Torment of Tantalus

by Bard Constantine

  Nathan squeezed his eyes shut. No. Not real. It’s the Aberration. You’re tripping on the spores. It’s all in your head.

  But when his eyes opened, David was still there. His grin was a jagged mess, the broken smile revealing pale maggots that crawled within the interior of his lopsided mouth.

  “Expected me to just go away, boy? Disappear like those monsters in the closet you were always so afraid of? Running and crying for your mama. She ruined you. Made you into a stuttering retard. What else do you call a boy that can’t talk like a normal person?”

  Nathan shook his head. “No. You’re n-not here. You’re d-d-dead!”

  “Always crying. Never wanting to face reality.” David jerked back and forth, more of his body revealing itself. Mushrooms sprouted from his dead flesh, tiny vines overran his gaunt limbs. A grime-encrusted arm thrust forward, seizing Nathan by the throat with cold, bony fingers.

  “Always in those books your mama gave you. Letters and numbers. Never sports, never even wanting to do your damn chores. Never doing the things I told you. Disobedient, the both of you. Ungrateful!” Putrid fumes wafted from his mouth, plastering Nathan’s face. “Gonna teach you, boy. Just like I taught your mama. Gonna teach you to respect a man, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Fury pulsed through Nathan’s veins. He ripped the skeletal hand away. “It w-w-was the last thing you did.” Yanking the revolver from the holster, he jammed it into his father’s ugly, gaping maw. Just like the last time.

  Do it.

  He screamed and pulled the trigger. His father’s face disintegrated in a spray of gore.

  Nathan’s vision swam as the tunnel slowly coalesced again. The confinement pressed from all around; dark, wet, and clammy. The remains of a massive mushroom was right in front of him, pulverized by his gunshot.

  Elena was practically on top of him, screaming in his ears. “What the hell is wrong with you? Move it, or we’re all dead!”

  Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward. Shuffling fast as he could, he dragged himself to the mouth of the tunnel and shoved open the grate. He slid out, fell out and slammed into the ground. Leaping up, he managed to catch Elena as she tumbled. Hayes was right behind, shouting incoherently about something coming from behind. Nathan let Hayes hit the ground while he eased Elena down and readied his revolver with his spare hand.

  The Other stuck his head out of the tunnel, staring at them from Lurch’s waxen face. A terrible grin distorted it even further.

  Nathan shot it point-blank in the head. As it went limp and slid backward, Nathan yanked a frag grenade from his harness. Pulling the pin, he hurled it into the tunnel. Elena followed his example before they ducked to the side of the tunnel, covering their heads.

  The detonation erupted a few seconds after. Smoke and inky sludge exploded from the tunnel, followed by quickly snuffed screams.

  Nathan kept his firearm leveled, concentrating on the smoldering mouth of the shaft.

  Nothing emerged.

  “Nate.”

  He turned at the sound of Elena’s voice. Followed her stare. It didn’t seem possible that anything else could stagger him, but the gleaming obsidian obelisk that towered over the primordial valley was so alien, so bizarre that he nearly wanted to go back into the madness he’d just exited from. There was something obscene about the edifice. Its presence was foul, prickling Nathan’s mind like tiny rusty needles.

  He swallowed. “At least we know where we’re headed.”

  Chapter 17: Elucidation a Posteriori

  Michael stared at the oily stain on the ground, trying to piece together the grainy flecks of memory that had fragmented only moments earlier. The grass smoldered, blackened by an outline of an elongated shadow, a bizarre crime scene figure chalked in black. Seconds ago it had been…something else. Something monstrous.

  And he destroyed it.

  The gleaming obelisk towered over the clearing, its apex lost in the churning sky. Lightning sizzled, the light muted by clouds that whirled in cyclonic formation, frothing like boiling water. Rain drizzled down but did nothing to cool the stifling humidity that oppressed the entire glade. There was no wind, despite the nightmarish cloud cover that whirled above them.

