“You
don’t have to believe the stories on my blog, you can dismiss them as
good hallucinations or bad fiction if you want to but they’re all true.
The darkness was never empty, there are things that wait for the
innocent and unwary to turn their backs. What is it you think I’m
talking about here? Ghosts? Vampires? Ghouls? If only it were that
simple. The creatures of the night are still out there but they’re not
shadowing your every footstep. They just check your status updates from
the comfort of their tombs.
All
I ever wanted was to be a Do-It-Yourself style reporter but more often
than I like I find myself becoming part of my stories. It turns out gods
and monsters don’t like their secrets getting out any more than your
standard politician or celebrity. We all know how this is going to turn
out in the end; I’m already long overdue for jail, the looney bin or a
guest of honor spot at a monster buffet but until that fateful day I’m
not going to back down or give up.
My name is Brian Foster and some people call me The Night Blogger.
.."
Brian
and his friends delve deeper into the secrets of Gorgo, Luna, and the
Thousand-Faced Moon, only to realize they may need the help of a woman
who claims to be the Devil.
March 5: As malls go, Colonie Center wasn't all that bad, especially now that it had been re-renovated. The stores were 80% the same, but the design had shifted from 'generic' to ‘1970s rec room.'
Nearly a decade before that makeover, I had spent many afternoons there as a teenager—sometimes for legitimate reasons. Other times, my friends Eric and Georgie would sneak through the employee hallways and stairways to find a secluded spot to partake in the Devil's Lettuce.
Sara's sleepwalking incidents had faded away thanks to nightly burnings of sage and a necklace of black tourmaline, amethyst, and clear quartz crystals. I wasn't so naïve as to think she was entirely out of the supernatural woods, but it was still a reason to celebrate. Besides, she had just turned twenty-one a few weeks ago, and after grabbing some fast food and catching a movie, I wanted to buy her her first drink. We walked through the mall together—Sara in a long skirt and peasant blouse and me in my leather jacket, jeans, collared shirt, and lucky straw fedora.
###
First, we stopped by Friendly's for a bite to eat. As we made small talk, it was nice to learn about the everyday details of Sara's life. I discovered that her father owned a glass factory known for producing some of the cheapest wine bottles in America, and her brothers worked in management there. Her mother was involved in an organization dedicated to preserving historic buildings in Clifton Park.
Sara shared that her mother had become pregnant with her despite her father's vasectomy, which nearly led to a divorce. Her father was convinced her mother had been unfaithful, and it was only after Sara was born that a DNA test confirmed the vasectomy had failed.
This made Sara feel like the deck had been stacked against her from the very beginning. She grew up mostly in the care of stern nannies, a dismissive mother, and a father more inclined to shouting than hugging. As for her brothers? She considered it a victory when they made any eye contact with her.
In return, I shared that my grandmother had been a showgirl in Las Vegas. She left in 1972 after being labeled an "undesirable element." Arriving in Albany pregnant and penniless, she rebuilt her life and raised my mom. She never revealed who my grandfather was, and in a twist of irony, my mom never told us who my father was, though she was pretty sure I knew. I had gone to college in Loch Sheldrake to study journalism but dropped out when my grandmother reached the final stages of pancreatic cancer.
Unfortunately, it wasn't long after that I encountered my first monster... and the rest, as they say, is history.
After an awkward pause, we left the restaurant and headed to the Palace Cinemaplex. It was a tall, standalone building, a recent addition to Colonie Center. The theater was about fifteen feet away from the rest of the mall and connected to it by a single hallway leading to the south entrance. Every half hour or so, the theater became bustling with people arriving and departing for the latest film screenings.
What movie were we seeing? As it always was these days, the choices were superheroes, resurrected IPs, rom-coms, or horror movies. Considering everything Sara was dealing with, she opted for a superhero movie. I agreed—watching the good guys win was good for the soul.
Tuesday nights at the movies were always nice—no crowds, no kids talking and texting, or worse. In fact, it was just us and a few old-timers. We watched the commercials, the previews, and the requests to keep it quiet. The movie's first fifteen minutes were great fun, with a nice CGI-to-banter ratio.
A member of the audience sitting three rows ahead of us stood and turned around. He was pudgy and gray, his grin shining through the shadows that hid the rest of his face. "There they are," he said in a voice reminiscent of the guy from Mary Poppins who kept floating up to the ceiling, "the High Priestess and the Fool."
I didn't have to ask which one was me. I knew.
I stood up, and Sara cowered in her seat. "I don't know who you are, but we don't want any trouble."
"He says he doesn't want any trouble!" Laughter rippled through the theater. I could see other figures leaving their seats—more gray, monochrome clowns with smeared makeup and empty eyes. I knew they were called Athanatoi, or the Ashen Hearts, but they were Bozos to me.
Sara asked, "What are you?"
He chuckled. "What am I? What are you?"
"I'd like an answer," I said.
"I'm Mister Jack," he said proudly.
So, he was a Talker, not a Stalker. I decided to keep him talking. "Shouldn't you be at a birthday party? A rodeo, maybe?"
"You're better at secrets than jokes, Fool. How did your Grandma die? Did you tell her the story?" Mister Jack said as he climbed over the first row of seats separating us. His fellow Bozos were making their way toward us, crawling over their own seats or shuffling down the aisles.
"Sara, you've got to come with us now," Mister Jack breathed. "You've got places to be, things to do."
I pulled Sara to her feet. "When I say run…"
"You can feel it, can't you, girl? You've been empty all along."
We were surrounded. I wracked my brain for some kind of decent strategy and then said, "Fuck it," and pitched my big gulp drink right into Mister Jack's grinning face. He didn't shout or scream; he just giggled.
And then the screen went dark—no, everything went dark. Even the exit signs. The only thing we could see was a half-dozen toothy grins moving toward us through the black. They glowed like moonlight.
"Run!" I shouted, but Sara was already moving. We headed the other way down our row, away from Mister Jack.
One of his fellow clowns was coming up on us from the other direction. I threw a punch, a right cross, hitting him on the side of the head. The clown's skin felt cold and grimy against my knuckles.
That smile disappeared, but there were still more coming. Sara squealed in protest when I lifted her up in a fireman's carry. Filthy hands clawed at me as I ran. I dodged grins and tried to judge where the door out of this nightmare might be.
Finally, my eyes adjusted enough to the darkness for me to charge toward the door and find myself in the access corridor the employees used. The lights were on here. I leaned against the door, trying to catch my breath. Sara looked like she was on the verge of collapse. All I saw was a stairway leading up, most likely to the projection booths.
WHAM!
The Bozos began throwing themselves against the door. "Sara," I said, "Count to three, and we're going to run up those stairs, okay?"
She nodded. "Why did he say that about you?"
The door rattled in its frame, the heavy metal trembling as a dozen fists pounded on it. "I'll explain later. I promise."
Then I counted down. "One. Two. Three!"
