by Mink, Jason
"It was clear to me that something more than the heat was responsible for all this stuff happenin'. I had some suspicions as to what, but there was only one way of finding out if they'd prove true. I had to go on up to Ashton Manor."
Nellie rose and sat at her master's side. Shea didn't seem to notice, so she licked his fingers.
"I'd never wanted to set foot in that place again. Ringing that bell was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life. After I did I couldn't have been more surprised at the reception I got. Thomas Ashton himself greeted me at the door, hurried me into his drawing room. Another man was there, waiting. He was introduced to me as Master Ere-Khute but I'd met him once before, when he'd gone by another name."
"Clautney Iris," Erica said, frowning.
"Yep. That's the one. Had a bad light in his eyes, if you get my meaning. He sat there and stared like he was maybe trying to hypnotize me, his eyebrows wrigglin' up an' down. Well, I figured this might work on more gullible people, but out here folks are a little too practical to fall sway to such nonsense. Anyway, I sat there as best I could and listened to what Wertham Ashton had to say.
"He asked me if I'd ever read the Book of Paq'q. Well, truth to be told I had, a dozen times by then. I was still coming to grips with what happened to Marie. I knew the seed of her madness lay within that book, that what was happening all around me was in some way a result of what they was doing up on the hill. So I read the damn thing and others, too, doin' my best to make sense out of it. Let me save you two a lot of trouble; you can't. That book wasn't written to be understood as such; it exists more to pry open susceptible minds and lay the germ of chaos within. All the sex and decadence only serves to stir up energy, that this germ might be fed. It's the equivalent of a cancer, a thought that can't be unthought. Once you have it, it's with you. He is with you."
Erica nodded wordlessly and Shea continued.
"This sort of thing, it's been happening forever. People have always looked to the outside, been willing to tamper with forces they don't understand to attain their tiny desires. But they're fools. What they're trading away is infinitely more valuable."
Erica furrowed her brow. "Do you mean… their souls?"
Shea shook his head. "Not quite, darlin'. More like your spark, your drive; it's what makes you different than, and yet the same as, everybody else. We all have it and everybody's is different. This spark can be exploited, forced to burn brighter and brighter until there's nothin' left. Paq'q does this. He uses you up and moves on, growing stronger the more time passes. As an idea He moves among us, a silent but unstoppable predator, popping up wherever mass concentrations of sentient energy are. Ideas are assimilated into our culture slowly, over varying stretches of time; what was unthinkable by society's standards two hundred years ago is commonplace today; in turn what society finds objectionable today might well be just fine with folks two hundred years down the line. Point is, this idea popped up in 1925, in the form of the man who called himself Clautney Iris. He spent his life disseminating this poison idea, paving the way for this… whatever the hell it is."
"So what can we do?" Erica's voice was even, but her skin had gone pale.
Shea shrugged. "Good question. Some folk, they manage to live fer years. I mean, I'm here. Others, well… they aren't built for it. They don't last too long."
She hung her head.
"There are things you can do, though," Shea added quickly, "ways of strengthening your bodies and minds. I could teach ya, if we had the time. Anyway, I answered Thomas Ashton's question truthfully, even though I felt being honest would somehow put me at a disadvantage. He smiled at my answer, said he knew I was too smart to damn the book without first reading it. He then asked me how I felt about it. I lied, told him while I didn't exactly understand it I found it very interesting and I wanted to know more. This seemed to be what Wertham wanted to hear but Iris wasn't quite as convinced. Perhaps he could sense my distrust and stubbornness; the two of 'em seemed to talk to one another without words, the sound of their thoughts like shufflin' paper in my head. In the end Iris relented. He seemed to have been weakened somehow, a ghost compared to the man I'd met years before.
"Wertham Ashton clapped my shoulder and invited me to join his circle that night so we might perform a certain ritual. He said it would give me strength, insight, the power to do with my life what had never been done. I thanked him for the invitation and told him I'd see him later that night. I walked out of there shaking. I was committed now, the only man in town who might do somethin'. Sure I had friends, but none of them would believe me if I told 'em such a story. More than likely they'd think the stress had finally got to me and have me locked up. No, I had to keep it all to myself. I owed it to Marie, to Danny.
