Damned Lies!

by Dennis Liggio

  “Then are you –“ I started before she interrupted.

  “I came here to warn you,” she said suddenly, an almost frantic outburst.

  “Of what?”

  “Of him. Don’t trust him. He’ll help you – he’s already helped you – but there are strings attached.” She stared sadly down at the candle. “Don’t let him get his hooks in you.”

  “Does he have something on you?” I asked. “Are you in trouble with the law?”

  “No, it’s not like that,” she said. “I just… I shouldn’t be talking about it. While I am here, I need to obey his rules.”

  “Obey? Does he hurt you? Is he doing things to you –“ I reached out my hand to touch her arm, to comfort her, but she flinched, pulling back. Her face was full of confusion and fear. She got up from the chair and walked over to the wall, trying to compose herself as she now leaned against the wall. There was an awkward silence between us.

  “Is Mestigus his real name?” I asked, trying to break the silence.

  She gave a choked laugh, just a single chuckle that forced its way through a half-closed throat of sadness. “No, it’s not his name. He doesn’t tell anyone his name. He believes it will give them power over him.”

  “Just a name?” I asked.

  “He’s paranoid, but that doesn’t mean there’s no reason for it,” she said. “If he doesn’t already know your name, don’t tell him. Don’t give him any more of yourself than you have to. Don’t let him get power over you.”

  “Like he has over you,” I ventured.

  She winced, then forced a smile. “Yes, like he has over me.” That smile then became an introspective frown. “Promise me you’ll leave here as soon as you can.”

  “I promise,” I said, “I promise that I’ll try to take you with me.”

  She let out another choked laugh. “Don’t promise that. I understand your intention, but it’s futile.” Her face grew serious. “I can’t go. I just can’t. Just promise me if you have a chance to leave you’ll take it. Please.”

  “I promise,” I said reluctantly.

  “Good,” she said. Outside the house, we heard the wind pick up, howling against the walls. The hanging metal objects inside the room and outside the house began to clang together. “I need to go,” she said.

  “Will I see you again?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said. “It can only be when he’s not around or is busy. If he knew I spoke to you…”

  “He won’t,” I said. “It will be our little secret. But if I can sneak out of this room –“

  “Don’t,” she said. “If he thinks you are after his secrets, it won’t be good for you.”

  “But if I do sneak out of this room,” I continued anyway, “where can I find you? Do you have a room? A door I can knock on?”

  She stared at the floor for a long time before answering. “No,” she said softly. “I’m not supposed to leave his room.”

  She turned her back to me quickly, before I could respond. “I have to go,” she said, then blew out the candle. Everything was dark for a moment while my eyes adjusted, and she took that moment to leave. All I heard was the door open and then I could no longer sense someone in the room.

  Mystic Crap

  July, 1994 - ??????

  Later in the evening, the walls of the house rattled. It was not just the wind. No, it was something more malevolent. I was woken from sleep by the sound of something pounding against the wall. My first drowsy thought was that the old man was knocking on my door, but I felt the impact on one of the walls I believed faced the outside of the house.

  The wind blew, causing all the pots and things to clank. But over the noise of the wind, I heard the barking of what I first thought to be a wild dog. Every time something struck the wall, there was snarling and barking. The more I tried to listen to the sound, the more I realized it wasn't a dog.

  The sounds were the type a dog would make: there was barking and snarling. But it didn’t sound like something that would come out of the throat of a dog. Probably not a wolf or coyote either. There was something different about these sounds. I had a quick laugh to myself that it almost sounded like the sound of a man trying to make the sounds of a dog. This was silly at first. Then, as I realized this could very well be the sound, my moment of mirth passed and I started to feel very uncomfortable.

  After a few minutes of this assault on the house, I began to hear singing. This was much like the singing I heard during my dazed recollections. It was half song, half chanting. It was very clear to me that this song came from within the house. It started low and became louder.

