“Will I be eating that?” I ask.
“No,” he reminds me. “Your mouth is for greater things now than eating. You’d do well to remember that.”
We continue our walk in silence, but I quietly marvel at this world within worlds and wish I could stay here forever.
We enter a secondary and smaller tent, like the one I saw him enter before, and once inside, I see what looks to be a large plant or mushroom. It has a very thick stalk and a round, flat body that is cushioned with pink flesh. Spikes surround the perimeter, and a single, writhing vine emerges from some unknown orifice below.
I am instructed to lie down upon it, and reluctantly, I do so. With a quickness that takes me by surprise, the vine shoots out and wriggles its way up my sleeve. I feel a quick prick and it comes to rest there. I do not yell out, but the pain is overwhelming.
“The plant is giving you the sustenance you need to survive the ritual,” he says. “Be sure as not to remove it. I will return for you when the time is right.”
As he leaves, the plant folds in on itself and I am enveloped in darkness and warmth. A cool mist emits from the spikes, and I am whisked away to the land of dreams.
Time means nothing in the belly of the beast. There is neither complete darkness, nor light. Just a comfortable luminescence. When I awake, the plant has opened and removed its vine from my arm. I feel rejuvenated and just slightly out of my body. The feeling is foreign to me, but so is this whole experience. How have I gone from the son of a peasant to a member of the faceless, the people charged with not only saving our race, but spreading our seed outside the valley, and, just maybe, outside our world?
I go over the words in my head, the words that no one has asked me if I know, the words that, if spoken incorrectly, will cause the downfall of the ritual and, in effect, the downfall of our people.
Have faith...
The man in the red mask has returned. How long has he been standing there watching me? Did I speak the words aloud, and had he heard? I have so many questions, but silence is the rule of the day. He turns, I follow.
All three suns are in full bloom when we emerge from the leviathan. A crowd has gathered and is standing in a circle around something I can't see. They part and I see them, the remaining members of the faceless; my brothers.
They stand, their faces downturned, their robes bleeding. It looks as though the blood is draining from the robes from their hood down. Veins of blood remain, but most of it is pooling at their feet, leaving behind immaculate white robes. I look at my feet and can see that my robe, too, is bleeding out.
The man with the mask turns and instructs me to take my place with the others. As he does so, two hulking warriors approach with ceremonial staffs and hand them to the much smaller man. At the top of each staff is the skull of a baby leviathan, something I hadn’t thought about existing before. How could those colossal beasts come from such small beginnings? Then I realize what I had become, and what a small thing I had come from.
He grips the staffs, and as he does so, the extra sets of arms come alive. This, it seems, is their purpose.
He holds them high, looks at the crowd and speaks, “It has been foreseen, the day when oceans of blood and seas of sand rise together to cleanse the Earth of all who oppose the Brotherhood of Rot.”
He slams the ground with them, and I swear I can feel it move. What am I doing here? I think to myself. Do I belong among these men? Am I strong enough? Will I remember the words when the time comes to speak them?
Just yesterday, I was an outcast standing in the desert looking through death’s open door, wondering if it was time to enter.
A horn sounds, and warriors came out from inside the leviathan carrying the elders, all three of them. They are small, their robes the color of sand and just about as old. Each sits in a wicker seat that hangs from the warriors’ backs, so that the elders look in the direction from which they came.
Behind them, two warriors arrive, carrying a caged animal I have never seen before; something not from our valley, something small, with white fur and horns.
The man in the mask instructs them to bleed the beast, and when they do so, they contain the blood in a bowl made of bone.
Handing the staffs to the warrior nearest him—a giant man who hefts them easily—the man in the mask takes the bowl and approaches us. Upon each of our hoods, he scrawls a symbol—one that I don't recognize, but seems to have some significance to the others.
Again, I wonder how I became one of them. I’m not ready for this…
He finishes his task and stands before us.
The staffs are returned to him, and without another word, he begins the trek to a place that has always been off limits to us: The Holy Land. We march single-file, several warriors in the lead, the elders behind them, with us, the chosen, trailing blood in the middle, and two warriors behind us on either side of the man in the mask, but when the peasants try to follow, they are promptly turned away by the remaining warriors.
“This is not for your eyes,” they are told.
When we approach the wall on the far side of the valley, the warriors continue. The wall looms closer and closer as they walk towards it, then into it, oblivious to its existence.
We follow.
Pure illusion.
On the other side of the false wall is a trail cut deep into the mountain by years of funneling winds and sand. Still we follow.
The suns barely penetrate the scar cut so deeply into the Earth, but we can see that skin skates roost high on the walls. One drops effortlessly and grabs up a warrior, its strength betraying its slight build. It returns to its nest and plucks the man’s head from his neck. He never makes a sound.
The trail is coming to an end and the light is blinding on the other side. Almost in unison, we lower our heads as we continued in silence.
On the other side of the trail is a vast expanse of desert, the scope of which takes my breath away.
We stop.
The man in the mask walks ahead and turns to look at us. The warriors carrying the elders turn around so they are facing him.
