WAS I TO KNOW THERE WERE BITING CLOWNSPIDERS WAITING TO LAY EGGS IN THEIR EYEBALLS?!?!
ANNOUNCER: Mr. Wearde, what on earth are you talking about?!
WEARDE: I'm talking about my new Radio Drama, The Ice Shed, premiering at this time on this station, one week from tonight!
SFX: Thundrous Applause.
ANNOUNCER: Wonderful! Wonderful. We'll see you next week, Mr. Wearde, courtesy of Fandango Jimijam's Healthful Tonic, the Cough-less Cigarette. And now, folks, let's get back to Madame Fortuna and her Harrowing Hexologists -- when last we saw them, they were being pursued by a small army of the undead outside a dilapidated old house in the Township of Zephyrtown, California, in the company of a foreign professor who isn't in our script. At all.
MUSIC: Banjo, harmonica ba-ding-ding-dang!
ANNOUNCER: To be clear, that means YOU, Professor Zingiber. Your time is almost up.
ANNOUNCER: To be clear, that means YOU, Professor Zingiber. Your time is almost up.
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ...
Miss Leo: This is maddening! Where is Magister Py?
FORTUNA: Who is Magister Py?
MOANING VOICES: ... moan ...
Professor Zingiber: He's the man we're here to save.
FORTUNA: Well, we're here to save Mister Maxwell, Prince Edwardian and the Lady V. So if that interferes with your plans --
PEARLY WISDOM: Don't look now, Madame Fortuna, but them dead-n-uglies is gettin' closer by the second!
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ... moan ... brains ...
FORTUNA: Well, we're here to save Mister Maxwell, Prince Edwardian and the Lady V. So if that interferes with your plans --
PEARLY WISDOM: Don't look now, Madame Fortuna, but them dead-n-uglies is gettin' closer by the second!
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ... moan ... brains ...
Miss Leo: Professor Zingiber! Can you hear me?!
MOANING VOICES: ... moan ... groan ...
PEARLY WISDOM: Hurry up, Captain Chopsticks!
PEARLY WISDOM: Hurry up, Captain Chopsticks!
YOKOHAMA: Ah! I have it! Key for noodle lock not rock!
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ...
FORTUNA, PEARLY, Professor: What is it?!
YOKOHAMA: Chopstick!
Miss Leo: Good God, will it ever end ... ?
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ...
SFX: Doorknob rattling, chopstick in lock, CLICK, door creaking open.
FORTUNA: Good work, Yokohama! Let's go!
PEARLY WISDOM: Bout time he did somethin' right!
MOANING VOICES: ... groan ... moan ...
SFX: Many running footsteps.
SFX: Door closes.
MOANING VOICES: ... brains ...
SFX: Zombies thumping against door.
MUSIC: Banjo, harmonica sting.
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: Whisper, whisper, laughing voices all deride your weaker choices.
SFX: Twinkling, grinding, cutting.
Magister Py: [groan, labored breathing]
SFX: Running footsteps approaching.
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: What is coming, who approaches? Let them fill with hot cockroaches.
SFX: Door slamming open, breaking off hinges.
PEARLY WISDOM: Not so fast, Ol' Creeper!
SFX: Liquid splashing.
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: Aaaaaaarrrghhh! My eyes!
Professor Zingiber: Well done, Pearly!
PEARLY WISDOM: Tha's some Hoyt's Cologne, how you like it in the face, bitch?!
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: Screaming ouchers, painful vouchers! [Mysterious Voice continues muttering underneath all that follows.]
Miss Leo: Magister Py! Can you hear me?!
FORTUNA: Magister Py! Can you hear me?!
Magister Py: Miss ... Leo ... ?
Professor Zingiber: I can hear you, Miss Leo! We must be at the heart of whatever dark vortex has engulfed this town!
Miss Leo: We'll need everything you've got to get him out of there -- if only we had more help --
SFX: POOF!
Doc: Syzygium Aromaticum!
PEARLY WISDOM: Who dat?
Miss Leo: Dr. H.?!
Doc: Wha-wha-wha-what, now?
FORTUNA: Are you all ... Practicioners?
Professor Zingiber: Yes, now, stand back because --
SFX: POOF! POOF!
Madamiana: ... of the Goddess!
