by Mark Tufo
At some point, he’d received a deep puncture wound in his side, though he did not remember when or how he’d received it. He knew if he didn’t get the blood flow to stop soon he would be in trouble, but right now that wasn’t even on his to-do list. His gate demons were fighting with unmatched and unbridled fury, but the enemy’s numbers were too great. Every one of his demons were engaged with a dozen or more Polions and the odds got no better though the demons were killing at a ten-to-one ratio. Twenty minutes into the battle and his troops had been halved. They would have been completely slaughtered had not the Polions realized that their ultimate goal, passing through the gate, was at hand. They flooded through rather than to keep engaging, there was no way to stop them.
“Stay with them!” Stonemar shouted as his beleaguered army tried to collect itself. Most that were still alive were wounded in some manner. Stonemar himself collapsed after only two steps. He awoke hours later in a cave. Orderg was looking over him.
“Where am I?” Stonemar asked in a grunting manner as he attempted to move.
“The caves of Debriss.”
“We are on the wrong side of the gate Orderg!” Stonemar said in alarm.
“We are. I do not know if this is the escape you sought, but we are out now. Most likely no one will attempt to find us; we will be considered among the many dead. Identification will be impossible; there was so much…detritus…on the ground and all is in such disrepair.”
“We do not belong here, Orderg.”
“You do not belong back there, Stonemar. What do you think will happen to the commander who allowed a breach of such magnitude?”
“It is my responsibility to accept the punishment I have earned.”
“By ancient custom, I have saved your life; therefore, it is now my responsibility to keep you alive. I will not allow you to return. There is nothing anyone could have done to prevent them from getting through. They must have been amassing for a great many years to have had those numbers. How does something so disgusting manage to mate, anyway?”
“You forget they are blind,” he laughed and winced at the pain.
“What do we do now, Stonemar?” Orderg had stood and was looking out the opening to the cave.
“I do not know, but I have no doubt we will find out soon enough.”
Chapter 10
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 8
From the bottomless nothing, pain reasserted itself until it was that nothingness. Pain was all— absolute, unyielding, immense, unforgiving, unrelenting, burning, shooting stabs of it. Everything that I was, or would become, was gone. I had no point of reference beyond the indeterminable suffering; there was nothing else to know. Horrible decades sped by in those moments, forever etching the hell into me.
“Mr. T…Mr. T, can you hear me?” A voice passed in and out of my elusive hallucinations as pain endured so deep, every atom of my being screamed in protest. More years, decades, eons dragged on; meanwhile some incessant buzzing in my ear would not go away no matter how much I tried to rest. Imperceptibly, the pain was becoming tamed. It still drew a massive amount of my attention, but at least now I could think; I had “self” again. I was more than the agony.
“Are all humans so weak and spongy?” I recognized the voice even if I didn’t have the energy to attempt to put a face on it. I passed out, this time from the exhaustion and exertion of dealing with the pain, not because of the pain itself, that had become a victory of sorts. When I awoke, I had a tingling all over my body as if I’d been scrubbed clean with a Brillo pad. Just as I was scanning myself for the dregs of the agony I’d suffered, I was startled to reality by a pinching pain I knew all too well.
“Fuck, Linnick! That hurts!”
“Tomas! He is awake!” she shouted.
I tried to move but I was stiff, like I’d been wrapped in Saran Wrap then covered in Elmer’s glue and left in the microwave too long, stiff. I mean, not that I’d ever tried anything like that, I’m just trying to draw helpful comparisons. I somehow managed to swivel my entire body; I saw Goober motoring through what looked like his sixth box of Pop-Tarts, if the discarded wrappings were any indication.
“You…” was all I could think to say to the creature that had eaten me and then, what? Decided I didn’t taste so good and spit me back up? This coming from a creature that enjoyed eating foil packets.
“He is how we got through the gate,” Linnick explained. “We would have been detected if we had not been dissolved.”
“Dissolved? What the fuck are you talking about?” I was rapidly moving back to panic mode again.
“Tomas told me that Sludgenous have the ability to liquefy, then re-solidify objects. Mainly they do this with food so that they can enjoy digesting it twice, but they’re also handy for transporting large items. Something happens in the liquefying process that renders the parts much less dense than the sum.”
“I was a liquid?” This was not going to be easily gotten over.
“An unfortunate part of the reunification process is extreme pain.”
“You think?”
“Though some seem to tolerate it better than others,” she smiled.
“Well, there’s more of me to feel pain. You need to look away for a moment.”
“Why?” She seemed suspicious.
I couldn’t tell her that I needed to check my junk, but clearly, I had to. What would I do if I looked down my pants and there was a drooped over jello-mold gone wrong in place of my beloved manhood?
“Oh, Tomas said you might want to check on your sexual organs. I looked; everything seems to be in place.”