We sprinted away, managing to reach the end of the corridor before the Bozos finished squeezing through the entrance.
"Get your knives out," Mister Jack said, mostly for my benefit. "I think a certain Fool is going to get the Full Pagliacci."
At the end of the stairs, we found ourselves in a narrow passage leading to the projection booths. At the end was a utility closet beside a ladder marked 'Authorized Personnel Only; Alarm Activated Upon Opening.'
And that was fine by me. I grabbed Sara's hand and ran for it.
We were stopped midway by a projectionist. "You're not supposed to be here! This is trespassing."
The Bozos blundered down the hallway, knocking into each other as if they were trying to escape a maze. Their faces were twisted with maniacal glee as they waved their knives in the air.
"Get out of here!" I yelled, but the usher pulled away.
"Is this some kind of prank?" he gawked at the oncoming figures.
"Don't look back!" I shouted to Sara. But I did look back and saw the poor guy being shoved around—not by hands, but by blades. The so-called Ashen Hearts were now splashed with red. So much red.
Sara reached the ladder first and started climbing. I was close behind, but soon enough, so were the Bozos. The ladder led to a hatch, and she struggled to open it. "It's stuck!" she yelled.
I kicked at the Bozos as they tried to climb up. I hit the one with the Larry Fine hairstyle, knocking him down, but another climbed over him and slashed at me with his knife, cutting through the bottom of my sneaker. I screamed.
After what felt like a dozen eternities, Sara got the hatch open, and we hauled ourselves through, pulling it shut behind us with a desperate heave. "What are we going to do?" Sara had to shout over the piercing alarm we'd just activated.
"We wait!" I held the hatch down with my full body weight.
"We wait?"
The hatch bucked beneath me. "The fire company and, most importantly, the police should be here soon! We just have to hold out!"
Sara looked at me with an expression of hopeless terror. I was about to say something encouraging when the hatch stopped shaking. Then, Mister Jack started singing. Despite the alarm, I heard him perfectly “Sara Bishop's not for you, doo-dah, doo-dah. There's not a thing that you can do, oh, doo-dah day."
"I've heard that song already!"
"But you can't hide from those monsters inside when the witch queen comes out to play."
"You better clear out! The cops are gonna be here soon!" I shouted. "And some of them are way scarier than you."
"Oh, the owls and the lizards and the big broke moon, doo-dah, doo-dah. The sacred moment's coming soon, oh, doo-dah day."
A sudden, searing pain shot through my back, leaving me disoriented. Feathery wings pummeled my head as I struggled to make out what was attacking me. The frantic flapping and scratching made it nearly impossible to focus. High-pitched cries pierced through my skull, intensifying the terror and confusion.
Then Sara—thank God for Sara—kicked the fluttering, clawing nightmare off me. The toe of her boot whooshed past my ear. The bird flew up in a high arc and clung to the side of a ventilation unit. As it settled, I saw that it had been an owl attacking me. Its body was much smaller than the pain it had inflicted.
And speaking of pain, warm blood trickled down the back of my neck. I instinctively reached up to touch the spot that was bleeding, only to feel my fingertip slip beneath a tear in my scalp. I started to feel faint, but then the hatch flew open, and the Bozos, led by Mister Jack, began to make their way onto the roof. "Did you like my bird calls, Fool?"
Now Sara took my hand and led me toward the edge of the roof. It was a fifteen-foot jump with a seven-foot drop, but she wasn't slowing down. "We can't," I panted.
"We have to," she said.
We picked up speed. We jumped over the ledge, and half flew, half fell onto the roof of the southern wing of Colonie Center. She tucked and rolled like a gymnast; I hit that gravelly roof with a sickening thud. We both lay there, painfully trying to catch our breath, still holding hands. We watched the Bozos gather at the ledge above us, notice the incoming emergency vehicles, and one by one, turn away until only Mister Jack was left.
He was wearing my bloodied lucky fedora. He tipped it at me and then was gone too.
"This was the worst date ever," I said.
Sara turned on her side. "This was a date?"
###
As I mentioned before, I spent many afternoons at Colonie Center with my pals, and one of our favorite spots to get high was, naturally, the roof. So, despite Sara being dazed with fear and exhaustion and me looking like I'd been juggling buzzsaws and produce, I managed to get us off the mall's roof in a fairly discreet manner.
By now, Mrs. Vincenzo is an expert at patching me up. She wanted me to go to urgent care for the wound on my scalp, but I couldn't risk someone like Detective Bradshaw putting two and two together and figuring out I was involved in this mess. Besides, Crazy Glue is almost as good as a couple of stitches.
Sara wanted to stay with me to make sure I was really okay. She didn't like the idea of leaving me alone with a head full of troubles and a large bottle of bourbon, but I insisted.
When the Police and Fire Department arrived at the Palace Cinemaplex and began to restore order, they found the following three things, in order of importance:
First, there were smears of theatrical makeup everywhere. It had trace amounts of lead and mercury—the kind that hadn't been sold in over forty years.
Second, a taxidermied barn owl was found on the roof of the Palace Cineplex. You read that right: taxidermied. And much like the grease paint, the taxidermy job was also over forty years old.
Third, they found the body of projectionist Nicky Worth. He was declared dead at the scene, and the cause of death was blood loss from thirty-one stab wounds. Unlike the bird and the grease paint, Nicky was most definitely not over forty years old. He was a sophomore at the SUNY Albany campus.
That was one of the many reasons I had to tell Sara to leave. She kept insisting it wasn't my fault, but my gut told me otherwise. Worse, my head was spinning with what-ifs.
February 15th: Our story begins in a dilapidated house near Kalamazoo University, its stone facade sagging under years of neglect. Every boarded-up window is plastered with warning signs. It was built in an era when homes were constructed with classic American asbestos, but not so long ago that the property was still in use.
It was purchased by a flipper who had no idea what she was getting into. One of the workmen sent to remove the asbestos from the building is a friend of mine—Nino Savant. The most notable things about him are his impressive beard and his lifelong quest to prove the existence of the supernatural.
Nino took every job that gave him access to the creepiest buildings Michigan has to offer. I’ve got to give him credit—after a decade in the game, he’s never once been arrested for trespassing.
Genius idea. Wish I’d thought of it.
From day one on the job, Nino felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and he wasn’t the only one who sensed something was wrong with the place. Other members of the asbestos removal team complained of headaches and nausea. More than a few men quit outright, insisting that it wasn’t safe to be there, that the whole structure was going to collapse. It didn’t lean right.
Nino told me that every building has a bit of a lean to it. No matter how well built a structure is, gravity and the elements will have their way with it. Roofs sag, foundations crack, floors bend and bubble. And if that building is neglected, the decay sets in all the faster.
