Aberrations of Reality

by Aaron J. French

  At night, lying in bed falling asleep, I could hear her pernicious keening resounding in the house. Her cries inspired such hate. She had inexplicably developed the ability to ingest the sock shoved into her mouth and swallow it, and on several occasions I had sealed her lips with tape but she had somehow consumed that as well. Short of removing her tongue, I didn’t know how to silence her.

  Fortunately, when I finally did fall asleep and the book drew me out of slumber, her voice would vanish as the recitation of the text took over, but always in the morning she’d return, and I’d smother myself with the pillow, trying to block her out.

  It reached the point where I couldn’t take it. It fills me with revulsion to write this, but again we are concerning ourselves with the truth here, so I must be honest—with you and with myself. Besides, if you’ve taken anything in this manuscript to heart, then you will understand my motives.

  It was just before evening and I was running out of socks and she’d been shouting taunts all day and I just wanted to get some sleep and have peace and quiet, so in a state of somnolent numbness I retrieved a length of bailing wire and entered the closet and twined the wire around her neck, tightening it, holding it there until her wicked eyes finally went vacant and her tongue protruded sickly from her mouth.

  Upon the moment of death, I inwardly experienced the transformation of her being in the sense that she was changed, alchemically, from wholly physical into wholly spirit. She dematerialized right before my eyes, leaving me alone in the closet, holding the loop of bailing wire.

  For a moment I became afraid of all she had said—that her corpse would come after me and her specter would haunt my abode—but as I crawled into bed to get some much needed sleep, the house was for once very quiet, and I drifted off without further disturbance.

  * * *

  After a number of years, and the contents of the book had become like a second skin to me, I first began having visions of the end. The word Apocalypse is commonly used, also Armageddon, but these concepts, for the most part, are misinterpreted. The common belief is that events that would bring about these concepts will occur externally, outside of us, and that we, as humans, would be forced to adapt to these external situations—that we are, in a sense, victims of quote unquote evil forces.

  But my visions of the end of times, which streamed fully out of the dark spaces I vanished in the matter around me, revealed to me the truth: that the events of Armageddon, Apocalypse, in the vision of the Book of Revelation, occur within people, are developed there, prepared, and then released, as spiritual forces out of the person, into the world. And physical reality, and the events that transpire within it, reflect what has come out of the people, but it is a dead, wholly material expression of these forces, similar to how your own reflection in a mirror is the dead image of your living being.

  Needless to say, this frightened me very much. Could I very well be the doorway of forces of the Apocalypse streaming into this world? The thought left me shaken. Although I kept hoping the visions would pass, they merely intensified, until I beheld the ruin of all humanity and even the planet itself by forces and beings which used me as an instrument on the physical plane, and acted out their atrocities on earth.

  It got to the point where sleep abandoned me. I’d pace about the house in the dark, with the book clutched fast, muttering and gibbering my wild thoughts. Hosts of outré spiritual beings gathered about me in the night, shimmering in the air like mirages, whispering to me with their ghostly voices.

  Visions bloomed in the center of my mind, of terrible future happenings, human beings in total bondage to strange mechanical machines, to which they’d voluntarily fused themselves, and of alien landscapes wherefrom thousands of invisible beings flocked toward our planet. Fiery and brilliant gold light filled my country cottage. I have even heard rumors of several neighbors in the town reporting seeing strange luminescences in the woods around my house. These lights would be described like spectral, earthbound stars.

  My quickening decent culminated in a single night when, after days of tearing about the house, my body collapsed from exhaustion. Consciousness returned in a vivid dream. The text of the book, which was now utterly familiar to me, boomed like the voice of God. I was coaxed out into the moonlit night, into the trees and down the path, up to the site of the rock formation.

  Then I awoke… or else I dreamed that I awoke. My memories cloud over here. I do know that I at least felt physical—that is I could feel, not only my own body, but the world around me.

  Esoteric chanting poured out of me, in harmony with the omnipresent recitation—which I was wont to do during experiences of this kind—and in usual fashion the landscape then started to flicker, to oscillate from dark to light. I became conscious of awakening something in the dark spaces between the rock pieces, and I saw it stirring there, a terrible creature turning itself over in the dirt.

  A face appeared high in the heavens wearing a brown brimmed hat, shaped amorphously out of clouds and mist, whose mouth was delivering the recitation of the book’s unreadable text. And I knew then that this had all been done in accordance with some higher power’s agenda, in which I played a central role, but that at this particular stage, there was no possible way to stop it from moving forward.

  So I panicked. I didn’t want to be the instrument of the Apocalypse, and I didn’t want to bring about the ruin of humanity. It was not my will, I realized then, but some other’s will—one which had tricked, duped me, and played on my fears and depressions, and won me wholly over to its side.

  Still panicking, I threw off my dreamy paralysis, rushed toward the leaning cross-sections of granite, and began digging in the dirt like a dog. The rocks glowed bright red in response, their shapes becoming embers in the night. The terrible sleeping presence churned within dark spaces, trying to capture my mind’s eye with sights of its truly horrific form, but I ignored it and went on digging.

