Stonefish
Page 17
All the color fled Gregor’s face and I was amazed to hear the man actually stammer. “They’re not, oh god...are they?” He was already moving for the door and leaving a thick trail of profanity in his wake when the answer came.
“Yes, Mr. Makarios. They’re at your tree.”
We ran. I should have stayed behind. I realize that now. I should have taken a second to think, to really think about what I’d be running toward. Because what else could it have been, given all that had occurred so far? I should have stayed behind, but the situation was so sudden, and the language being used so action-movie, that I was pulled along into the event. Gregor’s curses acted like hooks in my flesh. What could have made him so incensed? What was this tree that Li’l Dougie had referenced? Who was there? Activity on the perimeter. Of course I ran.
Gregor was already at the trailhead at the edge of the compound when I spotted him; I only caught up when he paused to chamber a round in the rifle.
“Shit, Gregor, what’s happening?” The man said nothing but gave me a look, blistering in its intensity, then indicated that I should follow. I blew that second chance, too.
Li’l Dougie’s mobile white pebbles gave way to a cedar chip and makeshift boardwalk trail, which snaked its way up a granite ridge above Stonefish House. Small, dark spheres inset to the rock face indicated the trail could be lit at night, though I’d never seen it. Gregor slowed his pace to a fast walk, half-crouching, then stopped and held up a closed fist. We had reached an edge in the rock face, and it was around this natural corner we slowly turned.
The trail opened up into a kind of natural bowl or alcove in the rock, open to the sky. The ground here was mossy and furred in pale green shoots and tentative grasses. In the center of the alcove, a tree grew, unlike any tree I’d seen in the savage mistforest until that moment. Slender and clean-limbed, with a smooth grey-and-umber bark and sprays of delicate leaves the color of red wine. Almost immediately, a stray shaft of sunlight found its way into the alcove; the tree burst into high relief and brilliant color. It was enough to make me search for the next breath.
There was a sound, as of metal scraping across stone, and then a cough followed by a long, ugly whistling. And then they stepped from the walls of the alcove.
It was too much to process. Despite the hours of migraine-inducing video, and Gregor’s tales, still I had expected my first encounter with a sasquatch to be an encounter with, basically, an animal. Granted, an unknown one, a mythical beast, a cryptid, but beyond that merely another animal. Hidden from the world but still, shitting in the woods and scratching itself, like any other critter. A big critter. An ancestor, at the outside.
Nothing prepared me for the reality of that meeting. The debasing sourness of it.
They emerged from the background of the rock face, two of them, pulling themselves into focus while simultaneously forcing the stuff of the world to recede, to make room. Seeing that inexplicable action felt like watching an assault, and I gagged involuntarily. Gregor held out a hand to keep me behind him, then raised the gun.
“You’ve taken everything that mattered,” he said. His tone was even, the words measured and clipped. “You can leave me this one thing.”
The beasts shifted in place, swaying in an unseen breeze. The smaller of the two was easily over seven feet tall, and broad, so broad. Broad across the shoulders, the chest and hips. Both were impossibly broad; from their shoulders down there seemed to be no place where their physiology narrowed at all. Their heads were thick, squat, and almost absurdly conical, peaking at the crest in wild sprays of tangled hair.
A low bass note filled the space, a sound I felt in my guts. Gregor grunted softly and bent a little where he stood. He spoke again.
“That’s not up to me,” he said. “I can’t answer for him.”
One of the archons opened its too-wide sasquatch mouth to display square yellow teeth, and another low note came, barely audible but full of bludgeoning force. I felt the bones in my hands and feet shake and the beginnings of a song from my ribs. My gorge rose again. Gregor lowered the gun.
“Fine. Just leave the tree.” He paused, and seemed to shrink, or soften, before my eyes. “Please.” The things took a step back from the positions they’d taken on either side of the tree, and then another. Finally, they turned and began to paw at the rock wall with hands like spades. Gregor slumped further, turning to me and dragging a hand over his face.
“All right, Den? You okay, son?”
“I’m fine. I think?”
