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There Aint No Justice 100
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| There Ain't No Justice |
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| #100 |
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INTRODUCTION
Welcome to TANJ #100!
This issue has been a long while in the making, and includes stories written
by several authors, new and old. A couple of the stories are installments, and
will be completed in future issues.
Any attempt at sorting these issues by author, or time of submission has been
overlooked; as this is the first issue I ever had a "hard" release date for,
when it came right down to it, I hadn't the time. Deal with it. <g>
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
Red Wings
by Metonymous Bosch
...They were all pretty drunk, that bunch of biker wannabees that hung out in
my bar. Between their obnoxious behavior and the lateness of the hour, all the
other patrons had left. Their table was littered with beer pitchers,
half-eaten sandwiches, cigarette butts, and less savory debris. But at least
it gave me a chance to finish my own supper, between their calls for more
beer. I chewed the last bite of a microwaved sausage-and-pepper hero as I
delivered yet another pitcher to their table.
"But only the *toughest* Hell's Angels earn their 'red wings'. You know what
that means?" said Allen. He was the bigmouth, and alcohol just increased his
bluster.
"No, but you're gonna tell us anyway," said Dan. Dan was the drunkest of the
bunch. "So tell us already."
"Well, you gotta get one of the biker bitches who's on the rag. Then you go
down on her until she comes. She's gotta really be bleedin', and she's gotta
swear she didn't fake it or nothin' when she comes."
"Aahh, that's not tough. Just go down on some bitch till she comes? Why do the
Angels think this is so tough?" demanded Dan.
"She's got the curse, see. She's on the rag. Bleedin'. It's really disgusting.
Most guys puke when they try it."
"Does it disqualify you if you puke?"
"Nope. Just as long as you make her come. Then they take like Air Force wings
and paint 'em red, and you wear 'em pinned on your colors. Shows all the other
Angels how tough you are."
"Well, it still don't sound so tough to me," said Dan, taking a swig of beer.
"I bet I could do it. I bet I wouldn't even puke."
"Oh, yeah? I'd like to see you prove it!" sneered Allen.
"Well, you don't see any biker bitches hangin' with us, do ya?" said Dan. "But
if we had some women here, I'd show ya!"
Of *course* these losers had no women hanging out with them. No woman in her
right mind would want any of them. I felt nothing but contempt for the whole
bunch. But, as it happened, I was at that very moment menstruating. On a
sudden, perverse whim, I stepped out from behind the bar and said, "You're on,
Dan. Prove to the guys how tough you really are."
"Suzie! Suzie the barmaid! You really on the rag, Suzie?" To answer them, I
reached under my skirt and pulled out a blood-dripping tampon. I dropped it
into Dan's half-empty beer glass as the group made rude noises. "Okay, Dan..."
I pulled up my skirt and lay back on an empty table, my bleeding crotch near
the edge. Dan knelt in front of me as I spread my legs wide. His face went
pale as he got a whiff of the menstruous odor, and his buddies jeered. I
smiled to myself; what a pathetic bunch of posers! In a jokey voice I said,
"Go ahead...make me come."
I didn't think Dan could make me come with three vibrators and a truckload of
spare batteries. I felt nothing but contempt, verging on loathing, for this
drunken lout. He'd never win his "red wings", but I could humiliate him as he
tried.
Hesitantly, Dan licked at my crotch. He gagged slightly, and his pals jeered
him again. He steadied himself and started to establish a sort of rhythm,
licking mainly at my clit. I was surprised to find myself actually beginning
to feel aroused. Of course, his technique was terrible, but the notion of how
I was degrading and humiliating him added to my excitement. Then, in a moment
of bravery, he stuck his tongue right into my cunt. His buddies' cheers
drowned out his faint retching noises.
"Hey, Suzie, are you about to come?" yelled Allen. "Not even close!" I replied
truthfully. I was beginning to enjoy the perverted situation, though. I had
the power to make this man look stupid in front of his companions. And they
didn't realize how stupid they ALL were in the first place.
Dan licked me some more, concentrating mainly on my clit, which must have been
a little less disgusting for him. It was a LOT more stimulating for me,
though, and eventually even this crowd of louts noticed; I was sweating, my
breathing was uneven, and I had begun to move my hips against the hardwood
table. I lifted my head and called to Dan, "Stick your tongue in my cunt
again. I want you to tongue-fuck me."
Dan did his best to comply, but he started to gag and retch again. The guys
laughed at him. He took a couple of deep breaths, and tried putting his tongue
in me again. I writhed, not faking anything at all.
"Finish her off, Dan!" shouted Allen. I thrust my pelvis into his face. He
retched, harder this time, but stuck his tongue in as deep as it would go. I
felt the sensations beginning inside my lower abdomen; as the muscles began to
contract, the onions and peppers from my sandwich made their presence known in
a huge, uncontrollable fart.
That was more than Dan could take. With an agonized belching sound, he heaved
and started to vomit. And that was more than *I* could take. As Dan
regurgitated my own blood and mucus, mixed with used beer and pizza, all over
my crotch and thighs and belly, I came. My spasms were synchronized with his
heaves. Finally, he had nothing left to puke up, and he knelt there retching
dryly. I regained my composure enough to look down at him. Nobody said
anything for a few moments.
"Uh, I guess Dan won his 'red wings'," said Allen.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
The Tattoo
by Laura Lemay
copyright (c) 1992 Laura Lemay
(permission granted to TANJ to re-publish)
Ellen was nearly finished with her third drink when she noticed the man in
black. He was standing by the edge of the dance floor, watching the crowd with
a bored expression. The crowd deserved his disdain; for an underground
nightclub, there were certainly a lot of normal-looking people at Shades of
Midnight tonight. Ellen had been on the prowl all night, and had been
decidedly unimpressed with the variety of men she had seen. Until now. She put
down her glass and turned to Tamara, prodding her on the shoulder to get her
attention.
"What do you think of that one?" she asked, leaning close so her voice could
be heard over the blast of the music. She pointed through the crowd where the
man was standing
"Oooh, definitely do-able," Tamara replied, nodding. "And just your type,
too."
"Who's this?" Andrew, the third at their table, asked. "Who are we talking
about?"
"The longhair in the corner. Black jacket, black pants," Tamara replied,
gesturing with her cigarette to the figure Ellen had just pointed out. "Ellen
wants him."
Ellen put on an mock expression of indignance. "I only pointed him out, I
didn't say I wanted him."
"Just your type," Andrew affirmed, as the man took a long drink from a bottle,
completely oblivious to thier observations. "Long hair, black clothes,
earrings. Yup. Ten bucks says you wants him."
"Ah, but you don't know if he's tattooed," Tamara noted as Ellen opened her
mouth to protest.
"True," Andrew demurred. "Five bucks."
"Sucker's bet," Tamara said, refusing Andrew's outstretched hand.
"Cut that out," Ellen laughed. She had obviously spent far too many nights in
nightclubs with these two; they knew her taste in men all too well. Although
she had to admit her taste was all too predictable; to give Andrew credit, the
mysterious man in black had most of the characteristics she looked for in
fresh meat.
"Well?" Tamara asked, nudging her with her arm. "If you don't get a move on,
some other sweet young goth thing'll steal him away from you, and I'll have to
listen to you bitch all the way home."
"Wait, the song's ending," Ellen protested. "And besides, he sees me. I have
time."
Ellen took her time in approaching the man in black. For almost three songs
she watched him as she had a fourth drink, watched him as he danced a little
bit, danced with the showy air of someone who knows they are being watched. He
had most definitely seen her in the corner, watching him; even though he was
positioned on the dance floor at the opposite cornber of the room, he peered
at her through the spaces in the crowd. Ellen felt herself flushing with drink
and with the attention; she loved this game of tease and reply, of hide and
seek.
All the while Tamara and Andrew made fun of her for not getting up from her
chair, but she shushed them. The crowning glory in Andrew's and Tamara's
evening came when the man removed his jacket after dancing to a particularly
hard and fast song, revelealing his bare chest underneath. Covering the front
of his upper torso, and snaking over his shoulders and around his sides, was a
single, huge, tattoo. Andrew and Tamara practically crowed with glee.
"Ten bucks," Andrew reiterated his bet. Tamara merely gave him a sarcastic
look.
"What is it of?" Ellen asked, peering through the darkness as the man wove
between the dancers in his own rhythm. "I can't see clearly from here."
"Its some sort of monster, I think." Tamara said. "I can see claws,
and....eyes."
"Its beautiful work," Andrew commented. Of the three of them, Andrew was the
resident tatoo expert and owner of five of his own. He was on a first name
basis with most of the artists in the city. "I don't think I've seen so many
gradations of purple blended like that before...."
Tamara snorted. "Leave it to Andrew to provide a running commentary on the
artistic qualities of punker tattoos."
"Oh, its ok," Ellen said, relishing the chance for the teasing to turn to
someone other than herself. "You know how Andrew gets sometimes --"
"Holy shit." Andrew abruptly said, sitting upright in the chair. Tamara and
Ellen turned to face him. "What?" Andrew's gaze was riveted upon the tattoo.
"Thats a Mark Killock. I'd swear it, its his work." Andrew leaned even
further foreward, trying to get a better view through the lights and the
darkness. "Shit, I never thought I'd see one."
"Who's Mark Killock?" Ellen asked.
"A tattoo artist, obviously." Tamara replied. Andrew looked sharply back at
the two of them. "Not just any tattoo artist. Mark Killock is one of the very
best tatoo artists...his work is incredible. That tat is just his style, the
colors, the blending, and the subject matter...."
"Its delicious." Ellen commented, grinning, standing up and adjusting her
short skirt over her thighs. "He's mine."
"Don't look so worried," Tamara commented after a pause, reaching out a hand.
"Ellen will be fine. You know her, she likes dangerous-looking longhaired
boys."
Andrew shook his head. "I was just thinking about that tattoo."
"Is it that special?"
"I've heard some really wild rumors about Mark Killock," Andrew replied,
looking at Tamara mysteriously. Tamara laughed at him, taking his hands in
hers as if to reassure him. "Ellen can take care of herself."
Ellen was pleased with hwo the night was progressing. When she had started
dancing the man had ignored her, but he had been watching her the whole time.
When this song had started he had given her his undivided attention. One more
song and she would be sure. The music pounded in her ears as she swayed back
and forth, and the man in front of her mimicked her movements, watching her
with black eyes that radiated lust and made her breathe faster even before he
had even touched her. And here on the dance floor, with the lights, Ellen
could get a better view of the tattoo.
It was a shapeless monster of a tattoo that seemed to writhe as its owner
moved. It appeared to have dozens of tenacles, tentacles that ended in claws,
claws that were tinged with dark blood at the ends. It had no head, this
monster, but it had eyes, thousands of them, greenish purple eyes over the
exapanse of its gelatinous body that seemed to look straight at Ellen while
she danced. Its mouth, in the center of its body, was ringed with teeth in
rows, sharks' teeth. The creature was purple, varying shades of purple that
reflected and glistened in the light, almost like scales. It was a repugnant
picture, and Ellen could not fathom why anyone would want it painted
permanently on thier skin. But at the same time she had to agree with Andrew
that the work was fantastic. It was hard to believe that any single needle had
crafted the lines and blended the inks so perfectly that you could not tell
where one shade of purple ended and another one began. Reaching out playfully,
Ellen ran a finger down the center of the man's chest, right over the
creature's mouth. The man's shest was smooth and hairless, with nothing to
break up the lines of the tattoo. Beautiful. "Do you like it?" the man
mouthed to her as he danced.
"Yes," she nodded admirably.
"He likes you too," the man smiled at her, and Ellen smiled back. Bingo, she
thought. She had made her conquest.
Later on Ellen approached Tamara and Andrew, who had moved to the upstairs bar
where the music was quieter. "So whats up? Progress?" Tamara said as Ellen
approached thier table again.
"Oh, yes," Ellen said, smiling. "We're leaving."
"Have a good time," Andrew commented. It was ritual that made him say that;
Ellen always had a good time.
The man approached Ellen from behind, wearing the discarded leather jacket
over his bare skin once again. He reached out and took the back of Ellen's
neck in the other. Andrew looked uneasily from the hand to the man's face; he
looked like he could close his fist and snap her neck with barely a thought.
"Ready?" the man asked, as Ellen took her jacket and purse from the chair
where Tamra had put them.
"Yes," Ellen said, nodding politely to the pair, and turning to leave.
"Excuse me," Andrew suddenly asked. Ellen and the man stopped and turned back
to the table. Andrew motioned to the tattoo with his chin. "Is that a Mark
Killock?"
The man looked at Andrew, and his eyes pierced the darkness as if a light was
shining behind them. "Yes," he replied. "It is."
"Are the rumors true?" Andrew asked, his voice straining to remain causal.
Tamara could feel the tension behind it in the air. "The rumors about the
rituals...?"
The man laughed, once, a short laugh that showed only in his mouth. "Of course
not," he replied, taking Ellen by the shoulder and guiding her away from the
table. Ellen waved back as she left, grinning.
Tamara waited until the couple was out of sight before turning to face Andrew.
"Rituals?" she demanded, eyebrows raised, "what rituals?"
"Its just rumor." Andrew shrugged, watching at the doorway where the two of
them had vanished. "I've heard a lot of rumors about Mark Killock's work..
wierd satanic shit."
Tamara waited several seconds for Andrew to continue and when he did not,
asked, "what sort of satanic shit?"
Andrew shrugged again, reluctant to continue. "Mark Killock tattoos demons."
"I'll say," Tamara stated. "That creature was horrible --"
"That not what I mean. I don't mean that he tattooes pictures of demons; he
tattoos the demons themselves." He took a pause as Tamara absentmindedly let
the ash fall from her cigarrette onto the floor. "Its just rumor," he finally
continued, when he realized he had said too much to just let it drop. "I've
heard that just finding Mark Killock is a test; you have to be really
determined to want to find him. It's not like he tattoos in any shops. Then
once you find him if you want to get tattooed by him you have to go through
years of training, to prove yourself, before he lets you go through the
rituals. And the rituals are the wierdest part. I've heard claims that during
the ritual, black magic draws out demons from your soul. Usually the worst
kinds of demons. The magic enslaves them and then Killock tattoos the demon
itself into your skin."
There was a long pause, and then Tamara took a long drag on her cigarrette and
laughed. "Do you actually believe all that shit? Thats major twilight zone
stuff...Personal demons, exorcised from the body and painted into the skin.
Ooooh," she laughed, waving her hands about in the air in front of her.
Andrew looked over at her almost angrily, grasping one of her hands in his.
"Does it really matter if I believe it or not, or even if its true or not? The
point is that if someone goes through the trouble to get tattooed by Mark
Killock, he very probably believes it himself. Regardless of the validity of
the rumors, Ellen has just gone home with a man who believes that he has
enslaved his own personal demon under his skin. And thats what worries me."
Ellen laughed as they walked to his apartment, feeling drunk and silly, and
loving the feel of a new man in her arms. They weaved haphazardly down the
sidewalk, occasionally taking breaks in the dark sections to grope each other.
Inside the building, he stopped her abruptly in the hallway outside his door
and shoved her up against the wall, one hand tangled in her hair, forcing her
head back to kiss her, hard, and the bit at her neck. Ellen pushed her hands
up under his jacket, gasping at the naked skin on his back. She gasped when he
hurt her. Then as suddenly as he had grabbed her, he let her go, standing
aside and reaching for the keys in his pocket. She had to press her hands up
against the wall to keep her balance, t keep from collapsing in a heap on the
floor. Lustfully she eyed him as he unlocked the door and gestured
chivalrously into the apartment.
She giggled when he locked the door behind her and pulled her directly to the
wide futon in the middle of the small studio. He pushed her onto the bed, and
took off his jacket in the dark, dropping it absentmindedly on a chair. "Get
undressed," he commanded her, turning away from her and moving about in the
room. Ellen did as she was told, watching him in the half light as he lit
candles around the bed. In the flickering of the yellow light the tattoo on
his chest moved with the muscles in his body as if it were alive. "Come to
bed," she said, impatient.
"In a bit." he said, ignoring her as he finished with the candles. It seemed
like an hour before he finally put down the matches and climbed onto the bed
next to her. She gasped as his body covered her, gasped as his teeth bit into
her neck and her breasts. "Oh," she said, once, and he leaned over her, his
hands on either side of her shoulders, the demon on his chest fully displayed
by the light of the dozens of tiny flames around the room. "Oh," she said,
again, finding herself drawn to stare at the work on the skin a few inches
before her face. It was moving in the light. The clawed tentacles undulated
towards her and the mouth appeared to open and close, dripping black saliva as
it did. The demon's eyes looked down at her body in lust and hunger, and Ellen
found she could not take her eyes away from them.
"Oh," she said, a third and final time, as the man bent his arms and crushed
her body beneath his.
"She's not home," Andrew said, holding the receiver against his ear with one
shoulder. "I'm telling you, she's not home."
"Well then where the hell is she?" Tamara asked. "She never misses Fridays."
"Maybe she has a new guy," Andrew shrugged as the phone rang over and over
again in his ear. "Maybe she's out with him. You know her."
"She would never miss a Friday at Shades," Tamara insisted. "Never."
"When was the last time you talked to her?" Andrew asked, giving up and
hanging up the phone.
"Same time you did," she replied. "Wednesday, when she went home with that guy
with the tattoo. He's probably murdered her, dismembered her body in the
bathtub and poured acid over it to get rid of the evidence."
Andrew smiled, once. "And you claim that I have a vivid imagination." Then
looked worried. "I woulnd't put it past him. He does have a Mark Killock,
after all. The type of people who get Mark Killock's tattoos are hardly the
type who are into normalcy in any way shape or form. And I didn't like that
guy to start with."
Tamara suddenly leaned close and pointed. "We could ask him." she said, her
voice low. "Thats him over there."
He was standing by the bar, wearing the same battered leather jacket as
before, once again bare-chested underneath it. The creature on his chest
seemed much less frightening than when it was fully exposed. In the full
flourescent light of the upper bar, it looked almost like a regular tattoo.
Andrew and Tamara watched him for a while as he ordered a shot of something
dark and sludgy looking, and swallowed it effortlessly. "Go ask him," Andrew
said, nudging at her arm. He didn't admit that he was slightly afriad to ask
himself.
"OK, I will," Tamara took the challenge. Andrew watched as she pushed through
the people standing around in her path, watched as she walked boldly up to the
man and talked to him. Andrew could not hear thier conversation, but the man
looked puzzled when she asked. Tamara made motions that were obviously a
description; about this tall, longish hair. The man looked at her, and a slow
languid smile spread across his face. He leaned over towards her, and Tamara
seemed transfixed by her voice. The man's lips just touched her ear, and he
whispered something to her. Tamara blinked, once, and then turned pale. <p>
Andrew pushed himself away from the wall, ready to jump in if Tamara was being
threatened. What was going on? Tamara took a step back, blinking, and the man
leaned back and turned back to the bar, waving at the bartender with
authority, that smile still stuck on his face.
Tamara stood stock still for nearly a minute, and Andrew was just about to go
up to her to see if she was all right when she turned and bolted for the door,
one hand pressed up against her mouth. Andrew paused, debating whether to
confront the man, or run after Tamara. He chose to run after her, following
her outside. He called her name as she stumbled along the sidewalk, chasing
her, and finally caught up to her several doors down from the club.
"Tamara." He said, grasping her shoulders, turning her towards him as she
went weak against the wall. Her expression was panicked, her eyes wide and
full of frightened tears. "Tamara, what is it? What did he tell you?"
"She -- I--" Tamara started, and gulped for air, struggling for control. "He
has her. He has her trapped."
"Wait here," Andrew said, turning back towards the club. He pushed past the
door guy, pushed through the crowds to the bar where the man with the tattoo
was still standing, talking to the bartender and looking as if nothing had
happened.
