by Jeff Wheeler
Beverly, another data entry employee, walked by. “Beverly?” said Tim, “do you know what’s behind this door?”
She glanced at the door and then at Tim. “Are you okay? Jane said you were heading home sick.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just—I don’t remember what’s in here.” Tim felt his face flush, aware that his story would seem insane to anyone else.
Beverly seemed to consider it for a moment. “No, I’m not sure. Well, feel better, okay?” she said, and she continued past him.
Tim sighed and watched Beverly as she turned a corner. He tried the handle again. To his surprise, he heard a click, and the door cracked open. He pulled it open and slipped inside the room, letting the door close behind him. It was pitch black, and Tim felt for a light on the wall.
The wall. It felt different. Wrong. It was hard stone, rough against his hand, and he couldn’t find a switch. He felt along a seam in the stone, following its path on the wall for a few paces. The door had closed behind him and it was pitch-black in the room.
He remembered his phone and pulled it from his pocket, using the screen as a light. Its blue glow spilled over the floor, revealing a mosaic tile pattern he’d never seen before. There was no furniture in the room, and it seemed to extend beyond the reach of his phone’s light in every direction but behind him. His footsteps sounded dull against the tile, and echoed eerily. The room smelled of dust and damp, and it carried a feeling that it was far older than the rest of his office building. Older than any building Tim had ever been in. He pointed the phone in several different directions, finding only stone floors and walls. He exhaled a slow breath and pointed the light at the ceiling.
He found it looked very much like the one he’d taken a picture and video of. The image of the flying creature flashed across his mind, and he pointed the light away from the ceiling, though he wasn’t sure if it would be better to see one or not.
Tim oriented his body away from the door through which he’d entered and began to walk. His eyes grew accustomed to the low light, but there was nothing to see in the darkness. The floor sloped slightly downward, and Tim felt eerily as if he were descending into the belly of some ancient beast.
He’d walked for several minutes when he saw a dim shape in the distance near the floor. An opening, with a light on the other side. He turned his phone off, both to save the battery and because it was little help in the suffocating darkness.
Tim walked slowly, counting footsteps and watching the shape slowly grow larger. The damp smell grew stronger as he continued toward the light, and after a time, he thought he could hear something. At last he could identify the sound; it was the low, repetitive chanting of the hooded figures.
He stopped walking and paused to listen for a moment. However he had felt hearing the sounds from the recording on his phone, it was immeasurably worse to hear it in person. Somehow he began moving toward it again. The opening was growing much closer, and becoming vaguely door-shaped.
He increased his pace, something within him eager to reach the entrance, despite the rest of his consciousness recoiling at the prospect of what would be found on the other side. The progress went easily, aided by the slight downward slope of the floor. As he came closer to the door, Tim could make out some details of his surroundings, thanks to the light from the opening. The bare floor had a tile pattern suggesting waves that seemed to be flowing toward the doorway.
He followed the waves, floating as much as walking, until he crossed the threshold into the lit room. It was a cathedral as much as it was a room. The arched ceiling extended over his head, all at once majestic and oppressive with its gray stone and massive pillars.
Not thirty paces into the room was the throne, and the hooded figures, their voices joining together in a frenzied chant. The throne sat empty; the bound man was nowhere to be seen. The figures seemed not to notice Tim, or possibly to be indifferent to his presence. He froze before entering the chamber, suddenly realizing he had no plan, and no means of helping the man, wherever he’d gone.
Suddenly there was another sound, filling the room and silencing the hooded figures. It was a sound like rushing water, coming from all around. Tim noticed windows, placed high on the walls near the ceiling, all around the room. Through the windows, water began dripping down the walls. The water started slowly, Tim staring in curiosity at the shining trails it made down the smooth walls. He watched for several minutes, captivated along with the robed figures, the flow of water increasing until each window held a waterfall, cascading into the room and crashing against the tiled floor.
Tim began to back up, then turned to flee the way he had come. The sounds of rushing water coming down the path dissuaded him, and he returned to the room. He looked around frantically for an escape. There were no other exits from the room, and the only furniture was the throne, not even halfway tall enough to climb on to reach a window.
Before long the water was lapping around his knees. He splashed through it, not going any particular direction, but looking desperately for anything that might help. Over the sound of the water came an awful sound from one of the windows, like the final cries of a drowning man. Something moved against the outside of the wall, something huge. Tim could hear something scraping and grabbing just outside.
The water was up past his waist and seemed to be rising more quickly. Something reached in through a large circular window—a tentacle, green and foul-smelling, and covered in layers of sea life. The water lifted Tim and—he noticed—the robed figures. The water continued to rise, and as they neared the ceiling, it began to take them toward the circular window.
Tim tried to resist the pull, swimming against the flow of water. He began to panic, his head dipping under, his nose and mouth filling with the brackish seawater. He struck his head against the ceiling as the room continued to fill. He glanced back and saw the tentacle was gone. His vision began to blur, and as looked to the window, he saw a single eye, huge and green, and then he lost consciousness.
