by Phil Rossi
Donovan steeled himself and approached the mummified remains of what had been likely been the lifeboat’s crew and passengers.
How did they get there? Donovan wondered. Were they already dead when they had been brought there? Some of the bodies were missing limbs. Some were even missing their heads: necks, ragged around the edges, jutted from sunken shoulders. Everything was lit in the ethereal purple light. Donovan felt like he was moving through a bad dream.
He found it hard to not stare into the lilac haze, swirling on the slanted walls. It was beautiful. Living. His eyes kept fixing on it. He settled onto the chamber floor and lay on his back. Now he could gaze up at the ceiling and watch the light. The old, dry corpses that surrounded him didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the magnificent light that moved in whirls and eddies above and around him. It seemed to take on shapes when he gazed at it long enough—spheres rose and sank back into the light. And those spheres were changing, too. He could hardly comprehend the beautiful wonder of it all. Faces. Yes! Faces emerged from the purple light; their mouths were stretched wide open. They were singing. Singing the glory of that wonderful light.
But they weren’t singing.
They were screaming.
White hot, the sound of a thousand agonies reverberated in his head. He pressed his hands to his ears, but it didn’t help. The faces continued to rise and wail. Their mouths were open so wide that the visages tore from ear to ear; the glowing flesh sloughed away to reveal skulls that were misshapen with bizarre protuberances. They didn’t look like human skulls at all, but like the skulls of gargoyles and monsters. Donovan tried to stand, but the weight upon his chest had multiplied ten-fold. It was crushing him. He screamed; his voice joined the chorus in his head.
The light began to coalesce at the center of the curved ceiling into a single, undulating cloud of hateful faces and slowly began to descend. Donovan’s heart jack-hammered in a chest that felt like it was about to burst into flames. I’m having a heart attack, he thought. I’m going to die in here. These were the only coherent thoughts he could manage through all the screaming.
The angel of death wore no black robes. Instead, he was a blaze of violet and agony.
(•••)
“What’s the matter, Ezra?” the prostitute asked. Her clear eye blinked up at him. The milky eye stared off into nothing. She stroked Kendall’s penis with a determination that was commendable. But he could not seem to get hard, despite her best ministrations and the pleasing swell of her bosom. He tried to focus on her breasts, which bounced with each pull of her soft hands. Nothing. His inability to perform was becoming a problem more and more lately. He had too much on his mind. Between Core Sec auditors, a halt in firearms production, and the station itself going crazy, Kendall was finding himself constantly preoccupied. At present, the bitch Griffin was to blame for his flaccid member. Griffin hadn’t erased the security feed as he’d requested. She left the accursed footage on the hard drive. She left it there because she knew he would watch it again. And Kendall did watch it again. He couldn’t help himself. He had to see it again to know for sure. And now he knew. The darkness on the station was getting restless—again.
The prostitute continued to stare at him. Her dark eye swam with frustration. Kendall brushed his long finger over her shoulder and smiled.
“Angela. That is your name, yes?” he said, and she nodded. “I have a terrible headache. It has been a long week for me. Why don’t you leave and come back later tonight?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, dear. I’m sure.”
Angela concealed her exposed breasts and began to cinch up her bodice. She spared him one last glance before leaving his bed chambers. Once she was gone, Kendall depressed a thumb behind his ear.
“Taylor. I would very much appreciate you arranging for Naheela to be at my office in thirty minutes.”
Kendall went to his tall wardrobe and opened one of the double doors. The inside of the door had a polished mirror set into the wood, not the typical high-def liquid crystal displays favored for modern hygiene. Kendall always thought of himself as more of a classical man. There was someone standing behind him. It wasn’t Taylor. It wasn’t Angela. He turned. There was no one there.
Seein’ shit, Ezra, he thought. You better figure out how to get off before this stress kills you.
