I tell him hello and he responds. I tell him I'm from the phone company and he nods and then waves me on toward the house. He was a big guy with a big red beard and bushy hair all unkempt and sticking out all over. Then I get a good look at the house.
Man, that place was like a house designed and built by a madman. You could sort of see the original house beneath all of the stuff that Crimson had added on. It was big to start with. Three floors and a full basement and there were all of these peaks and things sticking out all over it. There was one right in the middle that stood up like a big round finger and didn't match the rest of the house. I could see lights at the top and figured that if Crimson sat up there, he could probably see all the way into town.
Needless to say, at that point, I was a little scared. I decided to head up the pole first and then into that creepy house at the last possible second, you know? So, I found the pole and climbed.
I have climbed a lot of poles, but there was nothing like that one. I started climbing and got halfway up and I started hearing something. Some kind of screaming or something. It seemed really far away, though. I thought maybe there was some kind of festival going on in town. When the wind blows just right, you can sometimes hear things very far away. But when I got near the top, I looked around and everything was different.
Now, you're going to think I'm crazy, but I swear everything around me was just not the same. The sky was a weird yellow color. The wind was blowing so hard it nearly blew me right off the pole. The trees were odd colors like red and green and yellow, only the trunks were all those colors and the leaves were brown. Then I saw something overhead. Something big and black and round and it was slowly spinning like a UFO out of one of those sci-fi mags. It was way up in the sky, slowly turning this way and that and making its way across like it was nothing. And the screams were loud, all around me, as if the air itself were screaming.
I looked around and the house had become some kind of castle-thing. I mean full on stone and wood and with peaks and towers standing way up into the sky. Then, up in the sky again, I saw things that could only have been dragons.
I got scared, as you might imagine. Before I fell off this damn pole, a pole that no longer had phone wires or anything on it, I might add, I climbed back down. When I got back down, everything was back to normal. The pole was a telephone pole. The sky was blue. The air was no longer screaming. When I turned around, there was Mr. Crimson.
"You saw it, didn't you?" He asked.
"What did I see?" I asked him back.
"You saw the other world," Crimson replied. "I see it. I hear it. I see the dragons. The air screams. It's the darkness. The darkness is making the air scream. It wants in."
Crimson's face was all bulging out and he looked insane. And I swear that he began sweating some kind of black liquid right out of the pores of his face. Just little beads of black sweat. The rest of his face was a match for his name - crimson. I started backing away from him.
"Look, Mr. Crimson, I think your phone is just fine," I said. I was trying to sound professional, but I think I sounded like a little boy about to wet his pants.
I was backing away and his eyes were bugging wider and wider. I swear black tears began flowing down his face. Then I started hearing those screams again. Well, that was enough for me. I was sure I was hearing the screaming of people Crimson had murdered and buried beneath the house. I turned and started running.
And everything went black. I thought I heard movement behind me, but I couldn't be sure. I just know the next thing I remember was that I was lying face down on the ground. Crimson was gone, the screaming was gone, and a couple of hours had gone by.
My head hurt and there was this raised bump at the base of my skull. I took one look around and decided that I needed to proceed with the plan I had put into place before I blacked out. I ran for the truck. I got in and drove away, glad that my truck was now working again.
That night, though, when I was home alone, there was a knock at my door. I was scared out of my mind, still. I got up and called through the door.
"Who's there?"
"We're lost," the voice on the other side said. "We're lost. My sister and I are lost. Can we come in and use the phone?"
I adjusted my stance so I could look at what was out there. There was a little blond boy and a little dark-haired girl. Normally, I would have flung that door right open and helped, but something about these two was odd. Something scary.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Please, sir, we're lost," the boy said. "We lost our mommy and daddy. Can we come in and use the phone?"
"What are your names?"
That was when the little boy raised his head and looked at me.
He had no eyes. They were just black pits. The little girl raised her head, too, and she was the same way. A weird smile crossed the boy's face.
"Let us in, sir. Please. We're lost."
I just backed away from the door. I am not afraid to admit that I was completely terrified. I ran to the bedroom and threw myself on my bed and covered my head with the blanket. It was like when I was a little kid and would get spooked and hide under my blankets. As if just letting out my pinky or something would mean utter disaster.
I hid there all night and I could hear them calling and calling. They told me they were lost. They were cold. They were hungry. I just needed to let them in.
I have never been more scared than I was that night.
Somehow I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was twisted in the blankets and my head was pounding like there was a marching band inside my brain. The weird kids were gone. The sun was out. Everything looked normal.
I always told myself it was a dream, but there are times, late at night, when I swear I can still hear those kids out there. Asking to be let in. That they are lost.
***
Whitten watched with awe. Inside his mind the Void was talking to him.
"Yes, yes, yes, I remember Crimson," Void said into his mind. "He touched me, but he was not worthy. I had to dispose of him. However, he must have taken part of me and implanted it into Albert. And, for some reason, Albert's body did not reject it. He manifested his own black-eyed children. Amazing. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I wasn’t even sure such a thing was possible and I’m not entirely sure how it now is possible. Remarkable."
