by A. L. Mengel
But that was a fallacy.
Those who drank from the decanter did not find the solace that they desired; they did not receive the expected gift. They did not regain their immortality or strengthen or increase their intelligence. There was an utter agony which propelled itself on them. An infection filled with anxiety, torment, and a slow and painful death.
There were no gifts. There was no salvation from the decanter.
One of the most recent who drank the swirling, hot, red potion lay motionless on the sidewalk outside the Ponce de Leon after sunset, when the night was still in its infancy; lying still and motionless, eyes closed, and the blood still dripped from his mouth.
But he was still as if dead, eyes shut tight, and the young man, and his unkempt hair and sullied clothes, did nothing to represent the individual he had been in life – for he had once been quite fashionable. The torn, dirty pants, should they have been removed, sewn and cleaned, would be seen as of the latest fashion, and could be seen hanging in one of the upscale boutique shop windows that were a mere few steps from where the man lay.
Above where the man lay stood the one who wielded the decanter, who appeared to be a man – a ‘Hooded Man’ in a long, flowing, dark cloak – who would visit, shortly before death (as it was argued). Here, above the motionless, bloodied man, the ‘Hooded Man’ stood, watching and waiting, as the white mist that swirled around him abated. As the cloud retreated, so did the man. He walked without motion, with no bending of the knee; as if he were floating or levitating along the ground, and once his duty had been complete, he left.
He was the one who had crossed the world for decades, undetected until recently, the one who had been, for so long, a mythical figure who was thought to bring life eternal, and now was found to bring death.
It was a time in Hades that he was originally found, but by whom, and for what reason, remains a mystery.
The motive was unclear.
*****
There was a man who had been crawling amongst stones, in search of flowing water but finding none, there was a man – dehydrated yet sweating, macerated yet still living. Searching. Reaching out in desperation.
There was an eternal dryness to his surroundings; the clouds above – painted black, flowing wisps in a blood red sky – did nothing to deliver water. And the sea which was so close to him, as he hugged the gravel, felt so distant. But he could see it – a somewhat blurred vision of blue against the stark palette of burnt orange and fiery red. His arms were macerated. Veins protruded through the dirt on his skin. His frail, fragile naked body lay in the sand, as the cotton feeling in his mouth, his desperate thirst, would never be quenched.
He closed his eyes as he heard footsteps crunching through the gravel. And then, a deep, mysterious and masculine voice.
“I can bring you water.”
He hung his head low and rested on the gravel and closed his eyes. The heaviness weighed on him like boulders; he tried to lift his head, look up at the owner of the voice, but could not. “Yes….water…” He felt a giant hand on the side of his head, and he felt a closer presence. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of feet in sandals, and very muscular legs, stooping next to him. “The water comes with a price,” the voice said. “If you drink from me, you will be mine throughout eternity.”
Those words had sounded familiar. The man thought, back to a day when he had heard those words play into his mind before.
You will be mine throughout eternity.
Had there been a turning point?
There were the days that he tried to remember – blurred images and bright figures rushing past. Bright sunlight. Yes, he remembered that much. The bright sunshine, the cloudless sky. Hot pavement burning his feet. But the visions remained so soft, so delicate, so out of focus, like he was looking through waxed paper.
And then the vision turned dark.
He felt like he was descending, like he was levitating, down a set of stairs. The darkness permeated, but there was a blurred light off to the left. And then the vision started to sharpen; wooden beams off to the left and the right; there were dark cinder blocks in the distance with light white grout; a wooden worktable against the wall; and the blurred light was a hanging incandescent bulb casting a yellowish glow.
He could remember now.
Those days in that basement were the days after Gaye had died. And as he traveled through, he stopped just under the hanging light. Newspaper clippings were scattered about the wall. “George Stanley Investigated” read one line; and on another newspaper clipping, “Four Young Men Missing” hung a few feet from the other. And then he looked down at his hands. They glowed with translucence.
He snapped his head to the right when he heard a chain rattle in the corner. But what seemed like an instant turn of the head was a very slow transgression from one point of the room to another. There was a certain heaviness to the room; a thickness to the air, breathable, yes, but almost like he was in a fluid, with slow moments.
But he saw the corner. Yes, it was all coming back to him now. It was the same basement that he remembered. With the cages in the corner. Four of them, lined next to each other, to be exact. There was more clarity now. His head was starting to clear. He could even remember the rusted padlocks on each one. They were still there, still locked. And then he was directly in front of one of the cages, in an instant. He hadn’t even tried to move, as he had when turning his head.
There was a dark, cloudy figure inside each cage, somewhat out of focus, but there was movement.
And then felt a deep thirst.
“Where are you!?”
The clarity blurred and darkened. He was no longer standing in the basement; the cages were not there; there were no newspaper clippings, or a hanging incandescent light bulb.
Just darkness.
“I understand now!”
And then the darkness faded, as the stones came into view. He was lying on the same beach that he had been. The same beastly, muscular demon was hovering above him. “Do you see why I cannot give you water?”
