Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (9 page)

The chamber pitched around me as Johansen and the others
faced the giant creature and removed their respirator masks. I was
astonished. Then, I saw why, and it sickened me more even than
anything I’d seen up until then. They all leaned against the
huge creature as it … as
she
… fed, and put
their lips against her underbelly. They were suckling, I realized
with horror and disgust, like pigs at their mama sow’s nipples.
Their shoulder lights flickered wildly, and I saw my chance. It was
now or never. I slipped back into the darkness and made my break for
the elevator. I made it to the platform with no sign of pursuit.

As I shut and locked the gate behind me and started the
elevator upward, the worm-like mother reared up, screaming a grating,
inhuman scream. I froze in my skin as the monster slithered across
the cavern floor with nightmarish speed, its multiple legs clattering
wildly. I threw myself backward against the rear wall of the
elevator, instinctively raising my arms and shouting in fear as the
face of the serpentine demon crashed against the gate, bending the
metal grating inward as its hot, fetid breath washed over me. That
face … as wide as a man’s height … I will
remember that horrible face until my death. Huge, saber-like
mandibles spread wide, a fearsome maw opening to reveal three sets of
gnashing fangs, in a triangle-like pattern, leading into a yawning
gullet. That single, fiery red liquid eye stared at me through the
grating. It is seared into my brain forever.

By some miracle, I escaped, stealing a dingy and making
for the mainland. And yes, I freely admit it was I who sabotaged the
pumping system, causing the rig to explode. May the evil it nurtured
lay entombed at the bottom of the sea forever.

*** end recording ***

Barrett sighed as he switched off the recording machine.
“Well, Corby,” the Energy Commission supervisor began
quietly, not looking at Corby as he stared into his vid phone.
“You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

Corby couldn’t make out the other man’s
facial expression in the dim light of his office, but Barrett’s
tone was flat; emotionless. “You do believe me, don’t
you?” Corby asked, his heart throbbing, sweat beading on his
forehead. “The video—”

Oh, yes,” Barrett said, waving his hand absently.
“I’m looking over it now. Very impressive. You were very
brave to have gotten such detailed footage, Corby. My compliments.”

His tone was as cold as ice, and it sank to Corby’s
vitals. “What now?” He asked with a dry mouth.

Barrett laid down the vid phone on his desk top and
walked across the half-lit office to the liquor cabinet. “Would
you like a drink?”

“Yes,” Corby answered, every frayed nerve in
his body crying out for one. “A double, please.”

“Yes, of course.” Barrett chuckled as he
poured bourbon into two glasses. Handing Corby one, he stepped to his
office window, overlooking the harbor. Corby gulped the liquor and
swallowed, his head swimming as the bourbon scorched his throat. He
exhaled, his muscles relaxing as his head buzzed and tingled, his
eyes stinging with tears. He’d needed that. “Beautiful,
isn’t it?” Barrett asked, staring at the black midnight
sky and taking a sip of his drink.

Corby had only half heard him. “What?”

“The universe,” Barrett answered without
turning around, gesturing at the window with his glass. “The
Earth is so tiny, so insignificant, a speck in all that dark
vastness. So primitive and puny a thing is man, that he could never
even grasp the concept there are other intelligent forms of life in
the cosmos. Vastly different forms, millions of years older and more
evolved, existing only as pure dark energy. Beings with the power to
channel cosmic forces, like electro-magnetism, as easily and
naturally as man draws breath.” As he spoke, the lamp on his
desk began to flicker. Corby felt an odd chill down the back of his
neck. “And in so doing, warp the very fabric of time and space,
navigating the countless dimensional plains of reality. Dimensions
man, in his limited perspective, can only imagine as the realm of the
occult.” The flickering grew worse. A cold sea breeze ruffled
the curtains. “Eventually, they settle on one particular plane,
taking root and shaping the indigenous organic matter
psychokinetically, assuming whatever corporeal forms they wish.”

Corby’s hand shook as he set the glass on the
desk. Barrett’s words were only now sinking through the
alcohol-induced buzz. “Barrett … what are you talking
about?” he asked, a numbing chill spreading through him.

