Thursday, December 29, 2016
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Lost in the Amazon
 |
| Shut the Fuck up and Die! by William Todd Rose |
Shut the Fuck Up and Die! used to be my best-selling title. At one point, I had more sales of this particular book than all of my other works combined, which I always found kind of amazing. I didn't do anything to promote this book; people just found it and were apparently intrigued enough to buy a copy.
Then, one day, sales tanked. At first, I thought it was just a slump; but after months of not selling a single copy, I decided to do a little market research to see what had changed. After searching my own name on Amazon, I was dismayed to find that Shut the Fuck Up and Die! wasn't listed among the search results. I knew the book was still actively published, but couldn't understand why it wasn't listed.
An Amazon search just for the book's title brought up albums with the same (or similar) titles by bands like Sub Dub Micromachine, Marasmus, and Death In Custody...but no book.
Finally, I got extremely specific and searched for the book title only within the Kindle store category. That was when I saw what had happened. At the top of my search results was the following link: "Your search contains adult items which have been hidden. If you wish to see them, show all results". Only upon clicking the link, did my book appear...which explains why sales had tanked. At one time, readers had discovered this book in their search results; now, however, they have to be specifically searching for it. They not only have to know it exists, but also know that they need to refine their search only to the Kindle Store and not All Items.
But hey...at least I can find "Oh! Shut up! Fuck Off! I Love You!" by The Callas.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Do You Have What It Takes To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse?
This is the type of
situation players in The Wolf Pack
face on a regular basis. Falling under
the banner of online roleplaying, The
Wolf Pack might be more aptly described as “collaborative storytelling”. There are no complex rules to memorize, no
dice rolls or stats to keep track of; those who immerse themselves into this
alternate universe move the plot along in short, first-person posts told from
their own characters’ perspectives.
Typical updates usually consist of a four to five sentence paragraph, meaning
that the time investment to play along is minimal; yet the twists presented in
these posts often send the game into unexpected areas, keeping the action fresh
and interesting.
The brevity of the updates
also means that players aren’t required to be eloquent writers whose prose
borders on literary greatness. In short, anyone who can imagine themselves struggling
to survive in a hostile wasteland has what it takes to play. Even better, for
those who join and find that it isn’t quite their cup of tea or that even the
minuscule time investment is too much for their hectic schedules, dropping out
of the game is easy. It is, after all, a zombie apocalypse; and—like in the
movies and novels which inspired The Wolf
Pack—characters die.
The Wolf Pack is hosted by Zombiefiend.com—an alternative social
media site for horror, survival, and apocalypse enthusiasts—and free
registration with the site is required to play. The registration process,
however, is quick and easy, allowing new players to join in on the mayhem
within moments. Interested parties can also click the following link to be
taken directly to The Wolf Pack page;
the current and previous “chapters” of the ongoing story can be read without
registering by visiting the Forum section of the group. The Wolf Pack
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Plundering the Vaults: The Top Ten Most Popular Six Demon Bag Posts
So I’ve been posting on Six Demon Bag on and off for quite some time; longer, in fact, than any of the other blogs I’ve attempted. This is partly due, I think, to the fact that I don’t put any pressure on myself to ensure it’s updated on a a regular basis. Sometimes months may go by without a single post. Other times there may be a flurry of activity spanning several days. It’s much easier to delve into the bag when the mood takes me rather than force myself to pen something new every few days. I’ve also purposefully kept this blog from having a specific theme. Writing, observations on life, sci-fi, horror, personal experiences, movies, books, and games: the contents of my six demon bag are varied. What follows, however, are the most popular posts from this blog, ranked in descending order.
(click on the titles to open the original posts in a new window)
10. Life Inside a Suburban Hot Zone Documenting my family’s battle against a
highly contagious, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Life Inside a Suburban Hot
Zone is one of my more personal posts. This was a very challenging period of our lives and occasionally I return to this post and think about the lessons learned
from the experience. Since this entry was penned, my father has since passed away and I miss him dearly. It was the cancer which got him in the end...not the nasty little microbe I've written about. We finally succeeded in kicking its ass once and for all.
9. In Progress Game Review: White Noise I
think this was the first game review I posted, though I could be mistaken about
that. In some ways it seems like a lifetime
ago that I downloaded and played this little game. Who knew that a review of a game I hadn’t
even finished playing at the time would wind up in the Top 10?
