By Al Bruno III
March 28th: “WAAAAGH!” I said.
My face was on fire. Not literal fire but a chemically induced one. Sara's mother had emptied half a can of mace into my face, and now my nostrils burned with snot, my eyes swelled shut, and the combination of chili pepper extract and tear gas had worked its way into my throat, leaving me with the sensation of drowning in a too-hot Jacuzzi.
“WAAAAGH!” I said again.
“Oh my God!” Sara shouted. “Brian! Oh my God!”
“Serves him right!” Her Mom said, “Sick weirdo dragging you into the occult.”
“He didn’t drag me into anything!”
I was curled into a ball in front of the cash register while Sara knelt beside me, desperately trying to wipe the mace from my eyes. I wanted to tell her not to do that—that she was only going to contaminate herself—but all I could manage was, "WAAAAAGH!" Somewhere in there I'd also developed an almost cartoonish sputtering noise.
Then Sara’s father spoke, “You don’t know what you're talking about. We've done our homework on this guy…”
“WAAAAGH!” Not the blog readers I expected.
“…and I have it on good authority that he is a charlatan who preys on frightened people. He fills people’s heads with paranoia until they can't tell what's real anymore…”
“WAAAAAGH!” Even in my agony, that condemnation sounded awfully familiar.
“…we spoke to the police to a Detective Bradshaw, and he said that he’s either morally degenerate or mentally degenerate.”
“WAAAAGH!” There ya go. I knew it.
Sara yelled, “Mrs. Vincenzo! I need water! Lots of water!”
Sara’s mother said, “You need to come home right now! I won’t have you bringing further humiliation to this family.”
And her father added, “And working at a pawn shop for God’s sake. Do you know what pawn shops are? Taxes for stupid people.”
“WAAAAGH!”
Smash cut.
Hours later, my eyes were still puffy and weepy; I couldn’t stop sniffling, and my voice had been reduced to an ugly rasp. I sounded like Tom Waits after peeling onions. “You know you’re the first girl whose parents I ever met.”
“That was the worst ever.” Sara was staring into her glass of apple-flavored mead.
We were at Albany's only meadery, a little hole in the wall on the corner of Second Street. It was called The Ferment Tavern, and the mead was genuinely good while the décor looked like someone had given a Renaissance Faire a Spirit Halloween budget. It was close enough to the university to attract a steady stream of students, but just weird enough that it never got too crowded.
I liked the place because it was quiet on the weeknights and the owners were a pair of friendly ex-bikers who had taken one too many falls and were more interested in serving the customers than chatting them up.
One of Ferment Tavern's best libations was called ‘Superstition’; it was an absolutely delicious concoction of blackberry mead and burbon severed in a jelly jar because why not? I used my right hand to finish it and my left to request a refill. The co-owner Margret already had one ready.
Yeah, go on and tell me psychic phenomena isn’t real.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room?” Sara asked, “Your eyes are still really bloodshot.”
“It’ll pass; I’ll be about 90% by the morning,” I said, “I have it on good authority.”
“Whose authority?” Sara asked, then caught herself, “Cousin Roy.”
“Yup, apparently he got maced a lot back in the 90’s when he was a roadie for Severe Tire Damage.”
She took another sip of her drink then said, “Again, I am so sorry, Brian.”
“I should have expected something like this. Maybe we should have told them you were staying at a friends or something.”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“Mrs. Vincenzo would be hurt.”
“You know what I mean.” She cracked a smile, “Girls my own age.”
“And guys who aren’t morally degenerate charlatans.”
“You’re no charlatan,” She had been holding her mug of apple-mead in both hands, she let go with her left and placed it over mine. It felt cool and frail, just like her smile, “And I’ve slept with you, you’re not even remotely degenerate.”
“What a traumatic compliment.”
Interest in the supernatural and sleepwalking had been bad enough, but now she was running around with a crowd that cared more about cryptids than which fork was for salads. At best, her parents were going to interfere. At worst, they were going to convince every psychiatrist, family friend, and judge within fifty miles that she was having a psychotic break. This was not good. Not when we had a kind of plan - steal the Codex, use it to defile the temples of Gorgo, Mormo and Luna, retire or hand over my blog and investigations to someone else and find a way to live the happiest most boring life possible with Sara.
Wow. It seems so easy when you look at it in print.
“So what now?” Sara asked.
I took another sip of Superstition before answering. “Road trip. I’ve got a book to get.”
