The Midnight Order

by Christopher Fulbright

  Isaac bowed and turned away. He made his way down the stone corridor, presumably to the other guests’ chambers.

  Adam looked back at Nikki.

  “Well. I guess I’ll be getting dressed.”

  “Or undressed.”

  “A chilly place to be wandering around sans skivvies, I admit. But then”—Adam’s intense gaze met hers and she shivered—“I guess we wouldn’t be here if weren’t committed to the cause.”

  Nikki looked at him. Blinked, then glanced at the wardrobe closet.

  “See you downstairs,” Adam said.

  He turned and left the room.

  * * *

  At 11:30 that night, Adam and Nikki met a middle-aged woman with wispy blonde hair, an older man with a tobacco-stained gray mustache, and one teenaged girl with a pierced, pale face and a tattoo of a Chinese dragon up her neck. The middle-aged woman was introduced as Marie, the older man was Ben, and the teenager’s name was Raven. They nodded at one another as Adam and Nikki were introduced.

  They stood in their dark blue robes in the parlor of the castle. A blazing fire roared in the stone fireplace. Flames shone on the various medieval accoutrements of the room, which was otherwise lit with only a few electric bulbs hanging from brass chandeliers. This seemed to be one of the only rooms in the castle with electricity. Eleanor Masterson smiled during the introductions, bowing to each of them.

  “I applaud each of you for coming,” she said. “It is a difficult choice to face your demons, especially to face them this way, coming here with no more than assurances from your referrers.” Her voice echoed to the high reaches of the room. “It was the distinct pleasure of my great-grandfather almost two hundred years ago to discover the magic that dwelled here on Blackrock Island. He discovered it quite by accident, but once he realized what he had found, he honored it by constructing the great tower at the center of this castle atop the site of what he frankly felt—and what we sincerely believe you will agree—was a miracle in the flesh.” She clasped her hands and smiled kindly, like a grandmother ready to offer the neighborhood kids cookies and milk. “Though none of you pay for this service, you do help us to understand more about the power that dwells here in the chambers below as we help you overcome your difficulties and live more fulfilled lives.

  “I’d like to introduce Dr. Ludwig Falkenstein, a German scientist here to observe and report on the proceedings. He’ll be guiding the procedure, so please welcome him.”

  Nikki didn’t know if the old woman expected them to applaud for the guy or what, but she was set a little ill-at-ease by the whole thing. The others must have felt the same, because none of them said anything. Only the older man nodded his head in greeting.

  Falkenstein spoke English with a German accent.

  “Good evening. I’ll introduce the proceedings by saying that, as long as you follow our directions, everyone should be just fine. Those who’ve emerged from this treatment successfully have gone on—as you all no doubt know—to live fulfilled lives, unburdened by the traumas that brought them here.” The doctor paused to smile and it was unnerving. “The procedure is simple. I only ask that you do exactly as instructed, for the safety of everyone involved.”

  Nikki looked over at Adam, who was staring intently at the scientist.

  “We will proceed down the stairway to the catacombs in single file. There we will pause at a chamber door and await the signal to enter.” Dr. Falkenstein went on. “Each of you will enter the chamber some time apart, at intervals. We will listen closely outside the door and be there to assist immediately if necessary. After the treatment, you will be escorted to your rooms where you will likely feel weary and perhaps slightly ill for the next day or so. Be assured this is completely normal and everyone who has been treated in this fashion experiences much the same thing. We will closely monitor your progress and keep you here only a couple of days before releasing you to return home.”

  The older man with the mustache, Ben, cleared his throat.

  “Do you have a question, sir?”

  “Nope,” Ben said with a thick Texas accent. “Just ready to get on with it.”

  Dr. Falkenstein gave the man a mirthless smile.

  “Each of you has been sent here for help by someone you know, someone who had a similar personal trauma conventional means could not cure. I hope that person has prepared you for what this treatment entails. It may be unpleasant for some of you.” The doctor looked at each of them in turn. When the German scientist met Nikki’s eyes, he paused a bit longer. “You are in no way obligated to carry through with this. Should any of you change your minds, now would be the best time, to avoid disrupting the proceedings after we’ve gone below.”