  He wiped his lips, gazing at the blood that smeared across his fingers. His mind was a snow globe of scattered recollections, the moments floating down in unhurried fashion. He glanced at the others. They stood out of arm’s reach, incomprehension stamped on their faces. Charlie Foxtrot held her rifle as if anticipating using it against him. Blackwell looked completely shaken, his mouth ajar. Guy had scarcely moved. He gazed at Michael with hooded eyes.

  “How, Michael?”

  “I…don’t know.” Michael turned his attention back to the remains of the troglodyte. “Something about this place. I’m attuned to it, somehow. I can do…things here. Fight them on their own level.”

  “It shouldn’t be possible. No survivor has ever displayed any side effects like that before. Extrasensory projection. Troglodytes are notoriously difficult to kill outside of using ultraviolet light against them. But you tore it apart with a wave of your hand.”

  Michael glared. “I told you I don’t know. I don’t have any answers, Guy. You’re the one with the experience. You can go where we can’t. You’ve been to the Other side, not me. So you tell me how I’m doing this.”

  “Is that true?” Blackwell stepped closer. “Nathan surmised in his research that you might even be from the Other side. That’s why surveillance can’t record your face. You’re not from this world. Not even from this dimension, if some of the more outlandish theories about space-time are accurate.” He spread out his arms. “Is this you, then? Are we caught up in some nightmare of yours? Is any of this real?”

  Charlie Foxtrot leveled her rifle at Guy’s head. “Bet we can find out real quick. I squeeze off a shot. Maybe we wake up back in Miami, sipping mojitos after his brains blow out the back of his head.”

  Michael held out a warning hand. “Not the way it works, Charlie.”

  She kept her weapon steady, peering down the sights. “How the hell do I know that? You guys are getting way off the rails.” She nodded to Guy. “You’re supposed to be some sort of time traveler, getting your Terminator on to save us from the apocalypse? Bitch, please. I had enough of this roller coaster. I wanna get off. Get it? I figure popping you won’t bother me one bit if it stops what’s happening.”

  The rifle could have been a water gun for all the regard Guy gave to it. He glanced up at the roiling darkness in the sky. “This Aberration isn’t my doing. But if you want to take the shot and prove it, go ahead. Pull the trigger, or listen up and maybe live a little longer.”

  “He’s right,” Blackwell said. “We registered this energy signature before we ever recruited Commander Steele. But I think we all need to understand what we’re up against here. Starting with what this Aberration actually is. You’re the only one who can fully explain it, Guy—or whatever your name is.”

  “You don’t have the time.”

  “We’ll make time.”

  “Yeah.” Charlie Foxtrot stepped closer, which put the muzzle of her rifle inches away from Guy’s head. “Start talking.”

  Guy gave her a wry glance. “The Aberration is psionic detritus. Fallout from the Neuroverse.”

  Charlie Foxtrot’s face twisted. “What the hell did the robot say?”

  Blackwell glanced at her. “Mental debris. Try to keep up.”

  She responded with the middle finger salute. “Keep up with that. Just ‘cause I talk with slang don’t mean I think with slang. I’m no rocket scientist, but I’m pretty sure there’s no Neuroverse on this planet.”

  Blackwell turned to Guy. “She has a point. What’s the Neuroverse?”

  “The future existence of humanity. Having abandoned physical interaction, they live out their lives through computationalism, permanently linked to a vast digital network called the Neuroverse.”

  Charlie Foxtrot gave him a disbelievin
g stare. “What, like the Matrix?”

  Guy glanced at her with strained patience. “If that makes it easier to understand. Humanity chose this form of existence as the next logical step in human development. It is not some virtual reality experience, no diversion or entertainment forum. It’s actual existence, designed by an artificial intelligence called DEIS.”

  “DEIS?”

  “Digital Entity Intelligence System. The warden and savior of humanity, keeping us imprisoned while setting us free.”

  Charlie Foxtrot groaned. “Sorry I asked.”

  Michael stared at his hands. “So…is this the Neuroverse? Is that why I can do things here? Why I have these…abilities?”

  “Aberrations are the fallout from the Neuroverse. There’s really no explaining what happens here. Everything is completely corrupted, creating glitches that spawn all sorts of inexplicable reactions.”

