Trolley No. 1852

by Edward Lee

  The atrocious woman’s brow rose on the tainted face. “Oh, but not just her, Mr. Phillips. You too, yes?”

  “Indeed,” I growled.

  “Tell me. How did the motorman’s jism taste? Was it delectable? Ambrosial? Hmm? I’ve a mind to send you back there, where you’ll be forced to suckle their cocks for time immemorial.” She chuckled rather fatly, closing her eyes against the pleasures now being administered. “I can arrange it so that the wares of their lusty loins will be all you ever eat—ever—for a million years.”

  “Give my sister her freedom, and I will consent to that!” I spat.

  “Consent? Oh, Mr. Phillips. Your chivalry is quite laughable. I hardly require your consent to do with you as my fancies direct.” She pressed the back of my sister’s head, to affect keener purchase, then looked at me again and laughed.

  Being forced to watch this further exploitation insinuated a feeling of utter uselessness on my part. Whatever excess of intellect I may have been possessed of seemed just as useless, for my faculties delivered nothing in so much as a plan of action. Primordially, at least, I might try to give direct fight to Miss Aheb, but being apprised of her powers—for instance, of psychic thought-decryption—I could only imagine that far greater proclivities were at her disposal; while I also suspected that the motorman must be lurking about in some reasonable proximity. I tried to dim the tenor of my conscious thoughts, therefore (to keep them out of her telepathic grasp) and pray that some subconscious resolution might spring to mind.

  Her hips writhed in response to Selina’s oral tendings; and not long thenceforth came the patented spasms that signaled orgasm, Miss Aheb’s monstrously skinned yet comely body flexing and clenching in the midst of the sought-after release. Once sated, she nudged Selina off with a flick of hand. “That was wonderful, my love.”

  “You’ve changed her just as you yourself have changed,” I blurted loudly, “in the atrocious tainting of your skin. It allows you to share some aspect of the Pyramidiles.”

  “It does far more than that!” she scolded. “It’s their blessing to us, Mr. Phillips. Just as your earthly babies are ‘christened’ with holy water to receive the anointment of your so-called God; so too are Selina and I anointed, as the Pyramidiles give us grace by bestowing the cosmic beauty of their skin to our paltry human bodies.” She held out her arms to give accentuation to her breasts’ “anointment,” the flawless orbs made revolting by the swirls of discolour. “But in their anointing us, we receive not only an aspect of their beauty but also the blessing of their immortality, along with other wondrous traits.”

  “That obscene pendant,” I hastened. “Like the crystals of the chandelier, it generates a similarity to the Pyramidiles’ atmosphere, correct? This grotesque light that is not light but somehow illuminating nonetheless.”

  “You’re correct, indeed. It’s not mere light, it’s the Abhorrescence, whose nether-rays halt aging to all those in the midst of them. Even you, Mr. Phillips. For the time you’ve spent in this room as well as your time on the terrascape, you have not aged a single minute.”

  This, too, seemed to explain the cessation of time during the soul-searing journey to that wretched domain.

  The witch-priestess was giving answer to my questions, yes, but a question even more paramount remained…

  When?

  “Exactly how many thoggs have been birthed thus far?” I asked.

  Her grin couldn’t have broadened any more wickedly. “Of that… I’ll leave you to guess,” and then, as if summoned by a bell-toll, the motorman made its entrance, clothed but maskless, the most salient feature of its face—that grotesque, scarlet-tipped tentacle—writhing.

  “I presume it is telepathy that enables you to communicate even to a monster with no ears,” I said.

  “The thogg’s proboscis is the nerve cluster which allows it to see and hear. But it is to the beast’s brain that my thoughts are delivered,” Miss Aheb said. “However, if you must know, these mental commands are reflected in the actual language of the Pyramidiles. Not words, but numerals.”

  “Gematria,” I uttered. “The substitution of letters with their corresponding numbers. The little written record there is indicates that theirs is a language of mathematics.”

  “I’m impressed, Mr. Phillips,” she seemed to genuinely enthuse. “Your studies of my gods are quite extensive. I don’t think in words to the motorman, for instance. I think in numbers. Were you a little brighter yourself, you might have deduced the meaning of the trolley before you even got here.”

