Spawn of Man (11 page)

As the horror of her dismemberment was being forced into her conscious she realized the cause of the pain in her abdomen. There was an open wound running from her midriff downwards, the flesh torn in an irregular pattern, and her internal organs were almost visible through the deepest section of the laceration.

Mary was bending over Alex now; the item in her hand was a syringe with a disproportionately long needle. Mary’s head lowered until Alex could feel the nurse’s breath, exhaled in slow, menacing groans, and it was hot against the tender skin encircling the rip in her stomach. Alex viewed the violence and brutality being performed on her abused body in the mirror on the ceiling. Her gaze was held firm by the restraints about her head, so she was forced to witness the unfolding atrocities.

‘No, please, no!’ she sobbed over and over again as Mary then bit deep into the gaping wound.

Seconds later the nurse then threw her head back to look at Alex with demented resolve, lengths of Alex’s own insides still clenched in her teeth and still attached to Alex’s body like stretched elastic.

Alex screamed in agony as Mary wiped the back of her hand across her blood-smeared mouth, releasing the grisly strip of tissue, as she smiled like an infant who had sneaked away to eat a stolen jar of sweets.

Alex tried in vain to arch her back to vent some of the hurt as Mary chastised, ‘Now, Alex, we’ve discussed this. You signed all the necessary consent forms, everything has been carried out with your full approval, it’s just a procedure, dear.’

And Alex shrieked in anguish and fury, ‘What the hell have you done to me, you crazy bitch? I never approved of you taking my fucking arms and legs off, you maniac! Help! Somebody help me, please!’

Mary replaced the covers, concealing Alex’s body again, and smoothed her hair sympathetically. Alex saw in the mirror suspended from the ceiling, that blood was already soaking through the sheet where the nurse had bitten her. Then Alex saw a section of the back of the nurse’s head was missing. Flesh hung in strips, necrotic and infested with plump, white maggots, and where the cleft was at its most severe, dead withered flowers protruded
.

‘You need to calm down, dear, such a fuss and such profanities. Maybe we can speak again later, when you are a little bit more agreeable,’ Mary said softly.

Alex starred wildly at the nurse’s blood-splattered face as Mary slipped the needle into Alex’s eye and depressed the plunger to inject a black liquid directly into the soft jelly.

Alex slipped beneath consciousness into a fitful, nightmarish facsimile of sleep. Hours later the door to her room creaked open marginally. She fought back from the edges of her dreams to open her eyes and watch Jake appear by her side.

He touched her cheek with his hand and gave her a sad little smile, which she returned. He whispered, ‘I love you, Mummy. Hurry up and get all better and come and play with the nice nurse lady and me. We are playing at hiding from the bad nurse. I’ll wait for you, Mummy, hurry.’

And he was gone.

***

Mary sat at her desk in the reception area of the hospital. Many figures drifted by. Some aimlessly shuffling. Some confused or desperately seeking answers to their plight. Some springing from the walls like rabid monkeys, knocking over the rambling figures. Some engaged in hysterical conversations with themselves.

Then one being entered the hall and she recoiled. An inhumanly tall man dressed in black, stooped and aged, regarded her for a second as he passed. Mary reacted like a cornered cat, rising from her chair to retreat with teeth bared, hissing and lowering her head. She did not hold the man’s stare and did not look up again until he had passed by, then she re-seated herself at the desk and continued staring sadly in the dirty, cracked mirror before her.

Chapter Thirteen

A figure walked slowly down the road that spans the middle of oblivion. Its attire was completely black; black close fitted boots, to just below its knees, dusty black trousers, dirty black shirt and a black, crumpled fedora hat with the brim turned down against the wind. It wore a large, black overcoat made of burnt, seared skin, glistening as if perpetually wet. The coat billowed in the ferocious wind and made the figure appear as a giant bat, a bat grounded now with its skin rippling like liquid, as it ambled along the desert road. The coat was so large that it required a gale to keep the skirt from the surface of the path, for if it were to fall, it would gather round the thing’s feet like an enormous rumpled, slumbering snake.

The figure leaned into the wind as it pushed forward. It was a wild, preternatural gale, whipping about the figure in gusts of dirt and dust and creating small whirlpools of fine grit and sand along the side of the road. The night doused the figure in harsh moonlight and washed it alternately silvery grey and shimmering black, the light refracted on the wet material of the coat, as if on the gently undulating face of a great, dark lake.

