Until I Fade

by Kol Anderson

  “Okay.”

  “And they say you don’t believe me.”

  “That’s not true,” I say.

  “You know they see everything,” Jacob says. “And they hate that I tell you things. But still, they also tell me things about you sometimes.”

  “How do they know?”

  “They can read your consciousness.”

  “And you’re certain they’re not lying to you?”

  “You know,” Jacob says. “All of those people who think I’m crazy, who look at me that way—you know like you look at rabid animals you’re about to put down. I knew they couldn’t help me. Their minds were closed to new possibilities but you—you were different. But now I think maybe I was wrong in judging you because you mock me. You’re mocking me just by bringing me here. I…I told you things…things that I never…I never told anyone I trusted you! And it hurts you know? To know that the person you opened up your heart to, won’t even believe you.” He pauses. “I wanted to tell you about something. Something important. But now I guess I have deal with it on my own because I don’t trust you anymore. Goodnight, Dr. Cunningham.”

  ***

  “You were right,” I say the minute Jacob opens the door. “I did bring you there for that purpose and it was wrong. It’s just, you’re trained your entire life to be rational, to believe only what the books tell you to believe. I admit, I don’t know how to respond to you sometimes.”

  “Are you a religious person, Mr. Cunningham?”

  “Well, yes. I suppose.”

  “So you believe in talking serpents and parting of seas, but you won’t believe that I saw aliens in another realm?” he says. “This whole galaxy is jam-packed with mysteries, you really think you’re the only being on it? There are alternate realities, there are multiverses, isn’t that true?”

  “I guess.”

  “If I let you in,” Jacob says. “I need to know that I can trust you.”

  “You can trust me, Jacob.”

  He stands there thinking, so I raise the Chinese takeout bags I’m holding. “Truce?”

  *

  We eat takeout on Jacob’s bed and drink cold beer from his fridge.

  “You know they have one major god,” Jacob says. “That they call DRUK. And the Metropolis is called Z’DU. It’s kind of beautiful when you think about it but everything is so big and just, tall you know? And there are two types of creatures—ones with this glowing orb in their foreheads and the others have no glowing orbs and just look plain. The entire city is made with pyramid structures and monoliths that glow with symbols. Even their critters are strangely shaped and neon-colored. You know one of them told me I was supposed to be an offering to DRUK, but they changed their mind when the god creature saw me.”

  “Doesn’t that mean that they offered someone else?”

  “Well, they’ve got their own customs I guess.”

  “What were you going to tell me, Jacob?”

  “What?”

  “You said there was something you wanted to tell me,” I say. “Remember?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Jacob?”

  “Well,” he says. “Okay. What the hell. This time, what they injected me with, it allowed me to hear their thoughts in a way I could understand. It was like their consciousness was connected to mine. Anyway, so they take me outside that strange place, which now I realize might have been a hospital. But this time, something strange happened, Evan. Something really strange.”

  “What was it?”

  “They took me to a room, and it was cold in there. And they had all kinds of stuff which I think was actually lab equipment. And there, they showed me something—a ball made with glass and a tiny little human baby inside floating in the air. It was beautiful, just watching her. She looked so peaceful sleeping like that. Evan,” he says. “It was my baby. The one I had with that monster.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I read their minds,” he says. “They told me. They showed me her birth telepathically. And she was the only human there, besides me.”

  “Why didn’t you bring her here?”

  He stops eating. “‘Cause they wouldn’t let me,” he says, with the kind of sadness in his eyes that makes me uncomfortable. “They wouldn’t even let me touch her. And then they took her away.” He gets tears in his eyes. “Evan,” he says. “I need to get to her but I don’t know how.”

  I feel an urge to make everything okay for him and it’s so strong I can’t think of anything else. I put my arms around him but there’s no consoling him. “Why do you care so much?” he asks when he breaks off. I don’t have a response to that. I’m not quite sure myself.

  “I don’t know,” I confess.

  What he does next, should have made me run out the door.

  He kisses me.

  I should have broken it off, I should have stopped him right there but I didn’t. I couldn’t understand the attraction I felt. And I’m supposed to know about this stuff. I wasn’t this guy. I was professional and I always followed the rules so why was I kissing him back? Because he tastes like heaven.

  “You can fuck me if you want,” he says. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “You’re my patient.”

  “Come on, Evan. We both know this has gone the whole beyond patient-doctor thing. You’ve known it for a while, haven’t you? You’ve been fighting it,” he kisses me again. “Stop fighting.”

  The torrent of emotions that follows this statement came as such a shock. I’ve never been so out of control. I’ve never quite felt lust like this and I thought I’d felt and seen it all. No amount of forcing myself to think about Kirsten or my job helped and I grab Jacob and pull him closer toward me and we make out on that bed for a very long time. “Are you sure?” I ask Jacob one last time before I grab hold of the condom he just handed to me.

  “I’m sure.”

  The urgency with which I fucked him was unreal. Almost as though it wasn’t me, but someone else. Like my body was the abode of an alien being that had control of my urges. Strangely exciting and a bit scary. But everything seemed to fall into place when I was inside him. When I was bonded with him, it felt magical—like something out of a fairytale.

