An Augmented Fourth

by Tony McMillen

  He started walking around the corner and Rikki followed him. “Seriously,” she told him. “I’m not joking here, man.” I followed them both around the corner, naturally the kid followed behind me. We got there and the red light was still glowing, just like in Rikki’s story, but the doors hadn’t opened yet. There was another ding and then the doors parted. I saw Frankie Gideon, beautiful and strange Frankie Gideon. Thin as a nail, dressed in some silver and white jumpsuit with an enormous collar that stuck up, like if Count Dracula just had his balls removed and they were afraid he might get at his stitches. His hair was dyed redder than Mars, I almost thought it was a crown of blood resting there. The man was remarkable looking; he surely would have been a star even if he wasn’t a brilliant songwriter and singer. But he was of course. He was also alone. No impossible giant behind him. But there was something off with Frankie, more off than usual: His skin didn’t look discolored like Rikki said it was, it was his usual cemetery suntan, but there seemed an odd symmetry to him. Which was a weird thing to notice, but notice it I did. It occurred to me that the symmetry looked odd because it was. No one’s face is really all that symmetrical. They say beauty is symmetry but it’s just the approximation of it. True symmetry passes beyond beauty and what lies beyond beauty becomes terrifying. Unnatural. Frankie’s newly perfectly matched face became scarred with the thinnest of grins. And then I saw it:

  There was no symmetry, there were in actuality two different faces, inversions of one another that, like reflections in a funhouse mirror, collapsed back into each other at the center. These impossible half faces hovered over one another at the center almost perfectly creating the illusion of unity, of being a singular surface, but with movement, even the slight movement of a thin grin, their camouflage fell away and the horror of what they were became obvious. The faces crawled away from each other, coiling out of space like ram’s horns sprouting from the air, revealing the halves to be in fact full and independent faces. And they were not alone. Somehow occupying this shared space, too, was a chain of more faces following behind the left and right leaders who had carved their spiraled paths.

  Some of the faces looked like Frankie but others didn’t even look wholly human. From out these dual cornucopia a sickly, weak green light emitted at the source. Even more dazzling was the light and color that seemed to drip off the collection of faces themselves in bright purple and yellow drops. They flickered and fell off into the air like shimmering fish scales or dancing embers. In the midst of all this I noticed a shared expression on some of the faces; more than one of them was smiling at me with a smug, vicious satisfaction.

  “Holy mother of fuck,” Rikki whispered, the first thing any of us had said since Frankie’s presentation. Time felt strange then. I didn’t know how many seconds passed between the lift opening up and then Frankie doing the same, but I know that it was only a brief moment later when I saw his shoulders hunch up and pull in. It was a fluid motion and it resulted in Frankie’s space-vampire jumpsuit falling to his knees. His shoulders continued to move inward and up in ways that no human being outside a contortionist could pull off. Then they exceeded that and they no longer resembled arms. Frankie turned around, saving us any longer looks at the horror in between his legs, a first for him, of that I’m sure. And before I had time to question why the very forthcoming Frankie had suddenly become so modest I saw what he wanted us to look at. His back was riddled with small orifices like fresh incisions and from these openings light shone. The flesh making up the blanket of skin around them had changed as well, turning his back into some sort of glass honeycomb, like a sea sponge with a brilliant wet light coursing through its pocks and pinholes. A screaming meteor that was only fluent in pissed off rainbow. Now every one of the fresh horrible holes spangling his back blinked in unison and we realized that they were eyes. Eyes that spit dripping colors I’d never seen before. If I had not heard the sound his bones breaking made as the eyes blinked and cried color, I might have wept from the beauty of it.

