by Mick Farren
Gibson put a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "Wait a minute…"
Either she didn't hear him or she wanted to pass on the farewells. She was gone down the corridor. A moment later the front door slammed.
"Are you still there, Senor Gibson? "
"Yeah, I'm still here. Someone was just leaving." Gibson didn't know for the life of him why he was explaining anything to the stranger on the other end of the phone.
"I wish to come and see you."
Gibson was unconsciously shaking his head. "I don't think so. I don't see many people these days."
Casillas was persistent. "This is a matter of some importance."
"I should warn you that I don't have any money anymore."
"Believe me, Senor Gibson, I am not in the least interested in your money. This is something far more important."
"If you're one of those people who have a scheme to put the band back together for some reunion show, forget it. It'll never happen. Pretend we're all dead."
"I'm not interested in your band, either."
"So what is your interest?"
"It would be impossible to explain over the phone. I would have to see you in person."
Gibson was shaking his head again.
"No. I really can't go along with that,"
"You might also be in some degree of danger, Senor Gibson."
Joe Gibson was suddenly angry. Who did the old fool think he was? "Are you threatening me?"
"I'm not threatening you, Senor. Quite the reverse. All I want is to meet and talk with you. Might I suggest I call on you at eight this evening."
"I won't be home at eight."
"I think by eight you may want to see me. I'll call anyway."
And with that, Don Carlos Gustavo Casillas hung up.
Gibson was left standing, listening to the dial tone. He was not at all happy. First the hangover and now this. What was he supposed to make of it all? Although he'd initially been angered by the suggestion that he might be in danger, in retrospect it gave him something to think about. He glanced at the VCR. It was after six. He had less than two hours to decide what to do about Senor Casillas.
He went into the living room. Here the clutter was much more high-tech-guitars, a computer, a DX7 keyboard. A monolithic bank of recording equipment shared a wall with the big David Hockney nude drawing of him. He went to the window, parted the curtains a couple of inches, and peered out. A black helicopter was hovering over the park. For no conscious reason, the helicopter disturbed him. He closed the curtains again.
It was only a matter of minutes before Gibson made up his mind what he was going to do. He would pour himself a stiff drink, put the security chain on the door, turn on the TV, and if the doorbell rang at eight o'clock, he'd ignore it.
The apparition appeared on the TV right after the start of the NBC Nightly News. One moment there was anchorman Gary Elliot doing the lead-in to a story on corruption in the Justice Department, and the next he'd been replaced by the face of some weird, cartoon-skull demon, an animated mosaic, like the wall of an Aztec temple brought to life by Hanna-Barbera. Gibson blinked in amazement.
"Now what the fuck is this?"
His first thought was that it was some arty commercial that he hadn't seen before, cued in at the wrong place. That was a better idea than wondering if he was losing his mind. The trouble was that even arty commercials usually had music and a voice-over. The only audio behind the skull was the sound of labored breathing, as though the thing was suffering from bronchial asthma. Then it spoke to him, addressing him by name in a high-pitched, wheezing, Mighty Mouse voice.
"Hey, Joe, whattaya know?"
Gibson slowly put down his drink. Now he had to seriously consider the possibility that he was losing it. DTs? He'd had only a couple of shots. He was aware that he was topping up his blood alcohol from the night before, but he shouldn't have been that far gone so fast.
"What is this?"
"You're a bit of a mess, Joe."
Gibson couldn't believe it. Could DTs come from the TV? Had someone cut into his cable to try to drive him crazy? He was suddenly frightened.
"I'm going to quit drinking."
The skull thing's face stretched into an insane grin. The jaw actually detached itself from the upper part of the skull.
"Come on, Joe, you say that every morning."
"What the fuck is going on here?"
"Don't worry, Joe, be happy. The tide always turns. It's always darkest before the dawn. That's the reason for the season. It's just the ebb before the flow, Joe. And you've got a visitor coming. You should do yourself a favor and talk to him. Way to go, Joe. Have a nice day."
And then the cartoon skull had vanished and NBC was back as if it had never been gone. Gibson stared uncomprehendingly at the end of the piece on Justice Department corruption. He was terrified. What was happening to him? On the screen, Gary Elliot had started into a health piece about botulism in pancake mix. He grabbed for the remote and killed the power. His hands were shaking as he picked up his drink. Was it him or was the whole world taking get-weird pills? One thing he knew for sure: There was no way that he was going to open the door to Casillas. He wasn't going to answer the door to anyone,
Gibson should have remembered that it was always a mistake to make hard-and-fast predictions. If he had learned anything from the way his life had gone, it should have been exactly that. As the clock on the VCR moved from 7:59 to 8:00, the intercom beeped. Despite his resolve, Gibson pushed the button.
"Mr. Gibson, this is Ramone the doorman."
"What is it, Ramone?"
"You have a visitor, Mr. Gibson."
"Who is it?"
"He says his name is Casillas."
Ramone sounded as though he didn't quite approve of the visitor. Then again Ramone didn't approve of most of Gibson's visitors.
"Send him up."
