Enter the Uncreated Night

by Christopher Rankin

  “You’ll find Beth in her room upstairs,” Eva told him.

  Apparently his apology hadn’t gone very far.

  When Oscar walked in, Beth was playing by herself at her doll’s table, wearing a pink turtleneck. He asked if he could sit down and she shrugged her shoulders without looking at him.

  “Are you feeling OK?” He asked her.

  “I’m fine,” she answered with her voice hoarse and barely audible. It sounded as though she had laryngitis or some sort of infection in her throat.

  “What’s wrong with your voice, Beth? Did you catch something?”

  She shook her head no and sounding even more hoarse than before, answered, “I feel fine. I’m not sick.”

  “Well then, what happened to your voice?”

  She just shrugged again, saying, “I dunno. I woke up and I couldn’t talk right.”

  The only thing in Oscar’s mind was his episode from the night before, when he had thought he heard little Beth screaming from the bottom of that pit. “Beth, did you go anywhere last night? Did someone come in here and take you somewhere?”

  She looked at him with total confusion, saying, “I can’t remember.” Then she turned away as she seemed to recall something. “I had a nightmare last night. It was bad. Even Mister Smiler couldn’t protect me.”

  “I’m sorry you had that nightmare,” Oscar told her. “Do you think you screamed at some point while you were asleep? Is that how you hurt your voice?”

  “I want them to go away,” she said, sounding frustrated. She turned away from him and looked toward her picture window. “I want to go away,” Beth told him. “Mister Smiler says he’s going to help me get back to Morgaza. I won’t be alone there,” she said as she started to cry. “They like me over there,” she whimpered. “I won’t be alone anymore and my nightmares will stop. I just want to go home.”

  Oscar wrapped his arms around the little girl’s shoulders, telling her, “I’m so sorry, Beth. I don’t know what to do yet, but I’m going to figure it out. And people like you over here, too.”

  ...

  Chapter 17

  Adaptations

  During Oscar’s next appointment with the McSorley brothers, Arnie was quieter than usual. The normally loud and gregarious man let his brother Dale do most of the talking during the early part of their session. Arnie’s expression was blank and it was obvious his mind was somewhere else.

  “You’re not yourself today,” Oscar told him. “Anything on your mind, Arnie?”

  “He had another big seizure last night,” said Dale. “He gets a little weird after.”

  Arnie just looked at them both blankly.

  “If you’re feeling weird,” Oscar told him, “you can talk about it here. I know you the post-seizure period can be strange for epileptics.”

  “Strange,” Arnie said softly. “That’s one way to say it.” His stare seemed distant and centered on something beyond them all. “You know this is all fucking bullshit, right?”

  Oscar asked him, “Could you be a little more specific about what exactly is fucking bullshit?”

  “All the shit we’re seeing. All this. It’s not real, man. It’s a show and I don’t believe it anymore. I don’t care how real it seems.” He looked straight up in the air, like he was talking to the ceiling, saying, “I got your number now, you son-of-a-bitch. You can’t fool me anymore.” He turned back to Oscar. “My seizures,” he went on, “they take the veil right off this shit.”

  “I’m happy that you see some benefit to your condition,” Oscar said.

  “It’s an adaptation,” Arnie went on. “The universe needs me to see.”

  “God you’re fucking weird after a seizure,” said his brother.

  “I saw something interesting when I was lying on the floor,” Arnie continued, undeterred by his brother’s comment. “I saw you, Doc.”

  “Is that right?” Asked Oscar, his eyes a bit wider.

  “There was a hall of mirrors or something. Actually, they weren’t exactly mirrors but there was glass or crystal or something everywhere. All these reflections everywhere. I’ve never been to wherever-the-fuck it is. It didn’t seem like Earth to me. Well you and me, Doc, we were standing there with that little girl, you know, your patient. The three of us are standing there and there are all these eyes and faces everywhere. I mean everywhere. All the glass, all the crystal, man, it was like faces everywhere.”

