Francis of the Filth

by George Miller

  Making no sudden moves, Frank walked from the property and got on his bicycle. The man’s steely gaze never left Frank. As he was about to pedal off, another puff of breeze blew across the lake. The old man’s hair and beard waved in the wind. He looked across at Frank and called out to him. “Friend! Leaving so soon? We have much more to show you! More tales to tell! And more whiskey to drink!” He let out another series of cracker-jack laughs and gestured for Frank to come back.

  Sensing there was something in the wind which disagreed with this man, not to mention the fact that he was a complete psychopath, Frank hurried back up onto the deck and bustled him inside the cabin where it was unlikely the wind could wreak any more havoc on his troubled soul. And there once inside, with the door closed and the windows shuttered, they did indeed enjoy an afternoon of treasure and tales and whiskey, with a large number of other scavengers who may or may not have actually been there. “My name’s Fredrick Von Scrotumhousser,” he began. “My friends call me Dr. Sack.”

  When the timing was right, Frank produced Salamander Man’s recorder and showed it to Dr. Sack who held it lightly in his hands and gave a familiar, nostalgic nod. “I do remember this, I do!” he said. “Not worth much you know. There are thousands of these all over the omniverses and this one’s in poor condition. I could take it back off your hands for a few hundred chromosomes.”

  “Who sold it to you?” Frank asked, ignoring his proposition. “This is very important to me.”

  “A reptilian fellow, if I remember correctly. Rather odd looking. White body, green head. Bulgy eyes. And he had this rather odd and disturbing habit of rubbing his nipples every once in a while. Rather odd, I must say.”

  “That’s him!” said Frank with great delight. “Was he alone?”

  “Not at all. A rather ragtag band, I remember now. Yes, it’s coming back to me. He was with a pink guy and some pathetic little drooling runt . And they kept a drone buzzing above them for some reason, too. Rather odd, really.”

  “That’s them!” Frank said. “That’s them!”

  “That’s who?” Dr. Sack asked.

  “Some friends of mine,” Frank said. “I have to go there immediately. I need the co-ordinates. Give me the coordinates. They’re Dimension 46y34p29e, Realm 6.2, right?”

  Dr. Sack looked stunned. “Yes, that’s right. How did you know?”

  Frank looked stunned. “Didn’t you just tell me?

  “No.”

  “I don’t know how I knew. I just knew.” They looked at each other like deer in headlights for a while before Frank headed for the door. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “Please don’t bother seeing me out.”

  “Not at all. Not at all. Of course I will see you out.”

  “No really,” Frank said. “I insist. I’ve got it from here. Thank you again and I’ll see you all when I see you. Oh, and thanks for the whiskey. That was some quality stuff.”

  Frank closed the door behind him and hurriedly made his way down the stairs. Dr. Sack came out onto the deck and waved goodbye to his friend. The sun was just about to dip beneath the horizon. “Do come back again,” he said with a hint of melancholy in his voice. Right then, the wind blew over once again from the lake. The left side of Dr. Sack’ face twitched. He looked down at the decking under his feet and then back up. In an instant he had his gun back in his hands and was yelling at Frank, all savagery and frothing madness. “Hey!” he called. “Hey! I thought I told you to get off my land!” He was really livid now. There was a rage in his voice that frightened even the trees. He cocked his gun and took aim at Frank. Frank ran for his bicycle and stepped on the hen in the process. He was an easy target for the gunman. Just as Dr. Sack was squeezing the trigger, he was suddenly doused in a thick, soupy lather. “What the hell?” he bellowed. “What the hell?”

  As he scooped the secretion from his eyes he was shocked to see a large gray bird standing in front of him. “I’s Percy the Pigeon, you turd-faced imbecile. No-one takes a shot at my friends.”

  “Percy!” said Frank.

  Percy and Dr. Sack stood there sizing each other up. “Frank, you get going now,” Percy said without taking his eyes off Dr. Sack. Frank hopped on his bicycle and raced up the hill away from the house, in the direction he had come from. “And don’t even think about pointing that thing at me,” he said to Dr. Sack, “or me and my family will make this area our home and we will dump on you morning and night till this house ain’t nothin’ but a mountain of pigeon poop.” Dr. Sack thought about the prospects of that and turned in a huff, marched inside and slammed the door. Percy turned to the hen. “Damn ugly.”

  Frank lost no time leaving Dr. Sack’s property once and for all and quickly rode up and over the hill that led back into the sparse woodlands. The trees were nothing but dark silhouettes on the landscape now. There, still wandering the road like a lost lamb, was Tyrone, the formerly magnificent bull. He bleated to Frank in a trembling, pathetic voice. “What have you done to me? What have you done?” Frank was not one to feel sorry for anyone but in this case he was willing to make an exception. He rested his hand on the young calf’s shoulder and assured him everything would be all right. It was very calming for the young squeak. And as Frank kindly spoke to him about the dangers of taking on security work for complete and utter psychopaths, he began to return to him the chromosomes he had borrowed.

