New Tales of the Old Ones

by Derwin, Theresa

  “Diaz? He was a Warrant Officer in HHC. Remember him? Short, gray-haired guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I ran into him in Amsterdam about a year after I left the army. Tells me he got a job working for a military contractor back in Iraq.”

  I nod quietly as we roll on past an oil field. A hundred-foot-high derrick stands like a corrupt and solitary skyscraper in a land of dirt and open sky.

  “At the time I wasn’t really doing much besides wasting the money in my savings account and living with some chick I wasn’t really all that into. Diaz tells me he can get me a job as a mechanic for the PMF. Tells me it’s big money. In a month I’m out of Holland and working for Stalwart Securities, back in Baghdad.”

  Blake pauses, points at the glove compartment. “Want a shroom?” I take a gnarled brown top out of a zip lock bag and devour it.

  “So I’m in Baghdad working as a mechanic but all the while I feel like I should be doing something a bit more active, you know? Diaz mentions the raids I went on in ‘03 to management and in about six months’ time I’m organizing security convoys for puppet government people all over the country. Making good money. When I get sent to Tikrit a year later I’m told I’ll be doing something a bit more exciting than playing chauffeur for Hajji.”

  I can feel the psilocybin begin to work its magic. The sun’s rays reflect strangely off of the silver sagebrush as Prickly Pear cactus grin at me. Bands of brown desert elk zoom past us at incredible speed, perhaps chased by the ancient spirit of some long dead predator. Serpentine clouds slither across the blue sky; a pale ghost moon hovers nearly as transparent as a spider web near the blunt sun’s radiance.

  “Our boss gives us a list. He tells us the people on it made off with some very important artifacts when the museums were looted first year of the war. He wants us to get them back.”

  “So you could return them to the museum–”

  He laughs. “Fuck no. So they could be sold to personal collectors for millions of dollars. Stalwart Securities worked something out with C.P.A., who in turn worked something out with D.O.D. All the pieces were in place and everyone involved would come out with full bellies and clean as a whistle if we pulled it off. Most of the artifacts were swiped up by ass backwards-Iraqi peasants... they had no idea what they had and how much it was worth. The first five names on the list were like that. Easy. All we had to do was toss them a few dollars and they were more than happy to part with the pieces. Wasn’t like that with the last guy on the list, though...”

  Blake pauses and reaches into the glove compartment. Pulls out a mushroom, nearly swallows it whole.

  “Seyeed Mahmood. He lived in a heavily guarded two-story house close near Mosul. No simple payout – we had to rush his compound and kill all of his bodyguards. We tied him to a chair in his kitchen and beat him, but he wouldn’t tell us where the artifacts were. Turned the house upside down, eventually found a large door in the basement hidden behind a rotting armoire. Fucking place looked like a dungeon. There were weird symbols painted all over the walls. My teammate started dismantling the door and I saw something moving slowly out of the corner of my eye. It was a huge camel spider. It stopped walking and it kind of leered at me, then its mouth pincers started moving really fast, shit, it was surreal. The hairy bristles on its yellow body were a blur; it was gyrating really fast ... I stomped the shit out of it.

  “When the steel door fell I turned around and almost screamed... There were a dozen camel spiders nearly pressed up against my teammate’s back. I raised my rifle and they receded all at once into the shadows in one really quick motion...I wiped my eyes and when he said, ‘That should do it,’ the basement’s light bulb shattered. We turned on our flashlights, raised our M-4s and walked through the darkness... Bright lights flashed on and we were in a large room with furniture that looked like it belonged in a castle. We couldn’t believe our eyes. Persian carpeting with a huge lacquered mahogany table in the center with all sorts of gemstones on it. All over the floor were half open chests with jewelry spilling out. There were gold crosses, coins and pendants... There were other stranger; older looking objects as well... some that had the weird glyphs from the basement wall on them. We found the items we were searching for quickly, they were near the entrance of the door next to a tapestry that depicted Jesus praying to his own image. It was by the blasphemous pictures of Mohammed that I found the really bizarre shit. A half open chest with a pentagram engraved on its top. Deformed figurines inside of it carved out of Red Jasper and Cinnabar... They weren’t human or animal but a combination of both and I could feel them staring at me with an intelligence that belonged to neither... A black music box that opened to show a leprous Jesus on a spinning inverted crucifix. There were old books that looked like they were bound in flesh with locks that would require keys I never even thought could exist. I found a yellow metal box covered with strange pictures ...”

