Conceiving (Subdue Book 3)

by Thomas S. Flowers

  Bobby had never seen such a sight. His cheeks felt hot, knees weak. He stood, ready to leave the way he came, back down the hall and out into the cold where he certainly believed he belonged. The melody was enchanting. The jazz snaked through his flesh, jiving his shoulders and tapping his boots. He turned back to the wide open door, unsure if he ought to be smiling, but he was, oh how he was smiling. Without any remaining forethought, he stepped into the carousel of spinning dresses reflecting the orange glow of the fireplace and the gleam of perfect white teeth as those within took hardly a moment’s glance of his intrusion.

  Bobby spun and danced with them, his skin crawling with excitement. How wonderful it was to be around such happy people. Some lanky looking fellow dressed in black handed him a glass filled with the most wondrous liquor. It burned, but burned good. Numbing his senses and pulling him deeper into the sway of the song trumpeting and drumming between his ears.

  Why did I came here?

  Something…

  Do I care?

  He spun and spun, tapping his feet and swinging his hips to the beat of Coltrane and Mingus and Monk and Armstrong and Parker and Gillespie. Bobby took the hand of one of the women, some petite blonde thing and twirled her on the floor. The others looked upon them with humor, joining in the rancorously sublime jive. She never said her name and he never asked. What did names matter to the harmonious polygamy of music. The trumpet player gave one final blast from his horn and as sudden as the dance had begun, it came to an end. The crowds parted, his partner vanished among them, creating a wall of bodies on each side. At the far side, a man had begun clapping. He stood out, towering above the rest. Broad shoulders and thick eyebrows with an equally thick walrus-like mustache. He wore round glasses, a polished black tuxedo, and held a pipe between his meaty index and middle finger. His hair was short cropped and parted at the center.

  Bobby held his head. Knees trembling on wobbling legs. Face flushed and hot.

  What was in that drink?

  The world was tilting.

  And the mountainous man was still clapping, thunderous in the now quiet hall.

  “My father always said, ‘Believe you can and you’re halfway there.’ I’m sure he was quoting someone he admired more than himself, but still, the saying has some value, don’t you think, Mr. Weeks?” The man stopped clapping. Puffing on his pipe. Watching Bobby with the appearance of a hunter stalking a fox. Or a wolf. Admiration bled into melancholy gloom.

  Bobby stumbled forward, nearly falling to his knees. “Do I know you?”

  The man smiled a moose wide smile, showing his large white teeth. “No, no I don’t think you do. But we know you, Mr. Weeks. We most certainly do. You’re an impressive specimen. A taste of the wonder this world has to offer, I think.”

  “Specimen?” Bobby stopped, the smiling faces around him, the cheers and toasts from well-dressed crowd, blurred.

  “Yes. The serendipitous charm of freak occurrences. The thing inside you is quite beautiful, you must know. What a marvelous gift you have.”

  “Beautiful? Gift? I’m a monster…you idiot. I kill.” Bobby slurred, struggling to stay on his feet. The dance floor was a ship caught in a tempest storm.

  The man puffed, stepping closer. “And what is life, Mr. Weeks, without a little uncertainty? Without chance, or fate you might say?”

  Fate.

  There was that word again.

  Providence incarnate.

  The inevitable conclusion.

  Death.

  Bobby closed his eyes. He’d heard enough. Ignoring the tilting room and the jarring smiles of the crowd and the tall man, summoning all the rage he could muster, he lunged. And fell on his face. Overcome by Atropos’ hymn and the kindling in his gut, numbing his limps and senses. The crowd gathered around him, looking down upon him with satisfaction and glee. One took his legs and stretched them apart, another his arms, positioning him into an elongated X. The tall man stood over him, puffing like a smokestack, pipe clenched between his enormous Bull Moose teeth, held in place with one hand. And with the other, he held a mallet.

  Am I laying on something?

  Beams were being slid under him.

  One of the smiling strangers held four spikes.

  Silver spikes.

  Silver?

