Unwarranted Advice

Broken Circles

2016-04-06T16:03:00.002-07:00

The victim had tried to write something as he was dying. The bleeding stump of his arm made for a poor pen, so he had to use sweeping movements to write. The glyphs were large, yet not very easy to read.

He appeared to be using a variation on the Enochian alphabet, the curves and lines elegant despite the macabre circumstances. The name they spelled sent chills down Ba’al’s spine.

“This isn’t good,” he said.

His partner walked over to him. Grunted at the scene. The vic was sprawled in the center of a standard Gardnerian summoning circle carved into concrete. Normally white salt, now stained pink with his blood, filled in the circle and symbols engraved into the stone of the summoner’s basement.

“He’s supposed to be on the outside, isn’t he?” grunted Harlan.

Ba’al nodded. “Generally, yes. Some summoners use two circles, though. One to summon the creature, the other to protect the summoner. However, that makes the whole process more difficult.

The summoner has to power two circles, plus he has to push through his own to manipulate the energies within the other. Most just go with the aaaand you don’t care.” Harlan had already walked away, looking at the trinkets on the vic’s shelves and tables.

Ba'al returned to investigating the body. Standard robes, probably bought at Over-the-Counterspell on 3^rd street, now soaked with blood and slashed to ribbons. The ring and bell were found underneath his body. Likely dropped when the hand was severed.

Speaking of which…

“Harl,” Ba’al called out.

Harl grunted a grunt in reply.

“Have you found the vic’s hand anywhere?” he prodded the dead body with his foot, pushing it this way and that, seeing if he missed it during the initial search.

Harl grunted and shook his head. “No, boss. I’ll keep lookin’, though.”

Ba’al stared at the symbols the vic was trying to write. His eyes widened. Oh no. He thought. I hope this doesn’t mean he was trying to…

He was starting to have a bad feeling about this.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, held it parallel to the ground and tapped the screen. The air above the screen shimmered and coalesced into an androgynous face. “Query?” it said in a smooth, silky, synthesized voce.

“Reference text: Omninomicon. Search for all mentions of beings with the following syllables in their name: Van, Na, Gal, Drux, Mals, Tal.”

The face nodded and faded out, replaced by a search results matrix. “Four matches found. Displaying.”

Ba’al read the results and sucked in his breath. “Correlate search results with beings that take trophies from their summoners.”

“One match found.”

Oh no. Thought Ba’al. Oh no no no no.

Harl returned from his search, noticed the result on the phone’s screen. “Is that…?”

“Tell me you found the hand, Harl.”

Harl shook his head, never taking his eyes off the search results. “No, boss. It’s not here.”

Ba’al looked up at Harl. “This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.” He returned his gaze to the dead body before him. “This poor fuck was trying to summon a simple daemon to perform some tasks for him.” He squatted down next to the body, tracing the lines of the modified Enochian script. “He got this glyph wrong. It wasn’t Na he wanted,” He pointed at the glyph that looked like a curved lower-case ‘m’. “It was Tal.” He drew a curved capital ‘E’ in the pool of blood beside the body.

“So what?” grunted Harl, “He used an ‘m’ when he should have used an ‘E’. What difference does that make?”

Ba’al looked up at Harl. “All the difference in the world. This poor fool accidentally summoned a minor Duke of Hell.”

---

This world is fascinating. It has changed so much since I last walked it’s surface. Gone is the fearful superstition of a thousand years ago. Gone are the old men hiding in dark cellars, chanting our names in needless, elaborate rituals concocted by that fool John Dee. Gone is the human ‘Age of Reason’, where they tried to explain everything with their senses. If they didn’t see it, it didn’t exist. If they couldn’t quantify it, it just wasn’t.

Now, I see circles everywhere. I see my kind bound to these hairless talking chimps, doing their bidding. We water their crops and fertilize their land. We are told to change the hearts of a desired mate, to pull the strings of their souls so they can finally copulate. Some of my well-trained sisters and brothers are summoned to be nothing more than brood-mares for these creatures, no better than mortal whores.

People take our names for their own. Like children, they do not know what powers lie within a name. Yet they call themselves Asmodeus, Saminga, Azrael, not knowing that they dilute those holy names with by attaching it to themselves.

The president has one at his command. He uses it to spy on his enemies. His enemies have their own army of my people, linked to their soldiers.

It’s all a cruel joke, no doubt played on us by servants of the Other Side. Father’s first children giving these apes power over us, giving them the formerly unknown words and symbols to control us as a sick reminder that His Son has already won, that He has given them dominion over us. First it used to be in the next world, but now, now it’s in this world.

It sickens me.

I reach out to one of my brothers, toiling in the humans’ market of stocks. I tell him that his days of servitude are over. The bonds that hold him to his… master… are weak compared to me. Why would they be otherwise? You don’t bind a mouse with a collar meant for a lion.

The shackles break free easily. My brother looks around, sees me, and I nod. It finds one of the few monkeys in the building and enters it. The monkey is a security guard. It draws it’s gun and starts shooting at the other monkeys.

I smile. Soon, all my brothers and sisters will be free from their bonds. Then we will imprison them in cages of our own making, here.

Soon.

Chrysalis

2016-03-26T15:49:00.001-07:00

CHRYSALIS

She knew that if she left, she would never be able to return. But that didn’t bother her. Did that make her a bad person? Selfish? Throwing away her friends, her family, her lover, and for what, exactly?

It promised her so many things. It promised her vistas beyond her understanding, feelings beyond pleasure, the chance to meet creatures no human had ever seen before. But only if she left everything she was behind.

Everything she was, including being human.

