The Cult

by Mink, Jason

  Baxter struggled to pull himself together. He desperately needed a drink, and found himself wondering. That it could still be there seemed impossible, and yet, when he looked beneath the bed its familiar shape beckoned, unmistakable. The scotch was dusty, untouched, an impossible relic from seven years before. Baxter sampled the message in the bottle.

  THEN

  Someone was knocking at the door. "Uh, hold on," Baxter called, setting down his pen. He leapt up, attempting to tidy up his messy quarters. He gathered up the dirty clothing that was strewn about and threw it into the bathroom, closing the door. Setting the empty lead-glass tumblers on the windowsill behind the curtain, he grabbed the bottle of scotch from its place on the desk and shoved it beneath his bed. As he did the door opened and he felt a cool draft at his back. "Hello, Chloe."

  "There's no need to clean up on my account, Baxter. I know what a slob you are." She walked over to the bed and sat on its edge.

  "To what do I owe the pleasure?" Baxter asked, slightly irritated. He was in the middle of an especially dense paragraph and resented having to stop writing to chat. She didn't beat around the bush.

  "I want to know what you think about what happened the other night."

  Baxter blinked. "When? You mean, in the library?"

  She nodded.

  "Well… I'm not really sure what to think." He said nothing more, waiting.

  "Well, what did you see?"

  Baxter put down the mechanical pencil. " I didn't see anything. I…I don't know, for a second there was something…but it wasn't like it was actually there. It was more the idea of something, as if everyone had the same thought at the same time…"

  "What kind of thought?"

  Baxter shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, Chloe. Words fail me."

  The room abruptly grew chill. Chloe rose, walked stiffly towards the window. Baxter rubbed his arms nervously. "I don't understand," he said slowly. "You were there. You smoked the same stuff we did; more, in fact. Are you going to say you didn't get anything from that?"

  She spoke without turning. "It gave me a headache."

  Baxter was speechless. It had been a startling experience for him, made even more so by its brief but terrifying intensity. How could this woman have been unmoved by something that he'd been utterly demolished by, was still in fact recovering from? Words truly did fail.

  "Ordinarily I wouldn't care but…everyone has been acting differently since that night."

  "How so?" Baxter asked, now curious.

  "Well… James hasn't been back since. Erica is nowhere to be found. Adam and Annie seem to do nothing but read and talk about that damn book…"

  "What book?"

  Chloe turned towards him and Baxter was struck again by her beauty. She wore no makeup, had her hair tied back in a simple ponytail and yet she still looked stunning. There was a wanting to her, he noted, something that had not been there before."You know. The sex book by that old pervert."

  Baxter laughed uneasily."The Book of Paq'q?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Yes, James has copies for everyone, apparently. He says we should read it; it changed his life."

  "Yeah, I'll bet," Baxter said dubiously. He had yet to actually read the book so he couldn't say whether it was bullshit, but it certainly smelled that way to him. The whole thing just seemed like an excuse to paw gullible young women… Baxter suddenly blanched. "So, do you think Adam and Annie…you know -- have put any of that stuff into practice?"

  Chloe shrugged.

  "Who can say? They certainly seem to be spending a lot of time together. You haven't noticed?"

  Baxter said nothing.

  "Hmmm. No, guess not. You have been busy." And Chloe was ugly again, her physical characteristics notwithstanding.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, immediately regretting it. She smiled.

  "You know, with your writing and all." She gestured towards his notebook.

  Baxter shook his head, found himself wondering why he'd let the venomous bitch into his room in the first place. Then he remembered he hadn't. "Yeah, my writing. I should probably get back to it." He picked the pencil up, waited expectantly.

  Chloe sat again, confounding him. "And then there's Zak…"

  Baxter straightened. "Zak? What about him?"

  She laughed icily. "Oh, Baxter. You really do need to get out of this room more. Life just seems to be passing you by, doesn't it?"

  He sighed. "Enough, Chloe. Just tell me what's up."

  "Well," she said slowly "it's hard to say, really. Words fail, you know. Perhaps you should go look in on him yourself."

