Underneath the Draconian Sky

by Chatwin, Dale M.

  Patrick Holness stayed in the same seated position, on the same mattress for 3 days. A neighbour had reported loathsome aromas emitting from the room.

  When the Folk of Bachman Gardens Institute for the Criminally Insane arrived on the scene Patrick looked like a frail old man, hunched and wallowing in his own filth, a glass of urine sat next to him, it was his only source of hydration. He had also been repeating a 3 worded line over and over, voice hoarse and shredded from days of repetition.

  “Embittered old cunt.”

  The only way they could cease his infernal incantation was by dosing him with Haloperidol.

  9

  “Haloperidol,” the Guy sounded distant. He had listened Derek’s account whilst staring out of the window into a jigsaw abyss. Derek was still seated on the deflated bean bag.

  “Yes, Haloperidol. Does it hold any significance?”

  “Not to me, I’m just curious how you, or rather Remer, knew the exact drug that was used on the High Occultist when they brought him in.”

  “Remer would repeat it like a fucking broken record on some nights. When I asked him why he liked the word so much he simply replied: ‘Halo,’ that’s when he began to masturbate and titter like a school girl. He did that a lot.”

  “Hmm,” the Guy agreed.

  “That body belonged to Richie Trought,” said Derek, now sounding distant.

  “I know.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “He came here to kill you. I could smell murder on his breath.”

  “Yes he did. I raped and murdered his wife, Melinda. After I was locked away in Bachman Gardens he suffered from depression and suicidal tendencies. Eventually he killed both of his kids, burnt them alive in the garden shed. The Folk found him cuddling the charred remains of his brood; they added him to the misfit collection of inmates at the asylum.”

  “I’m guessing after he found out he was sharing the same building as you, he sought revenge.”

  “Found out?! The son of a bitch knew I was there all along; he murdered his children so he could claim insanity and gain access to Bachman Gardens. The poor sap had been so consumed by hatred and revenge he decided he would do anything to end my life. Now it looks like I don’t need worry, thanks to you.” An impish smile marred his face, for a brief moment the Guy saw an undying illness. No matter how much Derek would try to change, he would always be drawn to his profane desires.

  “Old habits die hard,” the Guy said in almost a whisper.

  “Excuse me?” Derek began to feel uncomfortable; he fidgeted on the bean bag causing it to morph into a diarrhoea pancake.

  Mr Nowhere Man clasped his right hand around Derek’s neck and dragged him into the downstairs bathroom, a place that smelt of malodorous discharge, and the once alabaster tiled walls were corrupted with various bodily fluids.

  Derek screeched in fear and confusion, babbling in reversed tongues, sounding like a polluted brook. The Guy kicked him in the stomach like he was punting a medicine ball. Derek was lifted up and thrown into the ceramic bathtub, a cauldron full of ochre fluid that had the funk of a thousand medieval privies. The Guy tore the yellow shower curtain from its support and wrapped around the indisposed rat of a man. The plastic curtain was pulled taught; Derek was now half suffocating and half drowning in a pit of foul bile. The Man with the Emerald Eyes grabbed the chrome shower pole and yanked it away from the wall; plaster flaked and crumbled, raining down onto the Guy’s hair. Just as he was lifting the implement vertically, Derek came to and began to thrash like a rabid dog that had been tied up in barbed wire.

  “You drift through life, bringing the ways of demons crawling through space and time to the beings of reality’s nature. Your fantasies; bleeding mahogany dreams. Your information was useful, but I must castrate you from this world.”

  The Guy plunged his torturous staff into the centre of Derek’s chest, smashing his ribcage to the four winds, tearing a circular hole in the shower curtain.

  Derek let out a grunt, sounding like his mouth was full of cream. The Guy ejected his staff, looking like a wizard caught in a murderous frenzy and brought it down again, this time onto Derek’s skull; he heard a crunch and felt jelly.

  The Guy repeated this motion several times, bashing the remains of Derek’s head through the shower curtain like he was tenderising a juicy steak.

  When the gruelling ordeal was over, the Guy dragged the body of Richie Trought into the back garden and buried him.

