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.
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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