Elise and The Butcher of Dreams

by Steven Welch

Now, to be sure, the Octo-Thing of Elise St. Jacques was dead. Of that there can be no doubt.

  But they were a strange and clever species with a unique modification.

  You see, the octopus of Earth had three hearts, one of which would actually stop beating as it swam. This third heart of the Earth Octopus served a valuable purpose in the circulation of blood and oxygen through the creature’s complex system.

  Yet, the Octo-Things of Orcanum had four hearts, and that made a great difference indeed. This organ was known to Orcanum fishermen, in their language of clicks and whistles, as the zombie heart. Melodramatic to be sure, but accurate.

  The zombie heart of an Octo-Thing was a tiny organ wrapped in dense fibrous tissue. It lay dormant, inactive, just a little lump of muscle, until the other three hearts stopped beating. If the other three hearts stopped beating for over six hours, the zombie heart would activate. The dead creature’s thin blood, pooled around the organ in a reservoir sack, would be forced back into circulation. The decay mechanism’s of the creature were quite slow, so six hours was the dividing line between still viable tissue and the point of no return.

  In certain rare circumstances the zombie heart would work one of nature’s little miracles. The trick required the presence of another Octo-Thing, or an adequate substitute, to massage the fourth organ so that the surrounding tissues would loosen and release the flow of blood.

  Taariq Tanaka did not understand the concept of miracles, biological or supernatural. He did not know of something as powerful as hope until he stood behind Elise on the slick cold limestone ledge next to a little pool in the underground river and watched her gently retrieve a pale white mass from the dark water.

  He watched as Elise knelt on the ground, her shoulders heaving as she cried, and held the body of her friend close to her chest. Her head was low, and she said something he could not hear.

  And then Taariq Tanaka knew the power of hope.

  Elise hugged the cold, boneless body of the Octo-Thing tightly as she cried. Over and over again she whispered “I’m so sorry.” The pressure of her body, of her embrace, loosened the tough tissue around the zombie heart and the ghostly skin of the Octo-Thing flushed in a ripple of green.

  The tentacles that dangled like the strings of a mop twitched.

  Elise felt movement then, against her chest and in her hands.

  She looked at the face of the Octo-Thing as his eyes opened, as a great gasp of air burst from the creature’s siphon, and the eight wondrous arms wrapped around Elise St. Jacques in an embrace that flashed in every color of the rainbow.

  TELL THE TRUTH

  There was a cool breeze coming from the Nile on the night Elise said goodbye to Taariq Tanaka.

  The sky was clear and the stars were bright. The lights from The Aquaboggin were low, just a glow that brought shape to the big ship at the entrance to the museum. Scattered about in the rubble were carcasses of The Men of Many Eyes.

  There was no sound except that of the river in the distance, so faint it might have been just a rumor.

  The sunflowers of Vincent Van Gogh were no more.

  Oh, there was a canvas, soaked with the water of the rivers below Cairo, a torn and sodden pile of fabric, shapeless, of no interest. The oil paints had struggled mightily to maintain integrity, but they failed.

  Elise held the sunflowers up to the light of the moon and saw in them, nothing.

  She felt sick. The canvas dropped from her hand to the street along with the other, ruined masterpieces.

  “I failed.”

  Taariq said nothing.

  “And maybe you can make it right, Taariq,” she said.

  Taariq turned then and looked at Elise.

  You’re beautiful, he thought. You’re beautiful and you don’t care about me. And you shouldn’t. Your face is torn and bruised. Your eyes look older than they should but then, somewhere in there, I see a child again. You’re beautiful and cold and strange and wonderful and you need to go do wonderful things.

  “You will make it right. At least, you’ll start doing what needs to be done.”

  Elise gently pulled the thin helmet from her head and it dropped to the street next to the ruined old canvas.

  “Taariq, go tell the truth. I can’t change your mind or your heart but you saw what you saw and you’ve done all of this with me, against me, you’ve seen what I have now. Go tell the truth. That’ll spread, just like the lies spread, and the truth and the lie can fight it out but at least there’ll be that and that will be enough.”

  Elise leaned to Taariq and she kissed him so that the pain in her wounds went away for a moment and there was only the taste of him, the touch of the breeze, and the sound of her blood.

  She looked into his eyes and she did not blink.

  “Promise me you’ll go out there and tell everyone you meet what’s true and real. Promise me.”

  “Yes, I’ll do this. I promise,” he said.

  “I hate guns. You can have them.”

  She removed her holster and handed it to him.