  “Where was I?” Dale asked.

  “I guess your fucking ass was at the donut shop or something because you weren’t there. It was just me, Doctor FeelGood here and the kid.”

  “The faces,” Oscar started to ask, “can you tell me anymore about them?”

  “Other than they were fucking everywhere?”

  “Were they human faces?”

  “No,” said Arnie. His expression turned self-examining and he stroked his right eyebrow with his index finger. “Come to think of it, they weren’t normal faces. They were almost like projections, like they were beamed onto all the glass and crystal. It was like being stuck inside a mirror itself.”

  “Was there anything about the faces that made them seem warm or perhaps inviting?”

  “Fuck no,” said Arnie. “They seemed to be scaring the hell out of us. They were cold, Doc. There was something about the look in their eyes too. Old, dark souls. It was like they knew everything but could not give a fuck. You ever read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Doc?”

  “I don’t think it was in my psychology course curriculum,” Oscar told him. “Tell me about the Tibetan Book of the Dead.”

  “Well that shit is a guidebook for what meets you on the other side, or should I say, other sides. Anyways,” Arnie went on, “it has some good points but I don’t think those dudes in Tibet had it all figured out. After my seizures, I like to sit back develop my own theories on life and death.”

  “Tell me,” said Oscar.

  “The trick of it all, Doc, is that there is no death. Only other people will experience my death. I’m moving on to the next thing, Doc, the next trip. That’s all this is, one big hallucination, one trip, man. And just like any other trip, it’s not real.”

  ...

  Chapter 18

  Twenty-Four Percent

  Oscar tried his usual drugstores on the way home from work but they were all out of cough syrup. One place marked it as: discontinued. Oscar received a strange look from the clerk in another store when he asked about it. “They took that stuff off the market,” the clerk told Oscar.

  Fong’s Drugs was open when Oscar drove through Chinatown. The sign caught Oscar’s eye because of the Cantonese character for drug glowing brighter than the streetlights.

  The store contained rows of plants and herbs as well as rows of bottles that Oscar couldn’t recognize. It smelled like dirt and earthworms mixed with a sharp whiff of mint. Worms, insects and three big toads, all for some sort of medicinal purpose, were in aquariums for sale. A number of exotic-looking orchids sprung out of a tree stump of decaying wood on a workbench behind the cash register.

  The old woman at the counter was grinding up some of the flowers in a mortar and pestle, when she looked up to find Oscar. Her hands froze in the middle of swirling up the red orchid petals and she just stared at him.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Oscar said, standing awkwardly in the doorway. “I’m just looking for my cough medicine and not having much luck. I was wondering if you happened to have some.”

  The old woman dropped the pestle and looked at Oscar like a fortune teller doing a cold read. Then she broke out into a big nodding smile. “We have,” she said, staring at him. “We have what you are looking for.”

  “How is that?” Oscar asked as he walked the rest of the way to the register. “I haven’t even told you what I wanted.”

  The old woman either didn’t understand him or wasn’t listening. She just kept squinting at him, studying his eyes the way she would the growth on a germinating plant. Oscar’s eyes seemed to be a ri
ch curiosity.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Oscar asked her.

  “No, no,” the woman said as her trance broke.

  “I need the blue stuff,” Oscar said. “Gorgonorphan. Divinex Pharmaceuticals just discontinued it. It seems to be sold out everywhere.”

  The old woman found his eyes again and just nodded as though she understood perfectly. Then, without a word, she disappeared into the storeroom in back. A few minutes later, she came out with a large amber glass bottle big enough to hold more than a gallon. It looked like something used in a chemical plant. The bottle had all sorts of Chinese printing on the label.

  “No, sorry,” Oscar started to tell her. “That isn’t it. It’s a...”

  “Yes, yes,” the woman argued. “This is what you want.”

  She turned the bottle around so Oscar could read the label. Somewhere in the Chinese text, Oscar found: “Gorgonorphan, 24% by mass.”

