by Tobias Wade
Stumbling downstairs, I retrieved a bottle of fine whiskey from the library. I returned to the shower, where I stayed for the rest of the day. The hot water never seemed to run out, even though I was in there for hours. When the whiskey ran out, I went downstairs to find that my hostess had already cooked supper. She was nowhere to be seen, but there was a succulent roast set out for me. It was like no meat I had ever tasted, and it was garnished with carrots and potatoes that tasted almost too fresh for the season. It was perfectly paired with a medium-bodied red wine. The whole meal left me relaxed and sleepy, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not remember why I had ever mistrusted my hostess.
I went to bed to find that it had been tidied up in my absence. I felt a pang of guilt for ever thinking that the generous woman who had treated me so well could have any ulterior motives. Blissful fantasies of staying with her forever guided me into sleep.
I was in a well-furnished lounge. I sat on an ancient velvet armchair. The only sound was the muffled ticking of an ornate clock upon the mantle. The sound felt out of place in the silence. Any sound did. I stood, cringing as the chair groaned. All had to be silent. The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I walked toward the clock. It seemed to tick faster as I approached, the minute hand moving faster and faster towards midnight. Somehow I knew that I did not want that hand to touch the guided number twelve. I grabbed the clock and threw it to the floor, the sound of it shattering felt like a drill penetrating my eardrum. I stood still, the clock broken at my feet, listening to the cold, oppressive silence.
There was a splash from outside the door. The sound of the shattering clock had alerted something to my presence. I ran outside, against my better judgment. I was back on the infernal ship.
The pale thing was standing gracefully upon the bow. Its head was downcast, its face shrouded in a veil of dark hair. I tried to look at it, but my eyes didn’t want to see it. From the corner of my eye, I discerned that it was naked and sexless, but vaguely feminine in shape. It had an air of deliberate confidence to it. A lump swelled in my throat as it took a step towards me. Trying to picture the way it moved makes me nauseous, but I’ll try to describe it. It moved like ink in water, but also with the purpose and determination of a predator stalking prey. It was simultaneously fluid and solid in a way that made my head hurt.
The sheer surreality of the situation must have subdued the terror I felt at the time because the monster was halfway across the deck when it hit me. Sheer terror punched me in the gut like a steel baseball bat. All the air left my lungs as a tight, fiery pain exploded in my chest. I gasped for air, falling to my knees. I felt lightheaded, and fainted.
I woke up in a cold sweat. The first rays of dawn were beginning to burn crimson on the horizon. My skin felt cold and greasy, and my head hurt. I stumbled into the bathroom and vomited up torrents of the reflective black gunk. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I looked haggard and pale, with deep rings around my eyes that were almost as dark as the inky vomit.
I got into the shower, wanting to wash off the slimy remnants of my dream once and for all. The heat and steam cleansed my body and mind of the foulness of that ship. It was an incredibly cathartic experience, and I left feeling almost normal.
Breakfast was waiting for me downstairs, though I simply dumped it in the trash. I remembered how unnaturally complacent supper had made me the night before, and I didn’t want to bend to this woman’s will any more than I already had. I suspected that she had drugged the food.
The woman’s car was missing, so I searched the house for my old clothes. I had left my wallet in my coat pocket. My wallet held my passport, money, and identification. I couldn’t leave without it. I searched my room from top to bottom, but there was no sign of them.
I checked every room in the house until I found a laundry chute tucked away into a walk-in closet. I tried to find a door to a basement where the chute might lead, but my search was fruitless. I decided that the only way I could get down was to go down the chute. The incline was just gentle enough for me to maneuver my way down.
