by Rob Horner
Within moments the red glow covered the whole box. It was the red of the devil's eyes and bright as the sun, and it burst out to engulf everything and everyone in the room. The preacher-guy took on an even ghastlier look, all dressed in black like he was and surrounded now by that unearthly illumination.
Up until then, the words of the chant had faded into my subconscious, a constant drone that grated, but was ignorable, so long as I was looking at the preacher. The words were meaningless anyway, nonsense sounds in some language other than English. But now, as the chant entered a new phase of volume and frenzy, a single word rang out.
"Arise!" they cried, and the carnies' arms swept up, while the smaller robed figures bent at the waist and pressed their faces to the ground. The arms drifted down; the figures rose up.
A few moments later, another single word sounded, though this time not in English.
"¡Surgir!" and the paradoxical motions repeated, arms up by the men, faces down for the women, then a slow return.
"Entstehen!" three or four seconds later.
"Sikónomai!"
Over and over they chanted, through a dozen other languages before returning to English, and with each exhortation the red light grew brighter.
Suddenly the carnies went fully into a frenzy, holding their candles aloft, thrashing back and forth. They looked like a church full of true believers writhing by candlelight in an open-sided tent off in some farmer's field, caught up in the fervor of religious ecstasy. New sounds arose from within the trailer, high-pitched and shrieking, as the smaller forms began gyrating on the floor. With the entire altar now fully engulfed in that lurid, red light, shadows began moving in its center, horribly twisted figures silhouetted black on red. As the cries of the carnies grew more strident, as the flailing robed forms collapsed and lay dreadfully still, and as the light continued to widen and brighten, the shadow figures grew.
The light began to seep under the door of the trailer, around the windows, bright enough that if someone were to open the drapes, it would shine as a beacon into the night. Anyone passing by would be certain to see it. The figures within the box became clearer, inspiring dread. The only word I could think of to describe them, a fitting term considering the atmosphere, was demons.
Those were demons coming out of that box! Impossibly. Amazingly. Shadowy figures, growing larger with every heartbeat, coming closer to entering our world!
"Arise!" the carnies cried, and the red light reached out and grabbed me, bathing me in its hellish glow.
"Arise!" and I could see the demons so clearly, fully realized now as they grew larger within the light, somehow larger than the rock which contained them, larger than the table upon which the rock stood, yet also still within its bounds.
"Arise!" and the prostrate forms on the floor of the trailer, what I'd thought were girls or women, suddenly lunged to their feet, robes no longer flowing but instead hanging oddly, like there were joints or other protrusions under them spoiling the normal fall of the fabric. The robed forms turned on the men, falling on them, slapping with hands that looked wrong, fingers too long and with too many knuckles, and now, finally, the men seemed to realize something was wrong. They fought back but were overpowered, big two hundred fifty or three hundred- pound men subdued, restrained, and flipped onto their backs.
Flesh shredded and robes tore in the slaughter, revealing twisted forms that could never have been human, hips and shoulders tilted wrong, knees pointing backwards.
"Arise!" the voice of the preacher cried, turning away from the altar. His cowl slipped off, uncovering his head, showing me a face which will haunt my nightmares until the end of my days. He looked out over the carnage, where even now the savaged carnies were twisting, bucking on the floor, skin torn in hundreds of places. The smaller forms lying atop them wiggled, their robes deflating, like they were dissolving, pouring their physical mass into the open wounds of the supine men. New rips appeared over the large joints of the unfortunate carnies, tearing from the inside, darker flesh emerging, bursting to the surface, joints breaking, twisting...
The leader looked out, surveying his surroundings. His too-wide mouth stretched in a smile, revealing thin, bloodless lips and teeth that were pointed and longer than they should be, thin streamers of saliva stretching between them. Then the eyes, large and luminous in his misshapen head, glowing with the same red fire as inside the box, widened in surprise.
He looked at me, and his smile widened.
The sight of that demon looking at me, knowing it had seen me, was enough to finally convince me viewing time at the window to hell was over.
"Arise!" he said one last time. His was now the only voice in the room, guttural and snarling, yet loud enough to fill the space without the aid of the other men. The light grew to a brilliance surpassing that of the sun, impossible to look at and terrible to behold.
Turning away from the trailer left me momentarily night-blind, spots dancing before my eyes even as the night seemed stained red. It was a false light, concealing more than it revealed, obscuring everything but the closest items. Finally, far too late to do any good, I began to run.
From behind me came a silent explosion of light, and the world was painted red. Streaks of a darker red, smaller pinpricks within the greater light, like raindrops or tiny rubies blowing sideways, raced away into the night. The evil of the light struck like a physical force battering against my back, stopping me in my tracks. Some force compelled me to turn, and I did. The light pierced my eyes and sought my soul, burning me from within.
