by Bark, Jasper
“The prophet Ezekiel said the women would kneel on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem, wailing and crying in lament for my death,” said Jimmy. “By that time I was known as Tammuz and the crops would not grow if the women did not water the earth with their tears.”
The bloke blinked five times rapidly and his eyes took on a glazed look. “Fair enough, it’s down them steps just to the right there. Mind how you go cos it’s a bit dark.”
At the bottom of the steps was a narrow space lit by a dim red lightbulb. The walls were painted black and the floors were sticky with gum and other substances. There was a thick smell of stale sweat and old cigarette smoke in the air.
In the wall opposite was an opening covered by a black velvet curtain. Jimmy scanned the narrow space. In the dim gloom of the red bulb he saw a fat Semitic guy with tight curly hair, leaning up against the wall in the far corner. Kneeling in front of him was a slim, grey haired man who was sucking his long, fat cock.
Every now and again the guy would raise his hand and slap the grey haired man across the cheek, or grab his hair and force his head forwards so he swallowed the whole of the cock. The Semitic guy looked up and grinned at Jimmy.
Jimmy did not respond. He stepped forward and drew the black velvet curtain aside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jimmy passed through into a small, shabby cinema. To his immediate right were about six rows of raked seats with two further rows of seats in front of them. The seats were worn and threadbare and the screen at the front was grubby and smeared with dirt.
The floor was even stickier and the smell of sweat and cigarette smoke was stronger. There were about ten men in the cinema, mostly sitting by themselves, but a few sat next to each other. One of the men had his hands down another’s trousers.
On the screen, a large black woman was tied to a stained mattress. Two white men, in loin cloths and Ku Klux Klan hoods, stood over her. The woman was screaming at the men, calling them racist bastards. One of the men left and returned with an industrial sander that he applied to her nipple.
The woman bellowed in pain and anguish. The hand held camera moved closer, blood and viscera spattered the lens.
So this was the type of establishment Isimud was running. A private club screening torture flicks—authentic ones by the look of things. It made sense when Jimmy thought about it. It was exactly the place to recruit new victims. There was no sign of the man himself though.
Jimmy walked down the aisle to the front row. He didn’t much care for the film. The robe had led him here, so Isimud must be nearby. A man got up from the front row and walked to the far corner of the cinema, right next to the screen. He touched the wall and a door appeared. As he went through the door, the man turned and caught Jimmy’s eye. Jimmy only saw his face for the briefest moment, but he could swear it was the Turkish mini cab driver who’d picked Sam and him up on Bethnal Green Road.
Had the man been waiting for them? Was he in league with Isimud? For a second Jimmy had the sense of some giant cosmic mechanism moving behind the scenes of his recent life. Putting all the pieces into place to bring him to this very point. It was as though he’d had no choice about the direction of his life from the moment Ashkan clicked on the footage in the lock up.
Jimmy’s plan was to blend in, get a feel of the place and not call too much attention to himself. The plan went out of the window the minute Jimmy sat down. His robe began to glow brighter than anything in the dim space, including the screen. Images from the footage began to tear free from the robe and launch themselves at the screen.
Jimmy looked up at the picture, which was glowing with twice its previous brightness. He saw the familiar cellar and there on the central operating table was Melissa. For a moment he was sure that she looked right out at him. Her expression seemed to acknowledge him and her eyes seemed to say ‘not much longer now my love.’ On the tables either side of her, Jimmy was horrified to see Ashkan and Sam.
The other patrons sat forward in their seats with a tense expectancy. There was a palpable sense that they were about to see something special. The type of unique entertainment they longed to find in this sort of establishment. The type that kept them coming back, day after day, in the hope it would appear. And now here it was, every bit as depraved and transgressive as they’d ever hoped.
Jimmy turned away from the screen and concentrated on the audience. He saw twisted hunger etched into their faces as they leered at the screen. Their mouths dropped open, their eyes widened with astonishment and disbelief. This was like nothing they’d ever seen before.
