Sleep Revised

by Wright, Michael

  As the men began to slow, Clark managed to struggle out of their grasp and they shoved him forward toward the priest. He stumbled but regained his footing as soon as the priest had made it to him. He stood up straight, and stared into the eyes behind the mask.

  The priest chuckled. “You are the one.”

  “What?”

  “The Physician.”

  Clark nodded. “Yeah, no kidding. And you just killed off my friend there. He was the Defender.” Clark looked up at the altar, where Samantha writhed against her restraints. “And she…”

  “Is our Sacrifice.” The priest finished. “The ritual is now complete. The blood of you all has unlocked the doors.”

  His stomach sank.

  The turned and pointed at the doors. “Bring him to the doors, and let him witness the rebirth of our world.”

  From behind, the men grabbed him again, and began to drag him across the stone floor, his feet hanging limply behind him. He felt the harsh stones scrape against the toes on his shoes, pulling at his feet, trying to remove them.

  They threw him forward and he had just enough time to catch his balance and stand up straight to stare at the doors. They were just as he had seen in his dreams. They pulsed and shifted in the doorways, as if they didn’t really belong there and his eyes were refusing to see them. It was like a picture out of focus, but at the same time he could make out every detail. His brain just didn’t want to.

  In front of them there was a pile of flesh, mixed with bones and blood. What was left of Morrison, left to rot on the floor, spread like rose petals before a bride, ushering in the veiled damnation of the world.

  He shifted his gaze from there to the hole in the doors, where hundreds of eyes peered out into the world beyond them, not willing to breach out into the the room just yet, waiting for their master, their overlord to charge through first.

  Above them all was a glaring, burning eye.

  Men and women gathered behind him, standing around him to keep him in place, making clear that they were offering him to the unnamed horrors on the other side that stared out hungrily at them all, waiting for the moment they could feast on their flesh as they had the detective.

  They held him fast, his arms ached with the pressure they put on him, fingers digging into the skin roughly, scratching through the fabric of his shirt.

  Sam continued to scream, the sound was growing more vicious and guttural as the length of her wails grew. Either strength was coming back to her or she was coming back from wherever it must have been she had gone psychologically. Clark felt himself die every time she began to scream again. He fought against the hands but they pushed him down and pulled him back, there was no resisting them as they held him, there was no running to the altar and tearing away the restraints.

  There was no saving her. Just as there was no saving Jon.

  No saving Carol.

  He surrendered to their grip, and let himself be pulled to the mouth of the room, where the doors like rows of sideways teeth sat closed, but were gradually beginning to open into the void beyond, swallowing them up in the end of it all. Clark stared into the crack in the door, that was ever growing slowly as some unearthly hand gripped it from the other side, trying to pull it open and further tear everything man has ever held dear, or dared call reality.

  From behind him he felt hands lay on his shoulder, not in a manner of apprehension, but of consideration, like would be felt if someone had just offered to pray for you. Words began to pour out behind him, phrases in all kinds of languages and accents, ones that he recognized, and ones that he had never heard before.

  The voice of the priest rose above them all, uttering some tongue that he knew had to be a mix of several languages, blended together and spat out at the doors, coaxing them to open further.

  On all sides, others joined him, echoing the same chant.

  The doors creaked open further, just another fraction of an inch, and he saw the darkness growing in ebb and flow. Tendrils of smoke danced around the floor, black and putrid, crawling across the stone like horrendous snakes seeking out prey among those who stood there.

  Inside he could see them, numbering by the thousands, growing every moment in number. They marched forward, not in unison, for that was impossible, but in a strange broken rhythm that reflected the diversity among them. Different shapes, sizes and types were spread out, some climbing heights, others barely rising to the waist of the others. Tendrils, muscle, mucous, strange geometric shapes and humanoid or animal appearances formed them. They were all marching forward, toward the parting of the doors.

  The priest began to chant louder as the smoke grew, as it began to swarm the people. The people around him raised buckets of blood and entrails and began to pour it on themselves, the buckets of their victims on the tables, the happy sacrifices of torture and mutilation sacrificed for their gods.

  Clark turned his gaze away from them and focused on the doors. It hurt to look at them. It buzzed through his skull, the vibration shaking his brain, blending it together. He felt his sanity slipping the longer he stared at it, and thought of what he knew was on the other side, the creatures from the dreamscape that had chased the humans around, and rose from the ground. He smelled the stench of the black blood that flowed on the external veins of the great monster, the Black King, and heard the steps of the spider-like creature that sucked the life out of the old woman he had chased. He didn’t want to look at it, but he had to, he knew that staring at the others around him would be worse, and he would not only lose his sanity by staring at them, but his entire reason for keeping it.

  Sam gave a final, deep scream, one that formed into a word, the name of her God, crying out to Him as He had to His own Father, soaked in blood that was not so different.

  Clark buried himself in the darkness as it whelmed toward him, the smoke pouring out further, and choking the reveling monsters that held him in place against the doors. Their chants were broken and pained, which gave him no small satisfaction.

