Chainsaw Hobbit
2011-10-18, 02:31 PM
I just finished the second chapter of a short story that I would describe as a cross between The Adventures of Tintin, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and alternate universe Steampunk fiction. Criticism highly appreciated.
Chapter I
The rain sang songs. At first, it just sounded like a dull succession of tiny splatters, almost a drone, but soon it began to shape itself into slow melodies. Of course, it wasn't actually musical, but my mind could fill in the gaps and fool itself into thinking so.
There was also the chugging and whirring of the ship’s engine. A sound that was a mix of grinding gears, belching steam, and burning fluid. It made it seem like the great best that was the Queen of Cumberland was snoring, asleep until the end of the pouring rain.
I sipped idly at my warm, rather bland tea and and gazed out the window. Through the twisting snakes of fog I could make out the shape of an island. This was good. We were approaching the dock.
As we pulled into the terminal, a flock of bedraggled seagulls flapped into the freezing air and a seal dove into the water. I shivered at the thought and inadvertently clutched my shoulders.
I made my way down the stairs and onto the lower deck. It is littered with a few rusty bicycles, as well as a few vulgar, steam-belching clockwork carriages belonging to more wealthy travellers. One of the employees opened the front gate, and I thanked him and trudged onto the dock, a few other passengers by my side. As I made it off the dock and on to a road, the water started to soak through my well-worn leather shoes.
* * * * *
I soon came to a small variety store where I asked for directions. The woman behind the counter directed me to a plaza just past a bookstore up the road. I bought an umbrella to replace the one I had lost at the ferry terminal, winced at the very little money remaining in my pocket, and followed her directions.
Only when I saw a coffee shop did I notice the swelling hunger gnawing at my nerves. I had been on the ferry for quite a few hours, and eaten little of the expensive and horrible food.
The place was warm and rustic and not unpleasant. A giant grandfather clock filled the room with its gentle ticking, and twisting copper pipes on the walls radiated heat. I ordered a hearty bowl of beef soup with some bread from a tired looking teenager and filled my aching stomach.
There was an aura of fear and disorientation about the place. The lives of the people here had just taken a wild turn, and it showed. Everything was still working, but it was on the brink of collapse and panic.
I spent the remainder of the dreary day there, talking to locals and drawing a rough map of the island based on a map nailed to the wall. I would gather information from those I met, especially information regarding the strange goings on at the east side of the island. By the time the coffee shop was closed, I had pages of notes and scribbles. Maybe this trip was going to be worth it after all.
I made my way past the plaza and into the woods, where I camped for the night. My tent was mercifully waterproof, and I managed to suffer minimal insect bites.
* * * * *
When I awoke the rain had subsisted, replaced by a heavy blanket of fog. As I ate a can of disgusting grey “Mystery Meat”, I heard the sputtering rumble of old horseless carriages on the road below. I decided to hitch a ride.
After slipping and sliding my was down the slope, I finally managed to flag down an automobile. It was manned by a rather demure, almost sullen fellow with a young face, but grey hair that suggested he was older than he looked.
“How far are you going?” he asked.
“I’m not entirely sure. I need to get up the mountain, and I would appreciate it if you dropped me off at a convenient place for such as endeavor.” I replied, knowing the mountain was a good vantage point to take pictures of the damage.
Half an hour later, he dropped me off at the side of the road by a path that lead upwards. I thanked him, and began my venture.
There was a sign that said “To Mt. Galiano”, and I followed it. After trekking for a few minutes, I got a strange feeling that something was off. After contemplating for a short time, I realized that it was the absence of birdsong. I blamed it on the recent goings on, and continued.
No, something else was wrong.
A painful blow to the back of my shoulder sent me sprawling. I recovered from the shock in time to roll out of the way of another attack, and scrambled to my feet. What I saw was an unsettling creature that looked like a giant black wolf or bear. Out of its shoulders protruded a writhing mass of tentacles, each ending in a claw, spike, or toothy maw. Where its mouth should have been, there was a disturbing tangle of spines and tendrils.
I whipped out the revolver I keep in my coat and and fired half a dozen shots at the monster, causing it to recoil in shock and pain. It lashed out madly, tearing apart trees with its razor-sharp claws and sending shreds of wood flying in my face. It was all I could do to hastily retreat while I reloaded my gun.