Jimmy watched as each of them was pushed to the limits of their endurance. Some shook their heads violently, others dropped their head in their hands. One man punched and kicked the seat in front of him in indignation. Many burst into tears. One by one they were beginning to discover that they were not so jaded or desensitised as they believed.
Finally someone stood up in disgust, swore at the screen and made to leave. Four other people got up to join him. The screen flared and the pictures on it bulged, growing in size until the edges appeared to tear and fray, becoming thin tendrils of light that spilled into the room as though probing it. Jimmy could no longer look away. Nor could anyone else in the cinema.
Whatever barriers, mental or emotional, that existed between the world of the screen and the world of the cinema, they had just been torn down. From the corner of his eyes, Jimmy saw a crowd of the blurred, shadowy Anunnaki slip from the edges of the screen and force their way into the cinema.
Jimmy couldn’t look directly at the Anunnaki. Something in their physical make up forced the eye away. It was too painful to try and focus on them. He could feel their presence all around him but he couldn’t take in their proper shape or form. They were just blurry shadows in his peripheral vision.
Jimmy wasn’t sure if the other men could see the Anunnaki, but they certainly made their presence felt. Every sick and sadistic act those men had ever watched or gotten off on, was now visited on their own bodies. Whatever demons they were trying to exorcise in dim, furtive rooms like this one, were now coming back to claim them with a vengeance.
The four men outside the cinema, who Jimmy had met on his way in, were dragged in to join the slaughter. There didn’t appear to be any sadism in the atrocities the Anunnaki committed, it was almost as if they were acting with a patient and methodical kindness. Purging the flesh of the men and the desires that had caused them such mental and spiritual pain.
The Anunnaki showed no sense of satisfaction when the slaughter had run its course. They simply remained still and resonated a calm melancholy.
Jimmy wasn’t sure if the robe afforded him some sort of emotional protection, but he wasn’t appalled or repulsed by the massacre he’d just witnessed. All he felt was the same calm sadness the Anunnaki were giving off.
It wasn’t until someone startled him by clearing their throat, that Jimmy felt anything of note. He turned and saw a short Arabic man with thinning black hair and an immaculate white suit standing behind him.
Jimmy caught his breath. He recognised the man instantly, from his vision.
“Mr Isimud.”
“So this is the famed Tailor’s handiwork. It’s even better than I dreamed. Such talent that man has, I’m almost breathless. You wouldn’t mind just giving me a quick twirl would you? So I can get the full effect.”
Jimmy did not oblige. He was too stunned. This was not what he was expecting. Mr Isimud looked disappointed.
“No?’ he said. “Very well, if that’s the way you’re going to be, and after I waited so long as well. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”
“You’re not the first person to say that to me today.”
“So you make a habit of keeping people waiting do you? Or are you just a little slow off the mark? Never mind, don’t answer that. I just hope you’ve been looking forward to this meeting as much as I have.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The Isimud tha
t stood before Jimmy, was not the man he’d seen in his vision. He was relaxed genial, and quite unbelievably charismatic. Like the Tailor he had the air of a man who does one thing so well that it brings him a great deal of power and influence, and nothing is more charismatic than that.
He also seemed to be filled with genuine anticipation. He was practically rubbing his hands together. This unnerved Jimmy more than anything. Something sinister lurked behind his anticipation, something more frightening than the maliciousness that played about his smile.
“”Sometime towards the middle of the year 623 BC,” Isimud continued. “Sin-shar-ishkun, one of the last Assyrian kings, led a large army into Babylonia to crush the rebel Babylonian forces led by King Nabopolassar. To begin with, the battle went in the Assyrian’s favour and Nabopolassar’s forces were routed. Then Sin-shar-ishkun’s chariot followed his troops right up to the battle’s front, where he met with Nabopolassar’s equally impressive chariot.
