Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz

by Tim Marquitz

  “Come on then, don’t you growl at me. Come face me.”

  The beast flipped a fin, its huge bulk moving so the flat black eye could look at her again. She moved the spotlight so that it was near the eye, but not quite blinding it.

  “See how you like this, you big bully.”

  At her words, the noise vibrating her chest increased. The eye disappeared into the blackness and the Altus shuddered at the displaced water.

  Susan relaxed her grip on the spots. “Has it gone? Did I scare it off with the lights?”

  She peered into the gloom, the breath held in her chest finally loosening into a coughing laugh. “I did it. I did it!”

  To her left, a tiny red flicker glowed. She turned her head and saw the giant beast’s light pattern thrumming quicker now, the colors flaring like an explosion. It turned face on, the gaping maw wide open. Vast rows of white teeth gleamed in the spotlights. The noise started again, louder, angrier, swarms of bees smashing against the glass windows.

  “No, no, no! Why won’t you leave?” Susan prodded at the spotlights, but the beast was face on now, its eyes shielded from the beams. The vast mouth loomed closer, bigger than the Altus, easily capable of swallowing her whole. White teeth filled her vision, the deep red of it’s throat a giant moist cavern.

  Her knees gave way and she hit the chair with a bone rattling thump. Her teeth clacked together on her tongue, and blood flooded through her mouth. She spat. The redness of the spittle made her stomach flip-flop.

  “I’m sorry, darling. I wish I’d told you how happy I was with you. You’re right, I don’t need this. I’m happy enough growing old with you.”

  The mouth filled both windows, the deep noise making the panes rattle. Susan thought of Richard: his kind smile, his understanding, his patience.

  The noise intensified, the jaws closing like a trap just as the Altus shuddered and shot upwards like a champagne cork. Susan screamed, grabbing on to the control panel as the sub roared upwards on its emergency recall trajectory.

  She felt, rather than heard, an answering roar from the beast below, a primal need for dominance thwarted.

  “/////san? Can you hear us ye////”

  Startled, she looked at the speakers, sobs erupting, huge wracking sounds that ripped all conscious thought away.

  “//God, Ed, what’s wrong … is she … is … ///”

  “////…be in pain from the incorrect oxygen mixture. Probably hallucinating. She’ll be fine once she’s in the hyperbaric chamber.”

  “Susan, darling … twenty minutes and you’ll be at the surface. Don’t worry.”

  Susan relaxed, the tension caused by the beast gone. The Altus was rising quickly, expelled air bubbles sticking to the windows. But there was no it, no beast lurking, waiting for her to dare to enter its domain.

  “I hear you, Richard, my love. I’m … I’m okay. I miss you.”

  Surprised at the sound of her own voice, high and quavering, Susan looked at the blood that had dripped from her head wound and at the contusions on her knuckles. Yet at the back of her mind, something niggled her. She tried not to think about it, relaxing as the light grew brighter in the Altus’ windows, but the thought wouldn’t go away.

  Why would a deep sea creature like that need eyes? The depths it lived in, that she thought it lived in, were too dark to see. The ancient stories of sea monsters, Leviathans, which rose out of the depths to crush and destroy ships no longer seemed quite so fanciful.

  It was better not to think about it, just like it seemed better to forget this expensive sub she had decided to mothball. No more dives, no more risks. Just as soon as they were all back safe on land, anyway.

  The sub shook once, briefly, spinning clockwise while still rising sharply.

  Was that vibration because of the forced rise or …

  Susan leaned forward, her eyes glued to the window. Seconds passed, then minutes, and still there was nothing. She was so paranoid. With a shaky laugh, she pushed her fringe back, wincing at the sticky blood matting it.

  Everything was fine, there were no monsters chasing her now. Except ...

  Susan bit her lip as a low thrumming sound resonated through her chest whilst a flickering red glow filled the observation window. A flat black pupil stared in at her.

  She wished she could see her beloved Richard one last time.

