“You presume correctly my dear.”
“Then be gone from my head.”
“Sorry, no can do sweetheart. That Island over yonder is the origin of your demise. You are meddling in matters you do not understand. If the Cult don’t get their claws on you, then I will.”
“I understand the situation across the sea, you must exist in intellectual poverty, priest…”
“Never call me priest you vile wretch!” The figure snapped in bitter anguish.
The Guy laughed.
“I am the master of my own dreams…priest,” a sly grin scarred the Guy’s face.
The scene shifted; he was wandering through an arboretum. A barren wasteland full of dead roses where the vines deformed the once extravagant walls. A Kingdom after its demise.
“You may be the master of your reality 1107, but it is I who is the master of your dreams. Now awaken and smell your tears.”
6
He slowly prized his eyes open; they were glued together by a sticky residue. Salt, he could taste…and smell, salt. Tears. The Guy had been crying in his sleep. He turned his head and found that Nancy had departed his side, and he had overslept considerably. It took him 6 minutes to straighten out his head. As he began to peel his body from the sheets, Nancy entered with breakfast.
“Coffee and a shot Mr, I heard that’s how you like it. Thought I’d bring you something for when you had woke up,” she smiled and the Guy returned one back. He gulped down the whiskey and sipped his coffee.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” his voice was an echo of the figure in his dream; gruff.
“You looked like you were having nightmares. My mother once told me it was bad nature to wake a person during a bad dream,” there was a slight look of fear on her face. The man who she had been sleeping with the past week was still a stranger, and unpredictable. She wasn’t sure how he would react.
The Guy offered her a smile from behind his coffee mug.
“Your mother was probably right,” he said.
“Would you like one of my special massages? You look tense,” her innocent appearance made her more seductive.
“No, thanks though,” the Guy stroked Nancy’s arm tenderly, making her blush.
“Oh here he is! Sir fucking Lancelot sleepalot! Have a good lie in dreaming of castles and dragons?” Sly proclaimed this in a tone that sounded somewhere between the jesting pal and the hard ass boss.
“How was the shemale last night Sly? Because you must have woken up with a little prick inside you this morning.”
“Well if that’s the closest you’re ever going to get to making a joke, I’ll let you off. Now, what can I do you for son?” Sylvester welcomed the Guy into his cramped office. Déjà vu.
“What can you tell me about the High Occultist?”
“Just what you already know, he’s one of the escaped patients and word on the street is he’s leading some kind of criminally insane group. He’s a very bad cat.”
“Know where I could find information?”
“Oh I’m sure you’ll discover yourself while making the rounds,” Sly tipped him a wink.
“I’ve been thinking about your man Palmer, can he be trusted?”
“Of course. Why you ask?”
“Well you mentioned he does the accounts for the Cult, if they were to catch wind of the situation, and your illegal operation here at the Rift then things won’t go down too well.”
“Have no fear my dear Lancelot. There are only a handful of people I trust and Palmer is one of them.”
“Sometimes a handful is too much.”
7
Rain; the Gods’ way of washing the Planet clean. Rain; a fresh start. Of course, that was the way of the old Gods, now nothing more than myths hidden away in literature and the subconscious minds of the elder generation.
Rain had become just a part of the natural order, the Aakmanu order. Derek Billank soaked himself outside the abandoned house he had been squatting in for the past week. He was reflecting on the dream he had the previous night: He was drowning in a swimming pool of heated semen, he swallowed great globules before escaping. Act two of this savage dream involved him lying on cold marble tiles watching bizarre life forms force their way out of his flesh. He remembered the agony of feeling his skin stretch, then explode like bloated spots full of puss. He remembered the infantile screams of new life created from stale sperm. The offspring formed into one unspeakable being: a giant Arion Vulgaris, patches of its slick flesh appeared to have been melted by salt, and from those gashes sprouted human limbs and tongues tasting the chlorine smeared floor. Men’s shrieks and women’s agonising cries of pleasure could be heard from within its enervated carcass.
