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Chaosium Digest Volume 37 Number 02
Chaosium Digest Volume 37, Number 02
Date: Saturday, Dec. 7, 2002
Number: 3 of 4
AN EVENING WITH ASMODEUS
Part Three
Late November 2001
That night Matt Swindell dreamed interesting and bizarre dreams, tied
together by strings of recollection. He writhed beneath the covers as if
they were coated with contaminating toxic resin, and as if the touch of
cloth would burn him through the uncomfortable sweat of his tension. A
welter of coterminous images seamlessly interacting with each other scrolled
easily and invasively across his mind, like a shark drifting into turbulent
waters and scavenging from the deepest and darkest recesses of his memory. A
wire of cold and naked terror threaded through his subconscious and his
fears coagulated into razor-sharp barbs around it.
The pristine porcelain was stained everywhere with blood, and the creature
with its mouth safety-pinned open into an inhuman grin cracked the tiles
with its fingernails as it clawed its way out of the bath. It stiffened as
unnamable things slithered beneath its skin..and then the metallic
tentacles wrapped around the trees and monolithic rocks as something hauled
its way out of the earth, like a living geometric impossibility.. Swindell
turned and ran, knocking over the tables in the laboratory, scattering and
shattering beakers of chemicals in his haste to get away..the computers
orchestrated the shuddering of the freezing stars as James Aspera collapsed
in temporary insanity, trying to claw his way beneath the subterranean
plateau..the construction vehicles in the distance were thundering towards
them..screaming as they wrapped spider-like legs around themselves to
cushion their fall from the ceiling.
The landscape unraveled before them and what appeared to be reality
scrunched up into a ball unfolded into monstrous proportions and.. proceeded
to use its metallic tentacles to smash through the walls into the
observatory. Swindell shrieked and ran through the trampled scree behind
Whippoorwill House as the building collapsed in on itself, the deafening
rumble overlaid with a roar both animalistic and machine like. Dumbstruck,
James Aspera stared as his filthy, bedraggled
clothes, his hands and face covered in blood and a scruffy, irregular red
ring covering his mouth. Fully clothed the author threw himself into the
hotel shower and began scrubbing furiously and irrationally.. The sound
roused the things hibernating in the incubation cubicles, and vile
proto-limbs lashed at the steamed up glass. Swindell pulled the chains away
from the machinery as fast as he dared and stared in horror as the
struggling body bags lowered into its threshing blades. One of the bags tore
horribly.. and the horrific Giger-esque, biomechanical insect horror stirred
from its slumber beneath continent sized slabs of machinery. Dr Jensen
laughed as the particle accelerator thrummed with life and all the hideous
piercing in his face jingled sickeningly. As Asmodeus regarded him coldly
in the apartment building Swindell pretended to sleep as best he could,
praying that no disturbance would cause him to betray himself. As shards of
the sky shattered where it fell around the horrific demon-asylum. Swindell
stared at the symbol branded into his chest, and sat up in bed, throwing the
covers off. Sick to his stomach he poured himself an enormous whisky and
tried to recollect how he had returned home.
Only then did he notice the stains in the sink of blood that had been
frantically washed off. He regarded the carnage with bewilderment and
horror, then fed his remaining cigarettes into the waste disposal and
pondered about how he could beat his new affliction. The self-loathing he
was feeling was unaccountable until he noticed that his computer flickered
with life. The glass threw itself from his fingers and cried whisky tears
across the floor. Swindell raised trembling hands to his mouth as he beheld
the images teeming on the underside of the screen, images that reflected
hideous lusts that he had felt that overruled the horror he had seen in his
lifetime because it had been born deformed and evil in his own mind. Ready
to empty his stomach, legs quivering with a mixture of revulsion and a
desire that heightened his disgust, he moved to switch off the computer.
Instead, his arm hovered, shaking, mere millimeters from the button and he
slumped in a foul entrancement with his mind shrieking at him to stop. The
mouse's lead tugged at his hand and he examined the images while conflicting
emotions battled for the prize of his sanity.