He closed his eyes, and felt the incredible thirst. His mouth felt dry as fresh weaved cotton. And he looked upwards to the demon. His face looked familiar. The snout, green skin, muscularity, and horns from the head. All like a silhouette against an unfamiliar sky. “Will you let me drink?” he said. “I don’t care about the consequences. Just let me drink.”
And the demon poured cool, refreshing water down to his mouth, as he lapped it up in earnest.
*****
The ‘Hooded Man’ came to town before Douglas Kahn had dreamed of Ponce de Leon littered with bodies. And before the night when Douglas found himself sitting inside a long, black limousine, reaching forward, towards the front seat.
“Jim! Jim! Are you alive?” Douglas pounded on the button, and slapped the smoked glass divider. He could see Jim’s silhouette in the front seat, staring forward, unresponsive. Douglas sat back in the seat, raised his leg, and kicked the glass.
Nothing.
He did it again. Nothing again.
He flung open the mini-bar cabinet and found an unopened bottle of champagne, and hurled it at the glass, which shattered in tiny pieces on the floor and seats. “Jim!”
But Jim did not move.
Douglas hoisted himself forward and peered around the front seat.
But Jim was just as dead as the bodies that littered the sidewalks. His eyes were gouged out, and his mouth was dripping a white pus down his chin. Drained, dried up. Macerated.
Like he had been decomposing for years.
Douglas fell back into the back seat and covered his mouth. His eyes welled with tears, as the overpowering stench of rotting human flesh powered against him like an invisible wall. He reached for the door handle and tugged at it, and spilled out onto the sidewalk.
And then the sun assaulted his eyes.
There was a time when Douglas remembered the sun. When the sun fought its way downwards on the Boston college campus, in the midst of
the summertime heat, when he had walked with Sheldon between classes. Sheldon looked over at him, his hair hanging low down the sides of his face; the dark frames of his glasses contrasted to his pale complexion. “Did you see the look on Laramir’s face when I brought up that stuff on the astral plane?”
Douglas nodded. “You’d better watch yourself. Your controversy is coming before its time.”
Sheldon scoffed and looked up at the sky. The sun was shining brightly, and the clouds looked like giant balls of cotton. There were several blossoming cherry trees covering the sidewalk that they traveled on. Sheldon shook his head as they approached the student center. He stopped short of a glass door. He placed his hand on the silver handle, and looked over at Douglas. “How will I ever achieve what I want when you are holding me back?”
Douglas sat on the sidewalk. He looked down at the body next to him. The eyes were cloudy, open, cloudy and without sight. He reached down and closed the eyelids. The rigor mortis had already set in, and the decay ate away at the skin; he noticed the teeth through the jawline; there were several fillings – the older kind, with the metallic shine.
And then, as he looked down Ponce de Leon, he thought he saw movement in the setting sun.
*****
Doug stood up and waved his arms. “Hey!” he called out. He jumped up and down. Yes, he did see someone on the far end of the block. Walking back and forth, what seemed like a zig-zagging, back…and…forth, appearing lazy, or drunk. Doug stopped waving and squinted against the setting sun. As it came closer, Doug was able to decipher the movement – which was more like a slither. The zig zagging wasn’t erratic walking in the slightest. And the movement wasn’t made by a man. Doug’s mouth fell open as he saw the giant, pulsating white worm, slowly gliding across Ponce de Leon, heading towards several dead bodies across the street.
Doug ducked back behind a cement column. He looked down and over and stopped. He focused on the man’s chest. There was a fleeting moment – if not just an instant – when Douglas thought the man’s chest might have been moving. And this gigantic worm would be headed towards him next. Doug peered around the column. He bent down and dragged the body under the porte cochère, and then looked behind him, at the door:
THE ASTRAL
Integrating Immortals into Society.
He read the frosted lettering and cocked his head to the side. He rapped on the smoked glass, so hard that the interior blind shook. There was no answer.
Doug looked around the building.
The white worm was hovering over the bodies directly across the street. There was a mouth at the end of the large, slithering worm, where the head might be, but the creature was devoid of eyes. It left a trail of slime on the sidewalk in its trail, but the bodies were gone.
He banged on the door again. “Is anyone in there?!” And then he sensed movement at his feet. He looked down, and small, white worms – about the size of tiny earthworms, slithered towards his feet. “What the?”
He raised his feet and stepped back. Douglas stood on the sidewalk, still holding the handkerchief to his mouth. He looked onwards, down the street, towards the setting sun, through the piles of bodies and rising palms, and saw movement towards the horizon.
It was heading his direction, a far larger worm, moving and slithering between the bodies, about the size of a giant snake and growing, minute by minute; the worm was stopping every few feet and devouring a body, opening a mouth in front of the pulsating larvae, and getting larger…and larger.
Doug turned and focused on the door, and banged, several times. The glass shook.
He heard footsteps inside, approaching the door as he slapped his palms against the glass. “Open the door! Help me!”
*****
Antoine and Darius had spent quite a significant amount of time at their Chateau just south of Lyon in France in Darius’ final days on the earth. Just before Darius had died, they traveled from Miami to the Chateau so he could live out his last days on earth in the most familiar territory to him – his homeland.