“My past was just a passing ejaculation of my imagination, today I woke from my coma, today I can live in my new reality,” he spoke to the sky with his eyes closed and tasted the rain.
Memories of sex, violence and scorn had begun to evaporate from puddles of salt water, leaving only the dirtied remnants of sodium chloride. Derek interpreted his escape from the asylum as an omen to start a new life, free of his condition as a serial rapist.
One could say he was cured…
…Another could say the seeds of a greater insanity were being scattered across the fields of his consciousness. He went inside the detached house, made a crude and bitter cup of tea and sat down by the window to read the Grimm’s Fairy Tales which he stole from the library three days before. The tale he felt a real kinship with was the tale where a boy went forth to learn the meaning of fear.
Reading by natural light made Derek feel serene, even if the light was distorted by heavy clouds.
Amongst the orchestra of the rain parade Derek could hear something else; footsteps, boots to be precise. There was someone walking up the pathway to his abode. He broke out into a grimy sweat and had to struggle to keep his bowels from giving up the ghost.
“It’s him, he found me,” he whispered, it had to be, Derek was privy to the town’s gossip.
“He’s a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody,” Derek sang to the hollow house, feeling like a church mouse squeaking in an empty church hall. Where had he heard that song? An old nursery rhyme passed down through the generations? He knew not the answer, but he thought it an appropriate way to describe the man walking up the pathway to his dilapidated home.
The main door to the abandoned house opened, groaning as it moved on ancient hinges. An outline of a person was imprinted between the inside realm and the outside. The shadowed figure moved one step, and then collapsed like a defunct scarecrow onto the damp fungal carpet and Derek let out a whimper.
Richie Trought had come to pay Derek Billank a visit. Ultimately this would have ended in the expiration of Derek’s already long and pathetic life. Richie had climbed over the side fence and at that point a stranger walked down the street whistling a tune. Just another passer-by who had no suspicions. When he got to the front door and felt something bitter and barely sharp penetrate his lower spine with immense force, he began to think that maybe he should of planned this skirmish with more detail. The last words he heard on that reality were:
“Sorry, but you can’t have this privilege.”
His final moments were a decrepit photo album of blurred pictures; opening the door, seeing a face full of childish fear and in conclusion; smelling the musty carpet.
Richie Trought was deceased, made that way by a copper pipe.
Derek’s eyes were wide open and his mouth was agape, he was fixated on the recently deceased vessel that lay on display in the newly opened ‘Billank’s Corpse Gallery.’ He was still seated in the deflated bean bag by the window when the Nowhere Man seemed to materialise into the squalid living room. Derek felt a flare of anger ignite within his soul and he screamed:
“Leave this place! You and your condescending beard!”
The Guy took a step forward; Derek cowered like an abused puppy.
“You won’t be molesting people
’s emotions anymore,” said the Guy, his emerald eyes glowed.
“Don’t! I know who you are and I know what you do. I have ears and I hear things about you mentioned on the streets. I am starting a new life here, I want to be free from the shackles that bound me to my past,” he said, tears welled in Derek’s eyes.
“Where is the High Occultist?” The Guy asked, taking another step forward.
Derek appeared to be confused.
“W-who?” He stuttered.
“The High Occultist. You know who I am talking about you degenerate, flea ridden cunt,” said the Guy, never braking his calm.
“Listen, I told you, I’m a free soul, cleansed by the Old Gods. I don’t deal with those fiends anymore.”
The Guy lunged, reached out and took hold of the scruff of Derek’s sweaty, damp t-shirt.
“Listen fiend, I want to know where he is,” Mr Nowhere Man, sitting in his Nowhere Land, glaring all his Nowhere Plans into Derek’s trembling eyes. He coolly took out a long, thick crystal needle from a leather pouch and rested it in Derek’s ear.