All the JPEGs teeming on the screen, depicting all those vile scenes of
sexual abhorrence, were culled from his own personal collection.
Early December 2001
Beneath a street-lamp in one of the most dilapidated slums of Middlesbrough,
Swindell stood in the slowly falling snow pretending to be cleansed. For all
their effect the flakes might have been dribbling streaks of candle wax
burning his face with their indignation. He had been among strangers all day
but now the empty street clung to him. He had found it impossible to find
mute accusation in people's faces because their petty inadequacies occupied
them. Now the darkness had fallen and it contained new horrors for him,
which he had populated it with. Guilt chewed up through his lungs hungry for
a taste of his torn and fractured mind. It's passing filled his lungs with
poison as his addiction forced its false comforts. Tobacco had been a
greater stranglehold upon him since his long-suppressed, unnamable desires
had began to grasp damply at his withered soul.
When he had scrabbled ineffectually through the reams of ancient books in
the library he had already felt mankind drifting away, repelled by the
abhorrent nature that his character portrayed. The librarian had betrayed no
life as the book he had sought and found changed hands. The last scant array
of humanity that drifted aimlessly around the streets at this hour seemed
distant and somehow fogged by something acting behind his eyes. The
snowdrops glistening on their foreheads made their faces melt and run,
exposing inner dearth of identity and the callousness of souls punctured
many times by degradation. Amongst the derelict buildings that cowered
beneath the threatening night he spied two such figures hurrying, both
female, one harried and frantic by some unnamed dread but the other small,
still enthralled by the innocence of childhood and unaware of the dark
underworld that slithered unseen around her feet. Swindell felt his stomach
rupturing with seething shame and self-hatred as he quickened his pace, his
cigarette unfinished and rampant lust overcoming his soul.
The mother was dealt with quickly, but the other provided enormous
entertainment for Swindell. Lomas, squatting in near-darkness in his
disgusting, ant infested slum dwelling, grinned a scarecrow grin to himself
and reached for the sticky array of needles upon the tray beside his stained
mattress. His mind elsewhere, he sat back appreciatively. Snow blew in
through the broken shards of glass in his window, and as they begin to add a
veneer of clean white to the dirt and dust. In a shrill voice interspersed
with an occasional hacking cough, he began to giggle.
It took several days for the snow to melt, and much of what was left was
washed away by the onset of rain, which obliterated the sky for days at a
time, and kept watchful eyes indoors. Even with that in mind, however, no
amount of water could really clean up the town.
In many cities, industrial tenements and smoke-threatened terraces have a
certain attraction, echoing a rather misguided affection for the harsh,
dirty environs of Victorian factory towns. In Middlesbrough, however, these
looked merely shabby and ill conceived; decayed and ravaged rather than
given a faded gentility by the passing years. Chemical smog hung
malevolently in the air. Cheap neon signs, reflecting inner seediness,
illuminated the drudgery of the dark, clandestine streets. There seemed
fundamental slow rot suffusing the town with stagnation. Of course, such
places attract an altogether different kind of character.
The hulk of the town hall and courthouses rose out of the surrounding
buildings looking distinctly out of place, as Richard Lee shambled past,
splashing in gathering puddles which were oil-slicked with smears of the
overhanging neon signatures. It was not hard to discern at least one reason
why so much of the thriving industrial life, that the city clung to like a
dismissive life-support machine, flowered well away from the city centre.
Richard's brother, Adrian, had recently won a high-power executive position
in Nihil Industries, ever the enterprising family member, and seemed rather
eager to get away from the cramped, dreary office that he had been trapped
in during his previous job.
