Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation (6 page)

The ER doc shrugged. “I don’t know; what I do know is that the pineal gland has been implicated in seizures. Patients with brain tumors often have visions and hallucinations when the pineal gland is involved. Since the gland is swollen, this could be causing Stella’s strange behavior. Did you say she was seeing things?”

Peter nodded. “Crazy stuff. She keeps talking about Eris. She says Eris talks to her. A Goddess of chaos. Her behavior changed, too. I thought it was just because she was happy to be out of pain. She isn’t herself at all.”

Dr. Evans paled and grasped the desk. “Did you say she was talking about Eris? That is the Greek Goddess of Chaos and Discord.”

The ER doctor smirked at Dr. Evans. “Greek Goddesses? Lichens gathered under the full moon? What idiocy. Your alternative therapies are nothing but snake-oil.” He turned to Peter. “We don’t know the effects, or what will happen. What we hope is, as the poison leaves her system, she will return to normal.”

“
What? You
hope
? You don’t know? Stella’s life is in your hands and you HOPE she will get better? ”

“
We need to admit her to the hospital for observation, Peter. We need to run some more tests, just to make sure there isn’t some other organic cause.”

Peter nodded. Exhausted, he rubbed his puffy, red-rimmed eyes. It seemed as if his eyes were filled with sand and his tongue coated with glue. A heaviness in his chest made it hard to breathe. He managed to say, “If that’s what it takes. Just bring my Stella back to me. Make her okay again.”

The ER doctor put his hand on Peters shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Dr. Evans grabbed Peter’s hands. “I need to do some research. I’ll call you later to see how Stella is.” She turned and rushed out of the hospital.

When Peter returned to Stella’s room, she’d come out of the fugue state. Her eyes widened and threw herself into Peter’s arms. “Oh, Peter, what’s happening to me? I’m afraid.”

Stella agreed to be admitted for observation and tests. They wanted to admit her to the psych unit, but no beds were available, so they put her on the 8
^th
floor. Where she would be under special observation until a bed became available. Peter planned to stay with her all night.

On the floor, the nurses were solicitous of their needs. They administered medication to help Stella sleep and moved a lounge chair in for Peter to rest in. Peter felt grungy and tired. He wanted to go home and shower, get something to eat, and then return for the night. The nurses assured him that Stella would be fine until he came back.

He paused at the door to watch her sleeping form, her head with its auburn curls resting peacefully on the pillow. He walked back to the bed and pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Stella, come back to me…”

Back at the house, as he trudged through the mess, Peter became angry; he wanted to blame someone for all of this, but who? The Health and Wellness Center? Dr. Evans? Themselves? Or this Eris that Stella was mumbling about? What was it Dr. Evans had said? The Goddess of chaos and discord.

Peter took a long, hot shower and changed clothes. He cleared the table of debris, pulled out his laptop and looked up “Eris”. What he found was creepy. Eris, the Greek goddess known as Discordia in the Roman world, delighted in bloodshed, ruination, murder, evil and discord. According to myth, she caused the war of Troy, and most wars since then.

Then he researched the pineal gland. Called the third eye in many esoteric teachings, he found it associated with spiritual vision, seeing into the future, into other worlds and ability to read auras. In most cases the visions reported were of heavenly beings, of light, of unity with God.

The questions raised made him think. Those reporting the visions claimed they were real, and that the gland opened a window into other worlds. Others said they were simply a biological anomaly, caused by a hallucinogenic chemical (Dimethyltryptamine
)
. Research indicated the chemical was a naturally occurring phenomenon produced by the gland when the brain was under stress. Peter leaned towards the chemical, biological explanation. Whatever Stella was seeing couldn’t possibly be real.

A cold breeze brushed his neck. Had he left the door open? He closed his laptop and walked into the hallway. Debris and glass crunched under his footsteps. He shivered; he felt as if someone was in the room with him. “Who’s there?” he called out. No answer. His nerves were shot and now he was imagining things. He needed to get back to the hospital and Stella. He’d been gone too long.

His cell phone chirruped, causing him to jump. Peter pulled it out of his pocket. “Hello?”

“
Mr. McRoy? This is Melody from St. Johns Hospital. Stella’s gone. We can’t find her anywhere in the hospital. Security is still searching for her…”

Peter’s anger spilled over as he yelled into the phone. “What kind of place is it where patients “under observation” can just walk out and no one sees them, or can find them? Did you call Dr. Evans? Did you call the police? “

The nurse tried to calm him down, but Peter fumed, angry and guilty; he should never have left her there alone in the first place. He agreed to return to the hospital, and put the phone back in his pocket. He clenched his fists and cried out to the emptiness, “Stella! For Gods sake, where are you?”

“
Here.”

Peter’s breath caught in his throat as he spun around and saw Stella standing in the hall. She was barefoot, breathing heavily and holding a large sword above her head with both hands.

Peter blinked and shook his head. This couldn’t possibly be real. “What are you doing with that sword? Stella, put it down.” He stepped backwards and the glass crunched under his feet again.

“
Peter, Eris wants you--she wants you. All of you. Take off your clothes.” Stella moved towards him, her bare feet leaving bloody prints where the glass cut her feet.