  My expression clearly showed I did not understand.

  “1, 8, 5, 2,” she said. “One, denoting the first letter of the alphabet, Mr. Phillips.”

  “The letter A.”

  “And 8?”

  “The letter H.”

  Her smile beamed, as the rest of the truth dropped to my gut.

  “5 is E, and 2 is B,” I quailed. “1,8,5,2 equals AHEB.” How could I not have seen that before?

  “Very good,” the woman mocked. “And were I to think the numbers, 11, 9, 12, and 12, and then make an indicative gesture toward your beloved sister?”

  11, 9, 12, 12, I thought desperately, then calculated each number’s letter-equivalent: “K, I, L, L…”

  “Yes, Mr. Phillips! Kill. The thogg would then, by my mental command, kill Selina. Or, how about, say, 6, 21, 3, 11?”

  I quickly made the translation, and gulped, “Fuck.”

  “Um-hmm. How would you like that?” she continued to mock. “How would you like to watch the motorman fuck your sister?”

  The thought sickened me to unto death. “I beg you, Miss Aheb. Don’t do that. I just watched a dozen of his kind do the same.”

  “Indeed, or perhaps I could order the motorman to fuck you, Mr. Phillips.” She chuckled shrilly, in a manner that actually caused the chandelier’s myriad crystals to clink musically together. “The sight might very well amuse me.”

  “Let my sister have her freedom, and I’ll consent to that,” I directed.

  “Ah, there you go with your chivalry again.” The bright eyes within the maligned face narrowed on me. “Tell me, is that what you want more than anything? Selina’s release?”

  “Indisputably, yes!” Was the obscene woman toying with me, or did I stand some unfractionable chance of getting my sister out of here? I stepped boldly forward. “Let’s bargain. Quid pro quo.”

  “So you’d like one thing exchanged for some other, hmm?” she tittered inhumanly. “You regard your sister with the utmost importance, Mr. Phillips, but surely you understand that I do as well.”

  “Then what could be more challenging than a wager?” I argued. “It’s easy to be courageous when one has the powers of telepathy and immortality, not to mention”—I jabbed a finger toward the motorman—“the services of a thing like that at your beck and call. Hear me, Miss Aheb. To whatever degree this evil Abhorrescence has imbued you with a likeness to the Pyramidiles, you’re still human, are you not? Humans are known to be intuitive, subjective, and often even sporting. You can’t deny the appeal of a good wager, can you? So let’s do that, Miss Aheb. Accept my challenge.”

  A finger dawdled over a well-sucked areola as she deliberated over my “challenge.” “Win or lose, I see nothing to be gained on my part. How fair is that?”

  My mind clicked like an ancient abacus, desperate for a resolving quotient. “If I win the wager, then Selina goes free, yet I stay in her stead.”

  Selina objected, “Oh, Morgan, I could never let you!”

  “Silence!” I raised my voice to her, then returned my proposition to the grotesque madam. “I will replace her as the trolley’s conductor as well as the deliverer of your necessary seminal rations via the periodic ingressions.”

  “Is that all?” she complained.

  Never one given to crudity, I opened my trousers without hesitation, and displayed my genitalia which, I now had on unimpeachable authority, was larger and more enduring than that of most men.
“Being a woman so carnally inclined, I would think you might find some gratifying utility… for this.”

  Miss Aheb’s sinister eyes went wide at the vulgarian display, just as I suspected they might.

  “My,” she uttered. “The rumours are no exaggeration! It was reported to me quite early, Mr. Phillips, that you are quite the sexual exemplar.”

  Some attendant braggadocio on my part seemed in order. “My prowess in the act of fornication reduced five of your highly experienced prostitutes to putty earlier in the evening.”

  “So I’ve heard, while I’ve also heard that the quantity of your dispenses of seed are most excessive.” She rested her chin on her fingertips. “That would prove useful around here as well.”

  “And whenever you’re feeling a thirst for pleasures of the lesbian variety, this thirst can easily be quenched by any number of lascivious harlots residing here at the club.”

  “You make a most interesting point…”

  “Then it’s settled,” came my declaration. “I shall replace Selina and her duties as a servitor of the Pyramidiles.”

