Cassia inched closer to the middle of the hallway and let out a gutteral yelp. His deformed mouth opened as wide as it would go, and every inch of me seemed to remember the endless feedings. My senses remembered exactly how his mealy flesh had felt, and how spongy his lips felt with a spoon gently delivering him his soup. It was possible and probable that I would never again experience that sensation, and that this was his ride come to fetch him to his true home.
Looking down at my arms, my very skin oozed and melted away from me. Drooping stringlets of colored flesh, blood and nerve wavered in the whirlwind. The shape reminded me very much of dripping candle wax, although the source was my own body.
And where would the flame be, and how could I extinguish it? What else would the following moments have waiting for me?
And there was Nils standing in the doorway, drenched and holding a soaking wet book.
This material world brings no relief from death.
It is a sad world where we spread our amber spotlights only for the monstrous, to gaze upon the unfamiliar flesh. Monsters are the normal – man is cold and heartless. We become rich so we can tune it all out.
My precious . . .
Wish Baby . . .
Cassia stood and I immediately could see something was different with him. The yellow shade I’d grown so used to darkened. He’s burning, I thought. But Cassia stood and for the first time before me, stretched out his arms. The skin between his arms and body appeared connected. As he raised his arms toward the storm, the wrinkled folds spread out. He turned to look at me, which was a miracle, as he could hardly have moved his own head before.
Meanwhile each and every movement I attempted felt more and more labored. All my strength faded. The sun robbed me of it!
Our fractured existence . . .
Xeroderma pigmentosum. The enzymes in my skin can’t fix the damage done to my DNA by ultraviolet light. That’s the way the doctors put things. Photosensitivity. Like Gigi. Like Cassia.
Spotty red bumps erupt on the tops of my arms and hands. My body will always wear the scars. My skin will always tell my story. If it doesn’t dry and burn and turn to ash.
Persistant Light Reactivity.
I have to react. I cannot change things, despite trying, despite wishing, despite believing every positive thing possible. Nope. The blisters rise in the sun, the rays toxic to the proteins in my epidermis.
The world turned dark. People changed. Everywhere around me, screaming and hollering echoed. Loud music bumped through my walls. Selfishness and arrogance are worn on people as if they were courageous. Their smug smiles, and quick-witted use of put-owns and insults for every interaction made me wonder if we’ve always been this way.
What would the world be known for, now? What would it be? What could it be?
Broad spectrum light testing. Mommy brought me in for this, where they took small little swatches of light on the tops of my hands to see what my body would do. It did the same thing then as it did now. Blistered. Burned. Itched and hurt. And I think of how the two moments are connected. First I had no choice but to go to the doctor with Mommy and see what caused my pain. Now, nobody’s idea but my own. No one to blame. Should know better. Should think twice, think things through. Can’t. Not always. Not usually. Hardly ever.
Our fractured existence inherited through generations of manipulated abuses within our family. All of it adds toward madness. Every willing moment.
Through our opened roof overflowing with sunlight, as my skin spotted, Cassia carried me, towards the light, unafraid, willing, changing, and new. His body strengthed, born again in the bright rays as much as my own was weakened. I swear it took all the strength I had to just keep my eyes open. I looked up to Cassia, who smiled down at me. The gaunt, tired face I’d grown so used to was now changed. The dealthy pale blue eyes had brightened. His thin lips were full, his features extraordinary. His arms felt strong and firm as he carried me. I knew I was now becoming the very thing Cassia once was to me – something that would need tending, something that would need constant care. Maybe, I thought, wherever we’re going, he may be able to cure me.
Where will the light catch?
On rays of floating yellow beams.
In dreams of cloudy panes we watch . . .
Syrupy things drip down off me from around and on top.
My eyes wide open.
A willing heart to let it all happen. My new beginning.
The thing that fell from the sky . . .
I will return.
I will go back.
John Palisano is well known to readers of Horror Library, Darkness On The Edge, Phobophobia, Harvest Hill, Halloween Spirits, The Beast Within, the Bram Stoker nominated Midnight Walk, and many other dark publications. NERVES, his debut novel from Bad Moon Books, is now available. You can visit him at http://www.johnpalisano.com where you can learn about the writer and his upcoming projects.
If you liked John’s story, check out his debut novel, NERVES
Story Illustration by Nick Gucker.
Return to Table of Contents
That Old Problem
by T.E. Grau
THE EASTERN CALIFORNIA DESERT spread out like a dingy, discarded quilt, moth eaten by scrub brush and creosote and pocked with blackened cigarette burns of jutting rock. Nothing lived here willingly, and those denizens who called it home were waiting out a probation of blood and paranoia.
A single stretch of gray slashed through the endless sweep of biscuit beige. More of an access road than the highway it promised, it connected the arid hinterlands and those who called it home with the rest of civilized society huddled on the coast who chose to forget about places like this.
