Children of No One

by Nicole Cushing

  First Edition

  Children of No One © 2013 by Nicole Cushing

  All Rights Reserved.

  A DarkFuse Release

  www.darkfuse.com

  Twitter: @darkfuse

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  Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/jOH5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To the memory of Sara J. Larson

  (1962-2012)

  Acknowledgements

  Children of No One is the first piece of fiction I’ve ever written that has included several references to the occult, and this challenged me with a steep learning curve. I’d like to thank Nathan Drake Schoonover for assisting my research by sharing his knowledge of magick in general and Theyyam rituals, in particular. I’m also indebted to the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Alan Moore, who have both enriched my understanding of the powerful connections between ritual and art.

  Thanks to Todd Manning for his work as a beta reader, and to Joe Pulver and W.H. Pugmire for their encouragement.

  Thanks to Shane Staley, Dave Thomas, and Zach McCain of DarkFuse for transforming a rather mundane Microsoft Word file into the lovely book or ebook you now hold in your hands (something of an alchemical transmutation, in and of itself).

  Last, but not least, I’d like to acknowledge my husband for always loving me unconditionally and supporting my writing ambitions (even when they become obsessions). I think I’m gonna keep him.

  “I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.”

  —Jorge Luis Borges,

  “The Garden of Forking Paths”

  “As for the quality or characteristic

  of unholiness—this is also misleading,

  a nominal facade

  designed to make things interesting

  for a world born out of blackness,

  where nothing holy or unholy

  has ever existed…

  where nothing exists at all

  except dreams and fevers

  and names for nothing:

  the creation, so to speak,

  of that original blackness

  which pulls itself over every world

  like a hangman’s hood

  over a condemned man’s head.”

  —Thomas Ligotti, “The Name is Nothing” from the poem cycle The Unholy City

  Two arguing voices echo off the walls of Nowhere, Indiana: the voices of teenage boys, one a tenor who sometimes crosses the border to a baritone, the other a baritone who sometimes crosses the border to a bass. The topic of their current debate: the possible existence of light. There’s no evidence of it to be found, at present, but one of them raises the possibility it may have been there, once. A long, long time ago.

  “Whoever changed everything oughta get shot,” the tenor-baritone says.

  “I keep telling you, nothin’s been changed. Things have always been like this,” the baritone-bass replies.

  “Bullcrap. Lots has been changed. There’s lots missing. For starters, I remember seein’ shit. All kinds of shit, all over the place.”

  “If you’re fixin’ to convince me, I suggest you narrow that down a little.”

  A sigh. “I remember somethin’. Somethin’ that used to be around but isn’t anymore: low to the ground, long curly hair all over it. Its nose was shaped funny and it had long, floppy ears. I remember it licking me.”

  “I’m the oldest. If anything like that was ever here, I’d remember it—and I don’t.”

  “Only the oldest by a little, I think.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe you don’t remember the light because you don’t want to remember it. Or maybe you really do remember and just won’t say it, because you want to let on that you believe what everyone says, instead of what you know.”

  “Now listen here, James. That’s crazy talk.”

  “You wanna know what’s crazy? The idea that only three things ever existed.”

  “The dark, the walls, the us. That’s it, until we make our way out of here and into Heaven. That’s where the light is. The only place the light is. You see any evidence to the contrary?”

  “Sure. The food.”

  “Food’s just part of us. We take it inside ourselves, dumbass.”

  “But who brings it out to the Target Zone? Where does it come from?”

  “No wonder you got kicked out of school. I reckon you failed your oral exam on the qualities and characteristics of angels. That’s, what, fifty percent of your senior year grade?”

  “Lookit, it wasn’t even a real school. I mean, you have to remember what it was like before. We had a real school, before. In the light. There were big people there. Bigger than us, at least. Don’t you remember the bigger man who always used to say things like ‘bullcrap’? He lived with us.”

  No reply.

  “I mean, you have to remember. We made it into first and second grade before all the changes. I remember holding something in my hands. There were flat, thin things that my fingers used to flip through. It was how we learned. There’s something wrong with all this. I’ve always known there’s something wrong with all this. The best thing the Tutors ever did is kick me out. Let me go my own way.”

  “Nope, the best thing that ever happened to you was my decision to let you tag along with me. You’d be dead by now if I hadn’t agreed to that.”

  Then a pause in the debate, as though both voices have come to realize that neither one’s en route to convincing the other.

  Then the bells ring. Maybe a half dozen of the kind the Angels carry with them. There’s a scuffle of feet against dirt, perhaps stirred by a newborn hope. A huff, then grunts. The sound of footsteps moving in the direction of the chimes. Then the sound of flesh-and-bone colliding with thick oak. A metallic reverberation mixed into the dull thud of wood—as though the boys are living chimes and the walls a maze-shaped bell.

  A wail. “Fuckin’ walls,” the tenor-baritone voice says.

  “Fuckin’…What’s that word even mean?”

  “I dunno. I just remember the guy who lived with us used to say that, sometimes, too. It just sounds like it fits this situation.”

