Unholy Dimensions

by Jeffrey Thomas

  A ghostly white movement in the corner of his eye, and Seth was spinning about, his hand slapping to the gun holstered on his hip.

  It was only the gauzy window curtains stirring subtly in a very mild breeze. This one window at the back of the house was open. He went to it idly to look down on the tree stumps.

  “Jesus!” Seth gasped, as soon as he had parted the curtains with his hands.

  The mummy was suspended in air just a few feet beyond the window. Its attitude suggested that this being had dove suicidally from the window, only to be frozen in mid-air. It was impossibly suspended. It faced away from him, but the hands and back of the head, with its scant hair, suggested mummification. But Seth didn’t need to see the face to know that these were the unearthly remains of their host, James Ward.

  Dennis and J’nette had crowded in beside him. J’nette said, “This is just too much! What the hell happened to this guy?”

  “I don’t think I wanna know,” said Dennis.

  “Hey,” said Seth. “The tree stumps are gone.”

  Dennis leaned his head out the window, incredulous. The tree stumps were indeed gone, as if they had never been there. No depressions or covered mounds where they had been. There did appear to be, however, three broad trails all leading in to one center point...as if the three stumps had been dragged together to that central point. But then what? At that point there was nothing but the featureless flatness of the plain.

  “Let’s get back on the ship!” Dennis hissed, pulling inside hurriedly.

  J’nette had found a folding measuring stick, perhaps having been used to map out the figure on the floor, and unfolded it so as to prod Ward’s body. She could stir his clothing with it, but when she pushed at one of his hands it was so unyielding that the stick bowed.

  Dennis yanked her away from the window. “Don’t do that!”

  “This could be a dangerous situation,” Seth had to agree. “We’d better get back on the ship until we can run further tests and scans. We’ll call station. They might even advise us to go orbital until further notice.”

  “I think we should do that anyway!”

  They turned from the window, descended the creaking stairs, left the old house through the front door. All of them walked very briskly back to the globe...as if the very earth beneath their feet might open up and swallow them. Just before they had reached the ship, there came a beep in their headsets. Seth answered it. “Yes?”

  “Chief,” came the voice of Louise, aboard their craft, “you’d better get back in here quick.”

  “We’re an our way now...what is it?”

  “Just come look, please. Hurry.”

  The trio of explorers boarded, felt automatically safer sealed back inside this shelter of their own period. Removing only their garish helmets, they hastened to central command...and as they entered, froze in the doorway as if whatever force had seized hold of the body of James Ward had locked onto them as well.

  Scan technician Louise, Sam their pilot and a panting German Shepherd looked up at the paralyzed trio. The dog, beautiful and healthy, was smiling black-lipped in the way dogs seemed to be able.

  “He just walked into the roan with us,” said Sam. “Like he’d been on the ship with us the whole time.”

  “Friendly,” Louise added, her hands stroking the animal.

  Seth turned to gaze at the banks of monitor screens above the scan stations. The old house was there. Looming. In need of paint and some repair. Black eyes gazing back at him enigmatically.

  “Magic,” he whispered to himself.

  The Fourth Utterance

  6:33 pm 3/01 Call# 1

  – UNAVAILABLE –

  Cornelia switched her attention from the caller ID box to the answering machine directly beside it, both on the kitchen table beneath the wall-mounted telephone. A red digital “1" showed in the answering machine’s little window.

  She hadn’t thought to look at either device until 1:45, even though she had gotten home from her second shift job before 12:30. Since she had bought a computer and gone online several months ago, she was more concerned with checking and replying to her email, which she had just finished doing. Tonight’s offering: a humorous list of “The Top 10 Things That Women Can Do Better Than Men,” sent by her mother; a work at home scheme; a story about a little girl with a brain tumor the size of a grapefruit (weren’t all scary tumors the size of a grapefruit?), for some reason inoperable, which Cornelia was supposed to pass along to five people or presumably she’d grow a brain tumor as well; an email from her ex-boyfriend, Brian:

  Cornelia,

  I know you could probably shoot me right about now, but I really do care about you, and I always will. I’m...

