Unwittingly, I took a stride toward them, my orbs piercing the semi-dark. The skin at either end was pinched.
“What’s inside of them?” asked Rosalyn, still shaken.
I hadn’t noticed that detail until then, but the moment she spoke, I could tell there were shadows within each of the pod-like structures.
Yes, that’s what they were, pods! Why hadn’t I seen that before?
“Are they moving?”
“What?” came my surly response. Moving?
She pointed, coming up to my side, her knees and waist slightly bend so she was poised upon the balls of her feet. The stance made her appear to be leaning toward them. “I saw one of them move a second ago,” she clarified, for my sake, though she didn’t glance my way.
I walked closer, then stopped on a dime, my heart in my throat when her earlier observation proved accurate.
From within one of them pods, something moved.
From my nearer vantage, I was suddenly able to determine what I was looking at. Shocked, nauseated, I inadvertently backed into her. Her arms came about my waist offering and searching for support simultaneously. We remained unmoving, eyes riveted to the shadow in the… pickle? Was that what I was looking at? Was this a giant, pregnant pickle? My mouth went dry. I heard the awful squeaking once more, saw as something humanoid clawed at the pickle-pod from within. It was trying to get out. Lethargically, as if its’ movements were the last ones it would ever have, it scratched at thick fleshiness surrounding it.
I gagged.
Rosalyn buried her face in my back. I could feel her trembling, her hands gripping either bicep from behind, holding on for some kind, any kind, of solace. “Oh dear god, they’re trapped. They’re trapped… they’re trapped… they’re trapped…,” she kept saying, again and again.
My eyes roamed. I tried to figure out how many people? were stuck inside the terrible pods, running the calculations quick in my head. Not sure why, I counted. When I reached somewhere around the number fifty and there were still many more giant-sized pickles to tabulate, I was unable to continue. The ones further away weren’t like those that were nearer Rosalyn and me. These were different. There were no distinct figures within. They were cloudy, murky, as if…
…They had dissolved?
“Oh fuck, we gotta go,” I mumbled to no one in particular. “This isn’t right. This is - .”
I was never able to finish.
My father’s mistress went rigid without warning, her body pressing against the entire length of me. She was so close she could easily speak directly into my ear. “Jerry, look!” she indicated, one of her delicate digits pointing.
I followed the tip of her index finger. At once, I caught sight of a door across the way, light of a much more cheerful sort shining through the cracks. I didn’t care. I didn’t waste time.
“Come on!” I ordered and we ran passed the front row of the enormous pickles and the helpless people trapped within, across the chamber to an identical set of doors we’d come through in our desperation to ditch the spiders. Their rails came down smoothly, they weren’t locked to us.
We went through without a word…
…And strode right into the middle of my bedroom on the second floor of my mother’s house at 1052 Lincoln Drive.
We were standing in the middle of the narrow entryway, the rest of my bedroom angling off toward our right. The fireplace stood along that same wall, where the confines of my domain opened up. My bed stood against the far wall, the doors to my bathroom and the closet I shared with Elijah on the western facing wall, to our left.
I paced deeper into the room, taking note of the nightstands and the matching lamps. My desk was on the other side of the fireplace from the door we’d walked through moments prior. The bedspread, the carpeting – everything was how I left it when I’d got up. My blankets were still thrown asunder, the rumpled sheets below, visible, tangled from my hasty exit when I had heard someone battering down the front door. How long ago had that been? How much time had passed since I’d run downstairs intent on saving my mother? Half an hour? An hour? Two? I had no real concept of time, so much had happened since I had walked through the door that should’ve led me to the root cellar, but had led me somewhere else entirely. It had happened so fast, so many events piled onto one another, packed, squished. There was no way I could fathom time. Not here. Not now.
Rosalyn strode passed me and sat on the bed without preamble, her hands spayed to either side, lightly touching the covers on the bed.
