9 Tales Told in the Dark 8

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  But—a gigantic Mount Everest of a but—Sir Alistair Wright offered me a king's ransom for this blasted Eye of Blug. That didn't compute the normal way, not in relation to a group of the kind he defined. Already I guessed there was more to it, at least as much as Wright let on, probably much more. At the top of my agenda: learn all I could of the UTF, and about Sir Alistair Wright.

  To an extent, that was no trouble. Didn't I say how I rely on sweet Angie? That evening in my apartment she'd done her best to cook me some edible dinner (not, sadly, her strong suit), and now for dessert she'd cozied up to me, both of us sipping our wine (not up to Sir Alistair's standards) while she shuffled computer print-outs and, after her fashion, pontificated.

  "Nobody ever heard of this Ultimate Truth bunch," she said, "until a couple of years ago. Suddenly they were in business in England, then lots of other foreign countries, well-funded, doing preachy stuff and saving the world or whatever. They're in Sedona now, holding this big member meeting; like a revival, I guess, and you might say breaking into a new market. Sedona is their kind of place."

  "Yeah," I absently agreed. Sedona, Arizona: America's capital of the bizarre, hub of heart-felt and profitable occultism. "Magic and mystery, nuts and fruits, the typical assortment of touchy-feely ideas. Like that?"

  Angie shrugged. "Maybe. You're better at figuring out the crazy stuff than I am. I get the impression they're more bent than the run of the mill types you normally find up there. There's something cold and calculating about their approach, hard edged, which tends to drive away believers, but they've collected a large crowd. There are hundreds of them attending."

  "Which means Sedona is even more of a madhouse than ever," I predicted. "Okay, I can deal with that. Camouflage comes easy in a mob. What else?"

  She nibbled my ear. I gently pushed her back. With a sniff of annoyance she continued, "I got the low down, such as it is, on Alistair Wright. He's the founder and money man of the organization, but there's more to him than that. Having made his pile in sardines—enough to make him 'Sir'—he's allowed his commercial operations to run by remote control while he indulges his real interest; you know, the zaniness that pays your bills. In public he's been involved in deep thoughts, conscientious awareness, crystal power, and all the basic goop—that's totally documented, see."

  Angie waved papers in my face. Her tone indicated another shoe ready to drop. I said, "Great, but?"

  "But, quiet talk out of channels, back page paragraphs, tell a different story. This guy—noble Sir Alistair—reeks of the ugly side. Here I've got a five year old accusation of his movement in Satanist circles. This next one hints of a suspicious death occurring at a meeting of devil worshipers over which he presided, with mention of the hush money he forked over afterward. Then, this wad contains a series of reports concerning super-nasty black magic rites, with his name cropping up repeatedly.

  "All this comes to an end two years ago, when he starts the Foundation, bringing in what appears a governing committee of like-minded types. Since then, it has been his only baby."

  "Sure," I said with a wry grin. "What do you think, sweets? I suppose he could have reformed."

  Angie snickered. "As could you, Sterkie. That's a laugh: one of those creepy horror movie laughs. Your boy's a rotten fish. You don't want to rub shoulders with the bum any longer than necessary. If all works out, take the money and run."

  I nodded, in complete agreement. "Well, babe, he sounds no worse than I feared. If the bauble keeps him happy, it might keep him out of trouble. Ah, that brings us to the item, the Eye of Blug. Wright described the thing to me, but that's as far as he would go. Will you prove more cooperative?"

  Angie frowned, shook her pretty head, the long blonde hair flying. "Just so much, Sterkie. There's a chunk of dusty legend behind it, little by way of solid history. Wright must have known about the Eye, because he'd been trying to track it down ever since he created the UTF. Last year he paid for an expedition to locate it, a semi-professional team he sent to—" She flubbed the word, wrinkled her nose and gave her head a cute wobble, but with my helpful prodding she managed to gargle Uzbekistan. "Uh huh, that's it. So, they went there, and apparently—nothing official, see—they found it, and they brought it to London, and Wright immediately began organizing this Sedona to-do. It's there now."

