by Chris Kelso
I Dream Of Mirrors
Chris Kelso
‘Kelso is a fearless and accomplished prose stylist.’
– Ray Nessly, Literary Orphans
‘Chris Kelso writes in a style of broken glass and razor blades, barbed wire and gasoline. Stitching together prose, poetry, drama, and graphic novel in a Frankenstein aesthetic...'
– John Langan, author of The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies
‘I think Kelso is a major talent and you’ll hear more about him as time goes by. However, his work is not for the squeamish. His work is transgressive, erudite, shocking.’
– Mary Turzillo, NEBULA winner
'Chris Kelso is a writer of almost intimidating intelligence, wit, and imagination. On every page there is evidence of a great mind at work. Just when you're wondering if there are actually still writers out there who still feel and live their ideas out on the page, I come across a writer like Kelso, and suddenly the future feels a lot more optimistic. One calls to mind Burroughs, and Trocchi's more verbose offerings - whilst remaining uniquely himself, in a writer as young as he is, is a very encouraging sign: one of maturity that belies his youth. I look forward to reading more from him in the near future.'
— Andrew Raymond Drennan, author of the Immaculate Heart
‘Chris Kelso is an important satirist, I think it’s safe to say.’
— Anna Tambour, author of Crandolin
‘Someday soon people will be naming him as one of their own influences.’
— INTERZONE magazine
‘Come into the dusty deserted publishing house where mummified editors sit over moth-eaten manuscripts of books that were never written...anyone who enjoys the work of my late friend William Burroughs will feel welcome here with Chris Kelso.'
— Graham Masterton
‘Chris Kelso’s prose swaggers like blues and jitters like bebop. Dig.’
— Nate Southard, author of Down and Just Like Hell.
‘Kelso steams with talent and dark wit and his blend of anarchy with precision is refreshing, inspiring and utterly entertaining . . .'
— Rhys Hughes, author of Mister Gum
‘Choke down a handful of magic mushrooms and hop inside a rocket ship trip to futuristic settings filled with pop culture, strange creatures and all manner of sexual deviance.’
— Richard Thomas, author of Transubstantiate
Further reading by the Sinister Horror Company:
THE CHOCOLATEMAN – Jonathan Butcher
WHAT GOOD GIRLS DO – Jonathan Butcher
MARKED – Stuart Park
HELL SHIP – Benedict J. Jones
MR. ROBESPIERRE – Daniel Marc Chant
INTO FEAR – Daniel Marc Chant
DEVIL KICKERS – Daniel Marc Chant & Vincent Hunt
CORPSING – Kayleigh Marie Edwards
FOREST UNDERGROUND – Lydian Faust
THE UNHEIMLICH MANOEUVRE – Tracy Fahey
KING CARRION – Rich Hawkins
MANIAC GODS – Rich Hawkins
DEATH – Paul Kane
THE BAD GAME – Adam Millard
TERROR BYTE – J. R. Park
PUNCH – J.R Park
UPON WAKING – J. R. Park
THE EXCHANGE – J. R. Park
POSTAL – J. R. Park & Matt Shaw
DEATH DREAMS IN A WHOREHOUSE – J. R. Park
MAD DOG – J. R. Park
GODBOMB! – Kit Power
BREAKING POINT – Kit Power
Visit SinisterHorrorCompany.com for further information on these and other titles.
PRESENTS
I Dream Of Mirrors
Copyright © 2019 by Chris Kelso
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Edited by J. R. Park
Interior design by Daniel Marc Chant & J. R. Park
Cover design by Michael Bray
Published by The Sinister Horror Company
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
I Dream Of Mirrors -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-1-912578-07-8
Art / photography by Shane Swank.
For Denise.
RULES OF THE PEOPLE
ONE
The People, as a group led by Miles Dunwoody, prohibit the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances – unless it is deemed exception by Miles Dunwoody.
‘It is not down on any map; true places never are.’
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
My bones feel new, brittle. You won’t have heard any apocryphal stories about me because no one seems to know anything about me. My body is a sheet of paper from a worn manuscript, folded into the origami shape of a man. My life has been stuffed into a satchel. Carried to publishers and rejected by the majority. Its words are my words.
This begs the question – who is the author?
I look down to the shuffling horde. I see the sun catch the corner of a skyscraper, whip it into a golden prism before sending it straight into the watery eye of the street-bound beholder. I watch them staring, transfixed by the light, a Clockwork Orange amid forced aversion therapy. Always searching for something. I look at my own hands, dry as rough-cast.
I suppose I’ve been searching for something too. I hope my story is kind of like Ahab’s.
One –
‘I began with the Imaginary, I then had to chew on the story of the Symbolic ... and I finished by putting out for you this famous Real.’
- Jacques Lacan
I’ve concluded that happiness lives in the ephemera. You cannot see it, nor can it be considered tangible. It’s not quite an optical illusion-no, not quite-but if you try to catch it, with the ultimate intention of somehow sustaining it for a prolonged period, then happiness will quickly dissolve to grief and disappointment – inevitably, fatally.