  None of them said anything. The fire crackled. Eleanor Masterson smiled like an old Stepford wife. At their continued silence denoting assent to the procedure, Falkenstein produced what appeared to be his first genuine smile of the night.

  “Very well,” he said. “Allow me to lead the way.”

  Nikki was closest to the doctor, so when he led the way into the Gothic arched corridor and then opened a door to a stone staircase leading down, she was directly behind him. The doctor pointed the way with a flashlight. Far below, they could see flickering light. Nikki had worn flats and nothing else beneath the robes. She could feel the cold of the stairs through the thin soles. The air of the castle depths chilled her naked body beneath as the robes billowed around her. She felt aroused and had to shut off an unbidden thought of Adam and his nakedness as he walked behind her.

  The staircase curved down to a rough-hewn landing. From there, a narrow corridor went deeper into the earth, leading into catacombs. They stopped in front of a banded wooden door. Torches burned on each side of it.

  “The sensitive nature of what lay beyond this door made using electricity in the walls prohibitive,” Falkenstein explained in answer to their confused looks.

  The cloying smell of dank earth and moldy stone overtook Nikki and combined with her still-vague feelings of nausea. Her head spun a bit and the urge to vomit never quite went away. Cold sweat dampened her forehead. She swallowed hard. She wanted to do this, to get it over with and put an end to her suffering. She knew these withdrawal symptoms would get worse before they got better, so if this meant an end to the suffering, she was damn well ready to do it. Yes, her heart hammered like a war drum and her skin crawled at being this deep beneath the earth in what amounted to a dungeon. But she’d come here for one purpose, and she intended to be free of the hell her life had become.

  But what lay beyond that door?

  At this point, did it matter?

  “You may choose amongst yourselves who will go first.” Falkenstein spoke in a hushed tone, as if afraid to disturb some grim balance. The shadows at the end of the far corridor made her uneasy. . She noticed the others glancing that direction as well. It was as if something crouched just beyond the wall of darkness, watching them. The blackness of the catacomb depths pressed heavily against Nikki, closing her in. She couldn’t stand much longer down here without screaming.

  “I’ll go first,” she said.

  Falkenstein looked her over with a leer, then smiled.

  “Excellent,” he said, and reached forward to open the door.

  6

  Falkenstein lifted the lever and released the latch on the door with a metallic clank. Nikki’s skin crawled as the door opened into the musty shadows. There was light inside, but again, it was the wicked, flickering light of torches too few and far between. The first thing that hit her was the heavy scent of damp leaves, a hint of ocean life and something else, which, if she had to name it, smelled like the rot of old graves. She paused at the threshold to the subterranean room.

  Falkenstein spoke in a whisper. Everyone else stood behind them, dark shapes with blurred faces. She could vaguely make out Adam’s features behind her in the torchlight. For one strange moment, his intense eyes caught the light and flashed red like the eyes of a cat. She looked away and focus
ed on the expanse within. The long walkway that stretched before her seemed to open up around a long, curved corner. There was a source of odd light beyond those reaches.

  She took a step that direction, thinking, This worked for Deana and she wouldn’t steer me wrong.

  She paused.

  Falkenstein partially closed the door, waiting for her to advance before letting the next person in behind her. He seemed nervous, fearful of stepping completely inside. When he encouraged her to go forward, it was in an urgent whisper. “Just keep going, no sudden moves. When you reach the corner, turn slowly to your left and stand still.”

  Nikki looked back at him and felt a surge of anger, but was too damned sick to make anything of it.

  She walked the stone pathway toward the wide-open expanse on the other side of the curve.

  She glanced back. She’d gone far enough that she couldn’t see Falkenstein and the others.

  She was alone in here.

  With something that smelled like fish and graves.

  Nikki walked, her heart making a hollow drum of her chest. She crept around the corner and looked at what emitted the strange light.