Gibson couldn't believe that the words had come out of his mouth. The very last thing he wanted was some weirdass in his apartment, and yet he seemed to have lost all will to resist. He looked round like a condemned man seeking a way out of the inevitable. What was happening to him?
Two and a half minutes after Ramone's call, the doorbell rang. The set of chimes that played the first two bars of Howling Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning" was one of his more absurd rock-star purchases, and normally he took a childish pleasure in it, but this time the final note was a funeral bell tolling gloomily in the air. Like a zombie, he stood up and walked to the door. His legs didn't feel as though they even belonged to him. He took off the chain, snapped back the two deadbolts, and opened the door. The man standing there looked at least a hundred years old. His face was like an ancient walnut, deeply etched with a thousand lines and creases. The eyes, however, that looked out from beneath bushy white eyebrows were bright with a penetrating intelligence. He was not only old but very small, a tiny birdlike figure in a set of clothes that were totally incongruous not only for a man of his age but for practically anyone else. It should have belonged to a pachuco zoot-suiter from the early forties. His shoes were two-tone; his pants wide-cut, draped and pleated; the black coat reached almost to his knees; and his watch chain hung in a long, three-foot loop. His tie was skinny, and the brim of his hat was wide. When he removed it, a full head of snow-white hair was revealed, neatly brushed back into an immaculate DA.
"Mr. Gibson?"
Gibson nodded and held the door wide open. "Please come in, Mr. Casillas."
The old man stepped across the threshold, moving with an energy that also wasn't in keeping with his apparent years.
"I believe your TV had a word with you earlier."
They had walked through into the kitchen. The odd little man seemed no more real to Gibson than the thing that had interrupted the NBC news.
"You did that?"
"I felt that I needed to get your attention."
Gibson took a unopened bottle of Scotch from the Welsh dresser. He cracked the seal with a brisk, busin
esslike twist and poured himself a large shot. Before he drank it down, he held the glass up to the light. He had to believe that something was real.
"Are you telling me that you interrupted a network TV broadcast just to get my attention?"
Casillas shook his head. "Believe me, I didn't interrupt anything. I only borrowed the facility. Besides, the skull was instructed to appear only on your set."
Gibson poured himself a second shot. "Do you want a drink?"
Casillas shook his head a second time. "Alas, I am unable to indulge in alcohol anymore, but please feel free to do so yourself, as much as you want. I can still enjoy watching a young man drink."
Gibson drank half the shot. "I'm not that young anymore."
"You're but a child from where I stand."
In an attempt to restore some minor normality to the situation, Gibson sat down at the kitchen table and indicated that Casillas should do the same. There had to be a way to find a point of perspective on all this, a position from which he could handle what was going on. It wasn't easy, not when faced with Casillas's preposterous clothes and even more preposterous suggestion that he could alter someone's television programming at will. And yet the skull had appeared on his TV. Gibson was starting to feel that it was going to be a long night.
"What exactly is this all about?"
"It is complicated."
Gibson sighed. "You know something? I rather thought that it might be."
"We also have very little time."
"We do?"
"Very little time."
When Casillas had first entered the kitchen, his eyes had moved around the room, darting from side to side, watchful, cautious; the jerky gaze, plus the small, fast motions of his head, and his delicate, fragile-looking bones gave him such a resemblance to an inquisitive bird, but once seated he fixed Gibson with an unwavering stare.
"Very little time indeed," he repeated.
Gibson leaned back in his chair. He didn't like that stare at all. The old man's eyes seemed to radiate power, as though they could bore into his head and read his very thoughts.
"Maybe you could start by telling me how you put that thing on my TV?"
Casillas looked sad. "I don't want you to think me rude or feel insulted, but if I did try to explain it, I very much doubt that you would understand. Shall we just say that my associates and I have considerable resources at our disposal?"
Gibson raised an eyebrow. "Associates?"
"I'm not acting alone here, Mr. Gibson. I am the representative of a much larger organization."
"Do you want to tell me what this organization is?"
"No yet. For the moment it will have to remain anonymous."
Gibson lit a cigarette. His patience was wearing a little thin. "This is all a bit too mysterious, Senor Casillas. If you don't want to tell me anything, why did you come here?"
Casillas sat up a little straighter in his chair and neatly folded his hands in front of him. "I have a problem."
Gibson regarded him expressionlessly. "We all have problems, senor."
"I seriously fear that you may have difficulty believing much of what I have to tell to you."
Despite himself, Gibson couldn't help grinning. "I've seen more than my fair share of the weird."
Casillas nodded. "I know that. That's why I'm here."
"So try me."
"My first reason for coming here was to see you, to look at you face-to-face and decide if you really were the person we were looking for."
"Are you telling me that this is an audition?"
Casillas smiled. "If you want to think of it like that."
"It's been a long time since I auditioned for anything."
"You could also think of it as the first phase of a recruiting process."
"And do I get the part?"
Casillas's smile faded. "Unfortunately, I think that you do. If you're agreeable, that is."
"Unfortunately?"
"I still have a number of reservations regarding your erratic and self-destructive life-style. You live in a serious state of denial, Mr. Gibson."
"I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment."
Casillas's fingers flexed. "Would you be willing to come with me and meet my associates?"
