by Steve Wands
Hours passed and the conversation was minimal. The train stopped many times along the way. Only a few folks had remained when they finally reached their stop, which also happened to be the end of the line. The passengers stepped off the train with the weight of dread on each step. Grady looked back after a moment as the train slowly grinded away on tracks that remained to be seen. He looked forward and shuddered. The other passengers dispersed into varying directions of the junkyard-like landscape.
George Waggner led the young man through a series of gates and rubble. The gates creaked and clanked and spiraled down the edge of a rusty red cliffside. They continued on till they reached a landing, George called it the Essence Overlook, and told Grady to “go ahead and look over the edge.” He did and what he saw took his breath away and crumbled it into a ball and threw it to the wastebasket where it bounced off the rim and hit the floor. It was a field that stretched for miles; farther than he could tell, with glowing blue-green orbs that resembled pumpkins disappearing into the darkness of the horizon. He didn’t need to ask what this was, he knew, it was obvious. They headed down a long staircase that winded down the rest of the cliff and entered a final gate.
Now, inside the Soul Garden they weaved through the rows of glowing orbs. Grady could hear the sounds of moans and whispers, pleas and cries. He felt a chilling breeze with hands clutched at his shoulders. The ground felt soft, sinking soft, yet he continued to follow the man who held the deed to his life; the life he so easily signed away. He could hear his sister’s voice in the whispering cacophony. She wasn’t crying, she didn’t sound upset, she was simply calling her brothers name as if creeping into his room unexpectedly. His eyes widened and pace accelerated. Grady now led the charge, his body cutting through chilly air, and Waggner approved. They came upon his sister’s orb. It was pulsating. Grady put his hands on the slimy firm surface of the orb. It felt like cold wet tofu, his sister’s voice echoed in his head, he knew she was in there.
“Lucy,” he called.
He kept his hands pressed to the surface, calling her name again, “Lucy, it’s me.”
George kept his head on a swivel, surveying the land, his eyes fixed on a particular part of the field that had grown darker. “Leekers,” he whispered to himself.
“Hurry up, Grady, we’re running out of time here.”
“It’s not like I’ve done this before.”
“You’ve got to rupture the skin, it’s like peeling a fruit, now, get to it!”
“What the fuck’s the rush?”
“Leekers.”
Grady didn’t respond to his one-word answer, he peeled away layer after layer of slimy skin. His frantic fingers tore at the orb, and eventually a mist began to rise up from inside the orb. The mist bloomed a face, a neck, shoulders, and hair. It was Lucy. The rest of her body refused to form. She was a floating ghost, ethereal and abstract. Her need of a body was insignificant now, she only chose to resemble her earthly form as to not alienate herself from her brother any more then she already did. Lucy formed a hand and gently touched her brother’s face.
“We have to go,” she said.
“Agreed,” said George.
Grady was lost for words.
As they turned to head back to the gate a screeching noise filled the air. The cries and pleas rattled the air, the ground grew softer and the air grew colder. Grady turned his head to see what had made the noise and instantly wished he hadn’t. The Leekers had spotted them and were headed right for them. Lucy flew through the air like a thought. She was a light in the darkness leading the way to the gate. They ran, chasing a ghost as quickly as a dreamer chases a dream knowing that nightmares were chasing them. These nightmares, these Leekers, feed off the orb’s—they eat souls. They look like a cross breeding of giant stingrays and rabid dogs with a touch of bat and a dash of death. As they passed the gate George slammed it shut, they ran for the steps. Grady’s lungs burned as Waggner passed him by, “C’mon,” he yelled. Lucy was fast, fast and effortlessly so, she wanted to pick them up and whisk them away to safety but she couldn’t.
“Grady! Use the Cadaver Dust!” George yelled.
Grady reached into the pack that was slung around his shoulder, his finger dug like beggars for change. He pulled from his pack a small purple satchel. He untied it and turned to face the hounds at his heels. The creatures were just passing the gate. He paused. His timing would have to be just right. “Now!” George yelled from behind him. Grady launched the satchel at the beasts; the grey glittering ash spilled forth following the arc of his throw. The ash rained down before the Leekers, glittering to the ground. The creatures gnarled and licked at the ash.
“Run!” George yelled.
They continued up the hill. By the time they reached Essence Overlook the Leekers had realized what they were consuming was not a soul—angered, they took chase again. Waggner hoped the dust bought them enough time to get away. They ran, legs furiously pumping, arms slashing through the air and lungs on fire. At the top of the cliff now, barely able to catch their breaths, their run turned into a jog. Grady dragged his feet with each step as wisps of Lucy’s ghostly form flickered back and forth gesturing her brother and his older companion to keep moving. The train was coming back. They could see it in the distance, taking its sweet old time to close the gap between safety and certain doom. The Leekers joined George, Lucy and Grady, their speed had not diminished, they did not tire—in fact, they do not tire—at least not till they’ve fed. George threw another satchel of dust at his stalkers, but it had no effect, they would not be fooled so easily a second time in such quick succession. Grady had left George’s side and followed his sister toward the approaching train. George quickly rejoined them and the creatures nipped at his heels. A conductor was hanging out the side of the train car. His black-hole eyes watched unaffectedly. The Leeker in the lead licked at George Waggner’s essence, the creature was practically on his back, lashing its purplish black twisted tongue at him. Its tongue was pulling George’s soul from out of his back. George Waggner was a resilient bastard, though. He laughed at death his whole life and spent most of it killing the un-killable, hunting the hunters, and thriving on it, but he knew there were beasts out there he could never defeat—age and time both of which were catching up to him—and eventually would lead to his demise. His demise, he hoped, would not be at the lick of a Leeker and would come some time after he had time to train his apprentice.
