Arcane

by Nathan Shumate

  “How do we turn it off?” he hissed. “Tell me, you bastard!” The words made fine mists in the air.

  John almost kept mum, but then he saw his chance and took it. “Let me go and I’ll tell you,” he said, quietly grasping the handcuff chain.

  The man shifted on his feet, trembling and sweating and searching John’s eyes. Then he nodded begrudgingly, dug in a hip pocket, and undid the handcuff with a key. “Now, tell me—”

  John swung out and dallied the chain around the man’s neck, tight, tighter. The man kicked gamely and gurgled like a clogged drain, hands pawing at John in fantastic arcs. John turned away and waited for the man to stop, wincing at the new pain in his left arm. After much ado, the man sputtered his last and there was only the fracas beyond the room.

  “Good job,” Ridley consoled, patting John’s shoulder with a hand possessed. “Good job, good job.”

  John laid the man down and looted his person, finding a wallet and more keys and a small-caliber handgun. He wedged the gun clumsily between his knees and managed to cock it. After tenderly threading the icebox onto his left arm, he took to escaping.

  “Flank, flank, watch your flank!” Ridley cried as John turned the doorknob. He bellied against the wall and cracked the door, looking through with one eye. It opened to a narrow brown hallway smeared with blood and viscera. A confused dispersion of clothing covered the floor, some bearing orphan body parts. The sulfur stink was worse here, gaining texture and mass. As he looked, there was more gunfire and shouting from down the hall, followed by bestial noises he couldn’t place.

  “Steady there, Johnny boy,” Ridley whispered. “Somethin’ bad wrong here. Bad wrong.”

  John waited, and had almost opened the door fully when a rambling shape stomped past, like nothing recognized or imagined. John saw big and red and horrible, what bore the appearance of man but was no man. A clawed hand held a dismembered leg that was raised and bitten as one would a hock of ham.

  “Steady,” said Ridley. “Steady.”

  A flurry of rude steps, and the thing disappeared from the doorway. A deathly quiet descended, the only noises coming from far away. John waited, then poked his head out and looked left and right, the hallway empty but for the men apportioned over the floor. He clenched the gun and shivered through, left, opposite the creature’s direction.

  “I think we’re up,” Ridley said. “On a second story, I mean. Try and find a stairwell. No elevators.”

  John tiptoed down the hall, skeptically entering each doorway. One led into a cinderblock cell much like his but empty. Another was a bedroom outfitted with drugs and dead women and much blood. Another looked to be a crystalry like the Keeper’s, the vegetal creatures untouched by whatever fate had befallen their masters. John had the lunatic thought to search out a pipe and some fire.

  “Not on your life, Johnny,” Ridley blurted. “Now move your ass.”

  Near the hall’s end was a metal door unlike the others, its many locks disengaged. It was slightly ajar and loud red light spilled through. John toed it open from against the wall, finding a cathedral room with a table and chairs and myriad bodies. Inching inside, John traced the source of the light: a glowing, doorlike circle was suspended over the table, beyond it a scabbed burning world like Hell. He could feel a wretched heat pouring through, along with that sulfurous wind. Directly below the portal was a small metal box equally foreign to him, a green light blinking. His briefcase lay over the floor, open, the bloody handcuff attached like a tail; the box could’ve fit inside.

  “Oh. Oh, John,” Ridley said. He was blubbering; John had never heard him blubber.

  John studied the scene in a shocked stillness, wanting to both stay and leave. Then came a tumultuous clomping, and before his eyes, a red monstrosity like that glimpsed earlier vomited through the portal and onto the table, by some miracle facing away from John. The creature looked discursively about, testing the air, then selected a male corpse and took to eating. John froze with the gun extended. When he remained unseen, he backed out and away, wet chomps issuing from behind.

  He snuck from doorway to doorway, again seeing everything. From far down the hall came gunshots and a hellish scream that was cut short, and John barely heard. He turned an corner and met a set of double doors, a sign reading STAIRWELL.

  “What’d I tell ya?” Ridley said. “Ha!”

  Before John could reply, movement blacked the doors’ windows and one of the red carnivores came through, sensibly unhinging the door and pulling it to. It had long arms and malefic little legs and something not quite a head, inside it two frosty black eyes in which John could see himself. A veiny mass of sinew and fish-like scales, satanic claws drawn to length. The two regarded each other in a way almost courtly, then something passed between them and John tensed and the creature shrieked forward.

  Ridley screamed as John raised the gun and fired it empty, leaving the thing an animate sprawl over the floor. It went down hard and made noises indescribable, struggling in spite of its many wounds. John hunched against the opposite wall, watching it writhe. He moved only when it stopped.

  Soundlessly he ran forward and hopscotched over the creature, his flight mirrored in the night eyes. Then he was through the doors and running, the curious portal left open and prolific.