  "Legends, you said."

  Angie marshaled her thoughts before replying, which with her (I must admit) can require patience. As I was about to irritably grab for the handful of sheets she intently studied she looked up and declared, "It's all about Blug. What a scuzzy name that is! I hope he's better than it sounds. Blug is some kind of god. Have you heard of him?"

  "No."

  "Me neither. Well, there's an old-timey religion wrapped around him, and he's supposed to be great and powerful, and I guess good, and all of a sudden everybody's a big fan of his, even though his religion hasn't been popular for a while, or nobody's been talking about it, anyway. Worship of Blug is… the foundation of the Foundation. It's what they're on about, and what they're selling."

  "Fine," I broke in, "only I'm not selling Blug, but only his Eye, if I swing it. Do the legends matter?"

  "Doubt it," Angie huffed. "Blug is the ruler of everything, instead of the real God, and once upon a time he took a bit of himself, and put it in this thing, so that his fans would always have some of him around, which is supposed to be really wonderful, and since then everybody who cares wants it, uh, because it does something for them." In such manner dear Angie, so accomplished when it comes to managing concrete details, trailed off into hapless vagueness.

  Next morning, early, saw me speeding up I-17, the straight-away to northern Arizona, making great time save for the scattered, never-ending episodes of road construction. Diving down into the Verde Valley, I scooted across the scrubby plains and over the drab hills, whipping into Sedona before tourist's opening hour, which kept me out of an aggravating jam of traffic. This day especially, I guessed, with the convention in full swing this week. The festivities were being held on the plateau atop Schuerman Mountain overlooking the sprawling city, Oak Creek, and the ever delightful panorama of the famed Red Rock Country.

  Access was by way of a graded dirt road switch-backing through the stunted junipers on the steep slopes behind a high school. Biding time until I could blend into the hordes, I then pushed my sporty coupe up that narrow lane, attaining the heights in the mounting heat of broad daylight. Initial glance suggested a circus atmosphere: busy throngs among colorful tents, hawker's stands, pre-fab structures. A big sign at the yawning gate declared for the Ultimate Truth Foundation, with an underlying motto to the effect that "Truth Transforms."

  So I went among the true believers, cloaked in snappy duds and armed with a camera draped around my neck, guzzling cold soda pop, trying to appear a combo of gawker and earnest seeker. For those who haven't infiltrated a conclave of Sedona New Agers, I say these gatherings tend to offer common coin of amusement and—what passes for—enlightenment. One can make a jolly day of it, or one can delve into a plethora of the stuffiest, takes itself so seriously revealed wisdom. There was plenty of the latter on parade on that flat-topped mountain.

  Not so much the former though, and during my preliminary stroll I began to sense something out of kilter with this hoe-down. Other than when a pillowy cloud scudded over, the sun beamed bright, and the place bustled with perspiring activity, with lots to see and do… but none of it jived in the accustomed manner. What kind of emissions was I picking up here? Shortly I figured it. These folks weren't happy. All walks of life, as they say, represented, from the ostentatiously wealthy Bobs with their hot girl friends to the slovenly sleepers out of the backs of their gaudy old vans, grubby loners and manicured families—the gamut of typical attendees—but not a joyful crew. These were a miserable bunch. I saw it in their faces, heard it in their voices. That struck me as weird. As a rule, no one is more exultant about life and its meaning than the starry-eyed troop.

  Reference
s to Blug abounded. His name winked from banners strung across the walks, from streamers above the tents, over the door of the relatively solid edifice at the heart of the compound, which I deduced was the main hall. Praise of Blug galore, nothing of what he entailed. I didn't care about him one whit, but I was faintly curious. What about Blug drew these people here?

