In the day, I pretend.
His name means nothing to me, but he is the Old One, the one who is dead but dreaming, the one who will return. I was meant to walk in his shadow with the multitude of others chanting the words I cannot quite grasp. He is great. He is huge. He destroys. We are nothing compared to him, but we dance safely in his wake, praising him.
I wake. I shower. I dress. I put on my tie. I put on my smile, the fake one that has to be worn among those who do not remember what they dream and who think that what they do in the daytime has meaning. I eat my breakfast. I wish it were their flesh. I drink from my jug of blood. It satisfies. I brush my teeth. I pick up my briefcase. I go out to my car and wave to my neighbors. They wave back. We exchange smiles; theirs are vacuous; mine is a broad grin, fake. They bid me a good morning. I say something similar.
I get in my car. I drive. I navigate the ridiculously constructed world of solid appearing things that are actually all solid. I stop at red lights. I go at green lights. I cannot slip through the sidewalk or walk through walls. The other cars do not dissolve when they collide. There are not enough dimensions. Idiocy.
I arrive at work and look up at the skyscraper that He could level with his breath. I want to see it leveled. I park in the garage in my reserved spot. I walk inside and enter the elevator. I ride up to the thirtieth floor.
She is there. In the waking world, she is the receptionist. At night, I have seen her dancing in the wake of the Old One, drinking blood and laughing for the joy of Him, as she ought.
Her name in the day is Jessica. She is blond and beautiful in a daytime kind of way. At night, she is better: nude, dark, full of His joy. In the day, she is prim, proper, reserved, dull, stupid, and ignorant, playing card games or surfing social media on the computer when she thinks the partners can’t see the screen. She does not remember her dreams. I remember her dreams. I remember the tom-tom beat to which she dances and the way she steps surely from skull to skull on the pavement of the processional way amid sky-flung monoliths down the sides of which drip green ooze. It is almost too beautiful to contemplate. In the day, walking past her desk, I am angry that she does not remember herself. She is a vacuous drone like all the others. I hate her for that.
I work. I sit at my computer and type away on forms and emails, pretending to care about regulations and clients. I don’t care. I search. I search for someone who remembers. I sit in restaurants at lunchtime, smiling a tight, fake smile at the mindless hulks who lumber past or sit at other tables stuffing their faces with food that cannot satisfy me. I eat lightly of rare meat, wishing I could wash it down with a cup of blood. I smile at the waitress and tip her well. I think on my dreams, wishing the chants were clear to me. The words. I cannot make out the words in the dream. I cannot pronounce them. It bothers me. I try and fail. I have a pencil and a pad of paper beside my bed. The dream is vivid, and I remember the sights and smells so well, but the sounds, other than the tom-tom drumming, elude me. The words are hard. I cannot produce them myself.
I work. The afternoon slowly unwinds as it always does. I do my work. My clients think I care. I miss nothing. I do not care. I want to remember the words of the chant. I cannot. The tom-toms, which I adore, drown out the words.
I close down my computer. I take my briefcase and my hat and walk out past the receptionist. I look at her and smile as I pass. It is a fake smile, but I always give it with a secret wish that we would exchange the wild, real smiles of the dream. We could love then. She wishes me a good night with no recollection of the dream. I pass on, disappointed, hating her.
I go out to my car. I drive on through the crazy traffic, over streets that do not have giant stones for pavement nor skulls on which to dance, nor anything less than solid, nor angles that defy solidity. I long for the real. I come home. I go in. I eat. I have my jug of blood in the refrigerator. I drink it with my meal and feel satisfied. I savor the taste. I sleep.
I dream the real. She is there, dancing. They are there, chanting. I follow. I fall through the ground, through a space that is elegant in the incongruity of its placement, a space I could not have known was there, yet for which my heart longed. I fall into a chamber and see His face. It is a stone face. I run to it. I kiss it. I lose all sense of solidity.