Whitten shut out the nattering voice inside his head. Albert was holding his head, shaking it. The young man downed the last of his beer. Whitten quickly put another bottle in his hands and Albert downed almost half.
"Do you still see them?" Whitten asked.
"Who?"
"The black-eyed children."
Albert took another drink and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Not much anymore. Sometimes."
"And you never let them in?" Whitten asked.
"No," Albert replied as if he were dense. "Would you?"
"No, I guess not."
They talked well into the night. Whitten told Albert about a time when he saw something terrifying. That was not hard, given what his life had been like for the past several years. Albert got very drunk and he decided that enough was enough just after midnight. Whitten drove him home, made sure he got inside, and then returned to his barn.
Whitten strolled across the barn to the mirror. He removed the blanket. It was a bit shabby these days, with the glass was old, scratched and marked up and the wood chipped. He was going to have to replace the frame pretty soon.
He saw just his reflection for the moment and studied his face. The lines were deeper and there were bags under his eyes, but he looked the same age as when he first found the Void. That first night when It reached out to him through countless miles and found him receptive. He was strong, too. He also could not remember having gotten sick in years.
The image shimmered and he watched as his reflection became covered with black ichor. The reflected Whitten smiled that odd smile that stretched up the sides of his face as if the head were going to split apart.
"Well, well, well," Void/Whitten said. "We may have found our perfect subject, Augustus."
"I think so," Whitten replied. "What do you want me to do with him?"
"You must bring him to me," Void/Whitten said. "It's time to show him his reflection."
He felt a strange pang inside of him at the idea. Sure, he knew this was likely the next step, but now that it was said out loud it actually created a strange feeling inside of him. He didn't want to do it.
Whitten had never had a friend before. Although he had been friends with Albert because of the Void's prodding, it had still happened. If he brought Albert here and the Void had his way with the young man, that friendship would be lost. Albert could end up either a zombie or black goo.
"I sense hesitation within you," Void/Whitten said. The smile shrank a bit on its face. "Augustus, you have always had me as a friend. Do not let this bit of play acting you have done cloud your judgment. We must do this. All we have been working toward is nearly at hand. Don't you see?"
Whitten nodded and plastered a smile on his face. "Yes. Yes, I understand. I will see about bringing him back here tomorrow, or the day after."
"The sooner the better, Augustus," Void/Whitten replied. "Don't fail me on this."
He felt a hand inside his brain. Slowly, that hand began to exert pressure on it. He put a hand to his head and cried out. His eyes became unfocused and the world swam in front of him. He thought he was going to pass out.
"N-no," Whitten said, his voice barely above a whisper. "No. I - I w-won't fail you."
The pressure was gone in an instant. He gasped in great lungs full of air and stood up. When he reached up to his nose, there was blood on his upper lip.
"Don't forget," Void/Whitten said. "Now get some sleep, Augustus. Dream well."
Whitten wiped his nose and nodded. He staggered to the bed and managed to get out of his pants before falling face-first onto the mattress. He was soon asleep, but he dreamed of darkness and within that darkness were things with teeth.
His last thought before sleep was, yeah, some friend.
Chapter Twenty
It ended up taking about a week. Whitten kept finding reasons not to invite Albert over. The Void kept pushing him, getting more and more impatient, and bringing more and more headaches to him. He would acquiesce and the headaches would go away. Eventually, to prevent himself from having an aneurysm he gave in completely.
"Hi, Albert, can you come over tonight?" Whitten asked. "There's something I'd like to show you."
Albert said that he would be over that night. He even sounded excited. Whitten felt sick and then spent the rest of the day puttering around in the garage, fiddling with the frequency generators and receivers, but not really getting much done. The Void was absent from his brain this entire time.
As the sun rode across the sky and as the time got closer, he got more and more nervous and worried. He began pacing back and forth.
"Relax," the Void said. "Your anxiousness is becoming a nuisance for me. What is your concern?"
"Nothing," Whitten replied.
"You're going soft on me," Void replied. "You are forming bonds with this human. At this point, you should know that you are more than human. You are above things like friendship and caring about others. In fact, after tonight, Albert will be the same way."
Whitten said nothing. He just found a spot on the cot in the corner and sat down. He wished the sun would stop crawling across the sky and that the earth would stop spinning. He wanted to fly off the surface of the planet and into space and never hear about the Void again.
Instead, the sun went down and Whitten heard the truck pull up. He stood up, adjusted his shirt and tie, and then waited until he heard the door of the van shut before heading to the barn door. He pulled the barn door open and waved, his smile feeling false and like it would slide off and roll around in the grass.
"Over here, Albert!" Whitten called, waving his hand over his head. "Come on into the barn!"
"Really?" Albert called, slowly heading across the lawn and toward the barn. "You've never invited me in there before, doc. I thought it was all top secret stuff in there?"