“You mean steal?”
“Most people don’t give up their mystical tomes to strangers in straw hats.”
Sara nodded, “So we’re going to Delaware…”
“We? Oh no no no. You’re going to stay here and watch the pawn shop.”
“I’m not allowed to go on my own rescue mission?” She frowned, “Am I just your little damsel in distress?”
I have to tell you that if in that moment her mother rushed up and maced me again I might now have been all that upset.
“No…” I squirmed both mentally and physically, “It’s just that I might bring Cousin Roy and he gets really gassy on car rides…”
A trio of loud college students, one of which was carrying a box of Dungeons and Dragons supplies walked in the door. I watched them for a few moments, they looked to be about our age but they were younger, inncoent. For them monsters and mages were the thinjgs of entertainment and metaphor.
But not so for people like Sara and myself.
I sighed, “I just want you to be safe.”
The look she gave me was part resigntion and part bravery, “I haven’t been safe since August, Hell maybe before that.”
“I know it’s just… it’s just…” I ran my hand over my face, “Look it’s like the TV show Bonanza.”
"Bonanza?"
"Trust me. This is going somewhere."
###
…sometimes it seems to me that the world's methodologies for dealing with tragedy are far better developed than the ones we have for happiness. When two people fall in love, there is no instruction manual. No proper timetable for a first kiss, a first romantic interlude, an engagement, or a wedding. But when someone dies, an entire machine lurches into motion. EMTs. Coroners. Funeral homes. Grieving. Gatherings.
And for me, in that terrible April of 2009, it was all happening in stereo. Uncle Roy was dead. Burst blood vessel, they said, though nobody sounded entirely certain. My mom and Aunt Peg were working together with uncharacteristic harmony to make the arrangements to send Uncle Roy's remains to his home state of Florida. Which is good because Cousin Roy had pretty much collapsed. His bravado was broken.
Meanwhile Grandma Gail’s rally was going into overtime, she was happy, she was energetic watching TV and trying to keep Aunt Gail’s twin boys entertained, of course for her entertained was watching Bonanza reruns on TNN and making commentary on the events of the episode. It was things like;
“Wasn’t Michael London handsome?”
“I rode a horse just like that when I was a girl on your great aunt’s farm. His name was Snowball.”
“"Oh no. Hoss is in love. That never ends well. Every time one of those Cartwright boys falls in love, she either dies or changes her mind. Mostly she dies. But that’s the thing about love, someone lives, someone dies. It’s part of world. You’ll learn.”
And every time the twins answered with a “Yes Miss Gail.” but each time they seemed a little more desperate to escape.
She showed no sign that two nights ago a half serpent half millipede ribbon of smoke had wormed its way into her mouth and she had reacted like a sleeping lover snuggling into an embrace.
There was no way Grandma Gail's never-ending rally and that thing she'd swallowed two nights earlier weren't connected.
You never forget your first monster. Most folks go into shock, or
denial, or straight to church; I on the other hand went to the Internet.
My searches for “red mist” got me info about a movie, a mystery novel
and a rumored snuff film involving Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants.
That worried me almost as much as the monster itself. Whatever I'd seen appeared to be completely immune to Google.
So off I went to the local library. Much like confession, I hadn't been to the library in years and barely remembered the rituals. The card catalogs from my school days were gone, replaced with conveniently located computers; the once well-stocked periodical section was being crowded out by a DVD
section.
After three frustrating hours, all I carried out of the public library was a single word: Vorvolaka. I’d found it in an article about a rare supplemental volume of Sir George Frazer’s classic work The Golden Bough. The book came out in 1939 and was quickly recalled and suppressed. Why? The official blame was textual and formatting errors but if that was really the case why hadn’t
they reprinted a corrected edition?
After checking in with my mom (doing fine) and Cousin Roy (still a hot mess), I went back to digging. I was a little proud of how well my research was going, .it was almost like I was in college for journalism or something.
Although I hadn't even been away from college for a week, it felt like a lifetime ago. But that had to wait until tomorrow but that tomorrow ended up stretching for the better part of three days. The machinery of grief needed to be fed and it’s fuel was tears and bureaucracy. There had been some delays and confusion regarding the transportation of remains. Cousin Roy wanted his Dad cremated here as quickly as possible, he saw no value in funerals and wakes. Aunt Peg thought that cremation, much like organ donation and assisted suicide doomed the deceased to an eternity in the First Circle of Hell, which of you’ve read your Dante is kind of like an assited living facility for the slightly damned.