8. The End is Nigh: 06/17/13 I’d actually
forgotten about this collection of mock-PSAs I designed for the second-edition
of Apocalyptic Organ Grinder. Looking back, I’m rather pleased with how
they turned out. The "Know Your Enemy" theme, I feel, is well suited for that particular book.
7.
Fighter’s Bite (a free short story) My
work first started gaining an audience when I wrote zombie fiction, partially because I happened to be working in the right genre at
the right time. When I penned The Dead & Dying, I
never dreamed that zombie-mania was only months away from sweeping the
nation. By the time my fascination with the topic waned, I’d published two
novels featuring the living dead, a short story collection, and had my work
represented in a gaggle of anthologies. Fighter’s Bite was the last story I wrote which featured these particular creatures and it remains as one of my
favorite pieces from that era.
6. Book Review: Blood Legacy by Carl Hose I consider
myself fortunate to have a lot of creative and talented individuals within
my circle. Though he’s turned his outlets more toward music than writing as of late, Carl Hose is one of these
people. That being said, I am not one to
heap praises upon a work of fiction simply because I consider the author a
close and personal friend; this book earned the accolades contained
within this review and I stand by every word in this review. I would still have considered it
a well-crafted, engrossing read even if I hadn’t known the person whose name appeared on the
byline.
5 Author Interview: Vincenzo Bilof Coming in at
the number five spot is my interview with Vincenzo Bilof. A couple years back, I had the opportunity to
sit down and pick the brain of this respected friend and colleague. It remains as one of my favorite interviews
and its spot in the Top Ten is well-deserved. Read the interview. Read his work. 'Nuff said.
4. Searching for Hannah: My Experiences as a Volunteer When college student Hannah
Graham went missing in 2014, my family and I volunteered to be part of a search and rescue operation whose unified goal was finding this young girl and
bringing her home. Sadly, as anyone who followed this particular story is aware, this goal was never realized. It was more emotional
than I expected and, in retrospect, I’m glad I sat down and documented
the experience.
3. A Place Not So Unkind When I originally
wrote The Seven Habits of Highly
Infective People, it was meant to be the first novel in a seven book series
which would follow my protagonists from the time Ocean was 14 to
when she was an old woman at the end of her life. I still know the rest of the story; I know
the answers to the unresolved questions a lot of readers have posed after
reading the book. However, I simply don’t
know if I will ever actually write the rest of the tale. I still love these
characters dearly, but my creative processes have simply been pulling me in other
directions.
2.
Traveling Sex Pig of the Apocalypse A
very short post I wrote about a genius piece of viral marketing devised by my
wife. So short, in fact, that I really
don’t want to say too much about it here.
And The All-Time, Most Popular Post On Six Demon Bag Award goes to….
1. Conjuring the Devil: A True Story It is unbelievable
how many people out there are searching for information on how to either
conjure demons or the Devil himself. If
I made a similar list of Top 10 search terms that led people to my blog, eight
of those spots would be claimed by some variation of “conjuring demons”. This single post—a true story about trying to
summon the devil when I was a kid—has generated so much traffic that even if I
add together the hits from the other posts in this list, the total doesn’t even
come close to the numbers this entry has garnered.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Raising Hell: Thoughts on the Hellraiser Films
Most people would
probably say I live a lackluster life. My days consist, almost exclusively, of
the following activities: writing, hiking/geocaching, sleeping, listening to
music, working, and watching movies. I
watch a lot of movies. Recently, I’ve
begun holding mini-film festivals for an audience of one where all of the
selections share some sort of common theme. Over the course of several nights,
I’ll settle down with a tub of popcorn and indulge in all the films Quentin
Tarantino directed; or perhaps I’ll treat myself to several days of Asian
horror, classic sci-fi, or 70’s era exploitation flicks. Currently, I’m watching the Hellraiser franchise, all nine movies
viewed in consecutive order. I
distinctly remember seeing the original on the big screen back in 1987, had
vague memories of the second installment, and caught the very end of Part IV on
cable several years back. However, the
other six films are entirely new to me—mainly due to the wariness and mistrust
I harbor toward sequels. What follows are
my thoughts on not only the individual films, but the series as a whole. These aren’t exactly reviews. They could probably be better referred to as
musings. So take them as you will.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Losing Control: The story that inspired Crossfades and Bleedovers
 |
| Order Now |
Losing Control
By
William Todd Rose
The first warning in the handbook states, in no
uncertain terms, that there’s some malevolent shit out there. This isn’t a job
for the timid or weak. To work in this profession, a man needs to be carved
from stone; he has to continually face his own mortality and somehow not go
insane when out there in the crossfades. That’s what we call The Divide, see. Crossfades. It’s like that moment in
movies where Act One and Act Two briefly coexist. They touch one another and
melt into a composite before one asserts its dominion over the other. The same
thing happens with what we tend to think of as Life and Death. There are
borderlands, like little pockets of stasis dimpling the surface of eternity;
most departing souls pass over them so effortlessly they don’t even notice
their existence. But some specifically look for these warrens. They refuse to
let go of the physical and hang on with everything they’ve got, sometimes
creating their own cut scenes where previously there were none. Others simply
become trapped.
