Time & Space (Short Fiction Collection Vol. 2)

by Gord Rollo

  Carson was too stunned to speak. Was this really happening? Maybe he was still unconscious and simply dreaming this craziness. Finally he built up his courage and asked, “Who are you? I mean… what are you?”

  “I am exactly what you see, a fully functioning man, who’s all that you are… and more. I’ve simply evolved differently than you. Obviously, what with our similar features, we must have paddled around together in the same primordial soup back when the world was young. But from there we chose our own paths.”

  “But that’s…” Carson was about to say impossible, but the last thing he wanted to do was piss this creature off by ridiculously denying its obvious existence.

  “Enough of this pointless talk, it’s time for you to die,” the golden man said, walking over to the wall on his left where he casually began turning a rusty handle. To Carson’s horror, the cage he sat within, slowly began lowering toward the molten metal below.

  “No! Wait. I’ll make you a deal,” Carson pleaded. “Let me go and I’ll make sure no one ever bothers you again. I’ll kill Stein and Bishop myself if you want. They’re only interested in the gold and all the–”

  “Gold? What gold is that?”

  Carson thought he was kidding. “The lake, of course.”

  “This… lake, as you call it, isn’t made of gold,” he said incredulously. “It has similar properties, but believe me, it’s not gold.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Actually, it’s my people… my family, if you will.”

  “Your what!” Carson asked, shocked to the core.

  “It’s hard to explain. Why don’t I show you?”

  The golden man raised his hands to his mouth and blew a short high note, which echoed within the confined room. Almost immediately, a head popped out of the molten liquid, quickly followed by dozens of others. Soon people were walking out of the lake to stand near their leader. With every new body, the level of the lake dropped a few more inches. With mounting amazement, Carson realized that these people weren’t coming out from being in the golden liquid – they were the liquid. It took ten minutes, but eventually every ounce was used up, and the cavern was filled to capacity with gleaming people.

  “Now do you understand?” their leader asked. “We live as one entity within the lake, but can separate and solidify at will. We’ve lived countless millennia within this planet’s molten core. It wasn’t until a massive underground tremor caused a shifting in the tectonic plates that a gateway opened between our subterranean world and yours. Even after we learned of your existence, we still only sought to be left alone, to live in peace, but things seem destined to change for us.

  “Unfortunately, violence is the only thing you humans understand, so we thought if we killed a few of the men who trespassed in our cave, we’d be left alone. Those two idiots who sent you just won’t go away though.”

  “Release me and I’ll kill them right now. They’ll never bother you again.”

  “Easy, friend. I don’t want them killed. If I did, I’d have killed them myself long ago. We have a new plan.”

  He paused to make that high-pitched echoing sound again. The multitude of golden people began to melt back down to join with one another again. Soon, the original golden man stood alone again beside the molten lake. He slowly started turning the rusty handle again; continuing Carson’s decent. He ignored Carson’s screams, revealing their master plan as he cranked.

  “We need those idiots to keep bringing us more people. How else can we build our army? You see… we’ve decided to expand our horizons and take over your surface world. We’ve learned that your race is powerless to defend against us. You can’t shoot us… the bullet passes through us as it would through water. Bend, break, or explode us apart… we flow back together whole again. We are indestructible.

  “Imagine for a moment, the awesome sight of our golden army flowing through the city streets, assimilating the human population into our ranks as we go. As soon as we have enough men, we’ll launch an offensive. Don’t worry… we can use a man with skills like yours. When I said I was going to kill you… I didn’t mean permanently. You’re one of the lucky ones. You have been chosen to join us. In fact, you came highly recommended.”

  “Recommended? By who?”

  He clapped his hands together and one head popped out from the surface of the bubbling lake.

  “Hey, buddy… long time no see,” the new arrival spoke, swimming up and grabbing onto the bottom edge of Carson’s cage as it slowly descended to within a few inches of this strange unknown species of molten people. Even in his semi-liquid form, Carson immediately recognized who it was. It was Jack Clinton, the other Mafia hit man who’d been missing for over two weeks.