“All right. Well, best make yourself comfortable. We’re witnesses now, and may be here for a bit.” He sat down lotus-style in the moss and grass, and I followed suit, glad to let my quaking legs settle. I had not had the time to realize how terrified I was. I pointed at Gregor’s rifle where it rested on his knees.
“Would that have done anything?”
“This? Sweet fuck all, if I’m honest. But they like the symbolism of it.”
“What was that sound.”
“I told you, they speak from somewhere in their abdomens.” Gregor threw up his air quotations around abdomens. “Now, watch. That’s part of the deal I made. Goddamn drama queens.”
“We can’t leave?” The prospect rattled me severely.
“We could, but there’d be...penalties. I won’t even say what, Den. Would you look at that. For such secretive bastards they sure have an exhibitionist streak.”
I looked. I hadn’t really stopped looking, but my vision had blurred, probably as a defence mechanism, or through some residual effect of the sasquatch camouflage.
They had clawed at the wall enough by this time to have collected a decent pile of rock chips, glistening with mica and exposed granite. They were mimicking Gregor and me as well, seating themselves as we were, the mystery tree glowing between us. They were picking up chips from the pile they’d made, and eating them.
“The cunt on the left is Horvemoan,” Gregor whispered to me. “And that’s Anal Andy.”
“You’ve named them?”
“Fuck, son. I’ve named all of them. I’m like, what’s her name, Goodacre, in the mist. Last of the red-hot cryptozoologists.” He coughed, then spat. “Were it only so simple. Aww, man.” He passed a hand over his face again and grimaced.
Horvemoan and Anal Andy had raised themselves to a squat, and thick streams of feces were splashing to the ground between their plank-like feet. The stuff shone and glittered with the same quality as the rock face in the alcove, and the smell was like hot metal and honey. Appalled, I could only stare. Anal Andy watched me as it shat, and a depraved grin crawled across its face.
GREGOR ON SHIT
Makarios drank, of course, which I sometimes took as a sign that on some level he was still sane. Booze seemed a reasonable response to the constant existential crisis that was living at Stonefish House. Some nights I would join him but could never keep up. Then, after the reveal in the kitchen, I couldn’t bring myself to try the liquor, or the wine, or whatever was on offer. He would swear up and down that he hadn’t touched it, that the bottle in his hand had always been whiskey, or tequila, and not water a moment before, but how was I to trust that?
Then, there were nights when the drinking would get out of hand, and I’d be awakened by the crash and clatter of Gregor upending a work station in rage or glee. Using glassware for target practice. General hollering on his usual subjects. More specific hollering at the borders of the compound, calling out the archons by name. Insults, jibes, and affectionate musings of a sexual nature. A visionary, yelling at the dark and the trees, a supplicant, begging for more light. Some nights they’d holler back; that awful, grinding scream, like a howler monkey on steroids being slowly cyborged by disinterested surgeons.
He’d come inside, eventually, grinning at everything. There was never any sense in trying to sleep again, not until he was done. And Gregor was never done, on these boozed-up nights, until he’d had the final say on shit, literally.
“They’re obsess
ed with the stuff, you know. Can’t get enough of it. I ’member, back in Watts, taking down an old hippie’s sighting, and this poor guy, he’d seen ’em, a whole pack of hairy demons glowing with the negative fires of the Reverse of the Tree, there they are, down this ravine at dusk, lined up on either side, shitting blue fire in their hands and flinging it at each other. Screaming and laughing and hurling phosphorescent turds across the gap. The smell, if you can imagine it. Burning ozone and feces and filthy hair that’s not hair wafting up from the ravine. That sour metal smell they produce when they’re excited.
“And I recall thinking what the fuck is up with that, because that’s how we talked back then, understand. Anyway. If they’re so advanced, was my thinking. What the fuck was up with the shit flinging. The apes do it. We do it, if not literally then, I dunno. Let he who has not flung his own shit cast the first log, I say. And they do it. They’ll stop and paw through a pile of mountain lion scat for an hour. Less mentionable activities. You wouldn’t believe it, Den.
“But it comes down to how they’ve structured all this, in the end. Out of your end. Everybody Hungry? Everybody Shits. Garbage In, Worse Garbage Out. An entire reality built on a Ground of Being composed entirely of waste. Shells, husks, casings and muck. You don’t have to imagine it, because you’re living it.
