Stranger Realms

by Jarred Martin

  And looking further down into the fat man he could see the inner workings of roads, a busy market square, a gathering of minuscule specks around an ornate plaza. He saw a river that split the land in two and on it were docks and barges, and everything was intricate, but so alarmingly impossible from his vantage, that when Allen looked away, he was overcome with a sort of vertigo, and collapsed to the floor, unable to steady himself. He had the brief thought, lying on the floor, staring up at the examination table from which he could still see folds of fat dripping over the sides from the obese man, that if he were to somehow fall into that impossible cavity, he would plummet to his death. And from his place on the floor, he could still see the bright light of the sun shining up through the gaping hole in the fat man, and had no doubt in his mind that what the mysterious sun was illuminating was the lost city of Ryuli Schehear.

  And from that yawning aperture that Allen had carved through layers of suet, there issued a haunting chorus of unseen voices, echoing as if in the vast chambers of some long forgotten hall, in a language unheard for thousands of years. The fat man trembled and quaked sending ripples and waves all across his shapeless flesh like a churning ocean beneath a gale. The chorus of chanting grew louder. It was a percussive drone of one, and then two syllables that came pounding like a drum, repeated by a thousand mad voices, all lost in frothing delirium.

  Still lying on the floor, stone in his terror, Allen saw the crest of something unspeakable begin to peek up through the void in the dead man's chest. Rising, and rising still, he could see the beginnings of a hideous crown emerging from pallid flesh, its black spires sharp and twisted as thorns in briar. And emerging still, even more hideous than that wretched crown was the head that bore it. Eyes beneath the wicked headdress blazed like red coals set into a head that lacked the symmetry of human form, with split nostrils like crude knife wounds, and a lipless mouth of ragged teeth that hung open enormous in its hunger. The chanting, like a thunder of drums, roared and the monstrous queen continued to rise, rise from the depths of the dead man. Her shoulders emerged, sprouting massive black wings that unfurled, thin and gossamer and veined like bat's wings. From her chest dangled withered and blackened breasts like fruit left rotting on a vine.

  Chanting pounded like drums of war as the loathsome thing continued its assent into the mortal realm, skin black like oil on a moonless night, glistening like serpent scales. And beneath the appalling Mennon Quam, forcing the sides of the fat man from which it rose to distend and rupture, was a terrace of brilliant limestone on which she stood, gleaming and white, and Allen recognized it as the uppermost portion of the pyramid temple he had seen at the center of Ryuli Schehear. The city was emerging.

  Allen shivered with total and all-consuming horror as he witness the rebirth of the ancient city amid the clamorous, and maddening chanting. The thought of what unholy legions could produce such a sound brought quiet and hot tears from his ever-widening eyes. His terror mounted as the abysmal demon turned her head downward to look at him. The eyes of Mennon Quam blazed red hot, two jewels burning in a pool of tar, as she cast her gaze upon the quivering form of Allen Palin. And all at once that black crowned head turned skyward and issued a hideous screech, mouth agape, wings unfurled and beating, and a greasy vapor of churning black appeared over her demon head.

  To look upon that gyre of swirling black and the incomprehensible things that dwelt in it summoned a instance of near madness in Allen, and he knew that the fog churning at the ceiling would envelope him and the mad beings within would hold him forever in its oily swell.

  And suddenly, amid the clutter of chanting and the demon screeching, and the sound of the dead man's flesh being rent at its seams, there was a new sound. A bold sound, a voice of defiance.

  The door to the examination room flew open, and Allen saw, incredibly, Errol weaver burst through the threshold holding a large and ancient tome open before him. The words that Errol spoke were senseless to Allen, but the booming voice which spoke them, nearly hurled each syllable like mortar shells, was booming and commanding.

  The demon head snapped to hold Errol in its wicked gaze, the book still open, the words continuing to inflict their arcane abuse on her glimmering black form. Mennon Quam let loose another hideous screech, and the gathering cloud of smoke above her whirled and rushed at him. Errol held the pages fast, and never looked up from the ancient scribe he recited, even as the fog of darkness enveloped him in its billowing swells and formless, visages of inhuman things with their mouths wrenched open in eternal madness churned all about him.

  And watching, Allen knew that soon the roiling smoke would devour Errol, and he would be contained in it, forever screaming in lunacy like its captors.

  Even this could not deter Errol, and he bellowed the last of the incantation with an audacious timbre, and the words echoed throughout the operating room, and dominated all the horrible screeching and rhythmic chanting.

  When Mennon Quam next shrieked, atop her ever-growing palace top, it was not a sound of rancor, but one of utter pain. Her great wings stiffened behind her, and her arms spread wide as she cast back her hideous head and wailed, spewing black ichor from her jagged mouth.

  From the void of black smoke, Errol continued to pronounce the incantation, and the air was filled with the dying sounds of the demon.

  Allen watched as a glowing tract of flesh in the center of the demon's chest began to blaze and smolder. White hot fissures appeared in her flesh and crumbled to ash. Allen, in horror and amazement, saw something slide though the demon's chest and tumble to the ground. He looked down at the blackened thing on the floor before him, and recognized it as a very old and withered heart, still beating where it lay.