I bolted down a hillside, wincing in pain. An ungodly scream and tree being uprooted just behind my caused my to fumble and trip, putting my in a prone position once again. I pointed my gun at the monster and emptied it, just as it barreled down on me. Black blood-slime sprayed in my face, and its mad eyes bulged before going dull. Its skin tore under the strain of its insanely flailing tentacles, and it rammed into a tree before collapsing in a twitching heap and going still.
A dull throbbing pain in my shoulder reminded me of my injury. I got to my feet, used a cracked hand-mirror from my pocket to examine it, and sighed with relief. It was a simple flesh-wound. Not deep. In a few days, it would be just another scar.
I pulled out my well-used camera and took a few shots of the fallen monster, knowing the newspapers would be all over it. If there was more stuff as good as this - actual creatures from other dimensions - I could retire early.
If I survived.
Chapter II
It was my own cry of agony that woke me. I tried to sit up, but my whole upper body was numb and throbbing with dull pain. It was most acute were the tentacled creature had stuck me. Damn. That spike must have been poisonous.
I could do nothing but wait until the numbness passed, and eventually it did. I used the hand mirror to examine my shirtless back again. The wound had turned grey, and the area around it was deathly pale. There was really nothing I could do but get dressed and eat a breakfast of canned meat.
Yesterday, it had been too foggy to take pictures, but now the fog had been replaced by a light drizzle. Hoping for this, I had camped by near the top, so I could take pictures in the morning. As I looked over the ledge, I saw that what I had come to take pictures of was a sight the behold. Beautiful and terrible.
There was a giant gnarled ring of scorched earth and ruined trees, bathed in green light. The air around the place shimmered and waved, as seen from underwater. When looked at long enough, insubstantial shapes began to manifest, horrible and alien. Even as my head began to spin, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
I took an involuntary step towards it, and opened my eyes wider. The rupture was speaking to me. Calling my closer. Filling my had with whispers. The shapes in the green light became more and more real. More and more …
I snapped out of it and bit my hand hard before I could slip back into the trance. The pain shot up my arm, and a few drops of blood hit the ground. I snapped a few pictures, but realized that photos weren't really sufficient to capture this. Too primitive and grainy. They couldn’t even capture color. Oh well.
I decided that I needed to get a closer look. I couldn’t hitchhike there, as no one would go near the place. I could probably walk there in a day, though. I set off.
* * * * *
A blazing fire filled the air with thick black smoke. It burned the throat and stung the eyes and tore at the lungs. Through the smoke could be seen a dozen dark figures. It wasn't just their clothing that was torn, it was also their skin. Their hideously scarred faces were moving in a deep, disturbing chant, revealing teeth filed to points.
Out of the smoke came the curved figure of a woman. She was beautiful, but imposing, standing more than six feet tall. Her skin was unnaturally pale, and her hair seemed to have a life of its own, moving an twisting and writhing.
She outstretched her hand to one of the men.
In a rough, throaty voice she commanded “come!”.
At first, he tried to step backwards. Tried to escape. She would have none of that.
“Come!” she growled again, her eyes blazing.
This time, his eyes went blank, and he involuntarily lurched towards her. She grabbed his neck, and began a chant of her own. This went on for a few minutes, but then she stopped. She stared into his eyes, glazed with fear and fanaticism. She grabbed his unkempt hair and pulled his head back, exposing his neck. She raked across it with her clawed hand, tearing the life from the man.
He crumpled to the ground, and she licked the blood off her fingers. Above the fire, the smoke started to take shape.
* * * * *
The woman stared at her husband, perplexed and terrified. He was on the floor, on his hands of knees, coughing and squirming and twisting and gurgling. Out of his mouth dripped an oily black fluid, more of which was in a growing puddle below his head. At first there had just been blood, but now there was this dark stuff. She remembered the old stories …
The man lifted his head. Too pale. And shiny with sweat. More of the oily stuff dripped from his mouth and out of his nose and the corners of his eyes.
She bent down to look into his face.
“What’s happening to you?” she breathed.
He rasped and gritted his teeth, peeling back his splitting lips. On each side of his neck there was a set swollen gills.
Chapter III
I emerged from the mountain path into the road gasped. The crippled ruin of a clockwork carriage was up against the shattered trunk of a giant tree, and was the source of a shimmering cloud of black smoke. There was also something that I grimly suspected to be a corpse sandwiched between them. I gulped and walked over to investigate.