  Angela’s Garden

  Dorian Dawes

  “The birds haven’t left the garden yet,” Angela says.

  Angela Bradshaw lives on the second floor of Brandon Lodge, a sort of assisted-living facility that attempts to craft the illusion of independence for its lodgers or guests. Hotel to some, apartment to others, but never a retirement home.

  Angela knows better, though. Her kids left her here six years ago, and she’s seen through the pretty floral wallpaper and the smiles of those hired to attend to her needs, and she knows what this place really is. It’s a place for your relatives to put you before you die because they don’t want to deal with your feebleness any longer, even though you raised and cared for them and changed their diapers, they’re totally unwilling to do the same for you. This place is nothing more than an illusion created to ease people’s minds.

  Like everything else in life, the illusions of comfort and security in modern American society—from seat belts to air mattresses—Brandon Lodge was a place for people unwilling to sacrifice those illusions in their twilight years, hanging on to them even until the bitter, piss-stained end. Angela wouldn’t have minded it as much if they’d have let her keep her cigarettes.

  She sits by the window of her room and looks out at the dirty buildings obstructing an otherwise glorious view of the sunsets and sunrises, the last remaining jewels she has. Every day, when the staff comes to change her sheets and clean her room she says the same thing:

  “The birds haven’t left the garden yet.”

  Everyone thinks she’s senile. She’s not though, and it’s one of her few comforts she has when people give her their condescending looks and pretend to see the birds out there while giving her the pills to take in a plastic cup. Even reduced to this state, Angela is still one step ahead of the others. She crushes the cup in a withered fist when she’s done and contemplates spitting on the nurse.

  Nobody yells at you when you’re old. You get treated like a child, but you can’t get punished for bad behavior. Might as well act out, now and again, right? The only thing that makes Angela swallow and not continue in this impish mindset is that the pretty nurse before her doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of her bitterness. She’s just trying to make a living. Probably has a boyfriend she lives with and they’re both struggling over bills, and the sad young woman no doubt resents playing nurse maiden to these old shits and their soiled mattresses.

  So Angela is good, and smiles and says, “Be careful, for when the birds do leave the garden, I can’t protect you.”

  The nurse smiles politely and nods her head, but Angela can see in her eyes she doesn’t understand. None of them do, really. Their minds are too bound to the earthly plane to see what’s going on around them, but Angela sees. They think her eyesight is going but it’s stronger than ever. Every day she beholds terrifying wonders with them, the chaos of the hidden universe.

  When she was a little girl, they were just vague shapes and colors floating all around that she’d try to grab out of the air in tiny fists. It’s a common misconception that children are more attached to ethereal planes because they’ve yet to become corrupted by the distractions of the material world, but this is only half-true. Some children just have certain gifts, but like any talent without cultivation it withers and dies. That’s what made Angela different. She never stopped trying to see colors in the air; the colors that went beyond what the human eye can perceive. Colors that no one has ever seen or dared dream could exist. Angela never wanted to lose them.

  Eventually the floating colors became shapes and distinct voices in the air. They were people and creatures and birds a
nd things, and they belonged to her. Her eyes were open to a world just beyond human comprehension. At times they were beautiful … at others, they were terrifying.

  The negative energy left in the wake of her first divorce had attracted an entire horde of nasty things to her eldest teenage son, and every night she kept a close eye on the darkness of the hallway to his bedroom. They would wait outside his door, snarling and hissing, their unnatural genitalia erect with desire; they were itching to claw their way into his door. They were hungry, and wanted him. They couldn’t though. Angela held certain powers over them, and this she’d discovered early on. So long as she willed them away, they could not harm her son.

  Those things hated her, and every night would whisper their threats in her ear. “We’ll get him, you bitch, and we’ll get you. You can’t keep your guard up forever. The second you falter we’ll tear into your cunt and force his severed cock down your throat. He is ours. We will have our prey.”

