Silas: A Supernatural Thriller

by Robert J. Duperre

  “Would you like to get up, Mr. Lowery?” he asked. “I am sorry to have frightened you. In your state, I realize that sudden movements may cause you pain. If you would like, I have set up some chairs by the veranda. We can sit and chat for a while, if that sounds appealing to you.”

  I reached out to take his hand, drew back in an instant of worry, noticed Silas sitting patiently beside me, obviously not concerned, reconsidered, and locked palms with the tall, talking android. Ben’s grip was rigid and sturdy but gentle enough to not hurt me. He helped me rise to my feet and I stretched my back. My joints popped, my ribcage screamed. I gnashed my teeth together and closed my eyes. I felt a cold steel arm wrap around my back. Ben’s prying metal fingers jabbed into my underarm. The motors that allowed him to perform these actions hummed, and he repositioned himself in what ended up being the perfect stance to help me stand with as little anguish as possible. All I could think was this is one practical piece of machinery.

  I swayed a bit, Ben steadied me, and Silas paced in palpable edginess around us. I heard his claws tapping on the concrete as he moved, and I realized I’d heard that sound before, when Ben approached me. I opened my eyes and, sure enough, there was concrete under my feet. It was white and creased, the rough stone caressing my soles when I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. We were on a walkway about ten feet wide, bordered by cradles of dead flowers and stretching out before us another twenty yards or so before ending in a lush green field.

  As I took in our surroundings, I realized the valley we were in had to be as large as Mercy Hills itself. The trees in the distance were tiny – mere hints of what was actually there. The outlying mountains seemed minuscule, their purple ridges sweeping along, rising as far up as I could see. An amazed whistle graced my lips.

  “Yes, it is quite spectacular,” Ben said. “But we can admire the scenery later. Right now we should get you seated before you become dizzy again.”

  The tall android held me upright as he ushered me down the walkway and around a corner, where the mountains were even closer. Cut into the sheer rock was a huge black circle trimmed with gleaming metal, forming an empty chasm leading into the massive stone wall. In front of this portal was a large patio. Walkways sprouted from either side of the terrace, surrounded by ash trees, palm trees, and wild ferns. The two sides of the path couldn’t be more different. To the left, immersed in darkness, stood a gazebo-like structure with blackened, rotting, moss-covered boards. Derelict wire mesh crisscrossed the gazebo’s collapsed beams like artificial spider webs. To the right was a red table crafted from wound aluminum piping, along with two chairs that looked to be made by the same artisan. Sunlight bathed the small space, illuminating the vase positioned in the center of the table. A single rose, petals opened in full bloom, ascended from the vase.

  Ben brought me toward the sun-bathed spot. He aided me like an experienced home-heath provider, his strong mechanical arms gently holding me steady. Silas pranced about in front of us, happy as the day was bright. When we reached the table Ben let go of me and stepped ahead, flashing his glowing blue eyes over his shoulder to make sure I was stable, and pulled out a chair. I shuffled over and slowly lowered myself into it. Ben took his place in the chair opposite me. Despite the grace of his movement, I still heard the hollow thud of his metal rump when he sat down.

  Silas nudged my leg, gave me an adorable, puppy-love flash of his big brown-blue eyes, and then trotted around the table, where he stood on his hind legs, his front paws supported on Ben’s lap. The android stroked his fur with one hand and tapped aimlessly on the aluminum tabletop with the other. He stared down at my boy with those unnatural, viewfinder eyes.

  Another hum escaped his speaker-box. It was a song this time. For a moment I cringed, thinking it was Art Lonnigan again, but no, this one was different. I just couldn’t place it.

  “What song is that?” I asked.

  “Oh, one of my favorites,” he replied, his mechanized voice faraway and contemplative. “A delightful song from your world, as a matter of fact. Mellow Yellow. Do you know it?”

  I nodded, dumbfounded.

  “But enough of music for now,” he said. “We have things we need to discuss.”

  55

  “What kinds of things?” I asked.

  “Why, you must have some questions for me, do you not Mr. Lowery?”

