Location: Bemidji Normal School Dorms
Date: 1920s
Jacob Bale’s shortcoming in life, he had decided, was that his prodigious knowledge was not in any meaningful way counterbalanced by ability. From childhood, he had a marked tendency to pick up a subject – say, cooking – and simply absorb the facts surrounding it. Then, laden with wisdom, he would venture forward and nothing would materialize. He knew the secret béarnaise recipe of the most snobbish French chefs (1/2 tsp of Russian “dragon’s herb” mixed with the finer-grain French tarragon), yet he ate the same meal nearly every day of his life: whatever was cheap, easy, and nearby.
And now, he reflected bitterly, this abortive tendency had stained every important facet of his life. Three years ago, when asked what he wanted to do, he had shrugged and asked if there were any more skill tests he might take to find an answer. There were not. On paper, Jacob would be an excellent politician, lumberjack, attorney, horse breeder, FBI agent, or accountant; each of which was more impossible than the next due to his paralyzing inability to speak in public, paralyzing tendency to get demoralizing slivers, paralyzing dislike of actual living animals, etc. etc. His mother had used the money they’d gotten from the government to make sure that Jacob had a first-hand view of a wide variety of possible careers; but outdoors he tended to find unusual allergies, when moving indoors he demonstrated a remarkable capacity for spraining his ankle and quitting, and when confined to a completely stationary position he became terribly listless within ten minutes.
And so, confounded by opportunity, he had not chosen a career. There seemed to be nothing left to do but further schooling until he developed some kind of aptitude, so his mother obtained application papers for ivory towers across the country. Filling out the application papers was difficult, however, so Jacob taught himself how to read palms until only one deadline remained unbroken. Then he decided that Minnesota was too cold a state to live in, and threw the last application away. Somehow, everything would have worked out -- except that his mother chose this time to check in on the application process and, long story short, ended up furiously holding Jacob down in a chair until the paperwork was complete.
And so he found himself in Bemidji, a worthlessly cold piece of nowhere, preparing to become a teacher, as that was the curriculum they happened to offer there. And that had defined the last three years of his life. That wasn’t what he was unhappily reflecting upon, however, nor the reason why he had turned his gaze briefly inwards to discover this pattern within himself. After all, he might not like Bemidji, but he might not like somewhere else, either: might as well be here as anywhere.
No, what was upsetting him today was women. Not any particular women, nor even any unknown women, just the vague general concept of “women.” He knew all about them, of course; at least, as much as any man can know. He was up-to-date on how to treat them, knew which rules of chivalry had survived to the 20th century and which ones had not, had heard nearly two dozen different theories from other students about how to demonstrate attentiveness, and was painfully aware of all the other salient details. And, just to be prepared, he had even ransacked the library for a little-used medical textbook -- which contained facts of its own.
Irritably, he slammed the book shut. He had, of course, checked it out so as not to be seen reading it in the library, and probably should have returned it a week ago. But why bother returning it? For all the good it was doing him, it clearly was worthless and might as well be removed from circulation. As the resident expert on women, it simply wasn’t right that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually spoken to one. It was infuriating. All it would take would be for one girl to notice his superiority, and the rest would be by-the-book. “By-the-book” being a general sort of phrase, meaning routine or planned; not, you know, the medical book in front of him. Not that it would be, I mean, when men and women are together, it’s the natural thing, but that’s not really the type of, well, not at first anyway, unless she wanted to, of course. That he would be good at; he’d listened both to the whispered stories and to the obnoxious bragging and felt he knew just what to do. Stupid book.
In a rare fit of inspiration, he decided it was worth returning the book. Or, if not “worth” returning the book; at least he might as well do that as anything. Graduation wasn’t all that far away, and he knew he was going to leave this place as alone as when he’d entered it. “Accomplishment” was overrated – his father had been a tremendous doer of deeds but, for all that, wound up simply disappearing in the “Great War” anyways – but a lady friend still seemed like an accomplishment worth having. But it didn’t matter. Girls didn’t recognize his knowledge, so nothing would come of it. Just like carpentry. It was really the fault of all those birds that the birdhouse kept killing them. He had followed the instructions perfectly. Maybe if that hammer had been more like the ones he’d learned about… well, what was past was passed.
Wrapped in dark thoughts, and surrounded by an even darker night, Jacob walked right past the library and continued going beyond the limits of campus and into town. When he realized his mistake, he probably would have begun thinking about how the map of campus had inadequately prepared him for actual navigation, but he never had the chance. A path had been cleared in the road for Bemidji’s few dozen cars, and horses had long-since packed the snow down into ice. The rising temperatures of the last few days had left the top of the ice sleek and treacherous. Before he had grasped what was happening, he had fallen onto his back and lay dazedly staring at the infinite black of the night sky.
“Laws!” he heard someone exclaim, which was shortly followed by footsteps, then by a much more muted “oh.” His view of the stars was interrupted by the silhouette of a face above him. “I think this is yours, sir,” he heard, as the young lady handed him his textbook. “Are you hurt?”
The textbook, of course, had by ill fate opened to a page that some might consider incriminating. Of course, it was only facts. And it was too dark to see anything but the vaguest of shapes. Surely, no one who was not already familiar with the illustrations would be… “I take it you’re to be,” she hesitated, “a doctor, then?” Damnation.
“Well, yes,” he said, as he blushed and scrambled to his feet, “and that’s an important book. So.” He didn’t know where to go with this thought. “So, that is that. And there’s no need to mention anything about it…” Oops. This was the wrong track. “about me falling. To… other doctors… students. Doctor-students. I’ll thank you to remain discrete.”
Unexpectedly, she giggled. “You talk real funny! I’m Amanda, but Pa calls me Mandy.”
Mentally, he noted her obvious mistake: ‘Mandy’ would not be an appropriate form of address if he wished to show respect. She should know that. “I am Mr. Jacob Bale. I am a student. You are, Miss…?”
There was a silence from Mandy: puzzlement, perhaps, or hesitation. Just then, a break in the clouds lit the streets with a shaft of moonlight. She was prettier than he had imagined, with red cheeks even in the comparatively warm night. Her hat featured large dog-like ear flaps; he’d never cared for those hats before, but suddenly felt he may have not given them their due. The effect of the ridiculous flaps was simultaneously one of both bitter winter hardiness and child-like innocence. It was over for him: he was smitten.
“Miss Swenson,” she finally answered, “Pa and me work the big farm between the Jensons and the Yerbiches. I was just out here to pick up…”
“Miss Swenson,” he interrupted, “would you like to have dinner with me next week?” He felt his face stick in place while every other part of his body melted backwards towards an increasingly distant point and his mind closed in on a few closely-linked thoughts. What had he just done? He was doing it! What was he doing? Did he really just…?
Miss Swenson, on the other hand, underwent an entirely different kind of change. Her face lit up before splitting into a big grin that somehow made her eyes larger than they had just been previously. “Stars! I’ve never really spoken with a doctor before, uh, student doctor. I mean, I don’t really talk to anyone. On the farm I mostly just talk with Pa. But that’s, I mean, I’d love to! I don’t have anything to wear, but maybe I can make something real pretty.” She put her hands to her mouth, suddenly frightened. She did not wear gloves, and they were clearly the hands of someone born and raised on a farm – but also the hands of a real-live woman and that was more important. “But… you wouldn’t kid, would you?”
“Not a bit of it, my dear lady.” That sounded about right. “I’ll pick you up Friday, at four o’clock sharp.”
“Oh, such the gentleman!” Backing up slowly, she began dragging the heel of her right foot, leaving a broken rut in the hard-packed snow of the road. As Jacob watched, confused, she made three sharp kicks, gouging the ground with her heel. “This here is Movil, and this is Little Turtle, and you’ll find me and Pa at the farm right here!”
“Then, Miss Swenson, I eagerly await the honor.”
She cast her eyes down bashfully. “Mr. Bale.” The clouds, now tired of their adopted obliging nature, suddenly covered up the moon and thrust them both into darkness. Jacob stood a moment in darkness, wondering if he should say anything else. When his eyes began to adjust, he could no longer make out her shape in the night. He couldn’t remember what he’d learned about ending conversations of this sort, and he wasn’t about to start talking to someone who might not even be there anymore; the best course was simply to disappear silently, himself, and he stepped lightly back towards campus, away from the silent, possibly-empty street.
Jacob felt ill. Some was a curiously pleasant nausea – he couldn’t believe what had just happened, and was pleased at how well he’d followed the patterns. Some of his expertise must have been lost on the girl, she was clearly country stock and fundamentally uncivilized. Still, no master of the art could have found fault with his adherence to the form. Which, tragically, led to the other type of queasiness threatening to overwhelm him: “I’ll pick you up?” What was he thinking? He was a student, and neither had horses nor knew anyone who would be likely to put their team on loan to an inexperienced driver. And to show up with someone else holding the reins? Unless it were clearly a servant, it simply couldn’t be done.
Still, he’d done the best anyone could ask. It was a relief to finally have a chance to exercise his research. Stubbornly forbidding himself to think about what he was doing or why, he hurried past the library without returning the book.
The next few days followed a set pattern. In the morning, he woke from a restless sleep and skipped classes to continue his list of people who might have horses he could access. After lunch, he would contact the one or two or zero people he’d thought of, and would be sent away empty-handed. On the worst day, he walked all the way to the Stone farm – relatives of a former roommate – and wasn’t able to get back home until well after nightfall, and all for nothing. The evening, on the days time remained, was spent reading cookbooks. He simply hadn’t the money to take her anywhere, but a demonstration of culinary skill was an acceptable gambit in and of itself, so the loss wasn’t too great. He had nowhere to serve food but his dorm room, but a few trips to the library allowed him to decorate in such a way that it actually appeared he might be bound for the medical field. It would have to do.
Getting access to the kitchens would be a problem, so he carefully chose foods that were served cold and planned to break in Thursday night after the cooks had gone home. It was foolproof, and excuses could be made for the lack of transportation. She clearly was used to making the long trip on foot already; while a shame, walking would not be an insupportable burden.