He speaks: “The deserts speak in a language older than man, and it is time for the gods to listen. Much of this land used to be sea, and when it receded, it left behind remnants of the gods that still dwell there. We are here to call them back.”
He turns, speaks again, then slams the staffs into the ground with a force that causes them to crumble in his grip.
Again—and there is no mistaking it this time—I feel the ground tremble, but this time it doesn't stop; it intensifies.
The sand begins to shift, and several of us are thrown from our feet. Waves of sand roll from the epicenter of the disturbance and a mountain rises; no, not a mountain, the bones of a dead god. It emerges from the desert floor, eclipsing our sun, and although it is still half-buried, its size dwarfs the surrounding land.
The winds kicks up and the insane cackle of hyenas echoes through the bones. Over the howl, the man speaks, and my body takes over. We—each of the chosen—begin to climb, each of us standing on one of the ribs, for I can now see that this is the ribcage of something older than the Earth, and upon its sternum—an alter of sorts—a body wrapped in linen.
The body of our king, the King of Rot...
The man in the mask kneels at the king’s feet, kisses them. The elders, still being carried by warriors, stand opposite him. The man in the mask opens the linen and exposes the mummified remains of our king. His skin is like parchment and ripples with the desert wind, his skull full of holes from which worms emerge. His eyes are black voids.
The eyes on the man's mask begin to glow as he turns the pages of a book I hadn’t seen in his possession. The pages are fragile, the book ancient.
I finally notice that the book was the man, the man the book. The sheets of paper are made from his skin and muscle, and they flutter like beetle wings just before flight.
Upon those sheets of skin and muscle, words, symbols and images are ta
ttooed over the remnants of veins and scars, his sternum the book’s binding. The pages, I know, contain knowledge older than this valley.
Together as three, the elders croak out a warning and we look to the West. Beyond the desert we can see Sky Sweepers floating in a cluster of clouds, their immense tentacles dragging the ground, leaving deep scars in the sand. Skin Skates swoop down and pick chunks of flesh from them, but they don't seem to notice.
Teardrop-shaped hives made from raton hang from the undersides of the creatures, and I hear the man in the red mask exhale loudly.
“The Tribes of a Thousand Young are on the attack,” he exclaims. “The time is right, we must be swift…”
He lowers his hood, and we in turn do the same. Our golden faces shine bright against the setting suns. He reads from the book—from his flesh—his eyes a kaleidoscope of otherworldly colors.
Then, without warning, we speak the words, and the skies come alive. Clouds swirl above us, heavy with acid rain, and lightning spins webs in the sky. Our chanting sweeps over the sands like a flood, and they mix with the words spoken by the man in the red mask. The elders join in, their deep voices threatening to crush the very bones we stand upon.
Suddenly, the man in the mask stands and raises his face skyward, and without warning, his eyes shoot beams of ethereal light into the clouds, which counter with lightning of their own. Large, white streaks split the sky and strike our golden heads, then everything goes black.
I awake an immeasurable amount of time later to the sound of praise and then aggression, for in our midst, the King of Rot stands, his frail body pulsing with a new vitality. He points off in the distance and I can see that the Tribes of a Thousand Young are almost upon us, and even as he speaks, his words merely whispers on the wind, our warriors are amassing in the valley.
There will be no celebration tonight, only battle, but this is just the beginning of something bigger, a war in which we will win, because now the gods are on our side…
About The Author
Craig Mullins has a small (but growing) body of work that includes short stories in the StrangeHouse Books anthologies Strange Sex and Strange Versus Lovecraft, and a story in the Fifty Secret Tales of the Whispering Gash: A Queefrotica anthology published by Atrophied Gangsters Press.
Future releases include The Last Barbarian, a novella written in collaboration with author Kent Hill.
Craig is also an amateur Fortean, and lives in Glenpool, Oklahoma with his wife, Amie, and their two children.
About The Illustrator
Andrew Ozkenel was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1983. In addition to his work as an illustrator, he is also a painter, sculptor and a special fx artist . He has spent the past 6 years drawing and painting nearly 100 images for Re-Animated States of America.
He now lives in Pennsylvania with his beautiful and talented wife, Keyaira, and his 6 year old son, Cash.
Strange
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Dick Sick
Frank J Edler
from the Strange Fucking Stories Anthology
Preston knew he was sick the moment he woke up. He could feel it in the back of his throat and up through his sinuses. He grunted and hocked up to try to loosen the phlegm; nothing came up, but he felt the wad of mucus dislodge a bit. He grabbed for a tissue and began grunting, trying to induce a cough. His body’s natural reflexes took hold and expunged a glob of thick fluid from his throat and splattered onto the tissue.
Preston pulled the tissue away from his mouth feeling a great amount of relief already in the back of his throat. He examined the contents splattered into the tissue; the phlegm was a tell-tale yellowish green—infection—he was sick for sure.
There was something curious suspended in the thick, contaminated phlegm. It looked like little sprinkles or ants, but had a more peculiar shape. Preston blink disbelievingly as he held the vile contents of the tissue up closer to his eyes.
No! It couldn't be! his inner voice argued with the unmistakable vision his eyes were telling him he was seeing. Are those DICKS in my snot?!
