The War-Torn Hills of Earth | Flashback, page 21
More cheers, more applause.
“And rightfully so. For we have slaked the New Gods’ bloodthirst with our festivals and our sacrifices, our music, and now walk the earth free of want, and of fear—aye, free even from predation, as only the pious can. Indeed, as only the Architects of the Flashback would allow.” He pointed at the lights in the sky, dramatically, ecstatically. “The Architects! To whom we offer our blood and souls!”
At which the crowd roared, shaking the very earth, rattling the air.
“These three shall be our gift today—our gift to Them, the lights. These three, for whom the bell tolls; whom Valerie has led back to us through their—the Architects’—savage and beautiful night. And may their blood be enough to keep the power on and the beasts at bay—if only for a while longer.”
And then we were being jostled through the mob toward the front even as I lashed out at random and struck someone in the nose, squashing it like a plum. Then we were being forced to our knees in the mire even as thunder rumbled and Linda cried out and something steel hit the back of my head—exploding my vision like a supernova; rendering me totally unconscious.
As for how long I was out, who can say—maybe it was a matter of minutes; maybe it was an hour. All I know for certain is that by the time I came to we had been lashed to wooden crosses and raised, vertically, so that we were even with Penny and whoever had been covered with the tarp—probably Fred—easily a full 10 feet off the ground (or rather the fountain, for the crosses were secured somehow beneath whatever filled it; something I was now convinced was gasoline).
Blake, meanwhile (who was still on the roof of my car) was busy playing; soloing, working his guitar like a demon as Valerie danced naked on the hood and the crowd waved lighters and the band laid down a muscular beat—all of which had proven too much for Penny, who had passed out on her cross so that her head hung heavy and the rain, which had passed, continued to drip from her hair.
And then all of it just stopped—stopped as if on a dime, whatever that even means, and the mall and its capitol lay silent as Blake rested his hands on his guitar and Valerie stepped down from the hood (and into a waiting black robe) and the clouds continued to rumble—at which Blake gazed out across the crowd, his crowd, and said, commandingly, peremptorily, like he was fucking Caligula, “Enough! Now is the time.”
“Now is the time,” they repeated, and raised their pointy hoods.
“Time for our honored guests to know what we know—and to see what we have seen.” He put up his cowl so that only his mouth and chin were visible. “For a devil has fallen from the firmaments; a devil bearing the likeness of the Flashback itself. And this devil spoke to us—not in words but the language of dream—and he said to us: Pay me homage and I shall protect you; yea, even from the beasts of prey shall I protect you, if you but honor my name, which is Algrathach. Do this and ye shall thrive; but fail this, and ye shall surely die.”
He turned to look us and at me in particular, I have no idea why. “And now you will see the truth of it; which is that the Flashback, the time-storm, more than just an unfathomable, impersonal force, has physical form. It has a face. And that face is looking upon us even now.” He raised a hand and brought it down, crisply, decisively. “The face of Algrathach, of They Who Walk the Clouds. Yea, his very body—to whom we offer these three souls!”
And then the tarp was being pulled free (even as the fountain was ignited), sliding from the shape like an octopus, clinging to it—briefly—like tentacles, as the thing on the cross was bared for all to see and Linda gasped, fighting her bonds—as I looked at it and saw something vaguely human (but with tapered eyes and a tapered head, goat-like horns, bird-like shanks) and knew—in a way I cannot explain—from whence all our demons had come: our devils of myth and legend, our dragons from the east of Eden, and so, also, where the saurians of a parallel dimension had gone; for they had evolved into this, this demon named Algrathach, this fusion of man and monster.
And I knew, too, why they were here: which was to right a wrong (as they perceived it) and to recreate their origin—to play God. And to reinvent evolution as they saw fit.
None of which mattered as the flames licked our crosses and Blake resumed playing: picking and sliding and working his instrument like a virtuoso; causing the audience to cheer and make horn-hands. Lending our deaths a soundtrack as the wood started to heat and the wind began to gust and I looked at Linda to find her staring up into the storm—a storm through which a vast, black object (an object shaped like a rounded arrowhead) could be seen, blotting the sun like an eclipse, rotating—ponderously, almost imperceptibly—like a giant Ouija planchette.
