Within Stranger Aeons Read online

  Ingram’s pupils contracted. He was on a whole other plane of darkness.

  I heard a sharp sucking sound and…

  …Ingram exploded!

  He smashed against the glass, howling mad. Blood flew from his mouth, speckling the prisoner’s side. I must have jumped, because I was on my feet, although I had no idea how it happened. Black Abbott’s voice spoke straight in through my GENIe implant. “Remain calm, Mr. Rogers. Sit back down and push the red button. The door will open.”

  Ingram shrieked. A banshee had nothing on his pipes. The glass was drenched with blood now. Big Bad was clawing at Ingram, struggling for control. A ball of sludge closed my windpipe. Ingram tore free of Big Bad’s grasp, and he wiped a clear spot in the bloody window. His solid black eyes met mine.

  I heard some timpani drum roll, and I’m pretty sure it was my heart.

  The rest of him came into focus…

  …front teeth were gone

  Gums were soaked with gore…

  …a swastika carved into the flesh under his chin.

  Grandpa no longer exists.

  Somehow, the odor of the Trident became even worse.

  VI.

  Big Bad drove him down into the chair. The old man’s body crumpled, gory gobs of spit dribbling over his chin. A crimson line dripped over the clear spot on the professor’s side of the glass. Big Bad snarled, “Hit the button.”

  Ingram hissed.

  Big Bad whacked him with a backhand, “Shut the fuck up.” He pointed at the red button and a second red drip streaked over the clear spot. “Get out!”

  I stood, “What did he say?”

  “Sit down and hit the button.”

  I wasn’t giving up that easily. “He said something. What did he say?”

  Ingram screamed, “Tell her!”

  Black Abbott’s voice was louder than loud in my head. “Hit the red button, John.”

  I pressed the glass; two more crimson streaks turned the clear spot into bloody prison bars. “Tell who? Tell her what?” Big Bad went to work beating Ingram with the shock-jack. I felt the static electricity lift my hair. The old man dropped limp to the floor, and Big Bad looked at me grinning ear to ear. He was having a good old time. Jesus, did I want to leave.

  The rest was some kind of madness…

  …Ingram roared and pulled free of Big Bad’s grip.

  In one leap, he vaulted to the ceiling. It was freakish, impossible. I fell to the floor, terror working my lungs into hyperventilation. I heard the crackling shock-jack strike over and again. I smelled burnt hair and skin.

  Somehow, Ingram’s face appeared over my head. ON MY SIDE! He was pushing through an electrified barbed wire that was separating us. His bare hands blackened, bursting into flames. In that moment, Allistair Ingram was The Devil, and The Devil had come for me.

  Big Bad whacked Ingram’s back. He jolted with his left and bashed riot club with his right. I heard him laughing mad. The Ghoul howled, shoving his head further through the sizzling razor wire. His scalp crackled and smoked.

  I couldn’t move.

  Acrid smoke filled the room. I gagged and coughed. Big Bad thumped and smashed until at last Ingram dropped from the bars in one smoldering heap. The old man squirmed, moaning. He hissed, “Tell her.”

  Big Bad looked at me and kicked Ingram in the face. He yelled, “Sit the fuck down and hit the fucking button!” If I didn’t, Bid Bad was going to kick my face in next. That much was clear. He dragged the old man away. I never saw Allistair Ingram again. I saw something I didn’t expect, however. Recognition in his eyes when I showed him a picture of Evita Crucea. I was more convinced than ever that he was involved in her disappearance.

  Somewhere deep inside The Final, I heard a heavy door bang shut…

  …a unique sound I would thankfully never hear again.

  VII.

  I crawled across the floor, well aware that cameras recorded my every move. If I had a chance at getting it, I had to be subtle. I pulled myself up, snatched up whatever it was that Ingram had dropped over the barbed wire, and slid the chair back into place.

  I hit that mother-loving red button.

  The door popped open, Mexi-Costello was there. “Are you hurt, John?”

  “I’m fine. I shit myself… but that’s about it.”