“I will push this into your head, first it will pierce your ear drum and then it will proceed to puncture your brain and hopefully come out at the other end. The process will be slow, the process will be painful. I will not be professional like the doctors at Bachman Gardens. No. I will be harsh for this is my art. This is my passion.”
The Guy never broke eye contact. Derek felt his bowels and bladder let go simultaneously and he began to sob saucepans of tears.
Through mucus caverns and liquefied emotions he replied:
“Art? What do you know of art? You’re the kind of guy who’d portray the act of love as pigs fornicating in their own filth while chewing the bones of a newlywed couple who should have been consummating their marriage. Instead they were murdered and thrown into the dregs of a swine orgy,” he winced, then lifted up his hands. “Wait! I’m sorry, I know who is close to the High Occultist, but you’re not going to enjoy the answer.”
“Just tell me.”
“Remer Blake, the man you killed so brutally.”
The Guy’s eyes widened, he could see no falsities in Derek’s expressions and body language. It was a strange but harsh truth that could only be likened to being mauled in your own home by a Panther.
“Is there no one else?” The Guy asked, feeling slightly panicked.
“Of course there is, but no one I know of. Remer and I would converse at times in the yard, back at the asylum.
He would always talk about his roommate; Patrick Holness. The High Occultist to you and I. He would talk for hours about watching the Island burn in oil and blood.”
“Did they devise the escape?”
“At first I thought it was all coincidence, no way could they be smart enough to escape from Bachman Gardens, but when I hear the talk about Patrick and his ‘army’ and how the Cult of Aakmanu haven’t found where they are hiding, I begin to adjust the way I think about the events that occurred,” Derek began to shiver.
A dense dead air fell upon them, the Guy pondered the situation. The gears and wheels churned in his brain. Finally he asked Derek a question:
“You say you used to converse with Remer Blake.”
“Yes I did.”
“Did he tell you anything about the High Occultist’s past?”
“He did. He used to babble on through the 2 hours about how Patrick came to be at the asylum…”
8
In the beginning…
“Hilstrom, where are you going?” Patrick asked in despair.
“I’m leaving my dear friend. The fear has taken hold and I am no longer responsible for my reputation,” Hilstrom stared deeply into Pat’s eyes.
“Will I see you on the shores of realities fracture?” Pat wept with his head hung in undeniable anguish.
“You will,” said Hilstrom, caressing Pat’s cheek and using his thumb to catch the tears that wandered, lost down his smooth skin. An obscure mist descended onto their world. Pat moved his head in confusion, looking this way and that. His eyes were wells that held salty lakes, the fleshy dam had ruptured and now the lake spilled forth down his face. When the confusion dissipated Hilstrom was no longer there. Pat remembered oil, ebony liquid flowing and swelling. Suddenly it was set alight by some mysterious force, the flames looked as if they were plants growing wild and flapping in the breeze. He thought about drowning in that holocaust, but reconsidered his position, one day he would be with Hilstrom again.
But not now.
There would always be oil and flames in Patrick Holness’ life. He became addicted to insomnia and sexual orgies, which could only be described as depraved and fiendish. He often hosted sex parties for the soulless and suicidal. His favourite animalistic act would be to bleed a male Caribou then bathe in its luscious blood. The young prostitutes lost whatever dignity they had still possessed upon entering his house. They drank the beast’s rouge haemoglobin and fornicated. Eventually they began to lust for every moment. On occasions, in an acidic state of mind, Patrick would believe there was someone watching him from the corner of his room. He soon realised that it was a depiction of his astral self. A masochist, that is what he had become and he accepted it. Welcomed it in fact.
The night Hilstrom Hartley dematerialised into the inter-dimensional chasm of AGZ, Patrick visited the local gay bar to pick up some young lads for a ‘mucus and spunk orgy,’ as he liked to call them. It was a one-time only treat for him, after that he used only women to fulfil his sadistic perverted needs.
There was something about sexual encounters with men and it sent quivering vibes running through his spine, turning his bones into odd jelly. Maybe it had something to do with the way it made Patrick reminisce about his intimate relationship with Hilstrom.