  Baxter resisted the urge to spit in her eye. "Okay. I will. If there's nothing more...?"

  Chloe took his meaning, leaving without another word. And why not? She'd done enough damage for one day. Perhaps it had not been her goal, but it was the inevitable end result. Baxter was glad she felt she'd missed out the other night even though he couldn't say exactly what it was she'd missed out on. Still, this brought him little solace. He found himself thinking again about Annie and the distance between them, about her surrendering her virginity in some arcane sex ritual with that red-headed Viking bastard. It made Baxter crazed, left him unfit for further writing. Tossing the notebook aside he decided he would check in on Zak. At least part of what Chloe had said was true, he realized; he hadn't seen his friend in days.

  Zak was surprised by his visit. "Hey, Baxter," he said, running his fingers through greasy hair. "What's goin' on?" His corner of the library had become cluttered, colorful bundles of wire running across the floor, stacks of old vinyl and piles of books making a kind of obstacle course he stood at the center of.

  "Eh. Writing. Thought I'd take a break, see what you've been up to." And even though Baxter was looking right at it, he couldn't say exactly what it was Zak was up to. A notebook sat beside him, filled with notations, time indexes and mathematical formulae scribbled in impossible-to-read handwriting. Beside his turntables Tarot cards had been laid; it was the Thoth deck, Zak's preferred set. The blasted tower was at the top of the formation, inverted towards Zak.

  "I'm kind of in the middle of it."

  "Yeah," Baxter said, chuckling. "Literally."

  Zak looked around him and laughed as well. "Hmm. I guess it has been building up a bit. Listen to this." Zak clicked the mouse. There was a long stretch of silence, then abruptly a jumble of words spat out of the speakers. It was an ugly sound, guttural and Germanic but raw, undisciplined.

  The effect was immediate; Baxter felt as though he'd been whacked over the head. "What was that?" he asked, startled.

  "Listen again." Zak flipped a switch and played it back, this time at half-speed. What Baxter had thought was one voice now seemed to be three or four, intertwined cries of lust, rage, sorrow all falling together to create the bizarre inflection. And whereas before Baxter had been merely stunned, he now trembled where he stood, numb with horror.

  "Again; what the FUCK was that?"

  Zak gave him an odd smile. "It's from the iFFF album. You know, those weird bursts of noise between the songs?"

  Baxter nodded uncomfortably.

  "Do you remember the first time I played it for you? I got to thinking about it the other day, decided to isolate just those little bits and start messing with them. At first I was sure it was just someone shouting gibberish but I kept fooling around with it, doing different things. Backwards, forwards, mixing out the channels…I could tell there was something freaky about it but it wasn't until I slowed it down that I realized it wasn't just one voice." He replayed it at the proper speed; one lone voice spat out in unrecognizable obscenity, a tumble of words that nearly meant something. Again Zak played it slow; the wails were more pronounced this time, separate cries of agony and anger that cried out to be heard.

  "All right, enough!" Baxter said, throwing up his arms. It was an unusual gesture but impulsive, nearly primitive in its action. He didn't question it, feeling it somehow apropos to their unusual situation. Ba
xter turned from his friend, looked out of the window. "What do you say we get out of here for awhile?"

  Zak raised an eyebrow. "And where do you suggest, mon frer?"

  "I dunno. Town, anywhere. I just need a break from all this… privilege." He said it as if it were a dirty word and they both laughed.

  "Yeah, all right. You driving?"

  "Sure. Let's see what Ashton has in the toy-box."

  ~*~

  Unable to gain access to the garage, Zak and Baxter borrowed Annie's car and drove into Tull. They circled the shopping district pointlessly until Zak pointed out a small building along the edge of the road. "Hey, let's go in there."

  Baxter shook his head. "You've gotta be kidding…"

  The place was squat, a single story structure of crumbling brick. It's single window flashed the dismal neon message BAR feebly in the bright afternoon sunlight.

  "Come on. Let's go soak up a bit of the local color."

  Chuckling, Baxter pulled into the gravel parking lot. There were a few other vehicles here, a pick-up truck with mud on its flaps, a rusted-out jeep, a small green sedan parked closest to the trees. He pulled into the space open to the left of the building and gladly shut the car off."You know, this is a good idea, man. I was getting a little buggy back in that house."