On this particular night the rain, sure enough, was spattering the
unattractive streets of the city, creating steady brown aqueducts, which
flowed sluggishly along quiet, deserted alleys. Avenues of decrepit
buildings began to look like dark, bizarre icebergs looming above a thick
sea of mud, rainwater and ruptured asphalt, on which litter scuttled
aimlessly. Little alleviated the clinging darkness of a foggy Middlesbrough
night, apart from uglifying, sulphurous street lamps stifled when mist
enwrapped them, strangling their unhealthy glow. The continually belched
chemical-tinctured smoke that overhung the town merged with fog into a
choking grey menace. Richard Lee was used to it, but no one is obligated to
like it.
Just as the rain was reaching a crescendo of percussive beats on the slate
roofs a few minutes later, a window slid quickly open on a litter-strewn
alley. A figure wrapped in a heavy waterproof climbed surprisingly
soundlessly from a sodden, temporarily closed drinking establishment. As the
thief dropped lightly into slippery, rotting leaves, paper money in his
pockets rustled, which the rain only partially drowned out. Richard Lee
pulled his hood over his head after allowing the rain to wash some sweat
from his hair. Wishing to escape the downpour he decided he would enjoy the
hospitality of his friend Matt Swindell first, in his flat so choked with
the idly pirouetting smoke of cigarettes that a swirling carpet was
constantly inverted across the ceiling.
The route he took cut through several half derelict buildings and streets,
known as a warren for petty thieves keen to map and explore escape routes
and ideal places to stash stolen property. He was particularly familiar with
the twists and turns of the stinking, filthy maze of dilapidated squats and
hives, and he knew which was the easiest and quietest way that would keep
him away from the centres of the criminal underworld community. It was
because of this that he stumbled upon the bodies, and saw what had been
inflicted upon them and what had been scrawled on the walls and floor of the
scene.
He knew the implications of a few of the bizarre symbols, and backed away
nervously. He had seen a lot of things behind the firmly closed and bolted
cellar doors of the criminal community, as everyone with skill did sooner or
later to their benefit or detriment. Quickly and carefully, and to the best
of his efforts, he tried to erase any evidence that he had been in the area,
meticulously backtracking along his route. As his mind raced he remembered
the mutilated policeman, Chandler, whose body had been discovered dumped in
these same warrens not too long past. Of course he wouldn't get the police
involved again, as their interference had seeded a lot of discord in the
criminal network before. He would go and tell Swindell, though, preferably
with the help of some strong alcohol. Trying his hardest not to be observed,
Richard Lee took an excessively long but quiet route to approach Swindell's
home. Occupied by trying to organize his version of events in his head, he
knew nothing of the silent watcher who peered at him knowingly without eyes
from a cold room where a circular metal plate gleamed in the dark.
Only the idea of shedding more blood stopped Swindell from attempting to
chew off his fingers in his disgust at what they had done seemingly
independent of his mind. He felt as if his mind was much less than in full
control of his body, or at least what he thought of as his rational command.
To him, it was like being bound and gagged in the boot of a car, not knowing
where he headed and terrified that it was for a car-crushing plant.
Muttering distractedly to himself, he drew deeply from another cigarette,
and went to stagger through to the kitchen for another double. His legs
developed other ideas without putting them before the committee of his brain
and he found himself sat in the swivel chair in front of his computer, one
hand wriggling away of its own accord to fumble in a drawer for one of his
precious CDRs, containing enough evidence to give him an extended stay in
any of the country's penal establishments. How had he unlocked the drawer
without realizing, he wondered through a fog of sudden drowsiness. In front
of him, the screen shimmered like a mirror reflecting his soul, as if it had
surfaced from the filth where it had lain bound until he flicked the switch.
The CD drawer slithered out mockingly like a malformed tongue extended for
inspection. In a stupor, Swindell fed it and watched as it took the CDR into
its mouth and waited for it to show him what foulness tasted like in visual
form.
He forgot to wear headphones so the neighbours couldn't hear.