The body between the mechanical automation and the tree was not human. Not fully. Its tattered clothing was covered in what looked like claw marks, and its webbed fingers tapered into hook-like black talons. Its face was a disturbing combination of human, amphibian, and fish-like features, and its mouth was sticky with its oily black lifeblood.
There was no corpse in the vehicle, meaning its driver must have walked away from the carnage. I noticed an uneven blood trail leading away from the scene, which confirmed my suspicion. Needing to slake my curiosity, I followed it, and ended up walking down a winding trial on the other side of the road.
The trail and the blood lead me down a hill into a clearing. The place seemed to have been plunged into a grizzly nightmare. Two monsters lay dead on the ground. They were built mostly like humans, but were gaunt and bestial, with pointed features, razor-sharp claws, barbed teeth, a large catlike eyes. Their naked bodies were riddled with bullet holes. A third one stood hunched, eating the clawed body of a man.
No one kills and eats my fellow humans while I’m still breathing.
It whipped around and snarled at the same moment I pulled out my gun. I fired three shots as it dashed across the ground towards me. One connected with the monster’s shoulder, and had the same effect as a bullet going through a sack full of foul-smelling custard.
As the sallow-faced fiend barreled down on me, I shifted my weight to my right foot and then pivoted around. It raked its claw across my face as it went past, before hitting a tree. I took advantage of its all-to-brief disorientation by bludgeoning the back of its head with the handle of my pistol, splattering my hand with yellow.
The monster span around and threw itself at me, and hit my chest hard. It had to bend backwards and fall to avoid a broken rib cage. It dropped to the ground to bite my throat out, but I fired a shot directly upwards, penetrating its naval. The fiend stumbled backwards as I rolled out of the way and got to my feet.
It regained its resolve and prepared to attack me again, but I fired my final two shots, and managed to shred its black heart. It crumpled to the ground hissing.
Before I could enjoy my victory, or examine the corpse, I was gripped by dizziness. My body went numb, and my vision swam. the world went black.
* * * * *
The curse was spreading over Galiano. One by one, the people degenerated into monsters. One by one, the lights went out. One by one, the screams came and were silenced. The people trembled with fear as their friends and families slowly mutated and then turned on them with a vengeance. Tourists barricaded themselves in their vacation homes, but the walls were no real barrier to the island’s new dominant species. A rolling black fog shrouded the island, snuffing out flames and chilling the soul. Within an hour, the eerie fish men outnumbered the humans.
The succubus Grelenna - standing in a in a circle of followers in a parched clearing - grinned. Everything was working out perfectly. She took wing and ascended into the sky.
* * * * *
I lay cramped and throbbing on what felt like a table. Tried to move, but realized I was paralyzed.
“Well, he did manage to take on a ghoul,” a voice said. It was deep and gravelly, but not unkind.
“I don’t care! He’s dangerous!” another voice responded from the other direction. This one was female.
“Why does it matter? We are the only ones with the antidote. He’ll do what we say if he knows what’s good for him.” A third voice commented, male but rather shrill and parched.
“I know, but what if he doesn't know what’s good for him? We can’t know what demented vista of the human mind he might have fell into,” the female voice reasoned.
“Not until we take off the bloody bag and talk to him!” said the first voice.
“Here, you hold him,” the shrill voice instructed, and my arms were gripped, not that it was necessary.
I twitched, and the female voice said, “He’s awake!”
“Good,” said the deep voice.
I felt something sharp dig briefly into my wrist, and much of the cramping and numbness passed. Then, something else penetrated me, and my limbs felt as heavy as lead.
One of the pairs of hands let go and pulled off the sack.
Chapter IV
I looked around to see that I was not strapped to a table, but the hood of a steam-powered vehicle. A fire somewhere off to the side cut through the darkness, illuminating the figures of two men and a woman, looking down at me.
“Who the hell are you? Unstrap me. I want my gun,” I growled, the first words I had uttered in more than a day. I was cold, hungry, and too weak to move: not in a good mood.
“Ooooh … Look! He’s got spirit!” the woman chuckled.
“It wasn't nice of you to ‘medicate’ him like that.” said one of the men, this one taller. “You are way too eager to plunge your needles into human flesh.”
“Just standard procedure,” the shorter man growled in a voice like parched sand.
“Listen,” I rasped. “You had better have a good explanation for this. Unstrap me now!”
“I’m afraid we have to bind you,” the taller man said, unstrapping me and then tying my hands behind my back. “The poison coursing through your veins will soon send you into a state of psychotic dementia. When this occurs, if you are unrestrained, we may be forced to waste ammunition.