For reasons we haven’t quite figured
out, the majority of these snared spirits come to inhabit the bodies of moths. Johnson,
the head of Theoretical Positioning, told me once he suspected these creatures
have the ability to flutter through both dimensions simultaneously. He compared
them to bees in a field, picking up pollen along the way, but openly admitted
the math to prove his hypothesis dangles maddeningly out of reach. Jewell, who
should have been a poet instead of an assistant, insists this is why moths
continually bat themselves against bulbs: these quantum hitchhikers know their
paths have diverted and try, time and time again, to cross into The Light.
The handbook warns against this as
well. We’re not supposed to attach any emotion to the things we see and do. We’re
supposed to balance the stoicism of a scientist with the resolve of a soldier. Romantic
notions are bad enough in the labs, but they can get your ass in serious
trouble in the field. The slightest hint of emotion is like striking a match in
the darkness: all things previously hidden are brought to light. With a mind of
pure reason, you can see them. But illuminated with the passions of the living,
they can also see you.
Which is where I come in. My
official title is Recon and Enforcement Technician, Level II. When wooing
recruits, the Agency makes it sound like you’ll be some sort of cosmic cop,
patrolling the beat and extending mankind’s reach over the kingdom of the dead.
After six months of mentoring you go solo and discover the truth. You’re a
glorified janitor, sweeping cobwebs from the corners of infinity. That’s why,
despite the handbook’s recommendations to the contrary, we refer to ourselves
internally as Whisks.
As such, life becomes routine. I
wake up at six AM, have coffee and buttered toast over the morning news. I
catch an unscheduled subway at an abandoned station whose lock is shiny and
new, perfectly matching dangling from my neck.
My office is fifteen stories
underground and is the nest in a tangle of wires that siphon energy from
structures above. It’s a vast network of relays, switches, and humming
transformers that most eyes never see. We take just enough power from each home
and business that the owners never notice. Distributed between hundreds of
thousands of buildings, we steal enough electricity to power a small town
without as much as a bill.
The handbook highly recommends
keeping a journal such as this, but it also warns against mentioning specific
cities. I could be in San Francisco or New York. Paris or Moscow. Like those I
hunt, I exist nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. So instead, I’ll describe
my office.
It’s a fairly small room with
cameras perched in each corner. The walls are painted in soothing pastels and
water gurgles over a stone fountain in the corner. I have potted plants that I
never water, their needs tended by Maintenance, and instead of a desk there’s a
long, plush couch. Behind the couch are monitors and leads, all the equipment
which tracks my vitals when I’m in the crossfades. And across the room is my
partner.
I’ve been working with him for a
year now and have never known his name. His body is frail and shriveled and the
hum of the respirator keeping him alive is a rhythmic constant. An IV drips
nutrients into his withered arm, ensuring he never awakens from his induced
coma. Being under isn’t like sleeping, you see. There are no dreams, no REM,
none of the brainwaves you’d see in a functioning brain. Anesthesia is the
little death people plunge into daily without realizing what lurks within those
murky depths.
This much about my partner I know. He
was terminally ill. They all are, when first approached. With medical bills
mounting, the scouts paint a picture of financial ruin for those left behind. Wives,
husbands, and children: in addition to grief, they’ll need to deal with the
strain of treatments insurance stopped covering long ago. Staying alive is akin
to selfishness, but it can all go away by signing a simple contract. One
signature and the patient “dies” in the night. He’s whisked away to our labs
and grieving loved ones are surprised in days to come by a settlement from a
life insurance policy they didn’t know existed. A very sizable pay-out that
ensures their continued comfort while coming to terms with grief.