  While stopping off at a grungy food stand for a cheap burrito and another root beer, I experienced my first interesting sighting, with more to follow. A grotesque travesty of music groaned and twanged from behind a tent to my left, and by adjusting my position a tad I beheld a deplorable display of folksy pop music in action. Three so-called musicians on a makeshift plywood stage, equipped with mistuned guitars, brayed noise in accompaniment to the screeching vocals of a shaggy, unkempt hag of a nebulously feminine singer. Bad enough as anonymous bozos, only—God help me—I recognized her. That ancient, squalling crone was none other than Agatha Rasp, former lead of the Acid Avengers, that psychedelic group which transiently smashed records back in the hot to trot '60s. Before my time, of course, but they were famous in their day, and I know a thing or two about melodic culture, and I caught something to identify her in the wreckage of her voice. Brother, but Agatha had fallen on hard times. I recalled pictures, black and white TV clips, of her prime: beautiful, though ever swathed in black and morose of expression, with an undercurrent of hostility to her dulcet tones. That lady was Gone City. This insult to memory was old beyond calendar cruelty, her voice impossibly corroded, her statements in song… repellent. Homing on her words, I heard a litany of tired hatred and tedious depravity. She stirred nothing inside me, except sickness.

  She wasn't the last popular worthy to snag my attention. Rapidly placing distance between her racket and myself, I spotted in my wending other public notables, including a congressman whom I especially disliked for his rigidly harsh, doctrinaire views, and a lady doctor popular as a talking head on TV, given to repulsive opinions concerning the value of human life. None of these sparked the most interest, though. That honor I reserved for the infamous Ernst Klinghofer, Hollywood's grandiose bad boy. I wasn't the only one there gaping at him, he being instantly familiar from his pictures on the cover of grocery store tabloids, his crazy hair and crazy stare, and that guttural voice braying from countless television interviews.

  I wondered at his presence, for to my mind Klinghofer was the worst kind of self-serving scum. Starting out in Germany, where he cobbled together a couple of pathetic, low budget "message" movies, on the strength of those critically acclaimed flops he scampered to America the gold mine, where the no-talent hack dug for treasure employing the basest tools of exploitative dreck. There he found gold, or struck oil, whatever metaphor works, cranking out a series of puerile pot-boilers notorious for his inept direction, the crude imagery masking the vapid emptiness of his plots. Lurid, filthy, and juvenile, his rancid productions raked in the dough from the undemanding teenage and college droves. His latest masterpiece, Skanks for Nothin', scraped bottom even by his anti-standards; I'd caught a snatch of it, to my undying shame. Klinghofer surely wasn't the only perpetrator of uninspired rubbish in Hollywood these days, although he might have crowned himself their kind; but what did set him apart from his deplorable peers was the immense conceit of his smugness, his putrid opinions on every conceivable subject, the infuriating pretense that his trash was true art; the only true art. Mate this with the shocking vulgarity of his not so private life—I won't dwell on that tawdry crap—and what I'm describing is an absolutely despicable human being. What did Ultimate Truth signify to him?

  I asked him. Putting on a reporter act, I strode up to Klinghofer and with ingratiatingly polite belligerence plied him with questions. "We want to know," "Your fans are asking," "Give us a statement;" like that. Taken aback, he tried to sidle out of range, but gooey fawning reeled him in. Said the maestro (this the condensed version), "Great Blug teaches us to discard the silly lies by which foolish mortals string the false meanings of human existence. Into our faces He vomits truth. We are swine, born into the sty, raised for the slaughtering mallet. Only when we accept this may we embrace the abysmal fate that Blug prepares for us in the nether pits. This we know, this we fasten upon the world." That was the gist of it. A couple of dapper jacket and necktie goons I took for handlers, overhearing his remarks, swooped close and, whispering intently, whisked Klinghofer away from me. Receding, he testily muttered, "Why should I dissemble? With the Eye, the grand goal is nigh."

  This, not garden variety New Age stuff. I would discover more about the Foundation, the beliefs of its leaders and followers, during the day. Three moments particularly stand out.