  “Fallout? Like from nuclear contamination?”

  “Similar to a point. The bottom line is this: not everyone was content to exist in such a state. A rebellious faction within the Neuroverse manipulated its energy to create a wormhole that bridged the future with the past. The energy signature was detected in this time period from the Bermuda Triangle. An investigative team was launched, headed by an aerospace engineer named Albert Rosen.”

  “Dr. Rosen.” Blackwell’s eyes widened. “The Gorgon mission. We sent that team into the Triangle months ago when this aberrant signal first registered. They never came back.”

  “That’s right. The Gorgon was destroyed by the energy anomaly, but the explosive backlash caused the wormhole to become unstable, pulling everything nearby into its maw, including the station housing the Neuroverse. Humanity of the future is threatened with mass extinction as the entire network that supports the Neuroverse deteriorates.”

  Michael tilted his head. “You make it sound as if it’s happening right now.”

  “It is happening right now. When past and present are connected, time itself becomes irrelevant. Right now billions of minds are being shredded like tissue paper, their synapses firing without restriction, their atomic energy expelled in a massive eruption. A psionic supernova. The hubris from that detonation is funneled through the wormhole and flung across time and space. That neural debris, those fragments of the Neuroverse are always pulled to the same place. The place of their origin, the only place in the universe where the human mind originated.”

  “Earth.”

  “Yes. Earth. The fragments find their way here, flung from the wormhole across various points of time. Unable to differentiate the boundaries of reality versus the Neuroverse, they react like hermit crabs seeking a new shell to inhabit. The unnatural effects of those attempts result in Aberrations. Because the subconscious is the most potent energy, it is expelled first. Unfortunately, we trap the darker parts of ourselves in our subconscious. That’s why the Aberration spawns nightmares. Which brings us to where we are now.”

  “Trapped in some fragment of a dying universe.” Michael felt as if razor-edged claws lightly stroked the back of his neck. He shivered. “This is what humanity comes down to. Nightmares spawned from our own future consciousness trying to slaughter us.”

  Guy’s eyes glazed as he stared into a dimension none of them could witness. “Are you so surprised, Michael? What we can’t face, we hide. Bury it deep down inside where it ferments, feeding on our secrets and shames. Aberrations are simply doorways that expel the mental defecation of a civilization that ignores their darker nature. The underbelly of an entire species, conscious delirium returning to eat its children raw. Like the snake that devours itself by swallowing its own tail, humanity is now doomed to an inescapable loop of self-annihilation.”

  Lightning forked across the damaged sky. The clearing was hushed, eerily silent in the shadow of the onyx tower that dominated it. Michael felt drained. He glanced at the others, saw the stunned expressions. It was too much to take in. Too terrible to imagine.

  Charlie Foxtrot stared at Guy. “If that’s the truth, why are you here? If you knew it was the Gorgon mission that caused the collapse, why didn’t you just pop up before it happened and stop it?”

  A bitter smile curved Guy’s lips. “I can’t. It already happened.”

  “What?”

  “If I stopped that incident from happening, another would take its place. Dozens more. Hundreds. And on and on. It’s the nature of paradoxes. A bit much to explain right now. The bottom line is that we’re at the point of no return. We either stop this now, or it won’t be stopped at all.”

  “Well,” a dry voice drifted from the mists. “Guess we’d better quit standing around and get to work.”

  Sid Damon emerged from the fog. Plastered with filth and blood, he looked downright nightmarish when he folded his arms and sneered at the group. “Looks like we’re taking time for a little group therapy. Do I have to tell you how stupid that is considering where we are?”

  Michael squinted at the murky backdrop behind Damon. “Where’s the rest of the squad? Nathan, Elena? Ariki?”

  “Dead, probably.” Damon spat to the side and scrubbed a grimy hand across his mouth. “Lurch definitely is. Saw Hayes on the riverbank with a giant leech eating his face. The rest of them…probably didn’t make it.”

  “Probably? You didn’t even check to see?”