"By now my boy was a little older, but he wasn't any better. Worse, in fact. The bigger he got the harder he was to control; it was like whatever was inside him grew as he did, fillin' him up with anger and rage. My sister-in-law had gone on; Danny had proved too much for her, breaking two fingers on her right hand. Said it was an accident and I believe her. Whatever was wrong with my boy wasn't Danny's fault. It was Paq'q's fault. His was the fury which drove my boy, left him unsuitable for this disciplined, ordered world. The idea that my wife, my child - the entire town had been tainted by this malignancy… We were good folk, sane an' healthy men and women; we didn't deserve this."
Shea grew quiet then, lost in remembrance. Long moments passed before he spoke again.
"Anyway, I went on up that night. When I arrived the manor was dark and quiet, not at all what I'd expected. I was quickly ushered into a room where six others were waiting. Most of 'em were strangers to me but I did recognize that fool poet Gisarme Duarte among the bunch, as well as Wilma Randolph. She had been ruined in Hollywood as a result of her association with Iris and his teachings. While still a looker she'd become cold, bitter after her rejection. She was paired with Thomas, was now his Black Queen. Anything to be a star, I guess. Anyhow, they all snubbed me, to no surprise; it was only later I learned I'd been called in at the last minute to pinch hit. Seems the circle's seventh member went mad just the day before, a young lady by the name of Patricia Zappia. Wrote and painted kids books; ever heard of Fun Bunnies?"
Erica mouth dropped. "My grandmother used to read me to sleep with those books!"
Shea nodded. "You could find a set in every house around here. Patricia was a local girl, from just up the river. Folks took a lot of pride in her accomplishments. It was a damn shame what happened to her."
“Oh, God, I don't wanna know," Erica said, covering her face. Shea nodded.
"Damn right you don't. She was carted off to the same hospital they took my wife to, but wasn't there long. Had some sort of fit in the night: managed to tear her own eyes out. Shame."
Baxter shook his head in amazement as Erica gasped. "Shea, didn't she just tell you she didn't want to know?"
Shea raised his eyebrows. "Well, I didn't tell her the bad part…"
Erica moved between the two of them. "Okay, okay, please. Just go on with your story, Mr. Shea."
“Anyways, I didn't know any of that at the time. Probably would have run home with my tail between my legs if I did. So, Thomas shows up with the old fella…"
"Clautney Iris."
"It's best not to say that name too often, Miss; it attracts attention. So Thomas greeted us, introduced me to the group. As I said they mostly gave me the cold shoulder but I didn't care; I wasn't there for them. Thomas got me up to speed on what we'd be doing; gave me a robe and a small black book…"
Baxter felt his stomach drop, but said nothing.
"He told me I was the Scribe, keeper of the Word or some such. I'm sure you know the whole bit by now. Anyway, he told me all I needed to do was read some words off of a page, make some weird gestures and yell a bit. In that moment I felt like the biggest damn fool; could this really be what I'd been fearin'? A bunch of ninnies in black bathrobes playing parlor games in the dark? Resign
ed to see it through I agreed, just eager to get out of there and back to real life."
Shea stopped to pull the top off of his pill bottle. Shaking a handful into his palm, he threw them into his mouth, washing them down with a wince. "Just say no to drugs," he said, his wince turning into a smile.
"Everyone began to get undressed, though they was all business about it. No foolin' around; no fun among 'em. We went on into the room with the big magic circle, were sent to stand in certain places. Feeling like a fool I did as I was told, watched as the lights went down. Some spooky music started playin', like nothing I'd ever heard. Sounded foreign, like something written back in the day for the pharaohs.
