by Lamb, Robert
The great eyes opened -- figure-eight pupils the color of amber, each afloat in a sea of crimson jelly.
Dear god, how they burned -- burned with leagues of longing, ages of toil and conquest. These were the eyes of a god, he realized, the eyes of untold millennia rising up through the depths.
“You did not abandon them in vain,” the being spoke into his mind, each word vibrating, trembling, in his consciousness. “Your wife and young were but a precursor to your one true mate, to the offspring you were meant to bear…”
He touched his stomach, felt the globs trembling inside him. His eyes brimmed with tears. “Why?”
“Why?” it echoed, “But you were suffering already, stagnant, empty, human… and now your suffering has meaning. Is this not what you have longed for?”
“No…” Griggs moaned.
“But I know that it is,” the voice said.
Griggs felt consciousness waver. The being’s eyes multiplied. “What are you?”
“I am the grasping claw of the nameless,” it said. “I am the conqueror, eternally reaching up towards the cosmos. For each world below that has fallen to me, each layer in the endless onion of existence, I have had absorb something of its denizens. To conquer, I must, in part, become. Your sun would destroy me as I am now…”
Through those thousand eyes, Griggs again glimpsed the crawling armies of arachnid horrors sweeping over the hellish worlds of pain, saw empires and demigods fall to their ravenous hunger.
Rise.
The consciousness of the conqueror entombed in all of them.
Rise.
A collective mind reaching for the stars.
Rise.
He felt the numbness stir.
“You will become a part of me,” it said. “But you have already felt yourself awakening into it, haven’t you?”
“I don’t…”
“We are already becoming one…”
“I can’t…”
“But you can,” it whispered, “Taste my flesh. Let our vessels become fodder; let the progeny consume us both…”
Nathan Griggs heard the movement of the thing’s other bodies in the darkness around him, moving with the stealthy swiftness of creeping shadows – first dozens, but then hundreds. He starred deep into the creature’s lustrous pupils. He felt the globs inside him vibrate, strained to stave off a desire to do the unthinkable.
Rise.
His hand burned as he thrust it into thing’s eye, flesh bubbling and smoking. He screamed, but somehow brought the searing handful of jelly to his mouth.
Rise.
His face blacked, his eyes burst and his hair singed back to blistered scalp. He fell backwards through the kaleidoscope again, tasting only pain.
Rise.
He felt the dark consciousness of the conqueror flowing into his mind.
Rise.
He felt the numbness shift, the walls of pathetic flesh rupturing and falling down all around him. He felt himself emerging through a thousand openings, even as he felt himself falling apart.
***
On the surface world above, the sun shone down through the prismatic gleam of skyscrapers, reflected a thousand ways off the great, sky-grasping glass and steelwork claws of the city.
Nathan Griggs emerged from the subway tunnel -- a new man, a slim man, a stranger among strangers. A faint glow lingered in his eyes. He wore a yellow rain coat over an ill-fitting uniform.
“Excuse me…” he put a hand on the shoulder of the man in a nearby line.
The bearded Taxi driver turned around, irritation smeared across his face. “I’m just grabbing a coffee, pal, I’m—”
Griggs moved his palm to the side of the cabbie’s ribcage. One quick jolt and the man doubled over on the sidewalk.
“I need a driver for the day, do you think you can manage?” he asked.
The sharp, black appendage dripped but a single droplet onto the pavement before withdrawing back through the seamless lips in Griggs’ palm.
“Yes,” the taxi driver said, eyes trembling as he looked back up at his master.
Twitching with frantic energy, the driver took him to a cheap hotel, the one he’d checked out of just 24 hours ago, in his old life.
He strolled effortlessly through the lobby, no longer burdened by his form, now finally at one with the legion of other selves he felt teaming in the tunnels below, pulling scraps of clothing from cancer-black corpses.
One mind. One hunger.
He took the elevator to the third floor, strolled carefully, silently down the hall to room 308 -- the place he’d fled to when the worst of it had taken hold of him. A “do not disturb” sign still hung on the doorknob.
He placed his palm on the door, felt the still coldness.