These Sleepers are the most
important part of our operation. When tuned to the proper frequencies, their
bodies act as conduits. Dry lips move so slightly that it almost looks like a
trick of the light and the thin wheeze from their throats could pass for the
body desperately trying to breathe on its own. But in reality, the dead speak
through them. Once, these people had loved and laughed and lived; but now, so
close to the end, they’re nothing more than eavesdropping devices and the
snippets of captured conversation are dutifully recorded.
Position can be triangulated by the
strength of their voices. The more clear and distinct the words, the closer the
crossfade is to physical space. Algorithms I don’t fully understand calculate a
coordinate from this data and cross reference it with heart rate and brain
activity. This, in turn, creates the equivalent of a pushpin in the topography
of Space-Time. That pushpin is both my focus and destination.
As a Whisk, I’ve been trained in the
art of meditation. I’m not the fastest by far, but I can guide myself into
Theta in the same amount of time it takes most people to mumble their bedtime
prayers. At that level, visualizing the golden cord is a snap. I let it out
like a guide rope tied to my mortal body. A little at a time, taking tentative
steps into the unknown. Laymen call this astral projection; but to a Whisk,
it’s simply The Walk.
My Walks correspond with the
messages my partner broadcasts and most are simply routine assignments. These
are the spirits who long to cross The Divide. They sense the mystery and know
the trappings of the flesh are no longer a concern. They’ve just become
sidetracked on their journey and need a little help.
But, occasionally, things can go very wrong.
The day Albert Lewis was executed,
my Sleeper screamed. His vocal chords rattled as neck muscles bulged and his
body arched off the bed while his hands reflexively clenched. Beads of sweat
dotted his brow and for a moment I thought I heard the sizzle of electricity
accompanying a whiff of singed flesh. His instrumentation went haywire, spiking
like a seismograph placed on the epicenter of a major fault as his face screwed
into a grimace of clenched teeth and spasming muscle. To the untrained eye, it
probably looked as if he were in the throes of an agony so intense that Death
would seem a welcome friend. But I reminded myself that it was just involuntary
contractions, no different than making a dead frog twitch with the application
of current. I remained professional and detached, just as the handbook says I
should.
Two weeks later, the other screams
began. A dozen voices moaned through a single mouth, alternately pleading for
help and yelling wordlessly. I could feel their pain and fear as clearly as my
clothing, which suddenly felt too tight and constrictive. Loosening my tie, I
leaned over my Sleeper’s writhing body and peered at his charts before staring
into one of the cameras.
I knew what this was. I’d read about
it in case studies, but never actually witnessed the phenomena. I felt like a
child who’d begun doubting the reality of Santa Claus only to awaken to a jolly
fat man in red.
The handbook calls it a Vertices Collision Scenario; but to us,
it’s bad news.
“Chuck, it’s nearly 3:30. Jarvis
left an hour ago. Rollins hasn’t come in yet.” The female voice came from a
speaker embedded into the ceiling. The familiar lilt sounded strained and I
imagined stress creasing a face I’d only ever imagined.
“Alone, at last.” My attempt at
humor fell flat and the woman I’d only ever known as Control let it hang in the
air. In perfect silence, I looked up at the camera as I ran my fingers through
my hair, weighing the consequences of the situation.
According to the handbook, it
shouldn’t have been a decision at all. Protocol dictates the data be handed off
to a Level I Whisk, who’d have more experience in the field. Someone who’d
passed the exams instead of continually screwing up the translocation equation.
“So what’s it going to be, Chuck?” Control’s
husky voice always reminded me of a film noir heroine; I pictured her within
the booth, masked by shadow as crimson lips parted just above the microphone.
I’d get my ass chewed and a mark in
my file at worst. Or a promotion, if I played my cards right. What can I say? I
was ambitious but it seemed like that damn equation would never give up her
secrets. If I had any hope of making Level I, it would require a bold and
decisive move in place of exams.
“I got this, Control.” I was so
naïve, I actually believed it.
What I’ve never understood is why
Control gave me that option. She knew the handbook as well as I. Part of her
duties was safeguarding my wellbeing. And perhaps that’s what it was. Maybe a
bond had formed over the years; maybe she realized my eagerness, my drive to
rise to the top, and didn’t want to disappoint me. Or maybe she was just bored.