  “Sorry about this.”

  “That sort of thing happen often?”

  “No.”

  “Where’s the Gate Store? I need a copy of that.”

  “The feed isn’t available.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Incidents are classified.”

  VIII.

  I stared out the window, in shock after I stepped onto the shuttle. I’d gone to Feinberg State Prison with questions about a missing child and left with a human fingernail. I kept it secret until I was home. I took the back stairs into my complex and closed the door behind me. I leaned against it, taking deep breaths. Safety.

  I looked at it. The chunk of dead skin cells wasn’t bloody or torn. Instead, it’d been pulled clean in one piece. There were scratches on both sides…no, not scratches, handwriting! I turned the revolting thing around; its tips were dark brown, curled with age. I took a snapshot with my GENIe and put the translator software in motion. The results weren’t much help though.

  ‘Tell Allena. Ripper coming. Blue lights. Dencivich. BALAKOT. (Expletive removed from translation) Balakot. Ripper. Balakot.’

  Straightjacket talk. They don’t call them criminally insane for nothing.

  I searched public records for what any of it might mean. The results populated ‘Dencivich’ first. I selected an article and headed towards the kitchen. The whiskey bell rang out. “Oh,” I said as I poured and read.

  ‘Dencivich: Michael Dencivich, Chief of Operations of Fjordfere Corporation. Chicago.’

  I looked at a half-dozen pictures of a pale, fish-lipped blotchy rich man. More money than God, according to the reporter that wrote what I was reading. “So what?” I searched for connections between any of the results. “Money has nothing to do with the shit I just saw.”

  The name Erich Dencivich led to a related item removed by the Illinois authorities. The only thing left on the link was ‘page no longer exists due to court order.’ There was nothing on the other things written on the fingernail. Balakot was a dead end, referring to an ancient city in India. Worthless. Ripper connected to a few serial killer cases, one of them unsolved dating back to 1888. Again, bullshit.

  I poured a second and snorted. Time slipped by. I was on the floor with an empty bottle in my hand when three heavy thuds woke me up. A moment later, three more. Somebody was outside my front door. I tiptoed to the side, not wanting to cast shadows over the light at the bottom. I leaned over and peeped out the lens.

  It was so bright I pulled back. Someone’s holding a flashlight against it!

  IX.

  I didn’t dare move. I stared at the glow at floor level, watching for the slightest change. If you remain silent, they’ll give up in a few minutes. Wait them out. Private I. 101. Five minutes passed before I started to breathe.

  I touched ear to door. Damn, I moved it… though the clunk was soft. I cringed, though nothing happened. I slid the chain into place and rolled the deadbolt with my thumb. I opened the door as far as the chain permitted. The bright light wasn’t a flashlight; it was the overhead. I don’t remember them being so bright.

  What a dumb ass, I laughed and closed the door.

  I put my back against the door and exhaled. I slid the chain off the latch and stepped into the hallway. Empty, of course it was...

  …and if I’d known they were waiting inside my apartment, I would’ve run.

  They were. The bastards took me down in an instant.

  X.

  They barked commands, shoving my face into carpet. A twelve-pound ball of pain bowled a strike against my head. Warm, wet took a stroll over my cheek. I tasted salty copper as they rolled me over.

>   Crunch.

  I wanted to barf.

  That smell struck my nose. It was a familiar childhood memory. I was eight. My mom told me to stay away from Red-dog Alley because the night before a man gutted his lifelong friend after sharing a bottle of vodka. The warning had the opposite effect on me, so I went there first thing in the morning to see what I could see.

  There were brownish-red smears on the concrete, and I smelled that smell. It was in the room with me now. A thick rubber boot pressed down on my neck, crushing my windpipe closed. I clawed at it, desperate for air that didn’t come.

  The world faded to black.

  XI.

  My good eye opened, the not-so-good eye refused. I was flat on the kitchen floor. I pulled my arms under me and rose. Red drag marks spotted the carpet—leading to me. “Son of a bitch.” My entire body ached. It hurt to breathe and was twice as bad when I swallowed. I gagged on broken tooth grit.