  But the minute it’s over and I’m lying next to him all kinds of conflicting feelings hit me full force and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Jacob had dozed off. He looked beautiful. Fast asleep. Completely naked and perfect. I kiss him on the mouth one last time and start putting on my clothes.

  JACOB

  My head hurts with a vengeance each time they try to talk to me, like a full-blown explosion inside my head. “Please,” I say, still trying to fight the pain. “Let me see her just once!”

  You can’t see her.

  Not until you accept our deal.

  “What deal?” I yell.

  And they show me.

  EVAN

  Two days after Evan tells me about his second encounter, I search the internet for any possible information about the god he talks about.

  “For the love of God, Evan what is this obsession you have with this boy?” Kirsten yells. “It’s all I hear about, every day and you go to see him secretly after I’ve gone to bed and now he even calls you at night!”

  “Kirsten,” I say. “I told you before. He’s lonely. He can find doctors anywhere he wants but he needs someone to be his friend. Maybe I can help him this way.”

  “How?” she asks. “How’re you helping him by becoming a part of his fantasy?”

  “People need delusions for a reason, Kirsten. Maybe if I let him play this out, he will come to a point where he won’t need it anymore.”

  “But that’s all speculation at this point.”

  “Kirsten,” I say, turning my computer screen towards her. “Look.”

  It’s the website of a Druk cult. Kirsten pulls up a chair and starts to read. “He told me the name of the God Kirsten,” I say. “He’s not completely making this up, this website has been around fo
r five years. Look, they have their own religion. Their divine book is a Grimoire but what divine book isn’t? And here, they even talk about the metropolis, where Druk resides. The city where they have ‘pyramids that reach the skies and monoliths that glow’ Kirsten this is what Jacob told me he saw!”

  “This still doesn’t prove anything,” Kirsten says. “He could have seen this website and made up a story inside his head. Doesn’t mean he actually got abducted by alien gods.”

  “But at least now I have a lead,” I say, getting up and scribbling down the address of the Druk church.

  “Where are you going?” Kirsten asks.

  “To find out more about this cult.”

  JACOB

  “Please,” I say, my head hurting. “Please let me see her.”

  You can see her all you want, once you get here.

  “How do I know this isn’t a trap?”

  Zwarkians don’t lie.

  “If this works,” I say. “You’ll let me be her father?”

  Yes.

  That’s what we want.

  “Okay.”

  Tonight is the night, Jacob.

  “I know.”

  The time has to be right.

  “I know.”

  EVAN

  The ‘church’ where I stop my car is some abandoned house in a rough neighborhood. It’s just an old two-story house, with blackened walls like there was a fire here not so long ago. I had to knock on the door many times before someone finally let me in. It’s a girl with frizzy hair that looks like it hasn’t seen a comb or water in months. There are stray cats all around, some of them in bad condition with mutilated faces. One of the mutilated ones is busy tearing apart a rat. My entry seems to have disturbed not just the human but the animal population as well. Everywhere I go, I get growls and grunts and bared teeth. Finally, the girl takes me to a room where another female with similarly frizzy hair sits in front of what looks like an altar of some sort. It’s painted black and there is a symbol engraved in what appears to be blood. “Hello,” I say, walking up to the woman. “I’m Dr. Cunningham.”

  She gestures to the rug, so I sit across from her on the floor.

  “A doctor,” the woman says. “What’s a man of science doing in a place of worship, I wonder?”

  “I have a patient who claims he saw the Metropolis you speak of.”

  “Z’DU,” the woman replies. “Many people have seen it. Some lucky ones remember.”

  “He doesn’t feel lucky,” I say.

  “Then he must fear them,” the woman says. “There is nothing to fear, doctor. You should tell him that. Druk will take all of our fears and melt them. He is a god worthy of worship. If we give ourselves completely to him he will take care of us. Your ‘patient’ won’t be disappointed.”

  “You think this city, the Metropolis, exists?”

  The woman gestures to the girl and the girl disappears into the next room. When she comes back, she has a dusty looking book in her hand that she reverently hands to the woman. The woman, also reverently places the book on a square piece of wood in between us. She kisses the top of it, then brushes off some of the dust and opens it. “This is the Druk Grimoire,” she says. “It has all the information the earth-bound need.” She opens to a page and points with her index finger at a drawing of a creature that looks like a large sea anemone with vicious-looking tentacles. “This,” she says. “Is Druk.” And she says something under her breath, a prayer of some kind I’m guessing.

  “Is this what your ‘patient’ saw?” she asks.

  “No,” I say, remembering all the creatures Jacob has described to me. “I think the ones he talked about were seven feet tall, and had glowing orbs—” I gesture towards my forehead and she seems to understand, quickly turns pages until we get to another drawing. This time, the creature looks a lot like what Jacob described. “Is this the one?” she asks.

  “I think so,” I say.

  “The Zwarkian,” she says. “They’re the ruling force. But even they submit to Druk.”