Thursday night came and Jacob was as ready as he could be. He had a few recipes memorized and covertly learned the layout of the kitchens from a former employee. The real gem was going to be the vegetables. A few pounds of fresh produce were brought in once a month for the higher-ups and for honorary ceremonies. By this point in the winter, there was already no price that could be put on a taste that didn’t come from a can. For most people, and certainly for countryfolk, everything was preserved – or freshly slaughtered. A taste of fresh would elevate his status in ways no other trick could.
Slipping out of his room, he was immediately struck by the difficulty in appearing innocent. He was planning on breaking into the kitchens, yes, but for now he was simply walking across campus. No harm in that. Not a common activity for anyone during winter, true, but neither discouraged nor incriminating. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that unseen eyes were following his every step; it was painfully difficult to keep from glancing over his shoulder every few steps. The pools of light spilled by the lamps made him feel exposed, on display; but the darkness in-between was filled with invisible watchers which made him hurry to the next lamppost as quickly as he dared. He felt himself oozing a sinister glow that would proclaim his guilt to anyone whose eye he caught; soon it became as difficult to keep from wiping himself clean as it was to keep from continually looking back over his shoulder. And he’d done nothing wrong yet.
Just as it threatened to become overwhelming, he found himself already at the icy stone steps that led to the underground entrance of the kitchens. He couldn’t remember crossing most of the distance between his room and these steps, but at least he had arrived. It was time to commit the crime he was already paying for, and sinking into the ground was a perverse relief.
The lock, a simple in-door springbolt number, was child’s play to pick. It was one of the few things learned from books that wasn’t too difficult to apply, not that it suggested any reputable careers for Jacob. The door was doubly-thick and pulled back with the weight and momentousness of a freezer door. It was almost surprising that the air was warmer once he’d slipped inside and let it settle behind him, sealing the kitchens off from the outside world.
Jacob licked his lips, briefly overwhelmed by the reality of his situation. It was frighteningly easy: he had made choices and was having something like an adventure. Would it always have been that easy? An unfamiliar urge to reflect hovered on the edge of his mind, but it was hardly the time for self-evaluation. He licked his lips again, wicking the cold from them. Speed would be his only virtue tonight.
The kitchens were not totally dark, which was a blessing. Had they been completely lightless, he had no backup plan. He had entered in next to the monstrous machine that somehow cleaned dishes, and needed to move in deeper to get to the food. He knew that the kitchens were laid out something like a honeycomb, with a large series of interconnecting cells, all white tiled and carefully organized. The map in his mind told him to exit the room via the entryway to the right, but the smell of fresh bread from the left lured him away from the dishes and into a room lined with wire racks and perhaps a hundred delicious-looking loaves. This wasn’t part of his plan, but it certainly was best not to look a gift horse in the loaf, such as it was. He grabbed one and slipped it into his bag, finding something curiously satisfying in the heavy, crusty sound it made landing in the bottom.
It was marginally lighter ahead, and that more than anything compelled Jacob to continue moving forward instead of going back to follow his original plan and raid the vegetables. The next room was filled with serving and mixing bowls, and several bins with spatulas, graters, and other miscellaneous tools. One thing didn’t fit, however: in the corner by one of the far doors was a wooden barrel. He told himself it was likely only for seating, but curiosity compelled him to cross the room and pull up the lid. Perhaps only Aladdin in the deepest caves could explain the feeling that drove him, but Aladdin was never so richly rewarded with treasure. The barrel was full of apples. Real apples, delivered fresh from heaven-only-knew what sunny land far, far from this winterlocked town. He quickly grabbed two, then another two, before a sound made him freeze: something was terribly wrong.
After a breathless moment, he lowered the lid and looked directly into the next room. He hadn’t noticed it in his haste, but that room was even lighter: there was a lantern burning very low on the immaculately cleaned countertop. The floor was a jumble of drawers and tangled utensils: various sizes of forks and spoons lay scattered, and the gaping holes in the counter screamed that violence had been done as their drawers were ripped free. There were no knives on the ground, however: those were lined up on top of the countertop. Butter knives, steak knives, filleting knives, butcher knives: every kind of knife gathered from throughout the kitchens lay neatly arranged, each a precisely-measured distance from each of its neighbors, carefully spaced with a mathematician’s rigor by the Dean of the school -- who was standing next to the lamp, staring at Jacob Bale with fury in his eyes.
Butcher's Den (Part I)
You know, I'm not from around here, but I've heard quite a few stories that make me glad of that fact. I've been traveling the states, trying to see the world in all its glory. I spent some years up in Washington State; they say the Bigfoot lives up there. 'course, there's also folks up in Maine claiming to have seen a Bigfoot. I call it balderdash. Bigfoot's just a legend, just like those Dakota jackrabbits with them antlers. Jackalopes, that's what they called 'em. Everywhere I go, everyone's got their stories, their fantastical creatures they're just too damned excited to show off to visitors. Things're just the same here in Bemidji, hell, this one traces everywhere across the map. They've got Paul Bunyan in Akeley, in Brainerd, in Michigan, Wisconsin, hell, they've even got him up in Maine. I bet him 'nd Bigfoot are the best of friends.
Most stories you hear of that giant come off as mere folklore. As another tourist attraction set up to keep the money flowing. I know the difference; but Paul's a different story for some other story teller. Bemidji's got the giant with no axe, but they'll never tell you why. But that's not all that this city's got. Like I'd been saying; I've traveled a fair few miles, but rare are the occasions that I land upon such a city as this.
Many believe that it began solely as a logging town, but this is only partially true. There are those amongst the town's population, and those outside as well, that tell tales of quite a different beginning for this young town. Not many take their words for fact. Alcohol sure is a nice quick way to take and break one's reputation amongst their fellow neighbors. Most blame their families or swindling wives on their misery, others raise their glass to failed business, but there are some that take a drink to save their sanity.
Bemidji used to be a lumberjack's town. Felling trees and hauling cut timber about had been the everyman's method to earning a buck for flapjacks and candlewax. That's what we've been told at least. Back then there used to be a small band of no good crooked cops holding on to the Western ideal of Justice. Hell, y'couldn't even consider 'em cops back then, too civilized of a word for those folks.
These guys had it in their minds to blame troubles on nearby indians. They figured it'd be a good way to relieve the stress of never getting any tale in these godforsaken woods. At first it had just began as scare tactics. Any time they'd have time away from work a band of 'em would get together and go out 'n hunt some indian; all too similar to western films we have today, yet all the more malicious, malevolent and down right disturbing.
Early into their so-called 'expressive' activities, a native would show up to the post-office or what was in a poor attempt to be an infirm beaten and bruised. Bones would be broken and blood covered their chests, and those around the town began to catch on. The men would become hassled, they had thought others may have had the same sentiments towards the indians. They were forced underground by the town. Quite literally an underground series of rooms slowly took shape north of the river on the lakeside. An old beaver's den became the place of torture. The inside was gutted and reinforced. No one noticed from the town, no signs showed above the ground.One man began to live within those walls. Those men began to bring back their captives, to force them underneath and bring about their personal forms of punishment.
The man living below was known simply as Jon. To those brought below he was the hellbringer, the devil on earth. His eyes had gone to adjust to the swallowing dark beneath the earth. Those that looked into his eyes had seen a being soul-less. He was blind, but knew the body well. The earth deadened the screams coming from below. The town and its people had very little connections with those natives that surrounded them. Hardly any had grown to discover what lay under their very feet.
For years it went on. Those victims still fit to walk would be released back to their tribes; a sign to show that they were not wanted. The town had slowly begun to forget those men who had shown up bruised and beaten, believing it only to have been a small blip within their history. Yet underneath it thrived. Men and women would enter, and for days they would be starved; held in captivity. Jon would pick a victim, pick his tools, and pick away at the flesh that held in what should only come loose in war or accident. Skulls would be scalped and salted. Screams would bring joyous laughter to Jon and those with enough stomach to watch. Bones would break and heal to be broken once more. Blood stained the ground and would be washed away through the entrance to the lake. Reeds and weeds flourished outside the old beaver's den and few knew why. The town continued to expand across the lakeshore, and soon the school was under construction.
Many of those who previously hunted for the indians began to give up. They'd grown old with age and had lost what thrill had come from taking another's life; in making them suffer. No one has yet to discover the entrance to the den, so few even know of its existence, even fewer go out in search. Those that have heard believe the spirits of those who's lives had been taken still linger beneath. Jon the Butcher has a stone in the graveyard, dying the day the he lived underground. To this day, those near the shore may still hear a faint scream, or even still, some may hear that faint laughter that pierces further than the coldest of nights.
Most stories you hear of that giant come off as mere folklore. As another tourist attraction set up to keep the money flowing. I know the difference; but Paul's a different story for some other story teller. Bemidji's got the giant with no axe, but they'll never tell you why. But that's not all that this city's got. Like I'd been saying; I've traveled a fair few miles, but rare are the occasions that I land upon such a city as this.
Many believe that it began solely as a logging town, but this is only partially true. There are those amongst the town's population, and those outside as well, that tell tales of quite a different beginning for this young town. Not many take their words for fact. Alcohol sure is a nice quick way to take and break one's reputation amongst their fellow neighbors. Most blame their families or swindling wives on their misery, others raise their glass to failed business, but there are some that take a drink to save their sanity.
Bemidji used to be a lumberjack's town. Felling trees and hauling cut timber about had been the everyman's method to earning a buck for flapjacks and candlewax. That's what we've been told at least. Back then there used to be a small band of no good crooked cops holding on to the Western ideal of Justice. Hell, y'couldn't even consider 'em cops back then, too civilized of a word for those folks.
These guys had it in their minds to blame troubles on nearby indians. They figured it'd be a good way to relieve the stress of never getting any tale in these godforsaken woods. At first it had just began as scare tactics. Any time they'd have time away from work a band of 'em would get together and go out 'n hunt some indian; all too similar to western films we have today, yet all the more malicious, malevolent and down right disturbing.