On the day Darius died, Antoine pulled the sheet over Darius, covering his head and body, and pulled the drapes shut to the room. There had just been a quiet summer shower, minutes before, when Antoine had sat in the rocking chair across the room, watching Darius. Waiting. Listening to the quiet falling rain. Looking at the body, covered by a white sheet. But for what he was waiting for, he wasn’t sure. Darius certainly was not going to wake. And Antoine was wishing, thinking. He sat back in the rocking chair, listening to the rain, and concentrating on the creak that the runners made on the hardwood floor each time he leaned back.
He sat for quite some time, wishing that the inevitable hadn’t really happened. That this had all been a terrible dream. And then he opened his eyes, raised his head, and noticed Darius’ eyes.
They were closed.
And it took him back to the very same room, on the very same bed, so many years ago.
It had been in the middle of the night.
Darius was lying in the middle of the bed, in almost the same exact spot that his body would be lying years later. Antoine had wandered in the room, from the bathroom, in a small white towel. It stood out bright against his dark skin. “Darius,” he said. “Wake up.”
Darius fluttered his eyes.
Antoine walked over to the same rocking chair that he would be sitting in years later, and sat down. Darius lay still, and draped his arms back behind his head. Antoine noticed his muscular arms as Darius closed his eyes and sighed. “It’s really not the time to be going out, Antoine. Can you see the sun peeking over the horizon? The sky is lightening. Come to bed. Let’s wait until tomorrow. I need to rest.”
Antoine stood and let his towel drop to the floor.
He locked eyes with Darius and climbed into bed, slid under the covers, and closed his eyes. Darius turned over and immediately went to sleep. Antoine opened his eyes again and looked over at Darius. After a few minutes, his own eyes had closed, and there was simply darkness and silence.
And then he woke to a ringing phone.
He hadn’t been sleeping in the bed next to Darius; he had been sleeping in the old, dusty rocker. And Darius hadn’t said a word to him. He was lying still, motionless and dead, just as he had been. Antoine shook his head, rubbed his eyes and reached for his phone. He looked at the screen. The exchange looked somewhat familiar. “Someone calling me from Rome?”
Antoine answered the call and brought the phone up to his ear. “Hello?”
*****
The ghosts remained in the Chateau. And Darius, now gone, was one of the many ghosts. But Darius, in his mind, and his essence, was not the type of ghost to remain in the same four walls where he had died. His mind would travel, across oceans and time, and he always would visit his past.
There had been a time, during his life when he was still a mortal, when Darius no longer wanted to sleep. It was during the days of fitful youth and under the veil of perceived immortality; before his transformation and rebirth into darkness, when he had accumulated even more transgressions.
There were days in Darius’ youth when his dreams had been wrought with darkness, with fitful dreams of terror and an overcoming sense of dread. One on particular occasion, as he tossed and turned under a blanket, he shot up in bed, eyes wide. He scanned the room, and kicked the blanket off his legs. The sweat instantly cooled and dried, as his heart beat harder in his chest. “Where are you?! Why are you following me?!”
And silence was the only answer.
He looked out towards the window and towards the farmland. In the distance, was the river, glowing pale blue in the moonlight. And then, after lying in bed, night after night, after he pulled the covers up close to his neck, he fought the heaviness in his eyelids and lost, falling asleep once again into another fitful realm of nightmarish dreams.
And then Darius would see the stones. He would always dream of the stones.
The same stones that rose from the misty waters that he saw eac
h night that he had the dream, small stepping stones leading into darkness and misty oblivion. And the same mysterious voice.
“I have been waiting for you, tonight as I have each and every night.”
Darius looked down at his feet.
They looked pale and translucent against the blue light. He stepped on each stone with care – first drawing his right leg out, reaching it upwards and over the rising mist, and finding the next stone – roughly a foot or slightly more across – and then straddled the two stones. He looked up at the mysterious man, who easily navigated the stones, despite his heavy, muscular frame.
“Why do I follow you each night?”
He turned and looked at Darius, and held out his arms. “I am Tramos,” he said. “I have been sent for you.”
Tramos stood before him each night in the same repetitive dream. Darius started to recognize the long, golden hair, the muscular torso, and remembered his powerful grip. Tramos grabbed Darius’ wrist and did not let go. “I have brought you here once again to show you. To show you your origin, your blood ancestry. Come with me and I will take you.”
Darius shook his head and pulled back, but Tramos tightened his grip. “You are part of the blood ancestry, Daruis. It is meant to be. You must do what is willed, what is written.”
“What must I do, Tramos? What is written that I am a part of?”
Darius looked up. There was a sadness to the sky.
The clouds meandered across a rose tinted sky, and as Tramos turned forward, he scaled the stones. “You will know in time, dear Darius. You will learn, gain knowledge, you will make mistakes and learn from them as well.”
Darius had no choice but to follow. “The mist is a concealer,” Tramos said. “Beneath lie the bodies of lost souls. This is a desolate swamp. This is the land that leads onwards into Tartarus. You do not want to become a lost soul, Darius. You do not want to wind up below that layer of mist. You must find some meaning in your life.”