  “We’re one big happy family down here, Carson old buddy,” shouted the entity who had once been Jack Clinton. “One big happy family… join us.”

  “NOOOOO…” Carson screamed, as the first pain-filled wave of the fiery golden liquid touched his skin.

  As the cage continued to descend, the molten liquid washed over Carson’s feet, his ankles, and then his legs – melting his flesh inch by agonizing inch. Soon, the flesh and blood that had been Brad Carson was no more, but that didn’t mean he was gone. Changed, certainly, but gone, no. He had joined with another race of beings and was already helping them with their battle plans. Carson may have lost his humanity, but in doing so he’d gained a whole new perspective on life – a golden perspective.

  STORY NOTES

  I’ve always been a fan of Jules Verne and his fantastical tales of inner space interested me just as much as all the outer space fiction I was reading. There was a time back in my high school days that I was determined to write an adventure novel that took place within the earth’s core. I wasn’t shooting for a Journey To The Center Of The Earth, like Mr. Verne had envisioned, complete with tropical plants and giant prehistoric dinosaurs running around, but I did want to write something scary set in a deep cave system that a group of adventurers were going to explore miles beneath the surface. I never did write that book; never even started it really, because I could never figure out what was waiting for my spelunkers down at the bottom of the cave. The best idea I remember coming up with was having them being attacked by a group of humanoid looking cannibals who were blind from never seeing the light of the sun. It might have been decent, or it might have been trash, but I’ll never know now.

  The point is I still love adventure and horror stories set beneath the earth’s surface and although All That Glitters… is one of my early stories, it’s one that I’m still quite fond of. Not only did I make an attempt to write my cave story, but I also was trying to stretch my imagination a little and not stick to the horror genre. This is a horror story, sure, but it has a lot of fantasy and science fiction swimming around down in the deep end of the Lake of Gold too. I had hardly written a word of science fiction and it felt good to toss my hat into the ring, even if it was just a little.

  UNNATURAL SELECTION

  …It is like confessing a murder.

  Those words still chill me to the bone, every time I think of them. They were the words uttered by my famous ancestor Charles Darwin, when he revealed to the world what he knew to be true about evolution, accurately predicting the uproar and ramifications of his theories would surely incite. Even before the first copy of his masterpiece, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection rolled off the press in 1859, a storm of controversy was brewing over his perceived audacity at challenging contemporary beliefs about the creation of life here on earth.

  My name is Dr. Ian Darwin and although I’m honored to meet you, I wish it were under different, more pleasant circumstances. I’m a 68 year-old professor with doctorates in both Biology and Anthropology. Retired professor, I should say, for three years now, my thirty-six year tenure dropped like the proverbial hot stone to make way for “a new breed of teacher,” as it was rudely stated to me. A new breed – rather fitting, in light of what we’ve come here t
o discuss, wouldn’t you say? Enough of me though, let’s get back on track. Let’s talk about Charles.

  Just to set the record straight, my great-great-grandfather never said that human beings evolved from apes or monkeys. It was the multitude of people reading and interpreting his words for themselves that said such a thing. Believe it or not, from everything I’ve read in his private notes – those musty smelling leather bound journals handed down to me from my father – Charles seemed more inclined to consider us descended from headless hermaphroditic squids. I kid you not!

  Regardless what creature spawned us, whether we were swinging through treetops or submerged beneath the primordial swamps, somehow we arrived, evolved according to our environment to become what you see reflected in the mirror today.

  Homo Sapiens.

  We are, for the time being at least, perched upon the top rung of the food chain, the unchallenged master here on this planet. A creature of supreme intelligence and cunning, capable of astounding mental and physical acts duplicated by no other species past or present, but let’s not get too high on ourselves.

