Chasing the Moon

by A. Lee Martinez

  “Hey, watch it,” said Benny.

  “Sorry.”

  A virtual gargoyle swooped down and decapitated Swoozie’s hero. The corpse collapsed in a heap.

  “What the hell?” growled Swoozie. “Get up, you stupid bastard.”

  “Humans can’t live without their heads,” explained Calvin. It was easy to forget that.

  “That’s crap. I don’t see why I have to be saddled with such a silly weakness just because humans don’t have the imagination to realize that their limitations are not required for a video game character.”

  “These games are marketed with a human audience in mind,” said Benny.

  “It’s discrimination.” Swoozie reached around space and grabbed one of the beers from the fridge without getting up from her seat. The hole in space she pulled the beverage from didn’t disappear right away. It just hovered there.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” said Benny. “What the hell did I tell you about respecting the space-time continuum in my home?”

  “Oh, just sweep it under a rug or something,” replied Swoozie.

  Calvin reached into the hole and grabbed a beer of his own. Benny glared.

  “What?” Calvin smiled. “It’s there. Why not use it?”

  The teeth in Benny’s circular mouth twirled counterclockwise. His version of a frown.

  “So what are we doing tonight?” asked Swoozie.

  “I don’t know,” said Benny. “We could get something to eat, maybe see a movie.”

  “Oh no.” Calvin waved his arms emphatically. “Not after the last time.”

  Individually, Calvin’s, Swoozie’s, and Benny’s presences were corrosive tumors on thin-skinned reality. When they were together, the effect was only increased. That was why they got together only once every few weeks, only for a few hours, and rarely in the same location. Predictability could go right out the window. Or the door. Or maybe up the chimney. Or screaming into the night while riding a chicken and dragging the mangled corpse of causality behind. Because even metaphors were fair game for their influence.

  The last time the three had gone to the movies, a giant lizard had stepped off the screen and roasted the audience to cinders with its radioactive breath. Within hours the city had been reduced to a smoldering ruin. Reality’s way of fixing itself eventually erased most the damage, but that sort of thing could put an undue strain on the already fragile sanity of most human minds. A concession-stand girl was still in a mental ward, haunted by nightmares of rampaging mutant dinosaurs.

  Calvin had sent her a few apology cards. Unsigned, no return address, with an inspirational quote and sorry about the dreams written in the corner. Eventually he realized this probably wasn’t helping her, so he stopped.

  “We’ll go see something safe,” suggested Benny. “Maybe a chick flick.”

  “I don’t think so.” Swoozie formed a fe. The eyes were misaligned, different colors, and the ears rotated like pinwheels. But the mouth grimaced just fine. “If it doesn’t have ninjas in it, I’m not interested.”

  “And I promised Sharon no more movies,” added Calvin.

  Benny clicked his teeth.

  “What?” asked Calvin. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Not at all,” said Benny. “If you’re happy being kept on a short leash, it’s none of my business.”

  “So says the insurance adjustor.”

  “Hey, a worm’s gotta eat.”

  “Do you?” asked Swoozie.

  “Actually, I’m not sure about that,” said Benny. “Never tested it.”

  “Face it, guys,” said Calvin. “We’re neutered. Let’s not fool ourselves.”

  Swoozie drifted off the couch and over to the window. “We don’t have to be. Why don’t we go out and show this world how insignificant it is?”

  “And where would that get us?” asked Calvin.

  “It’ll make us feel better.”

  “For about ten minutes. Then everything will restore itself, and we’ll be reminded that this world isn’t the only thing that’s insignificant.”

  The three ancient entities said nothing for a while. For a timeless being from beyond eternity, Calvin suddenly felt very old.

  They carried on with the evening, tried to have a good time and forget their problems, but the damage was done. They were all trapped in circumstances beyond their control. Calvin figured that must be how humans felt, or would feel if they weren’t saddled with their limited perceptions. They were a remarkably dim-witted species, and he envied that.

  They called it a night early. Benny offered a halfhearted excuse, saying he had to get up early. Swoozie mumbled something about having to eat a dying star.

  She faded to a sparkling point of light. “See you in a few weeks then?”

  “I’ll have to check my calendar,” replied Benny. “Think I might be cocooning.”

  “And there’s this thing I have to do.” Calvin tried to downplay it, but there was guilt in his voice.

  Swoozie rematerialized. “A thing? What kind of thing?”

  “Just… a thing.”

  Benny’s veins darkened. “Spit it out, Cal. What are you keeping from us?”

  “I might be getting out,” said Calvin softly.

  “No king? For real this time?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. There’s this stellar alignment thingamajig, and it might allow full reintegration. That’s what Greg says anyway.”

  “I thought you said he was a dumbass,” said Benny.

  “He is.” Calvin half-smiled. “But he usually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to this sort of thing.”

  “So what do you think?” asked Swoozie. “Do you think he’s right?”

  “He could be. I have been feeling a little different lately.”

  “Different how?”

  “I don’t know. Just different.”

  Calvin gazed out the window, at the moon rising. Fenris pursued. Calvin felt the boiling ache in his gut. He couldn’t quantify it with inadequate human words built upon inadequate human concepts.