They had been lovers once, in some distant reality. Before Hilstrom took to working for the Amniotic Agency, he and Pat had shared moments that no other mortal mind would comprehend. For brief spouts of time they felt like Gods. Many nights were spent entwined with serpents and poetry, raw genitalia hanging loose on the backs of beasts and taxidermy dreams, frothing rabid questions of formalities and loyalties.
Ten nights after Hilstrom’s disappearance Patrick Holness’ addiction to sleep deprivation had grown out of control, like poison ivy on the walls of an elderly widow’s house. His penis throbbed with painful satisfaction from the lives and virginities he had taken. He was perched on a mattress in a squalid apartment, a rouge lamp was his only source of light. The wallpaper bled with ferocity, breathing in sync with him. Insects appeared from cracks in the ceiling like demons from the void. Crooked bastardized paintings heaved in venereal delight. Patrick had taken to painting and flesh was his canvas, blood, semen and excrement were his paints. A beetle scurried in excitement across the damp carpet.
Hilstrom’s departure had taken its toll on Patrick Holness.
Eleven Days.
Psychedelic smiles penetrate the deepest orifice. It is all elementary in the vast expanse of the illusion. Pat knew it all too well. Hilstrom knew too, that was one of the reasons why he had fled. He had become resentful of the reality he found himself in. Like a whiff of coffee to a hung over zombie he awakened. That is why Hilstrom built a nest with the Amniotic Agency. The ‘company’ was involved in the colonisation of empty dimensions and keeping relations with active ones. Hilstrom applied for a position as chief geologist for the colonising of Segment AGZ. Sadly, but with undertones of relief on Hilstrom’s part, Patrick could not accompany him on the one way journey. The Agency didn’t allow unqualified civilians on those expeditions.
He stumbled to the apartment. Even though his body couldn’t take the pressure of forward momentum, the fact that he was drunk, stoned and high on speed pushed his semi-conscious corpse through time and space. Some inebriating force was propelling him towards his destiny. Patrick felt his gut tumble and slosh like a washing machine full of soiled underwear.
The atmosphere was dank and his mouth was a
rancid combination of salted meats and yeasty beverages. He began to think about the death of his parents. The evening had been shrouded in a heavy darkness. He was in the car with his father, mother and younger brother.
Patrick was 14 at the time, his brother only 5. They had been driving down opaque meandering country lanes, father at the wheel. Out of the anti-dexterous void came great gleaming, bewildering lights.
Patrick remembered feeling his body jolt forward in the seat belt, then being thrust back with force into the leather seat. He slipped in and out of consciousness, first seeing his brother’s mangled, crimson contorted corpse in the child booster seat.
Black out.
He remembered mum and dad, only the back of their heads, limp, smashed and bloodied.
Black out.
He remembered being grasped by strong arms and drawn to the safety of a stranger’s bosom. That was when he passed out for real. Shock had scooped Patrick Holness into his merciless embrace and carried the child away to a world of vile dreams and horrific incestual images. He dreamt about the last conversation he and his mother had engaged in. It was an argument that ended with him calling her an ‘embittered old cunt,’ which resulted in a palm print on his teenage face.
Patrick remembered sobbing for hours.
The events of that night had always remained a mystery to him. He never asked about the crash and the full extent of the damage caused to the other driver, nor did he ever want to know.
He entered the apartment with heavy thoughts plodding through the endless corridors of his memories. His musings were soon broken by the sounds of the diseased moans coming from females warming themselves up on a tired used mattress. 19 minutes later they were all dead and Patrick was bathing in a scarlet spotlight. The sensations of violence and lust pulsated through his cock. He had no recollection of how he had killed them. Five women, blood spatters on the walls, skulls pulverized and looking like lumpy mashed potato that had been dyed with beetroot juice. His guess was that he had bludgeoned them in a drugged up stupor.
Underneath the Draconian Sky Page 2