by Tim Curran
Andrew went to the ladder and climbed up into the loft. He stood at the edge and watched as Thomas passed around his grandmother’s handiwork. The statue was amazing and intimidating.
“What about the molds?” Andrew yelled down.
“Not too much longer,” Tony said checking his watch. Mary walked over to Thomas, a blush decorating her cheek and handed him two old books stolen from the library. She pushed her glasses into place and stepped back into the gathered. Thomas smiled and ran his hands over the old leather of the books. He closed his eyes and stood still, as if absorbing the knowledge from the volumes.
“Fresh from the Trustees Room.” Mary whispered. Then she took the keys and threw them into one of the stalls. As Andrew watched from the loft, Tony and Rusty went to work on the molds with hammers and crowbars. The fiberglass molds came apart easily. Tony stepped back as the pieces of the molds were pulled away. Andrew stepped back from the edge. It was all becoming too real.
The molds were five feet high at the top. Tony had spent weeks casting and forming and setting the forms. Spent god knows how much money to have the end molds made. And what stood before him meant more to him than his wife and kids. Thomas strolled over and draped an arm across his shoulders.
“They’re beautiful.” He looked up to the loft at Andrew trying to hide in the shadows. “Better come down now, Andrew.” Andrew stepped into the light to see the concrete monstrosities. They were “real,” he’d seen the sketches and notes in his father’s notebooks, before taking them from his grandmother and turning them over to Thomas.
“Let’s assemble. The Hidden become seen and become whole to awaken our sleeping God,” Thomas said. Everyone in turn went to the metal work. The massive molded, clawed feet stood before them, and they climbed into the rigging of the framework. Kathy smiled, watching them. A tear ran down her cheek as emotions overwhelmed her. She was an integral part of something. Thomas had been saying it at meetings for a long time. And now she believed him.
The Hidden, the believers in the Great Sleeper, took their spots on the frame. Some at odd angles, others perfectly straight on the small shelves welded into the metal. Andrew was the last to take his spot on the outside of the rigging. Kathy climbed and secured everyone into place with the heavy leather straps that would have made any dominatrix moist. And then Kathy took her place next to Tony on the other side of the center. Mary climbed up into the middle of them and Thomas tossed her the mask.
In turn, as if on cue, they all took off their shirts. Men and women; there was no shame or embarrassment. Beer bellies, fat rolls, wrinkles, nothing mattered. No one was ever insulted in The Hidden. The men and women on the right side with long, detailed and dark tattoos of tentacles and claws and eyes on their right arms. Opposites of those on the left. Kathy snaked her arm around Mary to hold on to Tony. They were wings, what mattered to make this all fly. Mary slid the mask on to her head, covering her eyes and nose. Her mouth still showed. Not made of dyed leather like she’d been told, but dyed human skin.
Thomas set the books down on the barn floor and stepped back. Their Great God was taking shape. Soon the Sleeper would be back among them to take control of the Earth or destroy it. Whichever the great Cthulhu decided. Thomas pulled a double-edged dagger from his boot, with an ornate jeweled hilt. Not practical in a fight, but perfect for what he was about to do. Kathy closed her eyes as he climbed up the framework.
On her back was an exquisitely detailed wing. The matching one on Tony’s back.
“Be strong. This is going to hurt.” Tony squeezed her hand and Thomas started to trace the blade of the dagger around the outer edge of the tattoo. Blood flowed and dripped down the metal on to those below her. She stifled a scream, as Thomas set the knife down on a small shelf in the frame and then peeled the skin off her back, until the “wing” would be seen from below. He secured the flesh to a hook on the frame and kissed Kathy’s cheek, who was fighting to not pass out from the incredible pain.
Tony wasn’t as strong and screamed and screamed and finally passed out.
Those lucky enough to be in the path of the falling blood reveled in it, rubbed the steaming crimson on their bodies and faces with their free hands. Letting the blood coat and color their own flesh. Andrew looked on from his perch, excited and horrified. His father’s notes never said anything about this.
