Aeon of Wonder

by Carey Henderson

  The General caught himself before speaking. The young man was correct: he knew exactly what was happening. "What is to become of them?" He didn't specify. He didn't have to.

  "Well," Ramsey started to say.

  "The spirit world," Parkins broke in, "has something like Newton's Third Law. See, any action requires something in return." For the first time, Parkins looked the General in the eye. He admitted that the young Parkins had all the intent required to pull something like this off. He was, in his own way, as mad as Crowley himself.

  "They are the sacrifice. The blood. The something in this world, the only thing, powerful enough to effect a change on that world. And unlike him, I'll get her this time."

  The General did not say another word. The silence blossomed outward into the darkness.

  "Shall I turn on the microphones?" Parkins asked. The General didn't need to see his face at that moment to know that Parkins was smiling.

  "No, please. Like you, I've no taste for it." Ramsey snorted something like derision.

  "Will you be able to close it," the General asked.

  Parkins chuckled. "Of course," he said. "I am, after all, a rocket scientist." No one laughed.

  "So, why is it that a rocket scientist couldn't devise a more... a cleaner way to open a portal to another damned dimension?"

  The General, of course, knew the answer. He was making small talk to pass the time. Small talk big enough to keep Parkins’ attention focused off him and onto the working.

  "Because," Parkins said, slower than usual, "the universe does not care one whit about how we think it ought to function. That's why."

  The General couldn't find a suitable argument and thus remained quiet.

  "Ah," Ramsey said, "I believe I see the crescendo of act I."

  "Kill the feed," Parkins said. Ramsey did so. The silence unnerved all of them.

  "Should we be listening," Ramsey asked, "out of respect?"

  "No," the General said.

  "You don't want to know," Parkins said. The General tacitly agreed. The silence yawned.

  ****

  Ramsey turned the video feed back on and there was blood everywhere. In the middle of the screen was what looked like a black soap bubble, at least eight feet tall and floating two or three feet off the ground, best the General could tell. The surface of the bubble moved and changed colors, a lot like soap, and it seemed to exist apart from normal time for some reason. The General looked at Ramsey, then at Parkins. Then all three looked back at the screen as a leg stepped out of the bubble.

  ****

  The General had been on many a tour of duty. The smell did not assault him the way that it did the two young men. He stepped on into the room as they were sick and surveyed the situation. The blood was everywhere but mercifully there were no body parts.

  In front of the bubble or portal, the General couldn't quite figure what to call it, stood a monstrosity of shadow. His eyes could not contain the image completely, it seemed blurry yet sharp all at once, vibrating at frequencies his eyes had not mastered yet. He felt himself dizzy the more intensely he tried to focus. Down to his core he was moved by what stood in front of him. He simply pushed out his fear and overwhelming sense of inadequacy. The Thing in front of him seemed made of nothing but power.

  "Parkins," he said, "you up? You all right? Can you see this thing?"

  "Yes, but I can't quite make it out. It's blurry but I can tell it's... well, it looks humanoid. Just really damn big."

  The General thought he heard Parkins whisper something about a woman.

  "Same here," Ramsey said. He wiped his chin with his sleeve. "What in the name of..."

  A voice blasted their ear drums. It was so deep that it made their ears hurt and loud enough it caused ringing in between its blasts. They couldn't understand what it was saying. But the General thought he heard several languages. Like perhaps it was cycling through them. The voice itself also seemed to be several different tones all in one. Many voices, speaking as one voice. Horrible.

  "WHO ARE YOU TO SUMMON ME?"

  The General reached for his pistol but a blow to the back of his head made him feel nothing more.

  ****

  The General opened his eyes. As they cleared he knew he was lying on his back on a table. Both his arms and both his legs fastened tightly to that table. His mind locked into the mode he'd trained it for over and again. They would get nothing from him. Parkins appeared and looked down at him, smiling like a madman.

  "It's simple, General," Parkins said. "Something like Newton's Third Law, remember. I got her here, but to keep her here, well, that requires something. Blood. Yours, to be specific."