  A raggedy dressed guy with unshaven face and convoluted vocabulary—I imagined him a has-been professor—declaimed from a podium to a clutch of eager listeners about the coming paradise of Blug. "Through the Eye Blug contemplates, comprehends us postured in supplication, condescends to cross the threshold dividing His realm from the mundane. Soon it shall be! Out of that terrible and glorious catastrophe we receive just reward! Unites He then this weak earth with the awesome horror of the Black Swamp, where Blug reigns supreme. Under His serene and amused gaze, at the foot of his throne rising from the filth at the core of the universe, we shall wallow eternally in nauseating muck, writhing abandoned and helpless, our tortured souls lingering solely that we may adore." Wow. The audience ate it up.

  After lunch, which I skipped, a panel of speakers gave a more formal presentation from a raised dais, with comments considerably more guarded, yet trending along the same vectors. I recognized a couple of them, that politician I'd spotted earlier and a noted self-help guru The latter spoke hazily about the "empowered Eye," the great days at hand, the "remarkable" education in store for humanity, taught them by "omniscient Blug," who promised to treat them (this with a snicker) "as they needed and deserved." Double-talk mainly, but I remembered that fellow and his words because of his corresponding behavior. While speaking he absently fondled a squat statuette plunked on a folding table next to his chair. Someone had referred to it as the image of Blug. I couldn't view it clearly—too far to discern detail—but from where I stood it resembled a pile of dog poo.

  That evening, following a passable barbeque dinner, a round of tours began, taking parties into the large central building. Of course I elbowed my way into one group. My batch were led by a guy, ascetically thin and pinched of face, who introduced himself as Mr. Harris, a Foundation executive. The company man, obviously a Brit, preceded us into what turned out to be a propaganda museum for the Foundation, with gloomy tunnels of corridors giving onto lighted exhibits in wall niches. Well done, all of it, mostly boring too, consisting of photographs showing Foundation activities, public rallies and such. Pictures of archeological excavations in exotic surroundings sparked my interest, once Harris' ongoing, drawling patter identified them as hailing from the finding of the Eye. Awed gasps filled the close space. One enclosed case contained leaves of plainly aged documents. Harris alluded, his voice swelling with importance, to a recovered page from the "mystical books of Artocris." With a fey laugh he added, "And to think, some call it blasphemy." Several members of the group chuckled sympathetically.

  Harris saved the best for last. With much verbal build-up about the "wonder of the occasion," he marched us into a dark circular expanse with curtained areas spaced at regular intervals along the otherwise bare walls. A tall, softly lighted glass case loomed in the middle, set off from the rest of the carpeted floor by rope barriers and a duo of burly guards. Within the case on a fancy, raised display—oh, but it had to be—yes, for Harris airily declared, "Friends in truth, I offer you this glimpse, so you know our time comes; it is here," wildly gesturing: "the Eye of Blug!"

  So it was, immediately identifiable from my client's description. Set into enfolding purple velvet it gleamed, what I would term an amulet, a fat, imperfectly round disc of silver metal striated with veins of golden hue, inlaid with a single mammoth jewel. Not a diamond—I d
idn't think—an emerald possibly, though I wouldn't take bets on that either. Polished but uncut, the gem appeared to ooze from its metallic base, of amorphous shape, its muted colors seeming to vary from one blink to the next. That was a strange and unsettling effect, one I accepted as a clever trick of lighting.

  And the viewers vocalized their oddly bent enchantment with the thing. I heard squawks of excitement, to be sure, and the mooning sighs customary with New Age loonies, but strands of the sinister wove through that mindless fabric. Some went down on their knees as if in prayer, only to spew mouthfuls of undirected hate or what sounded like ritualistic expressions of self-loathing. Others remained standing, and with arch smirks gave vent to what I would have thought inappropriately vicious cynicism. Boy, by now I was wracking my brain to figure this lot. Had the counter-culture produced a new counter-religion? Only the Blug cult, I'd learned, went way back. Given Wright's track record, I surmised a link to common devil worship, still felt I was missing something.

  Harris' words as he shooed us out didn't enlighten. "When next this eidolon gazes upon us, it shall bathe us all in the slime of His true Eye. Be sure our debasement will be complete; ours, and all those who mock Him with their stupid lies of false dignity." This warped comment elicited murmurs of inane agreement.