The figure turned its head sideways as it progressed and regarded the scenery it passed. Desolation. Apocalyptic desolation. A vast, sprawling landscape of destruction, twisted structures, both natural and engineered. And everywhere dust, dirt, the acrid wind and deep, low, menacing, heavy clouds. And the smell of pandemonium, a thick odor of vomit, sulfur, blood and metal, waste and want, crawling to the figure over a sea of human bones that were bleached white and almost translucent in the gloom.

The figure was abnormally tall, maybe nine feet tall. Its shoulders were long and absurdly square, slanting upwards as if a similarly curved hanger was still concealed inside its great, black coat. Its tread was methodical, its huge shoulders moving in conjunction with the long, purposeful strides it pitted against the wind, beating at its juice-less face. The stiff cadence of its step almost resembled a huge wooden puppet, animated from somewhere high in the malevolent skies; long, spindly limbs, stiffly jointed and moving along the wasted terrain like a soul making its way assuredly into Hell.

There was no betrayal of the time it had taken the figure to arrive at this point in its journey, neither in its actions or behavior, and similarly no hint of how far it still had to go on its pilgrimage. It carried a suitcase in its right hand. The case was so large and heavy that a normal human, like the one inside the suitcase, would have to push and drag such a big and cumbersome item of luggage. But the case dangled free of the ground because of the excessive nature of the walker’s height. With its suitcase bulky and swaying, the figure pushed on through the Armageddon ravaged land like a giant on holiday.

Inside the case was folded a woman, perplexed and afraid, she knew not where she was, or why she was there. She was aware of the darkness and of the confining dimensions of her environment. She was unable to flex her limbs to offer resistance to the soft walls that entrapped her. She half remembered terror beyond imagination and she knew she was connected to that horror, or had even been subjected to it. But her subconscious mind wrapped an iron fist around those memories to protect her sanity from further assault and she could not glimpse the abominations within. She whimpered like a puppy chastised for fouling itself on the carpet, and then she fouled herself.

A twig from a stripped, dead tree spiraled from its resting-place amongst the dirt and debris and tumbled towards the walker. It stalked the figure for a short while, bouncing along the road before it launched itself into the air and danced along the top of the black case held by the giant. It snagged the clip at the back of the case and loosened the mechanism. Then it somersaulted along the width of the case and leaped back to the ground where it skipped and turned at the mercy of the wind’s vagaries. The laws of physics began to work on the clip. An imperceptible trembling of the lock began as it took the strain of the load whilst half-open. Neither the carrier, nor the carried, noticed the changes, until there was an audible springing noise and the lock fell open.

The tall creature’s head turned and its face inclined with studied deliberation as the opening of one lock redistributed the weight of the woman inside the case. The walker’s face was ancient and withered. The skin was as cracked and parched as the barren, desolate place it traversed and its eyes were empty and insensate. The walker’s fragile attention now dissipated and left only abstract interest behind as the captive woman’s body pushed against one side of the case’s interior. The remaining closed lock groaned as it began to give way under the uneven pressure it now bore. The woman inside the case heard the faint sound. So did the walker, even though its ears had long ago rotted into rank, gnarled growths of suppurating flesh, which had fallen somewhere alongside its long footprints on the unending road.

The lock protested one last time, then sprang, one side of the case falling away to leave the walker grasping the handle, its features switching now to mild perplexity. Out of the case poured the living contents, the petrified and soiled woman. The giant walker now fixed what was left of its eyes, dull pools in gashes, lidless and dead, on the woman. The woman retched and thrashed her head from side to side, trying to comprehend where she was. She attempted to assimilate the hellish scene around her, the grotesque case carrier and any means of escape that might be available. The giant smiled a sick, corrupt, putrid smile, as out of place on its decayed face as a panic button in a coffin.

The woman tried to rise to her feet, to push herself erect but the attempt was ineffectual. Confused, her vision blurred and painful, she stared at the disproportionately tall figure dressed in black, with the slit of a mouth still twisted into a deranged grin. Slowly and methodically the stooping carcass removed its great black hat to reveal a head that prematurely ended an inch or so above the line of the lifeless eyes. The brain was exposed, jellied, glutinous and slipping awkwardly over the rim of the grey, protruding skull. Scarlet strands still clung to the inside of the hat as it was separated from the brain tissue.

