“It’s you,” Oscar said to himself. “What did you say to Stanley?” He got out of the car and shouted across the top of the garage, “Hey asshole, what did you say to Stanley?”
The figure brought up his white-gloved hand level with his owl eyes and pointed his finger at Oscar.
“Oh, you’re fucking funny. Let’s see how hard you laugh when I throw you off this garage!” He charged across the weathered pavement after him.
The Owlman managed to slide into the stairwell. Oscar launched himself down the stairs after him. He shouted, “No reason to run, asshole! I’m a shrink. I just want to talk to you about your childhood!”
The Owlman turned a corner with Oscar gaining on him. The Owlman ran in near silence, with just the whooshing of his body moving through the urine-tainted stairwell air.
With the cough syrup pumping with such vigor through his body, Oscar started to feel lightheaded and his legs were turning to hot rubber. “I was champion in two hundred meter in high school!” He yelled. “I’m gonna catch you eventually asshole!” He added, “Even if I am high!”
The Owlman turned again, this time taking them through the ground floor exit.
“Wrong exit, asshole!” Oscar shouted as he followed the figure around the corner. “Nowhere to go now! I got you, you prick!”
He could barely see the man he was chasing in all the darkness but there was no way out of that alley. The backstreet ended with the grime-coated brick wall of a twenty-story housing project and fifteen-foot fences with razor wire.
Oscar realized that the Owlman had stopped running and was now staring back at him.
“No reason to run,” Oscar said, catching his breath. His eyes were red and droopy from the cough syrup. Stopping in the alley, he said, “I don’t bite. I just want to know why the fuck you’re so interested in me. And I’d like to know what you said to my neighbor.”
The Owlman’s eyes were as black as the emptiest vacuum, pits of nothingness in embroidered gold, raven feathers and ivory. His masked face appeared with greater menace that night, as though Oscar was now on his turf.
“Take off your mask!” Oscar yelled.
The moment he was close enough to see the mask clearly, something made him stop. At first it could have been a small-scale thunderstorm in the back of the alley, with what appeared to be dark clouds swarming into a vortex. A commingling of shadows coalesced into something behind the Owlman.
When Oscar saw it, he fled like a gazelle chased by a lion.
Behind the Owlman, a mob of a dozen men in masks ran toward Oscar like charging gladiators. The one-way alley seemed to stretch longer on the way out. Oscar was also starting to feel dizzy from the cough syrup setting in. As he ran toward the next street, toward any light of civilization, the horde of Owlmen followed close behind.
Oscar pulled out his cell phone and battled to dial it without slowing down. He didn’t know how exactly he remembered Dale’s phone number while running for his life.
He peeked behind him and the group was gaining.
The moment Dale picked up the line, Oscar yelled, “Help! Dale you gotta help me, I would love to explain what’s happening but I have no fucking idea! I’m at the corner of forty-fourth and Chestnut. I’m running toward Market Street. HELP!”
Without looking back, he rounded the corner toward Market Street. He ran halfway down the block before he realized all the Owlmen were gone. He jogged in place like he used to before his track meets, assuming the throng of men in masks would come around the corner any second. However, no one came. It seemed to be just Oscar and his pounding heart.
Dale and Arnie showed up fifteen minutes later. They came tearing around the corner in Arnie’s pickup truck, with Dale shouting, “What the hell is wrong, Doctor Loste? Do you need an ambulance?”
“What the fuck,” said Arnie. “Dale said you sounded like you were scared shitless.”
Oscar didn’t know what to say exactly, so he just told them, “It was a bunch of guys but I was able to outrun them.”
“Like local street thugs?” asked Dale, sounding like a police officer. “I’ve heard about groups of teenagers that swarm and rob people.”
“I don’t think that’s what it was,” said Oscar. “They were wearing masks.”
“Masks?” asked Dale.
“What the fuck do you mean, masks?” Asked Arnie.
“I’m not sure what I saw,” Oscar told them. “I’ve seen one of them before but tonight there were more.”
“So you’ve been seeing a man in a mask regularly?” Asked Dale.
Oscar realized how crazy he sounded. “Let’s just let it go,” he said. “These guys were chasing me and I’m not sure what I saw.”
“Are you feeling OK, Dr. Loste?” Dale asked, sounding genuinely concerned for his therapist. He made a drinking gesture with his hand to his mouth. “Are you sure?”
As Arnie drove them away, Oscar said something quietly, “It can’t be real. I must be seeing things.”
“Hey Doc,” said Arnie, turning back from the driver’s seat. “I’m sorry for the other day. I shouldn’t have flown off the handle. You were right about our mom. I don’t know why I couldn’t see something so obvious.”
...
Chapter 15
Screaming
During their next session, Oscar found himself staring into the sad blue pools of Beth’s eyes. He was about to ask her how well she was sleeping when his mind went blank. He searched her six-year-old face for something, the slightest smirk of recognition, some sign that Beth wasn’t just an innocent little girl looking for his help.
“Did I do something wrong?” Beth asked. “You’re not talking to me.”
“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t go to sleep at all last night.”