This may seem like a redundant observation, but you’ll forgive me for being a little behind. Re-learning how to survive, how to kill and love is one thing, but remembering all the old cynicisms that really make you human, well, that’s a completely different process altogether.
Kad and I stand on the roof of the old convenience store, loading up a spear gun - really, she does all the work since I lost four of my fingers when a shotgun exploded in my hands because of an obstructed barrel. That’s a story for another time.
Daytime has left us. Even at night, the uniform newness of the city sparkles, surreal and blue, against midnight’s cape. For us dwellers of the dark, bathed in the cities lustre, it makes fighting back a little easier when the light goes. Kad grips the handle of the weapon with her left hand, wedges the butt against her chest, reaches over with her right hand and yanks the elastic towards the notch of the spear. She grunts under the forced exertion.
‘They’re coming!’ – I warn her, clutching the bag of supplies we just looted.
I hear the cable click into the spear notch. She takes aim, pointing downwards into the oncoming horde. I can hear Kad’s breath escape in heavy gasps. I know she is nervous because the bracelets on her left hand are clanking against the speargun barrel with barely-contained energy. Fuck, my heart is going like a bursting bug in my throat. I don’t think it’s ever pumped this ha
rd before.
Keep it together, come on.
In the distance I see shadows crawling like starving insects over the solar panel-clad co-operative buildings and the bird-nest villas that come to a cluster on the mountainside. I used to live there, but that seems like the longest fuckin’ time ago.
‘Fire!’ – I yell, clutching the grocery bag into my chest as two of the motherfuckers climb up onto the burnt-out skeleton of a Ford Escort to get a better pedestal to the convenience store roof. Kad still hasn’t fired. I turn to her. The breathing has slowed down now, her hand seems steadier around the barrel. Good.
‘Fire!’ – My voice cracks with anxiety, I see the extra octave shudder along her vertebrae.
- I’m breaking her concentration.
Yet I can’t help myself. I’m practically hysterical. Kad remains hesitant, still aiming. Smoke works up from the vent pipe in a churning vortex, blending the midnight blue with its grey tincture. Eventually, Fear eats up my patience.
‘Fucking fire!’ – And, finally, the rubber snaps and a harpoon spear arrows straight into a stack of gas canisters which explode on impact, popping one after the other like Chinese firecrackers would. It’s like something out of a movie. The exploded barrels send a spray of flames and debris into the crowd. Their bodies disperse throughout the forecourt.
‘Fuck, good shot…’
‘Maybe next time you’ll get off my case when it comes to pulling the trigger.’ – Kad grins as she seizes another spear and starts loading. The People who haven’t been sautéed are drawn towards the jagged teeth of fire, away from our vantage point.
‘I think we can go now. They’re pulling back. Let’s go!’
‘Wait’
- Fucking wait?
Kad locks the cable into the spear notch. She retakes her aim and, this time, spares no hesitation before despatching a harpoon straight into the back of a flaming figure in a seersucker suit. She tears off an amber pendant from around her neck and throws it into the crowd.
‘My ex…I think’
***
The abandoned Aerial Hotel is one of the highest buildings in the city, higher even than the skyscrapers and co-operatives. Its stilts are made from reinforced concrete pilings and project the building 295 stories high above the Schism. Ours is a city with buildings so tall and resplendent that they almost defy human ingenuity. ‘The giant’s playground’ - I mean, how insignificant are we meant to feel when the shortest office building is 1,722 feet from street-level? It doesn’t seem to matter to anyone. No one gives a shit. Apathy rules. Now there’s just a copper pang of blood in the air, a vague almondy aroma of bone and primal rot…
- anyway. I digress.
Unlike the other structures here, the Aerial Hotel isn’t comprised of steel or mirror-glass - it’s made from sun-baked brick and is shaped like a terraced step pyramid of successively receding levels. Kad and I have sought refuge here. It appears to be the most isolated building available. Believe me, we’ve been looking for a long time. It certainly feels like a long time.
Kad is determined to tear down every poster of Miles Dunwoody she sees, no small task given the aggressive marketing campaign conducted by his followers. She’s almost completely rid the Aerial Hotel of his effigy – until, we arrive in the lobby, and Kad suddenly veers off to the reception desk where she hurdles the counter and rips away a poster of the saviour’s sinister sneer from the back wall.
‘I hate that cunts face!’ – She spits and wipes the excess drool from the corner of her mouth with one swipe of her wrist.
- You do not hate his face.
‘I know you do.’ – I say.
Kad goes prowling for more portraits to deface. My beleaguered eyes narrow at the silverbright. Head towards the light.
I watch her tassel of dark hair disappear into the half-light like a mirage.