“This is our world,” Barrett said with
uncharacteristic anger, turning to face Corby. His eyes flared as his
hand clenched his glass. Corby started in his chair. “We
created it and ruled it for hundreds of millions of years, but then
the world changed.” His tone softened somewhat, the room
growing darker. Corby’s pulse quickened. “Meteors rained
from the sky, the continents drifted, the carbon content in the
atmosphere dissipated. The Earth cooled and ice covered the planet,
forcing us deep underground and into a state of suspended animation.
We awoke to find new forms of life had covered the surface of the
world, breathing air now poisonous to us.” Corby nearly bounced
out of his chair as the glass shattered in Barrett’s hand. “But
we adapted, telekinetically manipulating the evolution of these new,
warm-blooded vertebrate forms for millions of years, eventually
giving rise to a new breed of large-brained mammalian bipeds capable
of serving as our hosts. Creatures with limited intelligence, but
tool-using and capable of splitting open the earth for us, flooding
the air with carbon, raising the temperature, melting the ice, and
freeing us from our ancient captivity.” He snickered as blood
dripped from his lacerated hand onto the carpeting. “Humanity
is easily manipulated, and easily destroyed once having served its
purpose.”

Corby reached across the desk and picked up the vid
phone. His heart nearly stopped dead in his chest as he saw the
flashing red digital words:
file deleted.
He felt his face
grow pale as he realized what Barrett had meant. God help him …
what he was. He forced his head up and looked at Barrett.

Barrett’s face twisted in perverse,
joyous agony, like the visage of an evil clown in a funhouse mirror.
Corby felt the blood drain from his body as Barrett’s face
crumpled like a plastic Halloween mask. The sickening crunch of
cartilage turned Corby’s stomach. His eyes widened, a numbness
spreading through his body as something bulged beneath Barrett’s
jacket in the waning light, detaching itself from his back.

Corby gasped, trying desperately to make his feet move
towards the door, so very far away. He heard Barrett’s
jacket tear. Corby screamed, his knees turning to jelly as he saw it
… casting off Barrett’s crumpling body and scuttling
across the bloodied carpet towards him on its many jointed limbs. Its
claws rattled. Corby could only stare as it bared its gnashing fangs
in a wicked, hungry smile. Its one, glowing red liquid eye stabbed
into the depths of his brain.

My older sister Ruthie used to jingle bells before she
went out with her covey to hunt small game and gather fruit in the
Dark Lands. She would hide in the armarium in our front room and
shake the bells to make me think an Eloko was coming to get
us.

Now that I think about it—out here in the Dark
Lands hunting small game and gathering fruit with my own covey—those bells were silly.
They hung from ribbons attached to a small
block of rectangular wood Ruthie and her covey made one year for
Christmas. Me and my covey made the same bells to hang from our
mantles when we reached grade five.

Silly or not, whenever I heard those bells, no matter
where I was, I would take off like a scalded dog for my bed and hide
under the thick covers. Ruthie would be snickering in the darkness of
the armarium, trying not to knock over our parents’ urns while
I waited for an Eloko to come and eat me.

Just like I wait for one now.

Nothing moves. Not the trees. Not the undergrowth. Even
the Eloko bells have stopped.

I begin to doubt myself. I wonder if I heard them in the
first place. Maybe I made it all up. People can hallucinate sounds,
too.

At first, the bells were so soft they blended in with
the constant chirping of the birds in the treetops. Then, all of a
sudden, the entire Dark Lands went quiet and the only thing I could
hear were the bells, my beating heart trying to break out of my
chest, and a whimper starting in the back of my throat.

Those bells were the most awful sound I’ve ever heard
in my life.

They sounded nothing like Ruthie’s bells.

But then they stopped.

I want to run. I want to hightail it back to the Dome,
back to my bed, back to my covers like I did when I was five years
old.

But I don’t. Instead, I nock an arrow and peer
through the dimness for Lali. Three minutes go by. Five minutes. Ten.
Fifteen. But I don’t move. My bow arm is steady as I wait for
her. For my treefrog. For an Eloko. To be eaten.