Early into their so-called 'expressive' activities, a native would show up to the post-office or what was in a poor attempt to be an infirm beaten and bruised. Bones would be broken and blood covered their chests, and those around the town began to catch on. The men would become hassled, they had thought others may have had the same sentiments towards the indians. They were forced underground by the town. Quite literally an underground series of rooms slowly took shape north of the river on the lakeside. An old beaver's den became the place of torture. The inside was gutted and reinforced. No one noticed from the town, no signs showed above the ground.One man began to live within those walls. Those men began to bring back their captives, to force them underneath and bring about their personal forms of punishment.
The man living below was known simply as Jon. To those brought below he was the hellbringer, the devil on earth. His eyes had gone to adjust to the swallowing dark beneath the earth. Those that looked into his eyes had seen a being soul-less. He was blind, but knew the body well. The earth deadened the screams coming from below. The town and its people had very little connections with those natives that surrounded them. Hardly any had grown to discover what lay under their very feet.
For years it went on. Those victims still fit to walk would be released back to their tribes; a sign to show that they were not wanted. The town had slowly begun to forget those men who had shown up bruised and beaten, believing it only to have been a small blip within their history. Yet underneath it thrived. Men and women would enter, and for days they would be starved; held in captivity. Jon would pick a victim, pick his tools, and pick away at the flesh that held in what should only come loose in war or accident. Skulls would be scalped and salted. Screams would bring joyous laughter to Jon and those with enough stomach to watch. Bones would break and heal to be broken once more. Blood stained the ground and would be washed away through the entrance to the lake. Reeds and weeds flourished outside the old beaver's den and few knew why. The town continued to expand across the lakeshore, and soon the school was under construction.
Many of those who previously hunted for the indians began to give up. They'd grown old with age and had lost what thrill had come from taking another's life; in making them suffer. No one has yet to discover the entrance to the den, so few even know of its existence, even fewer go out in search. Those that have heard believe the spirits of those who's lives had been taken still linger beneath. Jon the Butcher has a stone in the graveyard, dying the day the he lived underground. To this day, those near the shore may still hear a faint scream, or even still, some may hear that faint laughter that pierces further than the coldest of nights.
Those Damn Kids
Jack stared at the piece of paper. He had been staring at it since the lady behind the counter took his picture and handed him the yellow carbon-copy. Seven minutes had now passed, and the other people at the DMV were getting annoyed with him. This was the most important thing to happen in Jack’s life and he wanted to savor it. Although this piece of paper didn’t explicitly grant his freedom, it may as well have. He could do whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted, so long as he called his mother and she said it was okay––or she didn’t know about it.
Jack pulled out his cellphone and called his girlfriend. “Want to head out to the old Lake Julia TB Sanitarium tonight? I just got my driver’s license.” Jack was hoping he could finish the conversation before he got to the minivan where his mother had been waiting. He didn’t want her to know what he was up to.
“Congrats on passing the test. What time will you be at my house?” Gina replied.
“My parents go to bed at eleven, so I’ll be in the alley at 11:30,” Jack said, hanging the cell up as he approached the minivan. “I had to tell Gina the good news,” he told his mother as he got into the passenger’s seat – not what he wanted, but his mother wasn’t quite ready to let go.
He waited until his parents were asleep, climbed out of his window, put the car into neutral and started pushing it down the block. He waited until he was four houses away to start the car. He pulled up to the alley behind Gina’s house at 11:30 and flashed his lights. Gina flicked her bedroom lights on and off. He went over to the garage and carefully moved the ladder out from behind it and stood it up against her window. He took off of his mittens and climbed up the ladder. He took his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and picked the lock that her parents had placed on the outside of her window. Once it was open, they climbed down the ladder and got into the car.
The drive north passed in silence. They had been planning this trip since their first date when they snuck in to watch Friday the 13th at the Amigo last month. It had been a cold March and they were both glad. During the warmer months, the owner of the property had guard dogs that would chase anyone that hopped the fence. In the winter, it was too cold for them and he kept them inside, leaving the place unprotected for anyone that wanted to go exploring.
They pulled up to where Gina’s older brother had directed them, killed the engine and hopped the fence. Their feet crunched on the snow as they waded up to the abandoned building, a little louder than what Jack expected, but he figured that the recent cold snap could have caused it. “After you, dear lady,” Jack said as he opened the door for Gina, hoping his humor would be able to hide how scared he truly was.
Gina’s older brother had been telling her stories about this place for years. She loved horror movies and scary things. Jack, on the other hand, couldn’t stand anything of that nature and made sure he spent as much time as possible in the bathroom whenever they went to the movies.
“Mike told me that they used to take the people up to the top floor to get a view of the lake before they died. He said that over 200 people died in that room. We need to get up there.” Jack shined his flashlight around and pointed at the stairs in the far corner of the room, regretting it as he did so; but he didn’t want to seem like a sissy in front of his girlfriend.
The building was creepy, but not scary. They made their way up the floors until they reached the base of the last staircase. The hairs on Jack’s neck pressed hard against his coat. “Wait,” Jack said, “I don’t think I can go up these stairs.”
“You aren’t scared, are you?” said Gina, elbowing him in the ribs.
“I’m serious,” Jack said, his voice shaking and his color going.
“It’s okay if you are afraid; we don’t have to go to the top floor,” said Gina as she took his hand in hers. “We only have to do what you are comfortable with. I was just giving you a hard time before.”
With her hand in his, Jack felt that he could walk to the bottom of Hell. He told himself that it was just an old building that people had died in. Just like the hospital, only without all of the bright lights. Jack swallowed hard as he started up the stairs. Gina followed him up the stairs not knowing what to think.
They walked to the edge of the building up to where they used to take the dying people for their last sight of beauty before death. The window had been sold off by the owner years ago, and they could feel the cold wind against their faces. It was beautiful. They could see the entire lake by the light of the almost full moon. They stood there for nearly ten minutes, just looking at the scenery. Suddenly, Gina bent over and began to shake violently, bumping Jack in the progress. He stumbled backward as he caught himself and fell backwards against the rotting boards, hitting his head. Gina stopped her convulsions after a moment, and began to stand back up, twitching slightly as she did it. “Are you alright?” Gina asked, as she rushed over and bent down beside him.
“I think so, but we should probably go home now,” Jack said, rubbing the back of his head.
“Not quite yet,” Gina said, standing up. “There is something else I need to show you.” She put her put her fingers inside of her mouth as if to whistle, and tore her jaw away from the rest of her body. Jack screamed as he was showered in the spray of her warm blood. He jumped to his feet and started making his way to the stairs. He needed to get somewhere where he got reception so he could call an ambulance.
“What is wrong with you?” he yelled at her from across the room. Without her jaw impeding it, her tongue seemed to grow to enormous proportions and flailed in all directions. Gina lunged at him. Perhaps the police should be the ones he should be calling, Jack thought. He dodged and got out his pocketknife. Not the best weapon he could hope for, but it was better than nothing. She went for him again, her blood spraying everywhere. He chanced a quick motion with his blade and left her right nostril hanging from a flap. She let out a hideous moan and retreated, planning her next attack, flailing her arms and tongue, spitting blood everywhere.
Jack thought he saw a light come on in the woods some distance away. Hopefully the owner was coming and could help him with whatever had happened to Gina. He didn’t want to kill her but thought that he might be left with no choice. He was going to try to knock her out and drive her to the hospital, calling an ambulance if he needed to. “I am not going to be able to carry her down these stairs, so I guess I will have to lure her nearer to the car.” Jack said to himself.
As though she could hear his thoughts, Gina dove across the room and stood in front of the staircase, deliberately blocking the only exit. She bent down and took out an old rusty knife from her right boot. She raised the knife to her nose and cut the left nostril to match the right. She then drove the knife into her chest, tracing the lines between her ribs. Jack bent over and began to vomit blood onto the staircase. While Jack was bent over, Gina charged at him and jammed her knife into his shoulder. Jack collapsed to the ground in pain and she delivered a hard kick to the back of his head.
While Jack was unconscious, Gina took a matchbook out of her pocket and lit it, and tossed it across the room. She bent down and licked Jack’s face with her gruesome tongue. The far wall was now ablaze. She used the knife as a prybar to break Jack’s ribcage open. She cut the connections with the trachea and removed his lungs. Now that she had collected her prize, she began walking down the stairs, the flames spreading across the floor.
Amanda came over and nosed him in the leg. She let out a whine and looked expectantly at the window. “What girl? You can’t go on a walk now,” said Enos, following her to the window and seeing the old sanitarium. “No one is ever in there anymore. I’m just going to the bathroom. After that, we both can go back to bed and enjoy the rest of the night, unless I need to get up again.” Amanda whined again and pawed at the window before jumping out of it. Enos had no time for the bathroom anymore. Instead he moved to the door, put on his coat and boots, and headed out of the door towards the lake, relieving himself as he went.
By the time Enos got out of the front door and around to the back of the house, he could see flames licking the roof of the sanitarium. There was a small shape pacing in front of the flames. “Those damn kids,” Enos said to himself as he walked to his pickup.
He parked next to Jack’s mom’s minivan and walked towards the building. The old structure collapsed when he was about 15 feet away, causing him to stumble backwards into a snowbank. Amanda was unfazed by the collapse and remained at the base of the structure, growling, her teeth bared. “Easy girl,” Enos said, pulling out his cellphone. “Cursed technology,” Enos mumbled as he fumbled with the locking feature and began dialing 911. He was so busy with the phone that he didn’t see a burning body rise up out of the building’s remains. It grabbed Amanda by the neck and snapped it, leaving the dog limp and motionless on the ground.
Then, the figure turned, looked at Enos, and paused before using her skeletal hands to pull the remaining skin off of her bones. The creature bent down and picked up two lumps of meat from the ground and carried them into the woods. The phone call finally went through, but all the person on the other end heard was the sound of Enos collapsing in the snow.
