Enter the Uncreated Night

by Christopher Rankin

  “We’re probably going to get killed.”

  “I know,” said Arnie. “But if living means letting those bastards win, I’m more than ready to die. I refuse, Oscar. I refuse to let this evil push me around anymore. Even if we only have a few minutes left in this world, we’re fucking taking it back!”

  Arnie threw the Renault into gear. The tank tracks destroyed what was left of the trailer on its way down. Thick grey smoke poured out of the diesel engine and made Oscar cough. The Renault tank tore up the hill, toward the barbed wire fence surrounding the factory.

  Just before they reached the fence, the first bullet hit the tank front of the tank, startling Oscar. “They’re shooting at us already!”

  “It’s not gonna help them,” growled Arnie.

  The Renault peeled the posts out of the ground, dragging the entire fence several yards before grinding over the remnants. Once the tank met flat ground, the diesel engine propelled them even faster toward the plant.

  Cracks from gunshots echoed from all across the factory grounds. When the bullets hit the tank, it sounded like hail on a tin roof. White flashes from rifles lit up the night air and gun smoke drifted toward the tank. As the Renault pushed toward the factory, the gunmen assembled in its path.

  “Idiots!” yelled Arnie with distinct glee. “I was hoping you would do this.” He changed the tanks gears, throwing them forward even faster.

  The gunmen charged the Renault, peening the steel shell with bullets. There had to be a dozen or more armed men between the tank and the factory. The first one to try to disable the tank ran toward the Renault, firing his gun at the driver’s sight.

  Arnie only pushed the diesel motor further, turning directly into the shooter. “Whoo hoo!” he shouted. “That’s one!”

  Oscar realized that they had run the gunman over and more than half his torso was dangling from one of the tank wheels. Arnie ground over two more before the gunmen realized it was time to run.

  However, the Bardo’s soldiers couldn’t outrun the Renault.

  Arnie cheered as a storm of clacking bullets collided with the tank. He ground down several more before they could get away. “Poor bastards!” He shouted. “Shouldn’t have brought guns to a tank fight!”

  ...

  Chapter 25

  The Glass Chrysalis

  The Renault broke through the wall of the factory, tearing the thin steel exterior wall and leaving what looked like a missile hole. Dust and powdery debris silted the air. Part of the factory wall was impaled on the tank gun and they had nearly brought down a large section of overhanging catwalk. Arnie slowed the tank down to an idle because it was impossible for them to see anything.

  Oscar opened the top door to the gunner’s chamber, pulled out a flashlight and started to point it around. Shattered glass and bits of wall were everywhere. If there were any remaining guards, they hadn’t followed them inside. The factory was dark and seemed nearly empty. The only signs of life appeared to be down the wide corridor, toward the center of the place.

  “I see light,” said Oscar, turning off his flashlight. “It looks like firelight ahead.”

  “Well, that’s where we’re going then,” answered Arnie. He put the diesel engine in gear and they lurched ahead.

  There were signs of heavy construction inside the glass factory. Large cranes had been installed and had a brand new coat of paint. Glass cutting stations and automated factory robots had been set up to build something. A vat of liquid about the size of a small family pool bubbled and hissed with heat. A large section of glass stood half-immersed in the bubbly solution.

  “It looks like the mirror business is still going strong,” said Oscar as he pointed the flashlight and the half-silvered glass. It cast back a half reflection.

  “What the hell are they making all these mirrors for?” Asked Arnie. “A lot of them don’t completely reflect back. I can still sorta see through them.’”

  “God only knows,” said Oscar.

  They continued down the corridor toward the firelight. Fifty-five gallon drums of various fuels and industrial chemicals lined the sides of the hallway. A newly constructed and elaborate catwalk system spun overhead, supported by steel beams rising from the floor.

  The tank was making so much noise that it was difficult to tell what was happening ahead of them. There was definitely activity. The orange glow from what could have been a fire was coming from down the corridor.