  Damon’s face wrinkled into a grin. “Survival of the fittest, boy. Can’t afford to be slowed down by civilian consultants and fobgoblins. You want to check on them, you’re welcome to head out there and see if one of their corpses will hand you your heart for your trouble. Me, I’m heading indoors. Figure some of you might want to come along.”

  Blackwell’s head jerked up. “You found a way inside?”

  “That’s right. While you all were busy holding hands and learning new things, I scouted around this insane tower. Ran into a few things. Too bad for them. Bottom line is: there’s a door.” Damon’s grin widened, stretching the creases in his face. “Ready to take the fight to them?”

  The rumbling sound of an explosion shook the ground. They turned in that direction.

  “Sounded nearby. Could be the others,” Michael said.

  Guy nodded. “Take Damon and Charlie Foxtrot to check it out. Meet us back here afterward. And don’t take any chances. You know what’s out there.”

  Chapter 18: Creophagous Drosera

  “Man, I feel pretty good, all things considered. You guys think the worst is over? Maybe we’ll actually find some help in that tower.” Hayes’ smile was wide, his eyes bright. “Stranger things have happened, right?”

  Elena exchanged a worried look with Nathan. Both of them were in silent agreement to not speak of Hayes’ face. It was grotesquely swollen, the gauze wrap already rotting away as if the blackened flesh underneath was dissolving it. His arm appeared less injured, but not by much. Dark, wormlike patterns scrawled from the wounds as though the infection sought to burrow into the remaining healthy flesh.

  She knew if anything else did attack, they would be hard pressed to offer resistance. All of them were battered, winded, and exhausted. Whatever ordeal Nathan had experienced in the tunnel had left him shell-shocked. His eyes were red-rimmed and haunted, his mouth a grim slash. He refused to talk about it.

  They were low on ammo, with only two spare magazines between the three of them. Nathan had abandoned two of the four handguns he had, since the empty ones were worthless. Not that it mattered. They were one attack away from dying in some perverse manner from any number of monstrosities. The only glimmer of hope was getting inside the ebony tower. Considering how the day had gone so far, they would probably make it only to find no entranceway.

  They staggered along, supporting one another as they drew closer to the gleaming obelisk. The spire loomed like some alien skyscraper, dark and ominous. Elena didn’t even know why they headed toward it. It was so sinister in appearance that it couldn’t possibly be any kind of safe haven.

  Nothing makes any sense anymore. Am I
alive? Is any of this even real?

  Somehow it wasn’t even a surprise when a trio of grimy, bloodied soldiers sprang out the foliage yelling and pointing weapons in a terse moment of barely-restrained violence. Elena recognized Michael and Charlie Foxtrot. Right in between them was Sid Damon, a skeletal grin on his cheeks.

  Elena stepped up and punched him in his face. Tired as she was, the impact barely turned his jaw.

  Laughing, he sidestepped her second swing and twisted her arm with such force it almost popped out the socket. She was forced to bend over in the most awkward pose possible, so furious that tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “You son of a bitch. You left us. You left us to die. You could have helped Ariki. He’s dead because of you!”

  “Not my problem. Ariki was a soldier. He knew the deal. Now, are you going to be a good girl, or would you rather I finish tearing off your arm?”

  “Three seconds to let her go.” Nathan’s voice was so fierce that Elena had to crane her neck to verify it was him. His pistol was planted against Damon’s temple, finger quivering on the trigger.

  Damon snorted. “Think you have the guts, boy?”

  “Two seconds.”

  The agony in her shoulder eased when Damon released his hold with a raspy chuckle. “Well, well. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Looked into the abyss and saw it looking back at you. Feels good, doesn’t it? “

  Elena rose, rubbing her arm. Nathan’s expression was nearly feral, eyes cold and locked on Damon’s face. He never lowered the pistol.

  “Nate.” Michael cautiously walked over. “We heard an explosion and were coming to check it out. Damon’s found a way inside this tower. Blackwell and Guy are waiting for us near the entrance. Understand? We’re not here to kill each other. Save your ammo for the monsters.”

  “Monsters?” Nathan’s jaw trembled. “I’m looking at one.”

  “Let it go, Nate.” Elena put a hand on his shoulder. “He’s not worth it.”