by Steve Wands
The painter watched her as she flipped through a few more pages, checking to see if this trick worked on any page, and after a few moments she was satisfied that it did.
“How…? How does this work? How can I touch these things and know what they are?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what some of those things are in that book. I wrote every word. Illustrated every image, and drew every symbol. But at times during the process it was as if I were an automaton.”
“Did you know what you were doing when you murdered the girl?”
“Very much so. Despicable, I know. But sometimes the muse calls for blood, and you don’t refuse the muse.”
Rachel didn’t know what else to say. She looked around the room, as if a question would pop up into the air of which she could pluck and ask, but none did. She took in the surroundings one last time, noticing a doorway like the one she entered this secondary dream world through.
“What’s back there?”
“Ah. Well, I don’t think you’re ready for that room just yet.” The painter paused, “In making that book I had to…perform some of those depictions. I even tried my hand at sculpture. Made an excellent lamp from all the leftover bones too.”
Too disgusted to reply she clutched the book to her chest and stormed out.
The stairs creaked just as loudly as when she had gone up them as she did down. She walked to where the portal was, but she couldn’t find it. She spun around, the wind whipping her hair around her face. She cursed to herself for not marking it somehow. She was ready to panic, but then calmed herself and started walking around. Then, she saw a glimmer. A thin tear in the landscape. She turned toward it and moved closer. The portal! She relaxed now that she could see the field of doors on the other side. Rachel ran to it and jumped through.
On the other side she fell through the threshold and landed on the hard ground below. She picked herself up and gathered the book. Finding her bearings she located the cemetery and hoped she’d be able to find her way out of this dream-hell through there.
18 I’M ALREADY DEAD
(back to top)
Torrent couldn’t entirely believe that he was listening to the voice that seeped from the overhead speakers, but he was. He walked down the hall in a sort of haze, the sickness in his stomach rising up to his throat. The others followed him, uneasily, and wary, but each with their own morbid fascination taking over the common sense that was screaming at them to leave.
The once raucous corridors were now filled with a stillness that was decidedly bizarre. Where were the prisoners with bloodlust in their eyes, Torrent wondered, or the screams and taunts of lunatics preparing themselves for combat? They were gone as if blown away by a strong wind.
“Sarge, where are we going?” Dusty asked, sounding as if he didn’t care for the answer.
“I just want to see,” was Torrent’s reply.
See what, Dusty thought, but something stirring in the pit of his stomach wanted to see as well.
They may have been soldiers, but they were people first, and people tended to be curious before they were cautious. Now, they were exploring. Seeking some sense in all the madness. Some reason to the offbeat rhythm. The voice of Garth “King” Cane was still talking over the speaker system, but what he was saying none of them knew. It was background noise to the beat of their curious hearts. But there was something more to it than their own curiosity, they seemed to be succumbing to some silent siren call of the self-appointed king.
“I feel like we’re being watched,” Grant said, somewhat detached.
Niko simply nodded. She wondered if she were in shock. If they were all in shock. Or, worse, were they dead? Did they all die and she not realize it?
Come to me, and see what I have wrought.
Come to me…
Before any of them knew where they were or what was happening they stood before the King. Garth Cane, the man under the weight of the makeshift crown, had the pallor of an exsanguinated corpse ready to be pumped full of formaldehyde. His eyes were yellowed with decay and his skin sagged in that dry lifeless way. His chest didn’t move with the inhalation of breath, and his lips were cracked and peeling, beginning to recede into that grimace of death that would show off his crooked teeth.
The King spoke each of their names in full, and the haze began to lift from them. He knew their names. This man—this King of a prison kingdom—this talking corpse knew them, and intimately it would seem.
Torrent looked at the man. Disgusted by his filth covered nudity. Appalled by his skin cloak, and scepter of human remnants. What the fuck was he doing here, he thought. He looked at the razor-wire crown and couldn’t help but think the madman looked a little like Jesus Christ. He noticed the man sat in an old electric chair atop a crudely constructed platform of gore covered tabletops and desks, raising him a considerable height off the ground and adding to the grandeur. Atop the platform were severed heads with holes in them, some with eyes, some with hollow sockets.
He then turned around, taking in his surroundings. They were in a large cell block. The cells and doors were all closed, but they were also all filled with prisoners. Dead prisoners, and though Torrent’s ears still rang, and his hearing was still a bit fuzzy, he could hear them moaning, and grunting for their flesh.
Then he noticed something else. Behind the king, tethered to the platform were nine bodies that looked like mummies. They looked more like skeletons, really, covered in dirt and scraps of cloth. Torrent guessed these were the bodies that had been buried outside, probably the very men who died on that electric chair throne.
“This has been coming for a long time,” the King said.
“What the fuck?” Dusty said, “Where, how…how did we get here?”
“I believe you all came via helicopter, no?” The man asked rhetorically.
John felt as if something else strange were occurring. This morbid King of sorts was talking and John could hear him, but it was as if he could feel his words. He knew it was strange, but it was almost as if his voice was in his head.