  As they got closer, they could see black silhouettes. The figures were standing directly in their path. Oscar swept the flashlight over them, revealing the black eyes and beaks of their owl masks. All were dressed in red and white silk robes with hoods covering everything but the masks.

  Arnie stopped the tank and stuck his head out of the opening in the top. He got a good look at the masked group and yelled to them, “Listen up. I just want you all to know that I’m gonna kill every last one of you.”

  “We’re here for Beth,” said Oscar. “I know she’s here!”

  Like an unfurled defensive line, the Owlmen started toward the tank.

  “They make it so easy,” said Arnie, lowering himself back into the Renault. He switched the diesel engine into gear and they started to roll.

  Instead of moving straight down the corridor, Arnie steered the tank right into one of the steel beams that held up the catwalk system. The entire structure let out a high-pitched cry as the steel beams buckled and the entire framework crashed to the factory floor.

  When the dust began to settle, it looked like the factory had been hit with an explosion. Piles of steel beams were twisted together on the floor. Dozens of fifty-five gallon drums were draining everywhere. The gun on the Renault was completely bent and the tracks had been shredded perhaps beyond repair. The tank looked like a twisted mess of debris.

  Oscar and Arnie were able to pull themselves out. The entire area was starting to smell like rotting fruit from the fumes escaping from the spilled drums. Bodies with blood running into their white robes were pinned, crushed and skewered by the steel debris.

  They noticed a nearly pulverized owl mask sitting on the ground.

  When he went to pick it up, Oscar noticed something else, a man in red and white silk just a few feet away. The lower half of his body was mashed underneath a twisted beam. He was staring right at them.

  The man looked to be in his forties, with a healthy looking, freshly shaved face and a conservative haircut. He looked like he could have been a member of the board of a bank or insurance company. His hips and legs were mangled into ground meat but he looked unburdened, like the pain was almost stimulating.

  “Good evening,” he said to Oscar and Arnie. “I don’t believe you two have invitations.” His tone was cold and chastising.

  “Where do I know this guy from?” Arnie asked, with a twitch of recognition. “He looks familiar.”

  “He’s a senator,” said Oscar. “Edgar Dunn. You’ve seen him on billboards and on TV. He’s planning to run for president, you know.”

  “Well God damn it,” said Arnie. “You’re right. He’s the one that’s always talking about how the country is going to hell and we need to have more God in the schools. That’s you, right?” He pointed to the man on the ground.

  “We also know his voice. He’s the one that called us the other night. He works for the Bardos,” said Oscar. “I’ve seen him at their house. Speaking of the Bardos, I’m here to get Beth. Where is she?”

  The senator laughed as much as he could with his chest trapped under the steel beam. “You stupid, pathetic little peasants,” the senator said. “You have no idea. We own that girl. We own everybody. We own everything.” He smiled, saying, “It’s our moral imperative to rule you peasants. This world is ours and it’s been ours for a long time.”

  “This sick bastard is crazy!” said Arnie. “He seemed less insane with the bird mask on. What is this? Some kind of fucking cult?”

  The senator just laughed.

  “That’s exactly what
it is,” said Oscar. He looked at the senator as though he wanted to cave his head in with his foot. “Where is Beth? What are you doing with her?”

  “The child is helping us make the world a better place,” he said with a smirk.

  Oscar picked up the mangled bird mask off the ground and held it in front of the man.

  “You can do whatever you want to me,” said the senator as though he was quite unafraid. “It doesn’t matter. The Bardos have shown me the truth. The Bardos have shown me everything.”

  “I’m just going to go ahead and suggest,” said Arnie, “that we feed this guy his own dick until he chokes.”

  The senator laughed. “I’m not afraid of you,” he called out. “Do you think I’m even scared of death anymore. There is no death for Azuzu. We’ve become something,” he started to nearly hiss, saying, “eternal.”

  Oscar put the mask over the Senator’s face and muffled the rest of what he was about to say. “Let’s go find Beth,” he told Arnie.