  It would be intrinsically wrong, dangerously audacious even, to assume our species will always remain as the “top dog” on this ever-changing overcrowded kennel we share with so many progressively – some might argue, aggressively – evolving breeds. We’re not as different as you might think from our less egotistical neighbors. One way or another, we all eat, sleep, and breathe. We live, we die, all sharing the same urge to procreate, to continue on our kind long after we are gone. We feel warmth, pain, confusion, and perhaps the most common emotion of all – fear. Ah yes… FEAR. The tie that binds!

  Now we’re getting somewhere.

  My great-great-grandfather knew fear. He knew it well, my friend, and if you can keep a secret I’ve a strange story to tell, a story that never has – and never will – be included in any of the history books. Interested?

  It’s been well documented how Charles’ voyage aboard the HMS Beagle directly lead him to formulate his theories concerning natural selection, but almost no one has heard the real story of what happened on the Galapagos Islands in the fall of 1835. It’s true that it was here he began to form a coherent view of what ultimately would become his legacy, but it was also here that something triggered the horrible nightmares Charles would be plagued with throughout the rest of his days. Dreams and visions so terrible, so consuming, he hid them away from the prying eyes of the world in case someone discovered the source of his fear and disregarded his life’s work as the ravings of a madman.

  To understand Charles’ fear, his hidden obsession, you must first understand the man himself. Charles was a twenty-two-year-old young man freshly graduated from Cambridge University, deeply religious and heading for a life in the clergy before accepting the unpaid post of naturalist aboard the Beagle. He did not in the least doubt the literal truth of every word in the Bible. In fact, he saw his job as a grand opportunity to substantiate the Bible, hoping to find evidence of the Flood, and the first appearance of all created things, exactly as they were set out in the book of Genesis. He was young and impetuous, looking at the grueling ocean voyage through rose-colored glasses, fantasizing some sort of heroic adventure. Reality would soon set him straight. Day after day, year after year living in cramped quarters on the high seas has a way of testing even the most ardent of a man’s beliefs. Charles’ beliefs would be more than simply tested, but rather, shaken to their very foundation.

  Let’s step back in time, shall we, step aboard the sturdy mahogany planks of the HMS Beagle, a relatively small ninety feet in length, ten gun brig under the competent leadership of Captain Robert FitzRoy, and join Charles nearly four years into his five year voyage of discovery. The Galapagos Islands: just another port of call in this long journey. For Charles though, it was a magical place, a naturalist’s paradise – a place of rugged beauty and hidden secrets that would simultaneously ignite a fire of passion within his brilliant mind, and construct an icy prison of fear to permanently cage his troubled soul…

  ***

  It happened on October 15, 1835. The Beagle was moored near a black-lava shoal just off the western tip of Tower Island – one of the smaller, outer-islands in the Galapagos chain. The midday equatorial sun beat directly down upon the small landing party that consisted of Charles, Captain FitzRoy, and four crewmen currently in good favor, as they prepared to go ashore for a friendly afternoon excursion. They’d been scouring these volcanically formed islands for a month already, having arrived September 15 from Patagonia and the West Coast of South America. They planned a rare social call, to visit an American whaling vessel whose crew had been kind enough to provide them with three casks of fresh water, which they’d needed badly, and a large bucket of onions. FitzRoy felt a visit to thank the ship’s captain personally, was in order.

  Tower Island, or Isla Genovesa as it was known, was a mirror image of most of the other Galapagos Islands – black lava outcroppings, skeletal thin brushwood that clung to the rocky terrain, and sparse green flora that poked up through black sand so hot it burned their feet even through thick boots.