"You," Andrew said, pulling on his shoulder, spinning him to face him. "What
have you done with Ellen?"
The man stumbled a bit as he was spun, but he caught his balance and looked
coolly at his attacker, a faint air of disdain in his glance. "Ah, its you,"
he said. "I just explained it to your friend, ask her." As if that was the end
of the conversation, the man turned back to the bar. Andrew took hold of his
shoulder again, grasped the front of his leather jacket in his fist and turned
him forcibly back around again.
"She told me already. She said you had kidnapped Ellen. I want to know what
the deal is, but if you've hurt her, I'll fucking kill you right here."
The man looked into Andrew's eyes for several seconds, and then laughed again
with that faint humorless laugh. "I haven't done anything with her."
"Well, you certainly gave Tamara that impression. Why is that?"
The man pulled back, ripping his jacket out of Andrew's grasp. There was a
long pause between them as thier eyes locked. "Perhaps because I showed her
this," the man said, and pulled aside his jacket, turning slightly into the
light.
The full glory of the tattoo was displayed in the flourescent light, and
Andrew found his eyes drawn once again to the fine detail in the work,
admiring it even as he was disgusted by its subject matter. The thousands of
eyes appeared to be staring at him, almost blinking. The tentacles writhed in
the light, and then as Andrew atched it, the creature actually was moving,
rolling about on the fabric of the man's skin. And in one of its tentacles,
viciously mauled, was Ellen. Andrew stepped back, unable to pull his eyes away
from the scene. Ellen's lower body had been entirely eaten away, the remainder
cut in slashes over every inch of her skin and her hair hung in her face,
caked in her eyes with blood and slime. Andrew watched in horror as Ellen's
body turned in the creature's claws, and saw with ever mounting panic that
Ellen was still alive, that she was fully aware of what was happening to her,
and that she was screaming at him, screaming mindlessly, trapped within the
tattoo.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
Fifth Floor
by Arifel
`Twenty-five whores in the room next door
Twenty-five floors and I need more...'
Sisters of Mercy, `Vision Thing'
Tara glanced up at the facade of the building, which was fairly nondescript
for something which had sprung up in the middle of the old `Daimaru' area.
When that particular enterprise had collapsed, dozens of smaller businesses
had moved in, like jackals to the body of a lion, claiming positions in the
centre of the city that they wouldn't have ordinarily been able to afford;
this enterprise, apparently, was one of them. It was unnamed and unmarked
apart from a curious symbol over the door; two circles, the innermost with a
thin vertical oval at its centre; the outer circle was broken by curved lines
at one point, making it look like a tube wrapped around the inner circle. A
white droplet depended from the edge of the oval.
She glanced about somewhat self-consciously, steeled her nerves and then
pushed through the pair of swinging doors. It was, as Peter had said, an
R-rated magazine store, at least on the ground floor. Looking past the racks
of plastic-sealed magazines, she saw a set of steps at the back of the shop,
leading upwards. She didn't feel confident enough to explore the second floor
just yet, so she waited, browsing through the displays, checking the videos to
see if they had a copy of `House of Dreams' (one of her favourites) until
Peter showed up.
She noticed a couple coming down the steps from the second floor. She, dressed
in faded denims and a plain T-shirt, he dressed similarly (excepting the
slogan on his T-shirt: `I Belong To Her', and an arrow pointing to his left).
He was carrying a brown-paper- wrapped, pillow-sized bundle in one arm, and
supporting his companion with the other. She had a glassy expression on her
face, and as they passed by, Tara heard him mutter:
`I told you to wait, I don't know /anyone/ who's ever been above the third
floor...' She raised an eyebrow at this.
She was examining a back-issue of `Penthouse' that had Pia Zadora on the cover
(draped in an American flag) when she saw Peter out of the corner of her
peripheral vision. A young man in his late twenties, dressed in what he
considered to be the height of Gothic style (i.e., faded black `Country Road'
wear, with motorcycle boots); he wove his way through the magazine racks and
embraced her.
`I'm glad you found it,' he whispered, `It isn't advertised anywhere, and
there's no name out front.' He took her hand and led her towards the steps.
`I heard about this place from Josephine, just before she took her entourage
to Vienna; they've got some seriously strange stuff upstairs.'
`Why are we whispering?' she replied. He smiled.
`Because this is a temple. A holy place.' she smiled back patronisingly. He
led her up to the first floor.
Examining the contents of the glass-fronted display cabinets, Tara wasn't
entirely convinced of the accuracy of Peter's appraisal.
`This looks fairly vanilla to me... you can see more extreme stuff in the back
room at Club X. Remember that set of stocks you were going to buy me for my
birthday-' Peter pointed to another set of steps, leading up to the third
floor. Tara smiled, gave a final, longing look at the sets of manacles,
weighted nipple-clamps, cattle-prods and leather undergarments, and followed
him upstairs.
The third floor resembled the second, racks of magazines and videos
interspersed with display cabinets. It was only until she took a closer look
at the items on display that Tara understood what Peter had meant. She found a
well-worn, black-leather-bound catalogue with the words `Extremes' embossed in
gold on the cover. She idly leafed through it... inside were advertisements
for elaborate torture racks crafted from heavy slabs of dark wood, edged and
finished in bright chromed metal; on one page was a photograph of a set of
unusual objects which she recognised as the gynaecological-surgical implements
from the Cronenberg film, `Dead Ringers'. She felt a chill course down her
spine as she viewed the cruel, clawed metal digits. She flicked past the rest
of the items, which seemed to be mostly full-head latex hoods (which had
always reminded her of ski masks, bank robbers and Ron Hitler-Barassi of `This
Is Serious Mum'...); on the last page was a striking photograph of a hairless
gentleman dressed in a full-length leather gown. He had a deathly blue-white
pallor and an array of nails embedded in his skull. He was holding a small
box, made of dark red wood with elaborate copper inlays. She recognised it,
and smiled.
There was a television screen set into the wall, showing excerpts from a
video. It looked like some sort of chat-show, until the guest stood and took
her clothes off to reveal an astounding array of piercings and tattoo work.
She slowly turned to show off the more impressive artwork on her back while
Tara watched, absorbed.
Peter was toying with something that looked like a Nintendo Gameboy console
with a cable protruding from the back that splayed into a dozen
copper-button-tipped contacts; Peter held one in his left hand, and handed
another to Tara. She held it and looked expectantly at Peter. He leaned over,
brushed his lips against hers; she felt a tingle as a tiny electric shock
passed between them. She giggled, until Peter pointed to the console; the
`intensity' dial was set at 2, and went all the way up to 100. With a dramatic
gesture, he led her over to the stairs that led upward.
The fourth floor was much more solemn; subdued, even somewhat spooky. The
piped Muzak that was playing on the first two floors had been replaced by one
of Brian Eno's Ambient pieces. The whole scene vaguely reminded her of the
crypt which featured at the start of the second `Hellraiser' film; the
lighting was all set at ankle level, diffusing upward. The display cabinets
were arranged in a grid, spaced about three metres apart, each containing a
single object. The cabinets towards the rear of the room were taller, to
accommodate full-size costumes. She approached the nearest of the smaller
displays.
It contained an egg, smooth reflective chrome finish, about twelve centimetres
along its longest diameter, sitting on a bed of crushed red velvet. She leaned
closer to examine her distorted reflection in its surface; when she was about
two feet away, the device suddenly shifted, orienting itself towards her. She
froze; the pointed end bulged out and a ridge swept back along its length,
like a ripple in liquid mercury. This was followed by a second ripple, and a
third; more ripples followed until she backed away, whereupon the egg resumed
its original shape. She turned to look at another cabinet, and didn't see the
dozen-or-so needle-sharp spikes, each about five centimetres long, suddenly
thrust out from the body of the egg, some of them slashing holes in the red
velvet. They quivered, and then retracted into the egg.
While Peter was using a computer terminal to examine a catalogue of erotica,
she browsed, wondering at the possible uses of some of the more abstruse
items. Many of them, such as the egg, seemed designed to stimulate areas of
the female anatomy; others had more obscure functions. One device completely
baffled her; it consisted of a series of nine metal rings, mounted on the back
of something like a telephone handset, the rings set about a centimetre apart.
They varied in diameter from six centimetres at one end, down to about four at
the other; the mounting seemed designed to permit the rings to move from side
to side. It looks, she thought, like an exercise bike for a python. Thinking
this, she suddenly perceived its use; the thought bringing a wry smile to her
lips.
Her attention was then drawn to the taller cabinets at the back of the room.
The first one that she came to featured a spare sort of wire frame supporting
a full-body suit made of gleaming black latex. Reading a tiny plaque mounted
on the side of the cabinet, she learned that the design had been borrowed from
the Fremen Stillsuits featured in the film version of `Dune'. It looked, if
anything, just smaller than would comfortably fit her; she stood there
admiring the form, the lines which looked as if the suit were designed to
concentrate pressure on the perineum and around the breasts, pushing them
upwards. As she gazed in rapture, a click sounded from near the floor, and the
glass front of the cabinet slid down smoothly. Startled, she took a step back.
The wire frame suddenly moved forward, as if it was presenting the suit to her
for approval. She noted that the insides had been liberally dusted with talcum
powder. She looked around... Peter was still chuckling over the electronic
catalogue, and no-one else was in the room... she reached out and took the
suit, lifting it from the frame by the inflated, lip-shaped collar. Her hand
almost recoiled from it; the slick black surface was as warm as flesh, and had
a similar resiliency. Taking the collar in both hands, she tugged, and was
surprised at how easily and how far it stretched. She unlatched the
matte-black plastic catch at the front of the collar and slowly drew the zip
down to where it ended just above the waist. She stepped out of her sneakers,
removed her socks; quickly unbuckled her jeans, undid the fly, kicked them
off; slipped her T-shirt over her head, transferring the suit to the other
hand as she did so. After a moment's hesitation, she slid her underpants down
to her ankles and stepped out of them. Trying to make as little sound as
possible, she shook the suit out, turned it around and placed one foot inside.
It slid down the leg-hole easily, the black material comfortably stretching to
allow passage of her foot. The leg terminated in a sort of soft rubber shoe
which fit her perfectly. She drew the rest of the suit up her leg, running her
hand over the smooth black surface with her hand, and then put her other foot
in.
She drew the rest of the suit up her thighs and pulled it up around her waist,
tugging from side to side and wiggling her hips in order to seat it on her
crotch snugly. She stood there for a moment, reveling in the sensation of
rubber closed over her; after her initial stretching to accommodate her form,
it seemed to be contracting with more resistance than she had felt before.
Grasping the suit by both sides of the collar, she tugged it up and over her
shoulders, but the suit now seemed about two sizes too small. She tugged
again, more firmly, and reluctantly, the suit stretched to the point where she
could slip the collar up over her shoulders and around her neck. She zipped
the suit up at the front and re-latched the collar, running her hands down her
front, over her breasts, smoothing the suit to her warm body. The costume
still seemed to be awkwardly placed; she wriggled around, trying to peer down
her back to see if she could spot what was amiss. She bent over forwards,
straightened the material around her calves, and in moving her right leg to
get at the suit, she suddenly felt the band that ran from each shoulder to her
crotch tighten; concealed folds within the costume slid along the divide of
her buttocks, under the perineum and into her at the front. She gasped and
straightened; this action caused the folds to flutter against her with an
unusually stimulating sensation. She merely stood there for a few moments,
enjoying the feeling; then, with a small smile, she slowly walked over to the
terminal where Peter was trying to do a global search on the word `velcro'
(and finding far too many references). With each step, the suit pressed
against her and relaxed, almost like a lover's tongue. It was becoming quite
warm, and in places, she could feel the slick sweat inside lubricating the
contact between her and the latex. I'll have to take it off soon, she thought,
otherwise I'll have a terrible sweat-rash tomorrow...
She approached the terminal, put a hand on Peter's shoulder and whispered,
`How does this look?' Peter turned and did a double-take.
`I'm impressed,' he said after recovering, `very impressed. Hey, I wonder what
/this/ button does...', reaching out to press a nipple-sized contact mounted
on the waistband.
`Hey -' she exclaimed as the suit twitched. `ohmighod, I think it's /alive/!'
She stood there apprehensively while tiny tremors and contractions ran up and
down the back of the suit, squeezing her hips and behind. The sensation was so
unexpected that she turned to see if someone was standing behind and had just
decided to goose her. The twitchings ceased momentarily, and her apprehension
grew... `Um. Maybe I should take it off...'
Just then, the material at the back of the thighs contracted slightly; the
rubber just above her waistband at the front did the same, forcing her into a
semi-crouch. In panic, her hand scrabbled at the zipper-catch, but it had
retreated behind a fold of rubber which seemed to have melded into the body of
the suit. The material contracted again, more insistently; this time, she was
forced to her knees. `Peter. I think I should get this suit off. /Now/.' He
kneeled next to her and felt along the line where the zipper had been; there
was nothing but a faint seam to mark its location. The suit contracted again,
around her hips, hugging her sensually; her eyes widened and her hands
drifted, involuntarily, to her crotch. Peter tugged at the collar; it
stretched easily, until he had pulled the edge almost twenty centimetres away
from her; but as soon as he let go, it smoothly contracted until it had
resumed its original shape, fitting snugly around her throat. It wasn't tight
enough to obstruct her breathing, but she still tugged at it uneasily. Peter
took the opposite sides of the collar in his hands, tugged outward and
downward, dragging it over her shoulders. The upper section of the suit peeled
away, and snapped tight around her midriff, trapping her arms at her sides.
She struggled in a sudden panic, but Peter kept tugging until he had managed
to get it down past her hips. The suit writhed and almost crawled down her
legs, to lie in a rumpled heap around her ankles. With a tiny grimace of
distaste, she stepped out of it, and scurried back to the cabinet to fetch her
clothing.
`Are you all right?' Peter asked, the now-limp suit in one hand, held away
from his body like a possibly dangerous snake. Tara finished doing up the
fly-buttons on her jeans and sank gratefully into his embrace.
`I'm okay... is that thing dead?' he held it up, poked at it with his free
hand.
`Hard to say... i'm not sure it was alive in the first place.' Tara shuddered.
`/I/ am. Come on, let's dump it and go.' Peter frowned.
`Can you wait a bit? That terminal's doing an involved search, and it should
be finished in a few minutes...' She scowled, but nodded. He smiled and
kissed her forehead, rather patronisingly, she thought.
She strolled off to look at some of the other cabinets at the front of the
room. It was then that she noticed, in the shadows behind the stairwell rail,
another set of stairs leading up to a fifth floor. Her eyes widened; she
turned and glanced back at Peter, who was still absorbed in his search. She
peeked up the stairs, but could see nothing except a faint blue-green glow
from above. She glanced back at Peter again; he looked up briefly as her foot
touched the first step leading up. He waved and, reassured, she continued.
The fifth floor was somehow much larger than the others; it seemed to extend
for at least three blocks in all directions. It was probably some subtle
effect of the lighting, which was all blue-green ripples, as if the slippery,
waxed floor was actually a subterranean lake. The roof was supported by bare
white columns, spaced about ten metres apart.
In the centre of the room stood something that looked like an elaborate
Egyptian sarcophagus, detailed in gold and chrome. The door-shells lay open
along two hinges that ran up the back, like a book. She got closer and saw
that the inside was lined with lush, thick black velvet. She ran her hand down
the inside of the case. It felt wonderful...
She looked about again; she was alone. Smiling, she stepped into the case, and
stood with her back to the hinges, feeling the inverted shells lined with
velvet on both sides. She closed her eyes and threw her head back; there
seemed to be an indentation placed to comfortably seat the back of her head,
and another, placed lower, that she could almost sit into. She lay back in the
soft, dark embrace of the sarcophagus and imagined that she'd been buried
under a mountain of dry stone blocks and golden sand, inside this elaborate
coffin. She practised being dead; eyes closed, she breathed out, hands crossed
over her breasts. After about twenty seconds of this, she giggled and resumed
breathing.
She stood inside the shell, running her hands along the insides for almost
five minutes, admiring the sensual feel of the velvet, which seemed faintly
warm to her touch. The more contact she had with it, the more she wanted to
feel it against her skin, and it was only a matter of moments before the
decision was made to to strip naked. She did so, tossing her clothes across
the floor, and was soon leaning back into the welcoming halves of the coffin.
She pushed her head back and spread her arms; her legs, behind and lower back
seemed to find their places in the warm, dark recesses; her body sank back of
its own accord. She sighed and closed her eyes.
The faint feeling of a breeze against her naked breasts caused her to open her
eyes, only to see the twin sides of the sarcophagus closing over her. She
shouted in panic; too late, as the doors shut and her protest was muffled in
folds of thick black material. She desperately pushed her hands out to try and
stop the two halves coming together completely; to no avail... the shells
closed slowly but insistently. Just as the vertical gap of blue-green light
narrowed to a strip, then to a crack, she cried out in terror; then she was
enclosed in soft darkness.
...
The search completed, Peter looked up from the terminal. Tara wasn't in the
room, so she must have decided to explore the fifth floor. He shrugged, turned
the terminal off and climbed the steps...
