I was becoming impatient with this. The raid was in half an hour, and I needed to prepare and organize the rest of the cult. Sabrina had obviously lost her mind, and for some reason, I was part of her fixation. I leaned back in my chair and saw it; standing in the bathroom doorway was the creature I had seen earlier. It was watching me intently, but showed none of its earlier panic. I stood up from the desk slowly, while the voicemail continued to play.
“The city was empty. Whatever amazing beings had built this immense place had either died or moved on. As I continued to fly, all that was below me was city, but soon I was out of air and in water. The cold filled me as I went deeper, and the pressure of miles of ocean bore down upon me. I crossed a ridge and saw another city, as impressive as the first, but covered with slime and small forests of colorless coral. The stone walls sealed the city completely, and a cavernous, open gate served as the only portal. As I approached, I saw the gate had dug a channel of settled slime and mud out of the ocean floor as it had opened, and nothing had yet settled in the wake of its passage.”
I slowly walked around my desk. The creature watched my approach attentively.
“I was compelled to go inside, to see this enormous city under the ocean. The doorway hung open, large enough to allow a fleet of whales, and as I passed through it, I shuddered to see scratches on the edges, as if something immense had just barely managed to squeeze its way through.”
I cautiously walked up to the creature, and we gazed at each other in silence.
“Within the city, ancient stone structures rose like mountains between long and incredibly wide streets. Strange symbols adorned pillars covered in slime. In the center was a pit; stuck in the mud within the pit, I could clearly make out first bones, then a skull.”
The creature and I locked eyes, and I opened my mouth to speak.
“But, despite the remains of their feasting, the city in the deeps was empty, too.”
I heard a click as the file ended and glanced over toward the computer reflexively. When I looked back, the creature was gone.
#
I walked back to the computer and saw it was time for the raid. Sitting down, I opened the game and logged into my main character. I quickly checked and saw everyone else was already online, so I put on my headset and jumped into cult-chat.
“What up, party people?”
“Dup?” Bobby said, coughing into his microphone. “Sorry. I meant sup.”
“How’re you doing, man?” Josh’s voice was very quiet; I could barely hear it.
“Your microphone is really low, man, turn it up.” I said.
“Sorry,” he said. “How’s that?”
“Fine.”
“So how’s it going?” Josh asked again. “Did ya get my message?”
“It’s going good,” I said. “Just the usual. Axe-crazy chick cyber-stalking me, mild psychosis, the food place I order from doesn’t deliver this late, and I kind of want a beer.”
“I thought you didn’t drink,” Kevin said.
“After the last couple of days, I’m thinking of starting. And yes, Josh, I got your message, and sorry, no Sabrina.” I chuckled softly. “Not that she would be much good to us, if that voicemail was any indication.”
“She called you? What did she say? Did she kill that girl on the news?” Bobby asked.
“In order: yes, not much, I think she was on acid, and she didn’t say. Probably not.” I thought of the short, skinny girl I had seen in her profile picture. “Sabrina weighs like a buck-five, maybe a buck-ten soaking wet. She didn’t tear anyone to shreds.”
“Crazy. Well, I found another healer,” Josh said. “Say ‘hi’, Tim.”
“Hi, Tim,” said a voice I didn’t recognize, apparently belonging to Tim.
“Sup,” I said. “So are we gonna do this thing, or what? Kevin, will you do the honors?”
“Teleporting us now,” Kevin said.
My character vanished from the screen, and a loading screen came up. New graphics popped into existence: a pillar located in the very center of the game world. Carved into the sides were pads you stepped up onto in order to be teleported into the lair of the King in Yellow.
“Buff us up, new guy,” I said and cracked my knuckles. A series of small icons filled the top-right corner of my screen, symbolizing the spells that would protect and empower me in the coming battle. “Thank you. We ready?”
“Good to go,” Josh said.
