by Weston Ochse
“I don’t think I’ve met him yet then.”
“That’s the reporter talking again though. You need proof. So how do you prove that to a Catholic? Does it have to be angels and Jesus flying down from heaven on a cloud?”
“I’m not sure it works like that.”
“Oh, I know it doesn’t.”
“So you believe in God?”
“Oh yeah. For a long time I didn’t, but then I met Him, and there really wasn’t any doubting it.”
For almost ten minutes neither of them spoke. Aaron sipped his bourbon, watching as the convoy of ships came into full view. They were anchored end to end in a wide circle, with one spot left open for the trawler to squeeze in. The man working the wheel knew exactly what to do, positioning the ship without so much as a word from the Captain.
As the ship moved into the gap, Aaron saw the dock. It was a wide ring of metal platforms set atop orange pontoons, lined with chain guardrails and metal posts topped with spotlights.
“What is that?” Aaron asked.
Markovic filled his glass. “We built it about six years ago. Don’t worry, it’s very safe. Anchored to part of the reef at the bottom. Finish your drink and we’ll go down and take a closer look.”
Aaron did his best to choke down the last of the bourbon, but he felt slightly sick now. Markovic clapped him on the shoulder and pushed him toward the door.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
They went down the steps, Aaron’s head starting to spin. He’d had too much. Or he wasn’t handling what little he had very well. Markovic saw what was happening and took him by the arm, steadying him as they crossed the deck and went down the gangway onto the dock.
Along the circle stood a dozen crews, at least a hundred fishermen in all, bathed in cold electric light. Beyond the edge, the water glowed yellow-green, lit from below.
“You’re going to like this,” Markovic said.
“Wait. Wait. You still didn’t...still didn’t tell me why you built it.”
Markovic stepped over to the railing and looked into the water. “You have to understand, we were different people back then. We thought we could capture him and kill him. This was a trap. Not that it worked. Old Simba saw right through it. Almost pulled it down into the ocean, he was so mad. But we made our peace. We have an understanding now.”
“An understanding?”
Markovic nodded at the water. “Take a look and see for yourself.”
Aaron stepped to the railing, struggling to keep his balance. His head was throbbing now. He looked down into the water. In the cast of the lights, it was clear at least fifty feet down, the yellow-green giving way to darkness at the bottom.
“Do you see?” Markovic asked.
Aaron shook his head. “No.”
“Keep looking.”
Aaron looked. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be seeing. It was just shadows. Nothingness. Empty –
No.
There was something.
It moved slowly in the darkness, coming closer. A hint of red.
“You see?” Markovic said. “He’s very dependable.”
“H-how?”
“You said you’d have to discount the other possibilities. What do think that is?”
Aaron watched it rise from the depths, it’s body growing until it was almost as wide as the circle itself, its translucent, dome shaped membrane glowing in the light, flexing and contracting as if it was breathing the ocean in.
“Oh my God.”
“That’s exactly what He is,” Markovic said. “He is God.”
“What?”
“He gives and He takes, Mr. Oliveira. It’s true, He mostly takes. But we can’t blame Him for that. He’s given us so much.”
Aaron backed away from the railing, almost tripping over his own feet. The inside of his skull was tumbling.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You wanted to see Him. Here He is.”
“Yeah, I see. But that’s not...I’m not even sure what it is.”
Aaron turned away from Markovic and saw Crudele standing on the gangway, blocking his path. The look on his face was unmistakable, a knowledge of what was about to happen. As he turned back, he saw the same look on a hundred other faces watching him, a sense of unwavering purpose. He saw it on Dimitrou’s face as the big man reached down and grabbed him, lifting him off the deck and carrying him toward the railing.
“Stop!” he screamed. “Wait! Wait! Why...Why are you doing this?”
“I’m really sorry, Mr. Oliveira,” Dimitriou said, without a hint of malice in his voice. “It’s gotta be this way.”
“No. Please. Stop. Stop it. Captain. Captain, for God’s sake, listen to me. You don’t have to do this!”