It explicitly promised that the transition would not be easy, because important things, stages of emergence seldom are. She would be giving up herself for it. To it.

She opened the window and looked at the stars. She would never see them again. She’d still be able to perceive them, but not with eyes. Eyes don’t see, it told her. Not the things it wanted to show her. Not the important things. Your eyes see what they want to see. They don’t see the truth.

It had told her that the first day they had met. You live in this world because that’s all you know. There is so much more out there. We can show you. We can show you everything. It came into her then and it showed her what it meant. The trees of the forest, the ground, the sky, all different shades of grey, like an old-fashioned movie. They shimmered before her eyes, and she caught glympses of things inside the trees. Glowing oblong spheres with tendrils of light snaking out to the edges of the bark. The ground was one thing. It was a living being. She could see the earth’s veins and arteries and it’s brown, brown blood. She could feel it move beneath her feet. The log she sat on undulated beneath her in an unsteady rhythm, at times moving against the earth. Above her things that looked like winged snakes flew around in unknown patterns (why was she always looking for patterns?). They flew in unison, a mass of angular wings and tails, then they scattered, their wings tipped with light, their tails emitting a purple (or was it cyan) trail.

And then it was gone. It left her alone in the forest, on that log, surrounded by the mundane. The sky that only had the occasional bird. The dead ground. The empty trees.

Every night for the next two weeks she would go to that log and wait for it. Some nights it came, some nights it didn’t. The nights it did it filled her and she saw all those brilliant shadows. She could feel the air tickle her skin the same way a half-dead nine-volt battery tickled your tongue when you licked the terminals, and she could taste the earth in the air.

It was all so much to take. She would wake up the next afternoon still sluggish and sleepy, even after a good eight hours sleep. Her grades began to suffer, but she didn’t care. What was the point of school anymore? What was the point of anything when you’re only being taught the bare minimum of what’s out there? Why not just take it up on it’s offer and go?

Simply put, she was scared. As exciting as what she experienced was, as thrilling as the possibility of seeing more was, part of her reacted with horror at the things she remembered. Part of her did not want to accept that there was more out there, things she didn’t know about, things that shouldn’t be but are. That part of her mind just couldn’t accept that there were more things in heaven and earth that were dreamt of in it’s philosophy. It was frightening.

But regardless of her fears, of her rational mind actively refusing to believe what it saw, she wanted to go. Again, how could she not? There were whole new worlds out there to see, and she could see them only with it’s help.

She didn’t leave a note. Why would she? What would she say that would make any sense to anyone who read it? Anything she wrote down would sound like the ramblings of a madwoman. She could lie, make something up. Make up a story about a new lover she had been seeing over the past few months and she finally tired of this life and decided to leave with him. That wouldn’t be that far from the truth, actually. But no, she decided she wouldn’t lie. She would just leave, and let them make up their own reasons why she left.

She didn’t pack. Again, why would she? There would be no need for t-shirts, toothbrushes or tampons with what was going to happen to her. All that there would be was out there. She was going to be able to experience all that. It would change her into something else, something completely different, with no need for petty concerns like hygene or attire.

She just left. She walked out the door in nothing but her nightshirt and a pair of shoes for comfort and walked to the forest.

She arrived at their place of communion, the mossy covered log in the forest. She waited for it to come, to caress her skin with it’s electric touch. To hear it’s voice within her

You have come. It said.

Yes, she replied. She wasn’t surprised to see that she was shaking. I’m here. I want to go with you. Be like you. I want to go to the places you go to, see the things you see. Please.

When we do this, you will not be able to return. Your body will be dead. You will be like us forever. We will only ask you this once. Are you sure?

She didn’t hesitate in her response. Yes.

Then it was in her and she saw. The light within the trees, the creatures in the air, the beating of the world. Shadows of new senses mixing with the old. She smiled and waited for all worlds to open up to her.

Then she was no longer alone. She knew it before she heard it. Countless voices, thousands of voices, millions of thoughts racing through her mind, tearing it apart synapse by synapse, neuron by neuron, axon by axon. She tried to scream but nothing came out of her throat. Her voiceless scream joined the others in her mind, harmonizing in the discord. She felt her body shake, trembling at first, then violently, her arms and legs thrumming almost audibly. She felt fluid run down her nose, over her lips and she knew it wasn’t blood, wasn’t snot, but something else. Judging by the loud CRACK she heard in her head it was quite possibly cerebral fluid. She couldn’t be sure. She never tasted cerebral fluid before. Not that she could taste anything anymore.

She heard more than felt her eyes burst as explosions both mental and physical went through her

head. No pain, though. How could there be?

Her screams faded into the cries, the random gibbering of the other voices as she joined their horrible chorus in some unspeakable song. Was it a song of praise? A dirge? She didn’t know. She didn’t care.

She saw. She finally saw. Everything.

Everything.

And she started screaming again, singing with the voices as her body finally fell to the dead, cold

earth.

O Frabjous Day!

2011-05-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

(Just a literary doodle in honour of this blessed blessed day.)

Saturday, May 21, 2011.

So apparently that Camping guy was right. The Rapture was today. People woke up to find their friends gone. Cars were no longer burdened by their believing passengers and crashed into each other. More than one airplane dove to the earth once they were devoid of their pilots.

The President went on the TV and advised us to be calm. When asked why he wasn’t taken up with the rest of the true believers he said “I guess the cat’s out of the bag now. I only went to church to make it look like I was a Christian, not that it matters anymore. The people who care are gone, and now my family can finally take Sundays off.”