  DELETE.

  She was sorry now she hadn’t read the whole thing. Was it still in her trash can or would her email service have dumped that already? No -- why read it? What was the point? The presence of his words inside that box was a mockery when her apartment rang hollow with the absence of his body. Ghost in the machine. He had deleted her from his life; insincere guilt did not soothe or comfort her, exonerate or redeem him. Would he send her one of those silly little animated email cards next? DELETE.

  Cornelia had shut off the computer and now, dressed in comfortable much-laundered pajamas, barefoot, her lank hair released from the tight ponytail that had constrained it all evening, she had gone to fix herself a late snack of microwave popcorn. A CD played softly in the other room (Sade’s Love Deluxe; sad, dreamy post-midnight music). And while pouring herself a glass of soda, she had let her eyes drift to the two devices patiently, silently awaiting her attentions atop the kitchen table.

  The one and only call, she saw, had been received at 6:33 – when she’d been at work. UNAVAILABLE, the lead display read, in lieu of the caller’s number. A bill collector? They were often listed that way, or as ANONYMOUS CALL, and so when she was home Cornelia never picked up a call bearing either of those labels until she heard the message come over the answering machine (and if it was a bill collector, they usually didn’t leave a message, anyway). She reached out and touched the PLAY button on the answering machine, expecting the few seconds of dead silence that would prove her theory correct.

  But instead of silence, there was a voice. A youngish man, speaking softly and intimately so that the first image that sprang to Cornelia’s mind was of lips brushing a mouthpiece:

  “It’s me. I’m sorry...I know I promised not to call...”

  For one beat, Cornelia thought it was Brian, even though it sounded nothing like him. Her chest constricted.

  “...I know you don’t want to see me. I can’t blame you for being afraid of what I’m doing. I don’t fault you for getting out. It was probably stupid of me not to stop...to just go on with it. Yeah – that’s right: I finished it. Last night I put the stones in the four corners of the room. I drew the sign on each stone. I gave the fourth utterance of ascent. And...and...yeah. And it worked. It happened...”

  Cornelia didn’t know this voice. She didn’t know what he was discussing. It was a wrong number. He had dialed a number similar to the one he wanted, no doubt...

  “...I looked all over the house for it. I thought it would be in the cellar, or the attic, for some reason. It was in the bathroom, of all places. In the corner behind the hamper. I could only see...fog. But it felt cold, when I moved the hamper and got close. And I thought I heard a sound in there, way back, far off – like monkeys, maybe. A sound like monkeys calling. But, sort of like...electronic sounding...”

  Cornelia shot an angry look at the microwave, where her popcorn was noisily popping, the appliance annoyingly humming. She leaned her head down over the answering machine, holding her long hair away from her ear.

  “...It’s still there now. But you know – after all my reading. After all this work. After losing you to get this far – I just can’t bring myself to go into...”

  “END OF – MESSAGES”, a robotic voice suddenly announced, cutting in. The i
ntense young man was gone. The switch in voices, from emotional to mechanical, startled Cornelia, and she drew back.

  The microwave stopped, and only one or two last kernels popped, the bag now swollen like some inoperable tumor.

  What had the stranger been going on about? What had he been looking for in his house or apartment? What was it he had found in the bathroom (of all places)?

  Cornelia played the message back again. It made no more sense to her the second time.

  UNAVAILABLE. He had called from someplace where they didn’t have caller ID, then. Without his number being displayed, she couldn’t call him back to inform him that he’d whispered so intently to someone other than this person he had promised he would never call again.

  Wasn’t there some kind of feature called Call Trace? Yes...punch star, then a number. But what was the number? It was two-digit, right? She couldn’t recall it; and anyway, would it be able to trace an “unavailable” call?