"Anyway, Thomas brought out this old pipe, started talking about the sacred Paq'qa. I was expected to smoke the same thing that put my wife in the bug-house. He reassured me, told me I was one of the strong, one of the chosen to bring glory back to the Heavens. And it was odd. The whole time he was talking the old man never said two words. Still, I couldn't help but feel he who spoke, as if he were thinkin' his words into Wertham Ashton's mind. He lit that pipe up and sent it around; when it came my time I did as they had, drawing from it deeply and then passing it on. Didn't feel much of anything at first but then we smoked more and it started to affect me. Kind of forgot who I was in the moment; that sense of euphoria, the elation… I was swept away. We all were, left open to forces which gathered in the furthest corners.
"The ritual began in earnest then, with Wertham going on and on with his dogma. I won't go into it. His grandson is full of the same shit, so you've heard it all before. We did the ritual in fairly short order, reading our parts and doing what we'd been instructed to. The music… it was almost as if it were a sentient thing, alive and thriving in time with Ashton's entreaties. It flowed and surged along with the weird light now coming from the center of the circle, coalescing into a semi-fluidic form. This thing… it wasn't meant to be here. All the laws of God and country were against it. Our reality couldn't support it, the body solid, liquid and gas all mixed up… I swear to God part of it was a math problem."
Shea finished his beer and quickly opened another. It was clear he was growing agitated by these memories, but Baxter could not bring himself to stop him. They had to know everything.
"This was their God. This blasphemous monstrosity, this misshapen impossibility, this blight upon all Reality; this thing they called Paq'q. It reached out, touched our minds… then everything just ended. What happened I still can't say; the connection was suddenly broken and we staggered off to recover. Paq'q needed to seed himself, leave some of his Otherness behind to grow and gather strength. We'd proved ourselves the perfect hosts; now we just needed to "keep the faith." Later, Wertham shook my hand, told me once again how sorry he was about my wife. I just nodded and went on my way. But not before he invited me back.
"I returned three days later. In that time all hell had broken loose. The door was wide open when I arrived; the first floor looked as though a tornado had swept through it. Glass and shredded paper were everywhere; the chairs and the couches, all of the furniture had been ripped to pieces. I found Duarte first. He was in the pantry, sitting with his back to the door. He'd eaten a five-pound bag of of salt. Just sat there and poured himself full of it. Must have been an excruciating way to die."
Shea sipped his beer appreciatively, then continued.
"I searched the rest of the first floor but it seemed to be empty, so I went on upstairs. There, I found a man and woman together in bed. They'd merged somehow, during love-makin'. It was tryin' to separate again that done them in; they'd pulled themselves apart in the process. Sometimes folks forget that there's no going back. I pulled the sheet over them, said a prayer to whatever God of sanity would listen and moved on. In the hallway I found one of the others. He too had been changed, but whatever he was meant to be proved… impractical on this plane. I shot him through the head on my way out. It was a gesture of mercy, believe me. Wertham and Wilma were holed up in the master bedroom. Wilma had given birth. Her brood still lived at the time I found them. Wretched things, partially gelatinous, all mouths, eyes and pulsin' genitals. They hissed and cursed me; they knew I was their enemy. Wertham barely realized I was there. He'd seen something, had been touched in such a way as to undo him. What had happened in the seventy-two hours I'd been away? I never knew. I left that place, unable to cope with what I saw there. I went on home."
"I'd had to leave Danny alone, on account of there was no one in town who would watch him. He'd been sleepin' when I'd gone out; against my better judgment I'd left his door unlocked, in case he had to use the bathroom."
Erica noticed their were tears in Shea's eyes.
"He'd woken up, all right; when he realized I wasn't there he jumped out the window and ran off. I spent the next week looking for him. Then I heard the news. An old couple up the road in Newburyport found a boy living in their barn; he'd attacked 'em, hurt the man pretty badly before runnin' off. The next four days Danny was loose; the authorities finally caught up to him, but not before he'd beaten and killed a six-year-old boy on his way home from first grade. The state said Danny was crazy and I couldn't argue. With what was inside of my son he could never truly be safe, sane. They locked him up again, this time for life."
Shea stopped. A long period of silence followed, dense and impenetrable between them. After all, what could Baxter or Erica possibly say in the wake of Shea's revelations? They had never lost a wife, a child; their lives, while irreversibly changed, were still their own.
