Sleep Revised

by Wright, Michael

  The creature looked down at him. “I am.”

  “Is it you who is waiting to return?”

  “I am.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “My brothers will come.” It stood back to it’s full height. “I am to clear the way for them, and together we will restore proper order to the world. The order of the old ways, where the Elder Ones ruled. Before the deluge. Before our imprisonment.”

  Clark glanced around him again. He noticed that even the spider creature had disappeared, climbing back into his hole to wait for his next victim to come out and lend itself to his hunting.

  “Who are you?” He asked.

  The god looked down at him, and snorted a massive laugh back. “I? I am the haunter of dreams, the maker of nightmares. I am the one who stalks the night, and haunts the shadows of day. I am the darkness of the mind that you lock away into those despicable holes with the others who speak out. I am the one your pills silence, and your therapy renders irrelevant. I am the voice that resides within you all, the one that whispers through your rage, telling you to kill, to rape, to murder and pillage. I am the one who rules your desires, and can grant your greatest pleasure. I am you, in all of your darkest ways. Just because your kind has gotten smarter, does not mean you have been rid of my ways.” He bent low again, bracing a hand on the ground, and puffed it out into Clark’s face. It reeked of rotting flesh and mold. “I am the darkness that resides within you all.”

  Clark regarded him. “And now?”

  “And now, I will be free.”

  The creature shifted again, stretching itself out, it’s arms reached from one portion of the sky to the other and gusts of wind shot from it’s nostrils. It’s wings flexed and ebbed in the air and the large pores that leaked the fluid lubricated the leathery folds, and it flowed down the webbing and into the dry canyons that made up the beasts’ skin. He took in a breath, and roared again.

  When Clark heard it, he fell back onto the ground in pain, covering his ears as tightly as he could, trying to block out the horrible sound that bounded through his skull, piercing his ears. Blood poured through his fingertips. He felt more running down his face from his nose and eyes, leaking out coppery blood.

  The roar turned into a howl, the likes of which have not been heard in the realm of humanity for thousands of years, before man learned to be civilized, when they hid in the caves and the huts from the rain that was pouring from the sky. Before they created the gods to protect them, after the old gods had disappeared.

  The creature, a god in his own way, lifted it’s hands to the sky, and continued the howl, changing in pitch and timbre. It was turning into a song. An unholy, horrendous song that was blasphemous by it’s very nature. It poured out of the gigantic throat and soaked the air, blasting into the clouds above. Worship to the eye.

  Clark ducked down below the sound, trying to block out the obscene notes from his ears, but it pounded through his skull, breaking it in pieces around him. He felt the notes piercing the gray matter of his brain, pounding through him, and breaking the last thread of sanity that still held him.

  From around the landscape plumes of smoke began to rise, as more pits opened, and more of them broke through, rising from their imprisonment and into the air around them.

  The voice thundered again: “Rise my brothers! Rise and eat! Today is the day we partake of flesh!”

  From the distance, in unison, a cry erupted: “Today the door will open!”

  Clark saw them, towering over the land around them, flying through the air, waking from their sleep, creatures of indescribable horror, forms that did not fit into any way of his brain registering them, hurting his eyes, and breaking his brain. It felt like someone was pounding a railroad spike through his skull.A terrible rupture formed in his brain and he began to scream.

  The song started again, each note chipping further away at his sanity.

  …and a tremendous crack, like lightning in the world around him, echoed through and Clark felt himself being pulled through a split, a hole that had ruptured the reality that had formed around him, and he felt himself being pulled through

  6

  into the room that he had left.

  He collapsed back into the floor, the cold tiles beneath him grated into his back. He groaned as he fell and felt the sharpness of the corners cut through his skin. In front of him, one of the men who had held him there started to twitch and dance in the air, and he reached up to his head, only to fall backwards.

  His hands had been reaching for a bullet hole.

  Clark whipped around and saw the altar, with Sam tied to the table, naked and covered with blood and what could only have been bile and waste. She was unmoving, and silent.

  He looked beyond her, and there he saw the doorway that he had been led through into the chamber originally, and there he saw a man standing there, clad in a suit jacket and sensible slacks. He held a gun in his hands, and had it pointed at the men and women who were all seated on the benches.

  “Morrison!” Clark yelled out.

  The detective turned to him and nodded, holding the gun up and shifting it from one side or the other as the people in the chairs shifted, angry at the disturbance that had been introduced into the room. “Nobody move!” He shouted. His voice was strained and tired.

  A burly man with a thick chest, wearing only a loincloth and a mask stood to his feet.

  Morrison swung the weapon in his direction. “I said don’t move!”

  The man tilted his head, the painted expression on the mask seemed uncaring and amused at the man who stood there with the pistol pointed at him.

  The priest at the altar looked down at Morrison, and lifted his hands toward the doors, “Do not let him stop us! The Elder Ones will be free!”

  Morrison shifted the gun toward the priest and fired a shot above his head. The report bounded through the chamber and Clark saw an explosion of splinters against the doors as the bullet made impact. “Do not move! I’m police!”

