Earthbound and Down ebook 20170826

by Shaun Meeks

  “Not really. It’s more symbiotic than virus in nature. I bet this is weirding you out right now. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, between that and all this creepy, dusty shit that makes me think I’m on the set of the next Saw or Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, weird doesn’t quite cover it.”

  I like this even less now. It reminds me of one of those movies where a woman finds a secret out about her boyfriends and then it’s splitsville. I wish I could pull her to me, tell her it’s fine, I’m as normal as she is, but I feel guilty and shitty as hell. I can’t shake the feeling that keeping this from her is the equivalent of lying to her and she deserves better than all this. Better than me.

  “If you want to go, I’d understand,” I tell her, and expect to hear the doorbell jingle as she flees from here as fast as her feet can take her. When there’s nothing, I risk a look towards her and see she’s staring at me with one eyebrow raised and a look on her face that says really? all over it. “Seriously. I should have told you all that before now. I feel pretty much like a class A jerk.”

  “Good. You should, but that doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. I kind of fell for you, fella. Finding out you have some skeletons or in this case, spare bodies you can use in your closet isn’t going to send me running. Face it, buster, for now you’re stuck with this fair-skinned lady in your life. You cool with that?”

  “If you’re good with me, I’m more than cool with you,” I say, and she gives me a peck on the cheek.

  “Good. Now let’s find your buddy and get out of here.”

  I pull my gloves out and put them on, figuring this might be a faster way to get it done.

  “Why are you putting those on?” she asks.

  “Just in case Godfrey’s found a way to hide himself. If he’s here and I touch him, these will help me know it.”

  “Good call.”

  I walk around with my hands forward to grasp the air in case Godfrey has made himself invisible. I know I must look silly, but it’s the only thing I can think to do. Once this proves fruitless though, I touch objects, rub my hands along the wall. I do every aside from punch dance in hopes of pulling Godfrey out from his hiding spot.

  In the end, it seems he’s not here.

  Fifteen minutes of this and I finally call it quits. Rouge, who stood by one of the walls looking at some tools and strange objects, seems relieved and yet somehow disappointed. I get that. It would’ve been nice to find him and get some answers, but at the same time it could’ve led into another fight and that’s not something I want.

  I stand there for a moment looking around the back room and I decide it’s useless. We head towards the beaded curtain. It’s there that something catches my eye and I can’t help but smile.

  “I think that book’s for me,” I say, and walk over it the table where a large, dusty, leather bound tome lay.

  “What makes you say that?”

  I turn and hold the book up to her and point to the yellow piece of paper stuck on the front of it that reads, For you, Dillon. I’m sorry. This is the same one he pulled out that had the symbol in it. Maybe there will be some answers in here.

  “I guess you were right after all.” She smiles and after tucking the book into my backpack we leave the store. “I have no way to lock the place back up.”

  “Who cares? I’m sure he’s still in there anyway. Just because I didn’t find him doesn’t mean the sneaky bastard wasn’t watching us.”

  We walk down the street and I wonder if we should take a cab and forgo any more run-ins on public transit. At this moment I’m missing my car. You never know how easy something is until it’s gone and you have to rely on others to get you around. We turn the corner, on our way back to the bus stop as I’m thinking this, when someone at my feet calls out.

  “Spare some change, buddy?” a man lying on the sidewalk asks, and shakes a cup at me.

  “Sorry, pal I—” I trail off as my eyes fall on him and there’s instant recognition on my end. “You motherfucker!” I growl, and hand Rouge my bag so I can lift the homeless junkie off the ground and slam him into the wall of a coffee shop. Just seeing him brings back the headache I almost forgot I had. “This is the piece of shit who clubbed me.”

  The man’s eyes fly wide open as I hold him against the wall and his mouth starts to move as though he’s trying to tell me something, but nothing comes out. Rouge says nothing, and I can only assume that’s because she is fighting with her own thoughts of whether I should let him go or beat him senseless. No doubt she’s remembering the accident and me being in the hospital. Just seeing the junkie and putting my hands on him is bringing it all back for me and the only reason I’m not yelling at him is the fact that my head feels like there’s a bass drum in it. I do my best to fight it back so I can jack this guy up. This is my chance to maybe get some information from him.

  “So, tell me why I shouldn’t break your face,” I growl, and fight back the pain in my head.

  “I don’t even know you, bro. Why are you being so agro? Maybe you need to step off and take a pill, bro.”

  “I’m not your fucking bro, asshole! Are you saying you don’t remember me? How about this; I’m the guy you clubbed in the head a few days ago when you were with the—”

  “Oh shit! You’re the dude the man in the costume wanted me to whack.”

  “Man in the costume?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Little dude, looked weird. He was dressed up in a messed up costume like it was Halloween. He offered me two hundred bucks to smack you and take you somewhere after that. Said he’d give me more when we dropped you off. He even had an old bat to use on you. Beating people ain’t my normal thing, but two hundred bucks is two hundred bucks.”

  “Dropped me off where?”

  “He didn’t say. I was supposed to knock you out and then carry you to wherever he was going. Didn’t happen though. I ran because you went all nuts and I was scared, man. It wasn’t anything personal though. I…I have an addiction, bro.”