  Within a few short minutes Tyrone was standing way above Frank and was already half the size of his formerly magnificent self. Frank removed his hand at that point and wished him all the best. Tyrone looked at himself. “I’m sure I was bigger than this,” he said in a deeper voice, not sure at all about it. “I think you still have some of my chromosomes.”

  “I don’t think so,” Frank said. “That was about it. Besides, you really were a little on the bulky side before.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Absolutely. And we both know where that leads.”

  “Heart disease?”

  “Erectile dysfunction. And believe me brother, you don’t want that.”

  “Well, I sure appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “Not at all. You keep well now.” With that Frank cycled off, still with a feeling of great anticipation, to find a quiet place to make his transport.

  He chose a secluded grassland and scoured the area for an object to start his work. This wasn’t easy in the dark but he found the broken femur bone of a young mammal, with a very sharp point at one end, and this became his weapon of choice. He held it to the base of his hand to commence proceedings. Suddenly a large figure overhead blocked the light of the moon and dropped down in front of him giving him the shock of his life.

  “You ain’t leavin’, are ya?” The voice conveyed genuine disappointment.

  “Percy, I’ve got to go and get my friends.”

  “But I’s your friend, ain’t I?”

  “Yeah, Percy, you are my friend. But I have to…”

  “Then take me, too. Take me wit’ you, Frank.”

  “I can’t do that Percy. I don’t know what lies ahead. There are some pretty awful realms out there, believe me. Why would you want to leave a place like this? Besides, I need to keep all the chromosomes I can get.”

  Percy looked deeply disappointed at this.

  “Can I at least watch you leave?”

  “Sure, buddy. Whatever preens your pinions.”

  Frank lay on a thick rug of grass and looked up at the diamond sky stretched out above him. He was very comfortable. “Hey Percy. Say goodbye to the old farmer and his wife for me.”

  “Sure thing.”

  With one smooth movement, Frank sliced his palm and, still in a lying position, swung his arm around him to create the circle of life. He called the co-ordinates calmly into the night sky and felt the dew moisten the back of his shirt. He didn’t need to repeat the address. This was an innate knowledge now. He just lay back and felt himself sink into the moist terrain. Just as he was withdrawing into the earth, Percy t
he Pigeon leapt at him.

  “Frank! Take me, too!”

  Chapter 11

  The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed a world of cool, dark waters. Frank stood knee deep and gazed about him. The mists slowly shifted backwards and forwards, filling and emptying spaces; at times opening to reveal still waters all the way to the horizon, at other times wrapping him in a thick blanket of vapor.

  Above him was a white canopy of smoky ether. Beneath him only waterlogged sands.

  There was not a sound. It was only when he walked that the soft swish of swirling waters broke the silence. Without any sense of direction, he moved, pausing momentarily when the fogs lifted to listen for anything - any voice, any birdsong or call of the wild, even the moaning of wind; but there was nothing. It was during one of these pauses that he noticed a black feather clinging to the sleeve of his shirt, and then he remembered the final moment of his last passage. Percy the Pigeon had so desperately tried to join him but failed by a whisker - or a feather as it turned out. Frank affectionately curled the feather and put it in his pocket as a reminder of his brief time in Fukui. He would remember it fondly.

  This trudge, however, seemed to go on for an eternity. Of all the places he had visited, this one seemed the most desolate in terms of presence, time and chromosomes (other than the icy island where he first met Pink Guy). There was no sense of life, no sense of environment, and no sense of value or purpose. The only thing this place had, other than water, was the musty stench of emptiness and an overriding atmosphere of utter morbidness. Yet in his lonely solitude, he was unwilling to call out or bring undue attention to himself. He hated to think what might be lurking in the mists. He bided his time.

  It was after he had been wading through the unchanging waters for what seemed like many weeks of earth time, that he finally heard a sound. It was a soft wail, as though coming from one in the final throes of asphyxiation. Frank headed in that direction though the mists of that region, as thick as any he had encountered in that place, kept him from seeing anything. Slowly, the groans became more audible and by the time he arrived at their source he was standing at the foot of a tall wooden pole which ascended into the clouds. As they parted, Frank, still capable of fear, was mortified to see a creature impaled at the top of the pole, lacerated, writhing in pain and struggling for breath.

  It was a reptilian creature and it slowly turned its eyes to Frank. They were dark, desperate eyes full of longing for death to finally come and bring an end to its suffering. Its body occasionally quivered with pain before lying limp again in the hope that that was its final heave. It never was. Mercy was entirely absent in this place. Frank reached up and touched its foot. They locked eyes for the briefest of moments before Frank asked, “How long have you been here my friend?” The creature wheezed as though making an effort to respond but never came close to articulating a reply. With a sorry pat to the creature’s foot, Frank moved on.

  There were others. Some were reptilian in appearance, others were avianesque, and others still of a wholly unknown existence to Frank. All were impaled on poles and while some seemed to have finally withered and died, most were suffering excruciating agony, moving closer to a slow painful death, yet never actually tasting any relief that that finality might bring. Some were able to gasp utterances in their tortured breathing and it was through them that he was able to learn a little of this nether realm. This was, they told him, a place for the pre-Wretched. A purgatory of prolonged pain for those who had been condemned and were awaiting their final destiny in the pits of eternal damnation. Frank could feel their pain. He could smell their agony and taste their anguish. Yet he could do nothing about it.

