Title

by Stanley, Jacob

  “Nope. I’ve heard that the people in charge here have ways of moving from world to world, but to get their help, I’d probably have to show my mental tricks to the right people, and offer my services or something. Unfortunately the power structure here is pretty dangerous. And I learned a while back that I’m not the only one with special abiltiies in this place.”

  “What kinds of abilities do you have anyway?”

  “I have a few small things, but really just one main ability, nothing that dangerous or anything… I guess it’s kinda cool. I’ll show you in a little while, if you’re interested, but first I wanted to tell you about my friend’s problem.”

  “Oh yeah, almost forgot about that. What happened?”

  “Well you know you were talking earlier about that big donation thing, when the soldiers are supposed to come here from the capital, and they were gonna have one of those discs with them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, how much do you actually know about that donation?”

  “Nothing. I figured it was some kind of tax thing.”

  “Kind of, yeah, but they don’t pay taxes here with money.”

  “What do they pay with?”

  “They pay with children.”

  5 - Illusion

  Simone’s gut clenched. “Kids?”

  “Yeah, and they ain’t selling them into slavery, or giving them to the government for some higher purpose or anything. They’re sending them off to be a meal, for that big fucking sea serpent thing. The one they call Apep.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me?”

  “It’s true.”

  “But, I heard that the monster doesn’t actually eat kids in little towns like this.”

  “Not usually, no. Every week they have a little ceremony where they go out to the river and throw some kid in. Nothing happens there, but the yearly donation is different. The kid's are picked through a lottery system. Rich people can buy an exemption. My friend's not rich, and his family wasn't so lucky in the lottery.”

  Simone's mouth felt suddenly dry.

  “They keep 'em all in a place near the center of town,” he said. “Looks like an old country church.”

  “You mean the place with the creepy little rhyme on the sign, about a river?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. They’ve got about 20 kids in there right now. Soldier’s have been gathering them up all week. Quite a few are from Heath families ‘cause they're the poorest of the poor with no money to buy immunity, so of course the Heath's all over the area have been committing suicide right and left. And the rest—people like my friend—are from-”

  “Wait,” she said. “Suicide?”

  “Yeah. Heaths consider themselves captives in these territories. Their religion stands in opposition to the serpents. Whenever one of their children is taken, the whole family commits suicide in protest. Even the other kids in the family kill themselves—or if they're too young, the parents murder them. It's really fucking horrifying, if you ask me, but that’s their way of expressing resistance.”

  The hanged family in the old barn, Simone thought. Apep brought me here and put me in that spot so I would see it… He was taunting me.

  Yes, taunting… Or maybe teaching her a special kind of lesson.

  In her mind’s eye she saw the bloated faces.

  Ritual suicide was a pretty big gesture, she supposed. Big enough to qualify as a form of resistance, perhaps, but maybe not the best form. Based on her brief acquaintance with Apep, and the sorts of feelings that she experienced when she focused too hard on that strange musical whisper that constantly accompanied all her thoughts now, she didn't really think the serpent cared how many people offed themselves. Gestures like that would be lost on him entirely. He might even see it, in a perverse way, as a form of respect.

  “Anyway,” said Damien. “My friend Karl’s kid—he’s a little boy—got taken. And Karl just wants to keep his head down and let it happen. He told me not to come here, said the Queen would take my head off just for bringing it up, but I’m not gonna stand by and let something like this happen without at least saying something. I may not be able to save every kid in this godforsaken place, but if I can save even one, I’m gonna try it.”

  “And your friend’s kid, he’s in that church?”

  “Yeah. That’s where he is.”

  “Sounds like I probably can do something about this. I could probably save every one of those kids.”

  “Based on what you told me, I was thinking the same thing. We should go to the church right away. All you have to do is tell them, and I bet they’ll let the kids go, no questions asked.”

  “Yeah, I guess so…” she said, and looked away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, it’s just… We’ll do it, of course, but it’s gonna be kind of hard to get there with all the people outside standing in the way. They’re all waiting for me to come out, you know? We’ll probably get mobbed as soon as we walk out the door.”

  He smiled, “Actually, I might be able to do something about that.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Remember,” he said. “I have some pretty neat, and very useful, psychic powers. From the aliens.”

  “So you’re ready to tell me about them, then?”

  He shrugged. “I guess, but actually…”

  “Just tell me.”

  He hesitated, then said, “I honestly think it’s one of those things that you’ll understand better once you see it with your own two eyes.”

  “Fine. Then show me.”

  He gazed at her for along stretch, then nodded and said, “Alright, I’ll need you to give me your hand.”

  She smiled slightly, still very conscious of not letting her teeth show. “Are you gonna read my palm or something?”

  “No, nothing like that… It’s much weirder.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, but not scary or dangerous.”

  “Okay, then, let’s see it.”