I squeezed into the opening feet first. The chute was just barely big enough for me to fit. I was sliding for a long time. The further down I got, the colder the metal became. Soon I was shivering in the dark, claustrophobic space. With no warning, the chute opened up beneath me. I landed with a thud on a pile of clothing. The space smelled damp and moldy, like a cave. The dampness and smell were quite shocking when juxtaposed with the freshness of the air upstairs. It was entirely dark, and I had to feel my way around the pile of clothes. Sure enough, I found mine. They were still damp and caked with mud. It was surreal to find anything dirty anywhere near the lady’s immaculate house.
I found my wallet and began blindly feeling my way away from the clothes heap. The smooth stone floor was damp and uneven. I had to crawl so I wouldn’t lose my footing. As I crawled, I could faintly make out a salty smell. It was like the sea but somehow corrupted. My hand splashed into a puddle of icy water. I gasped at the cold and wetness catching me completely off guard. When I brought the hand to my nose, it smelled salty. I crawled faster. I don’t know how long I spent in that tunnel, but eventually I saw a faint light up ahead.
The light was coming through a tiny crack in the ceiling. I stood up, touching it. The crack was long and strait. I pushed up on the ceiling, and it moved. It was a trapdoor.
The trapdoor lead into a furnished basement, with wooden flooring and plain white walls. The walls were lined with freezers. They smelled of the sea. I stumbled over to the one directly in front of me, my knees aching from their time on the cold cave floor. I placed my hands on the lid.
I stopped, hands resting on the cool metal of the freezer. The hairs on my neck stood on end as I looked at my hands. The hand that had landed in the puddle was coated with an inky black substance. It had just started to dry, and it clung to my skin, thick and sticky. It was reflective, like tar. What was the hell going on in this house?
I flung open the freezer lid. A wave of cold, pale mist shrouded its contents. As the mist dispersed, I could see more and more of the horror within. A wave of nausea rolled over me, but I forced down the bile threatening to spill out of me. Before me, in the freezer, lay the naked, headless body of a man. I put a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream. Had the meat been human? Dear god, had I eaten people?
Then I smelled it, lilac, with the faintest trace of a smell I now recognized as that wrong salty stink.
“They aren’t for food,” said a familiar voice behind me. I whirled around to see my hostess standing there, looking as beautiful as ever. She was smiling wickedly. “That would be so much better than your situation,” she laughed, it was a deep and genuine laugh. “You aren’t the first who assumed that I was a cannibal,” she said through uncontrollable giggles. “The reality of your situation is so much more complicated than that.”
I was dumbstruck. “What?” I asked. That was all I could think to say. I could feel the effect of her presence starting to slow my thoughts, pumping a warm happiness into my brain. It made me docile and harmless. “No!” I screamed at myself internally. I felt like I was sinking into a pool of warm honey.
“Oh sweetie,” she said, her voice was sharp and condescending, “That isn’t going to work.” She smiled wickedly. “Now, you are going to follow me. I have much to show you before the leviathan has its supper.”
My body moved against my will, and the part of me that wanted to obey her beat down my rational mind.
“I like to show my guests how I do my little mind trick before I sacrifice them.” Her voice was chipper and bright, like a kid at show and tell. “The look on their faces as I show them how I pulled their strings is the best part of what I do!” She turned around and grinned. “Heck! It’s even better than the immortality and eternal youth!” She grinned, “Oh, and my name is Calypso, by the way, but you can call me Caly.”
“Calypso, you are a monster,” I growled.
&n
bsp; The smile retreated from her face in the blink of an eye. “You will call me Caly,” she said, her voice cold and sharp. She strode towards me, gripping my chin. “Call me Caly and tell me how much you love me, you pathetic worm!” Her breath smelled like seaweed and salt. It was cool and almost refreshing, like an ocean breeze. “I am a goddess to you, you puny mortal!” she shouted, spittle flying. It hit my face like cold ocean spray.
“I am so sorry Caly!” I cried, losing control of my whole body. I fell to my knees and kissed her foot, “My goddess! Oh my goddess! Please forgive my evil tongue! It lies! It lies! Please cleanse me of the evil that would dare insult your all-powerful beauty!” The words disgusted me, but I had no way to stop them.
