Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales

by Christopher Slatsky

  ...bite of the bullet ant in much the same manner as the Satere-Mawe in coming of age rituals though the [illegible] henosis by the pain invoked. Sta[illegible] omnipresent creature is inherently mindless as consciousness presupposes the ability to distinguish one’s self from external objects, but a mind that occupies the entirety of existence can not be both independent from objects in the material world and omnipresent. The emic analysis of extraterrestrial cultures necessitates the acceptance of holometabolous gnosis on ascending [illegible]

  When confronted with the letters, Lilly’s mother refused to comment and never spoke a word about her husband’s death.

  Lilly was convinced the journal page was a catalyst for the dreams that began to harass her.

  One persistent night terror seemed to be a harbinger of sorts: she’d be standing barefoot, crutch half buried in dirt, the ground scooped out as if an animal had been tunneling beneath her. The earth moist and molasses colored, unimaginable depths descending into stinking wetness like the inside-out viscera of an enormous beast.

  There were subtle variations, but the dream inevitably rose to a fever pitch when the icons and figurines her parents had given her over the years crawled from the dirt. Their surfaces glistened sticky red as an oddly configured face tapped its mouth against her bedroom window.

  She was certain the dreams were at the very least her subconscious providing clues to her father’s death; at best, her father’s soul contacting her slumbering mind.

  She decided to attempt an experiment, as she was confident that this was what her parents would have done. Late one night, she placed a saucer of honey on the window sill and left the pane open a few inches to allow the outside access at its own volition. She waited for what seemed like hours, the bowl of honey glowing in the lambent star light like a beacon.

  The gentle splash of moisture dripping from an overhanging branch and the patter of some nocturnal animal lulled her into a shallow sleep.

  She was abruptly awakened by a repetitive brushing sound. She heard a clump of hirsute stuff rolling back and forth across a surface.

  “Hello?” she said, hoping there’d be no response.

  She stared at the ceiling where the noise originated. Her pupils contracted to detect a stain writhing in the corner. The stain detached itself from the clinging shadows and quivered above her bed. It spun in place, as if it were being wrapped in a cocoon, far too many thin limbs flailing in a futile attempt to free its swollen body.

  Lilly slipped deeper into sleep, unsure whether the thing was confined to dream or the waking realm.

  When she woke, she limped to the window to find the bowl was empty and fragmented into porcelain splinters. No honey shone wetly on the sill, no trace of the animal that had consumed the offering.

  A profound dread prevented her from passing her hand through the window’s opening into the night air. The possibility that her limbs could exceed the confines of her room thrilled her—the same sensation she had when reaching under a crumbling log and blindly grasping at the life squirming underneath.

  She carefully picked up the bowl to avoid cutting herself and hid the pieces in a nightstand drawer.

  As Lilly grew older her dreams persisted, though a regime of medications made rest bearable. Much of her childhood anxiety now seemed either quaint or simply false memories exaggerated by a nervous disposition. Her nightmares became less threatening, until they too were eventually dismissed as a child’s reaction to grief over her father’s death.

  She attended university at the Universidade de São Paulo and graduated with several anthropology degrees. She found it difficult to completely hide her disappointment over the fact that her disability hampered her ability to freely travel, much less wholly immerse herself in a foreign land. She would never be the globetrotting scientist her parents had been, but made due by diligently pursuing her research in the finest of libraries or her own well stocked study. But frustration and self-loathing were always present, companions that persisted in reminding her of her failures.

  When her mother died, Lilly was content that her last days were pleasant, though her paranoia did increase in proportion to her failing health. During the final days she insisted she was being watched by something on the bedroom ceiling.

  Lilly studied the Drachtig, researching their faith in the hope she’d unveil some secrets from the artwork within her book. She’d grown to love their culture, to admire their profound religious ideologies and social structure. They were not a threatening alien thing, but a fascinating, kind and giving people she no longer believed had a hand in her father’s death. Colonialist propaganda had painted them in a cruel, false light.

  She interviewed colleagues, spoke with art historians and utilized her extensive scholarly resources to scrutinize the book further. The Drachtig themselves had little to offer on the book’s origins.

  It was all to no avail. All of her efforts simply confirmed that she owned the only known copy of the tome and none of the artists’ identities could be determined.

  Then one oppressively humid afternoon she was contacted by a Rev. Balim Zuchmog, Th.D.

  Having heard of Lilly’s interest in the book through her peers at the university, Rev. Zuchmog offered her prodigious knowledge of religious literature to further Lilly’s inquiries. They met in the reverend’s office and discussed research over coffee.

  “I recognize the image of the cherubs moving the boulder from the tomb’s opening: it’s a detail from an obscure 17th century pamphlet. The Dolichovespula magna. Only one surviving fragment exists.” Reverend Zuchmog spoke softly as she tenderly turned the book’s pages.

  This was the first clue Lilly had ever acquired.

  The two quickly became close friends. They spent most of their free time drinking from the reverend’s rare wine collection, discussing art, religions, occult philosophies.

