A Voyage in the Near Distance 1: From Here to Nearly There

by Alec Merta

  There was no piano and little art. Instead, there was a television. Yes, I would gladly call this place home.

  Aft of the lounge was the crown jewel of the Near Distance. This was the observatory that I had seen from the outside. It lay behind sliding glass doors (which slid automatically, natch). We did not venture into it then, but I could see lounge chairs arrayed on faux-wood decking. The room was capped by a dome of windows that offered unobstructed views from port to starboard and from aft until the room met the lounge.

  I turned around when I heard a familiar voice. Allie came out of a door that lay on the opposite side of the stairs. She was accompanied by a tall, thin man with black hair. He was wearing an outfit that looked vaguely like a uniform without actually being so. This had to be the captain.

  “You should get some rest,” she said to me.

  “So should you,” I replied.

  She waived it off.

  “Lars, this is Nicholas Carver. Call him Carver.”

  “What’s your deal with that?” I asked.

  The captain approached me and offered his hand.

  “Lars Amundsen,” he said.

  “Nicholas Carver. Please call me Nicholas.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Carver. I understand you’ll be sailing with us.”

  “That’s what I hear,” I meant it as something of a joke, but he was evidently immune to humor. Also, it was not a good joke.

  Amundsen turned back to Allie, “Your Ladyship, if you’ll excuse me. I have a lot to do before we set sail.”

  Allie gave him an ‘of course,’ and we all watched him go.

  “Carver, get some rest. Nadia, get him sorted them come back up here. I want you to put together a report to send home.”

  Nadia nodded. I was aware of how Allie’s business-like persona was beginning to worry me. Now, I had known her for less than a day, so it was probably a judgment rushed to, but something in her demeanor made me apprehensive of an undeclared danger.

  Nadia waved me forward, and I went to see the room I would call my own for the foreseeable future.

  We made our way back to the main deck and turned forward. Passing through a thin door, we entered a long hallway. It had doors running along it and looked more like part of a ship than anything I had yet seen. Nadia took me two doors forward and opened one on the port side.

  “I hope this will do,” she said as we entered.

  It was large, of course, but not nearly so large as I had expected. Given what I had seen, I was afraid I would be in some cavernous stateroom filled with decoration and distraction. Instead, I was greeted by a room that comfortably fit all the furniture one needed in a luxury bedroom, but only just so. There was a bed that looked warm and inviting. It was draped with a satin duvet and garnished by a pair of European pillows and the same number of bolster pillows. These were decorated with light and dark grey stripes. Behind the bed was a large headboard covered in artfully crafted nail-heads. The rest of the furniture followed suit, and the room was tied together by a purple carpet much like that I had seen in the lounge.

  “There is a private head, and you’ll have plenty of hot water. For warm towels, just make sure to press the button above the sink.”

  I thanked her, and she departed.

  I was alone. For the first time in many hours, I was totally alone. In an instant, the weariness of the day swept over me and threatened to rob me of wakefulness. I slumped onto a settee and closed my eyes. As is so often the case, I was not aware of falling asleep.

  I startled so violently that I nearly fell to the floor. My heart rate instantly spiked, and I was propelled into an unpleasant state of adrenaline-fueled wakefulness mixed with robust weariness.

  I looked around my cabin. Nothing was amiss. Through the windows I saw that the world outside remained unchanged. What had stirred me back to wakefulness?

  My answer came in short order. The inspection I had performed just prior to falling asleep had been necessarily cursory. That explains why I had not noticed the telephone that sat on a nearby occasional table. The thing looked quite old, and I took it to be a reproduction. Its evident condition was too tidy to be a true antique.

  It rang once more. No digital recording here; this phone employed real bells that produced an exuberant clang. It was a maritime-style telephone with a latching mechanism. I had to work this for a second before figuring out how to lift the receiver to my ear.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Carver?” I heard Allie say.

  I wiped drool from my mouth. “I was just about to close my eyes for a while.”

  “That’ll wait. Carver, get your clothes on and get up here. Do you think you can find your way to the bridge?”

  “Top deck, sure. What’s going on? Are those things back?”

  “No, they’re gone. I think. But they left something behind.”

  “What, like a bomb?”

  “No, a demon.”

  12

  I hastened my way back to the bridge deck. As I did, the content of Allie’s summons kept returning to my mind. Before she had rung off, she had used a word that meant little to me. Not being a particularly religious person, the word ‘demon’ carried no more meaning than ‘ghost’ or ‘goblin.’ Yet, I must confess that I felt an innate sense of fear. Perhaps we humans know the word on a more complex and subtle level. This bothered me, of course. What bothered me much more was the fact that, only hours before, the word ‘alien’ had occupied about the same state of irrelevancy to me as ‘demon.’ This did not bode well.

  Regardless, I spent most of the trip upstairs debating whether Allie had used the word in its literal or figurative sense. Many things could be referred to as a ‘demon’ without actually being something demonic in the literal sense. If not a bomb, then something else wicked and looming. A chemical weapon or a biological agent perhaps. Might they have let lose a plague?