  Ahead of them, they saw a round opening in the factory floor. Elaborate engravings in a solid gold ran around the hole. A cool, light fog drifted from the inside, carrying an orange glow. Oscar and Arnie heard a deep murmur coming from the bottom. It sounded like chanting of Tibetan monks.

  The symbols and writing on the gold border were strange, some sort of ancient language. Oscar recognized some of them from the Bardos’ study. “What the hell is this?” He asked Arnie.

  “It looks like some kind of fucking portal or something,” Arnie said. “What are these rich weirdos into?”

  When they looked down, the cavity’s bottom seemed ephemeral, like the top or bottom of a cloud. A spiral staircase of glass plates ran down the inside of the hole. They heard a shrill scream come from the bottom. Oscar thought it sounded like Beth at first. As the screaming died out, it sounded more like an animal.

  With Oscar in the lead, they followed the spiral of glass steps down the cavity. Below they could hear something strange, an alien set of sounds like a distorted recording. Disfigured screams and moans mixed with what sounded like genteel laughter wafted up from the bottom of the hole.

  As they got closer to what seemed like the bottom, voices started to become distinct. Something huge, something as big as a building, was shimmering below like a gemstone in the perfect light.

  Oscar became sure he heard Beth screaming somewhere down there. “Please help me!” She cried. “I don’t want them to come. Please make them go away!” she cried out.

  Oscar started to climb faster, nearly slipping on one of the glass steps on his way down. Arnie followed close behind with his eyes as wide as a man with the hand of death at his throat. The blade of the axe was shaking along with his hands.

  “It’s a damn miracle I’m not having a seizure,” he whispered to Oscar. “I’m scared as fuck, man.”

  Oscar was determined to make it to Beth. At this point they had almost made it to the bottom of the hole. It appeared to open up to something at the bottom. Whatever it was flickered like the scattering of sunlight on a lake.

  They hit solid ground on the bottom when they realized they were looking at more glass than they had ever seen in their lives.

  A glass palace as large one of Philadelphia’s cathedrals spanned the expanse like an underground city. Reflections of firelight twinkled everywhere. Mirrored walls sprung up from the floor of the underground tomb to a height of perhaps fifty feet. The structure had an otherworldly quality to it, like some bizarre crystalline life form.

  The massive glass construction project appeared nearly complete. There was a tunnel-boring machine with a screw-shaped drill bit as large as the tank. Several dozen drums of fuel were set around the machine. Remains of wooden and steel scaffolding covered one remaining side of the glass church.

  Oscar and Arnie followed the firelight, straight to their reflections in the mirrored door. Just before Oscar pushed the door open, he told Arnie something in the tone of priest reading last rites. He said, “Thank you for this and I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” answered Arnie softly.

  Oscar pushed the heavy slabs of mirrored glass until they started to drift open.

  Inside, six tiers of solid glass, like the stands in a football stadium, surrounded them. The spectators, bright white hoods, grey hair and cold eyes, filled the rows. The entire structure seemed alive with beams of light and impossible visual displays. The mirrors and glass surfaces were taken over by projections beyond the imagination, shapes, structures and ideas never before accessed by human thought.

  Some of the church members were writing down what they saw, intoxicated by the potential to profit.

  Other worshippers had taken to some of the tiny glass rooms on the tiers near the top. Inside, they were without their hoods and robes, engaged in various throbbing orgies. Men and women of all ages formed clusters of cold, violent insect sex.

  No one seemed to notice Oscar and Arnie at first.

  Just ahead, in the center of the stadium, sat some sort of glass altar.

  It resembled a glass insect chrysalis, complex but purposeful in its adornments. Shards of glass and bits of mirror decorated the area around it. The bodies of three dead goats lay by the altar. Their blood was smeared by many sets of all across the glass sculpture.

  Inside the bloody, transparent walls, Beth Bardo appeared to be sleeping. A line from an IV bag connected to her neck.