  Bobby struggled, kicking weakly. Hands, hundreds of hand held him down.

  “Tonight, Mr. Weeks, you will witness the most wondrous act of fate…a fate this lonely blue dot of a world has been lamenting for a long, long time. And in the end, once you’ve seen, we’ll give you what you wish the most.”

  Deep within, those devilish yellow eyes burned brightly in the dark. Familiar heat rose in his chest. A low growl released from his lips. Bobby sneered delightfully at his captors. At last! Here comes the beast…“And what is it I want?” he gritted between breaths, laughing.

  The tall man looked almost sympathetic. “Death, of course. Is that not what you wish the most? You’re living with something you cannot hope to control. All your friends have died. It was foolish to think they could withstand the majesty of Nashirimah, but alas…don’t you want to join them? Don’t you want to be free?”

  Did he?

  Bobby spat.

  Wiping away the spittle, the tall man nodded to the spike handlers. Pressed against each palm and naked heel, the silver stakes were placed, singeing Bobby’s flesh as they awaited the hammer. Jerking, he was held still.

  With the mallet held high, the tall man pounded the first spike into Bobby’s palm, nailing him to the wooden beam beneath.

  Screaming, Bobby fought against the horde. There were too many. The multitude of hands kept him still on the wood. Held him as he lashed about, howling. His skin was tightening. Tightening. Those devil eyes lusting to be set free.

  Come. Come.

  The mallet raised again.

  “Don’t…” Bobby’s voice carried hardly above a hoarse whisper. The yellow devil eyes burned hot, hesitating.

  The tall man smiled, again with that strange mixture of sympathy and obedience.

  The hammer fell.

  The silver spike was driven through his other palm.

  Chattering his teeth, Bobby watched as the yellow eyes was chased away by the pain, snuffed out in the darkness of his mind as his flesh was smote by whatever magic the silver nails held over him. His skin did not change.

  He lay whimpering. Pierced.

  For his transgressions.

  Closing his eyes, Bobby held on to consciousness as the next spike was positioned on his right heel, against the soft tendon, and nailed. Spasming against the scolding heat breaking through the nerves and bone. Taking short breaths, he cried out with each lightening hot quiver as the silver nail pulled and pinched and dug against sinew.

  Come on! Come…on…TURN!

  He pleaded with the beast inside. The yellow feral orbs were all but gone, faded to mute bulbs held captive by the silver pain.

  The mallet was lifted high once more.

  “Please…”

  And fell.

  The last spike punched into Bobby’s left heel, cauterizing his flesh, setting nerves on fire, nailing him to the wooden beam beneath his leg. He dared not move. Each pull against his ligaments brought a bout of molten suffering. He tasted iron. Choking on the fumes of smoldered meat, his meat, his flesh and bone and tendon. The crowd around him hustled about, moving, positioning something he could not quite see.

  The beams beneath him were suddenly hoisted up to a standing position, bringing Bobby along, nailed to the wood. He thrashed but fell subdued to the searing pain of his weight tugging against the spikes. His hands and feet felt wet and hot. Muscles ached and shook to maintain the outstretched position.

  His breath rapid and shallow, Bobby watched as the crowd dispersed, retreating through another open door, and returning dressed in dark, frayed robes. Their faces hidden under shadowed hoods. Bead necklaces held and wrapped around their hands. Hung from these, strange symbols recalling memo
ry as far back as childhood.

  Bobby had seen these before, he was certain.

  A bowl curved shape and a circle above that with queer lettering carved inside.

  The House on Oak Lee.

  In the cellar.

  And on the walls.

  In paintings of the house.

  Everywhere.

  This symbol was everywhere.

  Naked to the hustle of normalcy.

  Hidden to the unversed.

