Authors: Terry Farricker
Chapter Twenty-Seven
2036. October, Sunday. 11.14 a.m.
‘When the laments and tears that number too many to count,
are no longer headed and the angels forsake forgiving.
The keys will turn and the gates of hell swing open wide,
and the dead shall walk side by side with the living.’
Translation from Father Andrew’s book.
Robert thrashed from side to side in the chair, the slender lengths of wood that pierced his skin now acting as restraints. Mimicking his convulsive action, the face tracked Robert’s movements then opened its silted mouth and unfurled its long, slender, snake-like tongue to flick at the drops of sweat scattered on Robert’s forehead. Its laughter was a thin, metallic sound, fed through steel and relays before being transmitted through a human voice-box.
The face eventually spoke again. ‘Robert, listen carefully to me.’ And the expressionless mask-like face moved closer to Robert in its circuitous motion, driven by motors and muscles and leaving portions of its sum on the stone floor below.
If anything, the face was more malevolent than Robert recalled from the hospital corridor. Before, the total absence of features robbed the visage of most all its humanity. Now the subtle nuances that gave an imitation of life seemed to be detracting and the deficiency of features, the missing lips, eyelids, ears, hair and the white veneer now combined to make it seem utterly artificial. The mouth that was no more than a gash was encountering difficulty as it moved to form words, as if it belonged to a poor ventriloquist.
‘My window of opportunity grows slight and I must make the transition to this world now, while I am strong. Each minute I exist on the physical plane in this form saps me. Do you understand? If I fail, the entire connection fails,’ and now the face hovered in front of Robert like a death mask, small fissures chasing each other across its surface.
Robert managed a slight smile. The wooden splinters journeyed through his flesh like intravenous tubes and the pain was beginning to register now, but he smiled nevertheless. Then through a slender line of blood and spittle than leaked from his mouth and down across the stubble of his chin, Robert breathed, ‘Then fuck you, you freak.’
‘What did you say?’ hissed the face and moved to Robert’s side.
The creatures that occupied the room, six of them, disconnected themselves from the electrodes fused into their temples and strode towards the chair spurting a red-yellow discharge where the cables had been interfaced with their brains.
The creatures fixed claws, talons and mutated hands on Robert and snarled and bared rows of shard teeth that gnashed as if the collective were ripping a kill to pieces, before Robert spoke again. ‘I said, fuck you, you freak. And your little friends.’
‘Oh no, Robert. You see, I will have life again. That is what I was intended for. That is my destiny, Robert, to be alive. I was designed for this moment. And I have been so barren and unfulfilled, but no more, Robert. We will inherit this world and your kind will pass over one by one to the empty darkness beyond life,’ said the face and the cracks and breaks in the plastic complexion now became more obvious as it switched from one side of Robert’s head to the other.
‘First I require a soul. Your soul, Robert Douglas. Your DNA is the key. Daniel Douglas made me to exist again in a body that was preordained with the correct genetic codes. Your genetic codes, Robert, Daniel’s codes, my codes. It is what I was prepared for. But first I must eat your soul, then I will have completeness and I’m afraid you, Robert, will be as the soulless shells that walk the afterlife.’
Robert waited until the face was parallel to his own before mouthing a word.
The face hovered closer to hear and Robert spat a mouthful of blood and spittle into it. ‘You weren’t prepared for that, you maniac. Daniel Douglas wanted his son back and nothing more. You aren’t his son, you sick fuck, you’re a mutated off-shoot of his experiment. Daniel Douglas is dead, you are not him and he didn’t want this, any of this, or you.’
The thing paused for a moment as it contemplated what Robert had said. The other creatures howled and bayed, eyes fixed on the face at the end of the thick stalk, on the droplets of Robert’s blood that now stained its whiteness and on the slabs of flesh that had begun to decay and strip from the trunk behind the face.
And now grey traces of bone were visible through the decomposition, segmented pieces that formed the thing’s backbone, interlaced with wires and integrated circuitry. The face leaned to one side in a bird-like attitude and the left-hand side began to melt, the pseudo expression becoming half-blank, half-collapsed. Then suddenly two fibrous stalks of bloodied steel plopped out from somewhere behind the crescent perimeter of its forehead and blindly felt their way forward to Robert’s own forehead like large antennae.