Tim awoke with a scream in his throat, his limbs struggling to swim in the air. He kicked his feet against a coarse white sheet. Something beeped, and as Tim moved, he pulled against cords and wires attached to his body. His legs were bare beneath the sheet, and he found it was only with great difficulty that he could move most of his body.
He felt sore and tired, but his mind thrashed at him to stay awake and find answers. He looked for his phone and his clothing but saw neither. He heard the click of the door to his room, and a doctor entered. He was clean-shaven, with thinning hair and overly large glasses perched on his nose.
The doctor approached his bed, nodding a greeting to Tim, and wordlessly placed cold fingers on Tim’s scalp—which he suddenly realized was shaved down to stubble.
“. . . stitches are healing nicely . . .” the doctor muttered, half to himself. He pulled a small light from his pocket and shined it in Tim’s eyes, first one and then the other. “And how are you feeling today, Mr. Williams?”
Tim opened his mouth but managed only a stifled noise. The doctor answered with an agreeable “uh-huh” and returned his attention to Tim’s scalp.
“You’re quite fortunate your friend recognized the signs of an aneurysm. Much longer and . . . Well, you’re very lucky.”
Tim stared at the man with his mouth hanging open. “What?” he managed to say.
The doctor was taking notes in a binder. “Judging from the bruise above your eye, you took a nasty blow to the head earlier today. The impact dislodged a blood clot in your brain, which accounts for your vomiting and erratic behavior.”
Apparently satisfied, he cleared his throat. “Psychiatric should be in shortly,” he said, then he left without further conversation.
Tim’s hands moved tentatively to his head, where he felt every bump and divot on its hairless surface. He recoiled when he felt the stitches, folding his hands on his lap and attempting to steady himself.
The door opened again, signaling the arrival of the psychiatric
staff. Tim’s eyes grew wide as he saw Katie, the woman from the train, enter while making a note in a file. She pulled a chair next to the bed, her smile friendly.
“Hi, Tim,” she said. “Today I hoped you could tell me more about the temple beneath the sea.”
Tim’s hands settled into his lap. “Sorry, what?”
“When the paramedics arrived to pick you up, your coworker who made the 911 call said you were muttering something about a temple under the sea. Does that sound familiar?”
Tim looked around the small room, its every surface clean, the taste of the air nearly making him gag. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t know what that means. Did we meet this morning? On the train? Or did I imagine that?”
Katie used a pen to make a note in Tim’s chart. “No,” she said, and cleared her throat. “You didn’t imagine it.”
There were a few more questions, ones Tim could hardly care about, and then Katie excused herself from the room. Before she left, Tim asked if she would help him find his personal items: his wallet, his phone.
They located a small bag in a drawer, and as Tim settled back on the bed with the bag in his lap, he heard Katie leave, closing the door behind her.
He pulled the phone from the bag. It felt heavy and alien in his hands, and he turned it over for several minutes, his fingers avoiding the buttons. Finally, his curiosity overcame his fear, and he unlocked the screen, opening the folder where recent pictures were stored.
The picture was there, the one of the stone ceiling, just as he remembered it. He swiped to the next file, and pressed Play on the video. He silenced the phone; in his mind he could still hear the chanting, and it was a sound that sickened him. He skipped to the end of the video, but there was no flying thing on this viewing.
Tim’s brow knit in confusion. He swiped again and played the last video, huddled over the screen like a starving man with a crust of bread. He knew, even as the first moments played, that it was not the same video he’d taken.
The hooded figures were visible, and the throne in the cavernous room, but they circled the throne rather than standing around it. One of them, taller and broader than the others, produced a long knife and held it over his head. The crowd of figures converged on the man on the throne, and then the video ended.
Tim realized his heart was racing, and that his finger had brushed the Play button again. This time the crowd’s positions had shifted again; it was the same video, but instead of playing again, it had started where it previously left off. The figures converged around the throne, flanking the one wielding the knife.
Tim’s hands shook, and the phone slipped into his lap just as the knife came to bear on the man on the throne. In one-minute increments, his face frozen in horror, Tim watched the scene continue, replaying the same video but watching it change every time.
The hooded figures cut the man from the throne and took his body away. There was a sound that echoed through the room, and even on his small phone’s speakers, the volume barely at a whisper, it filled Tim with a profound despair. It sounded like a screech and a howl; it was the sound of ancient buildings succumbing to time, the sound of flesh tearing and bones breaking and a river of black water.
The next minute of video showed the room beginning to fill with water. Though it was fresh in his memory, he continued pressing Play and watching the slow progress of the encroaching sea, watching the level creep up the walls one minute at a time.
In the middle of the room, then, Tim saw a man. He had to start the video over again to watch the man, clearly out of place, push his way across the room in the waist-deep water. Tim realized he was watching himself.
The man, starkly opposed to the surroundings, was Tim. For reasons he would never be able to explain, Tim, in his hospital bed, watched Tim, in the flooding chamber, for several more one-minute periods.
As the water level continued to rise and the Tim on the phone panicked as he neared the ceiling, Tim in his hospital bed placed the phone facedown on his meal tray.