  Upon reaching the topmost deck, I turned toward the bridge. They were all present. I saw Allie, Nadia, and Lars. The last was busy with touch screens in an evidently rushed attempt at pre-flighting the ship. Allie and Nadia were looking at a monitor.

  To my surprise, I heard the voice of Dana being electronically reproduced by a speaker.

  “It’s suggestive,” she was saying. “I’ve never seen one show up without any prior warning.”

  “Is it unprecedented?” Nadia said. I noticed that the screen they spoke into had wavy lines and dials that gave it the look of a communications device.

  “No,” Dana answered the question, “It’s not unprecedented. But it’s very rare.”

  “How is it suggestive?” Allie said.

  “It suggests an ability to strike. Instead of slowly burrowing through a wall, they just knocked a hole in it.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Nadia and Allie both turned to look at me. Allie turned back immediately, while Nadia approached me.

  “Are you familiar with possession, Mr. Carver? Demonic possession?”

  “Well, from the movies. I mean I’ve seen the movie, but that’s Hollywood.”

  “It is, you’re correct. But movies take cues from reality.”

  Demons. Possession. Aliens. Spaceships. In a single day, so much of my world had come untethered from neat, orderly logic. My head spun from shock and exhaustion. It passed, and I began to grow curious.

  “So what’s the reality? Aliens exist and demons exist? UFO’s and ghosts?”

  “That’s a fairly straightforward way of looking at it,” she said.

  “So what’s the connection?”

  Her face lit up at my asking this.

  “Ah! You have it, Mr. Carver. What is the connection? That is one of the handful of mysteries we’re trying to solve. What is the connection?”

  “So you don’t know?”

  “No, we do not.”

  “Carver,” Allie said, “Come over here.”

  I obeyed and walked closer to Allie.

  “How long were you in thi
s village?”

  “A few days, why?”

  “Did anything seem unusual?”

  “Unusual how?”

  “Unusual like so you’d remember it. Anything. Did anything seem out of the ordinary?”

  I considered the question.

  “No,” I said, “Allie, it’s just a quiet little village.”

  “The people?”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know. Quiet. Normal. They seemed like normal people going about their normal lives.”

  Dana spoke over the radio.

  “I think Mr. Carver is right. This isn’t a case of mass possession or cult activity. These people probably did nothing to cause this.”

  “To cause what?” I asked. “What the hell is happening?”

  Allie looked up at me. She was visibly weary. Deep lines stretched around her eyes. Either I had not noticed it before, or she was only now manifesting the signs of a crushing need to sleep. She said:

  “The Earl went back to the village after he left here. The fire was out, and everyone was getting back to bed. There were four or five men standing in the center of the place, so he asked them what they had seen.

  “He wasn’t alone. He had two men with him. They’re both dead now.”

  “What?” I asked with some exuberance.

  She nodded.

  “Someone managed to sink a knife in the first and then dragged the other off. When they found him, his head was caved in.”

  “Who did it?”

  Allie turned back to the console. She called up a video and began to manipulate the controls. I saw a grainy night-vision image.

  “What is this?”

  “Video feed from one of the cars. It’s hard to make out, but look just here.”

  She pointed to a portion of the screen. After squinting and tilting my head, I began to make out the outline of a structure. It soon became clear that I was looking at the clock tower that stood near the small commons.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “Look closer,” Allie replied.

  I leaned in and examined the area around her pointing finger. There was a shape that might have been a person.

  “Who is that?”

  “Her name is Elizabeth Trier,” Nadia said. “Eighteen years old. She’s the daughter of a local couple.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  “She is possessed by a demon,” Nadia replied.

  “Allie?” I sought sanity.

  “You heard the lady,” she said. “But I’m still not convinced. This sort of thing can be caused by a dozen mental illnesses.”

  “It’s not any of those,” Dana said. “This is authentic. Listen to what she’s saying if you don’t believe me.”

  “Who’s closest?” Allie asked.

  “I am,” the voice of the Earl said. He too was on the radio link.

  Allie pressed a button to turn the volume up. At first, I could make nothing out above the hiss of amplified static. Nadia stepped over and took control of the console from Allie. After making some adjustments, I began to hear a voice.

  “…finierint testimonium suum, bestia, quæ ascendit de abysso, faciet adversum eos bellum, et vincet illos…”

  “What is that?” The words were wholly unknown to me.

  “Obviously Latin,” Nadia said, “But I don’t speak it.”

  “I do,” Dana said. “It’s from the Bible. A part of Revelations that talks about the beast ascending and making war. But you’re missing the point. You don’t speak Latin, and neither does Elizabeth Trier.”

  “How do we know that?” I asked.

  “Her parents,” Dana replied. “And we have to take it on faith that a college dropout with five drunk driving convictions is probably not a scholar of dead languages.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said.

  I had not meant it as anything other than a mild expletive. That made what happened next so chilling. The voice stopped speaking Latin. Instead, it began to laugh. It was a belly laugh. It did not sound, as it were, demonic. Instead, it sounded like the laugh of a middle-aged man who was much amused and a little drunk.