  Luckily, Marcus had a much saner response. “Hop to, let’s get moving, people.” He grabbed me by the shoulder and started to pull. But I couldn’t turn away, not yet. I looked into the nebula of what had been Frankie’s eyes, the space his face once occupied before it split. A shaky sort of apparition hovered there; it looked like human eyes flickering in and out, existing, then not, literally in the blink of an eye. And I could see behind these eyes, hanging in space, were even more eyes doing the same dance, twinkling like stars. They seemed to reach impossibly back like a row of dominos into the space where his head should have been. All of them studying me with listless intent; I couldn’t tell if they were lifeless or so vastly intelligent it was impossible for a life form like me to register. I could feel Marcus pulling my shoulder, feel his spit on my neck as he screamed into my ear something about looking away, not getting hypnotized. Some sensible dreck like that which I was a bit too preoccupied to listen to at the moment. This was, after all, the glam rock changeling Gideon’s greatest ever rebirth and I was front row to witness the neon afterbirth being expunged. Marcus’ voice all but disappeared, as did the hotel, the snow storm, and the world that hosted them. It was only that chain of strange eyes and me. Nothing else. Then something happened. A warmth like midmorning sunshine hit my face and I only slightly registered that something had crawled into my eyes. A bit of that dripping color from the crevices on Frankie’s back.

  “Snap the fuck out of it,” Rikki screamed at me. The warmth on my face had given way to a full burn. It felt flush, like it had been struck. Then Rikki slapped me again and confirmed my suspicions. I backed away from the lift, unsure how much time I’d lost staring into those strange eyes and their colors. But now I was back in control. “Codger, let’s be on our way.”

  Behind Rikki and me, Frankie started slummocking his way out of the lift. His eyes caught mine and it took considerable self control on my part to look away and focus instead on Rikki. Admittedly she aided this endeavor merely by being herself. “Come on, you old twat.” I did as instructed.

  Despite her accurate assessment of me as an old twat, I found I still had plenty of life left in my legs and I charged down the hallway away from whatever the hell Frankie had become. Marcus had a flashlight and Rikki and I kept pace with him but surprisingly the kid kept lagging behind. He kept looking back over his shoulder, waving his own flashlight at the thing that followed us. I looked back at the kid to see how far behind he had gotten and caught a glimpse of Frankie through the flashlight beam. What little I could see didn’t make any goddamn sense. I could hear him, or it, behind us, a sound like the humming of a dying electrical light, accompanied by a swish like a street sweeper. The kid kept on looking back; he was going too damn slow. “Lopez,” I told him. “Josh Lopez, turn ’round and run.” He didn’t even correct me when I called him Josh instead of John. He was too far gone. But finally after a moment he turned his head and caught my eye. Something clicked and he started moving again. Passing me, and then up past Rikki and Marcus too. You’re welcome, kid.

  “In here.” The kid flung open the door to the kitchen and we poured in. I got in last and turned around to help Marcus, who was waiting to slam the door shut. The door was thick metal and shut with a loud sort of clang. My face was next to Marcus’ and we shared a look of relief. Then I felt a tremendous burst of pressure hit the door which made it sound like an aluminum can giving birth to triplets. The door swung back, throwing Marcus and me to the floor. I heard that electrical hum again and looked up to see a mass of long crooked fingers curling around the corner of the doorway.

  Suffer a Witch

  What was left of the faces that could still pass for human swayed in the air in two intricate, intertwining ribbons like a perfectly peeled apple skin floating in double helix before the last flick of the knife cuts it clean away. Lovely little thoughts like these filled my thick stupid skull as the screaming mess of what was Frankie Gideon charged awkwardly toward me on spindly stalks with a gait some
where between a toddler and a tarantula. Like usual, everyone else had a more practical response to this.