  Oscar tried to find some sort of door to get Beth out. The little girl was sleeping but her face was locked in what looked like a nightmare. With her eyes closed, she cried out, “Help! They’re taking me!”

  At that point, many of the worshippers heard her crying and started to laugh. They also noticed Oscar and Arnie.

  The whole church still surged with light but fell perfectly silent.

  “Bardos!” Oscar shouted to the crowd. “Bardos! Show yourselves!”

  On the highest tier, standing on something like a balcony, two people pulled back their hoods. Eva and Lorne Bardo stood expressionless, faces frozen and eyes wide and black.

  “Thank you for coming, Oscar,” Eva called out, projecting her voice like a stage professional. “I think we can find some use for you and your friend. I think your blood on Beth’s altar will have an interesting effect.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Arnie yelled. “My brother is the one you clowns cut up the other night. If any of you think you’re going to live to see another morning, you’ve got another fucking thing coming!”

  Men and women in hoods started down the stairs toward them. Arnie fought off the first few, three boney, middle-aged men that could have been bankers or executives, without much effort.

  Oscar worked on getting Beth out of the glass shell. He managed to loosen one of the glass sections near her feet. He pulled her out by her ankles with the IV still in her neck. After he pulled the needle out, he put sleeping Beth on his shoulder.

  He yelled to the Bardos on the top level, “I’m taking her, you bastards! It’s over. Whatever the hell this is, it’s over!”

  It occurred to Oscar and Arnie they stood little chance of escaping all of them. They exchanged a look of quiet resignation. Then an idea flashed on Oscar’s face.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out an empty gorgonorphan bottle he had meant to throw out. Arnie understood the plan without any instructions. He started in a dash for the door just as Oscar hurled the syrup bottle into the air as high as he could.

  The bottle smashed into the roof of the church, sending down icicles of glass as big as coffee tables. The screaming of broken glass and the commotion of the cult members combined into an awful sound. Razor-sharp slabs of glass rained down, crushing and slicing the church audience.

  With Beth slung over Oscars shoulder, he and Arnie cleared the church doors without looking back. It was difficult to tell how many but at least some of the worshippers hadn’t been stopped by the falling glass. They were still in pursuit, with their bright white robes spilled wit
h blood.

  When they got to the bottom of the hole, Arnie said, “I can hear the bastards coming. We didn’t get all of them.”

  Beth was beginning to wake up from whatever drugs they had given her. She tried to mumble something to Oscar but it was hard to understand. Finally it was clear that she was saying, “Like at the gas station. The barrels.”

  Oscar kicked several of the drums over, spilling them and sending out a miniature tidal surge of fuel. As the flood covered the area, he carried Beth up the helix of glass steps, with Arnie right behind him. On their way up, they could hear the mob coming after them.

  Just then, Oscar pulled one of the torches off the wall and dropped it down the hole. A gust of air followed a faint whisper as the fuel ignited. It glowed and burned warm below.

  Oscar told Beth and Arnie not to look down. Beneath them, the smell of burning flesh wafted up and stung their eyes like tear gas. The sound of screams, then laughter, then both, hit their ears with supernatural volume. Amidst the laughter, screams in various long-forgotten languages and animal sounds, from extinct dinosaurs to baboons, formed into a horrifying chorus.

  They pushed through the rising smoke on their way up the staircase. Beth was now awake and clutching at Oscar’s neck.

  She told him, “That was a ritual. We’re going through a fold.”

  He didn’t ask what she meant because he had made the mistake of looking down at the horror. Faces, disintegrating like bomb fuses, sizzling smirks in the fire hurled curses and threats at them. The burning, dying horde pointed up, threatening and hissing louder than the fire.

  “She’s ours!” The voices shouted together, before they howled something in an incomprehensible language. “You’re ours! All the children are ours!”

  The mob burned in their silken red and white robes, soaked in blood and hissing fuel. They collapsed into a fuming mound of the darkest matter, before fading into white smoke.