The serpents that writhed around her arms unwrapped from her and moved down her body and onto the floor. Even though Peter couldn’t see them, he felt the serpents as they crawled up and around his legs and he screamed. He tried to pull them off, but they twisted across his arms and wrapped around his wrists like ropes and held him fast. Peter shouted and struggled as Stella moved the sword down his chest, flicking his shirt buttons off, one at a time. “Stella, stop. For God’s sake, please stop.”

“
Eris wants you.” Stella repeated and pushed him onto the floor. She yanked his belt off and tossed it aside. She deftly sliced his pant legs all the way up to the waist, causing his bladder to release. Stella pulled the torn and wet pants away, exposing him. His teeth chattered uncontrollably and he broke out in a cold sweat.

Stella grabbed one of the ruined pant legs and wound it around Peter’s mouth. He struggled, but it seemed as if Stella was supernaturally strong. He couldn’t move. Tears flowed down his face and he closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and moaned.

Stella heard the voice. It was powerful, harsh and sounded like a cacophony of discordant instruments. Eris, Goddess of Chaos. She didn’t want to see, but couldn’t turn away. Eris’s unkempt and wild hair writhed around her contorted face. Her lips were open and revealed her pointy, sharp teeth. Her dark blue skin was oiled, and her necklace of skulls seemed alive. The bony eye-sockets gleamed with deep green phosphorescence.

Stella pulled off her clothes and lay down beside Peter. Stella’s skin was tinged with blue; was it cold or something else? Eris stood over them.

“
I will have you both. Everything, all of you. I will leave you in cinders
.”
Her strange voice echoed.

A fiery and pungent perfume pervaded the air, filling Peter and Stella with uninhibited sexual desire. They made vigorous love on the floor, not noticing the broken glass and debris cutting into their backs and legs.

Eris touched Peter with her blue fingers, she ran her hands over Stella and they were once again filled with frantic desire. Eris knelt and ran her tongue over their bodies and they climaxed again and again.

Eris lifted the gleaming black sword and handed it back to Stella.
“
It is time
…”

Stella, slick with sweat and saliva, lifted the sword and chanted the song Eris had taught her. “Discord strides exulting in her torn mantle…Discord strides exulting…”

Peters mind no longer grasped reality. He begged for Stella to take him again; his head lolled to one side.

Stella stood and lifted the enormous sword over her head. She adjusted it in her damp and shaking hands and stared down at Peter. She lowered the sword to his chest and the sharp point pierced his skin. A drop of blood shone red against his pale skin. A window in her mind opened, and the memory of her dream--Peter lying dead at her feet, the destruction--filled her with dread. Her heart ached with a terrible loss and her mind cleared. Destroy Peter? NO!

Anger ripped through her body and she spun towards the goddess. Stella screamed, “You dare to demand obedience in a world of lawlessness and chaos?” she stood up and faced Eris. “I refuse.”

Eris howled. Lightening swirled around her body as the serpents appeared and writhed around her arms, hissing. Her strident, discordant screams filled the room and echoed from one wall to the other. A violent wind swept into the room, causing Stella’s hair to whip about her face.
“
No human has ever defied my will
.”

Stella turned her back on Eris and knelt next to Peter. She ran her finger along Peter’s cheek and whispered. “Till death do us part….” Then she clenched her eyes shut and fell forward onto the sword. She convulsed as blood poured out of her body, pooling in wide red rivers.

Eris vanished with a peal of thunder, leaving only the searing scent of her strange perfume.

THINGS FOUND IN A 4
^th
FLOOR ROOM
by

Erik T. Johnson

1. Tape recording of an unidentified male in his mid-thirties: circa 2009
For several years, I have been living in neglected houses, sleeping in many punctured waterbeds. No matter where I stay in Ghostmoth, the sun shines through the orange and brown blinds with an apocalyptic quiet, broken by the occasional bang of a metal pole striking something in the distance—possibly a loose flagpole or traffic light.

I don’t have to live here—I could live anywhere, given my personal wealth—but as a student of philosophy I have an interest in determining what happened in Ghostmoth that goes beyond the admittedly bizarre details.

Until 1979, this small town in upstate New York had been a favorite destination for tourists, who enjoyed the colonial houses, kayaking on the river and antiquing, and students from across the country who soaked up the intellectually challenging atmosphere of Ghostmoth University, an experimental school in the most liberal tradition.
I am collecting bits of diaries, newspapers, and other textual evidence left behind when the citizens of Ghostmoth disappeared. Most valuables that remained have been looted since then, but correspondence and other written records can be found in almost every desk, drawer and file cabinet.
Many of these records have been quite useful, but I am specifically looking for an unpublished work by Wilks and his student Blick, reportedly titled
The Repetition Must Repeat Itself Now
. At the moment, the existence of this manuscript is only a rumor . . .
2. Red book of Dr. Hammond Wilks: September 21, 1970
Until recently, I was an aging, urbane philosopher and professor of metaphysics and ontology at NYU. Last summer I took a position in the philosophy department at the newly created Ghostmoth University and bought an old Victorian house on the fringe of the small town. The house had once belonged to Tristan “Reedy” Richards, a reclusive, outsider musician suspected of schizophrenia who was little liked in the community, and had provided Ghostmoth with its first dark moment when he disappeared one night in 1965.
I settled happily in the sleepy town and began my life’s work in earnest. I focused on the nature of repetition, as a metaphysical principle and in all its existent forms: the constant rising of the sun, the opening of eyes, the flying of bees, the breaking of pencils, the breathing of air, the booming of thunder, the reading of letters, and so on.