But now she was getting to her feet. She wrapped a blanket around herself and joined him at the table.
Russell retrieved more bottles from the minibar, along with a liter of Coke and what was left of the ice. He mixed the rum and coke in one of the half-clean Styrofoam cups and handed it to her. She took a whiff, wrinkling her nose, but thanked him and started to drink.
“You got us out of there,” she said finally.
“I did. I thought they were ready to devour you.”
She grunted in a thoughtful way. “They might’ve, if you hadn’t rescued me. They’re so starved for human interaction and they don’t even realize it. They feel their emptiness, sure, but they don’t understand that they’re starving. Instead they distract themselves with every possible vice—food, drugs, shopping, alcohol, video games, television, movies, romantic pastimes, rape, consensual sex (which is still just rape)—they shove all this into their emptiness, hoping it will fill the void, but it never does. Earlier this evening they were going to try and put me into their void, but thankfully you got us out.”
Russell took a swig of alcohol, watching as Faith did the same. He wondered why in the hell she couldn’t ever say anything normal. Why she always had to go on and on about this crazy stuff that made his stomach hurt when he thought about it. It was like someone else was inside her, some strange being that spouted esoteric knowledge and made uncanny observations.
They drank in silence, listening to the distant sirens and city noises. It was only going to get worse the closer it got to midnight. People were going to panic, become desperate. And by morning… who knew?
Russell felt as scared and as helpless as those people looting and burning buildings on the television, the ones fighting with the National Guard. His only consolation was Faith—this strange, all-knowing, spiritually-connected being.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked.
She blinked with small, round, pretty blue eyes set into flesh that was warm and pallid and soft as honey. Sometimes when she looked at him, he felt as if she was seeing into him, seeing his soul maybe.
“Talk about what?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Must be the whiskey talking.”
“Not the whiskey. Your daimon.”
“My what?”
She chuckled. “We talked about this before, silly. Your daimon is your Intuitive Child’s voice, the one in your head that guides you, your Guardian Angel. Daimon is synonymous with daemon, or demon. However in this case it is not the sort of demon of which you are thinking. The daimon is your link to higher spiritual worlds, to the eternal. It must be heeded at all costs.”
“Now I remember,” Russell replied. “You said that Socrates, the Greek philosopher, was the first to speak about it.”
“That’s right. His connection with his daimon was strong. It was almost ninety-percent accurate on all matters. He consulted it frequently. Why don’t you try it? Go on—what’s your daimon telling you right now?”
Russell paused, thought, listened. Then he said, “It keeps telling me that you want to talk about something.”
Her face sobered. “Oh I do. But are you willing to listen? I warn you now that it’s not an easy subject.”
He glanced out the window for a moment, marveling at the rent in the sky, how it grew at an alarming rate, how the light issuing forth from it kept getting brighter. He had trouble believing it. Seeing it felt like a dream, like the world of his dreams and the world of his reality had collided.
He sighed. “Considering that the world is going to end tomorrow, I suspect I’m ready for anything.”
“Good, because I’ve wanted to discuss this since we met. It’s about consciousness and the predicament of sex, how the two are related, how they’re connected, and how the two can be reconciled.”
“More of that?”
“I know it’s a tiresome subject, but I thought you were ready to listen?”
He took a deep breath, quieting the emotions in his head. Then he asked her to continue.
* * *
The static from Jon Baskin’s transistor radio filled the barn with a sound like buzzing bees. The young man fiddled with the dial, trying to find a local station. Outside, the crickets of the night tittered and sawed.
“Here we go,” he said finally, leaning back as a male voice crackled out of the speakers. They had all gathered around the radio, sitting on cots and listening. Jeremiah, uninterested in matters of the pagan world, slouched in his chair, smoking a pipe.
“… can confirm reports of new rips in the sky over the Eastern Hemisphere,” said the voice, “for a total of seven of these ‘cosmic debris traps’, as the US government is calling them, now visible above our planet. The president plans to make an emergency address within the hour but, so far, nothing of any certainty has been released as to whether the rips pose a threat.
“In other news, the eve of the year 2012, also marking the end of the Mayan Calendar, continues to breed mayhem and unrest in the world’s major cities. Those who haven’t gone into hiding have taken to the streets. Massive partying and full-scale riots are occurring side by side, stretching the National Guard to its limits. There have also been reports of mass suicides among certain religious groups—”
“Turn it off,” Jeremiah said.
Without argument, Jon Baskin hit the switch on his radio and the barn went silent. It was clear that nobody would be sleeping, not on a night like tonight, so Jeremiah rose from his chair, Bible in hand, and decided to read a passage:
“Revelation 6:12: ‘I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind. The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up. Every mountain and island were moved out of their places. The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. They told the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?’ ”
He stopped as a curious sound came from outside. Not the usual buzzing insects or hooting night owls, but a hum, low pitched and monotone, like that of a tuning fork. Everyone peered up from their cots.
“Now what’d yah suppose that is?” Marila asked.