“Cool. Let’s get in there.” I turned my character to face Tim’s and pointed at him. “Don’t get hit, new guy. I don’t feel like dying tonight.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep us all alive,” Tim said. “And the name’s Tim.”
“Sure it is,” I chuckled. “And I’ll even call you by that name…if we get through this. Nobody gets a name until they prove themselves.”
“Whatever,” Tim said, and his character turned, walked onto one of the teleportation portals, and vanished.
I followed. The monitor went black, but there was no loading screen. For a moment, I thought the game had frozen up, and I started to mentally list possible problems to check for in the source code. Suddenly, a room came into being. In it, a dark, beautiful young man, wearing a black suit and purple tie, sat at a large oak desk. He raised his hand, and as he waved me over, I could see the single, large amethyst ring.
“Please sit down, Jason,” Nathan Alhireth said.
“I–Mr. Alhireth–what’s going on here?” I said into my microphone. I walked my character over to the desk and used the sit command on the plush leather chair across from the dark man. My character sat down smoothly, and I looked at Nathan. “You’re the King in Yellow?”
“I wear no mask,” he said, smiling that awful smile.
“What?”
“Not a cultured lad, eh? Ah well, one can’t have everything.” He opened a drawer and produced a cigarette. “Smoke?”
“Um–no thanks.” I looked around the room and at him. “The graphics in here are amazing.”
“Thank you. Dear Sabrina was annoyed that she couldn’t work on this bit, but I think it turned out very well.” He lit his cigarette with an elegant silver lighter and took in a lungful. “I especially like all of the little details.” He exhaled smoke as he talked, and I swore I could smell cigarette smoke in my room.
“Do you know where Sabrina is?” I was beginning to feel afraid. Something was very wrong here. At the same time, I felt languid, lazy, almost drugged. “The cops want to talk to her.”
“Of course I know where she is, dear boy.” He chuckled. “And I’m afraid the police are going to have other things to deal with.”
“And what’s that?”
“You haven’t guessed?” He frowned. “And here I had been told you were a genius, a prodigy, a veritable wunderkind. That will teach me to use hiring services.”
“Guessed what?”
“Guessed at what is happening. What you created, you silly little boy.”
“The game?” I was confused. The fog in my mind was making it hard to understand what he said, and the sharp pain in my chest and back had returned. “The game?” I asked again.
“The game? Mr. Raene, you are far too modest! You didn’t make a game, you made a world. A new world.” He stood up from his desk and began to pace, occasionally pausing to take in a deep drag from his cigarette. “A better world!” He looked over at me and chuckled. “You know, my superiors, they look down on me for this sort of thing. They don’t like me fraternizing.”
“With the coders?” I said, squinting. I thought the screen was beginning to blur, but looked away and saw it was my eyes. Around me, the room was coming alive once again. The walls pulsated and heaved, sweating luminous slime, and the eyes in my collage danced around wildly.
“With humans. Or most four-dimensional beings, for that matter.” He laughed. “They think it’s beneath someone of my…stature, if you will, to play with his food.”
“You’re going to eat me?” I couldn’t be
lieve what I was hearing. A whine had started in my ears, like white noise in my head, and it was hard to pay attention to what he was saying.
“No, no.” He walked around and sat on the desk in front of me. “At least, not me personally. I have other uses for my little Harbingers.”
“What–” I gasped in pain. The sharp burning had spread into my arms and legs, and I felt a sudden compulsion to take off my clothes. I stood and staggered, my feet barely able to support me. Black metal t-shirt, black jeans, underwear, boots, and socks formed a pile next to the computer. As my feet and legs continued to burn, I leaned down onto the desk for support and saw the eyes in my collage focus on me. “What uses?”
“Yes, they look down on me,” he said, ignoring me. “But who else but someone who dealt with you little talking bags of meat would have figured out a way to use the Dreamlands as a shortcut?”