The giant’s huge, thin hand reached inside the coat that seemed to inflate each time a gust of dry, gritty wind hit it. From a concealed pocket the giant produced an over-sized needle and thread and began to insert the latter into the former with concentrated precision.

It spoke to another being for the first time in decades and its voice was as hollow and dry as old bones. ‘I haven’t finished yet, Alex.’

The lips of the woman who lay prostrate at the boot-clad feet of the giant quivered and her eyes widened inquisitively. But the repugnant face of the tall, aged figure merely cocked its head as if surprised by the woman’s failure to grasp its meaning and it nodded what was left of its head towards the woman’s legs.

The woman, who until now had only scanned her surroundings and the unnatural form towering over her, lowered her eyes to inspect her own body. She wore a loose fitting garment, off-white in color, and a gown of some description, like the type worn in a hospital. But what protruded from the gown almost stopped her heart, as if a sliver of lethally sharp glass had been rammed into her chest. The woman’s mouth fell open and a cry as desolate as the ruined city about her leaped forth as remembrance smashed down the door that protected her mind. The giant knelt by Alex’s side, needle poised.

Alex closed her eyes tightly and sobbed, ‘No, no, please no.’

Then she heard the rasping breath close to her face, rancid and hot as the giant began to stitch.

Chapter Fourteen

‘Open your eyes, Alex, open your eyes.’ The words drifted down like soft snowfall to where Alex’s mind hid.

She became aware of herself again as her eyes opened and she stared blankly at the man dressed in back. She lay by a fire and she perceived the giant through the blaze, his features seeming liquid as they were bent and distorted by the play of the flames. Alex slowly began to piece together the debris of her memories. It was like sifting through ashes of time, trying to reconstruct the picture from crisped, curled fragments of the jigsaw.

The giant sat cross-legged and considered Alex with cool, distant regard. As recollection filtered into Alex’s mind she began to weep. She remembered the hospital, the nurse, Jake’s kiss and then this. But further back she remembered driving to meet Robert, a dream, and then something terrible. Then the pain in her arms and legs and the awful memory of amputated limbs hit her like a blow.

With fear beating a pulse in her temples she tried to rise, expecting the useless stumps that had been revealed to her by the nurse, Mary, to be all she had to help her accomplish the task. And then she recalled the brutal wound to her abdomen and the nurse’s savage attack. But to her astonishment she rose to a seated position and was able to inspect her body below the hospital gown she wore. Her arms and legs were intact but the skin was a different hue from the rest of her body, slightly bronzed and incredibly smooth and toned. And the hole in her stomach had been repaired and covered with the same tanned, flawless flesh.

Alex looked at the man again and then at the desolate landscape about her. White and orange flashes lit the night sky and the ground shook as if massive machines labored beneath the earth. The night rumbled in waves like thunder and there were screams carried on the air.

Then the giant spoke, his voice dry and nothing more than a breathless whisper. ‘Your new limbs seem to work well, Alex, better than the ones you lost in the accident with the automobile. Better even than the ones burnt in the fire.’

Alex squinted to see the shadowy figure through the flames, as sections of him fell in and out of the firelight, and she asked, ‘What? What did you say?’

Hints of her determined nature returned to strengthen her voice. ‘Where am I, where have you taken me, who are you anyway? How do you know about what has happened to me? How do you know my name for fuck’s sake?’

‘Alex, I do not have to answer your pathetic enquiries. Do I look like that is my purpose to you?’

Alex stood, straining to look into the man’s face. ‘Fuck you!’ she spat. ‘Why can’t I remember everything? Where is this place, where is my son Jake, what have you done with him, you freak?’

‘Where do you think you are, Alex, child? You had a car crash, you lost your limbs, you lost your life, so where do you think you are?’ replied the man, extending his hands and holding them towards the fire to warm the palms, his fingers moving like long spider-legs.

Alex felt some of her bravado leave her. ‘What do you mean? You’re telling me I’m… I’m, dead? You’re saying I’m dead? Is that it?’