“Is that—is that part of it?” —Linda, bound only several feet from me and yet seemingly light years away. “Oh, God. Chris.”
I peered at the object, at its perfectly black surface—like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey—which nonetheless generated light; light and color, though of a wavelength that hurt the eyes; hurt the mind. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Don’t look at it.”
“For you!” cried Blake—drawing my attention so that I saw him gazing up at the thing. “Everything for you, at last!”
He raised his arms in supplication even as the cloak’s hood blew back and his hair cycloned—like he was standing in a vortex. Like he was standing before God.
“Lapithae!” he shouted. “Your kingdom is come!”
At which the thing’s shadow fell over him—fell over us all—and it gradually came to a stop (for it had been descending all the while): hovering above us like a storm cloud, which rumbled from deep inside; turning like a tempest, which whipped the crowd’s dark cloaks. And upon which, too, Penny awakened—and, seeing that everyone was looking up, quickly did the same.
And screamed.
Which of course is when it happened—when the thing just opened, blossomed, rather, like a flower, and unleashed its great and terrible light. When it loosed its awful threads (for lack of a better term) on Blake and the crowd and “wove” them, in a sense, into a kind of circuitous loop—and then sent something through that loop so that they were electrocuted one by one. So that they exploded into clouds of blood and bone and viscera even as more threads appeared and began probing Penny and Linda and myself—ultimately abandoning Linda and I to focus on Penny exclusively.
Until she too had been released and the things retracted, engulfing the crucified alien as they went (cocooning it, I suppose); carrying it into the object’s belly and vanishing, along with the ship—into the tumultuous, tempestuous, wine-dark sky.
Who knows how long we remained there—just hanging with our bad, crucified selves. It was long enough to realize what kind of trouble we were (still) in, I know that. For while there was an overwhelming sense of relief—even euphoria—at having survived the ordeal (indeed, and at the vortices having quenched the fire), the fact remained that we were now just going to die a little slower of thirst, starvation, or exposure. That is, if we weren’t eaten alive by a predator first—that allosaur, say, which couldn’t have gone far.
So you can imagine how intrigued we were when the ape man showed up and started picking through the carnage—especially when I called to him and he responded; squatting on the edge of the fountain like Chaka from Land of the Lost, cocking his head as though understanding (not the words, obviously, but the intent; that we were in trouble and needed his help).
At least that’s what I’d hoped—that is, until he scampered off the way he’d come and we were alone once again; just three former neighbors who wished they’d never left San Francisco (nor experienced whatever it was they had since). Just three average blokes from the Bay Area—who hadn’t had what it took.
But then he came back. And this time, he wasn’t alone.
“Because the square root of a squared number is the number itself,” hollered Fred, waving. “So when you put root beer in a square glass—which is to say, square root beer or take the square root of beer—you get beer! What is so hard to understand about that?”
We all groaned from our crosses.
“Look, Fred, just get us down, would you?” I looked at the ape man, who was looking at Fred. Reverently, I thought. “And what’s with the damn monkey?”
He stopped and dug in his Bermuda shorts. “Monkey? Did you hear that, Kong? Man says you’re a monkey. But then that’s what happens when you’ve got motor oil for blood.” He took out what appeared to be nuts and handed them to the creature. “Ran into this fellow in the food mart and he clocked me with a chunk of obsidian. By the time I came to, Penny was gone, you were gone, even the car was gone. But then this guy came back and I fed him some cashews; and we’ve been buddies every since. Isn’t that right, Kong?”
The thing bounced and grunted excitedly and sucked at the air between them. It sure acted like a monkey to me. “Seriously, though. Can you get us down?”
“Right, of course. Let’s see ...” He examined the base of my cross: a rugged, hinged affair which had been designed—I presumed—to raise and to lower it. “Okay—think I got it. Yep. Just hold on ...” Then he paused.
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
He scratched at his thinning hair. “It’s just that—I would have thought you’d be happier to see me.” He looked up at me morosely—forlornly, even. “Kind of hurts, to tell you the truth. I mean, are my jokes that bad?”