“Why couldn’t you sleep? Were you not tired?”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened and why I couldn’t sleep?”
Beth looked confused and even a little afraid of Oscar at that moment. She started to shake her head no before something invisible got her attention. It appeared Mister Smiler was telling her something. After nodding, she told Oscar, “Mister Smiler says you almost got killed. He says you were being stupid.”
“Oh he said that, did he?”
“He says not to worry about your brain. He says that’s working OK.”
“Tell him I said that I’m not going to listen to a damn word he says until he appears to me. Right here in this room. Right now.” Oscar crossed his arms as though he intended to wait. “Tell Mister Smiler if he wants to annoy me any further, he better show himself.”
“You’re acting weird today,” Beth told him.
“Just tell...” Oscar started to say before amending his statement. “Of course he sees everything I’m doing and hears what I’m saying. So I really don’t need you to tell him anything. Where is he?”
Beth sheepishly pointed to her right and whispered, “Mister Smiler is standing right there.”
Oscar got out of his chair and went right to the spot. “About how tall is he?” He asked, sticking his hand out, waiting for Beth to tell him when he had the right height.
Beth lowered her head and nodded when Oscar’s hand reached chest level. She seemed afraid of what would happen.
“That would put his one eye...right...about...here,” he said as he jabbed his finger at the spot where Mister Smiler should be. “Take that you invisible bastard!”
Beth’s little mouth hung open in shock at Oscar’s behavior.
Oscar started to slap the air in the room as though smacking Mister Smiler around. “How do you like that?” he asked the air.
“Stop it!” Beth shouted as she got up. “Stop it, Oscar! Leave him alone!”
When he saw Beth’s horrified expression, Oscar became ashamed. He fell to his knees on the floor of her bedroom. It became difficult for him to look at her. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “Tell Mister Smiler I’m sorry too. I’m not myself today.”
Beth walked
over to him. To his surprise, she put her arms around him, saying, “It’s OK. Me and Mister Smiler forgive you. He says you’re a good man.”
...
Late that night, Oscar went on a wandering drive through the city’s North Side, searching the dusty store shelves for his gorgonorphan. Nowhere had what he needed. The pharmacists and clerks either had no idea what he was talking about or looked at him with some sort of cold judgment.
His pursuit took him to the very edge of the city, the part with the abandoned factories and the old penitentiary that closed down nearly a hundred years before. The whole area was barely lit by just a few streetlights and the glow of the living parts of the city nearby.
The dark factories were covered in grime and soot and slowly being eaten away by the weeds and vines. At that time of night, the row of factories on the hill looked like the rocky interior of a cave.
Oscar spotted light down the road. He recognized the sign for pharmacy, glowing in red fluorescent Vietnamese characters. The all-night drugstore appeared to be devoid of customers and the clerk wasn’t at the register when he got inside. Oscar rang the bell but no one responded.
While he waited at the register, he thought he heard some commotion coming from the back area of the store. It sounded like some boxes had just been knocked over. Then he was sure he heard the sound of rushing footsteps coming toward him. Someone was shouting, “Stop! I’m calling police!”
Then Oscar was nearly knocked over by a heavy-set man in his underwear. The scantily clad man had apparently robbed the store and was in the process of making his getaway. The thief’s arms were loaded with a stack of gorgonorphan bottles.
“Out of my way! I need it! I can almost see!” The robber shouted. “I can almost see it all!”
The clerk was chasing him toward the front entrance but couldn’t get there in time to stop him. He gave up chasing the robber after following him a short stretch down the block and returned to the store.
“Thanks for stepping in to help,” the clerk told Oscar. “You could have at least blocked the door.”
“I’m pretty sure you call the Philadelphia police for something like that. I don’t know what you wanted me to do. The guy was hell-bent and I wasn’t gonna stop him.”
“Damn gorgonorphan. They were smart to take that crap off the market. I’ll be glad when all my stock is gone and I can put a sign out front that says, ‘Sorry drug addicts, go harass someone else.’” He stopped and looked Oscar over. “So what can I help you with?”
Oscar smiled, saying, “My wife has just come down a cough that you just wouldn’t believe. Did you just say that you had some gorgonorphan in stock?”
The clerk just stared at him. “Where’s your wedding ring?” He asked.
“It’s at the fucking cleaners,” said Oscar. He slapped twenty dollars on the counter.
On the way to his car, Oscar opened the cough syrup box, wrestled a little with the childproof bottle top and sent the gorgonorphan straight down his throat. The faint and murky skyline of Philadelphia stood over him. He sucked it down so quickly that he barely tasted the bitterness.
Even though the medicine had only been in his body a few moments, he felt an extra pull from gravity when he sat down in his car. Somehow it had already gone to his head. The feeling was pleasant as usual but this time much more intense. His head felt like it was vibrating. The lights of the Philadelphia skyline were getting brighter.
Oscar’s head fell against the car window and his mouth hung open like a freshly anesthetized hospital patient. He tried to move but his limbs felt heavy and his muscles were failing him. Something very strange was happening. He felt something like a muscle spasm in his neck. It felt like the invisible hands of a strong man, turning his head to show him something.