  Marcus and the kid backed up against the stovetops along a wall and Rikki disappeared behind me. I knew this because she called out for me to follow her, or at least get out of the way of Frankie. Sound advice. I couldn’t look away but I did find my hand acting under its own, much more competent, volition as it felt along on a nearby prep table until it found a wooden knife block. The fractured human smile still on the ribbons of some of Frankie’s faces curled up in a grin as he loomed over me. He also stopped making that terrible sound, and for a moment I felt my right mind creep back in. I could feel his fingers, his tendrils enveloping me. They did not feel unpleasant curling around my shoulders. They felt delicate and brittle, like corn husks after harvest. They pulled me in and I thought of the bleeding colors, what they had wanted to show me… My butcher’s knife found purchase right between the ribbons of Frankie’s old face and straight into whatever bony, coiled structure was now boiling up from out of his neck stump. Apparently it was a face of some kind because it opened a mouth, or something like one, and screamed out in pain as I cut into it. I pulled back the butcher knife and a hot mist of bright yellow fluid hit my face and hair. I sunk my knife in again. Distantly, some part of me wanted to embrace the bent crumpled thing in front of me, but an even greater part of me rejected it. Wanted it dead. Wanted me to live.

  Even when one of its tails or stalks whipped me back onto the floor I remember feeling relieved. If I was about to die at least I wasn’t going willingly to the slaughter. I would die on my feet even if I was currently out on my ass.

  Fleshy sorts of braids had sprouted out of the thing’s limbs and some of them were coiling over my wrists, ankles, and neck as I tried to get up off the floor. I managed to get one hand free and ripped off whatever was wrapping itself around my neck. Like I had suspected from its previous touch, it was fairly delicate despite its strength. But as I tore through the tendril around my other hand I could feel many more curling around my side and pulling me closer towards their master. They felt like paper but were strong as a man. Maybe I was going to die here after all. I looked up at the bony mouth, much like a beak, a granite octopus’ maw, as it waited for me, tongue sloppy in anticipation. I wouldn’t look away, I told myself. I wanted to know this thing, needed to understand it in my last moments before it devoured me. Its breath was fetid and hot up against my face and I felt its wet warm tongue lapping against my face as I screamed—

  But then a syrupy screech cut through the room, and again I heard the thing shriek, but now I saw why: Rikki brought her own blade down on one of the creature’s longer appendages as it swirled around on the floor. “Come on, man. Get up.” How wonderful that kitchens have so many pointy things in them. Rikki was just behind me, clearly terrified but being a lot more useful than I was on the ground. She brought her blade down again on the thing and it shrieked some more, sending her across the room with a swipe from two of its new black shining arms.

  “Codger, move your ass.” Marcus came around with the kid in tow. They both were carrying what looked to be plastic bottles in each of their arms: cooking oil. I took my butcher’s knife and cut into whatever was still wrapped around me until I got free as Marcus and the kid splashed oil on the beast. Marcus yelled, “Codger.” And I moved away quickly until I got clear. Marcus struck a box of matches against the wall and threw it at Frankie. The sound the thing made when it went up was even worse than its previous howl. It struck me then that this was because it had more than one voice. How many I couldn’t say, but it sounded like an entire choir was burning alive and they were all screaming at once. Beneath this I could hear something inside it bubble then burst, over and over, as fire started to cook it. The smell was thick, foul, instantly washing over the room. Rikki ran towards the far side of the kitchen, behind a large prep table, and I followed her. The thing was completely lit up now, a screaming, thrashing candle. It paced and circled, parts of it moved out of its back like they were trying to jettison themselves from their own body. Jumping ship as their craft sank beneath the flame. The kid was going to run for it but I locked eyes with him and held a hand up, telling him to wait ’til the coast was clear. The thing was still spinning close to him erratically. Marcus picked up on this quick and held the kid back, then once Frankie fell to the ground, led the kid forward away from the still-moving burning mass towards the door. Rikki didn’t wait for me to give her the signal; she didn’t need to, she ran across the floor. A burning crooked arm reached out for her foot and she dodged it, but then another tendril of some sort whipped around and caught her other leg. It brought her down to the ground hard, and she let out a scream. Some other appendage that ended in a sharp point like the tail off a vinegaroon rose up above her back and she struggled to get back up. I moved without thinking, faster than I thought myself possible. I took the pointed tail in my hand, careful to grip below the point, and it spasmed like an eel in my grip as I cut through it with my butcher knife. Three short hacks, then a fountain of yellow fluid. Rikki got up and we got the fuck out of the room and away from the immolated rock star who had recently sprouted a dozen new murderous appendages.