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
Sunday Morning Noise
by Dava
very early sunday morning (i.e. around eight a.m.). the room is lit by
sunlight creeping around the window-shade, a dark-purple square and some low,
guttering candles on the altar. three figures are sleeping entwined in the
black sheets on the bed, zebra-like intervals of pale skin, dark sheets, more
pale skin, dark hair. at the moment, it's impossible to discern their genders.
a jet passes over, engines making the windows buzz slightly. a candle flickers
and dies.
a car pulls up outside, muffler loose and rattling, automotive emphysema. a
door opens, slams shut again; a bonnet creaks up and then the radio starts
blaring out something too distorted to identify. it has the standard dance-mix
beat; occasional samples and synth notes pop out of the fuzz, putting it just
on the annoying edge of recognition. whatever it is, it's loud enough to wake
up one of the sleepers. she slithers out from the sheets, stands and
stretches, small breasts pointing at the Giger poster above the altar, rubs
dark makeup from her eyes, brushes back gel-stiffened strands of blue-black
hair. the music from outside grows slightly louder.
she steps over stray boots, socks and underwear, sorts amongst the junk on the
altar, eventually selecting something shaped like a cordless drill. she
presses a contact on one side, and a red LED blinks.
out in the hallway, Kiril ignores her lack of clothing and tosses her a piece
of fruit that he's grown out in the back yard. she catches it in her right
hand, smiles her gratitude and bites into it, white teeth behind dark purple
lips. it has the texture of a peach, a taste somewhere between an apple and a
pear, and is packed with euphoric chemicals. no seeds. glossy dark purple,
almost black skin. she pads up the hallway to the huge front door, enters six
digits on the keypad, opens it.
the front yard is overgrown with vines, ferns, an impenetrable mass of
greenery with a tunnel cut along the path to the outside world. she blinks at
the occasional shaft of sunlight which falls on her.
outside the front gate, she can see a huge, something - a Ford? A Datsun? she
has no idea; the rear tyres are much larger than the front ones, it's painted
bright red and has a fluourescent green fuzzy dice the size of a basketball
hanging from the rear-view mirror. the music is coming from two shoebox-sized
speakers set amidst the sheepskin that lines the rear window. the bonnet, as
she would have heard had she been awake at the time, is up and a pair of legs
in acid-wash jeans terminating in elastic-sided boots is protruding from the
left-hand side of the car. the legs wave about as if the body that they belong
to is trying to undo a bolt with its teeth.
she examines the device she found on the altar. there are two unmarked dials
on the back, both of which she sets to their half-way points; she then points
it at the car and presses the trigger. it buzzes three times, a green LED
flashing above the dials; she turns it to one side, frowning, then finds the
safety catch and unlatches it.
this time when she presses the trigger, it gives off a deep hum and a faint
disturbance - almost like a sheet of heat-haze wrapped into a pencil-sized
tube - reaches from the barrel of the weapon to the side of the car. twisting
the left-hand dial makes the tube expand to the width of a toilet-tube, and
she can see faint waves streaming along the beam to where it hits the side of
the car, scratching and screaming like a dentist's drill. the bonnet falls
down, and the person connected to the legs starts shouting.
the beam moves up towards the front of the car, blows in a side window and
hits something vital inside; the radio dies. she releases the trigger and
notes that a foot-thick layer of haze has surrounded the car, which is
beginning to crackle and smoulder. the legs have stopped moving.
she backs off and watches as the car heats up, the windshield popping out like
a set of false teeth being spat, the tyres bursting, the petrol tank rupturing
and spraying flame from the back with a breathy `fooosh' sound; the upholstery
burning, the frame sagging into the softened tar of the road. the blaze seems
to be confined to the car-shaped field.
she nods and goes back inside. her companions are still asleep; she adds a
fragment of amber to the single burning candle, to cover the smell of burning
rubber, places the weapon on the altar and climbs back into bed.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- Life With Dava -
by Arifel
foursday morning. that means the home shopping delivery! food! i went over to
the wall, checked the flag - which was flashing green - and pulled open the
drawer. this time, the second and third drawers opened as well, making a bin
set into the side of our apartment about one and a half metres deep. i started
lifting out plastic bags and dumping them on the kitchen table, selecting by
feel the ones that had been refrigerated and putting them under the conical
stasis-field in the corner.
that still left a large assortment of... things. i picked up one, examined it;
a blank white waxed cardboard tetrahedron about the size of a softball, faint
raised edges spelling out alien pictograms that i could see by holding the
container up to the light, turning it from side to side, catching the shallow
shadows. i shook it; whatever was inside shifted around like a liquid. i
shrugged, took it over to the sink and punched a hole in one side with a fork,
a scratch and three small punctures leaking a thick saffron fluid which
smelled like blood. my nose wrinkled involuntarily and it went into the waste
recycler. if any of the others wanted to try them, there were five more.
there was a box which i knew had a passable copy of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese,
the blobby, oddly-shaped script on the side of the box remeniscent of Moridani
Phandric. this box and two others like it went on the shelf.
there were things like a book of raffle-tickets, five centimetres along the
spine by thirty centimetres, the leaves pale green, pulpy and edible, faint
taste of cinnamon. on the shelf.
a hexagonal-closest-packed stack of ball bearings wrapped in blue- tinted
clingfilm. that went over in the `don't know' corner with the knotted
finger-thick tubes filled with glowing white liquid, the incomprehensibly
twisted spanner set, the tin cans with non-human script and pictures of
spitted and dressed people on the labels, the package of two-dimensional
biscuits that we couldn't pick up once we'd unwrapped them, the music disks
with unreadable or incomprehensible data and pictures of six-legged animals on
their labels.
four clear plastic pencils filled with dark grey powder. i hid these in my
jacket pocket.
most of the other stuff that they'd sent us was standard, generic
non-interesting food, things we'd identified before and had been game enough
to taste; short, wide jars filled with rich, yeasty-smelling black paste,
bright orange grapes, spherical sponge-cakes, dodecahedrons filled with
slightly salty water; amidst all of this, a startlingly human-looking jar of
Nescafe Blend 43 instant coffee (the label saying that it was `MADE ON
SYNDAINE', wherever that was).
i held the jar up and shouted, `hey, everyone! COFFEE!' Peter passed by,
looked in, sniffed, grabbed some grapes and continued on down the hall. Dava
came in behind him, took the jar, unscrewed the lid and broke the seal with
her thumbnail; she inhaled and shuddered. `lovely! is there any sugar left?'
i indicated the crystalline block on the shelf with spoon-marks on one side;
she leaped at me and hugged me.
after disengaging, she sorted through the few things left on the table that i
hadn't moved into the `don't know' corner. she picked up a mirror-surfaced
forearm-sized cylinder, examined it, looked at me; i shrugged. she took it
over to the sink and gently tapped it against the edge of the waste-recycler's
mouth. there was a brief fingernails-on-blackboard screech, the mirror-surface
vanished and she was holding a roll of soft black cloth, carpet-thick. a reel
of thread had been attached to the end; it fell into the sink and she caught
it before it rolled down the waste-recycler.
for almost a minute she just stood there, rubbing a fold of the cloth between
her fingers, eyes closed, cooing. `come here and feel this.' tentatively, i
stroked it with an index finger. it felt... well, strange; very slippery,
almost frictionless in fact; warm, furry, elastic. she held up the edge and
let the rest drop, a jet-black strip half a metre wide and almost two metres
long. very black. no shadows; i'd even go as far as to say light-absorbent.
she laid it out on the table and fetched her sewing kit.
while i sat on the bench, pulling off chunks of sponge and chewing them, she
took off her jeans - faded black denim that fit her slim hips like a tight
glove - and laid them next to the strip of alien cloth. they looked dusty in
comparison.
dava turned them inside-out and took a pair of scissors to them, cutting out a
wide pinnate section starting at the base of the zip, under and between the
legs, up the back. she held them up for my examination.
`crotchless jeans. nice,' i said around a mouthful of sponge. she picked up
the alien cloth and cut out a broad hastate strip just larger than the section
she'd cut out of the denim. it took her only ten minutes to hand-sew it into
the crotch of her jeans. she took off her underpants before trying them on,
wriggling her hips as she settled into the familiar shape.
`what does it feel like?' i asked. she stood facing me, hips moving in
tentative circles, her eyes closed. she ran her hand down her behind, shivered
and then murmured,
`excuse me.' she left the room, walking slowly, the crease of alien material
riding up between her buttocks. i shook my head and made some coffee.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- Wurlitzer Love -
by Dava
A bar that bears a suspicious resemblance to the one in `Akira'; night-time.
The numbers are divided, unevenly, between Goths (few) and members of a social
sub-group known (in australia) as Bogans (many).
A word about Bogans to those unfamiliar with them: citified, urban red-necks,
they wear tight blue jeans; tartan flannel over t-shirts advertising beer;
moccasins. They will have a packet of cigarettes tucked into the rolled-up
t-shirt sleeve. Their musical tastes encompass such innovative and
ground-breaking acts as Cold Chisel, AC-DC, the whole Guns 'n' Jovi thing.
They drive overpowered Holdens and Fnords and have no intellectual pursuits
beyond ridiculing Goths.
The place is quiet except for the drunken hoots of the Bogans. A gaggle of
them stagger over to the juke-box. It's one of those modern computer-based
things, a rounded column about the width of those old Esso petrol-pumps,
smooth unmarked plastic the colour of old bronze. A list of available songs
scrolls past at chest height, yellow text on blue.
The Bogans jabber excitedly, pointing out tracks by Jimmy Barnes, The Angels,
Rose Tattoo; their voices die down slowly as their spare processing capability
is taken up with the task of figuring out how to work the juke-box. There
aren't any coin slots, no swipe-card recess; no buttons, dials, switches,
contact-pads, not even a grill for a voice-recognition system.
Half the group grow more excited at the list of songs and the other half grow
more exasperated at their inability to get the thing to play any of them. One
particularly drunken specimen kicks the machine; the glowing screen flickers
and fades. They give a ragged cheer and go back to the bar for more beer.
A young Goth girl - floor-length black dress, lace panel over her cleavage,
black lipstick, white face, kohl-darkened eyes with eyeliner curlicues,
burgundy ribbons in her white hair - goes over to the juke-box and, before the
astounded gaze of the Bogans, gives it an unashamedly affectionate hug. The
screen comes back on, this time with blood-red Fraktur text on a black screen,
listing songs by Big Electric Cat, Rosetta Stone, Southern Death Cult, Skinny
Puppy. She gives the machine a secret smile and whispers to it; seconds later,
`Heresy' by Nine Inch Nails is screaming out of the sound system. While the
Bogans scratch their fleas, the Goth girl sweeps off to dance with herself.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- Ethnic Cleansing -
by Arifel
if anyone had ever tried to classify such things, i suppose this would have
been suburban nightmare number twenty-three.
it was sunday night, moving on into monday morning. we'd been out to
Apocalypse on saturday night and had kept going thoughout sunday, finally
running out of steam around eight o'clock in the evening. seven of us had
started, but only three of us had made it through the gauntlet of the goth
nightclub, the early-morning drinking session and the sunday market trauma. it
was a shame that when we finally collapsed into my king-size bed, Jeri and i
were too tired to do anything with Michael; we were good friends, not so close
that we felt we had to do anything apart from sleep whenever we ended up in
bed together.
anyway. as i said, it was monday morning when the front door was kicked in and
the house was invaded by a squad of heavily-armed men, their faces hidden
behind reflective-plastic gas-masks. they'd cut off the power before making
their dramatic entrance, and the place was underlit by their very bright
torches. we were too stunned to ask what they were doing; they just surrounded
the bed, pointing their blunt-nosed rifles at us.
Jeri - always a quick thinker in these situations - sat up in the bed and let
the black sheets drop from around her shoulders, exposing one pale-nippled
breast. i could see the line of some of the rifles waver in response, but they
weren't about to be swayed from whatever they'd come to do. someone up the
back shouldered their way through the armed men and held up a plastic bag with
a sheet of paper inside. i couldn't see much due to the uncertain nature of
the light but i did see the word `cleansing' in bold type near the top of the
page. that was all it took to start that Pop Will Eat Itself song cycling
through my mind; as they bundled us out of the house - still undressed - and
into the back of their black van, i imagined their thumping, booted feet
keeping time with the riff in my head, over and over... `Ich bin ein
Auslander...'
there were about a dozen others in the back of the van, in similar stages of
undress. nobody i knew. we were too numb to speak; Jeri and i huddled together
for solace while the van lurched around the streets, making two more pickups -
five more people - before stopping at a long building in the middle of a
concrete compound, surrounded by cyclone-wire fences. there were guard-towers
at the corners with spotlights and, behind them, just visible against the sky,
the long barrels of automatic weapons.
we were herded, shivering, through the double doors at the end of the
building, down a long corridor and into a low-ceilinged room with that kind of
painted concrete floor you sometimes saw in institutional communal showers.
the doors slammed shut behind us and there was an ominous silence. i was the
only one who spoke:
`i guess Jello Biafra was right all along.' Jeri laughed, despite herself.
a clanking sound came from overhead - oh, goddess, this was it - and suddenly
sprays of warm water shot out of concealed spigots in the ceiling. again, we
were too shocked to say anything; we stood or kneeled in a bunch at the centre
of the room while the hot water beat down on us. it was quite relaxing, after
a while; i'd just started massaging Jeri's shoulders when the water shut off
and the guards entered with large, white towels. we were forcibly dried off
and returned to our homes, but they still haven't been back to fix the front
door.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- Company's Coming -
by Tal Meta
Commander Derek Quan was the sort of curious halfbreed the Earthani Militia
sought out. Born of a Chinese mother and a black SolBelt father, what skin he
had left was the color of creamed coffee. He favored burgundy mirrorchrome for
his prosthetics, except for the eyes, which shined like two backlit emeralds.
He had doctorates in both mathematics and history, and masters degrees in a
half-dozen more subjects.
Never a "people-person", Derek had pulled all the strings he could to get his
current position as Chief Watch Officer aboard the EMW_Cape_May. CWO wasn't a
command position; it didn't have to be. The Cape_May only had life support for
four, and most of that was for emergencies. No, Derek was quite alone.
Except for the voices of the stars.
Sitting naked and alone in the 'tower, Derek would often have the onboard
computer tune into a hundred or more frequencies at once, and just let them
hiss and crackle in dissonant harmony. Every once in awhile, some signal would
manage to rise above the noise of the stars, and then Derek's life would be
hectic for awhile... isolating its direction, amplitude, probable age...
Humanity knew seven races by contact, and had heard rumors of perhaps a dozen
more. Most of the rumored ones lay at the far ends of their known races'
trading sectors, but the geography of space often meant that what was a fringe
area to one race was right next door to the next. Earthani economic & military
strategists were guessing that one such race, known as the Ifshnaire, a Vorsk
client-race, were actually situated within few hundred light years of the
Human worlds. Since direct contact with the Ifshnaire would cut out the Vorsk
as a middleman in mutual trade, and there was also the chance of putting
Humanity into contact with other races as yet undiscovered, Humanity had
started the WatchTower Project, of which the Cape_May was a
part.
The Cape_May was shaped vaguely like a dumbbell. One end contained the
sophisticated radio and gravimetric sensors, the other contained a powerful
hyperpulse transmitter. Life support, Derek's meager living quarters, the
fusion reactor, and a few weapons occupied the 10km long "shaft" of the
platform. Cape_May held a wide orbit around a white dwarf star, well beyond
the star's wispy solar wind and the noise of her remaining gas giant's
magnetic storms. On a really good day, Derek could filter enough static out to
get really, really crummy reception of radio and TV broadcasts from Earth made
450 years before, and then ONLY because he knew what frequency ranges to look
in, and what type of transmissions to look at. Usually not worth the trouble,
as it was all still in black & white.
For the last week, Derek had been receiving intermittent signals in binary.
The messages had a strange, blue-shifted quality to them, as if the source
were approaching him at relativistic speeds. The messages he'd tried sending
at the source of the transmissions wouldn't reach them, even with the closing
velocity, for another six months or more. Derek was very hopeful that he'd
have the chance at a "first contact". Company'd be nice out here, so long as
it wasn't _Human_ company....
...
When the EMS_Camille jumped in-system eight months later to resupply the
Cape_May, only her half-blasted shell remained. No trace of Cmdr. Quan
was ever found.
...
Eli always liked to watch transition... something about the way the starfields
would shift and dance about in the few seconds it took for his aging ScoutJS
to make the jump across the void appealed to the romance in his soul.
On the far side of the control center, a proximity alarm began its shrill
bleating. Eli ignored it for the moment, as he swung the ship's nose towards
the star he'd recently arrived at. Setting the sail mechanism on automatic, he
motioned towards a small, monkey-like being that had been curled up one of the
spare acceleration couches. "C'mere Jingo, watch the dials. Call me if it goes
into the red."
Jingo clambered up over the top of the couch he'd been sleeping in and
gracefully leapt the intervening distance, an easy feat in the zero-gravity of
the ship. As the biostruct settled himself atop the sailmaster's position,
Eli's aged, wrinkled body made a similar leap to the helmsman's position. Zero
gravity gave even his old body grace.
Eli quickly silenced the proximity alert, and began adjusting the Doppler
radar set to resolve the shape of the object that had set off the alarm. He
half expected to find a cluster of asteroids, or some other similar body, as
such debris often was found at jump-points. But the object the radar reported
was too diffuse to be rock, and the spectrometer was reporting some kind of
metal alloy.
"A ship? Didn't think even pirates would be out this far; no shipping lanes
within a hundred light-years." Eli mused to himself as he brought more of the
ships instruments online. Spectrometer showed traces of titanium, cobalt, and
ceramics, with a dusting of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and helium ice coating the
outside. Magnetometer was off the scale; whatever it was had a strong magnetic
field inside somewhere. Gravitometer was going wild, swinging between 1.2 &
1.5 gees in an erratic pattern.
Massometer showed the entire ship, less the varying gravitational field,
weighed in at about 100,000 metric tons. Optics showed it to be roughly
egg-shaped. Eli was still musing over the readings when the door to the bridge
slid open and Cecilia glided towards his position.
Cecilia was another biostruct... only in her case, the only telltale sign of
it were the birthmarks on her forehead and left buttock. Designed as a rich
man's sexual plaything, Eli'd bought her at an auction for a tenth of her
original selling price. Lossend biomerchants were notorious for their shoddy
business practices, and in Cecilia's case they'd skimped on a few controls in
her personality. For instance, while they'd designed her to be a loving,
sexually enthusiastic companion for her millionaire owner, they'd neglected to
inhibit her cravings to JUST her master. When her owner came home early one
day to find her straddling the gardener, he came very close to killing her out
of hand. He settled for having the merchant's home burned to the ground.
But the laws governing the ownership of biostructs, _especially_ humanoid
ones, carried stiff penalties for damaging them. In disgust, he sold her to an
auctioneer, and Eli bought her for a song. Besides, aboard the HJS_Lansing,
there were no other men for her to be unfaithful with. Intelligence was
another area they'd skimped on, but neither the millionaire or Eli cared much
about that. She had a chipware socket, after all.
Eli had his own strange tastes... scout pilots often went for years at a time
in the unexplored reaches beyond mankind's settled stars. If he hadn't had a
grav deck installed aboard ship, he'd probably have made her cut off all her
hair. Instead he let her grow it long, and it billowed out behind her as she
drifted across the bridge to his position. Even though he himself seldom
bothered with clothing more complex than underwear, he always made Cecilia
dress in a patent leather black corset, with garters and black circuit pattern
hose. Even though Eli didn't know it, her genetic pattern was based on the one
time UN President Vera Wells, a woman almost as famous for her beauty as for
her chilling slaughter of a quarter million rebels aboard a habitat in the
Harmony system when she'd been a captain in the EMS.
She settled into his lap almost purring with desire. "What's so int'sting,
Eli, that its keeping you up here so long? 'celia's getting impatient for her
man. Besides, dinner is almost ready!" Eli liked his women to be a bit on the
teasing side, so he'd bought a custom skillsoft to give her the personality he
wanted. Cooking was another thing he needed, so he'd bought an American
cuisine chip as well. The third chipslot was usually empty; Eli'd plug in a
Kama Sutra chip when he began to grow jaded in his appreciation of Cecilia's
charms.
"Found a ship, sweetheart. Real odd one, too. I think I'm going to have to
investigate it firsthand, as its got too strong of a magnetic field to use a
WAD in. If its a derelict, I'll have salvage rights to it. Doesn't match to
anything in the Federation's database, so that means its from a new alien
species."
'Why'd it be a der'lit, Eli? How you know?" her hand was snaking down towards
Eli's crotch, spoiling any illusion that she was actually interested in his
discovery. "Because, darling, its got a variable gravimetric field, like one
of those Saathik ships. Only it looks like this one's gone haywire, and maybe
killed everyone aboard. Traces of atmospheric gasses icing up the hull, so she
may have lost pressure. Why, the man who brings back even a broken gravity
generator could well write his own ticket, back home. Saathik ships'd just
explode and fuse all the components if tampered with... these folks might not
be so paranoid."
While Eli was explaining the possibilities of salvage to his concubine,
another of the small monkey-like beings appeared in the doorway Cecilia had
entered from, ringing a small bell. Monks were a biostruct often sold as pets,
even though they were almost as intelligent as an eight year old human child.
While incapable of human speech, they could read, and had an attention span
any eight year old's parents would die for. "Jango says dinner's ready, Eli.
Please come and eat. You can go 'splore your der'lit after dinner." Cecilia
half pulled, half pushed Eli from the helm, pulling him along behind her.
...
Meanwhile, aboard the 'derelict', carefully shielded sensors slowly,
cautiously came on line. Detecting only electromagnetic and primitive
gravimetric sensors being used to probe itself, it brought its own, more
sophisticated equipment online. Carefully, it extruded an antenna on the far
side of its hull, and broadcast a tight meson beam to a point deep in the
inner system's asteroid belt: "CONTACT. 4 BIOSENTIENT, 2 PROTO-SENTIENT.
TECHLEVEL 10ñ1. ACQUIRE Y/N?"....
...
After dinner and 'dessert', Eli clambered through the airlock separating his
shuttle from the main ship. Jango followed along, carrying a small container
of water and Eli's gyrojet pistol. After a brief preflight, Eli disconnected
the shuttle and began a cautious approach of the derelict. While the autopilot
made course corrections to bring the shuttle within 100 meters of the alien
vessel, Eli struggled into a much stained flightsuit, followed by a pressure
suit that was almost 30% patches. As the ship began its final braking
maneuvers, Eli strapped his gyrojet pistol to his hip, and motioned Jango into
a emergency pressure ball.