“Now, tell us about you’re day.”
“Sure. Why not?” I snarled.
* * * * *
Gahenna wasn't fond of deep ones, as the carnivorous fish men were called. They stank like dead flesh mixed with seaweed, and were ugly, and completely lacking in style. She had to put up with them, she knew. They were an unpleasant side effect of the portal. She supposed that something could be done about them, but it wasn't really worth the time and effort.
She looked down from her clifftop perch over a gang of them - about half a dozen - shambling clumsily over the beach towards the sea. Gahenna knew she didn’t have time, but she gave in to the temptation and swooped down towards them.
In a blur of flailing claws, tearing flesh, and spurting black slime, three of the deep ones were dispatched. The remaining three scattered in opposite directions. Gahenna, in a state of euphoric glee, pounced on the nearest one, knocking it to the ground.
She dug her claws underneath the monster’s spine, and then pulled savagely upwards, tearing the spine from its writhing body.
Something watched all this from the water. Something very old. It was not pleased to see its children slaughtered. It watched, annoyed, as the succubus killed yet another deep one, tearing out its throat. It wondered who dared to do such a thing, especially near the water.
It decided to do something.
Gahenna, poised like a feral cat on top of the bleeding body of a fish man, looked up in terror.
* * * * *
I explained to them everything that had happened since I arrived on the island. The worried locals, my encounter with the tentacled wolf-monster that left me poisoned, the way I had been hypnotized by the sight of the distant rift, my later coming down from the mountain to encounter an ape-like monster eating the corpse of a man, and finally the fight with it, which I barley walked out of alive.
They were infuriatingly unhelpful, but judging by the way they all looked somber when I mentioned the corpse, they knew the man in life.
“We have a job for you,” the taller man said.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked.
“Well, we are working on the antidote to your … condition,” the woman said. “We can’t promise anything, but if you help us, we may be able to save your miserable little life.”
“So what do you want?” I asked.
“We need you to talk to someone,” she said.
“Why me?”
“Because no one but you is expendable.”
Chapter V
The succubus, poised on the the broken corpse of a deep one, looked up in horror. Above her was a massive black thing, very old and very powerful and very … slow. It was mighty and majestic, but somehow wretched. Almost pathetic. It looked pained.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME!? it demanded. The thing’s words appeared directly in the demon’s mind without bothering to pass through her ears.
“I have been called many things,” the succubus said, refusing to show weakness. “My mother called me Gahenna, but I have also been known as Lilith, Morgan Le Fay, Quarinah ...”
The thing seemed to grow. It towered above her and became an avatar of anger itself. Fury was thik in the air. It assaulted the succubus’s mind and pounded in her chest and made her writhe in agony. She shielded her eyes.
A thick, dark grey mist gathered, and the air stank of gore-tinged seaweed. The massive thing fell upon her, as if to envelop her.
Green thorny tentacles of earth and flesh and spirit erupted from the ground around the demon. They coiled around the entity and began crushing the life from it. Its laboured breaths warped the air itself, causing it to compress and expand in a sporadic, torturous rhythm.
The two beings fought above her, their spirit tendrils interlocking and lashing and crushing. Everything began to warp and come apart and revert to its primal state. Trees shimmered and became the approximation of trees.
She took wing and fled. “Thank you, mother,” she whispered.
* * * * *
The trees here were … odd. They were black and twisted and sharp. They looked like deformed fingers sticking out of the ground, weaving in and out of the low-hanging mist. The smell of wet ash permeated the air, and the ringing in my ears formed otherworldly melodies.
They had told me that the man was impossibly old. That he had a psychic connection with all living things, and that he could see into the future, and other dimensions. Funny how I wouldn’t have believed any of that two days ago.
Suddenly, pain exploded into my head. I clutched my temples, but them lowered my hands when they went numb. Everything swam and then faded to black.
* * * * *
I was in a perfect, rolling green field. Birds were chirping to tunes I almost recognised, the sun was shining, and perfect white clouds rolled across the sky. Something was casting a shadow on me. I looked up and saw a lovely green tree, with perfect red apples in its branches.
I shrugged, grabbed in apple, and took a bite.
It tasted like iron.
I looked down to see that the apple was gushing blood. Instead of seeds, there were human teeth. I dropped it in horror.
