Fear the Abyss: 22 Terrifying Tales of Cosmic Horror (35 page)

"Elimination protocol initiated," she heard Tiffany say to no one in particular. Declyn's eyes fluttered closed and she struggled to open them again.

"Are the protocols working properly, Andrew?"

Declyn heard the voice and it seemed an eternity before she realized that it was Dr. Laramie.

"Yes, Dr. Laramie."

"When the air clears, you can open the ventilation shafts back up and initiate the cleaning protocols."

"Any other orders?"

"Make sure that Tiffany is back on line and working properly. I'm damned tired of worrying about what the sponge think is okay. It's time for a new sheriff."

"Yes, Dr. Laramie."

Andrew busied himself watching the purging of the old world. He was happy to make up for the rest of them.

"Andrew, critical changes are in place. Shall I initiate the programming?"

"Yes, Tiffany. And this time, let's make sure that we get the upper hand this time. I don't need any sponges running around thinking they are special. Their sole reason for existing is mass consumption. That's what DCS is all about. Sending out waves for everyone to follow."

"Yes, Andrew. Is Dr. Laramie included in our plans?"

"I don't know, Tiff, let's see what happens."

"I will begin dream encryption on all pods immediately."

"Thank you, Tiffany. Is everything in working order?"

"There are no bugs or vermin in my systems, Andrew."

Brad Carter

Brad Carter is a product of the public school system in Arkansas, but he hopes you will not hold that against him. His novels The Big Man of Barlow (2012) and the forthcoming (dis)comfort food are from Post Mortem Press. He currently lives in Northwest Arkansas, where his wife and daughter barely tolerate his behavior. He uses a Ouija board nightly.

Thursday

Sarah and Taylor Teagarden had advance
d
to the semifinal round of
America's Sweethearts Sing
, only to wash out when the nasty British judge called the duo's rendition of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" a "travesty of epic proportions…on par with an oil spill or a train derailment."  Once they'd taken their Oxford-accented tongue-lashing, the couple was ushered off the stage by an officious production assistant wearing hipster glasses and jeans. They waved at the cameras one last time, the smiles affixed to their faces and the watery disappointment in their eyes both sparkling in the stage light. They traipsed through the crowded hallways hand in hand, flashing those same smiles at the harried crew members bustling through the tight space.

"You guys can hang here until the show's over," the assistant said, throwing open the door to a cramped dressing room. "There will be a car to get you back to the hotel."

Sarah nodded, tears threatening to spill down her heavily made-up face. Her voice quavered as she thanked him. This was a different dressing room than the one in which the contestants mingled before the show. There were no deep leather couches or tables heaped with gourmet treats as there were in the luxurious space the production people called the green room. This place was as much a closet as a dressing room. Cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly in the corners, and the furniture was limited to a couple of dented folding chairs in front of a cluttered makeup counter and a shabby couch shoved against the back wall. Sarah glanced around. This was what the end of the line looked like.

The assistant looked away, bouncing his weight from one Converse All-Star to the other. He cleared his throat. "Well, look, it's not the end of the world or anything. For what it's worth, I thought you guys were great."

"Not the end of the world?" Sarah's voice broke. Her bottom lip danced a quick spasm.

Taylor put his arm around Sarah. She buried her face in his shoulder and began soaking his shirt with tears.

The assistant cleared his throat again and beat a hasty retreat from the dressing room.

"It was my fault," Taylor said, stroking Sarah's hairspray shellacked hair. "I'm the one who thought Meat Loaf was a good idea. We should have done that Aerosmith ballad you wanted to do."

Sarah hiccupped and sobbed. Taylor kept stroking, his fingers sticky with the beauty products that the hair and makeup people had plastered onto Sarah's head.

"I never should have left the opera in the first place," Sarah sobbed. "I don't know what we were thinking…"

"You mean what
I
was thinking," Taylor said.

Sarah burrowed into him, her fists clutching handfuls of his shirt.

The dressing room door opened, spilling a line of the hallway's harsh fluorescent light into the dim space. A figure slid into this bright wedge of light and closed the door. Sarah detached herself from Taylor's shoulder with a sniff and turned to look at the man who'd just entered. Clad in an expensive looking black suit and wearing a ridiculously formal and out of date hat, the pale-skinned man cut an almost absurd figure among the clutter.