  We all looked at each other. Even the captain stopped what he was doing and considered the screen.

  The laugh went on for half a minute before subsiding. When it finished, the voice resumed speaking. This time it was far clearer and much easier to understand.

  “Really? That’s the closest thing to a prayer I get? I’m quoting the fucking bible, and no one even bothers with an Our Father?”

  The voice was that of a girl, yes, but not as you would understand it. There was no trace of youth in her inflection or diction. This was a male voice in every respect save that of frequency. Every intonation harkened back to an arrogant man.

  “Who is going to speak for you all? I don’t have time to waste on a committee.”

  Before I could comment, I heard the Earl’s voice.

  “I am here. Lord Stephen Greenfield, Fourth Earl of Greenfield.”

  “Oh well,” the wicked voice said, “come closer so I can get your autograph.”

  In the grainy video, I saw a shape walk into frame. This was obviously the Earl. He walked across the commons with no visible sign of hesitation or fear. Hand it to the aristocrats, they know how to put on a good show.

  When he got about fifteen feet from the poor girl, the demon spoke again.

  “That’s close enough. You smell like a pampered brat. You reek of privilege. Not like us working stiffs, am I right?”

  It was an astonishingly uncomfortable moment. This thing was addressing all who could hear like he was an after-dinner speaker.

  “Now, here’s the deal, Baron. I want to talk to the royal.”

  “I…” the Earl trailed off for bit. “I am a peer of the realm. I am as close to a member of the royal family as you will speak to. You may consider this a privilege.”

  “You may consider it a privilege that you’re still alive.” He let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Why do the English always act like they aren’t afraid? You’re about to piss yourself, Baron. And you’re not even associated with a proper ruler. Send me the real royal. The one who reports to an Empress not a tinhorn who calls herself a queen.”

  I imagine the Earl stiffening a bit at this chastisement.

  “You will parlay with me, Sir.”

  “I will parlay with whoever I fucking well please, you pampered brat. Or this one dies. Okay? Half hour. I’m going upstairs. If the royal isn’t here, this one is going for a very short flight.”

  Without waiting for response, the girl/demon turned and entered the tower.

  I looked at Allie. So did Nadia. It was the latter who spoke.

  “You cannot go in there.”

  “I’m not really inclined to.”

  “That’s good. For once you can be sensible and not get in over your head.”

  “Yeah. I’m not inclined to, but I don’t think I have a choice.”

  “Allie!” I said. “You can’t be serious!”

  She ignored me and spoke into the radio.

  “Dana?”

  “If you’re asking my opinion, forget it. If you’re asking whether he can kill the girl, then the answer is ‘yes.’ It’s happened before, and I don’t see any reason why it won’t happen tonight.”

  Allie was ashen with fear and anxiety.

  “Okay,” she said after a long moment. “I’m going.”

  Nadia began to protest, but Allie put up her hand. “Stay here and help Lars get the ship ready. We’re leaving as soon as I’m back.”

  “Allison,” Nadia said quietly, “This isn’t part of why we’re here.”

  “You don’t know that. It might be exactly why we’re here. I’ll be okay. Call Dana and tell her to meet us outside. We need a ride into the village.”

  She left the bridge before any more protests could be raised.

  I followed after her. Despite her fear and need for rest, Allie nearly sprinted down the sta
irs.

  “Allie!” I shouted after her.

  She ignored me. I was getting more than a little tired of that.

  “Damn you, stop and talk to me!”

  She halted and turned on her heels.

  “What?”

  “Look, I’ve known you for less than a day, and I don’t want to be offensive but-”

  “But what, Carver?”

  “You’re not cut out for this.”

  She looked hurt. Then she looked angry. She turned back and went on walking. I heard her say, “Go to hell,” as she went.

  Undaunted, I followed.

  “Allie,” I said plaintively.

  “I said go to hell, Carver.”

  “You know what? Yesterday, yesterday! I would have said there isn’t a hell. But right now? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. But you couldn’t get away from a couple of cops in Yorkshire. How are you supposed to deal with a demon? Or whatever can take over a person and act like a demon? Answer that?”

  She reached the lift and slammed her hand on the button.

  “I get it!” she cried. “I’m not the dashing, daring secret agent that should be doing this. I. Know. That. Carver. But I am the person who came. I’m the person who read the right books and knows enough about what’s going on to figure this out. So, if there’s something to be learned in that place, then I am going to that place.”

  “What is going on, Allie?”

  The lift door opened. She entered.

  “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

  The door began to close.

  “Bullshit,” I said. I reached out and caught the door. It slid open again.

  “You’re not stopping me,” she said.

  “Yeah, fine. I’m not stopping you. I’m going with you.”

  Dana was waiting for us outside. She had commandeered a car; I assumed from one of the locals. She sat inside with the engine ticking over. We clambered in without greeting. Allie sat in the passenger seat. As I slid in behind her, Dana put the car in gear and set off.

  Nobody spoke for the first few minutes. Finally, I asked a question.