My hand was also stained with blood. In an attempt to clean it, I wiped it on the tree, but it came apart like ash. Now my whole arm was crumbling into grey powder. I had just enough time to scream before turning to dust.
Chapter I
The rain sang songs. At first, it just sounded like a dull succession of tiny splatters, almost a drone, but soon it began to shape itself into slow melodies. Of course, it wasn't actually musical, but my mind could fill in the gaps and fool itself into thinking so.
There was also the chugging and whirring of the ship’s engine. A sound that was a mix of grinding gears, belching steam, and burning fluid. It made it seem like the great best that was the Queen of Cumberland was snoring, asleep until the end of the pouring rain.
I sipped idly at my warm, rather bland tea and and gazed out the window. Through the twisting snakes of fog I could make out the shape of an island. This was good. We were approaching the dock.
As we pulled into the terminal, a flock of bedraggled seagulls flapped into the freezing air and a seal dove into the water. I shivered at the thought and inadvertently clutched my shoulders.
I made my way down the stairs and onto the lower deck. It is littered with a few rusty bicycles, as well as a few vulgar, steam-belching clockwork carriages belonging to more wealthy travellers. One of the employees opened the front gate, and I thanked him and trudged onto the dock, a few other passengers by my side. As I made it off the dock and on to a road, the water started to soak through my well-worn leather shoes.
* * * * *
I soon came to a small variety store where I asked for directions. The woman behind the counter directed me to a plaza just past a bookstore up the road. I bought an umbrella to replace the one I had lost at the ferry terminal, winced at the very little money remaining in my pocket, and followed her directions.
Only when I saw a coffee shop did I notice the swelling hunger gnawing at my nerves. I had been on the ferry for quite a few hours, and eaten little of the expensive and horrible food.
The place was warm and rustic and not unpleasant. A giant grandfather clock filled the room with its gentle ticking, and twisting copper pipes on the walls radiated heat. I ordered a hearty bowl of beef soup with some bread from a tired looking teenager and filled my aching stomach.
There was an aura of fear and disorientation about the place. The lives of the people here had just taken a wild turn, and it showed. Everything was still working, but it was on the brink of collapse and panic.
I spent the remainder of the dreary day there, talking to locals and drawing a rough map of the island based on a map nailed to the wall. I would gather information from those I met, especially information regarding the strange goings on at the east side of the island. By the time the coffee shop was closed, I had pages of notes and scribbles. Maybe this trip was going to be worth it after all.
I made my way past the plaza and into the woods, where I camped for the night. My tent was mercifully waterproof, and I managed to suffer minimal insect bites.
* * * * *
When I awoke the rain had subsisted, replaced by a heavy blanket of fog. As I ate a can of disgusting grey “Mystery Meat”, I heard the sputtering rumble of old horseless carriages on the road below. I decided to hitch a ride.
After slipping and sliding my was down the slope, I finally managed to flag down an automobile. It was manned by a rather demure, almost sullen fellow with a young face, but grey hair that suggested he was older than he looked.
“How far are you going?” he asked.
“I’m not entirely sure. I need to get up the mountain, and I would appreciate it if you dropped me off at a convenient place for such as endeavor.” I replied, knowing the mountain was a good vantage point to take pictures of the damage.
Half an hour later, he dropped me off at the side of the road by a path that lead upwards. I thanked him, and began my venture.
There was a sign that said “To Mt. Galiano”, and I followed it. After trekking for a few minutes, I got a strange feeling that something was off. After contemplating for a short time, I realized that it was the absence of birdsong. I blamed it on the recent goings on, and continued.
No, something else was wrong.
A painful blow to the back of my shoulder sent me sprawling. I recovered from the shock in time to roll out of the way of another attack, and scrambled to my feet. What I saw was an unsettling creature that looked like a giant black wolf or bear. Out of its shoulders protruded a writhing mass of tentacles, each ending in a claw, spike, or toothy maw. Where its mouth should have been, there was a disturbing tangle of spines and tendrils.
I whipped out the revolver I keep in my coat and and fired half a dozen shots at the monster, causing it to recoil in shock and pain. It lashed out madly, tearing apart trees with its razor-sharp claws and sending shreds of wood flying in my face. It was all I could do to hastily retreat while I reloaded my gun.
I bolted down a hillside, wincing in pain. An ungodly scream and tree being uprooted just behind my caused my to fumble and trip, putting my in a prone position once again. I pointed my gun at the monster and emptied it, just as it barreled down on me. Black blood-slime sprayed in my face, and its mad eyes bulged before going dull. Its skin tore under the strain of its insanely flailing tentacles, and it rammed into a tree before collapsing in a twitching heap and going still.