The spasm forced his head toward the Philadelphia’s North side, the dead zone of abandoned factories and industrial waste sites. He tried to look away, to turn his head in any other direction, but his neck seemed to be locked in position.
As he stared out to the black silhouettes of smokestacks, the stars in the sky got brighter. Then they began to flicker. Clouds of smoke billowed out of the stacks. Oscar’s body started to tremble and drool ran out of his mouth. All the swirling and flashing stars were overwhelming and he tried to shut his eyes.
He was shocked to find that closing his eyes accomplished nothing. The image was being beamed into his retina and there was nothing his eyelids could do about it.
Suddenly, he was hovering over a black hole, some sort of ancient passageway in the ground. From the bottom of the abyss, a faint orange glow accompanied the sound of a child screaming. The tone of the shrieking seemed familiar and childlike. He thought that it sounded like Beth.
Oscar felt himself descending the hole, toward the orange light, while the screaming got louder. It became so loud that it seemed to strike out at him in bold colors of fire. Beth’s screams overwhelmed all of Oscar’s senses.
While he was slumped against the car window, he started to mumble something from his drooling mouth. “I’m gonna help you, Beth. I’m gonna figure this out. I promise.”
...
Chapter 16
The Azuzu of Sumer
A few days later, when Oscar showed up for Beth’s appointment, dozens of fancy cars packed the Bardo estate driveway. He happened to be more than twenty minutes early. The housekeeper let Oscar in and told him everyone was in the study.
He heard voices and let himself inside.
Instead of chitchatting with their guests over cocktails, Eva and Lorne Bardo were lecturing the group like college professors. Semicircles of fold-up chairs fanned out across the study from a large projector screen in the corner. Every seat was filled and the attendants all seemed to be listening to Eva and Lorne Bardo with rapt attention.
Oscar stood on the outskirts of the room while they spoke to the group.
“The Azuzu of Sumer,” said Eva Bardo to the group, “even though their legacy has been all but erased, the Azuzu ruled all the Middle East in their time. They held more wealth than the pharaohs ever did. They were the first practitioners of science. However, they went beyond science. They understood that what we see is not everything, that our eyes deceive us, that science is not the only way to understand and manipulate nature. They also understood the power of ritual, something totally ignored by modern science. Ritual is the power of collected and channeled will. The Azuzu believed that ritual transcends space and time and is, in fact, the root of reality. Their sacred text, Ana-sa-ebusu, translated from Sumerian means, enter the uncreated night.”
A peculiar image formed behind her on the projector screen. A photograph of an ancient cave painting, taken somewhere in Syria, depicted some sort of religious altar. The elaborate illustration looked like it had been painted out of rust or dried blood. Tiny child’s handprints bordered the altar like a picture frame.
The altar resembled an insect chrysalis, made up of an ornate collection of flat plates, with lines of light drawn in to depict the thing glowing. Above the altar, an alien solar system, complete with multiple suns and swarms of planets, floated like a mobile.
Lorne Bardo, standing beside the projector screen, told the group that the plates were made out of glass.
“In fact,” he went on, “the Azuzu were the first on Earth to use glass technology and the first to create mirrors. Some of this knowledge was passed down and contained in the text, On Light, Shadows and Mirrors.”
Oscar noticed something in the drawing, something inside the glass cocoon. It looked like a tiny person at the core.
“Excuse me,” Oscar said to the group.
The entire study full of people turned at the interruption. Every set of cold eyes in the room was focused right on him. Lorne and Eva shot him surprised scowls.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Oscar went on, “but I had a question.”
“Well, we’re all ears,” said Eva with a hateful smile.
“What’s in the middle
of that altar thing? It looks like a little kid. What’s going on there?”
In the center of the altar, a small androgynous child, lay with his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest.
Eva didn’t even look back at the screen. She, along with everyone else in the study, just stared at Oscar. “I suppose you’re right, Oscar,” she said. “That’s very observant of you.”
“It almost looks like the child is at the center of it all,” said Oscar, “like the little kid is the engine powering the thing.”
“To the Azuzu,” said Lorne, “the child is the source of power for the universe, that we all contain this power to some extent, only to lose a little bit everyday.”
“Some children, of course,” his wife added, “contain much more power than others.”
“The Azuzu,” Lorne continued, “believed that some children can actually bend the universe to their will.”
“I guess we can see why they’re not around anymore,” said Oscar.
“Excuse me,” said Eva, “what do you mean?” She seemed to take genuine offense.
“It’s just...” Oscar searched for the right word. “So primitive.”
“I don’t believe we see your point, Oscar,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to explain.”
“Children depend on us,” said Oscar. “They’re basically defenseless. We’re supposed to be helping them and taking care of them, not using them like some kind of nine-volt battery. These people seem like savages to me.”
The hush in the room was silent enough to freeze time.
“Savages?” said Eva. “Savages that were more advanced technologically, more advanced socially? These ‘savages’ would have ruled the world if they were alive today.”
“I’m sorry,” Oscar said as he realized how much he had insulted the Bardos. “I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just my uneducated opinion.”
Enter the Uncreated Night Page 12