  Mennon Quam rose up, in a last act of will, wings thrashing furiously, and launched herself at the black void of smoke containing Errol. And as the creature disappeared completely into the fog, Allen heard his friend cry “The heart, Allen. You have to destroy the heart!”

  The heart! Destroy it? But how? He picked up the pulsating thing and searched the room frantically for a means to stop its beating. A scalpel, he thought. Or if only the furnace was lit today he could try and incinerate it. Maybe to dissolve it in acid, but that would take forever, or . . . and then it came to him.

  His hands shook as he looked down at the still beating heart. He knew what he must do. The withered muscles of the organ contracted once more before Allen bought it up to his mouth and sank his teeth into it. The flesh he tore into was wilted and ancient, as bitter as the venom that flowed through each chamber. It was a flavor that made the bile rise in his throat, but still he swallowed. He sank his teeth into her quivering heart again and again, the dark, ink-like ichor staining his face.

  He heard painful and inhuman wailing from the black cloud the demon had dissolved into, and as he neared the end of his abysmal repast, he felt the earth quake with tremendous force. He looked and saw, his mouth still packed with black demon flesh, that it was not the earth that was trembling, but the remains of the fat man, and the city that rose from his scarred and dissected body. The brilliant stone tower was crumbling before his eyes. Great rifts spread like veins and blocks of smooth stone became dust leaving only cracked and craggy shards, soft like chalk, in their wake.

  The scalded howling dissolved into only an echo as Allen swallowed the last bite. The temple's pointed spire crumbled at last, and every speck of its dust landed back in the dead man, and to look down into the open space of his body, it was no longer possible to gaze down at an ancient and impossible city, and now, through all the great depth of him was only ash.

  Allen stood dazed in the silence, arms to his stomach, feeling a churning deep in his bowels, but otherwise unhurt. He looked around. The black fog of screaming specters had evaporated, and Errol Weaver lay on the floor, unconscious and still holding the ancient book to his chest.

  Allen ran to his side and was relieved to find that he was still breathing.

  Errol slowly opened his eyes
, and stared up at Allen. The look they exchanged said more than words ever would. What they had witnessed, what they had just survived, would forever go unspoken between them, as would the knowledge that there were dark and horrible things beyond their world, beyond their comprehension, and those things lay just askew of their quotidian understanding, and now that they had caught the slightest glimpse, they would see it elsewhere until their final days.

  Sometime later, when the two had composed themselves somewhat, Errol smiled at Allen and said, “Let's get out of here. I'll but you a quinoa.”

  “How 'bout a chili burger?” Allen said gravely.

  “You must still think its the end of the world.”

  Allen's hands went to his stomach once more, which was finally starting to settle. “No,” he said, “I'm just starting to see the benefit of eating things that are bad for me.”

  It Speaks to Me

  In the evenings the valley was stained crimson. The sky hung low over the ridged mountains to the North opening a bleeding wound that dripped down and tinted the dust. Dark rows of agave sprang sharp and alien from the harsh soil. They were the only reprieve from the constant red. Somewhere a fox, the twin of the scarlet dawn, ran by with the limp form of a rabbit dangling from its jaws.

  Jacinto Sosa watched the fox with half-lidded eyes. Its muzzle was caked in mud made of blood and earth, and the gray of its chest was stained a deep red. The fox clocked him with its black unknowable stare and disappeared in the crimson haze. Jacinto spat into the dust and felt his pocket for the half stub of cigarillo he'd been saving. He'd like to kill the fox, he thought, for no other reason than to see what a shotgun blast would do to it.

  He poured a shallow glass of mescal and drank and lit the cigarillo, staring at where the fox had passed by. Drops of blood from the rabbit turned black and disappeared into the dirt. He thought about the fox lying on its side, its tongue lolling over its white teeth as it struggled to breathe with a bloody hole in its chest. It died in his mind and there was no accompanying thought, only that image and the vague wish that he'd been holding a gun when it passed by. He kept the fox in the prison of his mind, a place where its life was over because he decided it should be so.

  The sky grew black and he pitched the cigar stub away, following the arc of its burning coal through the darkness. It hit the ground in a burst of sparks.

  Suddenly the sky over him was split in two by a low streak of blinding white, so bright it left a sizzling imprint when Sosa closed his eyes. The streak dissolved to dull orange and finally gray-black as whatever had been trailing it alighted far off in the agave. There was a blunt concussion that made Sosa think of a penny dropped to the bottom of a plastic cup of water, followed by a single flash of dim light before the night resumed its quiet. There was a burnt smell in the air, like he'd been too close to lightning when it struck, as if the atmosphere had been scorched.