  The priest hadn’t moved as he fired the shot, but slowly dropped his arms down. “You will not stop us.”

  “Sure.” Morrison said, “Just don’t get too comfortable over there pretty boy.” He looked around again, and watched the big man who had stood up. He scanned back around and looked over at Clark. “You okay?”

  Clark sucked in a breath. “Not really.”

  “Where’s your help?”

  Clark pointed to the altar.

  Morrison turned away for a second and cursed, but kept the gun focused on the priest. “I’ll get her. Just stay there.”

  Clark looked over at the fount, which was still running with water and his blood. His head still hurt from the terrible sounds he had heard in the other world, and as he turned back toward the doors, he nodded, climbing back to his feet.

  Morrison rounded the altar, moving slowly behind it, edging along the wall that held the massive doors that stood in rounded formation, like the eye turned sideways, waiting to open. Only when they opened, it wouldn’t be to see out, it would be so they could see in. Into that infinite nothingness that it concealed. He kept the gun raised, looking from side to side, sweeping the crowd to make sure nobody had any ideas. Apparently, part of pagan rituals was an unspoken “no guns” rule, as nobody raised one in return to Morrison’s.

  He reached the center of the doors and glanced up at the altar. The priest, who had gone to back after slicing Clark’s wrist, had turned to face him, and stared down at him with impudence. The headdress he wore was bloody and covered with the slime that had been dumped on Samantha at one point. It shone in a different, darker way than the slime that oozed from the walls did. It reminded him of the blood that ran through the black ravines in the skin of the beast he had seen.

  The beast on the other side of the door.

  “We have to get out of here.” He said.

  Morrison tilted the gun a little in the direction of the priest. “Untie her.”

  The priest stared d
own at him.

  “Do it!”

  No motion.

  There was a thumping from the other side of the door and they swelled at the impact, stretching as if the ancient wood was made of some kind of clay or was merely a cleverly woven blanket.

  “CUT HER LOOSE!”

  The priest raised his hands again. “Let the Elder Ones come forth!”

  The crowd: “Let them feast upon our flesh!”

  Morrison turned as the door thundered again, banging and tearing. The sound on the other side was soft like the crushing of flesh, and the grinding of bone. The wood splintered and spat flecks of sliming wood that peppered the air like shrapnel. Impossible dust, from the wasteland of the Elder One’s imprisonment clouded the air and defiled the viscous fluid that swam from the walls. Morrison shifted the gun at the priest again and took aim for his head.

  “Cut the damn ropes!”

  The priest continued to laugh.

  Morrison fired.

  The bullet sliced the air, cutting through the laughter and destroyed the shoulder of the priest, who fell backwards toward the altar, reaching for his arm and screaming out in anger.

  The crowd moved in an instant, standing to their feet, the white masks smeared with the blood of the women they had dismembered and killed only hours before. Their voices were angry.

  Clark ran for the altar, trying to get away from the crowd.

  To get to Sam.

  7

  Sam sat alone in a room. White was all around her. The bench she sat on was old and wooden. Green paint at one time covered it. It was pitted and dirty, the paint itself had faded and been shredded by years of wear. She stared at it for a long time, waiting. Waiting for things to make sense.

  Behind her, there was a boy who was sitting on the bench. He had been there for even longer. Years.

  She reached out and touched the bench, feeling the rough surface brush her fingertips. It was good, to feel the age of the wood, and to remove herself from where her physical body was.

  “Why are you here?” A voice asked.

  She stiffened. The voice was one she had not heard for a very long time. “Jon?”

  The boy behind her stood, and walked around the bench, his footsteps echoing on what sounded like tile, but was only light. His footsteps were soft, and barely heard, just as they had always been. He sat down next to her, and the bench creaked under his weight. “Why are you here?” He asked again.

  The boy was around thirteen. Dressed in a black t-shirt and thrift store jeans. Ghosts of freckles dotted his face underneath a curtain of dark hair. His eyes were shockingly blue. She remembered him like that. From that night.

  “I don’t know.” She responded softly.

  The boy stared at her. Then he slowly nodded. “But you do.”

  Sam tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

  “You know why you’re here.” He replied. Then he pointed to the wall.

  She looked, but saw nothing. “What?”

  “Out there. Outside of this place. There is something going on. You came in here to hide. That’s why you’re here. You’ve been here before.”

  Vague memories danced inside of her. A priest. Blood. Her clothes stripping off. The slapping wetness of the blood of a dozen victims showering over her. Raining down with bits and pieces of organs and entrails. Things she had kept away.

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t stay here.” He said. His hand reached over and grabbed hers. The smallness of the hand surprised her. Tiny limbs coiled around her own fingers and held them tight, pulling them together and knitting. Keeping them in the small grasp. “You have much left to do.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You will.”

  She shook her head, “All that’s out there is death. Darkness. I’m going to die, I know it. I’d rather die here than out there in that.”

  “You won’t.” He squeezed her hand again. “I promise.”

  “If I do, I will.”

  From behind her, an older voice and wiser echoed out: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

  Her head pivoted and she saw a man standing there, clothed in black. “Father Capaldi?”

