Home
Buy the Book
Read for Free
Reviews
Press
Trailer
About
Myspace Page

I saw her back toward the fountain area and sprinted in that direction instead. I heard a metallic thump from behind me and heard John yell, “You wants the committee asshole, then you best meet with the chair!”

Jennifer was on her knees, but actually wasn’t doing too badly. She had apparently kept Fred’s switchblade and was rather effectively killing the wigbeasts around her, five of the things laying on their backs with ragged holes in them. What was freaking her out was the circle of disembodied human limbs that were piling up around the fountain, arms and legs and torsos migrating in droves from around the room and then fusing themselves to each other, building themselves up like Satan’s Lego set. A wet, pink disembodied spine slithered past us, like a snake. Jennifer screamed again.

Pfft. Women.

“Jen, we are leaving. Come on.”

She let me help her to her feet. I heard shouts and saw Dr. Marconi jogging toward us, now holding in his hand a silver flask. He splashed some contents toward one of the beasts and it went shrieking away, tendrils of smoke rising off it. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then I saw one of the wigmonsters running toward us, toward Jennifer. I flung myself at it, grabbed it in a bearhug. One of its little fists came around and started punching me repeatedly in the face.

I carried it to the fountain, stepping over a squishy pile of body parts. I shoved the monster into the water, held it under, screamed “DIE!!!” or something to that effect. After a few seconds it stopped moving and an ooze of the black sauce poured out of it like an oil slick.

I stood up as Dr. Marconi arrived. He glanced around at the Great Wall of Human Limbs that was building itself around us. I asked, “What were you saying?”

“I said, ‘It’s trying to get to the water, stop it.’”

I looked down at the spreading black pool, heard a splash as another of the beasts jumped in, followed by another, the creatures returning to the pool from which they had sprung. Marconi said, “Let’s go.”

We ran, John smacking creatures with chairs as we went. We filed into the double doors behind the stage, the doctor and then Jen and Big Jim and then me. John stopped and spun in front of the open doorway. He faced at least half a dozen of the beaked creatures, circling in on him. He whipped the chair around and actually split one of the things in half with the impact, spilling a spray of blood that was reflective, like mercury. John bellowed, “Anybody else want to donate blood to Chair-ity?”

He ducked into the door, stopped, thought for a moment, then flung the door open again. He swung the chair and bashed one monster right in the wig, screaming, “There’s some dessert! With a Chair-y on top!”

He came back in again, breathing heavily, slamming the door just as something thumped against it.

I said, “How about we just stay in here until they all leave?”

Dr. Marconi took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief.

John said, “What’s happening to them out there? The bite victims?” He looked at Marconi. “We’ve got friends who took the Soy Sauce, the, uh, the venom those things out there spit out. Almost all of them died but not like-“

“-Out there you have a room full of true believers,” Marconi said, sadly. “There’s a shift that goes on, you see, physically and mentally and spiritually-“

Something hammered against the door and one hinge popped out in a burst of plaster dust. Big Jim and John leaned against the door to brace it.

“-The, uh, sauce, as you call it, allows an entity to exist on more than one plane at a time. But not every mind can adjust and, if the mind breaks down, the body does not last long. Death within hours. If only they could all be so lucky.”

I held up a hand in a “halt” motion and said, “How-do-we-get-out-of-this?”

He placed his glasses back on his nose and said, “We’re like one German soldier alone on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, holding a sharp stick. I assure you, son, if any of us were capable of destroying such evil the world would have killed us long before now. The world turns, son. And now it turns into the darkness.”

There was a scratching sound from the opposite side of the door that I suspected was the sound of the beasts trying to bite through it.

I said, “So, what do you suggest?”

“I am a retired priest. Did you know that?”

John asked, “Are you one of those priests who can shoot lasers out of their eyes? Because that would be really helpful right now.”

“No,” he said. “But I can bless water to make it holy.” He held up his flask and shook it, letting the liquid splash around inside. “The ice statue, I mean.”

