Something Wicked Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Unknown

  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 free will, that ultimately the decision wasn’t up to him.

  “We want to see it,” said Valerie, the young waitress who’d 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 wooden 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 said, tapping his chest, “and here.” He pointed to 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 genuflect. 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 rai
n 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 brothers’ 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, catching 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 this one. 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 Faith 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 skin peeled away from her flesh, then her muscles went, 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, encompassing the rest of the city, and soon it covered the state, the country, and finally the entire planet.

  From space, 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.

  DARK EMISSARY

  BY TOM OLBERT

  The young woman screamed. The sound of heavy, guttural breathing bore down on her from the midnight darkness behind, in unnatural union with a sound completely inhuman. The ungodly sucking, rasping sound of something that hungered for her flesh. Her shoes clattered on the cobblestoned street as she ran for her life. The gas lamps flickered, casting a pale yellow glow through the fog. Her feet entangled in her dress, she stumbled and fell, sprawling onto the pavement. Her face was ash pale, her eyes wide as the thing drew closer. There was an unbearable stench, like burnt molasses and acid dissolving copper. She let out one last blood-curdling scream…

  Kearns woke with a strangled cry in his throat, his face drenched in cold sweat. “Dear, merciful God in heaven…” he gasped under his trembling breath, wiping the sweat from his brow in the darkness. The smell of sweat and fear permeated the sheets and bedclothes, mingling with the horrid bittersweet stench that lingered in his mind. The nightmares were becoming increasingly intense; increasingly real, he thought. But he dared wonder, were they only nightmares? He fumbled in the darkness, his hands unsteady as he opened the gas main, dimly illuminating his bedchamber. He was shocked at the sight of his own reflection in the mirror. He was drawn and pale. Dark circles ringed his eyes. The ghastly visage reminded him of his troubled youth at University, when he and his friend Julian Hazelwood had experimented with heroin … in addition to the bizarre and otherworldly dabblings Julian had drawn him into, he ruminated darkly. He splashed cold water on his face from the wash basin.

  He started at the clatter of the doorknocker. Who could it be at this hour? he wondered, squinting at the clock in the poor light. It was half-past one. Throwing on his dressing gown and slippers, he went to the window and looked down into the street. His heart nearly stopped. Two uniformed policemen and a man in plain clothes were visible under the corner lamp. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself as the man knocked again. “Professor Kearns, are you there?” the man called up in his rough London accent. “It’s the police, Sir.”

  Stop looking guilty, for God’s sake, he silently admonished himself. It’s most probably just another foolish complaint from that pompous clod Jeffries about that last row. Nothing to worry about, he reassured himself as he descended the creaking stairs and unbolted the door. The chill night air hit him like a slap in the face.

  “Evening, Sir,” said a burly middle-aged man with a bushy graying-brown mustache, his breath a light steam. “Professor Roger Kearns?”

  “The same, Mr…?”

  “Inspector Brahm, Sir, Scotland Yard. My apologies for disturbing you at this hour, Sir, but we’re here on
most urgent police business. May we have a word?”

  “Uh, yes, of course, Inspector. Right this way.” His heart was pounding as he led them up the stairs. A voice in his head warned him to fight the trembling, which must be obvious to them by now. They wouldn’t be this cordial if they knew, his reason insisted. Was there even anything to know?“May I offer you a brandy, Inspector?”

  “Never on duty, Sir. Thanks all the same.”

  “Well, I’ll have one, if you don’t mind.”

  “We’d prefer you didn’t Sir, with all due respect. We need you clear-headed at the moment.”

  He desperately wanted one to settle his nerves. He could feel icy fingers creeping up his spine as he tried, unsuccessfully, to read the cold expressions of the two stoic bobbies. Inspector Brahm found the gas main and brought the lights up a bit. “There. Remarkable assembly this, Sir,” he said, looking at Kearns’ private laboratory: flasks and beakers filled with oddly-colored liquids, Bunsen burners, rubber tubing strung from metal frames. “Something you’re working on for the University, is it, Sir?”

  Kearns cleared his throat. “No. Privately-funded experiments of mine. Quite legal, I assure you, Inspector.”

  “I gather your Professor Jeffries considers these ‘private experiments’ of yours rather…unorthodox, Sir. Even dangerous. In fact, he seems to think you’re dabbling in sorcery of some kind, Sir. Affairs of the other world, or some such.”

  Kearns’ fear was mounting, but he found the mention of Jeffries helped him mask the fear behind irritation. “Other worlds, Inspector; plural. There are several, you know. Some have theorized that there may be an infinite number of them in the universe. I deal in scientific experimentation, not sorcery. As for Jeffries…he’s a prudish old fop with an axe to grind. Down through the centuries, his sheepish ilk has mistaken scientific inquiry for witchcraft.”

  The Inspector sighed, not meeting Kearns’ eyes. “Yes, well I’m just a copper, Sir. I leave science to you educated gentlemen, and concern myself with murder.” He picked up the copy of the Times from a few days before, which Kearns had carelessly left on the worktable. Woman murdered!, the headline read. A similar headline, weeks earlier, had turned Kearns’ blood to ice the day he’d heard the boy shouting from the street corner. ‘Young lady murdered! Police seek killer! Read all about it!’ This latest death was the fourth of its kind. Each time such an account had appeared in the morning paper, Kearns’ nightmare the night before had foretold it. Or, he feared, recalled it.