Hotel of Madness Page 11

  We kept walking, the fog became thicker, the door never seemed to get closer. That didn’t make sense, but I didn’t bring it up at the time. We kept walking and then….

  The door opened. I know I saw it. I know I saw someone step out as if materializing in the fog. It reached out to us before something like heat leaped from its general direction toward us. The items, I think he referred to them as wards, Arthur gave us burned instantly and then…

  Falling, no sinking, deep into murky waters. Impossible heavy water crushed me on all sides, I didn’t scream, but I tried to swim, up and up but couldn’t do it, I thrashed and kept falling. I held my breath, but I knew the others didn’t. They screamed as they fought and drowned, and I only know this because of the strange, almost dancing lights that followed us and surrounded us. One entered Rico’s mouth as he thrashed for air and then—

  I’m alone. The door that person and Arthur, what did he do? Fight back against whatever she did? But how do I know that person was a she? There’s more to this, but my head hurts, and remembering my time in that weird ocean drains me.

  “Come on, Susan.”

  Yes, please, Girl Scout, think of something. Except what is there for me to do? Escape? Find help? None of those goals seem attainable. I’m going to end up like Vee or Jacob.

  Vee comes running from the distance. She is crying uncontrollably and trips the moments she sees me. I run to her. She skids on the ice, and when I reach her, she grabs me with terrible strength. Fear and hysteria leave her wailing in my arms. I wish she would let go because she is hurting me, but any attempt to move away from her tightens her grip.

  “Vee…”

  “I—” she starts, “I—I can’t…” she wails even louder, and the fog becomes visibly excited by the sound.

  “Please, Vee.”

  I don’t know what to say to her. A part of me is begging me to stab her. She relaxes a little after she realizes the danger she escaped hasn’t reached her.

  “We’ve got to go,” she moans, turning her head to gaze into the distance. Her eyes are like saucers, and her face is taut from the tear trails. She is shaking even though she holds me tightly as if all her strength and sanity are in her hands and nowhere else. She cries in my arms as I try to hug her back, but the visions of Rico dying horribly keeps me from embracing her.

  “We have to go now.”

  Tugging her until we are eye to eye, I say, “I know.”

  “We have to go!”

  I jolt out of her grasp and away from her. She reaches for me but sees the fear and panic in my face and decides to hold onto herself.

  “We’re going to die,” she moans while rocking back and forth. “We’re going to die and he won’t save us.”

  Arthur, she is talking about Arthur.

  “He won’t save us,” she wails, “he leaves us!”

  I lean down, keeping my distance. I can’t leave her like this. “I won’t leave you.”

  She stops rocking and stares at me with big distrustful eyes. The tears are turning pink with blood, and her lips are dry and cracking.

  “You whore. You sold us.”

  I back away from her.

  “Oh, you didn’t mean it. But that is what you did.”

  “I don’t know what you're talking about.”

  “You with your grand destiny. You!” She shakes her head violently. “You who need a sacrifice.”

  “Vee, get a hold of yourself.” But I say this while reaching for the knife Arthur gave me.

  “Oh, the little whore brought a sacrifice. The blood mist will correct this.”

  The ground rumbles, and I know, remembering Jacob, what she means. So I jump. Where I stood, the ground erupts. The water sprays in all directions, and when it hits me, it feels like getting bombarded by stones. I try to roll to my feet, but the spraying water pelts me, and the only I can do is cover my face. Then something hard and strong wraps around my leg.

  “NO!”

  I was already holding the knife when I leaped, so when it dragged me toward the opening in the ice, I slash at the tentacle and then stab it. The knife glows brilliantly, almost as if it sears the cancerous flesh. Without warning, the creature rips itself from me, allowing the knife to cut through the flesh like butter. Now partially cut in two, the tentacle is joined by other tendrils flailing in the air, seeking blindly for prey. I back away slowly on my back, transfixed by the alien display.