  "You're going to kill me," the General asked.

  "No, of course not, General," Parkins sneered. "Much worse."

  The General watched as Parkins walked away into the distance. He could hear a door open and then close, then he heard no more for a while. He lay there on the table and wondered what Parkins might be up to. The man was capable of anything. That was why he was so dangerous: he was capable. But for all his teacher's madness, he'd been much more careful than Parkins. Donald Ramsey had also been a student of Crowley. But Ramsey simply hadn't been smart enough to do much more than write mediocre fiction.

  The door opened again but this time did not close. The General could hear Parkin's footsteps. He thought he could hear something else but he couldn't quite make out what.

  "Well, your honor; we're screwed."

  The General could see in his eyes that between walking through that door and coming back, Jack Parkins had gone mad.

  Parkins lifted his hands high in the air and then let them flop to his sides. "I can't close it. Can't close it. Can't. Tried! Really, honestly just truly really frickin' tried, your medalship, sir."

  "Parkins," the General said, "slow down. What happened?"

  "You know exactly what happened," Parkins yelled. "You wanted this, now guess who's gonna have to deal with this, huh?"

  The General had no idea how to answer. He couldn't believe his eyes. Parkins had not seemed so weak to him, so hollow. He'd only been in there for a few minutes and had lost his mind already, given up and let go of his sanity. Parkins continued to ramble about her, how she wasn't her at all; how he'd brought back something else, not the whore he'd wanted but something far, far worse. The General knew he had to stop the man, slow his madness. The man's mind was on fire.

  "Let me loose," the General yelled. "Please, Jack! Let me loose!"

  For a moment, Jack Parkins existed and heard him and fished keys out of his pocket.

  "Hurry," the General said. Parkins worked hard to focus himself. "Good, good. There you go. Now the legs. Perfect, Jack!"

  The General was up and off the table. He turned to tackle Parkins and subdue him but the man had already vanished. He couldn't understand it. Parkins had been there just seconds ago. The General remembered that the door hadn't been shut.

  He looked down the hallway and there stood shadow. He walked toward the monstrosity of shadow and didn't hear Parkins sneaking up on him. Or so Parkins thought.

  The General had a knife in the man's belly before Parkins could react.

  "Thank you," the General said. "That ought to be just enough to get me what I want."

  Parkins was stunned and yet he asked, "What... what do you want, General?"

  "Power, son. Power." He pulled the knife sideways and Jack Parkins began to fall down onto the floor and into the shadow.

  "Now I know that I don't have what it takes for you, Master," the General said to the shadow. "But work with us, and I believe we can help you find precisely what you need."

  The General got to his knees and smeared the blood with his hands into a single, large circle with a single dot in the middle.

  "Have we an accord, Master?"

  The shadow answered.

  Newton’s Third Law of Conjuring

  It was an old house out in the middle of Nowhere, Alabama. Nick, Jonas, Kelly and B
rook all gathered around the old Ouija board. The four of them were all college students, Jonas was the oldest at 24, Brook the youngest at 20. As far as they were concerned, the whole silly enterprise was just good fun. None of them believed in the nonsense of a board game that could conjure spirits. They all knew: someone among them was moving the board. In a way, they were right. Yet one of them did believe. But it wasn't the believer moving the planchette anymore than the other three.

  The old house had been abandoned years ago. It was the perfect spot for them, according to Nick. No one would hear them, no parents, no cops. Just an abandoned house with history. History that none of them knew. No one knew anymore. Like most history in the world of the college students, the past was either simply erased or rewritten. Each of them had grown up in an era where a horror movie was as common as a Facebook account. They took their cues from those movies they'd all seen a hundred times, and that was all they knew.

  It was an old colonial design. Three stories, alcoves and old wood. It creaked and moaned in the wind and communicated age to them at every turn. They were too young to understand why such old houses attracted so many before, just like them, looking for a good time with a fake scare. Cobwebs littered the walls and corners and, in the Deep South of Alabama, that meant actual spiders. Brook hated spiders. She'd begged Jonas to knock all the webs down in the Great Room where they had all gathered. It had been Nick, however, who screamed out when Jonas pointed out the Black Widow spider on his arm.