Once his shuttle had reached its destination, he dragged Jango's pBall into
the airlock and leapt across the distance separating the two ships. About 10
meters from the derelict's hull, he fired an EVA stick at full throttle,
hoping to cushion the impact with the ship's g-field.
Even still, he hit hard enough to rattle teeth. A 10 minute search finally
revealed what could only be a hatch on the surface of the ship. Ice, probably
oxygen or CO2, made it difficult to get the hatch open, and Eli eventually had
to resort to chipping it away with the butt of his pistol.
Once inside the alien craft, the monitors on Eli's suit reported a thin, cold,
but breathable mixture of gasses. What the monitors didn't report on was the
smell. "I pity you your sense of smell, Jango. After this trip you'll probably
be mis-seasoning dinner for a week!" Eli's nose couldn't wrinkle quite as
effectively as the monk's, but the stench of what he guessed was rotten meat
was pretty stiff. The corridor leading away from the airlock was at best dimly
lit, filthy, and showed signs of a battle having been fought in and around it
sometime in the distant past. No bodies were in evidence, but the perfectly
cylindrical shape of the corridor was reminiscent of a Drallim ship, except
for their size. "Big blokes, to need hallways this big around..." Eli mused to
himself, as he and Jingo began to look for signs of the ship's crew.
...
...2 BIOSENTIENT ABOARD, 1 PROTO-SENTIENT WITHIN 12 KAMEII. BEGINNING
COLLECTION PROCEDURE...
...
The corridors seemed to snake around in no discernable pattern; whoever they
were, straight lines and flat surfaces weren't high on their list of design
parameters. After awhile, Eli began to realize that perhaps the corridors were
the size they were to permit their gravity technology to make every surface
'down', without causing vertigo. Chambers located off the corridors were
spherical, and usually filled with equipment Eli couldn't even imagine the
uses of. Some had surfaces that seemed to glimmer, or that had a sort of
twisting, escher-like effect to them. Controls? Readouts? Eli's portable
techscanner couldn't tell.
After a half hour of wandering aimlessly, Eli began to follow his nose. After
another 15 minutes, his search was finally rewarded... sort of.
His best guess was that it had been an arm. A loose grouping of fingers(?) at
one end still curled tightly around what he guessed was a weapon. When Eli
tried prying them away, they broke, sending out a faint spray of dust as they
did so. What looked like the 'trigger' was protected behind a guard too small
to get his own fingers through, so he dropped it into the empty pBall tucked
under his gunbelt.
Taking the nearest exit led Eli into the first spherical chamber he'd
encountered that did not have any gravity. Here the dim lights gave way to a
billion or more brilliant pinpricks spread out in a large spiral; a model of
the Milky Way. One point in particular drew Eli's attention by simply being
hard to look at, and the more he concentrated, the more clear it became.
Suddenly, instead of the whorl of the galaxy, he floated suspended amidst the
stars of system he was currently in. He could see the derelict, as well as his
own ship... but he was beginning to get a massive headache. He tried changing
his point of view, remembering the night sky of L-6, his home system...
...
COLLECTION PROCESS COMPLETE. POINT OF ORIGIN ESTABLISHED. PROCEEDING TO
COORDINATES 1143.12 x 11874.23 x 13.565. ETA 14,234,492,992,110 CYCLES.
COLLECTION OF PROTO-SENTIENTS AND REMAINING BIOSENTIENTS OF SECONDARY
IMPORTANCE. COLLECT AT LEISURE.
...
Klaxons began ringing anew aboard the HJS_Lansing when the egg-shaped derelict
shimmered, then shot out of sight at almost 98% of lightspeed. Cecilia had
grown restless on the grav deck, and had eventually wandered up to the bridge
to watch the pretty dials and lights flicker. Jingo quickly clambered to the
top of the acceleration couch he'd been napping in, futilely looking to
Cecilia for instruction on what he should do. Cecilia, her hair forming itself
into a tangled mask as she shook her startled head to and fro, quickly found
the switch that would silence the proximity alarm.
In the back of her mind, she tried very hard to remember what Eli had told her
a thousand times before, about what to do if... if something BAD ever happened
to him. Something about... a chip? Yes... the pretty blue one he'd never let
her try before. She gracefully leapt across the bridge towards the door to the
rest of their quarters.
Once in their private quarters, she had a new dilemma. Eli kept the chips in
the ship's locker, behind a small combination lock. She felt sick, deep in the
pit of her stomach. Numbers and writing were very difficult for her, as her
designers hadn't optimized her for anything but being a concubine. Oh, she had
manners, and could be the belle of any party; her wit and grammar were
impeccable, when she needed them to be. But when faced with a simple math
problem that any born-human could solve in moments, she had to resort to
carefully counting on her fingers and toes. What had Eli said? "You're the key
to everything on this ship, my dear. I couldn't even start these engines
without you."
But that was silly. Eli almost never allowed her on the bridge, and he'd
spanked her HARD the only time she'd ever gone down to the engine room. How
could she be the key?
Jingo was clambering around her ankles, making it hard to think. When she
picked him up to swat his bottom, she noticed that the tattoo on his derriere
contained a short string of... numbers! She knew the tattoo on her forehead
was just a maker's mark, but...? Sure enough, as soon as she found her hand
mirror, she tried angling it to show the tattoo on her left cheek. The numbers
looked all funny, but she dutifully tapped them into the comb- lock. Nothing.
The other way? To her elation, the door to the locker gave a gentle click, and
swung open.
Her hands were shaking so badly now that she dropped the chip twice before she
managed to get it oriented on the socket at the nape of her neck. When she
finally got it seated correctly, her mind exploded.
Perhaps expanded would be the better term, she thought to herself. As the chip
fed its database of knowledge and mannerisms into her brain, she felt the cold
chill of her fear leave her. But she almost fainted as the full impact of the
chip hit her...
There was a voice in her head! A man's voice.... Eli's voice! Almost without
realizing it, she'd returned to the bridge, and was reviewing the sensor logs
of the alien spacecraft's vanishing act. All the numbers and readouts were
still mostly gibberish to her, but it seemed to make sense to the
Eli-in-her-head. Her hands flew across the controls now, and she could feel
the hum of the ship's fusion generator come to full life. The ship shuddered
as her hands worked a dozen controls, this one reeling in the solar sail, that
one channeling energy from the fusion reactor directly to the drive coils.
{Eli, what are we doing?} she thought to the presence in her mind, as he moved
from one control station to the next, obviously preparing the ship for a quick
jump out of the system. {The Eli you knew my sweet is likely dead by now. I'm
the "original" Eli; the one you knew was a... not a clone, or biostruct, but a
special kind of copy. He wore the same body we were both were born with, and
we had alot in common, personality wise. But 40 years ago the Militia began
losing ships and listening posts in this region of space to a new species... a
race of machines... a race of weapons. We started calling them the Neumanns,
because they have no name for themselves.}
{Are we at war with them?} Cecilia wondered, half to herself, half to Eli.
{Yes and no. We surmise they were created by some long dead race as a kind of
"final weapon" of destruction. Even though it is likely that both their
creators and the race they were designed to fight are both now dead, the
Neumanns continue on, following orders that were given while men still lived
in trees. Their travels through the universe finally brought them to the edges
of our civilization, and now we must either fight them or die.}
{Why do we call them New Mens if they aren't human?} Cecilia asked. {Not _New
Men_, Neumanns, after Dr. Von Neumann, a 20th century theorist. He envisioned
self-replicating machines designed for exploration. They'd travel from system
to system, and when they found materials suitable for building others like
themselves, they'd do so, expanding Humanity's reach and knowledge
exponentially. These creatures are much the same, except instead of
exploration, they engage in genocide. So far, we've lost every battle we've
fought against them, which is why I volunteered for this mission.}
"What kind of mission, Eli?" she whispered aloud. {I agreed to undergo a
process that completely wiped my memory and experience from my body. An edited
copy of that gestalt of knowledge was fed back into my meat-brain, while the
rest was encoded into this chip. The Eli you knew has no memory of ever
serving in the EMS, and doesn't even properly remember our childhood on Earth.
_He_ believed he was raised on a planet circling L-6, a star in the military
corridor. The Neumann's don't have hyperdrive, so it'll be several decades
before that ship reaches there. What little we've learned about the Neumann's
these past few years, aside from their lack of a jumpdrive, is that they
operate in swarms; each Neumann imparts the sum total of its knowledge and
tactics to its descendants.}
{They also have some kind of psionic technology that they can use to pick the
brains of races that they meet. Which is why Eli had to be as ignorant as
possible of his true origins and function.... the Neumann'd spot any
falsehoods he tried to plant. Also, as they "age", they add to themselves and
change their mission profiles. The one that Eli just left here in is called a
Trapper, about as old as Humanity's Industrial Age, 600 some odd years. It was
designed to lure a sentient aboard, and then use its psionic instruments to
locate its point of origin. Its "parent" is probably still here in this
system, and already on its way to collect or exterminate -us-, which is why we
have to hurry.}
Almost on cue, the ship's proximity alarm began ringing anew, and a quick
glance at the Doppler radar showed nearly a billion metric tons of mass
rushing at the HJS_Lansing. "Thirty seconds to outjump, thirty-four seconds to
intercept. Jingo, secure yourself and prepare for jump." Cecilia's voice held
the commanding tones of a seasoned commander as she spoke. {How long before
the Neumann reaches L-6?} {About 144 years. .98c seems to be the best speed
they can make, and the big ones can't even make it over .91c. Plenty of time
for us to prepare a proper welcoming party. Eli's going to have one hell of a
funeral pyre...}
...
Eli awoke naked in zero-g, in a bare chamber that seemed to radiate light from
its very walls. Everything he'd brought aboard was gone, and the light seemed
to reinforce his body's frailty. He couldn't smell the decay anymore; either
it was gone, or he'd grown too used to it to notice anymore. His only company
seemed to be a silver sphere about a meter in diameter and about 4 meters
away. The very air seemed to thrum with power, as if the derelict's engines
had come alive while he slept.
As the sphere began to move towards him, he could see that it had been
eclipsing the still, mutilated form of Jango. When the sphere began to unfold
to reveal what looked very much like surgical instruments, Eli didn't even
have the will to scream....
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- A Date With Siaoubo -
by Arifel
The concert is due to start at eleven, but the main feature (Einstuerzende
Neubauten) aren't due to come on until some time after midnight. i want to see
what kind of goons would front for E.N, so i get to her place at quarter to
ten. she's only just woken up, is still drunk, so i help her get dressed and
drag her out to the car. she realises she's left her bag inside, rushed back
to get it and emerges with one of those hessian bags, you know the ones, about
the same size as a large TV screen.
as we drive to the old greek theatre, she's going through the bag, doing an
inventory. by the time we get to the main road, i feel like grabbing the bag
and throwing it as far as i can - there are enough illicit pharmaceuticals in
there to put us both away for several life-times. she keeps sampling them. i
feel like Oscar Acosta, trying to keep up with Hunter S Thompson. i think at
least one of us should be straight, so i settle on munching on some chewy,
earthy- tasting brown stuff while she eats several varieties of capsules and
tablets, washing them down with bourbon (yuck!).
`are you trying to kill yourself with all that stuff?'
`all what stuff? all this? this is -nothing-, my love.'
`oy vey.'
she keeps asking me to pull over, 'cause its hard to inject speed when i'm
bumping over the tram-tracks in Bridge Road. i find a parking-spot around the
back of that hopsital just down the road from the venue, and she crouches on
the back seat with a spoon and a cigarette lighter and a length of shoe-lace,
trying to co-ordinate her actions. i have half a coke-bottle full of water
under my seat (left over from when i drove a car with a radiator) and so to
avoid the distressing sight of my lady friend boiling up speed with bourbon, i
offer it to her. i even hold the spoon for her.
`you should try this stuff, it's great.'
`uh-huh.'
`no, really, you can shoot it into the veins along the side of your dick.'
`yeah, right! did you read about that guy in the states who did that with
cocaine? he developed blood clots in his legs and had to have them amputated,
along with his balls, his dick and most of his fingers.'
`well, that's -cocaine-, isn't it? that stuff's mostly baby powder anyway.
-this- is pure, Gowron [real name changed to protect the guilty - ed] makes it
himself.'
`and what does he cut it with?' she snarls at me.
`he wouldn't -dare-.'
we walk down Bridge Road to the old greek theatre. there's a huge queue full
of goths (up 'til now, i didn't know melbourne had this many goths) and we're
right at the end of it. she's twitching like someone's jammed a power cable up
her ass and they're turning it on and off in time to music only she can hear.
despite the large number of alternative type people in the queue, people are
still nervous when they see her. i just hope she doesn't start noticing that
they're noticing her...
we get inside, with approximately half of the audience still behind us, which
means we get a fairly good seat. i chose seats up in the balcony in the hope
that she wouldn't try to get up on stage and participate (as she had done in
the past), but it occurs to me now that she might try some impromptu flying
lessons. it seems she can't go more than sixty seconds without glaring at
someone and asking them `what the f*** are you staring at, asshole?' i hang
back and signal over her shoulder to whoever she addresses that she's off her
face and should be ignored. i dread to think what she'd do if she turned
around and caught me making that twirling-the-finger-next-to-the-head gesture.
i don't think she brought that gun with her. i hope she didn't.
there's some guy playing a variety of native australian instruments. he has a
huge dirty grey beard and looks a lot like a wandering street person. his
music isn't amplified and before she can focus her irritation on him, i try to
engage her in a conversation about a story i'm writing, during the course of
which i discover that she did bring the gun but didn't bring any bullets.
what seems like years later, the street person has vanished and the stage crew
are setting up E.N's stuff. desperate to sidetrack her from noticing her
boredom - because she is most dangerous when bored - i ask her if she has
anything `interesting' in her bag. a sly look crosses her asiatic features and
she produces something like a ping-pong ball made of crumpled dark-brown
paper. it smells like compressed dust-bunnies. she's looking at me like `go
on, i dare you!'... i draw the moment out as long as i can, slowly take it
from her, sniff it cautiously and then swallow it whole, hoping that it isn't
fatally poisonous and that i can drive while under the influence of whatever
it is.
at that point, the band starts, Blixa Bargeld doing the speech which is the
introduction to the song `Prolog', from `Haus Der Luege':
Meint ihr nicht:
wir koennten unterschrieben
auf dass uns ein biz zwei prozent
gehoeren
und tausende uns hoerig sind
i'm relieved that she waits until they start singing `Feurio!' before joining
in.
it's almost near the end of the show before she starts coughing badly. i drag
her outside where she starts vomiting, really projectile, like a fire-hose.
where is all this spew coming from? she's throwing up into the gutter and
we're slowly moving up the street, and there's a police car on the other side
of the road, and they're watching us... oh god. she finally runs out of chunks
and faints, so i grab her in an awkward fireman's carry and stumble back to
the car. just another fun night out.
i'm driving her home when i realise the buzzing in my head, which i thought
was from the loud music, hasn't gone away, and i remember the brown-paper
ping-pong ball. uh oh.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- INSPIRATION & RUBBER LOVE: 2 Songs -
by Slack Mammoth
Congratulations Leo Fender,
and to the guy who thought of Body suits
I do appreciate your contribution.
but most of all, Jack Daniels, I thank you.
Thank you, Jack Daniels for the life you saved me from;
a wife to feed, a job to keep, a place to call my own.
Thank you, jack daniles, for everything that you done...
but most of all, Jack Daniels, you helped me write this song.
Cold nights on the trail from colorado,
I think about the girls that I once knew.
But all I have around me is my horses,
so Once again, Jack Daniels, I thank you.
Thank you, Jack Daniels, for the guy you let me be;
my social charm, My Tattoed arm, my yearning to be free.
Well, thank you, Jack Daniels, for everything that you done...
but most of all, Jack Daniels, you helped me.... yeah ya helped me...
you helped me write this song.
[End]
Verse 1
I'm just crazy 'bout the fact that my baby doesnt breath.
- E - | -A- | -E- | -A- | -E- | -A- | -E- | A- |
turns me on, the way that I turn on her batteries.
-E- | -A- | -E- | -A- | -E- | -A- | -E- | -A- |
Chorus
oh, oh oh, rubber love \___ x2
-B- | -B- |-A- | -A- | -E- | -A- | -E- | -A- | /
Where | -A- | is a bar of A, straight eights.
Verse 2.
I don't mind that my baby don't help around the house.
it's hard to pay the bills, but when it come to thrills, I never do without.
Chorus
Verse 3.
when she meets my friends, they don't understand what I see in her
Thats ok, I don't like them anyway, I'd rather be with her.
chorus.
[End2]
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- Images of ShadowWatch Keep -
by The Awakening
An angry red eye,
Dying, dying,
As it sinks,
And winks,
Out,
The Stars peer cautiously,
Glittering,
O'er the moon-tossed land,
As the shadows rise,
Shades of black,
And black,
Dark wings,
On a moody Night,
Dark eyes,
Watching,
Brooding,
As a slender moon-pale hand,
Reaches out,
And points,
Towards a moon-pale castle,
Between shaggy darksome forest,
And cairn-dotted plain,
It's ivory minarets tower,
Above ebon courts,
And dusky gardens,
Where a silver-dappled rose,
Grows,
Nurtured by the pearly glow,
Cool and close,
Floating eternally full,
Faintly smiling,
Seductively beckoning,
Calling,
Through twilit halls,
And gloomy chambers,
Down inky stairwells,
And lightless corridors,
Deeper, deeper,
To the nether reaches,
Of a restless soul,
To a door,
Shut,
Locked and fastened,
Barred and bolted,
A questing moonbeam,
Slips in,
Quiet and unobtrusive,
Unnoticed,
Gliding behind a chair,
Silently,
An alabaster maiden sits,
Raven-tressed and sloe-eyed,
Hushed,
Before an icy cold hearth,
Dark and empty,
Waiting,
Waiting,
The silver-cool finger,
Of Light,
Quietly curls around her ankles,
Tingling,
Around her calves,
Gleaming, shivering,
Between her thighs,
Glowing,
Around her waist,
Shining,
Over her breasts,
Sparkling,
Around her neck,
Pulsating,
Over her eyes,
Glittering,
Radiant madness,
Calling,
Pulling,
Tugging her up,
Out,
Through the door,
Barred and bolted,
Locked and fastened,
Shut,
Through lightless corridors,
A moonlit maiden races,
Up inky stairwells,
Through gloomy chambers,
And twilit halls,
A moonlit maiden races,
Across Stygian courts,
Into a dusky garden,
A moonlit maiden,
Stops,
Before a silver-dappled rose,
And smiles,
As she leans close,
And gently kisses it,
A lover's kiss,
Before she rises,
And looks into the Night,
Silver-chased,
Beneath an argent Moon,
Seductively beckoning,
Faintly smiling,
Over a moon-struck land,
Where dark eyes of jet,
Watch,
And brood,
While a moon-struck maiden,
Runs
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- High Flight -
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
And danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled, and soared, and swung,
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the laughing winds along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning, blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, nor even eagle, flew,
And while, with silent, lifting, heart I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
- Dark White -
- 04: Touchdown -
by IronHorse
Gliding lowly over the tops of the buildings in the downtown Detroit area the
nearly transparent Great White sailed in search of a host. His desires were to
find some low-life criminal type who had escaped the system and had no right
to an afterlife, even if it was to be burning in the depths of hell.
However, unknown to Great White, another telepathic individual was standing in
the crowded streets beneath his flight path, and was picking up on Great
White's probes.
'Great. One of those do-gooder types,' thought Randal Smith as he slid his
Colt .45 back into it's holster. 'I suppose the President would like me to go
see what he's up to...' With that, the telepathic detective turned to the
building behind him and mounted the stairs, again missing out on the fanfare
that was a Presidential parade.