When they came into contact with Robert they began to vibrate. The creatures holding Robert shrieked and screamed and the wooden needles beneath his skin dug further, harder, deeper.
The left side of the face had the texture of hot wax now, corroded into a landscape of peaked ridges of skin resembling sandbanks viewed in relief. Then the antennae began to bury themselves in Robert’s forehead, through the flesh and through the bone, arriving at the soft tissue beneath. The process was part symbolic, part necessity, and Robert began to wince and jolt as tremors passed through his body. His limbs stiffened and his pupils rolled back, revealing the whites, bloodshot and bulging. His temples pulsed perceptibly and veins branched across them. It was the beginning of the devouring of Robert’s soul.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘Bury the dead well,
and bury them deep.
Remember they merely rest,
remember they merely sleep.’
Translation from Father Andrew’s book.
As Alex climbed towards the light, its radiance seemed to alternately wane and reconstitute itself as did her resolve to ignore the coaxing blackness she scaled. But each time she considered stopping and slipping into the darkness and all that it promised, all its warmth and the absence of pain, she brought Jake to the front of her mind and pushed on.
As she established another handhold and dragged herself up the surface of the void again, it spoke to her in a soft, sighing whisper, ‘Alexandra, Alexandra, why go on? Why punish yourself? It is not your fault, none of it is your fault. Come into me and find peace, I will give you rest and happiness.’
Alex stopped climbing and rested her forehead against the blackness, feeling it instantly bevel to support her weary head, and she questioned, ‘And how could I be happy without my Jake?’
The void seemed buoyed by the interaction, its voice warmed and cut now with an edge of eagerness. ‘Alexandra, I can take away all the bad memories. You will not remember anything that may cause you grief.’
Alex smiled a tired smile, looked up again at the distant light and said sadly but defiantly, ‘Then that wouldn’t be me anymore. I don’t want to forget one second of my time with Jake.’
There was a long silence, and then the void spoke again and now sounded as sad as Alex. ‘Then, Alexandra, your choice is made,’ and she was ripped from the wall and propelled vertically at a tremendous speed, her eyes tightly shut as a gasp caught in her throat.
The air rushing past her was warm and sweet smelling and she could hear the faint calls of hundreds of voices as she held her arms wide as. Alexandra flung her head back, her long auburn hair escaping from its restraint and bellowing out in her wake.
‘I’m flying!’ she laughed and the voices laughed hysterically with her.
Then the acceleration stopped abruptly and Alex hung in the air miles above the trench, the void still in front of her and clouds of orange and red behind and to the sides. It was as if she was now an integral part of a fiery sunset and she was suspended, not even trying to mold a foothold in the blackness now.
Directly above her head was a moving ceiling of clear liquid. It was as if she was underwater and looking up through the surface, where she could see vague forms and shapes. Light bounced and streamed through the boundary like zipping bullets and Alex extended one hand, holding the fingers hesitantly just below the watery skin. She suddenly became aware of her injuries. Her flesh felt scorched and torn and she wondered how she could affect healing to such acute wounds. Then through the film above her she saw a small figure. Her yearning formed into a vacuum inside her chest and Alex’s heart began to bang painfully in that space. Then Alex thrust both hands into the liquid sky and was catapulted through it.
As Alex broke through the membrane it instantly began to solidify, so that by the time she landed again it was no longer insubstantial. However, as her leg hit the ground the metamorphosis from liquid to solid was incomplete and her foot was implanted in the floor. Broken wooden shards sprouted around her foot like the still frame of an explosion as Alex tugged at her boot. The fragments rippled like wheat in the wind, and grappled with Alex’s trapped foot, fighting to reconnect with the rest of the reconstituted flooring. Alex pulled until spots of blood stained her boot where the wooden splinters began to puncture the leather like a bear trap.
‘No!’ Alex felt the strength sapping from her body, but refused to capitulate and screamed, as she yanked her foot free of the snare.
