The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

JAWS OF SATURN Laird Barron

“The other night I dreamt about this lowlife I used to screw,” Carol said. She and Franco were sitting in the lounge of the Broadsword Hotel, a monument to the Roaring Twenties situated on the west side of Olympia. Most of its tenants were economically strapped or on the downhill slide toward decrepitude, not unlike the once grand dame herself. Carol lived on the sixth floor in a single bedroom flat with cracks running through the plaster and a rusty radiator that groaned and ticked like it might explode and turn the apartment into a flaming wreck. “I mean, yeah, I hooked up with plenty of losers before I met you. Marvin was scary. And ugly as three kinds of sin. He busted kneecaps for a living. Some living.”

Franco flipped open his lighter and set fire to a cigarette. He dropped the lighter into the pocket of his blazer. He took a drag and exhaled. Franco did not live in The Broadsword. Happily, he lived across town in a smaller, modern apartment building where the elevators worked and the central heating didn’t rely on a coal-fed furnace. He decided not to remind her that he too damaged people on occasion, albeit only in defense of his employer. Franco didn’t look like muscle — short and trim, his hair was professionally styled and his clothes were tailored. His face was soft and unscarred. He didn’t have scars because he’d always been better with his guns and knives than his enemies were with theirs. Franco said, “Marvin Cortez? Oh, yeah. My boss was friends with him. If this goon scared you so much, why’d you stick around?”

“I dunno, Frankie. ’Cause it turned me on for a while, I guess. Who the hell knows why I do anything?” She pushed around her glass of slushed ice cubes and vodka so it caught the light coming through the window and multiplied it on the tablecloth. This was late afternoon. The light was heavy and reddish orange.

“Okay. What happened in the dream?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Huh.”

“Huh, what?”

“Dreams are messages from the subconscious. They’re full of symbols.”

“You get a shrink degree I don’t know about?”

“No, my sister worked as a research assistant in a clinic. Where were you?”

“In bed. The whole bed was on a mountain, or something. Marvin stood at the foot of the bed and there was a drop off. The wind blew his hair around, but it didn’t touch me. I was pretty scared of the cliff, though.”

“Why?”

“My bed was practically teetering on the edge, dumbbell.”

“This Marvin, guy. Did he do anything?”

“He stared at me — and he was too big. Granted, Marvo really was a hulking dude, Ron Perlman big and ugly, but this was extreme, and I got the impression he would’ve turned into a giant if the dream had lasted longer. His expression weirded me out. I realized it wasn’t really him. Looked like him, except not. More like a mask and it changed as I watched. He was turning into someone else entirely and I woke up before it completely happened.”

Franco nodded and tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. “Clearly you’ve got feelings for this palooka.”

“Don’t be so jealous. He skipped on me. Haven’t heard from the jerk in years. Weirdest part about the dream is when I opened my eyes, the bedroom was pitch black. Except … the closet door opened a bit and this creepy red light came through the crack. Damndest thing. I’m still half zonked, so it’s all unreal at first. Then I started to freak. I mean, there’s nothing in the closet to make a red glow, and the light itself made my hairs prickle. Something was really, really wrong. Then the door clicked shut and the room went dark again. I’d drunk waaay too many margaritas earlier, so I fell asleep.”

“You never woke up in the first place,” he said. “Dream within a dream. The red light was your alarm clock. Nothing mysterious or creepy about that.”

Carol gave him a look. She wore oversized sunglasses that hid her eyes, but the point was clear. She snapped her fingers until a waiter came over. She ordered a rum and coke and made him take the vodka away. “Thing is, this got me thinking. I realize I’ve been having these dreams all week. I just keep forgetting.”

“Your boyfriend in all of them?” Franco tried not to sound petulant. His vodka was down to the rocks and he hadn’t asked the waiter for another.

“Not only him. Lots of other people. My mom and dad. A girlfriend from high school that got killed in a crash. My grandparents. Everybody guest starring in my dreams is dead. Except for Marvo — and hell, for all I know, he bit the dust. He who lives by the sword and all that.”

“This is true,” Franco said, thinking of the time a guy swung a machete at his head and missed.

Carol glanced at her watch. She picked up her prim little handbag. “Let’s go fuck. Karla’s doing my hair later.”

He stripped her in a half-dozen expert movements and had her crossways on the low, narrow bed, a pillow under her hips because he wanted to work her over with a vengeance. His blood boiled after their conversation regarding her old goon boyfriend. She was voluptuous as a ’50s pin-up and white as milk and her body amazed him. He held her hips and pushed toward climax while she cried out, shoulders and head suspended off the mattress, her fingers twisted in the sheets. He drove, and the bed moved an inch or two with each thrust, adding grooves to the warped and stained floorboards. Then, he came, crashing the bed with enough force to surely jolt the lights in the lower apartment. She swung herself upright and her expression was that of an ecstatic. He met her eyes in the gloom and his brain became jelly; it felt as if it might drain through his nose, suctioned by some force at once ancient and familiar and beyond his comprehension. The iris of her left eye was oblong, out of plumb. It seemed to elongate and slide around like the deformed bubbles in a lava lamp, and for several seconds every piece of furniture, the apartment walls, its doors and fixtures, were distorted, undulating in a way that made him sick in the stomach. Then it passed and he flopped on his back, spent and afraid.