  "Dude," Jonas said, in the middle of laughing, "just knock it off your arm and step on it! Better do it quick before it bites you, little girl."

  Nick flipped Jonas off and flicked his forearm and the spider fell to the ground. Nick stepped on it and they all heard a satisfying pop sound as the arachnid was crushed under his foot.

  "Gross," Kelly said.

  "Totally," Jonas mocked.

  "Shutup, asshole," Brook said.

  After the cobwebs had been cleared and subsequent spiders massacred, the four college students broke out the goods.

  "So who are we calling up," Brook asked.

  "No clue," Jonas said. "Let's get high and ponder that!" He pulled out his pipe, packed it, lit it and passed it around, cheers all around from each person. They all took turns hitting the pipe until Kelly fell down on her side laughing.

  "Dude, enough for her," Nick said.

  "Beer, then?"

  "Beer."

  After they'd downed a couple of beers apiece, the game began in earnest.

  ****

  "Let's call up Alexander Bell," Nick said. Everyone's speech was slurred slightly from imbibing. Nick let out a little chuckle, thinking of his sudden cleverness.

  "Who?" Jonas asked.

  "Ya, never heard of him," Brook said. "Who’s he?"

  "You idiots," Nick said, "he made the phone. God, really?"

  "I wanna talk to Rosa Parks," Kelly said. "I want to know where she got those balls on that bus!"

  "No way!" Brook said. "I wanna talk to my grandma. I miss her so bad, you guys."

  Jonas merely rolled his eyes, took out some papers and rolled himself a joint. "Look, guys," he said, "we gotta like make this better than that! This shit isn't real anyway," he said.

  Kelly watched his hands as he deftly rolled the papers. "So if we're gonna do this, let's like really up the ante."

  No one said a word for a moment. The wind outside picked up and the old house creaked. Brook started when lightning flashed outside. Jonas lit the joint and dragged deep. Through strained breaths he mumbled, "Like, you know, a demon. An old god. Something totally cool like that."

  They all looked at one another. None of them openly believed in any such thing, save one of them, but deep down, like most any sane human, they had suspicions that such a thing shouldn't be toyed with. But their college educations and the THC and alcohol rendered their judgments fairly weak.

  "Yeah," Nick finally said.

  "Ok!" Kelly said, eyes bright suddenly beneath the THC.

  "I don't know, guys," Brook said. "Couldn't that, like, be dangerous?"

  "Isn't that the damn point," Jonas asked.

  Each of them set down their beers and Kelly grabbed the planchette and set it back down onto the board. They all put a hand on the planchette and Nick and Jonas both stifled laughter.

  "Shutup, assholes," Brook said. Then she laughed, too.

  "Ok, ok," Kelly said, "here we go: is there anyone here with us at the moment?" The planchette immediately moved over to the word, "No."

  "Dude," Nick said, "cut that shit out. Seriously."

  Jonas just laughed and rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Let's do this!"

  So the four of them began to question the board, still uncertain as to whom they were going to call up. They were all testing one another without saying such. At that moment, the game was still merely a game. And then Kelly had a revelation.

  "Let's call up Cain."

  "Cain," Nick said, "you mean that guy headed to Japan next year from economics?"

  "No, you idiot! I mean the guy from the Bible. The dude who killed his brother."

  "You've read the Bible?" It was Jonas, incredulous. "I didn't know sluts read the Good Book, Kelly."

  Brook, sitting closer to him than Kelly, slapped Jonas on the back of the head, a little too hard she realized. The look on his face for a moment frightened her, then he started to laugh.

  "Why would you want to talk to him," Nick asked.

  "Dude killed his brother for like no reason," Kelly said. "I wanna know why. What went through his head."

  "It's fiction, Kelly."

  "It's myth, Brook. There's a difference."

  "Dude, no there isn't!"