  Blake stops himself short, glances at me and smirks. My eyes feel watery, my mind hazy.

  After a moment he says:

  “My coworkers and I decided this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get rich and never look back. We’d return the artifacts we were ordered to, and split the rest. Figured it’d be best to kill Seyeed and burn the house down. We passed him in the kitchen as he watched us steal his fortune. There was a camel spider the size of a small rat perched on his shoulder. He didn’t seem to care. We spread gasoline all around the house. We started the blaze and when we passed by Seyeed once again he was...”

  Blake stops. He twitches hard. “He was covered in them... There must have been over a hundred of those fucking things on him. They were biting and tearing... Seyyed didn’t scream. I shot him in the head. The spiders seemed to slide off of him onto the floor. We splashed gasoline all over his corpse, struck the match and left.”

  Blake takes another shroom out of the glove box and munches on it.

  “We’re almost there,” he says between chomps.

  “So you guys got away with it?”

  “If they got caught, neither snitched because nothing came back to me. We brought what we were supposed to, got promotions and vacation time. I took my stuff to somebody I got hooked up with while I was on leave in Vienna. Cashed out at about 5 mill. I decided to keep a few artefacts, though... After I returned to work I found out the others never came back from vacation. I waited two months, then put in my final two weeks. Left Iraq for the last time.”

  “Wow,” I say after a moment of silence, “that sounds like a bunch of bullshit. The whole story.”

  Blake laughs. “But you know it isn’t, right?”

  The haze coiled behind my eyes swirls around my mind. I nod at him quietly, but I say, “Camel spiders, huh? The size of rats? I’m not high enough to believe that. Multi-Millionaire? With your fucking Indiana Jones story. Please.”

  He takes out his wallet and tosses it at me.

  “Open it.”

  I pull out an American Express Centurion credit card. I laugh.

  “I want to see a million-dollar bill. Then I’ll believe you.”

  I toss his wallet into the backseat.

  “Why did you move out here? You can live anywhere in the world.”

  “This land is special. It has a certain energy.”

  “Energy?”

  “Yeah. And I’m not just talking about the oil deposits. Ley lines. Spiritual energy.”

  “We’re talking crystal magic and Deepak Chopra?”

  He laughs.

  “The dream machine we’re going to use is one of the artefacts I kept.”

  He motions towards the back of the truck. “It’s Babylonian.”

  “Is it in good enough condition to spin at 78 rpms on a record player?”

  “Yeah. I’ve done it before. And let me tell you... The shit you see...”

  Blake trails off. He stares ahead blankly. After a moment –

  “You have to see it for yourself. I’m pretty sure Burroughs and Gysin never saw any
thing like this. It’s going to be the most important thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

  X

  When we first spot her she’s walking with great effort and it seems like she’s about to collapse. Her blonde ponytail swings lethargically over her ripped green backpack. Her face expresses neither surprise nor relief when we pull up next to her. She’s beautiful. Heart-shaped face and full lips, brows that arch over large electric blue eyes. She tells us her name is Trudy and her voice is smoky. Her Volkswagen broke down a few miles back, been wandering the desert for hours. Her eyes sparkle intensely, my pulse races. She was driving to Yellowstone to meet up with some friends. We tell her we’re going to the sand dunes to trip. She says wouldn’t mind tagging along if we drive her back into Rock Springs. Blake doesn’t seem to care if she comes or goes but I need Trudy to come along because the sweat on her smooth neck and her bright flashing eyes are making me ache. She jumps in the back of the Ford.