Edward Teacher: ... sure Dr. H. will be right back ... um ...
YOKOHAMA: By the light of my brightly-shining Ancestors ... !
[Whispering. Laughter. Static.]
Miss Leo: Madamiana? Edward Teacher? Everyone! Join Hands around Magister Py!
Professor Zingiber: Miss Leo! I cannot see the face of the Mysterious Voice who was torturing Magister Py! He stands in one corner, and all corners -- behind plants, obscured by furniture --
Miss Leo: Can anyone see him clearly?
ALL, variously: No. / Nope. / Not at all!, etc.
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: Now you've come to someone's ending, bending for to break the sum;
Miss Leo: Don't let him finish!
Professor Zingiber: We've all joined hands!
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: Multiple divisions rending, subtractors invited: come.
SFX: Floorboards shattering, breaking.
MOANING VOICE: ... brains ... brains ...
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: Magister will speak of quaking, Py will open up the way: let him now release the breaking date this state will float away!
Miss Leo: Now, Rev. Tal! Now!
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: Leocadia is shaking, none escape my darkling lure, or taking all your souls for baking I am Reinblatt the Obscu --
<< \\ transmission |::| interrupted \\ >>
<< \\ transmission |::| interrupted \\ >>
[Transcriber's Note: Sound unlike any that has ever been heard through any traditional radio leaps forth: described variously as the sound of sunlight, of Angelic Redemption, of all things Good and of Happiness Unbound. All listeners via traditional radio report strange programs and impossible concerts picked up only by that radio ever after (a woman in Santa Cruz, California, swears she has heard KQED broadcast a one-night-only Beatles Reunion concert -- in 2013); listeners via Internet report the transformation of their computer's functionality; it is known that this date marks the advent of the Beneware movement, the secret and untraceable spreading of programs which destroy spam and malware wherever they go. Regardless of China's accusations, no Beneware program has ever been found, identified or traced. No government or group has ever taken credit. To this day, an unresolved matter. It is possible that in the where and when of the reader, none of this has occurred. It is also possible that a great deal more has occurred. Miss Leocadia's Fortunate Juju Hoodoo Company does not take credit for any of this, we are a curio company only. Now, back to you irregularly scheduled programming:]
<< |::| transmission \\ restored |::| >>
MUSIC: Hoobajoo Waltz
Miss Leo: Well now, it looks like we're just about out of time. And, possibly, out of trouble. Magister Py, how you doin', hon?
Magister Py: I ... am going to need some rest.
Miss Leo: Well, Spandau and myself are hopping in the car and heading over there as soon as we're off the air. Are our friends still there with you?
Magister Py: Oh, yes. Professor Zingiber, Dr. H., Edward Teacher and Madamiana are even now checking the boundaries of my property and setting some lights ...
Miss Leo: Honey, you sound wiped. Miss Janelle, let's put this baby to bed.
Miss Janelle: Thank you, Miss Leocadia. And we've come to the end of another Fortunate Juju Hoodoo Show, brought to you each week by the Fortunate Juju Trinket Company, deep in the clever redwoods of Trevarno, California -- the town that time forgot -- and online at FortunateJuju.com, and by Holy Mole Ministries, the Itinerant Chapel of Traveling Medicinal Sauces -- available at any number of mysterious crossroads you may encounter -- and on the web at HolyMole.com. I'm your host, Miss Janelle, of Compass Rose Chapel in Humboldt Wells, Nevada, and online at CompassRoseChapel.com. Listen to us live, each week, as our co-hosts, Miss Leocadia of Fortunate Juju Trinket Company, located in Trevarno, California, and Magister Pythagoras, of MagisterPythagoras.com, located in Suisun City, California, are joined by a Special Guest to help clear the bats from your belfry and the bells from your bathouse.
[Miss Leo laughs loudly at this]
Miss Janelle (cont.): And be sure to join us again next week, when our Special Guest will be ... Professor Zingiber, from RARE, Readers and Rootworkers Extraordinaire! Until then, stay healthy, get wealthy, and be stealthy! Bye!
Miss Leo: Good night everyone. Py, you hold tight, we're on our way.
Spandau: G'night, everyone.
<< \\ transmission |::| ended 17:01:45 \\ >>
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