Markovic leaned against a light post, staring out at the water. “There’s no other way. Sometimes we have to feed him. But he’s very fair. We give him something to eat and he lets us take all the fish we want for a little while.”
As he stepped away from the post, Aaron noticed the tattoo partially hidden beneath his sleeve for the first time. It was identical to the others, a fish cross with a Christlike jellyfish at the center.
He understood now.
Markovic looked at him apologetically. “Believe me, Mr. Oliveira. This is an honor. Each one of us will have our turn in time. And we’ll give ourselves willingly. But tonight it has to be you.”
“Please. Don’t.”
“God bless and keep you.”
“NO.”
Dimitriou’s strong arms lifted him high into the air as if he weighted nothing at all. Aaron saw the night sky and the moon and the ships at the far end of the circle. And then he felt himself falling freely, the world turning over until he saw the water beneath him.
Cold saturated his skin from head to toe, a low drone filling his ears as his body became fully submerged. He flailed his arms and legs trying to find the surface, but down and up were the same. The entire world was yellow and green, dancing with small bubbles. Something moved before him, a thin hairlike strand that curved and swayed. Another appeared. And then another. Until there were dozens, moving toward him in slow motion.
Aaron pumped his arms and legs, trying to move away from them. But it was useless. His body was stiff, unable to function. The bourbon or the drug that had been slipped into it had done its work.
He hovered in the still water, feeling it gently pulse, watching as the tendrils glided and wrapped themselves around him. There was a sharp sting as they tore into his flesh, but the pain was almost pleasurable. It filled his mind with exquisite fear, paralyzing him as he was slowly dragged upward toward the underside of the jellyfish’s quivering membrane, the hundreds of flagella radiating from beneath it as dense and delicate as the hairs on a lion’s mane. They caressed him gently, pulling him inward and swallowing him whole.
Old Simba was hungry.
The Black Waters of Babylon
Brendan Vidito
When Philip Vorstadt arrived at the Seaside Rehabilitation Center, his body was broken, his mind on the brink of collapse.
The facility jutted from a rock cliff, its outermost wall suspended over the waves rolling and thundering below. Its sterile concrete exterior was splashed and bleached by sea spray, the windows girding its length tinted black and opaque. The main body of the facility was capped by a secondary structure that rose more than fifty feet into the air, a massive stone finger pointing at the sky. It appeared to serve no practical purpose and stood out in stark contrast against the heavy black clouds marshaled across the horizon.
A flight of stairs carved out of the rock ascended to Chinese-style double doors inlaid with brass gilding and painted a dark emerald green. Two men wearing hybrid outfits—part formal suit, part workman’s uniform—of the same hue as the door behind them, stood guard. Their faces were entirely covered by helmets equipped with dark, reflective glasses and some kind of tubing that extended from the mouth area to the
back of the head. They stood completely still, hands folded over their abdomens.
Vorstadt had not taken the stairs because of his confinement to a wheelchair, but instead rode an elevator encased in glass up to the main entrance. When he reached the top, he turned his head slowly to one side, grimacing at the pain sizzling like an old dynamite fuse down his neck and back, and stared out at the landscape fronting the rehab center.
Emptiness. Nothing but emptiness for miles and miles to the ends of the earth. At some point, the rocky terrain gave way to cracked soil studded with cottongrass, but otherwise Vorstadt perceived no other signs of life. Not a single seabird glided below the belly of the clouds, nor could a lone patient or doctor be seen taking a stroll to break the day’s tedium. The facility and its environs were a drab purgatorial waiting room, a middle ground between shattered hopes and new beginnings.