"Well, there's something you should see in here," Whitten replied. "Something special."
Albert made a curious face and walked a little faster. He looked tired, as if he had had a very long day. However, he still had that pleasant look on his face. Whitten felt that pang of fear and worry again, hard. He wanted to run out there and wave both of his arms and warn Albert away. However, he knew that the pain he was going to feel would going to cause his brain to explode inside his skull like a small bomb and he’d collapse on the lawn and bleed out in front of him.
AHe came to the door of the barn and peered inside. He whistled.
"Wow," Albert said. "Look at all of this stuff. This is right out of some pulp sci-fi book or something. What is all of this?"
Whitten waved his arm at the barn and closed the door behind them as they stepped inside. "Well, most of it deals with radio waves," he said. "The Army and the government is always looking for ways to get the radio waves to go further or to listen in to people from further and further away. None of that has to do with what I want to show you, though."
"I have to admit, I’m very curious," Albert said.
Whitten tried his smile again, but stopped when he felt that it looked very false. He waved toward the center of the room. Earlier he had cleared out a space and in the middle of that space was the mirror, covered with a blanket. He walked toward it. There were lights fixed overhead and the area was fixed in a kind of spotlight. The shadows around the edges were very dark and appeared to get darker as he approached.
Albert followed right next to him. The young man had a smile on his face, but Whitten felt butterflies in his stomach. He was going to throw up, of that he was sure.
"What's under the blanket, Augustus?" Albert asked.
"Let me show you," Whitten said and with a flourish he removed the blanket.
Albert's eyes went wide and his smile faded. He reached out a hand and then pulled it back. Whitten watched from behind the mirror and felt something he had never felt before: tears. They were hot and stung his eyes and he felt them flowing down his face.
"What is this?" Albert said in a hushed voice. It was a voice Whitten had heard others make when they were in the thrall of the mirror. The Void always showed them what they most wanted to see, reading their minds and finding those things to show them. "That's amazing."
Albert got closer, his hand reaching. Whitten turned away when the fingertips got close to the surface of the mirror. When they did, he heard the sound of that black liquid emerge and touch his hand. When Whitten turned around, the young man’s hand was vanishing into the surface of the glass and his eyes were clouded over, turning black.
"Yes," Albert said to a question that Whitten could not hear. "Yes, I hear you. Yes. Yes, I understand."
There was silence for a long time. Whitten found a stool and sat down, leaning back against a work bench and watched. He felt like such a bastard. He had never felt this way before. He had never known this sense of betrayal. He was Judas.
"Yes, it makes sense to me," Albert said in a dreamy voice. "I agree. Yes. I agree."
Then it was over. Albert blinked his eyes. He turned around, unsure of where he was. His eyes found him and he looked confused.
"Doc?" he asked and then he fainted dead away.
***
It took some time, more than an hour, but Albert woke up and by then Whitten had taken him to the mattress so he wouldn't be lying on the floor. The young man woke up and put his hands to his head.
"What happened to me?" he asked.
"You fainted," Whitten replied. "Fortunately you seemed fine. I just put you on the bed here so you wouldn't be lying on the ground. Do you remember anything?"
Albert slowly shook his head. He was having trouble focusing his eyes and he kept staring down at his fingers. "No," he said. "I do
n't really remember anything. I remember getting here and walking into the barn. You said you had something to show me and then it all gets kind of fuzzy. What did you show me?"
He indicated the ancient Tesla device that, while Albert was out, he had gotten it working again. It was sending bolts of electricity from one pole to the next with thunderous crashes. It was always his ace-in-the-hole. This was not his original, obviously, as that had been destroyed, but every time he set up shop he either built one or found one. He loved watching the things as much as those who came to visit him did. It was rather impressive to watch.
Albert studied the device for a moment. His eyes reflected the bolts of electricity and his face looked pale when the man-made lightning crashed into the opposite side.
"That was what you showed me?" Albert asked. "I mean, it's impressive, but why the hell did I faint?"
"Perhaps you are just tired and working too hard," Whitten replied, patting the young man's knee. "You know I have always said that you work too hard. Perhaps we should end tonight's festivities and you should go home and get some rest. Or, I can call that girlfriend of yours."
Albert shook his head and waved his hands. There was a look of pain on his face as his head went back and forth. That familiar hangover feeling.
"No," he said. "I'm good enough to drive home. I've just never fainted before. How long was I out?"
"About an hour," Whitten said.
"Shit," Albert replied quietly. "OK, I think you're right. Maybe I need to take a few days off."
Whitten smiled at him. Then he helped Albert get off the bed and stand up. He stood there for a moment looking like a man on a ship in rough seas and then he steadied himself. He stared at the Tesla machine again for a bit, seemingly hypnotized by the electricity, and then he shook his head again.
"I feel like I've been on a bender," he said.
Whitten laughed. "I swear you never touched a drop. Take some aspirin when you get home and sleep."
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