“The two military rulers stood within feet of each other. Close enough to look one another in the eye. It is said there is an intimacy in combat unlike any other. Men who face each other in battle, whether generals commanding armies or foot soldiers fighting hand to hand, can look into each other’s souls and know things about one another that no one else will. In that moment Sin-shar-ishkun saw his eventual ruin and Nabopolassar saw hard won victory. The Babylonian rallied his troops and fought to an eventual stalemate.
“Eight years later, Nabopolassar, in alliance with King Cyaxares, took the Assyrian city of Nineveh, killing Sin-shar-ishkun in the process. Soon after the whole Assyrian empire fell and Mesopotamia itself went into a slow decline. All of this foretold in a single glance between the heads of two formidable armies.”
Mr Isimud looked Jimmy slowly up and down. “So tell me, dear boy” he said. “What do you see when you look into my eyes?”
Jimmy met Mr Isimud’s gaze. He knew that Isimud was toying with him and it was exactly what he wanted Jimmy to do, but Jimmy wanted to show Isimud he was undaunted by the man’s games.
“I’ve come back for Melissa,” Jimmy said, trying to sound forceful.
Mr Isimud looked bemused. “Come back? I didn’t realise you’d been here before.”
“No, that’s that not what I . . . that’s beside the point, I’ve come for her and I’m going to set her free, like she wants.”
“Set her free? You think that’s what she wants?”
“Yes, to be free of you, free of this suffering.”
“Why would she want to be free of it, when she’s never been closer?”
“Closer? Closer to what?”
“My dear chap, why do think she’s so prominent in my story?”
“Because you captured her, and . . . and tortured her.”
“Because I captured her. Is that what you think? Then answer me this. If I really had captured her, how was she able to sneak away and spend time with you and your associate? Do you think I gave her a day pass, or time off for good behaviour?”
“No, but she was able to manifest because she’s a character in the story, not a victim.”
“Very good, you’re not so clueless as I was beginning to fear. So let us consider this for a moment, how many characters do you know that were captured by their story? How many protagonists want to escape the tale they’re in?”
“I don’t know, maybe it depends on the story.”
“Perhaps it does, but if Melissa truly wanted to escape, why do you think she sought me out in the first place? Why did she go to all the trouble of hunting me down, especially when, as you know, I’m not an easy man to find?”
“You tell me.”
“And when she did finally find me, why do you think she begged me to be a part of the story?”
“Because you misled her, you lied to her and tricked her. Now she’s trapped in the footage and forced to relive her death every time someone watches it.”
“Oh dear, what a total failure of imagination you’re showing. You stand here, draped in this miraculous creation, and all you can think, when you see its star player in all her glory, is that she’s reliving her own death.”
“That’s how it looks to me.”
“That’s because you’re not paying attention.”
“Then what is happening?”
“At last, a sensible question. Melissa is living through the death and dismemberment of every person who ever died at the hands of this tale. She is slowly enduring six millennia of suffering.”
Mr Isimud’s eyes were alight with an almost messianic glee when he said this. Jimmy had seen a few of the murders the story had perpetrated. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live through every one of them, one after the other, without any break from the endless violation, pain and degradation, for six thousand years. Jimmy couldn’t think of a worse possible fate. He had to get Melissa out of this.
“And you’re trying to tell me she begged for that?” he said. “Why would anyone beg for that?”
“Why wouldn’t they? What does every human being dream of? Why do they tell themselves bedtime stories about heavenly sky fathers who love them simply because they exist? What do they hope to gain by currying favour with this celestial daddy?”
“To go to Heaven?”
“No, to live forever. Melissa doesn’t want to be free. What she really wants, as you know full well, is to be immortal.”
“What kind of immortality is that, being killed over and over again?”
“Is that what you think the Anunnaki are doing?”