This disagreement got heated. And by "heated," I mean there was a scuffle in one of our otherwise very respectable funeral homes. I'm sure you can imagine the whole awful scene. Well, it was worse. By the end they were throwing display urns at each other.
I wasn't there for it. Later, though, Mom and I were sitting in Grandma Gail's room, chowing down on fast food when she told the whole horrifically slapstick story, concluding that somehow she and Tom Wynne got things under control. Grandma Gail went from being shocked at the drama to curious. “Thomas was with you?”
“For moral support,” Mom explained but then she turned to me. “He and I had a long conversation, he and his wife are getting a divorce. Irreconcilable differences.”
Grandma and I paused in mid-chew.
She continued, sounding equal parts giddy and embarrassed. “And he and I have decided to try and start dating.”
This my dear readers is what they call, ‘Burying the lead’.
I offered a heartfelt congratulations, but I found myself wondering how all this domestic drama could be unfolding while my grandmother remained at the center of a supernatural event.
And speaking of Grandma when my hug with my Mom broke I glanced at her. Her expression was not happy or scandalized, her expression was, for lack of a better word inscrutable.
By the time our little family had wrapped everything up, it was far too late to do any more of my planned investigating. So I sat up a little while longer with them. No more Bonanza reruns—just The Tonight Show. Then I went to bed.
Now don't think for a second I didn't barricade myself in my room. At least for a little while, anyway.
You see, one of my many errands that day had been a trip to Vincenzo's Pawn Shop, where I'd picked up a little digital camera that—with a bit of tinkering and some third-party software—could double as a surveillance camera. Somewhere between the opening monologue and Taylor Lautner, I slipped it into what I hoped would be a good hiding place to capture whatever nightmare I'd witnessed earlier.
Thankfully, this was an era when two-liter bottles of Jolt Cola were still commercially available. I found myself nursing one until 3:00 a.m.
Yes. Three a.m. The Witching Hour.
Grandma Gail sat up, the motion so sudden that I thought the camera feed had skipped.
Time to act. I shoved my dresser away from the door, snatched the old silver crucifix I'd received for my Confirmation, and bolted for Grandma's room. Sitting up or not Grandma Gail still looked to be fast asleep, eyes closed, softened features, steady breathing. Except, of course, for the thing. The red thing. The thing that was like a serpent and smoke all at once, worming its way out of her mouth.
What was it? I wondered. Was this a Vorvolaka?
And what did I do at that moment? I held up that silver cross and pulled out every horror movie quote I could think of, "I cast you out! Unclean spirit!"
No reaction. Just the thing, the Vorvolaka coiling out of her mouth like some magician’s handkerchief trick.
I stepped closer waving the cross in a way I hoped was somehow menacing, “The power of Jesus compels you!”
Finally it noticed me. Oh did it ever. It flowed upward until it reached the ceiling, it’s tail end still buried somewhere in my Grandmother’s gullet and regarded me. It had no eyes but oh yes it was sizing me up.
“I cast you out. I cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and… that the Virgin Mary too!” I winced inwardly, “So there!”
That was the part that unsettled me most. The Vorvolaka had already proven it could ooze through the screen without difficulty. Opening the window served no practical purpose. It was obeying some instinct—or some rule—I couldn't begin to understand.
It flowed outside, the last bit of it slipping from my Grandma’s lips. She made a choking sound and fell roughly back on the bed. Not breathing. Despite the darkened room and my growing panic I know for a fact she was not breathing.
For one awful moment I became convinced she'd been dead for days. That the thing wearing her had been sitting with us, accepting hugs, watching Bonanza reruns and smiling whenever someone brought her pudding.
And that pissed me off.
And what do you do when your pissed off? Something stupid of course.
I stepped forward and grabbed at the crimson smoke. It was an act of desperation and I expected my hand to pass right through the thing but it was tangible, and warm and
had the consistency of a jellyfish.
And it didn’t like being grabbed.
The end of it that was still in the room. It curled in mid-air and attacked. It enveloped me. Everything went red, I fell to the floor of my grandmother’s room. Pain bloomed behind my eyes and suddenly I couldn’t move, suddenly I was entombed in my own body.
Then someone else's memories poured into me.