  "Yes there is, Jonas," Kelly said. The volume of her voice was rising quickly. Lightning flashed outside and Brook screamed at the top of her lungs.

  "Jesus, Brook! What the hell?"

  "I... there was someone at the window! When the lighning struck! I saw it!"

  "My God," Jonas said. "Here, looks like you need this." He handed her the half-smoked joint after re-lighting it. Brook took it and inhaled deeply. "You're just freaking out. It's the old place. You know, we came here to be scared, you know?"

  "I know," Brook said. "Shutup. I just got freaked. Thought I totally saw someone."

  "Well, let's get back to it."

  They all put their hand on the planchette and Kelly spoke the words, surprising all of them.

  "I conjure thee, O Cain, as you can never have peace until you be freed. From the sun where thou art impri..."

  All four of them jumped to their feet as there was a horrendous knocking on the door, so loud that their hearts all sped up at once, united in absolute terror. They were all sober in a flash. The house echoed with the sound of the knocking, as it continued over and again. Jonas put his hand over Brook's mouth to stop her screaming. She didn't stop him but held onto his arm until she nearly broke the skin. "It's ok," he whispered. But he didn't think that was the truth.

  Then, the knocking stopped. They watched the window, seeing if anyone appeared. They were only greeted with the light show of the approaching storm. As the moment died down, Nick was the first to move. He walked to the window and looked out. No one was standing at the door.

  "Ok," he said, "nobody there."

  "Oh God," Kelly said. "Oh God. That scared the shit out of me!"

  "Me, too," Jonas said. He looked at her in the eyes and said, "But, where the hell did you come up with that creepy-ass little poem you were saying?"

  "Yeah," Brook said. "Dude, that like sounded it was so not made up on the spot. Where'd you get that shit?"

  Kelly just shrugged.

  Brook was still taken aback by the entire moment, the poem, the Ouija and the door knocks. The knocks were, well, not human sounding to her.

  They all sat again, trying to regain the fun. Trying to not let their weekend that they'd planned for a week to simply shrivel up and disappear in fear. So they all put thei
r hands back onto the planchette and Kelly began her poem.

  This time, when Nick looked up, there was someone standing at the window. The silhouette was blacked out in shadow. Nick let out a howl and jumped to his feet. The figure moved away from the window and the knocking started again, but this time, one final blow sent the door flying open so hard that the doorknob stuck into the old wall and the door stood wide open.

  "Who the fuck?!"

  Then the figure spoke in a baritone voice, loud enough to get everyone's attention.

  "My God," the figure said, "Are you all really this damned stupid?"

  "Robert!" Kelly said.

  "Oh my God, Jesus," Brook said.

  "Dude," Jonas said. "I oughtta kick your ass, man!" He made toward Robert who didn't move. As soon as Jonas drew back his arm and threw a punch, Robert ducked, moved slightly, punched Jonas in the stomach, pulled his head back by his hair and then slapped him.

  "Little boy, do not be any stupider than you already are." He let Jonas go and the young man rolled on the floor, trying to catch his breath.

  "Oh my God, Robert!" It was Brook. "You are such an asshole! Wait till I tell dad!"

  "Good Lord, no" Robert said. "What do you figure he'll do to your forty year old brother? Ground me? You'd do better calling the cops. But I wouldn't recommend that, considering the weed and alcohol, trespassing on abandoned but still private property, and damaging said property."

  "You damaged the house, dickhead," Nick said.

  "Do tell. But don't tell me, tell the cops. You want me to call them?"

  "Oh, fuck off asshole."

  Robert slapped Nick, just as he had Jonas. "Boy, you don't have the stones to be using that kind of language. Shut it up in front of my sister."

  "I don't need you to protect me, Bobby!"

  "You do. Now, go get in my truck before I slap you, too, and then drag you to it."

  Brook looked white hot with rage but she merely put her head down and walked out the door.

  "The rest of you," Robert said, "get the hell home. Next time, I show up with the Sheriff. You remember, Chris, don't you? The Sheriff who just happens to be my oldest friend? Yeah, I thought so."