Carol climbed atop him and kissed his mouth. Her breath was hot. Her lips moved wet and swollen against his, “Well, Jesus. Aren’t you a voyeuristic sonofabitch.” She reached down and her petite fist partially encircled him. She slowly put him back inside her and had her way, mouth against his ear now. He closed his eyes and the vertigo subsided, and he lay in a semi stupor while his body reacted.

When it finally ended, Carol lighted two cigarettes. She gave him one and then dialed her friend the hairdresser and cancelled her appointment. She slurred like she did after the fifth or sixth cocktail.

Franco smoked his cigarette without enjoying it, his mind ticking with the possibilities of what he’d witnessed. She curled against him, her nails digging into the muscles of his chest.

He said, “I think something odd is going on with you.”

“Mmm? I feel pretty damned fine.”

“Have you been taking drugs? You doing X?”

“Are you trying to piss me off?” She smiled and blew smoke at him.

“I’m trying to decide what I think. You’re acting different.” He didn’t know what to say about her bizarre iris and figured keeping his mouth shut was the best course for the moment.

“Hmm. I’ve been seeing a hypnotist. Trying to break this smoking habit.”

“Uh, did you happen to think that might be the reason you’ve had lousy dreams lately? Go screwing around in your brain and God knows what’ll happen.”

“Hypnotism is harmless. All that stuff about them making you cluck like a chicken or do stupid tricks is bullshit. He puts me in a light trance. I’m aware of everything the whole time.”

Franco rubbed the vein pulsing in his temple. “Who’s this hypnotist?”

“Phil Wary. An old dude. Lives upstairs. He was a magician back in the 1970s.”

“This is great.”

“It’s so-so. I paid him three hundred bucks. I’ve cut back to half a pack a day, but sheesh, it could be better. That’s what I’m saying — sure as shit isn’t a cure for cancer.”

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t think anything was okay, and in fact had already made up his mind to pay Phil Wary a visit and set the coot straight. Anybody messing with Franco’s girl was in peril of falling from a rooftop.

Franco dreamed of standing in a hallway. He was naked and smelled of sex and bitter perfume. The hallway was dark except at the far end where a pair of brassy elevator doors shone, illuminated by an unseen source. He walked toward the doors and they slid apart. He entered the elevator. It was tight and dim. The doors shut. A panel of glowing buttons floated in the sudden darkness. He pressed the L and waited. The elevator moved, silent and frictionless, and with a sense of tremendous speed and he screamed as his body became weightless and his toes drifted several inches from the floor. He was trapped in a coffin-shaped capsule rocketing into zero g orbit. The control panel flickered and its numerals blackened and popped and died. The overhead strip emitted a hideous red light that caused his skin to smoke and char where it touched. The light dripped like oil, like acid dissolving him.

When the doors opened, he stumbled into the empty lobby of The Broadsword Hotel. Yet the chamber was far too vast, and in the distance one of the walls had collapsed. It was cold, and the gloom thick with a sense of ruin. Furniture lay in broken heaps, and tiles of the vast marble floor were smashed, pieces scattered, and everywhere, curtains and streamers of cobwebs and dust. The tooth of the moon shone through the skylight dome. Carol stood hipshot in its sickly beam. She too was naked except for a silvery necklace, and panties that gleamed white against her delectable buttocks. Her figure was unutterably erotic in its slickness and ripe strength and quivering vulnerability, a Frazetta heroine made flesh. Her head craned toward one of the support columns, arm raised in a defensive gesture. She was a voluptuous conceptualization of Fay Wray transported to some occult dimension, gaping at an off-screen terror.

A shadow moved across the floor and obliterated Carol’s paralyzed figure. It stretched unto colossal dimensions until its clawed edge overlapped Franco’s feet and he raced into the elevator that was no longer an elevator, but an endless tunnel, or a throat.

Franco lay in bed alone until noon. This was his first vacation in two years from his millionaire charge, Jacob Wilson. Wilson had jetted off to Paris for the week with his girlfriend of the moment and Leonard and Vernon, the senior bodyguards.

He didn’t have any fear of confined spaces, but today the elevator ride was harrowing. He loosened his tie to alleviate a feeling of suffocation. A middle-aged woman in an enveloping dress crowded him and he sweated and squeezed the bridge of his nose and breathed shallowly until the lift thudded to a halt and squealed open a full ten seconds later.