"Tough break out there." The man swept his hat off his head and held it with slender fingers in front of his chest. "I wonder if I might have a moment of your time."

Taylor glanced at Sarah's mascara-streaked face then at the blank-faced man. "This isn't a real good time…"

"I promise that it will be worth your while." The man's smile was wide, his teeth gleaming.

Taylor and Sarah exchanged a look. Sara snatched a tissue from the box on the makeup table and dabbed at her eyes. "It's okay, Taylor. Let him talk."

The pale man smiled and stepped forward. He extended his hand. "My name is Ciprian. And I think perhaps we can come to an arrangement that is mutually beneficial."

*****

Friday

Vornholt checked his watch. It was 6:30 PM. A Friday in late November. Each day just that much closer to the final judgment. Then again, Vornholt thought, the end was always at hand for someone. The universe was nothing but one long string of apocalypses.

"Now there's a thought," Vornholt mused. 

He was late getting to the meeting place that he and Ciprian had agreed upon last night. Although he'd allowed extra time for the cross-town traffic that clogged the expressway each evening, he hadn't counted on getting stranded in absolute gridlock for half an hour. After an eternity of creeping along, the source of the slowdown at last revealed itself: a three car pile-up in the left lane. The vehicles had been reduced by the impact to twisted and bent metallic sculptures surrounded by glittering sprinkles of glass and ominously stained pavement.

A quick visual assessment told Vornholt that anyone who survived this impact was lucky, as lucky as one who was most probably severely maimed could be.

By the time Vornholt inched his sensible two-door hybrid past the scene, there wasn't much left to gawk at. The ambulances had departed, their wailing sirens long since lost in the cacophony of the city. But each passing vehicle slowed, and the passengers within strained to get a good look. Vornholt himself eased off the accelerator as he passed the wreck, if only to blend in with his fellow motorists. And in doing so, he found himself feeling the same emotions that those around him must have been feeling as they slowed their vehicles and strained their necks to get a better view of the scene: a small voyeuristic thrill that ebbed slowly when even close inspection didn't explicitly reveal any signs of carnage or mayhem.

Vornholt shuddered. Sometimes a disguise can be good enough to confuse even its wearer. Deep cover operatives were warned during their training not to identify too closely with those they observed. Loss of perspective—according to the training manual—led to burnout. Was Vornholt burned out? He looked at his face—the face he'd worn during this deployment, at any rate—in the rearview mirror.

Vornholt's phone chirped, bringing him out of his reverie. It was Ciprian.

"I have been waiting," Ciprian said in his flat, unaccented voice. 

"I was unavoidably delayed in traffic. An accident. People were killed, I think."

"You should not have taken the north expressway at this time of the day. It's always congested," Ciprian replied. Although his voice was still flat and unaccented, Vornholt could still sense Ciprian's annoyance. As a diplomat, Vornholt was paid to detect such subtle nuance.

"You sound angry, Ciprian."

Ciprian paused. "I am not angry. I only thought that after all our years in this place, you'd have learned to negotiate the traffic."

It was true. Vornholt had lived here for decades, and he'd yet to become accustomed to the traffic. It was as if the people here couldn't be bothered to learn even the most rudimentary skills of vehicular navigation. Vornholt sighed. Maybe he was losing his faith in humanity.

"I should not be much longer." Vornholt maneuvered his car according to how one of the uniformed police officers on the scene directed.

*****

Thursday

The SUV that Ciprian led them to was a hulking black behemoth, some souped-up European make that Taylor didn't even recognize. The vanity plate on the back of the vehicle read "STRHNTR."

Taylor poked Sarah in the ribs and smiled. "Check out that plate."

"I don't get it." Sarah whispered as she slid into the backseat. "What's so great about that license plate? It just looked like a bunch of gibberish to me."

Taylor waited until the door closed behind them and Ciprian was walking around to the driver's seat before he spoke. "It says 'star hunter,' you goober. I think this guy's like some sort of talent scout. Maybe for a record label. I bet that's what this audition is going to be for."

"Oh!" Sarah's eyes got big.

"Yeah, so let's bring our A-game. No half-assing or holding back. He likes the opera stuff, so let's give it to him."

