"What happened?" Dawson said over his shoulder on his way out the door. They’d need the elevator to get to the crew deck and the bitch took a good five minutes at any time of day. Never-ending elevator traffic was only one of many drawbacks to life on such a crowded ship.
"I don’t know. I didn’t see anything. Lieutenant Chalmers just yelled at me to come and get you."
Matthews was struggling to keep up with the commander’s long strides, and his nerves weren’t helping him to articulate.
"They said he’s seen Parin," the boy added with a whisper.
"Don’t whisper in front of me, Private. You want to tell secrets, tell them to your boyfriend."
"Sorry, sir. I said they think he’s seen Parin."
"Horseshit," Dawson snapped, smacking the call button for the elevator a half-dozen times. "Don’t listen to that crap, Matthews, and don’t go on spreading it yourself."
"Sorry, sir. I meant they think he’s gone insane."
"Who is it?"
"I’m not sure."
Dawson nodded thoughtfully and adjusted his wet pants with a tug. "Nothing strange about losing your mind out here. And it doesn’t take a god to turn your world upside down, either. Not when you’re a billion miles from home and the only thing separating you from death is a foot or two of steel."
Matthews looked at his feet and frowned. Dawson could tell by the way his legs stiffened that the boy believed in the dark god with every ounce of his being. Maybe he wasn’t too far from seeing Parin himself. With that in mind, Dawson decided to leave out that they were probably upside down already and it was probably three o’clock in the morning, the demonic witching hour, even though the clock outside the locker room showers said eight forty-seven a.m. It was all just a lie, anyway. They probably didn’t even exist at all. They’d probably run out of oxygen on that uncharted planet and this was just a continuation in Hell of their never-ending voyage. Even that wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, as long as he knew for sure whether or not it was the truth.
The elevator arrived much faster than usual. They both got in and stood on opposite ends of the car, with four feet of tension walled up between them. They were silent for a full minute and might have stayed like that all the way to the crew deck if they hadn’t heard the screams.
"Jesus..." Dawson muttered. His jaw tensed.
"What do you think’s happening up there?" Matthews asked. He tried to keep his voice from trembling, tried very hard in fact, but he couldn’t help it.
Dawson hated scared pussies like him.
"I don’t know but there’s no use crying about it."
He meant for the remark to be demeaning, but either the intent or the words themselves (perhaps both) were lost on Matthews. The idea of living, breathing insanity on the other side of the elevator door was too much for him to process so soon after waking. Or maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and Parin was beginning to reveal himself. It wouldn’t have been the first time in Dawson’s tour of duty, or even on that same ship, that one of his men had gone insane simply because they’d heard someone else had lost touch with reality (or had a "vision of Parin", to use the crew’s terminology) and begun to think a little too hard about what exactly defined reality in the uncharted reaches of space.
"I think we’ve gone too far," Matthews whispered, pulling Dawson out of his drifting thoughts.
"What do you mean?" the commander asked. He wanted to sound angry, irritated, maybe even threatening, but the boy had caught him off guard.
"I think we should turn around even if they don’t want us to yet. I think we’re getting too close to the edge."
Edge of what? the commander wondered. He didn’t like where the private was taking him.
Before either of them realized what was happening, Dawson’s right fist pistoned forward and connected solidly with Matthew’s left cheekbone.
The effect was immediate and satisfying for Dawson. It made him feel sane. The errand boy fell against the side of the elevator in an ugly heap. He wasn’t unconscious yet but he was well on his way and was certainly dazed enough that he wouldn’t offer another suggestion like that, one that rang with a little too much truth for comfort.
But something else had been triggered by the blow.
When the electronic light and the voice somewhere beyond it alerted Commander Dawson that he had arrived at the crew deck and to please follow all sanitation procedures in public areas, he heard the other voice for the first time. It was more of a feeling that a voice in the beginning, but it rang in his ears just the same. His bowels clenched violently.
The door opened. The commander already sensed that something was wrong beyond a crazed soldier. Something was fundamentally wrong with life itself.
The overhead lights were out. He had time enough to wonder if it was a repeat of the electrical storm and they were once more at the mercy of the ship’s stored oxygen reserves (running dangerously thin already), and then he realized that not all of the lights were out. The emergency lights were flashing red all around the hallway in six-second intervals. That was a positive sign, at least. During the electrical storm, the ship had been completely dark except for their flashlights.
Dawson stood completely still in the elevator until the doors began to close, looking for any movement in the hellish half-light, and then he stepped one pace out into the corridor with his hands held defensively in front of him.
He couldn’t see or hear anyone down the hall yet, but he knew the emergency lights had to have been triggered on the crew deck itself, so he waited another moment to make sure no one was waiting for him in the dark.
Stepping gingerly into the common area before the elevator, a space which normally teemed with activity at all hours of the day and night but which was now completely abandoned, it occurred to Dawson that maybe it hadn’t been a smart move to punch out Private Matthews, and not just because he was a commander and the excessive violence would reflect poorly on his record and lower the crew’s morale. He had forgotten to get the boy’s com link to contact Lieutenant Chalmers and find out what the hell was happening down here and why no one was around.