  The man nodded. His old face ever serene. “Gospel of John, chapter one.”

  The boy squeezed her hand again and she turned to him, looking down at the face she remembered so long ago, one that was so innocent and untouched by the violence and cruelty of the world. The boy smiled at her. “Just look into the light. And follow it.”

  Around her, the white glow of the room grew, and began to shine with deeper intensity, eliminating all sight around her. She stared ahead at the light, and with the grasp of the boy’s hand, let herself be overcome by it.

  8

  Morrison shouted above the chaos: “I’ll blow off your head next time! LET HER GO!”

  The doors slammed again, and a brutal cracking cut his sentence off, and he turned, looking to the side. Clark watched as from the black void on the other side of the walls, revealed by a hole that had broken through them, a sliming tendril shot out. It was coarse and bumpy, dried clumps of flesh, like tumors lined it. The massive growths were oozing out a pus that slicked the scaly surface and it wrapped around Morrison’s arm.

  Clark screamed, crying out to him. For the life of him, he would never be able to remember what he said in that moment.

  Morrison pulled away and started yelling, dropping the gun to the ground. The tendril wrapped around his arm like a snake, constricting it, tugging and pulling at the muscle brutally,

  The priest began to laugh.

  Clark tried to move past the other people who were standing by the altar, who had appeared to stop him as soon as he had started running to Sam. They grabbed at him savagely, scratching his arm, pulling his skin.

  Another tendril, slimmer, but still covered with the terrible, oozing growths shot out and began to wrap around Morrison’s leg, pulling him toward the darkness.

  “No!” Clark shouted from between the men.

  Morrison tried to drop to the ground, to get his gun, but the things held him off of the floor, pulling him up to his feet. He reached for his belt, digging and searching.

  Clark was thrown to the ground and another man from the crowd jumped on top of him.

  The priest continued to laugh.

  Morrison produced a knife and began to slash at the tendrils, the small blade was sharp and quick, but the arms didn’t even seem to notice it. He stabbed into them, trying to bat them away, but they only pulled harder.

  Clark fought against the man who was on top of him. The man was dressed only in a loincloth and the mask, he smelled like blood, sweat and sewage. His breath was hot and rank against his neck.

  Morrison screamed, and a snapping sound, like that of a twig in a strong summer wind burst through the noise around him. Clark struggled to see better, and when he finally did manipulate the pile on top of him to allow a clear view, he saw that the tendrils were not completely connected to him any longer, but one of them was pulling back the lower half of his arm into the darkness. A large stump that was spitting out unspeakable amounts of blood into the room. A long strip, not too far removed from the tendril that held it, extended from his forearm that was being pulled and onto the upper arm, all the way to the shoulder. It stretched like rubber, marked with the lines of skin and ink from an old barely-remembered tattoo on his arm, and with a final pull, it snapped off, springing back toward his body and slapping against his chest with a crack, staining the blue shirt he wore.

  The other tendril pulled again, and pulled him closer to the hole in the door. The blackness that as Clark stared into, he could see impossibly shaped eyes staring out of, shapes that had not been seen on earth in thousands of years, peering out with glee at it’s newfound prey and the sound that it made as he tore it apart.

  From the altar, Samantha began to groan and shift in her bindings.

  Morrison stopped screaming, taki
ng in a heaving breath, and met eyes with Clark, the stare itself a plea for freedom from the pain that filled his world so deeply. He parted his lips, and Clark struggled to read them: “God help us all.”

  The tendril that had retreated with the arm shot forward out of the hole and wrapped around his head, coiling tight around the neck, scraping the ears off of his skull, leaving them hanging by mere threads of cartilage and flesh, and diving into his mouth and throat.

  Clark would never forget the sound of choking, mixed with the sound of a plunger working in a clogged drain as it dived down his throat, stifling the scream that was never-ending. He was sure that the last vestiges of sanity slipped out of the detective, right before the end of the tendril shot out of his stomach, and both of them pulled his body into the hole in the door.

  Clark screamed again, but it was barely audible against the sound of wet smacking that came through the hole as the abomination on the other side began to dig into the carcass, spitting chunks of muscle and bone through the hole.

  The arms tightened around him and he struggled with them, pushing and shoving as much as he could, trying to break free of their grip, to be free of the odor that clung to them and held him there, suffocating in their filth.

  Sam was weeping, crying out on the altar, writhing in the filth that covered her, her skin shone with the blood and bits of flesh that coated her. Her slight shoulders and breasts, raised toward the sky shifted and the liquid flowed slowly off of them.

  The priest turned to him and pointed with a long, sharp finger. “Bring him here!”

  Clark struggled to escape their grasp one final time before the big men pulled him to his feet and shoved him forward, gripping his forearms and shoulders, dragging him toward the altar.

  The priest began to descend the stairs, and stepped down onto the level with the other men, waiting for them to finish hauling him toward the front. His headdress, an ornate and blasphemous mockery that sat upon his head, fixed with the skeleton of a rat, spread out like the crucified Christ between large antlers stared down at him.