  What did it matter? He was a stranger. But she had been drawn in, she had to admit, by his earnest-sounding emotion. The touch of bitter, regretful humor in his words. By the warm, dark sound of his voice. Here was a man who still loved the person he was calling. It was the woman who had broken off with him. He still wanted to be with her. How lucky she was, Cornelia thought. And what a fool she was.

  Cornelia’s eyes were growing moist. As if it were the young man’s pain that moved her.

  She touched a button. The robotic voice intoned, “MESSAGES – DELETED.”

  What a long night it had been.

  A new Brazilian coworker had flirted with her. He wasn’t bad looking, but at the end of the shift Judi had told her he was married, with kids.

  A long, long night, Cornelia thought, letting herself into her apartment. Not popcorn tonight, with its low dietary points. Ice cream. Ice cream for sure.

  But before she went to the refrigerator. Before she checked her email. Before, even, she removed her coat, Cornelia glanced over at the kitchen table.

  A red digital “1" on her answering machine. She stepped nearer to see the caller ID’s display. It read:

  8:43 pm 3/02 Call# 1

  – UNAVAILABLE –

  Without even removing her woolen gloves, Cornelia depressed the button labeled PLAY on her answering machine.

  Tonight, she recognized the voice. As if it were someone she knew.

  “I didn’t think you’d call me back. Then again, I hope I have the right number. I copied it out of your brother’s book, very quickly, when he was out of the room. I’m sure that’s enough to make you furious in itself...

  “But I wish you’d talk to me. I wish...”

  He sighed. Trailed off. A few seconds of silence. Hurry, Cornelia wordlessly urged him, before your time runs out.

  “I still haven’t gone through. I’m -- just plain afraid. Those sounds in there. And it’s so dark. And cold. Last night I could barely sleep, knowing it was in the house, just a few rooms away from me. I’m keeping the bathroom door shut, but I can’t lock it from the outside. I should at least screw in an eye-hook latch or something. Hmph -- like that would stop anything that wanted to come through...”

  Cornelia found herself unaccountably glancing up at her own bathroom, which opened off the kitchen. Unlit, murky inside. Since childhood she had had a fear of looking in the mirror and seeing someone standing behind her shoulder, only in the glass. A ghost. Something worse, perhaps...

  The young man continued in his hushed, melancholy voice.

  “You were right to get out. I should have listened. I took it too far. I really don’t think I’m going to have the guts to go in there. I think...I really think I need to close it up again. That’s what I’m going to have to do. I’m just afraid that if any of them see it from their side, they’ll be a lot braver than I am. They’ll want to come here. And not to learn. Not to explore. I don’t even want to imagine what...”

  “END OF – MESSAGES.”

  “Bastard,” Cornelia hissed under her breath at the robot.

  Well, her man was in some kind of danger, then. But who were these people he feared? What had he done that might draw their attention to him?

  Who am I kidding? Cornelia thought. He’s crazy. He’s obviously crazy. Or on drugs. Or both.

  She played the message back again. And this time, having already listened to the words, she discerned another sound behind them. It lasted only a fraction of a second, and it came right before the tape allocated for his message ran out. Right before he said, “...imagine what...”

  Cornelia played the tape a third time. Leaned so close to the machine that its sound became distorted, but at least she heard that funny little background sound again.

  It was a distant squeal of high-pitched laughter. She guessed. From a child. But...maybe it had been a cat’s drawn-out meow? A pet tropical bird, making an odd sound...trying to form words?

  Monkeys calling...electronic sounding...

  I’m letting his delusions become my delusions, Cornelia thought, disgusted at herself and the gooseflesh she’d raised on her arms. She deleted the message, removed her winter coat, and stepped into the bathroom to pee.

  She put the light on quickly, however – not wanting to see the mirror in the dark.

  The next night there were two messages left on her machine – like letters written by an old friend, a lover called away overseas, brimming with contents that ached to be opened.

  The first message had come in at 11:43. The second at 11:45. Damn, Cornelia thought...damn. Why couldn’t he have called just a little bit later? She would have been home to pick up at last...

