Within Stranger Aeons Read online

  “You’re scaring me,” said Tina, frantically pressing her mobile phone.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m getting some help—yes, I’d like an ambulance please. Please hurry…“

  “No,” I screamed, the tentacles were getting closer now. “I’m okay, I swear!”

  “What’s happening to you?” she was crying now, even though the ambulance was on its way. She still looked down at me, unable to stay still, clenching and unclenching her fists. “Please, David. What’s wrong with you?”

  “GET THEM AWAY FROM ME!”

  I felt her arms around me, holding me close. My face was buried in the soft, fragrant rolls of her woolen sweater. The wet suckers touched my feet, and I drew even further into the ball I had become. I rocked back and forth in her arms, and she cooed me into a slumber as black as the creature that had plagued me for an eternity and a lifetime.

  ***

  In the ambulance, I watched the face at the tinted window. It was Philip, smiling at me. His hand was on the glass, dark discs were pressed against its cold surface.

  “God, no…please!” I cried, the look of fright palpable in the paramedic’s face. She tried to restrain me as I kicked out.

  “Everything is going to be fine, Mr. Heather…“

  “Can’t you see him?” I screamed, pointing a shaking finger at the window over her shoulder.

  Suddenly the ambulance pulled away from the curb, at least it tried to. The gears screeched as it jolted back to the gutter.

  “I think we’re caught in a small rut,” said the paramedic, “but...“

  My eyes bulged as I could see the glass against Philip’s hand. It was holding the vehicle to its spot, preventing its progress in the snow. The man laughed through the glass, eyes wide and shining.

  “GOD, NO!”

  We broke away from the curb once more. The flesh was hanging in slivers from the other side of the glass. It did little to subside the tempest coursing through my mind as we headed for the hospital.

  “See, I told you everything would be okay,” she said, her smile a practiced shape on her face. David wasn’t her first madman.

  ***

  Tina wiped the tears from her eyes with a balled up tissue. She sat opposite me, the leather chair squeaked as she adjusted her position. The sound cut through me like a scalpel. And I heard my teeth grind together.

  “I’m worried about you,” she said, finally. “You’re scaring me.”

  If I had been outside, looking in the small window of the door, I’d have laughed at the sheer absurdity of the situation. My eyes were wide open even though I didn’t see a thing. Fingers raked through my hair, I could feel spots on my scalp, where I hadn’t bathed for over a week.

  “I’m scaring you?” I whispered.

  Her voice had deepened slightly as she wiped her mouth with the tissue, and as I turned to her I noticed how tired she looked. Her shocking red hair was hidden with a small woolen beany. Dark lines had spread beneath her eyes.

  “Fear is a funny thing, isn’t it?” She said. ”It can tear you apart…from the inside out.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You cry and beg to be heard, to be taken seriously,” she replied, slowly standing up. Her face was as white as the snow beyond the window. Emerald eyes as black as coal as she slowly unbuttoned her raincoat.

  “Nurse,” I whispered, unable to call out.

  “We were together that night…we called upon it,” she said, her voice now a hand shuffling through gravel and broken glass. “Madness…I’m beyond that now.”

  I called out now. But it was too late. The door was shut tightly, the handle rattled, knuckles tapped against the door. Nurses shouted my name, demanded I open up.

  “I made…I made that three-thousand-year trip…across the galaxy, David,” she said now, the fabric of her raincoat moving as if filled to bursting with living things. “How lonely that journey. How lonely…to travel alone.”

  As the coat fell to the floor, I watched in horror as her body writhed with vicious appendages. They curled, like tongues licking at the air. Her face was now a black mask. Gone were her features I had loved so much. Those lips were now knives, split and bleeding. Emerald eyes had blazed amber as she moved closer to the bed. I noticed how the walls had blackened with mould, moisture dripping onto the floor. I could smell the ocean. But it wasn’t the ocean of this Earth.

  “Come with me,” it said, picking me up with two thick slithering tails.

  The door flew open and the nurses there watched in awe as I seemed to float down the hall. I called out, but nobody came to my aid. The window at the end of the hall smashed to smithereens, as though a giant fist had drove through it.