  “For sure, but when I do this, you have to understand you might see something strange for a second.”

  “Like what?”

  “No idea… Sometimes people see things when I do it. Things around me, or in the background. Weird shadows. It only happens to people who are sensitive, and it doesn’t always happen. You might even want to close your eyes if you're worried about it.”

  She shrugged, put her drink down and sat upright, offering her hand. “I see creepy shit all the time anyway. No biggie.”

  He sat up too, reached out very slowly and took her hand, gripping it with both of his own. The grip was firm but not painful.

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and Simone felt an intense warmth in her hand that ran all the way up her arm, and quickly filled her whole body.

  It felt like someone had just injected something really nice into her veins. Her eyes fell shut, and after a few seconds she began to experience an interesting drifting sensation, immensely pleasurable, like standing out in the middle of the ocean with warm water moving all around her.

  Simone noticed, very dimly, that the song of Apep suddenly spiked in intensity, and she sensed something like outrage in the dark vibrations, but it seemed very far away, and entirely unimportant. The most pressing issue, the only issue right then was the pleasurable sensation flowing through and around her body.

  “You like that?” he said.

  She took a long, deep, relaxing breath and let the air out slow. Then she said, “Yeah, I think I like this a lot.”

  She was surprised by the serenity in her voice. She sounded like someone half-asleep.

  “Well, that’s nothing,” he said. “Open your eyes.”

  She opened them, reluctantly, because it felt so good to just sit there and float. She half-expected to see some sort of visual effect, like an acid trip. But no. There was nothing obviously different.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Look down at yourself.”

  She glanced
down to where their hands were clenched together, and a surge of shock ran through her, a surge so strong that it totally jerked her out of her pleasant trance-state.

  Her hand wasn’t covered with the disgusting gray, speckled skin anymore. The color was light brown. It was her own, normal hand, and the arm above it was normal too, and her other arm, her other hand…

  She took a strand of her hair between her fingers, held it up so she could see.

  The hair was dark. Not silver. Normal human hair.

  Her heart began to pound, and her mind raced. Dozens of disparate thoughts assailed her at once.

  Some of those thoughts were of the hopeful variety, and she immediately tried to stuff those back down where they came from. She had no room for hope right now. The chance of disappointment was too great.

  After several breathless moments, she looked over at Damien, who was smiling broadly. With great effort, she managed to stammer, “How’s my face?”

  His smile turned into a full grin. “You look pretty as a picture.”

  “Am I totally back to normal?”

  “I wish we had a mirror, I’d show you.”

  Simone glanced up at the maids, who stared back at her in stunned silence, eyes big as saucers. Definitely, they could see it too, that was very clear.

  She felt a huge smile spread across her face, probably the biggest, most genuine smile she’d experienced since all this crap started, but as she did so, she noticed something about the sensation as her lips pressed against her teeth.

  So she brought her tongue up to test, let it run across the surface of the top row, and her heart sank. The teeth were still sharp, so sharp that she almost cut her tongue trying to test them.

  She let out along sigh, and the happiness went out with it.

  Damien said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Didn’t you see? My teeth. They’re still wrong.”

  “Well yeah,” he said. “But nobody can see them.”

  “As long as I don’t smile.”

  “No, it’s not like that. You can smile all you want.”

  “Huh?”

  “From over here, your teeth are perfectly normal. Technically you still look the same. You haven’t really changed. It’s just an illusion.”

  “Illusion?”

  “Right. It’s a trick. But it’s a good one. Best way to think of it is like a special effect in a movie. People can’t see your real face right now, they only see what I want them to see.”

  She bared her teeth for him. “You’re telling me you can’t see that?”

  “Just a normal set of teeth,” he said. “Very nice teeth, actually.”

  “I have to see this for myself,” she said, and pointed to the two serving girls. “Can you ask one of these two to bring me a mirror?”

  “Good idea,” he said, and relayed the instructions in their language.

  The girls conferred briefly, then the shorter one nodded, and hurried away, apparently unable to resist the urge to stare at Simone. From her expression she was far more amazed by what she saw now than she had been when she saw Simone as a monster.

  A miracle right in front of her eyes, I guess, thought Simone. And in front of mine, too.

  The girl came back, about five minutes later, with a little handheld mirror made of wood. It was obviously handmade and of great worth.

  Simone felt oddly honored to be offered something so elegant.

  “Thank you,” she said, and Damien translated.

  The girl bowed deeply and stepped away.

  Simone held the mirror up and looked at her reflection.

  She was kind of irritated by the lack of makeup, but otherwise she looked just like her normal self.

  It was almost perfect.

  There was still something off about her appearance, something she couldn’t fully define, a subtle difference that no one except her and maybe her own mother would be able to notice.

  She looked at her face from every angle, she looked at her hair, ran her hands through it.