The poisoned brownstone in downtown Kalamazoo was no different, yet it was different. The floors might look as though they leaned to the right, but the pull of gravity made you lean the other way, and each room seemed to twist in its own direction. The walls and ceilings were no better. They left the workmen feeling as though they were lurching drunkenly through some carnival funhouse. Even the sunlight that crept in through the boarded-up windows shone at all the wrong angles.
The day Nino Savant discovered the diary, he had wandered off from his seven-man crew. He’d spent all morning telling his co-workers that he might have a stomach bug. It was a total lie, but it’s easy to lie when you’re wearing a hood, goggles, and a respirator mask. He wandered to an untouched wing of the house and pulled out the ghost-hunting gear he’d hidden inside his flash-spun, high-density polyethylene coveralls. He slowly tracked his way from the study to the kitchen and back again. None of his tools picked up anything—not his EMP meter, EVP recorder, or even his spirit box.
It was on his third trip from the kitchen to the study that the floor gave way beneath him, and he tumbled ass over teakettle down a hidden stairway to an equally hidden basement. He lay there for a while, his legs splayed against the wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. The only good thing about his aching back and pounding skull was that it proved he wasn’t dead or paralyzed.
Once Nino got back to his feet, he took a moment to examine the door. He expected it to be locked, but it swung open easily, revealing a small room. Strange maps and charts, long faded, hung on the walls. An old writing desk with a lantern was in the middle of the room, with an overturned chair beside it. In the corner was an army surplus cot, with no pillow beside it. Next to it were the remains of a duffel bag. It had been shredded, and the contents—clothes, MRIs, and a number of notebooks, the small blue kind you might use to write a final exam essay—were in a state of utter ruin.
Only one of the notebooks was in a legible state. Curious, Nino righted the chair and sat down at the desk, reading the document by the light of his cellphone's flashlight…
###
The Statement of Franklin Brewster
It was almost twenty years ago, in the heart of Vietnam, when I was just another Marine—Lance Corporal Franklin Brewster- eleven months into my tour. At that point, I had one medal and three charges of insubordination. Faith in God was a distant concept, lost in the maelstrom of war.
We were called The Walking Dead, and we were stationed at the base in Khe Sanh and we were truly alone. Westmoreland had promised support, but it was a cruel joke. The higher-ups wouldn't risk their precious units in a place that was nothing more than a meat grinder.
The shelling never stopped. Even when it seemed to pause, it was merely a lull before the next onslaught. We became experts at distinguishing the types of incoming fire by the sound alone. Snipers were everywhere, and a single lapse in vigilance meant death.
Each day and night, every patrol, I would pray for deliverance. Not to God—I had abandoned that notion—but to my guns, my only refuge in the madness. I carried spent shells like talismans, clinging to any semblance of hope amidst the chaos. Was it superstition or mysticism? Perhaps both.
Halfway through the siege, an unsettling figure appeared—the Old Man in black sunglasses. During one of the rare breaks in the shelling, a patrol discovered him at the camp's edge.
He wore standard Army camouflage but was devoid of any identification. His appearance was grotesque: unnaturally thin, with skin stretched tight over a skeletal frame. When he removed his sunglasses, his eyes were black voids, sunken deep into his face.
Accompanying him was a prisoner, bound and blindfolded, shackled with chains that looked medieval in their rust. The prisoner's skin was so dark, the darkest skin I'd ever seen. A strange symbol—a line, a cross, and a curve—was painted on their forehead. They muttered cryptically: "Owls and lizards and the big broken moon." The accent was foreign and unnerving.
All I wanted was to return to my post. While others hunkered down, I kept vigil through the barbed wire with my rifle and scope. I'd racked up so many kills that I'd lost count. They were offerings to the cold, merciless gods of war.
The CO, inexplicably gave the Old Man free rein. He got his own bunker and, disturbingly, had unlimited access to the PX. He cleared out their stock of first aid supplies, matches, candles—everything needed for some dark ritual. He never visited the mess hall, but two trays of food were delivered to his bunker morning and night.
One night, after patrol, I saw the Old Man at a T-junction, drinking from a puddle of water. His movements were deliberate, almost reptilian. I told my squad to go on without me and waited. When he stood, he fixed me with an unsettling gaze. "Brewster, isn't it?"
"Lance Corporal Brewster, sir."
"What are you doing here? Come to sell your soul at the crossroads?"
His words sent a shiver down my spine, though I couldn't pinpoint why. "I thought you might need an escort. The VC can get aggressive on foggy nights."
"An escort?" He chuckled, his voice dissolving into the dense fog. "Come along, little Corporal. Try to keep up."
I followed him through the fog, each step swallowed by the thick silence. The fog was suffocating, alive with rustling leaves, distant cries, and the occasional snap of a twig. It felt as though the fog itself was a living entity, wrapping around us, concealing something—or someone—just out of sight. Shadows twisted and turned, and the jungle's normal sounds became a cacophony of paranoia.
In fleeting moments when the fog thinned, I glimpsed twisted, spire-like structures rising above the treeline—structures that seemed out of place, alien in their grotesque design. My mind struggled to make sense of them, fearing that I was losing my grip on reality.
The Old Man moved through the terrain with unnatural ease while I struggled to keep up, each step a battle against unseen dangers. Then, suddenly, we were back at the base. The transition was jarring, like waking from a vivid nightmare. The Old Man turned to me, offering a mock salute. "I'm sorry our little excursion was for nothing. We're not as close to the border as I hoped."
"North Vietnam is 15 miles away," I said. "It would have taken hours."
"Not with you slowing me down," he said, turning and walking back to his bunker.
A week later, the fog thickened around the base, reducing visibility to mere feet. By nightfall, I was pinned down by one of the Quad 50s for hours, with nothing to do but listen to the roar of artillery. Boredom set in like a disease.
To pass the time, I turned my scope back on the camp, watching my fellow Marines darting for cover. Then I saw the Old Man storm out of his bunker, shouting into the darkness. The shelling got closer, but he seemed oblivious.
A shell hit a nearby gun emplacement. I knew the men there. I couldn't hope for their survival.
The Old Man finally walked off into the night, and I had to know what was happening. I sprinted from cover to cover, driven by an urgent need to uncover the truth.
Inside the bunker, the dim light of flickering candles created monstrous shadows on the walls. The air was heavy with the scent of melting wax. In the corner, the prisoner knelt, bound and blindfolded, candles balanced on their outstretched arms. The flames danced, casting eerie, shifting shadows.
The sounds of war were muffled, leaving only my ragged breaths and the oppressive silence. The prisoner turned towards me. "Nothing exists; everything is a dream." Their voice was strange, filled with an unsettling accent.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"God—human—world—the sun, the moon, the desert of stars—a dream, everything a dream."
"Do you want me to remove your blindfold?"
The prisoner flinched. "Nothing exists except for empty space—and you."
"You want to be captured?" I asked, struggling to understand. One of my worst fears was being taken by the VC.
The prisoner's voice was filled with a strange pity. "Nothing exists except for empty space—and you."