  The robed parishioners took places throughout the spacious room. The fireplace roared with the surge of added wood. The tall man had left with the crowd, last to return back from the adjacent doorway. Dressed differently, he looked more like a shaman then a priest, more a conjurer of pagan magic than a faith healer. Across his shoulders, shielding his face, some kind of wild fanged animal had been skinned, a bear perhaps, carved out to make a type of mask and robe. The head of the bear hung over his face like a hood. Skins for robe. Otherwise, he was naked, baring his wooly chest and a deep aggravated purplish scar just above his abdomen. Across his neck he wore a dazzling pitch black jewel that looked as if it were absorbing all the light around it. The jewel was a black stone, some sort of blue azurite crystal glowing within, or pulsing or like, as if it were breathing. The tall man stood with the others. All eyes were on the doorway. Anticipation strangling the air.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  From the shadows, several robed figures appeared carrying some kind of gestatorial litter, a single bed, through the archway. Adorned with lavender rugs and large tasseled pillows of various colors. Coated with petals of differing species of flower. There were red amaryllis and anthurim and asters and carnations and yellow callas and daisies and daffodils layered with blueish purple delphinium and iris and hydrangea and pink roses and king flowers and tulips and snapdragons and peonies sewn together and placed as a blanket covering the hump of some woman’s belly, a woman Bobby had never seen before. In her short-cropped sandy hair she wore a crown of Queen Anne’s lace. Charcoal drawlings were made over her exposed soft white skin. She must have been asleep. Her head rolled back and forth as if drugged. Behind her bed, the last of the robed figures approached, wheeling in a sort of altar, a basic, slightly raised platform resembling a table. Markings had been carved in the wood, the same strange symbol matching their prayer beads. The woman’s bed was lifted high and placed upon the altar. The crowd murmured with excitement.

  Carefully breathing to keep his weight still, Bobby spat blood on the floor, caring little of the gore dribbling from his beard. He watched the bizarre parade. He noticed a small group in the crowd kept an old looking wicker bassinet rocking between them.

  He wanted to ask.

  He wanted to know.

  But the silver spikes held prison his desire to speak.

  Tired now.

  Muscles weak.

  Stomach turning.

  Flushed and hot.

  So hot now.

  Sweat rolling off the walls, dripping from the ceiling.

  The crowded room erupted in applause. The tall shaman had taken his place beside the altar. He held the black stone above the gathered horde, whose fingertips reached to touch. He took the necklace and held it above the woman. The stone pulsed brightly, nearly blinding Bobby as he watched.

  “What are…what are you doing?” was all he could muster between the searing pain.

  Two robes broke away from the crowd. Hooded, they stood in front of the crucified Bobby. They stood, heads bowed. Silent.

  “What’re…you…”

  The robed figures drew back their hoods.

  Bobby jerked.

  And screamed from the pain of movement.

  Breathing hoarsely now, he looked at their faces.

  He looked at the face of Johnathan Steele and Jake Williams.

  His childhood friends, thought dead.

  “J…Jake? John…athan?”

  His friends seemed to gloat, smiling wickedly up at Bobby. Neither saying a word.

  “Why?”

  The two stood silently still, yet under the flesh, movement began. Their skin seemed to boil and stretch, like kneaded bread. Their eyes seemed to flex, bulging outward, exposing an impossible insectoid-esk compound bulbs beneath. They opened their mouths, teeth and jay bones crunching, below their tongues large wet dark greenish mandibles lashed out, clicking, and clicking.

  Bobby moaned. Weeping. Not wanting to watch but afraid to take his gaze away. Too weak to move. He moaned. And wept.

  As suddenly as the horrifying scene began, Jake and Johnathan put back their flesh and human form, smiling as they had before.

  “You see, Mr. Weeks. Your fate is inevitable.” Johnathan spoke, but his voice was changed rattling in a perverse whisper.

  “You will become Us, Mr. Weeks.” Jake spoke this time with a tone as equally unsettling, like teeth in jar, his voice shook just beneath his throat. “If your other will have Us. If not, then you will simply be put down.”

  “Is Maggie…?” Bobby exhaled. Tired. Spent. He could sense the black curtain ready to fall over him. Must stay awake, he thought. Must. Cannot surrender.