  The ill-skinned woman shrilled in amusement. “Not so fast! As you’ve said, Mr. Phillips. One thing in exchange of another. But I must insist that you earn the privilege of the exchange. You’ve neglected to propose an actual wager.”

  “A physical fight,” I said and re-trousered my member. I looked at her in close to a glare. “You’re more than just a woman, madam. You have superhuman powers which would seem to level the playing field. That is my wager. I’ll bet that I defeat you.”

  She guffawed. “How quickly the chivalrous gentleman turns to a cad. So you want to fight a woman?”

  “But you’re a monstrous woman, Miss Aheb. The odds are clearly in your favor.”

  “So if it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get,” she intoned. “A fight to the death. Is that sporting enough for you? The way I see it, this can be the only way your mettle will be proven sufficiently enough to earn the exchange.”

  Great Pegana! I thought. She’s going to allow it! “Yes! I want it very much!”

  “But it won’t be a fight against me, Mr. Phillips. I simply must insist that you fight my motorman.”

  My spirits couldn’t have plummeted any lower. “The thing is an alien monstrosity! That’s hardly a fair fight!”

  She coyly shrugged and har-umphed. “Take it or leave it; and mind you, if you leave it, I’ll have you consigned to the terrascape”—she purred akin to a cat—“where the service thoggs will greatly appreciate your skills in the act of fellatio”—and now she laughed outright—“as I’m told those skills are rather expert.”

  This seemed about as fair as the Treaty of Versailles; nevertheless, I rendered the only available reply. “I accept the challenge,” and then, hoping for the element of surprise, unleashed every reflexive action within my human capability, and launched myself at the very inhuman motorman.

  With all the strength and viciousness that could be tapped of my 146-pound frame, I struck blow after blow to the creature’s face and mid-section, exerted choke-holds and threw finger-gouges to the hideous faceless face, and when I noted the futility of all this effort, I then stooped so low as to kick the thing repeatedly and as hard as I could in the groin…

  All to no effect.

  “Fight, damn you!” I cried, now foolishly trying to lift its bodily bulk off the floor and slam it down, but, lo, the sheer density of its flesh gave it an unfathomable weight. More kicks and gouges, then, the impacts of which were like striking sandbags. At one point, I even took the appalling frontal tentacle between my teeth, yet even as it was fleshy and pliable, I only succeeded in cracking two of my incisors, for this proboscis was resilient as metal. During the entirety of my assault, the uniformed thing only stood there, unmoving; and I received the impression that it was amused.

  “Oh, Morgan, please!” Selina sobbed aside. “Beg Miss Aheb’s pardon! I told you, the thoggs are virtually undefeatable.”

  This I was finding out the hard way, indeed. As for begging the madam’s “pardon,” I realised that would prove as useless as the fight I was now giving the monstrosity. “I’m dead, either way!” came my harried shout. “But at least, I won’t die on my knees!”

  Meanwhile, Miss Aheb chortled from her arrogant throne. Now I had taken to breaking furniture over the thing’s head; I jabbed it with a shard of broken porcelain, even tried to impale it with a snapped table leg (from an absolutely splendid Thomas Sheraton library table, by the way, circa 1790). The only result of this act was the splintering of the leg’s sharpened end. Lastly, I spied on a wall-mount a sword (an authentic Toledo saber, I believe), yet when I took it down and attempted to cleave the motorman’s head down the middle, the razor-sharp and exquisitely folded blade only bounced off…

  “Oh, Mr. Phillips, you really are quite comical,” the horrid woman chuckled. “The reason the thogg hasn’t killed you already is simply because I haven’t yet directed it to.”

  “Then be done with it!” I spat. “I’m ready to die!”

  “Very well…”

  No words, of course, issued from Miss Aheb’s lips to trigger the motorman’s violence; it was instead the merest numerical thought, and in the time it takes lightning to fulgurate, the boneless arms of the beast were wrapped around me, python-like; and I was dragged helplessly to the floor. Any resistance I made to push off the thing’s bulk went utterly without effect.

  It mauled me; the terrifying “hand” sliding into my mouth felt like the admission of a live octopus. Even worse, though, was the action of its other hand: it began to unbuckle its trousers…

  Gagging, I now felt the morbid, carrotlike pudenda growing to full hardness against my belly.