Despite his rather mundane and admittedly coarse occupation, Franco enjoyed a good, thick book and was enamored of classical architecture. The hotel had become a hobby. Almost a century old, and enormous, its caretakers kept alive certain elements and traditions not often present in its modern counterparts. There were at least two sub levels, one of which hosted a barbershop, international newspaper kiosk, cigar shop, and a gentleman’s club called The Red Room, this latter held over from speakeasy days. On the ground floor was the lounge, the Oak & Shield restaurant, a largely defunct nightclub called The Owl, and the Arden Grand Ballroom. There were galas every few months and he’d vowed to accompany Carol to one in the near future. Franco was an elegant dancer, comfortable waltzing to a big band.

He went to the lounge and sat at the end of the deserted bar farthest from the double doors and the sun streaming through the windows overlooking the hillside and Capitol Lake far below, and across the way, the Capitol Dome itself, a cracked and grimy edifice that somehow retained its grandeur despite years of neglect. He ordered a Bloody Mary, followed immediately by a double vodka. He lighted a cigarette and pressed his hand to his eyes while he smoked.

Franco had become a regular at the lounge these past months since his dalliance with Carol. The staff knew who he worked for and when he dropped a hint about his interest in resident Phil Wary, the white-suited bartender disappeared, then returned with a hotel business card, Mr. Wary’s apartment and phone numbers scrawled on the reverse. Franco glanced at the card, then burned it in the ashtray as a courtesy. He left a fifty on the bar when he finally dragged himself off the stool and went in search of answers. He buzzed Mr. Wary’s apartment, then he unfolded his cell and tried the phone number.

Someone picked up and breathed heavily. “What?” The accent was foreign to Franco, although it reminded him of the old Christopher Lee Dracula movies.

“Mr. Wary, hey. Could I have a few minutes of your time? I’m downstairs—”

“I heard you buzzing my intercom. I hate that buzzing. That brash, persistent noise drills straight through my eardrum. No, I think you sound like an oaf, a knuckle dragger. A second generation Italian mongrel, perhaps.”

Franco made a fist with his free hand and squeezed until his knuckles cracked. “Very sorry, sir. I just need five minutes. Maybe less. You know a friend of mine. Carol—”

Mr. Wary breathed into the phone. He made an odd noise in his throat. “Then I am convinced I am not interested in your company. My business with her is not for you. Goodbye.”

The line went dead. Franco stared at his cell for a several moments. He carefully folded and put it away. He cracked the knuckles of his right hand. It was a long climb to the seventh floor, but there was no chance of his risking the elevator again. He felt homicidal enough without exacerbating his dire mood with an outbreak of latent claustrophobia. By the fourth floor he’d come to regret his decision. His legs were soft from spending too many hours on his ass in limousines and holding down barstools. He’d given up weightlifting and jogging. The endless columns of booze and stacks of unfiltered cigarettes made his sporadic appearances at the gym painful.

He hesitated at Mr. Wary’s door to try the knob — locked. He wiped his brow with the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. Mr. Wary’s apartment lay near the stairwell at the far end of the corridor opposite the elevator. The passages in The Broadsword Hotel were slightly wider and taller than typical of such buildings, rounded and ribbed at the peak in a classical manner. Gauzy light filled the window alcove above the stairwell. Shadows stretched long fingers across the carpet and most of the hallway remained in gloom. A fly complained in a darkened overhead light globe.

Franco tucked away the handkerchief and slipped his stiletto from its ankle sheath. He never carried a pistol when off duty. There wasn’t much reason to — unlike thugs such as Carol’s ex, he didn’t need to moonlight as an enforcer. His time off was free and uncomplicated.

Mr. Wary hadn’t engaged the deadbolt, so Franco easily jimmied the lock and pushed through the door. The apartment was cramped and hot and smelled of must and moldering paper. Centered in the living area was a leather couch, matching armchairs and a pair of ornate floor lamps, all from a bygone era. Mr. Wary owned numerous paintings of foreign pastorals, vine-choked temples and ziggurats, and men and women in peculiar dress. In a corner was an antique writing desk and above its hutch, poster advertisements of magic shows. Several were illustrations of a man in fanciful robes and bejeweled turban, presumably Mr. Wary himself, presiding over various scenes of prestidigitation that generally featured buxom assistants in low-cut blouses.

A yellow cat hissed at Franco’s approach and darted behind the couch.

“So it’s like this, is it?” Mr. Wary leaned against the frame of the entrance to the kitchen. Short and brutish, his silver and black hair touched the collar of his expensive white dress shirt. His craggy face was powdered white, his eyes deeply recessed so they glinted like those of a calculating animal. His eyelids were painted blue and his lips carmine. He wore baggy pants and sandals that curved up at the toe. He sneered at Franco, baring a full set of sharp, white teeth. “This wasn’t wise of you.”

“Hello, Phil,” Franco said, bouncing the knife in his hand. He casually reached back and pulled the door closed. “As I was saying, we really need to have a discussion about Carol. You’ve been trying to help her quit smoking, I hear. Your methods seem unorthodox. She’s acting squirrely.”

“Her treatment is no concern of yours. You’d do well to depart before matters go too far.”