"What are you doing here? You're not a soldier."
A cold shiver crawled up my spine as the world around me twisted and distorted. I turned to find a black door set into the concrete wall, its presence unnatural. It drank in the light, casting deep shadows that warped the room’s very shape. The space seemed to bend towards it, as though drawn by some unseen force. From beyond the door, a metallic chiming seeped through—a sound that was disturbingly alive, almost sentient, as if it had a pulse of its own.
The prisoner's voice held a sinister joy. "You now understand that these things are impossible except in a dream. You realize that they are pure and childish madness!"
"What is that?" I demanded, my fear escalating.
The Old Man entered, holding a silver-plated revolver. "It's not what I asked for."
The prisoner's laughter filled the bunker, a grotesque cackle. "You now understand that these things are impossible except in a dream. You realize that they are pure and childish madness!"
Instinctively, I raised my M16 and aimed at the Old Man. He said, "This isn't for you, little Corporal."
The reality of the situation struck me with a chilling clarity. I saw the world for what it was—twisted, surreal, and terrifying.
The prisoner spoke once more. "I am already fading away—I am failing—I am passing on. Soon, you will be alone in the Mire of Nix, wandering through the Ruins of Never without a friend or companion forever."
The Old Man looked at me. "Who do you think he's talking about?" Without waiting for a response, he raised his revolver and shot the prisoner. Blood and wax splattered across my face. I fired a burst at the Old Man, but my shots went wide.
Before I could shoot again, the Old Man lowered his gun, placed a finger to his lips, and made a shushing sound.
A searing pain erupted in my chest, spreading through my limbs. My breaths came in shallow, ragged gasps, struggling against an invisible barrier. My vision blurred, and the bunker spun as I collapsed to the floor.
Just before everything went black, I saw the Old Man approach the fallen prisoner, drawing a knife. He said, "Goodbye, and we will meet again."
I woke two days later in the Med. The Doc told me I'd had a heart attack and would be evacuated to Saigon, then possibly home. When I asked about the Old Man and his prisoner, I was told the CO would be in to talk.
When the CO arrived, he wasn't wearing his sidearm and looked pale—not frightened, but ashen, like someone who had seen too much. He told me they found me in the empty bunker, surrounded by candle wax and the bloody remains of eyes and a tongue. Then he asked if I had seen a door.
I told him I hadn't seen a thing.
A month after I arrived stateside, the Siege of Khe Sanh began. Half the men I'd served with died. Some days, I curse myself for not being there to die with them. Other times, I think about that black door, the Old Man, and the strange prisoner—and how somehow they saved my life.
In the decades since, I’ve immersed myself in strange tomes and forgotten cities, preparing for what lies ahead. I’ve earned a dozen degrees and become a professor of astronomy and history. Sometimes, I start to feel content, but then I remember that the Old Man and the black door are waiting for me in the not-so-distant future.
And I have to be ready.
###
… As Nino finished the document, a chill crept down his spine, and the world around him seemed to warp. He turned his chair and saw that a second door had appeared beside the one he had entered through. It was black, absorbing all light and transforming the room into a twisted version of itself. The door seemed to pull the space towards it, as if beckoning something to come through. The metallic chiming from behind it seeped into the room, as if the sound were a living entity with its own pulse and awareness.
The door began to open slowly, revealing slender fingers wrapped around its edge. They looked almost leprous, with a texture that was both repellent and otherworldly. Nino’s instinct for self-preservation kicked in, screaming at him to run, to escape and never come back.
And that is just what he did.
Item: The old brownstone in Kalamazoo was eventually cleaned up and put on the market. It had plenty of buyers but not a one of them ever stayed more than a year. Eventually it was demolished and a parking lot was put in its place.
Item: My research reveals that Lance Corporal Franklin Brewster was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps in December 1967. He then spent nearly a decade studying at universities around the world before settling in Kalamazoo. There, he gained fame for his influential monograph, The Impact of Constellations on Early Religious Thought.
Sadly Professor Brewster died from a sudden onset of a category of amoebic meningoencephalitis that had been presumed extinct for over 11,000 years.
Item: Shortly after his long sought encounter with the supernatural Nino Savant sold his ghost hunting equipment, shaved off his beard and went into the family dry cleaning business.
It
began a year ago, on the third day of the Altamont Fair. It’s funny,
we’d go to the fair all the time when we were kids but you know how it
is when you grow up; you trade the merry go rounds and ferris wheels for
productivity meetings and marketing reports. Timothy and I had no
children. We had a hard enough time keeping our marriage and careers on
an even keel, a rug rat would have been a disaster.
Considering everything that's happened I’m glad we made that decision.
Like
I said, we went to the fair-, Timothy and I and our best friends Chris
and Danielle. We were all in our middle thirties, our stomachs were too
weak for the really exciting rides and our minds were too cynical for
the games of chance. There was still plenty to do and see though. There
were crafts, classic cars and livestock displays and if we stayed till
midnight there would be fireworks. And of course there was the food,
cotton candy, caramel apples, deep fried Snickers and gyros.
Actually
only the boys got the gyros, Danielle and I stayed behind rolling our
eyes. They’d just got done saying how full they were but the sight of
the girl working the gyro stand fired up their ‘appetites’. She was
barely legal and barely dressed. We let them have their fun, the girl
wouldn’t dress like that if she didn’t want to be ogled right? Besides
the look on their faces when they actually tried to eat those half burnt
things was worth it.
We might have called it a night right there if one of us hadn’t spotted the black tent.
It was squat and wide with an ugly hand-painted banner that read 'Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether's Cavalcade of Oddities'
and beneath that in all capital letters was ‘FEATURING AUDIENCES WITH
THE EYESTALK KID FOUR TIMES A DAY!’. Beneath that was this ugly image of
a snail with a little boy’s face.
“What’s an Eyestalk Kid?” I asked.
“We could find out.” Chris said, “I’ve never seen a real freak show.”
“Me either,” my husband replied.
It
was ten bucks a head to get in. The babushka-wearing woman working the
ticket booth frowned when we asked her to break a hundred and asked if
we had something smaller. We didn’t so she transformed the act of making
change into a minor tantrum. “Does your boss know you treat your
customers like this?” Danielle said.
“Ah am Docta Tahh,” she shot back, “Ah am the boss smahtass!”
We
should have turned back right then, told her to take her cavalcade of
human oddities and shove it but I think we all thought her performance
was a put on, a part of the show. All our stories of visiting the freak
tent would begin with the part about the crazy lady working out front.
The
inside of the tent was lit by clusters of Christmas lights. Canvas
partitions divided one part of the tent from the other. Each of those
cramped fabric-walled rooms held it’s own display or performer. The
first section of the tent was just displays, pictures of other sideshow
displays from years gone by, taxidermied two-headed calves and misshapen
fetuses preserved in jars of formaldehyde. Everything was streaked with
grime.