  Charles immediately sensed that something wasn’t quite right there, something was different than on the other islands. It only took him a few minutes to figure out what was so strange. It was the animals – or lack of them – that captured his attention. Everywhere else on the chain of islands, the wildlife was abundant, literally teeming with a multitude of unique species. The word Galapagos is Spanish for giant tortoises, and the 400 lb. massive creatures were virtually everywhere, slowly making their way to and from the inland watering holes. There were also iguanas of all colors and sizes constantly scurrying underfoot, birds too diverse and numerous to mention, and all manner of other life, big and small, crawling, slithering, and flying. But, for some reason, none of them were present there on Tower Island. There, everything was quiet, seemingly vacant.

  Charles was the only person to notice the anomaly, the other members of the landing party in too jovial a mood thinking about the food and ale that awaited them at the whaler’s camp to be concerned about the absence of a few turtles and finches. They’d spotted several large tortoise shells along their route, but no one save for Charles was perplexed as to why the shells were cracked and broken, the carcasses of the noble animals nowhere to be found.

  It wasn’t until they’d walked half the small island, with a steep climb over a large, black volcanic ridge still separating them from the bay where the American ship waited at anchor, that Captain Fitzroy brought their happy march to a halt. He finally felt the same disturbance, the same unspoken uneasiness that had been making Charles’ hair bristle on the back of his neck since he’d left the relative safety of the Beagle nearly an hour earlier. FitzRoy warned them to keep their eyes open, that something wasn’t right … perhaps feeling with a sixth sense the electric buzz of imminent danger, but not aware what the problem was, or what to do about it.

  Charles was the first to reach the top of the ridge. What he saw below him in the American’s makeshift camp, was an assault on his very sanity – a scene so far removed from his Christian sensibilities that he’d been positive it was a nightmare, an exhaustion-fueled postcard glimpse into his conscience’s interpretation of Dante’s Inferno. Never had Charles seen such carnage, such bloodshed, in one place before. It was as if they had peered in the front door of the Devil’s Butcher Shop, a ghastly human abattoir ludicrously misplaced in that beautiful tropical setting. There were bodies everywhere he looked, or parts of bodies, to be more accurate. A severed arm was half-buried in a drift of black sand. A torn and twisted leg propped against a wooden stool still wearing a crimson-streaked brown leather boot. A disembodied head stared forever out to sea with gray jelly-like brains still oozing from the ragged hole where its nose should have been. Those atrocities and a great many more waited on the beach for Charles and his companions as they stumbled down the far side of the ridge in muted shock.

  The ocean-cooled
air seemed thicker somehow, the sickening heavy tang of salty-copper making every breath a chore to swallow. What had happened here? Inspecting the chaos, FitzRoy was convinced that a war had been fought or a savage mutiny committed, the rebellious crew slaughtering the whaling ship’s officers as well as most of their mates. Neither explanation had made much sense to Charles. Surely they’d have heard the thundering noise of a fierce battle being fought, and the large whaling vessel was still in the bay; lifeless now, a ghost ship with no would-be mutineers left to ever hoist its rusty anchor or lay claim to its cargo of slowly rotting blubber.

  Gathering his courage, Charles inspected the mutilated bodies closer, with a scientist’s eye, not as a clergyman. He quickly discovered the horrifying truth. These men hadn’t died by musket balls, or swords. Their bodies weren’t blown apart from cannon fire or exploding gunpowder kegs. They were covered in scratches and puncture wounds. They looked like claw marks. Was that possible? Had body after mutilated body been physically torn limb from limb?

  FitzRoy thought Charles had gone mad, of course, until Charles pointed out to him the neat parallel grooves cleaving apart a nearby torso, the claw marks so grievous the dead man’s sternum was deeply scratched. There was also no rational explanation for a disembodied head that was lying nearby, a fist-sized puncture hole smashed through its cranium, the empty brain cavity gleaming as though it had been recently licked clean. The facts were mysterious, but indisputable. There had been no war. No mutiny had taken place. These sailors had been attacked, savaged, and from the missing appendages and shredded wounds present on the remaining body parts, partially devoured.

  Who could have done such a heinous act? Or perhaps, what? Man, or Beast? Unfortunately, they were about to get their answer.