Hotel of Madness Page 14

  That also means if DURA’G is simply more aware of this world and is actively trying to cram its way through… well, the only thing between him and free mimosas is Vapoura. The second she came to kill one of his…

  “Well, he went after hers.” So I can sit here and watch the battle of elder Gods, or I can limp back to the Gaylord and end this.

  Limp back it is.

  * * *

  I felt her before I saw her. With every hair on my body standing on end, she appeared out of the fog like a wraith moving through a cemetery, holding a sword that seemed to flicker and trail after her like falling dew. Glowing searchlight eyes proceeded a skeletal frame that whipped violently with the ether wind. Only when she took one confident step toward me did the realization that she was far worse than a ghost hit me. Everything in me screamed, “Susan, Run!”

  “No, you don’t.”

  She took one step toward me, covering almost 50 yards in a single bound before something cold, sharp, and wet ran through me about ten times before I had a chance to scream. I collapsed in a heap before I realized what was broken, my knees almost shattering against the glacial floor, being unable to control my fall. When I gasped for air, I realized my mistake too late and felt the blood pour into my lungs. I drowned before I even realized I was drowning and fell sideways as I lost consciousness.

  ….

  ….

  …..

  ….

  I drift alone in a pool of nothing. Floating, standing, or simply existing under a pale light of a moon I know isn’t real. Because I’m—

  “Dead? Yes.” A voice echoes around me, and I panic briefly before realizing there is nowhere for me to go. I could try to swim in any direction and probably never reach a beach or a shore. So just me and whatever is out there in the water with me. Or above me. I… don’t know.

  “Are you God?”

  “No,” the voice says bemused, and though a part of my brain would like to say, ‘thank God,’ the revelation doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies I originally thought it would. It’s because I feel like I’m disappearing.... my memories are spilling out first; birthdays, thanksgivings, where I grew up, who my second cousins were…. I feel like I should be panicking, should be screaming obscenities, and wanting just one more chance. But there is only nothing around me, nothing to lash out at, nothing to hold on to.

  “I have a proposition,” the mysterious voice begins.

  “What are you?”

  While I can’t see it, I can feel it. And I know whatever it is, it’s moving around me, and despite myself, I can’t help but get the impression that it's swimming—

  “I am what you refer to as ‘Arthur’s knife.’”

  “And what does a knife want me with?”

  I hear it chuckling. The sound is beyond creepy and gives me the impression of something inhuman and predatory by nature.

  “I brought what's left of you here because you are dying. But before you fade completely, I wish to make an offer.”

  It doesn’t take me long to realize what he is offering. “To rez me?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  Between the zombies and the aliens and the alien zombies, I can’t help but feel my last moments shouldn’t be spent negotiating for a fate worse than death. “And why would I want to come back.”

  “Your kind believes in an… afterlife? No? Well, it is not what you imagine.”

  “No heaven or hell?”

  “Definitely no heaven, but there is hell.”

  “Am I going there?”

  I feel whatever it is swimming, yup, definitely swimming, noticeable closer.

  “I don’t know. Most people simply fade into nothing. But a few, a select few, get to experience a more involved death.” I feel it brush up against me, and I shiver with what’s left of my body, which feels… not there… but like I’m simply remembering what my body is like.

  “I can promise you, you won’t like what you find on the other end of oblivion.”

  I remember my conversation with Arthur and how he noted that I am special, special enough to get as far away from him as possible. Yes, something about what happens when people like me die…

  “Well,” I begin, “you make a compelling argument, but I just died because some bitch with a fencing rapier stabbed me in the chest fifty times before I could blink…” I try not to remember how she killed me in graphic detail. The memory makes me fade even faster. “And there is a little zombie apocalypse going on that may or may not be eating all my friends and family right now,” getting to the point is a lot harder when you feel yourself being pulled out of existence, “so I’m not sure that bringing me back is a good idea.”

  Which is a rather passive-aggressive way of saying I’d rather not make a deal with a mysterious voice in purgatory.