  One of the creatures was amphibious. A sliced, bleeding salamander, occasionally twitching and groaning yet mainly hanging limp on his pole, stared down at his visitor. At first Frank was horrified to think that this might be Salamander Man but this creature was of a different shape and color and was significantly older than his good friend. Frank asked him if he knew Salamander Man.

  “Nyes,” came the soft reply in between gasps. Though it took time (of which they had plenty) and tremendous effort on the old Salamander’s part, he was able to reveal much to Frank.

  He shared liberally with Frank about his background, that of Salamander Man and the whole community of Caudata clans. Though it pained him to speak at length, he gave his all to do so. Theirs was originally a realm of harmony. All the salamanders, as well as the neighboring newts, mudpuppies, waterdogs and sirens, and even the more distant geckos and chameleons, got on well and allowed each other free passage from one area to another, if not actively encouraging others to share a meal and spend an afternoon together. Hospitality was commonplace and music was the essence of any gathering. Salamanders had extraordinary musical gifting and had assembled a very large catalogue of tunes over the years. Their musicians and composers were second to none in the caudata world and the envy of many.

  “But then the tiers began to change,” the old salamander wheezed. “You would know this well, Frank. But what you might not know is that the changing of the tiers, so it was thought, originated with the sirens, specifically their leader Serendeputy. He believed (with some reason) that the sirens were unlike the other more common caudatas, not for their appearance, which is quite ugly to be perfectly frank, but for their intelligence, which was evolving at an undeniably quick rate. Serendeputy made friends with higher powers and was poised to rise from his already elevated status of rankenfile to chimpilla - not by his own doing, I must stress, but by his associations. I was one of the few who opposed him. Such elevations should not be done, I told him. It was against the natural order and likely to have serious repercussions right across the omniverses. I mutinied. For that I was struck by Terminus, a peace lord of immense power and authority. He punished me and cast me into this place. I have been here for ages upon ages and will remain here till I finally perish and enter into the Sea of the Wretched.” He slumped as he said this, both from the effort required to speak and from very thought of such a demise.

  After an unhurried pause, he turned back to Frank. “Seamus (whom you call Salamander Man) was the finest of our musicians,” he said continuing. Terminus wanted to end him, too, because of his musical capability to rouse the salamanders to a cause, but he escaped to another realm and hid there till you came along Frank. It was then we knew that there could be some purpose to it all. The shifting of the tiers, unstoppable though it had become, still held some promise.” He lifted a weary finger to his left nipple and gave it a soft rub. “Nyes.”

  “How did you know about me?” Frank asked.

  “Salamander Man told me last time he was here.”

  “When was that?”

  “He visits me regularly, every million or so years.” Frank thought about that. The old Salamander struggled to continue but Frank could piece together the rest. Salamander Man would come to stay by his old friend’s side and play tunes on his recorder to soothe him. Despite his sorry condition - or perhaps because of it - he felt tremendous gratitude toward Salamander Man for his kindnesses. Indeed, just the thought of him returning to play another tune on his recorder is what sustained him through the long dark eons. There was a long pause as they both reflected on this. “But that might not help you, Frank,” the old salamander added.

  “Why not?”

  “Because he no longer has his recorder, of course. I doubt he will come back here.”

  “Why would he sell his recorder? It’s everything to him.”

  “For you, Frank. He was looking for you. He didn’t have enough chromosomes to look for you and comfort an old dying caudata as well. So he chose you over me and sold his recorder for chromosomes to search for you.”

  Frank was moved.

  “I told him to,” the old fellow continued. “There is no hope for me. But for you, Frank…” His voice trailed off and he slumped once again.

  Memories of New York came rolling back to
Frank. He remembered Salamander Man playing his recorder and how happy it made them all; the jolly tunes which led them into long nights of dancing and merriment, the laughter and silly joking, the friendship and the farting. How he longed for those days. But he also remembered the tales that Salamander Man told him. He had told Frank of visiting an old friend every so often. He remembered that now and although it seemed to be silly nonsense at the time, it was making perfect and very sober sense now.

  “So you don’t know exactly if or when he will be coming back?” Frank asked.

  The old salamander turned a weary eye to him. “Even if I knew for sure he was coming, I wouldn’t know when. A million years? Time means nothing here.” He fell again in a manner that suggested he wouldn’t be reviving any time soon.

  This introduced the dilemma that Frank now faced. Was he to wait a million years in this realm in the hope that Salamander Man might show up, or was he to give up on Salamander Man altogether? He considered these options very carefully and weighed all the possible outcomes in his mind. In the end, he decided in his heart that life would have little meaning or value without Salamander Man by his side. He also had faith; faith that Salamander Man would remain true to his old friend. A secondary matter, not insignificant, was that Frank was unlikely to be found in this realm, and so he felt his safety was assured as he waited. He chose to stay.