"Shut up!" Eddie yelled at Lisa as he smashed her across the face, "I've got
things to do!"
"Yes Eddie, I'm sorry Eddie..." Lisa blubbered as blood ran down her cheek
which already began to swell.
"You know, I've just about had it with you," Eddie screamed.
Lisa turned away from him, flinching from the blow she knew was inevitable and
giving Eddie the perfect target to strike her in the back of the head, and
knock her unconscious.
"Bitch," Eddie said as she slumped to the floor.
With his girlfriend out of the way, Eddie turned back mounting the tripod she
was questioning him about on the window. She was correct, it was a
photographer's tripod, but now Eddie was mounting on a special bracket he
bought for just this one purpose. Killing the president. After a final
adjustment he slid his rifle home. A look through the scope and he was quite
satisfied.
'A parade? How am I supposed to find one sent of prevailing evil thoughts in a
parade of thousands of people?' Great White asked himself. And just as his
hopes were beginning to diminish, he caught the fish he was looking for. 'Take
this Mister President,' echoed in the hero's head in the words of Edward
Lynch, accompanied by that man's imaginary image of a bullet striking between
the eyes of the President. Great White soared towards his prey.
'Take this? Well I'll be damned,' thought Randal Smith as he stalked up the
apartment building in which Edward Lynch was stationed. 'Seems Mister
Goody-goody has relayed some information to the proper authorities for once,
instead of knocking the whole damn city down by trying to take care of it
himself. I am surprised.'
Lynch was getting edgy, he could hear the sirens of the lead motorcycles in
the motorcade coming down the road, he wasn't sure if the eleventh floor was
such a good idea to be shooting from, but he knew it would give him the best
chance of getting away. As he waited, he looked back on Lisa lying unconscious
on the floor, and thought back onto why he was so set on killing this man.
Eight years ago Lynch was in 'The Vipers', a rather dirt-bag little gang in
the northern end of the Bronx. They didn't command much respect among the
other gangs, quite possibly because the other gangs knew even their weakest
members could kick the snot out of the Vipers entire gang. However, they did
have themselves set aside in a small neighborhood and were doing pretty good,
as gangs go. The police near bothered with the Vipers either, they too having
bigger and better things to concern them. So the Vipers had a rather easy
life. Eddie found himself a girl, and soon he was the second in command of the
thirty-odd member group. He was rather proud of himself for once, actually
doing something with his life after failing and dropping out of high school.
However, President - then Mayor of NYC - McCartile ruined all that. In what
was to be his first step towards the Presidency, McCartile declared a war on
all the gangs in NYC. Employing the National Guard and some super-powered
special forces when necessary, he would not stop until every gang was wiped
out. As a sample of his abilities, he decided to start small.
The Vipers didn't stand a chance. Three hundred men in battle armor swooped
down upon their neighborhood and before lunch time everyone associated with
the gang was either dead or captive. Everyone except Lynch. Lynch got lucky
because he was at the other end of town speaking with the larger gang in this
area, paying the Viper's respects. When he returned later that evening, it was
all gone. His girl, his friends, his possessions, his livelihood. All gone. He
tried to return to the other gang, but by nightfall all the gangs in the Bronx
joined the Vipers in defeat.
Eddie endured many long nights at his mother's house waiting for there to be
decision on what was to happen with all the captured gangers. Eddie wasn't the
only one to be surprised and outraged to hear the verdict of 'all members
guilty by association, with a minimum sentence of ten years.' The straw that
finally broke the camel's back was when Eddie's girl got killed in jail over a
fight for her 'favors'. She was only sixteen, there was no reason for her to
be in prison, let alone dead. For that alone, Edward Lynch vowed McCartile
would pay.
As Great White bolted towards the source of the evil he sensed, Randal Smith
was just reaching the first door on the eleventh floor. He knew he had to move
quickly because the President was soon to be in range. The first and second
rooms being a bust, Smith was beginning to get worried...
Great White found his lock and began to prepare himself for the excruciating
pain that usually follows a transfer like this. He was also hoping to begin
his life anew as a hero with another heroic deed, saving the President from
what was destined to be an assassination attempt.
Lynch was psyched now, already the beginnings of the motorcade have passed and
he could make out the Presidents limo drawing near. He squatted into position
and peered through his scope...
Smith was still two doors away. 'Damn goody-goody. Don't get involved in
this,' he thought to himself about Great White.
The President slowly rolled into Lynch's cross hairs...
Lynch tensed on the trigger...
Great White got closer...
Smith tried the room next door...
Lynch began to track the President with the scope, preparing to lead his
shot...
Smith banged on Lynch's door...
As Lynch pulled the trigger on the rifle there was a flash of sunlight in his
scope and he hoped he didn't miss...
Smith smashed his way through the door at the sound of the gunshot.
"FREEZE!" He yelled at Lynch.
Lynch's body seemed to jerk and he twisted about, ripping the rifle up along
with the tripod, turning towards Smith.
Smith fired quickly like the marksman he was, and as Lynch's cerebrum hit the
wall behind his body Smith thought he heard someone scream 'No!' He dismissed
it and checked on the President's condition.
The President was not hurt, yet there still seemed to be some commotion...
... To be continued...
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
A CHILD'S NIGHTMARE SKETCH
by Doomlord
CHAPTER ONE
I
Anton Farrar sipped his bourbon and looked over to where Marty sat with his
pick-up for the night. The girl looked young, too young to be allowed in a
place like this. She was gorgeous, with wide, brilliant green eyes which shone
with innocence, even in the gloom of the club. Marty had introduced her as
Sasha, and then quickly whisked her off to an adjacent, but privately separate
table.
Sasha wore a simple black skirt and halter-top which showed off her
figure perfectly. Anton admired her from a distance, secretly envying Marty
for his lack of scruples. Give the handsome young man, with his long blond
hair and sparkling personality, ten minutes away from his steady girlfriend
and he would be with some other girl. It was not so easy for Anton: if Sharon
found out he'd cheated on her there'd be no forgiveness.
Shortly, an older girl walked up behind Sasha and whispered something
into her ear, glancing over to where Anton sat. This other female, like her
friend, was not familiar to Anton, and therefore obviously no local of the
club. He had observed her from afar that night, and wondered at her air of
boredom, her quiet mystery and sullen beauty. So it was that he experienced an
excited, nervy thrill when Marty leaned over and told him that the girls had
invited them both to their place for a few drinks and maybe some speed.
The four stepped out of the noise and heavy atmosphere of the club into
the cool sea-breeze. As they walked towards the car-park, Anton noticed that
Marty had his hand comfortably resting on Sasha's curvaceous, black-clad arse.
He tapped his friend on the shoulder and said: "Hey - aren't you going to
introduce me?"
"Ah, yeah, Anton, meet Nicolette. Nicky, meet Anton."
"Hello," said Nicolette, smiling at Anton. She was beautiful, he
realised - all dark hair and impressive curves - and he was sure if he played
his cards right, she could be his that night. All thoughts of Sharon had fled
his mind. Suddenly he realised that he was fairly drunk and if he didn't
concentrate on his speech, he'd slur his words. He began to fumble in his
pocket for a pack of cigarettes just as they arrived outside a small
convertible jeep.
Nicky drove with Sasha next to her and they chatted, oblivious to the two in
the back. Whatever they were talking about was obliterated by loud dance music
on the stereo. The car sped along the coastal road, with houses to one side
and the endless expanse of the ocean on the other. Anton turned to his friend
and shouted in his ear: "Are they sober?"
Marty shook his head vigorously and grinned. Without warning the car
bumped over a gutter, swerved and jolted everyone about. "Shit!" shouted
Sasha. "Keep your eyes on the road, Nicky."
Marty laughed drunkenly, insanely. Anton looked nervously up at the bar
supporting the plastic sheeting which served as a roof for the convertible,
and began to feel paranoid. He was aware that, were this thing to roll, the
back-seat passengers would have little chance of survival. He leaned forward,
his eyes on the road in front of the car, and shouted at Sasha to turn off the
music.
"Are you okay to drive, Nicky?" he asked, concern obvious in his voice.
"Yeah, sure. Hey, I'm sorry about that."
"Do you want me to drive, Nicky?" asked Sasha.
"No, no. Look I'm fine."
"Yeah, fer fuck's sake, Anton, stay cool," Marty said to Anton,
playfully punching him on the shoulder. "Don't be so damn on edge all the
time." He handed Anton a bottle of Wild Turkey Sasha had passed back to them,
and Anton took a deep swig.
The car sped onwards.
"Where do you two live, by-the-way," asked Anton.
"Oh, Subiaco," said Nicky.
Anton saw the turn-off sign for Subiaco flash by. "Dammit," exclaimed
Anton. "I think you just missed the turn-off."
Nicolette took her eyes from her driving and turned back to where the
boys were seated. She grinned and said: "Yeah, I'm taking a different route
for a change!" For a second Anton saw something in her eyes. Was it a flicker
of malevolence? No, just my paranoia, he rebuked himself.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" asked Sasha.
"Of course! It's a surprise tour." Both girls giggled.
Nicky turned off somewhere - seemingly to Anton, at random - and began
driving through suburban streets which where obviously completely alien to
her. Anton turned to Marty and gave him an exasperated look which was
completely wasted on him, because his eyes were glazed idiotically; Marty was
hopelessly drunk.
Anton turned away from Marty, annoyed. They didn't even know who these
crazy bitches were. They were both obviously very drunk - or were they? There
was something in the girls voices which made him think that this was in some
way pre-planned, that he was being taken for a ride, that they were out to
purposely scare him. Of course, Anton had every reason to doubt his intuition:
it had failed him many times before. He considered himself more of a
level-headed logical type, an introvert, than one who possessed a finely tuned
sixth-sense. Once again he chastised himself for being uncomfortable and
paranoid.
He leaned forward and gave the driver some quick directions so that she
could get back onto the coastal road. They didn't have a chance of making it
to their destination while they drove in erratic circles through suburban
streets. They would have to go back and find the turn-off they had missed.
Nicolette complied and soon they had found their turn-off. Anton found
his sense of uneasiness pass away and his spirit of adventure return. He
slumped back, grinned to himself and took another sip of the strong bourbon
whisky, feeling it run like fire down his throat. Sasha put the dance music
back on and turned it up loud.
The car came to a halt on the driveway of a two-story townhouse, which
Anton summed up as quite a valuable property. The engine and the music cut out
abruptly, leaving silence. "You renting this place?" he asked, as he helped a
very intoxicated Marty out into the night air.
"Yep," said Sasha. "We just moved here. From up north. So yeah, sorry we
don't have much furniture. Just one couch. We don't even have a T.V. We
haven't been able to afford transporting all our stuff from back home."
The small group made its way to the front door. While Nicolette fumbled
through her handbag for the keys, Marty and Sasha groped each other wildly and
kissed, the girl giggling all the while. In the months that followed the image
of her flashing green eyes and cackling laugh, her blond head thrown back in
laughter, would be a constant image imprinted on Anton's mind. At that moment,
however, his eyes were firmly fixed on Nicky's curves.
II
The floorboards were clean and polished and slippery in the shadowed interior
of the house. If the place was bare, it was not obvious at that moment. They'd
all stepped inside without the interior lights being turned on.
"Hey," said Marty as his arm snaked around Sasha's waist. "Do we have
lights? I mean, its..."
"We've got candles!" called Nicky from the kitchen.
"The power hasn't been turned on yet," said Sasha. She kissed Marty
quickly on the lips. He drunkenly pulled her close to him, and they both fell
against the wall, laughing and embracing deeply, their lips locked together.
Anton gave them a brief sidelong glance and shook his head. He felt far to
sobre for this.
"That's right - we're too poor to afford the start-up cost," came
Nicky's voice from the kitchen. There were some clattering sounds and then the
flare of a match as she lit a single thick red candle. She slinked up to Anton
and, holding the candle in one hand, put the other around his shoulders,
pressed her warm body against his and kissed him. Anton was aware that his
mouth was bitter- tasting after too many cigarettes and too many drinks, but
this lusty kiss washed all of that away in sweetness.
He pulled away, overly self-conscious. "Sorry, my mouth must taste like
an old sock or something..."
"Don't be silly," said Nicolette, and she kissed him again. "Come on."
She led the way, bearing the only source of light in the gloomy place, past
were the two other rolled as if wrestling on the floorboards.
The short passage ended in a door, which Nicolette opened. "Don't think
this too weird," she said, stepping into a large open area which appeared to
be the living room. "But we're into Wicca - you know, Mother Goddess
religion."
"Yeah? That's cool," said Anton, a little cautiously. He had a few
friends who were pagans - practitioners of alternate religions, new-agers,
herbalists, and so on.
None of their practices could have prepared him for the growing wonder
he felt as Nicolette's candle danced deftly from candle to candle in the room,
causing each in turn to ignite. A tableau was slowly revealed. Possibly more
than a hundred thick candles were placed around a central area where a complex
metal stand held a large many-angled crystal.
Just then, as Anton tried to come to grips with the array of weird,
alien artefacts scattered around the room, Marty and Sasha tumbled into the
room. Marty swore and exclaimed, "what the fuck is all this shit?! Are you
some kind of Satanists or something?" Surprised, but more amused than anything
else, when Anton turned back to him, Marty gave him an expression which just
said 'typical -
crazy bitches!'
"Not Satanists," corrected Anton, his head still turned to Marty, his
eyes rolled in exasperation. "Wiccans."
"Ah, yes," said Marty, slurring his words slightly, but more coherent
than before. "Praise be to Shakti, or Dani or whoever it is you worship."
"Well, yeah, so lets..." Anton stopped speaking when he realised
Nicolette was saying something. At least, her lips were moving - no sound was
emerging. "Talk louder, I can't hear you," he said, knowing full well that she
was saying some sort of prayer or something. How easily young people got
sucked into crackpot religions these days. It was enough to make him sick.
The dark-haired older girl was serious as she spoke her prayer. Behind
Anton there was a grunt. A wet, gurgling sound made him turn around. Marty had
spat out half a litre of dark blood over the front of his white t-shirt. His
eyes were surprised, but he could make no noise. Something long and thin
protruded from his throat. He toppled forward, writhing. Sasha stepped out
from behind her dying partner, the blade spraying Marty's lifeblood everywhere
in the many- flickering lights. It weaved, that red-stained blade, practiced
patterns before its wielder.
Anton gave a choked, startled cry and ran. The other woman - what was
her name? - she was screaming incomprehensibly. It was an unholy sound, an
alien sound, a horrible rending sound.
Anton ran, and everything blurred by. He crashed through candles and
candle holders. And then both women were screaming, and things were moving in
the dark. Things were moving in his head. Shapes shifted, and he was aware of
his feet propelling him, but all the time there was Marty's twisted,
surprised, gurgling face before his mind's eye.
And the horrible beast behind him with the sharp thing that would cause
him pain. Would end him.
Glass broke about him. The world exploded for a second, little pieces of
pain ripping into his nerves. Then he was outside and running for his life.
III
As Nicollete sang the Rending of the Veil the air in the candle-filled room
had become warmer and dryer with each passing moment, and as she intoned the
final verses, it became almost furnace-like in its intensity, or so it seemed
to Sasha. Both of them had started to sweat soon after the ritual had begun,
and as Sasha watched Nicollette sing to the crystal (her face tilted back, her
eyes closed in ecstacy) she allowed her eyes to feast on the glistening body
of her partner. Globes of moisture ran in quick streaks from the forehead,
down shoulders and arms, between the breasts, and criss-crossed the belly.
The corpse lay naked before the crystal, surrounded by glowing orbs of
candle-light. His flesh had become a canvas for Nicolette's practiced
blade-work, his back, face and chest carved with intersecting angular patterns
and all of his major arteries opened. Marty's life- fluid, pooled thick and
viscous, had formed many tiny rivers which, wriggling, were drawn towards the
legs of the crystal-stand. Each wrought-iron leg carried a canal, through
which travelled a stream of blood, which, having seemingly taken on a life of
its own, fled inexorably towards the bright and many-faceted focus.
It was a display Sasha found both enticing and disturbing. Nicolette had told
her about the the thrill she would feel when confronted by the confounding of
mundane reality. It was like a drug-rush, she'd said, but more profound.
Something bit deep into Sasha's being when she watched those rivers of blood
run their course.
Having reached it's goal, the blood ran patterns over the crystal's
face: with each fresh vein emptied a new line grew along a facet's edge.
Without warning, Sasha's skin began to tingle. She could feel her muscles jerk
of their own accord - little tics controrted her face - and she could see the
same thing was happening to Nicky. The feeling was not entirely unpleasant so
long as she bore in mind her partner's instruction to surrender to the
bizzarity, and to embrace rather than fear. In any case, it was over in
seconds, and Nicky had stopped singing. She knew it was her turn to act. She
had been told that she would feel something strange, a sign that the Rending
of the Veil was almost complete. For a second she hesitated, recalling all
they had rehearsed, and then she stepped towards the crystal, over lines of
oily black between candelabra.
"Lord of the the Dead Plane we implore you to come to us," she said, reaching
out her arms towards the crystal (its surface now pulsating with slick red
made transclucent by the crystal's glow). "We offer ourselves for your
pleasure. Cross the barriers between the worlds. Clothe yourself in flesh and
appear."
These words were only a formality, Nicolette had said, to draw the entity into
the ritual area. Once said, Sasha could step back out and she would be safe.
She turned on her heel dramatically, preparing to leave, but when she did so,
she found her ankle gripped by something so firmly, it hurt. Still holding
Sasha's ankle, the corpse hauled itself to its feet.
"Nicolette!" she implored her partner, her voice approaching a scream,
"is this supposed to happen?"
The scene would have been comical if it were not horrific. Marty's
shredded remains held her right ankle as she tried pathetically to keep her
balance and pull it away. Then the creature simply ripped her in towards it
and she landed backwards into its arms. Her scream was cut off abruptly as it
clamped a lacerated hand over her mouth.
When it spoke, or breathed, blood bubble up between its lips. "Well, pretty
little girl," it said. "Not quite prepared to fulfill your side of the
bargain?"
From where Nicolette stood, she could see Sasha's tortured eyes
straining to look towards her for aid. She had expected something like this.
Sasha had served her well, both as lover and partner in this venture, but the
summonation would need flesh (had been promised pleasure). In any case it was
too late now.
The corpse had forced Sasha to the floorboards face-first, one hand
still clamped tightly over her mouth. It mounted her then and there, and
Nicolette had to turn her head to avoid the disgusting picture. She was not a
squeemish woman - her previous experience had proved that - but this was
something she did not want to see. Just hearing the corpse's gurgling, liquid
grunts was foul enough so that she knew those noises would stay in her mind
(and come back to haunt her during quiet times alone) for the rest of her
life.
After a few minutes it was over and she saw fit to turn her eyes back towards
the two figures which lay, one on top of the other and completely still,
before the now clear, mundane crystal. The corpse had removed its hand from
its victim's mouth: presumably she had passed out and gone limp some time
during the proceedings. A few more seconds went by before it began to
dissolve. Pieces of flesh began to part from one another, wriggling like
worms, first across the slashed symbols and then in the spaces between them,
dividing in millimitre thick ribbons. Nicolette almost turned away again, but
found herself held by a perverse fascination, when she saw the strips (which
had taken on the colour of minced meat) writhe down upon Sasha's unconcious
form. The girl awoke then, but found she could not scream, for the meat-stuff
had squirmed into her mouth just as it was forcing its way into all of her
bodily orifices. The entity was raping her again, but this time in a more
penetrating fashion.
Within moments, the formless mass had covered its prey and taken it unto
itself. What remained hauled itself to its feet, drawing ribbons of raw flesh
and moisture away from clean-picked white bone. The creature which stood
before Nicolette had a humanoid form: arms, legs, fingers, head; but the
ribbons continued to move, winding and diving, over and under each other, as
if they were fighting for dominance.