  If only her son had known of the horrors that lurked outside his door all those years, and of the sleepless nights she’d spent struggling to keep those demons at bay. Would he have so willingly forced her to this place in exile? Angela sighs, wondering. That’s a question she doesn’t like to spend much time thinking on. She’s seen all kinds of promises.

  If Angela has a friend at Brandon Lodge, it’s Suzanne Yvette who lives directly across the hall from her. She comes over every morning for tea and a good bible study. Suzanne is a sweet lady, Angela thinks, though the poor woman seems absolutely drenched with delusion. She’d arrived at Brandon Lodge shortly after Angela did, and her children and grandchildren had promised a visit every week. Angela had overheard the promise, and with a scowl she made certain to see how long it took before the promise wore thin.

  Not long at all, it seemed.

  As expected, at first Suzanne was visited regularly; every week with smiles and hugs and dinner. They’d take her out for a few hours, either to a restaurant or a movie and her grandchildren would proudly show off the A’s on their report cards. Then Suzanne’s family began to miss odd weeks, and it seemed understandable, but then they only visited once every two weeks, then three weeks, then a month. Then a few months would pass before a visit, until it came that, begrudgingly, Suzanne’s family would collect her on odd holidays, sometimes Mother’s Day or the Fourth of July, though not always.

  Finally, Suzanne was left anticipating Thanksgiving and Christmas. She knows it is all she will see of her children during the year. Last year, though, she hadn’t seen them at all. Busy, they’d said. Everyone is busy.

  Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Angela has to watch her friend convince herself yet again that her children will come to collect her for Christmas. Suzanne visits shortly after the nurse leaves, carrying with her a bible and a few cranberry muffins, and already Angela has the coffee ready. Suzanne thanks her and sits.

  “I’m so looking forward to Christmas,” she says almost as soon as she sits down, and bitterly Angela wishes the old dummy wouldn’t have brought it up.

  Suzanne wants comfort, reassurance, and that is something Angela isn’t in the habit of doling out. Contrary to the beliefs of others, Angela is a realist and knows better than to give false hope. Better to face truth now than to suffer the bitter agonies of disappointment later. The sooner Suzanne accepts her family has abandoned her, the better off she’ll be.

  “I’m still thinking of what to buy you,” Angela tries smiling, “but I thought maybe the next time the bus drives us into town we can just sneak off and run away together.”

  Suzanne laughs. “No, I mean I can’t wait to see my family! I don’t have a lot of money for presents to give them, but I’ve gathered up all the funnies from the papers in a cute little box for the kids to read. That’ll be a nice gift, don’t you think?”

  Angela’s smile vanishes. She can’t help but to blurt out, “Suzy, they’re not coming.”

  That’s all it takes to make the darkness appear, and Angela regrets her words immediately. She’s not even sure what is in the darkness, but she’s seen it around some of the other guests just days before they’re rushed off to the hospital or declared dead. A heavy black fog that settles in around their feet, murky, like tar, and there’s movement in it; a serpent that slithers around their ankles, biting them. The darkness has found Suzanne.

  And I brought it to her, Angela thinks, cursing herself.

  “D-don’t be so negative, Angie,” Suzanne says, though her hands shake, and the smile on her mouth looks as if it might shatter at any second. “They’ll come for me. I know they will. They promised. It’s just been hard on them, is all. They’re very busy people. Charles has his own firm now, you know, and he’s got to keep working to provide for his family. He’s doing so good, but I know he’ll take time to come get me. Not like last year … ”

  The pool of black filth lips up at her feet and already the venom is sunk in deep. Angela knows, in a few short days, Suzanne will die. She doesn’t even have the strength to will this awful thing away, just barely enough to keep it from spreading and getting her too. Angela has to sit there and smile and pat her friend on the hand and whisper the only words of assurance she has.

  “The birds haven’t left the garden yet,” Angela says.

  Suzanne doesn’t know why, but it gives her some relief, even though she’s never understood that phrase. She’ll die before she understands. Everyone will.