  To her left, as she came into the open expanse, was a stone chamber perhaps thirty feet wide. What covered the floor of the chamber was a series of thick, ropy vines that were gray and fleshy, more like some sea creature’s tentacles than plant-like appendages. Even so, gray and blue-green leaves grew from the vines. The mass of slightly curled and throbbing cords emanated from a central tangle of roots, its tendrils reaching every direction.

  Strangest of all was the nature of the plant’s blossoms.

  Every two feet or so along the vines were bulbous pods of various sizes—some of them were as large as basketballs, others the size of softballs. All of them pulsed with lives of their own. It was clear that the strange light she’d witnessed from around the corner originated from these lambent pods. Each one ebbed with a unique color—yellow, orange, purple, red or green. Together, the pods emitted an eldritch luminescence that hovered above the tangled growth like a garish neon glow.

  No sooner did Nikki begin to understand what she was seeing, than her understanding was immediately challenged. In her presence, the vines began to stir.

  A small, snake-like tentacle that looked new and thin compared to the others, shot out from beneath the thick growth.

  It came directly for her.

  Nikki gasped. She backed away, eyes growing wide.

  The wet, meaty vine lashed around her bare ankle. She choked on a scream as its cool flesh slithered around her ankle and she tried to catch her breath, tried to breathe or scream or make sense of what she was seeing now.

  More of them came for her.

  Two, three, four of the thin vines shot from beneath the growth through the gloom of the stone chamber like eels in ocean depths. They grabbed her, slithered up her ankles, coiled around her calves, gripped her thighs and wrapped snug against the cusp of her pubic mound.

  Nikki gasped. Six or seven of the tentacles—she lost count, and as soon as she realized what was really happening, she was overcome with a light-headed, dizzy feeling—wrapped around her lower torso, and one of them even traveled a little farther up, the end of its vine probing her nipples as if to suckle them with squid-like sucker-mouths.

  She managed a gurgling scream as she felt them throb, like surging hoses full of warm fluids, secreting stickiness and slithering its profane appendages all over her body. A strange euphoria surged through her. A lightness of being swept her away as she felt herself lifted from the floor. Nikki floated, suspended by the appendages, bathed in that supernatural glow as the vines tightly massaged and caressed her naked body beneath the robes in a slick tangle.

  Nikki’s head lolled to the side, her hair falling loose. The feeling in her head now was a lot like a drug, but a clean drug, one that provided a numbness of physical sensation and complete emotional detachment with none of the ill effects. The ropy feeler between her legs pressed against her vulva and pushed inside, palpitating. She gasped.

  Vaguely, in her drugged, half-euphoric state, she was aware of a new pod growing on the thickest vine attached to her. The pod started like a small egg-sac, and then its membranous skin stretched from the size of a marble, to that of a baseball, and finally swelled to the size of a basketball over an interminable period of time. As it grew, the sac began to glow with an internal blue light, growing bright like the others that existed across the expanse of the living thing.

  The new sac glowed deep blue. Then it pulsed.

  As it did so, Nikki felt some internal part of herself come unhinged. Something broke away inside of her. It was the only way she would later be able to describe it. It felt very much like something heavy but intangible broke away from her inner being and flowed out of her through those vines, to ultimately live in the glowing membranous pod before her.

  No sooner did she experience this sensation than the tentacles retracted, setting her back down on the floor and releasing her. They slid away, and the blue pod of her making was dragged back into the root-like entanglement where it nested with others of various colors, illuminating the room.

  When the last feeler slid from her body, Nikki fell backward. She was reeling but not sick. A little dizzy.

  She lost her balance.

  There were arms behind her to catch her. She recognized the doctor and Isaac, dragging her from the room.

  Her head was spinning. A heavy, unremitting lethargy overtook her. She tried to speak to the others as she went by. Their figures in the torch-lit expanse seemed elongated, like black phantoms hovering above her, swaying, enwrapped in their own experiences with the thing…

  “Take her to her chambers,” she heard Falkenstein say.