“What kills me about it? We’re supposed to be grateful, Den. Happy! Satisfied upon the completion of a good dump. Any particularly astonishing voiding action approaches a spiritual experience for most. Think of it! Think of what that says about them, about us. Moving material through this ridiculous flesh donut, that’s what matters in this universe, that’s what’s important to them. Reducing everything to the end product, to shit. Life goes in the hole, death comes out the hole, and round and round and down it goes. Feeding that death to the critters the next level below. Down, down, down, always and in all ways down.
“Aren’t you sickened by it, Den? How can you not be. I know I am. Think of it when it goes well in there, in the toilet. Swift, painless evacuation. Just the right percentage of rectal mucus for lubrication, not too sloppy, but also, you know, not too slick. The sphincter dilating correctly in a relaxed, unhurried fashion. Did you know there’s a scale for feces? The Bristol Stool Form Scale, they call it. That’s how deeply we’re invested as a species, my god. You want something in the low-middle, a Three or a Four on the BSF, with enough girth to let you know something is definitely happening, but not so much that you become alarmed.
“And who hasn’t been alarmed in there, and more than once, when some fucking sandworm breaches the surface! Usul has called a big one! Once again, it is the legend. It’s the goddamn worst, is what it is. Think of it, instead, when it all goes wrong. Anal tissues burning, a sphincter dusted with powdered glass, glazed in hot stomach acid? Good times. Flaming spears of fecal magma, frozen streams of diarrhea! And the blood. You ever had a bloody stool, Den? Completely outta the blue, for no reason you can figure out? You’re sitting there on the throne, things are easy today, oh my yes, it’s a good day for shitting, and then hey hey suddenly you think seems a bit too easy because there’s a slickness to it that’s unfamiliar, something’s not quite right, you feel, no, you know, and under the usual fragrance there’s a coppery tang that puts you on alert and whaddaya know! You stand up a bit, crane your neck under for a peek at the water and yeah, that’s blood, son! You’re bleeding from your ass and the turds where they float are painted with the red stuff and that, that! That is the true memento mori for our species. I don’t need a skull on my desk, just shellac one of my bloody shit logs, mount it on a plaque, for I will die.
“Let’s face it, Den! Face the horror in the bowl! Face it! We know what the sound of the background radiation of the universe is, and it’s a brown note! Primal in its potency!
“I’ll tell you what one of my first hints was, for real and for true, as to the nature of the Stonefish. Before I ever came here, before I could even cognize the Stonefish. Bathrooms in video games, Den. For years, decades, they served as a kind of litmus test for game designers. How much effort could a person put into a toilet stall? Why have them at all, except to show how dedicated the creator was to detail in their build? You couldn’t use them, no one ever bothered to cobble together the mechanics to actually take a shit in a game. When it happened at all, it was a gag moment, or a jump scare, and assigned to a NPC. It was something that happened to simulated people, Den. Let that sink in.
“And then, and you know this already, then the immersive VR came up, and the bodysuits, and finally the early noönet, and shit, shit, it was waiting all along, wasn’t it, down there. That moment. In that game, and wouldn’t you know, I can’t even recall the name of it, the game, so incredible and freeing the toilet mechanics were, so essential to the player thriving within the greater narrative. Some low-key wilderness survival piece, that much I can recall. Hypothermia risks. Dry your wet clothes by a fire or die. Fucking wolves in the trees and when do you take a dump in that scenario? Because, and understand, Den, understand because, and okay, I know it was before your time and all, but you would have to unload at some point in that game. At several points. Or you’d get sick. Just like real life! When and where and how much. All deep concerns, these concerns of the game. So, squat in a bush, up against a tree? How’s the view? Predators nearby? Too cold to shit, maybe? Dare you risk frostbite on your ass? Who or what will come by and sniff at your business, track you through the wastes? Clean up, disposal. Is there time to dig a hole, maybe? That’s time you could be doing other things, but then the cover up is useful, too. Decisions, decisions!