The world, no, the universe, is beyond vast. In it, I am of no consequence, yet He is there, and I am content. He calls me. He calls us. He calls her. On the processional way, she dances from skull to skull amid the towering monoliths that shake with His passing but do not fall as skyscrapers of the day would.
He will return.
She dances in the wake of his passing, yet she does not see him. She is unfit. It is right to hate her, and I do, though I love her when she dances.
He calls. I follow. They follow. She dances on from skull to skull, but she does not truly follow.
I have a mission. I hear the tom-tom drumming. There is a place in the world of the day where, at night, we will meet. I see it clearly. I see the swamps, the islet, the pedestal, the scaffolds from which the bodies of those who do not remember have been hung head down, and the image of Him that has been returned to the pedestal.
I will go there. I will go there with her.
I wake. I try to write down the words of the chant. I fail. I throw my pencil and pad across the room. They hit the wall. They fall. I shower. I dress. I put on my tie. I put on my smile, the fake one that has to be worn when facing her, because she does not remember what she dreams and thinks that what she does in the daytime has meaning. I eat my breakfast. I wish it were her flesh. I drink from my jug of blood. It satisfies. I brush my teeth. I get a roll of duct tape and put it in my briefcase. I put a multi-tool in it as well and go out to my car. I wave to my neighbors. They wave back. We exchange smiles; theirs are vacuous; mine is a broad grin, fake. They bid me a good morning. I say something similar.
I get in my car. I drive. I have a mission. It helps. I am where I need to be so soon. I do not notice the insanity of self-importance which surrounds me. The meaningless has lost its power to annoy. I have a mission.
She is there. I pass by her desk and wish her good morning. I am cheery. I have to control my smile so that I do not smile for real. She could not handle the real. She might be put off by it. She must not suspect. She is putting on her nametag, “Jessica,” but glances up and responds cheerily to my fake smile. That is good. She says, “Good morning, Mr. Raines.”
“Good morning, Jessica,” I say.
I think, as I walk by, that I know which car she drives. That is good.
I work. I sit at my computer and type away on forms and emails, pretending to care about regulations and clients. It goes quickly. I have a mission. I plot. I plot for the means to capture her. I sit in a restaurant at lunchtime, plotting. My multi-tool is in my pocket, and its weight is a comfort. I have a mission. I do not see the vacuous hulks who lumber past or sit at other tables stuffing their faces with food that cannot satisfy me. I eat rare meat and enjoy it, though I still wish I could wash it down with a cup of blood. I smile at the waitress and tip her well. I think on my dreams wishing the chants were clear to me, but it bothers me less. I have a mission. Yes, Jessica works late. She will not leave until after the other staff leaves or the last conference is ended. Even the office manager will be gone before her. The garage will be mostly quiet. I might take her then.
I take my time going back to the building. I go by way of the parking garage. Her car is there. I recognize it. She has a bumper sticker which reads, “Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are. Chesterton.” It gives me pause. I think I have the wrong car, but it is the right car. The license plate is the same. She has a new sticker. The old one was fading. It read, “Talk Nerdy to Me.”
For a moment, all I can do is wonder at her. She is so close. She is right. We should all feel small. I always feel small. Only in His presence is there any largeness, any importance. If I follow in His wake with them, I may not be trampled. But she is wrong
in implying that a man can ever feel large. I grow angry. There is no one on the level where I am. I am only too happy to take out the multi-tool, extend the knife blade, and puncture one of her tires. She will surely see it as she approaches from the elevators. If she does not notice it walking by, she will as she backs out of her space.
I will work late today. I will come out to the garage just after her and find her wringing her hands about her flat tire. I will help. If no one is around, I will have her. She will go in the trunk of my car, which is just one level up. And I will drive us south to the place to which we are called, and she will hang upside down from the scaffold.
I go back to my office. I work. I read and type out emails. I fill out forms. I talk on the phone. My clients are happy fools. The day will come when He comes. I will learn the chant and walk behind Him, safe in his wake. I will eat flesh and drink blood. But for now, I have a mission.