The folds of wood clamped shut and Alex fell back, her ankle on fire with dull, pulsating pain. As Alex lay, she remembered the horrific damage she had been subjected to when the flying bomb had exploded in the trench and she tentatively slid her hand across her back as far as she could reach. Her clothes were shredded and hung in tattered lengths of material like a child’s paper decoration. She could feel blood, and worse, matted into the folds of the fabric, but astonishingly, the skin on her back was smooth and unmarked.
Alex closed her eyes and breathed, ‘Thank God.’
But her eyes snapped open when she heard the one word that had lodged itself in her brain and driven her to climb the void, mile after mile, ‘Mummy!’
Alex rolled over and knelt, wiping fresh tears from her eyes and desperately searched her surroundings. It was the huge reception hall of the Douglas Institute, or at least a replica of it, and running towards her now was Jake. The middle of the hall’s wooden floor was missing and an enormous sphere had risen from below its surface. The sphere now levitated in the air above the resulting pit and as Jake ran around the perimeter of the crater, Alex also discovered that Frank was on the far side of the pit, watching the sphere and beguiled by it.
Alex stood on legs that felt like they had been replaced again, only this time the limbs were constructed of nothing more substantial than fragile and feeble sticks, but she managed to stay erect as Jake ran into her arms.
She hugged and squeezed her son’s little body almost too tightly and pushed her face into his hair, desperately repeating, ‘Oh, Jake, Jake, my little angel, my little boy!’
She knew the danger was not past for herself or her son, far from it, but she took a few golden minutes to embrace and kiss her son before she composed herself enough to become consciously aware of the jeopardy that confronted them. She looked again at Frank, as lost in his analysis of the sphere as a caveman trapped in the spotlight of a helicopter.
‘Frank! Frank!’ she shouted eagerly, but when he did not respond her tone changed to concern. ‘Frank?’
Alex lifted Jake and began to pick her way around the perimeter of the pit, keeping to the wall and never looking away from the black void of the crater’s mouth, afraid of what could be spewed from that gateway before she arrived by Frank’s side.
Frank noticed her arrival and for a second the spell was broken. ‘Alexandra?’
‘Yeah, it’s me, but don’t ask me how! What the hell is that thing, Frank?’
Frank returned his attention to the sphere, his voice dropping almost in reverence and awe. ‘I have no idea, Alexandra. But it is astounding, is it not?’
Alex looked scornfully at Frank and pulled at his arm forcefully, replying, ‘No, it bloody well is not, and how did you get here, Frank? Come with me now, we have to find what we are supposed to do in this place.’
Frank resisted Alex’s efforts to remove him and spoke without actually turning to face Alex. ‘I think the blackness sent me here, Alexandra. I think this
is
why we are supposed to be in this place.’
Alex looked puzzled and shifted the weight of Jake to be better distributed on her hip. ‘This thing?’
‘Yes. Look.’ Frank pointed into the centre of the sphere, past the dashing blades that cut randomized paths across the perimeter and through the cage with its lattice-work of bone and metal.
Initially Alex could not distinguish anything past the blur of the blades and the slow revolution of the cage structure, but the more accustomed her eyes became to the actions, the more she found it possible to separate them.
This accomplished, Alex was able to identify a shape at the heart of the sphere, ambiguous at first, then slowly becoming more obvious, a humanoid form, and limbs outstretched with a stem-like appendage attached to the front and rear of the torso.
The thick stem attached to the back of the figure seemed to be transporting and removing fluid, whereas the trunk connected to the thing’s chest appeared to have an independent purpose. Alex could see glimpses of some type of metal, apparent beneath the fleshy exterior, as well as muscles and tendons. The trunk squirmed and twisted, disappearing into a hole suspended in the air in front of the figure. Alex thought the figure to be naked with ceramic white skin, but when a different aspect was presented, she saw that the front of the figure was stripped of its skin and that tubing crisscrossed its body, conveying more solution.
Alex saw that the thing was suspended by a series of chains that stretched from its skin to the underside of the cage’s surface. Surgically split ribs allowed the trunk to escape the thing’s body and spiral into the hole in front. But as shocking as this sight was, Alex’s attention was drawn away from it and to the opening itself. It seemed to be some type of portal and one half of the trunk that originated in the being’s chest cavity extended through it. Alex could not adequately make out what was on the other side of the portal, although it seemed to her now that whatever it was, it was vitally important that she witness it.