  She was helped up the stairs by Isaac and someone else, a younger man she didn’t recognize. They ascended the curved staircase.

  Just as they reached the upper level of Masterson Castle, the last thing she thought she heard before drifting into semi-unconsciousness was the furious roar of an angry tiger echoing up from the chambers they’d left behind.

  Nikki turned to her bearers, but she could not voice the question. They lifted her feet and arms up onto the canopied bed. She could only collapse on her mattress. As soon as she was prone, her mind drifted deep into unconsciousness.

  The last memory she had before slipping into black sleep was the sound of another roar, distant and full of rage.

  7

  Nikki stirred and awoke. She had no memory of dreams, just a sense that she had slept like the dead. She came out of the fog with a peculiar lucidity. Certainly nothing she would have expected after such a deep sleep.

  What the hell happened to me?

  She blinked her eyes. The two lanterns in her room were turned low. For a moment she didn’t remember where she was. The stone walls, ornate wooden furniture, and antique vanity seemed alien, out of place. When she looked down at the long blue robes that adorned her, everything came back to her and gooseflesh rose over her skin in revulsion. There was a tacky residue on her skin where the feelers had groped her. She remembered the things had entered her, and the memory gave birth to a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sad fact of the matter was, she’d seen a lot of traffic in that particular area, but nothing as revolting as that.

  Nikki sat up on the edge of the bed. Her robe caught and pulled up around her legs. The cool air in her chamber caressed her legs. Normally, the mere act of being naked would have aroused her, put her in the mood, but now she felt uneasy. Violated. But also…different. But she couldn’t say exactly how.

  As memories of her experience in the chamber beneath the castle came back to her, she swallowed bile to keep from retching. Standing, she padded barefoot across the cold stone of the floor, and then shed her robes. They fell around her feet in a heavy pile. She stood before the dry sink and used the big bowl of water and most of the towels to wipe herself down, removing as much vestigial evidence of the slimy encounter fr
om her skin. She inspected herself. There were neither marks nor signs of its grueling touch. An image of the glowing blue pod that had grown before her came suddenly to mind.

  That was when she realized, for the first time since she’d come here, she didn’t want a drink. She wasn’t feeling any more of the physiological symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, and she wasn’t insanely obsessed with thoughts of Adam Ross’s cock deep inside her, which she had to admit she’d been thinking about on some level ever since they’d met on the ferry.

  Did it work?

  Nikki looked at herself in the mirror. Her visage stared back: the naked form of a woman who’d spent all of her adult life in porn, a sex addict and an alcoholic who never adequately dealt with her father’s repeated rapings when she was a little girl…all that and here she was. The great Nikki Lane. Long and lovely, deep and scarred.

  She didn’t know what she felt, other than a little off center. There was certainly a hollow sense inside of her, a lightness she’d never quite felt before. She guessed only time would tell if the…thing had done anything for her.

  Adam.

  Nikki recalled the roar she’d heard as she’d been brought up to her room. Had that been real? Imagined? Some kind of strange aftereffect of the “treatment”?

  “That would be odd,” she muttered to herself. And it was. Because she was pretty sure that sound she’d heard, not once but twice, had been the distinct roar of a tiger or some other kind of large jungle cat.

  Her throat was parched. Her clothes needed washing and she longed for a real bath, not just a toweling off at the dry sink. Nikki decided to get dressed and go downstairs. As much to get something to drink and ask after her needs as to ask around about the others…and the roar.

  As she emerged into the parlor, everyone stopped talking.

  Dr. Falkenstein was standing next to a man near the fire. Nikki hadn’t seen the man before. Or, at least, she didn’t think so. The tall man with whom the doctor spoke was in a long coat, gloves, a scarf and a hat pulled low, completely concealing his features. He turned away as she entered. Isaac sat in a chair across the room from a young man who gripped the armrests of his chair when he saw her come in. He gasped at her appearance and looked at Miss Masterson.