From
there we moved to an equally grimy waxworks display called ‘AMERICAN
MONSTERS’. I was always a fan of true crime stories but if not for the
signs beside each figure I wouldn’t have been able to tell their Lizzie
Borden from their Ted Bundy. By the time we had shuffled past nine
serial killers and one sitting President we were thoroughly bored.
In
the next part of the tent there a banner that proclaimed ‘BEHOLD THE
UNICORN- creature of legend’. The unicorn however was nothing but a
deformed goat with a single horn jutting from its head. It bleated at
us and glared from a single misshapen eye. None of us, or any of the
other people that paid ten bucks to get in, were impressed.
The
line moved forward again bringing us into the presence of ‘HUMAN
ODDITIES - Howard Huge! Nora the Tattooed Lady! The Amazing Reginald!’
Nora
the Tattooed Lady looked to be in her middle seventies and had to walk
across the stage with the help of a cane. Howard Huge looked no heavier
than the subject of your average reality show and he never looked up
once from his smart phone. The Amazing Reginald scowled contemptuously
at the audience as he bloodlessly shoved needles through his arms and
face.
By
the time the Amazing Reginald’s performance had reached the glass
eating part of the show we were all feeling like fools. We’d been parted
with our hard earned by the cash at the promise of seeing something
grotesque up close and in person. We were rubes.
Timothy
turned to say something to me, an apology I’m sure, when a frail
looking man in a Hawaiian shirt stepped out from behind a hidden fold in
the tent. “Ladies. And. Gentlemen.” He coughed wetly for a few moments
before continuing, “I am Mr. Fether. I hope you have enjoyed our little
production. I hope we have brought a little wonder to your otherwise
humdrum lives.”
Danielle exchanged a glance at that, a thousand sarcastic comments on our lips.
There
was another long fit of coughing before Mr. Fether could speak again,
“But now you stand on the precipice of a true revelation. At this
moment, in a specially prepared aerobionic chamber, the Eyestalk Kid and
his hermaphrodite harem await.”
No
one knew what he was talking about. ‘Aerobionic chamber’?
‘hermaphrodite harem’? It was getting warm in the tent and there was a
aquarium odor filtering in to the chamber. Mr. Fether drew the curtain
back revealing an empty pegboard wall. There were voices chanting behind
that wall, wet whispers of “…allelujah…” repeating over and over again.
After
some more coughing then Mr. Fether spoke again, “For a mere fifty
dollars you may gaze upon the Eyestalk Kid, you may hear one of his
famous sermons and risk his blessing!”
“Fifty dollars?” Timothy said, “You want more money?”
“The Eyestalk Kid and his disciples have specific needs that require specific payments,” Mr. Fether explained, as the ‘allelujahs’ grew louder and louder, “but you will find him worth every penny.”
“Let’s get out of here.” I said.
Danielle agreed, “We’ve been suckered enough for one night.”
“Actually,” Timothy said, “I want to see this.”
“Me too,” Chris nodded.
“Oh my God!” I shouted, “Don ’t be a fool.”
Timothy blushed again, “Honey you’re making a scene.”
And
everyone was watching, the Human Oddities, Mr. Fether and all the rest
of the people that had been suckered into the tent. Feeling self
conscious I said, “Do what you want - I’ll be waiting in the car.”
Frowning but undaunted Timothy and Chris reached for their wallets, and, after giving me a guilty shrug, Danielle joined them.
I left them to it.
Half
an hour went by, then an hour. I’d expected them to come slinking back
to the car by then but I was still waiting and alone as the fireworks
began and the parking lot began to clear out. Eventually, despite my
annoyance and despite the fact I was sitting up straight in the drivers
seat of my car I fell asleep.
The sound of Timothy scrambling into the seat beside me was what woke me up. He was shouting, “Go!” He said “Get us home!”
“Where were you?” I asked as Chris and Danielle got into the back, “What took you so long?”
“We have to go home,” he said again.
Without
the rows and rows of other cars and local carnies in orange vests it
was hard to navigate dark, empty field that the Altamont fair used for a
parking lot. Chris and Danielle were turned around in their seats the
entire way to Route 146. When speeding towards Albany, Danielle made
eye contact with me in the rear-view mirror. It was too dark to be sure I
she looked like she’d been crying, “We should have listened to you.”
I felt sick to my stomach,“What happened?” I asked, “Tell me what happened.”
“We
can’t tell you what happened. It’s still happening.” Timothy had his
face buried in his hands, when he spoke his voice was muffled, “I’m
sorry.”
Chris started laughing, the sound was almost a scream, “Tim! I’m wearing your shirt!”
Timothy
barely spoke to me the next day. He said he wasn’t feeling well so I
let it pass. When I got home from the office I found him lying under the
bed covers and mumbling. He wasn’t running a temperature but his skin
was clammy to the touch.
Since
I had no sick time left I decided to sleep on the recliner. The next
morning I found him cocooned in the blankets and sheets, everything was
soaked with sweat that had a swampy odor to it. Timothy wouldn’t speak
more than two words to me but those words were, “Love you.”
I
started to worry he might have gotten food poisoning from that gyro
slut. He could barely lift his head off the pillow so I had to call him
in sick to work. His boss was really pissy about it but there was no way
Timothy could even drive himself in, never mind about actually do any
work.
Four
times. I tried to call him four times during the course of that day but
he never answered, every call went to voicemail. I tried texting his
cell phone but that was no better. Right before I headed out to my last
meeting of the I gave Danielle a quick call to to see how she and Chris
were doing. I barely recognized the voice that answered and the only
reply to my questions was a garbled, “Go away.”
That
night came home to find the refrigerator door wide open and a month’s
worth of groceries either half eaten or left to spoil. Timothy was laid
out in the couch, stains radiating out from him. The TV was turned to a
channel that used to show nature documentaries but was now nothing but
wall to wall reality shows about rednecks. I knew for a fact Timothy
hated both.
He smiled thickly at me, “M’sorry. M’sorry.”
“What’s wrong?” I knelt beside him and stroked his forehead. This flesh felt like the skin of pudding, “What happened to you?”
“Had to be there… m’sorry.”
The phone started ringing. A premonition made me want to ignore it but I didn’t believe in premonitions then.
“Hello? I said.
A watery voice said back,“Tim?”
No
one called my husband Tim except for me, and even then only when we
were making love. He’d always been a Timothy, ever since childhood. “Who
is this?” I asked.
“M’sorry
Alice. M’sorry. Chris died. Didn’t want to… Face wouldn’t forgive the
mirror. Shotgun. M’sorry. Tim? Almost time to go. Go home.”
“Danielle?” I couldn’t recognize the voice. I’m still not sure it really was her but who else could have been?
The voice whispered, “The Eyestalk Kid…”
Timothy gurgled a reply from his spot on the couch, “Allelujah!” Then he turned onto his side and vomited, with each heave of his stomach he called “Allelujah!”