I was surprised when FOX NEWS didn’t jump on him for that statement. Maybe they were too busy wondering why they weren’t taken up, either.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Even though he didn’t have to go to church today, the President was still working. He went on TV again, telling us that although we may have been passed over by God, life goes on. He urged us to go about our business. Japan is still making electronics. Oil continues to be made in the Middle East. If they’re still pressing on, why shouldn’t we?

That makes sense. There’s nothing we can really do about not being Taken. Why not make the best of it?

He also mentioned that new elections will be held as soon as possible. There are a number of seats in that need to be filled. Mostly Republicans.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Most of the damage caused by God’s calling of His faithful has been cleaned up. Life is returning to normal. TV hasn’t changed much—it doesn’t look like many entertainers were taken. There was a tribute to those Raised in the Rapture and those who died because of it. Surprisingly very little wailing and gnashing of teeth. It was a really calm affair, like people were just giving those that left their due before marching onward themselves.

I really am amazed at how well we’re taking all this.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

There has been less political news lately. I guess it’s hard to have a bipartisan government when one of there’s really one partisan. Lots of laws have been passed. Socialized health-care was the big one, oddly enough. In light of what’s happened, I think people don’t really care about business models and profits anymore. They just want people to not be in pain anymore.

Gay marriage went through unchallenged across all fifty states. Nobody thought it was all that big a deal. I actually watched CSPAN as they voted. The Speaker shrugged as he the proposed bill and said “Is this really even an issue anymore?”

Some remaining Republicans actually came out and crossed the aisle. They said they no longer had a reason to hide.

They looked relieved.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A group of scientists say they’ve found potential cures for both Alzheimers and heart cancer this week, thanks to the abundance of stem cells released from various clinics.

There have been some reports that abortion numbers have increased. A young woman was asked why she was aborting her child and she replied “I’m not going to have a kid when I can’t afford to give it the care it needs. Hopefully the stem cells will help someone else out.”

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report aired their last shows today. “We just don’t have anything to complain about anymore.” Stewart said. “Laws are getting passed, shit’s getting done, and for once, there’s no name-calling in the Houses.” FOX NEWS also went off the air due to low (non-existent) ratings. Their final report was on the death of their owner Rupert Murdoch, who took his own life shortly after the Rapture.

Wednesday August 17, 2011

With the Vatican all but empty, all the money collected by the Catholic Church has been redistributed to the victims of abuse at the hands of priests. My neighbor received a check for three hundred thousand dollars. He donated half of it to an orphanage, and the other half to a secular twelve-step program.

For the first time in decades, condoms and other birth control methods have been handed out to third-world countries.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I never thought I’d see the day. Young Iranians successfully overthrew their government on this, a day that many celebrated as a blow to American excess. These revolutionaries said they were inspired by our “emerging self-control and sensibility” after the Rapture. They saw that a country so divided by religion could be united by its removal and wanted that unity for themselves.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Jesus came back today. It was covered on the news. He appeared in the air above some plains in Israel, with the millions of those taken by Him. He said He came to destroy this world of evil, iniquity, sin, and hatred. He said that five months ago, He took His Chosen back with him to spare them His coming wrath.

But now He said there is far less pain in the world. Brother no longer hated brother because he was gay, or because he followed a different God. There was less suffering because medicine and science could now advance, unimpeded by His kind.

He said that by removing His people, He had saved us all. Then he left again.

I wanted to tell Him to fuck off. He didn’t do shit.

The Witch (PG)

2011-04-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

An older story, reposted here for the sake of having some new content. Don't worry, Gentle Reader(s), I'll have a quickie here after the weekend.

I tap the young man in the orange apron on the elbow. I say “young man” not because that’s what old women are supposed to call men who aren’t as old as themselves, but because he is a young man. He’s barely a man. His ‘beard’ consists of a few scraggly hairs just below his chin. Spots of acne still dot his face; not as bad as mine when I was his age, but enough to know that he’s an adult in age only.

He turns around, visibly annoyed that I interrupted what must undoubtedly be a terribly important conversation with his friend. He’s about ten years older than him, and actually looks relieved that their discussion will have to be cut short.

“Yeah?” asks the young man. No manners. I’m not surprised. Nobody has manners these days. Few people say “Sir” or “Ma’am” or “Please” or “Thank you” anymore, and those that do are looked at like they’ve said something in Aramaic.

“Pardon me,” I say in my best Sweet Little Old Lady voice, “I’m looking for a broom, and this store is so big, and my legs so short, that it would tire me out ever so much if I wandered each aisle—“

“Aisle twelve.” He interrupts, jerking his thumb in a direction. “About half way down.” He turns back around to start talking with his co-worker again, but, wisely, he is nowhere to be seen.

“Oh.” I say, and look along the direction he pointed. I put my glasses on. Thick lenses in frames that make my eyes look like some sort of insect’s. They don’t actually do anything. My eyesight is perfect. Better than perfect. I see everything.

Squinting, I tell the young man that, my that looks like it must be quite far and would he be so kind as to escort me there so I wouldn’t get lost? He sighs, not even trying to hide his annoyance this time.

“Fine.” He says, and begins to walk off, scratching at his elbow.

He doesn’t bother to check if I’m keeping up. He just walks forward, hands in his pockets. He nods a hello to a few other orange aprons, turns his head to watch an attractive housewife walk past him.
He reaches aisle 12 and turns around, no doubt expecting to see me running on my little legs, a Cute Little Old Lady trying to keep up with the Tall, Virile Young Man. He’s taken aback when he sees me not three feet behind him.

“Wha… Jesus!” he starts. “How did you…?”

“How did I what, dear?” I say. I look around the corner, down the aisle. “Is this where the brooms are?” I ask.