Jack pulled out his cellphone and called his girlfriend. “Want to head out to the old Lake Julia TB Sanitarium tonight? I just got my driver’s license.” Jack was hoping he could finish the conversation before he got to the minivan where his mother had been waiting. He didn’t want her to know what he was up to.
“Congrats on passing the test. What time will you be at my house?” Gina replied.
“My parents go to bed at eleven, so I’ll be in the alley at 11:30,” Jack said, hanging the cell up as he approached the minivan. “I had to tell Gina the good news,” he told his mother as he got into the passenger’s seat – not what he wanted, but his mother wasn’t quite ready to let go.
He waited until his parents were asleep, climbed out of his window, put the car into neutral and started pushing it down the block. He waited until he was four houses away to start the car. He pulled up to the alley behind Gina’s house at 11:30 and flashed his lights. Gina flicked her bedroom lights on and off. He went over to the garage and carefully moved the ladder out from behind it and stood it up against her window. He took off of his mittens and climbed up the ladder. He took his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and picked the lock that her parents had placed on the outside of her window. Once it was open, they climbed down the ladder and got into the car.
The drive north passed in silence. They had been planning this trip since their first date when they snuck in to watch Friday the 13th at the Amigo last month. It had been a cold March and they were both glad. During the warmer months, the owner of the property had guard dogs that would chase anyone that hopped the fence. In the winter, it was too cold for them and he kept them inside, leaving the place unprotected for anyone that wanted to go exploring.
They pulled up to where Gina’s older brother had directed them, killed the engine and hopped the fence. Their feet crunched on the snow as they waded up to the abandoned building, a little louder than what Jack expected, but he figured that the recent cold snap could have caused it. “After you, dear lady,” Jack said as he opened the door for Gina, hoping his humor would be able to hide how scared he truly was.
Gina’s older brother had been telling her stories about this place for years. She loved horror movies and scary things. Jack, on the other hand, couldn’t stand anything of that nature and made sure he spent as much time as possible in the bathroom whenever they went to the movies.
“Mike told me that they used to take the people up to the top floor to get a view of the lake before they died. He said that over 200 people died in that room. We need to get up there.” Jack shined his flashlight around and pointed at the stairs in the far corner of the room, regretting it as he did so; but he didn’t want to seem like a sissy in front of his girlfriend.
The building was creepy, but not scary. They made their way up the floors until they reached the base of the last staircase. The hairs on Jack’s neck pressed hard against his coat. “Wait,” Jack said, “I don’t think I can go up these stairs.”
“You aren’t scared, are you?” said Gina, elbowing him in the ribs.
“I’m serious,” Jack said, his voice shaking and his color going.
“It’s okay if you are afraid; we don’t have to go to the top floor,” said Gina as she took his hand in hers. “We only have to do what you are comfortable with. I was just giving you a hard time before.”
With her hand in his, Jack felt that he could walk to the bottom of Hell. He told himself that it was just an old building that people had died in. Just like the hospital, only without all of the bright lights. Jack swallowed hard as he started up the stairs. Gina followed him up the stairs not knowing what to think.
They walked to the edge of the building up to where they used to take the dying people for their last sight of beauty before death. The window had been sold off by the owner years ago, and they could feel the cold wind against their faces. It was beautiful. They could see the entire lake by the light of the almost full moon. They stood there for nearly ten minutes, just looking at the scenery. Suddenly, Gina bent over and began to shake violently, bumping Jack in the progress. He stumbled backward as he caught himself and fell backwards against the rotting boards, hitting his head. Gina stopped her convulsions after a moment, and began to stand back up, twitching slightly as she did it. “Are you alright?” Gina asked, as she rushed over and bent down beside him.
“I think so, but we should probably go home now,” Jack said, rubbing the back of his head.
“Not quite yet,” Gina said, standing up. “There is something else I need to show you.” She put her put her fingers inside of her mouth as if to whistle, and tore her jaw away from the rest of her body. Jack screamed as he was showered in the spray of her warm blood. He jumped to his feet and started making his way to the stairs. He needed to get somewhere where he got reception so he could call an ambulance.
“What is wrong with you?” he yelled at her from across the room. Without her jaw impeding it, her tongue seemed to grow to enormous proportions and flailed in all directions. Gina lunged at him. Perhaps the police should be the ones he should be calling, Jack thought. He dodged and got out his pocketknife. Not the best weapon he could hope for, but it was better than nothing. She went for him again, her blood spraying everywhere. He chanced a quick motion with his blade and left her right nostril hanging from a flap. She let out a hideous moan and retreated, planning her next attack, flailing her arms and tongue, spitting blood everywhere.
Jack thought he saw a light come on in the woods some distance away. Hopefully the owner was coming and could help him with whatever had happened to Gina. He didn’t want to kill her but thought that he might be left with no choice. He was going to try to knock her out and drive her to the hospital, calling an ambulance if he needed to. “I am not going to be able to carry her down these stairs, so I guess I will have to lure her nearer to the car.” Jack said to himself.
As though she could hear his thoughts, Gina dove across the room and stood in front of the staircase, deliberately blocking the only exit. She bent down and took out an old rusty knife from her right boot. She raised the knife to her nose and cut the left nostril to match the right. She then drove the knife into her chest, tracing the lines between her ribs. Jack bent over and began to vomit blood onto the staircase. While Jack was bent over, Gina charged at him and jammed her knife into his shoulder. Jack collapsed to the ground in pain and she delivered a hard kick to the back of his head.
While Jack was unconscious, Gina took a matchbook out of her pocket and lit it, and tossed it across the room. She bent down and licked Jack’s face with her gruesome tongue. The far wall was now ablaze. She used the knife as a prybar to break Jack’s ribcage open. She cut the connections with the trachea and removed his lungs. Now that she had collected her prize, she began walking down the stairs, the flames spreading across the floor.
* * *
Enos looked at the clock. It was 3:30 AM, again. This was the ninth morning in a row he had not slept the night through. On his trek to the bathroom, he thought about calling Dr. Peterson in the morning and scheduling an appointment to have him check his prostate. These early morning rises were starting to get to him.Amanda came over and nosed him in the leg. She let out a whine and looked expectantly at the window. “What girl? You can’t go on a walk now,” said Enos, following her to the window and seeing the old sanitarium. “No one is ever in there anymore. I’m just going to the bathroom. After that, we both can go back to bed and enjoy the rest of the night, unless I need to get up again.” Amanda whined again and pawed at the window before jumping out of it. Enos had no time for the bathroom anymore. Instead he moved to the door, put on his coat and boots, and headed out of the door towards the lake, relieving himself as he went.
By the time Enos got out of the front door and around to the back of the house, he could see flames licking the roof of the sanitarium. There was a small shape pacing in front of the flames. “Those damn kids,” Enos said to himself as he walked to his pickup.
He parked next to Jack’s mom’s minivan and walked towards the building. The old structure collapsed when he was about 15 feet away, causing him to stumble backwards into a snowbank. Amanda was unfazed by the collapse and remained at the base of the structure, growling, her teeth bared. “Easy girl,” Enos said, pulling out his cellphone. “Cursed technology,” Enos mumbled as he fumbled with the locking feature and began dialing 911. He was so busy with the phone that he didn’t see a burning body rise up out of the building’s remains. It grabbed Amanda by the neck and snapped it, leaving the dog limp and motionless on the ground.
Then, the figure turned, looked at Enos, and paused before using her skeletal hands to pull the remaining skin off of her bones. The creature bent down and picked up two lumps of meat from the ground and carried them into the woods. The phone call finally went through, but all the person on the other end heard was the sound of Enos collapsing in the snow.
Paul
I’ve stood here for ages, much longer than the current population gives me credit for. They look up at me in amusement, not caring how such a prodigiously sized figure came to be here. It seems a natural human instinct to mentally gloss over things that can’t, logically, be explained. At least, not with normal logic. It all seems infernally logical to me…
Anyway, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to think as I stood here observing the frolic and pause of time. Mostly I think about women. Sexy women, plain women. Little girls with dollies and old women with great grandchildren. I enjoy the play of light on their skin - not that they expose much flesh in a climate like this. Even so, the golden September sunshine caressing the vibrant scarlet leaves of a maple reminds me of a sanguine fountain dribbling on coppery flesh. It’s the colors that get me.
. . .
I remember walking through the forest. It was a much different forest than the one that I was used to. Before I was surrounded by vast oceans of bamboo and inundated with the lusty calls of musk deer, counterpointed by the deep trumpet of an elephant. I was worshipped there. The simple people of the land would throw their virgins and courtesans at my feet when I came through a village. Some of the people are more cultured and civilized than the rest. These found meaningless deaths after they convinced themselves that they could and should withstand my blade. Idiots.
But, that kind of absolute power can become indescribably dull after a few centuries. Or so I thought. I went looking for new places, new challenges. It seems incredibly trite, now, to think how stricken I was with such a “the grass is always greener” mentality. Over the years I’ve seen so many youngsters suffer this same flight of fancy. They leave, searching for opportunity and real life beyond the borders of their current understanding. They usually return once they realize that there is nothing better out there. Those that don’t return sometimes visit so they can refresh a smug sense of superiority. But I digress. Forgive me. One does like to milk a thought when one has nothing but time to kill.
I left my former home and traveled in a random direction for an arbitrary amount of time. That is how I came to this brand new kind of forest. At first I was fascinated by the new shapes, smells, and textures, but that didn’t last long. I was searching for a challenge and nothing is more challenging than humans. They have the most delightful superiority complex.
A new type of people existed in this clime, a quaint hunter-gatherer sort of people. They seemed absolutely precious to me. I have seen large cats toying with small prey and I’ve always found it so wonderfully amusing. That is how I started with this people, playfully. I would catch a small one out by itself and sneak it into the communal stew pot. Or, tempt it with sweets and berries until it could be induced to slit another’s throat. All in good fun. Eventually, I grew tired of this. I started demanding tribute and, at first, they gave it to me willingly. I still remember the first.
