by Mark Tufo
“There appears to be something moving.” Kalandar had extended an arm and was pointing.
I had mistakenly feared that they had already gotten wind of us; that wasn’t it. There were many somethings moving inside the gel, some side to side, others up and down. Rats crossed my mind, but what would they be doing inside the mass? Anyway, whatever the thing was, it was larger than a common rodent.
“Is that normal?” Kalandar asked.
“Nothing about this is normal,” Azile said, stepping through the doors and halfway down an aisle.
“Do you know what those are?” I asked.
“Maybe if we got closer, or there was more light.” Before I could issue a stern warning and a veto, Azile sent her version of a witching flare high into the dome.
I was observing the floating yellow light, Kalandar the stasis tower. I heard Azile gasp just as Kalandar smacked my arm hard enough to make it go numb.
“Fucking ow!” He had grabbed my head and directed it toward what he was looking at.
“Shit.” Every thing that had been moving around had stopped. All of them were looking at us; this we knew because of the silver glint in their eyes. I didn’t know if this was caused by the unnatural light or was something inherent in them; either way, it was unnerving. Then came the low-frequency warble. At first it was merely a suggestion in the back of my head that there was sound, then, when I heard the wet glopping noise as thick slabs of fat struck the floor some five stories below, I knew it for what it was. The caretakers, whatever they may be, were rousing the zombies.
“They’re moving toward the surface,” Kaladar said, unnecessarily, I might add, as we could all see their silver eyes and their sharp teeth biting through the viscous coating.
“I’m thinking we should go,” I said.
“Quick. Each of you give me a garment of clothing,” Azile said.
Kalandar pulled off his tunic. For some unfathomable reason, I gave her a boot.
Azile shook her head. “Really? A boot? I need to keep it; give me one of your socks instead, and hurry.”
“You should have said something. Kalandar gave you the shirt off his back.”
“I have another.” He pulled it from his small pack.
“Great, a prepared demon. Who else wants to show me up? At least Linnick is on my side.”
“I was sleeping. Otherwise, I would have agreed with your mate. Soft-footed animals such as yourself should not give up your boots.”
“Okay! I didn’t realize I wasn’t getting it back.” I’d finished tying the knot and looked up in time to see one of the whatevers pop out from the bottom of the pile. It was about the size of a toddler, but that was where almost all of the similarity stopped. Its skin was the gray of an impending storm. Its head was devoid of hair, and there was no neck to speak of–it melded into the body. Its eyes were silver, and unfortunately it had nothing to do with lighting. Its forearms ended in sharp points; I’m sure the better to glide through the stasis material. It wore no clothing that I could discern, but I wasn’t sure that mattered, as it didn’t appear there was anything worth covering up. It was unadorned by nipples or genitalia, from what I could tell, but I had no desire to give it an up close and personal inspection. It watched us for a few seconds before we got a good look at just how strong it was and how sharp its arms were. It ran around the entire base, slicing through and pulling away.
Before it was halfway around the zombie glob, it was joined by dozens of others doing the same thing. It was sort of like watching turtles fuck: slow, methodical, gross, and extremely hard to stop gawking at. It wasn’t that I ever enjoyed watching turtles do the deed, it was just one of those events you can’t turn away from.
“This is going to feel strange,” Azile warned.
That didn’t even begin to describe what I felt. All the hair on my body stood on end, then I felt like I was in the beginning of an earthquake or a seizure or a seizure during an earthquake. There was a horrible moment of vertigo where I thought I was going to fall down and then it was over, except for the doppelgänger I was looking at.
“No fucking way.” I poked it; felt like heavy rubber, much different from the mirage me she had created for the Landians. “This is friggin’ weird. Whoa.” I said when I saw Azile’s. “Can I, umm, keep this one for, like, when you’re away?”
“You have problems,” Linnick said.
“Don’t I know it,” I admitted as I reached out and grabbed the double’s breast. “Wow, firm.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Azile asked. “I’m literally standing next to you.”
“It’s not cheating if it’s you.”
“Let me finish this spell so we can leave without being eaten.”
“I’ll miss you, Azile Two.” I grabbed the hand of the blank-staring mannequin.
“Fine. You stay with her. I’ll take your double; he seems smarter anyway.”
Kalandar thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard as he slapped his large hand against his knee. “It’s funny because it has truth behind it.” And then he started laughing again.
“I hate when this stuff gets spun around on me.”
“It’s easy,” Linnick said, “because it happens whenever you open your mouth.”
“Good thing you guys got my back or I’d be showing you mine.” We hot-footed it out of the stadium just in front of the smell. It was like someone had taken a giant shit inside an inflated balloon then popped it; a great gust of deadly decay wafted out all around us.
We got back to the horses and were galloping away. “I wish we had an elephant you could ride. You going to be all right?” I asked Kalandar.
“I told you before I can run much farther than the horses,” he answered, jostling along beside us.
“Just feel bad watching you run while I’m sitting here.”