Jake whispered in her ear as if he was imparting secrets, ‘Close your eyes, Mummy, it helps you see things better.’
Alex looked at her son, waiting for the meaning of his words to become clear, and then she faced the portal again and closed her eyes. She quickly opened them again, with a sharp gasp, as for a transient moment she felt her consciousness journeying along the stem that was embedded in the portal, as if she was seeing through the eyes of a scurrying insect that moved along the extension. But Jake squeezed her hand reassuringly and she smiled at the child and closed her eyes again.
Instantly she was back on the stem, moving forward quickly. She felt the loose fleshy covering under her feet and in other parts the hard metal, she smelled the heat and tasted the blood and as she penetrated the thin screen that was the portal, Alex was aware of tremendous pressure bearing down on her body, constricting and compressing. The part of her that broke through the gateway experienced the yearning sense of loss that Alex had endured whilst climbing in the void; the same sensation of being pulled in, of being claimed by the very material around her and of being forced to empathize with its longing.
She felt her awareness being sucked at, and it was only with a concentrated degree of will that she was able to remain in some degree of control. She felt as if she had been turned inside out and all the sticky, oozing contents of her body acted now as adhesive, keeping her fixed to the surface of the portal.
When she did break free the pain was immense and all consuming, but was tempered with such a feeling of pure elation at existing, that Alex wept and it was her child’s gentle motivation that steadied her again. She focused now on the room on the other side of the gateway.
The stem ended in a head, with both organic and synthetic segments visible, but with a smooth, white, plastic face that seemed to be crumpling now, as if heated in a furnace. And directly in front of the face, staring at it and restrained by foul, skinless monsters, was her husband Robert.
Alex screamed his name, opening her eyes, and the link vanished. When Alex had sufficiently recovered to turn her attention back to Frank, the man had already gone. He was standing on the far side of the sphere now, just below it and wearing the same look of wonderment as before. Alex began to call his name when there was a disturbance in the pit below. Tapping into the instinctive nature that she now seemed to possess, she crouched and slid Jake all the way round to her rear, making sure she was between her son and the pit.
There was a sound like a huge rush of wind, as if a blizzard was raging in the void of the pit, and Alex felt herself being pushed back by the force of the storm. Then there was a second of nothing, no noise and no activity in the crater, nothing, before the wind reversed and nearly sucked Alex into the abyss. Then a loud whooshing noise, as if something had passed her at tremendous speed, and one of the monstrous spiders she had battled in the trench was ejected from the blackness of the pit.
The thing landed nimbly on its steel tipped legs, the impact making a ‘clinking’ sound and, although eye-less, it scuttled three hundred and sixty degrees as if reconnoitering its new position. It had fallen a dozen feet from where Frank stood and it immediately sensed the man and lowered its black, sleek body inches from the floor, extending two slender, thrice-jointed legs in front of it, as if tasting the air.
Frank swung round, alerted by the tapping sound of the spider’s limbs, but it was already too late and the creature had reared up on four of its legs, jabbing two of its forelegs at Frank. The blades that edged each of the spider’s limbs were razor sharp and keen and now two of them struck Frank, one a glancing blow carving the flesh on his calf and one slicing through his thigh to pin him where he stood. The spider’s gash mouth, armed with its row upon row of lethally sharp teeth, bore down on Frank, slavering and whining, but as the spider narrowed its focus, Frank brought his rifle to bear on the beast’s under-carriage.
The weapon pumped two rounds into the thing’s body, both of which exploded from the black dome of its back along with an oil-like discharge. The spider shrieked, lifting Frank from the ground, still impaled on the spike-edged limb, as Frank forced the rifle barrel into its gaping mouth and sent two more bullets down its throat. Alex frantically searched the area surrounding her and Jake and spotted a metal pipe about the size of a snooker cue but considerably thicker protruding from the edge of the pit. It had obviously been ripped upwards when the sphere had broken through and shredded the floor of the hall and now curled out of the crater like a snake responding to a charmer’s flute.