  “Not discontinued anymore,” the woman said while a smirk germinated from the corner of her mouth. “Supply no problem.”

  Oscar’s face was suddenly beaming out a big smile. “That’s good to hear,” he said. “Nothing helps me with my colds and cough quite like this stuff.”

  The old woman’s smile twitched even wider. “Twenty-four percent,” she told him, “formula straight from factory in China. Much more potent variety.”

  “I’ll take the jug,” Oscar said quickly.

  “We have plenty more.”

  “How much?”

  The woman led him to the back room, where Oscar saw a full bottom row with perhaps two-dozen large jugs. The huge volume of the drug made no sense. Who could be drinking all this stuff?

  Oscar stared at the smorgasbord of pharmaceuticals and told her, “I’ll go ahead and take another one of those jugs too.” Then he asked, “What the hell do you need all this for?”

  “We use in all sorts of other things too, special potions for special customers,” the woman said. “I have contact at Beijing factory. We get good deal straight from supplier.”

  “But, I don’t understand,” Oscar said. “It’s so much.”

  “You’re not the only one,” the woman said.

  “I’m not? Who else?”

  “One hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “I’m giving you deal on six liters, two jugs.”

  Oscar dragged the two large jugs to the register and paid the woman with cash. “I’d like to think this will last me a couple of days,” he said.

  The woman reached for his hand and gripped it tightly. “Be careful with syrup with this potency. Dilute it down or you could see too far. You are not like my other customers. You are nice man. Some of my customers are very weird, very scary people. I like you. Don’t take too much. Seeing too far would be very bad for a nice man like you.”

  Oscar thanked her and gave his assurance he would heed her warning. When he made it back to his car, he immediately found an old, half-empty paper coffee cup and dumped the cold remnants out the window. He screwed open the top of the glass jug and the chemical vapors seemed to fill the car.

  Before he could pour a cup full, he found himself with his lips around the bottle. It was so heavy that he had a hard time holding the jug in position and keeping the syrup from emptying all over his face.

  After a few seconds of nursing the jug, he stopped to catch his breath. His heart was racing in his chest, beating so wildly and with such aggression that he thought he might be having a heart attack. Then all of a sudden, his pulse began to slow, growing fainter every second. His muscles relaxed and his head tilted to the side. The red neon light from the Fong’s Drugs sign started to sparkle like fireworks.

  In the sky, the stars had erupted into anarchy. Hundreds of bright white shooting stars careened across the city skyline like cosmic buckshot. A swirling pink and purple glow, something like the aurora borealis, spread from the Milky Way and touched the skyscrapers. Strange ringed planets became visible. It was as though they had been in the sky the whole time and only just come out of hiding.

  Oscar could hear the roar and thunder of cosmic tumult overhead. The show got him out of the car and his mouth hung in awe at the sky. Just as he steadied himself against the car door, two massive red planets smacked into one another overhead. The collision lit up the entire sky with fiery bits.

  The hot debris, glowing red and white, fell to the ground like the remnants of fireworks. All around Oscar, the sparklers were lighting up the entire city for miles. He could see all the way to the river and the abandoned factories up North. Even the buildings themselves seemed to glow from the inside, the way a flashlight can light up the veins and capillaries of the hand.

  Oscar had some sort of temporary x-ray vision.

  He collapsed against the side of his car and slid to the pavement. Oscar was on his side and couldn’t move but his eyes were so wide that he looked like he was being electrocuted.

  He saw something up Fifty-Second Street. The sparklers had lit up one of the abandoned factories in the distance. It seemed like something was being revealed to him. It was like a stage play opening before his eyes. His body started to shake on the ground but his eyes were fixed on that spot.

  The old glass factory on the hill had been closed for years but the smokestacks were billowing out black. Something was glowing in the heart of the factory. Oscar saw cars, perhaps fifty polished luxury and sports cars, lined up around the plant. He could see people, tuxedos, fancy dresses, ruby red makeup on lips, the clap and clatter of fancy shoes on the concrete.