“Having seen them in action a few times, I’d have to say yes, that’s exactly what I think they’re doing. I know they hate human flesh, because they think it’s some kind of prison for God, but it’s quite plain to see that they’re killing her.”
“No they’re not. They’re releasing her inner divinity. To live is to suffer, you see. Suffering is the true alchemist’s crucible. It burns off all our impurities and reveals the God at the centre of our being. It transmutes our leaden lives into the gold of Godhood. Why do you think God descended into the prime material of His creation? So it would draw out all His impurities. This is why there is so much evil in the world. People ask how God could allow that without ever realising this is the purpose of the world.”
“To get rid of God’s evil?”
“Exactly, and as God descended, so the Anunnaki fell from grace and came to earth to enact His will.”
“By doing evil?”
“No, by purging evil through suffering, and freeing the divine that lies at the centre of all life. The more suffering you endure, the purer you become. The purer you become, the stronger you are, stronger and closer to immortality.”
“But what’s in this for you? Why make Melissa immortal? What do you hope to gain out of this?”
“I am but an instrument of God’s will. The whole of creation is merely God’s story. ‘In the beginning was the word . . . ’ and who was the word with? Why God. That’s because God is the ultimate story teller. We are all part of His story, but all stories are inevitably autobiographical and that is why God is trapped in His own story. We are all God, perceiving himself individually as the characters of His story. My story is the antidote.”
“An antidote that can kill you.”
“But of course, every antidote is a form of poison.”
“So you made Melissa a character in your story so she could escape God’s story?”
“That’s what it’s there for.”
“She’s not the first then?”
“She’s the one who’s come closest to transcending.”
“Do you have any idea how much of a megalomaniac you sound?”
“Oh dear, so we’ve resorted to name calling now have we? It’s a feature of the unremarkable mind that when it’s faced with something it can’t understand, it casts aspersion.”
“‘Unremarkable mind’—now who’s name calling? I just wondered if you’d ever stopped to listen to yourself.”
“If you’re a gifted enough story teller, the whole universe will eventually stop to listen to you. That’s the nature of a great story, that’s the real power of words. Let me give you a demonstration.”
Isimud turned to the screen where the footage was still playing. He pointed at it and said: “This is the door to my realm.” The screen began to stretch and change shape as its edges reformed themselves.
“It leads to my land in the story-sphere,” said Isimud. “I’m breaking the fourth wall, opening the door and bringing the story out to engulf us.”
As Isimud spoke his words had a palpable effect on the reality around Jimmy. The words were like fish, swimming through the actuality surrounding them, sending out ripples as they went. Jimmy couldn’t see the words but he could feel how powerful they were. They were doing Isimud’s bidding, tugging at the realm of the story, pulling it through the rapidly growing screen into this world. It was like a bag of fluid being drawn through a window, it bulged and then it burst, flooding the cinema with its existence.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Jimmy was no longer in the cinema, or anywhere in London.
He was in a giant underground space that seemed to stretch for miles in every direction. In places it looked like a cellar or a basement, in others a catacomb or a vault. In every area of the space there were people tied to operating tables, stone slabs and sacrificial altars with blurry Anunnaki buzzing round them, destroying and tormenting their flesh.
Jimmy was looking at the whole landscape of a murderous story that had no end. It was a limitless cartography of pain, showing every victim the story had ever taken, all suffering side by side. The atmosphere was like that of a charnel house, on a scale that Jimmy’s mind just couldn’t process. The air was so thick with human agony you could choke on it. Jimmy pulled the robe up around himself like a small child who pulls the blankets over his face, in the dead of night.
The hem of the robe had joined itself to the fabric of the story. There was no difference now between the material Jimmy was wearing and the world around him. It looked as if the stone slabs of the floor had risen up, to become a loose flowing textile, and draped themselves around Jimmy. It didn’t impede his movement in any way and fitted him just as comfortably. Its shape and form remained the same, but its texture changed whenever he moved, to reflect wherever he was standing.