  “Don't move,” a deep voice barked. I started to turn my head until I heard the snick of the biggest, deadliest gun I could ever imagine. He growled, “I said don’t move, Rogers.”

  I didn’t. I pissed my pants.

  I heard them tossing my apartment. The bookcase fell over. I heard glass break down the hallway leading to the bedroom. A second voice said, “Explain your sudden interest in Fjordfere Corporation, Rogers.”

  I said nothing. I may be dumb but I’m not stupid. Instead, I pulled myself together, screwed my courage, and wept like a baby.

  “You searched for information about Michael Dencivich after visiting Feinberg. Why Rogers?” The voices became less distinct, more of a threat mob. “Do it again and we’ll come back for you.” Maybe the same (maybe another) said, “We don’t give second chances, John Rogers.” Was there a third?

  “We will fuck you up.” One kicked me in the ribs. I stayed in a crumpled ball for hours.

  They’d left long ago but the floor seemed like the perfect place to wait and bleed. The stains were going to suck to clean but at least I could mop the mess off the kitchen tiles.

  It wasn’t a lucid thing to worry about at the time, but it’s exactly what I did.

  XII.

  I splashed bleach into the bucket and ran the water hot; every time the sponge dipped, it grew fifty shades darker. I’d bled a boatload. Whoever those assholes were, they’d meant business and left me holding the tab. I was right about my carpet too. Fucking trashed. I dunked a towel into the liquid and dabbed at an impossible blemish. The original tan had become pinkish-brown.

  The worst part was that they’d taken Ingram’s fingernail.

  I decided to forget the whole thing while I was ahead. I blocked ‘Dencivich’ from my GENIe and that was that. If the Mad Professor knew anything about Mrs. Crucea’s missing daughter, it wouldn’t be me breaking the case.

  I kept scrubbing blood.

  Screw that shit, I quit.

  Lucky XIII.

  Three weeks later, well after I’d erased the whole episode from my memory log, I scrolled through the morning news. A blurb caught my eye, and I read it three times before the headline sank in. ‘Child Predator dies inside Feinberg State Prison.’

  A second news service said ‘The Final claims another.’

  I scrolled to see more like them.

  ‘Mad Professor stabbed by fellows’ and ‘Windy City Ghoul dead, 72.’

  He’d been stabbed sixty-three times and bled out in the showers. I felt a wave of closure—until I received the court summons. They wanted my testimony as ‘the last public visitor to see Allistair Lee Ingram alive.’

  I showed up. It’s not like I had a choice in the matter. Their questions were generic, and I replied vanilla. Truth be told, I didn’t know anything anyway. Not, that is, until I found Ingram’s fingernail tucked into a crack along the wall in my apartment!

  I went to work on the words I hadn’t gotten to that night the thugs from Fjordfere kicked my ass. ‘Allena’ and ‘blue lights.’ It turned out that Ingram had somebody in his life that he called his granddaughter. Her name was Allena, but nobody knew who she was. She slipped off the grid after his arrest. I did find one interesting thing, a picture of her standing next to his closed casket.

  “Wow, she looks a Hell-of-a-lot like Evita Crucea.” Is that her? Evita is still alive? I swallowed breakfast, a glass of whiskey and printed the picture out. I figured I should ask the one person that knew Evita better than anyone else in the world.

  An hour later, I swerved into her driveway. The house was nice, in a well-to-do neighborhood. I hit the flask and marched to the front door. I pulled the picture out of my pocket and nodded. It was her, I was sure of it. I knocked on the door…

  …until I smelled that smell.

  It was unlocked so I pushed it open. Slow, steady. Mrs. Crucea was home, but she wasn’t in any condition to identify the little girl in the picture. I stepped forward until her high heels were even with my nose. She dangled from the chandelier in the foyer, neck cut. The poor woman had slit her wrists for good measure; the blood had thickened beneath her. For the record, I never want to see the expression frozen on her face again.