I half-expected some flippant remark, drenched in sexual innuendo, but when none came forth. I made a concerted effort to determine her mood. But it didn’t take long. Her feelings were unmistakable. She was relieved. She was glad to be somewhere, sitting up something, she understood. Sitting there on my bed (me being the boy she’d come onto at my Graduation Party), she was content. There was nothing carnal about her.
I sighed as quietly as I could manage, not wanting my relief to tip her off in any fashion. She was just fine the way she was as far I was concerned.
“You ok?” I asked, deflecting.
She stared up at me, a tired smile barely touching her lips. She nodded.
I nodded back. “Good,” I mouthed.
With an arbitrary saunter, I walked about my room, double-checking everything was in place, reassuring myself all was as it should be. I ended up near my desk, my mini-word processor closed atop its’ surface, a thin layer of what looked like dust having accumulated upon it.
I sucked at my cheek.
This was unusual for me. I was typically fastidious when it came to the care of my electronics. Down to my Walkman, I made they were always clean, their vents clear of any lent that might’ve accrued. I made it a common practice to take care as I plugged and unplugged them, not wanting to bend the tiny connecting prongs, which would render the devices useless. I wasn’t quite obsessive about it, but I was close. I guess you could say, I had a detailed routine about how I cared for my technological gadgets. It was a practice I’ve followed to this very day.
That was why, gazing down at the cover of my word processor, seeing some collected deposit layering the hard plastic exterior, puzzled me. I was certain I had wiped it off before I had gone to bed, and yet…
No, I had wiped it. I remembered then. I had used the age-old washcloth I used to use when I was a kid. It had been my all-purpose rag for years now. Yes! I had wiped it down and placed the rag on the mantle of my fireplace.
I side-stepped, stretching to my fullest height, eyes peering over the very same shelf, and felt instant consternation when I saw it there, folded in fours, precisely where I’d left it.
I circled back to me desk, inspecting the word processor with greater scrutiny. With the lightest touch, I ran a finger over the dust. My brow furled more when, to my surprise, it didn’t feel like dust at all. It was drier, if one could imagine such a thing, and didn’t gather together as dust or lent would when pressure was applied to it. Rather, it flaked.
I bent to get a closer look, my eyes adjusting to the difference in perspective. The moment everything became clear, I knew I wasn’t gazing at dust or lent or fine-layered dirt. It was nothing like any of those substances. The texture was wrong. The composition was incorrect. The very structure behaved differently when compared to things of that nature. This was something else entirely.
I ran my finger across it once more, watching as it flaked some more. As my finger continued, some of it began to stick to my skin before it fell away. It was thin, the same as the diameter of a hair, partially transparent with microscopic ridges and valleys etched throughout. Some tiny bit of recognition tickled my brain. Where had I seen this before? I swiped at the material once more, with a little more force this time around. It was almost a rub, but not quite, but the effect on the chalky stuff was noticeable at once. It didn’t globule like before. No, its’ reaction was much more peculiar. It rolled-up.
I jerked my hand away to peer at the itty-bitty,
burrito-like compound upon the tip of my finger. “I’ve seen this before,” I said aloud, though I was still talking to myself.
“What did you say?” inquired Rosalyn from a few feet away, still upon my bed, having pushed back to the underside of her knees.
I frowned as I looked her way, though not at her directly. I was about to say something sarcastic, but forestalled my tongue. A better thought came to mind. “What do you make of this?” I asked, my hand, index finger extended out toward her.
She came from the bed, bent at the neck. She reeled back a few inches in confusion almost immediately. “Where did you get that?”
“From the cover of my word processor. Why?”
“Why would there be dead skin on top of your word processor?”
“What?” It was squeak, not unlike those emanating from my mouth when my vocal cords constantly betrayed me during the onset of puberty.
“It’s dead skin, Jerry. Why would it be there?”
“Dead skin?” I was so shocked I know I sounded like a complete dweeb, but I couldn’t help it. Dead skin? Are you fucking kidding me?