  “Your world is dying. I can’t stop that.”

  I shake my head. “What if I choose to fight?” Not sure why I said that.

  "Then you die.”

  “Are you one of those demons that tells the truth in order to convince people that you're not like other guys, only to stab them in the back because they didn’t read the fine print?” Ok, when did I become the quipper.

  The water breaks, and something impossible large flies out like a bullet before landing with a splash on the horizon. I stifle a scream as the thing torpedoes toward me in one big ‘gush’ spraying lukewarm water everywhere. Despite it all, I don’t feel wet, though I suddenly know I can be very afraid. I stare snout to face at a great white shark whose eyes are peeking above the water, easily 20 feet long. I scream as a delayed reaction before forcing myself to calm down, realizing that me splashing around won’t do anything, and it had plenty of chances to eat me.

  “I am no demon!” laments the shark whose eyes glare at me with the same soulless automation expression of pure hate and hunger that defines the species. “I am an abomination! A soul that was taken, cut open, melted, and reforged. Only having sentience because my creators overlooked that detail during my making.”

  It snorts, “I come to you. Unique as this is because you give me an opportunity that I never dreamed was possible. Yes, your world is dying. And you may want the power to save it, but I can’t offer that to you. But a second chance at life serves us both.”

  Ok! A great white ghost shark who is projecting his thoughts directly into my brain wants to bring you back from the dead because…

  “Because?”

  The shark snorts in mild frustration, so I elaborate, “Look, I’m not sure if I’m dead, dreaming, or having a bad trip. For all I know, I’m in a friend's room high on mushrooms during a walking dead marathon.”

  The shark tosses his head in a weird bucking motion before locking eyes with me again, “I want freedom, human child.”

  “And you get that from bringing me back?? How???”

  “Because to bring you back requires you to bind yourself to me.”

  “Riiight. Ok, so why can’t you do that with Arthur?”

  The shark shivers, “If he knew I existed, he would have eaten me…”

  “Wait, what!?”

  “The one you call Arthur is more than his human exterior. He is an eater of souls. I am simply a facilitator for this ability, but it's more of a seal at this point.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Not much will, child.”

  “It’s Susan.”

  “I am an unfathomably old being that exist—”

  “It’s Susan! And if you want a ride to the living, I need you to cut the child crap.”

  “So you will agree?” the shark's eyes light up in a familiar eldritch green. I shiver at the glow, but I feel resolve gathering inside me. Begging for a direction.

  “No. Yes, I don’t know. Convince me. I’m dead. Or I think I am. Either way, I don’t know how all this magic and alien shit’s suppose to work. I can read between the lines, though, “binding” means either you're a roommate or this is a monkey paw situation.”
I stride up and jab him in the snout. “I’d rather stay dead, but if there is a slim, minute chance you're able to convince me that a second shot at that emo renaissance bitch is worth the cost of admission, I’m down.” Ok, really don’t know why I said that, but it feels right. Like my entire life spent underachieving has led up to this moment.

  “I have no intentions of fighting on behalf of your planet. We can—”

  “Just leave me alone then.”

  For a second, the shark and I stare at each other. A second becomes two, then three, then four. I feel myself fading into nothing as we stare into each other's eyes. Human to killing machine. If I were to guess, and I'm really only guessing, this thing simply took on the persona of a shark, maybe not for intimidation but for personality points. Makes sense in a weird way.

  “Ok. What do you want?” Its eyes relent as a weirdly human downcast expression comes over it.

  “Well, I want to use my second chance how I see fit first and foremost.”

  “Done.”

  “I thought you weren’t so eager to die?”

  “It is better to die tasting freedom than live for an eternity as an inanimate object waiting for a master.”

  I shrug. “Fair enough. Second I need you to tell me everything.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  I raise an eyebrow, “Can’t or won’t.”

  “I am self-aware, not all-knowing.”