  She reached into her mouth and touched her teeth to see if that would break the illusion in some way, but it didn’t. Her fingers told her one thing, but the mirror continued to tell her another. It was amazing. Astonishing.

  Seeing herself—the real her—was incredible. She felt like she’d just come home from a long trip away, and now she wanted to rest. A wave of joy broke over her, and she started to sob, and tears rolled out of her eyes, and down her cheeks.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, and sniffed. “These are happy tears.”

  “Just a little trick,” he said, but he seemed pleased. “No big deal at all.”

  She looked back down at the mirror, checking different angles, looking underneath her chin, and then, suddenly everything went to hell.

  There was a blurring in the mirror, and she felt a cold sensation in her flesh. The whole room seemed to darken for an instant, and when the light came back, the face staring back at her in the reflection was all fucked up again.

  The monster was back.

  She almost dropped the mirror, then she almost threw it across the room, and would have if it hadn’t been such a finely crafted item.

  “Fucking bullshit,” she said, her voice full of dangerous fury.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Calm down. It’s no problem. That was just a tiny dose, to show you what I can do. Just a little test. I can give you a lot more. I can keep it going for hours.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it’s no problem. That’s what I intended, but I wanted to let you see first.”

  “Then do it,” she said.

  “Of course. I’ll do it right now.”

  He got up, walked over to sit nearer to her.

  She offered her hand again, and he took it.

  “Did you see anything weird last time?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Well good, but you really might this time, ‘cause it’s gonna be a wee bit more intense, if you get my drift, so just be ready.”

  She nodded. He nodded back, and closed his eyes.

  There were a few seconds of delay, and then the warmth was back, but this time it was like a torrent, filling her from the top of her scalp to the ends of her toes. Her whole body began to tremble with the ecstasy of it. It was almost like a sexual climax.

  She let out a long, slow moan, and felt her skin flushing, and tingling with pleasure, and her mind was full of deep, warm, darkness that she wanted to sink down into.

  “Oh god,” she said, “Oh god, this is so good…”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him, and behind him a shadow appeared for a split second, barely visible—two massive wings, spread out wide.

  She ignored the shadow, closed her eyes again, and let the sensation carry her away.

  PART 6 - THE PRISONER

  1 - Trunk or Treat

  Kevin woke and opened his eyes on darkness. It was a hot, stifling darkness, and he was drenched with sweat.

  He was laying on his belly. The surface underneath him was hard and fuzzy. Bristles.

  He could hear a motor running, and he could sense motion.

  In a car. In the trunk.

  He couldn’t move his arms or legs because of straps around his wrists and ankles (probably the same ones from the bedroom) but there wasn’t any duct tape or anything extra this time. He felt strangely calm about the situation. At least he was alive.

  That woman kicked my tail again though.

  Still, he might not be out of options yet…

  He concentrated for a moment, tried to boost his muscle strength.

  His efforts resulted in the slightest flicker of the sensation he'd come to associate with triggering the Mask particles, but not enough to make any real difference, and then came the hollow feeling that he knew from experience meant he was scraping bottom.

  The tank was empty.

  Just a regular guy now.

  A regular guy, tied up in the
trunk of a car.

  And now he did start to feel pretty depressed. A wave of useless self-pity washed over him, which grew worse when he became aware of another problem. The tingle in his hands, caused by the organism he'd found on the little pyramid back at the house, had reappeared. And now he could feel it past his wrist, all the way up into his forearm.

  The fact that it had attacked again as soon as he went to sleep was upsetting enough, but somehow it bothered him even more that he hadn’t noticed it immediately when he woke up. It meant he was getting used to it, which seemed like a dangerous trend.

  He decided to spend a little time, here in the dark with the lull of the engine to aid concentration, trying to understand what the organism was actually doing to him.

  He sent his awareness inward, very deep, and found something really odd.

  His fingers were… changing…

  There were several areas where clusters of cells were forming, somehow replacing his normal cells, and these clusters weren't human. They were almost human, and so similar to his own DNA signature that his body wasn't treating them as an invading force, but they were an invading force.

  Obviously the woman Myra, and her brother too, were somehow connected to this organism. Any other conclusion would be coincidental enough to strain credulity.

  Was he infected with the same thing that had turned Myra into a monster?

  The thought was terrifying.

  He very quickly went to work, setting up his barriers again, forcing his immune system to attack the organism even though it didn't want to, and launching an attack on these invading cells that looked so much like his own. It took a bit of concentration, but soon he felt his body begin to turn the tide again.

  Is this gonna happen every time I go to sleep?

  If so, that would be pretty frustrating. Not to mention dangerous.

  He'd lost significant ground to the invading organism since the woman KO’d him during his escape attempt, and for all he knew he'd only been out for an hour or so. Maybe less. A whole night might be a heck of a lot more damaging.

  What he needed to do was wipe the bacteria, or whatever it was, out completely while he was awake.