I wanted to call 911 but my fingers wouldn’t move, not when I knew the worst hadn’t happened yet.
Another premonition.
His
stomach emptied my husband rolled himself off the couch landing on his
stomach with a grunt of relief. His back was swollen and bowed outwards.
“Allelujah!” the voice from the phone said.
Then he put his face down in the puddle of his own sick and started slurping. With every slurp the lump on his back quivered.
“Stop it!” I screamed at him, “For God’s sake stop it!”
And he did, turning towards me to show a face that had become a mask of bile and eyes that were even more askew than before. “M’sorry.” he said again.
Then
his eyes changed. The eyes I had looked into with love and anger and
indifference so many times over the last seven years began to shift,
slipping out of his skull on stems of writhing, pink muscle.
The last thing saw, before I fainted, was his gaping eyelids, brimming with tears. “Love you.” he said.
When
I woke up hours later Timothy was gone. He’d left everything behind,
his wallet, his clothes, his wedding ring. I called the police and found
out they were already coming to see me. Chris was dead. They weren’t
sure if it was suicide or foul play and Danielle was nowhere to be
found.
They
police didn’t want to hear about Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether and the
Eyestalk Kid. They’d already decided for themselves what had happened.
It was an affair, my husband and my best friend. Chris had found out and
it had driven him to suicide. I’d found out too and my broken heart had
sent me into a delusional state.
Now
it’s a year later and the Altamont Fair is back in full swing and this
letter was supposed to reveal everything. It was supposed to tell you
why the black tent might have been harder to find this year even though
it has almost doubled in size. I was going to tell you what I saw when I
paid my hundred dollars to see the Eyestalk Kid in his Aerobionic
chamber. I wanted to write down word for word what he said and reveal to
you the rites my body performed as my mind screamed for it to stop.
But
now I know I can’t, it was hard enough for me just to write all this. I
have to hit the keyboard of my laptop with bruising force just to make
the letters appear. My fingers won’t hold their shape and my eyes can’t
focus on what is right in front of me.
January 26th: By the time Kris Halloran reached the building on Thornburg Street, the bullet wound had dulled from searing pain to a steady ache. He'd made it home without drawing undue attention, managed a clumsy but functional job of bandaging himself, and changed into a clean—albeit stolen—shirt. Now, his only problem was figuring out how to get the bullet removed. He couldn't go to an emergency room; even if he weren't a paroled felon, there was no way he could get away with the 'I was cleaning my gun when it went off' excuse—not with a bullet wound from a botched convenience store robbery.
In situations like this Dr. Thiesen was your only option. Every shady character in Albany knew that. All you had to do was meet his price and keep your mouth shut. Dr. Thiesen's three-story home was in one of the worst parts of Albany, but neither he nor his patients were bothered. Since Kris's ill-fated stick-up happened in Schenectady, the trip to Thornburg Street had been one of the most miserable experiences of his life.
In the end, it all seemed worth it, both figuratively and literally. Despite the late hour, Dr. Thiesen was awake and ready to help. Kris was broke, so Dr. Thiesen agreed to accept payment in trade. The price? Twelve swatches of skin from various parts of Kris's body. It was a creepy as hell commitment, but Kris felt he had no choice. He'd heard stories of people paying with kidneys or worse. At least Dr. Thiesen promised not to touch Kris's elaborately tattooed arms, opting instead for skin from his belly and back. Even Dr. Thiesen had taken a moment to admire the intricate ink patterns stretching from wrist to shoulder—interlocking roses and barbed wire twisted in designs that drew the eye over and over.
Hours later, Kris awoke from the anesthesia to find himself alone in a cramped makeshift operating room. The gurney was bare, and the IV bag hooked to his arm was empty. What had woken him?
The transition between the two paragraphs is fairly smooth, but you could improve it by creating a clearer link between the noise and Kris's growing concern about time. Here's a revised version that tightens the transition and maintains narrative flow:
There was a noise coming from upstairs—a sharp, shrill sound that evoked the buzzing of cicadas but with a distinct metallic edge. It reminded Kris of something from his uncle's Lou Reed albums, though he couldn’t quite place it. Was it called metal music? Could that be how the stuffy Dr. Thiesen unwound after a grueling day at the office? Kris found the thought vaguely amusing.
However, the amusement quickly faded as he realized he had no idea what time it was or even what day. The windows in the room were blacked out, and there were no clocks in sight. Kris had a crucial meeting with his parole officer that he couldn’t afford to miss. If he’d slept through it, then all of this would have been for nothing. He called out for Dr. Thiesen, but received no response. Upstairs, someone was shouting—no, it was two voices. Kris wondered who it was, but then he realized he didn’t really care all that much. His main concern was finding his clothes.
It turned out that locating his clothes was the easiest part. Putting them on was agony. His shoulder hurt worse than before, and the places where the skin had been removed made everything worse. Dr. Thiesen had promised he'd take no more than a few inches here and there, but the pain and the bandages covering his body seemed enormous. Finally, Kris was zipped and buckled up; he couldn't find the stained stolen shirt but was glad to lose it, so he eased himself into his leather jacket. That done, he jammed his feet into his shoes like they were backless slippers.
The piercing wail stopped abruptly, and he heard someone scream. Was there another patient upstairs? Gruesome images flashed through Kris’s mind, throwing him into a panic. He yanked the IV out of his arm and started at a slow hobble for the door. He willed himself to move quickly and quietly, but a sudden flare of pain made him groan audibly.
As he struggled toward the door, a silhouette appeared in the doorway. The figure didn’t make sense—tall and lanky, with stooped shoulders, twitching arms, and slightly bowed knees. As the shape stepped into the light, Kris was able to make out its face clearly.
The sight set Kris running for his life, pain be damned…
###
...The police found Kris Halloran stumbling through traffic, his stitches torn open and his expression wild. He raved about having escaped from a house full of monsters, but when the police investigated his claims, they found nothing to support his story. There was no record of a Dr. Thiesen in the tri-city area, and the supposed house of horrors turned out to be an empty building. The property was owned by a Mrs. Mary Ingolstadt, a very elderly and confused resident of Switzerland. By the time the police sorted out these details, it was already too late. Kris Halloran, possibly anticipating his probation being revoked, had left the hospital and vanished without a trace.
I had been trying for weeks to speak to Ashley Fowler. I had visited her office a dozen times, called her, sent emails, and sent a fruit basket. But she didn’t respond in any way, not even with a nice civilized restraining order.
Feeling discouraged, I decided to distract myself. And what better distraction than a story that starts with a man screaming about monsters and ends with him vanishing without a trace? I wasn’t the only one captivated; other members of the FEAROFTRUTH message board had also become obsessed with the story, finally derailing the endless debate on "Is the Mothman gay?" that had been dragging on for months.