John’s face brightened and he said, “That’s perfect!” He thrust his index finger into the air. “We bless the ice, then we just have to somehow get all hundred or so of those monsters to go lick the statue!”

I stared hard into the face of the older man, said, “Okay, there is no possible combination of English words that would form a dumber plan than that.”

“We’ll need to buy time, of course,” he said, undeterred. “But if I’m right, if they’re doing what I think they’re doing, it’s most likely the only hope we’ve got. The travelers out there, the beasts I mean, they do have a weakness.”

John said, “We know. Chairs.”

“Uh, not exactly. They’re natural dischordians. It’s a product of where they’re from, you see. When you live in a world of black noise, melody is like a blade to the ears. Angels and their harps and all that.”

I asked, “What does that have to do with-“

A hole exploded from the center of the door with a spray of wood splinters. A little pink fist and a segmented leg curled through, reaching around between John and Big Jim. John grabbed it by the wrist and pulled it straight as Jen stepped forward with Fred’s switchblade. She severed the arm to the sound of a feline-shriek from the other side. John held the detached arm in his hand for a moment, then turned and shoved it back out through the ragged hole.

Marconi said, “I see you have your instruments. Can any of you sing? The old spirituals work best.”

John said, “I can sing.”

I said, “No, you can’t, John.”

“Well, I play the guitar.”

“So can I,” said Big Jim. “We have two guitars.”

I said, “This could not be any stupider.”

John said, “Dave here can sing like Axl Rose.”

“Ah, once again, you prove me wrong, John.”

Marconi looked down at the two carts stacked with amps and cables and said, “I need several minutes, so play something long. Like Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

John stepped around and lifted the guitar off my back, said, “I’m lead, Jim is rhythm, Jen sings backup. The sound system will be on the stage. We duck out there and plug in and wail. Okay? Guys, this is just retarded enough to work.”

We set up, then faced the banging door. John said, “You know, I’m surprised the door stopped them, since they can teleport around like that. You’d think they could just blink right through it.”

There was sudden silence from beyond the door, a muttering like the creatures had just realized something. From behind me, Jim screamed.

One of the beasts was on his back. A second appeared on his chest, and in a blurred motion snatched at his throat.

Jim collapsed on his guitar, the white instrument turning crimson within three seconds.

Jennifer stabbed one beast to death, screaming. Marconi emptied his flask on the second, the thing’s skin dissolving before our eyes by its high-pitched howls.

“Jim? Are you-“

He rolled over, his throat laying open in shreds and flaps, as if it had been hit with a shotgun blast. I stepped toward him. Suddenly my vision was obstructed by blackness. There were little pinches on my chest and belly, like something grabbing ahold. My vision focused and I saw a dozen mismatched eyes staring back at me.

I fell backwards, hit the ground, the wigmonster riding on my chest. It’s beak opened and I saw a pink, human tongue lolling around inside.

An electric shriek emerged from behind it, in the ballroom. A guitar. A guitar intro, to be specific.

The creature closed its beak and turned toward the open door, toward John, a look of intense annoyance on its face. It trotted away, two tiny hands over its ears.

Marconi said, “Good! Go!”

I stood and pushed through the open door, saw John playing his ax with his legs spread apart, holding the guitar low to the ground. I sprinted around him, grabbed the mic off of the stage, looked out at the scene before me.

The base of the fountain was now hidden behind a seven foot-high circle of stacked body parts, the ice angel rising up from the center. The wigmonsters gathered around the perimeter, facing inward, as if eager to see what was about to happen. I clenched my throat, filled my lungs until my diaphragm pushed out against the gold-plated belt I was wearing, screeched,

“She’s got eyes, that it seems to me,

reminds me of childhood memories,

where everything was as fresh as the bright blue skyyyy...eye...eye...”

The creatures spun our way, donned some very disappointed frowns, backed away.

“Brilliant!” shouted Marconi. “You’re really annoying them! Let’s move!”

We pushed forward toward the fountain, the sound of the music thundering through the room. One of the beasts spat at me.