“That’s not what I mean,” Dusty said, sounding forced and slurred. “What’s going on? Are…are you in my fucking head?”
Dusty dropped to his knees, holding his head, “Get the fuck out of my head!”
The others just watched. Torrent wanted to move, and he tried to, but then he relaxed and this made the King pleased. Dusty put one of his Beretta’s to his head, “Get outta my head, before I blow you the fuck out of it!”
King Cane raised his hands, “I’m not in your head, I’m right here. Are you going mad?” The dead King smiled like a petulant brat.
The scream that emitted from Dusty’s throat sounded surreal. It seemed too high-pitched to belong to him, and it made Torrent’s vision shake. The Beretta was still pointing to his head. He began to scream, “Get out!” Over and over again, smacking the gun against his head.
Niko stared at him, tears streaming down her face. She wanted to comfort him but she couldn’t break out of the fog that clouded her mind.
Then the loud bang of a gunshot reverberated in the King’s chamber, which seemed to wake everyone up from their stupor. The King’s head whipped back from the force and SIGO Grant Harburn still held the smoking sidearm out front, ready to squeeze the trigger again.
“He’s in our heads,” he whispered.
King Cane began to clap, lifting his head back up. The bullet tore a large chunk of his face off and practically ripped out his left eye, leaving a blackened hollow of raw gore that was more black than bloody.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m already dead, Grant.”
That he knew his name was enough to send shivers down his back. As if looking at him wasn’t terrifying enough.
Torrent now aimed his rifle at him, “You might be dead, but I think we can turn you into minced meat.”
“Of that, John, I have no doubt. You can destroy this vessel all you want. To tell you the truth, I’ve grown quite tired of
this skin anyway. So go ahead, pull the trigger.”
“No,” Terry said, “I want some answers.” His speech impaired from his wounded and swollen face. “How can you do all this? You’re not like the others. You’re not—”
“A regular zombie?” Cane said, finishing his thought.
Terry gulped, “Yeah.”
“This has all been coming for a long time. The end, that is. The Ouroboros eventually eats itself, giving birth to something new. There’s far more to it than that. More than even I understand, but I feel a part of it, and there is so much yet to come. The kinds of things that would break the minds of most men.”
“I don’t understand, how has this been coming for a long time? What more is to come? You’re not making any sense?”
“Are you familiar with Charles Manson? Well, Charles, and a few others like him, was onto something. He tried to cross himself out of this world and hide away till it all blew over. Helter Skelter was what he called it. It’s coming down fast. Ring any bells? Well, he would’ve been waiting in the desert for a long time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he too was now being crowned a king in his own little kingdom similar to this. We are prophets.”
Torrent felt like fingers were prodding around inside his mind. Looking for a way in. Was it just Cane trying to get in, or were there other things inside their heads? The thought seem to be paused. The whole world slowed down and he had a hard time even thinking.
“You see,” Cane continued, “something was—is—coming down, and it’s here. Upon us now. This is what Manson meant when he talked of Helter Skelter. This is the unwinding of all we know. The Ouroboros devours itself as we must devour ourselves.”
Dusty fought through the haze in his mind and began to yell once more. “Get out,” he slurred over and over till the strain made his nose bleed.
“There are planes of existence all around us. I am of two worlds. I am one with the beyond, and yet, I am nothing more than an accelerant to what comes next.”
King Cane looked around at them, pausing to let it sink in “You can all see, yet some of you are starting to see things differently. This is the unwinding. Beliefs can shape vision, and once all of your beliefs are left unwound you will see things as they truly are.”
Cane’s face was in such ruin that Niko couldn’t stop staring at the wound that was his eye. She’d heard every word the dead man had said. She wanted to put another bullet through his head and see if that would make him stop talking. To see if that bullet would be the one to put him down, but she knew it would not. They could shoot him into pulp and she felt he’d still be able to get into her head.
“How do you have…powers?” Grant managed to ask.
“I have no powers, Grant. I’m simply open. We’re all connected, you see, I can see into you, and you could see into me, though I’ve crossed the divide. I am at the threshold. You—all of you—are still seeing the world the way it was, and not as it is.”
“Why aren’t more zombies like you?” Grant asked again.
“They are unworthy. Now, no more questions. My time here is short. A door is about to open and I am the key.”
Torrent was about to interrupt him, but Cane, still being aware of their thoughts, raised a stiff, colorless finger, “John, I said no more questions. Look around you. Do you see what I have wrought? This kingdom would look this way, whether I wore the crown, or your Secretary of Defense did. This was his plan. I simply did it much quicker than he would have. And I did it knowing full well what would come as a result. What you see around you is full of purpose—sure, I had fun, how could I not? But you’re Secretary would’ve done the same thing, but he would have done it as an exploratory exercise.”
The ground began to vibrate, and the King smiled wickedly, exposing his darkening gums.