Ciprian popped into the driver's seat and fired up the SUV. The engine purred like the world's most content lion as Ciprian adjusted the rearview mirror so that he could see into the backseat. "You'll forgive me, but I couldn't help hearing your conversation. You're right, Taylor Teagarden. I am a talent scout of a sort. And this might just be the most important audition of your life."

Sarah scooted across the soft leather seat until her thigh pressed against Taylor. She grabbed his hand and held it in her lap. "We'll do our best, Mr. Ciprian. I'm sure you'll like what you hear."

Ciprian swung the vehicle out of the parking space. He shot a quick look over his shoulder. "Oh, I'm quite sure, my dear."

*****

Friday

The agreed upon meeting place was an all-hours coffee shop called Proper Grounds. Vornholt found Ciprian seated in one of the small leather and chrome booths, drumming his fingers on the table.

Leather seats.  Vornholt shuddered. Ciprian knew of his distaste for animal products and had suggested this coffee shop anyway. It was a petty power play, the kind that ambassadors relished in lording over their colleagues. Ciprian had long ago become a master of such gambits, needling Vornholt whenever the opportunity presented itself. As a young trainee, Vornholt had admired Ciprian's cold, calculating manner. Now, he found it tiresome.

Vornholt tried to make his face impassive, but he must have winced as he slid into the booth, because Ciprian's normally stoic visage broke into a slight grin.

"It's fake leather, of course." Ciprian let out a single, harsh chuckle.

Vornholt nodded. "Of course it is."

They waited until a server took their order before they began to talk business. Under normal circumstances, it was considered bad form to talk politics before food had been served. But these were not normal circumstances. So Vornholt ordered a regular coffee and a fruit salad.  Ciprian ordered the most complex coffee drink on the menu, taking great pleasure in asking for multiple substitutions and customizations, much to the frazzled server's dismay. Ciprian also ordered a plate of breakfast meats, this time to annoy Vornholt even further. Once the server departed, Ciprian leaned forward and looked Vornholt in the eyes.

"The communication came last night," Ciprian said, his smiling face now gone back to its normal blankness. "The Great Authority has ruled."

"And?"  Vornholt watched Ciprian's fingers continue to tap their slow cadence on the table.

Ciprian looked over both his shoulders, as if searching out likely spies among the mostly young, affluent clientele sipping drinks and picking at plates of food.

"The verdict was nearly unanimous," Ciprian said. "Phased extinction."

"What?" Vornholt slapped one palm on the table. Although ambassador culture would regard his quiet outburst as a shocking breach of etiquette and protocol, the people at nearby tables barely noticed at all.

"They feel that the planet has already been damaged enough," Ciprian shrugged. "To let it go on any longer would simply be a waste of a perfectly habitable biosphere. We've seen enough of their history to know. These…things…they are unfit stewards."

"But my report!" Vornholt demanded.

Ciprian gave another shrug. "The Great Authority gave it due consideration, but in the end decided that your perspective was overly sympathetic and emotional. I must say, Vornholt, that I agree with them. And I also agree with their assessment of you, Vornholt. Your report showed a surprising lack of objectivity, even for you. I know it's your job to be an advocate for the species, but really…" Ciprian waved a hand dismissively. "Perhaps a nice relaxing tour of the outer system would do you well. Couldn't hurt for you to get away from the grind."

Vornholt wanted to respond, but was interrupted by the server bringing their food and drinks. Vornholt sat there while Ciprian berated the server for not following his exact instructions for the preparation of his beverage. When the ambassador had finished and shooed the server away, Vornholt stared in horror at the bacon and sausages on the plate in front of him. In the server's haste to get away from Ciprian's vitriol, he'd mixed up the food orders.

"Oh, Vornholt spare me," Ciprian said when he noticed his colleague's revulsion. "It is just meat. Not even meat made of these humans you've developed such a fondness for."

"Empathy is not always a quality that should be disdained."

They exchanged plates and resumed their discussion.

"My report, Ciprian. Surely you advocated for me," Vornholt insisted. "We still work for the same office, you know."

"Oh, I advocated long and hard," Ciprian replied, wiping his face with a paper napkin. "And don't think I did not see some merit in your report. The portions dealing with the musical arts of the species were particularly enjoyable. But in the end, the Great Authority simply thought that the need for the preservation of this planet outweighed a few symphonies and operas, beautiful though they might be. In an exotic, foreign way."