Franco bent and sheathed his blade. He straightened and cracked his knuckles and took a couple of steps further into the room. “Yes, yes, it does in fact concern me. I don’t like how she’s acted lately. I think you’ve fucked with her head, got her hooked on dope, I dunno. But I plan to figure it out.”

“Fool. Love is a poison in that regard. It robs men of their common sense, inveigles them to pursue their own damnation. If it allays your worry, I promise no drugs are involved. No coercion. A touch of chicanery, yes.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“You’re not a complete barbarian. You comprehend simple words and phrases.”

Franco’s smile sharpened and he moved slowly toward Mr. Wary, sliding his belt free of his pants loops as he went. “Keep talking, old man. I might enjoy this after all.”

“She has a virus of the mind and it’s rather transmittable, I’m afraid.” Mr. Wary squinted at him. He nodded. “Ah, that’s who you are. Such an interesting coincidence. I know your employer. His late, lamented Uncle Theodore as well.”

“Jacob?” Franco hesitated. He doubled the tongue of his belt around his wrist and let the buckle dangle. “And, exactly how is that?”

“Olympia is a small town. On occasion we’ve done business. Your master has, shall we say, esoteric interests. As I am a man of esoteric talents, it’s a match made in … well, somewhere.”

“Carol says you’re a washed up magician. Nice posters. You do anyplace famous? Vegas? The Paramount? Nah; you aren’t any David Copperfield. You were a two bit showman. A hack.” Franco itched to smack him in the mouth; should have done it already. The old man’s contempt, his sneer, was disquieting and stayed Franco’s hand for the moment as he reevaluated his surroundings, trying to detect the real source of his unease. “Your hands are gone, so now you hustle dumb broads for whatever’s in their purses. I get you, Phil.”

“Magician? Magician? I’m a practitioner of the black arts. Seventh among the Salamanca Seven. You understand what I mean when I speak of the black arts, don’t you boy? Since you refuse to leave me in peace, would you care for a drink? Too late now, anyway. I have one every afternoon. The doctor says it’s good for my heart.” Mr. Wary went to a cabinet and took down a crystal decanter and a pair of copitas. He poured two generous glasses of sherry and handed one to Franco. Mr. Wary sat in an armchair. He clicked his nails on the glass and the cat emerged from hiding and sprang into his lap. “Magician? Feh, I’m a sorcerer, a warlock.”

“A warlock, huh?” Franco remained standing. He tasted the sherry, then drained his copita and tossed it against the wall. The small crash and tinkle of broken glass temporarily satisfied his need to inflict pain upon his host. “There’s no fucking such thing, my friend.”

“That was a valuable glass. I acquired the set in Florence. It survived the Second World War.” Mr. Wary’s eyelids fluttered and he smiled with the corner of his mouth. “Yes, I practice mesmerism. Yes, I pulled rabbits from hats and pretended to saw nubile women in half. I am conversant in many things, sleight of hand being among these. Camouflage, boy. And amusement. One meets fascinating people in that line. However, my bread and butter, my life’s work, lies in peeling back the layers of occult mysteries. I was preparing your delectable girlfriend for myself. Ripening and fattening her on the ineffable wonder of the dark. Upon further reflection, I’ve decided to let you have her.”

“What the fuck are you on, man?” Franco imagined poor Carol blithely acquiescing to Mr. Wary’s charms — Franco recognized a predator when he met one. Doubtless the old man with his eccentric garb and quaint accent could pour on the charm. And dear God, what did the creepy bastard do to her when she was incapacitated on that decaying couch? “You sonofabitch. You crazy, fucked up sonofabitch.” He whipped the belt buckle across Mr. Wary’s face. “You’re not going to see her again. She calls you, don’t answer. She knocks on your door, you don’t answer. She tries to talk to you in the hall, you go the other way.” Franco punctuated each directive with a slap of his belt buckle while the man sat there, absorbing the abuse. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth swipe that he realized his victim was grinning.

Mr. Wary caught the belt and jerked Franco to his knees and grabbed him by the hair. “You insect. You creeping, insignificant vermin.” He stood, dragging Franco upright so they were nose to nose. “Do you wish to witness my work with your precious, idiotic paramour? Such unhap-piness awaits you.”

Franco was calm even in his terror. He pretended to struggle against Mr. Wary’s iron grip before slamming his knuckles against the man’s windpipe. He’d once killed a fellow with that blow on the mean streets of Harlem. His fingers broke with a snap and he grunted in shock. Mr. Wary shook him as a dog shakes a rat in its jaws. Franco’s vision went out of focus even as he slashed the edge of his left hand against the bridge of Mr. Wary’s nose, and yelped because it was like striking concrete.

“That’s quite enough,” Mr. Wary said and looped the belt around Franco’s neck and drew it snug. Franco went blind. His muscles stiffened and, when Mr. Wary released him, he toppled sideways and his head bounced off the carpet.

