by Tim Curran
“I’d read the story,” said Don, “It’s called “Inattentional Blindness”—look at that YouTube clip where they tell you to watch the basketball and you don’t see the gorilla walk by.”
“Yeah,” said John, “Except I’m saying that the gorilla can’t interact with you because you don’t see it. What if fear opened a channel? What if it took down another brick in the wall?” He tried to make it sound like the Pink Floyd song.
Mary shook her head again, “But wouldn’t that be a bad idea? Isn’t better we don’t interact with the gorilla?”
“Maybe the gorilla is the Bringer of Ecstasy,” said John, “Maybe that’s what he’s waiting to do.”
Don asked, “So what’s your plan? Scare some people with a storm drain and hope God shows up?”
Which, in fact, was John’s plan. He wrote it up on Eye-In-The-Sky as an “Experiment in Terror.” He would draw people’s attention to a hitherto-unnoticed object, and see what happened. He bought an Iron Man mask at the Dollar Store, and wedged it in the storm drain. It was shiny, and for the car parked in the right-hand lane, just visible as a face by headlight. It was far enough back to be a mysterious object. You could see a shiny face in the shadow. He took some photos of the mask, the mask by car headlight, and posted his theories. He parked his car on the cross street. He watched for hours. A couple of cars—once the passenger, once a driver - spotted the mask. But that meant nothing. He asked Don to ask his customers if they had seen anything weird in the neighborhood. He asked Phillip, Don’s tenant in the garage apartment, to ask folks in the neighborhood if they saw anything weird. Nothing happened. Then a thunderstorm came, and the mask was washed down the drain. Oh well, as many people had said on Facebook, it was a badly designed experiment.
Two months later when a light rain had once again caused John to take his car, the mask was back. Or at least a mask. Or at least a shiny face. John decided that he would examine it tomorrow or at least the first day without rain, which proved to be Saturday. No mask. Well that was odd. Then a week later and weather caused another car trip. There it was. It looked to be a different mask. There was something odd about its proportions. The following day he went to snap a picture for his blog. No mask. Was someone putting it there at night? Some reader of his page, or a prankster following his own prank? He walked over that night with a flashlight. He couldn’t just lie on the street and look in lest oncoming traffic roll over him, so he lay upon the top of the drain and leaned over. Three cars honked at him, and one driver shouted abuse. He could see the mask was much further in the drain than before. Perhaps tools had been used to push it in. Also it didn’t look quite right; perhaps it was a different mask? Something was written in a fairly shaky hand near the mask. John first thought it was a magical inscription in some eldritch rune, but it turned out to be the words “Thank You” followed by another word obscured under the mask. He tried to get some good photos, but nothing useable could be made because of the odd angles involved. He talked with Don and Mary, and they drove by and looked at it, and Don suggested parking his car at the intersection and then using it as a shield from traffic, shooting some photos. Mary reminded him to put his hood up and put his blinkers on for extra safety. He did that the next night. The mask had moved slightly: the inscription now read, “Thank You John.” John’s first hypothesis (after fifteen seconds of Wonder and Fear) was that one of the poker buddies had done this. He had not mentioned the location of his experiment on his blog—and it would be very hard to figure out what storm drain from the picture he had used. He texted his friends, “Haw Haw!” but none of them took credit.