The man leaned nearer to the fire to answer, some of his grotesque face now visible in the harsh glow. ‘You could be dead, you could be visiting death. It’s a very subjective condition. To some extent this is the great hereafter, the next world, the other side, life after death, yes.’

‘You mean Hell?’ Alex interjected.

‘Not Hell, no. A realm, yes.’

‘A realm? What does that mean?’ said Alex.

‘It means a realm,’ repeated the man. ‘A separate place, existing with and aside from other places. Like in the home you used to live in, Alexandra. Radio and TV signals sometimes filled the rooms but your eyes did not see them. If your eyes could have registered them all, the barrage of ideas would have overwhelmed your senses, with each idea fighting to grab your attention. Those signals varied in vibration, in their frequency, so that each one remained separate, even though they existed in the same space.’

The giant shifted slightly before continuing matter-of-factly, ‘The circuitry within the appliances separated the signals from each other by frequency, so your poor little brain was not deluged. Do you understand, child?’

The question was posed without the need for an answer and the man continued, ‘Likewise, the room was filled with countless realms of existence beyond the physical world, all teeming with life. Planes or states of existence, rather than places, with many planes existing in a given space and time, without ever touching each other. If your eyes could see and your ears hear those non-physical realms, the room would have been incomprehensibly crowded and you would have been completely overwhelmed by the sights and sounds.’

Alex sat again, almost falling under the weight of the man’s words. ‘You are telling me I am in one of those
other
planes? This is not just a dream?’ she asked.

‘This is not a dream, Alex. Although, by all means believe that, if it helps. This, Alex, is a plane. A dark, dismal world, very reminiscent of the Christian purgatory or Hell. At least that’s what the Christians said, the ones I have eaten!’ The man swept his giant hand, spreading his long, talon-like fingers, and the skin in between them was webbed like bat wings. He laughed, making a thick, bellowing sound like a huge brass instrument and coughing up a fine, black, soot-like spray.

Alex reeled, and her breath caught in her throat, but the man merely wiped his stained lips with the back of one claw-like hand and continued, ‘You see, Alexandra, after dying some people are in a state of confusion and because of the low vibration of their thoughts they are trapped near the physical plane. There being no sense of time or space in the worlds of spirit, they might reside there for years or even centuries of Earth time, totally bewildered and not even aware that they are dead. This plane is an illusion created by material-minded human beings, using their creative visualizations. The matter here is very pliable and people living on these planes can create anything they wish by that creative visualization.’

The giant then grasped at the air as if trying to catch an errant fly. The very nothingness of the empty space where his hand clutched seemed to change and become different from the surrounding area. It was as if that portion of atmosphere became more solid. As if it transformed into a flowing, pulsing substance that was almost liquid in its composition, still transparent but with defined boundaries.

The man continued as Alex gazed at the long, dexterous fingers working the responsive matter. ‘Therefore, after death, one could create an illusion of Hell or of Heaven for oneself. States of mind and preconceptions are important too, of course. If one is full of sadness, guilt and remorse or has been raised on a diet of eternal damnation, then one could create an illusion of a Hell to punish oneself. If one is in a state of happiness and bliss leading up to death, then one could create an illusion of Heaven. Depending on one’s belief system.’

Alex mimicked the man’s actions and fell back in surprise as a piece of the air warped at her touch. Then she shivered and looked back at the fire, watching the flames leap, twist and lick before she looked at the man again. He was chewing thoughtfully on something he had pulled from the fire. It looked like the charcoal remains of a child’s doll, although it could have been the charred corpse of a miniature human, Alex thought with revulsion.

The man noticed her staring and smiled wickedly, and he waved the morsel in his hand expressively as he continued.

‘As there is no physical body to nourish and protect, people living on the astral planes do not need to eat, drink, sleep, breathe or defend themselves from the elements. But if one wishes to experience the illusion of such things, then it can seem a reality. One cannot experience physical pain, only emotional or mental pain. But a person who does not know this could create an illusion of pain for themselves.’

The man continued to speak as if imparting trivial bites of knowledge. ‘The lower sub-plane is closest to the human plane of existence and has the lowest vibrations. It attracts entities whose lives on earth were motivated by selfish desires, oppressing and corrupting the lives and the freedoms of others. They will make every possible attempt to reach those in the physical world that will respond and will help them achieve their selfish goals. They are stuck on the lower sub-planes until their souls undertake some form of redemption, Alex.’