  In the dark expanse that spread out behind the doors, he saw a small, white light begin to break, shifting among shadows and outlines of the gods that were charging forward to the opening that was forming between the edges of the doors. He saw it racing toward the front, among the forms, shifting and running past them, besting them in speed and in distance.

  From inside, he felt something, a tug, a calling to him. A familiar voice out of the light that reached inside, a voice that he had not heard for a long, long time, and thought that he never would.

  The light shot forward, leaving a trail behind it. Occasionally, he saw that it would bump into the charging entities, breaking away flesh that would go flying around it in terrible ripping splashes. It was as if it were a flying razor blade among them, cutting and slicing away portions of their flesh and throwing it away as if it were little more than garbage.

  Clark looked around at the others around him, who didn’t seem to see the light, or perhaps they had expected it. Perhaps it was something that was a part of their entire plan, and it would continue to rush forward until it had overtaken the distance between them all and broke through the doors. Was this the rebirth that they kept speaking of? Was it not the rising of those terrible gods, but rather a light that would come and consume them all, making them little more than powder to be trod under the feet of the creatures that were coming?

  Sam had grown completely silent, and Clark thought about turning to her, to give her at least one final reassurance, despite the fact that he couldn’t find any to offer her within himself any longer. He forced himself to stare ahead, knowing that the hopelessness that was trapped inside of him would doubtless spread to her and strike any last lingering bits of hope from her soul.

  He couldn’t do to her what was happening inside of him.

  The light reached the doors, and blew through them with little more than a whisper. It moved past the remains of Morrison, and shot through one of the worshipers, sending him flying back onto the ground. T
he rest stopped their chanting and turned their faces upward to watch it, unable to focus any longer on their chants and the beings that were marching toward the doors.

  The priest looked up and pointed, screaming in that same strange mixture language. He no longer sounded triumphant, but slightly afraid.

  Wind broke in the wake of the rushing light that carefully formed itself into an orb, not unlike the black one that Clark had kept with him from Jon, only larger, and on it’s surface the tiles were moving in continuous succession. It stopped high above their heads, looking down at all of them, as if it were surveying the crowd, determining what was going on among them.

  The priest pointed and shouted again, and the people joined him, shouting and screaming in English. It was so mixed and confused Clark couldn’t make out the words they were saying, it all sounded muffled and disjointed together.

  The orb of light turned again, and a beam shot out of it, breaking the air toward the altar, and the screaming rose in volume as the light reached forward like a strong arm.

  It wrapped around Sam.

  More beams shot out, and they joined together in wrapping around her, folding over her, moving her up, off of the surface of the terrible stone altar, and she rose into the air. Her head shot up, mouth open and arms outstretched. Her hair floated around her, lifting and bouncing in the air, the blood and bits of flesh fell out of it, and off of her body, her skin was pearly white and shining in the embrace of the light. Her legs went rigid, and the light wrapped around her every curve and line, holding her close. It traced the lines of the tattoo on her arm, shining out like through cracks of stained glass, and she began to glow deeply from within.

  Clark watched in utter silence.

  There was a call to him again, breaking through the noise of the crowd and silence of his mind. He turned, and saw the door had cracked open further, and in the middle of it, Carol stood. She had chains wrapped around her torso, holding her in place. Her face though, was not tortured as the others had been that he had seen in the dreamscape. It was peaceful. She was staring at him, reaching out to him.

  “Carol?” He mouthed it. No noise was able to come out of his mouth.

  She nodded, and then pointed back to the air, where Sam stood suspended in the air. Then she smiled.

  He reached for her, his arm free from the grip of the crowd since the light had broken through the door, and through the air, he could feel something familiar in front of him. A warmth that he had not felt for a long time. He wrapped his hand loosely around it, and felt his fingers brush the surface of her skin, soft and untouched, just as it had been that last night, that last time before the cancer had taken her forever into it’s cold and dark embrace.

  She nodded again, and then it was gone.

  From behind him, he heard a scream erupt, but he watched until Carol disappeared back into the doorway, and paid it no mind. Nothing else for that moment mattered, nothing else in the world.

  The worshipers began to scream, not screams of anger, but of terror. Absolute and final terror. The kind that comes from someone staring down the barrel of a gun for the last moment of their lives.

  Clark turned, reluctantly, and saw Sam was still suspended in the air, and she was the one who had started to scream. Her legs were extending below her, growing in length and girth, her arms following quickly in thickness and in length. Her torso lengthened slowly, arching and stretching as she screamed against it. He could hear the popping of her joints as they expanded and slipped into place. Her skin stretched tight over them, it sounded like wet rubber smacking against trees.

  His jaw dropped, and again, he was paralyzed. A tingle formed in his arms and legs, as if the air itself was electrified with a strong current, pulling every hair he had to rapt attention on his skin. A chill rippled across his skin, and then settled deep in his chest, so heavy that it burned as he watched Samantha transform before his eyes.