  I let him go and he slides down the wall. This guy is nothing and has no real answers. He hits the ground and starts to laugh wildly.

  “The costumed guy lied to me too. He said he’d give me more, but he never gave me more, but then again I never knocked you out so he could take you so I guess I didn’t do the job so he’s never going to…”

  I walk away with Rouge beside me as the junkie continues to babble on. I doubt he knows where I was going to be taken, and even if he did say something, why should I believe him? At this point I could get him to claim monkeys fly out of the Pope’s ass if I offered him a few bucks to tell me. Just when I thought I might get somewhere, nothing.

  “Now what?” Rouge asks, as a bus pulls up and we jump on it.

  “We read the book and hope Godfrey left it there for a reason.”

  We get back to my apartment and make some food and coffee. While we eat, I open the book taken from Godfrey’s shop. It’s called A History of Demons, Witches and Beasts of the Earth. It sounds like something from a damn Harry Potter book, but was written in 85 A.D.

  The pages are thick and stiff, yellowed, and they smell of old basements and dusty clothes. I flip through it and see all sorts of monsters and demons; creatures I’ve never heard of or seen before. It amazes me how blind the world is to the things that cross over when this planet has such a rich history of the bizarre. Dragons are a perfect example of that. More than a quarter of the book covers all different breeds and creeds of the ancient beast kings. How people think they’re a thing of myth is beyond me. So many cultures in every corner of the globe have depicted the same kind of monster. Hasn’t anyone thought this to be a strange thing? How could societies that have never spoken to one another, cultures who’ve never travelled outside their small circle, all draw and make stories about the same creature? If they never existed, how can they all seem to know of dragons and draw them or write ab
out them in a way that’s so similar? I guess it’s easier to deny it than to acknowledge the reality of it all.

  After that, there are pages of water demons, witches with the powers to seduce, plasma monsters that live underground and are as big as a large city, warlocks who have discovered fountains of life and death, and demons who can jump from host to host and live forever on Earth.

  Finally, after having gone over three quarters of the book, we get to the Golgotha and I know that is not what I faced off with. No way. The thing drawn on the page looks like a melted chocolate bar with eyes and mouth and misshapen arms. There is nothing about symbols or anything else to allude to being close to what I came across in the sewers. So, that answers that.

  I keep turning the pages and right near the end, I see it.

  The symbol.

  “Here it is,” I tell Rouge, who’s lying on my couch, her feet across my lap. She sits up and leans over my shoulder.

  “I expected something more than that,” she says.

  “It’s not much, I know. So let’s see what it says. The Corelux is a symbol used by warlocks, witches and masters of the dark arts to call forth the Colossus. The Colossus were once thought to be demons, but are in fact ancient creatures born in the deepest part of the ground and live on the borders of what many believe to be Hell. The Colossus can be called and controlled using the Corelux and used as guardians, protectors, hunters, or to destroy villages. Though a Colossus will not go out during the time when the sun is up, it will accomplish any deed by night. That’s weird.”

  “The whole thing is weird.”

  “Yeah, well, part of it that doesn’t make sense is there’s no mention of how the symbol is used to guide these things. Only as a way to call them forth and control them. So, you might be right. It could’ve been put there to get me involved and then lead us to the sewers.” That I don’t like. Someone has clearly gone to great lengths to get me involved in this and it worked. I feel as though I’ve been played like a fiddle. “The other part that I don’t get is the whole sun thing.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, it says they won’t hunt during the day, but more than once the kids were stolen in broad daylight.” I flip the page and there’s a picture of the ugly bastard, one drawn just like I saw it in the sewers. No question about it.

  “That’s what killed the cops?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How on God’s green earth would a thing like that be able to even sneak around? Seriously, Dillon. There’s no way.”

  I nod and know she’s right. These things are too massive, too solid and too much of an eyesore to be walking around in the light of day and nobody notice. If it had been a Golgotha then maybe, assuming those things can change how solid or diarrhoea-like they can make their bodies. These things are more like tanks. There’s nothing else helpful right off the bat, so I keep reading out loud to Rouge.

  “The Colossus are loyal and fierce. Their multiple eyes can move in different direction so as to see attacks from all sides and heights. The hairs on their faces and arms are tipped with poison as are their fangs, which have barbs to hold onto their victims. The poison is a slow acting acid that eats their victims from the inside out. Many who have gone up against a Colossus and the magician who called them forth, die. Only someone with the symbol of the Eastern Mage branded on them, the sceptre of the third Pharaoh, and the hair of a northerner may stand a chance at defeating a Colossus. If all else fails to fall them, the winds of the dragon wing or the fire of Ra will extinguish the life of a Colossus.” I stop, as there is nothing more on the subject. I flip through the book, rifle through a few more pages and when I see there’s nothing else, I close it, using the sticky note as a bookmark. “Well, that sounds like a fun time.”

  “Did you actually get anything out of that other than mumbo jumbo?” Rouge asks, and I smile.

  “Sure, there’s a thing or two in there that’ll help. I guess one of the first things I need to do is find out what the symbol of the Eastern Mage is and get that tattooed on me.”