  “You killed her, Mr. Weeks. As a charlatan, you promised to give yourself to Us. But then you changed, didn’t you, Mr. Weeks. Your other-self refused our little deal. No matter. Our Queen will return. Oh yes. She will.” They both spoke together and separate, sharing parts of the conversation. They glanced over to the pregnant woman on the altar. The stone was glowing brighter, nearly taking the room in a dazzling pulse of white.

  “And we’re taking precautions, this time,” Jake added. They both turned back to Bobby, their gaze falling over his crucified hands and feet.

  His head rolled, chin knocking into his chest. Bobby jerked, grimacing from the effort the burning in his pierced wounds. Blood trickled down his arms, soaking into his jean jacket and his flannel button. He jerked again, flooding his senses. Must stay awake, he told himself again.

  “Do not die yet, Mr. Weeks. You must watch the birth of our Queen,” hissed Johnathan.

  “And we have a gift for you.” Jake turned and waved to the robed guards standing by the entryway. They bowed and departed. A moment later, they brought with them a hooded figure, kicking. Their shouts muffled by the cloth bag. Still some distance away, they removed the hood.

  “Luna?” Bobby glared in wild eye disbelief.

  “What…h…how…?” he stuttered.

  Jake and Johnathan both beamed hideously, no doubt delighted with themselves.

  Stepping closer to Bobby, Jake whispered hotly in his ear. His breath tasting of some kind of rotten sweet fruit and foul rancorous meat. “She’ll make a fine vessel, don’t you think, Mr. Weeks?”

  Bobby couldn’t listen. His gaze locked with the woman he never wanted to hurt yet by some misfortune seemed to do her the most harm. And now it would be her life.

  “Bobby?” The horror written over her face was plain as day. Her eyes moving from one horrifying wound to the next. Perhaps she came here looking for him or They went out looking for her. Either way, that painful tear stricken expression would be the same.

  “I’m sorry.” Bobby tried to yell, so she would hear, but his strength was burnt up, burnt away with the cauterizing pain of the silver spikes ripping at his flesh with each tired breath.

  Chapter 32

  The Ritual of Wormi

  Neville

  Beneath the murky depth of sleep, another dream unfolded upon images of places and things Neville Petry could not quantify nor understand with any hope of holding on to her sanity. In the black abundance, there was something moving. She could not see. But she knew something was there. Breathing. Moving. Echoing hollowed clicking pinchers against the boney thunderous crackle of limbs. She felt as if she was being plunged into an orgy of ants, scurrying with impossible girth, with barbed bodies the size of dust and bodies unimaginably massive, and everything in-between. Singing to one another. Despite the absence of sight, t
hey still could see everything. Hear everything. Taste everything. Somehow she was inside them and them inside her. And with a terrifying multitude of snipping mandibles and hateful compound eyes, they gave but one insectoid voice, hunger.

  Did they say hunger?

  Yes.

  Hunger to be let in through the door, the monolith of flesh and tissue and fiber and blood. To consume the fatten calves ripened for atonement. This was Their time. The nameless horde that the derelict and shameful priests heard calling from the bowels of vacant pitiful prayer, giving but one inscription, over and over.

  Nashirimah.

  Nashirimah.

  Nashirimah.

  Those bulbous red eyes spoke. Muttering not with words but with desire, if one could call such horrifying brooding of will desire. They clicked and chirped in unison with an ancient horrid song across the unfathomable cosmos and found a lonesome and despairing desperate particle adrift in the maddening boundless infinity. Caught between planes, between boundaries impenetrable…but to a few of eldritch race.

  Worming into the wrinkles of her mind, they showed Neville all that which she could stand to see, for her mind was fragile and finite and they, they were boundless. She stood as a newborn in the shadow of beings with age unknown, before flags, before kings and country, before Giza and Puma Punku and megalithic halls of Hal-Saflieni, before the Great Marib Dam and all the Seven Wonders of the World. What are such places and structures to these ethereal antediluvian entities? Our blue world is but a speck of dirt caught in a cosmic ocean, black and bottomless, and ripe for the harvest.