“Do not concern yourself; I’d much rather be doing this. I have watched you dismount…you look like a much older man after a long day.”
“True enough,” I told him.
“Azile, how long do you believe it will take these zombies of yours to follow our doubles to Denarth?” Kalandar asked. If the demon did sweat, he most certainly wasn’t doing it now. We were only going to ride hard for another few miles to give us distance; he looked like he could have made it all the way back to the city.
“Ten days at the longest, more likely seven. I am fearful for what we have done.”
“Hon, it was only a matter of time until someone stumbled across that hive. Better that we have some measure of control.”
“You call that control?” she asked.
“Okay, how about knowledge? We know that they’re out, got a basic headcount, and have a pretty decent idea where they’re going. That’s world’s better than if they just popped out and overwhelmed the countryside.”
“I suppose, but how much better would it have been if the roof had collapsed and destroyed them all?”
“I’m not answering that until I have the benefit of hindsight.”
When we stopped for the night, not much was said. I got a fire going, Kalandar pulled up a boulder and a downed tree for us to sit on, and we just stared at the flames for a while. There wasn’t much to be said. I was the first to turn in. I wasn’t all that confident I would find solace in slumber, and I was partly right. Nope, a lot right.
“Yo! Fuck-face!”
I felt my shoulder get punched. I opened one eye and reached for my axe as I scurried back. I was staring at a white-faced, red-nosed monster: Tim. And he was laughing his ass off.
“You should see your face! Fuck-face!”
He was licking his sharpened teeth to the point he was drawing blood from his tongue. Then he was sucking the fluid back down into his throat. It seemed such an ingrained habit that he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. I was still fumbling with the holster on my leg; I could not get my jumping heart under control enough to grab the axe.
“What…what are you doing here?” I took half a second to
look around; my surroundings were somewhat like they had been when I lay down, though much more muted.
“Oh, I wish I was there! I don’t think I would have been able to resist the temptation of shoving my thumbs through your beady eyes. Just a little payback–you get it, right? Can you imagine being woken up like that? The blinding pain in your skull while your eyes are either being shoved into your brain or being forced out the side of your sockets? How about hearing them popped into a fucking sack? Fuck, man, that’s gruesome. I have got to try that on someone.”
I got up quickly, never taking my gaze away from the psychotic clown. After reaching for the axe for the tenth time and coming up empty, I came to the realization that it was not available to me in this realm. I’m quick like that. Only need to be shown something, eight, nine times, max. “So I take it you found your eyes. What do you want?”
“Yeah, thanks for that. If you hadn’t dropped them with Mr. Burnt and Toasty I would never have received the upgrades. And relax, numbnuts. If I was anywhere close enough to kill you, you’d be dead.”
“Yeah, I feel way better. Thanks for that,” I told him. “So why are we here, where ever here is? You just come to tell me how you’re going to kill me?”
“I think we need to talk.” His tongue darted out from in between his teeth, the skin on it looked something like shredded pork only not as appealing.
“I have nothing to say to you. You stay in your shitty realm and I’ll stay in mine.”
“See that’s the thing, I’m back! I’m not overly thrilled with the current state of affairs, but it’s good to be home.”
“Azile was right. Should have stopped that leak, especially if it was big enough to squirt you out its ass.”
“I can see why everyone wants to kill you, Talbot. You are an entirely unlikeable character.” This coming from Tim. I felt mixed signals at that. First off, what do I care if a murderous piece of shit says something like that, and secondly, wouldn’t most people want him dead over me? Take everything else out of the equation and he was still a clown; that merited death way more than the legion of transgressions I had performed through the years.
“Tim, not that it hasn’t been truly terrifying to talk to you, but I’d rather dream about anything else. Why don’t you go crawl up whatever anus you were hatched from and leave me alone.”
“Want to know how I got out?”
“No.”
“Gonna tell you anyway.”
“‘Thrilled’ doesn’t even begin to convey how I feel about that,” I told him as I looked for a way to escape.
“Got paid a visit from Gabriel.”
I stopped what I was doing, very interested now. “Little or big?”
“Huh?” It should have been funny when Tim cocked his head to the side; it wasn’t.
“Was Gabriel big or small?”
“Do people want you dead because you’re so stupid?” Tim asked. “How many small archangels do you know?”
“Continue,” I told him.
“Wait a second…I might want to rethink the entire reason I even came to find you. I was considering maybe an alliance, but I just can’t fucking stand you. I mean, I’m trying here, to act civil and everything, but, man. I just, I mean, I just want to wrap a fist around your Adam’s apple and pull it the fuck off. Maybe I fuck the throat hole, maybe I don’t. That’s the thought running through my mind right now. And because I said it out loud, now I can’t think of anything else.”
“Right now you’re thinking about that?” I involuntarily put my hands up to cover my neck. I don’t think I’d ever felt so violated by the spoken word.
Tim licked his teeth, his eyes half closed.
“Can we maybe move on to the final round?” I asked.
