Crematorium for Phoenixes (14 page)

The group quickly buried some swaddled dead.
They were about to retire in the working class neighborhoods across
the river when a procession lurched into the desert itself,
focusing on the pyramid being built.

The silhouette wrapped in priestly robes
sang and marched with the demons that accompany the dead on their
way to misery.

The gathered participants chattered,
intoxicated by substances and the magnetic exaltation that
stretched almost a kilometer, stepping, as if in a movie, on a
mountain of skulls.

Strangely, as if immersed with the ongoing
black rites, they noticed nothing around themselves, such as the
joining, marching troops.

The men felt despondent toward this
extraordinary procession. They were preparing to transfer to the
yonder beach when they saw a vast copper vessel from which six
people were drawing the contents that were creating the resultant
euphoria.

And in an instant, risking their lives, they
wrapped themselves up, threw on fabrics, and participated in the
procession by blending in as dancing dervishes or magicians.

Thus, striding through those entranced, they
noticed in spite of the apparent chaos that existed in the thread,
there was a strict hierarchy that would have required
witchcraft.

At the front, their chests puffed out in
ecstasy with their rods, or caducei, were the oldest people who had
received the strongest part of the potion’s dregs.

Behind them, making incessant worship, were
the younger individuals, who were content with the rare part of the
dirty drink.

And at the back, as well as inter alia on
all the sides were the assistants who waved like quenched
star-filled censers.

All this, mixed with the seed, affected the
nerves and made them prone to hallucinations.

Even the men, who had not touched the
potions, but were immersed in the ritual actions did not notice
that they were passing secondary structure after structure as they
started to climb the ramps of the unfinished tomb; it crawled with
an entangled veil of insects.

They finally reached the jagged top of the
construction site and stopped before it. Then they once again
relaunched the songs of praise, becoming more and more
intoxicated.

The company began to wonder what was
imminent when the crowd split, taking the elderly who had begun
imposing whips on themselves. The scattered spray of blood
continued while the monotone singing subsided.

Hypnosis took more and more control, and the
action of the herbal substances stimulated people’s natural needs,
leading many to relieve themselves in the middle of the ongoing
ceremony.

“How can we be such pigs?” asked the men
around them while many began to collapse from cumulative
stress.

At that moment, in the supreme hysteria,
several priests from the crowd signaled the younger helpers and
touched the scepter to the golden top of the pyramid. Suddenly all
at once, everyone fell to the ground, breathing like overfed, dying
animals. One beam of whitish light shot from the pyramid’s
heights.

The younger ones trembled with excitement.
They began to cover and embalm the outfits of some of the
participants who were still alive. The rest of the people were
lying in pools of vomit, with limited consciousness.

The old priests, leaning on their sticks
that bended like trees in a storm, were singing with their satanic
baritones, and from the clouds, descending like flying soot, were
fireballs of quirky gadgets that lit up the area like a solar
eclipses.

Once they lowered their voices, the priests
crouched, leaving only the young, who had already wrapped and
placed their victims on the altar.

The lads pulled out hooks and were about to
remove the people’s brains by wrenching them away while they were
still alive when the disks descended like a black river, letting
down some figures that caused all to hush and bow prostrate before
them.

They were dressed in armor like dragon
scales. It was clear the suits were well-fitted and they formed
around their proportional bodies like wetsuits.

On their heads, resembling the hoods of
mechanical reptiles, were spliced oxygen masks made of rubber. They
reflected the darkness and cued it with something ominous.

“Again, you have gone too far with your
whoring!” filtered the new arrivals, wheezing with every breath of
indignation.

“Greatest bishops, after all, this is the
ritual required of you . . .” whispered the clergymen.

“You have distorted all with your
debauchery, but anyway . . . Have you drafted the offerings at
least?”

“Yes, before you are the . . . .”

“Then what are you waiting for?” shouted the
aliens, removing from the costumed containers.

“Maybe us!” Tammuz screaming, jumping up and
removing from his bosom a short knife.

A hoot sounded at the top of the pyramid.
The worshipers tried to make a move, but they failed due to the
effects of the potion.

“Forgive us, oh, fathers . . .” they wept
because of the unprecedented insult that had been done.

But the heavenly messengers weren’t affected
by the scene. In contrast, their far darker binocular lenses
allowed them to see into the beyond and they manifested a deep
interest.

“Tammuz, what a pleasant surprise. Who would
say that among the pigs a person can detect a pearl?” they finally
said, staring from their opaque masks at the man.

He seemed startled that they recognized him
and said, “Am I wrong?”

“No, you are not wrong. We are,” they said
and raised their hands.

The aliens started to unhook their masks
link by link, stroking the newly uncovered, deathly pale areas with
their long, yellowish nails.

Once the last button fell, they brought
their hands down and dried faces, wrinkled around the eye holes and
ending in almost missed lips and cheekbones, lengthened into
unnatural satanic smiles.

The worshipers suddenly stopped. Then their
eyes and hands repeated even harder the “Praise,” that extended and
stratified itself like a moan from the end altar.

“What, are not you glad to see us, Don? Or
how should we call you? Tammuz?

“We created a lot of trouble in Crete and
you addled the head of our poor slave Minos just when things had
begun to get entertaining. Well, that’s nothing. We have left the
real fun here, in the blessed chance under our hands, the land of
Ta-Kemmet . . .” they began to clamor, dripping saliva from their
teeth at every syllable.

Tammuz squeezed his weapon more tightly,
assessing the situation. Then seeing that things were not in his
favor, said, “Obviously, you are going to come after me if you are
so aware of the details of my mission.

“Yet I will give you one last chance to
escape, or me and my friends will do what is actually right. We
will destroy you.”