  “Sleep,” it said as we left the hall, flying out into the night sky. “I’ll cut your gills on the way.”

  Andrew Bell is 41 years old and is the author of three novels, his first Unguarded Instinct (2010) He then went on to publish Every Heartbeat Counts, and The Ghost of Aaron Brookes. He has featured in many anthologies such as Undead Legacy and Rejected for Content. He hopes to have written a story Lovecraft would be proud of.

  THAT THING ABOUT FEINBERG

  MORD MCGHEE

  I.

  “No ‘crazy eyes’ in this picture,” I said. The old man didn’t have them. You know the stare. Scary, serial killer ones, not his though. “He looks normal.” I studied the photos of Allistair Lee Ingram. I thought his face looked every-day-usual, but I knew he was anything but. They suggested grandfather gentle, though he was murderously insane. I tapped the video feed, listening to a neighbor’s testimony on the evening news.

  “Al was such a nice man. Helpful, kind. When I broke a leg, he took my trash to the curb every week.”

  I shook my head and realized the driver was staring at me. We’d stopped. “You on the phone?” He asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I talk to myself sometimes.”

  “Just so you know we’re almost there. Other side of the tunnel. Be cool, now.”

  “Thanks.” I closed the link and said goodbye to Ingram’s face. I remembered looking at the report header back when I accepted this job. It read, “F.M.P.D. Detective Nielsen - Suspect’s refrigerator contained remains of human genitals and traces of human liver in a pan on the stove.” Detective Nielsen, first cop on the scene, added a hand-written note: “Bastard was eating them.”

  What the fuck’s wrong with you, grandpa?

  If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when bad shit happens to children.

  You’d think in this day and age, child abduction would be impossible, but it happens all the time. As for Grandpa Ingram, who did his share of harm to the innocent, there’d been a thousand pieces of evidence collected from the Northwestern University office where he was a professor of Victus Fax. The Coroner’s reports were more graphic than Nielsen’s added insight, so I glanced, but left them vague. Allistair Lee Ingram is the real deal.

  Maybe I’m touchy about children being hurt because it’s what I do. People pay me to find missing kids and most of them tell me I’m damned good at it. In my opinion, I’m a hack, so I drink to excess. The worst part is that no matter how much whiskey I swallow, the Hell I’ve seen won’t fade. This is where my head’s at as I prepare to sit down with the worst child predator of the modern era. It’s my job to ask him, man to man, what he did with a little girl named Evita Crucea. I’m being paid to find out what this asshole did to her and how exactly he made her disappear off the grid.

  If he’s responsible for her disappearance, I’ll get it out of him.

  The truck lurched forward and hummed along.

  I closed the report; I’d seen enough.

  We passed beneath a razor fence and there before me were the walls of Feinberg State Prison. Bleak. Gray. Old voodoo. Rumor has it that the builders poured concrete over steel borrowed from a dismantled twentieth century aircraft carrier and the masons laid foundation stones quarried from Roc
kwall, Texas. They don’t sound realistic to me but I’ll admit that the moment my eyes made contact I knew there’s something about Feinberg that eludes description.

  Something dark, foreboding. Even more than its thousand killers housed within.

  I’d done my research and found out that it had quite a story, that place they call ‘The Final.’ Thirteen suicides, one hundred and nine prisoner murders, and eleven riots. Almost two-hundred guards, prisoners, and administrators met their maker inside those walls in front of me.

  I shivered, turning to face the open gate.

  In we went.

  The truck door opened and four machine gunners formed an arm’s length military line. Beyond them, there was a nine-foot tall iron door that belonged more in Dracula’s castle than it did the United States. One of the machine gunners said, “Put the bag on the conveyor belt and step through the scanner.” They all wore the same black mask so I didn’t know which to smile at. I swallowed and did as told.

  II.

  The guard inside the glass entrance watched me approach with a sneer on her face. The expression she wore was a sharpened sword, tempered by sexual innuendo. She was cute, so she had good reason. I watched her as she watched my eyes, an awkward struggle for power and dignity. Is she checking to see if I stare at her tits so she can break my nose?