Whatever her reasons, Control
allowed me to walk to my couch with its assortment of tasseled pillows. She let
me slip the Halo onto my head, an insanely expensive piece of equipment that
looks like a hard hat’s webbing. She let me close my eyes and open my chakras
as I slipped from this body like a balloon from the grasping hand of a child.
She should have stopped me, damn it.
She should have stopped me.
Here’s the thing about crossfades. Usually,
they’re simply void space. Unless you’ve actually stood in the heart of a
singularity, you can’t possibly understand the true meaning of desolation. In a
place where the laws of physics no longer hold sway, your golden cord is your
lifeline. It connects you to another place, a world of things and events. Without
it, you’d never find your way home. Drifting through dead space for all
eternity, neither alive nor dead but subsisting somewhere between. That, my
friend, is my personal definition of Hell; and it’s precisely what Albert Lewis
strove to create.
Albert Lewis, as we all know, was an
evil man. He existed at a crossroads between sadism and black magic, choosing
to torture his victims for weeks on end before performing the final rite. Their
suffering, he claimed, was like energy flowing into a battery. With every
puncture, burn, and scream, he grew stronger. The field behind his farmhouse
was a garden of corpses, each one dropped into a shallow furrow sprinkled with
lime. Severed hands sat upon his mantle, clutching various ceremonial objects
in their withered fingers: a dagger, a bell, the mummified heart of his mother.
They say he’d painted murals in blood upon his walls, tortured landscapes of
such detail museums would have displayed them if done in any other medium.
When a person as willful as Albert
Lewis gets their hooks in a crossfade, they refuse to let go. Instead of being
an empty pocket of nothingness, they exert their determination and create
personal realities. The more convincing the crossfade becomes, the wider it
expands. Textures, smells, and tastes take hold and the illusion of time
reasserts itself. If left unchecked, it can become an entire world with
thriving ecosystems and complex weather patterns.
My job, in a nutshell, it to keep
this from happening. We try to clean up these transient dimensions before they
become too real and the megalomaniac at their core is convinced of his own
divinity. If allowed to grow indefinitely, a crossfade will draw other souls
like filings to a magnet. Maybe they’re fooled into thinking it’s the Promised
Land. Or maybe it’s governed by the laws of attraction. The point is, once
others believe in the reality of this custom crossfade, they’re stuck there. Like
flies in a web. And that convergence constitutes a Vertices Collision Scenario.
Albert Lewis had created a world of
darkness. Storm clouds flickered with lightning above a scorched landscape of
cinders and ash. Hot winds carried the scent of carrion on their wake and left an
oily patina over what I thought of as my skin; my golden cord streamed from my
belly button and trailed off into a blank horizon.
I stared into that black, empty space and closed my
eyes. When opened again, my cord snaked like a phantom through stone walls. The
blocks glistened wetly by torchlight and condensation dripped from beams
overhead, plinking into puddles on the brick floor.
I seemed to be standing in the
curved stairwell of a medieval turret. Windows shaped like tombstones lined the
wall, the stone frames surrounding them slick with algae as lightning bathed
the structure in electric blue. Flames sputtered in the wind and drops of
molten tar hissed from the orange glow of the torches. From somewhere up ahead,
a woman wailed. Her sobs sounded as if they came from the far end of a long
tunnel and I glanced back at my cord again, searching for reassurance in its
presence.
“Remember the feel of warm sand
against bare feet. Your 10th birthday, surprised with a trip to the
beach. The smell of saltwater and gulls squawking overhead.” It was Control’s
voice, seeming to radiate from somewhere within my mind. “Remember cutting your
heel on broken glass, how the wound stung as your blood dripped onto wet sand.”
She was good. With nothing more than
my vitals to guide her, Control skillfully reinforced my bonds with reality,
summoning memories from the physical details notated in my file. Her ability to
capture emotion, to build a sense of time and place, was just as important as
the golden cord. Without that, my cord would fade. Without her, I’d be lost.
Instead of succumbing to this false
world, I turned and faced the spiraling, stone stairs. I heard other voices
now, as well, lending their distress to a symphony of suffering. Whimpers, weak
pleas for help and mercy, hysterical crying, and strained, warbling wails:
their pain and fear swirled around me like an invisible demon. It raked the
back of my neck with cold talons and chased chills down the length of my spine.