  Though the reverend’s degrees were in Oriental studies (she was an expert on religious literature recorded in Old Persian and Avestan), she also held several history and art credentials. Despite her title she was an outspoken atheist and the two spent hours in friendly debate. They enjoyed each other’s company. Rev. Zuchmog seemed as excited as Lilly to unlock the book’s mysterious roots.

  Nearly a year passed and they’d yet to uncover any further information. Lilly was worried that she was once again at a standstill. When Rev. Zuchmog made a request to join her in a scholarly assembly she held annually at her pastorium, Lilly was hesitant; she found the invitation odd as she and the reverend were adept in very different fields. But she explained that Lilly could use the occasion as a think tank in which to seek answers, to brainstorm with theological experts. Lilly agreed to make an appearance.

  Reverend Zuchmog insisted she bring the book.

  Lilly drove down a winding country lane to a large Federal style brick home set back in the woods. She was punctual, yet there were several vehicles already parked. When Rev. Zuchmog answered the door there were no other guests behind her, no voices from anywhere in the house, much less the familiar clink of ice against glass that normally accompanied such a gathering.

  “Where have the guests gone hiding?” Lilly asked.

  The reverend smiled. “They’re all present and accounted for, but preparing for the business of the evening elsewhere.”

  This alleviated Lilly’s discomfort somewhat, though something troublesome continued to buzz at the back of her mind. They drank and chatted while she habitually riffled through her book and commented on the various artifacts displayed about the home.

  After finishing a second drink Lilly heard a bell chime. Rev. Zuchmog hurriedly placed her glass down on a bookshelf and touched Lilly’s elbow to escort her to another room. With no explanation offered she handed Lilly a dark brown garment.

  “Please. Put this on.”

  Lilly stood baffled, the garment draped over her forearm, as she watched the reverend slip on a matching robe. She pulled a thin sac cloth over her head, then secured the
whole thing around her neck with a frayed cord.

  “Care to tell me what’s going on here?” Lilly asked.

  The reverend shook her head with such a comically solemn demeanor Lilly had to stifle a smile. She felt as if she were being peer pressured to perform some ridiculous college hazing ritual. She followed the reverend’s lead and slipped the robe and sac cloth on. A long dormant sense of excitement swept over her.

  She wondered if she were joining some secret society of scholars and researchers. The thought seemed ridiculous and juvenile, yet tantalizingly adventurous, like something her parents would have done. The reverend would only respond to her questions with a barely perceptible shake of her head behind the netting.

  Lilly followed her down a narrow brick lined corridor, crutch tapping loudly along the way. They stopped at a steel door, its surface stained a green hue like tarnished copper, pock-marked with what appeared to be chemical burns. The reverend produced a key and unlocked the door.

  They stepped into a large brightly lit area where dozens of guests strolled about exchanging pleasantries. It was sickeningly warm. The wool robe absorbed the moist air and trapped it against Lilly’s skin. She was afraid her sweaty hands would stain her book’s cover.

  Those in attendance were all wearing the same brown robes, but a few also sported elbow length rubber gloves. Some disguised their faces with ornate masks that gleamed like hardened wax under the hot lights. Lilly couldn’t imagine they’d be comfortable in the stifling heat.

  The masks were inexplicably terrifying.

  Lilly convinced herself she’d joined a social club where the more eccentric members hid their identities to protect their business and community status. The attire was simply a way to identify with a new social group, like a secret handshake or password. While still uncertain about the masked guests, she was gradually becoming more relaxed.

  “Drink?” A masked server balanced a tray of cocktails. Each glass held a long thin straw.

  She gratefully took one, thanked him, raised the glass to her lips, and then realized what the straws were for. They were thin enough to slip between the holes in the netting over her face.

  By Lilly’s fourth drink she was conversing freely with her new acquaintances. By her seventh, the conscious world blurred with dream.

  But those masks were unsettling.

  They accentuated the length of the wearer’s jaws in a grotesque manner. There was something in the way the guest’s rubber clad fingers squeaked over the straws in their glasses and how they tilted their heads when talking that Lilly found deeply worrisome.

  Reverend Zuchmog rang a bell at the front of the room and called for everyone’s attention. The crowd quieted and focused on her.

  “I am grateful that all of you were able to attend this evening.”

  In Lilly’s inebriated state she heard the voice as a monotone interjected with glottal clicks. The reverend said something about a “hive of stars”, followed by witticisms that, judging by the polite laughter, made sense only to those who shared her most recent studies.

  When the reverend paused her speech, the crowd filled the silences with a similar whirring gibberish, mouths scarcely moving, thin arms vibrating near their torsos in an unusual manner. It seemed as if the gestures were amplifying their voices. Lilly assumed it must be a product of the room’s unusual acoustics. She was drunk. Her brain wasn’t deciphering the chanting properly.

  Her head was swimming against a tide.

  She stumbled towards the exit but the flock kept jostling her, impeding her way to the door. The bright lights and the mesh over her eyes made it difficult to see properly.

  Her body felt scorched as panic flushed her skin.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me. I don’t feel well. Excuse me.”

  They set their hands on her.