She came to me with giant, stupid calf eyes, willing to do whatever I bade. Her hair was long, well past her waist, and had a distinctive, healthy black sheen. It was the same color of the black glass made inside volcanoes and just as silken. It glinted in the light. I told her to spin and I watched it float through the air. I told her to lie on the grass and I stroked it until it became oily with my sweat. This dulled it considerably so I moved on to her skin. It was almost as silken as her hair. All except for her hands; they were the hands of a woman who has scraped deer hide and woven blankets. They were rough and unbecoming of her. I removed them and tossed them aside. This freed her glorious, warm blood and I let it spurt onto my chest and run down my body. She was lovely; she sated me for two days before I needed another.
The next was very young. She was perfectly innocent and still had a sweet childish lisp. I had her sing to me and we played with the red squirrels. I whispered to her for days and taught her such amusing games before I sent her home to her people. Women have a much deeper capacity to influence their social groups than men.
I was just getting a taste for this beautiful, new population when they sent me an old woman. She was very small, I remember that. Her hands were painfully crooked and she limped. Her breath stank. This little, shriveled person bespoke age and infirmity in every detail, enough to make me forget myself. These people were so fascinating and simple that I was lulled into an illusion of security. I forgot what else may come with age besides a crooked back.
This old woman did not have a name. She also did not have a pleasant voice, but I asked her to sing to me. I did not pay attention to the words; I was too intrigued by the wispy rise and fall of her tones. The reedy, gasping high notes and the toad-like lows. When old women sing, you can here the regret of their youth and the labor of their middle years. They weave in experience and embroider with the silvery ghost of forgotten laughter. It is beautiful to realize that you don’t have to feel the pain that they felt. I was completely swept away. She completely transfixed me before I could realize that it was in more than the metaphoric sense.
. . .
The current group of “natives” have progressed past simply ignoring me and have turned me into a kind of folk hero. They have an entire mythos built around me and I have even heard that likenesses of myself have been erected in other places. I guess they thought I looked lonely because I now have a cerulean companion that they have integrated into my story. I don’t mind; it opens up completely new possibilities for the time when I finally can stop watching and act. Over the years I have watched the populations shift around me. New colors and shapes pass by, but I can’t touch; I can’t command. But, I can still whisper.
Anyway, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to think as I stood here observing the frolic and pause of time. Mostly I think about women. Sexy women, plain women. Little girls with dollies and old women with great grandchildren. I enjoy the play of light on their skin - not that they expose much flesh in a climate like this. Even so, the golden September sunshine caressing the vibrant scarlet leaves of a maple reminds me of a sanguine fountain dribbling on coppery flesh. It’s the colors that get me.
. . .
I remember walking through the forest. It was a much different forest than the one that I was used to. Before I was surrounded by vast oceans of bamboo and inundated with the lusty calls of musk deer, counterpointed by the deep trumpet of an elephant. I was worshipped there. The simple people of the land would throw their virgins and courtesans at my feet when I came through a village. Some of the people are more cultured and civilized than the rest. These found meaningless deaths after they convinced themselves that they could and should withstand my blade. Idiots.
But, that kind of absolute power can become indescribably dull after a few centuries. Or so I thought. I went looking for new places, new challenges. It seems incredibly trite, now, to think how stricken I was with such a “the grass is always greener” mentality. Over the years I’ve seen so many youngsters suffer this same flight of fancy. They leave, searching for opportunity and real life beyond the borders of their current understanding. They usually return once they realize that there is nothing better out there. Those that don’t return sometimes visit so they can refresh a smug sense of superiority. But I digress. Forgive me. One does like to milk a thought when one has nothing but time to kill.
I left my former home and traveled in a random direction for an arbitrary amount of time. That is how I came to this brand new kind of forest. At first I was fascinated by the new shapes, smells, and textures, but that didn’t last long. I was searching for a challenge and nothing is more challenging than humans. They have the most delightful superiority complex.
A new type of people existed in this clime, a quaint hunter-gatherer sort of people. They seemed absolutely precious to me. I have seen large cats toying with small prey and I’ve always found it so wonderfully amusing. That is how I started with this people, playfully. I would catch a small one out by itself and sneak it into the communal stew pot. Or, tempt it with sweets and berries until it could be induced to slit another’s throat. All in good fun. Eventually, I grew tired of this. I started demanding tribute and, at first, they gave it to me willingly. I still remember the first.
She came to me with giant, stupid calf eyes, willing to do whatever I bade. Her hair was long, well past her waist, and had a distinctive, healthy black sheen. It was the same color of the black glass made inside volcanoes and just as silken. It glinted in the light. I told her to spin and I watched it float through the air. I told her to lie on the grass and I stroked it until it became oily with my sweat. This dulled it considerably so I moved on to her skin. It was almost as silken as her hair. All except for her hands; they were the hands of a woman who has scraped deer hide and woven blankets. They were rough and unbecoming of her. I removed them and tossed them aside. This freed her glorious, warm blood and I let it spurt onto my chest and run down my body. She was lovely; she sated me for two days before I needed another.
The next was very young. She was perfectly innocent and still had a sweet childish lisp. I had her sing to me and we played with the red squirrels. I whispered to her for days and taught her such amusing games before I sent her home to her people. Women have a much deeper capacity to influence their social groups than men.
I was just getting a taste for this beautiful, new population when they sent me an old woman. She was very small, I remember that. Her hands were painfully crooked and she limped. Her breath stank. This little, shriveled person bespoke age and infirmity in every detail, enough to make me forget myself. These people were so fascinating and simple that I was lulled into an illusion of security. I forgot what else may come with age besides a crooked back.
This old woman did not have a name. She also did not have a pleasant voice, but I asked her to sing to me. I did not pay attention to the words; I was too intrigued by the wispy rise and fall of her tones. The reedy, gasping high notes and the toad-like lows. When old women sing, you can here the regret of their youth and the labor of their middle years. They weave in experience and embroider with the silvery ghost of forgotten laughter. It is beautiful to realize that you don’t have to feel the pain that they felt. I was completely swept away. She completely transfixed me before I could realize that it was in more than the metaphoric sense.
. . .
The current group of “natives” have progressed past simply ignoring me and have turned me into a kind of folk hero. They have an entire mythos built around me and I have even heard that likenesses of myself have been erected in other places. I guess they thought I looked lonely because I now have a cerulean companion that they have integrated into my story. I don’t mind; it opens up completely new possibilities for the time when I finally can stop watching and act. Over the years I have watched the populations shift around me. New colors and shapes pass by, but I can’t touch; I can’t command. But, I can still whisper.
Of Things Seen and Heard
I am come into the presence of an angel, and from him I hear the Truth.
My name is Peter Swenson, but my ancestors in Sweden were called Swedberg. They arrived in Minnesota four generations back when it was still the Dakota territories, and we Swenson men have worked the farm ever since. Now, however, I do not know what will become of it, because I am the only son of my father, who died when I was fifteen, and there will be no Swensons after me. Since I have seen and heard, I have renounced all sexual desire.
The angel tells me not to worry; the farm does not need to be looked after because the land will never again bear fruit for a harvest. I know it will not, because what the angel reveals to me I know to be the Truth.
My mother home-schooled me so that I would not be corrupted by those Godless liberals who teach in the Bemidji area schools. As my family attends a country church, I had never been to town before my father died. Since, I have gone to Fleet or Ace as is necessary. I've learned people don't much like me, and I don't much like them.
A week ago the angel told me my mother would die.
But I am not alone in the world. I have a sister. Faith is older than me and went to school in town before our mother decided it was a bad thing, and took her out. She was always rebellious and our mother says she'll go to Hell, but I like to see her on the few occasions of her visits.
The angel agrees with my mother, but only on that. The angel disapproves of my mother. The angel says she is a hypocrite. The angel criticizes that Mother always says what God wants, but God has never spoken to her.
The day she turned eighteen, Faith married a half-Native and moved out. Then it was just me and mother – until the angel joined us.
I feel like I should tell Faith about Mother, but the angel tells me not to. The angel explains that if I tell her, Faith will call the police, and I do not want to spend my last days in jail.
So I sign checks with Mother's name on them until the money runs out and the phone service is dropped. And soon the angel is joined by another. And they take me up in their arms and bear me away with them.
We journey to Heaven where everything is perfect, ordered, and motionless. The people there are hermaphroditic; the vagina is between their buttocks and the penis is out front, and they are all coupled and coupled, one to another. The chains of people are hung thusly in long lines, which when viewed from a distance are great coils, which in turn form even greater tori and spheres. All are perfect and joined. I am told that through their sexual organs they share thought, so knowing everything in each other's minds, as well as your right brain knows your left. They all think together as a single consciousness, all composed and complicit and one. In the center is the largest, perfect and most immutable sphere. And in between the chains that form it you can see the Christ. And all that see Him cannot help but worship.
Hell is continuous with Heaven. As the angels bear me away from the inhabitants at the pristine center, there is movement within the lines of bodies. Desire causes an undulation; the sexual organs begin to chafe and grind against each other. The farther from Christ and the central sphere, the more violent the thrusting becomes, until the bodies collide and fall away with unrelenting force. As the gyrations become still more uncontrolled, the penises slip out of their intended sheathes and the people become disconnected in thought as well as body. They cease to know one another and become increasingly separate, isolated. Here the people's wombs become impregnated and they incubate new souls to be borne into the world in pain. The souls come out adult and huge, ripping through the flesh of the people's backside, breaking the bones of the hips and clawing their entry into the world. Angels await to shepherd these souls to inhabit newly borne babes on Earth; and because lust and desire continue on Earth, it continues in the afterlife, ever increasing the number of babies borne into woe and torment.
Farther and farther from Christ and the central perfect unity of soul, the men become afraid of the torment of childbirth and so flee from one another. In doing so this increases their solitude and desire, and so their Hell. All try to rape and not to be raped, to chase and not to be caught. Their penises forever dripping semen and their vaginas forever dripping blood. Forever in turmoil and isolation, overcome by lust and despair.