The creatures erupted in laughter, secreting
saliva and tears that streamed down their waxy-white, pink-edged
tendons.

“You have always been a great wag, Don.
Haven’t you realized yet that in life there is a certain evil that
cannot be avoided?”

“Even so, I will again meet Him.”

“Why should you? You know, the problem is
that all of this action is taken with the goal, the belief, that
you should wait for Him. We will offer you something different and
so convenient—here and now. Just a thought and anything that you
wish, that can be reached in the flight of fantasy, is in your
hands. The brilliance of all the kingdoms of the Earth, without the
limitations of always standing one step behind reality, with only
you ready to conquer them.”

Tammuz relaxed his grip on knife, but
nevertheless said, “You are suggesting things to me like condemned
ghosts. What you promise is beyond your power . . . .”

“Really?” they asked him, and the system of
muscles played out in their cheeks, revealing toothy smiles. “Just
think, there is a chance that tomorrow will dictate what is now.
Then even the sorrows won’t be recalled. The chewed life story is
nothing more than a dream that suddenly sinks from where it has
popped.”

Tammuz relaxed his grip, but Sharukin,
stopping now and listening to what they said, shouted, “Do not
listen to them. As if there are any convenient shortcuts in the
world! They are not right.”

The aliens giggled and said, “Right, wrong?
Why are we dwelling on these little death accounts and limiting
ourselves to the absolute? Supreme life means going beyond to try
to become a living god.”

“I have watched many such deities, which to
my shame I’ve bowed to in my heart,” Sharukin said. “The essence of
the true God is the dream.

“He is the spice that torments history,
tailoring our destiny to such an extent that it becomes
bearable.”

“What is this dream to those times of the
day after which one or another man is buried as a hollow
coffin?

“Life, my friend, is a slaughterhouse where
everything you ever hoped has been hung.

“And we certainly can give everything and
anything that providence with its pettiness has withheld from you.
Just you imagine—the kingdoms in all their glory, collected in your
fist.”

“Tammuz, do not listen to them. Whatever may
give the temptation cannot compare to the reverie that even
momentarily connects you with what you want.

“This is the only way to not only gain the
whole world, but also to heal your soul,” Sharukin entreated.

“Ha-ha, a big dreamer has come out of the
criminal miasma. It is strange how people close pages to their
previous lives. But such things happen. We can wait for the answer
again. The Apollyon Project includes that. We will be waiting in
Israel.

“However, remember that the world is a dream
in which all appears and disappears into the shadows.”

The aliens pulled on their oxygen masks and
their voices became muffled by the rubber material. Shortly
thereafter they disappeared into space, saying, “Do not touch a
hair on the heads of the strangers, they have already been counted
by us.”

Around the alien’s bodies a glimmering flow
appeared, bundles of flaming lights. They spread their wings like
banished angels, lifting and swirling into pulsating beam. Entering
the flight, they rolled into a perfect mechanism and were shot up,
driven by powerful pulses.

The pyramid gradually faded and the
assembled multitude came to consciousness.

“We should still give the contributions that
our fathers require.”

“Oh no, I will not allow this,” Sharukin
told them.

“Only their holy words are protecting you,”
answered the clergymen. “We advise you to go from where you came
and take their words to heart as They wanted them to inspire
you.”

“Come on, Sharukin, let’s go,” Tammuz said,
shrugging himself as if waking from a stupor.

“But . . . .”

“Sometimes we can do or say nothing. This is
one of those cases. Wanted or not, we’re part of that Apollyon
Project.”

The men went away, squeezing between the
procession that launched its chant.

After a minute had past, they heard screams
and then the silence of the night covered them with its veil,
drowning everything in his trance-like world.

Chapter
Twenty-one

The domed facility was filled with sizzling
sound.

Hundreds of containers were suspended from
the ceiled like cocoons. The tract vibrated like a veil of
conduction. There was organic matter from which they were
embraced.

These hundreds of bodies, covered alone or
in pairs, glowed with the paleness of their mass. They were covered
with a web of systems that dug into them like leeches.

Below oozed disgusting sap that dropped as
whey-white liquid that was flowing in stratified rust lattice
channels, leaving a sharp unpleasant smell in the unventilated
air.

Several panels spun lazily as magnetic
winches. They were perforated strips that guided the process,
snapping monotonous readers with each skip.

From time to time, the putrid mask on the
people’s faces also produced mechanical sounds, shining with pale,
laser light, and lengthening their heads as if they were subdued
vampires.

Takeshi, Akuma, and the others were going
down amid this living graveyard by descending the tiered
stairs.

“Goddamn it!” they swore when some stronger
smell, like rotting flesh, tightened their already tense
nerves.

A decent laboratory hall was laid out,
described as concentric circles in a shell-like form.

And as if entire rows of matured crops had
awakened, set units represented a sight that reminded them of
victims wrapped in cobwebs.

It was strange how all those inside were
immersed in cryogenic sleep.

“Who knows, maybe this is the crew of the
station?” the men were thinking, while they advanced beside the
entangled wires that were unique in that they buzzed and gave some
sign of life.

But there was no one to answer them; there
was only an empty room with containers.

It seemed as if everything was left on an
impulse, and whether righteous or not, everything would breathe
with new life.

The structure of the building was a huge
hive that was crossed with elongated chutes. They created the
optical illusion that everything had been specially prepared for
this occasion.

Only the bottom phosphor platform projected
its brilliance into the darkness, scattering rays onto the tiered
steps.

“You would have done the same, right?” Akuma
asked as they went down step by step.

“You mean with such attempts?

“The world is a place for everything but the
naive and I’d be lying if I said no.

“Our life was an ossuary where bones and
filth laid.

“We did abominations to our friends. O Lord,
O Lord, what we have done and there was no one to stop us.