  ***

  Autumn. Dusk. Blazing trees circled his secret field. The sweet of eggsmoke milled around him, the odor a drug in itself.

  “I missed you,” Laura said, running John’s gun-finger down his face. She used to be left-handed.

  “I missed you, too,” John said, basking in her presence. The smoke coursed through him like a thing alive, intoxicating him sober. He sat a while, in her fastnesses, then asked, “What’s it like where you live?”

  Laura paused thoughtfully. “What’s it like where you live?”

  John formulated a response, but it no way described his experience. After trying for an entire minute, he said, “Never mind.”

  Explosions and screaming haunted the distance, confused spats of gunfire, the creatures having the run of things. The dying city at last dying. Wind blew, making the trees wave. Leaves sprayed in a fire-rain.

  “Do you miss the city?” Laura asked, hearing the tumult.

  John deliberated this as he had his last answer, and eventually said he didn’t. “I knew it was dying. Did for years. It’s almost a relief, finally seeing it happen. Like getting a tooth pulled.”

  “No more Darkness, right?”

  “Right,” John said. “Just Martin.”

  Laura laughed, and wrapped around him without doing so. “I’m not worried about Martin.” She kissed him.

  “Me either,” John said, when his lips were freed.

  The strange day unwound and he let it, whiling away the hours with the woman in his head.

  CORPORAUTOLYSIS

  Christopher Slatsky

  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 gra
y 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.

  William walked quickly towards his desk with the intent of dropping off his keys and heading to the break room for a drink of water. The lights were dimmed, several of the fluorescents turned off or burnt out. He passed by a handwritten note pinned to the department announcement board:

  In an effort to save the environmint management has implimented several energee saving measures. Thank you for your cooperasion.

  His cubicle had been relatively untouched during his bereavement leave. There was only a small stack of new paperwork and a single envelope on the keyboard. He felt a thin greasy film across the desktop, like furniture polish that hadn’t been adequately wiped away. He traced his finger across the surface and though he couldn’t see any residue he did detect the earthy scent of mildew.

  The front of the envelope read Welcome Back William. The contents felt strangely bulky and thick. The card inside had an odd texture as if it were patched together from several layers of parchment. The black, blue and red ink had soaked into the porous paper, creating thick arteries of purple that obscured the messages inside. He squinted, pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose to focus his vision. He couldn’t decipher who had written their well-wishes; the scrawled platitudes were indecipherable. He suspected one delicately written message was the handwriting of the analyst he’d trained just before leaving. He tried to remember her face but it was indistinct, preserved in his mind as a smooth oval with smudged depressions for eyes and a wide stain of a mouth. Pressure swelled in his chest, pinpricks in his brain made him see flashing lights. It was difficult to recall names and he was frustrated at the lack of faces to attach to the missing names.

  He glanced down the hall and saw a stack of boxes and filing cabinets blocking the aisle, toppled in a heap like a hastily constructed barricade. This bothered him for the rest of his shift. It was an uncomfortable weight in his head on the drive home.

  Business Day 2

  “Hey, welcome back.” Jensen’s head peeked over the cubicle wall and his hand offered a breath mint. “You back for good, buddy?” The illusion of his hand hovering below his unattached head was discomfiting in the dim light.

  “Hey. Thanks, Jensen. I am back for good. I’m surviving. Thanks.” William took the proffered breath mint and smiled in return. The mint was the same color and shape as his wife’s sleeping pills so he just let it roll around on his palm in a closed fist. William liked Jensen, but his voice seemed different, his eyes a different shade of gray and his face puffier than he remembered.

  “You look tired, buddy. Fresh coffee in the breakroom. I just put on a pot.” Jensen didn't seem to notice when someone coughed far too loudly several cubicles to his right, theatrically, as if on cue.

  “Look, Will.” Jensen’s voice lowered conspiratorially. “You ever need anything, say like to talk or something, just let me know. I’ll be a cubicle away, neighbor.” He seemed uncomfortable with his magnanimity and played it off with a wink. “This McKinnon lawsuit is killing me. Too much work, not enough time in the day. Well, back to the tombstone, I guess.” His head rolled its eyes back into their sockets in mock exasperation, wobbled and floated back down behind its cubicle wall as the sound of typing commenced.

  William smiled and asked, “Shouldn’t that be ‘grindstone?’”

  “That’s what I said, buddy.” But Jensen’s voice seemed to come from somewhere far beyond his cubicle, lower, as if he’d hastily crawled away, pressed his head against the floor and responded while his hands continued to type.

  William glanced back to his welcome back card. Its thickness made it lay slightly open; at that angle, under the fluorescent lights’ flicker, he thought he read an oddly cordial expletive in florid handwriting. But when he opened the card under direct light all the well-wishes become an amorphous mess again. He smelled the scorched coffee and his stomach clenched.