Five o’clock comes quickly. I almost miss it. I find my coffee cup and an excuse to walk by the reception desk. She is still there. I smile. She notes that I do not have my hat, my jacket, or my briefcase. “Working late, Mr. Raines?” she asks me.
“I have a few things to wrap up,” I tell her. “You?”
“I get to go as soon as the last conference winds down,” she says. She seems ready to go.
“You have somewhere to be?” I ask.
“There’s a convention at the Hilton this weekend. I’m on some panels, and I want to get in costume first, if there’s time.”
I hadn’t realized it was Friday. The call must have been planned that way.
“Costume?” I ask, not really curious, but hoping to lull her into a false sense of ease with me.
“It’s silly, I guess, but it’s a science fiction and comic book convention. I’ve got a Wonder Woman costume.”
“Wow,” I say, fake smile, not caring. I hear the call. I can see her bloodied and hanging head down from the scaffold. I can hear the drumming. “Well, I hope it’s fun,” I say and go to the kitchen. I don’t know which conference room is in use. I make coffee. I listen for the clients to leave but none do. I take a fresh cup of coffee back to my office. I sip from it for show as I pass her desk. She smiles. I smile. I long for the real.
In my office, I put on my jacket and collect my things. I put the duct tape in my jacket pocket. I stand by the door with my briefcase in hand. My smile for those who do not remember is still on my face, but it is work to keep it there. I allow myself a moment to smile the real then return to the day smile, the fake.
It is six o’clock when the conference ends. I hear the clients and two of the partners herding them to the elevators. Everyone else thinks that Friday means something. It only means that Jessica is soon to go in my trunk. That is the only significant goal. I edge down the corridor past empty offices, knowing that in the real, there would be ways through that are not in the day. All the angles here in the day are wrong. Something is left out of them. So much is missing. I wait around the corner from the reception desk. I hear the elevator doors shut and hear the partners go off toward their offices to collect their things and go out of town for the weekend. I’m going out of town too, guys, I think. They say goodbye to her. She says goodbye to them. I hear her scrambling with her things. She rushes off to the ladies’ room. I wait. I am thrilled by the sense of purpose and danger. The partners come back and get on the elevator. I wait only a moment. She returns after the doors close and waits for the next one.
Down the corridor, one of the older partners comes out of his office and leans into his secretary’s station to get something off her desk. I pretend to be stopping to search my briefcase for something. He sees me and waves. I wave back. A ding from the lobby indicates that her elevator has arrived. When the doors have closed again, I end my charade and go to catch one of my own. There is no rush. She will not be going anywhere fast. I will find her wringing her hands. I will be her white knight. The idea makes me chuckle. She should have listened to the call. She should have tried to remember her dreams. She will pay the price of thinking that the day matters. There is a ding, and the elevator opens. It is empty. I step inside.
I dream. I walk the wide world in the trail of the Old One. The monoliths drip with green ooze. The earth trembles. The sky is full of lightning-ripped, churning clouds of ash. I hear the tom-tom call and feel the southerly pull. They will be waiting. He will be waiting.
The elevator doors open. I step out and walk into the garage. Jessica is there, pulling her jack and tire changing tools out of her trunk. I stop, confused. This was not how I planned it. She glances my way and grins.
“It never rains, but it pours, eh, Mr. Raines?”
I can improvise. I walk her way and ask, “What seems to be the problem?”
“Flat tire. There’s a huge hole in it. I don’t know how. I must have hit something in the garage just before I parked. Either that or someone slashed it on purpose. I’ve got a spare though.”
She sets the tools down and reaches for the spare in her trunk. Belatedly, I remember my plan and set down my briefcase so I can offer assistance. By the time I’m done, she is heaving the spare out and letting it bounce to see if it is good.
“Mind if I help?” I ask.