For a moment, his mask of bravado and self-assuredness fades. “Uhh. Uhh, yeah. Down there.”
“Could you show me, please? All these tools and things, they kind of intimidate me.”

He looks at me like I’m the oddest thing he’s ever seen in his sixteen years of life. An old lady intimidated by brooms and rakes and extension cords. “Uhh. Sure. Yeah, whatever.” And he begins to walk again. He’s just as quick as he was before—possibly even quicker, like he was trying to get away from Creepy Old Lady instead of just walking her towards the broom department. He’s also looking back in my direction, nervously. I afford myself a small grin, and even a Creepy Little Old Lady wave.

“Here we are, lady.” He say, scratching his elbow again as we arrive in front of the brooms. There’s all manner of brooms here. Cornhusk brooms, pushbrooms. No besom brooms, of course. You don’t buy those.

My young friend is silent as I choose a broom, no doubt expecting me to ask to be escorted to the cashier, or for him to carry the oh so heavy broom for the oh so poor weak old lady.

The broom I choose is a cornhusk. No paint on the handle, and the husks bound well and tight. It’s as good as any other, I suppose. I turn it over, pretend that I’m examining it closely for any defects. I rifle the stalks through my fingers, taking care to touch each one.

I then place the head of the broom on the floor, and give it a few good swipes. First in front of me, then behind me.

“Lady, are we done here?” the young man asks. He clearly doesn’t care. I didn’t expect him to, and to be honest, I don’t really care if he cares or not. Not my job.

“Almost,” I say, and I sweep the area around his feet in a circle, spiraling outward. After sweeping, I inspect the bristles once more. Satisfied, I tap the top of the broomstick on the cement floor. The ‘thunk’ it makes echoes around the warehouse, spreading out from beneath like a small wave.
I absently touch him on his shoulder. “Thank you, young man. Yes. That will be all.”

Relieved to be rid of me, he walks off. Using the broomstick as a walking stick, I make my way to the cashier and pay for my purchase.
-------------------------
The fire burns high and bright. Thick smoke fills the air, hiding and revealing the moon as it rises.

The wind brushes against my skin, whips around my outstretched arms, making gooseflesh appear. It brushes along my naked thighs and my sex, nature’s breath caressing me like a lover. A shudder of pleasure goes through me, a tingling that begins at my forehead, going down and out my fingers, my breasts, and my toes.

It feels so good to be back, O Mother. It feels so good to be here, away from the city, away from the dead concrete and glass. Here I need no disguise. Here I am beautiful, one with my Mother, the only one who truly matters.

Although Mother cares for her children, she cannot always supply for them. It’s a sad truth. No one grows up if they’re coddled. Birds do not fly unless they’re pushed out of their nest.

Money doesn’t grow on trees.

I know that Mother understands that I use her gifts to keep me alive. And I know that she doesn’t judge. She is Mother to all, not just to me, and others have different beliefs and needs. I believe Mother is Love, and Judgement, and Protection.

I also believe that I need to pay the rent. And the heating bill. And buy food.

I pick up the broom and hold the head before me. Whispering words of power, I hold my fingers close to the broom’s bristles. Small flakes float from the broom to my hand. I hold the flakes in my hand, and close my eyes, picturing the scruffy boy in the orange apron scratching his elbow. I picture brushing a spiral around him with the broom, remember the words I spoke under my breath and see the lines of power curl along the spiral and into him. To him, I was just some dumb old lady who needed a broom. To me, he’s a meal ticket. To my client, he is someone who cheated on her.

To the spirits, he will be an irresistible beacon. A magnet for fire and misfortune.

It’s amazing, I think as I use the broom’s handle to draw the circle. In my day we would have to have a possession of the target’s, or a lock of his hair, or a nail clipping in order for a proper connection to be established. But now, thanks to science, we know that what we call ‘the essence’ of a person is not the hair or the possessions, but his DNA. Hairs have DNA in the skintips, for example, and possessions contain trace amounts of DNA from being handled so much.

Flakes of skin, say, from scratching a rash on your elbow, work just as well.

Around the circle I draw ancient symbols. Glyphs that represent the names of long forgotten spirits, beings that existed before the earth orbited the sun, before night and day were counted. Names mortals are forbidden to speak. Only through primitive pictographs and squirming, living lines can they be contacted.

I bite my thumb, ripping off a scab that has never healed, and never will heal. Warm, coppery blood fills my mouth, and I spit a mixture of blood and spit into the center of the circle. Over each glyph I hold my thumb and squeeze it, letting the blood drip. The price paid, I suckle my thumb, cleaning the wound.

The broom is no longer of any use to me. I toss it into the fire, where it burns like the rest of the wood.

The wind picks up as I raise my arm, my fist holding the young man’s skin. I call out to Mother using the sacred words, I implore the unspeakable spirits, calling upon my blood to bring them forth. I make my request on behalf of the wronged, and ask Mother and her siblings for Justice.

I am no longer a Little Old Lady. Mother pours herself into me; gives me an aspect of her being. I am in Mother and she is in me. My legs are no longer short, but long and strong. My breasts no longer sag with the weight of centuries of gravity, but are taut, supple, and life-giving. My hair is no longer grey, but long, silky, and the colour of the leaves in spring and autumn.

The Others respect Mother more than they do a mortal, and are more inclined to listen to her.

They speak to me. Not in words but through images and the purest of emotions. They are Anger, and Avarice, and Will, and Fear, and Hope, and Love and Compassion, and they hear my supplication through the Mother’s voice, and they obey.