  Ok, I give him that. “Alright, then tell me about Arthur.”

  Shark knife groans audible enough that the pseudo world we’re lying in shakes, “Chil- Susan, even if I told you it’s beyond your understanding.”

  “Start from the beginning then.”

  The Necronomicon

  Yeah, limping back to action only sounds good on paper. Honestly, it's mostly sad and pathetic bravado that usually ends in finding the nearest abandoned coffee shop to hole up in. I am impressed by my ability to hit new lows today.

  But in all seriousness, I need a dark and quiet place, hopefully free of zombies. The first two parts are easy. The city went through a power outage it barely recovered from; a Daemonic manifestation would do that. The zombie part has me worried. On the plus side, with DURA’G getting closer to directly manifesting in real space, he is putting more of himself into the day-to-day actions of “body” so to speak. That awareness will naturally lead to more directed zombies and, hopefully for me, fewer zombies milling around in random places. Like for example, a coffee shop named Bourbon Coffee.

  A wide-open space that is all broken windows and tipped-over tables. The blood and gore slop on the ground as I trudge the aftermath. My guess is the horde drove down here and treated everyone like human woodchips. I make my way to the back, past the pastry display and the register, and into the inner workings of minimum wage employment. I knock before I barge through and wait. The recovered streetlights barely light the inside of this building, and I’m in no condition to deal with stragglers.

  No movement. I walk in and brace myself, but thankful nothing comes rushing out. I lock the door as I walk in, being surprised the lock still works but figuring that the people working here didn’t have time to run.

  “Ok, last of my dumb plans.”

  Last tidbit about the Necronomicon. The Book of the Dead is a valuable occult item because it allows you to study the arcane from the safety of your couch. Now, because of the inherent user-friendly nature of the Necronomicon, the pages you turn to simulate looking for something, the book hasn’t just enough awareness to respond to your inherent needs and desires. However, what if you installed a back door? Some kind of way to access the book for the purpose of finding it?

  Well, as long as you’re just scrying, that wouldn’t be a problem. But what if you tried to say, read from the book while your consciousness is inside of it. A book that is conscious enough to consider you a hostile entity. A book opening the smallest of doors to the other side as it searches the veil for answers that you seek.

  I let my consciousness drift into the scry, this time needing to occupy the same time as the entity that lives in the book. Hopefully, the sheer distance, a pocket dimension of the state of Maryland, between me and it, should prevent our consciousness from merging. But it will be aware of me, and I will be very aware of it. And that is a problem.

  I can feel events fast forward in rapid succession as my mind urges me to push past my fears and trepidations. This is, by all accounts, a one-way trip to a fate worse than an eternity of reincarnation. I’d really rather not, but I—

  “YOU!” the book sees me, and I see it. I am the book, and the book is, not me. Not living through a past event, being in the now. Except with my body so far away, the connection is weak, but I am here and effectively in a cage with IT. And it is SCREAMING. The torture of the heat, enough to melt mountains and flay the flesh from tyrant lizards with a mere gaze. I remember it, lived it, felt the desire to go in it. But I’m IN it now, and it is beyond unpleasant. It is pain. Torture. A thank you from an ungrateful—

  “Vapoura plans on killing you!” the book rages. I feel the pain by proxy of my consciousness existing in real-time. I feel it like my own flesh is burning. Like I’m choking on fumes from the deepest volcano. And I can taste the despair of knowing I am trapped. That I am waiting. Betrayed. The book is barely thinking, barely breathing in its own style of breathing. A held breath for the final moment. Desperately trying to reach out to anyone, anything that can listen, be influenced, be swayed one last time.

  “LISTEN TO ME!” My voice, its voice rustles through the pages and sends tremors through the binding made of bone. The soul I forged inside it, the shard of humanity that is left screams in terror as it’s briefly awakened to reality before going dormant, possibly forever. Or was that me?

  “LISTEN TO ME, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!”

  The book reels, unable to ignore me as my words shake its foundation.