"Things have been quiet since then. Wertham's brother Walter came into town shortly after and took over the mining operation. Left the Manor empty, though. What happened there never got out; one day it simply closed its doors and all the mysterious and enigmatic guests vanished. Wertham was moved out of state to a rest facility. As fer Clautney Iris…" Shea shrugged.
"You mean, he wasn't there when you searched the manor?" Baxter asked.
The old man shrugged again. "Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. I never found him. He vanished; that's enough for me."
Shea slowly got to his feet. "That's it. Now you now what I know. At least, about that subject. Those experiences began my study of the esoteric and the occult. I've since been all over the world since, seen the dying throes of some of the planet's most profound cultures. Still, I've never known anything that scared me the way Paq'q did.
"This Paq'q is beyond our comprehension. He threatens to swallow all of Life itself. If He is given the chance He will spread, first across the earth and then on to other worlds beyond. As an idea He will travel throughout the cosmos, being assimilated into other races, other cultures, using up all He comes in contact with. Soon there will be no place safe from His influence, nowhere to run an' hide. We'll be out of space - out of time. You two leave while you can. With the Circle broken, Paq'q will have to find some other way through. It ain't a permanent solution, but it'll have to do."
Erica kissed him on the cheek and smiled. “Thank you, for everything. I'm sorry you had to lose so much."
Shea nodded. "Think about what I said." He turned to Baxter. "Come over here a minute, boy"
Baxter followed him back into the living room. Shea looked grave, nearly desperate. "Your gift. For whatever reason the Paq'qa has yet to trigger it. I believe that it's still locked up inside of ya, waitin' for the day it's needed. You have it in you to stop this, if all else fails."
Baxter frowned. "I don't understand. How would I do that?"
The old man leaned forward, spoke low so that only the two of them might hear.
"That's absurd," Baxter said, shaking his head.
Shea nodded grimly. "Maybe so. But you can't let that stop you."
EIGHTEEN
NOW
Thunder filled the cavern, drowning out their screams. It came from all sides, booming through the tunnels above their heads, boiling up out of the earth itself, an unending roar that threatened to deafen all within earshot. The floor shook violen
tly, the seemingly-immovable stone shifting beneath their feet. Savage winds whipped at the circle, tattering silken robes and shredding the parchment clutched in shaking hands. At the center of the cavern the bonfire raged, greenish flames leaping ever higher into the darkness.
Zak watched as the smoke was swept upwards, into the network of tunnels and caves that connected the small town. What was happening above, he wondered? While he could not say how long the fire had been burning he was sure by now its effects were being felt. He imagined the chaos sure to ensure and trembled. The entire town would be driven mad, left at the mercy of whatever it was that even now was roaring out of the abyss.
It had happened so quickly. The ritual began as it always had, with Ashton performing the invocation. He then began to read from his own scroll, in words unrecognizable. How the human tongue could make such sounds Zak could not say; Ashton spoke the impossible language with seeming ease, as if he'd been born to it. Zak had no idea just what it was the crowned man was saying but something somewhere did.
At first there was only silence, broken occasionally by the dripping of water. Soon, however, the silence began to change, swelling outward into a sibilant hiss. It whispered about them, snaking between the seven as a predator might, a sinuous, low-bellied crawl. Zak watched wide-eyed as it found Annie. Striking without mercy the presence caught her up, entwining her in its unseen coils, lifting her from the cave floor into the smoky air. It had its way with her then, remaking Annie into something more conducive to its message.
She spun. Eyes closed, mouth open, Zak could only imagine her pain. He watched as Annie's robe was worked to shreds, leaving her naked and glistening in the firelight. The small woman's flesh was stripped away, jellified and re-applied in viscous clumps. What had once been her clotted and ran, swelling, bursting, opening out into something completely other. Paq'q'a avatar, she now stared back through her veil of countless unblinking eyes. Zak felt her penetrate his defenses, looking deep into his hollow soul. She spoke but thankfully her words were swept away in the maelstrom. Zak turned from her, focusing his attentions on the others in the circle.