Alex looked again at her surroundings. She could see vague forms in the gloom, crawling on their stomachs towards them, but still far off.

She said, ‘But these wretched things have physical bodies?’

‘No. You see, when you die your soul throws off its physical body, but the astral body continues to exist on these planes. If the soul is inclined to move on to a higher plane, then it leaves, ascends, leaving an astral shell behind that will disintegrate over time. If the soul is not inclined to move on or evolve, as is the case with many criminal elements and lower type humans, the astral body will simply linger around on the lower plane, sometimes forever.’

‘But why would the souls here not leave this nightmare, if they have the choice?’ asked Alex.

The man finished his meal and threw what seemed to be the semblance of a small backbone over his shoulder thoughtlessly.

‘Because they are held by their human motivations and by the proximity to the Earth, with its tangibly close promise of vicarious excitement, adventure and the desires they still seek.’

A skeletal shape, humanoid, but with skin that was translucent and rippled as if it was flowing, grabbed the discarded bone and held it to its gaunt chest, furtively darting its shrunken eyes around the hellish scene, before beginning to suck the juice from the morsel.

‘It is a system that has prevailed mutually beneficially to both this and the physical Earth plane. The inhabitants of this lower plane sought life force from the Earth and they were not biased as to whether it was positive or negative energy. They
encouraged
both and reaped the rewards therein. But the human carnage of the twentieth century, world wars, revolutions, wars of colonization, genocides, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India-Pakistan and the Middle East have resulted in the mass deaths of millions. Subsequently this plane has been saturated with astral shells.’

Alex felt like the man’s words were drilling small holes into her skull and she held her head, rubbing at the temples.

But the giant man in black went on ceaselessly, ‘The shells left behind, when souls have ascended, have come to realize that they are on a road to disintegration. They need a source of energy to sustain them. Astral shells become scavengers, preying on energy from the physical plane, to put off the disintegration. But their sheer numbers mean they are perishing and they wish to return to the physical world before it is too late for them. But they have always lacked the ability to return to the earth. Until now.’

Alex began to study her hands, flexing the fingers, not comprehending anything, yet understanding at the same time. She touched the fire, letting her hands stay within the flames and feeling no sensation until the realization of what she was accomplishing ignited a spark of pain in her brain. Alex pulled away from the blaze and the skin on her hands blackened and bubbled like hot tar. Then she remembered the man’s words about the illusion of pain, and it was as if somebody had dipped her hands in cool, flesh-colored paint, as the vitality returned to them.

The man was still talking, oblivious to Alex’s experiment. ‘The shells developed self-interest, desperate to delay their disintegration. Their despair grew and grew and created thought-forms that drifted down to the earth, manifesting in the constant outpourings of the media, government propaganda and mass political conceptions.’

The giant then casually retrieved another bone from the ground, dusted it off, analyzed it thoughtfully, and then began to stoke the fire with the blunted end.

‘The proliferation of information has given birth to a popular media that dominates mankind’s thinking, choking its consciousness in fiction. The divisions between reality and fantasy are blurred with millions of creations depicting make-believe characters and plots and evoking emotions. Facts are twisted; emphasis is placed on the sensation or the shocking and self-indulgence is nurtured. Idiocy is deified in a carnal society that considers it more valuable to look good naked than to expand its consciousness. And so this society spirals deeper into the pit filled with the filth of its own defecation. And as it sinks in the sewage, it grasps frantically for salvation at the very things that have pushed it down and it tramples on the sacred gifts that would assuage its suffering. Until the malodorous stench of its greed and arrogance washes across the thresholds of dimensions.’

The man stood and walked to the pitiful thing chewing on the recently discarded bone. The thing with the bone lowered its head and cowered as the man in black placed his boot on its glaringly white skull. The firelight allowed shadows to play on the man in black’s wan skin, which was pulled tight over his features, and he looked back at Alex from below the brim of his hat.

‘You see, Alex, mankind finds itself emotion-laden and lost. Its attention only held by its need for an emotional hook. Great thinkers and fine thoughts have been reduced to a minority, as the roar of the media muffles their voices and mankind continues to produce the thought energy that feeds this plane.’ The wind travelled around the giant and engorged the fire as he spoke.