When it spoke, no mouth opened in the lump of writing flesh which made up its
jaw. The words simply came, hollow and grinding, from somewhere in the
creature's vicinity.
"You called and I came. Now step into here with me and give me what you
offered. Like your tasty friend."
Nicolette was annoyed that this creature expected something of her.
Another deal would have to be struck. "What should I call you?" she asked.
"As I see it, that is no concern of yours. Now just step in here and
we'll see what we can do."
"His name is Ska'kt-qu-a-diz," came a voice from the hallway,
immediately followed by its owner. "It means Meat Given Form in the Dead Plane
tongue."
"Who the fuck are you?" said Nicolette, the anger in her voice plain.
This new arrival was something completely unexpected, a random element which
could easily upset the whole equation.
The man ignored the question. "Now that you have him here what makes you
think you can control him?" Saying this, he nodded over to where the creature
stood at the perimeter of its prison, its gaze alternating between Nicolette
the newcomer, seemingly trying to judge who first to invite into its lair.
Nicolette took a few moments to evaluate the man who stood before her, trying
to determine what sort of threat he could pose from the bare physical clues
his appearance provided her. He was tall and dark-skinned, with facial
features which suggested African heritage. But there was something else (in
his eyes, the noble lines of his nose, mouth and cheekbones): she found
herself likening him to drawings she had seen of the kings of Ancient Egypt.
There was that, and then a definately modern affectation (out of character for
a Ramses or Tutmoses) in the way he styled his hair: in dreadlocks tied back
into a tail which hung almost to his waist. She found his age difficult to
determine, but decided he could be in his thirties.
These details faded into the background when he reached into his
overcoat, drew out a handgun and held it casually at his side. The was no
overt threat in this action - had he pointed it at her head, she might have
felt different - but there was no doubt that he had used the weapon before in
situations more difficult than this, and that he was prepared to do so again
without a thought. The nonchalance with which he glanced at the
flesh-creature, almost ignoring it, suggested a familiarity with such things
which Nicolette found a little unnerving.
"Step away from the candles, please," said the stranger. The arm with the gun
on the end of it was relaxed and pointed at the floorboards.
Nicolette stepped backwards. "You have no business here," she said.
"You don't know what you're fucking with here, girl. Now, I said,
move..." His voice had suddenly become very threatening.
"No," she said. "I don't think so." She spun, her arm reaching out
towards the candles. The gun was lifting now, sweeping up almost unnoticed.
"No!" he shouted, and fired. The bullet punched through Nicolette's
shoulder. There was a spray of blood as she whirled, her arms flayling and her
body tumbling. Wrought iron candelabra collapsed in a cacophony of sound
almost blotted out by a frantic scream of pain.
The bea
st, now unbound, swatted any ritual paraphernalia in its path to
the ground and moved hungrily towards its prey. Nicolette, dizzy and
disorientated, scrambled away clutching her shoulder.
Michael Kaylish shouted at the creature to move away, but didn't expect it to
listen. The way it moved bespoke a single-minded hunger for flesh which he'd
seen in these things on too many previous encounters. It had made the jump
from the Dead Plane by divesting itself of its body, and now it needed to
clothe itself once again.
Weapon held in both hands, feet planted firmly apart, Kaylish put three holes
in the crawling mass which was the beast's back. It staggered to one side
briefly, the bullets spraying meat and blood where they exited on the other
side. If anything, now he had its attention. Ponderously, it turned and
directed its eyeless gaze towards this new annoyance.
The wounds were invisible, or had already sealed. It had obviously been too
much to expect physical force to harm it. Kaylish took a step backwards and
reached inside himself to where he knew the darkness lay tightly coiled and
sleeping. He slipped the useless Beretta into a pocket of his overcoat and
cupped his hands in front of him. Inky tendrils squirted out of gaps between
his fingers as he felt the ball of shadow-stuff take form.
"Ahh," breathed the creature. "We have a Wielder here."
It took one more step towards him and then he let the projectile loose.
The creature's head was completely engulfed. Liquid black oozed over raw worms
of flesh, running in complicated patterns between them. It gave an anguished
scream and collapsed, bits of it already fleeing from the whole as it was
unmade.
Kaylish realised that his body was shaking from the effort of what he'd just
accomplished. He overcame a wave of nausea and looked over his shoulder to see
Nicolette flee through the hallway. The pieces of flesh on the floor were
struggling to reunite into a whole as the black cancer clung to it, consuming
with a appetite of its own. He knew it would only be a matter of minutes
before the beast pulled itself free and separated itself from that which
sought to contaminate. As he'd anticipated, he'd have to burn what was left.
He left the room and followed the sounds of a struggle outside.
When he arrived at the front door, Vince was just coming through, carrying a
kicking, clawing and biting Nicolette with him. "Where do you want her?" he
asked.
Kaylish removed the gun from his pocket and handed it to the man. "Put
her in the kitchen. Shoot her if she tries to escape." Saying this, he ran to
the car outside and returned soon after with a jerry- can. In the living room,
the remnants of the summonation was spreading itself over a wide area so as to
minimize the damage caused by its tormentor. Kaylish noted the chaos of
toppled candelabra, as well as the presense of candles which remained upright
and alight. It would be a tricky operation to doust the whole heaving mass
with petrol without a premature ignition. He was about to start pouring when
the night's second uninvited guest made herself known.
She was perched on the window-ledge over which Anton had leapt in his escape.
"Kaylish," she said. "Why do you always insist on interfering in the affairs
of others?"
She'd been human once, and beautiful. That was when her face had been covered
with skin (smooth, pale and clear) and tissue. He had known that it would be
only a matter of time before the Dead Plane wrought its signiature of decay
upon her body. The lords of that realm needed servants who were loyal and only
those of their own kind could be trusted. When no such servitor was available
on this side of the Veil, they compromised and remade a human to suit their
own aesthetic tastes. The first thing they took was that thing which the
applicant held dearest, that aspect of their physical form which the
individual felt most defined their personality. In Teresa's case, it had been
her face. Her beautiful face, which of all those things which had made up the
woman Kaylin had once loved, had been the greatest expression of her soul.
Her head was now a cage of bones, meeting at the centre with a thick central
ridge which ran diagonally down her face. Her body, once possessing a woman's
graceful curves, was now extremely emaciated. The arms (now bony and elongated
far beyond their natural length) ended in fantastically long, thin, tapering
fingers.
Kaylin found himself too shocked to say or do anything. His guts churned,
seeing this vision of the familiar perverted into the Enemy.
"Drop the can, Kaylin," she said. Casually, using one arm, she reached
down and pulled a limp shape from somewhere outside the window. She draped the
unconcious body of the young man over the sill next to her and gripped his
head with a hand. The fingers easily wrapped around the shape, enfolding it
like a dead spider's legs. "Or I'll crush his little head like a grape."
Kaylin set the jerry-can down slowly and carefully. He realised for the first
time that he was sweating, and that the air in the room was like a continuous
blast of desert wind: scorchingly hot and devoid of all moisture.
"So you have become a lacky for the Deathly Ones," he said. With some
effort he managed to keep his voice smooth and unemotional. It was always
fatal to show any signs of weakness toward the Enemy. "You have changed,
Teresa. I never imagined- "
"I've never valued your opinions, Kaylin. Why should I now?" Was that a
hint of pain in her voice? There would be bitterness, he mused, for the price
had been terrible. Who would willingly serve a master who did this to his
servants? Only a madwoman.
There was a shuffling of feet at the hallway's threshold. Vince had one
arm around Nicolette's neck, pulling her to his chest tightly. The gun was
firmly against her temple. Then he saw the thing on the window sill. "What the
- ?" he whispered. He redirected the weapon towards Teresa and then -
realising the futility of bullets against a creature wrought of bone - pressed
it back against his captives head.
"Hello Vince," said the Bone-Cage. "Get the fuck outa here would ya?
Both of you - go!"
Kaylin nodded to Vince to release Nicolette. He pushed her away from
him. She staggered, spun around and hissed at him like a cat.
"What is it you plan to do with this - all of this?" asked Kaylin,
backing away. Vince had already left the house.
"Well, what does it look like to you, Mike? We're having a fucking
party! Now go -" her grip tightened on the head "- or the boy dies."
Delivering spiteful wit had never been her forte when she was human; becoming
a monster hadn't altered that in the least.
Vince left via the front door.
Teresa let Anton fall to the ground outside the window and turned her head to
look at the meat creature. "I see the ritual was successful. You follow
instructions well. I'm sorry that Kaylin turned up and caused this trouble. No
harm done, though."
Most of shredded flesh had separated itself from the ball of
shadow-stuff. It reformed itself into humanoid shape, but the battle had taken
its toll and removed half its mass, reducing Ska'kt-qu-a-diz to the size of a
child. "I will need more flesh," it said.
IV
Outside the house, underneath the ledge, Anton staggered to his feet and broke
into a bent-over run. He found himself crashing through bushes heedless, given
strength by fear. He reached the road, collapsed and vomited into a gutter. A
van pulled up alongside him, the side door opened and Kaylin hopped out. He
dragged the young man into the back and slammed the door shut.
CHAPTER TWO
I
He was walking through a park when he realised he was dreaming. The world
around him suddenly became more focused - sharper - than reality. Gravel
crunched under his feet. The chill morning air stung his skin and frosted his
breath. The familiar tang of foliage and earth was ambient. He could feel his
heart beating steadily in his chest.
Lucid dreams came to him more frequently than they did to others, yet they
were still infrequent and he didn't hesitate at the opportunity to play God
(if only in his head).
He leaped from the path and soared upwards, rapidly gaining momentum. Vast
wings sprouted from his shoulders, unfolding and holding the winds. Below him,
the lush gardens became an island surrounded by stark concrete buildings which
stretched away to meet the horizon in every direction. The city seemed to be a
world, the world, a city. This place had existed before stone dwellings had
been imagined, and would exist after the last had fallen into rubble.
He went in search of its inhabitants (it appeared to be deserted). Swooping
low over a six-story office block, he headed towards the vast side of a
skyscraper. On a sudden violent impulse (he felt careless and free) he flew
faster and faster towards the plate-glass windows. Bursting through on the
eighth floor amidst a cacophony of fragmenting glass, he found himself in an
small office.
She was waiting for him there. Bathed in her white glow, he approached, and
then realised she was bound, her arms and legs circled by ebony rings.
"We have to talk," she said.
"About what?" he asked, shifting his wings nervously in the cramped space.
"I need your help."
He stepped forward, misinterpreting this as a request for liberation. His
hands went to her shackles, found them to be cold and hard. When she was free
(this shining angel) the dream could become very interesting.
"No. I'm not part of your dream."
He willed her free, willed her to have solid form, willed her... But
nothing happened. He stepped away from her. "Does this have something to do
with last night?" he growled. The tone of his voice was accusing.
"Yes."
"This has nothing to do with me. Get the fuck out of my dream!" he
screamed. He spun around and willed himself to be awake. He could hear her
behind him, imploring, begging, as light exploded into his eyes.
II
His eyes had been weary and partially gummed shut with tears. Something had
seemed to be strangling his mind, pressing consciousness out of him, and yet
he had fought to keep his senses. His body useless, his spirit rapidly dying,
he had viewed the meeting through a cage of bone fingers, clamped down over
his head and threatening to burst his skull. What he had seen had not made
much sense to him in his condition.
Nicolette was being half-carried out of the room by a man Anton didn't
recognise. She had been naked and angry, with a gun at her temple to subdue
her.
Had those been Marty's shredded remnants being smothered by darkness on the
floor? And then his captor - the child's nightmare sketch - had demanded
something of someone, another unrecognised player in the little tableau, and
in his terrible delirium he had only vaguely comprehended that it was his life
being bargained for. Even so, at that moment, he didn't have the will to care
and told himself: If I'm to die at the hands of this abomination, this
ridiculous situation, then so be it.
Later, after another frantic attempt at flight and another loss of
consciousness, he awoke on a mattress in a featureless room. At first he
thought he couldn't move. Every muscle in his body was heated with pain. His
brain ached, but somehow he found his thoughts clear. Shortly, a door opened
and a man stepped through tentatively. There was a flood of memories and
detail (candles, Marty coughing up blood, the bone monster, shredded flesh on
the wooden floorboards) and then he remembered that his host was the one who
he'd first seen restraining Nicolette.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
Anton lay still for a while, almost angry. Then he said: "What the fuck
happened last night?" He found his immobility to be imaginary and hauled
himself into sitting position.
The man smiled sadly. "You... stumbled... onto something that maybe you
shouldn't have."
"Yeah, fucking great. I can hardly remember any of it."
"Maybe its better that way."
He remembered far too much of the night before: far too much to simply
forget. "Okay," he said. "Firstly, who are you?"
"I'm Vince. I'm surprised you have any memory of last night at all. Exactly
what did you see?"
This question brought up too much horror in Anton's mind. There were
feelings and images which he forced down like the rising bile in his throat.
He attempted good humour: "Hey! I'd rather not recall, okay?" Vince smiled in
a way that very nearly put Anton at ease.
"Can you stand?"
"Yeah sure." Anton managed to drag himself up to his feet. He staggered,
stumbled, almost fell, but Vince was there, with an arm around his shoulder,
steadying him. "Thanks," he muttered.
The lounge looked liked it had been filled with furnishings picked straight
from the page of a junk-mail catalogue. A leather sofa set was arranged around
a television, VCR and stereo. A small bookshelf held a few tatty old books.
The walls were bare. In one corner of the room was a heavy pine dining table.
By this sat the man who had talked to the monster as if they were old
acquaintances, had bargained it: the man it had called Kaylin.
His head was bowed over a book when they entered, his whole lean body
seemingly focused on its yellowed pages. The lines of concentration eased from
his face as he looked up at Anton, and were replaced by something like a
smile. As Vince helped Anton to the table, Kaylin reached for a pack of
cigarettes. He was seated, offered a cigarette (which he accepted), and then
Kaylin spoke.
"How much of last night do you remember?" he asked.
"Too much. I don't know," Anton said. He was tired, his arms resting on the
table's polished surface, his body hunched over. "Maybe you could tell me.
What was going on?"
"We don't have to talk about this now, you know," said Kaylin.
"You should rest. Think about it all. See what you can remember."
Vince was standing somewhere in the background. "Would you like a cup of
coffee or something?" he asked.
Anton ignored him and stared at the dark-skinned man. "Now's as good a time
as any. I want an explanation, and then I'm outa here. That's all."
"Okay. There's so much to tell. You're very lucky to be alive. The women
you met were looking for human sacrifices."
"Yeah," said Anton. "Marty. They killed Marty, I think."
Kaylin's expression suddenly registered what Anton took to be genuine
concern. He was silent for a while. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said.
"These people have no respect for life. They do whatever's necessary."
"Necessary? Necessary for what? Who are they?"
"This is not really the time for the whole story. You're not well. You
need..."
"I'm fucking fine. Now just tell me," said Anton. They were avoiding giving
him any information. It was as if they hoped he hadn't remembered what he saw,
or that he would just forget what he had seen. But it was all in his mind, and
it was becoming clearer by the minute: every pungent, gritty, piercing moment
of it.
"There are other places, Anton. Places where..."
"How do you know my name?" Anton interjected.
"You were talking in your sleep when we drove you over here. It was more
like raving really."
"Jesus. I don't remember that. Now, you were saying: other places?"
"The ancient people named the places where they believed the soul goes when
the body dies. The Greeks had their Underworld - Hades -
ruled by its own King, and from where the dead were sent to the Elysian
Fields, to paradise, or to Tartarus, to face eternal torment. Heaven and Hell.
The Egyptians had their Underworld, overseen by their God of Death, Osiris.
And, long before that, the Sumerians, too, had their place for the dead - Kur
- with its gatekeeper, Nedu. Most cultures believed, and still believe, in an
afterlife. Life seems so brief and meaningless without anything more."
"All stories and teachings have their root in some kind of truth. The
ancients saw the sun rise every morning, as we do, and set every night. They
observed nature and Her seasons, and since the sun appears in the sky above
the Earth, the sun became the fertilising, the masculine principle, while the
Earth - its soil, its water, its trees, everything - was seen as a kind of
mother. Today, through science, we know that no life would exist on this
planet without the rays of the sun. You can see how there is truth in the
observations of the ancients there, can't you?"
Anton, his head almost resting on his folded arms, nodded. "I've read a
little ancient mythology. It's one of my interests. But what does that have to
do with everything that went down last night? Are you saying those - those
whatever the fuck they were - monsters - were creatures from some kind of
Hell? That..."
"Yes. In a way. But not exactly. The ancients could only try to explain
what they observed, and there was a lot of confusion. Today people scoff at
their attempts to explain the universe. There were truths in their
explanations, though. There's a place where only death is to be found. Souls
don't go there when they die. There's no judgement of good or evil. Only death
and a malignant yearning to extinguish all life."
"The Dead Plane," said Anton. "Isn't that what you called it last night? Is
that where the bone-bitch... Teresa...?"
Kaylin suddenly looked like he'd been physically struck by the name. The
momentary furrowing of his brow, the twitch of his mouth, the painful look in
his eyes - these things didn't go unnoticed to Anton.
"Yes. How she's changed. Only a few months ago... But she serves them now.
And as much as it hurts me to say it, she's our enemy. She's the one who's
responsible for Marty's death."
Anton could feel things closing in on him. He wasn't going to be able to
escape it. The world was not as simple - nor as safe - as he'd taken for
granted. The fears which plague a child, but which are later discarded and
laughed at upon the attainment of adulthood - they came back in a flood of
charcoal scrawlings upon his mind: clacking mandibles and things which
squatted, waiting behind hard materiality; all things grotesque and
half-realised.
"Who does she serve?" he demanded, once he had found his voice again.
"The embodiment of stagnation and sterility. Things that come from the Dead
Plane. And most of all, her own obsessions, a hunger for knowledge - for
power. Who knows?"
Anton was quickly piecing together the story from the meagre offerings he'd
been given. It was all obvious to him, no matter how unlikely it sounded. "You
had something going with this woman once, didn't you?" he said.
"We were once friends. Lovers. I suppose you could say we were looking for
something beneath it all. The truth beneath all the old insights. Together we
found it, and we found the Dead Plane. With Vince's help."
It was almost a que for Vince to join their discussion. Previously, he'd
been standing in the background behind Anton; now, when Kaylin glanced up at
him, he seated himself at the table. Anton wondered how this man - so calm and
amiable in aعº
±Øppearance now after his confident gun-wielding the night
before - could fit into all of this. There was something in his appearance
which reminded of someone he'd seen once. His thick blond hair, his beard, his
moustache and his intelligent blue eyes - Who?
"My real name is Vince O'Brien. You may have heard of me..."
"You write occult books. Big sellers."
"Yeah, well, Michael and Teresa came to me for information. I was supposed
to be an authority on all that stuff. It was an obsession of mine. They were
looking for a certain rare book, which, as it happened, was in my possession."
"Look," said Anton, his gaze momentarily falling on his hands (dirt on his
palms, grit under his nails). "I had a dream last night." In the blur of
reality he was experiencing, the situation couldn't become any more
ridiculous. If creatures of nightmare could take form and walk on the Earth,
then didn't the inner events of the dream-world have a new relevance for the
situation? "In it, a woman - a bright, shining woman - was trapped, captured,
bound. She asked to be freed, but I couldn't do it. I got angry. I got scared.
I woke up."
Looking over at Kaylin, Anton saw that his words had meant something to
him. Kaylin looked at the table. His hands went down to the book which lay
before him and he flipped its pages shut. "The Shining Lady who guards the Way
Between," he said.
"I just thought you should know about that," said Anton. "That's all. Now
I'll be going."
"Stay a while: listen to what I have to say."
"No thanks. I'm going to try and forget all this shit."