I started to respond but hesitated, wondering about the thing they’d hung on the cross and how they’d come into possession of it; remembering its rotting, reptilian body and its ancient, ancient face, and what I’d thought upon looking at it, which was that it was an evolved dinosaur, of sorts, a kind of manosaur—like whatever was in the spacecraft—something I now realized might have responded to T. rex piss spread on clothing—T. rex piss smeared on skin. Responded to and, thinking we were its own kind, spared us.
And if that were the case—it having been Fred’s idea in the first place—well, if that were the case ...
“Fred,” I said—and smiled down at him, “believe me when I say. I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life.”
“Really?” he said, beaming. “In spite of the root beer joke?”
“Really,” I said. “More than you’ll ever know.” I added, “And that’s no joke.”
After which, looking uncertain, he went about letting us down.
MESOZOIC KNIGHTS (2021)
It shone lustrously, feverishly, sun-painted red and gold, as though it were on fire—the Gateway to the West (although for us it opened eastward); the towering landmark that meant we had arrived at our destination, our Court of Pelles and Eliazar. Even so, it wasn’t the great arch of St. Louis that had compelled us—Sirs Mortigen, Black Duncan and myself—to ride some 1,500 miles (all the way from Ambergard in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to the Missouri/Illinois border, on unshod horses), but, rather, the edict of King Craxis—who, having listened to the newcomer’s account (about what he had seen in St. Louis) had, at the behest of Mercurius, dispatched five of his knights—two of whom were now dead—to return physical proof of what the vagabond had (supposedly) seen.
And yet it was “supposed” no more; for what the man had spoken of—with a tremor in his voice—now lay before us like a mirage (if it could be said to lay at all; for it had stabbed into the Mississippi at such an angle that its rear quarter hovered above the far bank like a cloud).
“‘As though God Himself had shot an arrow into the earth,’” said Black Duncan, quoting the vagabond. “I must say, it’s bigger even than I expected—easy now, girl.”
He wrestled with his reins; all of us did. The horses had become nervous.
“And he was right about another thing. It stinks. Of Them. Positively reeks. Like sulfur mixed with ozone; or like when its little brother was hovering over Lake Coeur d’Alene.”
“And set the mosasaurs against us,” I muttered. “Or so Mercurius believes.”
Mortigen laughed. “The beasties? Nah, they were just hungry. Lake Coeur d’Alene couldn’t sustain them, that’s all. Old Merc loses himself in the part—it doesn’t always have to be aliens. Plus he speaks in riddles. You know that.”
“And yet he has performed miracles,” I said.
We were referring, of course, to our oracle, our wizard, or at least the physics professor from Evergreen State College who had played him since before the Flashback (and continued to do so); someone who now claimed to have real gifts—an effect of the time-storm, he said; a supposition for which there was some evidence. As for who we were as a group—as an enclave of survivors—we had been the Northwestern Branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism (covering Oregon, Washington, and the northern tip of Idaho), otherwise known as the Kingdom of An Tir. At least, until Craxis—an outsider whose real name was unknown—had taken over and consolidated his power. Now we were Ambergard, a fully-functioning city-state with real weapons and a real stronghold (Castle Hagadone, formerly the Coeur d’Alene Resort and Marina, on Lake Coeur d’Alene). And we were not, despite Mortigen’s flippant tone and demeanor, to be trifled with. Nor were the considered theories of Mercurius to be taken lightly.
“What the hell are those?” mumbled Black Duncan, his voice muffled. He was chewing some jerky from his saddlebag, peering at the top of the arch. “Are those—people, or something?”
I followed his gaze—to where three dark shapes hung suspended from the monument (they were small enough in comparison that we hadn’t even noticed them earlier), then quickly fished out my binoculars.
“They are,” I muttered, adjusting the lenses. “People, I mean.”
I focused on the figures’ faces: on their blue, lolled tongues, their blank, bulging eyes. “What’s more, I’ll characterize them. Hanged people. Just kids, really. Teenagers. All boys. They hanged them from the windows.”
I handed the binoculars to Mortigen.