"As if you don’t already know," the new voice in his head pointed out.
But it was too late to go back there now. After finally coaxing himself through his own foreboding and leaving the uncomfortable suggestions of Matthews behind, he knew he couldn’t return to the elevator. Not even to get a weapon, and he had a strong feeling that he might need one soon.
All he could do now to save face on the security camera (which may not have been working but he could never be too careful) was to continue the investigation. He’d find out what happened, settle the soldier down (in restraints if necessary), and report back to Chalmers that the situation had been handled and he should take care of his own goddamned problems the next time he thought about pulling a tired C.O. off of his rec time.
"Then call him now," the voice urged. "You already know what happened. They’ve seen Parin."
The name made Dawson shudder when it came from his own thoughts. Most of the time, it was easy enough to dismiss old wives’ tales about alien gods named Parin who haunted the dreams of homesick sailors of the great beyond, but walking through a dark, deserted hallway a billion miles from home with an unknown voice prying its way into his head had Commander Dawson feeling decidedly superstitious.
The screams that suddenly erupted down the hall didn’t help, either.
His hand went immediately to his hip, feeling for a weapon or a com link to request backup, but he found neither.
"Help! Jesus Christ, please help!" someone cried out from the exercise room. Dawson had already been headed that way. The echo of the scream could only have been created in the workout area.
"Is that how you know?" the foreign voice mocked.
Dawson shrugged it aside and limped to cover along the wall as quickly as his throbbing leg would allow. Another scream erupted, followed by piercing, witch-like laughter. T
he sound was beyond unsettling.
He took a couple of hesitant steps back towards the elevator and found himself wondering if he’d hit Matthews harder than he’d thought, because he couldn’t hear anything at all from behind him. Just the perpetual hum from the engine room on the other side of the ship, and the occasional scream up ahead.
"You know who it is."
"Shut up!" Dawson hissed aloud. His hands were trembling. He realized he must have spilled more coffee than he’d initially thought, too, because there was wetness between his fingers that he hadn’t noticed until that moment.
"He’s at the window, Commander," the voice told him. "Why don’t you go and see him?"
Dawson squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out the voice before he pissed himself and ran off, wailing all the way.
"Go and see him, Commander. Go see how happy we can be together. Go see what time it really is."
Dawson shook his head emphatically to drown out the voice, steeled himself, and took a few shambling steps around the corner towards the screams.
The entire corridor on the east wing was dark save for one bright line slanting out from the exercise room. The door must have been disabled, Dawson thought, because they automatically shut everywhere on the ship. Most rooms (he couldn’t remember, in his heightened emotional state, whether the exercise room was among them) even required a code to enter. He guessed this was a precaution to keep out hostile alien forces, but Dawson was also beginning to suspect something had made its way inside regardless.
The light from the doorway was blinding in the darkness, but not so bright as to distract the commander from the splashes of red on the floor and walls surrounding the room, as though something had been slopped in wet paint and dragged across the floor.
"You know what that is, too," the voice mocked him.
Dawson’s testicles shriveled back towards his stomach and he grimaced when the numbing shockwave from the voice settled pins and needles in his back.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Fucking Christ! Help me!" the soldier screamed.
The piercing witch’s laughter followed it so near to the commander that it took him a few moments to realize the sound had come from his own throat.
He continued down the hall toward the exercise room, or rather, his legs continued their monotonous shuffle onward without any direction from his brain. The rest of his body was content with leaking, which only explained the wetness on his hands and the draining of his bladder in the loosest of terms. Tears streamed down his cheeks unheeded and the screams continued from the room ahead. He was almost there.
Before he could reach the light, however, he realized that his feet were sliding through something solid and wet on the floor, carelessly discarded like so much gristle and fat.
"You know what it is, Commander, and you know who I am, and you know what you’re going to find in there, don’t you?"
"Who are you?" Dawson cried out.
"I’m called many things in many worlds, but none of them are true and none of these worlds truly exist."
Dawson, still limping towards the door (he wasn’t sure why), began to sob. He shut his eyes, no longer caring whether or not he slipped in the wet tracts of innards lining the floor, and whispered so softly that only his own mind could possibly have heard.
"Parin?" he whispered.
The witch laughter arose in his throat once more and he slipped in spleen at the same time. His cheek smacked against an unseen organ, cushioning its fall, and the confused and agonized screams followed on cue from the exercise room.
Now, at least, his renegade legs wouldn’t keep their dreadful shuffle to the light going. Now, he could get some rest and cower from that voice and that reality awaiting him in the next room.
"Don’t you want to know what time it really is, Commander? Don’t you want to know what’s real around you? Don’t you want to see what you’ve done?"
"I didn’t do anything!"
"You’ve almost broken through the skin. You can almost see what’s underneath. We’ve come this far together, why not finish it all now? Come and see the wonders."