  For a few brief seconds things became sane again. The cool air of the hallway hit my face, cooling the sweat on my forehead that I hadn’t noticed had accumulated. Even the storm outside, its ugly old song, was comforting. Because it was real. It was normal. It was the way things were supposed to be. I was running through a hotel hallway, something I’ve done a few times before, crazy nights when we were young and when being on the road with the band was still fun and exactly where I wanted to be… But now I was running in fear.

  Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. “Come on, they went this way,” Rikki told me and I nodded my head. We ran some more and I could hear Marcus and the kid’s footsteps up ahead. They were headed towards the lobby. I knew this not exactly from memory, it was just the way most hotels were laid out. They all had different skin but the skeleton’s usually the same. Like people, there might be different sizes, variations on color and other cosmetics, different types of plumbing, but the basic layout’s still the same. Head on top, toes on bottom, and so on. Of course, there have to be allowances for some deformity. Every once and a while you’ll find a lift that goes nowhere or a kitchen on the wrong floor…

  But the Hotel Alucinari was resoundingly average. Normal. Except, of course, for its guests. We made it to the lobby and I saw Marcus and the kid standing dead in their tracks at the lip of the hall. “Why aren’t you going for the door? Come on, fuck the snow, let’s get out of here.” Before Marcus or the kid could answer me I heard that familiar ding of the lift.

  Directly across the lobby the lift rested, wreathed in that red light like before. The door opened. I expected Rikki’s tall man. Or maybe Satan itself. Instead, out walked a woman in a black frock. Her dark hair washed down the sides of her face and back of her neck like the thickest of treacle. Where her eyes should have been there was only a slight glint embedded in shadow.

  “Holy shit, it’s the chick off the cover of the first album,” the kid said and turned back to me. It was. It really was. The witch. The one who adorned the cover art of our eponymous debut record. It was a simple, beautiful, bucolic and somehow sinister and psychedelic image. Just a woman in black standing before an old mill surrounded by autumn trees wreathed in brilliantly red leaves. But the look on her face, it conveyed something otherworldly, haunting… It was one of the enduring myths of our group, that the band had never really figured out who the woman had actually been. Was she a model? Friend of the photographer of our first LP sleeve? What was his name again? Was she for real? A real bleeding witch in Birmingham? We never found out, so we used the mystery. Let it add to the lore. Besides, it was one less person for us to track down and pay. That was always something to strive for in this business. But here she was. And she looked exactly the same. Almost.

  “There’s something
wrong with her,” Rikki said. I didn’t see it at first. Not sure if the kid did either. Not ’til it moved. But unwinding from the space behind her in the lift was something made of flesh. Something that was as dark as her eyes until it started slithering and winding around itself and then you could see its shimmer. When it moved it left brightly colored trails, something like the visual echoes you’d see after dropping acid. It was mesmerizing and oddly familiar. Maybe it was because it brought back that wholly stupid, in retrospect, but at the time profound revelation that every stoner stumbles upon at one point in their experience: What if I’m not hallucinating? What if I’m finally seeing things as they truly are? Rubbish. But the shimmering shadow trailed in Technicolor made a good point otherwise. Then when the witch’s head lifted up and her mouth parted we discovered that the mass of shadowed muscle behind her was actually part of her. That it fed into her from behind, into her frock. Maybe into the back of her spine and behind her head. Using her like a puppet. A Punch and Judy show put on just for us. I heard Marcus whisper something fucking mad to himself. It sounded like… earworm? Then the witch’s mouth parted even wider and out of it cobwebs of burning bright veins erupted into intricate and obscene new constellations that filled the lobby hall. An entire cityscape of blood-forged geometric snowflakes and it expanded towards us while she did the same. It was absolutely breathtaking. I took a step towards her. I wanted to know her. To understand her design that hung in its abattoir glory above me. And then the shimmering shadow behind her uncoiled some more so I could see its eyes. Which weren’t eyes at all. Just two burning holes. And they saw me too. That’s when it reached out to me.