“Weird that the vagabond didn’t mention it,” said Black Duncan.
“They probably weren’t here then,” I said. “The decay hasn’t set in.”
“He’s right,” said Mortigen. “They’re too fresh. Probably hasn’t been a week.” He ground the eyepieces. “Their clothes are clean—casual. Did you notice that? Like they’re crisp from civilization. The tall one’s even got a slipper—”
“It’s a good bet we’re being watched,” I said. I unhooked my helmet from the saddle and held it in my hands; then scanned the area to where a nearby bridge crossed the Mississippi. “We should get moving.”
“Eh?” Mortigen lowered the glasses and looked at me, surprised. “And test our virtue so soon? That isn’t like you, Galaren.”
I’d started to move away; now I curbed my horse—his name was “Scar,” due to an old jousting injury—and cantered back.
“By which you mean you know me to be as prudent as I am faithful, of course,” I said—and drew slowly along beside him. “Ah, but you flatter me too much.”
He looked at me tentatively, calculatingly, his face bathed in sweat. It was the same look he gave me when I bested him on the field: one part submission, one part guile.
I extended a gauntlet to him. “We are blood brothers, Sir Mortigen, never forget—forged in battle; tested on the field. But be assured: when it comes to Lady Emeline—I am as eager for the contest as you.”
Upon which—hesitantly at first but then with surprising enthusiasm—he clasped and shook my hand; and we went. Toward the nearby bridge and the other side of the muddy, orange Mississippi. Toward the sleek, dark, (possibly) alien ship—the anomaly—with its hideous smell and trail of crepuscular, yet somehow iridescent, debris—like shards of stained glass.
By the time we’d trotted close enough to the wall of semi-trucks and other vehicles (which were positioned midway along the bridge), as well as the massive signpost which had been attached to the side of one of the trailers—the sun had crept below the horizon and the sky begun to turn a bare, brooding mauve. Still, it was enough to read by, and what we read was as clear and succinct as anything I’d encountered: ILLINOIS IS OURS ... DO NOT PROCEED. VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT. —a chilling message made more so by the number of bees buzzing and crawling about the sign.
“What’s this?” asked Mortigen, and cantered closer. He indicated a hive, a massive thing, which lay on the roof of a nearby car and yet, somehow, was wholly independent of it. “They’re busy, for twilight. Look.”
I nudged Scar up beside him and looked (finding it highly unusual that a colony would build their nest in such an exposed way), saw a broken branch sticking out from beneath its papery mass. “This didn’t form here—not naturally. Not at random. It was placed.”
There was the clop-clop of hooves as Black Duncan joined us. “Yeah, but, who on earth would do that? I mean, if you’re trying to scare people off, wouldn’t that sign—not to mention those bodies—be enough? It doesn’t make sense.”
I stared at him, dumbly. “Beats the hell out of me,” I said. I studied the small hole in the nest’s bottom, which was a riot of activity. “It almost looks like they’re fighting ...”
“Or fucking—more likely,” said Mortigen. “See the ones with the big eyes? Those are the drones; the males. All the others are female.” I must have looked at him queerly. “My uncle was a beekeeper,” he said.
I watched as a drone with an injured wing struggled free of the mess—and promptly fell to the pavement. “They’re outnumbered—whatever they are.”
I shifted my focus to the barrier. “Okay. So. Obviously they were more concerned about vehicles than foot traffic—because it’s pretty porous. We can get through it.” I indicated a gap. “How about there—between that ambulance and the UPS truck? What do you say?”
“I say we’re going to meet a hail of gunfire the moment we cross that line,” said Black Duncan.
“We don’t know that,” said Mortigen. “Guns have gotten scarce; ammo even more so. Besides, it’s getting dark.” He looked at me as though he were making a pitch. “I say we ride for the opposite side as fast and hard as we can—weaving in and out of each other, winding between cars. If there’s snipers, they won’t know what to focus on. Then we get lost amongst all those railroad cars, fortify one for the night, and, in the morning, test our virtue against the shards. Every one of us.” He looked at Black Duncan and then back to me. “And may fortune favor us all.”