Mr. Wary handcuffed Franco in a closet and strung him up on tiptoes by means of keeping the belt around his neck and the other end secured to a rusty hook dangling from a chain. Mr. Wary left the door partially ajar. He suggested that Franco remain mum or else matters would go poorly for him, and worse for Carol, who was soon to arrive for her weekly appointment.

The closet was narrow and stuffed with coats and mothballed suits, but roofless — the space above rose vertically into blackness like a mineshaft. While Franco struggled to avoid hanging himself, he had ample opportunity to puzzle over how this closet could possess such a dimension. Occasionally, reddish light pulsed from the darkness and Franco relived his recent nightmare.

Afternoon bled into red evening and the stars emerged in the sliver of sky through the window behind the couch. Franco was in a state of partial delirium when Carol knocked on the door. Mr. Wary smoothed his shaggy hair and quickly donned a smoking jacket. Carol came in, severe and rushed as usual. He took her coat and fixed drinks and Franco slowly strangled, his view curtailed by the angle of the closet door.

Franco only heard and saw fragments of the next half hour, preoccupied as he was with basic survival. He fell unconscious for brief moments, revived by the pressure at his throat, the searing in his lungs. He contemplated murder. A few feet away, his lover and the magician finished their drinks. Mr. Wary told her to make herself comfortable while he put on a recording of scratchy woodwind music. He drew the curtain and clicked on a lamp. He cleared his throat and began to speak in a low, sonorous tone. Carol mumbled, obviously responding to his words.

In due course, Mr. Wary shut off the record player and the apartment fell quiet but for Carol’s breathing. He said, “Come, my dear. Come with me,” and took Carol’s hand and led her, as if she were sleepwalking, to a blank span of the wall. Mr. Wary brushed aside a strip of brittle paper and revealed what Franco took to be a dark water stain, until Carol pressed her eye against it and he realized the stain was actually a peephole. A peephole to where, though? That particular wall didn’t abut another apartment — it was an outer wall overlooking the rear square and beyond the square, a ravine.

Carol shuddered and her arms hung slack. Mr. Wary stroked her hair. He muttered in her ear and turned slightly to grin at Franco. A few minutes later, he took her shoulders and gently guided her away from the wall. They exchanged inaudible murmurs. Carol wrote him a check and, seeming to secure her faculties, gathered her coat and bade Mr. Wary a brisk farewell on her way out.

“Your turn,” he said upon turning his attention to Franco. He unclasped the belt and led him to the wall, its peeling flap of ancient paper. The peephole oozed a red glow. “All this flesh is but a projection. We are the dream of something greater and more dreadful than you could imagine. To gaze into the abyss is to recognize the dreamer and, in recognition, to wake. Not all at once. Soon, however.” He inexorably forced Franco’s eye against the hole and its awful radiance.

Franco came to, slumped on the coach. Mr. Wary smoked a cigarette and watched him intently. The liquid noises of his own heart, the thump of his pulse, were too loud and he clutched his temples. He recalled a glimpse of Carol’s face as dredged from nightmarish limbo. The shape of it, its atavistic lust and ravenous fury terrified him even as a tattered memory. Immense as some forsaken monument, and its teeth — He retched on his shoes.

“It’ll pass,” Mr. Wary said. The phone, a black rotary, rang. He answered, then listened for several moments. He extended it to Franco. “For you.”

Franco accepted the phone and held it awkwardly with his good hand. Across a vast distance, Jacob Wilson said, “Franco? Sorry man, but you’re done. I’ll have my accountant cut you a check. Kiss-kiss.” Across a vast distance, a continent and the Atlantic Ocean, Jacob Wilson hung up.

Mr. Wary took the phone from Franco. “A shame about your job. Nonetheless, I’m sure a man of your ability will land on his feet.” He helped Franco rise and propelled him to the door. “Off you go. Sweets to the sweet.”

Franco shuffled down the badly lighted hall. A vortex of fire roared in the center of his mind. He stepped into the stairwell. There were no stairs, only a black chasm, and he plummeted, shrieking, tumbling.

“Holy shit! Wake up, dude!” Carol shook his arm. They were in her crummy bed in her crummy apartment. The dark pressed against the window. “You okay? You okay?”

He opened and closed his mouth, biting back more screams. She turned on the bedside lamp and bloody light flooded his vision. He said, “I’m … okay.” Tears of pain streamed down his cheeks.

“It’s three in the fucking morning. I didn’t hear you come in. Why the hell are you still dressed?” She unknotted his tie, began to unbutton his shirt. “Wow, you’re sweaty. Sure you’re okay? Damn — you drunk, or what?”

“I wish. Got anything?” He wiped his eyes. The lamp had now emitted its normal, butter-yellow light.

“Some Stoli in the freezer.” She went into the kitchen and fixed him a tall glass of vodka. He guzzled it like water and she laughed and grabbed the mostly empty glass from his good hand. “Whoa, Trigger. You’re starting to worry me.” She gasped, finally noticing the lumped and swollen wreck of his right hand. “Oh my God. You’ve been fighting!”