  “It’s what you deserve,” he said to the mound of dirt that marked the final resting place of a broken man.

  10

  7 feet tall and shrouded in an impenetrable fog. The High occultist laughed in slow bursts. The Guy was strapped in a bondage harness, ball gag in his mouth with his eyes clamped open.

  “Here we are again 1107. Together in realities fracture. ‘Sweet dreams are made of this’ the old rhyme goes. Except in the realm of your dreams, the sweetness drips into my mouth like fresh honey, all you can taste are the sour apples of your exposure.”

  The Guy tried to speak but could only manage muffled noises. He struggled to break free but the PVC bonds only tightened, cutting off his blood stream in the process.

  “Don’t worry, we will meet soon and you can have your say. The Moffatt fields seem like a worthy place for our confrontation.”

  The Guy felt a foreboding doom, the calling of his death. He would die in this wretched place, in his own dream, and would not wake up. He tried to think but could conjure no thoughts. He tried to breathe through his nose, but no oxygen would pass, the Guy could feel the carbon monoxide building in his lungs. In his blood stream. In his heart. The High Occultist materialised a long crystal needle, the Guy recognised it at once.

  “I won’t be penetrating your ear like you would have done to Derek Billank.”

  The High Occultist pierced the Guy’s eye, dead centre through the pupil. He felt the needle in his brain and exiting the rear of his skull. He tried to scream, but no sound could be produced. He couldn’t even feel pain.

  The Guy heard a distant lullaby and felt tears bursting like water balloons. He could feel the sting of salt on his flesh.

  ‘Sleep walking through each week that we’re apart,

  The letter that I sent you has gotten no response,

  And I wait and I dream I’m made of steam.’

  11

  He awoke in the dirt. Tears streamed from his eyes.

  “My tears are made of steam,” he said.

  The guy picked himself up; he had passed out on Richie’s grave.

  The journey back to the Rift Inn Time seemed long, like he was walking the length and breadth of the known world. He began to question his existence, question the very fabric of his being.

  “Is it time to fall from this tree? Has my ripened state become rotten in the process of enduring this burdening form?” He didn’t know why he asked these questions, they poured out of him like a corked wine. Vinegary statements of injustice.

  An ivory citadel imposed on his vision, what had once been a thriving Mormon church was now a greying beacon of misfortune. It was in that decomposing palace where the great change had begun.

  The town was desolate. Lament’s Corner it was called in a long ago time, no one uttered that name anymore. Maybe the residents were scared to call the town by its birth name, or maybe it had simply passed out of memory and into obscurity.

  The Guy had always believed that the ocean was not a part of the natural world, but more of a portal into another dimension, that had infected our reality with its lucid poison. The incident at Lament’s Corner had been the great flood of the modern age. Washing away the old ways and replacing them with the new. The Aakmanu.

  The Temple glared at him with accusing eyes, the windows gaped with a disgusted demeanour, trying to draw him inside.

  Come, El Vagabundo Misterioso. Let me hold you, just for a while.

  Guilt began to cleanse the Guy in malodorous waters. His flesh began to c
reep in bumps, like malevolent insects were burrowing under his skin. A sickly sensation.

  “These are state of the art mental musings,” he spoke to the church. “Cruising on lakes bred by filigree eels.

  Wailing out operatic metaphors on pneumatic wheels. I need my veins to feel every motion, blood drop in the ocean. Boiling a potion to soften the day.” Something snapped inside the Guy, forcing him to break from this non-consensual hypnotism.

  Feeling like a fool, he let his feet bear him hence to the Rift Inn Time. Under the dwindling skies, Lament’s Corner became infected with a sense of impending doom.

  12

  A fog had begun to settle on that small corner of the world, before he entered the Rift Inn Time the mist was nothing more than fading smoke emitting from a camp fire. The Guy’s vision clouded, caused by both the fog and a queer faintness he could not explain. He touched his hand to the Balsa saloon doors and pushed. The Rift Inn Time was voiceless, that was all the Guy had time to process before he saw 2 bodies lying on the sticky, alcohol soaked floor. Sylvester Claproot and Palmer Stanley lay on their backs, mouths yawning, with the residue of terror in their dead eyes. Both had been murdered in the same way: their throats were cut deep, looking almost decapitated. Maroon liquid stained the floor, congealing into what looked like red wax.