He folded his hands in his lap, paralyzed with the horror of watching his own final moments. Tim stayed in the hospital for two weeks, until he was deemed fit to return home. He quit his job without ever returning to the building, and pursued a life in produce at the local grocery store.
He never looked at the phone again—he kept it (ironically, he thought) in a drawer in his home, never knowing if the videos were showing his future, or his past, or what would happen if he kept watching—but never quite able to let the phone go.
Brock Poulsen
Brock Poulsen lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and three children. He enjoys a good book, a nice tabletop game, and - probably most of all - a productive writing session. He writes fantasy and science fiction, short stories and novels, and anything else that catches his interest.
Twitter: @brockst4r
Facebook: Brock.Poulsen.writer
Fantasy
Juliet Silver and the Realm of Impossibility
By Wendy Nikel | 6,000 words
In the burgundy-tinged light of the teahouse, the air pilots didn’t look so different from anyone else. They gathered there with their mustaches neatly trimmed and their collars buttoned tightly, sipping their oolong and Pu-erh and muttering in soft undertones, pretending they were merchants or bankers or clockwork tinkerers taking a midmorning break from their shops.
Juliet knew better.
She knew who they were from the moment the first one sauntered in, setting the golden door baubles jingling. He raised a hand to tip his hat with an automatic motion like a wind-up doll, and in that act, his sleeve slipped down his forearm, momentarily exposing a tiny tattoo in the shape of an airship’s propeller. The pilot must have seen Juliet’s curious change of expression, for he tugged his sleeve and glanced away, suddenly very interested in the brassy light fixtures dangling above the tables.
Perhaps it was because he didn’t seem much older than herself or because his face gave the impression of innocence (or at least good intentions), but Juliet let him keep his secret . . . for the time being. After all, what business was it of hers if this stranger wanted to risk his life by breaking the embargo on sky ships?
“Peace and prosperity to you.” She welcomed him with the traditional greeting of Ms. Chari’s teahouse, as if he really were a merchant or banker or clockwork tinkerer, and showed him to a table near the front window. His mouth turned up ever so slightly, as though he knew she was only playing along. “What would you like to drink?”
“Black tea, please.”
Juliet gestured subtly to his napkin before nosy old Jarvis Marken in the corner could take note of the man’s mistake. With an “Oh!” of sudden realization, he tucked it onto his knee and mouthed, “Thank you.”
She felt his gaze following her to the back room. His eyes were as blue as the sky.
Slowly, others arrived. They filed in one at a time, always with the same, jerky salute at the door. Juliet smiled and nodded and balanced their drinks in precarious towers of brass trays. She’d have liked to pry from them stories about their lives on board their sky ships. She’d have liked to see if the tales she’d heard were true—if there really were dark beings of wisp and smoke that hid among the clouds, and if that was the true reason for the long embargo.
But the most Juliet could do was weave through the tables, her glass kettle poised, straining her ears to catch even the slightest bits of their conversation. She felt like the mongrel that hung around the teahouse’s back entrance and begged for any scrap of stale biscuit she might toss its way (which she did, whenever Ms. Chari wasn’t looking).
“—he ought to have known better, steering the Skydancer into those clouds.” The speaker possessed a glimmering monocle that he only seemed to need whenever Juliet approached his table.
“He couldn’t help it, Stenson,” muttered a man beside him whose suit fitted too tightly over his broad shoulders. Of them all, his disguise was the least convincing. “Clouds like that ar
e where the devils dwell.”
“Devils?”
“The Wispers, of course.”
“Gasoline greaseboxes!” The old man called Stenson slammed a hand on the table, drawing the attention of the tea shop’s other guests. He wiped his monocle on his vest and muttered a halfhearted apology. When the other tea drinkers looked away, he grumbled more softly, “No such thing as Wispers, I tell you. Scientifically impossible creatures. Fairy tales!”
“Of course they’re real.” This time it was the young pilot, the first to arrive. Juliet left her washrag half wrung out in the rollers of her wringer belt attachment as she stopped to listen.
“How would you know, Brenton?” another man asked.
“I’ve seen ’em myself,” Brenton said. “Back on old Matthews’s Perdition.”
The men hung their heads as one, and Juliet tried to recall where she’d heard the name before.
“He was a good man,” the broad-shouldered man muttered.
“But you couldn’t have been more than a tyke then,” Stenson argued.
“True and true.” Brenton blew on his tea. “He was a gentleman and an expert pilot, excepting the day he got it into his head to pursue that pair of cloud creatures. Those Wispers worked their way into his head and those of the other crewmen. I was there on the bridge to see it all.”
“But you didn’t jump too?” Stenson rubbed his monocle again, as if clearing the lens would help him understand the situation better.
“Would I still be here if I did?”
“How’d you survive, then?”
“You said it yourself: I was just a tyke.”
“Juliet!” Ms. Chari’s face appeared over the tea counter, though the rest of her remained hidden behind haphazard piles of tea boxes. “Stop your dawdling and get back here at once!”