  When we reach Boars Tusk on foot we’re covered in sweat and peaking. The jeep’s a mile back and it feels like we’ve been walking outside of time. Under clear blue sky we’ve meandered past butte and mesa, we’ve ambled down hills following dry steam beds, walked past weird spires and dwarf canyons. Drunk off the earthy perfume of sage, clumps of prickly pear and juniper look cartoonish to our dilated pupils. Ancient Boars Tusk dominates the landscape; Pleistocene aged volcanic neck raised 400 feet in the air. We drop our gear in exasperation in front of it and drink water. Trudy smiles at me. I smile back and as she drinks from her canteen a few feet in front of me I somehow feel her standing right behind me, blowing into my ear. She winks at me. I glance down at her backpack and see the name Mabel written on it. Her eyes change from violet to green back to blue. I’m about to ask her what her real name is, but I stop myself when I hear Blake laughing.

  He picks up a bison’s skull and places it in front of his own. He’s a prophet whose God belongs to an older order. He wants to sacrifice me; I know it. I’m tripping hard and I realize I’m trapped. I don’t understand my own mind at all; someone else is thinking my thoughts for me. Did I want this to happen? The nightmares warned me but I still came... I look at the woman who calls herself Trudy. Her face has changed. No longer beautiful and alert, her eyes have slanted, become dull. Her skull has shrunken; become broader... Her face sags as she smiles at me uncomprehendingly. I look away. She’s not who she says she is. She’s a demon who haunts the desert. They’re planning to bring me to a place worse than death... Blake lowers the skull and glares at me. At that moment I feel like murdering them both. Reality is ripping apart and it’s his fault. I’m tripping hard but I force myself to take back my mind and the world it perceives...

  “Let’s get to the sand dunes and set up camp,” I manage to say with great strain. They nod. Trudy’s blue eyes shine electrically, the symmetry’s returned to her face. Blake throws down the bison’s skull, then winks at me. We pick up our gear and head to the dunes.

  It’s near dusk. We’ve pitched a tent and made a campfire on an outcrop of vegetation. The low hum of the portable generator drones on as we sit around the circle of stones containing the fire. We feed sagebrush to it. Blake tells us we’re in between the continental divide, and the rain that falls here doesn’t flow to the Pacific or Atlantic oceans. It settles into the dirt and feeds the chthonic spirits that dwell deep under the oil reservoirs. He speaks about the special soils and waters that house a great race of beings called the Great Old Ones. The ground feels alive; it’s vibrating underneath me. I pick up a clump of it and it flows like mercury over my hand. I fling it at the fire.

  Boars Tusk stands sentinel over the dunes as Blake tells us about a dimension once named Yuggoth, now something deemed less than a planet called Pluto. He talks about its ancient black cities of windowless towers, its fungoid gardens. At this point it hits me that there’s no turning back. There’s no escaping here.

  Blake doesn’t look like himself any more. He seems taller, skinnier. His pupils are so dilated that his eyes seem to take up most of his face. Trudy whispers something to me but I can’t make it out. She moves closer and I see the name Dolores tattooed on her neck. She kisses me then sits on my lap.

  Blake tells us that when Yuggoth entered the eighth sign 28 years ago the seeds were sown for the return of an older order. Tonight the stars are right for the messenger of the profoundest wisdom to usher in the Aeon of The Great Old Ones.

  He shows us the ancient cylinder seal. Taupe-colored and a foot long, strange letters carved onto it. He walks into the tent and we follow.

  Blake hangs a light bulb over the record player. He places the seal on the turntable, sets it to 78 rpm. I gaze into it and the weird letters dance. They transform into our faces; they smile then cry. I inhale heavily, then shudder as they break apart, the pieces of bone turning into blood-covered calcium comets racing past alien planets, diseased and dying in graveyard nebulae ... past the skeletal remains of ancient space travelers sealed in meteor tombs forever sailing across a multiverse of realities and finding destitution in them all. An orgy of mad celestial spheres locked in an endless process of destruction and rebirth – I approach a blue planet, look onto its ancient Triassic seas teeming with a horrific race of creatures who dwell in ammonia and methane oceans across a swathe of ghost planets lost in the shadow memory of The Big Bang’s first exhalation. The seal spins faster and I’m sure they sense my presence across an impossible span of time – they want to rip my soul apart and feed on the primeval stardust that marks me as a being on the brighter side of the Big Bang. They reach towards me but I feel myself being pulled up into a collapsing sky... spit into the darkest stretch of space with only the sound of a broken flute. Lost in the center of absolute madness, Azathoth.