  They stepped inside. It was dim within the small building, cold due to the overworked air conditioner buzzing above the bar. its metallic rattle drowned out the TV, left the sportscaster mute and clueless in his box. In the filmy light Baxter could see his fellow patrons perched on bar stools, their backs shields against these new intruders. He got the impression they probably didn't get many strangers through here.

  "Bonjour," Zak said loudly, stepping up to the bar. "I would like a glass of your finest petroleum-based insect repellant. My friend here will have an athletic sock full of elephant dung."

  The large bartender wandered over, stared at them with her one good eye. "Huh?"

  "Two beers, please" Baxter said, shoving his friend out of the way. He had no wish to enrage this giantess on her home turf; she was already looking at them like the last math homework she'd ever attempted.

  "You boys ain't from around here," she crowed, her voice filling the bar. The woman leaned forward as if taking their scent.

  "How'd you guess?" Zak asked gamely, leaning in.

  Baxter elbowed him. "No, ma'am. Just passin' through."

  She smiled; the effect was unsettling, to say the least. Once those umber stumps had been teeth, Baxter realized. They may have been her best feature. Alas, those days were long gone. "Three bucks."

  Baxter fished some crumpled bills from his wallet, gave her an extra as gratuity. She did not appear to notice, turning her back to them after handing over their room-temperature drafts. Zak sipped his and made a sour face."Wonderful."

  Baxter discretely glanced at his surroundings. The men at the bar were studiously ignoring the new arrivals, diving deep into the bottoms of their glasses. He could hardly blame them. The décor was hardly inspiring, the ambiance perhaps a level above a police impound lot. This was clearly a place preferred for its anonymity; no one was coming in here to be seen.

  "Let's snag a table." Baxter followed Zak to the back of the room, sitting down in a rickety wooden booth. From here they had a prime view of the action. "Nice place."

  Baxter nodded, sipping his tepid beer. "Nowhere I'd rather be."

  Long moments went by, until Baxter quietly spoke. "So the other night in the library was pretty odd…" he began.

  Zak lit a cigarette. "How so?"

  "Ah, you know. Smoking whatever the hell that was Ashton had. It was pretty intense."

  Zak nodded but said nothing.

  "Chloe came to me today. She was kind of pissed she didn't get off on it the way we did. She seemed to feel left out."

  "Yeah, well… there's always one."

  Baxter let this pass, pressing the bigger issue. "She felt we all experienced something." He paused, unsure how to continue. "She asked me what it was."

  Zak looked at him. "And what did you tell her?"

  Baxter shook his head. "I didn't know what to tell her. I'm not even sure what happened, and I was there." He trailed off again.

  "James wanted to share something with us," Zak began evenly. "Whatever it was. I'm not sure what happened, what I saw… or didn't see. I only know I'd be willing to try it again."

  Baxter whistled. "Have fun."

  "What, you wouldn't do it again if you had the chance?"

  Baxter thought hard about this. "No. I don't know... maybe," he volunteered at last. "It was just so… I don't know. So beyond my experience. I was totally overwhelmed; I felt afraid to think."

  Zak nodded. "Yeah. But we can't be afraid. We'll be left behind."

  Baxter glanced at his friend. Zak was calm on the surface but there was a tension in his frame; even sitting he seemed poised to move, ready to step out of the booth and back to more pressing concerns. Growing glum, Baxter drank his beer: Tull was proving to be a bit of a let-down. He'd hoped to find some residue of archaic character here, something that remembered the past that he might wrap in fantasy; in the end it was suggestive of nothing but itself, a dead end. Still, it was nice to get out for a while.

  "I know whut yer doin'."

  The boys looked at each other, and at the man who stood before them. Of indeterminate age, he may have been craggy for fifty, or young-looking for eighty. He was as fit as a farmhand, and as dense as the two younger men combined. Color still shaded his voluminous beard, his shoulder-length hair; it was the hue of red earth, clay-toned strands struck through with silver veins. He smelled like an antique, old leather, wood and dust all mixed up in someone's attic.