A dull throbbing pain in my shoulder reminded me of my injury. I got to my feet, used a cracked hand-mirror from my pocket to examine it, and sighed with relief. It was a simple flesh-wound. Not deep. In a few days, it would be just another scar.
I pulled out my well-used camera and took a few shots of the fallen monster, knowing the newspapers would be all over it. If there was more stuff as good as this - actual creatures from other dimensions - I could retire early.
If I survived.
Chapter II
It was my own cry of agony that woke me. I tried to sit up, but my whole upper body was numb and throbbing with dull pain. It was most acute were the tentacled creature had stuck me. Damn. That spike must have been poisonous.
I could do nothing but wait until the numbness passed, and eventually it did. I used the hand mirror to examine my shirtless back again. The wound had turned grey, and the area around it was deathly pale. There was really nothing I could do but get dressed and eat a breakfast of canned meat.
Yesterday, it had been too foggy to take pictures, but now the fog had been replaced by a light drizzle. Hoping for this, I had camped by near the top, so I could take pictures in the morning. As I looked over the ledge, I saw that what I had come to take pictures of was a sight the behold. Beautiful and terrible.
There was a giant gnarled ring of scorched earth and ruined trees, bathed in green light. The air around the place shimmered and waved, as seen from underwater. When looked at long enough, insubstantial shapes began to manifest, horrible and alien. Even as my head began to spin, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
I took an involuntary step towards it, and opened my eyes wider. The rupture was speaking to me. Calling my closer. Filling my had with whispers. The shapes in the green light became more and more real. More and more …
I snapped out of it and bit my hand hard before I could slip back into the trance. The pain shot up my arm, and a few drops of blood hit the ground. I snapped a few pictures, but realized that photos weren't really sufficient to capture this. Too primitive and grainy. They couldn’t even capture color. Oh well.
I decided that I needed to get a closer look. I couldn’t hitchhike there, as no one would go near the place. I could probably walk there in a day, though. I set off.
* * * * *
A blazing fire filled the air with thick black smoke. It burned the throat and stung the eyes and tore at the lungs. Through the smoke could be seen a dozen dark figures. It wasn't just their clothing that was torn, it was also their skin. Their hideously scarred faces were moving in a deep, disturbing chant, revealing teeth filed to points.
Out of the smoke came the curved figure of a woman. She was beautiful, but imposing, standing more than six feet tall. Her skin was unnaturally pale, and her hair seemed to have a life of its own, moving an twisting and writhing.
She outstretched her hand to one of the men.
In a rough, throaty voice she commanded “come!”.
At first, he tried to step backwards. Tried to escape. She would have none of that.
“Come!” she growled again, her eyes blazing.
This time, his eyes went blank, and he involuntarily lurched towards her. She grabbed his neck, and began a chant of her own. This went on for a few minutes, but then she stopped. She stared into his eyes, glazed with fear and fanaticism. She grabbed his unkempt hair and pulled his head back, exposing his neck. She raked across it with her clawed hand, tearing the life from the man.
He crumpled to the ground, and she licked the blood off her fingers. Above the fire, the smoke started to take shape.
* * * * *
The woman stared at her husband, perplexed and terrified. He was on the floor, on his hands of knees, coughing and squirming and twisting and gurgling. Out of his mouth dripped an oily black fluid, more of which was in a growing puddle below his head. At first there had just been blood, but now there was this dark stuff. She remembered the old stories …
The man lifted his head. Too pale. And shiny with sweat. More of the oily stuff dripped from his mouth and out of his nose and the corners of his eyes.
She bent down to look into his face.
“What’s happening to you?” she breathed.
He rasped and gritted his teeth, peeling back his splitting lips. On each side of his neck there was a set swollen gills.
Chapter III
I emerged from the mountain path into the road gasped. The crippled ruin of a clockwork carriage was up against the shattered trunk of a giant tree, and was the source of a shimmering cloud of black smoke. There was also something that I grimly suspected to be a corpse sandwiched between them. I gulped and walked over to investigate.
The body between the mechanical automation and the tree was not human. Not fully. Its tattered clothing was covered in what looked like claw marks, and its webbed fingers tapered into hook-like black talons. Its face was a disturbing combination of human, amphibian, and fish-like features, and its mouth was sticky with its oily black lifeblood.