  * * *

  The office wasn’t much more than a Quonset hut. Humble, but comfortable. Well-lit. MacPherson asked if he could have a cigarette. Kitterman shrugged and said, “Sure, no smoking bans out here in the country. At least, none that anyone would go through all the trouble to enforce.” He put an ashtray embossed with the logo of the Indiana University Hoosiers in between them. Both of them lit up. Kitterman, his Marlboros. Macpherson, his Camels.

  Kitterman scratched his neck and scratched his belly (and for all MacPherson knew, scratched his balls under the table with the other hand). He looked twitchy. “So, your flight from, well…wherever it is you flew in from…it go okay?”

  Macpherson shrugged and flashed a fake grin. “I’m here, so it could have been worse.”

  Kitterman wore a pin just over his left shirt pocket. Gold-colored, but probably not gold. An angel. His callused left hand fiddled with it while his right tapped out ashes. “Where’d you fly into? Cincinnati? Indy?”

  “Louisville. Weird. You’d figure an old fart like me would have had a firm grasp on geography, but I never noticed Kentucky shared a border with Indiana.”

  “Yep. Well, here in southern Indiana, I reckon you could say we’re sort of close to a lot of cities, but not real close to any of ’em. Our little town of Nowhere
’s just less than a two-hour drive from Cincinnati and Indianapolis. How long did it take you from Louisville?”

  He looked at his phone. “About ninety minutes. Guess that’s why TripAdvisor had me fly into there. Saved time. At least, a little. Got a nice deal on the rental car thanks to AARP. At least I end up getting something out of those membership dues! Take it from me, kid, getting old isn’t the worst thing in the world. Not these days.” He glanced up to find Kitterman scratching his nose. “Anyway, I’ve heard you run a hell of a joint here. I look forward to seeing it.”

  Kitterman ran a hand through his auburn buzz cut and took a deep drag off his cigarette. “Well, that’s just the thing. I mean, ordinarily, we don’t give tours.”

  MacPherson snorted smoke through his nostrils. “I hope you’ll understand that my case is a little out of the ordinary.”

  “Well, yes, that’s why my boss asked me to meet with you. That’s why you’re here. I have to be honest with you, though. I wouldn’t get your hopes up. This…well, this project, likes to keep a low profile.”

  “You might be surprised by how much I already know about your project, Mr. Kitterman. There’s gossip afoot among us patrons of the arts. Whispers implying that you and Thomas Krieg have been at this for ten years now. Raising dozens of children in a pitch-black maze. Deciding how much food and water to give them, where to leave it, how to alert them to its presence. Calibrating the environment. Getting the details right. I hope you’ll understand that a man in my position doesn’t like to be kept waiting to see such a masterpiece.”

  Kitterman cleared his throat, took another drag of his cigarette, and cleared his throat again. Listened.

  “I’m aware Mr. Krieg is a perfectionist,” MacPherson said. “Don’t get me wrong, I like that in an artist. But he needs to be reasonable. He can’t keep his fans waiting like this. I think the last time I saw his work was in that Lebanese prison, back in ’85. His public has been patient long enough, I think. Don’t get me wrong, I admire his fastidiousness. But you should tell Krieg that, at some point, an artist has to stop obsessing over the perfection of his work and put it out there to be enjoyed by the audience.”

  “Well, my job’s the security end of things. I can’t say I know a lot about art. But if you were in Lebanon in ’85, then you must know how careful we have to be about the authorities. They don’t know a lot about art either. I’m sure you’ve heard all the misunderstandings.”

  “Ah yes…‘Krieg the Torturer’…‘Krieg the Sadist.’ Honestly, I can’t say for certain that these are misunderstandings. I happen to think these characterizations are spot on.”

  Kitterman let out a series of spastic coughs, then crumbled what was left of his cigarette into the ashtray. “I, I see.”

  “I hope this doesn’t bore you. But maybe if I share with you my perspective on all of this, it’ll reassure you as to my sincerity. You see, I’ve always been an admirer of performance art—or as I like to think of it, behavioral art. That’s why Krieg’s work is right up my alley. When I was just an undergrad at NYU, I took in a show Yoko Ono gave. ‘Cut Piece.’ Have you heard of it?”

  “Like I said, sir, the art isn’t really my end of things…”

  “Well, let me describe it to you.”

  Kitterman didn’t look enthusiastic about being on the receiving end of such an explanation, but didn’t interrupt.

  “You see, in ‘Cut Piece,’ Ono sat on the stage wearing a black dress. A pair of scissors lay on stage next to her. She invited members of the audience to come up and cut pieces of her dress off. When there was no more dress, she invited audience members to cut off her slip…her bra, her panties, even. Until there was nothing left. Or until she decided the show was over. It was personal violation as art, you see. Yoko Ono and Thomas Krieg know the same thing: that sometimes art depends on humiliation. Or, hell, take Picasso’s Guernica. Sometimes art depends on death, mutilation. If the fascists hadn’t bombed some Basques in 1937, we wouldn’t have that magnificent work of art. I approach your black maze of Nowhere, Indiana, very much in the same spirit as I would either of these two works.”