  As he trembled on the ground by his car, his mind was traveling.

  The glass factory seemed to only be a focusing of his eyes away. It was as though his perception was detached and unencumbered, beaming out across the sparkling landscape. As he shook on the ground, Oscar saw something at the main doors of the glass plant that made him gasp out loud.

  Beth Bardo was being carried inside the plant on a white stretcher. She was fast asleep and surrounded by a crowd of dozens of people. When Oscar tried to see the people holding the front and the back of the stretcher, all he could discern were silky white robes with strange red embroidering.

  They brought Beth through the dark entrance to the plant. Others in owl masks stood guard outside.

  Oscar convulsed on the pavement while he stared in the direction of the plant, which was miles away. “No!” he shouted into the parking lot. “Leave her alone. Don’t hurt her,” he started to mumble. “Beth, I’m gonna help you,” he said as he started to tremble at higher frequency. “I’m gonna figure this out,” he mumbled. “I promise, Beth!”

  While he lay on the ground, he peered through his telescopic connection across the city. He could see them in their owl masks. He started talking to them, saying, “I’m gonna stop you. I’m gonna save her.”

  He woke up from the trance still sprawled on the concrete. The drugstore owner had even turned off the lights to the sign. Oscar wasn’t sure how long he had been on the pavement, but he remembered everything he saw.

  ...

  Chapter 19

  The Glass Factory

  The next day, when Oscar showed up to meet with Beth, he looked like he was falling apart. Even though the exhaustion was apparent in his eyes, he was nearly trembling from the mixture of chemicals and anxiety. The Bardos noticed right away.

  “Are you feeling all right, Oscar?” Eva Bardo asked him as soon as they sat down in the study. “You look quite out of sorts.”

  “I’m fine,” Oscar said, “aside from a few concerns.”

  “Oh,” Lorne started to ask. “Concerns?”

  “Where was Beth last night around midnight?”

  The Bardos both started laughing. “Oh Oscar,” smiled Lorne, “Were you robbed at gunpoint and our little Beth is a suspect?”

  Oscar didn’t seem the least bit entertained. “I don’t understand the laughter,” he said. “I asked you a question, a pretty simple one as far as I can tell.”

  “I’m laughing,” said
Lorne Bardo, “because of the oddness of your question. Of course Beth was fast asleep in her bed.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Excuse me,” Eva Bardo chimed in. “Oscar, are you saying that you have some knowledge of our six year old daughter being out of our house last night?”

  “I’m asking you both,” Oscar said, leaning in toward them, “how you can be absolutely certain your daughter was in her bed at midnight last night?”

  “I suppose it’s just good sense and logic,” said Lorne Bardo, taking on a patronizing tone. “I checked in on Beth before I went to bed. I can’t be sure of exactly the time, but it was probably around midnight.”

  “Where would she have gone?” Asked Eva Bardo. “I’m very confused, Oscar. Just explain to us where you think our daughter was.”

  “How can you be completely certain?” Oscar asked.

  The Bardos looked at one another. Lorne appeared to take the issue seriously and he considered the prospect. “It’s impossible,” he said. “Impossible. Beth is on the top floor of the house and you’ve seen how well the property is alarmed and guarded. Someone would have to be a phantom to accomplish something like that. Besides, wouldn’t Beth notice her abduction and make some sort of sound?”

  “Her room is right next to ours,” said Eva. “Our hallways carry sound like a steamer ship. We would hear something, Oscar. Still, I will tell our security to pay extra attention to the house. I’ll tell them to make sure the windows in her room are secure. I’m not sure why you’re bringing this all up, Oscar, but I assure you, we want to protect our daughter.”

  “I’d like to ask Beth about it,” Oscar told them. “Just in case she remembers something.”

  “If our daughter was being abducted, I would think she would mention it to her parents,” said Lorne. “But please go ahead and ask Beth about it.”