“Well fuck. This day just keeps getting better and better. And how would you know what human reproductive stuff is supposed to look like?”
“One cylindrical component and three spheres, correct?”
“What the fuck?” I scrambled to undo my fly not giving a shit who got to witness me in all my perceived glory.
Linnick, the little shit, was rolling on her back laughing. Like, holding her stomach laughing. “Tomas told me to say that! I did not believe I would get the reaction he promised!”
“Yeah, that’s wicked funny.” I drove a hand around, did a precursory check…all seemed in order. For some reason, I looked over to Goober; he appeared to be smiling as well. I don’t know what it is about end-of-days type scenarios, but I seem to spend an awful lot of time checking to make sure my tackle equipment is in serviceable condition. I’ll bring that up with my therapist the next time I schedule an appointment. Gotta be some sort of Freudian issue; lord knows I did enough cocaine in my day to think like him.
“Where is Tommy?” I asked, moving my arms around slowly, stretching the skin ever so slightly.
“He was leaving just as you were waking. He said he would be back soon.”
“Is Eliza here?” I asked with caution. Just saying the name seemed to burn as it rolled across my tongue. She had been evil, but I had faced many evils since and she was but one more, and a moderate one at that.
“There were no others.”
“Is there any food? I think what little was in my belly our blobby friend over there liberated as cab fare. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so hungry.”
Linnick pointed to a rock; I saw another box of the breakfast pastry. I don’t know if Goober had other supernatural powers, but he was at my side before I could even rip the top off the box. He was peering over my shoulder.
“What? I wasn’t enough?” I asked him.
“Foood.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” I threw two of the three packets over my shoulder where he scooped them up like an all-star center fielder. I had thought that would give me enough time to at least stuff one of them into my mouth. I don’t know who I was kidding. I couldn’t even rip the foil before he was once again looking down at me, and what was worse was the green, goopy thing I’m hoping was his tongue that was hanging past my face and not so subtly heading for the packet. As soon as the yellowish saliva made contact with the
foil I lost my appetite and just let Goober have it.
Linnick was mowing through what looked like a stack of cricket legs; she was eating them like I would have a bowl of chicken wings slathered in barbecue sauce. I almost envied her meal—almost; it was still bug legs as far as I could tell. Goober looked her way when he finished with the last Pop-Tart.
“No!” Linnick shouted and the brute turned away.
“Really? That’s all I needed to say? Dammit.” I longed for that stupid pastry. Only for a minute, though. Goober had a horrible habit of playing with his food. He would regurgitate it, reform it, and then eat it again. It was as disgusting as it sounds. It would come out covered in his goo, and most times it would be in different shapes. Once it was just a jumbled ball of material like he’d formed it with his hands then slathered it in a thick saliva frosting.
“Could that have happened to us?” I shuddered as I asked Linnick.
She shrugged her shoulders, a cricket leg sticking out of her mouth.
“That’s fucking gross, too,” I told her as she chomped it down, she was feeding it in like a thick branch into a wood chipper.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she slurped.
“I’ll risk it.” I sat down, doing my best to forget about the mind blistering pain I’d just experienced and to try and ignore the hunger that was clawing at my belly, even though it felt like a rat boring a hole into my soft internal organs to get a bite. It was maybe an hour later when I heard a noise approaching. I stood and grabbed my hand axe, surprised that through it all, I still had it. Linnick had outstretched her arms. I picked her up and placed her in my pocket. Goober didn’t care, he was on his seventh or eighth time through the ball of Pop-Tarts.
“Mr. T,” Tommy said as he walked up.
I lost it, emotionally. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’ve physically lost more than any man should in his lifetime—and to once, just one fucking time get something back, was apparently more than I could deal with. That I was on some level of hell, that I was starving, that I’d just been puked up or shit out by some monster, all of it forgotten. I took two strides and grabbed the boy, hugged him as tight as I could. I realize I was supposed to be the adult in this relationship, but I was sobbing on his collar. It took me a moment to figure out he was doing the same.
“I didn’t think you would come,” he said after a while.
“How could I not?” I was wiping my eyes and nose.
“It’s not like I asked you to visit me in California.”
“That, I wouldn’t have done. I can’t stand earthquakes.” We both laughed at that.
“I’ve met Linnick. Only you, Mr. T, could find a friend down here.”
“What are you talking about? You have Goober,” I replied.
“Goober?” He cocked his head until I pointed. “Oh, that’s Bill.”
“Bill? Bill’s his name? Get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Did you know about the pain involved in getting a ride from Bill?”
“Not firsthand, but I’ve heard about it.”
“The next time you have an idea like that, maybe don’t.”
“It was the only way. The upper demons use creatures like Bill all the time for smuggling things past the gate.”
“What? There are rules down here, too?”