Every dark temptation it has ever been man's misfortune to know blasted through me, filling me with the need to steal, to rape, to kill. I saw myself choking the life out of Crystal, laughing as my hands squeezed on her tender neck. I pictured myself rummaging through my uncle's closet, finding his shotgun loaded with shells, and blowing him and my aunt away, relishing the spatter of their blood as it splashed back at me.
I was losing myself, and I couldn't have cared less.
Just as the door to the trailer opened and all the hordes of hell poured out, just as my mind began to retreat to some place of comfort, surrendering my body because ignorance would be better, anything would be better than suffering through this, the sky lit up with a brilliant white light. It lasted for a second, but time froze, so the second became minutes. I felt the hand of...something...reach inside of me, drawing my mind back to the forefront, casting the evil out. For one full second the world was nothing but white, pure and stark. It was a light that brought the brilliance of day to the darkest corners, banishing all shadows, a Waking Light. Something stirred within me, even as shrieks of pain, sounds the likes of which could never come from any human throat, roared out from the trailer. It was the sound of demons burned by that radiance.
Then the light faded, and the darkness returned.
Chapter 3
I dream a dream
I like to think I'm good under stress, that people can count on me to stay level-headed when chaos erupts. But occasionally something will happen that blows you so far out of your normal operating parameters, all you can do is react. There is no planning, no conscious thought. There's just survival.
The white light threw me into a weird, dissociative state where my body operated on autopilot, while my mind tried to come to grips with what had happened.
I turned to run, no longer blinded by a red light or a white light, but blind nonetheless, as the deep darkness of the night swept in to reclaim the close spaces between the trailers. My first steps were a lurch and a stagger, like my body had been through a massive physical stress and my muscles were cramped, or like they just didn't remember how to do the things my mind screamed at them to do.
Turn. Run. Get away.
My mind was a few moments back, reliving the instant when the two powers collided inside of me.
My right foot caught on a stray power line, but before I could fall my left foot was there, thigh muscle screaming as it took my full weight and s
omehow pushed off again, driving me forward.
The red light came out of the trailer, all those thousands of particles within it, like snow seen through the aura of a streetlamp, but without the sense of peace such an image usually brings. Then came that flash of white, but this time I saw it from a new perspective, outside looking in, and there was a difference in how it came. I remembered thinking the world had turned white, like something came from inside of me, born of my own spirit, that pushed the redness away. From this new viewpoint, it was obvious the light came from the sky, like a flash of lightning only straight down, a celestial pinpoint spotlight which illuminated only me. But instead of flash-frying my body, it set me free.
Some instinct caused me to duck, narrowly avoiding scalping myself on a head-high, horizontal, metal spike protruding from the side of a house trailer. Just an antenna, it would have ended my story before it truly began if I hadn't dodged it.
The trailer door slammed against the frame as it burst open. There were other noises: loud, rhythmic slaps like large, bare feet on asphalt; harsh, ragged breathing like an emphysemic bulldog, every growl and snarl accompanied by a coarse wheeze; wet, snuffling sounds followed by inhuman wails as the scent was caught and the chase begun. Stranger sounds reached me, but even being able to figure out what they were didn't help as they had no place in the current environment: a loud and steady clopping, like horses' hooves, but without the ringing sound of horseshoes, fabric ripping, the drawn-out screech of metal raking metal.
Senses and instincts operating somewhere in the primal survival zone, adrenaline tightening my focus, I twisted and turned, jumping obstacles I never consciously processed as being in the way, juking and cutting left and right, dodging trailers, hitches, and the corners of wooden wheel-chucks much too wide for the tires they lay against.
More shrieks came from behind me. There was no way to know how many were back there. Sounds echoed and reverberated from one trailer side wall to another, racing ahead of the actual forms, pushing me to a deeper desperation. I don't know how I managed to stay ahead of them, other than blind luck lashed by stark terror, but suddenly, after one last twist and surge, the trailers ended. An open expanse of moonlight-streaked asphalt greeted me, fifty yards of complete exposure before the lot ended in a short strip of green which ran down an incline to the street.
I sprinted forward down the straightaway, stretching my stride, desperate to get to the street, where glowing-yellow streetlights waited, where cars still zipped by despite the hour and the darkness and the fact that it was a Sunday in the Bible Belt. I was certain those monstrous things wouldn't follow me into the open. But a quick glance over my shoulder showed the first twisted forms emerging from the trailers, long, weirdly jointed legs churning, eating up ground. Their howls sounded again, closer now, somehow faster than me out in the open.
Somehow, I made it to Independence Boulevard, where there was traffic, though not much. Not enough to deter pursuit, not if they'd already followed me this far, and certainly not enough to slow me down. I dashed into the street, stopping suddenly to avoid becoming the hood ornament for a blue Volvo, then rushed forward to gain the median. The next set of three lanes was clear, making it easy to gain the far side.
Pushing hard, I skirted the corner of Jeanne Street, cutting a diagonal onto Minutemen Road, still heading for home. The silence behind me, no slapping feet or galloping hooves, no screech from tire or inhuman throat, made me feel a little safer, though I'd once again entered an area with very little nighttime illumination. I risked a glance over my shoulder.