And so weeks went by. John spotted the mask a few times, but the mystery was gone. Besides, he had been really busy. Weirdness seemed to be happening all over. There were bell sounds and booms off the Atlantic coast, the slime falls on those cultists in Argentina, and a nerd group claimed that pi was changing, Europa seemed to be leaving orbit, a massive something-or-other had been seen in the Arctic, there were Pacific earthquakes.… For the first time ever, the “fun” aspect of his job was slipping away. He had never believed all of it; heck, maybe not even most of it. He did believe that mainstream politics concealed a good deal of stuff, that mainstream science was spotty, and that humans didn’t really have a decent grasp of metaphysics. He was beginning to wonder what to believe. Not in the sense of his clients, who could “believe” in Bigfoot, ESP, UFOs, the Trilateral Commission.… No. What to believe in like relativity, politics, love, good, and evil. The center had ceased to hold. He was even thinking of getting a real job and forswearing paranormal studies. Did posting reprints of John Kincaid’s article “Was Bigfoot Lincoln’s Father?” help anyone? Had he moved homo saps one centimeter closer to the Truth? Or was he the underpaid projectionist of a one-star B-movie in Plato’s cave? John was in something of a spasm of self-hate as the light caught him at his storm drain. There were wreaths and candles—lit candles—on the drain. Objects of worship? Thanksgiving? Had there been an accident there, or was it connected in a sick way with the Iron Man mask? He turned on St. John’s and pulled his car into a Texan market parking lot. He walked the half-block to the drain. There was a wreath of blue and white artificial flowers, three small white candles in jars, and in chalk in big letters—THANK YOU JOHN CARDENAS. He bent down to pick up the wreath. When he touched it a strong shock, not exactly electrical, not anything he had a name for, ran through him. He flinched and nearly fell. He could hear a bell in the distance, or was it a bark? A bell-like cry. For no clear reason he thought a very clear thought, “the cosmic alarm clock.” He pulled out his phone to snap some pictures, and then put it aside in disgust. This was the problem. Focusing on this instead of education in Texas or the garbage island in the Pacific Ocean. If you divert all of human attention, all of human intent, away from mankind, you will break the center. All of the hatred and divisiveness in American politics. All of the decline of a civil civilization increased with more and more News of the Weird. He took the wreath back to his car. He was going to toss it on the green folding table they played poker on. As he drove the remaining eight blocks to Don’s house, he had another clear thought—none of his friends did this. Logic might point to his friends gaslighting him, but this was beyond logic. This was the very crack he had meant to cause. Not with the damn Iron Man mask—with all of it—with eighteen years of focusing on the paranormal. He could still hear the bell. It was getting louder.
He parked in front of Don’s house. He left the wreath on his passenger-side seat. Don was standing behind his screen door; the lights were on in his front room. Don looked worried.
Don spoke as John walked up the cracked narrow sidewalk to his two-step cement porch. “I’ve got troubles. Your kind of trouble.” There was some anger in the possessive pronoun “your.”
John already felt defensive, “Yeah? What kind of trouble?”
Don opened the door, “Come in. I’m sorry. I’m scared. I called off the game, but I didn’t call you because I wanted you to come over. Come in.”
As John walked in, Don took him by the collar and pushed him past the bookstore rooms to the tiny, greasy kitchen in the back. Several of the books had been pulled from the shelves, and something black seemed to be squirming under them. When John tried to stop and look at the strange scene, Don pushed him harder. The kitchen had had new green linoleum in Don’s mother’s day. Now it was shiny and mainly gray. There was a small kitchen table which once had false wood-grain, but now was brown with years of cheap furniture polish. Don had opened two beers, and he had chips and salsa ready on the little table. “Take a load off.”
John pulled up one of the plastic-backed chairs. “So what problem you got?”
Don said, “I don’t want you reporting this. I don’t want to see it on your Facebook page. I don’t want it on Twitter. Got that?”
“Sure, sure. What’s happening?”
Don pulled up his own chair. For the next twenty minutes Don rambled on about the brightening of the
Pleiades, the mass deaths of men in Tibet, the South Pole aurora phenomena, and the increase in coma cases. John had heard of most of these; in fact, he had blogged about most of them. He had no idea what his friend was getting at. He tried to interrupt, to share his new truth that it wasn’t right or good or healthy to spend all of one’s attention on such things. But Don went on and on, sometimes mentioning his reading habits as a boy and a young man. Finally he said, “You see, I never believed any of it. I saw how there was more weirdness every year, but I thought that was because there was simply a need for it. Now it’s breaking.”
John asked, “What’s breaking?”
Don said, “Reality. Reality is broken. We can go in my front room, and I can show you where it broke. Well, a local crack, anyway. The break on this block. The Return of the Old Ones.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I cover this table, my mom’s old ‘breakfast nook’ table from Sears, with a newspaper, what do you see?”