Kendall straightened his shirt and ran a brush through the tangles in his thin hair until it was straight. He set the brush down and frowned. Someone was snooping around the Vault again. Had to be. The last time there had been a ruckus on Crescent—some fifteen years ago—people had been sniffing around where they didn’t belong. Stupid little brats had been prying. Oh, the ends he had to go through to keep the peace. And yet, here he was again.
Kendall closed the wardrobe. He moved to the adjacent chest of drawers and chose a small bottle of cologne from the menagerie that sat atop the piece of furniture. He dabbed a tiny amount into his open palm. He clapped his hands together and then applied the smell-pretty to his cheeks with light pats.
Kendall did not want to talk to Naheela. Hell, it was the last thing he wanted to do. But, he needed to. The weird old bitch had guided him the first time. She came to him the first time. She’d help him again, no doubt. Who better to provide advice on a haunting than a witch? The thought made him laugh out loud. He pulled on his pants, fastened his belt, and then slipped his suit jacket on over his shoulders. Whatever spirits were restless on Crescent, he had best placate them off the radar. If it was a gaggle of virgins they wanted this time, or a basket of babies, those things would be delivered without Nigel Swaren getting wind of it.
The archaeologist. Kendall growled at the thought of soft and naive Donovan Cortez. If that damn doctor had gone sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, Kendall would throw him and his young daughter into the meat grinder as a bonus.
Kendall found himself feeling much better. The wonder of thinking things through and coming up with a course of action, Kendall mused. His member twitched and he smiled. Angela would have better luck that evening.
(•••)
The crone traveled with a cloud of stink. Kendall found Naheela’s smell unbearable, even with a lit cigar perched between his lips. The tang—an amalgam of spices, fetid breath, and body odor—was enough to make his nostrils sting and his eyes water. She sat across from him, on the other side of the big desk. Her gnarled hands were folded in the lap of the patched, brown skirt she wore. Her gray, greasy hair fell well past her shoulders in shiny clumps. She smiled through Kendall’s cigar smoke, revealing her few remaining yellowed teeth. The deep wrinkles etched in her dark skin went to unfathomable depths. With all the technology that was available, why did this woman choose to look like she was holding hands with death himself? Kendall shook his head and took an exaggerated drag on the cigar.
“Naheela, do you know why I’ve invited you here today?” Kendall asked.
“I may be old, Ezra, but I’m no fool.”
“Good, then. We are spared talking around the bush. I want know what is happening on my station, and I know you know.”
Naheela snickered. A watery substance began to trickle from her nose. She wiped a hand across its bulbous end.
“You know,” she said and pointed a finger at him.
“Why is Crescent doing this again? I followed your instructions the last time. You said that would be enough.”
“Why do you think that is no longer enough, Ezra?”
“Crone, I did not ask you here so that you could ask me questions,” Kendall snapped.
“The pact is broken, fool. Someone has found the Vault. Any deal you made with the Black is off,” Naheela said.
“That is highly unlikely,” Kendall said. “Even if someone was fooling around where they didn’t belong, the deal you had me make…”
“A piece of chewin’ gum will only keep the dam from breakin’ for so long. Poke at the sore, and you hasten the flood.”
Kendall sighed throug
h his nose. He could think of only two people that would go down there. The milky depths of Naheela’s eyes rested on him with a look of knowing.
“Very well, Naheela. Here I am again, looking for advice.”
“I fear, Ezra, that it is not as simple as this time around,” she said.
“What do you mean? How could it not be as simple. The same goddamn things are happening.”
“Same? No. This is very different, Mayor. Much worse. The first time you only had the Black to contend with. A part of the whole. It wasn’t worried about unity—only survival. Now the Three are nearly back together. The glass trembles. The Black gets stronger with each passing day. The same sacrifice will not suffice this time, Kendall. The Violet is here. We can only hope that the Red—the final piece of the trinity—does not show up, too. For if the Red does come, then it’s too late.”
Kendall couldn’t fully grasp her message. Tangled in metaphor, her words rang like a steaming pile of shit to him. Even still, Kendall did not like the certainty in her voice. Naheela tested the bounds of his superstition. He drummed his fingers on the desk.