  He stood and looked out over the field to where the thing had fallen, but there was only darkness. He had the instinct to go off looking for it, but to do so he would have to go out into the agave, whose leaves were tipped with sharp spines that would have him bleeding from a thousand cuts before he'd gone ten yards. He continued watching, but could only see so far before the horizon curled back like a wave cresting in lightlessness. There was agave, he could see, dimly, in rows of pointed leaves. Overhead the sky was perforated by the light of distant stars, and beyond that, only silence. He realize he'd been holding his breath. His form tensed, as if he were waiting for something, but he did not know for what. In the stillness he was keenly aware of his own sour stink.

  Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard something. He listened, unsure if he heard it again, or if he'd even head it the first time. Perhaps the sound came from his mind. Perhaps the fire in the sky had come from his mind as well. Maybe his mescal was poisoned, improperly distilled.

  But no, there it was again. A rustling from the leaves. He was sure he heard it now. And he heard it again. He was overcome with a chilling sensation all throughout his body. Whatever had come from the sky was in the agave, and it was coming for him.

  The leaves shook and rattled, rising to a crescendo like a vibraslap as it came closer and closer. He froze, scanning the field, and now he could see the thick, spiney leaves shaking as whatever had fallen thorough the sky came rushing toward him. It was moving at an incredible speed through the field, the leaves slapped back and rustled in its wake. He had enough time to reflect that whatever was coming toward him must be fierce, for it did not heed the spines of the plants, before it came shooting out of the edge of the field. What he saw was impossible for him to describe, not because the form it took was so alien that he could not comprehend it, but rather that it moved so quickly through the darkness he was only aware of an ashen blur. He could estimate its size, roughly, which was several inches shorter than himself, but other than that, he did not discern much of its shape. The thing soared across the exposed ground, and as if it had know it would be there, quickly changed course for the direction of a derelict shed near the edge of the field, whose pealing paint had long since been distilled by the climate and rendered colorless gray.

  It was in the shed, had been there for some time now, and still, Jacinto Sosa had not moved. The agave leaves had quieted, the night was silent again. He could see the shed, which had a flimsy latch but no lock for there was little else inside but his coa de jima. A faint glow of pulsing light emanated through the crack of the unlatched door. Light like the flashing bulbs of Christmas trees.

  Fear settled like a cold weight in Sosa's belly. This thing, its speed, the way it had torn through the agave, indifferent to its piercing spines. He did not know what sort of creature could do such things. It had come from the sky, and he thought that it was not from this world. And this was true. This was not the creature's home. This was Jacinto Sosa's home. It was his land. His field. His shed. His livelihood. He quickly decided he could no more abide this creature's presence than he could the hares and gray foxes.

  He took off in the direction of the shed, walking slowly. Though his ire was up, he was cautions of this mysterious intruder. He walked closer toward the shed and the pulsing yellow throb. He was a hundred feet away when a curious thing happened. He felt a strange pressure behind his eyes, a piercing sensation like the headaches that came with a sinus infection. He stepped closer, trying to ignore it. The pain intensified and now his ears were ringing and the pressure had centralized on a spot between his eyes. He was reminded of the headaches he used to get trying to dive to the bottom of a lake, like he could feel the weight of all the lake's water pressing against his skull. He was thirty feet away from the shed, the pain was sharper than agave needles, like a cold, long jagged piece of steel slowly twisted between his eyes. Five more feet and his nose was bleeding. Another step and the pressure threatened to crack his skull like an egg. His mouth was wet with blood pouring out of his nose, dripping down his chin. Another step and the ringing grew louder, his head felt like it was filling with weightless water, swelling like a balloon, the blood shot out of his nostrils in great bursts now, pumping to the beat of his heart.

  And then everything changed. The pulsing light from within the shed, he understood it now, connected to it. There was an umbilical line between him and the light, between his mind and that warm throb of yellow. Another step, and his mind flashed with pictures, words, things he did not understand. It came to him in a wave of varying lengths, symbols and pictographs, numbers. Math. Shapes. They traveled into his mind in the wonderful pulse, and he soon found that the things he was experiencing, the things that were being broadcast into his mind, he did understand them. He knew them. He knew the math, and science, and understood how the creature had arrived, and how it moved and. All the while blood as black as midnight was dribbling down his face. He was twenty feet away from the shed now, and his mind was being enlightened to so many astounding, glorious thoughts. The pressure was enormous, was crushing him, he felt, but he did
n't care. The symbols and words he saw, all he understood how grass grew and what happened to collapsed stars, and could see the neutrons in dog molecules disappear and reappear. He knew. He was aware of light refracting, and the space between atoms. Each step brought new revelations of a hidden world he had never been able to see before. The knowing flowed into him.

  One final step drew him closer, like a moth to a porch light, and then the pressure overcame him. Like a dam bursting, a great clout of black brackish blood jetted out of his nostrils as if worked by bellows on a sinking ship, and he collapsed.

  He woke some time later, arduously struggling to remain conscious, feeling as though the insides of his skull had been scraped raw by an unsharpened tool. The bottom of his face was black with a rind of dried blood that cracked when he moved his mouth. He touched the top of his head gingerly, experiencing a sensation as if it had been overstuffed with cotton padding. He could not remember coming inside the night before.