“Where was I?”
“Nowhere. You haven’t said a worthwhile thing yet. And if you talk about fucking any hole, whether pre-existing or made on the fly, I’m not going to listen.”
“Your loss. Yeah, the pretty boy Gabriel.”
Archangels were a lot of things, but in their true form, they were anything but pretty, at least, by our definition.
“What about him?”
“He sprung me and my passenger out if we promised him we would kill you.”
“So we’re back to the beginning. I thought we already established the fact that you would like to kill me.”
“I would, man, like, so bad you have no idea. You know how much those My Little Pony lover bitches, the Bronies, wanted to fuck their stuffed animals? That’s how much I want to crush the life out of you, under my boot, to just grind it into non-existence.”
“Weird comparison but, whatever.”
“Oh–you’re more of an anime pillow humper, then?”
“Let’s maybe move away from sexual preferences and fetishes. You’re making me feel ill,” I said.
Tim’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me. I could see a war going on behind those soulless, twin pools; no telling who was going to win–I could only hope it was a saner version of himself. Or maybe just the side that would leave me the fuck alone.
“We could kill him when we’re done,” Tim said. It was out loud, but I don’t think he meant it to be. He was clearly talking to the voices in his head; his eyes were unfocused and looking up. “Yeah, I get that killing him outright might be best for us, plus, he’s such a fuck-twit I can’t imagine any better feeling then snapping his spine over my knee. Crack him open like a crab at Red Lobster. Cheddar bay biscuits, motherfucker!” he shouted loud enough that I stepped back.
“What the fuck is going on?” I whispered, my hands up in front of me in a tactical manner, maybe to try and ward the crazy away.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Tim had come back.
“No clue.”
“I don’t know how human either one of us is now,” Tim said. “But it’s still tons more than Goldilocks. He comes to you looking like a Greek God but underneath it, he’s a fucking one-eyed monster. Hmmm…never thought of it that way…I guess, yeah. He’s a giant walking dick. He must be where the phrase “bumping uglies” came from, because he is one grotesque dude.”
I thought I was the face of tangents. Tim could veer off into another direction without so much as a segue.
“I was once covered in the leg pus of a Bludgeon; somehow this is worse.”
“Gabriel wants you dead.”
“Not much of a shocker,” I told him.
“So does Lamashtu.”
“Name rings a bell,” I told him.
“Can’t lie, Talbot, well, I could, but you’d see through it. I really want you dead, too. So much so that when I look at you, I see exes across your eyes. Here’s the thing, and I can’t believe I’m even saying this, I want you dead slightly less than I want to not do what those other two want me to.”
“What? That just a wordy way of saying you’re rebelling against authority figures?”
“See? You get it.”
“I can’t believe I’m even going to ask this, but, if you all want me dead, what do you care whether it’s in alignment with them or not?”
“Goldilocks and his little band of bogeymen want the earth all to themselves so they can frolic around, probably tossing pansies at each other as they titter.”
I had a hard time seeing those beasts doing anything along those lines, but this was Tim’s crazed reality we were talking about here. I’d known him just long enough to know there was no rational thought behind anything he said or did.
“You with me?”
It came out like a blurt from left field. I wasn’t even sure what he was asking.
“Maybe try spilling it in one coherent thought,” I told him.
“I don’t want either side having this world to themselves, and for some reason I can’t figure out yet, you seem to be the best way to keep that from happening. I’m saying we should join forces.”
You guessed it…came out of my mouth way before I even had the chance to weigh the words in my mind. “No
fucking way, I’d rather chew on light bulbs.”
“Think this through, buddy. The glass will get wedged up in between your teeth and some will savagely rip through your gums, tongue, and upper palette. Can you imagine what those half-eaten shards would do to your esophagus as you swallowed? That might not even be the worst of it! On the way out, it would rip up your asshole worse than a lost weekend in Thailand.”
“Forgive me for not jumping at the opportunity to be besties with you, but you’ve already tried to kill me once, and half of this conversation has revolved around how you would kill me or what you would do to me, given a chance. I’m not thinking this is an alliance built on any sort of sound foundation.”
“Stop being a little bitch. I hate you and every part of you, down to your very guts, but I’m willing to put all of that aside for the better good.”
“How big of you.”
“That’s what I’m saying! Listen, Talbot, the way I figure it, you’re going to need all the help you can get, whether you want it or not. Even my little parasitic friend here,” Tim pointed to his head, “wants you gone. But I’m not going to listen to Sootie, you know why?”
Sootie? I mouthed.
“Because I’m fucking Spangles!”
“You’re fucking Spangles?”
“Not fucking, like shoving my dick into–Fucking, like in the hard descriptor. There’s supposed to be a comma there you moron. Because I am Spangles. How the hell would the logistics of that even work? Although I have heard of some weird fucks shoving their own dicks in their asshole.”
“This isn’t happening right now,” I said, not to Tim. “I’m on some x-rated version of Punk’d, Junk’d, maybe.”