  As the song got stronger, the attacks on the house became weaker and less frequent until finally, with a weak bang against the wall, there was a squealing whimper. I heard some trotting back and forth on the other side of the wall, then silence from the other side. The singing soon stopped, and the house sat in silence. Not even the wind blew anymore.

  I had trouble getting to sleep after that. That experience had set my pulse going. But that was not what kept me up. If it were just fear, just adrenaline, from the noise and the danger, then it would have faded with that danger and exhaustion would have overtaken me. No, it was a thought that kept me up. One simple thought bouncing around in my brain that raised my pulse again whenever it slowed. I couldn’t sleep that night because I had a sinking suspicion that the old man confirmed for me the next morning.

  Whatever was out there had come for me.

  “Of course it came for you,” the old man said. He said it so matter-of-factly, like I was stupid to ask. He didn’t even turn to look at me as he continued his preparations. “You’ve been marked. He sends his hounds after you.”

  “So it was a dog!” I said, obvious relief in my voice.

  He paused and turned to look at me with a smile. “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  We sat outside the house. He had built a fire pit in the dirt and sand. Now he was placing objects and scratching out a circle. He had thrown some pouches and sacks on the ground. He had allowed me outside of the room that had been my prison, but I had to come with him. So far he had asked me to do nothing more than carry firewood out to the fire pit. I was glad to at least have clothes. He had somehow found a white T-shirt and jeans. They were not the old man’s size, and clearly not Emily’s. It left an unanswered question in my head of whose they were.

  “What was it then?” I pushed.

  “I did not lay eyes upon it. A minion, probably.”

  “A minion? What are we dealing with, a super villain? I expect you to die, Mr. Bond!”

  “I would not make jokes when you are the one it seeks,” he said grimly.

  “But you kept it away last night, right? What was that singing anyway? Native American prayers?”

  He gave a short derisive laugh. “They once used these songs, but do not any longer. These songs are older than them, older than any you may have heard of. These songs were whispered on the wind for centuries before they came to this continent.”

  “Then who sung them?” I asked. “There wasn’t anyone here before that. Even Mormon Jesus came later.”

  He gave me a knowing look and a hint of a smile but said nothing.

  “Regardless of where they come from and your historical inaccuracies,” I said, “you do know the songs, so you could keep this hound or whatever away tonight, right?”

  “I could, but I won’t,” he said, going on with his preparations. He was grinding something with his mortar and pestle again.

  “What? Why not?” I said. I looked up at the sky. It was so hard to see the sun here. I could see light and clouds, but never the sun. It was afternoon though, and getting quite close to evening.

  “I want it to come. It will come for you. That’s why you’re useful.”

  “Whoa, wait a second. You want to see it, that’s great. You can have a goddamn tea party with it, you can have a goddamn bromance pride parade through the center of Happytown. But I want nothing to do with it
. I want to be places that include the traits of ‘safe’ and ‘inside.’”

  “You will do what I say,” he said forcefully, his dark eyes fiery. I had to look away when he stared at me like that. “You fell upon my doorstep dead like a dog. I nursed you back to health and expelled venom from your veins. Until your debt is paid you are mine to do with as I please.”

  “Do with?” In my mind I remembered Emily and how she was supposed to be confined to his room. “Wait a minute. I’m open minded, but I don’t really get into that sort of thing… I mean, some do, and that’s totally cool, but for me….”

  “You will go into the Dark tonight.”

  “The dark? Like you want to shut off all the lights? I’ve never needed a night light, but being in complete darkness in someplace I don’t know is a little unnerving…”

  “The Dark is a place, you babbling fool. A place of power close to our own. It is just beyond the edges of what we see in the night, beyond the shadows. It is a place of spirits and power.”

  “So it’s like a parallel universe?”

  “No, the Dark is the Dark. In some areas it looks like our world, like a muddied reflection. The Dark will reflect the secrets, the truth and the lies, and the within. In other places, the Dark reflects the hidden insides of people rather than places. Sometimes the Dark has nothing to do with our world at all.”