  Then, Elise gave Taariq the Aengus that had been worn by Jack. She watched as he strapped it around his wrist and locked it into place.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Paris,” said Elise, “to help my friends if I can. If it’s not too late.”

  Elise glanced around and did not see the Octo-Thing. He was still weak and Elise felt a moment of panic. There were still dangers on the street and her friend was so small. Then, she saw her black cowboy hat skipping along down the street with several strange tentacles running along beneath.

  The Octo-Thing presented the hat to Elise and there was joy in his eyes.

  Elise settled the cowboy hat back onto her head and lifted the Octo-Thing to her arms.

  “After Paris we’ll go back out into the world. Those rips in reality might still be happening. Imagine if we could travel through to the other side, to other worlds and beyond. Maybe through one of the hellnados. A trip through a hellnado in The Aquaboggin. Hell yes. Just imagine.”

  She did not say goodbye to Taariq. She did not turn around. Elise walked to the Aquaboggin, stepped up and into the vessel. The pneumatic doors closed with a hiss. The engine fired, and moments later the ship took to the night sky.

  Taariq watched as the lights of the living ship grew small and finally disappeared. His face was blue in the moonlight, his hair moved in the breeze, and the smile on his face was true and real.

  THE FIRES OF THE SEINE

  Snow fell in Paris on the morning of Zuzu’s funeral.

  Elise stood on the Left Bank of the Seine with the Octo-Thing draped around her shoulders and a flaming torch in her hand. The el-Noori family was there, and so were survivors of the raid on L’Académie. Renny was there but his partner Robert was not.

  Old Robert was at rest in the cemetery of Pere Léchais.

  Elise walked down the steps to the river. There was a raft, an old fishing boat of blue and green, and this is where Zuzu lay shrouded in gas soaked sheets on a pyre of dry Horse Chestnut.

  Zuzu’s last words had been scribbled in blood on a scrap of paper and found near her body in the Pantheon. Elise read this words aloud then touched the torch to the pyre and pushed the boat from the quay.

  She watched as the fires reached high into the snowy Parisian air and the funeral pyre of Zuzu drifted down the gray waters of the Seine. The Octo-Thing played a wonderful tune of his own creation on his little violin. The song made Elise think of the sea, of adventure, and of a mother she never knew.

  Elise did not speak and she did not cry, not at that moment. After a time she joined Renny for glasses of wine and hand-rolled cigarettes at a small table in the little cafe that Robert and Renny had called home. Elise and Renny shared stories and laughter by candlelight until well into the evening. Then, as the candles burned low, they shared tears at the loss of the ones they loved.

  There was a print of La Goulue by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec on the wall of the old cafe. E
lise gazed at it and smiled.

  “To Les Scaphandriers,” she said and raised her glass.

  “To Les Scaphandriers,” said Renny.

  They sipped their wine. The snow fell outside. Shadows danced along the walls of the cafe and in those shadows Elise saw many strange and wonderful adventures as she drifted off to sleep.

  Zuzu, but of course that wasn’t her real name, grew up chasing king crab on the deck of her father’s fishing boat in the raging seas of the North Atlantic. There was more salt water than blood in her veins and by the age of twelve she could pilot a ship, land a tuna, and cripple a grown man with two of her knuckles and a thumb. They called her Zuzu when she joined Les Scaphandriers because her father’s favorite movie was a black and white old thing he forced the crew to watch every Christmas at sea, and that was many Christmas’s indeed. She did not fear death because she had been raised around it, and the movie taught Zuzu that it was how she led the life she owned that really mattered.

  Elise reckoned that Zuzu’s was a life well owned.

  IMAGINATION

  Aqaba, Jordan - Christmas Eve

  Ahmet sat with his daughter under the infinite stars of Aqaba and drew warmth from the small fire he’d built on the beach.

  The night was cold but their bellies were full and Ahmet played gentle songs on his mandolin. He knew the music from a book he had found. They were Christmas songs from the western world before The Turn and they brought great joy to his daughter. She smiled and listened and hugged her Santa Claus doll tightly to her chest. Ahmet was not a religious man, certainly not one to celebrate Christmas, but his daughter enjoyed the stories and music and atmosphere.

  She had seen many bad things. Ahmet made sure that her Christmas’s were as special as he could manage.

  Tonight, after she fell asleep, he planned to slip a few wrapped presents under their little plastic tree. A pair of shoes he had scavenged, a book about dinosaurs, and a box of candy.

  She would be so happy, he thought as he played.

  Ahmet sat on his blanket with his back to the sea so he didn’t notice the strange lights. His daughter, Sylvia, did however. She looked up at the starry sky and saw one of the stars move.

  The moving star was bright red, and it was coming their way.