  “Hell, buddy,” said Benny. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I guess I just didn’t want you guys feeling bad about it.”

  “Are you kidding us? You’re in deeper than either of us.” Swoozie slapped Calvin on the back with a twisted tentacle. “If you get out, then there’s hope for everybody.”

  “We have to celebrate,” said Benny.

  “We don’t have to make a big deal about this,” said Calvin.

  He’d been close to integration before. But in the end it was just chaos and madness and the collapse of a civilization or two, a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The real reason he had been reluctant to bring it up had nothing to do with Swoozie’s or Benny’s possible jealousy. They understood how important it was to him more than anyone. He just didn’t want to get his hopes up.

  “It’s probably not going to pan out,” he mumbled. “It never does.”

  “Can you believe this guy?” asked Benny. “He’s about to get what we all want and he’s moping.”

  “Have you told your better half yet?” asked Swoozie.

  “No, I’d rather not bother—”

  Swoozie vanished so swiftly that she tore a hole in the space-time continuum. A hideous many-eyed thing tried to slip through the portal and into this reality. Benny unleashed a warning shriek that made his upstairs neighbors’ ears bleed. It was the cosmic horror equivalent of “Watch out. You’re about to step into an alien universe, and it’ll be hell to scrape off your shoe.”

  With a thankful screech, the thing withdrew.

  Swoozie returned through the same warp in reality she had left, plugging it. She formed a pair of disembodied shoulders and shrugged. “He didn’t seem excited to hear the news.”he

  “I could’ve told you that,” said Calvin.

  Fenris was blessed with a single-minded stupidity. The moon, his eternal prey, occupied what little sentience he had. And that sentience wasn’t
even developed enough to catch a celestial body following a fixed orbit.

  “This is great news,” said Benny. “We should celebrate.”

  “I thought we were going to call it a night.”

  “This could be our last chance to hang out. You can’t leave your friends behind without one last night. For old times’ sake. Back me up here, Swoozie.”

  “Ah, what the hell?” Swoozie said. “I can always find another star to eat.”

  Benny changed out of his baseball cap. He draped a sports jacket over his back, taping it on his absent shoulders.

  They found a T.G.I. Friday’s just around the corner, where they spent the rest of the evening reminiscing about the many millennia they’d shared in this common cage. Then Swoozie had one too many beers and belched forth a yellow fog, and everyone in the restaurant began to shriek and claw at their own faces. It put a damper on the mood.

  As they left the establishment, reality fixed itself. Like it almost always did. That was the real annoyance that the three eldritch faced. They didn’t belong here, and the universe reminded them of that every day.

  “Look at the time,” said Swoozie. “There’s a binary system in collapse, and if I don’t make it, it’ll just go to waste.”

  “And I’ve got a big meeting,” added Benny.

  They exchanged one last round of handshakes.

  “Hope I won’t be seeing you around, guys,” said Calvin with a smile. “At least not on this particular realm of existence.”

  “I hear you,” said Benny.

  Swoozie vanished. Benny slithered away.

  Calvin studied the moon and Fenris. The horrible thing in the sky above stared back at him. It was hard to measure, but it seemed just a little closer to its prey tonight.

  Fenris howled a long, mournful cry that resonated through the universe. Lost souls, madmen, and marooned horrors felt the merest twinges of yearning in the heart of the beast.

  Calvin pushed away the malaise, and with cautious optimism walked into the night.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A howl shook Diana out of the first deep sleep she’d had in a week. A great despair seized her. It was an alien thing, a tidal wave of grave emo

  Her head cleared as she pushed away the alien fear and confusion. It was only then that she noticed she wasn’t alone. Something else was in her bedroom.

  Her first thought was that it was Vom, who had finally come to eat her. The thing was the same size, and had the same general proportions in the darkness. But then she noticed that it had eyes, something Vom lacked, and that those eyes were bright green orbs.

  They were hypnotic, and though she wanted to look away, she couldn’t escape them. Her body went rigid. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She should’ve been frightened to death, but those eyes even robbed her of fear. They left only a hollow chill in her gut.

  “Who are you?” someone asked.

  It was her. She did have some control over her body. She recognized her voice, even if she couldn’t feel her lips move. But if she focused she could sense the air slipping out of her lungs and out of her throat.

  The eyes narrowed. The thing growled.

  It moved toward her. In the unnatural dark around her bed, the thing’s mottled orange hands, shaped like seven-pointed stars, grasped her blanket and pulled. She tried to hold on to it. The monster was cheating. You weren’t supposed to be in danger if you could hide under the covers.

  If she could just reach the lamp, if she could just turn it on. The light would drive away this thing. Even if the covers couldn’t protect her, the light would. But even as she thought this, she noticed in her peripheral vision that her arm was already reaching for the lamp. She wasn’t paralyzed. Not technically. She was just so disconnected from herself that moving required absolute focus.

  Concentrating on her arm, she managed to gather just enough sensation to realize that the lamp and the end table were missing. And now that she looked, she understood that everything in the room was gone except the bed, and that, as she willed her gaze upward, she saw a sky filled with dim stars that did nothing to light the darkness.