  “What the fuck am I going there for?” I asked.

  “To meet the hound, of course.”

  “WHAT?” Had I been drinking water, I would have spit-taked all over him and his goddamn mystic crap.

  “I need to pinpoint the location of his master. If his hound comes here, I have ways of tracing him back to his master.”

  “So I am bait?” I asked. This was getting worse all the time.

  “You are bait,” he said, without any mirth or sarcasm. He pointed to the hand-shaped bruise on my arm. “They will come for you tonight either way. In the Dark, you will meet on equal footing.”

  “You want me to kill this thing? I’ve punched some hobos, but this is way out of my league.”

  He laughed, a mirthless, panting laugh. “Far out of your league indeed. You would die if you tried to fight.”

  “Then what? Are you sitting here waiting for me to say, ‘Oh sure, let me go get gutted while Mestigus does what he needs. That’s the type of debt-payer I am!’”

  “No, you fool. I will be protecting you. It will know you are there, but it won’t be able to see you. You need only enter the Dark and remain their undetected. It will come for you, but when it does not see you, it will leave. That is all I need.”

  “That’s it? Really?” I said with relief. “That’s not so bad. It just seems like there should be some sort of a catch.”

  There was a catch.

  The Catch

  July, 1994 - ??????

  It was nighttime when we began. The fire was burning, offering a wavering heat against the cold and windy night. The old man sat cross-legged on the ground near the fire. He had just finished grinding something with his mortar and pestle. He fucking loved that mortar and pestle. He beckoned me over.

  “Sit. I need to paint your face so that the hound cannot see you.”

  I reluctantly sat. I hoped that he was painting my face with something cool, like the face paint from KISS. Only not the Cat or the Star Child. Those would be lame. I’d want the Demon or Space Ace. I wonder if he had one of those frilly rocker wigs.

  It tickled for a while as he painted with his brush, but finally he said “Done.” I looked around for a mirror but found none. I reached up to touch my face but he grabbed my hand.

  “Even a single touch could ruin it. Do not touch your face.”

  “Sure,” I said, and sat there with a stupid half-smile. If you’ve ever had your face painted before, you know there’s an implicit trust to it. You never see your face until afterwards when they show you the mirror. Their painting could be absolutely terrible. Worse, they could have painted something other than what you expected. I didn’t know how to feel, as the old man could have painted “I’M A GIANT DOUCHE” on my face and I had no way to know.

  The old man moved some odds and ends. Pouches, jars and bags were arrayed around him. He stared up at the sky for a long moment. I looked but all I saw were fast moving clouds on a dark sky. No real moon, no real stars. I’m not sure what he was looking for, but he must have seen it.

  He began to sing. It was similar to his other songs. It did sound very Native American, despite his denials. There was something about the cadence that I was sure I had heard on National Geographic. I wasn’t sure if I bought his story about these songs pre-dating them; but I really had no way of verifying them until I had my own Native American tracker to ask about it. I wondered if Tonto always thought the Lone Ranger was deeply racist. It was a stupid thought, but there really wasn’t much else to do; the old man’s song went on and on, and all I could do was sit there stupidly. I might as well have thought about Western fiction prejudice.

  The song was repetitive and incomprehensible, but I could feel its vibration. The man was very passionate in his singing. Certain parts of it were punctuated with him grabbing something from a pouch or shaking something. At one point he grabbed some powder from a bag and threw it in the fire. There was an immediate puff of smoke and then fire turned bright blue for a second. It returned to its original color, but the fire that previously fought the wind now roared as if the wind were not there.

  He opened up a pouch and spilled its contents along the ground. I saw a line of glittering gems. Maybe they were just crystal or broken glass, but I remember them flickering blue in the flame-light. Sapphire, I guessed, but the old man was tricky. Hell, even if they were sapphire, I’m sure he would claim it was something special instead. Either some heretofore unknown substance, or some type of exotic sapphire, like sapphire blessed with the turds of the north wind. I was getting a good feel for his cryptic way of speaking.