I was Stuart Shield, the in-home hospice nurse. My shift had ended hours ago, but I was still replaying Grandma Gail's miraculous rally as I endured the miserable ninety-minute drive back to Utica. Mohawk Valley Home Health had done it again—three hours behind the wheel for barely four hours of work. By the time I climbed the four flights of stairs to my apartment, all I wanted was silence.
I didn't bother turning on the lights. I dropped into my favorite chair, closed my eyes for just a moment...
...and beneath the apartment door something red seeped through the crack. It flowed across the floor without making a sound, climbed the back of the chair, and rested around my throat like a warm scarf. It waited. One heartbeat. Two. Three.
Then it forced itself into my mouth and eyes.
Terror. Suffocation. Darkness.
Then I was Brian Foster again, sprawled on Grandma Gail's bedroom floor. Someone was speaking to me and as they did the agony intensified, I expected my skull to burst at any moment. I almost wanted it to happen.
And I thought to myself - Is that what happened to Uncle Roy?
The pain started to pulse, keeping perfect time with my breaths; I imagined it shrinking down to a tiny spark buried deep in my brain that would suddenly blossom out like an explosion of invisible knives. The agony was the color of blood, the color of the Vorvolaka. My field of vision began to diminish, red pressing in on all sides until I was blinded.
I wanted to live, but the red wouldn't let me. Not because I wanted another sunrise, or another shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No. I wanted to live because I'd glimpsed the secret song of the universe. It was dark. It was ugly. But Goddamn, I wanted to know it. I wanted to understand it.
In the red I could hear the voice, “Don’t struggle oh my sweet. Dream.
Dream in the emptiness. The emptiness is love.”
It made perfect sense. Why should I struggle? What was the point of this life? We all end up dead anyway. Why wait? What was I trying to accomplish? Sinking further and further away I had dwindled to a pinprick of consciousness. I barely saw the frail angry figure standing over me but I heard it yell.
“NO!”
The red faded and darkness took its place. I went from dying to dreaming but barely noticed the difference until I was stirred to wakefulness by the warmth early morning sunlight on my face. I was in my bed, tucked in with the covers up to my chin and for one sweet innocent moment I thought that it all must have been a terrible dream
Then I heard my mother's anguished wail, she had just received the news that Tom Wynne was dead.
###
"Sara... I don't think I understood it back then. Every time you really learn something, something gets taken from you. Maybe it's innocence. Maybe it's certainty. Maybe it's someone you love. But nobody ever walks away from the truth without leaving something behind."
I looked down into my drink.
"Sara... I've left a lot behind."
She touched my face then, “You’re crying.”
Surprised I touched my face, sure enough my fingers came back wet. “Well its good for you right? Like therapy.” I wiped my face on my sleeve and accomplished nothing. Leather jackets and tears don’t mix.
“You think you’re the only one?” She made me look her in the eyes, “I’ve felt something pulling at me since I was a little kid. The darkness was a dare because I know, and you do too, that the darkness was never empty.”
“I’m totally stealing that.”
“Brian. Do you think I only went to Pinewood Cemetery because you said you were going with me?”
Before I could answer, the other owner Frank came over and asked if we wanted another round. We decided to be sensible and just order two waters so one of us would be able to drive home within an hour or so. Behind us, the D&D players' arguments for and against the creation of Picklestein were heating up, and Margret was very gently threatening to throw them out again.
I said, “I assumed we had kind of talked each other into it.”
“I was going to go no matter what. I had been obsessing about the Graveyard Game for months, ever since I read about it on 4Chan.” Our waters arrived. Sara waited for Frank to leave before she spoke again, “And then when I found about Sara Bishop and that she was so damn close… Is there even a word beyond obsessed?”
“Monomaniacal?” I suggested.
She waved it off, “It doesn’t matter. What you need to know is that what happened to me happened because of me. My stupid decision. Possibly the last in a long series.”
“Don’t even joke like that,” I took a sip of water.
“You think I’m like some guest star on Bonanza? That I’m going to die tragically in your arms?”
“...and yet I can't stop thinking it.”
“Maybe you’re the guest star in my show, the whacky neighbor who helps me in my time of need.”
“Whacky neighbor?”
“So I’m going with you, I’m helping you. The only question is what are you going to do about it?” She took a strangely flirtatious sip of her water, “Are you going to be a Millhouse or a Fonzie about it?”
What else could I do?
I gave her a big thumbs up.
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