  “Please don’t call me that. My name’s Ken.”

  Ben clanged the tops of two fingers against his forehead. “Very well. Ken it is.”

  I shuffled in my chair before asking, “How do you know my name, anyway?”

  “You were mentioned extensively in the file of Paul Jacob Nicely,” he replied. “I was connected to Nell, the operating system that runs this facility, so my self-charging power core could keep her operational. I had access to everything in her memory banks. And to be honest, I find your part in this very interesting.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are not supposed to be here.”

  “How so?”

  Ben paused as if contemplating his next words. His speaker box piped up again. “A long time ago, the Elders, those who created myself and provided the blueprint for my unfortunate cousin back there, built a series of supercomputers they called Oracles. The Oracles were stored underground, as their size – that of an entire city – was too restrictive to exist on the surface. These computers were probability calculators used to find order in the random. They scoured the worlds for information and collated thousands of lifetimes of data, all in search of that connecting thread that could be used to harness the many illogical occurrences of chance and choice and come to a single predictable outcome. There are only a few remaining today.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “Are you telling me these machines predicted the future?”

  “Yes,” Ben replied with a nod. “And they were very accurate. In fact, the largest of the Oracles, a beast of a machine called Old Crone, has never been wrong…until now, that is. According to her, Paul Jacob Nicely facilitates the arrival of a dangerous dimensional entity into your world, but instead, because he somehow thwarted probability and brought you here, even the Oracles are at a loss. They do not know what happens next.”

  “But Paul wrote me a letter. He said an Oracle told him I’d come here.”

  Ben stared at me for what seemed like a long time, his blue eyes sparking. Finally he dropped his hands to his lap with a clang. “Hm. That does not seem probable. However, stranger things have happened. I have not been myself for many years, so it is possible some information has…slipped past me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged. “I am not sure. Perhaps you simply fell through the cracks in probability. Either way, I do not think it matters. You are here, after all. Best to just accept they were wrong and move on.” He glanced at Silas, whose tongue now flopped to the side while I petted him. “There is one thing I must know,” he said. “Has your gi-faht been altered while on this plane?”

  “In what way?” I replied. “Like how he turns into an eight-year-old boy during the full moon?”

  “Ah, yes,” said Ben. “I see he has. Would you like to know what causes this?” I nodded, and he continued. “Just as with many of the common realms, there have been instances of…passing through over the years. The creatures that inhabit any world move about constantly. Occasionally they will stumble upon cracks in the walls that separate realities. In the case of your gi-faht, the race he is descended from crossed over thousands of years ago. They bred with the canine species of your reality – the wolves that inhabited your forests – and passed along to their offspring a portion of their intelligence and sense of self. In other words, hence did they create the domesticated beings you call ‘pets’ that now populate much of Q-9. However, the effects of the lunar cycle has been slowly bred out of them, as the moon on your Earth is much different – and much less potent – than the one that dwells in our sky. However, now that he is here, he is subject to th
e same transformation that occurs in the rest of the Lupine species.”

  I shook my head. “This is unbelievable.”

  “I know how it must feel, Ken, and I am sorry. To be ripped from your world and shown that you are but a mere speck in the eyes of forever, that your every belief of what constitutes reality has been rendered irrelevant, is very difficult.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” he said with a slight bow, “and I am truly sorry if I have offended you. But you must know that it was the same way for me. As I told you, my memories were wiped away a long time ago, which made me a contradiction – an advanced consciousness with no sense of self. In that way I am like you. Every day for me is filled with wonder as I rediscover a world I have existed in for five hundred years and yet have no recollection of.”

  “And yet you know Mellow Yellow,” I replied. “That strikes me as odd.”