  “Jensen, how do I get to the breakroom now? Looks like housekeeping made some changes.” William waved in irritation towards the clutter of filing cabinets.

  Jensen’s arm popped up over the cubicle wall and gestured vaguely to his right. William heard him talking low, slurring into his phone. He walked towards the wall but didn’t see the door’s outline until he was standing just before it. The doorknob had been painted the same gray blue as the door and walls, the color of moldering fruit. The doorknob felt fuzzy, a slight brush of filaments tickled his palm. Once inside he swallowed three pills and chased them down with a large coffee cup full of water. The pressure in his chest deflated, the lights in his head dimmed.

  William returned to his desk and performed his daily duties with perfunctory attention. The next eight hours rolled by with clockwork banality. Just twenty minutes shy of the end of the workday he realized his VP hadn’t welcomed him back yet. It was the end of his second day back yet she hadn’t called or even sent him an email. He found this strange, but chalked it up to the chaos of the company’s financial difficulties and his own rather insignificant position in the corporate hierarchy.

  He stood up to say good night to Jensen but he wasn’t in his cubicle—in fact, he hadn’t seen him since that morning. Another day down, a lifetime to go, William thought as he grabbed his coat to leave for the day.

  Business Day 3

  William’s commute took him through older neighborhoods he didn’t remember being so ominous. He couldn’t recall details of the previous day’s drive, but he did remember this part of the city hadn’t always been so sparsely populated. The few folks he saw now were clearly homeless, but their rag-draped figures stepped through the lopsided doors of ambiguous storefronts as if they owned the places.

  He noticed the lack of law enforcement when he drove by a store whose entrance was a gaping hole surrounded by broken drywall and glass. He glimpsed furtive movements within, no doubt looters at work. On first try his cell phone wouldn’t get any reception and when he finally received a few bars he dialed 911. But the call wouldn’t connect and the ring continued in an odd drone. William chalked it up to atmospheric interference from the fog layer that coated the city and was all the talk on the news lately. The closer he got to work the denser the air became. The gritty fog shrouded the streets like a haze of spores clogging the city.

  William didn’t want to be here. He stared at the company’s bright yellow logo prominently displayed on the entrance to the building. A bubble of anxiety grew inside him, expanded painfully against his brain. He took several deep breaths to calm the panic attack. He needed to get inside to wash down his pills with a glass of water or coffee. He clipped his dog-eared employee badge to his shirt pocket and walked for what felt like a lifetime to the entrance. He hesitated as the automatic doors failed to open, cupped his hands to the distorted glass to see if there was anyone inside.

  A massive shape lurched towards the doors under the fluorescent lights inside. The ground shook violently. The door slid open in jolts, vibrating the floor, revealing the corpulent security guard pushing it aside. Stagnant air washed over William’s face. He didn’t recognize the guard. The fat man simply mumbled, “Power outage,” then walked back to his station, the back of his shirt umber from his copious sweat. He kicked up fat dust motes as he went. William removed his glasses and cleaned them with his shirtsleeve. When he replaced them the motes had diminished in size, yet the musty fog still permeated the air.

  Jensen was bright and chipper first thing this morning. William couldn’t see him but his enthusiastic voice projected far beyond his cubicle walls. “Morning, Will. Wanna see something?” He heard Jensen’s question closer to his ears than seemed possible. His voice was phlegmy and padd
ed, like he was speaking through the thickness of a furry growth. William looked over the cubicle’s wall and Jensen was staring back, his wide smile flaunting tiny off-white teeth like the petite buds of mushrooms freshly burst through soil. “A break isn’t gonna kill you. C’mon,” Jensen insisted. William reluctantly agreed.

  He followed Jensen down a side corridor he’d never been down before. The lights here were even dimmer than in his work area and the few that were on flickered and sputtered like gaslight. The air became progressively thicker and moister. They walked for about 10 minutes—William had never realized the building was so vast—then stopped at the entrance to a dimly lit, unpopulated room. Rows and rows of low-walled cubicles stretched out into the darkness.

  Jensen turned to William, “Go on. Check it out.”

  “What? What do you mean?“

  “The new department. The new VP’s office is back there.”

  William started to ask another question but Jensen shook his head impatiently and nudged him into the room. He walked slowly down the aisle, glancing at the empty cubicles on his left and right then back at a grinning Jensen. You’ll see, Jensen mouthed silently. Keep going.

  William walked deeper into the room until something enormous loomed above him, but it was just another barricade of filing cabinets topped off with chairs. As he continued around the barrier he noticed what appeared to be rusted metal buckets inside the cubicles. Every desk he passed had replaced their trash bin with shin-high corroded pails. He’d wandered deeper into the room than intended. He looked back toward Jensen but there was nothing silhouetted in the room’s sole entrance. He detected a stronger stench underlying the mildew-scented air.