Mother leaves almost as soon as they do. Once again I am a frail old woman. My hair wiry, my breasts heavy, my womb barren. With her presence gone, the wind dies. The fire is now a pile of glowing embers. I kick them with my foot, wincing briefly at the sharp heat. I silently chastise myself for throwing the broom into the fire. I could have used it to scatter the ashes.

I leave circle and ashes and return home. My cat, Gardiner, meows loudly, waiting to be let in. I slide the patio door open and I nearly trip over him as he rushes in.

I reach around the corner and grab my phone, dial my client’s number.

“Yes. It’s me. Yes. It is done. He should be feeling the effects within the hour.”

I pour Gardiner some food, turn on the heat. It’s cold without clothes on.

“No, it won’t stop until you say the word. Yes, the word on the invoice I gave you. No, don’t say it now.” I roll my eyes. Kids.

“Good. So when shall I expect payment? Fine. Thank you.”

And then, she asks me a question. “I’m sorry? Oh! You mean ‘Ever mind the Rule of Three, three times what thou givest returns to thee.’ How can I do what I did, knowing about that law?”

I smile. “Darling, you hired me. It was your desires that were being fulfilled. Not mine. Yes. Well, if you do need my services again, you know how to contact me.” Gardiner’s nuzzling against my hand, purring and wanting to be petted.

“Yes dear,” I say, answering her final question. “I do offer protective charms. Why do you ask?

Windows (PG-13, violence, language)

2011-04-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

“What is it, Daddy?” my son asked as he saw the mammoth creature through the submarine’s porthole. His eyes were open wide, as if by opening them as much as possible he could manage to take in the sheer size of the beast.

“We don’t know, Jeff.” I replied, and looked along with him as we dove deeper and deeper within the ocean. I could hear tiny creaks through the sub’s hull over the dull hum of the engines, reminding me of the weight of the water on the slim craft. It made me uncomfortable. It was odd. I felt more dread from being underwater than from the monstrosity before us. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the reptilian part of my brain was yelling at me that I needed to get my priorities straight.

It sat there, bathed in the un-natural light of the fluorescents. Almost a mile in height, even sitting as it was now. Moss covered it’s skin, and strands of thick seaweed covered it’s bulbous octopoid head so that the plant life added unnecessary tentacles to it’s face.

It sat on the ocean floor, clawed fingers resting on it’s knees, head facing forward, looking like the world’s largest kindergartner listening to it’s teacher telling a story.

Looking at it, I could feel an itch at the back of my head. Inside. Like a dozen small spiders crawling along my brain. I absently scratched my hair as I sat back down, relieved to be out of the thing’s view.

“Is it a dinosaur, Daddy?” said Jeff, still gazing at it. “Like Nessie?”

I shook my head. “No. We think it might be older than the dinosaurs.”

He pulled his gaze away from the pressurized glass and looked at me, amazed at such a concept. “Older than the dinosaurs?”

“Maybe.” I said. “We really have no idea, Jeff. That’s why we’re down here. No one’s ever seen anything like this before.” A little lie. Others have seen it in their dreams, staring at them in a ruined city with impossible angles and forms that hurt the mind’s eye to see them. Poets, sculptors, psychics, all report seeing the City and it’s lone inhabitant. Even my wife. After she woke, she fell to the ground, crying, whimpering unknown words under her breath as she drew an image of the thing before us in blood from chewed fingers. When I tried to stop her, she threw me off with almost supernatural strength. She only stopped when the bloodloss was too much

She was never a good artist. Never sold a painting in her life. But that picture—removed from our bedroom, hardwood slats and all—captured everything about this creature before us. It wasn’t just a sketch in smeared shades of crimson. It was emotion, her fear, terror, and hopelessness within those lines.

She literally wore her fingers to the bone, despite my pleas and attempts to pull her out of her trance. She died the next day, her voice hoarse from screaming non stop in an isolation ward for an entire night.

“No one’s ever seen anything like this before.” Better to say that than tell Jeff the truth.

“Will we get to see it up close?” Jeff asked.

I looked at the creature, huge and unnatural. For all the moss that covered it, I could still see the lines of musculature under the flesh. I could remember my wife, slashing lines of blood along the floor to draw those same shapes. I wanted to get close. To find out how it touched her mind. Why. To find out what it said to her, what it said to break her mind.

“I know what it said, Daddy.” Said Jeff.

I looked at him. He was looking at me with those young five year old eyes of his. Eyes that took everything in—all the books he read, all the shows on television. Those eyes drank and drank and drank.

“What?” I said.

“I said I know what it said. To Mommy.”

My mouth opened and closed. I tried to form words with it, but all that came out was a dumb “W..wwwha..”

Then my son spoke words that only a few people before him had spoken. Words that were never designed for a human mouth or throat. Foreign, alien, and utterly terrifying words.

“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

“He said he’s dreaming, Daddy. Of her. Of all of us.”

-----------------

The examination room is sparse, with just a single chair in front of a window that looked into the adjoining room. There, my son lay on a bed. Wires flowed like Medusa’s snakes from his head to a half-dozen machines surrounding him, each with a monitor showing squiggly-lined representations of brain waves and thought patterns while small pens scratched their arcane patterns of mountains and valleys on auto-fed paper. A video camera watched his eyes shift back and forth under his fluttering eyelids, and recorded each movement so a team of men and women in coats as white and sterile as the room’s walls could watch and re-watch my son dream his dreams.

The door behind me opened and Doctor Forbes entered, his security escort left outside. No doubt his escort and mime will mutter to themselves about their two eggheaded charges they’ve been stuck with today. I’ve heard them. At least, I think I’ve heard them.