  “Oh, it shouldn’t,” Ben said in a soft, dreamlike tone. “The barriers that separate us are real in a physical sense, but there are ways to traverse realities without ever stepping foot in them. The mind is a wonderful thing, Ken. There are so many wavelengths that humans simply do not understand – not in your world, and not here anymore, either. If one is to alter their mental makeup enough, they can potentially create a portal within themselves and step through into another plane of existence. Music has helped accomplish this since its creation. The simple act of playing an instrument or humming a melody alters the chemical composition of the brain, and if there are other factors introduced – illness, extreme stress, chemical stimulation – the mind opens a window and peers through. In fact, the diagnostics of the Old Crone Oracle were patterned after the brainwaves of a woman named Charlotte Groton, perhaps the greatest musician and psychic our world has ever known.”

  I gasped. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that songs…can tell the future?”

  “At times, yes. Why?”

  I told him about Art Lonnigan and Blood Red Morning. He stared at me with those glowing blue eyes, tapping his metal finger on the table. He was quiet for a long time, and during that span I really wished this Robert Queen guy who’d made him had thought to give him facial expressions. Though Ben was nice enough to listen to, he gave off all the emotional energy of the walking computer that he was.

  “You are a lucky man,” he said finally. “This Mr. Lonnigan must have been a great musician.”

  “That was his only hit. He disappeared into obscurity afterwards.”

  He waved his hand. “That does not matter. Success does not equally correlate to endowment. It takes something special to write a song that hits the perfect wavelength, one that seeks out its subject and coerces that subject to action. Add to this the fact that the song includes all the basic information you need to complete your task and get home, and I think you should indeed thank Mr. Lonnigan for his efforts. Be grateful for him. In effect, he is your guardian angel.”

  I coughed at the absurdity of Ben’s words, which caused a paralyzing spasm of pain to engulf my upper body. I bit my tongue as my body shook. I could hear grunts and groans coming from my mouth but they sounded far away, as if someone else were making them.

  Silas pushed himself further into my lap, his eyes showing concern. Ben shot up from his chair and circled the table. He crossed my arms over my chest, pressed his cold steel chin against my neck, and whispered, “Breathe, Ken, it will pass. Simply breathe.”

  When the agony of my bandaged wounds subsided, Ben let go of me and stepped away from the table. “I am sorry for your pain, Ken,” he said. “I bandaged you up as best I could, but I never thought about the lingering aspects of your injuries. I, myself, have no processor for physical pain, so sometimes I forget about its existence. Please excuse me while I obtain some medication for you. I will be right back.”

  Ben loped gracefully toward the hole in the mountain. A moment later he disappeared into the blackness, leaving Silas and me alone. My boy gazed up at me with eyes that burned intelligence. I wondered if a part of him wondered what it would be like to live among the likes of Nick Goodman and the dead wolf-girl, if he was conscious that part of his being came from this place. This contemplation was thwarted when I gazed into his kind, smart eyes and that blithe doggy smile. He might’ve been smart, but if there was one thing Silas wasn’t, that’d be reflective. He never looked back, only ahead. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had a lot to learn from him.

  Suddenly Silas hopped away from me and lifted his head to the sky. Giant black shadows crossed over us. I followed his gaze, and what I saw up above us almost made me swallow my tongue.

  There were hundreds of creatures soaring high in the atmosphere, blotting out the massive sun. They flew in perfect formation, materializing into a giant black triangle. The Crystal Mountain came to mind, the entrance to this long-lost realm, and I shuddered.

  A trio of birds separated from the flock. They descended, flying just above the cliffs that marked the boundary of this boxed canyon. For a moment they disappeared behind the trees, only to emerge again, lower than before. I could now see that they weren’t birds, but prehistoric-looking pterodactyls the size of a car, with sparsely feathered wings and long, curved beaks filled with rows of serrated teeth. The three monsters swerved, grazed the edge of the cliff, and followed the lip, flying in a circle.

  Silas jumped into my lap, causing another stab of pain in my wounded chest, and growled. He stared up at the circling creatures along with me. It seemed the three beasts would turn their heads and glance back at us every revolution, as if measuring how tasty we’d be.

  They revolved in a tighter circle, approaching the middle of the canyon, until the pterodactyl in the middle ascended briefly, flipped over, and dove. With one hand I gripped my chair’s armrest; with the other, I shoved Silas to my side and covered him with my forearm. I knew, in my condition, that making a break for it was useless. These things were huge. They’d catch me no matter what I did. Best, I thought, to simply let them take me and allow Silas to escape – if he would.