Few cars ventured here, especially during daylight hours, when the local meth cooks laid low, glaring at tiny trailer windows and praying for night, and all the upstanding citizens were already sitting down where they needed to be. It was a static, empty line of concrete, populated by a single crow feeding on a squashed lizard stupid enough to cross the road when a minivan full of lost vacationers happened to careen down this uncharted bit of hidden America, on their way to Walt’s Dream just a few more hours to the west. The bird, so shiny and black it looked like it was covered in crude, pecked viciously in between imperious posturing, digging deep into the guts of its fallen ancestor.
Up on the rise, through the shimmering ribbons of heat, a lone traveler strode up the center of the highway, his blue snakeskin cowboy boots balancing on the broken yellow line. He was young and strangely handsome, with long flowing black hair, like Hollywood’s version of a hippie rock star, wearing a white linen shirt open to the waist, hanging over snugly fitted jeans. An iPod peeked out from his pocket, cranking Bluegrass at the end of electronic tendrils buried in his ears. This was a man who strolled with the fluid, loose-limbed swagger of someone firmly on a path gilded by his own design. As he walked, he raised his designer sunglasses and stared affectionately at the sun without a squint of his large, dark eyes, not noticing as he stepped on the squashed lizard, squirting putrid fluids onto the dirty sand. The crow squawked and fluttered in protest. The man just winked up at the burning orb in the sky, replaced his shades and sauntered on, leaving tight, greasy footprints on the pavement behind him.
Up ahead, a desert diner promised “Good Eats” on a rusted tin sign shot through by bullet holes. A muddy pickup truck with out of state plates was parked in front. A mangy dog sniffed the tires, raised a leg, and pissed a few sad, short bursts onto the scarred rubber.
A shadow loomed over the dog. The mutt looked up, just as a rusted crowbar crushed its narrow skull, braining the canine before it could drop to the dust. A blue boot kicked the dead dog aside, and it came to rest under a halo of blood, bone, and sticky gray sprayed on the sidewalls of the truck tires. Fur wafted in the air like a puff of splintered spider webs as the dripping crowbar clanged to the ground.
The front door opened with the off-key tinkling of a dented bell, sounding more somber than in
viting. The long haired man stood just inside the doorway, sizing up the mostly deserted establishment. A few dead eyed locals sat over their black coffee and stained plates, munching on toast as they watched the sputtering television fizzing through the local news. The newly arrived man nodded. “Ambiance,” he said with a smile.
A thick framed waitress, sporting a cheap beehive wig sprayed an odd shade of purple, was smacking the side of the TV as she turned to the new arrival. “What can I do you for?” she asked in that tired, put-upon way of all rural diner waitresses.
The long haired man ignored her, and settled his gaze at the back of the diner, where a man with a shaved head, clad in a simple, cream colored suit, sat upright in his booth, facing the back wall.
The long haired man grinned, and dramatically snuck up behind the sitting man, holding out his hands and raising his knees like he was a masked spook in a Scooby Doo cartoon.
“Stop being stupid,” the bald man said. The long haired man stopped his stealthy approach. “You always ruin everything,” he sighed.
The long haired man collapsed into the booth like a glum teenager while the bald man fiddled with a handful of Sweet ‘n Low packets, constructing an intricate, perfectly geometric structure of the pliant pink squares that towered several feet above the table. The bald man’s face was smooth and hairless, without a shadow of whiskers, or even eyebrows, making his age hard to determine. But his large eyes were infinitely wise and measureless, like two marbles carved from the black, starless void between galaxies.
“Always early,” the long haired man said, watching the bald man closely, unable to hide a glint of poorly repressed adoration. His foot tapped anxiously under the table.
“Always late,” the bald man said, neither perturbed nor surprised, without looking at his companion across the table, too absorbed in his delicate task. The long haired man frowned, then banged the table with his hand. The pink spire crumbled into a heap.
The bald man paid this no mind as he held up a packet, looking at it with a sense of horrified wonder. “Why do they keep CREATING things?” The man ripped open the Sweet ‘n Low and poured out the contents onto the pitted table top, next to the word “Sluts!” carved into the formica. He stared at the white, unnatural powder. “Isn’t sugar enough?”
The long haired man chuckled ruefully. “What’s that saying about creating a monster?” He picked up a menu and glanced over it, noting the ‘Special of the Day!’ – a large, unrecognizable slab of meat, drowning in something called “American gravy”. “You’re paying, right?” the long haired man inquired, casually scratching the side of his face.
“When haven’t I?”
“You’ve got yourself a point there, pops.”
They both scanned the menus sightlessly, neither man seeming hungry, using the laminated paper more as a prop.
“So, what now?” the long haired man asked.
“So what now indeed,” the bald man repeated rhetorically, his mind elsewhere.
The harsh florescent lights buzzed above them.
“Motherfucker!” the long haired man snarled, tossing the menu across the room, where it landed at the foot of the approaching waitress carrying a pot of coffee. She stopped and turned back around. “I’ll give you two a little more time.”
The long haired man fumed. “Why did you call me here? I was busy.”
The bald man raised what would have been an eyebrow, but said nothing. The long haired man sat back and sighed in resignation. “What’s this all about?” he said, almost whining.
“It’s about that old problem.”