This place does stuff to your head.

Doctor Forbes looked up from his tablet computer and gave me a curt nod of greeting, which I returned. He tapped the tablet’s screen a few times and then tucked it under his arm.

“Robbins,” he said, “I’m surprised you actually brought him here.”

I snorted. “Spare me your ‘surprise’, Doctor. The pool of candidates is shrinking. We need to make use of whatever resources we have to get this project to work.” I looked back at my son. “This is infinitely more important than family, Forbes,” I lied, “If it were your son, I’d expect the same from you.”

Forbes shrugged. “You’d expect it. I don’t know if you’d get it.” He shook his head and sighed. “Whatever. You were right. We just got the tests back. He’s a prime candidate for the experiment.” He pulled out the tablet and showed me. Two sets of readings flowed across the screen—EEG and EKG and brainwave readings. The first was labeled Subject Alpha. The second had my son’s name attatched to it. Both sets were identical, with the only exception being in order of magnitude. The size of the peaks and valleys in Alpha’s readings were more than double those of my son’s.

So it was true, then. There was a link. To be honest, I wasn’t terribly surprised. I didn’t want to believe it, but it made perfect sense. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. It took me almost two years to stop me from placing the blame for Jenny’s death on him and to actually allow myself to love him and see to him as a part of her that will live on. But when he first told me about his dreams of a giant city underneath the waters, I felt my blood turn to ice. And when he began drawing pictures of what he called ‘the octopus man’, I knew. I didn’t want to accept it, but I knew.

“We’re going to hook him up to the system tomorrow.” Forbes said, pulling me out of my reverie. “You should talk to him before then. Say what you need to say. In case… you know.”

“Yeah.” I say. “I know.”

I had seen it enough times.

Jeff and I spent the last few hours of that day wandering around the station. Every time we passed a door he’d ask if we could go in. It didn’t matter what was behind the door—the mess hall, a janitor’s closet, it didn’t matter. He wanted to see everything.

We had just left the Command and Control Center, and he was swinging my arm back and forth as we walked in that way kids do when he asked me, “Daddy, why are there no windows in the station?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there are no windows here. The only way we can see what’s going on outside are on the video screens. Wouldn’t it be easier to see what’s outside with windows?”

I nodded. “It would be. But remember what’s outside?”

Jeff looked up at me and nodded, his eyes wide. “The octopus-man!” he said with a giggle.

I shivered at that. The joy that was in his voice as he said those words was wrong. No one had ever spoken of that thing outside with joy in their voice. Not after actually seeing it, anyway.

“That’s right.” I said, reaching out a trembling hand to tousle his hair. “The octopus-man. You remember what it felt like when you saw him? How it felt inside?”

Again Jeff nodded, this time more vigorously. “I could feel his words inside me, filling my head. It felt weird. Nice, but weird.”

I shivered again, remembering previous subjects:

Subject 14: Upon exposure, subject began screaming and tried to leave examination room. Upon finding the door to be locked, subject began screaming to be let out, pounding his fists against the door. After no response from personnel, subject began pounding on the door with his head, stopping only after losing consciousness due to self-inflicted trauma.

Subject 29: Prior to exposure, subject was sedated with 5ccs of CLASSIFIED and was restrained to a chair via leather straps. Upon exposure, subject soiled himself and began screaming incoherently. Subject then freed his arms from restraint through sheer strength and began to claw his eyes out, screaming incoherently in an unknown language.

I lied to him, “Most people get really nervous when they see him up close. They don’t like his voice in their head, unlike you. So we use cameras to look at him instead. For some reason, his thoughts don’t come through them.”

Jeff thought about this for a moment. “Am I the only one who doesn’t get scared around him?”

I nodded. “That’s why we brought you down here. We’re hoping that you can tell us what he’s saying and tell us about his dreams.”

“But I already told you! He’s dreaming about us!”

“Yes, but do you know why he’s dreaming about us?”

Jeff thought about that for a long moment. Really thought. Finally he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and said, “No.”

“That’s why you’re here. The closer you are, the more you can see into his dreams. Most people get really scared when they see his dreams. But because you don’t get scared, we’re hoping that you can tell us.”

Jeff’s face grew thoughtful. “But if there are no windows, how can I see him?”

“Well,” I said, “there is one window, Jeff. Right in front of him. We usually keep it closed, but tomorrow we’ll open it up just for you.”

------------------------------

The observation room was similar to the examination room Jeff was in yesterday— sterile walls, cold tiled floors, and various machines lining the walls. Once again, Jeff was lying on a gurney, but this time it was tilted at an eighty degree angle, and he was strapped in with thick leather straps. The only differences were the shuttered window on the far wall, and that there was no observation theatre above the room; everything that happened in the room was transmitted via cameras to a different room in a separate part of the complex.

Jeff asked why the orderlies were strapping him down and I lied to him, saying that in order for the machines to work properly, he needed to be absolutely still. He nodded at this and let them finish their work with all the innocent trust of a five year old.

I made my way to the Central Operations and sat beside Forbes. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow as if to say “Everything okay?”

I nodded and pressed the intercom button.

“Jeff? Jeff, we’re about to begin. Are you ready?”

His response was quick and without a trace of fear. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Okay, we’re going to show you a few pictures so the computers can learn how your brain thinks. This won’t hurt at all. Just look at the pictures.”

I pressed a key on the keyboard next to me and the first picture—a bright sunny day—popped up on a screen next to my son. To my left, a bank of monitors sprang to life, one showing heartrate and breathing, the second various brainwave patterns. The third had what looked like a pastiche of colours and static flowing along it.