Gibson was on guard again. This was something new. "Right now?"
"There's no time like the present."
Gibson started to shake his head. "I'm not sure that I can do that."
Up to that point, Gibson had been prepared to let Casillas ramble on, figuring that he would get to whatever was on his mind in his own good time. To have the crazy old geezer sitting in his kitchen was one thing. To go out into the night with him was quite another.
Casillas had placed both hands flat on the table. "I can't urge you strongly enough. I realize that I'm expecting you to take a great deal on trust, which must be hard for a paranoid individual such as yourself, but this really is a matter of the utmost urgency."
Something was happening to the old man's eyes as he spoke: they seemed to be growing in his head, making it impossible for Gibson to look away. With a major effort of will he pulled loose from the bright-eyed stare and focused his attention instead on the portrait of himself on the wall.
Anger overtook Gibson. "This is a fucking charade."
The old man wasn't amusing anymore. It was an invasion, first of Gibson's home and then of his free will.
Casillas tilted his head slightly. "A charade, Mr. Gibson?"
"Yeah, right. A charade. I have the distinct impression that you can make me do pretty much what you want. First you cause some Aztec human-sacrifice demon to take over my TV and then…"
"Actually it was a rather benign mortality demon, low-level and virtually harmless beyond the odd prank."
Gibson pressed on regardless, feeding on his own fury. "And then you show up at my door, and I'm damn sure that if there hadn't been someone or something working on me I never would have let you in here. When it started, it was intriguing, but the idea of someone having the gall to sit right here in my kitchen and try to hypnotize me makes me good and mad. I don't give a fuck what the problem is or how little time you and your associates have got, but I'm not going anywhere with you or anyone until I know what all this is about. You can go on trying to work your mojo on me, but it's hard to put something over on an angry man."
Casillas was actually smiling. "You seem very adept at detecting what you call a mojo."
With a boldness that verged on recklessness, Gibson looked straight back into the bead-bright black eyes. "I've been around."
"That's exactly why I'm here."
"So start talking."
Casillas, seemingly aware that he had gone too far, took a deep breath. "You must understand that my associates and I are under a great deal of pressure and it tends to make us a little high-handed in our dealings with others." Gibson nodded. "I know how that goes." Casillas's expression was suddenly very hard and very cold. "You do?"
"Like I said, I've been around."
The old man seemed about to respond with an anger to match Gibson's, but then he controlled himself with a visible effort.
"The world is a nervous place, my friend. Already it dances from one real or imagined fear to the next. Although it doesn't know it yet, it now has very good reason for fear. A catastrophe is building of a magnitude that will surpass anything humanity has ever witnessed. Indeed, if it comes, it will be more destructive than anything ever witnessed by any life on this planet. It will be the worst thing to happen since the asteroid Telal exploded and wiped out the dinosaurs."
Casillas looked to Gibson for a reaction. Gibson was in the process of surrendering. If this was madness, it was madness on a refreshingly lavish scale. Getting no response, Casillas went on.
"We live in a multidimensional universe, and by far the greater part of it is not, and possibly never will be, understood by human beings. We do, however, live in it, and when forces are unleashed across those dimensions, they can threaten and eve
n destroy us whether we understand them or not."
Casillas once again looked for a response, but Gibson was biding his time, just letting the idea of a multidimensional universe flow over him. He hadn't even started to consider what truth there might be in any part of the bizarre tale.
"Few of us, with the possible exception of Albert Einstein, have the math to even approach a grasp of the dimensions immediately aligned with our own. We have yet to do better than the Chaldeans, who, simply and succinctly, described the universe as consisting of the Earth, the zones above the Earth, and the zones below the Earth. They, at least, could accept the idea that there are other realities and existences about which we have little or no awareness. How about you, Mr. Gibson? Are you able to accept that?"
Gibson nodded. "Round about now, I could accept almost anything."
"Please don't be flippant."
"I'm not being flippant, it's just the sound of one mind boggling."
The old man half smiled. "Just try and stay with me."
"I'll do my best."
"In normal times, these various dimensions move forward in unison along the time stream with little or no interface one to another. From time to time there have been leakages, minor print-throughs. The UFOs with which we have become so familiar are a product of exactly one such recent occurrence. There are, however, moments of major confluence, and these have the potential for the kind of disaster that we seem to be approaching. At such times it is briefly possible for entities with the necessary knowledge to pass from one reality to another. History is littered with the stories and legends of these beings-Zeus, Azag-Thoth, Jesus of Nazareth, Abdul Alhazred the so-called Mad Arab, Vlad Tepes the Impaler…"
Gibson blinked. "Are you telling me that Dracula was from another dimension?"
Casillas made a dismissive gesture. "Did you ever think otherwise?"
Gibson sighed. "I guess I'm a little slow."
"We are approaching an era where the slow may lose everything."
"I'm guessing that all this is the lead-in to your telling me that this disaster that's on its way is going to come screaming out of another dimension."
Casillas nodded. "Exactly that. A prime confluence is very close. Even under normal circumstances this would be a time of confusion and possible global danger. These, though, are far from being normal circumstances. There is an entity."