The long haired man took a second to process the proclamation, then sat bolt upright, taking a drink of water with a shaky hand. “The… old problem?” he wheezed, trying to find his voice.
“Yes,” the bald man said, looking up at a centipede as it scuttled across the ceiling. The man smiled, remembering.
The long haired man’s eyes bugged out of his head, a thousand thoughts and possibilities rushing through his brain.
The waitress again approached, and poured them each a cup of coffee. “You two ready?” The long haired man ignored her, lost in his internal meltdown. The bald man looked at her warmly and patted her on the hand. “Not quite yet, child.” The woman tensed up at his touch, but his tone and gaze put her instantly at ease. She smiled. He smiled back at her. “Not quite yet,” he repeated, a bit sadly. Her eyes dilated. “Okay,” she said simply, as if awakening from a dream. She turned and walked away, her ruined arches stepping lighter, humming a child’s song to herself.
The long haired man leaned forward, his voice a low hiss. “What are we going to do about it, then? How are we going to…” He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his fist.
The bald man looked at the man across from him. “How are things with you? With all of you?”
The long haired man threw up his arms in frustration, struggling to control himself. “Fine… The same… You know… The same. It’s always the same.”
“Yes, it is. It’s how I wanted it… I miss you. All of you.”
The long haired man looked down at his hands, clenching and unclenching. “We—“ he began, before stopping himself. “Don’t DO this!” he yelled, drawing eyes from the front. “Don’t act so causal about this. You always do this, and it drives me fucking nuts.”
“How should I act? I knew this was coming. You knew this was coming.”
The man seemed on the verge of tears that didn’t come. That never would. Not anymore. “Why did you even make me? Why would you bring me into this kind of world?”
“There was a void, just like before I arrived. They left it empty, you know. Wasted, hollow… And when I came here, when I found it, I wanted to fill it back up. It’s the way of things.”
“It’s YOUR way of things.”
The bald man shrugged.
“You do so abhor a vacuum,” the long haired man said with grim bemusement.
“I was lonely.”
“And so you filled it with… this?” He gestured around him. “With us? With THEM?” The long haired man looked over at a blobby local stitched into a sweat stained t-shirt, fixing him with a seething glare. The local got up abruptly and waddled out the diner, the battered bell tinkling sadly.
“You made your choice,” the bald man said. “It didn’t need to be like this.”
“I’m a product of my environment,” the long haired man sneered. “I can’t say the same for you.”
“Every yin needs a yang,” the bald man said.
“You’re a sadist. You’re worse than a sadist.”
“I’m the best and the worst of all my children. And thanks to you, we have a measuring point on one end.”
“I just did what I was born to do. You knew what was going to happen.”
“Did I?” the bald man asked, mostly of himself. He genuinely didn’t seem to know the answer. “I don’t think that I did. Not back then, anyway. You were always so full of surprises.”
The long haired man clenched his jaw, grinding molars. “Can we NOT go over this again? Can we talk about what’s coming? Please!”
“Yes, we can.” The bald man said, but didn’t continue.
“So, do you have a plan?”
“Of course I do,” the bald man snapped indignantly, showing rare emotion. “Don’t I always? Why else would you be here?”
“Well, that’s some positive news,” the long haired man sighed, relaxing a little. He looked around and took a sip of coffee, instantly grimacing. “At least we’re meeting above water this time.”
The bald man leaned forward, arranging the pink packets into shapes. “My plan is that we do nothing.”
The long haired man choked on his coffee. “Nothing? What are you talking about? You know what ‘doing nothing’ means, yes?”
The bald man just looked out the grimy diner window, at the clouds that seemed to be moving too quickly above the spent brown earth.
“It means oblivion,” the long
haired man said quietly, his voice haunted. “Nothingness.”
“I know,” the bald man said dreamily. “Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”
“NO!” the long haired man cried, as the dented bell marked the exit of the last of the patrons. Even the waitress had disappeared. The place was empty, save for the two men sitting across from each other. There wasn’t room for anyone else inside. “It sounds horrifying!” the long haired man continued, worked up. “It sounds like the end. I don’t want the end. I want to keep going. I’ve fought too hard to get where I am to whimper away to nothing. I won’t let it end.”
“You can’t do it alone. I can’t either. So why try?”
The long haired man sat back, stunned. “Wow, look who’s a quitter.”
“It’s not about quitting. It’s about ending. Everything must end.”
“Not everything. THEY don’t end.”
“We’re not supposed to either, but… They have other plans for that.”
“Then let’s not! Let’s stand together and fight! We have power. You know we do. We can do great and terrible things. We can do these things to THEM.”
“I’m tired,” the bald man said, absently swirling the white sweetener into a spiral pattern on the table with his fingertips. “No, that’s not the right word…” He looked up at the ceiling, looking for the centipede, but only found cracked tiles and water damage. “I’m bored. Yes, that’s it… I’m bored.”
“Death isn’t the cure for boredom.”
“It’s the cure for many things.”
“It’s not fair to us. To them. To everything here.”
“What is fair, really?”
The long haired man sat back, narrowing his eyes, as if trying to see something very far away. “I think you’re scared.”
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2012 Page 13