  Suzanne accompanies Angela to dinner that night, and the staff of Brandon Lodge dresses up in colorful costumes to regale their guests with cheery Christmas songs. Angela notices one song is missing from last year’s repertoire of carols. It’s “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” and she knows exactly why. It’s a song she doubts will ever be sung in these halls again.

  Last year, the darkness came to Brandon Lodge, and that song brought it in as thick and as heavy as the meat and potato soup going cold in her plastic bowl. Rolling in like a fog, it passed beneath them all and circled around the stage, unknown to everyone but Angela who had the sense of mind to lift her feet off the ground. She managed to convince Suzanne to do the same, joking they should put their feet up and relax. With childish glee, Suzanne and some of the other guests followed suit, and the staff paid it no mind. It was Christmas, after all.

  “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams … ”

  The following week, there was a rash of suicides at Brandon Lodge, the first that had ever occurred. Some hung themselves in their bathrooms, while others kept all of their pills and took them in a single instance. Others, more violently, threw themselves from their windows. Now the windows are locked and the rooms are checked for ropes and ties and sharp objects. Angela has noticed the only guests at Brandon Lodge who remained alive after that night were those who had either not been present in the room when the darkness had rolled in, or those who’d put their feet on the tables and avoided the poison from the creatures that lurked within.

  A suicide note left by one of the guests had contained the lyrics from that fateful song, and Angela knows the loneliness felt within all of their hearts had caused that horror to manifest. It had clung to these walls, feeding off the bad energy like a tumorous disease. It would never go. Here it would feast forever, and it would claim all their lives. Merely because the guests are watched for signs of suicidal behavior does not mean the darkness cannot claim their lives, for all it has to do is remove their will to live.

  It was only thanks to Angela that it didn’t kill them all now. She’d stopped sleeping at night, and would stay awake whispering words of life and light into the halls, like she’d done for her ungrateful son all those years ago. The staff and the residents here were her new children, her reason for being. It was her love for them that kept the horror from spreading. It could not abide love.

  Angela feels herself wavering as she watches Suzanne’s hands shake whenever she holds the glass to her lips. The despair is getting to Angela, watching the darkness spread over Suzann
e’s body, the little serpent nipping at whatever bits of exposed flesh they can reach. She can hear the voices within the blackness laughing, taunting her.

  “Thanks for the meal,” come the many hissing voices into her mind, “And here we thought you didn’t like us.”

  Angela wants to scream. She clenches her napkin so tightly that her nails cut into her palm and blood drips scarlet onto the clean, white cloth. No one notices, everyone’s singing “White Christmas.” Suzanne urges Angela to sing along, and so Angela sings. She sings and she smiles, though inside she is breaking.

  They wish each other goodnight and retreat to their rooms.

  “It’s a home; you’re getting rid of me,” Angela had said to her son when he’d first told her of Brandon Lodge.

  “Mom, you can’t take care of yourself anymore,” he’d been so utterly self-righteous and presuming—her little savior.

  She called him out for all his shit. “Bull! My house stands to make you a lot of money if you can sell it. Just gotta get rid of the person who lives in it first.”

  “We’ll use the money to pay your expenses at the lodge.”

  “Two birds with one stone, eh? Get rid of me, and suffer no expense for yourself? You’re a real piece of work, kid.”

  “We’ll come to visit, Mom.”

  She laughed. “Don’t make me any promises. I’d fight you, but I know you’ll win. Everyone around here thinks I’m either crazy or senile. Nobody takes you seriously when you’re young, and nobody takes you seriously when you’re old. I hope you enjoy the time you have, son, because when you get to be my age, your kids are going to turn around and stab you in the back just like you’re doing to me.”

  Alone in the dark, Angela breaks down. She shatters her favorite tea set against the carpet and knows it doesn’t make enough noise to alert the staff. For that, she’s glad. She wants to throw a temper-tantrum, to destroy things, the way everything in her life has been destroyed. Everyone has either left, betrayed her, or forgotten—anyone who’s ever cared for her existence is either dead or dying. She’s alone in this world and alone she fights the darkness threatening to consume them all.