Thomas gingerly walked back to his place in front of the skin and steel effigy. The books on the floor seemed alive; they hummed with submissive energies, waiting to be freed.
“And free you I shall” he whispered.
Andrew went to scratch, the ink on his arm suddenly painful and itchy. Despite that he’d had the tattoo for months, since Thomas had first contacted him. Mary grabbed his arm, holding him back, she was surprisingly strong for what he believed to be a meek librarian. He screamed as fiery pain raced up and down his arm, as if the blood itself had turned to sanguine flames.
Then it moved.
Not his arm: the tattoo. Flowing like seaweed caught in a tidal pool, liquid and graceful and beautiful. Mary released her grip on his arm as he calmed. He nodded to her and she flashed a smile. The others on the outside were all overtaken by the same calm that had captured Andrew. He watched their tattoos moving and flowing. The wings “flew” on their own accord, Kathy grimacing with each movement as the skin was torn a little more with each “flap.” Tony was still providentially unconscious.
Thomas sat down cross-legged on the floor, the books from the library in front of him. He ran his fingers across the covers, leaving little trails of energy in the wake of his touch. Next to him was a stack of journals, which Andrew recognized straight away as his father’s. They had been the heart of The Hidden since before Thomas had come around.
Thomas looked back at his effigy to the Sleeping God, to the Creator and the Destroyer. He felt the energy and the power building around him.
“My brothers and sisters, it is time.” He looked at his crew, the librarian, the fry cook, the welder, and the mechanic. The lifetime student and the local journalist and all the others. Thomas gazed last at Andrew, who looked so much like his father it was reminiscent of his coming into The Hidden.
Thomas opened the book.
And the Earth shook.
Cthulhu had awakened.
THE GENTLEMAN CALLER
Lucy A. Snyder
My back and ribs screamed at me as I leaned out over the armrest of the motorized wheelchair and slapped the round steel button again, harder. An eternity later, the front door of FoneLand swung open and I rolled out of the biting January air into the warm lobby.
The old man at the security desk peered out over his trifocals at me.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t see ya, Janie. Woulda got the door for ya,” Pete wheezed.
“S’okay.” I forced my cold-numb cheeks into a smile as I drove down the beige carpet. Pete was a sweet old man, but God help us if anyone nefarious actually tried to sneak into the place.
The motor whined like a sick dog; rolling through all the snow outside was hard on the chair. Hell, it was hard on me. Even when I was healthy, if the temperature dropped below 20, the separation scar that ran the length of the left side of my body did nothing but ache.
Today, the cold made everything from my toenails to my teeth hurt. I’d carefully folded my legs up and wrapped them in part of the sheepskin rug I rode on to keep my butt free of pressure sores, but even so, my thighs and feet burned something fierce. Normally I didn’t have any sensation down there at all, except for a dull, phantom itching when I had been moving around a lot. Probably something to do with my veins, which were bad enough that the doctors were always bugging me to get my legs amputated. They told me I could get a blood clot and die suddenly when I got older. I hadn’t yet decided whether that would really be such a bad thing.
I still felt lightheaded and weak from the viral encephalitis that had laid me up for the better part of two months. Coming to work was probably not the smartest thing I’d
ever decided to do … but I was so damn sick of watching TV in my assisted-living facility apartment I could cry. I wanted to be out around people, young people, not the eternally sick and dying.
Tooling around the snowbound parks and overcrowded malls weren’t pleasant options, though. Going to my parents’ house would have been even worse. So, that left work.
“You take care now.” Pete’s smile held an ample measure of pity.
Pity. I stopped the chair beside the elevators and stared up at my reflection in the round security mirror as I waited for the next lift. My face was as pale as the belly of some undersea creature. I supposed I looked normal enough from the neck up but no amount of blankets could completely hide that I was a deformed dwarf from the neck down: torso twisted and permanently hunched to one side, arms stunted. My legs looked like nothing more than useless spindles of flesh and bone, but they did help me keep my balance in the chair. And stylish baby shoes fit me fine. Today I had on a pair of glittery red ones just like Dorothy’s magic slippers.