“A newspaper?” asked John.
Don nodded as if encouraging a simple child. “No. You don’t see a newspaper. You see stories: Governor said this, the President said that, the Pope said another thing. Two stars are getting a divorce. An embarrassing crime by a celebrity. Unrest in the Middle East. A sale at Jerod’s. What do you not see?”
John ventured, “The table?”
Don smiled, “Right. But the table is older and bigger than the news. Mom bought this table in 1969. Dad spread his newspaper on it every day at breakfast. Then Mom did so after his death. Then when I got the house I kept my PC here and read the news. Stories about millions of humans for decades come and go, but the table remains. Now I read my news on my phone most days. So what can I see now?”
“The table.”
“As a species we are beginning to see the table. And it ain’t from Sears, and it ain’t made for humans. It’s older and bigger. Now I can show you the front room.”
“Before you show me, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“On the way over here I started to hear this bell-like sound. Can you hear that?”
Don looked truly sad. “No, my apocalypse has no bells and whistles.”
John followed him into the front room. Big bookshelves from Libby’s Used Books dominated the front room. John knew that Don still had drop-in customers, although most of the business was online. The room had hardwood floors, Red Oak #3. Many of the books from the Science Fiction section were piled on the floor. Occult and “Metaphysical” likewise. The books moved up and down slowly, they were covering up living creatures. Don knelt down by the biggest pile. “Look!” he said, raising a handful of paperbacks.
On the floor were two black wet-looking creatures like a cross between a horned toad and an earthworm; they writhed as though in pain. “Look!” he said again. He took his right index finger and pushed through the flesh of one of the beasts. It had the consistency of pudding. A small part of the creature was easily scooped up. It was a homogenous blackness—no internal organs or bones. He flicked the nastiness off his finger, like a man gets rid of a booger. It flicked away and when it hit the floor reshaped itself into a tiny replica of the creature it had been sampled from. It scurried toward its parent, which promptly ate it. Then Don grabbed some of the books, “Look!” he said for a third time.
He fanned the books in front of John. The pages were blank. Old and yellowed but blank. No, that wasn’t quite accurate; the front matter, the copyright notices and so forth were intact.
Don’s voice began slow and even but broke as he said, “It started two days ago. Some of the books began sweating ink. At first I thought it was humidity; remember that killer fog we had Monday morning? Oh, that’s right; you sleep then. At first I thought it was these two Lovecraft paperbacks. They’re side by side (or they were). But then I noticed other books. All of my Lovecraft, my Ramsey Campbell, some Stephen King, all of my Phil Dick. Then a few books in the Metaphysical section: UFOs in Colonial America by Amos Carter, The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel. All my Charles Fort. Then some of my mythology books, an advanced math book I was holding for Phillip. I had no idea what to do, as you can see the books are worthless now. A few other dealers had the same problem. With the same titles.”
John advised his friend to breathe.
“So,” asked John, “Why didn’t you report this?”
“I called up KEYE and they put me on hold and I played on my computer. I read the news. Did you know pi is changing? That’s like a prime number missing, for god’s sake. There are rumors that some of the dead are returning in Tibet, or that the rash of comas in Australia is much bigger than CNN says. In the face of that weirdness I’m going to report, ‘strange paperbacks are losing their ink.’?”
“But the creatures,” said John.
“They formed yesterday. Last night one of them crawled on my face while I was sleeping. I don’t know if it was exploring me, moving mindlessly, or seeking to enter my brain. “
“We need to get you out of here. You can stay at my place.”
“Oh, really? How many of these titles do you own?” Don broke into hysterical laughter.
“OK. OK. Let’s get calm. We can get away from this. There’s a Motel Six not too far from here. We’ll go there, spend the night, and figure this out tomorrow.”
“OK,” said Don.
They went out to the car.
“What’s this?” asked Don picking up the wreath.
