Résumé With Monsters

by William Browning Spencer

  He had prepared during the day. He placed his trussed lover in the mail cart he had commandeered, tossed the tarp over her, and said, I COULDN'T LEAVE WITHOUT YOU, AMELIA. LATER. LATER YOU'LL UNDERSTAND.

  Don't bet on it.

  He pushed the cart into the hall. Since last night, the building itself had altered. Did others see this? Perhaps they saw it with greater clarity, with eyes attuned to the Old Ones, or perhaps this sense of ruin and decay (strange bulges in the walls, dark burn marks on the carpets, damp, gray fungus on the ceilings) seemed only familiar, not new at all but some comfortable, amphibious memory unworthy of remark.

  He would never get used to being a helpless observer in a younger self.

  Don't get in the elevator! he screamed, but to no avail. He was a wraith, with no volition. What had happened had happened. It was ordained, because it was done.

  So what exactly had happened? The memory was so damned clouded, so tumbled and twisted—

  He got in the elevator, the doors shut, and the lights went out.

  That's right.

  He blinked at the darkness. What had he done? He had fumbled his hand over the buttons, banged the one for lobby, or what he thought was lobby, and descended slowly.

  The doors opened on the basement; he saw the bulletin board and the cafeteria carts lined against the wall.

  The light coming through the hall allowed him to see the buttons. He pressed the one for lobby. He watched the doors slide closed.

  A black gloved hand reached out, caught the door and held it while the man swung into view.

  Oh yes, I remember.

  Hal Ketch, in full security regalia, smiled his long-toothed grin. His eyes flattened a little as the corners of his mouth made dark incisions in his cheeks. He was holding a small television under his left arm, nestled in the crook of his elbow, and a blurred black and white image was rolling across the screen.

  He held the television up. "Would you look at this?" he said. "They'll show anything on cable."

  Philip stared at the two figures rolling over the floor. Perhaps recognition would have been slower, but he had seen it before. He was wrestling with Amelia, there on the floor of her room, under the cold, bleak eye of the video.

  "You can see right up her nightie. Look there." Ketch tapped the screen, tapped it with the gun's barrel.

  "I'm going to have to ask you to step out, Mr. Kenan. And just roll Ms. Price along too, would you? That's right."

  Philip watched himself step into the hall, saw the mail cart in front of him, the tarp under which his true love lay.

  Ketch pointed the revolver at Philip. "We will just park your lady friend here in the hall." He put the television down on the floor (Amelia was on her hack now; Philip was tying her feet). Ketch grabbed the mail cart and shoved it down the hall. It came to rest against the wall.

  "Come with me," Ketch said.

  They were going down the stairs again, to the basement beneath the basement, and it was going to be very, very bad this time but he could not remember a thing about it. Not one thing. Why was that? The answer, he thought, was simplicity itself. His brain, his consciousness, refused to go to that dark place of recall. He was not so unlike Amelia, who had chosen to block it all out. Any consciousness with an interest in self- preservation might have done as much.

  6.

  Are you comfortable?" Lily asked. She sat I in the chair opposite Philip. She was wearing a shirt advertising a new Austin rock group called Biff and the Bellyachers and their album Buttload of Blues. The T-shirt, and a tendency his therapist had of sucking in her lower lip and thrusting her chin forward in a manner that suggested senile addlement, did not inspire Philip's confidence.

  "I just don't think this is a good time for this experiment," Philip said. "I'm in real trouble at MicroMeg. I thought that was over and done with, that at least that battle was over, but I suppose I had never really thought it through. If the Old Ones move as effortlessly through Time and Space as I think they do, then maybe they can hammer away at an event until they reshape it."

  Lily nodded. Her gray hair was particularly unruly this morning, as though field voles had played a game of soccer in it. "All the more reason for getting you out for good," Lily said. "And hypnosis can't hurt. And Ann Beasley has given the go-ahead."

  "Dr. Beasley is convinced you can do no wrong," Philip said.

  Lily nodded brightly. "So show a little faith yourself." Lily reached over and turned the little portable tape recorder on. She adjusted the volume. Lub dub Lub dub Lub dub.

  "Heartbeat," she said. "I want you to listen to this heartbeat, Philip. Close your eyes. We are going to go through a series of relaxation exercises and when you are ready, I'm going to put you into a trancelike state where you will be more susceptible to suggestion."

  Philip nodded his head.

  His therapist began to speak in measured tones, adopting a rhythmic cadence. "Let's see about those shoulders, first." She led him through some physical, muscle-stretching exercises, then breathing exercises, then imaging.

  "The hill you are standing on is covered with the world's greenest grass, untroubled waves of grass under the bluest sky. Let's bring flowers to bloom. First dandelions, those hearty, yellow stars. Dandelions flashing into exultant life, dotting the hills. Now smaller, sprinklings of pink, let's say..."