Calypso grinned, “Good boy.” She chuckled sadistically. “Now follow me.” She hummed a tune that sounded like Greensleeves as she slid open a panel on the wall that I had previously missed. I stumbled after her as she led me into a modest, but immaculate laboratory. “This,” she indicated the lab equipment surrounding her, “is where I make the compound that makes you men so obedient. I won’t bore you with the science of it, but this is where I make a drug with effects similar to devil’s breath, except that it only works on male subjects, and rather than turning you into a sort of ‘zombie’, it makes you want to please me, even if you consciously don’t; it bends your subconscious to my will. It is derived from the water in the leviathan’s home plane of reality. It is an ancient recipe used by women in my family for centuries. I wear it like a perfume, that’s why you are so attracted to me. Those affected suffer from what they think are nightmares, when in fact their consciousness is simply existing in the leviathan’s reality briefly.”
I was dumbstruck. I asked the only question in my mind. “What are the bodies for?”
She smiled sweetly. “Those?” she said, “Oh, those are just for bribing the hound.” She saw my confused expression. Rolling her eyes, she said, “The hound that chased you here could have caught you if he wanted to, but all it did was get you where you needed to go. He’s like my little sheepdog,” she said endearingly. “I love my little puppy so much!”
I couldn’t help but smile at this monster’s show of humanity. “Cute,” I said dryly.
“Yes, he is!” she smiled, ignoring my sarcasm.
She leads me to another panel in the wall, which opened into an elevator. I followed her in. The doors shut behind us and the elevator began to descend.
I don’t know how long we were in the elevator. The farther down we went, the more the place smelled of the leviathan’s home world. At some point, the lights went out. They stayed out after that.
We stood silently in the metal box. I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid. Maybe it was the drug; maybe I was a point where I could no longer feel fear. I had surrendered to my fate under the mighty hand of the woman’s drug.
After a long time, Calypso spoke. “It’s funny,” she said, “you’re the first person who ever managed to insult me.” She sounded almost regretful in the dark. “Most people just silently followed me.” Even in the dark, I could tell that she had turned her intense eyes on me. “How did you do that? Resist the drug, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Okay,” she replied, sounding somewhat disappointed. “We’re almost there.”
“Yeah,” I said numbly. “I know.”
The doors opened and I saw the ship. The pale thing stood on the bow, regarding me through a curtain of dark hair. I calmly left the elevator, walking towards it. On the horizon, the red light crested the ocean, swallowing the world in its bloody glow. The thing extended a hand, and I took it. Together, we walked into the red.
Kelly Childress
The Sunset Doorway
When I was a child, my grandmother told me some tidbit of wisdom that I took for fiction. She told me that in the moments before the sun rises and sets, our world is vulnerable. If we aren’t careful and we go into the dark alone, we can wander into other dimensions without even knowing what we’ve done.
That’s why I’m writing this. I didn’t take her seriously then (I mean, who would?) but I should have. I’m hoping somebody can tell me anything, anything at all, that might help explain what happened to me two years ago. Just to get it out of the way: I wasn’t drunk or sleep-deprived and had only taken a few hits off a joint that day. And I know the weed wasn’t spiked with anything, because I’d been smoking it for days before this happened.
When July 2016 came around, and I hadn’t really been on any vacation yet, I decided I needed one. I made plans with my parents to stay at their rural home, about five hours away from the city where I lived. They were going to be out of town on a cruise and were happy to have someone checking in on the property.
I couldn’t get on the road until Friday evening, but that was fine by me. I like watching the sun set while I drive; there’s something indescribably calming about it. The wind in my hair, my favorite music playing, and the swelling hills flying past, dotted with cows and bales of hay. The way the rugged landscape becomes softer in the final light, everything tinged with the warm gold of the dying sun. Like a mother’s hands affectionately smoothing wrinkles from her child’s bedspread, the fingers of light cede the countryside to the growing shadows.