  She lashed out with her crutch at anything that loomed close, cracked open any long-jawed face that pressed against her. When her improvised weapon was torn from her grasp she struck out wildly with her fists until her knuckles split. Her hands ran warm and wet.

  Lilly released all of her pent up anger at failing to solve her father’s murder, her grief over her mother’s death, her inability to decipher the book—it all boiled over into a frenzied rage.

  Her blows shattered masks. Their texture was unpleasantly brittle, the victims fell back with a hiss. Abnormally contorted hands slapped against their own cheeks and foreheads as if offended at the revealed flesh. The exposed faces had too many eyes, their skin was too smooth, as if painted with a thick sheen of makeup under the masks. In the pulsing light it appeared that the participants she’d wounded were shedding their robes.

  The lights flashed brighter, the room saturated with a sodden heat. The alcohol in her blood and the rising temperature furthered her delirium. Mouths spread far too wide from stretched chins. The room trembled with the sound of thousands of knives sharpened on whetstones simultaneously.

  In the chaos Lilly didn’t know when or where she dropped her book.

  Rev. Zuchmog’s chant rose to a shriek, her face aglow from something writhing beneath the surface. The flock danced exuberantly, capering about the room, leaping high into the air until their heads bumped against the ceiling.

  Bodies flitted against the walls, weightless things that slipped through an open window. Lilly knew it had to be the dancer’s shadows floating, and the heaps left behind on the floor must have been people. A vestige of her mind clung to a rational explanation, insisted the mounds that glowed like silk in the weird light were discarded clothes.

  She couldn’t fathom why the clothes were screaming.

  She stumbled to the open window, closed and latched it though she knew it wouldn’t prevent anything from re-entering the house. The stars reminded her of larvae twinkling with various shades of intensity. Except they moved incorrectly, puffy bright bodies frantically searching for a place to hide in the soil black night. She rested her burning forehead against the window’s cool glass and whispered over and over that she was still asleep, still a little girl dreaming of living stars, and any moment now, her parents would call her name and wake her.

  Lilly ran to the front door, past a crutch in the corner, its surface pitted as if from acid burns. She was surprised at how strong her legs had become; even as a child she’d never been able to move this quickly. She accidentally kicked an object that skidded across the floor. She grabbed it, rejoiced in her book’s familiar heft and glossy sheen of the cover. When she touched the paper she realized what she’d failed to notice after several decades of analyzing the art within.

  The pages had the texture of an insect’s paper nest.

  She’d suspected this all these years, though her mind had suppressed the truth. She’d obstinately refused to accept the identity of the entities responsible for the book’s art. She could no longer doubt.

  The Drachtig sect had shown her father that existence was indisputably horrific—not a thinking horror that plots behind a vast curtain, but a universe of witless shadow breathing against the thin cells of reality. A cosmos guided solely by self perpetuation unburdened by conscience.

  An existence governed by insect morality.

  The germ of this truth had been planted in Lilly’s head as a child, but had failed to hatch into a full revelation until that very moment. Resigned, she stepped outside to look into the star-clogged sky.

  She felt so very healthy, so wonderfully young and strong and confident again. She couldn’t restrain her laughter or refuse the joy in her heart.

  She flexed her healthy legs, ascended, tore through a gossamer membrane that enveloped creation.

  The illimitable squeezed through nighttime windows, gently brushed against sleeping minds, pressed against the world. She held the book tightly against her chest and thought of her parents, her sole regret they had not survived long enough to witness her grand excursion.

  “I can see everything now. I can explore everywhere,” she said. Ice formed on her eyelashes,
the chill of space made her limbs ache.

  Existence pullulated with brutish idiocy, teemed with an insect’s mindless hunger. The chitinous stars trilled a chorus as Lilly rose, their relentless bites and stings an epiphany of agony and salvation.

  They swarmed around Lilly’s corpse in celebration.

  CORPORAUTOLYSIS

  Business Day 1

  William returned to work far too soon. He walked down the familiar hallway past the empty cubicles, past a cluster of whispering employees. “...found in the runoff... the Factory.” Their voices trailed off as he walked past. “...pretty bad shape I hear.” He caught fragments of their conversation despite their attempts at disguising the gossip. “...things grow out there in the muck.”

  He didn’t recognize any of them. They were all fresh faces discussing his life as if they’d known who he was or understood what had happened. He’d survived the tragedy and the last three months by immersing himself in apathy; it made him invulnerable and the days bearable. Gossiping co-workers were irrelevant. He didn’t acknowledge their presence but idly rattled his keys in his pocket as he walked by.

  Time had not been kind to the Corporation. The building had always been in disrepair but the current degree of dilapidation was shocking. The quaint art collection of children’s handprints and bright yellow suns over green landscapes had been removed and replaced by curiously configured water stains. The ceiling tiles were buckled, spotted with smears of gray where maintenance had attempted to scrub the mold away. Several tiles were missing and the gaps were plugged with wads of something bulbous and pale, like an organic brand of environmentally friendly insulation. The once mauve carpet was now faded and worn and there were threadbare rugs laid out to cover what he assumed to be even more offensive stains. Apparently the lawsuits had taken their toll on the building’s aesthetics.