  Vee, however, laughs gleefully, her eyes streaming bloody tears of joy, and her back arched backward as she howls. I want to scream for her to stop, but I know she was gone. Long gone. I can tell by her facial expression, no longer twisted by fear but with ecstasy. Eventually, one tentacle finds her, wrapping itself around her waist and hoisting her up into the air, roughly at first. Then, as her laughter grows more hysterical gently. It lowered her into the waters slowly. More tendrils joined the first, wrapping itself around her, almost caressing her as she laughed and laughed. For a second in fascination, I forget where I am as the thing moves its tentacles sensually over her body, probing and rubbing the way you would go for third base. With trepidation, the ground slowly shifts to accommodate the girth of its body, rising ever so slowly above the sheets of ice.

  What can be discerned as a mouth is agape, a toothless thing pulsating slowly in rhythmic timing with the undulations of its appendages. While having no discernable eyes but many willow-like stalks moving slowly and randomly in disunity. Its body is covered in matted fur that bristles as it moves, a multicolor array lining each fiber to the point where no natural tones shine. It isn’t a sea creature. No, this is something else entirely.

  And it’s not mindless; it is doing something to her. Ritualistic is its reverence for Vee’s body. Smaller, less thick tentacles join those molesting her body and press her thigh and face. Knowing what is about to happen, I pray, probably for the first time in my life, that whatever is left of Vee can’t possible—

  The laughing stops abruptly. Vee is moving, and the tentacles follow her movements as she wiggles herself to face the things' mouthparts. She turns to me, the trauma of the last few hours gone from her face, replaced by peaceful content.

  “This is the way out.”

  And it lets her go. I watch her fall into it and disappear. Without a scream, she dies inside of it. And I feel it laugh.

  I run at it with all I have, Arthur’s shark tooth blade in hand. I run and run until I plunge the knife deep into its exposed flank. The knife cutting through that thing’s thick hair and reaching flesh feels all too familiar. For a moment, we share a vision of a dying world where the stars bleed openly, and the cold surface blazes hot with eldritch fire. Nuclear bombs are set off in the distance, and I stand atop a mountain of corpses, some dead, some still squirming with unholy life.

  In the foreground, millions march to an alien beat, gleefully stepping into a giant furnace sitting below an equally huge tree with hands for leaves. Each man and woman who steps willing into the fire sees their flesh and bone seared from their person. Only the soul remains, somehow visible within the terrible light until it too burns and becomes the mist rolling across the world and maybe even the universe itself. All men of all races and religions are in this line, and crying babies can be heard for miles as they go without nourishment so their mothers can wait their turn.

  And despite the trail of pain and madness that stretches for miles, I smile because I know what to kill.

  It dies. Limp and heavy its form slinks back into the ocean slowly. My body tingles. I feel its life leave it and somehow fill me.

  “I ate it.” The words leave my mouth before I realize what they imply. How dumb it sounds. But I stare at the combat knife, and I know for sure it’s humming with something… electric?

  Doesn’t make any sense, but I’m going to need to roll with it. But what I saw…

  I’ve never been the religious type. Went to med school and realized I wasn’t going to be a doctor. There was no introspection needed there, no need to trust a hi
gher power had a plan for my life. Take a break, transfer some credits to nursing school, and get a job. My mom hated the move, of course. Nursing was below her gifted daughter and would ruin her me-centric retirement plan. She blamed everything for it, from my mild obsession with video games to my interest in Japanese cartoons. Even my lack of a boyfriend, which, in the normal world, would be considered a distraction. But for someone trying to overreach, it was apparently the real reason why I quit. Not motivated enough.

  Lack of faith in my abilities was a lack of faith in general. “Trust in GOD!” she would say. Again not the religious type. While my mother never shoved it down my throat, the years of Sunday school never took. I had enough interest in science as a kid not to find solace in spirituality in general. I believe what I can see, and I don’t need a space-daddy or mommy to tell me to be a good person. Already got one of those.