It is among these I see my mother. The angels take me to her. She hides and cowers, yet still reaches out to grasp the ankle of the man running by. She leaps on him as prey, only to have him throw her off, exposing her to the gluttony of the man nearest at hand.
The angels show me, and then they shield my eyes and lead me away.
* * *
Faith dropped by today. I tried to keep her out, only opening the kitchen door a crack, but she forced it wide and pushed past me.
“Is Mom here?” she asked. “God, what's that smell?”
I shook my head.
“It smells like a dead rat. You should check the traps, Peter.” Faith rested one hand on her stomach which bulged out beneath her tube top. She had grown fat about the torso and hips. Her arms, conversely, seemed more stick-like than ever.
“Where is she? Out back? Her car's still here.”
“She's down at the church; Marjean came down to pick her up – quilting or something.” Faith didn't notice that one of the angels had followed her into the room from outside. It stalked silently forward and towered over her. “What are you doing here, Faith?”
“Nice to see you too, brother.” Faith eyed the dishes that had mounted up. It hadn't been my job to wash them before, and I wasn't planning on starting. My sister sighed and sat down. “There's something I have to tell her – well, you both. I can wait.” Faith rubbed her grossly bulging stomach.
“She just left. It might be a while.”
“Shit.”
“You shouldn't curse like that.”
Faith rolled her eyes up at me. “I don't know how you can take it, Pete; that woman telling you what to do and who to be.” A second angel had entered the room without my noticing, and now it stood to Faith's left.
“It's fine, Faith. I would miss her if she weren't here. You know I don't get on well with other people. The criticisms are a small price to pay for –” I watched as a third angel entered from the hall. “– companionship.”
Faith smiled weakly and took my hand which hung near her. I let her have it for a minute, and then extracted it and took a step back. I didn't like the way I felt when she touched me.
“God!” Faith swore, standing up. “The smell keeps getting worse. I thought I would get used to it, but it just won't go away. You should really check the traps, Pete.”
“I will. Why don't you go now, Faith – and come back tomorrow when Mom's here. By then I'll have the smell figured out.” I counted on Faith not coming back. Before when she'd visit, all she'd do was fight with Mother for a few hours; then we wouldn't hear from her for months. With or without Mother, this time would be no different. She needed to go now, because by this time the room was absolutely filled with angels. They filed in through every possible entry and stood silently facing my sister. I knew they were angels and not to be afraid of them, but I will admit that it unnerved me all the same.
Faith turned to the door, but then turned back to me. She was holding with both arms onto that repulsive vastness of her abdomen. Her expression seemed at once introspective and wistful. “I love you, Pete,” she said. And then she came up to me and stood on tip-toe to hug me. And I felt her breasts, her giant breasts, which had seemed to have grown still larger since the last time I had seen her. They pressed up against my chest, embracing me. My neck and cheeks flushed; they aroused me – my own sister was arousing me! I opened my eyes, then, and saw the angels – scores pressed around us, in greater number than I had ever seen before. It was just as it had been the last time.... But no! I thought. I don't want to see Faith in that Hell – that Hell of rape and lust – but the angels crowded in suffocating us. And I couldn't breathe; I could only fulfill.
“Likeness makes for unity.”
-- Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell
My name is Peter Swenson, but my ancestors in Sweden were called Swedberg. They arrived in Minnesota four generations back when it was still the Dakota territories, and we Swenson men have worked the farm ever since. Now, however, I do not know what will become of it, because I am the only son of my father, who died when I was fifteen, and there will be no Swensons after me. Since I have seen and heard, I have renounced all sexual desire.
The angel tells me not to worry; the farm does not need to be looked after because the land will never again bear fruit for a harvest. I know it will not, because what the angel reveals to me I know to be the Truth.
My mother home-schooled me so that I would not be corrupted by those Godless liberals who teach in the Bemidji area schools. As my family attends a country church, I had never been to town before my father died. Since, I have gone to Fleet or Ace as is necessary. I've learned people don't much like me, and I don't much like them.
A week ago the angel told me my mother would die.
But I am not alone in the world. I have a sister. Faith is older than me and went to school in town before our mother decided it was a bad thing, and took her out. She was always rebellious and our mother says she'll go to Hell, but I like to see her on the few occasions of her visits.
The angel agrees with my mother, but only on that. The angel disapproves of my mother. The angel says she is a hypocrite. The angel criticizes that Mother always says what God wants, but God has never spoken to her.
The day she turned eighteen, Faith married a half-Native and moved out. Then it was just me and mother – until the angel joined us.
I feel like I should tell Faith about Mother, but the angel tells me not to. The angel explains that if I tell her, Faith will call the police, and I do not want to spend my last days in jail.
So I sign checks with Mother's name on them until the money runs out and the phone service is dropped. And soon the angel is joined by another. And they take me up in their arms and bear me away with them.
We journey to Heaven where everything is perfect, ordered, and motionless. The people there are hermaphroditic; the vagina is between their buttocks and the penis is out front, and they are all coupled and coupled, one to another. The chains of people are hung thusly in long lines, which when viewed from a distance are great coils, which in turn form even greater tori and spheres. All are perfect and joined. I am told that through their sexual organs they share thought, so knowing everything in each other's minds, as well as your right brain knows your left. They all think together as a single consciousness, all composed and complicit and one. In the center is the largest, perfect and most immutable sphere. And in between the chains that form it you can see the Christ. And all that see Him cannot help but worship.
Hell is continuous with Heaven. As the angels bear me away from the inhabitants at the pristine center, there is movement within the lines of bodies. Desire causes an undulation; the sexual organs begin to chafe and grind against each other. The farther from Christ and the central sphere, the more violent the thrusting becomes, until the bodies collide and fall away with unrelenting force. As the gyrations become still more uncontrolled, the penises slip out of their intended sheathes and the people become disconnected in thought as well as body. They cease to know one another and become increasingly separate, isolated. Here the people's wombs become impregnated and they incubate new souls to be borne into the world in pain. The souls come out adult and huge, ripping through the flesh of the people's backside, breaking the bones of the hips and clawing their entry into the world. Angels await to shepherd these souls to inhabit newly borne babes on Earth; and because lust and desire continue on Earth, it continues in the afterlife, ever increasing the number of babies borne into woe and torment.
Farther and farther from Christ and the central perfect unity of soul, the men become afraid of the torment of childbirth and so flee from one another. In doing so this increases their solitude and desire, and so their Hell. All try to rape and not to be raped, to chase and not to be caught. Their penises forever dripping semen and their vaginas forever dripping blood. Forever in turmoil and isolation, overcome by lust and despair.
It is among these I see my mother. The angels take me to her. She hides and cowers, yet still reaches out to grasp the ankle of the man running by. She leaps on him as prey, only to have him throw her off, exposing her to the gluttony of the man nearest at hand.
The angels show me, and then they shield my eyes and lead me away.
* * *
Faith dropped by today. I tried to keep her out, only opening the kitchen door a crack, but she forced it wide and pushed past me.
“Is Mom here?” she asked. “God, what's that smell?”
I shook my head.
“It smells like a dead rat. You should check the traps, Peter.” Faith rested one hand on her stomach which bulged out beneath her tube top. She had grown fat about the torso and hips. Her arms, conversely, seemed more stick-like than ever.
“Where is she? Out back? Her car's still here.”
“She's down at the church; Marjean came down to pick her up – quilting or something.” Faith didn't notice that one of the angels had followed her into the room from outside. It stalked silently forward and towered over her. “What are you doing here, Faith?”
“Nice to see you too, brother.” Faith eyed the dishes that had mounted up. It hadn't been my job to wash them before, and I wasn't planning on starting. My sister sighed and sat down. “There's something I have to tell her – well, you both. I can wait.” Faith rubbed her grossly bulging stomach.
“She just left. It might be a while.”
“Shit.”
“You shouldn't curse like that.”
Faith rolled her eyes up at me. “I don't know how you can take it, Pete; that woman telling you what to do and who to be.” A second angel had entered the room without my noticing, and now it stood to Faith's left.
“It's fine, Faith. I would miss her if she weren't here. You know I don't get on well with other people. The criticisms are a small price to pay for –” I watched as a third angel entered from the hall. “– companionship.”
Faith smiled weakly and took my hand which hung near her. I let her have it for a minute, and then extracted it and took a step back. I didn't like the way I felt when she touched me.
“God!” Faith swore, standing up. “The smell keeps getting worse. I thought I would get used to it, but it just won't go away. You should really check the traps, Pete.”
“I will. Why don't you go now, Faith – and come back tomorrow when Mom's here. By then I'll have the smell figured out.” I counted on Faith not coming back. Before when she'd visit, all she'd do was fight with Mother for a few hours; then we wouldn't hear from her for months. With or without Mother, this time would be no different. She needed to go now, because by this time the room was absolutely filled with angels. They filed in through every possible entry and stood silently facing my sister. I knew they were angels and not to be afraid of them, but I will admit that it unnerved me all the same.
Faith turned to the door, but then turned back to me. She was holding with both arms onto that repulsive vastness of her abdomen. Her expression seemed at once introspective and wistful. “I love you, Pete,” she said. And then she came up to me and stood on tip-toe to hug me. And I felt her breasts, her giant breasts, which had seemed to have grown still larger since the last time I had seen her. They pressed up against my chest, embracing me. My neck and cheeks flushed; they aroused me – my own sister was arousing me! I opened my eyes, then, and saw the angels – scores pressed around us, in greater number than I had ever seen before. It was just as it had been the last time.... But no! I thought. I don't want to see Faith in that Hell – that Hell of rape and lust – but the angels crowded in suffocating us. And I couldn't breathe; I could only fulfill.
“Likeness makes for unity.”
-- Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell
A Beginning
Bemidji Normal School, later renamed Bemidji State University. 1920s. Room 310.
The Dean, a sniveling little waste of human being, blocked their path momentarily. “Before you go in,” he whined, “I’d like to warn you…” The police unceremoniously moved him to the side and proceeded into room 310.