It coiled around my throat like a tightening constrictor and plucked at my
golden cord as if testing its resolve and durability.
Part of me didn’t want to ascend
those stairs. In the pools of shadow, I sensed danger, as if some lurking
creature followed my every move. My feet had become leaden weights and I
channeled every all my willpower to muster the strength required for that next
step.
“Remember your training.” Control
again, establishing a link to a world of sunshine and flowers, of fresh spring
breezes and laughter. “It’s only as real as you make it, Chuck.”
Another step and the keening of
tortured souls grew louder. My palms felt as moist and cold as the stone walls
surrounding me. My instincts screamed to go back, to follow my cord home and
turn this assignment over to a Level I Whisk.
“Chuck…”
A spasm tremored my thigh, making
the muscle twitch and jerk, and yet I still placed my foot upon that next
stair. Ignoring fluttering wings of panic in my stomach, I focused on the next
bend, the next flickering torch.
“Chuck, you have to keep that
emotion in check. For God’s sake, don’t expose yourself. Commence Kundalini
Breathing in three… two… one…”
Drawing a deep breath through my
nose was like snorting a line of decayed flesh. The stench watered my eyes and
infected my sinuses, seeping into my saliva glands and flooding my mouth with
the sickeningly sweet taste of rotten meat. My diaphragm hitched in protest,
expelling the tainted oxygen through choked gags that left my trachea feeling
as if I’d belched fire.
“That’s it. I’m pulling you out.” Control’s
words were a panicked babble, shouted so loudly into her microphone that they
crackled and popped with static.
“Negative, Control. I’ve got it
covered. Mission proceeding.” I tried to sound confident and relaxed, but even
my own ears couldn’t ignore the tremble in my voice.
The top of the stairs loomed closer
and it sounded as if Hell existed right around the bend. So many voices calling
out, such much prolonged agony erupting from their souls; for a moment, my head
swam with the combined force of their anguish and I steadied myself against the
wall. The roughhewn stone seemed to sigh at my touch and the torches wavered as
if their flames danced with a gust of air.
Snatching my hand away, I waited for
a reply from Control. But only the cries of the damned answered me. I pictured
her dashing from her console room, fumbling with the convoluted override codes
that would grant access to my office, and finally letting me see what she
really looked like.
The problem is the passage of Time
is a human perception. It would take Control three minutes to open that door
and remove the Halo. Two if she were half as good as I suspected. But that
seemingly short period can translate into days within a cut scene. Each
construct has its own rules governing existence. Time, like matter, becomes
putty to be molded and shaped at will. Help was two minutes away; help would
not come for millennia: in The Divide, there’s no difference.
My golden cord fluctuated like a
fluorescent bulb on the verge of burning out. One moment solid, the next hazy
and indistinct. I knew this meant my perceptions were taking hold, that this
tower was integrating into my existence paradigm with each frantic beat of my
heart.
The handbook says in a worst case scenario, Whisks can
implement an escape technique we call Crashing. I’ve never had to actually
utilize it in the field, but mastering it is required to pass the Level III
exams. An abrupt change of focus, like shifting a speeding car suddenly into
reverse, and your body falls. All the different dimensions making up our
universe become like intricately detailed stained glass windows stacked upon
one another. Shattering one after another, the Whisk crashes through reality
until hitting his own physical body with a jolt.
I knew I could Crash. I knew I could escape from that
hellish tower and the nightmares that awaited, so close now that the stench
seemed to emanate from the very molecules of the air itself.
I knew I could be free.
And yet, I chose to trudge on.
The chamber was as large as a football field and
bordered on all sides by the same stone that comprised the stairwell. Moldy
banners hung from the walls with scenes of torture fading into moth-eaten
fabric. The glow of torches imbued the crude drawings with lives of their own,
creating the illusion of movement in dancing patterns of light and shadow.
There were no windows in this room, nothing to convey
that anything existed other than the high ceiling and impenetrable stone. Every
few yards a column descended from the gloom overhead and planted itself firmly
into the floor. As large as elevator shafts, they lined either side and the
cobbled floor became a network of paths leading to each one. Grating covered
the gaps between the paths and wisps of smoke curled above the blackened steel,
born of the fires raging miles below.