But she doesn’t come. I last saw Lali disappear
into the pol’anga fruit grove. That’s when the bells got
louder. Real loud. Lali had to hear them. Maybe that’s what
they do. Maybe the Biloko shake their bells hard and loud so you
can’t hear them sneaking up on you.

Or maybe the Biloko just finished eating her. Maybe
their bells got louder because they were so excited with their meal.
They couldn’t help themselves. Lali tasted so good they just
stuffed handful after handful of her in their mouths, ripping off
chunks of her with their long, sharp claws, unable to get enough of
her sweet deliciousness as their bells rang louder and louder and
louder with their greediness—

And then the bells stopped because she was all gone.
There was no more left of her to eat.

No. I can’t think like that. I shouldn’t
think like that. Lali is still alive. Any moment now, she’ll be
tearing through the Dark Lands toward me, as light and graceful as a
deer with those long, brown legs of hers, running this way, running
back to the Dome.

But she doesn’t.

Shit.

I told her we shouldn’t go this far into the Dark
Lands. I told her that the Biloko would tear us apart for taking
their sweetest and most exotic fruits. But Lali just laughed that
wonderful laugh of hers, and smiled with those lovely full lips she
has. Next thing I know, I’m hearing loud, horrible bells as I
stand on the edge of the pol’anga grove—the farthest
any warbler and treefrog has ever been.

As a warbler, I should have whistled my trills the
moment I heard the bells. Over and over again. To warn my treefrog.
To warn Lali. To warn the rest of my covey, Ashni and Kentaro. To
warn any other warblers and treefrogs who were brave enough to take
Lali up on her dare and follow us this far out into the Dark Lands.

But no other treefrog is as crazy as Lali is. See?
Is
.
I said
is
. Lali
is
still alive. I know it. In my heart of hearts I
know it.

Just like the other treefrogs know there’s more
than enough game and fruit to hunt and gather close to the Dome. That
fruit might not be as tasty, but picking it won’t get you eaten
by an Eloko.

And I don’t want to get eaten by an Eloko.

I don’t want Lali or Ashni or Kentaro to get eaten
by an Eloko, either.

But for all I know, Lali has already been devoured. I
should just run. I could tell the Solaris I did my best. I warbled. I
trilled. I whistled. But Lali never came. So I ran. But I was lucky.
No. I was blessed. I escaped.

It’s a lie, but how would the Solaris know? Tau
doesn’t see
everything
. Or at least he doesn’t see
everything Lali does. She and Batiste from Covey Five do some tripped
out stuff. She told me herself.

I just need to make my story believable. I could tell
the Solaris that, as I ran, I felt the long, clawed fingers of an
Eloko trying to grab the collar of my leather tunic and snatch me
back into the Dark Lands. And it almost had me—no
they
almost had me—until they saw the bright lights of the Dome.

So the Biloko ran away. Back into the Dark Lands.

But I won’t lie to the Solaris because I won’t
run. I won’t leave Lali. That would be wrong. She’s my
covey-mate. She’s my best friend. Even if all she talks about
is Batiste.

So instead, I take a deep breath, whistle the first few
notes of the warning song Lali and I made up just for us, my voice
shaky as all get out, and then wait.

One Serengeti. Two Serengeti. Three Serengeti.

Nothing.

I do it again. A little bit louder this time. A little
bit stronger. The Dark Lands are so quiet. The only living thing
making any noise at all is me. Which means they hear me. The Biloko
hear me, they’re coming for me. They’re going to eat me —

Then I see those long brown legs of hers. Running fast
toward me. Faster than I’ve ever seen Lali run. But not fast
enough.

Three, four, five, six, seven dark green shapes are right
behind her. They get closer and closer with every step. She’s
tired. She’s scared. I’ve never seen Lali frightened
before. Never in my life. Nothing scares her. Except the Biloko.

She knows this is it. I can see it in her eyes. In her
legs. The lactic acid is building. She’s slowing down. Lali
knows they’re going to eat her. She knows it’s over.

She knows the Biloko are within collar grabbing
distance.

The Biloko are trying to exterminate my worshippers
again.

Six hundred years ago, they nearly did. Just decimated
my people. You don’t know how long it took me to breed my
followers to that numeric strength. There were millions of them. They
flourished to mega-city level.