  Overhead the reciting voice had, for the first time ever, ceased in its reading/chanting and was attempting to persuade me back into my original condition. But this I also ignored. At length I managed a hole of several feet, into which I deposited the book then proceeded to fill it back in.

  The world flew into a rage. Strong winds buffeted against me, the sky crackled with thunder and lightning, and trees shook their leaves like angry daggers. The ground rumbled under my kneeling body, and the red-glowing rocks began to smoke, as if somehow they had heated themselves to a blistering degree.

  But despite all this I accomplished my own little act of will and succeeded in burying the book. When this had been done, the unnatural phenomena assaulting me abruptly stopped. The face in the sky evaporated, along with the booming godlike voice. The rocks cooled back down to their normal temperature.

  I found myself alone once more.

  * * *

  Time has passed but I still hear it out there, whispering to me like a seductive lover. It’s buried in that spot, which can’t possibly be deep enough, and the voice gets louder every night. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the binding suddenly sprouted arms and legs, dug itself free, and came after me…

  Am I going mad? —Perhaps I have already been mad for a long time. —Perhaps my poor dead parents were right to shut me up in my room as a boy. For what exists within me, and what wants to come forth into the world with the aid of that book, is something too awful to describe. It is an end to everything alive and good.

  I’m leaving behind this manuscript in hopes that someday someone will find it, interpret it, and hopefully make sense of what has happened here. For last night I heard the most terrifying sound imaginable—an incessant scraping at the windows and doors and an intrepid female voice, calling for me… uttering my first name…

  Darkness is dawning in the heavens now. I can’t imagine they would let me sleep another night. It’s time to prepare for the worst.

  A STORM OF LIGHTNING

  Yah did it again, tiger. You spoilt yerself.

&nb
sp; The voice of his old man echoed with all the redneck charm he could remember. Harry set his axe against a tree and looked around at nothing but miles of forested hills. The sun permeated through the branches while clouds puffed over the horizon. Birds sang from all corners, notwithstanding the scene of brutal violence which had taken place.

  Sighing, he lit a Winston and squatted on a large slab of limestone, letting his weight settle. Betty was a ruined woman, a puddle of torn flesh, organs and bones hacked apart. Blood saturated the grass. He glanced at her forehead—cleaved in twain, brains leaking out—and leaned over suddenly to vomit. The smell burned his nostrils as he rolled onto his back. Leaves and morning sky filled his eyes. He took a breath. Released. The sounds of the forest momentarily nabbed him. He smoked… traveling back to the Kentucky of his youth.

  * * *

  Mama knelt behind the refrigerator. She always did this after a fight. She had a blanket and a pillow back there, so she could hide away with the dust bunnies and the cobwebs. She had her Bible, too.

  Harry inched out of the hallway and moved across the tiles. Brown gravy stains—what had once been their dinner—covered the floor, the front of the fridge, and the counters, from when his father had dashed his arm over the table, hurtling everything across the room. Now his old man sat on the back porch, passed out in his rocker. Been there a while. Probably fell asleep with chew in his mouth.

  Harry peeked around the side of the refrigerator and found his mom on her knees, the blanket tucked beneath her. The Holy Bible lay discarded by her calf. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved soundlessly while she cried. She had her fingers steepled before her chest, making what she liked to call “Jesus Hands.”

  “Mama?”

  The sounds of the screen door slamming against the house, footsteps, grunting, labored breath.

  In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

  Mama’s eyes snapped open.

  * * *

  Winston down to the filter, he flipped it away. Harry had the flashing image of a forest fire and sat up, a world of trees and trunks and bark swinging into view. Morning was now officially here, heralded by the increasing humidity. He scanned the ground, wary not to look upon the ruined woman, located the butt, though it wasn’t smoking, and after watching a moment longer, he let it be.

  Murder Man stood near the bushes.

  Harry ignored him at first; that is, he didn’t turn and look, but his body reacted: heart doubling in pace, skin chilling with gooseflesh. He blinked. Then, slowly, he raised his head.

  Murder Man resembled the creature of any child’s worst nightmare—a towering hulk of leathery flesh the color of oil, long black hair like a soiled mop, and tree root arms ending in grotesque clawed hands. His face was long and sloping, almost horse-like, with a snout and long, sharp teeth. The eyes, dead orange things… portals to the other side of existence, through which, Harry knew, some demon peered out.

  The creature did nothing but stand there. Watching. Waiting. Directing.

  Murder Man finally said, “This one’s done. How about another?”

  “I don’t want to do this anymore,” Harry said, cold and sternly.

  He no longer felt emotions, had willed himself not to feel them: feeling them meant the end of the Earth, meant death. He was one tough-armored sack of two hundred fifty pounds of flesh. Fear and horror and rage were things he twisted into knots of unknowing, forcing them deep into his soul.

  “You have no choice,” Murder Man said. “Death is your purpose.”

  He looked past Murder Man into the forest; he wanted another cigarette.

  “How did this happen?”