“Yeah, dead skin,” she answered stepping around me to look at the cover for herself.
I noticed there were similar flakes covering her butt and the back of her legs where they’d met my bed when she sat.
She spoke before I could mention it. “What the hell…?”
The words I’d formulated in my mind blew away like mist. I craned my neck so I could see around her voluptuous frame. “What is it?” I was almost afraid of the answer.
“There’s something underneath the skin… something pink,” she retorted.
I was more bewildered than I’d been a second before. “What are you talking about?” I asked at the same time she reached out to touch the cover. I edged closer.
Her finger pushed toward the hard, dark plastic.
To my dread, the tip of her digit didn’t stop upon reaching the surface. I knew I had been wrong moments ago. It isn’t the unforgiving manmade material I’d been looking at. This unlikely substance was less substantial. It offered some resistance to the pressure she was applying, but not a lot. Her finger dimpled this pink… tissue? Wait, was it flesh? Nearly a quarter of an inch of her finger became obscured as she poked downward.
I think I was about to say something painfully obvious. I’m fairly certain I was, but it wasn’t to be the case.
He screamed then. Like I’d heard earlier, when I’d come from the writhing tentacle-like coils beneath the clothing. I knew it was him the moment I heard the sound. There was no mistaking the shrill wail, the pain, the agony being visited upon him.
But, how? Why? How was any of this possible?
Rosalyn leaped back like she’d been electrocuted. Possibly, she had. She bumped up against me, her firm rear jutting into my pelvis. “Oooh!” she squawked, bringing her hands to her mouth, reeling back onto her heels. If it hadn’t been for our inappropriate closeness, she would’ve fallen onto the floor.
“It’s Lenny,” I supplied unnecessarily.
“I know,” she replied at once.
I frowned, wondering how she’d know that, then cringed, grabbing her by the shoulders and physically moved her arm’s length from me. I didn’t want to think about the things she’d done to my bi-sexual parent. That was the Rosalyn I despised. That was the Rosalyn who’d hurt my family.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I urged, stepping past her when my eyes caught sight of my bed. Where she’d been sitting the dry skin there had rubbed away as well. I gaged when I understood why she’d had it on back of her legs.
She noticed my discomfiture. “What?”
I didn’t answer. My eyes were glued to the pink flesh exposed beneath the twisted bed sheet and comforter on my bed. My father’s newborn flesh was visible there as well, flushed with blood, raw, tender before the onrushing air in the room. It was twitching, shuddering, pulsating with a heartbeat all its’ own. I glanced about, seeing similar patches of withered dermis throughout my bedroom. Lenny’s dead outer membrane was completely surrounding us. We were cocooned in an inverted space made entirely of my father. Yes, it was my father! With every step more skin flaked away, no matter how softly I trod, the soles of my slippers came away with huge swaths of it. The tiniest flecks floated into the air about my knees, some even higher.
Both Rosalyn and I held our breath, repulsed to a near-frenzy at inhaling any of it. I heard her retch more than once. We made it to the door. There were two of them now, like I’d seen countless times in the alley.
I hardly noticed. Holding my father’s mistress’s hand within mine, we plunged through the door, chins at our chests, free hands covering our mouths and noses.
All the while, Lenny’s human dust wafted in the current of our passing.
~~~~~~~<<< ᴥ >>>~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-One: Blending Reality
My head was still facing the ground when the first tinkling sound reached my ears. I cocked my head at its’ oddness. It wasn’t a chime or tonal. It was a heavier sound, flat, but repeated over and over, giving one the impression it was one sound. It wasn’t. It was many blended together.
I gazed from the corner of my eye, but quickly came about to peer at a decent sized mound of coins – all sorts, from every nation, from every time period – thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe a million or two. It was easily fifteen feet high, crammed at the end of this smallish room made of corrugated steel. I could see currency struck of copper, silver and all the alloys in between. There was even some of a golden hue, but whether or not they were authentic, I couldn’t tell from my vantage.