He tilted his head and moved his ear closer, heard the murmur of a television set from the other side. He fancied he could glimpse a hint of the pulsating light creeping out from underneath the door and shivered.
He jerked his hand away from the wood grain, the chill lingering in his fingertips.
“What pain is this?”
He heard the TV murmur from the other side grow louder: newscasts and Bugs Bunny, evangelism and whipping static, voices and splintering wood.
“Where am I?”
The Brutes
Three subworld brutes shaved their bodies in the rear of the MARTA train. Each nearly seven-feet tall. Bestial eyes and savage tusks. God knows where they found the straight razors. Black mats and tangles rained down to the floor as they steadily uncovered the pink, pockmarked flesh underneath. Bleeding from a dozen fresh nicks, they hurried through their work.
My fellow passengers didn’t seem to notice. Or if they did, they didn’t care. A woman produced a fried lump of fast food and broke it with the toddler beside her. She promised murder if he dropped it. A bum slept several rows up and all could see were his duct-taped boots. A pink-haired art chick read from one gadget, listened to another and made eye contact with no one. Not even her half-reflection in the window glass.
And of course there was me. But you know me.
I'm a vessel of emptiness.
I just go about my day.
So I watched the brutes.
In no time they were completely shaven, save the shocks of matted hair they left atop their skulls in rough mimicry of human hair. Then they pulled bloodied business suits up from the bodies underfoot. They fumbled and pawed with the garments, but finally managed to piece it all together. They stepped into trouser legs and crawled through jackets with all the dexterity of giant toddlers. Even with their catcher-mitt palms and can-opener claws, they managed to fasten the buttons. They left only the shoes, which they kicked back under the seats with the crumpled, nude bodies of their victims.
They scanned the car.
One of them saw me, but I made sure not to meet its strange yellow eyes.
The urge to flee washed over me, but instead I froze. What else could I do in the presence of those dark world walkers, these foreigners from bilge bottom depths, where dank tunnels coil in the Earth?
Their eyes were piercing and hungry. Their tusk-teeth bone-sharpened on unimaginable meals.
So long as they didn’t see me see them, I figured I was probably safe. I was doomed if they even suspected.
I sighed in relief when we finally reached Five Points Station without incident. The Brutes were the first to move.
They made straight for the doors and insisted on shaking everyone's hand on the way out, greasing our palms with slicks of blood & hair. They flashed gore-speckled grins and babbled guttural nonsense.
They exited the train and I followed them.
I don't know why.
As they moved through the crowd I saw one snatch a briefcase from a man absorbed in a cell phone conversation. No one else noticed, not even the victim. And why would they?
The second brute grabbed an Atlanta Journal Constitution from a homeless man. The third snatched a human infant up from a stroller while th
e mother texted missives to some surface world lover.
They were fitting in, I realized. They were already assimilating and all too easily. If I looked away from them now, would I spot them again? Or would I lose the shape and frequency amid the traffic?
I followed the mimicking beasts past the length of the train and toward the escalators, where sad loads of slumping commuters rode up and down as if the metal stairs offered no other means of conveyance.
And then I hear it.
The sound of a man screaming.
He was running down the escalator -- or trying to. He alone moved with any urgency. Everyone else was content to simply ride it out at a machine's pace. At first the man's cry was so guttural, so inhuman that I suspected the brutes of some heinous crime. Perhaps some unrelated stabbing.
Then I make out his words.
“HOLD THAT TRAINNNNN!!!!”
As he shoved his way past the immobile and feckless.
“OH JESUS GOD ON THE FUCKING CROSS HOLD THAT TRAINNNN!!!!”
The train car chimed twice.
“OH GODDAMN! OH GODDAMN! HOOOOLLLLLDDDDD THAAATTTT MUTHHHHERRFUCCCKKKIINNNNGG TRAIIII-“
And then the doors closed, just as he shoved his way past two more obese women with gigantic purses to reach his destination.
“OPEN UPPPPPPPPP!”
He beat on the door.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
And then the train rolled out and left him there.
Sweaty.
Panting.
Weeping.
Vanquished on his knees beside the grim gulf of rats, rails, and garbage before him.