You see, Kris’s tale wasn’t unique. For nearly two years, stories had been circulating around the Tri-City Area about a physician who offered his services to those who couldn’t go anywhere else due to lack of resources or respectability. The doctor’s name changed frequently, but his modus operandi remained the same. You either paid in cold, hard cash or you gave up a pound of flesh—give or take a few ounces. There were rumors of criminals donating kidneys for plastic surgery and desperate parents sacrificing an eye or a limb. The message board was abuzz with speculation about what he was doing with all those spare parts.
I kept my eyes peeled and my ears to the ground—at least, in the social media sense.Inevitably the secret sawbones surfaced again, this time in Hamilton Hill. If you don’t know anything about the neighborhood of Hamilton Hill let me give you this succinct description- stay the fuck out of Hamilton Hill. The crime rate is high, the landlords are all scumbags, most of the businesses are shuttered and the population is either desperate or demoralized.
Ironically, the location where the man now calling himself "Dr. Ernest" chose to operate was just a block and a half from where Kris Halloran had lived. After trading notes with the TrueSeeker from the message board, I decided to dive into some serious investigating.
That’s how I found myself sitting in the stained barber chair that Dr. Ernest used as an examination table. I was a bit dazed and pretty drunk, with a bloodied, possibly broken nose, possibly a sore wrist and a strong possibility of a cracked rib—again.
“So,” Dr. Ernest leaned over me. He was fat with wavy black hair and a thick mustache. His voice, thick with a Turkish accent, carried no compassion, only boredom. “You get into bar fight?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you should see the other guy.” And by that, I meant the other guy didn’t have a scratch on him.
“Did anyone see you come here?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
“How did you hear about me?”
“Word gets around.”
He frowned at that. “And you’re on probation, yes? Do you have health insurance?”
I shook my head. This was my cover story: I was a broke ex-con struggling to stay out of trouble. The cover story and yet another fake ID from Cousin Roy were all well and good, but where did I get the injuries to match my little deception? Well, I actually did get into a bar fight. I had a few drinks to dull the pain and then went looking for trouble. I didn’t throw the first punch, but I did hurl a lot of profanities and committed the cardinal sin of praising the Boston Red Sox.
That remark got some attention, alright—attention from the largest Yankees fan I had ever seen. He took me down with his beer in one hand and a knuckle sandwich in the other. The bouncers quickly tossed us out of the bar. My sparring partner thought we were going to finish our fight in the street, but instead, I thanked him, handed him a small token of gratitude, and made a quick escape to my car while he stared in confusion at his brand-new fifty-dollar Denny’s gift card.
"Your nasal fracture is displaced." Dr. Ernest walked away and returned with a metal tray brimming with medical supplies. "And you’ve dislocated wrist."
"Dislocated my wrist?" I lifted my arm and winced.
Dr. Ernest said, "My rates are simple. I need seven hundred dollars in cash right now, or I take it out in trade. An ear will suffice."
"An ear?" My stomach went cold at the thought. "Why would you want one of my ears?"
"That is not your concern," he said. "Now, how do you plan to pay me, or are you wasting my time?"
"I’ve got the money," I said, pulling a handful of hundreds from my pocket. Dr. Ernest inspected them, checking their authenticity. They were real. Investigating the unknown can be pretty damn expensive.
Dr. Ernest retrieved a large needle from his tray. "Let us begin then."
The syringe was buried in my wreck of a nose and back out again before I knew what was happening. “What the hell was that for? What was in that needle? Are you crazy or something?” I sat up, then laid back down again, “I... I’m... what?”
“Just a little morphine,” he said matter-of-factly, “I need you to speak to me with more candor.”
“Candor...” I repeated, my voice slurred and mirthful. In that moment I loved the sound of that word more than anything else, “...candor candor candor.”
He held my fake ID up between his forefinger and thumb as though it was something rotten, “It says here you are Nathaniel Blades.”
I giggled, “Yeah it’s cool isn’t it?”
“It also says you were born in 1968.” Dr. Ernest’s expression darkened, “You don’t look 47 years old.”
The jig was up. I wanted to make a break for it, but my thoughts felt like they were slogging through molasses, taking what seemed like an eternity to travel from my brain to my limbs. By the time I finally managed to summon the will to move, I found myself already strapped into the barber’s chair. Meanwhile, the morphine haze was growing thicker.
As he fastened my feet down, Dr. Ernest asked, “Who are you really?”
“I’m… I’m totally that guy you mentioned,” I stammered. A chill swept over me as it dawned on me what was happening. “Why are you taking down my pants? That’s silly!”
Dr. Ernest called out to a shadowy corner of the room, “Gorto! Stop lurking about. You can come help me if you want.”
The face that suddenly loomed over me was straight out of a nightmare—shriveled yellow skin stretched tight over a bald, angular skull. Metal bolts stuck out from the sides of the head, each capped with a riveted top. Watery eyes glared from under a pugilist’s nose, and the mouth was filled with metallic teeth. Despite its grotesque appearance, there was something eerily baby-like about it.
Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so giggly anymore. I screamed and began thrashing, desperately trying to free myself from the chair.
“What are you gonna do?” The voice that came from the nightmarish face was slurred and childlike. The figure wore a too-small Limp Bizkit t-shirt, which revealed patches of flesh on their too-long arms that didn’t quite match.
“What the hell is this?” I demanded again as Dr. Ernest placed a plastic saucer on my belly. “I just wanted my nose fixed!”
“And your wrist,” he added.
“Can I have my pants back?”
At that, Gorto said, “Baba, you’re scarin' me again...”
“You’re scared?” I looked from Gorto to Dr. Ernest and back again, “Did you just call him Baba?”
Dr. Ernest said, “No one comes to me for something as simple as broken nose—”
“—and a dislocated wrist.” I added.
“—and they certainly don’t come to me with a wad of brand new hundred dollar bills.”
“That’s how they came outta the ATM!”
“But Baba...” Gorto’s features were hard to read, but the worry in their voice was unmistakable. “Whatcha gonna do?”
Dr. Ernest brandished a scalpel, waving it as he spoke. “I’m going to open up his scrotum. If he does not tell me exactly who he is and who sent him, I’ll put his testicles on this dish and let him stare at them while he waits for morphine to wear off.”
“No!” I tried to cover my groin with my hands, but the straps on my arms held me fast. “No, no, no! There’s no need for that. My name is Brian Foster, and I’m just a blogger looking for a story.”
Gorto looked genuinely curious. “What’s a blogger?”
“It’s like journalism, but way sadder,” I explained. “Everyone’s heard of your Baba—the doctor who takes his payments in skin and bone. He changes his name, but they always call him the same thing.”
“Do they now?” Dr. Ernest glowered. “What do they call me, young man?”
“Uh...” I hesitated, wondering if sharing this would amuse him or make him angry. “They call you—well, not me, of course—Doctor Dread.”
“That is mean,” Gorto frowned.
“Yes, I agree,” I said quickly. “Now, can we get back to the testicle situation? And by that, I mean, can you leave them alone?”