"You think you can just walk away?" Something in the way he said that made
Anton stop and reconsider.
"You think they'll let you live now that you know about them?"
"What would they want with me? I'm no threat..." His voice was full of
doubts, almost pleading, as if Kaylin was the enemy.
"Even if they leave you alone, how will you live knowing what you know?"
"I don't know. I'm going to try," said Anton. He walked to the front door,
opened it and took one step outside.
"Wait. I can't keep you here. Go try and continue as if nothing happened.
Take this, though." He offered a card, which Anton accepted. There was a
single string of digits scribbled across it. A mobile phone number.
"Okay, thanks. Don't think I'll be needing it, though." Saying this, he
slipped the card into his pocket and walked into the sunlit suburban streets.
III
Upon arriving at the flat, Anton was presented with a scene which brought his
thoughts back to several important questions. Marty's possessions were
scattered amongst the mess of the lounge: they had spent two hours drinking
before going out and this was the refuse. Anton stepped wearily over to the
door of his flatmate's room and pushed it open. Marty had not been a tidy or
organised person: he had lived amongst the trash of his existence - dirty
laundry, fast food packaging, beer cans and drained whisky bottles. Standing
there, a flood of memories - all the touching moments of friendship which are
never dwelt upon when they occur - came down on Anton like a deluge.
Struggling to hold back the tears, he sat down on a grubby, torn sofa in
the lounge. A quarter bottle of Jim Beam was lying on its side at his feet. He
found what passed for a clean glass, poured himself a generous hit, and drank
it down in a single gulp. His stomach, empty of anything solid and still
tender from the pervious night's excesses, rebelled. His hand went reflexively
up to his mouth to halt the flow of bile, but it spilled between his fingers
and spattered his legs, the table, the carpet. Shakily, he stood up.
While he showered he wondered how he would cope with the questions Marty's
disappearance was sure to raise. He was vaguely aware of the phone ringing,
somewhere in the background to the splashing water. Half an hour later, free
of grime, he unplugged the telephone and went to bed. Lying awake, he came to
a decision. Although he needed Sharon now as someone to unburden his fears
upon - why drag her into this? Better, he reasoned, to cut himself off from
everything and give himself time to think and readjust. Eventually, he fell
asleep.
IV
The dream had been a routine mess of imagery, so that when he gained control,
it came unexpectedly and left him floundering amongst pieces of his past.
He'd been walking through a small village set high atop a mountain so tall
its tip reached above the clouds, piercing them and setting them below as a
shifting white ocean. The place had seemed uninhabited, as he walked its main
strip, until his mother had stepped from a doorway and opened her arms to him.
He wanted to go to her, but, somehow, he could not, and continued walking.
He began to cry as he walked, and soon his t-shirt became wet with tears.
Unable to reach up and dry the flow, or to stop walking, he soon reached what
appeared to be the village square. His father was waiting there for him with a
gift-wrapped box, but he turned away and hid his face in embarrassment as the
tears continued to fall.
"You fucking baby," said his father. As he turned back towards him, his
senses sharpened, and the dream-world around him took on an awesome clarity.
Suddenly it was all so perfect, so clear, and so still, that it was almost
painful.
Anton willed his father away and he vanished instantaneously. The package
went with him: that revelation would have to wait for another dream. Once
again, Anton was in control. He strode across the square and down the main
street, looking for his mother. He saw her in the distance, but as he drew
closer he realised it was not his mother. It was the Shining Lady.
As before, she was bound by rings of shadow, her expression sorrowful, and
(his heart shocked) so beautiful.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am... I used to be Melinda Terrence. That was until the Guardians of the
Between passed their guardianship onto me. I became something else..."
"When? When did this happen?"
"It was..." Concentration creased her features (angelic, shining features,
he thought) as she struggled to recall. "The year eighteen hundred and thirty
two. I was so young then, and naive, and the responsibility was too much for
me."
"Why did they do it to you then?"
"They became weary. Bored with their lot. I stumbled on them at the wrong
time. But it no longer matters really, because now I am more. I don't fully
understand it, but I've become more than I was."
"You seem fairly human to me," he said, watching her glowing outline.
She smiled. "Yes. What you're seeing... what you're dreaming... is coming
partly from you. It is your dream after all."
"So," he said. "What does this have to do with me?"
"The Ever-Dead - the lords of the Dead Plane - have captured me. I tried to
resist. But... Now they'll have their way with the world."
This was too much for Anton to take in. "Look, if you think I'm going to be
dragged into this little Jihad of yours or whatever it is, like Vince and
Kaylin, then you're sadly mistaken."
V
He awoke with a foul taste in his mouth and a hot lance of sunlight across his
face. Looking over at the bedside clock, he realised he had slept through the
rest of the previous day and most of present. With a shudder brought on partly
by protesting muscles and partly due to the chill outside the warmth of the
blankets, he arose and went to the bathroom.
He turned on a tap and doused his face in the numbing flow. This was when
he remembered the dream. It returned in all of its intensity, with all of its
weighted meanings, filling him with its strange images.
He considered the implications over a cup of coffee and a cigarette, his
eyes straying to the litter in the lounge. Was it possible that his
subconscious was creating all of this after the shock of the meeting? Or was
the diabolic already conspiring against him, descending upon him to make him
one of its own? He was being compelled, somehow, to become a player in this
farce. Vince had hinted that what he had witnessed had changed him, and that
he was part of the drama now, no matter how he wished it were otherwise.
The Shining Lady. Melinda. The Woman of his Dreams was imprisoned somewhere
on the Dead Plane, for what crime he couldn't guess. From the meagre
information with which he had been provided, he could only conjecture.
There was a knock at the door. Sharon, thought Anton, can't you be without
me for the briefest time? Did she have to be there, haranguing him every hour
of the day? He tried to ignore the persistent tapping, but it became more
insistent, more annoying, until she spoke: "Are you there Anton?"
He didn't answer. He put his coffee cup gently onto the table. The door was
thin and insubstantial. Someone on the landing outside would be able to hear
every movement inside.
"I know you're in there," she said, hammering the door as if to punctuate
the statement.
They'd been in love - or at least what Anton had once believed to be love.
Now their relationship seemed to him to be insignificant - a diversion -
before all that had been revealed.
"Open this fucking door, Anton. Tell me what's wrong." He was suddenly very
annoyed by her ranting, whining voice. It faded into the background as he
closed his eyes and slouched back into the sofa. ("Marty! You there? Marty -
open the door will you?") If only he could tell her he needed time alone. It
should have been enough, but he knew it wouldn't be. There'd be prying
questions. Was it her fault, she'd ask. No? Then what? Was he seeing someone
else? And where was Marty, by the way, because his girlfriend was looking for
him as well. What could he reply? She always saw through his lies, just as she
knew he was behind the door and trying to ignore her.
Eventually she gave up, leaving after a string of expletives and threats.
He put a Clapton CD in the player and slouched back down into the couch.
Soon he was lost in the mournful blues melody and, as he began to collect his
thoughts, he realised sleep was claiming him again. His head began to nod, his
eyelids became heavy.
He stood up again, feeling the Lady's call deep in his gut and intending to
quell it with another cup of coffee, but then he hesitated. Why resist it?
She'd have her say eventually, whether he like it or not. So then, why not
now? With leaden limbs, Anton gave in, headed back to bed, and to sleep.
VI
This time there was no superfluous metaphor. He felt himself enter the
dream-state almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.
He was standing in a stone cell without exits, lit only by the luminescent
shape of the Lady. She was bound to the wall in front of him, and her features
expressed a mournful desperation which pierced him to his soul.
She was about to say something: "Anton you must..." But he cut her off.
"I've given this some thought," he said. "What do you want me to do?"
She seemed to relax, and the hopeless look was replaced by a smile. "You
must call Kaylin. Offer you help. Explain all of this to him."
"Why couldn't you just go to him in is dreams?"
"He's closed himself to all Dead Plane contact. Nothing can touch him. He's
trying to protect himself."
"Why not Vince, then?" he said, his voice raising in anger. She was hiding
something from him. She was fucking him around.
"I can't explain it now...
The dream began to blur into light. He was screaming demands at her while
she continued talking, and reality was taking its gritty hold of him again.
Somehow, he knew she would leave his dreams after this.
CHAPTER THREE
I
She had tried to kill herself a few times, half-heartedly, but in each case
there had been some malignant glimmer of hope parading behind her depression
which had rendered her efforts less than certain, and thus ultimately
ineffective. Now Winter had come to the city again and with it, that familiar
chill which - no matter how many garments she layered onto herself - would
persist in reminding her of her mortality. The ache pierced her body as she
walked to the station in the morning; it breathed on fingers loosely cradling
the novel which failed to hold her attention as she waited for the train to
reach its destination; and most notably, it became a dull throb into her head
as she tried to concentrate on her lectures.
The city was not to blame. It was the only place in the world she could
truly say she almost belonged. She had tried living in other places, but these
had only made the way she felt unbearable. This city seemed to welcome those
who hated their existence, enfolding them in its streets like so many unhappy
children.
Of course, the city constantly showed itself to be a traitor to Catherine,
but this was more a fault of those (they deserved no place here, she told
herself) who hid dissatisfaction behind a fake smile, anger behind a forced
laugh. The truth was that everyone lied to themselves: they knew they were
dying and yet they denied it.
The cold of the city throttled all attempts at resistance; the only way to
survive it was to embrace it. Catherine tried to apply the same reasoning to
her fears of death. She would make a friend of the approaching endless night
and, in turn, would find that it was no longer a threat.
II
On that winter, in her second year at the university, Catherine's melancholia
first revealed itself to the world. Her wardrobe lost its colour, becoming a
uniform black which she thought properly mirrored the stifled flame (when she
was a little girl it had been so bright, she remembered) which was burning
itself out inside her.
At first she was unaware that she had taken upon herself the badge of a new
tribe, but what soon became apparant was that there were others like her. She
had barely noticed them before, she realised, but they had been there all
along, shadowy blotches even in sharp sunshine. Two of them had been seated on
a bench in the university's park, the girl cradled protectively in her lover's
arms, and she had approached them and introduced herself. At first they had
been unresponsive, wanting only to be left alone and harbouring suspicions as
to the true nature of the newcomer. This had made Catherine all the more
certain that she had found her true kin: weren't they all bound by a longing
for withdrawal which verged on contempt?
Caitlin, the first to accept her, was a paragon of fragile, pale- skinned
and dark-haired beauty. Her first smile had communicated both understand and
friendship to Catherine and made her feel bonded in a so many ways previously
unknown.
After that the three of them met frequently. The weeks blurred by, and soon
she lost track of the times she had watched Caitlin dance between headstones
in the cemetary: a twisting, rolling start-stop, back and forth to the sounds
of the night. Black hair splayed in riotous cascades, down her back, into the
air, as her slim, black-clad body moved. Violence and eroticism, loving and
killing, pummeling and caressing, in an endless, undulating, wave-like vision.
Sometimes, without knowing why, she would find herself drawn into the
whirlwind ballet and then all her inhibitions would slip away as she lost
herself to the moment. And then David would be watching them both, entranced
and grim before the revelations.
III
David was not disturbed by the growing intimacy he witnessed between the
girls; to the contrary, he seemed to delight in the unusual situation which
would inevitably develop. He was out one night, visiting contacts through
which he hoped to procure drugs. The apartment had long since dissolved in a
haze of alcohol and hashish for Catherine. From time to time she became aware
that Caitlin was likewise enebriated. If there was a world outside and apart
from the two of them on that night, Catherine was not aware of it.
They had been laughing at something one or the other had said and then
Caitlin's face had become almost grave and she had whispered: "You're so
beautiful when you laugh." Catherine had put an arm around her friend's
shoulder and, as a wave of dizzyness had almost overcome her, she realised
they were kissing. The wine tasted so sweet, and the warmth of another body so
inviting; they drew closer to each other and the embrace became deeper and
more passionate. At first feelings of elation and fear shook her body, but
these soon passed and they simply took comfort being close.
IV
"We are Exiles, all of us," David had said. And to Catherine, this had been
the first hint of something more, for in the inflexions of these words came
the suggestion that the three of them were not alone.
The talk and intimacy they shared, the way they viewed the world (it was a
place of violence, unhappiness, sorrow) - these things had allowed to her to
experience life anew. They were more than just a group of friends. But
sometimes it seemed they knew no-one else, that they were an island of
themselves, and these doubts scared her. Although she had found so much
already, she wanted to belong to a greater whole. All connexions became stale
eventually, even one as profound as theirs.
She had the feeling they were watching her, almost interviewing her,
becoming acquainted with her deepest innermost workings. She didn't mind: they
showed no signs of rejecting her.
A week after that tantalising inference, they revealed all to her. Caitlin
had said: "We choose to set ourselves apart - to make up a race of ourselves.
David, and I, and others like us. There is a place we have made apart from the
world, Catherine. A place where misery's load is lightened briefly, while it
lasts. We're sorry we couldn't tell you about this before. We had to be sure,
and we're sure now. You're one of us. We see that now."
"Will you come with us? Be one of us?" David had asked.
"Oh, yes..."
After that they talked about the tribe's meeting place for many hours. It
had once been an old factory in what was now the most desolate part of the
city, on Lennor Street. Now, they said, it was their secret, and they had kept
it well, free from pretenders and those who didn't understand. It was the only
place they had.
V
Days after they let her into their confidence, David and Caitlin disappeared.
There was no answer to Catherine's phone calls, no answer to her knocking on
their apartment's door. Nothing for Catherine. Only an emptyness, which
threatened to destroy her.
Catherine stood on Lennor Street, in an alcove between tatty store fronts.
With her arms folded across her chest - trying in vain to keep what warmth her
mutiple layers of skirts provided her - she watched two figures stroll, almost
invisible against the shadowed streets, towards where she suspected her
destination lay. As they passed her she drew the hood of her cloak over her
face and retreated against a glass door. In spite of that, they both saw her,
and turned their faces to look at her (two young men with perfect pale skin
and sad eyes) as they walked. One of them put his hand to the other's shoulder
and they both stopped. They stared at her for a while, saying nothing. Then
they turned to leave.
"Wait," she said, surprising herself with her sudden courage. She pulled
the hood from her face. "I'll walk with you."
As they walked, one of the men spoke to her. His eyes burned feverishly
bright, reading every expression of her face even in the few times their
glances met. He was tall and deathly thin. She spied ribs beneath his
partially open shirtfront (didn't he feel the cold? more evidence that these
had made allies of the cruel elements).
His friend was good-looking, Catherine decided; but more correctly he was
pretty, like a young boy who had not yet reached puberty and whose sex - boy
or girl - had not yet made itself plain. He wore black leather over a black
t-shirt which matched the messy black of his hair. An onyx Ank (barely visible
against the dark cloth) hung on a chain from his neck. He remained silent.
Catherine could see the dimly-lit mouth of the Club and as they approached
the two Exiles who accompanied her said not a word, but she knew there must be
anticipation and excitement behind their sullen visages. If there had been any
doubt as to whether she'd come to right place, it had evaporated after their
casual acceptance of her as one of their own kind.
As they descended the several steep flights of stairs lit (she thought it a
nice touch) by torches in sconces on the passage walls she noticed her
companions expressions suddenly relax. They had come home to where they knew
they were safe.
Inside, the place may have seemed dismal to an outsider, but for Catherine:
it cleared her mind and then set it ablaze. It was as if they had made a piece
of the mundane world their own and refashioned it to suit their own inner
fantasy. A small part of her, protesting, knew it for what it was - just the
living out of a fantasy, but the greater whole didn't care. She was part of
this now.
The first room was uninhabited, but hung - as the whole Club was - with
black and purple drapes. The effect of the drapes, hanging featureless at
chaotic angles, was to distort and soften the space. Deep colours undulated as
the drapes shifted in the breeze, providing nothing to settle the eye.
The atmosphere changed once again as they entered what Catherine felt must
be the main room. The drapery obscured everything here, confounding here sense
of direction and offering many (changing, shifting, altering, indistinct)
paths. passages. She looked over to her guides to see which way they would
choose, but they had departed, leaving only the billowing of purple cloth in
their wake to mark their passing.
Now she realised that she'd always imagined a place like this. The few
clues Caitlin and David had provided as to its geography and atmosphere
(hinted, but never completely described) had fleshed out a gathering place
whose shadowed dimensions - its very indistinctness - allowed it to fit
anyones preconceptions of what such a place should be.
She stood alone and became aware of soft music from somewhere near. What
else did she have to follow? With a growing sense of dislocation, unnaturally
married with calm acceptance, she made her way through the curtained walkways.
Periodically, a gap between two dark sheets would allow her a glimpse - for no
more than a second as she strode onwards -of a group of melancholy figures,
dressed as if for their own funeral. She went unnoticed. Then, without
warning, draperies gave way to a raised floor before a stage on which a band
played. Upon this floor, swaying like so many soft black trees were many
Exiles, the women surrounded by the swish of their many skirts, the men
seeming to Catherine like so many sombre undertakers.
She looked around for anyone else unmoving. She felt too vague to dance,
for she realised that (although it would be bliss to enter that undulating
swathe at that moment and lose herself) she would forget why she had come. She
was about to head back through the corridors when she noticed a figure resting
on a sofa in an alcove opposite her. Some strange fancy had her wishing it was
David, but as she approached she saw that it was some other. She sat down next
to him.
Needing a source of information, but unwilling to mark herself as a
newcomer, she tried to gauge his attitude. No, there was something about him
which told her he didn't quite fit. She read feelings of discomfort and
heightened awareness in the way he altered his pose: first slouching backwards
into his seat, then bolt upright, and then hunched forward. Perhaps he was on
something. A trip could do that to you; or even marijuana. Had she disturbed
him from his reverent audience? She thought this must be how her dances with
Caitlin seemed to David. It was fascinating and something else - was that a
flutter of elation in her chest, or just nerves? She told herself to relax:
after all, this was her home ground.
She saw her feelings mirrored in his face. The display seemed to defy the
flesh and bone mortality of it participants. They had become once again the
creatures of shadow - the forms which went ignored or unnoticed - but seen
here in this place, they were somehow tangible.
"There is something disturbing about this dance, but I find I can't tear my
eyes away from it," he said. It seemed to be something he had been burning to
tell someone for so long. "Look at the expression on that guy's face. I wonder
what's going through his mind. I mean..."
He paused, looking for words which fit his wonder. (Cath realised he was
acutely concious of the length of this break in the sentence, for he said
nothing and held his head cocked to the side for quite a while.) "...I don't
know what I mean, really," he seemed to finish.
And then, on an almost irrelevant tangent he continued : "I've seen strange
things. Such things. You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Why was he
pouring his feelings out to her without an introduction? Could it be he was
unknown here - a stranger like her -
and he felt he had found something mundane to hang onto? If it was a guide he
sought, he was looking to the wrong person.
"Maybe I would believe," she said. "My life has not been all that...
normal, lately."
"No. It's too terrible." Suddenly he looked like he might be ready to cry
and, not wanting to bear witness to any such display which might unnerve her
any more, she prepared to leave.
He caught her intention and said: "Don't go. Are you new here?"
CHAPTER FOUR
I
The requirements for the communication had partially been provided for by the
incident a week previous. According to the word, which Nicolette had gathered
discreetly amongst the Exiles, the young man had been particularly drunk or
high on that night. He'd been wandering in a daze, lead around by his
girlfriend, completely out of touch with reality. He'd stumbled upon the door
which was forbidden to them in this place, and she followed soon after,
calling for him, begging him to come to his senses. If he was aware of her
pleadings, they hadn't mattered to him. They'd come up the staircase and into
the hall, and in his stupor (and her attempts to take him away) had entered
the room where Ska'kt-qu-a-diz was waiting. Slaughter had followed, and Teresa
had feared their screams would be heard by the others. If they had, they said
nothing of it.