Here, the sounds of agony were deafening and pierced
my eardrums like sonic needles. Screams so harsh and shrill that they seemed to
vibrate my skull with resonance were punctuated by gasps of pain. Blubbering
sobs mingled with animalistic howls and from the far end of the room a man with
a child-like voice repeatedly shrieked the word No like a protective
mantra.
Underscoring the cacophony was a steady rhythm of
clinks and clanks as the tortured fought against their restraints. The iron
chains struck the stone columns as manacles scraped away skin, turning wrists
into bands of glistening, red tissue peppered with frayed strands of muscle and
nerve. The captives hung off so close to the floor that those with the energy
stood on tiptoe in defiance of their trembling legs; others, too weak to fight,
dangled like limp dolls. With bent knees and bowed heads, they slumped forward.
Their body weight supported entirely by the chains, they swung slightly and
gasped for breath.
Walking the central path was like strolling through
Satan’s personal museum. A stringy-haired woman drooped in one display and her
torso had been sliced with surgical precision. Peeled open and pinned to her
back, the parted slabs of flesh revealed organs that squished and pulsed as she
shifted positions. In another tableau, a rat perched upon the shoulder of a
doughy, overweight man and cleaned droplets of blood from wiry whiskers with
swipes of its paws before darting in for another bite. Sinking teeth into lips,
it pulled away strands of gristle that stretched like rubber before snapping
free with savage shakes of its head.
I witnessed things in that chamber no man should ever
see. I cringed as roaches scurried from beneath flaps of skin sliced into the
body of a tribal warrior. My eyes teared as I passed a woman with an angelic
face who was more skeleton than skin; sloughing off her own flesh, the sagging
folds held to her frame by hooks and thin twine.
And yet, I persisted.
From the shadows, I a golden throne emerged. Comprised
of gilded skulls, femurs, and tibia, it sat upon a riser of writhing people
whose distended and mottled skin had been stitched together with silver thread.
A tangle of arms, legs, and torsos: it was impossible to tell where one body
stopped and another began. They moved as an uncoordinated unit, some scrambling
for purchase and slipping in blood, crawling ever forward like a human
rickshaw. With bent backs and scraped knees, they carried the throne on an
undulating wave of flesh and their suffering rang through the air like fanfare
heralding the arrival of dark royalty.
Seated upon this throne, Albert Lewis stared down with
watery, blue eyes. His white hair was a disheveled mop of tufts sprouting from
a face that looked as if it were carved from stone. With wrinkles chiseled into
alabaster features, he pulled his lips into a thin, tight smile devoid of mirth
or warmth.
“What have we here?” The voice boomed from the old
man’s body as loud as thunder and fresh gales of pain echoed from the prisoners
as its vibrations flicked exposed nerve endings. “Have you come to grovel
before my Mercy Seat, boy? Have you traveled all this way to present yourself
as an offering?”
My golden cord was nothing more than a shadow by now,
as thin and tenuous as a mortal’s grasp on life. Knowing that answering would
only mire me more deeply into his depraved realm, I focused on my hands as I’d
been taught, willing them to be bathed in the white light that is my stock and
trade.
“Perhaps you’d like to play with my pet, then.”
As if in response to a command, a thing which was only
remotely human scuttled from the darkness. The base of his living litter had
been constructed with coarse fibers pulled so tightly that the skin dimpled
around each stitch, but this creature had not been so “fortunate”.
The base of its collective body was formed by two
burly men on hands and knees with their asses facing one another. Their
buttocks had been splayed extensively and then pressed against each other,
conceivably bandaged, and allowed to heal into a single graft. Conjoined to
them by the same technique was the body of a petite woman. Her legs were
extended like a gymnast caught mid-split and the scarring that melded her
thighs and calves to the men was like a jagged pink seam. With wrists severed,
her hands had been replaced by curved blades whose barbs gleamed in the
torchlight like the teeth of a predator. Her face was a contorted mask of
insanity, lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing a web-work of needles
attached like braces to her teeth.
“This is my
domain!” Lewis yelled as he leaned forward. “You think you can waltz in here
with your little bag of tricks and usurp my sovereignty?”
His creature scurried forward, surprisingly quick and
spider-like. The woman’s hair was plastered to her skull with sweat and her
face burned hotly from an infection which made her veins look like roots
spreading through reddened cheeks. She hissed as her blades whooshed through
the air and I stumbled backward, my hands flailing for the reassurance of my
golden cord.