He felt better. His heart settled down. He took off his pants and fell on the bed. “Nothing to worry about. I had a few too many at the bar. Came here and crashed, I guess. Sorry to wake you.”

“Actually, I’m glad you did.”

“Why is that?” His eyelids were heavy and the warmth of the booze was doing its magic.

“You won’t believe the nightmare I was having. I was walking around in a city. Spain or Italy. One of those places where the streets are narrow and the buildings are like something from a medieval film. I could see through people’s skin. X-ray vision. There’s another thing. If I squinted just right, there were these … sort of bloody tendrils hooked to their skulls, their shoulders, and whatnot. The tendrils disappeared into creepy holes in the air hanging above them. The fucking tentacles squirmed, like they were alive.”

He’d gone cold. The pleasant alcohol rush congealed in the pit of his stomach. The tendrils, the holes of oozing darkness — he pictured them clearly as if he’d seen them prior to Carol’s revelation.

She said, “Right before you woke me with all that racket, there was an eclipse. The moon covered the sun. A perfect black disc with fire around the edges. Fucking awesome. Then, there was this sound. Can’t describe it. Sort of a vibration. All the people standing in the square flew up toward the eclipse. The tendrils dragged them away. It was like the Rapture, Frankie. Except, nobody was very happy. They screamed like motherfuckers until they were specks. Wham! Here you were. The screams must’ve been yours.”

“I rolled over onto my fingers. Hurt like hell.”

“Wanna go to the clinic? Looks bad.”

“In the morning.”

“Fine, tough guy.”

Franco tucked his broken hand close to his face. He lay still, listening for the telltale vibration of doom to pass through his bones.

Carol was driving the car into Olympia’s outlying farmland. The day was blue and shiny. A girlfriend had given Carol a picnic set for her birthday — a wicker basket, insulated pack, checkered cloth, thermos, and parasol. Her sunglasses disguised her expression. She always wore them.

Franco hadn’t shaved in four days. He’d worn the same suit for as long. The majority of those days were spent downtown, hunched over an ever mounting collection of shot glasses at The Brotherhood Tavern. His right hand was splinted and wrapped in thick, bulky bandages. His fingers throbbed and he mixed plenty of painkillers with the booze to dull the edge while he plotted a thousand different ways to kill his nemesis, Mr. Wary. Evenings were another matter — those dim, unvarnished hours between 2 a.m. that found him alone in his Spartan bedroom, sweating and hallucinating, assailed by a procession of disjointed images, unified only in their dreadfulness, their atmosphere of alien terror.

He’d dreamed of her again last night, seen her naked and transfixed in the grand lobby of The Broadsword that belonged to another world, witnessed her lift as if upon wires toward the domed ceiling, and into shadow. Blood misted from the heights and spackled Franco until it soaked his hair and ran in rivulets down his arms and chest, until it made a puddle between his toes. He’d awakened, his cock stiff against his belly and masturbated, and after, sank again into nightmare. He was in Mr. Wary’s apartment, although everything was different — an ebony clock and shelves of strange tomes, and Wary himself, towered over Franco. The old man was garbed in a flowing black robe. A necklace of human skulls jangled against his chest. Mr. Wary had grown so large he could’ve swallowed Franco, bones and all. He was a prehistoric beast that had, over eons, assumed the flesh and countenance of Man.

“You worship the Devil,” Franco said.

“The Lord of Flies is only one. There are others, greater and more powerful than he. Presences that command his own obedience. You’ve seen them. I showed you.”

“I don’t remember. I want to go back.” A hole opened in the wall, rapidly grew from pinhole to portal and it spun with black and red fires. At its heart, a humanoid form beckoned. And when he surfaced from this dream into the hot, sticky darkness of Carol’s bedroom, he’d discovered her standing before her closet, bathed in the red glow. She cupped her breasts, head thrown back in exultance, sunglasses distorting her features, giving her the eyes of a strange insect. The door had slammed shut even as he cried out, and his voice was lost, a receding echo in a stygian tomb.

Now they were driving. Now they were parked atop a knoll and eating sandwiches and drinking wine in the shade of a large, flowering tree. A wild pasture spread itself around the knoll and cattle gathered in small knots and grazed on the lush tufted grass. The distant edge of the pasture was marked by a sculpture of a bull fashioned from sheets of iron. The highway sounds were faint and overcome by the sigh of the leaves, the dim crooning of some forgotten star on Carol’s AM radio.

Franco hadn’t told her of his apocalyptic visit to Mr. Wary, nor of his resultant termination from Jacob Wilson’s security attachment. The job wasn’t a pressing concern; he’d saved enough to live comfortably for a while. Prior to this most recent stint, he’d guarded an A-list actor in Malibu, and before that, a series of corporate executives, all of whom had paid well. However, he was afraid to speak of Wary, wouldn’t know where to begin in any event.