The People aren’t undead you understand, no, they are merely the devoted followers of a wealthy psychopath called Miles Dunwoody – a 39 year old real estate heir who pumped all his grandfather’s hard-earned cash into forming The Schism. The modern zombie is kind of like your classic fundamentalist; always searching, evermore consumed, and driven even, by primal instincts of self-preservation and a need to belong. Aah, what it is to belong, eh? There must be a destination (must be). Collectively, they call themselves The People. They are complete morons.
They do possess some outline of self, can rationalise within the limitations they have provided themselves, but, ultimately, they are misguided in their pursuit. Ready martyrs, blind disciples. Or they might just be complete morons.
As if it’s ever that simple.
Now, The Schism is what we call the naked streets of our fair city, the streets transformed by a religious cult that places Dunwoody at the centre as its messiah. It’s ironic, his relatives virtually built this city, designed it, so his empire has deep foundations.
Like all cult religions though, the specifics are a little sketchy. I’ll try and break it down for you as best I can. Here’s the gist of their philosophy, so do pay attention: Like many a supervillain, Dunwoody plays on our fetish for freedom; he claims that he is the chosen vessel, that we are all children of Light at perpetual war with the powers of darkness and the city should be divided up into seekers of the light (the morons) and dwellers of the dark (the damned).
So, yes, he’s a fucking madman.
Kad and I are both dwellers of the dark, and proud of it - not proud of it exactly, but we’ve embraced it. It’s the only facet of my identity that I can truly claim.
People like Kad and I were not susceptible to his transmission.
Our army marches on its stomach.
‘Look at this cunt. How can people be so fucking stupid?’ – Kad comes back through the half-light holding up a shredded poster of Dunwoody in the air.
‘Ahh, the power of coercive persuasion! I think it involves the systematic breakdown of a person's sense of self.’ – What the fuck do I know? I don’t even have any memories.
‘Come on. There must be more going on here. Call me an optimist, but I refuse to believe that the residents of this city would be collectively so dumb. The transmission was so lame. So phony.’
‘He’s charming and…I don’t know, I suppose Dunwoody is an attractive man. He was considered the silver fox of the property market.’
Kad kinks her face up in disgust.
‘No way, he looks like a creepy bastard.’
‘Come on. You’re saying that, if you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t let him spend a night at Casa De Kad?’
She gawks her eyes at me, strained in active loathing.
‘Not even if he paid me in advance for the pleasure.’
- Yeah right.
Kad is stubborn but I know that there must be a lingering attraction to Dunwoody. Call me suspicious but…
On many occasions, in our drunken weekends cooped up in the Aerial Hotel,
Kad has confessed her love for high-profile men; for yuppies, economists and chartered management accountants with mistresses and villas in the Balearics. Her last two boyfriends since the Schism were a Civil Service fast streamer and a financial risk analyst, both with cotton white hair and wideflung shoulders compressed into expensive suits. Mirror images of Dunwoody.
So, okay, yes, Dunwoody is a beautiful man by most people’s standards, with oodles of charm and charisma to boot. I think this is what annoys Kad the most - she hates these men with all the sincere fiery passion of her womanhood but is uncontrollably drawn to them. I won’t push her on this though, comparisons are odious, and I’ve seen Kad with a speargun!
We sit in the lounge and empty the contents of the grocery bag onto a glass table - a dozen cans of non-perishable food, bandages, a bow-saw with an extra blade, 4-mil polyethylene film, a homemade shelter-ventilating pump, 1kg of Formula B rat poison, large containers for water and a dozen bottles of sodium hypochlorite bleach.
‘Fucker.’ – Kad curses the air, punches the table with
a closed fist. The items rattle on the glass surface.
‘What’s wrong?’ – I ask.
‘We forgot the energy drinks…’ – her head collapses into her hands.
‘Shit. We forgot the rope too.’ - I adjoin unhelpfully.
‘I bought us some rat-poison. We won’t need a rope.’
Then, there is a clattering coming from the little coffee shop beside the front-desk. I suddenly become aware of how breakable my bones feel. How stressed out my heart must be. My gut swirls like a waterspout.
*Squelch* *Squelch*
‘Wait…do you hear that?’
A noise…wet shoes squishing on a flat-weave carpet. Kad and I lay in wait for the source to present itself, paralysed by fear and anticipation. The sound gets closer, louder, and other noises are distinguished in its proximity – the sound of groaning, desperate and hungry, freezes a block of ice in my chest. The Aerial Hotel has never been infiltrated before.
*Squelch* *Squelch*
They must’ve found our hatchway.
What am I supposed to do in this situation? With four fingers on my good hand I couldn’t even jack my own dick to a satisfying conclusion. I look at Kad who is starting to slowly inch towards the bone-saw resting on the glass table.
*Squelch* *Squelch!* *Squelch!!* *SQUELCH!*
The noise is almost in the same room as us. I can hear it all now. Rotten teeth grinding to dust, a remote-controlled mind living out its own delusion.