“Shortcut?” I was beginning to gasp from the pain now, and as the eyes stared at me, I saw cool amusement. A deep rage filled me. I ripped my headset from my ears and hobbled to the wall, weeping from the pain. I began to rip into the paper, expecting them to be real eyes, but the paper ripped and fell away normally, revealing another layer of paper, so I kept tearing and tearing, trying to make the eyes stop staring at me.
“And I couldn’t have done it without you, Jason!” He chuckled again. “I’m no slouch at science, either. I’ve forgotten more technology than your species has ever created. But to create a game like this, I required more than knowledge. I needed skill. I needed an artist. I needed you. Thanks to you and our little team working together, the stars are finally right!”
I continued to rip at the paper, but there was always another layer with another eye staring at me in flat amusement. Finally, I gave up, the pain in my feet and hands too much, and slouched against the wall. My hands had begun to twist, and a crust had started to spread over my knuckles. In the corner, the creature watched me with bulbous, black eyes, and I turned away from him in despair and pain. As I stumbled to the door of my apartment, I heard the dark man speak a final time and felt my gums shriek in agony as my teeth grew.
“Jason, did you know that, when gaming, the human brain acts the same way as it does when it’s dreaming? Really, a quite remarkable fact.” He laughed as I managed to fumble the doorknob open with my shaking, burning hands. “As I have mentioned, I am especially fond of the details.”
The door opened, and I lurched into the hall. My arms were getting longer, and I could feel the joints cracking. Up and down my hallway, doors were opening, and people in various stages of transformation stumbled outside. Some, like me, were naked, and their arms were growing, their eyes narrowing, their hands and feet becoming hoof-like, but there was a great variety of metamorphoses in progress around me. A beautiful woman in a blue dress appeared to be turning into a plant, her cocoa skin hardening to bark, and her fingers and ears sprouting green shoots. An elderly man, his face lined with years of worry and regret, was slowly turning to living stone and growing what appeared to be wings to go along with his already prominent horns and claws. I heard a familiar voice and turned to see the fish-like face of the creature who stood in the door of my apartment, watching.
“Elehka kll-tha rotta,” he said calmly in a hoarse, croaking voice and pointed down the hall toward the stairs.
I made my way to the stairs slowly, as did most of the other residents. While there was much groaning, I heard no screams. We were all too exhausted to scream. As I took the first step down, I began to stumble and dropped my hands and elongated arms down to support me. Immediately, the pain in my feet and hands was gone, and I gasped in relief. I turned sideways and carefully walked downstairs on my hands and feet. My shoulders felt wider, and the posture quickly felt natural. I started to stand to open the door to the street, but one of the other residents had beaten me to it. The door hung open, and I made my way outside.
The street was filled with changing people. Most wandered dazedly, moaning in pain or weeping silently. Others laughed so hard they kept retching up blood. Above us, the sky was purple, and a vortex of red lightning vomited winged beings into the San Francisco night. I looked over at the bridge; beyond it, a shambling monstrosity the glistening pink of newborn flesh made its slow way across the skyline, so large its head was concealed above the clouds. In the midst of this horror, I heard someone clearly say, “You need only turn back to the thoughts and visions of your wistful boyhood.”
I began to wander with the others in the vague direction of the bridge. I could feel no more pain, and an elation rose within me, a love of my new form. I began to move faster, my arms and legs now familiar beneath me. I felt hope for the future and a warm sense of camaraderie with the others around me working their way into their new shapes. We were building a new world, and we were doing it together. I finally understood, and as I saw the twisted form of Sabrina turn the corner and join the procession, I called out a bestial greeting and began to gallop.
-
-
Neal Jansons, also known as “thePuck”, is a writer and poet who spends his days and nights thinking, writing, and solving interesting problems. Visit his website at this link.
His fiction work has been used as the basis for the upcoming online game Ghostees!, published by BakedOn Entertainment, and his non-fiction work has previously been published in “Thinking Critically” (10th ed.), published by Cengage Learning, Inc./Nelson Education Ltd., and in “Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing” (5th ed.), also published by Cengage Learning, Inc./Nelson Education Ltd. He has been interviewed by Mashable, and maintains a strong social media presence online.