If only I could click my heels.
To the outside world, I looked like an eternal virgin. Nobody knew I’d been jilling off since I was twelve. The best present I ever got was a little battery-powered vibrator one of the young nurses’ assistants gave me surreptitiously when I was spending an otherwise lousy sixteenth birthday in the hospital. She was just a few years older than me, full in the flush of hormones herself, and I guess she felt bad that I was never going to get laid.
Thing was, I could get laid. I could, dammit. If I was careful and saved up enough money, there was a local place that could rent me a pretty boy for a few hours. Word was it was a classy business with a no-theft, no-disease guarantee; the city had some of the best rehab hospitals in the country, so there were plenty of disabled girls and pent-up old ladies who wanted their services.
And, if I were willing to risk my safety, I wouldn’t even have to pay for sexytimes. I’d been lurking on the BDSM FetLife site for a couple of years, more than long enough to know that people got turned on by the strangest things. If I started posting photos, I’d get a zillion meetup requests. Probably some of the pervs would even be nice. But it would be difficult finding anyone who saw me as a person and not a niche fetish.
But when you came down to it, I really didn’t want a gigolo or a BDSM scenester. My ever-growing collection of toys did me fine. My rent-a-boy fund had taken a serious hit there, but thank God for discreet mail order. The biggest challenge was keeping my parents from finding my stash of schtupperware.
Neither they nor old Pete would ever imagine that I worked for FoneLand’s fantasy line.
Once I got to work, I became Lady Rayne, a popular telephone mistress who got dozens of men creaming in their jeans each day. Some of my regular callers even sent gifts to her through FoneLand. Gifts to me, rather, but of course Rayne’s fans didn’t know that.
About a week before I got the encephalitis, a regular who said his name was Brandon sent me a real jade necklace. It was a gorgeous piece, but strange. The beads were etched all over in some kind of strange pictographic language that none of my Internet searches could decipher. The curvilinear carvings looked positively ancient; it had to cost serious money.
Brandon never wanted to talk about anything raunchy. He behaved like a perfect gentleman during our sessions, and he mostly just wanted to chat about movies and theatre. As our sessions went on, I had a hard time figuring out why someone as articulate and seemingly urbane as him needed to pay for conversation. And I was simultaneously intrigued and frustrated that nothing I said to him seemed to turn him on, yet my occasional attempts at dirty talk never offended him, either.
So, I’d considered sending the necklace back. I did feel a little like a fraud, even though I’d never asked for the present. But ultimately I decided to keep it. I felt … special when I wore it. Prettier. More important. I’d worn it every day since I got it, except for when I was in the hospital and worried someone might steal it while I was asleep.
And, I told myself, why not keep it? Even if I had committed a kind of fraud, I figured that Brandon could never find out who I really was. The company had a strict information security policy, and nobody creeping around the parking lot was likely to picture me as the source of anyone’s fantasies.
My callers were probably picturing a woman like my twin sister. Linda was a genuine beauty: tall, green eyes, deep red hair, long legs and an ample bust. Our parents were rich enough to afford the endless series of plastic surgeries Linda had needed after the doctors at Johns Hopkins removed me from her back a couple of days after we were C-sectioned out of our mother.
Linda got the ribs and kidney we shared. I was six months old before I even got a name. No one expected me to live, and when I lived, no one expected me to be anything more than a retarded cripple.
Maybe I’m being unfair, but I think Mom and Dad would have been happier if I’d been a vegetable. Then they could simply institutionalize me and forget that their lovely Linda had ever been two-thirds of a monster they’d spawned. They probably secretly wanted to give me up for adoption, but that would have been a faux pas of epic proportions for a family that made a big thing of donating to the March of Dimes each year.