  Her feet touched the ground, breaking through the steps of the platform that led up to the altar, crushing it underneath. Her arms, when they stopped growing hung heavily by her sides, and she stretched up with her back, straightening it and letting loose a horrendous roar that shook the entire room. Her skin was still the pearly, pale white, reflecting the firelight off of it. Her eyes were filled with the light, bright and paralyzing. It burned like fire from her corneas. Her hair flowed behind her, and she swept her hands out, stretching them and roaring again. Her body had grown exactly as it had been when she was normally sized, only bigger and she leaned back further, stretching, thrusting out her breasts and flexing the muscles that had formed stronger on her arms. When a final crack of bone sounded, the last bit of spine settling into place, she turned toward the door, and began to march towards it. Her powerful legs shook under the immense pressure, and the footsteps thundered through the small chamber.

  Clark fell backwards under the shaking of the ground, and stared up as she plowed through the worshipers, tossing them to the side with every step, breaking them into pieces with her massive legs, hands reaching down occasionally to scoop one up and throw them against the door. They ended with a cry that was punctuated by a horrible snap.

  She ran at the doors, reached forward with two massive hands, and planted her feet deep into the ground, yjrm began to push. The doors did not budge on her first try, and instead, seemed to trying to push back against her. She roared and pushed again, shoving them with the might of a hundred men.

  The smoke danced around, snaking up her legs, burning the skin, leaving long, red welts on them. She cried out against the pain with the sound of a monster, and pushed all the harder. It climbed up her body, leaving long tracks across her thighs, back and buttocks, burning away the pearly white skin. She didn’t seem to feel it as she continued to push against the doors, the muscles and veins in her back stood out strong and marked against the skin.

  The priest ran in front of him, shouting and waving his hands, the rat skeleton dangling from his headdress, skittering in the air as if it were trying to run away from the sight, to hide among the folds of the headdress or the corpses that lay around. The man tripped over one body, but kept his posture, and continued to run forward.

  The doors groaned against her pushing, and she roared back at them. The pressure behind them built and pumped forward, trying to push back, to unleash the creatures on the other side.

  He heard a familiar growl on the other side of the door, and when he looked up at the crack, he saw that towering on the other side, a massive presence had formed, winged and leathery, sliming on the outside as he bled. The being he had seen in the dreamscape, the one who was leading the charge of his kind out of the other world.

  Sam pushed again, and the doors began to sink back against her force.

  The orb above them glowed brighter, pulsing in dimness and then into brightness. The cracks that outlined her tattoo pulsed as well, shifting and moving across her skin.

  Out of the crack, a black arm shot out, slicked with the terrible substance that ran through the crevices in it’s skin, and wrapped around her throat, then began to squeeze.

  Clark finally found the voice to scream.

  Sam choked against it, sputtering in a weakened roar, and continued to struggle against the weight of the doors. The arms slipped a little, struggling against the hand that gripped her throat, trying to squeeze away her breath and strength.

  She gritted her teeth, light shining through the lines of those as well, and opened her mouth to let loose another, final roar. One so loud and monstrous that Clark immediately had to cover his ears against it. He instantly felt warm blood begin to run down on his palms. It soaked through his shirt sleeves and soiled his jeans.

  He was still screaming.

  The orb floating above them shone brighter and brighter, like the blinding report of a nuclear blast, shattering all in it’s wake. It broke out, shooting beams of light in all directions, slicing into the worshipers who were scattered and panicking around the room.

  The
doors gave, and Sam continued to roar as she slammed them shut. There was a terrible rending as the arm that was wrapped around her throat severed and fell down to the ground at her feet. The black slime trailed in long oceans toward the end of the room, and the arm began to spit up ash and soot into the air. Sparks shot out from it, like a firecracker held in the hands of an eager child.

  Sam roared and threw her back into the doors again, and from the deep recesses, even through his near-deafness, he heard the sound of a lock, one more ancient than this world, or any other slide shut on the other side.

  The orb in the room brightened again, growing in intensity and power, the surges were blinking faster and faster, taking away all light that might have been hiding in the darkness around them. Clark buried his eyes into his arms, unable to bear it, unable to look any longer and stay sane.

  He heard Sam walking around, but that was all. The cries of the worshipers were dead to him, and he didn’t hear as they were slowly and methodically torn to pieces by the monster that walked around in the room with them, the one that shone light from it’s skin.

  The last thing he remembered, was being lifted up off the ground, by a massive and tender hand before all went black.

  9

  The moon sat high in the sky. It had been there staring down at them for hours. There were no clouds out to cause the blazing eye to blink at them. It stared endlessly downward, accompanied by the light of thousands of long dead stars. The light of them cut through the darkness to stare down at them with their final, dying breaths.

  Clark shifted on the ambulance he was perched on. The sirens were long dead, and the paramedics had only done a cursory examination of them both before leaving to follow the horde of police who had made their way into the woods. Their cars were left behind, dead and empty, only the bright blue of the strobe lights left to even indicate they were there.