Vorstadt had exhausted all other options, and only this desolate sanctuary remained. Doctors hundreds of miles away in the “other world,” as Vorstadt had already come to know the place of his birth and residence, deemed his injuries irreparable. They had conducted various treatments and surgeries without any success. All Vorstadt was left with was a patchwork of thick, knotted scars and a debilitating twitch in his left eye as a result of post-surgical nerve damage. Granted, his injuries were extensive, but taking into account the recent advances in medical science and technology, Vorstadt thought it absurd that absolutely nothing could be done to improve his condition. As it was, his entire body was racked by perpetual agony. He could barely eat or drink on his own, let alone attend to his own toilet, and his speech—though he was rarely inclined to speak—tumbled past his broken teeth like hard chunks of vomit. The resulting sound was wet and nearly incomprehensible.
It all came down to this. The rehab center would either provide him with the healing he so desperately needed, or he would kill himself. He had even planned the method of his destruction. Seeing that he couldn’t properly grasp a weapon between his fingers, he managed to convince his partner, Darren, who was skilled in computers and robotics, to engineer an execution device. Darren flat out refused to kill Vorstadt with his own hands, and so rigged the shotgun he would have otherwise employed in the assisted suicide to a simple contraption that responded to Vorstadt’s voice command. The intention was for Vorstadt to position his face directly in front of the barrel and speak the word “flower,” which he could pronounce with little difficulty. The computer wired to the contraption would then prompt a makeshift finger curled around the trigger to retract and discharge the shotgun, scattering Vorstadt’s thoughts and memories in a spray of bloody bone. It was an elaborate and admittedly silly way to go, but prior to his infirmity, Vorstadt was something of a showman, easily able to capture the headlines as he ran his business with dramatic flair. So, to those who knew him best, his chosen method of destruction was very much within character.
“How are we feeling, Mr. Vorstadt?” asked the nurse who had been charged with pushing his wheelchair since he arrived at the center.
She was short statured and sturdily built, the sleeves of her olive uniform hemmed to reveal the lumps of muscle on her arms. Heir hair was dyed pale purple and combed flat toward the crown of her head. A pale curlicue of discolored skin in the shape of a snake—likely a manifestation of vitiligo—sketched itself around her left eye and across her forehead. When she smiled, Vorstadt had noticed that many of her teeth were capped with gunmetal fillings.
In response to her question, Vorstadt returned a clumsy nod. He was feeling fine. Not very optimistic or nervous, just fine. He had long since tempered his expectations, even though the rehab center came highly recommended in the more affluent circles he frequented. Many of his colleagues and acquaintances had paid ridiculous sums of money to treat their gout, back pain or arthritis. One guy even claimed to have been cured of his erectile dysfunction. However, had these been the only anecdotes associated with the facility, Vorstadt would have dismissed the place entirely, but there was another story, one that wasn’t as publicly flaunted as the others, that capture Vorstadt’s attention.
Her name was Mia. Six months ago, shortly before Vorstadt sustained his own injuries, Mia’s now ex-husband had beaten her to the point where she was no longer able to walk. Vorstadt had seen her condition in the aftermath of the assault, a dispirited wreck, and it had hit him like a fist to the abdomen. Which made it all the more shocking when he saw her again after she had returned from the facility, her scars healed, her gait more graceful than ever. Vorstadt could only conceive of the change in the most cliché of terms: it was nothing short of a miracle.
And yet even having seen what the facility could do, Vorstadt was still cautious to hope. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the barrel of the shotgun pointed at him, seductive as a lover’s bedroom gaze.
The doors to the facility opened from inside with a whir of mechanical gears. Out stepped a tall woman in a sleek black suit with a jacket so long it trailed at her heels like a cape. She was shaved bald, accentuating the startling beauty of her slanted chestnut eyes. Approaching Vorstadt she bowed low and said, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Vorstadt. I am Director Maikawa, the heart that pumps blood through this facility.”
Vorstadt nodded again, his preferred form of expression.
“If you will join me,” Maikawa said, gesturing to the innards of the rehab center. “We shall begin your treatment right away.”