  "Huh?" Admittedly this response lacked the insight and wit Baxter usually wished to exhibit, but it was all he had.

  "I said, I know whut yer doin'. Up there, on th' hill." He said this quietly, so that just the two of them might hear.

  Zak glanced at Baxter, who wore a "don't look at me" expression. "Please. Sit down."

  "No thanks. I jus' want you boys t'know yer messin' with some bad stuff up on that hill. That rich man's son… he's bad news."

  Baxter swallowed. "I don't know what you're talking about. We're just here for summer vacation."

  The man glared down at them, coal-black eyes flashing. "Well, if you don't know, then you'd damn well better pull up stakes an' git back t' where ya came from. Y'all got no business up in that house. G'wan home; there's nothin' in Tull fer th' likes a you."

  The man walked away then, reclaiming his place at the bar. From there he continued to glare at them. The effect was unsettling, like being in the sights of some bird of prey. After a minute of this Baxter pushed his chair back. "Enough local color. Let's get out of here."

  "But I haven't finished my beer," Zak protested.

  Baxter sighed. "Well, drink up, then. I've had it with Hazard County."

  He said this louder than he'd intended and other heads turned their way. Baxter looked down into his own nearly-full glass, wishing for a bolt of lightning or other natural disaster to strike and divert attention from the two of them. No such luck. The moment dragged on infinitely, TV idiocies blasting away from the overworked speaker. And this had all been his idea…

  "Fine. I'm done."

  The two of them quickly left the bar, climbed into the car and got the hell out of Tull.

  NOW

  It was time. Baxter resisted the urge to have another drink. He was already half in the bag, making what he was about to attempt even more dangerous. Returning the bottle to its hiding place beneath the bed Baxter walked over to the door. Still locked, of course. He'd hoped that somehow one of the others had gotten free on their own, had the incentive to rescue him. No dice.

  He shut off the bedside lamp, lit the stub of a candle and walked over to the west wall. The open flame swayed, made mad patterns that leapt and danced in the darkness. Baxter shut them out, cupping the fire with one ha
nd and repressing his imagination to the best of his ability. He kept his mind blank, even as he fished the small parcel from his suit-coat pocket. It was soft between his fingers, sandy within the cloth. A forgotten scent rose into his nostrils, one he did not identify by name but sensation. Carefully Baxter placed the candle at the base of a full-length mirror and its luminous glow filled the ornate frame.

  The mirror was old, possibly of the same era as the manor itself. It had taken on a hazy darkness at its edges, a cataract that would, in time, claim the looking-glasses' vision. Age had warped it slightly, bowing it inward. Not ideal, but it would be sufficient. Baxter carefully observed his reflection, noting his stance, his clothing, the room's features in reverse. Little by little he allowed the background to fade out, focusing on his own eyes. He began to speak in a quiet, even voice, his tongue deftly forming a knot of impossibly-entangled syllables. The words stung with a hot copper tang, molten syllables that hissed in the cool air. The mirror's reflection grew gray and indistinct, Baxter's own body becoming an abstract thing, falling away from his gaze forgotten. As he finished the incantation everything stopped, even his breathing. Time hung on the cusp, forever tipping but never falling, the moment frozen...until he noticed the slightest of ripples passing across the mirror's surface. Now!

  Baxter thrust his hand through the glass. The agony was immediate, indescribable. He bit down on a shriek, found the thick unfeeling meat of his tongue in the way. Blood came, and a fast, salty pain that drew his attention away from the alien sensation in his hand. He used the opportunity to thrust his arm further in. The sensation was transformed, his pain multiplied to an unspeakable degree. And there was nothing more he wanted than to stop, to wrench his arm from the incinerating cold that even now chewed it down to bone. Baxter pushed still further, sinking in up to his shoulder. By now the reflection of his eyes filled his vision, twin pits that spun in dizzying rhythm. He braced, thrust himself forward for the final shove…

  THUNK!

  Baxter let out a high, agonized bleat. The mirror had once again become solid, its cold, unyielding glass now flat against his tear-stained cheek.