  The diving creature stared at me with black eyes that bugged out of its head with an impossibly human look of insanity. When its beak opened, revealing its teeth once again, they looked oddly exaggerated, as if the space above us was a huge, curved magnifying glass. Flames licked off its feathers and the thing screamed. The sound echoed all around us. Its descent stopped in mid-air as it erupted into a great ball of fire. I could see it thrashing as it burned, as if it was being skewered on an invisible spit.

  The other two creatures, apparently not wanting to experience their companion’s fiery demise, uttered simultaneous squawks and rose up, flying west across the mountains in the direction of their now-departed flock. The one who’d dropped at us, on the other hand, continued its frenzy. It twisted about for another two minutes like a snake on hot concrete and then fell still. The flames engulfing it waned, as did its body mass. In a span of thirty seconds, what was left of the beast rained down like black snowflakes that never touched the ground.

  Silas whimpered, sounding almost disgusted with the sight, and forced his large body out from under my arm. This caused yet another spike of pain, but I still couldn’t tear my eyes away as the last bits of the creature’s body dissolved.

  “They are quite strange beasts, are they not? It is a good thing this valley is protected by an energy shield.”

  I flinched, startled, and saw Ben standing there again, a glass of water in one hand and a small cup with three pills in the other. My chest was on fire.

  “Shit, man,” I said with a groan. “Don’t sneak up on someone like that.”

  “My apologies, Ken,” he replied while handing me the medicine and water. I snatched them greedily, popping all three pills in my mouth at once and washing them down. Refreshingly cold liquid poured over my swollen tongue down my throat, soothing me from the inside out.

  When I emptied the glass I wiped the remaining beads from my chin with the b
ack of my hand. My mechanical cohort stared at me, his blue eyes blazing while he stroked Silas’s fur. He seemed captivated, as if he’d never seen a human being drink a glass of water before.

  Ben then reached down, lifted a bundle of material off the ground beside his chair, and handed it over to me. “You best put this on,” he said. “The sun will be setting soon, and it will get cold.”

  I unfolded the bundle. It was the gray, prison-style jumpsuit Ben had been wearing when we found him sprawled out in the command room. They looked smaller, though, and when I brought it to my nose, I sensed a light, flowery smell.

  “Aren’t these yours?” I asked.

  “Yes, they were,” he replied. “I do not need them any longer, however. I washed them and made some alterations so they will fit more snug.” His glowing, telescoping eyes moved to Silas. “Unfortunately, I could find nothing for your gi-faht.”

  “He’s fine with what he’s got,” I said. I swung around in my chair, took off my boots, spread out the jumper, stepped into the pant legs, and then gingerly stood up, sliding them over my blood-stained jeans. As I coaxed my trembling hands into the arm-holes I said, “I’ve heard that word a lot the past few days. Gi-faht. What does it mean, anyway?”

  “Oh, it is a wonderful term,” Ben sang in a sweet, cheery tone. “It is an endearment reserved only for the closest of the close, for two beings tied together by fate and loyalty. Two beings who share between them a piece of their essence. It is a beautiful concept, one that I, being of an artificial nature, will unfortunately never experience.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I thought it meant dog in German or something.”

  Ben laughed. “Oh, no, Ken, not at all. In fact, it is a collective idiom. The Lupine is your gi-faht, and you are his. It is actually also used to describe the two of you together. It is many things, all wrapped into one. It means that you belong to each other. Forever.”

  “I see.” I sat back down – it was amazing how warm Ben’s jumpsuit was, like fleece – and went about re-lacing my boots. When I finished I placed a hand against my ruined chest. It hurt less now, more like a notion of pain than actual pain, for which I was thankful. I wondered what had become of my shirt, the one that had belonged to Paul Nicely, and another question came to mind. “Ben, if gi-fahts are connected and loyal forever, then would Paul’s betray him?”