  I dropped my bag and that was when I heard my first scream.

  I’m not even sure it even came from the mouth of a human being.

  My blood ran cold. “Mmhmm,” she flashed a grin. “It’s hopping in there today.” She looked at my visitation permit and said, “John.”

  “Sounds like someone’s having a bad day.”

  “We do not permit humor here, John.”

  “Oh…”

  She laughed, “I’m busting your chops. Relax.” She handed the bag back to me. “You have read and acknowledged the rules of visitation?”

  “I did.”

  “Good. I’m obligated to repeat a few more things.”

  “It’s okay,” I smiled. “I read them.”

  “Aw,” her eyes twinkled. “Aren’t you cute?” She chuckled and said, “If the prisoner doesn’t afford a decent interview, you may purchase the video feed after your visit.” Her voice was deep, husky. She reminded me of Iona Hayes, from the latest crappy remake of Jaws. Sexy.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “If that’s what you need, report to the Gate Store before boarding the bus at the end of your visit.” She pointed to a sign behind me. Shit. It’s going to cost five hundred bucks? I noticed she toyed with the shock-jack hanging from her belt as though it was a stress ball. She said, “The fee includes digital distribution rights for a year. The State of Illinois reserves the right to change the terms at the drop of a hat or the governor’s mood. Got it?”

  “Yes, officer.” A smile kindled in the corner of her mouth. I’d been told to call her ‘officer.’ “She’ll crack your balls if you call her ma’am,” Nielsen told me after I told him that I planned to try and visit Ingram.

  She continued, “After one year all rights return to the State upon which all public usage stops immediately. That’s the bullshit I’m obligated to reiterate. Get it. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  Her upper lip curled, “Good.”

  I gulped, “Thank you, officer.”

  “I like you. Good manners,” she said. “Keep this in mind at all times: Do not touch the glass, do not get out of the chair until you hit the red button, and above all,” she pointed to a double steel door with no windows, “do not piss me off.” The last word echoed.

  I heard a buzz and the doors opened.

  “Welcome to Feinberg State Correctional Facility, Mr. Rogers.”

  I stepped into a steel abyss.

  Big letters carved from the same metal as the walls read ‘FEINBERG STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, EST 2024. SORROW AND REPENTENCE BEFORE THE EYES OF THE LORD.’ I moved past portraits of Illinois governors then and now, their eyes the sort that follow you. Cameras in the corners shifted, watching my every move. I waved and said, “Hi mom.” Hope that doesn’t piss you off…

  III.

  I was inside The Final.

  My stomach tied intricate dreamcatcher knots. I swallowed a lump as I decided whether the brown splotch on the corner of the letter “G” was shit or brains. “What did you get yourself into?” Two guards approached as I walked forward. One was ‘heavy squat’ and the other ‘tall thin.’ My first impression was Hey! Black Abbott and Mexi-Costello… I don’t imagine they’d get the joke. Hell, it was my thought, and I didn’t like the racist connotation. Nobody knew who Abbott and Costello were anymore anyway.

  My GENIe implant flashed: Sensitivity training confirmed. Nine A.M. June 4, 2088.

  Damn it. Is there anything worse than automatically scheduled reprimands?

  I acknowledged and moved on. Short and plump had no accent, why would he? He said, “Third chair on the right. Do not touch the glass. Do not get move abruptly. Do not open the door without hitting the red button first.”

  Black Abbott added, “Above all else do NOT piss Officer Lamb off.”

  Hmm. Now he has a slight accent, go figure.

  IV.

  BOOOOOOM!

  The doors slammed shut. Aftershocks washed over me, aching right down into my bones. My breath quickened. I looked behind and my heart skipped a beat. Sound did a queer thing as I walked forward. Every tap of heel was louder than thunder.

  CLOP. CLOP. CLOP. CLOP. Shoes against tile.

  “NO. NO. NOOOO,” a scream from beyond.

  BZZZZZZZ. An emerald fly with red eyes.

  “Holy shit!” My own wispy words...