  The thing ripped away her blanket with a shriek and wrapped one hand around her ankle. It was going to drag her into the shadows and kill her, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

  A flare lit this inky void, just beside her bed, and its harsh glare drove the thing away. It disappeared, though its howls of discontent echoed for a while yet.

  Suddenly she could move again.

  West, his pockmarked face lit by a flare in his right hand, squinted at her. “Is that you, Number Five?”

  She covered her eyes. The light was so bright.

  “Yes, it’s me. What the hell was that?”

  “You shouldn’t be awake,” said West.

  She wasn’t about to let him dodge the question. “What the hell was that?”

  “Dream eater. I wouldn’t be too concerned about it.”

  “Not concerned? It was going to kill me.”

  “It was just feeding on your nightmares.”

  “But I wasn’t having a nightmare.”

  “Well, of course you weren’t. It was eating them. The dream eaters perform a valuable service, consuming negativity and other dangerous emotions while you sleep. Without dream eaters, the entire human race would’ve gone mad some time ago.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re telling me those things keep us sane.”

  “You didn’t think your fragile psyche was able to hold itself together all on its own, did you? Something has to clean out the baggage, remove the excess goop clogging the gears.”

  “Labroides dimidiatus,” said Diana.

  “Uh-hmm.”

  “Cleaner fish. It forms a symbiotic relationship with other fish by eating the particles that—”

  “I know what Labroides dimidiatus is, Number Five.” He took another flare out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. “We should get you out of here. Before they come back. They don’t like being seen. Puts a fright into them, can make them dangerous.”

  “But you said they were symbiotic.”

  “Symbiotic and easily frightened. Not that it matters unless you wake up too suddenly, like you did.”

  The dream eater’s cries were echoed by others of its kind. Lots of them.

  “You should probably follow me now.”

  She was wearing her pajamas, and the ground under her feet felt warm and squishy. Like sand that wasn’t quite mud. Every step made a wet, plopping noise. A few steps, and her bed disappeared into the emptiness. She could see some shapes in the dark. Maybe trees. Maybe rocks. But aside from that, all she could see was West’s torch, which she followed closely.

  “It was that howl. It’s what woke me up.”

  She could still hear it. Low and mournful. Inhuman and pitiable.

  “That’d do it,” said West. “You must’ve heard Fenris’s pain. You must be an empathic soul, Number Five.”

  Diana had always assumed empathy was a good thing, but if it meant waking up in an alien corner of the universe, she wasn’t so sure. That’s what she got for assuming anything.

  “Who’s Fenris?” she asked.

  < />“The wolf that chases, the herald of Ragnarok, the ravenous godling. The big green thing that forever chases the moon.”

  “Shouldn’t it be called Managarmr then? Because in Norse mythology—”

  “I’m well aware of the mistake.”

  They walked a little farther. The cries of the dream eaters variously seemed to come from behind them or ahead of them. It was impossible to tell. Aside from the light of the flares and a dim shape glimpsed here and there, the world was nothing but black.

  “Why is Fenris in pain?” She asked the question as much to keep her mind off what was happening as to satisfy any personal curiosity.

  “It’s trapped.”

  She chuckled to herself. “Aren’t we all? Take a number, pal.”

  “True, Number Five. But f
or a being like Fenris imprisonment is unbearable. Most creatures were meant to occupy a single sphere of existence, but Fenris is one of the rarest of beings, made to swim the oceans of existence like you walk from room to room. Imagine being entangled in a net from which you cannot escape that only tightens itself the more you struggle.”

  It did sound pretty damn awful. “Isn’t there some way to free it?”

  West looked over his shoulder. His face was nothing but shadows, except for his four eyes that glinted in the torchlight. “The net is your universe. Or what you once thought of as your universe before your eyes were opened.”

  “Oh.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, this is merely an inconvenience for Fenris. His efforts to free himself are why there are tears in your reality in the first place. His thrashing snaps and strains the fabric of your world. While it might contain him for a while, he is greater than the forces that bind him. Inevitably, he will escape, even if he must obliterate your world in the process.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Number Five. Now that you live in the building, your existence doesn’t depend on anything as delicate as reality. So it’s really not your problem anymore, is it?”

  She didn’t find that very comforting.

  “Hasn’t anyone figured out a way to help him escape without destroying the world?”

  “If there are forces at work with the power to do so, they’re largely indifferent to the well-being of this small universe.”

  “But—”

  “It’s a long ways off,” he said. “At least a day or two.” She stopped. “What?”

  He kept walking. “Or perhaps the day after that. Or the day after that. Eternity is measured one moment at a time.”

  She used one of thosemoments to focus on what was important, escaping from the dream eaters, and caught up with him.

  “Where are we?”

  “Do you know where you go when you sleep? When you close your eyes and no one is looking at you, not even you?”

  “Here?”

  “Sometimes here,” said West. “Sometimes other places.”

  “You’re telling me that when I go to sleep, my body is transported to a place like this?”