As the light loses its grip on the land, some animals and insects come out in earnest. Like well-behaved children who turn raucous once the final dismissal bell rings, they come alive. The lazy hum of cicada rises to a cacophony. The tremulous (yet persistent) song of the whippoorwill warbles over it. Thousands of leaves, made invisible by the darkness, rustle in the sporadic breeze. Occasionally, the drone of wildlife is punctuated by distant pops. Gunshots, fireworks, or falling rocks, I can’t tell.
Once the sun goes down in earnest, things do get a little creepy—but I always liked that. Way out in the backwoods, the roads aren’t lit. Sometimes the only things illuminating your path are your own two headlights, and it looks and feels like you’re driving along the edge of the world.
The light glides along the road and rises when it hits the guardrails, but then it’s absorbed completely by the thick, dark trees that swam the hills. When I was little, I used to think it was like driving on Rainbow Road in MarioKart. Just you and your little U-shaped bit of light on the road… and the utter nothingness that surrounds you both.
The sun had set around forty minutes earlier, and I was driving and enjoying the slow descent into full darkness, when suddenly it happened. All the boisterous sound of nature disappeared.
Everything was quiet, except for a low, far-away rumbling—like I was near an active volcano.
I immediately went from relaxed to alert. I slowed down and listened, hard. Absolutely nothing, aside from the rumbling. No animals. No bugs. No nature. I furiously dug my pinky into my right ear, and then left, terrified that my hearing had spontaneously gone. Nothing.
Shaking, I drove a bit further until I finally hit a part of the road with a decent-sized shoulder. I pulled over. Convinced it was my body and not the environment, I continued to dig in my ear, then gently wiggling my earlobes, then leaning from one side to the other.
As I was becoming increasingly more panicked, my knee brushed up against the car keys and I realized I could hear the jingling. I paused, and then clapped. The sound rang out in the car as it normally would.
I put the keys in my pocket and stepped out of the car and onto the shoulder. Trust me, I didn’t want to leave the safety of my car, but I had to get my flashlight out of the trunk and couldn’t do it from inside.
I retrieved the flashlight and hesitantly shone the piercing beam over the guardrail and down the hill.
At least, there was supposed to be a hill there.
The land sloped down, and then just…. ended.
In confusion, I shone my flashlight around. Nothing. I could see the hill, studded with rocks and boulders, maybe ten or twelve feet down. Then, only darkness my flashlight couldn’t penetrate.
I stared for a few minutes, wondering whether I had gone crazy or not. I picked up a rock, and, keeping the light on it, dropped it. It bounced down the hill and into the black. I could still see it once it had passed that threshold, but not for long. I never heard it hit the ground.
I pushed myself away from the edge in terror. Running to the other side of the road yielded more of the same. I looked at the road behind me and in front of me—no other taillights or living things, no reassurance. As far as I could see, the road existed, but the world around it had fallen away. The only difference between the sky and the earth, that I could see, was the presence of stars. I kept turning in disbelieving circles in the middle of the road, willing another car, another person, to come down the road towards me.
The rumbling was growing louder. I reeled inwardly as I realized, among the rumbling, I could discern individual moans—human voices.
I jumped about six feet in the air when I saw something move in my peripheral vision. Stepping back, I aimed my flashlight at the road’s left shoulder. It was a human hand, with raw red flesh showing underneath caked layers of dirt.
Any sense of wonder or comfort disappeared in an instant. My boots pounding the pavement, I threw open the car door and locked myself in. There was an arm attached to the hand, and it was pulling itself on to the asphalt. There were more hands around it. As I twisted the car key in the ignition, cold horror flowed through my veins as I saw the entire road was lined with wriggling hands and limbs. Even with the windows shut, I could hear their moaning and gibbering—growing loud enough to drown out the rumbling.