He lay his head in her lap and as she massaged his temples, he wondered about this radical change in her personality. He’d not known her to savor a tranquil pastoral setting, nor repose for any duration without compulsively checking her cell phone or chain smoking cigarettes. Her calm was eerie. As for himself, one place to get drunk off his ass was the same as another. The wine ran dry, so he uncapped his hip flask of vodka and carried on. Cumulus clouds piled up, edges golden in the midday sun. He noted some were dark at the center, black with cavities, black with the rot of worms at the core. His eyes watered and he slipped on a pair of wraparound shades and instantly felt better.

“Mr. Wary and I are through,” she said.

“Oh? Why is that?” Had the crazy bastard mentioned his confrontation with Franco? Surely not. Yet, who could predict the actions of someone as bizarre as Mr. Wary?

She stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lighted up. “I’m cured.”

“Wonderful.”

“My nightmares are getting worse, though. I’ve dreamt the same thing every night this week. There’s a cavern, or an underground basement, hard to say, and something is chasing me. It’s dark and I don’t have shoes. I run through the darkness toward a wedge of light, far off at first. It’s an arch and red light is coming through it, from another chamber. I think. Nothing’s clear. I’m too scared to look over my shoulder, but I know whatever’s after me has gained. I can feel its presence, like a gigantic shadow bearing down, and just as I cross the threshold, I’m snatched into the air.”

“The tentacles?”

“Nope, bigger. Like a hand. A very, very large hand.”

“Maybe you should see a real doctor.”

“I’ve got four pill prescriptions already.”

“There’s probably a more holistic method to dealing with dreams.”

“Ha! Like hypnotherapy?”

“Sarcasm isn’t pretty.” Franco sipped vodka. He closed his eyes as a cloud darkened the sun and the breeze cooled. He shivered. Time passed, glimpsed through the shadows that pressed against the thin shell of his eyelids.

Branches crackled and the earth shifted. He blinked and beheld a blood red sky and a looming presence, a distorted silhouette of a giant. Branches groaned and leaves and twigs showered him, roots tore free of the earth and grass, and he rolled away and assumed a crouch, bewildered at the sight of this gargantuan being uprooting the tree. He shouted Carol’s name, but she was nowhere, and he ran for the car parked on the edge of the country road. Behind him, the figure bellowed and there came a crunching sound, the sound of splintering wood. A dirt clod thumped into his back.

Carol was already in the car, driver seat tilted back. She slept with her mouth slightly open. The doors were locked. Franco smashed the passenger window with his elbow and popped the lock. Carol’s arms flapped and she covered her face until Franco shook her and she gradually became rational and focused upon him. Her glasses had fallen off during the excitement and he was shocked at how her pupils had deformed into twin nebulas that reflected the red glow of the sky.

“Drive! We gotta get the hell out of here.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending, and when he glanced back, the monstrous figure had vanished. However, the tree lay on its side. She said, “What happened?” Then, spying the ruined tree, “We could’ve been killed!”

He clutched his elbow and stared wordlessly as the red clouds rolled away to the horizon and the blue sky returned.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

He looked at his arm. He was bleeding, all right.

The doctor was the same guy who’d splinted his fingers. He gave him a few stitches, a prescription for antibiotics, and another for more pain pills. He checked Franco’s eyes with a penlight and asked if he’d had any problems with them, and Franco admitted his frequent headaches. The doctor wore a perplexed expression as he said something about Coloboma, then muttering that Coloboma wasn’t possible. The doctor insisted on referring him to an eye specialist. Franco cut him off mid-sentence with a curt goodbye. He put on his sunglasses and retreated to the parking lot where Carol waited.

She dropped him at his building and offered to come up and keep him company a while. He smiled weakly and said he wasn’t in any shape to entertain. She drove off into the night. He turned the lights off, undressed, and lay on his bed with the air-conditioning going full power. His breath drifted like smoke. He dialed Mr. Wary’s number and waited. He let it ring until an automated message from the phone company interrupted and told him to please try again later.

The closet door creaked. The foot of the bed sagged under a considerable weight. Mr. Wary said, “I thought we had an understanding.”

“What’s happening to me?” Franco stared at the nothingness between him and the ceiling. He dared not look at his visitor. When Mr. Wary didn’t answer, Franco said, “Why do you live in a shit hole? Why not a mansion, a yacht? Why aren’t you a potentate somewhere?”

“This is what you’ve done with your dwindling supply of earthly moments? I’m flattered. Not what one expects from the brute castes.”

“My dwindling supply …? You’re going to kill me. Eat my heart, or something.”

Mr. Wary chuckled. “I’d certainly eat your heart because I suspect your brain lacks nutrients. I’ve no designs on you, boy. Consider me an interested observer; no more, no less. As for my humble abode … I’ve lived in sea shanties and mud huts. I’ve lived in caves, and might again when the world ends one day soon.”

“So much for the simple life of dodging bullets and breaking people’s legs.”

“You realize these aren’t dreams? There is no such thing. These are visions. The membrane parts for you in slumber, absorbs you into the reality of the corona that limns the Dark. Goodbye. Don’t call on me again, if you please.” Mr. Wary’s weight lifted from the bed and the faint rustle of clothes hangers marked his departure from the room.