  It wasn’t a question he expected to have answered, but Murder Man, shambling into view, opened his horse-like mouth several inches too wide, revealing blackness and shapes and color… and Harry looked deeper.

  * * *

  He pulled his coat tighter and blew into his hands, wishing he’d brought gloves. There had been a time, back when Harry first started this, that the fear of getting caught would have forced him to go back. But he no longer worried over trivialities such as fingerprints anymore.

  He peeked around the corner of the alley, across the parking lot where sodium lamps threw a greenish sheen upon the cars, to the back entrance of the bar. The door had been left open from the cook coming out for his smoke break. Blue and green neon filled the frame, and folks dressed in black and leather, the sound of a jukebox playing Johnny Cash.

  Another thirty minutes before last call. Sometimes it took another thirty minutes for everyone to leave. Good thing he was patient. Harry sat against the brick wall and smoked a Winston. The night was silent but for the last of the drunkards in the parking lot. An hour later, they had all gone; the parking lot was clear. The neon signs powered down. Everything went silent.

  Where is she?

  Grinning, Harry lost his cigarette and rose to his feet.

  The back door cracked open a final time and there she was—the tall blonde he’d kept tabs on for the past month, Betty Goldstein. She was a divorced, middle-aged, hot-to-trot trail-blazer who either owned the Swingin’ Shack Saloon, or operated it for someone else. She crossed the parking lot toward her Dodge pickup.

  Harry cautiously crept out of his hiding place and dashed across the street. He was nimble given his size, especially in these moments when his head was full of excitement, his heart pounding, and his cock nearly bursting through his jeans. He made it to her truck and hid.

  She muttered to herself as she came around the side of the vehicle.

  Harry crouched in a dark pool of shadows near the left front wheel well, a shadow himself. A sliver of moon shone briefly through the screen of clouds, and a glow appeared around the truck, spotlighting it. He froze, not expecting this.

  She glanced suddenly at his bulk, eyes widened.

  “What the fuck—”

  Although he had the ability to throw his weight (he’d been an amateur boxer in his youth, junior varsity, back before he started gaining weight), she managed an elbow into his face, but his two hundred plus pounds forced her onto the asphalt.

  “Get off me!”

  Her knee came up to his groin, but he deflected and slammed down his fist onto the bridge of her nose where a geyser of blood erupted. She tried to scream, but Harry jammed his fingers into her throat, felt a couple of her teeth dislodge.

  She started choking.

  He applied his weight, pressing her against the asphalt, jamming his forearm against her head. Her eyes finally dimmed as she fell unconscious.

  The parking lot was deserted.

  Harry hoisted her body over his shoulder and crept back into the alley.

  * * *

  He left Murder Man standing in the trees and started up the trail. He had to get away from the body, needed to clear his head.

  Sunlight streamed through the branches to glint on the maple and oak leaves. A few small critters darted across his path. The silence was immense—an ocean of possibilities—and he felt he could dissolve into it, as matter into matter, as the bodies of his victims had returned into the earth.

  He found a towering old cottonwood with a massive trunk and stopped under its umbrella of branches. He caressed the gnarled bark. It felt good against his fingers.

  Murder Man’s face materialized in the deeply grooved crevices running up and down the trunk. “Back that way,” he said. A few of the branches pointed down the trail.

  Harry ignored the face and kept walking.

  The swath of dirt sloped up and around the side of a hill into a clearing bordered by several tall pines. A ruinous one-story shack sinking into the ground endured in the center of the clearing. Composed mostly of rain-rotted boards, the sagging structure had a caved-in roof, which reminded Harry that time was always working, always doing its best to decay all forms of matter. The signs of age stained every splintered beam, in the blackened grooves and knots of the clapboards, and even around the empty window frames and crooked front door.


  What time does to things, I do to women.

  This was followed by the voice of his father: You spoilt yerself again.

  Murder Man appeared beside him, a black splotch in reality.

  “How about another?” he whispered.

  Harry fought a wave of emotion. His whole body tightened.

  I will not emote.

  When the wave passed, he released its frothy spume in the form of a sigh, and stepped through the door.

  * * *

  Boom.

  Harry under the bed.

  Boom.

  He winced and covered his face as tears streamed through his small hands. His parents were arguing again. It’d woken him, his eyes snapping up and staring into the darkness of his bedroom. Dad drunk, Mom scared. He wasn’t sure what they were yelling about. It was always something.

  Boom.

  After the hitting started, he had crept under the bed, clutching his teddy bear. He had closed his eyes, covered his ears, but still he heard it: the unmistakable thuddings of flesh against flesh. Mama screaming, crying, praying to the Lord to send a storm of lightning to take Daddy away.

  Harry stared out from under his bed at the yellow light beneath the door, wondering if God could really send a storm of lightning to take his father away; then that sound echoed through the house—boom—and his heart nearly leaped out of his—

  “Harry?” his father called.

  Boom.

  “Rise and shine… wakey wakey.”

  Harry knew better. It wasn’t really time to get up: the sun hadn’t even risen yet. His dad was playing a trick. Daddy wanted to do to Harry what he had done to Mama.