  Kitterman scratched his neck. Then, for the first time during this meeting, he looked MacPherson in the eyes. “I can see you’re enthusiastic about all of this. And serious about this. That’s good news for you. I hope you’ll understand that Mr. Krieg will require you to undergo a few background checks before we’ll grant you permission to view the piece. For starters, we’ll need to verify your statement that you were in the audience in that Lebanese prison in ’85.”

  “Verify?”

  “You’re not the only one with means, sir. If you attended the performance in Lebanon, we should still have the records. A precaution, you understand. We don’t like the idea of audience members enjoying the show, but then finding themselves afflicted with a bad case of scruples after it’s all over and providing anonymous tips to unfriendly branches of the government. By keeping thorough records of everyone who attends our shows, we protect ourselves. If Krieg goes down, then the audience goes down, too.”

  MacPherson took a deep drag of his Camel. “May I confess something to you, Mr. Kitterman? That excitement, the underground ambiance, the risk…that’s all part of the reason I flew all the way out here to Bum Fuck, Indiana—no offense.”

  “None taken. Now, like I said, we’ll be performing our background checks. Perusing our old records. I’ll just need to get a photo of you now, so we can compare it to the one from Lebanon and make sure they reasonably match.”

  “It’s been almost thirty years.”

  “No worries, we have experts for that sort of thing. Top people.” He pulled a camera out of his drawer, asked MacPherson to sit still, and snapped three shots from various angles. “We’ll also need you to sign a temporary power of attorney form granting us full access to your bank account.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Kitterman sighed. “I’m sure you’ll understand. We need confirmation—unfortunately, above and beyond your own word—that you can afford the experience. More importantly, we need confirmation that your financial transactions aren’t vulnerable to investigation. I hope you’ll understand our position on the matter. No one has ever been granted permission to observe a Krieg piece while it’s still in the process of being assembled. You’d be the first. Unique opportunities require unique security precautions. Surely a man of your position can understand.”

  MacPherson bit his lower lip. Stamped his cigarette out in the ashtray. Leaned back. Crossed his arms. “Give me twenty-four hours to think about it. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

  Kitterman shook his head, then scratched it. “That just won’t do. Mr. Krieg is a man of little patience. A visitor on site will mean many complications to his daily routine, which he insists on knowing about as soon as possible. I, well, I’m sorry but I’ve been instructed to give you twenty-four minutes. You can think about it out in the waiting area. I suggest you not discuss it any further and get to mulling over your pros and cons.”

  MacPherson rose from his seat, lit a fresh Camel, and didn’t so much walk as stagger toward the front of the Quonset hut, to a love seat and coffee table that alone comprised what Kitterman had so generously dubbed a “waiting area.” He accepted that, as an artist, Krieg had a bit of an eccentric, self-indulgent streak. But this really was going too far.

  Still, he didn’t leave the Quonset hut immediately. He sat there and stewed. He’d traveled relatively far. He’d just gotten there. To leave immediately would prove anticlimactic. Perhaps the security man was being overly literal in his interpretation of one of Krieg’s commands. Perhaps Krieg could be persuaded that what he was asking for exceeded good common sense.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and went to find Krieg’s guard dog to convince him that something had gotten lost in translation, but when he took his first step, he became dizzy. He wobbled backward, flailed for something to hold on to.

  The world first turned black, then
turned cold, then turned velvet. He collapsed into a seat. It wasn’t the love seat in the Quonset hut. It was a front-row aisle seat in what appeared to be a gaudy old theater of the rococo variety. He craned his head to see what appeared to be a performance in progress. A glaring spotlight lingered atop a trembling emaciated teenage boy seated on the middle of the stage, in a wooden chair. The teenager wore what seemed to be the ragged remains of blue jeans and a T-shirt, but had no shoes. His hair was a long, unkempt rat’s nest. MacPherson noted the boy’s long, chipped finger- and toenails.

  MacPherson struggled to find words to describe the next character to appear. It was, perhaps, a person covered head to toe in loose black fabric. He saw no opening in the fabric through which an actor could have seen or spoke or breathed.

  A pair of scissors lay on the stage. The Thing in Black picked them up with what seemed to be a hand and placed one of the boy’s fingers in-between the blades.

  The boy didn’t move. The finger fell away like hair from a barber’s shears. The Thing in Black picked it up with what seemed to be a hand and fed it into what seemed to be a mouth. Then the spotlight followed the Thing in Black as it sauntered away from the boy and the chair, stage left. An antique microphone awaited it there. It pointed at MacPherson.

  “You’re the first one in the theater,” the Thing in Black said in a voice that seemed to be MacPherson’s own.

  MacPherson looked down the front row, then across the aisle, then in back of him and verified the Thing was correct.

  “But if you say no to Kitterman, then Krieg will invite others. And then you’ll have lost out on your chance. If you don’t sign those papers, another patron of the arts will. You don’t want that, do you?”

  MacPherson shook his head to indicate to the Thing that, no, he would definitely not want that.