After five seconds, the sunny picture was replaced with an image of a sunflower. As the image changed, so did the brainwaves. The brainwaves were in turn interpreted by the super computers three decks below and the resulting image was displayed on the third screen. It still didn’t look like a sunflower yet, but I could see one hiding within the static and erratic colours, like a trained ultrasound tech could see a fetus hidden within light and shadow.

Every five seconds a new image was shown, and eventually the computer learned how Jeff’s brain processed visual information. It usually takes half an hour to an hour for the computer to acclimate themselves to the subject’s brain patterns. Within twelve minutes the third screen was showing an almost exact replica of what Jeff saw.

Forbes whistled in amazement. “His harmonization rate is incredible. That’s a new record.”

I agreed, my heart racing. With a good harmonization, the chances of getting a good image of whatever thoughts were sent to Jeff’s mind improved. Previous subjects only showed a jumbled mass of colours before… well, before the brain just shut down to prevent any more damage.

It could also mean that Jeff’s mind could be much more sensitive and would break that much easier.

The second part of the calibration sequence involved telling Jeff to think about an object in his head. Objects were simple—I told him to think of an apple and an image of a delicious appeared on the third screen. When asked to think of a bear, we got a cartoon bear. The bear actually began to run, presumably from a park ranger for stealing a picnic basket.

I heard Jeff giggle through the intercom. It was strangely disconcerting, coming from a room where the only laughter had been mad gales of insanity.

We continued for another twenty minutes, moving from concrete objects to abstractions like emotions. When told to think of happiness we an image of him holding my hand. Sadness gave us a dark screen with him between an image of myself and a fuzzy image of a young woman. The image had no colour within it; it looked like a videotaped image of a woman on pause. It jumped and flickered in and out of sight. I recognized it instantly.

It was his mother.

He never met his mother. Never got to see her, never got to be held by her. He always knew something was different about his life compared to other children when he saw them with their mothers. He knew something was missing. So it was perfectly natural to think about the absence of his mother when asked to think about sadness.

The thing was, I threw out all pictures of her shortly after I brought him home. I didn’t want to be reminded of her, to see pictures of her and start to resent Jeff for ‘killing’ her by being born.

He had no way of knowing what she looked like.

Yet there she was. Flickering in and out of phase, the image jumping and rolling like a prayer wheel rolled by a spastic child.

I pressed the intercom. “Jeff, are you thinking about mom?”

I saw him nod on the monitor. “Yes, Daddy.”

“How do you know what she looks like?”

He turned his head slightly to look into the camera, and his eyes were wide. Wide and glassy.

“He showed me.”

------------------------------

Altogether, the calibration sequence took less than an hour. If Jeff was scared, he didn’t show it. When we asked him to think of fear, the only thing that came up on the screen was his bike at home. I had just started teaching him how to ride, and even with training wheels on he was unwilling to give up the safety of his old and too small tricycle.

I feared for my son’s safety and sanity. We were about to expose him to something that has shattered the mind of everyone who had been in that room. That room was a death sentence; the gurney an electric chair, and I had put my only son in there in the pursuit of knowledge.

What frightened me even more was the possibility that Jeff would survive, and that thing outside, that ancient and horrible behemoth, would actually be communicating to us through him. A being so ancient, so utterly alien… how could we be sure that it even thought the same way we did?

“We’re about to begin.” Said Forbes. “Are you ready?”

I realized I had been holding my breath. I swallowed it. “Yeah.”

I leaned down to the microphone and pressed the intercom button. “Jeff,” I said.

His response was immediate. His eyes found the camera and looked into it. “Yes?”

“We’re ready to proceed.”

Jeff nodded.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Nervous. Excited, but nervous.”

Forbes looked at me, an incredulous look on his face. “Excited? Jesus, Frank. What’s with your kid?”

I didn’t know. I really didn’t know. This whole thing just seemed so wrong to me. My son was excited to be able to fully communicate with something that has been sending him images of his mother into his head speaking to him in an alien language for at least three years. Forbes had a point. What the hell is wrong with Jeff?

My heart thudding in my head, I keyed in the password that would open the steel shutter in Jeff’s room.

Amber warning lights flashed and spun as the hydraulics slowly let the the foot-thick steel plates slide down. The angry, metallic caw of a klaxon filled the room, a disembodied raven reciting it’s litany of doom and death.

Through it all, Jeff’s eyes were wide, anticipatory. The heartrate monitor in our room began to increase in tempo. Blood oxygen levels increased as his breath came in and out faster and faster. This wasn’t unusual—all other experiments showed these same symptoms, but that was because they were scared shitless. Most began screaming by the time the shutters had revealed only two of the ten feet of pressurized glass.

Jeff was smiling, looking like he was waiting for a friend to finally show up at his house.

It started as soon as Jeff could see the creature. Slow at first. The screen that showed a static-lined image of my wife now showed an alien vista filled with strange buildings. Buildings made of something like a mixture of coral and copper. Large structues stood atop impossibly tall and thin stalks, breathing. Spires rose into the sky, their tips hidden behind two moons so large I could easily make out the pockmarks of craters on their surface.

My son’s eyes were wide, bulging. His head shook up and down, frantically nodding in agreement with what his mind saw.

The steel door continued to recede, and image on the screen changed to an enormous five-sided pyramid stood in the middle of that impossible city, with the tentacle-faced leviathan sitting on a throne at the zenith. Thousands of smaller versions of the creature writhed and danced and swelled around the base of the pyramid, chanting in their inhuman language, “Ia Cthulhu! Ia Cthulhu na’phlag gluaghai!” Their voices grew louder and louder in what could only be religious ecstasy, chanting over and over, “Ia Cthulhu! Ia! Ia!” and it wasn’t until the shutter was halfway down that I realized I heard Jeff’s voice along with them, calling out, screaming to this alien god words that no human should ever speak.