The conductor hopped off the train as it slowed to a stop. He approached the frantic runners calmly. He stood before them, his long lanky arms pointing to the earth. He slowly raised his hands, fingers spreading and curling, George, Grady, and Lucy passed him and their attackers came to a screeching halt. They didn’t look back until they were on the train and when they did they could see the Leekers at a standstill with the conductor. They lashed at him with their tongues, screeched loud enough and high enough to crack crystal. The conductor did not budge. He grabbed the first Leeker by its thick burly throat and dug his boney fingertips below the surface of the creatures flesh. It whimpered and whined and discouraged the rest of the pack as they began to whimper as well. He then tore the Leeker in half, black blood and gore dripped from the beast and from within the creature rose up a glittery mist—an undigested meal. The other Leekers licked at it, took their scraps and scampered off toward the edge of the cliff. The conductor dropped the halved creature to the dirt, its black blood pooling around his feet. The creature twitched, two writhing stingrays looking for its better half at low tide. The conductor walked away and boarded the train. The train receded once more into the horizon.
The three of them found their seats, not that Lucy took one. She hovered in the air above them, like a dragonfly—her form fluttering. They caught their breath as the train began to move. They sat quietly for a few moments.
“Thanks George,” Grady said.
“My pleasure, but no need to thank me it’s all a part of our deal,” he replied.
“Right, th
e deal. First we need to do something, though,” Grady said awkwardly.
“Oh?” George asked.
“Yeah…we have to fix the world,” Grady spoke in almost a whisper.
George let out a hearty laugh. He slapped his knee and rocked back and forth in his chair. Grady stared at him with a mix of anger and embarrassment.
“Fix. The. World. Are you serious?” George asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“I hate to tell you this Grady, really, I do, but I don’t think that’s possible. You see, something’s just can’t be fixed, broken is broken. Sure you can glue, or stitch, or even put a piece of tape on something, but you can’t really ever fix anything,” George said in all seriousness.
“But Lucy said I have to,” he looked hurt.
“Well, do what you have to, but broken is broken and that’s that. When you get a cut, your skin is never really the same, sure it’s healed, but more often than not it’s scarred. Think of this world we’re on now as a scar between two worlds. It’s as good as it’s going to get,” George said.
Grady stared out the window, George looked tired, Lucy floated about, and the train rolled on.
*
The Loch
By Bryan Wolford
“All aboard,” Dave Robinson bellowed. He stood by a small pontoon boat. Six people climbed the small set of stairs to take seats on the boat. Loch Ness Tours was written on the side of the boat. It was dark out. A mist hung over the water.
During the day Dave ran a tour boat company. He would take tourists out on the Loch and show them points of interest. They would stop at numerous points and he would tell stories over the loud speaker about stories of eye witness accounts of The Loch Ness Monster. The stories were mostly made up by Dave and a few of his friends. He threw in a few of the more well known stories just to give the rest of the stories some credibility. Most of the locals knew that the whole Loch Ness Monster thing was a load of manure but since it looked good on a t-shirt and kept the local economy up no one spoke ill of it. During the day trips Dave would scope out the tourists and find a few targets. He would let slip that he had seen the monster itself. Knew of a spot that it frequented. The mark would then want to go but Dave would refuse saying it was to dangerous. They would offer him a few hundred bucks to take them. He would act as if it was impossible. They would raise the offer. He would begrudgingly accept. It never failed. He would take them out at night and his friend Steve would be already in position.
Steve had come up with some of the greatest tools for this scam. He had created a speaker that sat in the water facing upwards. It floated just on the surface of the water. At night it was near invisible on the surface. It would wirelessly sound off a low growling sound. They had created it by mixing together the sound of whales and slowing down the screech of Howler Monkeys. It was perfect. Steve had also found a small, unmanned underwater sub. They had attached a giant rubber hump to it so if you brought the sub to the surface and then dove again quickly it would appear that the back of giant creature had just surfaced. Steve would sit on the shore with the remote controls and wait to see the boat approach. They had planned the whole thing out and had done some trial runs before hand. Dave had to make sure to only catch part of it with the spotlight just as it went back underwater. The scam had made them very rich very quickly. They had figured a few more and they could retire to a tropical beach somewhere. Tourists seemed to pay insane amounts of money to catch a glimpse of something that shouldn’t exist.
Now people settled into their seats. He had found a group of tourists from Canada. They were part of some sort of traveling sales team or something like that. But they all had paid a lot of money for Dave to take them out onto the Loch to find the mysterious Nessie. Dave climbed on board and stood before the group.