  But what did I see? Was that the future? Felt like a terrible past. Like memory spliced and buried, not entirely my own but also somehow mine. Can a knife have a memory? Or was I sharing a thought with that thing?

  Did I see God? That can’t be the same one my mom prays to. Ancient and evil. Bringing only cold and death. Or maybe in a rational universe, that’s the only kind of God that could exist. Maybe so, but I do remember thinking I could murder it.

  Bad Idea

  Doom.

  I can feel, beyond the mist that surrounds and invades me, a presence that is both sharp and terrible. I can feel it watching me, weighing me, and finding me amusing.

  "Arthur," the words echo, not around me but within me, "the famed Hero… I thought you'd be taller."

  The presence takes shape within the mist. A dream-like feminine form emerges, dripping disconcertingly with dread. A smile can be discerned from the mist, born as it reaches out and touches my cheek and slides a single finger along and through my broken body before stopping at my heart. I feel the bubbles of horror and panic rise from my body as I fight not to scream. She floats down closer until her face is pressed close to mine. And when I look fully into a mist-born face, those eyes that are not eyes, I scream.

  * * *

  I float on top of a stone ocean, lying adrift amongst the shadows and dancing lights that step along the dew. I awake from a nightmare that is not quite my own. One where the earth is covered in a rolling evil marching over the innocent and the damned as they’re ushered into a furnace burning like a dying star. I feel the oceans freeze and the depths expand for the Gates of U'lmek where the bastard born of the Star Gods lay dreaming. I've seen earth tumble out of orbit and take its place among a forest, elder trees growing like mushrooms in perpetual darkness. Their spores dead worlds for civilizations to conquer at their peril.

  "Why don't you kill me!" I scream in the vain hope that the visions will stop.

  "I don't need your heart… as close to a Daemon as you." The fog is too thick for me to see her smiling, but I know she is, "Now a Hero? Well I’m that and much much more.”

  Something in me screams recognition. "You’re Meg."

  "I am but not entirely."

  A chill runs down my spine, threatening to wake me from this dream. Remembering something deeper and more terrifying about the implications of her words, I shudder.

  "You seem terrified of death Arthur. Afraid to reincarnate?"

  "I'm rather attached to this version of me."

  I hear her step softly through the mist. She comes into view. At the sight of her, my mind screams like a caged animal being dragged through a slaughterhouse. Everything in me tries desperately to cry out loud and beg for mercy.

  "And I am attached to this world… in a manner of speaking, of course. I will save it and many others, but unfortunately, right now, I don't need a Hero." She looks at me, her unnatural blue eyes filled with amusement and pity. "And claiming your heart." She kneels down. "Won’t do me any good."

  She shakes her head, her black hair giving way to surreal white that grows more prominent the longer I stare at her. "I do have a proposition for you… Honestly, I may have goofed and let your friends die." She pats my head. "The bitch is still alive, though."

  We stare at each other for a moment. The parts of me that are still screaming for escape are beginning to settle. The only idea that I can hold on to is why doesn't she consider Susan one of my friends?

  "I would wager she is valuable alive to you, yes? I am not a monster. If you retrieve the heart of a Daemon, I'll let her go."

  This is the part of the story where the Hero says something about not negotiating with terrorists. "You seem pretty all-powerful. Retrieve it yourself!"

  "Atlantian, I am needed here with my people. I am the seed which my God needs to flourish. Help save this world, and maybe you can cast that horrid destiny aside and do real good."

  I shudder. "You’re Vapoura, aren't you?"

  "In the borrowed flesh."

  * * *

  A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a certain man spent a thousand lifetimes slaying a thousand Daemons.

  Sometimes saving the world, other times being an unwilling spectator in its destruction. He fought both in the relative heaven of reality and in the unreality of hell.

  One day during a losing battle with a greater Daemon nearing ascension, he chose to trade his destiny for a fate. Calling out to a primordial God, long lost to the deepest layers of unreality, he found the strength to slay the Daemon. And in doing so, he became an Avatar. Doom incarnate. Angel of the unholy ones. Through him, all horror shall flow.