The street behind me was empty.
Slowing to a half-walk, half-jog, I worked to calm my panicked breathing, which sounded about as loud and harsh as the demon voices had. All I wanted was to put as much distance between myself and the carnival, that red light, and those...things as possible. Caution kept me to the center of the street, avoiding the cars parked along the curbs on both sides. Even feeling safer, I was still fearful of any dark place where something could hide, waiting to ambush me. I wasn't afraid of the dark a little while ago, but circumstances can create phobias where none existed previously.
The sudden squeal of brakes and the blare of a car horn, coming from behind me, made me stop and look back. There, just gaining my side of the big street, were shadows like scampering creatures, some upright, some coming on like large, misshapen dogs running on all fours, howling in pursuit. They crossed from Independence Boulevard, through the last pool of light at the corner of Jeanne Street, where the Bank of America branch sat, then disappeared into the darkness. First one, then a second, then a stream which might have included a half-dozen more.
I turned to run, but time seemed to slow, stretching out. Each step took several seconds, like I was pulling against a giant bungee cord, while the monsters closed like they had a turbo button and legs loaded with nitrous oxide. I'd stepped from waking into a nightmare, and this is the best guess I can make to the line of demarcation. The rapid approach of the demons raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I could feel their breath, hot and wet with anticipation of the kill.
Then came a ripping sound, loud, like serrated knives tearing through paper, and an instant later a bolt of hot pain raced down my back, searing lines into my skin from the top of my right shoulder almost to my waist. Not wanting to stop, terrified of what I'd see, I swung an arm blindly behind me. My fist hit something as hard as a block of concrete, but which must have been one of the creature's skulls. Despair tried to set in. How could I possibly fight something so solid without any sort of weapon?
But a light flashed behind me. White light. Like the bolt that hit me in the trailer park. My shadow leapt into existence in front of me, running away from me. For the briefest second, the street was illuminated around me. Something squealed in rage, or pain.
I turned, ready to make a last, desperate stand. Despite my fear, if I was going down, I was going to do it fighting.
But there was nothing.
The street was empty.
A sudden ringing started up, insistent and loud enough to jar my bones. Seeking a new enemy, some new threat, I spun in place, eyes straining to pierce the darkness in every direction. But there was nothing, and my twisting became a spin that continued, around and around, like a whirlpool had opened at my feet, sucking me down, down...
I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock.
It was six a.m., time to get up and get ready for school. Time to go meet Crystal, unless that had also been just a part of the dream. Everything else from the day before was there, fresh in my memory: the walk to the carnival, meeting Crystal, the time we spent together and all the weirdness that happened afterward. It must be true.
It didn't seem right that so much good and so much bad could happen to one person, and all in the same day.
Things got even weirder as I threw back the covers and saw I still had on the same jeans and T-shirt I'd left the house in the day before. Maybe I'd just been so tired when I got home that getting undressed was too much work. These things do happen from time to time.
It didn't explain the deep-seated ache in my legs, or the sharper pain that jumped out from my back as I began lifting the T-shirt over my head. I sucked air in through my teeth as the shirt pulled itself from my skin, like it had been crazy-glued and was literally pulling away layers of tissue as it came off. I received a shock when, finally shirtless, I looked over my right shoulder at my reflection in the mirror. Four long, parallel, jagged, angry, red gashes ran from near the base of my neck almost all the way down to my right hip.
Past and present collided in my mind, the real battling the surreal, actual memories in conflict with things remembered from the dream. What could have happened to me to leave those four gashes if my memory wasn't right, if the dream was just a dream and not a memory? How could I have gotten away from those...things if they were real?
We've all had similar experiences, where you dream something which feels so real you have a hard time believi
ng it was just your imagination. It felt like that, only flipped around. What should have been possible only in a dream, monsters chasing me down a dark street, me turning to fight them like a hero in a movie, had somehow left actual wounds on my body, like those kids waking up with slash marks after facing Freddy Krueger.
I needed time to work through this, but there was never enough time on a school morning.
My normal morning routine--shaving, showering, getting dressed and cramming a Pop-Tart in my mouth--took about an hour. By seven, still sore but able to function, I was out the door and in my car, a blue 1986 Dodge Colt, heading for school. As soon as the engine came on, the cassette in the tape player kicked in, filling the car with music. Too caught up in my own aches and concerns, it never occurred to me to turn off the tape player and check the radio.
How do you describe a relic like cassette tapes to an all-digital culture? CDs, or compact discs, developed in 1982, were close to prominence but hadn't yet become the household standard for music playback in 1991, though they were the default for data storage. More than half of us still used an older technology, where music was recorded on a polyester tape coated in oxide particles, which stored sound as a varying magnetic field. This tape ran from one plastic spool to another and progressed from very large cartridges called 8-Track Tapes in the 1960's, to smaller cassettes in the 70's, which allowed for both sides of the tape to be used.