“I don’t mind, but you’re aren’t dressed for it anymore than I am.” She’s wearing a long coat, and I see by her red, high heel boots that she must have changed into her Wonder Woman costume up in the office.
“I expect we’ll make do,” I say. I take off my jacket and set it on my briefcase as if keeping it clean mattered. I survey the garage level we occupy. There is no one around, and most of the cars are gone. It’s after six on a Friday, after all. I chuckle at the absurdity. When was the last time Friday had any significance to me?
“It is pretty funny, isn’t it?” she admits.
I nod and roll up my sleeves. Not one to waste any time, she commences to put the jack under the rear end of the car. I finish with my sleeves and kneel beside her. She is beautiful in a daytime sort of way. If only she was one of us. If only she remembered dancing on skulls in his train amid the oozing monoliths. She does not.
I pick up the jack handle. It has a good weight to it. I suddenly wonder where the best place to strike is. They will want a live sacrifice. She sighs, stands, and takes off her coat. The costume fits her well. She must work out. She pulls off the Amazon look.
I kneel carefully, pretending that I do not want to dirty the knees of my slacks. I put the jack handle in its slot, but do no twist it in to lock it in place and start working the jack. She stands beside me, half bent to observe my progress. I am ready. I feel my pulse and breath quickening. She remarks, “It’s a bit like work isn’t it?”
I glance about. The level is still empty but for us. I pull the handle out and strike her in the stomach with the same motion. I strike hard and hear the air push out of her lungs. She falls to the pavement beside me. The look on her face is exquisite in its surprise and horror. I work fast with the duct tape, slapping some on her mouth then pinning and securing her arms. She has her breath back enough to fight by then, but I punch her in the kidneys a few times, and that takes the fight out of her. She is crying. I bind her ankles next.
My car is up on the next level. I drag her out of sight and punch her hard in the stomach again, so she won’t have the breath to scream. I run up to my car, fumbling in my pocket for my keys on the way. I’m exhilarated by the thrill of the fight and the sense of mission. I can hear the call, feel it as a throbbing in my fingertips with every rapid beat of my heart. I reach my car, drop my keys trying to put them in the lock, laugh, for, of course, I have a button on the fob that opens it automatically. When I return with the car, she has struggled up to her knees and is trying to get away. I pop the trunk with my key fob and jump out, lunging for her, though she can’t get far. There is still no one around, but she is trying to scream through the duct tape. I slap her hard across the face with the back of my hand. She falls, and I pick her up – she�
�s tall and heavier than I expected. I grunt hard, hefting her into the trunk. I slam the hatch. It is done. So far, so good. I retrieve my jacket and briefcase, and her coat and purse, taking a moment to wipe my prints off anything I might have touched. In a moment of inspiration, I keep the jack handle. It might be useful.
He walks, and the earth trembles. The oceans heave. The skies darken with ash. There is fire and darkness. Lightning dashes through the clouds. We cavort in His wake, safe, worshipful. We dance on the skulls and refuse.
I’m giggling with delight as I drive south. I take I-55, pretty sure that’s the way to go to New Orleans. I’m pretty sure the call is coming from there or close to there. Absently, I notice that I bruised my hand and split a knuckle when I backhanded her.
“Why, Jessica,” I say aloud, “that’s all the fight you had in you, poor girl? You should have given yourself to the call.”
I drive all the way to Jackson and stop for gas there. She has been thumping around in the trunk, so I find a place with few other customers and gas up quickly. When another car is pulling in, I stop immediately and drive away before she attracts attention. The tank isn’t full, but it will get me another hundred miles or so.
On the other side of Jackson, in the dark, I find a side road that seems to go nowhere and pull off there. I open the trunk with my key fob, standing to one side with the jack handle at the ready. I see by the trunk light that she hasn’t freed herself. I smile, the real smile, and reach in to hit her. I pause when I see her eyes. She isn’t afraid. She’s angry. Oh, Jessica.
The Idolaters of Cthulhu Page 9