  It meets me when I wake up from his dream. The oppressive fear is replaced by an ominous hopelessness that interrupts every forward thought. I couldn't fight him if I tried.

  "Have you made your decision King Arthur, Doom of Atlantis, yet Hero of the Multiverse?"

  I watch her/him/it as I gingerly get up. Vapoura Hundue in the flesh. This is getting beyond out of hand.

  "I know you feel pretty confident in your abilities, but if you are still a Hero—"

  "More than a Hero—"

  "Exactly all that, you could just let me have the Necronomicon, and I can get rid of DURA’G for you."

  Vapoura smiles. "You'll need to sacrifice yourself for that plan of yours to work."

  "How—"

  "I took a peak earlier. It was a bad plan, by the way. You'd die before you actually finished the spell… you miscalculated. You needed five bodies, not four. And even if you realized your mistake, you would have only slowed DURA’G down."

  Vapoura waves her hand and the mist parts to reveal images I can only assume are from the outside world. But these images are of death and suffering as zombies press across the Northeast and Western Europe as the skies boil red with blood and lightning.

  "As you can see, the humans are losing, and DURA’G is close to manifesting directly." She waves her hand again, and suddenly I see a long line of shambling corpses wading through the mist into the direction of the burning tree. I even see my own monsters, their undead forms now mutated among the crowd. "I am doing my best to slow him down but eventually…"

  "The balance tips, and we all die."

  "Exactly. What's left of this can be salvaged," for the blood mist, "if you help me."

  "And after I do that?"

  "I grant you quick death after I free this Susan from this haze."

  It would be my worst idea yet to agree to this. But on the other hand, I do have an idea, granted I am in one last shot, bet the house, car, and wire territory.

  "Where's the Daemon?”

  Another Bad Idea

  Destiny is the universe recognizing a pattern. Fate is the universe enforcing a pattern. Think of destiny as a passive force gently grazing on the coincidences that arise within an array of random numbers. Fate is akin to a gambler aggressively playing the odds with weighted dice.

  To cheat fate is to bet against a professional gambler with a winning hand. So as I wander the desolate remains of the Gaylord, stepping over mangled bodies and torn limbs, I can only take stoc
k of my current situation.

  What originally started as a zombie apocalypse is finding competition from the introduction of an actual fucking Avatar of the Blood Mist. Now, this isn’t unusual. Otherworldly entities of infinite evil and power often compete for worlds. So I’m not surprised, but I am terrified. I don’t even have to go back a thousand and one life times to remember my last encounter with an Avatar, and considering that I’m here and not... well…. there I can assume it didn’t end well. That and I distinctly remember needing and losing my Trident in that encounter…

  Two Glocks wouldn’t do much. Not to Vapoura anyway. I was brought back to the Gaylord in search of Daemons. Unfortunately, while the rolling mist does affect beings with low intelligence, which explains how I got caught, it doesn’t do much to ensnare bigger fish. But it normally wouldn’t need to. The big V, even before starting to take steroids, was a pretty proficient Daemon slayer. This leads me to weakness number one.

  The fact that Vapoura was willing to bargain means that he/she/it is not in a position of strength. Avatars don’t possess people. They manifest as fully formed humans. Think the story of Jesus but sub out all the positive implications. Something like that, faking a human persona to gestate in plain sight until one day bam, the conditions are just right to be the perfect facsimile of their heavenly father. Then it’s only a matter of watching reality bleed to accommodate said father figure graciously tearing their good boy apart as they come stomping into reality.

  So, on the one hand, I can reason that assuming the body and possibly personality of the former goth gf Meg probably threw a wrench in that plan. Which is rather terrifying to consider; something that powerful has enough flexibility to find alternative forms of self-actualization. The Necronomicon probably guided her to that worst-case scenario. Still, it’s impressive that the roulette of worst ways to die landed on literally getting possessed by the son of God.