“Ah! Can you feel it? You want to know why you’re still alive, Dusty? Because you are of no consequence. But I did want to play, and it was fun. If you died along the way, it didn’t matter. If any of you can make it out of here alive do spread the word of Cane.”
The ground began to rumble, Torrent and company looked around at each other, the fog that had clouded their minds began to dissipate. An earthquake, some wondered.
“Death would be a reprieve for you all. Death would be a kindness. Living, oh, now, letting you live is probably the worst thing I can do to you all.”
“We’ll see you in hell,” Torrent said, and unleashed a volley of rifle bursts that cut the man down and shredded chunks of oak out of Old Sparky’s frame.
Of that, I have no doubt. You can’t lock away the darkness forever, John. Soon enough it will be all you have left inside…
“Go! Go! Go!” Torrent yelled, “Let’s get the fuck outta here before this place comes down around us!”
Torrent followed his squad as they backtracked through the bloody hallways of this prison of the dead. The walls seemed to bend, the ground trembled, dust and small bits of debris rained down from above. They felt hung-over, each running with a headache that hammered like a locomotive.
They’d be lucky if the place didn’t crumble down around them. One more offering for the late king and his wicked kingdom.
19 BRING ME A DREAM
(back to top)
Rachel began to move wildly on the bed. She had been almost serene the entire time, up until now. Tran looked at all the monitors, her brain activity, heart rate, and blood pressure were all running very high. Up till now, they had all registered within normal sleeping parameters.
A loud scream ripped through the quiet room. Tran took a step back, somewhat shocked, but kept his cool and continued to examine her and the machines. Rachel had been asleep for close to four hours with barely a stir and now this. He knew it had to mean something. Then he saw a shape begin to materialize on her body. A large rectangular shape. Her arms became unrestrained in the same manner, holding the shape. The screams died down and the monitors reflected her relaxing state. A moment more and everything was still. All was quiet and there lay Rachel clutching a large flesh-bound tome that simply appeared out of thin air.
Tran wondered for a moment if he was sleeping, or delusional. But after several long blinks he realized he wasn’t asleep.
“R-Rachel…? You okay?”
“How does one define “okay” nowadays?” She said with a sleepy edge to her voice.
She sat up with a jolt, staring at the book now in her hands. The dream she had just awoken from wasn’t some hazy recollection of jigsaw shaped fragments, but full-fledged memories. The painter, the torso, the depiction of her as a witch. All freshly etched in her mind.
“Everything came across as normal on the monitors except for just before you awoke. Everything went haywire then. You also went from restrained to clutching the freaking Necronomicon. Which, if you have an explanation, I’d love to hear.”
“If I tried to explain it all you’d think I was talking about an acid trip. Oh, and it’s not THE Necronomicon, but something similar. It was given to me as a gift and the man who gave it to me said he made it just for me.”
“And you took him at his word?” Tran asked, looking at the book.
Rachel handed it to him and with little hesitation he took it from her and began to examine it. Holding it as if a comics collector might hold Amazing Fantasy #15. He looked at the cover, the spine, the back cover, and then opened it. The book cracked a little as he did so, the pages and cover sticking together as if they’d sat unopened on a shelf for years after press. The cover felt more like a pork shoulder than it did leather. The paper was thick and toothy with a texture more like watercolor paper than any paper in a conventional book.
Tran sniffed the book, anticipating the smell of an old book. The kind of smell you can find on a yellowed old paperback at a flea market. But not this one. This book smelled like meat. Like the meat department at the A&P down the street from his condo, that he so often hurried through so he didn’t have to endure the smell for long. He looked at the drawings in blood
and was impressed by the detailed illustrations. They reminded him of medical illustrations from his college days, but with a malicious intent to disturb whereas the medical illustrations were meant to instruct and inform. He soon realized that maybe the accompanying text was in fact meant to do those same things but without the good intention of the American Medical Association.
“This is real. I’m not sleeping, right? I’m actually holding this?”
“Yes, Gregory, you are. I can’t believe it either. Though I must warn you, it really is human skin. The dream…world, I guess?”
“Dream world sounds appropriate,” Tran said.
“The dream world was really creepy. It was, well, dream-like, and abstract, but also felt real in some parts. Like I was physically there. It felt like no dream I’ve ever had.”
Still holding the book, Tran nodded, “I could imagine. Was there anything of note? Something we could apply in this world?”
“Ummm, there was a field of doors? Could that be something?”
“Not anything I’ve heard before. Maybe your subconscious’ way of partitioning places in your dream world?”
“Could be. I guess I just need to digest it all.”
“How do you feel?” Tran asked, handing her back the book.
Accepting it, and forgetting its heft, she replied, “I feel good. It all feels very surreal still, but I’m so freaking excited. This is something right? I mean there has to be something in this book we can use. The dream world, and what’s happening it has to be linked together somehow.”
“I’d hate to disagree. It certainly seems that way. We should make copies of this and get everyone up to speed.”