“That’s nothing. That’s some trash I found. It has nothing to do with this,” John lied. The ringing sound had grown more intense. John switched the radio on, picking an all-music FM station. Classic Rock will banish anything for a few minutes. It was ten minutes to the hotel. They had agreed not to watch the news.
Despite the level of fear, Don went to a snoring peacefulness quickly. John lay in the other bed thinking that he could do something. If he had helped crack reality, he could do something. He knew he wouldn’t fall asleep. And then he was under.
He dreamed of sleeping in his own bed. Seven little men came in his room. Dwarves all wearing Iron Man costumes. They surrounded his bed, singing “Heigh Ho! Heigh Ho!” He couldn’t move, but he could talk with them.
“Who are you?”
“Tough one to answer in your language John. We kind of liked your friend’s label. The Old Ones. We have been around longer than you people. Anyway we’re here to say thanks.”
“That’s it? You’re just seven little men?”
“Then that would make you Sleeping Beauty.” There was more than a passing sexual hint there.
“I don’t believe you,” said John very firmly.
“More to the point, you have ceased to disbelieve in us. We seven have always been here. Oh we’re small potatoes, that’s why we could come through a crack as small as you made. See, we’re even a little human-looking—because we’ve been standing near the Barrier so long. We’re not like the big things moving certain moons, or even the Door in the South. We’re human enough to want to thank you for tearing the newspaper away. In a sense we’re human enough to be sorry for what’s about to happen in the motel room with you and your friend.”
John woke, covered in sweat. Don still snored peacefully. It was all a dream.
Then John realized that there were seven little men standing in the room. At their feet writhed four of the spiked ink-worms. And like so many thousand, thousand humans in that hour, John screamed. Don woke and turned on the light by the bed. He started to laugh at the kids in their Iron Man costumes, but the seven little men took off their masks.
They weren’t really human. Not. At. All.
for Joe Pulver
CAUSALITY REVELATION
Glynn Owen Barrass
Now
I failed her, the only one I ever cared about.
The streets were in chaos, the people fighting, screaming, while some took part in clumsy, demented orgies. The sky, Lloyd didn’t like looking there, for the things that hove
red and flew in that clear blue space were terrible upon the eye, and the mind.
He made space around a group of women engaged in kicking another to death and turned the corner onto his street, which thankfully was mostly clear of people. One wandering, confused soul, however, was a man he recognized: his neighbor Suliman.
Lloyd grimaced. Damn, he’s noticed me.
The small olive-skinned man approached him with a panicked expression on his face. “The sky … do you see angels?”
Lloyd tried stepping past him, but Suliman raised his arms, blocking his way.
“Why are they taking us, when only Allah tells them what to do? Are we being punished?”
Angels to some, Lloyd thought, and held back uneasy laughter.
Suliman’s arms dropped and he turned away from Lloyd, babbling in Arabic as he approached a car moving down the street.
With a shake of his head, Lloyd quickly took the final few meters to his house.
He heard a squeal of brakes and Suliman scream as he unlocked the door, but he slammed it closed without looking back. If his neighbor was dead, well, there were worse ways to go.
He rushed through the shadowy lounge to take the stairs beside the kitchen door three steps at the time, panting from the quick exertion as he reached the top. Straight ahead stood his bedroom door, Lloyd walking in without taking the usual time to prepare himself.
Sarah hadn’t moved from the bed—the bonds he’d made with the ropes tight and unyielding, but she moved regardless, in ways quite impossible for a human being.
“Please just stay still,” he begged, but she continued to squirm incessantly, fighting against the rope wrapped around her and the bed. Her movements weren’t limited to her limbs, however, for the bare flesh of her legs, arms and face warped, expanding and contracting, her limbs and digits twisting in odd places. Her face was the worst. There the Program had had more to work with. Her rolling eyes wriggled around her face, her eyeballs expanding and contracting in random, alien movements. Sarah’s mouth, when it wasn’t disappearing and appearing elsewhere on her body, sometimes expanded so much it covered her whole face, a hungry, gaping maw that gibbered silently for release.