Jeremiah closed the Bible and set it on the chair. Reaching into his pocket, he drew forth the bone, which was vibrating in response to the outside hum. It was this same bone that God had left under his pillow one night last month. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but somehow he felt sure his son Daryl was dead, that the bone had belonged to him.
The hum grew louder, swelling to a deafening racket. One by one, the members of the group got up from their cots and gathered by the barn doors. The sound grew closer, more pronounced.
Jeremiah clutched the bone. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said. But he knew this was a matter of freewill, that ultimately the decision wasn’t with him.
“We want to see it,” said Valerie, the young waitress who worked at Buck’s Diner, off the interstate.
“Yeah, we wanna find out what’s happening,” agreed Jeff Reynolds. His wife seconded his position.
Jeremiah came down from the wood platform to join the group. “The chain of events has already been set in motion. Witnessing it would be irrelevant. I ask you to remember the woman at Sodom, who looked back against God’s wishes and was turned to a pillar of salt.”
“But He ain’t neva warned us no way,” remarked Bruce. “What harm could it do?”
“Well, I’m not pushing it,” said Marila, returning to her cot.
The humming grew louder, and James Wheaton literally had to yell to say, “Aren’t you interested in proof of God’s work?”
The minister made a face
. “Proof? I require no proof. My faith is here,” he tapped his chest, “and here,” he pointed his left temple. “I don’t require anything external to validate my beliefs.”
“Well I do,” Valerie said, marching toward the doors. “My whole life I’ve wondered if God really exists, or if man thought Him up. So if this is my chance to know the truth, I’m in.”
Suddenly the doors burst open and the deafening hum poured into the barn. A brilliant white light, akin to the color that poured from the rips in the sky, filled the barn, swelled like an explosion, and ebbed.
A woman’s voice, Betty-May’s, no, Margery’s… shouted, “Where do you think you’re going? Get away from there!”
As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, Jeremiah saw that Timothy, the child, had stepped beyond the barn doors and was now wandering out into the pasture. His mother and father scrambled after him, followed by Valerie, James, Jon Baskin, Bruce, Jeff Reynolds, and Betty-May. Only Marila, Jean, and Harry remained on their cots, still squinting against the light.
The minister approached the opening. Shrieks and raised voices came from outside. He had meant every word about not needing to validate his beliefs. But now that his congregation had gone blindly into the abyss, he had to look after them.
“Be careful,” Marila called.
Jeremiah waved a hand. “Don’t worry.”
He passed through the barn doors into the night. The singing grass of the pasture and the swaying trees received him. The hum was so intense that he could feel it in his teeth. The sky overhead had been… shredded, like a piece of blasted metal. Beams of concentrated white light filtered down, creating the illusion of the stars falling.
“My God,” he whispered.
For some reason the others had stripped their clothing and were dancing in the grass, holding hands, moving in a clockwise circle. Jeremiah watched them distractedly, his hand clutching the bone.
The sky itself was opening up, and a shower of dark red drops began to fall. The minister held out his palm, caught a few, tasted them.
He shivered. The drops tasted metallic, like human blood.
Red and white blurred together, forming a mist-like wall between the trees. The minister dropped to genuflection. He could hear the laughter of his flock, a sound not indicative of joy or happiness, but of lunacy and madness. Figures, long, lanky, and shapeless, stalked out of the forest, gathering around them like sentries.
Panic shot through him. Fear. He screamed at the top of his lungs, begged for mercy, for clarity, for forgiveness in the eyes of his Creator.
The world rumbled and tumbled and sloshed like an angry sea. He couldn’t make sense of anything. He felt warmth and weightlessness and connectivity, and soon he felt himself not at all, felt like he had no self, felt like he was a part of something greater.
* * *
Faith stepped through the door of the hotel room on that first day. Everything—the ground, the buildings, the trees, the cars—everything was covered in red blood. The rain had fallen continuously through the night.
She glanced overhead at what used to be the sky, at what was now a churning white portal, an entryway to the higher spirit realms. A beam of gold unfurled toward the ground like a tongue. The enlightened beings could be seen moving along it, their bodies translucent and curiously formed, too large to be human, too etheric to be real. Thousands of them were coming down from the sky.
She smiled, glancing back into the room, which was totally wrecked. Her night with the man Russell had been physically demanding: the sex, the talking, the arguing… the death.
He lay on the bed, splayed in mock crucifixion, stomach slit, entrails removed, throat cut, genitals carved away. The knife, like some kind of morbid coat hook, was stuck into the wall.
She was sad for him, but she’d known since the day they’d met that he was the one. The only one strong enough, pure enough, simple enough, and worthy enough to be sacrificed.
She turned away, unwilling to look any longer. She’d led him on this whole time, enticing him with sexual vibes, but denying him access. It had been a game.
Then finally, last night, she’d given herself to him. She’d told him everything—all the abuse from her childhood, the things her father had done to her, what her brothers had done, her mother, her cousin, her brother’s friends, and later, the teacher at her elementary school.
She had told him every graphic detail, recounted every horrible image. When she had finished, he seemed emotionally raw from the experience. That was when she had gone for the knife, caught him off guard. She had made her sacrifice as she promised she would, that day in the desert, five years ago, when the beings had first contacted her.