  The Guy stopped breathing; he couldn’t breathe, not with what he was seeing. The sheer brutality and hideousness of the scene winded him. Although he had grown fond of Sly, he could not afford to feel sad for him. But why was Palmer there? Abruptly his mind turned, involuntarily, to Nancy. Before he could make a move, a voice rose from the violent silence.

  “El Vagabundo Misterioso, you came. How delicious,” a cold blooded voice.

  “Patrick Holness, or should I call you the High Occultist? You sound different in the waking world.” There was a 9 second pause, followed by a deep chuckle.

  “Sadly for you 1107, I am not the High Occultist, neither of us are.”

  “What do you mean?” at first there was confusion, hysteria in his mind. A swift breeze washed away those wretched emotions and replaced them with instinct.

  “Show yourself, you piece of moronic afterbirth,” the Guy said calmly to the dead saloon. Three figures appeared behind the bar ahead of him.

  Figures dressed in identical suits: aqua shirts with lime ties and pinstripe blazers and trousers. He could not see their shoes. They were figures with pale skin, slicked white hair and scarlet reptilian eyes. They appeared to be human but as the Guy closely inspected them, he noticed abnormal markings on their faces: Scales. Fading scales.

  “Acrimony can breed into the perfect moment of clarity, El Vagabundo Misterioso. We are the Cult of Aakmanu. A very small percentage of it,” spoke the centre figure.

  There was an instantaneous moment of clarity for the Guy, not caused by acrimony, but by the obvious scenario unfolding before his eyes.

  “So, you finally caught on to what Sly was doing out here. Only a matter of time really,” he said in a casual manner.

  “We caught wind of this High Occultist you spoke of. Heard about him and his talks of revolution against our Masters. We simply could not let that happen. As we dug deeper, our intelligence eventually lead us to the names of this saloon, and its proprietor. It didn’t take much to make Palmer talk…” the right figure was cut off by the centre one.

  “…and we made Sylvester hack Palmer’s throat. Such a foul mess, but so admirable to watch. We enjoyed it so much we thought that Sly should be given the same treatment. By Nancy,” centre sneered. The Guy didn’t show it through facial expressions or body language, but he was hurting on the inside. Nancy was innocent in all of this.

  “Where is she?” The Guy spoke, keeping his calm.

  “Do not concern yourself dear friend. She is safe, upstairs taking a long shower to wash the blood from her hands. A ball has begun to roll in her life; a woman who has been forced to murder someone in such an uncivilized fashion will never be the same again. She will always see the blots of blood on her Arabic skin thus always being reminded of this terrible night. The mixed emotions nauseating and exhilarating.”

  Once lefty had finished talking, everything became hushed. The Guy could feel a slight twitch under his eye; he had become exasperated by what lefty had said.

  Hold steady.

  “I must apologise El Vagabundo Misterioso, we know your name yet you do not know ours,” this came from centre, “my name is Karuch, to my left is Karnack and on my right is Kish.”

  All three beings bowed.

  “What strange creatures. You do heinous things to the people close to me, then you bow to me as if I were some kind of king!” He let out a snort of laughter.

  “Brass tacks 1107, these men had it coming. It is you who we want alive. Our Masters have followed your ‘work’ and were very impressed. They want you to track down this High Occultist and exterminate him. Same job, different employer.” Karnack tried to wink but it appeared as a twisted blink.

  “And what makes you think I’d work for you?”

  “Because you enjoy it. It is who you are. Not a career, but a way of life,” said Kish. The Guy nodded casually.

  “Okay, I will do this, not for you but for myself and my morbid curiosity in this High Occultist. There will be one condition. I will stay here one more night to handle Nancy.”

  “So be it! Have your whore one more night 1107 but heed this; we will come for you in your sleep so use your time wisely,” said Karuch, holding his hand out and pointing at what used to be Sly and Palmer.