Brief but no less terrifying visions of a dark-faced being, an arrangement of stones, and a swirl of color as unidentifiable and strange as the face itself, seared Dawson’s brain. He screamed until his voice was hoarse, louder even than the man in the room.
"It’s too late," the voice assured him. "You’ve gone too far to stop now. Your ship has gone too far."
Another image flashed through his consciousness, a young girl in a thick grove of trees, lying with a cloven-hoofed beast as dark shapes chanted around them.
"You’ve seen Parin," the voice said.
Dawson could feel his sanity slipping from him, pouring out of him along with his sweat and tears.
Maybe Parin was all that there really was. Maybe Parin was truth.
"There’s no reason to stall."
"I don’t want to see," Dawson blubbered.
"I told you, it’s too late to look away. You’ve already started."
Against all odds, Dawson managed to scrunch his eyes shut even harder, then wiped at the side of his face. It was impossible to tell which liquid on his cheek was blood, which was snot, which was tears, and which was perspiration, but he didn’t want any of them near his mouth regardless.
"GET UP!" the voice suddenly roared.
There was no denying it when it yelled like that.
Dawson got to his feet and opened his eyes.
The white light that had poured from the exercise room had changed into a kaleidoscope of color, many of which Dawson only recognized as colors out of space. They terrified him but he also knew it was pointless to resist their pull. His legs would carry him there eventually whether he wanted them to or not, and he didn’t want to wait and see whether the faceless voice would come for him in the meantime.
"GO," the voice commanded.
The doorway was mere inches away but he couldn’t bring himself to look around the corner yet. More images stole through his head with frightening clarity and speed.
"LOOK."
He was standing in the doorway, holding onto the frame to brace himself and crying softly. There was nothing that could make him look, he thought. No matter how much the voice demanded it and no matter what the repercussions were for refusal, there was no way he could expose himself to the maddening dose of reality he sensed waiting for him.
The tormented soldier in the room screamed with renewed vigor. There were no words this time. Dawson wondered whether the man was crying out again because he thought that help had arrived or because he knew that Parin himself was on his way.
Then the voice emerged from his own throat, not laughter this time but a simple supplication. "Open your eyes."
"No!" the man screamed.
"Come and see what time it is."
"Please! No more!" the man begged. "Please!"
Still, Dawson didn’t open his eyes. Wouldn’t. Swore with all of his being that even an agonizing death was preferable to seeing Parin, though he suspected he already had.
"See what you’ve done," the voice spoke through him, only it resounded with much more power than his regular voice and was about two octaves lower.
Dawson began to sob again and was sickened by his own tears. He knew what he would see if he opened his eyes, at least some of it, and he wouldn’t allow it to happen. If it came to it, he’d simply stop breathing until it was no longer an option.
But even that became an impossibility a moment later, when he began to feel the numbing sensation spread throughout his body.
The soldier screamed.
There was nothing left to do. The sensation reached his jaw, his lips, his nostrils, and finally his eyelids, and those last flew up like poorly digested pork.
The moment his eyes opened, strange complexities of color reached out to Dawson, filled him, broke him down into smaller molecules that allowed the passage of light particles more freely and th
en reconstructed him in the same breath.
It was horrible.
All around him, sprawled over exercise equipment, hung from the ceiling, hacked and separated and strewn about the floor in the puddles of their own essence, were the naked, mutilated bodies of his entire crew (minus Matthews, of course, but that would be remedied). Dozens of them. Hundreds, even. All bled out and dead as sanity except for the unfortunate man chained to a pillar of bone at the center of the room. The colors played on the piles of hewn flesh in terrible spectrums of terrible intent. They bathed in the light streaming through the portside window, clothed not in skin or in garments but in a rapture of light and color more real and abominable than anyone could have imagined.
Except, Dawson could. Because he’d seen it before. Because, though the inspiration had come from elsewhere, this had all been his handiwork. Because sometimes you saw Parin, sometimes you caught a glimpse of reality beyond the material skin of the universe, and sometimes you became a part of its whole. Sometimes, it touched you.
The soldier screamed again and Dawson was aware that the man’s eyes had been burned out by the light and the colors. He wondered how his own eyes were able to withstand it, and then the voice was back in his head.
"Because I am a part of you now."
Dawson shuddered. He was aware that he was not alone, that he was seeing things he shouldn’t have, that he was staring right into the eyes of Parin without a filter. It was too much.
And even after everything that he saw, he was still curious what time it really was beneath the surface of things.
"Then why don’t you go look?"
It made enough sense now that all apprehension had been bled from him, and it was too late to deny, anyway. The voice was right about that.
Heedless to the cries of the man who’d been so cruelly tethered to the pillar of bone through his skin and organs, Dawson limped across the room to the portside window, not knowing exactly what he was meant to see in that strange, gaseous conglomeration of light and color, but sure it would be an end to everything as he knew it, all the misery and uncertainty that had burrowed its way into him like a tick since the electrical failure all those weeks ago.
Torn Realities Page 21