  …The Final.

  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. It wouldn’t budge. I imagined a murderous mob of lunatic prisoners pouring out of the prison proper, tearing me to shreds. I closed my eyes, chasing the fears away with a touch of meditation. My ears didn’t care if I needed a quiet moment, they made me listen to a volley of vocal horror.

  “The end is coming.”

  “God strangles bitches.”

  “Get that God-damn thing away from my mouth.”

  “I killed my mother.”

  “I ate your fucking mother.”

  These were my favorites.

  I stopped. There was something else deeper, just beyond the normal auditory range. I had to strain to make sense of it. Growls. Grunts. Murmurs. Sexual perversions flooded my head, those sick sons of bi… My gorge rose. I wanted to leave. “Do your job,” I told myself.

  Get hold of yourself. Mrs. Crucea is paying you.

  Don’t be amateur. Act like you’ve been here before.

  I counted to five in my mind and soaked it all in. I was in the ‘Trident,’ a pitchfork room with prongs of glass dividers. Nielsen told me about this too, though he failed to mention the smell. I owe you one, Paul. The overpowering reek wasn’t the worst of it. There were smears, clumps, and a mass of something unrecognizable (that I labeled ‘scalp with hair’) attached on the prisoner’s side of the glass. The last thing on earth I wanted to do was move forward, but I did.

  I examined the visitor interface but heard a shock-jack crackle before I had a chance to figure it out. Scream followed. Another dose of shock-jack… screams stopped. I covered my nose, held my breath, and sat in a chair before the window. Across the way, on the prisoner’s side, a man in gray coveralls was sponging graffiti off the wall. What was still there made no sense to me but it read ‘BALAKOT.’

  My focus shifted to the glass in front of me. My side was smooth but there were deep scrapes across the opposing surface...fingernail gouges. I gasped and my eyes rushed back to the coverall man cleaning the wall.

  He was gone.

  No graffiti, no man.

  “Shit,” I said. I was at the top of a roller coaster hill about to speed into the black abyss. In a few seconds, it would be too late to go back to the way I was before I met Ingram.

  V.

&nbs
p; “The red button,” I reminded myself.

  One foot tapped, ready to bolt, with or without the rest of me.

  The visitor interface flashed a message at me: ‘Welcome to Feinberg State Correctional Facility. Do NOT touch the glass partition. Do NOT move abruptly. PRESS the red button when you are ready to exit.’

  It should say, ‘Do not feed the animals.’

  I swiped my social link over the screen, and it displayed ‘Hello John Wayne Rogers, Class 3 Visitation. Private Sector Investigator. Your inmate request is being processed at this time. Please remain seated. Estimated time of the order is less—than five minutes.’

  Three minutes and thirteen seconds, to be exact. Watching the timer on the screen made it feel like an eternity. Beyond the glass, I saw shadows shift and a guard appeared. He bulged with muscles and his expression leaked sadistic satisfaction. The guard I mentally named ‘Big Bad’, who I later found out was named Mike, entered the room, prisoner in tow. I had avoided calling him ‘Big Black’ to avoid further automatic racial sensitivity training. The prisoner he nudged forward was Allistair Lee Ingram, the Ghoul of the Windy City. Big Bad shoved him into the chair before me. Ingram turned slowly.

  Great, they drugged him into a zombie.

  Big Bad pointed at me and slapped Ingram across the face. His head spun, bloodshot black-hole eyes fought to lock onto me. If he was doped out of his skull, this was going to be useless. Our gazes locked, and my lips moved without my consent, “For fuck sake.” He was nothing; empty meat.

  Ingram blinked.

  No wait. There was something in there. Wild, malevolent, and ravenous, but something nonetheless. His pupils dilated; the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. The creeps crawled over spine. My hand drifted towards the red button.

  Everything froze. Where is normal Grandpa? He’s not here, not now. I took a chance, slapping Evita Crucea’s photograph against the dividing glass. “What did you do with this little girl, professor?” Ingram’s reaction was sleepy hollow. I thumped knuckles against the window, “Did you hurt her? Is she one of yours?”