“Christ in Heaven!”
Sergeant Francis Anderson ran a hand through his hair, knocking his hat to the ground without noticing. The three officers with him seemed equally shocked by the tableau before them. The other Anderson, Mark, looked like he was going to be sick.
The room was laid out like any of several dozen others at the new Bemidji Normal School. The entrance was on the lowest level, along with a sturdy wooden table and a wide blackboard. Seating for the students was arranged in ascending tiers, so one rose in elevation as one moved further from the front. There were six rows, and perhaps 50 wooden desks. The layout was thoroughly modern, and was often touted by the admissions department when recruiting in high schools. Of course, Anderson had often thought, most high school students had long ago realized the benefits of neither seeing, nor being seen by, a teacher; he knew he certainly had when he was that age. This new way? No privacy for the really interesting parts of education.
Also, this particular room would make a particularly poor advertisement for the school: the bodies of seven students were propped upright in their desks, looks of hideous concentration set in their faces and nearly impossible amounts of dried blood pouring in a frozen cascade from the edges of their desks. The room smelled of metal and chalk, but not yet of death. That would come soon enough.
The weedy little Dean broke the silence, “As you can see, officers…” God – was there a note of smugness in his voice?
Mark Anderson interrupted him quickly, his voice sounding unnaturally deep and hollow. “Where’s your bathroom? I.” He stopped after “I,” and simply stood quietly while waiting for a response.
“All the way to the end of the hall, on the left.” The Dean responded. Anderson fled the room. Normally, Sergeant Anderson would have gotten on his case about leaving without being dismissed, but decided to let it pass for now. There was no relation between the two men, and few enough personal characteristics shared. Yet, still, the rookie’s mistakes all too often reflected on the sergeant; people subconsciously assumed that because they shared a name, they should be judged together. The sergeant realized it, and normally rode the other man hard because of it. Still, today was different; Francis wanted to show no department weakness in front of the miserable little university man; and, besides, he would have already excused himself if he weren’t the highest-ranking man in the room.
“All right. Boys, I want you to split up and start looking for anything… unusual.” Anderson kicked himself mentally. Anything unusual. Right. “Sir, when we spoke on the phone, you said there were nine casualties. I see seven.”
The policemen looked at each other nervously, neither wanting to be the first to enter the raised desks. The chalkboard was reasonably well-lit with an overhead spotlight, but the desks fell into darkness quickly. Even the light seemed reluctant to have anything to do with the macabre scene above it.
“The eighth is in the top row, but he’s fallen from his desk. A boy. Matthew Cormic. Sophomore. You’ll see him when you go up. The ninth is, regrettably, Professor Tvin himself. He’s right behind you.”
Anderson turned and swore to himself. The corpse of a man in his early-50s was huddled in the corner, near the door. Apparently, they’d all been standing amongst evidence this whole time, and the Dean had gone to no trouble of letting them know. “Almost as if he wanted to surprise us, just like this,” Anderson thought, before dismissing the thought as beneath him. No one was that ghoulish.
Mark, the rookie, chose that moment to barrel through the door. He took one look around him, and fled the room again. “A weak stomach may be one thing,” the sergeant thought to himself, “but I’ll need to remind him about public professionalism again. Makes us all look bad.”
“Sir,” a small voice came from the darkened desks. “Sir, I’ve found the… Matthew. He’s like the rest.”
“Good work. Don’t touch him or move him in any way. The camera guys should be here in the next five minutes.” Anderson had no idea why they weren’t here already, but he’d be damned if he was going to show his annoyance to anyone. Unprofessional, that’s what they all were. Time was, the uniform alone would bring out the best in anyone who put it on.
“Yeah. I won’t, sir. Perhaps you should come take a look here.” The voice sounded even smaller, despite its unexpectedly insubordinate message. No one told Francis Anderson what to do on his own crime scene. Still, it was something he did need to do, and a part of this job that he suddenly realized he had been hoping would somehow pass him by.
There were only two girls, and one was sitting in the first row. Without conscious thought, Anderson positioned himself as firmly within the light as possible while he examined her body. Her skin was sickeningly white and strangely waxy, and she appeared to have shriveled from the inside, just like the others. Her arms showed deep gashes near the veins, and her desk was covered with blood. A small triangle was poking up towards the top of the desk; taking a deep breath, he grabbed it and lifted. As he suspected, it was the corner of a buried piece of paper. It held together only for a second, causing the gel that had covered it to roll sickeningly onto itself; then the saturated scrap fell apart in his hands. Careful work would be needed to see if anything useful was hidden there, but he doubted it. Whatever was on the paper would be irrecoverable by now.
Just that week, the police department had busted up a large bootlegging operation that was providing liquor to a few of the more notorious establishments in town. For the first time in his career on the force, Sergeant Anderson was tempted to misuse his position. Alcohol was the only logical response to seeing something like this; and the police station now had most of the town’s supply locked up as evidence.
The other Anderson burst through the door a second time, interrupting his thoughts and causing him to jump back from the blood-smeared desk. This time, he couldn’t hold himself in check: “Damnit, rookie! Show some common sense when you enter a crime scene!” He had more to say on the matter, or at least his nervous tension was capable of coming up with more to say, but the look on the younger man’s face stopped him. Mark looked completely and utterly stunned, more confused than any man Francis had seen before in his life. He stared at the younger man for nearly ten full seconds before Mark began speaking.
“Sorry, Sergeant. I got. I got turned around looking for the bathroom. I got… I’m sorry, Sergeant. I got turned around.” He was actually turning green, something that Francis had thought was just an expression. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back. End of the hall, right? To the left?” When the Dean nodded, Mark backed out of the room very slowly and disappeared around the corner.
“So this is how the men in blue are trained, then?”
Curse that man! “These are strange circumstances, sir. I would appreciate it if you remained silent while we investigate.”
“Of course, officer.” The whining tone had vanished from his voice; now it was almost more like a malevolent purr. His calmness was his source of superiority over the other men; now that he had found it, his enjoyment apparently superseded the horror of the situation. “If I am no longer needed, I will take my leave.”
Another voice came from above. “Sir, I think you should see this, too.”
There was no avoiding it, now. It was time to enter the darkness and investigate the higher levels of the room. At least the police were alone, now. Whatever emotions they showed would be kept in trust; it was part of the code of the men of the force.
Just as Anderson drew level with the second voice, the first police officer appeared to join them. The three of them were like an island of life in this cursed room. One of them swore quietly, and it inexplicably seemed to pick up an echo.
The student in front of them was a boy who had probably been of average physical appearance and below-average stature. He was chalk-white and grotesquely wrinkled with desiccation, like the rest. The chief difference was that there was only one gash in his arm, and it was terribly wide. He had died quickly, and the carpet below him had generously opened wide to accept his life’s blood. It squished horribly as the men moved closer. “My God, do you think they all..?”
This boy’s desk, instead of being a pool like the rest, was covered in fine lines of blood, forming a spider’s lattice of thin red marks. Anderson swallowed hard before trying to speak, but he couldn’t tell if he actually spoke the words or merely heard them in his head: “He was taking notes.” With an internal twisting and a surge of bile, Anderson found himself watching the whole scene before him. A roomful of students diligently focused on… something… by the chalkboard. With rapt attention, they each dipped their quills into their arms, pulling up thick, ropey strands of red ink. Soundlessly, they took line after line of careful notes, moving to their desks when they ran out of paper; and, when they ran out of desk, moving back to the top of the desk and beginning again until their writing ran together and became an unreadable mess. They wrote up until the end, dropping dead one by one until only a few students remained, moving their quills uselessly in the sticky red sheet in front of them.
Anderson tried to focus in on the chalkboard, but his eyes kept slipping away until they settled on the door. The rookie Anderson entered again, breaking the illusion and returning Francis to the moment. Mark looked around, seemingly oblivious to the three men standing above him. Then, he vomited.
“Jesus, Mark,” one of the other policemen started to say, but Mark looked up with dark, glassy eyes. He held his gaze for a few moments, then slowly walked out of the room.
“Sergeant?” someone said. It sounded far away.
“Okay, a few things come to mind. First, he’s getting a desk job.” One man laughed weakly. The other remained silent. “Right now, our priority is to get a full class list. This room would not be used for an archaeology class of nine. We need to figure out where the other students are, if they’re okay, and if they know anything.”
Mark walked in the room again, briefly, then turned and left. Anderson chose to ignore him.
“When that’s done, we need to figure out what they were doing here. The wounds seem self-inflicted, and – well – it looks like they were writing something.” His ears felt hot. His words sounded stupid in his head. This whole thing was impossible. Someone interrupted him before he could say anything else crazy.
“Yeah, I guess this could be some kind of writing, but I don’t…”
“You can’t read it because there’s four, maybe five lines written in the same place. We’ll need to tease out individual letters; there’s a cryptologist I know who might be able to help.” And where the hell, he thought, was his camera crew?
A silence fell over the room. Anderson found himself looking around at the bodies surrounding him, almost as if he expected one to turn around and politely let him know what to do. He knew he had more to say to his men, but his thoughts were scattered. He suddenly found it very hard to focus.
“Okay, Sergeant. I can see writing here, now. But there’s almost no letters. It’s more like algebra. Some huge algebra problem. What kind of class did you say this was, again?”
Mark had entered again, and he looked like death. This thought struck Anderson as very funny; here he was, surrounded by the metal-stink of blood, and one of the four living humans here reminded him of death? That was funny. He realized he’d just said something out loud, but couldn’t remember what it was. Now Mark was saying something, and he might be crying. Unprofessional. The men next to him were shouting now; he wished they’d stop.
“No, no, no!” Mark was yelling. “Just listen! I have been through every – single – door in this hallway!”
That was stupid. Sergeant Anderson began to fall backwards, dimly aware that he was likely to crash into something hard – maybe a student. Before his head hit the desk, he wondered if other towns had to put up with this kind of crap.