The nurse pushed Vorstadt over the threshold, the slight rise of the transition strip jostling his body from one arm of the chair to the other. He vaguely felt a line of drool escape his mouth, but could do nothing about it. Vorstadt was used to such indignities, so to avoid frustration he focused on his surroundings instead. The first thing he noticed about the facility was the smell. It was a rotten odor, sickly sweet, like spoiled fruit with a fishy undertone. Mixed with this was the lulling perfume of lavender and other olfactory notes native to a bathhouse.
Aesthetically, the facility was a neutered bore: whitewash walls, echoing ivory floors, grey tone artwork. And to top it off, the place seemed empty. Vorstadt didn’t see anyone else on his way down the central hall, past rows of steel doors and open rooms neatly arranged with Oriental furniture. It was as though he were the only patient on hand, or else the others were deliberately kept from his view to maintain the illusion that he was receiving the facility’s utmost care and attention.
“We studied your infirmities at length,” Maikawa said, breaking the almost hypnotic tedium of their echoing footsteps, “and believe that you will only benefit from our most intensive treatment. Tell me, Mr. Vorstadt, have you ever undergone hydrotherapy?”
“N-no,” he managed to say.
“As its name suggests, it is a form of alternative medicine that uses water to treat various physical ailments. Outside this facility, it is used in a rather benign fashion,” she lingered on the word, savored it, “usually through pool exercise or floating therapy. Here, we do things a little differently.”
They reached the end of the hallway, where a set of glass doors led into darkness. Vorstadt could hear a faint wind howling behind them, strangely amplified as though the sound were conveyed through a tunnel. He realized then they must have been standing where the massive stone pillar rose out of the middle of the facility. The pillar was undoubtedly open to the sky, which explained the mournful bellow of the wind. What purpose could it serve, he wondered. He was confident he would soon find out.
Maikawa turned to face him. “Through these doors is the pride of our facility, the Rod of Babylon. It extends seventy-five feet into the air, and tunnels through the rock beneath us, to the cold, black waters below. It is there we intend to heal you.”
She held out her hand toward him in a demonstrative gesture. Vorstadt followed the movement with his eyes and noticed, for the first time, the perfect grid of puncture wounds on her palm. Each hole was red with coagulated blood, the skin around them white as a fish’s belly. When she noticed his gaze
, Maikawa smiled modestly and slowly drew her fingers into a fist.
The sight left Vorstadt with a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t appear to be any injury he was familiar with; it was too perfect, too clean. And not to mention a trypophobe’s worst nightmare. Before he could consider the matter further, he was struck by a blast of sea wind.
Director Maikawa had opened the glass doors and was now inviting Vorstadt inside. The nurse pushed him forward and the overhead lights sputtered into activity. The sudden brightness stung Vorstadt’s eyes. They were gathered in a small antechamber lined with steel and reinforced with concrete. A series of vents along the far wall admitted the outside air. Every surface shined and gave back a distorted reflection. The place was bare except for a solitary locker in the corner and a canvas harness attached to some kind of pulley mechanism facing yet another door.
“Nurse, if you will please remove Mr. Vorstadt’s clothing.”
The nurse engaged the wheelchair’s manual brake, walked around to face Vorstadt, who nodded his consent, and proceeded to undress him. He hated every moment of it. She was much gentler than his homecare nurse, he would give her that, but the whole process was no less undignified or embarrassing. He hated how she needed to guide his limbs into a more comfortable position as soon as she removed them from a shirtsleeve or pant leg; hated the feeling of her breath fanning his skin as she toiled at the task; hated the way his naked body looked under fluorescent lights, all pallor and sagging, atrophied muscles. He fixed her with his gaze and mumbled, “This had better goddamn work.”
“We will do our best, Mr. Vorstadt,” she answered with a gunmetal smile.
She wheeled his bare, pathetic form toward the harness and strapped him in, the coarse canvas looping around his biceps, thighs, chest, and buttocks to ensure maximum support. Vorstadt now realized that the harness could be raised or lowered, presumably down the shaft on the opposite side of the door, with the help of the pulley system. For the second time today, a queasy pang lanced through the pit of his stomach.