Franco shook, then slept. In his dreams that were not dreams, he was eaten alive, over and over and over …

Franco collapsed in a stupor for the better part of three days. On the fourth evening, as the sun dripped away, the fugue released him and he finally stirred from his rank sheets. The moon rose yellow as hell and eclipsed a third of the sky.

The sensation was of waking from a dream into a dream.

He loaded his small, nickel-plated automatic and tucked it in his waistband. He drove over to The Broadsword and parked on the street three blocks away. The brief walk in the luminous dark crystallized his thoughts, honed his purpose, if not his plan. No one else moved, no other cars. A light shone here and there, on the street, in a building. Somehow this only served to accentuate the otherworldliness of his surroundings and heightened his sense of isolation and dread.

Carol’s apartment was unlocked, the power off. She sat in the window, knees to chin, hair loose. Moonlight seeped around her silhouette. “There you are. Something is happening.”

Franco stood near her. He felt overheated and weak.

“Your arm’s gone green,” she said. “It stinks.”

He’d forgotten about the wound, the antibiotics. His jacket stuck to the dressing and tried to separate when he let his arm swing at his side. “Oh, I’ve got a fever. I wondered why I felt so bad.”

“You just noticed?” She sounded distant, distracted. “The moon is different tonight. Closer. I can feel it trying to drag the blood from my skin.”

“Yeah.”

“I sleep around the clock. Except it’s more like I don’t really sleep. More like being stoned. I dream about holes. Opening and closing. And caves and dollhouses.”

“Dollhouses?”

“Kinda. You know those replica cities architects make? Models? I dream I’m walking through model cities, except these are bigger. The tallest buildings are maybe a foot taller than me. I look in the windows and doll people scream and run off.”

“If that’s the worst, you’re doing all right.”

“No, it gets worse. I don’t want to talk about that. I’ve seen things that scared the living shit outta me. I’m losing it. The tendrils; I’ve seen them for real, while I’m awake.” She rested her head against the glass.

Franco gripped the pistol in his pocket. A tremor passed through the walls and floor. Bits of plaster dust trickled from the ceiling. Something happened to the stars, although Carol’s shoulder mostly blocked his view. The yellow illumination of the moon dimmed to red.

“We’re going into the dark,” Carol said. She’d cast aside the sunglasses. Her face was pale and indistinct.

He walked into the kitchenette and drank a glass of tap water. He removed the gun from his pocket and racked the slide. An object thumped in the other room. When he returned, she was gone and the front door hung ajar. The hallway stretched emptily, except for the red glow of the elevator at the far end awaiting him with its open mouth. The stairwell entrance was bricked over. Franco considered the gun. He boarded the elevator and pressed the button and descended.

Everything happened as it had happened in his serial nightmares. She was there in the lobby, gazing toward the vaulted ceiling, and he was too late. A wrinkled hand the size and length of a compact car snatched her up by the fleshy strands as a puppeteer might retrieve a fallen marionette and then blood was everywhere. Franco froze in place, his mind splintering as he registered the tendrils that snaked from his own shoulders and rose into darkness.

An impossibly tall figure lurched from the shadow of the ornate support column. A demonic caricature of an old man, his wizened head nearly scraping the domed ceiling, hunched toward Franco, skinny fingers reaching for him, lips twisting in anticipation. Franco recalled the de Goya painting of the titan Saturn who stuffed a man into his frightful maw and chewed with wide-eyed relish. He fell back, raising his arms in a feeble gesture of defense. The giant took the fistful of Franco’s strings, the erstwhile ethereal cords of his soul, and yanked him from his feet; grasped and lifted him and Franco had a long, agonizing moment to recognize his own face mirrored by the primordial aspect of the giant.

Even in pieces, eternally disgorging his innards and fluids, he remained cognizant of his agonies. He tumbled through endless darkness, his shrieks flickering in his wake.

He roused from a joyous dream of feasting, of drinking blood and sucking warm marrow from the bone. His sons and daughters swarmed like ants upon the surface of the Earth, ripe in their terror, delectable in their anguish. He swept them into his mouth and their insides ran in black streams between his lips and matted his beard. This sweet dream rapidly slipped away as he stretched and assessed his surroundings. He shambled forth from the great cavern in the mountain that had been his home for so long.

Moonlight illuminated the ruined plaza of the city on the mountainside. He did not recognize the configuration of the stars and this frightened and exhilarated him. During his eons sleep, trees had burst through cracks in paving stones. He squatted to sniff the leaves, to tear them with his old man’s snaggle teeth and relish the taste of bitter sap. His lover approached, as naked and ancient as himself, and laid her hand upon his shoulder. They embraced in silent communion as the sun ate through the moon and bathed the city in its hideous blood-red glare.

The couple’s shadows stretched long and dark over all the tiny houses and all the tiny works of men.