  I called neighborhood security. It took them a half-hour to get there. They explained that there was no reason to rush because there was never a happy-ending to a call at the Crucea’s home. Two months earlier Mr. Crucea blew his brains out with a shotgun in the bathtub.

  A ferret-faced officer told me, “Waste of good folks. Always bad news to see their address dial up.”

  His blonde-haired partner said, “Not since the girl disappeared.” She looked away, peering back in through the front door. A forensics team was pulling Mrs. Crucea down from crystal gallows. She was flaccid, more puppet than human.

  “It’s over now,” I said.

  The female cop tapped my shoulder and pointed. “I think they called you.”

  “What?”

  The cop shrugged, “They want you, in there.”

  I approached, stepping over a plastic jack-o-lantern. Mrs. Crucea was a gory mess. Two forensic techs stood by her side where they’d laid her remains on the floor. One turned to me. “Any idea what she carved it into her thigh?”

  Shit.

  She’d carved the word ‘Balakot.’ Now that Ingram was dead there wasn’t much I could do about it either. That’s the thing about Feinberg, more questions than answers.

  THE END.

  THE BEGINNING.

  Mord McGhee is an award-winning (2014 recipient of Dan Poynter's Silver Science Fiction Medal), best-selling American author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, active professionally since 2014. His body of work can be found in competitive markets around the world and novels are available through most major retailers. McGhee is a featured contributor to The Horror Within Magazine (thehorrorwithin.com) as a TV Critic and is a retired ASCAP musician. For all the latest see mordmcghee.com.

  GÄNNA

  JUAN J. GUTIÉRREZ

  Brooding beyond the spheres of man,

  A darkened coil remains in great repose,

  Akin to the allure of an unblossomed rose.

  The essence of a god fettered within material entity,

  Clothed in cosmic horror, with carnage imbued,

  Lain before darkly genesis ensued.

  Roiling, crimson lightning crowns its form,

  Black storms rage inside its forlorn heart,

  Lonesome Goddess wrought by sinistrous blackened art.

  Her eternal eye, in spectral mist,

  Knows nothing, yet dreams,

  Of an equal in realms yet unseen.

  Dormant, she waits for an ominous song,

  Composed in the webs of infinity,

  Whose swelling sound shall strip her supernal virginity.

  Strange music expands through black oceans,

  A terrible theme is born by the hideous hands of misery,

  Malign crescendos stroked through blind ethereal ecstasy.

  Like unto pipes and strings, and voices and brass
,

  The gruesome sounds call the Goddess forsaken,

  The Master of Suffering, Gänna, awaken!

  Born in Sunland Park, New Mexico, Juan J. Gutierrez now lives with his loving wife and daughters in Desert Hot Springs, California. He has appeared in various anthologies with Dead Guns Press, Sirens Call Publishing, Lycopolis Press, Static Movement, Horrified Press, and Hippocampus Press.

  OLDBOOK

  GLYNN OWEN BARRASS

  One thing Cassandra Bane hated about the private detective business was that when times were quiet, she couldn’t pick and choose her clients as easily as when she was busy. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have accepted this consultation with Miss Combs. She quite literally hated the rich bitch, and this wasn’t because the last job she had done for her had almost cost her her life. It was the woman’s sheer obnoxious presence.

  Sitting before her now, Combs was dressed in a black Louis Vuitton polka dot sheer dress, the same style Cassey had seen Jolie wearing at the last Oscars, but, she thought with sarcasm, Jolie filled it out better. Jet-black hair, brushed with a severe centre parting, flanked her overly pale, oval-shaped face. As usual, her eyes were concealed behind dark sunglasses. Rounded Pollini’s, the white frames matched her Valentino pumps. In white-gloved hands, she clutched the black crocodile skin handbag on her lap. Today Combs smelled strongly of vanilla, a perfume she didn’t usually use. The scent was thick, sweet and cloying, as overbearingly obnoxious as the woman wearing it.