  Lub dub Lub dub Lub dub.

  "Your heart sounds like the ocean, is in unison with the ocean. Sometimes this bigness scares us, this huge oneness, but there is nothing to fear because you can assert your individuality at any time. The great wheel of the world can contain you and hold you, but it cannot rob you of yourself."

  Lub dub Lub dub Lub dub.

  "You are safe."

  #

  Lub dub Lub dub Lub dub.

  Huge, blue-black pistons rose and fell in Philip's field of vision.

  They were in the basement of the basement at MicroMeg. And they were moving through a forest of machines, the huge trunks of oiled black cylinders rising and falling, the hiss of vented steam, and the hum of some monolithic generator.

  They came to a door.

  "Open it," Hal Ketch said. Philip could not see Ketch, but he assumed the security guard was behind him. He also had some memory of being prodded by the revolver, although now he felt nothing.

  They entered the office.

  I remember.

  Desks, row upon row of desks, stretched out like mirrored reflections echoed into infinity. On each desk, an identical computer terminal rested. And seated at the desks were men and women, or what had once been men and women.

  Ronald Bickwithers, Philip's supervisor, came briskly down an aisle.

  "Philip, Philip," Bickwithers said, rubbing his hands together, "congratulations." Bickwithers smiled broadly and extended his hand. As usual, the man's suit appeared to have been slept in, and his shoe-polish-black wig had the unsavory sheen of a South American river leech.

  Philip did not take the offered hand.

  Bickwithers dropped his hand and nodded. "It's unsettling at first, I suppose. You have to see the big picture before you can truly appreciate what's happening here, what technology has wrought. And, of course, none of it would have come about without the transcendent help of the Old Ones."

  Bickwithers shook his head. He extended an arm. "Look, there's someone here you know. Follow me."

  The floor of the room was strewn with junk: old screws and bolts and bits of wire. Philip's vision was troubled by that same silvering of the air that he had witnessed the previous evening at the ritual.

  "Say hello to an old friend, Philip."

  The thing at the terminal turned and grinned. A small, mossy stubble of hair (crew cut) grew on the single fragment of skull that sat like an island on the naked brain. The eyes were lidless and so robbed of much expression, or rather preserving an expression of constant surprise. A scaffolding of punched metal strips, like the toy girders in an erector set, held the features in place, but the naked musculatu
re was plainly visible, and the way tendon cooperated with tendon when the creature grinned, sickened Philip.

  "Welcome to the team," the man said. He sat upright in the chair and wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled up.

  MERV? The voice was unrecognizable, but the inflection was familiar.

  "We are golden on this," Merv said. "Golden."

  I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD.

  "Love to talk," Merv said, "but this deadline is stepping on my dick. Gotta roll." He leaned toward the screen.

  "Death is so inefficient," Bickwithers said, throwing an arm around Philip. "We asked Merv if he would like to participate in this project. He was excited. He's a trooper, you know."

  Philip saw that the computer had no keyboard, that wires sprouted from Merv's fingers feeding directly into the computer's back. Merv's hands trembled as the screen scrolled, a rolling sea of glowing green letters.

  Philip read the words as they scrolled by, too fast for full comprehension. He recognized phrases, though.

  Dear God.

  THE NECRONOMICON.

  "Ah," Bickwithers said. "You're familiar with Abdul's book. A masterpiece—and sadly corrupted by bad translations. Until now the only English version available has been Dr. Dee's immensely flawed one. We are correlating every translation, and using some other sources that seem relevant. It's quite a project, and when it is finished the book should be much more useful. I was hoping we could persuade you to pitch in. A terminal has come free, and we could really use you."

  NO THANKS.

  "Don't be like that, Philip. You haven't heard the whole package. I think a substantial salary increase would be in order, for one thing."

  NO THANKS.

  "Well it is not as simple as that, Philip. You are going to at least give it a try. You can do that for us."

  Overhead the lights flickered and dimmed, then came back to full brightness. "Ah," Bickwithers said, looking up. "I hear there is quite a storm brewing overhead. Nothing to worry about here though. The computers have their own generators—which are quite impressive. Let me show you."

  Philip walked behind Bickwithers and in front of Hal Ketch, trying not to look closely at the grisly crew that sat at the rows of desks and manned the computers. They were in various states of decay. Plastic tubes in a dozen bright colors (yellow, red, purple) pierced their peeled bodies. Webs of sheathed electrical wire wound in and out of flesh, terminating in dangling integrated circuits, knots of microchips, capacitors, resistors. One elderly woman, whose gold wire-rimmed glasses seemed firmly embedded in her cheekbones, rattled violently as they passed. Her hair went up in a whoosh of flame.

  "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness," the old woman howled, rocking back and forth. Her voice was a raucous shriek, mindless, a parrot set on fire.

  "Goddam," Bickwithers snapped. He whipped the radio from his belt and spoke into it.