  “Were there any more deaths?” The Guy said. He had been so caught up in the situation and overlooked the fact that there could be more dead lurking in the building.

  “No. We had no qualms with the patrons or any other whores,” Karnack was the last one to speak. All three figures vanished into the void between the bar and the back room.

  13

  Feeling like he was somewhere between the dream realm and the waking world, the Guy carefully crossed the void from the door to the bar. There was a pool of gore which he avoided, never taking his eyes off it. The Guy began to inhale and exhale deeply, feeling relief that the Cult of Aakmanu took their leave, and feeling excited about taking Nancy into his arms. He wanted to take her to bed and make her forget about what they had made her do. He wanted to settle her mind, maybe offer her some marijuana from Sly’s secret stash. What he wanted most of all was to feel the touch of her skin against his before he went to his death. There had been a rank stench of death since he departed from Derek’s abode.

  The next 10 minutes of his life ran in slow motion. At first he knocked on the bathroom door, calling Nancy in a level tone. The Guy could hear no sound of water. When she wouldn’t respond he jiggled the brass sphere door knob, it was unlocked. The door moaned in agony as he pushed it open, what he saw sent shivers of anguish through his soul. Nancy Mooring’s naked, lifeless body was slouched on the toilet. The Guy perceived a heroin needle by her right foot; it appeared she also knew the whereabouts of Sly’s secret stash of chemicals & herbs. He rushed to her and embraced the vessel that had once held a beautiful Egyptian refugee. Her body was wet. The Guy rocked in metronome motion; he felt tears but expressed no emotion. On the inside he burned. There was a note by the sink, on the paper were droplets of drying water, morphing the ink but still readable.

  Mr

  I could still see the blood. Now I can escape and hope the old Gods will take me under their wing and protect me from the Demons that have crept into this world. I think, maybe, you’re one of those Demons. A Demon seeking redemption. I believe that is what you long for. Redemption. You were my favourite. Please don’t forget me.

  Nancy.

  The taste of salt entered the corners of his mouth. He had not known her very long, but she provided him with warmth, comfort and love. Though it was paid love, it still meant a lot for a drifter like him.

  Nancy’s body was carried into her room and laid on her bed. He
lay with her for a while, cuddled her, the rigid coldness didn’t bother him. He just wanted to feel for the last time.

  After midnight the Guy made his way down stairs to the outdoor shed, in there were 6 bottles of diesel. They were taken back into the Rift Inn Time, back to Nancy’s room.

  On his way upstairs he used 5 bottles, pouring the potent substance around the pub. The last bottle was used to coat Nancy; he did it with delicacy, making sure every part of her glistened with that slick flammable slime.

  One match, that’s all you need. The Guy took it, closed his eyes and counted to 11 under his breath. Struck it with his thumb and touched the flame to her breasts. Fire burst into life, creating shadows on the walls that looked like demented jesters prancing in a King’s hall. He left the Rift Inn Time as it burned in an orgasmic pulse. It was a beautiful, yet frightening, image to behold. The Guy soaked it all in.

  “Goodbye Nancy, goodbye Sylvester. The operation does not end here; you hired me for my skills as an exterminator. That is what I intend to do.”

  After finding a quiet spot on a hill overlooking Lament’s Corner, he took a brown, leather bound journal from his black side bag. The cover was decorated with gold symbols, strange markings that didn’t look Earthly. The Guy flicked through the pages, sketches of maps, versed writings and mathematical codes flew past his vision.

  He looked across the vast landscape and saw the City.

  ‘The City of Debauchery’ as Sly liked to call it. Something was calling to him from that place of concrete, steel and electricity.

  “I’m done with writing my own fate,” he simply said to the sleeping world. Racoons quarrelled in his vicinity, arguing over the spoils of a night raid. The Guy lay in the tall grass and gazed at the cosmos above. Satellites blipped and meteorites whooshed, the Moon looked down on the man in leather boots. His emerald eyes were full of tales, of tragedy and violence. The Guy lost his ability to move, so he closed his eyes and departed the waking world.