“I really do not like the idea of us doing this but since you are all offering such an amount of money I can’t really say no. But this is extremely dangerous so I’m just saying now that if we run into any trouble I am turning this boat around and coming back to shore. The last thing I need is one of you falling into the Loch and drowning and me getting my business taken away from me.” They all nodded in agreement. Dave turned to start the engine. He had a smug smirk on his face. The engine started with no problem and he steered the boat out into the Loch.
“Now every time I have seen the monster it was very docile. All it ever really did was look at me and then go underwater. But we have to remember that this is an animal. If it has had a baby or something it may become aggressive. You never know. So if the opportunity arises please don’t try to touch the animal. I would recommend not taking pictures only because the flash might agitate it. I’m already taking a risk by bringing you guys out here. I don’t want to have to fight for my life.” All the passengers nodded. One even took his digital camera and put it back into his pocket.
The night was cool. As the boat sped out into the Loch the mist parted in front of it. Dave hit the first checkpoint and lowered the speed of the boat. Steve should be in position on the left bank a few miles up. Dave took out the spotlight and swept it over the surface of the water.
“Sometimes I have seen it out here at night. The schools of fish come to the surface here at night to try and catch mosquitoes that land on the surface of the water. The monster is probably attracted by the free meal.” He dramatically swept it back and forth across the water. As if to help aid his story a fish jumped out of the water. “See. Free dinner.” The passengers whispered among themselves. The boat kept moving forward. A few more yards and they would be within range of the speaker. That should really get the passengers going. Most people got bored up to this point as there was no evidence of anything but once that growl hits the air they got all wild eyed and enthralled.
Dave moved the boat more out towards the middle of the Loch to make sure he didn’t run into the speaker. Once he had kept the boat to far to the left and hit the speaker. Luckily he passed it off as a piece of driftwood and most of the passengers had bought it. Just as the boat got into position a small growl came from the distance. Dave quickly hushed the group and had them listen. The growl grew. Just about all of the passengers seemed to get really excited.
“Okay. We’re getting closer. Again everyone be careful. Any sign of trouble we’re going back.” The growl got closer and closer. Then just as they were within the usual area for the full Loch Tour effect the growl suddenly went dead. A loud splashing was heard off in the darkness. Everyone on board was getting very excited and they all leaned forward to look out into the darkness to see what they could see. Another sound hit the air. To Dave it sounded like an elephant. The only thing he could think of was that Steve must have updated the tape. Why Steve would do that now was beyond him.
Dave flipped on the spotlight making sure to keep it pointed mostly to the front of the boat. In about thirty seconds he would hear a splash and would first move the light to the left. After not seeing anything he would go to the right and then would catch just a slight glimpse of the rubber covering on the sub as it submerged again.
He swept it back and forth across the front of the boat and sure enough there came the splash. First he went left and then right and according to plan he caught the very slight glimpse of the sub submerging.
“There it is,” someone said. Dave had to smile at himself. It worked perfectly. They would sit for another few minutes and then he would say that the spotlight had probably chased it away. After another fifteen minutes or so he would then say they would probably not see anything else that night and begin to head back.
“There it is again,” someone on the other side of the boat said. Dave turned and saw most of the passengers on the left side of the boat staring out a few feet. Dave turned the spotlight and again caught just a glimpse of something going underwater. Steve was changing the plan. This was not good. He would have to chew him out later about almost ruining it. From behind them came another splash and that elephant sound again. Dave was startled as
the sound was way to close. The speaker should be closer to the shore.
“Okay everyone. Things seem to be picking up here. I don’t want to take a chance of it getting aggressive on us so I’m going to start heading back.”
“No way,” one of the passengers said. “I paid you to see Nessie and I want to see it. Get that spotlight on it.” Dave stepped back to the passenger that had spoken.
“I am not risking all our lives just so you can see it. I’m heading back.” All the passengers stood up.
“We want to see it,” one of them said.
“Yeah,” another agreed.
The elephant sound came again and it was on the right side of the boat. Dave ran back up to the spotlight and flipped it to the right side. A pair of eyes flared in the darkness as the light hit it. It dove into the water and was gone. Everyone on board was talking back and forth to each other. Dave started the engine and began to turn the boat back to the dock.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking us back. The tour’s over.” Dave kept the engine at full speed until he saw the dock. He pulled into his spot and ran off the boat. Most of the passengers were confused but began to make their way off. They were excited and couldn’t wait to tell their friends and families when they got home about the trip. Dave was nowhere to be found when they went to thank him for the tour.
Dave paced back and forth in his house. Steve was late getting back. Usually they met up at Dave’s house after a night tour and Dave gave him his cut. Tonight he hadn’t shown up yet and Dave was getting worried. After about an hour Dave considered going out to where Steve was supposed to be on the bank. Just as he was about to grab his coat a knock came at the front door. Dave opened it and found Steve standing there looking irritated.
“Where the hell have you been?” Dave asked.
“Where do you think? Thanks a lot. You know how much it’s going to cost?” Dave looked at him confused.
“What are you talking about?”