“I’m not going to ask what that means. But I will ask again. What can we do about it?”
“We? You mean you, Ezra. And I’m sure this time I don’t know,” Naheela said with a toothless grin. “You could destroy this place for good. That is always a possibility.”
He laughed. The sound was bitter and harsh.
“Leave? No, Naheela. I won’t leave. That is not an option.”
“I didn’t think it was.” She folded her hands on his desk and raised her shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know what else you could do, Ezra. I may know soon enough. As for now, it is all too new. Things have not finished shapin’ themselves. When they do—or when they get close—I’ll know. Until then, there is nothing more I can tell you.”
“I’ll trust you’ll get in touch with me as soon as… things have finished shapin’ themselves,” he said.
Naheela beamed. “I do so love our visits, and they are too far between.” She laughed, and wiped her nose with her hand again. The hand, she wiped on the arm of Kendall’s chair.
When Naheela took her leave, she left behind her stink and a growing sense of unease.
(•••)
Crescent floated black against the dissipating glare of Anrar. Its silhouette was a malignant hook, dark and terrible. Ina was slack in the harness of the control couch. Gerald leaned against the console, his hands in his pockets. He watched her chest rise and fall with slow breaths. Her eyes flitted back and forth beneath her lids as she lay in dreams. Ina’s temperature had risen in the past several hours, but Gerald wasn’t sure he was ready for her to wake up. Asleep, she was incapable of delivering more crazy talk. Gerald shook his head. The trip to Anrar III could be called any number of things, but a good idea was not one of them. Marisa had been so wrong. More bad things were going come of it—of that, Gerald was sure.
Ina began to stir.
Her blue eyes opened and fell on Gerald. He managed a weak smile as she sat up in the couch and undid the harness with slow moving fingers.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
“The better part of an hour,” he replied. He waited for her to ask what happened, but she didn’t.
“Okay. So, we’re almost back?”
“Yeah, we’re almost back.”
“Good.” She ran her fingers through the tangles of her blonde hair, piling it atop her head as she did so. “I need a shower. I feel so… dirty.”
“Do you re—” Gerald began, but she cut him off.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t think we need to talk about it. It’s not for you and I to discuss.”
She got to her feet and stretched. And suddenly, she was moving. Ina closed the space between them so fast that Gerald was nearly knocked off his feet, but her arms slithered around his neck before he could lose his balance. Her skin was cool and smelled of the rain. In the space of a single breath, her lips were on his, her mouth open, her tongue seeking his. Her kiss was cold, insistent, but not unpleasant. Gerald found himself unable to resist. The blind desire to lay with her overwhelmed him and he could think of nothing else. The lust filled his skull like the buzzing of a thousand wasps and consumed him. Even so, he gripped her by the shoulders and shook his head.
“No, Ina,” he pleaded. “I can’t. Not this time.”
“It has to be now,” she said and broke his grip. And that was it—his resolve was gone.
He allowed Ina pull him down to the floor. He let her undress him. He let her put himself inside of her. There was nothing cold about her there. She was on fire; soon, his entire body crackled with it.
He closed his eyes and saw an ocean of surging red.
(Part XIV)
Nigel Swaren sat before the security monitors at HQ with his hands clasped behind his head. The air handling system murmured above him. He closed his eyes and took in a long, deep breath of recycled air, then exhaled just as slowly. He was done studying the security feeds from the Farm. Footage amounting to a month’s worth of camera time had been under Nigel’s close scrutiny for more hours than he cared to count. Nigel couldn’t focus on it any longer—his eyes burned and all he saw were random pixels. But he had already seen plenty. His day had centered on studying regular outgoing shipments and his interest had been piqued by the occasional heavy-duty crate intermingled with the standard agricultural shipping containers. At first, the reinforced crates seemed to show up at random, but after tracking their appearance for hours on end, Nigel had noticed a pattern.