There was no denying it; there were tiny penis-shaped things congealed in his tainted boogers. Preston was sicker then he felt. Either he was hallucinating that there were tiny penises in his phlegm, or there was a much more reasonable explanation that he wasn't able to grasp in his weakened state. He wadded up the tissue and tossed it in the waste basket beside his bed.
Preston was already feeling too miserable to lay back down, so he got up out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. He lumbered down the hall, his slippers scraping along the floor with each step because he was too achy to make the effort to lift his feet up as he walked. He flicked on the light and looked at his pathetic self in the vanity mirror. The face that stared back at him was pale and drawn. His nose was puffy and red, a clear indication of the infection now looming within his sinuses.
Preston could feel the pressure building again in the back of his throat. Another round of phlegm was balling up, demanding to be expelled. He leaned over, aiming his mouth into the sink, and began to induce another deep cough that would bring the pollution up. He made a disgusting guttural noise and felt the nasty ball begin to dislodge. The muscles in his throat reacted and triggered another productive cough, which resulted in a runny green wad of scum which he spat out of his mouth. The gooey glob drooled down the side of the white porcelain sink.
Preston examined the mess for more unusually shaped particles within as it oozed down the side of the sink like a slimy slug. Sure enough, there were several solid pieces flowing amongst the infected goop. They were a bit bigger now, too; flesh-toned, about the size of a tic tac, and once again oddly penis-shaped.
You've gotta be shitting me! Preston cursed out in his mind. What. The. Fuck?!
He could recall being sick before and seeing chunkier pieces of snot among his phlegm, but never anything solid. When he was a kid, his older brother would try to make Preston laugh as he ate rice or pasta. Occasionally, his brother would succeed in his quest and get Preston to laugh real hard as he swallowed, causing a small piece of food to fly out his nose. His brother's proudest moment was the time he got Preston to laugh out an entire foot long length of linguine. The floppy, wet noodle jettisoned onto the dinner table complete with a big nasty booger attached to it.
The flaccid looking cock particles in his mucus were definitely not food, though. Preston ran the faucet in the sink and washed the mess down the drain. He had no idea what to do or if he should even do anything. He knew he would get progressively sicker as the day went on, but he was hoping the tiny little dicks would clear out the more he hocked up a wad or blew out his nose.
His cell phone rang from within the pocket of his terrycloth robe. Preston moaned aloud, upset that he would have to field a phone call as he was trying to deal with a level of sickness he had never had to deal with before in his life. He knew by the ring—a fifteen second clip of The Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil—that it was his best friend, Benny. He fished the phone out of his pocket and tried to prepare himself to sound as healthy as possible.
“Hello?” he answered, sounding more like Droopy Dog then Preston Kilmer.
“Fuck dude! You sound like shit. You get the clap from that girl you hooked up with the other night?” Benny joked, at least halfheartedly. Benny's tone sounded like the idea, while farfetched, wasn't entirely out of the scope of possibility.
“No man, at least I don't think so. The clap don't give you a head cold, does it?” Preston asked, now a bit worried about the possibility of gonorrhea that it was brought up. “That shit makes you piss pus, not spit up cocks.”
Preston knew he said too much as soon as the words left his lips. He hoped the words would fly through the ear Benny held the phone to and fly straight through the rocks inside his skull and right out the other ear and i
nto the vastness of space, never to be considered again.
“Your spitting up cocks? What the fuck, Prez?!”
Damn it, no such luck. Preston wasn't sure how he was going to explain his way out of that admission. He had no choice. Besides, Benny was just as crazy as he was; if anyone would actually take Preston at face value, it would be Benny.
“Benny man, I dunno dude. I woke up and felt sick. I've been blowing my nose and hocking up phlegm wads and there are dicks in it. Like little dicks, dude. I dunno what the fuck to do, man!” Preston told Benny, already feeling a bit of the weight from the burden of coughing up penises lift somewhat.
“Dude, Prez man, we got that thing tonight. That's the last place you want to be coughing up cock, man!”
“I know, Benny, I know. I dunno what the fuck I'm gonna do, man. You may have to go without me,” Preston said, sounding even more depressed now, realizing this cold was cutting into his social life.
“Tell you what, Prez, I'm gonna grab some meds. I think I have some good shit that should knock this stuff outta you for long enough to get through tonight feeling good enough. I'll be over in like an hour, man. Just hang tight. Oh, and Prez?”
“Ya?”
“Don't fucking choke on any cock while you're waiting for me to get there!” Click.
Fucking Benny, always fucking around with him. The truth was, though, Preston really did hope he wouldn't choke on any dicks for the next hour until Benny arrived. They had gotten a bit bigger the second time around, and he was already feeling a new batch of phlegm tightening up in his throat.
He grabbed for another tissue, but before he could get it, a healthy batch of snot dripped down his throat from the back of his nose. When it hit the ball of phlegm already sitting in his throat, his muscles reflexively caused him to swallow, and he felt the whole lump slide down his throat and into his stomach. Immediately his stomach turned on him, he could feel the gears shift rapidly. This wasn't good.
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