There was no corpse in the vehicle, meaning its driver must have walked away from the carnage. I noticed an uneven blood trail leading away from the scene, which confirmed my suspicion. Needing to slake my curiosity, I followed it, and ended up walking down a winding trial on the other side of the road.
The trail and the blood lead me down a hill into a clearing. The place seemed to have been plunged into a grizzly nightmare. Two monsters lay dead on the ground. They were built mostly like humans, but were gaunt and bestial, with pointed features, razor-sharp claws, barbed teeth, a large catlike eyes. Their naked bodies were riddled with bullet holes. A third one stood hunched, eating the clawed body of a man.
No one kills and eats my fellow humans while I’m still breathing.
It whipped around and snarled at the same moment I pulled out my gun. I fired three shots as it dashed across the ground towards me. One connected with the monster’s shoulder, and had the same effect as a bullet going through a sack full of foul-smelling custard.
As the sallow-faced fiend barreled down on me, I shifted my weight to my right foot and then pivoted around. It raked its claw across my face as it went past, before hitting a tree. I took advantage of its all-to-brief disorientation by bludgeoning the back of its head with the handle of my pistol, splattering my hand with yellow.
The monster span around and threw itself at me, and hit my chest hard. It had to bend backwards and fall to avoid a broken rib cage. It dropped to the ground to bite my throat out, but I fired a shot directly upwards, penetrating its naval. The fiend stumbled backwards as I rolled out of the way and got to my feet.
It regained its resolve and prepared to attack me again, but I fired my final two shots, and managed to shred its black heart. It crumpled to the ground hissing.
Before I could enjoy my victory, or examine the corpse, I was gripped by dizziness. My body went numb, and my vision swam. the world went black.
* * * * *
The curse was spreading over Galiano. One by one, the people degenerated into monsters. One by one, the lights went out. One by one, the screams came and were silenced. The people trembled with fear as their friends and families slowly mutated and then turned on them with a vengeance. Tourists barricaded themselves in their vacation homes, but the walls were no real barrier to the island’s new dominant species. A rolling black fog shrouded the island, snuffing out flames and chilling the soul. Within an hour, the eerie fish men outnumbered the humans.
The succubus Grelenna - standing in a in a circle of followers in a parched clearing - grinned. Everything was working out perfectly. She took wing and ascended into the sky.
* * * * *
I lay cramped and throbbing on what felt like a table. Tried to move, but realized I was paralyzed.
“Well, he did manage to take on a ghoul,” a voice said. It was deep and gravelly, but not unkind.
“I don’t care! He’s dangerous!” another voice responded from the other direction. This one was female.
“Why does it matter? We are the only ones with the antidote. He’ll do what we say if he knows what’s good for him.” A third voice commented, male but rather shrill and parched.
“I know, but what if he doesn't know what’s good for him? We can’t know what demented vista of the human mind he might have fell into,” the female voice reasoned.
“Not until we take off the bloody bag and talk to him!” said the first voice.
“Here, you hold him,” the shrill voice instructed, and my arms were gripped, not that it was necessary.
I twitched, and the female voice said, “He’s awake!”
“Good,” said the deep voice.
I felt something sharp dig briefly into my wrist, and much of the cramping and numbness passed. Then, something else penetrated me, and my limbs felt as heavy as lead.
One of the pairs of hands let go and pulled off the sack.
Chapter IV
I looked around to see that I was not strapped to a table, but the hood of a steam-powered vehicle. A fire somewhere off to the side cut through the darkness, illuminating the figures of two men and a woman, looking down at me.
“Who the hell are you? Unstrap me. I want my gun,” I growled, the first words I had uttered in more than a day. I was cold, hungry, and too weak to move: not in a good mood.
“Ooooh … Look! He’s got spirit!” the woman chuckled.
“It wasn't nice of you to ‘medicate’ him like that.” said one of the men, this one taller. “You are way too eager to plunge your needles into human flesh.”
“Just standard procedure,” the shorter man growled in a voice like parched sand.
“Listen,” I rasped. “You had better have a good explanation for this. Unstrap me now!”
“I’m afraid we have to bind you,” the taller man said, unstrapping me and then tying my hands behind my back. “The poison coursing through your veins will soon send you into a state of psychotic dementia. When this occurs, if you are unrestrained, we may be forced to waste ammunition.
“Now, tell us about you’re day.”