It was the early hours when an alarming siren blared through his
befuddlement. He stirred, wondering how long he had been slumped, hypnotized
by the flickering, low quality MPEGs on the computer screen. His mouth
screwed up in sickness as he realized what sounds were filtering through the
speakers. He tore them from their socket and stamped on them with his heavy
boots until their cases cracked. He ground on the circuits inside until they
broke. Again the siren blared, and he recognized it as his doorbell. In a
panic he scrabbled for the off switch on the computer. Feeling a draft and
looking down he realized with horrified nausea that his belt and trousers
were undone. Addressing to this, he staggered to the door and opened it,
catching a glimpse of a sweaty, unhealthy looking man in the hall mirror as
he passed. Opening the door tentatively, almost gently, Swindell saw Richard
Lee looking as frightened as he felt, and his stomach roiled with guilt and
apprehension.
"Richard, come in," Swindell said with unconvincing brightness.
Richard gave him an odd look and took off his sodden jacket, hanging it on a
hook behind the door and running a hand through his wet, straggly hair.
Swindell ushered Richard into the kitchen, wincing but not complaining when
he made a beeline for the whisky and drained a large draft from the bottle.
Swindell motioned him to sit, and hurriedly went to shut his bedroom door.
When he came back to the kitchen, Richard was leaning on the sideboard,
shaking, one hand across his eyes and the other strangling the neck of the
whisky bottle as if worrying that it would make a bid for freedom.
When Swindell coughed, Richard looked up and fear played in his eyes.
"I've got something horrible to tell you, Matt. I..think you're the best
person to tell, but you're not going to like it."
Swindell assembled an innocently concerned expression that hid a sudden
terrified suspicion, and motioned for Richard to continue. As the other man
stammered his way through his story, the room, the symbols, the bodies, the
acts, Swindell found himself collapsing onto a chair and gulping repeatedly
from a bottle of gin. His hands shook as much as Richard's had, and he
looked about to burst into tears. As Richard stuttered into silence,
Swindell stared at nothing unspeaking for half a minute. Then he made a
decision, and his mouth tightened in resolve.
The snow was gone. Swindell walked purposefully through an avenue of trees,
the library book in a carrier bag that he swung in one hand. He had studied
it all day while Richard Lee lay on his sofa, sipping coffee, nursing a
frightful hangover. One hand drifted over the slight bulge where he kept his
gun, finding it more reassuring than ever. If the book didn't work, then
this would, but nevertheless he felt he needed to be punished more severely.
The sunlight was receding like gold melting into its surroundings, and a
chill wind began to drag threatening clouds in overhead and whip the autumn
leaves up to meet them in disorganized flurries. The trees ceased their lazy
catatonic sway, the wind whipping them until they frantically swung their
shadows and stretched them away from the light as if to seek purchase from
the clear angular shadows that were slowly diffusing themselves across the
paths. Seemingly frightened by the excitable breeze Swindell's hair clung
desperately across my his until he was forced to claw through in order to
see his way, and it satisfied itself by attempting to catch the dead leaves
in its curls as they blew past in dizzy arcs. The chilliness of the wind
threw coldness upon every surface and as if to compound the insult it began
spitting sudden, stinging rain at the ground like an artist randomly
flicking globules of paint at an unwilling canvas. Soon irritated beyond
measure, Swindell hastened towards the nearest random structure, his old
college, for shelter.
Even so, the idea of sheltering there made Swindell seem strange and
uncomfortable, as if entering it would disturb the flocks of memories that
haunted it while it was silent and empty of life as it was on this
particular Sunday. Within the cavernous interiors of the oldest building in
particular, the converted mansion where he had studied Sociology, the
silence seemed especially heavy and weighted down with an oppressive,
echoing sense of presence. Thunder began to grumble from behind the distant,
foggy moors. Swindell was ambivalent to find the main doors of Acklam Campus
ajar, and troubled to enter despite the relief from the increasingly
barbarous rain.