  Miss Aheb amusedly explained, “What you must know, Mr. Phillips, it that thoggs kill what they fight… and fuck what they kill…”

  This charming exposition was scarcely perceived. I felt the hand fully in my mouth now and even slither a length down my throat, whereupon it swelled so in size that breathing became impossible. I sensed quite clearly that the monster meant to effect my total loss of consciousness, afterwhich it would surely commence to the task of sodomizing me to death…

  As the flow of oxygen decreased, the frantic activities of my brain began to darken. It was not with any conscious regard that I must have considered something akin to this: If Miss Aheb had launched the motorman’s attack merely by thinking the proper numerical sequence, what might happen if I do the same, remembering that their language exists as a form of substituting numbers for letters?

  Fading away as I was, a thought abstractly directed toward my marauder crossed my mind; the thought was this: 4, 9, 5…

  The motorman suddenly bucked, seizing up with an inexplicable rigor. Then…

  The wretched, bone-bereft hand oozed out of my mouth as the motorman rolled off me, dead.

  I struggled to regain breath and collect my thoughts after being so close to death. An errant glance upward showed, first, my sister standing tensely, hands clasped as if in prayer. Her face was flushed with relief. A scan to the right, however, showed Miss Aheb sneering from her throne, none-too-pleased.

  “I must credit your industriousness, Mr. Phillips, particularly under such conditions.” Her eyes smoldered. “4, 9, 5… D, I, E…”

  I rose however shakily, looking down at the dead thogg. “Surely I anticipated that the thing’s mind was weaker than yours. You may have read my thoughts but I’m happy to see that you could not occlude them. You’ve lost the wager, Miss Aheb.”

  “So I have,” her accent trailed off to meagerness.

  I rubbed my hands together. “So what now? You asked me to prove my mettle and I have indeed done that. Now’s your chance to prove yours, yes?”

  Here was the moment that this entire evening of horror had built up to: I had overbound all odds but, now, would this evil matron honour her end of the bargain?

  I wasn’t sure but it seemed that the anti-light—t
his Abhorrescence—had noticeably dimmed as if it somehow paralleled her spirit’s pulse…

  “You were correct in your appeal, Mr. Phillips. All humans enjoy the sport of a wager. I suppose in a sense it’s not all that different from the purpose of the Pyramidiles, who live off the psychic horror very much derived from the sport of torture, rape, and prolonged murder on a massive scale.” She sat slumped in her grandiose seat, unenlivened and quite defeated. “It’s true that I’m the ultimate traitor to the human race, as—for the last seven thousand years—I live to serve the Pyramidiles; and I will one day orchestrate the slow extermination of mankind, all for the sustenance and pleasure of my gods.” Her lips drew up into a thin smile. “However, I will keep my word. You’ve earned your exchange; your precious sister shall go free, unharmed, and you shall take her place…”

  Was this to be believed? I sensed yes, in spite of the desolate consequences in store for myself.

  I turned to my sister. “You must leave now, Selina, and forget me.”

  She stood frantic. “But I can’t, Morgan! I can’t allow you to trade your freedom for mine!”

  “You can and will. I’ve lived my life; now go live yours.” I handed her my billfold and keys. “Here is the address for my room and the keys to the door. The rent is paid for several months, and you’ll find a small sum of money hidden behind my bookshelf. It should be enough to get you on your feet.”

  “I can’t!” she sobbed.

  “Go!” I yelled back.

  A macabre fugue-state seemed to overwhelm the chamber, but I knew it could only genuinely be amid my mind. In what appeared to be retarded motion, Miss Aheb came down off her chair, whereupon she took Selina by the shoulders and kissed her once. Then—

  She removed my sister’s pendant.

  With instantaneousness, the revolting, pond-scum skin that so molested Selina’s physical beauty… reversed! In only seconds her face beamed in a creamy and quite normal hue.

  Miss Aheb turned Selina about and gently nudged her toward the door.

  “Goodbye, my beloved sister,” I bid, and suddenly what occurred to me was something more than simple relief but the resplendent positivity that so enraptured my friend Mr. Erwin. “Every day is a celebration. Never forget that. Revel in that celebration, Selina, while I, here in my own way, shall share in your joy…”