“Sure. Why not?” I snarled.
* * * * *
Gahenna wasn't fond of deep ones, as the carnivorous fish men were called. They stank like dead flesh mixed with seaweed, and were ugly, and completely lacking in style. She had to put up with them, she knew. They were an unpleasant side effect of the portal. She supposed that something could be done about them, but it wasn't really worth the time and effort.
She looked down from her clifftop perch over a gang of them - about half a dozen - shambling clumsily over the beach towards the sea. Gahenna knew she didn’t have time, but she gave in to the temptation and swooped down towards them.
In a blur of flailing claws, tearing flesh, and spurting black slime, three of the deep ones were dispatched. The remaining three scattered in opposite directions. Gahenna, in a state of euphoric glee, pounced on the nearest one, knocking it to the ground.
She dug her claws underneath the monster’s spine, and then pulled savagely upwards, tearing the spine from its writhing body.
Something watched all this from the water. Something very old. It was not pleased to see its children slaughtered. It watched, annoyed, as the succubus killed yet another deep one, tearing out its throat. It wondered who dared to do such a thing, especially near the water.
It decided to do something.
Gahenna, poised like a feral cat on top of the bleeding body of a fish man, looked up in terror.
* * * * *
I explained to them everything that had happened since I arrived on the island. The worried locals, my encounter with the tentacled wolf-monster that left me poisoned, the way I had been hypnotized by the sight of the distant rift, my later coming down from the mountain to encounter an ape-like monster eating the corpse of a man, and finally the fight with it, which I barley walked out of alive.
They were infuriatingly unhelpful, but judging by the way they all looked somber when I mentioned the corpse, they knew the man in life.
“We have a job for you,” the taller man said.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked.
“Well, we are working on the antidote to your … condition,” the woman said. “We can’t promise anything, but if you help us, we may be able to save your miserable little life.”
“So what do you want?” I asked.
“We need you to talk to someone,” she said.
“Why me?”
“Because no one but you is expendable.”
Chapter V
The succubus, poised on the the broken corpse of a deep one, looked up in horror. Above her was a massive black thing, very old and very powerful and very … slow. It was mighty and majestic, but somehow wretched. Almost pathetic. It looked pained.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME!? it demanded. The thing’s words appeared directly in the demon’s mind without bothering to pass through her ears.
“I have been called many things,” the succubus said, refusing to show weakness. “My mother called me Gahenna, but I have also been known as Lilith, Morgan Le Fay, Quarinah ...”
The thing seemed to grow. It towered above her and became an avatar of anger itself. Fury was thik in the air. It assaulted the succubus’s mind and pounded in her chest and made her writhe in agony. She shielded her eyes.
A thick, dark grey mist gathered, and the air stank of gore-tinged seaweed. The massive thing fell upon her, as if to envelop her.
Green thorny tentacles of earth and flesh and spirit erupted from the ground around the demon. They coiled around the entity and began crushing the life from it. Its laboured breaths warped the air itself, causing it to compress and expand in a sporadic, torturous rhythm.
The two beings fought above her, their spirit tendrils interlocking and lashing and crushing. Everything began to warp and come apart and revert to its primal state. Trees shimmered and became the approximation of trees.
She took wing and fled. “Thank you, mother,” she whispered.
* * * * *
The trees here were … odd. They were black and twisted and sharp. They looked like deformed fingers sticking out of the ground, weaving in and out of the low-hanging mist. The smell of wet ash permeated the air, and the ringing in my ears formed otherworldly melodies.
They had told me that the man was impossibly old. That he had a psychic connection with all living things, and that he could see into the future, and other dimensions. Funny how I wouldn’t have believed any of that two days ago.
Suddenly, pain exploded into my head. I clutched my temples, but them lowered my hands when they went numb. Everything swam and then faded to black.
* * * * *
I was in a perfect, rolling green field. Birds were chirping to tunes I almost recognised, the sun was shining, and perfect white clouds rolled across the sky. Something was casting a shadow on me. I looked up and saw a lovely green tree, with perfect red apples in its branches.
I shrugged, grabbed in apple, and took a bite.
It tasted like iron.
I looked down to see that the apple was gushing blood. Instead of seeds, there were human teeth. I dropped it in horror.
My hand was also stained with blood. In an attempt to clean it, I wiped it on the tree, but it came apart like ash. Now my whole arm was crumbling into grey powder. I had just enough time to scream before turning to dust.