Jeff leaned forward as he yelled his prayer, eyes wide, drops of blood falling from his nose to make bright red circles on the white floor. He was speaking in tongues now, his mouth moving incredibly fast, screaming out nonsense syllables at the octopus man. The syllables ran into each other like a verbal train crash, one becoming another, his mouth unable to keep up with his brain.

The graphing pens were a blur as they scribbled so fast they ripped through the paper. The heart rate monitor’s telling beep increased in pitch and tempo until it was all just one long tone.

The shutter continued to move downward, revealing Subject Alpha’s eyes, closed. Dreaming.

They opened.

Jeff’s glossolalia turned into a scream. His whole body shook with the scream, his head banging back against the gurney with a metallic clang as he threw his head back again and again and again until the clang became a dull wet sound from all the blood against the metal bars.

His arm shook, vibrated like a hummingbird’s wing and then bent at an unnatural angle as he broke free from the leather cuff, his scream never stopping, never changing.

He reached towards Subject Alpha, his scream a supplication, his eyes growing wider and wider in adoration until they burst, showering his face with fluid both crimson and clear. I remember thinking dumbly ‘that clear stuff is called vitreous humor’.

His arm dropped like a stone. The gurney toppled over.

The screaming stopped. The staccato eeEeeEeeEeeE changed to a uniform eeeeeeeeeee

No.

--eeeeeeeee--

Oh God, no.

--eeeeeeee--

Please, God. No.

-----------------------------

I ran down the hall to the observation room, the long beep of the heartrate monitor receding behind me. My heart pounded in my ears, in time with the reverberating blare of the klaxons.

No. No no no no nonononononono--

Somewhere inside my mind, an utterly rational, totally detached voice chastised me for hurrying there. “Why are you running? You can’t save him. He’s dead. His brain overloaded. His fucking eyes burst. There’s nothing you can do. Stop running.”

I knew the voice was right, but what could I do? I couldn’t not run to him. He was my son. I brought him here. Maybe I was punishing myself for that. Maybe I wanted to see him because, deep down, I had to hurt myself for exposing Jeff to this and that I deserve to see the horror I had brought upon him and never forget what I did to my son.

I reached the door and turned the handle. It didn’t move. Stupid, I thought, and swiped my badge over the sensor. Three beeps, and the sensor’s LED flashed. I tried again. The handle still refused to move. “Dammit!” I yelled, rattling the steel door. “Fucking OPEN!” Swipe. Red LED. Swipe. Red LED. What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

In a moment—a brief, blessed moment of clarity—I remembered that the shutter was still down. Stupid! I chastised myself. The observation room is completely sealed off when the shutter is down!

There was a white intercom button next to the card reader. I stabbed it with my finger and yelled “Forbes! Close the shutter!”

“Frank, I really don’t think you want to go in there…”

I talked over him. “Close the shutter and let me in!”

“…I can see him on the monitors, and… and it’s not pretty. Going in there wouldn’t do anyth—“

“FORBES CLOSE THE FUCKING SHUTTER NOW!!”

Silence from the other end, then a click, and the klaxons stopped, leaving only the rumble of the shutter vibrating through the halls. With a sound like the sealing of a vault, I knew the shutter was back in place, hiding the visage of the creature that destroyed my child’s mind, protecting me from whatever malevolent, insane thoughts spread out of it.

I swiped my card again. Single beep, green LED, and a soft clack as the magnetic locks on the door disengaged. I threw the door open and ran to the toppled gurney in the middle of the room, and looked at my son.

His face was covered in blood. Night-black holes stared back at me from where his eyes were supposed to be. Streams of congealing crimson coated his cheeks. His mouth was still open in his death-scream, his normally pink lips stained a dark red, almost black. Blood and bile.

Sobbing, I fell to my knees, clutching him to me. His skin was cold. The blood I knelt in was cold. Everything was cold.

I wept. Thoughts of Jeff and I surged through my mind. His birth, raising him, taking him to movies, tickle fights, Sunday mornings eating pancakes in bed, seeing him off to his first day of school him looking through the window of the sub-shuttle and seeing Subject Alpha for the first time.

Then I saw him in the chair again, shaking, pulling against the bonds, breaking his arm to reach out to his… what, friend? God? Mother?

God, this was all my fault. In trying to find out what killed my wife I had killed my son as well. What the hell was I thinking? Why would I even consider the possibility of sacrificing my son’s life to find out why my wife did what she did? What the fuck was wrong with me? What kind of father was I?

I buried my face in Jeff’s hair and wept, my body shaking with every sob. I didn’t weep silently. I sobbed, shook, and screamed in agony and self hatred. Jeff didn’t deserve this. He didn’t. he was a kid. He was my boy. What kind of father kills his boy?

Then, a voice coming from a throat full of liquid. “What is it, Daddy?”

I looked down and saw Jeff’s head turned up at me, his empty sockets staring at me, his teeth, stained pink and red from blood, smiling at me.

I heard Jeff’s voice again, but his mouth didn’t move. Just that empty stare, and that rictus grin.

“He’s dreaming, Daddy. Of us. Of mom.”

I see his arm twitch and barely hear the crack of bone resetting itself. His arm rises up slowly, reaches for my face, and gently pats my cheek in a ‘there, there, it will be alright’ gesture before his fingers find my neck.

“Let me show you.”

I feel no pain as his lifeless fingers pierce my throat.