  “SO CLOSE!” screams the book because the fucker is stubborn.

  Fuck me! I force myself… I force myself to draw a border between me and IT. I draw every shard, every tendril, and uncoil it and unstick it from its place along the pages. Brute force isn’t the answer. As tempting as it may be, if I force remote access to its library, it’ll be like trying to swim away from a collapsing black hole. No, I need it to do the heavy lifting and for me to remember to hold on tight. I need it to listen.

  “Look, maybe Vapoura got the best of you. And maybe you don’t want to deal with me because I’m liable to lock you away in a shed in Colorado.” I keep my own copy in a cabin in Denver. “But it's deal with me or very permanent death.”

  Now I feel it, the shift as it pulls away from the pain and rage and focuses its eldritch mind on me. Fuck. It’s an entity that knows not form, besides the one given, so it’s like a mack truck from every angle save for up when it comes for me. I buckle hard under the strain, and then I begin to panic as I feel it pulling me toward it. I can’t pull back. I can’t disconnect the scry! I feel its maw of teeth, hot breath, and rage descend on me and around me, its crushing weight bears down on me as its greed and desperation bury me under it. I scream, and then I swing back. Hard and sharp, I rip into its being with every ounce of resolve I can muster. The sudden pain felt by IT ruffles the skin-bound leather and makes it pause temporarily.

  I take that time to say with confidence, “You can kill me. Eat me, or whatever you have in mind. But without a Seeker, you're not leaving here. And besides, I can do real damage before you take me out, no guarantee the next Seeker would be as impressionable as the first.”

  The many angled beast that is the Necronomicon ponders that, not quite out loud but with feelings and sensations. Hatred for what I am mixed with a longing for home. Yes, it had hoped to ride out the end of the world and take its place beyond the veil. To come this close yet fail so spectacularly must hurt. I feel for him, monster to monster. But I really need this bastard to show some self-preservation.

  “Seeker, you wish to take my freedom for
nothing?”

  “If you're getting better offers, let me know.”

  “I could simply use the link you established to take your body.”

  I smile, “That would be dumb, even for you, Necro.”

  Madness and desperation churns and churns inside of him as he realizes that his base instincts are betraying him. Inside the book, the entity that is the Necronomicon is safe, but outside… my body would burn out, taking him with me. It would be a very short possession. He is worse than a Ling in that regard. He is an automaton playing at being a greater evil. A rather powerful one, true, but nothing truly meant to exist outside of the parameters from which he is made. The ultimate reason why soul forging was a handy thing, never get a rise out of the machines unless the wielder is an idiot.

  “What do you want!?” The book pulls back from its aggressive posture, knowing that even consuming my pitiful soul wouldn’t help it.

  “Oh, nothing big. Just my trident, for starters.”

  Daemons and Principalities

  I come to at the bottom of a hill. Everything hurts, but it is my chest that feels the worst. Almost as if I was stabbed.

  “Damn, I was, wasn’t I?” I look at the tattered remains of my hello kitty t-shirt and how the “nurse” badge has a hole in it.

  Con badges are collectible. Strike one. I gingerly get up, realizing that I’m no longer inside the perpetual darkness of whatever pocket world that existed inside of the Gaylord. I’m no longer inside the Gaylord. This knowledge horrifies me before I realize how familiar the streets are. The national harbor is here, and while it's normally a ghost town in the late night and early morning, the eerie silence is deafening. It's wrong. Distinctly utterly wrong, like walking into the woods and hearing no insects. No squirrels or raccoons rustling in the brush.

  How did I end up back here? The mist is thick, and a healthy layer covers the ground. I got so used to seeing it that I barely register lying in it. Then I remember Vee. I have to move, no escaping it even out here. Or the things that live underneath it. Though, thankfully, the ground still feels like the ground, all sidewalks, and pavement. But this mist is disconcerting. Like knowing something dangerous is crawling on the floor just beyond your ability to pay full attention. But very much still there.