We all just stared at him, awkward yet captivated. Some of us wondered where he could have possible been headed. I sure did, though none of us asked him. He just stared down at his hands, through the latticework of fingers and into that trainless void before him.
Then I remembered.
The Brutes!
I panicked and whipped back around, fearful the strange trio might have already left and surfaced. I might not even be able to recognize them anymore.
But no, there they were, watching on with the rest of us in their ill-gotten blood-speckled suits. One of them had gobbled the stolen infant down to a pair of fat drumsticks in sneakers. He clutched a fat leg in each hand like twin ice cream cones.
The second brute pretended to read his upside-down newspaper, nodding and grunting in agreement with the news.
And the third? He just clutched the briefcase to chest and stared through me with those horrible yellow eyes. Stared through me like I'm glass. Like I was just some slight distortion in the underworld atmosphere.
The station's PA system rumbled to life. It filled that vast chamber in the Earth with garbled un-language: announcements about who we are, where we came from and where we're headed in a world where all departure signs burn black.
Notes
I hope you enjoyed these eight black offerings. The tales themselves vary from grim, realistic takes on reality to supernatural horror and outright science fiction. But each is its own response to some shred of darkness in the world.
I like to leave as much mystery as possible intact, but I realize some readers might enjoy a little background information on the stories they just read. So here we go…
Manse of the Mathematician: You are what you read, and I’d been reading the Marquis de Sade’s “120 Days of Sodom” and a few different books about mathematics. I’m largely an outsider to the deeper mysteries of numbers, but I’ve found high-level research on the topic rather exhilarating. Special thanks to math whiz Marylyn C. Cole for reading through it for me.
My Curious Void: This tale finally exploded onto the page for rather obvious reasons. Unless you’re blind to all the misogyny in our culture, there’s only so much you can take. You have to scream eventually. This story is my scream. Special thanks to author Robert Mosca for edits on this one.
Children of IVA: I tried to write this sci-fi tale several different times, but it wasn’t until I discovered the art of Irving Norman that it all came together. His dark, surrealist visions served as my hallucinatory inspiration on this one. I probably owe a nod to Stephen King for the autosarcophagy.
Subway Mandala: This is what comes of riding the train into work every day. It’s essentially a science fiction tale and I actually have additional writings about this hopelessly-befuddled space station, where everyone wanders through the dream of being a 21st century Earth commuter. Maybe I’ll do something longer with the concept one day.
TrasnGenesis: Naturally, I’m a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan and this tale was my attempt at near-future mythos-punk noir. Hopefully Lovecraft purists will forgive all the alterations and inventions. And hopefully more delicate readers will forgive all the sex. I actually have a full Second Oil Age novel planned out. Maybe one day I’ll find a reason to write it. I do love the world. Thanks to author Rob Mosca and artist Kurt Huggins for their feedback on this one. Mosca especially helped with Joll’s cursing.
God of Wounds: There was a time when supernatural police procedurals were all I wanted to write. I have half a novel to prove it somewhere. Originally titled “Foreskin” (for metaphoric reasons that never quite worked), this is the best tale to come out of all that. Thanks once more to Robert Mosca for his advice on a key scene in this one.
Murk: The oldest tale included here, this one is partially a tribute to the late, great author Michael Shea. His Nifft tales of the hellish subworlds were a huge influence on me and Michael was nice enough to exchange a few e-mails with me over the years. Thanks to Robert Mosca, Kurt Huggins, Amanda Bowers and Marilyn C. Cole for notes on this one.
The Brutes: This one is 100 percent true.
Finally, thanks as always to my wife Bonnie for all her encouragement and support over the years. For countless reasons, she’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
- Robert Lamb, 3/24/2014
About the Author
Robert Lamb spent his childhood reading books and staring into the woods — first in Newfoundland, Canada and then in rural Tennessee. There was also a long stretch in which he was terrified of alien abduction, but such are the trials of puberty. He earned a degree in creative writing. He taught high school and then attended journalism school. He wrote for the smallest of small-town newspapers before finally becoming a full-time science writer and podcaster. He makes his home in Atlanta.