“This isn’t right either,” intoned Rosalyn, ache in her voice for the first time.
I looked over at her, wondering at this unexpected turn when I caught sight of the source of the tinkling. It was coins, dropping from in between her tiny fingers whenever she reached into the throng and pulled forth heaps she couldn’t hope to hold. I felt my heart lurch into my throat, throb against my tonsils. I choked when I tried to speak her name. Tears formed in my eyes before I knew what was happening. How did she get down here? When had she come? Why was she doing this? More thoughts coursed through my brain than I could cognitively process. I was overloaded within seconds, reduced to a frothing mess in the span of a few heartbeats.
“Jerry, don’t look. It’s not real. None of this shit is real,” pleaded Rosalyn.
I felt her tug upon my arm. Her unclean mitt was upon my body, while I stood before the only person, other than the members of my family, I truly loved. How dare her!
“Get off me!” I wrenched free of her grasp, my eyes never leaving Myra, who sat upon the hillock of change, forcing handful after handful into her mouth, chewing, chomping through broken teeth and ruined gums. “Myra!” I was half-scolding, half-calling to her in anguish.
She didn’t look at me. She didn’t stir from her robotic feeding - arms reaching, hands grasping – stuffing evermore into her bruised and lacerated maw.
“Myra! Stop!” I tried once more.
“Jerry, let’s go! She isn’t real! Listen to me! Don’t look!” Rosalyn was adamant. She seized my bicep forcefully, pulling me toward the doors across the way. Doors, I was sure weren’t there a moment before.
I pulled back, but she had me with both hands, her fingers interwoven about the upper portion of my arm.
“Let go!” I commanded, my eyes brimming. I was so angry. I felt it filling me, overflowing, threatening to burst forth. All the pent up rage, the frustration I’d been unable to vent, boiling, spewing, splattering across my brain, making me wild with it.
“I said, let the fuck go of me!” I tugged against her mightily, but she held on like a Pit-bull. She might’ve been a small woman, but she was strong. I couldn’t shake free, though I tugged and dragged her about.
“Goddammit, IT’S NOT REAL!!!” she screeched like a banshee.
Oh, I wanted to hit her. After everything she had done to me and my f
amily, after she’d used my father as her bitch, now that she was keeping me from helping Myra – god, I wanted to fuck her up. I felt my free fist ball. I relished the hate burning in the middle of my chest. I bathed in it, soaked it up, and let it wash away the feelings of doubt, of remorse. I let it consume me. I let it be me. For the first time in my life, just like Lenny, I was going to hit a woman in anger. I let the tension build, my muscles coil and -.
She kissed me then. There was nothing friendly or sisterly about it. She plunged her tongue into my mouth, nails digging painfully into either side of my face, holding me, keeping my immobile. She breathed into me, filling me with the essence of her, muttering into my very core. “It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real,” she prayed into me, unwilling to stop, her lips dancing and warm across mine.
I was stunned. My arms limp at either side, knowing I should be outraged, fully aware my girlfriend was mere feet away, while this succubus was having her way with me. I should’ve shoved her away with every ounce of strength, my mind alight with revulsion, well aware those very same lips had been on my father – his lips, his face, his cock? I should’ve, but I didn’t. I was despondent. I was defeated. There was nothing I could do.
When she broke free, finally, I had no reaction. When she guided me, more gingerly than necessary, toward the doors, I went. All I wanted to do was cry. My anger had seared a hole through my chest. Great hunks of seared flesh blew before the winds of this place like a flag, shredded and tattered before the Gale.
I looked back in time to see Myra fall to the coins. Unconscious I hoped, though she looked dead. I wept then, stumbled after the mystery that was Rosalyn Galtier. I cried like I had, as a baby, in my mother’s arms.
We came through yet another set of doors and found ourselves in the alley once more, the bluish light muted now, shadows abound and slinking from corner to corner as she led me to its’ middle.
The Birth of Bane Page 23