And now the prophecy had come true… and 2012 was upon them.
Naked, she left the hotel room, whispering a final goodbye to the man Russell. She made her way along the city streets, down the city sidewalks. She was amazed to see everything so splattered with blood. It was everywhere and on everything. And it produced a strange smell, like antiseptic, which made it difficult to breathe.
Corpses littered the area. Faces, frozen in terror, stared at her from alleyways, trash heaps, car windows. She ignored them, hurrying down the street, not headed anywhere. Just going.
Time was no longer relevant in The Next Age. The spirit realm had successfully infiltrated. There would be no more rushing about, no more appointments to keep, no schedules, jobs, or deadlines.
At length, she came to a park and sat on a bench. Though the sun was no longer present, and time nonexistent, there still remained an atmosphere of early morning. The trees and grass seemed speckled with dew (or was it blood?) and somewhere in her head, the birds chirped.
She even thought she felt a breeze. Then she realized it was the white of the spirit realm drawing in on her. They had come down out of the sky, these beings which some call demons, some angels, and still others extraterrestrials, riding a carpet of swirling, golden whiteness like an ocean of clouds.
The first ones were stalking silently out of the blood-spattered trees, coming to find out who she was, why she had been spared.
She would tell them. She was not afraid, no; she had descended into a material hell, had been abused by countless “humans,” her own family. She had undergone tremendous growth and awareness of higher thought to reach this point.
Three, shrouded in a blinding fog, gathered before her, mere shapes, looming, darker than shadows. It seemed to Faith that these beings wore their minds on the outside of their skins. Like suits of armor.
“You remember me,” she said, voice level, focusing all her energy on the words. “You came to me a number of years ago. I was alone in the desert, wandering, wishing for death, not eating or drinking, only despairing, seeking to rid myself of the suffering of this world. That’s when you entered my head and spoke to me, offered me the little death, so I might continue to exist on Earth as one of your… agents. I have done as you instructed. I selected an appropriate soul and sacrificed it on the according night…”
“You have not done this alone,” one of them said. “We commissioned hundreds of your kind to perform the ritual.”
It took a moment to recuperate from hearing the being’s voice. When she’d balanced her energies again, she said, “That doesn’t depreciate my contribution.”
They seemed to converse among themselves, until finally one said, “No, we agree it does not. And we have determined that you are awake enough—dead enough—to accompany us on our quest for reformation. Will you come?”
Taking a deep breath, she rose from the bench and nodded. Instantly, her flesh peeled away from her skin, then her muscles, then her bones. Yet there was no pain. It all happened so fast that there was no panic, no fear. She was now a shadow of herself, translucent and curiously formed.
The beings started moving again. She filed into their ranks, soon getting lost among the lumbering crowd.
The cloud of light passed over the park, engulfing it. It continued on, encomp
assing the rest of the city, and soon it covered the state, the country, and finally the entire planet.
From space, the earth appeared as a giant white dot, ever swirling, ever churning, devoid of landmasses or bodies of water. But beyond that, things of this nature are quite impossible to explain.
Aaron J. French (a.k.a. A. J. French) is currently a book editor for JournalStone Publishing and the Editor-in-Chief for Dark Discoveries magazine—a professional, internationally distributed print magazine specializing in dark fiction, currently on its tenth year of continuous publication and distribution. He has worked with and edited such authors as David Liss, Norman Partridge, Gary A. Braunbeck, Thomas Ligotti, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jonathan Maberry, F. Paul Wilson, Glen Hirshberg, John Shirley, and many others. In 2011 he edited Monk Punk, an anthology of monk-themed speculative fiction and The Shadow of the Unknown, an anthology of nü-Lovecraftian fiction. His latest anthology Songs of the Satyrs was published in 2014 by Angelic Knight Press and features a brand new novella from New York Times best-selling author David Farland. Aaron also served as co-editor for The Lovecraft eZine for several months in 2012.
Aaron’s fiction has appeared in many publications including Dark Discoveries, Black Ink Horror, Something Wicked, After Death…, Beware the Dark, Chiral Mad, The Lovecraft eZine, and others. His zombie collection Up From Soil Fresh was published by Hazardous Press in 2013. Also in 2013 “The Order,” Aaron’s occult thriller novella about a Lovecraftian secret society, was published in the Dreaming in Darkness collection. He is currently an active member of the Horror Writers Association.
Aaron is pursuing a Religious Studies degree from the University of Arizona. His nonfiction articles on Thomas Ligotti, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Karl Edward Wagner have appeared in Dark Discoveries magazine, while his online column “Letters from the Edge,” focusing on the occult, spirituality, rogue scholarship, esotericism, and speculative fiction, is featured regularly on the Nameless Digest website. His academic papers “Toward Christian Renewal” and “Journeys of the Soul in the Afterlife: Egyptian Books of the Afterlife and Greek Orphic Mysteries” were published in the peer-reviewed journal The Esoteric Quarterly. He is currently a member of the ESSWE, the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.
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