The ribcages and bones, stripped clean of meat, were arranged before Teresa
into two tripods, each surmounted by a skull. These she drenched with
gasoline, and set to burn. Then, seated before the twin pyres, she sought the
attendance of the Dead.
"Kag'nit'lil," they said. Their voice was without inflexion. "You have kept
us waiting for too long now. Are your preparations finally complete?"
"There are artifacts I need. Paths yet to be followed. Preparations to be
made. It's been difficult. I don't have much to work on."
"We have given you so much already. Still, you fail to deliver as promised.
You waste our time dallying with hybrids."
She'd been stupid to think they wouldn't notice the summonation. It was
loathsome to them, she knew. It was a thing from the border between Life and
Death, and as such, it was impure, instagnant.
"It's a servant," she stammered. "...nothing more. It will be of use in
what I have to do." They would know. She couldn't hide anything from them. She
belonged to them.
"And, Tel'ik'in. You promised him to us," they said. Somehow, their
insinuations lead into this abrupt change of topic.
Tel'ik'in. The name they'd given to her son, Thomas. They're not going to
back down from their claim on my baby, she thought. Teresa had avoided this as
much as she could, and tried to stray them from their resolve, but the more
she tried, the more insistent they seemed to become.
"Of course," she said. "In time. I need some time with him first. I know
that's difficult for you to understand..."
"Remember who you serve, Kag'nit'lil. We expect your offering soon. We
give you more now. To show we care."
'Care'?, she thought. And then the pain. It rushed through her limbs,
causing her to convulse and scream. It detonated inside her skull. Through the
agony, she could feel the pulp being sucked from beneath her skin and she was
desparately holding onto her life, her humanity, as that, too, was sucked
away.
"Go. Do what you're bound to do."
In the torrent of vertigo and confusion, she tried to stand up. In a
reflexive, a most human, movement, her hands went up to her face, but found
only smooth strips of bone.
Then: the familar feeling of emptyness. No more pain, because that was
reserved for the living.
On her feet again, she found that her body had become still more wasted
away, more elongated. Once again, it would be hours before she familiarised
with this slightly altered shape.
As if in sympathy with his mother's distress, the baby began to cry.
Through the void, she could hear his wailing call. She no longer knew which
part of her responded (her womb had long ago ceased to be), but she staggered
down the hall towards his bedroom, the need to comfort him foremost in her
mind.
Through the daze and the blur of the world she managed to find his cot.
Thomas rarely made a sound. He is the perfect child, she thought ironically, a
first-prize showcase baby who was being nurtured in a monstrous household, by
his monstrous mother. She swathed him in blankets and rocked him in her arms.
The voice she used to comfort him sounded empty and rasping to her: a demon
babbling in baby-talk.
He quietened, and as she lay him back into his cot, there was a noise
outside the door.
"Come in, Nicolette," she said. Her annoyance was plain. As much as she
needed the woman's influence in the world of light outside, she found her
presense galling. She was too ardent, too sly. There was jealousy, too, she
grdgingly admitted to herself, for Nicolette was still whole and human and
untouched. A beautiful girl, but so eager to be defiled, to have her womb -
her womanhood - ripped out of her. Eager to become a monster. If only she
knew.
Nicolette was wearing a long black dress. Her makeup, her ivory cheekbones,
her black hair piled messily atop her head: all as befitted a true Exile.
"The boy's downstairs, with a newcomer," she said.
"Who?"
"Anton. Anton Farrar. Kaylin's boy."
"Ask him if he'd like to come up here, then, would you? Bring this newcomer
too, if she'll come. She may be part of this."
II
The raised platform before the stage was empty, its crop of dark trees having
uprooted and fled all at once with the sudden halt of the music. The band,
too, had departed, taking with them their assortment of strange mediaeval
instruments. Anton and Catherine were left alone. Nearby, perceptable to both
but better ignored, rose a wall of fathomless colours eternally warping, which
obscured the greater Sanctum. It enfolded invisible regions filled with a
blending of slick whispers.
"I'm looking for some friends of mine," said Catherine. "I don't know
anyone here I could ask..." When she spoke to him, her voice was lowered, her
mouth was so close to his ear that - a perverse impulse! - she imagined biting
it. She felt acutely the absense of any living, breathing thing, apart from
Anton on the couch next to her: the whispering background, somehow, didn't
seem to come from anything human.
She turned her head to receive his reply, and she could feel his warm
breath making the hairs raise on the skin of her neck. The strange notion
returned to her, and she almost anticipated his teeth in the tender flesh of
her earlobe. But it never came. Instead: "Who did you come with?"
"Nobody. I met these two guys outside. We came in here and then they were
gone." Again, the turning of the head and the breath.
"I can't help you find your friends. I don't know anyone here either." It
was a small lie, almost truth.
"Maybe we should look around?"
"I don't know if that's a good idea. They seem to value their privacy
here."
"I know what you mean. The place has this feel to it: its almost... like a
temple." She saw that he wasn't listening. His attention was focused over her
shoulder, at something behind her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I think... oh, god..."
She turned. Anton stood up. A face; dead white and surrounded by the dead
colours of the cloth wall. What had startled him?
The woman approached and, looking only at Anton, she said: "So... what do
you think of our little place here?" She is beautiful, thought Catherine. What
threat could she pose?
Anton made no reply, but shifted uneasily behind Catherine.
"Anton, I'm sorry. It had to be done... It..." An apology. "There's someone
who'd like to have a word with you. Nothing else... Just a word. Upstairs."
Anton moved past Catherine and away from the stranger. "I'm going," he
said. His voice was small, his words choked. "Are you coming?"
"Me?" said Catherine. She went to say more, but he'd already passed into
the dividing wall, was already hurrying through its passages to the outside.
He hadn't looked back.
"All she wants is to talk with you," called the stranger, her voice dying
down as she realised it was futile. "What's the big deal? Come back, dammit!"
Catherine was on the edge of her seat, ready to stand and follow. She was
alone with the woman now. A tumult of thoughts hit her then: small
realizations turned to deductions, which became suspicions, which, in turn,
gave birth to fear. She glanced up at the stranger.
"What's his..." But the woman had turned without even acknowledging her,
and pressed through other folds in the wall.
Doubts assailed her. She was truly alone here now. Surely David and Caitlin
would have tried to contact her by now, if they were present. At least,
Caitlin would have been part of the dance. She made a quick decision: she
would follow Anton.
Again: the twisting indistinct corridors; but this time she was amongst the
whispers. Then the pre-entrance room, the stairs, and finally: the streets.
The night air was cold but bracing and it served to clear her thoughts. Anton
was further down Lennor Street, in the distance and outlined by the light of
street-lamps. He was pacing back and forth, obviously wracked by indecision or
inner turmoil. Perhaps he was waiting for her?
She went to him, attempted to talk to him, but he was too caught up in the
struggle and paid her no more than a glance. He seemed to come to a decision
and strode up the street away from the Sanctum. Catherine followed close
behind him, walking fast to keep up.
"You should have talked to her," she said. Her breath condensed into pale
streams with each word. He didn't reply.
"What's wrong? We should go back there!"
"I'm not going back there. Not ever. I advise you to do the same. Those
people are murderers."
"Murderers? Why do you say that?" she demanded. Around them the streets
were empty. Anton was looking up at the architecture which seemed out of place
above the gaudy store-fronts, and his attention drew Catherine's eyes upwards.
He turned down an alley, his pace quickening.
She stopped. "Where are you going?" she called after him. He began to run,
his head tilted upwards: up, up, to the blank and staring windows.
"Get the fuck out of here!" he shouted. At first she could see nothing
above, but then she noticed it: something moved. A dark blotch up there
crossed the face of a building. She stepped backwards.
He was mid-way down the alley when the shape detached itself from the
building and seemed to leap, to the stonework on the opposite side of the
street, all the time descending. Like a spider, she thought, as it landing in
front of him. She could only make out Anton's frantic halt: the black shape
was indistinct. Shocked at her own sudden bravery, she gathered her skirts and
began to run down the alley towards the encounter.
As she approached, she could hear they were talking.
"I just wanted a word," it said.
Anton was backing away. "Leave me alone. You fucking bitch!"
Then this thing (it seemed devoid of limbs, of any form whatsoever, in the
shapeless, hooded cape it wore) was female. Her voice sounded hollow and
nasty.
"Just a word."
Anton continued to back away. Catherine came to a halt just behind him.
"Tell Kaylin I want a word with him," the shapeless thing said. "I need to
talk. Its important. Very important. Do you understand?" Raising her voice so
that it was clear: "Tell him to meet me in the old cemetary tomorrow night."
Catherine saw Anton nod, then he turned to her and said: "Come." Together
they walked back to Lennor Street. When they reached it, she looked back down
the alley, saw that it was deserted again.
"Were can we find a phone around here?" asked Anton.
CHAPTER FIVE
"The Fallen Man"
I
"Hello, Lisa? This is Michael Kaylin."
There was a long pause as the woman on the other end of the line gathered
her thoughts. "Mike? What can I do for you?" The response was abrupt, but not
unexpected.
"I need some advise, Lisa. Do you mind if I drop round?"
"Yes. Of course," she said. It was obvious in her voice: old wounds were
being re-opened. "I'm just finishing up here. We could meet at the Crow, if
you like?"
"That sounds fine. At ten?"
"Okay, see you there."
As he was born along by the busy Friday-night traffic, he wondered at her
quick acceptance of his suggested meeting. Again he was surprised at the kind
of fatalism with which their little clique of nihilists bowed before the lure.
Avoidance or squabbling are not an option, he mused, when there are so few of
us. We've been drawn together and bonded by our hubris. And, underneath it
all, isn't it just an urge for self-annihilation? Yes, our boredom with
reality and willingness to be unmade has set us apart from the herd. It has
driven us past all demarcations.
It had always been with him, a source of both pain and wonder which drove
him. As a child he would walk through the scenery of suburbia and be unable to
see benath it. The solid objects would become nothing more than colour and
shape on his retina: they were meaningless, but nevertheless brutally
tangible. Surely there was something more. He became determined to discover
other worlds.
He read voraciously, deftly picking the subtexts from the dreaming of
poets, the shadows of truth behind the musings and debate of existentialist
philosophers, means of altering conciousness and utilising previously
unrealised potentials in the teachings of the Old Religions. Buried amongst
the rubble, there were truths - or, at least, ways of apprehending the truth.
He discovered that there had been others who followed the path which lay
before him, with varying degrees of success. Their writings were scattered
amongst a handful of unique handwritten diaries and unpublished manuscripts:
these he sought with the fervor of an obsessive.
There seemed to be agreement amongst the two main paths. Primative
religions, in their modern-day revival, with their "return to the soil" and
dreaming existence; the esoterics and ceremonial magicians with their Kaballah
and their complex inter-relationships on the Tree of Life: the essential part
of the process was to make contact with otherworld intelligences. It had
surprised them when they succeeded where so many before had failed. Now he
understood why.
When Kaylin arrived at the Silver Crow, Lisa was still on her way. He
ordered a beer at the bar and selected a table which offered relative privacy,
where they would not be bothered by passing patrons. The place was the same as
ever, never overcrowded despite the management's attempts (they were obvious
in the pretentious decor) to move upmarket.
She arrived soon after and went straight to his table. She smiled as as she
seated herself and it struck him how little she'd been changed by everything.
Perhaps it was the way she had of remaining apart from the most damaging
evidence. She'd always been more of an interested bystander, or, more
properly, the guiding mentor: always willing to offer advice, but careful not
to become too involved. He hoped she'd not cut herself off entirely from the
group.
"You look worn out, Michael," she said.
He nodded, feeling the truth of her statement.
She waited a while for him to say something, to offer some information.
When nothing was forthcoming, she said: "So you're still on the trail. I
thought you'd quit, after Teresa-"
"Yes, well. I don't really have a choice now. We started this..."
The look on her face when he used the word 'we' - as if he'd spat on her.
She was trying to work out if he meant just Teresa and him, or if he was
trying to implicate her. Lisa, he thought: always aloof, impersonal,
blameless.
"Tell me," she said. "What's happened?"
"Teresa has a human woman working for her now. They performed a Rending of
the Veil and brought something over from the in-between. To do this, they
needed a sacrifice. They had found two, but one - Anton Farrar - escaped and
he's with us now." He paused. She was grinning.
"Quite a little army you're getting together there," she said. But beneath
the irony, an accusation: You've lost it Kaylin, you're dragging innocents
into your world of screw-ups; this will damn you.
He ignored it and continued: "Anton says the Shining Lady contacted him
through his dreams. She told him she's in the hands of the Ever-Dead."
Again, she sniggered, but this time he could see fear behind the facade.
She'd assessed the possibilities, though - he could see that - and it had made
some kind of sense to her, as it had to him. Not that she'd admit it.
"The Shining Lady? God, Michael, the Lady is a symbol, the representation
of an archtypal pattern. She's a metaphor for mankind's inability to reach the
beyond. You know that."
"That's right. She's the block and blind which has prevented mortals from
percieving the other place. And, somehow, now, they have her."
"That's ridiculous." Lisa pushed her glasses up on her nose and then ran
her hands through her hair, her eyes staring at the table. A combination of
nervous which he knew well. "Well, what do you you want me to do about?" she
asked, deadpan.
"Do you still stay in touch with Carl?"
"He's come low. He refused to believe me when I told him what you'd
accomplished. He's become a drunk, a drug-addict, completely deranged."
"So where is he?"
"I don't know. Squatting somewhere. Look around the streets, in every trash
can: you're bound to find h
im. If he's still alive."
II
Leaving his car parked in the inner city, he took to the streets on foot. He
began his questioning immediately, approaching those who showed signs of the
City's neglect: that beaten, hollow look which suggested nights spent in dark,
cold places amongst the garbage and rats. He found it easy to approach these
people. He had the look of an outcast, a man who refused to conform. The dark
skin and the long, unwashed dreadlocks, the shabby black overcoat draped over
a lean frame, and the look about him which suggested a vague cynicism, regret
and self-imposed exile.
On the tram which carried him to the region of the lost, he approached a
group of youths wearing leather and cheap jewelry. They were half-drunk,
friendly enough and left a litter of beer-cans on the floor as they left. They
weren't street denizens, though: just middle-class from the suburbs, slumming.
On a wide street - a run of bars and open cafes, thronged with
thrill-seekers, partyers, drinkers, fashion victims and derelicts - he came
close to finding what he was looking for. A small church loomed next to the
side walk, its overgrown lawn dotted with benches. Two grubby girls, twelve or
thirteen years old, sat nervous and cold, perhaps waiting for someone. A
middle-aged man, inebriated and staggering slightly approached them. Swaying
before them, he must have made some kind of lewd suggestion, because they beat
him to the ground and sent him back down the street, slurring obscenities at
them.
"You got any picks?" one of them asked Kaylin.
He stopped and seemed to consider it for a moment. "You should try the
Needle Exchange."
"Yeah. Thanks a fuckin' lot," she muttered. Her friend was looking away,
staring at the trees, the side of a building, at the cars passing on the road.
He told them he was looking for a friend of his. They didn't know him, they
said, but suggested he try a place "under the bridge", where the City's lost
sometimes congregated.
He found them beside the river and beneath the vaulted supports of the
bridge. They were a group of widely varying ages and races which would
otherwise have been hostile towards each other. They were spread apart in
groups of three or four, leaning against the vast concrete pillars or
crouching against the walls before a small fire. They shared bags of cheap
wine and smoked cigarettes rolled from a communal tobacco pouch. One of them,
a young man of around sixteen, told Kaylin he'd seen Carl getting drunk
earlier that day, and that he was probably spending the night in the Gardens
again.
The Gardens were a short walk from the river and the bridge. It was
approaching midnight. Nobody cared for the park's charms that night: not the
couples who lie entwined upon the lawn near its flower- beds, nor revellers
who walk in scattered groups along its paths. The lovers would only have been
dissappointed, for clouds obscured the moon; the revellers would have been
soaked in the steady drizzle, which fell constantly now, like a fine mist.
Kaylin walked briskly, his eyes looking for secret places in the dynamic
landscaping: stands of trees rising above from almost verticle, wall-like
inclines; beds of bedraggled flowers amongst the well-kept lawns of short,
hard grass; the thick bushes which surrounded the rain-fed ornamental pools
with their statues (water- nymphs and other creatures of myth).
He found it profoundly peaceful, island-like, in spite of the traffic
passing just beyond the vegitation. Car-horns occasionally blaring. Sirens
calling from some far-away emergency. The drizzle coated him with a fine sheen
of moisture. His face soon became wet, and dribbled droplets, like sweat. The
damp discomfort he felt served to heighten his senses. He realised that
suddenly he felt more alive than he'd felt for months. He wondered at this
feeling, and that phrase (it was one which had come unbidden to him, once, and
then stayed with him ever since): none of us ever felt truly alive until we
discovered the ultimate place of death.
He searched the most unlikely places and then, there, lying amongst the
bushes, the leaves and the bark: a shape swaddled in a shit-stained greatcoat.
He gave it a prod with his boot. It moved.
Carl's hair was matted, the mass of it more foliage than strand. He turned
over, unfolding his arms and legs. Lying there, his eyes half-open on a grubby
face, it seemed almost a pose of supplication. Come on, it said. I'm a piece
of shit. Kick me.
Kaylin crouched down beside the supplicant. "Carl..." he said.
The eyes opened a little wider, but there was no recognition, only a
throaty mumbling.
"I'm going to get the car. Wait here."
As he jogged back through the park, Kaylin wondered what use this man would
be to them. If he ever returned to his senses - and how long would that take?
- would he even be willing to help?
It was over a quarter of an hour before he reached the parking lot and
double that time when he returned to the park and the place where Carl lay. In
that time he'd curled up again and seemed to be sleeping peacefully, a babe of
nature on an island in a sea of concrete.
Kaylin attempted to rouse him again, but this time there was no reaction.
He gathered the man, and with considerable difficulty, carried him, bundled up
in his arms, to the car.
III
Kaylin had been expecting Anton's return for several hours. The phone call
came shortly before dawn. The first realisation, seconds before answering, was
that something had gone wrong. Anton knew the risks: he was to go alone, via
public transport, and to return alone.
"Problem," said Anton. That his voice was quivering was obvious even
through the interference on the mobile.
"Teresa?"
"Yeah. We're at the corner of Dutch and Lennor. Can you give us a ride?"
As he drove to Lennor Street, Kaylin reprimanded himself for being so
foolish in allowing Anton his attempt to infiltrate the Exiles. This had been
the weakest link in his planning for the coming encounters. How could they
have hoped that, somehow, he wouldn't be noticed there? Judging by the fear in
his voice, there'd obviously been a confrontation. He'd previously accepted
that such a confrontation would have probably resulted in Anton's death. But
Teresa had let him live. Why?
Pulling up the street-corner where the pair waited, Kaylin marvelled at the
young man's ingenuity: he'd managed to make friends with one of the Exiles.
Perhaps the subterfuge had not been a complete failure after all.
Catherine was silent as Anton related the night's events. Finally, as they
climbed the stairs to the apartment, he relayed Teresa's message. Kaylin's
reaction was, at first, confused disbelief.
"This changes everything," was all he said. In truth, he wasn't sure of
exactly what it changed, but that the mere fact of it suggested a reversal of
some kind.
... to be continued...
ù ù ù ì ì ì é ì ì ì ù ù ù
Individual authors may be reached at the following addresses:
Metonymous Bosch : metonymous.bosch@pms.metronj.org
Laura Lemay: lemay@netcom.com
Arifel: arifel.tanj@pms.metronj.org
Dava: dava.tanj@pms.metronj.org
Slack Mammoth: slack.mammoth.tanj@pms.metronj.org
The Awakening ??
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. ??
Ironhorse: ironhorse@pms.metronj.org
Doomlord: doomlord.tanj@pms.metronj.org
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