The Dean, a sniveling little waste of human being, blocked their path momentarily. “Before you go in,” he whined, “I’d like to warn you…” The police unceremoniously moved him to the side and proceeded into room 310.
“Christ in Heaven!”
Sergeant Francis Anderson ran a hand through his hair, knocking his hat to the ground without noticing. The three officers with him seemed equally shocked by the tableau before them. The other Anderson, Mark, looked like he was going to be sick.
The room was laid out like any of several dozen others at the new Bemidji Normal School. The entrance was on the lowest level, along with a sturdy wooden table and a wide blackboard. Seating for the students was arranged in ascending tiers, so one rose in elevation as one moved further from the front. There were six rows, and perhaps 50 wooden desks. The layout was thoroughly modern, and was often touted by the admissions department when recruiting in high schools. Of course, Anderson had often thought, most high school students had long ago realized the benefits of neither seeing, nor being seen by, a teacher; he knew he certainly had when he was that age. This new way? No privacy for the really interesting parts of education.
Also, this particular room would make a particularly poor advertisement for the school: the bodies of seven students were propped upright in their desks, looks of hideous concentration set in their faces and nearly impossible amounts of dried blood pouring in a frozen cascade from the edges of their desks. The room smelled of metal and chalk, but not yet of death. That would come soon enough.
The weedy little Dean broke the silence, “As you can see, officers…” God – was there a note of smugness in his voice?
Mark Anderson interrupted him quickly, his voice sounding unnaturally deep and hollow. “Where’s your bathroom? I.” He stopped after “I,” and simply stood quietly while waiting for a response.
“All the way to the end of the hall, on the left.” The Dean responded. Anderson fled the room. Normally, Sergeant Anderson would have gotten on his case about leaving without being dismissed, but decided to let it pass for now. There was no relation between the two men, and few enough personal characteristics shared. Yet, still, the rookie’s mistakes all too often reflected on the sergeant; people subconsciously assumed that because they shared a name, they should be judged together. The sergeant realized it, and normally rode the other man hard because of it. Still, today was different; Francis wanted to show no department weakness in front of the miserable little university man; and, besides, he would have already excused himself if he weren’t the highest-ranking man in the room.
“All right. Boys, I want you to split up and start looking for anything… unusual.” Anderson kicked himself mentally. Anything unusual. Right. “Sir, when we spoke on the phone, you said there were nine casualties. I see seven.”
The policemen looked at each other nervously, neither wanting to be the first to enter the raised desks. The chalkboard was reasonably well-lit with an overhead spotlight, but the desks fell into darkness quickly. Even the light seemed reluctant to have anything to do with the macabre scene above it.
“The eighth is in the top row, but he’s fallen from his desk. A boy. Matthew Cormic. Sophomore. You’ll see him when you go up. The ninth is, regrettably, Professor Tvin himself. He’s right behind you.”
Anderson turned and swore to himself. The corpse of a man in his early-50s was huddled in the corner, near the door. Apparently, they’d all been standing amongst evidence this whole time, and the Dean had gone to no trouble of letting them know. “Almost as if he wanted to surprise us, just like this,” Anderson thought, before dismissing the thought as beneath him. No one was that ghoulish.
Mark, the rookie, chose that moment to barrel through the door. He took one look around him, and fled the room again. “A weak stomach may be one thing,” the sergeant thought to himself, “but I’ll need to remind him about public professionalism again. Makes us all look bad.”
“Sir,” a small voice came from the darkened desks. “Sir, I’ve found the… Matthew. He’s like the rest.”
“Good work. Don’t touch him or move him in any way. The camera guys should be here in the next five minutes.” Anderson had no idea why they weren’t here already, but he’d be damned if he was going to show his annoyance to anyone. Unprofessional, that’s what they all were. Time was, the uniform alone would bring out the best in anyone who put it on.
“Yeah. I won’t, sir. Perhaps you should come take a look here.” The voice sounded even smaller, despite its unexpectedly insubordinate message. No one told Francis Anderson what to do on his own crime scene. Still, it was something he did need to do, and a part of this job that he suddenly realized he had been hoping would somehow pass him by.
There were only two girls, and one was sitting in the first row. Without conscious thought, Anderson positioned himself as firmly within the light as possible while he examined her body. Her skin was sickeningly white and strangely waxy, and she appeared to have shriveled from the inside, just like the others. Her arms showed deep gashes near the veins, and her desk was covered with blood. A small triangle was poking up towards the top of the desk; taking a deep breath, he grabbed it and lifted. As he suspected, it was the corner of a buried piece of paper. It held together only for a second, causing the gel that had covered it to roll sickeningly onto itself; then the saturated scrap fell apart in his hands. Careful work would be needed to see if anything useful was hidden there, but he doubted it. Whatever was on the paper would be irrecoverable by now.
Just that week, the police department had busted up a large bootlegging operation that was providing liquor to a few of the more notorious establishments in town. For the first time in his career on the force, Sergeant Anderson was tempted to misuse his position. Alcohol was the only logical response to seeing something like this; and the police station now had most of the town’s supply locked up as evidence.
The other Anderson burst through the door a second time, interrupting his thoughts and causing him to jump back from the blood-smeared desk. This time, he couldn’t hold himself in check: “Damnit, rookie! Show some common sense when you enter a crime scene!” He had more to say on the matter, or at least his nervous tension was capable of coming up with more to say, but the look on the younger man’s face stopped him. Mark looked completely and utterly stunned, more confused than any man Francis had seen before in his life. He stared at the younger man for nearly ten full seconds before Mark began speaking.
“Sorry, Sergeant. I got. I got turned around looking for the bathroom. I got… I’m sorry, Sergeant. I got turned around.” He was actually turning green, something that Francis had thought was just an expression. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back. End of the hall, right? To the left?” When the Dean nodded, Mark backed out of the room very slowly and disappeared around the corner.
“So this is how the men in blue are trained, then?”
Curse that man! “These are strange circumstances, sir. I would appreciate it if you remained silent while we investigate.”
“Of course, officer.” The whining tone had vanished from his voice; now it was almost more like a malevolent purr. His calmness was his source of superiority over the other men; now that he had found it, his enjoyment apparently superseded the horror of the situation. “If I am no longer needed, I will take my leave.”
Another voice came from above. “Sir, I think you should see this, too.”
There was no avoiding it, now. It was time to enter the darkness and investigate the higher levels of the room. At least the police were alone, now. Whatever emotions they showed would be kept in trust; it was part of the code of the men of the force.
Just as Anderson drew level with the second voice, the first police officer appeared to join them. The three of them were like an island of life in this cursed room. One of them swore quietly, and it inexplicably seemed to pick up an echo.
The student in front of them was a boy who had probably been of average physical appearance and below-average stature. He was chalk-white and grotesquely wrinkled with desiccation, like the rest. The chief difference was that there was only one gash in his arm, and it was terribly wide. He had died quickly, and the carpet below him had generously opened wide to accept his life’s blood. It squished horribly as the men moved closer. “My God, do you think they all..?”
This boy’s desk, instead of being a pool like the rest, was covered in fine lines of blood, forming a spider’s lattice of thin red marks. Anderson swallowed hard before trying to speak, but he couldn’t tell if he actually spoke the words or merely heard them in his head: “He was taking notes.” With an internal twisting and a surge of bile, Anderson found himself watching the whole scene before him. A roomful of students diligently focused on… something… by the chalkboard. With rapt attention, they each dipped their quills into their arms, pulling up thick, ropey strands of red ink. Soundlessly, they took line after line of careful notes, moving to their desks when they ran out of paper; and, when they ran out of desk, moving back to the top of the desk and beginning again until their writing ran together and became an unreadable mess. They wrote up until the end, dropping dead one by one until only a few students remained, moving their quills uselessly in the sticky red sheet in front of them.
Anderson tried to focus in on the chalkboard, but his eyes kept slipping away until they settled on the door. The rookie Anderson entered again, breaking the illusion and returning Francis to the moment. Mark looked around, seemingly oblivious to the three men standing above him. Then, he vomited.
“Jesus, Mark,” one of the other policemen started to say, but Mark looked up with dark, glassy eyes. He held his gaze for a few moments, then slowly walked out of the room.
“Sergeant?” someone said. It sounded far away.
“Okay, a few things come to mind. First, he’s getting a desk job.” One man laughed weakly. The other remained silent. “Right now, our priority is to get a full class list. This room would not be used for an archaeology class of nine. We need to figure out where the other students are, if they’re okay, and if they know anything.”
Mark walked in the room again, briefly, then turned and left. Anderson chose to ignore him.
“When that’s done, we need to figure out what they were doing here. The wounds seem self-inflicted, and – well – it looks like they were writing something.” His ears felt hot. His words sounded stupid in his head. This whole thing was impossible. Someone interrupted him before he could say anything else crazy.
“Yeah, I guess this could be some kind of writing, but I don’t…”
“You can’t read it because there’s four, maybe five lines written in the same place. We’ll need to tease out individual letters; there’s a cryptologist I know who might be able to help.” And where the hell, he thought, was his camera crew?
A silence fell over the room. Anderson found himself looking around at the bodies surrounding him, almost as if he expected one to turn around and politely let him know what to do. He knew he had more to say to his men, but his thoughts were scattered. He suddenly found it very hard to focus.
“Okay, Sergeant. I can see writing here, now. But there’s almost no letters. It’s more like algebra. Some huge algebra problem. What kind of class did you say this was, again?”
Mark had entered again, and he looked like death. This thought struck Anderson as very funny; here he was, surrounded by the metal-stink of blood, and one of the four living humans here reminded him of death? That was funny. He realized he’d just said something out loud, but couldn’t remember what it was. Now Mark was saying something, and he might be crying. Unprofessional. The men next to him were shouting now; he wished they’d stop.
“No, no, no!” Mark was yelling. “Just listen! I have been through every – single – door in this hallway!”
That was stupid. Sergeant Anderson began to fall backwards, dimly aware that he was likely to crash into something hard – maybe a student. Before his head hit the desk, he wondered if other towns had to put up with this kind of crap.
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