“Now and then when I see her face,

she takes me away to that special place,

and if I stared too long

I’d probably break down and cry...”

We reached the length of our cables, were forced to stop some distance away from the fountain. Marconi went forward with Jennifer in tow. They got within blessing distance of the angel and Marconi said, “Father, you give us grace through sacramental signs, which tell us of the wonders of your unseen power. In baptism we use your gift of water, which you have made a rich symbol of the grace you give us in this sacrament. At the very dawn of creation....”

“Sweet child o’ mine... woo, yeah. Ooooohhh, sweet love of mine...”

We hit the solo, John ripped into it. Several of the wigmonsters were now chewing on John’s guitar wire and suddenly the sound died into faint, pathetic guitar pluckings.

The beasts lurched toward us en masse. John, thinking quickly, ran over and snatched the microphone from my hands, began making guitar sounds with his mouth.

“WAAAAHHHH wah-wah-wah-wah-wah, weet woo weet weet woo-“

I didn’t think that would work. I spun on Dr. Marconi, saw him stepping up over the human parts wall toward the fountain itself. I followed him, climbed up, stepped on a face, a bundle of six hands, an ass. Jennifer was already down there, staring into the pool.

It was black now. Not black like oil, but black like a cave, so that you couldn’t see any reflection or ripples in the surface. Not even when Dr. Marconi waded out into it.

John mounted the pile behind us, screamed, “WAH, DO-DO-DO-DOOOO-DO, DEE DOO DOO-“

Marconi, his legs invisible from the knees down in the pool of blackness, reached out and touched the icy surface of the statue, a black rain falling off the angel’s wings. He said, “We ask you, Father, with your Son-”

John had reached the end of his solo, was now making up a third verse to the song.

“Oh, this child o’ mine, with his little hat aflame, his sacred eyes look around from his, uh, special face and if my hair’s too long-“

John’s mic cable was cut. The sound died.

“-on the waters of this font. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Marconi stepped back.

Nothing.

John turned to the waves of approaching monsters and said, “NOW LICK THE STATUE!!”

The blackness suddenly rose, covering the feet of the statue, spilled over the edges of the fountain. I leaned over and pulled at Marconi’s jacket, pulling him back, not sure what was happening but certain we didn’t want to be standing in the middle of it when it did. He waded over to the edge of the pool, making no sloshing sounds in the black liquid.

He raised one leg out of the pool and we saw, with horror, that he had no leg. Everything that had been submerged was gone, his pants ending in a neat line with only empty space beneath-

-And then it was back, whole again. Like a trick of the light. The Doctor suddenly sprang out of the pool with renewed motivation and I looked nervously at my white patent leather shoes disappearing under the black tide on the floor.

We stepped out, reached up to grasp hands as John and Jennifer helped us clamber up the wall of human limbs. At the top I looked back to see the space behind us filling with liquid blackness. John tossed in the microphone and it didn’t splash, didn’t stop. It fell into the darkness as if thrown down a well, disappearing out of sight.

We ran our asses off, across the ballroom floor. There was a whistling sound, like wind howling through tree branches. I saw a couple of chairs scooting along the floor toward the fountain, suddenly felt a pull like I was running from an electromagnet with a gut full of iron pellets.

One of the wigmonsters skittered toward us, but was suddenly lifted out of the air and sucked back to what I was fairly certain was a portal to Hell. The howling sound was loud now, deafening, the sound of a jet liner. Folding chairs were flying through the air as if propelled by dozens of invisible Bobby Knights. The five of us pushed our way forward, somebody screaming around me but the sound lost in the rushing noise that dominated the room. John grabbed my shirt and pointed me toward the small space behind the stage, room to crouch back there. Jennifer screamed something I couldn’t hear, something that sounded like “Todd!” We pushed forward.

The floor was almost clean now behind us. Sparks blew out from the ceiling and the lights went out.

The room was cast into darkness. A few small banks of emergency lights clicked on, faintly glinting off the wings of the ice angel in the center of the room. We stumbled back behind the stage, huddled down like tornado victims, waited.