  Sylvia’s mouth dropped open.

  There was an object flying in the night sky over the bay of Aqaba and at the tip of the thing was a shining red light.

  Then they both heard the sound, soft at first, and then loud enough to be heard over the strings of the mandolin.

  Sylvia stood. Ahmet turned around, then slowly stood too. They held each other’s hands and looked up at the flying machine with the dazzling lights as it swooped down and around.

  “Jingle Bells” blasted from the speakers of the Aquaboggin as it splashed down in front of Ahmet and Sylvia. The hatch opened with a hiss.

  A person with a white beard stepped out. The strange figure wore a red suit and was carrying a sack full of brightly wrapped packages.

  The beard made Elise’s skin itch, and it barely covered the bandages from her wounds, but the smile on the face of the little girl made it all worthwhile.

  Ahmet saw a little cephalopod head poke up out of the hatch and then back down again.

  Elise nodded hello to Ahmet. Her “ho ho ho” was as deep as she could manage and it was enough.

  Ahmet saw the bandages and the bruising on her face, despite the white beard. The smile in her eyes was as wide as his heart.

  She makes miracles, he thought. She makes hope. She really does.

  Sylvia hugged her Santa doll, then she hugged the real Santa Claus, because this was Christmas.

  She loved her gifts but Sylvia treasured meeting Santa even more because it was better than she had imagined and imagination makes us beautiful.

  EPILOGUE

  If you know the smell of a campfire, then you know the scent of a good story waiting to be told.

  That crackle and pop as the flames dance over and through the wood. A light wind, not too strong because that could put out the fire or perhaps even make it spread too far beyond its borders. A clear night of many stars and a black sky. We gather in this darkness for warmth and we share what we have. Sometimes we’re afraid. Sometimes we fall in love. Sometimes we laugh. Sometimes we bury the fire quickly in terror of being found and eaten.

  There was such a campfire ringed by a pile of stone in a forest near the village of Banbury, in Oxfordshire, England. Well, that village called Banbury was just rubble and melted metal. So the children of Annie Williams and her husband Khalif were, along with their parents, just about the only people left for a hundred square kilometers.

  The Williams family gathered around the campfire that night with great anticipation because they rarely had visitors and almost never enjoyed entertainment of any kind. Not really.

  So when the strange old man in the shabby blue jumpsuit came out of the forest carrying a sack and a cat they were happy that he was harmless and that he claimed to be a storyteller from Paris.

  They fed him from their stash of canned goods and offered their tub for a bath. The strange man politely refused the bath and demonstrated that rubbing sand under his armpits would function in much the same way.

  Annie Williams could smell well enough to know that not to be the case but she was not about to be rude to their first visitor in five years.

  The family sat on their blankets around the fire. The strange old man with the long white hair and the flowing beard sat there as well, and he was a crow of blue and gold in the night. His eyes sparkled beneath great hairy white caterpillars. A nose the size and shape of a baby’s fist cast a shadow of its own over his lips.

  He pulled a beautiful old tapestry cloth from his sack and wrapped it around his shoulders for warmth.

  “Thank you for the food,” he said with a thick French accent, “and in payment I will tell you a story. Would you like that?”

  The family laughed and applauded.

  The old man began with a question, a question to himself, and then he went on to tell the most impossible fairytale of a story. Years later the Williams family would remember this night with great fondness and wonder what became of the smelly old French man.

  “Who were Les Scaphandriers?”

  The old man waited for a reply that, of course, did not immediately come.

  “They were The League of Astonishing Aquanauts, the greatest secret of the sea,” he said, “they were the clandestine party, the hidden celebration, just another impossible thing in a fantastic world. Some say they were formed by Jules Verne himself in the glorious days of exploration when Paris was the center of the world and there were still mysteries to explore. They were a clandestine arm of the French Navy, scientists, adventurers, explorers, and curiosities sworn to uncover those things that history and common sense had hidden from humanity. They sought new life in worlds hidden from our eyes, they fought ferocious and absurd battles against weird cabals, they were known only to a few.

  The League of Astonishing Aquanauts, Les Scaphandriers, were society’s secret, oceanic circus.

  Were they real?

  Were they a children’s adventure story?

  Whatever the case, they saw the end of the world, The Turn, when the ocean’s drained away and the dark invasion came.

  They caused it, you know. The Turn. A mistake, yes, but accidents will happen.

  Some say they still exist.

  Some say they were redeemed.

  Did they bring back the ocean?

  Of course.

  Do they still exist?

  Yes.

  Should they be blamed?

  Who’s to say?”

 

 

 
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