At that moment, I knew all hope was lost. I felt it
evaporate within me like a deflating balloon; everything that had ever been good
or wholesome was purged from my body with a gasp as my fingers clawed at
nothing. No cord. No way home.
Albert Lewis’ laughter echoed off the walls and
ceiling, the reverberations seeming to grow in strength and volume as if his
guffaws fed off one another like parasitic organisms. The mouths of his victims
opened in unison, but instead of spilling more screams and wails, they
resounded with the deep baritone of cruel laughter.
My hands tingled as if they coursed with the white
light I tried to summon as I backed away from the clattering monster. I tried
to narrow my focus, to envision the glow radiating out from them. One
concentrated, well-placed blast of healing energy: that’s all I was asking for.
But was the numbness due to arcane forces gathering within? Or simply
hyperventilation from quick gasps of putrid air?
“Welcome,” Lewis sneered, “to my reign.”
I don’t know why, but at that moment a memory sprang
to mind. I saw my grandfather on the sun dappled bank of a stream; squatting
beside me, he pointed at the gurgling water and mouthed words I was too young
to remember. But that was all it took.
I didn’t need to see my golden cord to know it had
returned. I felt it tethered to me like a weight that had previously been
missing, anchoring me to my distant body and the world my grandfather had lived
in. At the same time, my hands were engulfed in auras of dazzling light. Like
the white hot centers of twin explosions, rays burst from central points in my
palms and streamed out, dissolving swaths of this false reality in their wake.
The beams of light spun around Albert Lewis like
strands of a cocoon, wrapping his body in their brilliance as stone walls
quaked and crumbled. I heard his scream, a yell of unadulterated anger amid the
rumble of his construct falling away into the void. The monster he’d created
stumbled as if the floor had just been pulled out from under and its individual
heads glared at their insane creator.
“Die! Die! Die!” They chanted in unison and within
seconds the call was picked up by every desiccated soul within the chamber. Some
gurgled through a froth of blood, others wheezed from gill-like slits carved
into necks, but one voice blared louder than the others; only the raw tightness
of my vocal chords clued me into the fact that the voice was my own. “Die! Die! Die!”
Defiant to the end, Albert Lewis fought back. I felt
his darkness seep into my beams of light like an oil slick polluting a river. It
reached out with malicious tendrils, attempting to trace the energy back to the
source as if following its own golden cord.
A tsunami of images crashed over my consciousness. I
saw the people he’d chained in his cellar, heard their whimpered pleas as they
begged for mercy. I felt organs beneath my fingers, like slippery pouches of
warm velvet, tasted the salty tang of blood, and swelled with a god-like sense
of dominion. I looked through his eyes, relived his memories, and felt what he
had felt.
“Damn it, Chuck!” Control’s voice severed the bond as
cleanly as a cleaver and the entire cut scene exploded in a burst so brilliant
it could have been the birth of a star.
When the glare faded, I found myself in the arms of a
woman with auburn hair. My cheek still stung from her slaps but she cradled my
head in her arms as tears streamed from eyes that sparkled like perfectly cut
sapphires. The stench of decay was replaced by a slightly floral perfume and
she placed a soft, warm hand against my face.
“Don’t you ever pull anything like that again. Do you
hear me? Ever.”
And there, in my little office far underground,
Control held me and allowed her purple blouse to absorb my tears.
The first warning in the handbook states, in no
uncertain terms, that there’s some malevolent shit out there. What it doesn’t
tell you is sometimes it follows you back. Like the hitchhiking souls in
Jewell’s moth theory, it tags along for the ride, returning to the world from
which it came.
I feel him in me, lurking in the depths of my subconscious
and wonder how pretty Control’s head would be if it were missing an eye or two.
I imagine her chained in my basement, how vibrant and red the blood would be
against her smooth, pale skin… her voice screaming a hymn to the glory of my
will…
I fight it with meditation. I fight it with prayer and
a hundred little kindness bestowed upon strangers.
I fight it.
But it’s getting harder.
Last night, having pulled the information from her
file, I found myself on the sidewalk outside Control’s apartment. I watched her
silhouette undress through a lit window and stroked the cool blade of a knife
through my pocket.
It won’t be much longer now. I’m as sure of this as I
am powerless to stop it. She would be so lovely turned inside out, with her
viscera quivering like a frightened pet.
No, not much longer; I feel myself slipping away and
know it’s only a matter of time before I lose control…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)