  Pick up and what? Tell him he had the wrong number? But then he’d stop calling, wouldn’t he? Not if she asked him what was troubling him so. Not if she asked him if she – unlike his apathetic lover – could help him.

  Cornelia squeezed her wool gloves into a ball, unsqueezed them, squeezed them, like a heart she was manually pumping. You’re losing your mind, she told herself gravely.

  But then her eyes returned to the twin heralds on her table. And she played the first message on the tape.

  The whisper was softer, more intense than ever. It seemed to come through a blizzard of static, to make matters worse. Had he switched to a portable phone with a weak battery? Or was something interfering with the connection?

  “Two of them came through tonight...I pray to God it was only two. I was in the bedroom. I stayed home all day – I don’t dare go to work, to go out at all, with the doorway open like that. I was in the bedroom – ” there was a pause here, and it made Cornelia’s breath solidify in her throat, as if the caller had stopped to listen for something “ – and I heard something like feet pattering in the kitchen. A sound like children giggling. I rushed out...without a weapon, like an idiot...and I saw them duck into the bathroom. It was just a second, just a flash...I’m not sure I could really describe them. But...but they were horrible. Dark purple, like they were – rotting. Their heads were huge, pulpy. Like sacks. Like they didn’t have skulls. And their arms didn’t have bones. They couldn’t have had bones, the way they were moving. They might have been...tentacles...”

  “My God,” Cornelia barely mouthed.

  “I’m sure they’ve been stealing my books...my papers. They’re all gone. All of it. It has to be the Larvae. Carrying it all away – ”

  His sentence was severed. But the tape went on to the next message; this time he had immediately phoned back to continue. Being cut off the first time only seemed to heighten the tone of urgency in his voice.

  “I can’t remember the words to close the doorway! I have most of it, but I can’t remember what sign to put on the second stone. And I can’t remember the fourth utterance of descent! Please...please...I know you’re angry at me...”

  He was almost in tears now. So was Cornelia. She didn’t know why. Did she ache at having to listen to an agonized man go out of his mind? Or did she...believe him, somehow? Poor Cornelia. Always so gullible when it
came to men. But listen to him! Listen to his sincere emotion!

  “...I need your help. I don’t want you to come here – I don’t want you to be in danger, too. But if you remember the things I’m forgetting, please help me! Just this one last time! I beg you, honey, I beg you!”

  There was a distant crash behind his last words. Something knocked over in another room.

  “I have to go!” he hissed.

  “END OF – MESSAGES.”

  No!” Cornelia said loudly, accusingly, to the traitorous, taunting machine. A tear coursed down her cheek. “No!” she sobbed, louder still.

  He might call back yet. Right? It hadn’t been that long ago. If he had called twice in one night, why not again?

  She didn’t check her email. Going online would give a caller the busy signal.

  She drew a bath. Put on a CD. Made a cup of orange flavored tea. A headache was coming on, so she lay back in the tub with a wet face cloth folded over her eyes. But it was like being blindfolded – it was too dark. She didn’t even want to shut her eyes. Not in the bathroom, of all places.

  Her eyes traced suspicious cracks in the plaster of the ceiling she had never taken note of before, then slowly lowered to the corner of the room, just beyond the tub. They scanned sideways, across the toiletries and hair brushes piled atop her toilet tank. Something had crashed to the floor....something in his bathroom. Her eyes returned to the corner. At any moment, she expected to see it yawn open. To feel a frigid breath exhaled from that new opening, like the breath of a dead man. To hear horrible cries deep within the churning mists. To see eyes, perhaps, glinting out at her from between the tendrils of fog. If they even had eyes...

  Even as she finally slipped into bed, at 3:10, she thought he might call her yet. That she would be awakened by the yearning cry of the phone.

  Her sleep went undisturbed, however – except by dreams.

  Just before she’d drifted off last night, Cornelia had decided to stay home from work the next day – to call in sick. This time she’d be here to receive his message when it came...