Abnormalcy is not something my family suffers gladly. My father’s life revolves around stocks and fancy cars and golf, and my mother gets freaked out if the silverware doesn’t all match. If they ever found out I was working phone sex … wow. I was saving that little tidbit for a general announcement at the next family reunion so that they’d be most optimally mortified.
Linda would act horrified but I thought she would be secretly amused. And maybe, just for a moment, a little envious. We were born with essentially the same brain, after all, but her weird side would forever remain in the closet hidden behind the pink taffeta prom dress of the Good Girl image our mother had thrust upon her.
I smiled to myself as I rode the elevator up to the tenth floor. Maybe I wouldn’t go through with my plan for the reunion … but it was an awful lot of fun to think about. Pity I could never dress the part; neither nasty boots nor corsets would ever fit me. Not without causing me a hell of a lot of pain, anyway.
I got off the elevator and rolled into the fantasy line offices. Zoe, a gangly rivethead who was one of my closest friends, was making herself some green tea at the coffee nook. She was dressed relatively conservatively in shiny black vinyl pants, tall Doc Martens and a black cardigan over an old Misfits tee shirt.
“Hey, Jane, how you doing? Didn’t expect to see you back today.” Zoe pushed her electric-blue bangs away from her eyes.
“The cabin fever got to me,” I replied. “Figured I’d see if I could get through a half shift.”
“So you’re all better now?”
“Eh, sorta-kinda. Light still hurts my eyes.”
I wasn’t planning to mention the petit mal seizures I’d had since I left the hospital. The doctors assured me they would pass. I’d also had unusually vivid dreams ever since my feverish delirium; in some of them, I was a creature swimming through a sunken stone city in a deep ocean trench. I found that dream terrifying, and didn’t want to talk about it. But most of my real-as-life dreams had been far too mundane to mention. Why bore poor Zoe by telling her I’d dreamed I was a night auditor at a hotel going over stacks and stacks of receipts? Or that I was an insomniac watching terrible late-night TV?
“But don’t worry, I’m not contagious any more,” I added.
“I wasn’t worried.” Zoe blinked slowly and smiled, her cheeks dimpling over her deep blue lipstick. “Just don’t push yourself and relapse, ya know? It’s been boring here without you around. No one to be rude with but the boys on the gay lines.”
I threw a hand up against my forehead and pretended to swoon. “Oh, woe!”
Zoe giggled. “Get on in there, girl. The sweaty masses await their audience with the sultry Rayne.”
I smiled and punched in at the time clock, then rolled down into the phone
pit. Taking my place at an empty carrel, I put on my headset, logged into the computer, and tapped in my personal ID code to make myself available for calls.
I genuinely enjoyed working the fantasy line. It was far, far better than telemarketing in every way. Sure, I sometimes got the occasional abusive freak, but we were allowed to terminate a call whenever we felt uncomfortable. And I did sometimes feel sorry for the guys who called … many of them seemed sad and lonely. But I enjoyed the attention, and the challenge.
It wasn’t just the acting—to be really good, you had to figure out how to keep them coming back for more. You had to really get inside a guy’s head and figure out what he wanted to hear. I could size up a caller within the first ten seconds, and I regularly logged the longest calls in the center.
The phone buzzed, and I picked up.
“Hello, this is Rayne,” I breathed. “What’s your pleasure?”
“I … I wanna do something really dirty,” the guy stammered earnestly. He sounded pretty young, maybe just barely old enough to be making the call. “I wanna do it … doggy style.”
“Ooh, you want me down on my knees? But what if I want you down on your knees?”
Who the hell still thought doggy style was any big deal? The kid had to have led a massively sheltered life. I could practically imagine him sitting on his bed in his old church camp T-shirt and gray boxer shorts, heart pounding and sweat trickling down the groove of his back, his cock already hard from the excitement of doing something his Pentecostal minister father would never ever approve of.…
I suddenly felt dizzy, and had to shut my eyes against the vertigo. The jade necklace felt heavy and cold against my flesh.