  Finally his singing ceased and there was a tangible silence. I heard the wind, but it did not howl like before. I could hear the crackling of the fire. I could see the reflection of the flames in the old man’s eyes.

  “We are ready,” he said simply.

  “Okay,” I said stupidly.

  “There is one last thing you should know,” he said, before stopping for the longest pause in the history of mankind. “My paint will make you invisible, but the hound will still be able to smell you.”

  “Oh goddammit, is there anything else I should know?” I said incredulously. “Do you plan to set me on fire at the last minute too?”

  He grunted. “I say smell, but it is not truly smell. It senses your life. It is this sense that will bring it here. It is how it tracked you. My paint will still make you invisible. However, if it is very close it will be able to sense your life when you breathe.”

  “How close are we talking?”

  “Five, maybe ten feet. It depends on how much you breathe. Are you a big breather?”

  My jaw opened in the biggest are-you-fucking-kidding-me-are-you-serious-how-the-fuck-should-I-know expression, complete with half-shrugged shoulders and hands turned upwards in a sign of having nothing.

  “If it gets that close,” he said. “You will need to hold your breath. If it smells your breathing, it will find you even with the paint.”

  “This just keeps getting worse and worse.”

  “Follow the rules,” said the old man, “And no harm will come to you. You are still of use, I would rather you survived.”

  “Your glowing concern is noted,” I said glumly.

  “Once inside the Dark, all you have to do is wait. The hound will show. It will search the area but not find you. Then it will leave. Once it is gone, you can come back.”

  “That’s it? Just wait?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. He paused. “Don’t wander off. If you get lost there is no guarantee I can find you.”

  I didn’t think it was that easy. I knew there was probabl
y something he wasn’t telling me. Still I moved on. “So how do I get to the Dark? Do you sprinkle me with pixie dust?”

  His eyes narrowed but he did not answer that concern. He spread his arm towards the line of gems. “Step over this line.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.” His voice flat, his eyes dark.

  I shrugged and rolled my eyes, awkwardly standing up and wiping dirt from my pants. I looked at the line of gems. They still flickered in the fire light, but other than that they looked normal. Surely the old man was insane. He definitely knew some herbal remedies, he knew a few songs, and he talked a good game. But some other world called the Dark? Preposterous.

  I smiled sardonically. If I were going to prove to him it was silly, I’d have to show him. He thought this was real. I sighed and stepped over the line of sapphires.

  And then I was standing on the other side of the line. There was no sensation of vertigo, no rush and a push, no swirling maelstrom, not even any cool Dr. Who intro effects. I was on the other side of the line looking at sandy wasteland. As I expected, nothing happened. His Dark was bullshit.

  I turned around with a condescending smile, prepared to tell the old man he was simply crazy. But the old man was gone. I could see the spot in which he sat, as well as his paraphernalia, but he was gone. There was no way he could have gotten up and walked away so quickly. I looked around to see where he might have gone, but did not find him.

  However, I did notice things I had not seen at first. Things were different than they were just a moment ago. The fire, for example. Gone were the yellow and red flames; it burned with a stark white flame. When I looked at the line of sapphires, they glittered differently in the white fire light. Above them I could see a faint shimmering. At least now I had my swirly SciFi effects.

  The house really fucked with my head. I could tell it was the house, but I was shocked at the changes. Before it was a simple wooden cabin, creepy only by its solitary place in the desolate wasteland and all the associations that Hollywood slasher flicks had given it. Now it was horrible in its own right. It was as if someone had taken that wooden structure and mutated it. Where before its shape and structure was functional, now it had extraneous additions. Slanting surfaces, additional windows, an expansion of multiple floors. The roof now bent at strange angles. Before the cabin simply sat innocently, but now it was hunched over, peering down at me and the fire. It was now a strange monstrosity almost ready to scuttle away on a multitude of wooden insectoid legs at any moment. I was positive I wasn’t going in there; not while it was like this. It would eat me.