“I am not sure if I believe you,” Dr. Ernest turned his attention to my ever-shriveling groin. “I have many rivals. How do I know you’re not trying to steal my research?”
“That’s not true!” I looked pleadingly at Gorto, “I didn’t even know he had research! You believe me, don’t you?”
“Baba,” Gorto reached out and grabbed Dr. Ernest’s wrist, halting the scalpel’s advance. “We can’t do this. Only volunteers, you promised.”
Dr. Ernest replied, “He knows too much.”
Yes, I can’t believe people actually say that in real life either. Maybe it was the morphine talking, making me an even more unreliable narrator than usual. But I knew one thing for sure: the danger I was in was real, the cold air on my exposed groin was real, and the sight of Gorto’s arm stopping the scalpel from cutting into me was all too real.
As I mentioned before, their arm was unnaturally long, with thick elbows and hands ending in sickly, spidery fingers. The flesh was a patchwork of scars and mismatched skin tones, with one section even sporting a swatch of black ink—just a tattoo.
The realization of what Dr. Ernest had done made me angrier than scared.
“Wait! Just wait!” The drug and adrenaline were waging war inside me, and I didn’t know if I was going to scream or pass out. “I thought you said only volunteers?”
“I think in your case we can make exception,” Dr. Ernest said, pulling his wrist free, but Gorto grabbed it again.
“What about Kris Halloran?” I asked.
“Who?” Dr. Ernest snorted.
“The last patient you saw before you closed up shop on Thornburg Street.”
“Oh. Him.” Finally, he looked away from my groin and shot a resentful glance at Gorto. “The one who nearly ruined everything.”
Gorto looked genuinely remorseful, or as close to remorseful as their face could manage. “I jus' wanted to talk to him.”
“I had to sacrifice months of work just to get away,” Dr. Ernest said.
“Is that why you killed him?” I asked.
“Are you some kinda idiot?” Dr. Ernest retorted.
Gorto released Dr. Ernest's wrist. “He ran away an’ went to the police.”
“And then...” I paused for effect, “...he disappeared.”
“Are you going to believe him or your own father?” The scalpel was heading for me again.
At moments like this, just before something terrible is about to happen, a strange feeling of being trapped takes over. It’s because you have a body that can be tortured and wounded, while your mind and soul are stuck in a front-row seat. That’s where I was at that moment—front row, waiting for the next horror. “He had some very nice tattoos!” I said quickly. “Roses and barbed wire!”
Both Dr. Ernest and I watched as Gorto studied their lower arm. Then they glared at him. “You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone else. You promised that if I performed you wouldn’t hurt anyone else!”
“Performed?” I said.
Dr. Ernest’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally said, “Go to your room. I don’t need your help anymore.”
“Why do you always lie to me?” Gorto asked.
Dr. Ernest shouted, “I do what I have to, for the future of all mankind.”
Again, who the hell talks like that?
This guy, I guess.
“You said,” Gorto’s eyes were full of tears, “you said you’d stop.”
He pointed the scalpel at them. “Go. To. Your. Room. You need to get ready. We have company tonight.”
When Gorto leapt over the barber chair, they looked like something out of a low-budget horror movie, but a horror movie nonetheless. The sobbing scream they made, however, was very human...
###
...and then I woke up.
Now, before you start getting annoyed, let me clarify: I woke up in that same makeshift operating room, in that same barber chair, but I was no longer tied up and pantsless. I don’t remember passing out; one moment I was witnessing that classic tableau of a monster rising against its creator, and the next was nothing but blackness. Just as well, I suppose; I’m not sure I would have wanted to see what happened next.
The streaks of blood on the walls and floor told me everything I needed to know. Gorto had saved my life, but it looked like they’d stolen my wallet. I still had my watch, though, and it told me it was eleven in the morning.
Since I was already four hours late for work and I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to have a look around. I woozily headed for the basement stairs.
Item: Fingerprints recovered at the scene revealed that Dr. Ernest, aka Dr. Thiesen, aka Doctor Dread, was actually Elyas Yavuz. He had been a renowned surgeon about twenty years ago.
Item: Shortly after his wife gave birth to triplets, Dr. Elyas Yavuz began suffering from late-onset schizophrenia. His fellow surgeons noted that his work was becoming dangerously slipshod, and his wife reported that he spoke to her less and less and took to sleeping in his office.
Item: Dr. Elyas Yavuz began submitting long, rambling articles to medical journals and other doctors he thought might share his views. These articles quickly became infamous and a cause for concern.
Police photographs of the second story reveal a wall stacked high with medical supplies. On the opposite side, three freezers stood. One contained pharmaceuticals that could only have been obtained illegally. The other two held more organic materials, including two highly preserved bodies of young adults, each showing signs of considerable and repeated vivisection. Finally, there was an oil drum filled with acidic chemicals. A very fresh-looking arm protruded from it. Just a few hours ago, that arm had been poised to use a scalpel on me.
Item: Before Elyas Yavuz could be committed, he fled his home city of Izmir, taking his young children with him.
Item: The good doctor’s papers revealed that he had become obsessed with the works of William Sharpe Shaver. He was convinced that by the year 2025, the beings described would rise from the depths of the Earth and humanity had to adapt to 'the Great Becoming' by any means necessary.
Item: Several times in these treatises, he stated his willingness, in fact his eagerness, to subject his loved ones to these alterations.
The same set of police photographs shows that the basement had a large sinkhole that seemed to go down at least thirty feet. A ring of Tesla coils surrounded an altar made from a strange alloy that required samples to be sent to a cryptic, yet intimidating, federal agency for definitive identification. Atop the altar were several artifacts that defied easy explanation: metal pieces with intricate designs, shimmering crystalline shards set into metallic frames, and a perplexing device with interlocking rings. Nearby were segmented tubes etched with shifting lines and twisted metallic baubles with cryptic markings. A compact box with a complex lock sat among them, its purpose unknown but clearly important.
These objects were later carted away by well-dressed agents from the same cryptic, yet intimidating, federal agency.
Item: Several police officers assigned to the case were severely disciplined for discussing the oddly feline-looking tactical headgear they wore. Someday, I need to look into what the hell that was all about.
But for now, I’m sitting on my couch while Cousin Roy and Sara are engaged in a very aggressive game of Gin Rummy, and thinking about Gorto. Were they really what was left of Dr. Yavuz’s children? My instincts tell me yes, and I can’t imagine the agonizing medical impossibilities inflicted upon them.
If I think about it too long, I find myself hoping that the sonofabitch was still alive when Gorto shoved him into that oil drum.
Where is Gorto now? I can’t say. I hope they find someplace... someplace good. To help them along, I’m not going to cancel my credit card. They can run those babies right up to the max. I’ve always wanted to see what it felt like to declare bankruptcy anyway.
Not every monster is out to get you, and not every healer is a saint. Lesson learned.
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