  “Hopefully it doesn’t look like a tattoo of a Nickleback album,” she chuckles. “If you can ever get a hold of Godfrey, you think he’ll be able to get you that sceptre thingy, or the hair of a whoever?”

  “I doubt it. I’m not sure he has the means to get his hands on that stuff, but I know someone who might help with the sceptre part. As for the hair…” I look at her and smile, raising my eyebrow as if she’ll know what I mean. She looks back and there’s nothing in her face to tell me she does, so I guess I’ll have to spell it out. “Your family is from Scotland, right?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not very north. Are you sure they don’t mean Inuit or something?”

  “It might, but I’m betting this means someone from the highlands. You know, in a lot of cultures, red hair holds some serious power. Even though you’ve…enhanced yours, it’s still a powerful magic in the eyes of many.”

  “Really? Ginger magic?”

  “The hair of the devil woman,” I say, and laugh. “But that’ll come later. For now, I need to get the tattoo and the sceptre.”

  “What about the two other things? The wind of cheeks and Ramen noodle fire,” she’s says.

  “I hate riddles. I have no idea what either of those things are, so I won’t worry about them. First things first.” I put the book down and grab my laptop. I start a Google search for the symbol I need tattooed on me and once I find it, I make a call to an artist I know. I tell him I need it ASAP and he says to stop by his house in three hours. I pass it to Rouge and ask if she wants to come.

  “Maybe not. I don’t know if you whine and cry when you get tattooed, but I’d rather see the end result than the actual work being done. Call me old fashioned. Anyway, I should go home and see the pup and let my friend off the hook.” She kisses me goodbye. It’s one of those long hard ones and I savour the moment.

  When she leaves, I make another call to a woman I did a job for five years ago. She’s a curator at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) and if there’s anyone I can think of that might know or be able to get a hold of the sceptre of the third Pharaoh, it’s her. I find her number and dial.

  She picks it up on the fifth ring and says hello tentatively.

  “Hi, Sara. It’s me, Dillon. I did a few jobs for you years ago.”

  There’s a pause and I wonder if she really has to work hard to remember or if I just caught her at a bad time. In the background on her end I hear some things shuffling around, what sounds like a chair scraping across a floor and then her breath deep in the phone.

  “Sorry, did you say this is Dillon?” she asks, her voice close to a whisper.

  “Yeah. Dillon, the guy who got rid of those weird…things in you museum,” I say. Actually they weren’t just weird, they were vicious. The museum had somehow become a go-to place for a breed of demons called Thursh. Hunchbacked, gorilla-like and as smart as wood, a group of seven invaded the tourist attraction over a two month period and I was called back numerous times to get rid of them. When the Thursh first arrived, they gave everyone the scare of the century. As I’ve said, when things cross over to this world, for the most part, they arrive in spirit form and have to use inanimate objects to make up their forms, if they choose to. Most do. Maybe there’s this need to walk in a body that looks and feels real, but whatever the reason, this is what they do.

  When the Thursh came, they took the bodies of mummified corpses and the armour of medieval knights and walked about looking like ghosts of those things. Even when I got there and saw them I was a little freaked out. It took me a while to pick out what they were and then I had to come up with a way to stop them. The big thing was not to cause too much damage to the items they were possessing.

  Turns out I didn’t need to work too hard on that. On the first day I managed to dispatch two of them using little more than my Tincher, but over the next month
there were sightings of more of them and I returned again and again. During that time, the only person who worked at the museum that I talked to was Sara, so I’m surprised she’s having trouble remembering me.

  “You’re the monster guy, right?” she finally says, as though it’s just hit her.

  “Right. Look, I’m wondering if I could come and see you tomorrow. There’s something I need and—”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. No, it’s really not.”

  I’m a little worried by the tone of her voice. Something seems off here, and I want to find out what it is. When I met her before, she was so warm, a little on the bubbly side, yet very well spoken. Now, she seems…off.

  “Is everything okay, Sara?”

  “Sure is. Thanks for asking. I should probably go though.”

  “Wait. I need to know if you have or could get me the sceptre of the third Pharaoh? Do you know what that is?”

  Silence.

  On her end I hear a strange noise again, and then she whispers something. Perhaps she’s at home with a jealous boyfriend and I’m getting something going I shouldn’t. I didn’t even think of that when I called the cellphone, but now I feel like a jerk. I’m about to say I’ll call another time when she makes a weak sound, almost like she’s in pain.

  “Is everything okay? You don’t sound right,” I say, and for a second there’s silence again.

  “I’m…fine…I…no, please don’t…no…Dillon!” Her voice moves from fear to outright panic. “You need to call the other one…you know…no! Get away from me!”

  “What other one?”

  “I can’t say, but remember and you’ll know…please don’t…”

  Her voice trails off and there’s nothing there. I call her name out again and again and think of rushing out to her, but I have no idea where she is. It’s Sunday, so she’s probably at home, and I don’t know where she lives. I can hear her crying though, begging and then, there’s nothing but silence and my own voice calling out to her. That is, until the phone sounds as if it’s being scraped on something and someone begins to breath heavily into the phone.