  I feel a hand on my back. I force my eyes open, look away from the dream machine. I turn around to see the face of the Iraqi child. The record player stops. Blake takes his hand off my shoulder.

  I’m completely sober now. Something’s seeped into this world because of us. I can feel it.

  I look over at Trudy. Her thick lips are impossibly red and when she licks them, her blue eyes strike like lightning.

  “You guys should get some sleep,” a frightening remoteness in his voice.

  “What the hell just happened?”

  Everything that was supposed to.”

  He takes out a small yellow box from his pocket.

  “I’m going to sleep by the fire,” he says heavily. “Don’t disturb me. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  He walks out of the tent.

  I turn toward her.

  “Trudy ...”

  “My name isn’t Trudy. It’s Caroline.”

  “Why did you lie about your name?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Her raspy voice grows frail. Something in her eyes change.

  Were you really going to Yellowstone?”

  “No.”

  She pulls in close to me. She shifts again. Her eyes turn black then hazel.

  My head feels foggy.

  I just finished visiting my hometown. Table Rock. It’s a ghost town now. I wanted to see it one last time before the desert swallowed it. Afterwards, I drove up around this way and felt like leaving my car. I don’t remember why. It’s like a dream. I left the car and wandered around –.”

  “Were you waiting for us?”

  “I was waiting for you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She grimaces violently and then stares at me with the expression of a very slow child. “I want to go back to the hotel with Mommy. He tricked me.”

  I push myself away from her as I hear Blake chuckle outside of the tent. I wipe my eyes and when I open them Trudy’s naked.

  “Just come to me. Stop asking questions.”

  I crawl over to her on my knees.

  “It’s ok,” she says as she kisses the side of my neck. She grins luridly and her eyes bulge. I can’t look away and she pulls me in comple
tely. I can hear Blake speaking to someone outside the tent when she straddles me...

  X

  I wake up naked. There’s no tent around me and the sun’s beginning to set. I brush sand off, spring up, look around. The tent and gear have been scattered several feet away in every direction. I find my canteen and gulp down hot water. My stomach knots in fear.

  “Blake!”

  Silence. I walk around the camp and find my clothes. I dig my wristwatch out of my Hawaiian shirt’s pocket – 7:35 pm.

  I’ve been asleep for over 18 hours.

  “Trudy!”

  No response. Still herds of Prong Horn observe me quietly from atop a butte.

  The camp wasn’t struck. It was disturbed. I walk over to the stone circle where we set the fire and find Trudy’s Jansport. The names Kathy, Dolores, Bechard, Hiepacht, Zepar, and Mara are written on it. It’s half open and when I reach inside I pull out a naked Barbie doll, a thick black marker and picture of a young woman with Down Syndrome standing next to what are probably her parents on a street with identical white split-level houses. I place everything down where I found it and see the shattered cylinder seal next to Blake’s rucksack a few feet up ahead. There’s a large hunting knife coated in blood as well. I grab the rucksack and drop all of its contents onto the ground. Blackened ears and fingers covered in purple tattoos fall out along with a stack of photographs bound together with rubber bands. I pick up the photos and see ...

  Me back in New York. Coming out of my apartment building, at work, buying groceries, on a date ...

  I shake my head in disbelief as I find photos of the woman with Down Syndrome standing by a sign that says Yellow Stone National Park ... another with her smiling, holding Blake’s hand in front of a motel called Rock Springs Lodge.

  I hear sobbing coming from the direction of Boar’s Tusk. I drop the photos, pick up the hunting knife and follow.

  He’s wheezing heavily, back propped up against its black volcanic neck. I stand in front of him and he looks past me without recognition. There are tears in his eyes. I put the knife next to his throat.