  All this time, I have this urge to say are you for real? Of course, I have a feeling that might piss her off and then where would I get help from. Real or unreal, Jacob thinks this happened to him. I need to find out why he thinks that. Why he needs this particular delusion. My cell phone rings and it’s Kirsten. I stand to take the call. “Hello?”

  “Evan,” she says. “I just got a call from one of your psychiatrist friends, the one who forwarded Jacob to you, do you know her?”

  “Dr. Hawthorne,” I say. “Of course I remember.”

  “Well, she wanted to tell you something,” Kirsten says. “It was important so your assistant gave her the home number. I just got off the phone with her.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Evan,” Kirsten says. “Dr. Hawthorne says she found something in Jacob’s past that might be of help in his treatment.”

  “What Kirsten? What did she find?”

  “Jacob had a girlfriend, some girl named Anna a couple of years ago. Dr. Hawthorne says they had a child, a daughter. Jacob never told Dr. Hawthorne, but Dr. Hawthorne said the daughter died two months after she was born. Her death was ruled out as natural causes, the girl got pneumonia, but there was some talk of foul play, from the mother’s side. Of course they couldn’t charge her with anything; they never found any evidence against her. Jacob never testified against his girlfriend.”

  “Kirsten. Thanks for calling me.”

  “Evan,” Kirsten says. “Will you please be careful?”

  “I will.”

  I can’t believe Jacob didn’t tell me something of this magnitude. But suddenly, I understand the delusions.

  “Do you have any more questions?” the woman asks, looking up at me.

  “Just one more,” I say. “If someone had to visit Z’DU, is that possible?”

  “No one can go there,” the woman says. “Not unless they take you.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask her. “There’s no way for a human to go there?”

  She looks thoughtful. “Well,” she says. “There is this one thing, kind of a ritual.” She opens the Grimoire and reaches another page. Points to another drawing and some strange language. “But it’s permanent.”

  “How permanent?”

  “Says here,” the woman says. “That in order for Druk to accept you in Z’DU, the desiring human must sever all ties to the existing world. Once he has done that, the Zwarkian will have no choice but to carry him through to their world. The human will stop existing in this world and live permanently in the other.”

  “Wait hold on,” I say. “Stop existing in this world?”

  “That’s what The Grimoire says.”

  “Is there a specific time for this ritual?”

  “It has to be during the full moon.”

  “The full moon?” I say. “And when is that?”

  “Tonight.”

  JACOB

  The cab drops me off at the crossroads.

  It’s a strange feeling of déjà vu that I feel standing where it all began. I’m all alone but this time I’m not afraid. If all goes well, at the end of this I will be with my beautiful daughter. I don’t care how big of a monster her father is; it doesn’t make me love her any less. And perhaps in time I will learn to forgive the monster too, even love him for all I know. After all, it’s not every day that you have an encounter with a magical being. I take out the knife from my backpack, the one they gave me, the one with the same symbol that is on my wall, engraved into its metal blade. I leave the backpack there and walk a few steps ahead, and in the light of the moon I can see everything clearly.

  I kneel, close my eyes.

  Raise the knife…

  EVAN

  I see a kneeling figure on the road and I slam the brakes. I keep the headlights on, and get out of the car, almost run to the figure. As he stands and as he turns to face me, I see that he’s holding a knife. Out of breath, my mind starts to think of things to say. “Jacob,” I
say. “Don’t do this.”

  “But I have to,” he says, with tears in his eyes. “I have to see her again; I’m all she’s got.”

  “Jacob,” I say. “I know about your daughter. The one you had in this world.”

  “What’re you talking about?” he says. “I don’t have a daughter!”

  “With Anna,” I say. “You had a baby with her, why didn’t you tell me?”

  He starts to cry. “You need to stop that!” he says. “You need to stop!” And then he screams, puts his hands to his head, one hand still holding the knife. “Fuck!” he says, and the way he’s straining his facial muscles, I know what’s troubling him. “They hate you!” he says. “They know you’re here and they hate that! They want you to leave!” He doubles over in pain. “They won’t stop until you do!”

  “Jacob,” I say, cautiously. “It’s just a migraine. My wife gets them all the time.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Jacob,” I say. “Listen to me. Please.”

  “Why?” he says. “Why should I listen to you?”

  “You came to me, remember?” I say. “You came to me and the first thing you asked was if I could help you. You wanted to be saved. You wanted me to save you.”

  “It’s a bit late for that. I can hear them coming for me.”

  “They’re not real, Jacob!”

  Jacob plunges the knife in his abdomen and sinks to the floor.

  I rush over to him, turn him over.

  His eyes seem far away.

  “Jacob,” I say, touching his face. “Jacob please look at me.”

  His eyes wander towards me but I can tell he’s not completely here. “Jacob!” I yell to get his attention. “Hey! Look at me Jacob, please!” I say. “I called for help, they’re on their way, Jacob. You just need to stay conscious okay?” I take his hand and use it to place pressure on the bleeding wound. Jacob is trying to say something but I can’t make out what the words are because he is speaking in a low voice. “They’re…coming,” he says, coughing up blood.