“And oh, did the gamers rage at this! This intrusion into their hallowed imaginary space of this most fundamental fact of existence! This focus on their fundaments. What would be next, they fumed. Female characters getting their periods? You can imagine the feelings there.
“The rage was short lived. The intimacy, specificity, the goddamn granularity of taking a shit in-game was too much the Siren song to ignore. Finally, something could mean something while you were in there. The overall feeling was one of hey, this is important. This is real. The unreal was now on a par with the real.
“That’s when I knew. I was talking out of school earlier, I think. It’s not that they wanted it to be this way, it’s not like they planned it, a world of shit and shitting. But in setting up the initial conditions, by making the First Law what it is, they reaped the shitstorm, Den. During the set-up, they could have chosen anything as the First Law, anything, and maybe they have in other realities they’ve grown, other stonefish. Everybody Photosynthetic. Everybody Static. Everybody Spirit. But no, it’s Everybody Hungry here and so everybody eats everybody else, from galactic superclusters on down to microbes and atoms, we rip and tear and break things apart and consume and consume and where’s it all going to go, once the consuming is done. It’s going to circle the bowl, Den. We are circling the fucking bowl.
“Shit gets real. Shit is the real. Shit is the skin of the Stonefish, the convincing layer that tells us yes, yes, you’re here and it’s all happening and you are a part of it and ain’t life grand? Now squat and show us what you’re worth, player. Give a shit, why don’t you.”
The archons sat there, across from us, shitting away. Really giving it their all, too, the strain noticeable on their faces. Something in me snapped at that point, I think, because the next I knew I was wiping foam from my lips as Gregor shook my shoulder.
“You ever experience glossolalia before, Den?”
I gaped at him in response.
“Speaking in tongues.” Gregor gave me a sidelong glance. “Literal verbal diarrhea. Happens on first contact. Seeing them tends to disengage the meaning governor from the human language engine and you end up slobbering syntax all over the front of your shirt. You’re trying to make sense of this. Don’t.”
I managed to shut my mouth, biting my tongue in the process. The blood tasted good. A grounding taste, coppery and bright. Gregor kept on.
At that moment, feeling the weight and thickness of the useless tongue in my mouth, I didn’t, not really. I wanted to sleep, and be sick, and to simultaneously climb to the protective canopy above and burrow into the ground below. If there had been a decent cliff nearby, Gregor would have been hard pressed to keep me from jumping off it. He must have known this, because the stories he began to tell were told in his calmest, most reassuring, almost paternal tones and their overall effect was hypnotic. I stayed where I was, and listened, like a child would. Which, all things considered, I was. I felt brand new, as if I’d never seen anything before that moment when the sasquatch became what they truly were, before my eyes.
“I used to call them cryptids, and then when I began to see how much stranger they were than what was thought, archono-cryptids. Or avatars of crypto-archonic forces. The Desert Fathers would have plumped for Archons. Keep it simple, sinner they would have said, and probably did, but records from that era are thin on the ground and they were Gnostics besides, notoriously untrustworthy. They shed names like scales. But archons fits best.
“Alhazred ran afoul of one in Damascus. It rarely ends well for anyone who has dealings with them, but his case was particularly disturbing. Torn apart in the bazaar, in broad daylight, witnesses said. Lifted into the air by invisible claws, reduced to red ribbons. His head continued to scream long after it was removed and tossed about in the air like a beach ball. Legends.
“Plutarch tells us of Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy, when divine voices hail him from a wild shore. Tell ’em the great god Pan is dead! they hollered, and the poor kid, properly spooked, fled. I can just see them having a laugh as he sailed off over the horizon. They can’t die. Outside of everything as they are.
“Gilgamesh ran with one back in the day. Enkidu, it was called. The original epic stuff. Jacob wrestled one in Canaan; it put his goddamn hip out of joint for shits and giggles, and it did so just by touching the guy’s hip. Here ya go, debilitating structural injury for your trouble, like it was nothing at all. Afterward Jacob built an altar on the spot where he’d encountered it, where he’d watched them travelling up and down on their ladders in their multitudes. You’ve got an idea now of what he saw. The way they fold down slash up slash across into local space. Enough to make you question a thing or two, eh?”