  "Overload at one nine two," he said. "This is Bickwithers. Overload. That's one nine two. Mrs. Lindsey has burnt out."

  They moved quickly on, Bickwithers apologizing. "This sort of thing doesn't happen much anymore," he said. "And it is not the System that is to blame. We've fine-tuned the interview process, so we won't be getting any more folks like Mrs. Lindsey here. She was hired before we really had a good working model for an interview. We kept her on out of sentiment. I do believe a company has got to have a heart, but frankly I'll be glad when the last of these early hires is retired."

  Bickwithers opened a door and Philip followed him into a harshly lighted arena. Bickwithers leaned over a circling iron railing. "Down there," he said. WHAT IS IT?

  "A Shoggoth," Bickwithers said. He chuckled genially. "I believe you're familiar with the term. Your file shows that you are something of an authority on such matters, in fact."

  It's a Shoggoth. These were the monstrous, viscous creatures that the Old Ones had created to do their bidding. This one, black and massive and surging with strange, internal lights (like a huge amoeba that had fed on lava lamps) was, no doubt, the creature of his nightmares. He had tried to obliterate its memory, but its unholy image had burned itself into his subconscious and returned in dreams. Various wires and cables extruded from the body which was being used as a giant, living battery.

  THE OLD ONES THEMSELVES ONCE LOST CONTROL OF THE SHOGGOTHS AND PAID A TERRIBLE PRICE. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN CONTROL THEM?

  Bickwithers was unperturbed. He patted his shiny wig and preened. "The Old Ones assure us that these specimens are quite chastened. It is a shame, of course, that we have had to go back six hundred million years just to get good help. That says a thing or two about the sorry state of the world economy. It used to be that we could find cheap help just across the border. Well, don't get me started. Anyway, these Shoggoths are the first export from the Old Ones. We'll have the Old Ones themselves here in no time. Their transport is complicated; they are more sophisticated entities than Shoggoths, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they arrived this very night. There is another Welcoming in progress as we speak, and no reason it shouldn't prove successful. Listen. Yes, I think you can hear the chanting. Hear it? Well, no matter. Soon we'll be rubbing elbows—or at least some sort of articulated appendage—with Tsathoggua, Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth himself."

  YOU WILL DESTROY HUMANITY!

  "Any enterprise worth pursuing has some risk. The risk has to be measured against the potential gain. The gain here, for MicroMeg and its affiliates, is so immense that not acting, not seizing this opportunity, would be a sort of sin."

  YOU CANNOT DO THIS. THEIR INTERESTS ARE NOT OURS.

  Bickwithers looked at his watch. "I would like to continue this discussion, but I have a meeting to attend. And, in any event, you have work of your own to do. We can't afford to pay you for your opinions. There's no market for opinions, Mr. Kenan."

  Bickwithers suddenly began to shimmer. An aura of blue light surrounded him. The world lost focus. Philip remembered. Hal Ketch had just gripped his left arm and shoved the needle in. He was losing consciousness. He closed his eyes.

  Darkness.

  #

  "Philip, can you hear me?"

  "Yes," Philip said.

  "I am counting backward from ten. Between six and two you will begin to awaken. On one you will be fully awake."

  "Okay."

  "Ten nine eight seven six..."

  "I don't think I will be able to come."

  "Five four three two..."

  "Sorry."

  "One. Philip. Philip. Wake up."

  "I'm sorry. I was afraid of this."

  #

  I was afraid of this. He came out of the darkness and blinked at the green cursor. The screen of his consciousness shifted. He saw his hands, resting over the keys.

  "Ah, you are awake," a voice said. "Good."

  He didn't turn his head. As he remembered, he couldn't.

  A smiling, long-faced man in a lab coat leaned into Philip's field of vision. "Good to have you on board. We start new people out with a keyboard. It is much more efficient to direct feed, but we've found it is best to start folks out with input that is a little more familiar. We like to give you time to get used to the programs."

  LET ME GO.

  The man leaned forward, still smiling, and pressed a button on the keyboard. Instantly, the screen of Philip's vision shuddered. He was, he remembered, experiencing a profound pain, as though his entire nervous system were trails of gunpowder and someone had just ignited them with a match. The vibrating screen in front of him was, in fact, his own tormented and electronically bound body buzzing with agony.

  "We have," the man continued, "really excellent motivators built into this program. I like to think that any employee who has worked here for more than three days is a team player. We would have one hell of a Softball team here if these workers were ambulatory." The man touched the red button again and the screen ceased shivering.

  "Let's start you out with something simple," the technician was saying. "We'll log you on to the Necronomi
con routines. Just type NECRO. There. We'll probably have you doing some simple translation comparisons for the next couple of weeks. We'll—"

  Voices welled suddenly in the distance. The air seemed to grow luminous. Philip's field of vision shifted, and he saw the ceiling bulge and something made of molten silver writhing above him.