Now he cycled through feeds at random, watching as people came and went, carried by whatever force propels people from one location to another. Other screens were still, showing seldom-visited sections of Crescent—one snapshot after another showed cobwebs and flickering overhead light panels. Nigel dropped his eyes from the security feeds to the white mug that sat untouched on the control panel. The beverage had gone cold hours ago.
Nigel was annoyed—annoyed with himself for diving into the security feeds with such reckless abandon, because now he’d seen plenty to prove that Ezra Kendall was hiding something. And this kind of dirt, I cannot wash off my hands. Nigel hadn’t been sent to Crescent to go fishing for corrupt politicians. Really, that was the last thing he’d wanted to get tangled up in. But now, a misbehaving mayor might be just what Nigel was looking for. He laughed at the irony. Salvation could be found in the most unlikely places.
A skinny, pallid kid in blues entered the monitoring station, rubbing eyes that were ringed with dark circles. He seemed surprised to see Nigel there.
“I… ”
“You’re late and you’re sorry, right? Not my problem. Take it up with your captain if you’re feeling guilty. And besides… you should be reporting to Temporary Monitoring Station 17—this is my office,” Nigel said. Not that I’ve seen Captain Benedict all that often since I’ve been here. He walked past the kid without sparing him another glance.
(•••)
Nigel leaned against a bookshelf in Kendall’s antechamber. He pretended to be examining the rows of neatly organized books. He pretended to be oblivious of the four eyes that burned holes in his back. Kendall’s goons were just the sort of scum you’d find in a dark alley, at the other end the knife stuck in your side. The shorter one, with the slicked-back dark hair and the high forehead, appeared to be stupid as all sin. There was nothing going on in his dark eyes but a dose of the crazies. The taller of the pair, with the red hair and weathered features—he was no fool. He watched Nigel with a gaze that was as appraising as it was ice cold.
Taylor, gigantic and wearing cheap cologne, ushered Nigel into Kendall’s office. Nigel spared Kendall’s dogs one last look before the office door swung shut. The halo-globes in the spacious office were turned down low. A single lamp glowed on the large desk that dominated the room. Beyond the desk, the wide viewport that took up much of the anterior wall showed the night face of Anrar
III, black and endless. Kendall sat behind the desk in a chair that Nigel found to be ridiculously oversized. His long fingers were twined together on the desktop. The mayor’s gray hair hung to his shoulders in hastily combed rows. Kendall’s thin lips curved up but never quite reached the altitude of a smile.
“I apologize that we have continued to miss each other until now, Lieutenant Swaren.” Kendall’s tone was honey sweet. “Mayor is a busy role, as I’m sure you can imagine. Were I not able to delegate, I might hang myself.”
“That’s Captain. And yes, I imagine it does keep you busy.” Nigel spoke pleasantly enough. He looked around the office. More books. “The shelves are real wood?”
“Real down to the molecule.” Kendall smiled. His lower lip stuck to his teeth for a brief second. “The books are real, as well. It’s taken me many years of collecting to fill these walls.”
“Do you go off-station often, then? To collect your books?”
Kendall laughed and shook his head. One of the strands of hair came free of its ordained row and fell into his face. He brushed it away.
“No, no. I never leave the station. Nexus auction, my friend.”
There was a strange tang in the office. Nigel inhaled through his nose. It was the smell of sex. He tried to not react to it, although his first instinct was to purse his lips. He matched gazes with Kendall. Nigel felt sorry for the poor girl, whoever she was. Kendall was not a picture of beauty.
“Can I interest you in a drink, Mr. Swaren.”
“I don’t drink,” Nigel said, matter-of-factly. “And besides, I’m on duty.”
“And here I was thinking this was a mere courtesy visit.” Kendall stood and made his way over to a slender bar set into one of the book-laden walls. Atop the bar sat multiple decanters filled with dark liquid. Kendall selected one and filled a crystal tumbler. Nigel had little doubt the bottles in Kendall’s bar were filled with genuine, non-synthetic liquor. There was a lot of money in the office. Kendall seemed to have acquired a lot more wealth than your typical fringe outpost mayor.