The source of his discomfiture was that the immediate interior of the
college was clearly in a state of dereliction. Broken glass decorated the
floor and hid under stray leaves. The walls were stained and cankered, and
the ceiling had allowed a lazy bulge to grow within it. A congregation of
broken furniture attended the vast and echoing hall, to his left. Books
seemed to be clambering over each other in a disorganized exodus away from
the grime of the floor. The dark, cramped space under the stage was still
crowded with a grotesque family of props and costumes that always retained a
questioning silence to trespassers and seemed smug in their desertion.
Swindell's fevered imagination revived the scuttling things that he had
peopled that gloom with. Graffiti clung to the walls, undignified scraps of
phrase and clumsy, awkward signatures.
Swindell was understandably mystified that a seat of his education and life
had degenerated into such a neglected state since his departure, and that he
had heard nothing of its decline within the intervening time. If he had been
thinking coherently enough he would have realized that this was impossible,
for just a few days before his post-box had been jammed by a thick
Middlesbrough College prospectus that belied the dilapidated sight before
him.
Fittingly, however, it occurred to him that this place was almost ideal for
his purposes. The shadows hanging overhead changing as the sunlight broke
across them, seemed to nod with eager approval. Imagining the strangely
chilling racks of bizarre clothes, ancient props and dark corners that
awaited him Swindell hurried across the derelict hall and lowered himself
quickly and easily into the space under the stage, nervously eyeing the
cobwebs that decorated the iron girders which slithered across the underside
of the stage-floor. He had cracked his head on them once or twice during his
original tenure, and as little difference as it made now, he had no wish to
make a repeat performance. The shadows were just as he remembered them, and
he shuddered anew at the sight of the bloated, eyeless baby-dolls that were
frozen mid-crawl on a folding table against the back wall. The dust was
thick enough on the floor for him to leave footprints. Throwing his
leather-coat across a slightly deformed rocking horse with disconcertingly
glittering eyes, and ignoring the creak as it rocked ponderously, Swindell
knelt carefully in the dust in the centre of the shadowy pit. Fingering the
carrier bag, he pulled the book, seeming to stir within that sagging mouth,
out into dim light that made the cover appear to ripple.
Richard Lee browsed among the books in Swindell's living room. Richard
suspected that the private investigator had read few of them, some of the
slimmer volumes were heavily damaged and thumbed with use. Richard browsed
among these, noting the prevalence of certain names amongst the authors and
amount of books that featured dark images of ancient houses with one attic
light lit, and titles like 'Murder She Groped' or 'The Wig That Ate People'.
Richard grimaced affectionately at finding the latter. Then, suddenly
frowning, he began to pull books aside and stacking them on the coffee
table. He had found a hole in the wall. Reaching in, he discovered and
pulled out a large brown envelope thumbed with use. It felt stuffed with
lots of photographs. Feeling guilty, Richard hastily went to push the
envelope back into its gap. In his haste, several photographs fell out and
spun towards the floor in a clumsy pattern several feet wide. Blushing and
wary of Swindell's imminent return, he went to gather the photographs then
stopped. His eyes widened.
Then his back was to the wall and he was drawing quick, fevered breaths and
clutching at the books behind him as he stared at what the photographs
portrayed. Then feeling nauseous and hardly believing his own actions, he
fumbled in the recess again and ripped the envelope open, scattering the
rest of the photo collection all over the floor. They were all Polaroid's,
and were even worse in their content than those he had already seen. He
shivered, and then gasped aloud when one caught his eye. He recognized the
scene.
If he had been agitated before, Richard Lee doubled in anxiety and horror.
Stumbling on suddenly weakened legs he backed desperately backwards towards
the door as if he could diminish the horrific perversity of Swindell's
illicit photo collection by drawing away from it. Then, as if a switch had
been flicked in his brain, he spun around without seeming to move. He ran
into the hall and tore his coat off the hook it hung on.
He ran.
He didn't even bother to close the front door. Later on when news broke, he
couldn't decide whether to be saddened or relieved.
(Continued)
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