“There’re rules everywhere. The funny thing is that the gate demons know the Sludgenous are carrying illegal things across, but they’ve been told that under no circumstances are they to stop them.”
“What the hell is the point of the guards then?” I asked.
“Only upper demons are allowed to use Bill’s kind.”
“Wow. Surprisingly similar to our plane. Only the powerful feel free to break the law and get away with it.”
“This place is where we learned those ethics,” Tommy said.
“That makes sense. Ok, I’m here. What do we do now?”
“I know where my sister is at.”
I couldn’t even fake that I was excited. He caught on to that without me having to say a word.
“I’m here for you, Tommy.”
“And I’m here for her, Mr. T.”
“I get that, and I knew she was somehow part of the bargain. But I’m new to all this. What are we going to do when we get her? I feel like I’m running deeper into a one-way trap.”
“That’s the problem, you are. We both are. The deeper we go in, the less chance we have of getting out. My sister is still farther in.”
“I was hoping you would have a plan and be ready to go once I got here.”
“You cannot fault me for taking a page out of your notebook.”
“Mmm! I have only known him a short time and I am amazed by his lack of preparation,” Linnick chimed in.
“Oh, you guys are hilarious. Is this really the time for jokes?” I asked seriously.
“You, of all people, should not be saying that,” Tommy said.
“Okay, okay fair enough. But, Tommy, there’s no way you would have sent word out to me if you didn’t think there was a way to get Eliza and get out.”
“There’s a way…I just don’t know what it is yet.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“The key is you, Mr. T. Moirai bends to you.”
“Sorry?”
“Circumstances, the future; they favor your path.”
“Destiny?”
“Sort of, but not that conclusive.”
“What are you talking about, Tommy?”
“You are like a miniature gravity well for significant events. You pull those around you into these…happenings. It’s not intentional.” He must have seen my face. “That demi-god, Poena, when she cursed you, she also blessed you. Maybe it wasn’t her intention, but you can’t receive one without the other.”
“Ooh!! See this face? This is me being ecstatic about this revelation.”
“Maybe you haven’t admitted it to yourself, but it’s the truth. You are a magnetic beacon for things to happen on an epic scale.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Should I start naming names?”
I said nothing, maybe even got a little sullen.
“It is not a coincidence, the notable people that are connected to you across your lives. “Tracy, BT, Mad Jack, Drababan, Trip, and Linnick here…Callis, Mrs. Deneaux, Azile, Jandilyn, Winter….” He kept going, some names I knew fondly, some not so fondly. Others were a vague recollection, and still others I’d had no connection that I was aware of, yet. All of those that I recognized were special people, powerful in their own unique ways.
Tommy continued. “In a normal person’s lifetime, it is extremely rare to meet even one as special as any of these, yet you surround yourself with them along multiple dimensions. That is not normal. She may lead you to these events, but it is you that draws these beings to your side who gladly aid you in your endeavors.”
“Tommy, you’re killing me here. You’ve asked me to help because you believe that I will somehow alter events in our favor just by being here?”
“Yep. It has already begun.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The lower gates have been breached; a massive swarming of Polions is tearing through everything they encounter. It has been thousands upon thousands of years since the gate has fallen and it has never been this bad. This whole level is in an uproar. I do not think it coincidental that you no sooner make your way through and then it is attacked by an unstoppable army.”
I had to think on that for a second. That implied that it was known I was down here and that for some reason, I was worthy of all this attention. That was a little too self-centered, even for me.
“No way, Tommy. You can’t just mobilize an army on a whim. Whoever did that has been planning it for a very long time.”
“I will not debate that; it very well could be true, but you do have to admit the timing is spectacularly fortuito
us because now we can travel almost without notice.”
“Almost?”
“There is no guaranteed safety down here.”
“There’s another thing, Tommy. If, and I’m saying if, that army is looking for me, then someone very high and mighty knows I’m down here and is doing everything in their immense power to find me. I’m really hoping that this is an instance of unintentional cataclysmic chance.”
“It is likely that the disturbances you provoke in the fabric of reality can be felt by others and you have been found out.”
“I don’t know, I mean, I hope not. I don’t feel that I have been here long enough for someone to get that many ducks in a row. But if they do know, we need to keep moving because I don’t want to be caught again.”
We proceeded to leave, Tommy in the lead, well, because I had no fucking clue where we were or where we were going, although it seemed I could just stand still and eventually everything would come to me. Not nearly as comforting as it sounds. I didn’t think much of it when Goob…I mean, Bill fell in behind me. It was Tommy that turned around.
“Bill? What are you doing?”
“Food.”
“I gave you the agreed upon amount and even more.”
“Maybe he has acquired a taste for Tallboat and wishes to stay near him,” Linnick laughed.
“You’re mighty brave talking that much shit riding in my pocket. Who knows who I meet down here? Could be an old friend and we do a hearty chest bump.”