Story art by mimulux.
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NOTE: Images contained in this Lovecraft eZine are Copyright ©2006-2012 art-by-mimulux. All rights reserved. All the images contained in this Lovecraft eZine may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted, borrowed, duplicated, printed, downloaded, or uploaded in any way without my express written permission. These images do not belong to the public domain. All stories in Lovecraft eZine may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted, borrowed, duplicated, printed, downloaded, or uploaded in any way without the express written permission of the editor.
Darius Roy’s Manic Grin
by Brian Barnett
“Here you are, sir. Mr. Roy is in number six. Please buzz us when you are through.”
Dr. Johansson nodded his head curtly before ducking into the small cell.
Dr. Johansson had a deep dislike for the Juniper Ridge Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed. Most of the piping was exposed through missing drop-ceiling tiles. Seemingly ancient air shafts appeared to be rusted and encrusted with decades of filth. The halls were poorly lit and the cells were even darker.
Darius Roy’s cell was lit by a single bare, dust-covered 40watt bulb that was assisted meekly by a ghostly trail of mid-evening light. It bled through the small rectangular chicken wire reinforced window that was recessed into the wall, ten feet up.
The walls were adequately padded. However the material appeared to be grimy from age and lack of care. Dr. Johansson made a mental note to bring up the issue with the health board. The facility was under poor management and he could stand by no longer to watch the patients suffer.
Today’s patient, Darius Roy, didn’t help the off-putting ambiance of the facility. He stared, wide-eyed with a toothy grin, out the window. He lay on the floor with his head propped against the base of the wall. His straight jacket matched the rest of the cell. It had been aged yellow-gray from the sweat, blood and tears from its continuous rotation of tenants.
Dr. Johansson sighed deeply before introducing himself. Today, he hoped to scratch the surface of the cause of his new patient’s condition. Even the slightest connection to the man’s humanity would suffice. Dr. Johansson sat in a plastic folding chair across from Darius Roy and adjusted his glasses.
“Mr. Roy-”
“They’re coming…
”
Dr. Johansson paused. He scribbled on his notepad. He noted that Darius Roy was not at all frightened by whom or what he supposed was “coming” for him. In fact, he appeared delighted.
“Mr. Roy, who is coming?”
“They are! They chose me, you know. They told me so.”
“Who told you so?”
“They did. My friends.”
“Can you elaborate? What I mean is, can you explain to me who your friends are?”
Darius Roy shifted his eyes to Dr. Johansson. Dr. Johansson felt his chest tighten. Something about the mania in Mr. Roy’s red-ringed eyes… Something was different about the man. In all his medical years, Dr. Johansson for the first time sat across from a man who he felt threatened by. He, for once, was happy to see a straight jacket in use. But shame bit at him. It was his duty to cure the man, not fear him.
“They! The ones from the stars. They needed an avenue. They needed a doorway.”
Dr. Johansson tore his eyes from the man. His piercing stare was unnerving at best. He had not blinked yet as far as Dr. Johansson could tell. Dr. Johansson scribbled some pointless notes, just some nonsensical doodles with his pen – anything to avoid the man’s eyes.
“So, Mr. Roy, are you their ‘avenue’, their ‘doorway’, as you called it?” Dr. Johansson asked without looking up from his notepad.
Darius Roy chuckled. Dr. Johansson caught a glimpse of the man’s face. His lips had tightened a bit as he laughed. They slid over his teeth and pinched together as if he was a child with a dirty secret that he had sworn not to divulge.
The giggling coupled with the ever-darkening room unsettled Dr. Johansson a bit further. He felt a bead of sweat trail down his cheek. He retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. He gasped and jumped to his feet as a spider fell in his lap and scurried to a darkened corner of the cell. He had not seen it initially. Had it dropped from the ceiling? Was it folded into his handkerchief?
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2011 Page 27