All went quiet. I raised up and risked a peek at the dark well. From the blackness, there was movement. Dark shapes rose up out of the portal and by that I mean shapes literally made of darkness, dense as black holes. These free-standing shadows were vaguely human, long and lean figures, eight or ten feet tall each. Their only features were a pair of tiny, glowing eyes like two lit cigarettes.

One by one they slipped out and into the dark room, a crowd of them, shoulder to shoulder, flowing out of the portal. They shambled out like a spreading pool of spilt oil, perfectly silent, filling the room, a constellation of little red flickering eyes spreading out in every direction.

They were around us now, closing in just feet away, making their advance in perfect stillness.

And then, the silence was broken. There was a low, screeching sound, like steam escaping. I looked toward the ice angel, saw plumes of smoke rising from its base, a bright, white light down there like it was a rocket about to take off.

The sound grew and grew and grew, became animal, a scream of pain.

As I watched in the dim light of the emergency lamps, the holy water angel fell, sank, lowered down into the black hole.

There was something like a thunderclap, a sound I thought would split me in half. I clenched my eyes shut, covered my head with my hands, begged God to forgive me for accidentally bringing an end to all of creation.

There was a jolt, then a bodiless, weightless feeling like drifting out of a dream.

A hand touched my shoulder.

I flinched as if gouged with a fire poker. But things were quiet now. How much time had passed? I felt like a man waking after a nap to complete darkness, confused about the time of day.

I opened my eyes and it was Jennifer, with John and the doctor standing behind her. Lights were on. She helped me up and I looked up to see that some of the hanging ceiling fixtures had clicked back to life. I looked to the center of the floor.

Nothing. Empty, red carpet. No fountain, no bodies, no black hole. I walked out toward it, looked around to see the room was completely vacant except for us and a few random toppled chairs still scattered about. I sat down on the floor, suddenly exhausted. John and I looked hard at the spot on the floor where the fountain had been. We each extended a hand toward it, and gave it the finger.

The doors burst open and several security guys came in, accompanied now by several real cops. Molly the dog came bounding in, a bundle of chewed-up papers in her mouth. She came up to me and dropped the stuff on the floor, barking her head off. I looked down, saw that she had been carrying two tickets to the Marconi show she had presumably gotten out of the young couple’s luggage. I nudged the tickets aside, saw a CD labeled: Amazing Grace: The Brooklyn Choir Sings the Gospel.

A bearded man wandered over, looking dazed, and I recognized him as the husband of the woman we tried to save before she dismembered herself and everything went to Hell.

I said, “I’m sorry. About your wife. What was her name? Becky.”

He looked at me, confused, said, “No, I’m not married. What happened in here?”

I couldn’t answer. People started milling around, cleaning up, the crowd wandering in and looking around in bafflement. Some guy from the hotel came in and started shouting instructions. I laid back on the floor, my body shutting down even with shoes shuffling hurriedly all around me. I hadn’t slept in 40 hours, everything ached. I had flown off the cliff of a gargantuan adrenaline rush and was crashing fast.

Somebody said my name, asked if I was okay. I didn’t answer, the sound of the commotion dying around me as the heavy monkey of sleep rested its warm, hairy ass on my eyelids.

* * * * *

Darkness and warmth, and then the nasal EEEK EEEK EEEK of an alarm clock. I had a taste in my mouth, smoky, like I had licked an ash tray. I felt something itchy and thick around my mouth. I shot my eyes open. Where the hell was I?

I sat up in bed, saw this was not my bedroom. I looked over at a watch on a nightstand and saw it was not my watch but rather a much nicer, blue one that said “Skagen” on it. I looked around the room, the alarm still screeching its complaints from the nightstand. I found a mirror. There was something dark on my face, and I slapped my hand up to it. Hair. I climbed out of bed and walked toward the mirror. I had a thick, full goatee.

What the hell?

19 ->

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - End

Copyright © 2008 David Wong and Jason Pargin - All rights reserved. No part of this book or website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the express written consent of the author and publisher. This online book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidence.