House of Mystery II: Doorway to Nightmare

There was no beast this next morning, no rude awakening of the two warriors. Motega had slept hard however, tossing and turning, left with nagging doubts combined with a certainty they were watched. Pajackok was refreshed, though. He slept deep, rousing in the morning to stretch his limbs, break the camp and march out quickly, excited at the prospect of the final battle to save his people's valley.

“Look at this!” Motega called out, pointing to tracks in the soft earth. “Footprints. Two-footed, like us. But never have I seen footprints like this.”

Pajackok knelt and stared at the horrible mimicry of human tracks. Bipedal for sure, one tall, over six feet in height perhaps, the other shorter, by at least five inches. He nodded gravely at Motega, eyes ablaze with fervor for the blood of these beasts.

“No toes, just rounded off at the end. And look at the heel, how unnatural the line in the center of the foot. It is a mockery of our natural bodies, Motega my friend.”

“A mockery. They try to shame and taunt us now,” Motega grumbled angrily, hands trembling with fear. “What sort of monsters are these?”

“We shall know when we confront them. This time, this day, we will have our reckoning!” Pajackok pursued the tracks without hesitation, Motega racing to catch up again after scrabbling to collect his own gear.

Late into the day their pursuit went, relentless, driven, Pajackok never slowing, forcing Motega to keep pace. The bright blue of day again started to fade into the purple veil of evening, and Motega felt his friend's arms across his chest, holding him fast.

“There!” the warrior declared in a hushed, excited voice. “There, the light, do you see it? Our foes!”

Motega nodded, as he crouched in the brush. Slowly, carefully, he drew one of his arrows and nocked. He raised the weapon up to aim, taking careful note of the milky-white bodies some distance away. Two of them, one looked like a man, the other like a woman, both crowned in silver, both with balls of flame in their hands, lighting the area up around them in a pale, unearthly glow. As he focused his aim on the larger, the male, he couldn't help but notice that its companion held the arrowhead he'd fired earlier. His face grew dark with fury, arms taut in firing position, barely containing him to wait for his old friend's signal.

“Now!” Pajackok barked harshly, followed by a wailing cry that sliced through the air and silence. He charged down the short slope and into the clearing, as he heard the whistling of his companion's arrow. The Pale Ones whirled to face them, the fiery light of their hands catching Pajackok in the eyes and causing him to falter.

“Aggh!” The arrow pierced the male's shoulder, and it clutched at its wound, dark eyes on the pale face wide with shock. The female seemed equally stunned, as Motega quickly drew and released a second arrow. She was prepared though, and she dove at the dazzled Pajackok, the arrow missing for Motega was not prepared for a woman to enter battle with a warrior of the Pocomtuc. It was then that he saw she held his other arrowheads, but he couldn't figure out how.

There they are, his mind reeled in shock. Nine more in my quiver, how could she have them all?

The Pale One brought the palm of flame down and cracked it against Pajackok's arm, making him cry in pain and stumble, the tomahawk dropping to the ground. He lashed out blindly in fury, catching his enemy in the side of her head with the back of his fist. She whirled away from the blow, as Motega and the other Pale One each charged toward the battle field now, to support their respective companions.

The male seemed to scream out something, but no sound came from that hideous, pallid face, dark eyes now wide with fury as it came to grapple with Pajackok, who howled his own defiance and threw himself into the battle. They clutched, spirit to flesh, sinew and muscle colliding in a brutal confrontation.

The female was pulling herself to her feet as Motega fired another arrow at her. She leaped back, her light now catching the archer's eyes and caused the shot to go wild. As he pulled back to nock another arrow, Motega heard thunder rip through the battle. He spun around to see a third Pale One, another male, this one helmeted, though his dark eyes showed fear. Thunder rang out from his clutched fists, and lighting spat from those fingers, and Motega tried to dive for cover from the strange assault. He felt the arrows fly from his quiver as he cried out in anger. He could sense the betrayal, his weapons abandoning him, the shafts turning treacherously against him in the war and he cried out in fear, anger, despair.

“Pajackok!” Motega cried out, as he helplessly watched the female Pale One run to the two grapplers.

Pajackok had gained the upper hand on the wounded male, and had brought it down onto his back, powerful hands locked on the silver-haired spirit's throat in a death-grip, eyes ablaze with delighted bloodlust. But the woman, she found the head of the tomahawk, she clutched it in one hand, and the arrowheads in her other and brought the stained, ancient, soapstone weapons cracking down onto the back of the warrior's head. Motega cringed and cried out as he heard the flat, wet crack silence the battlefield. He stared in horror as he watched his friend slump to the earthen floor of the forest, a limp, lifeless doll as blood flooded from the back of his head.

He raced across the scene of the battle, tears streaming down his cheeks as he ignored his enemies to rescue his childhood friend. He rolled Pajackok over and clutched him tightly to him and begged his oldest, dearest friend to answer him, to speak to him. The light was fading from those dark brown eyes, but they caught Motega's stricken gaze one last time.

“It is...home,” Pajackok gasped with a twisted, haunted smile. “We...we did it...I'm sorry, my friend, but blood will start..the cycle.”

Motega realized what he meant, and quickly looked around but could find no signs of the Pale Ones now. Had the weapons done their deed? Were they somehow exiled by his friend's death? Is that what the weapons had meant? If so, then why the apology?

2:

It was strange. He was in the middle of a desolate swamp, the murky, oily waters belching strange gases as he stood atop his craft. He immediately worried that his ship would start sinking at any moment, but he realised that the strange liquid below wasn’t at all deep, just… Thick. It’d be safe. The sky was still dark, above him a black maelstrom of cloud that every now and then crackled with lightning. He was lucky he wasn’t a dead man, by the looks of it. One bolt of lightning hitting him up there would have fried his systems and electrified his metallic craft. He would have been barbecued inside and out within moments. So it seems his luck went from bad to semi-alright in mere seconds.

He’d been travelling from Tesla, the industrial market world, to Apollo, his home, when his ship was caught up in a gravity wave. He had been dragged through space for hours, not knowing where he’d end up, but knowing that the effects would pass soon enough. Just as he was spat out of the wave, the ship was struck by some kind of weird meteor strike that came from nowhere, and then he was headed for this place. This dead world. He remembered flashes of where he had flown through. What he had struck. A city. Must have been. He looked over his ship, checking for damage, and then arched an eyebrow as he found something caught between two panels of protective shielding. “What the hells?” He reached for it, gripped it between two gloved hands, and yanked it free. In the dark light, it was like a rod of some sort. But he pulled his flash-beam from his belt and examined it more thoroughly. He suddenly realised what he was holding. “Gah!” He dropped the bone back to the surface of his ship, and it bounced from the shielding and into the swamp. What had he struck on his way down? He looked across the swamp, toward the impact point, and saw a flicker of light in the dank distance. Civilisation? Maybe. “Gods,” he whispered. He was not a brave man, but he was by no means a coward. He was renowned in his town-sector for being a curious one (his uncle even saying his curiosity would get him killed one day, which he didn’t at all like!), for being the one who would always volunteer to head to Tesla for supplies… With a deep breathe, the stagnant stink of the oily liquid below him rising into his nostrils, he climbed down into the swamp. He sank some what, nearly panicked, but the sinking ended almost as soon as it began, and he was up to his shins in the murky waste. With an ounce of effort, he trudged forward.

4:

“W-Who are you?” whispered Vash in reply.

“I am Keeper,” bowed the strange man with a mumble. “You are a visitor to my home.”

“An accident,” replied Vash. “A gravity wave and then… I don’t know what happened. I just want to leave.”

“So soon,” snarled the man, with a wink and a smile, “So soon after you got here.” He crept forward, Vash didn’t lower his weapon. “Don’t be afraid, friend, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Where are we? What is this place?”

“Home,” replied the man. He fawned over Vash, his long finger nails scratching over the safety suit as he examined it. “Beautiful. Beautiful.”

“Get off me!” barked Vash, pointing to his blaster. “I’ll use it!”

Keeper cowered in surprise, and then peaked a glistening eye out at Vash. “Why? Why would you hurt your friend Keeper?” He shook his head. “You looked lost. I come to see if you need help. My eccentricities. You have to understand. So long on this place. Not many visitors. None. Alone.” He hobbled away. “Nevermind. G’journey, friend.”

Vash shuddered, and holstered his weapon. This poor, lonely, mad hermit, left alone on a strange world? Maybe. There was no need for rudeness. “Wait, Gods, sorry, I’m just. Lost. I’m not supposed to be here.”

Keeper halted. “Of course you’re not.” He turned. “No one is. This is a dead place. Dead cities made of bone and flesh litter this continent, I know it, I have been all over. Over the seas, I know not what resides there.”

“I hit something when I landed, there was bone in my ship’s outer shielding… Are you telling me I hit a building? A building made of bone?”

“I show you,” winked Keeper, as he began to hobble forward toward where Vash was headed.

6:

It was a beautiful sight, thought Vash. A sick, beautiful sight. Entire structures made of animal bone, high in the sky, impossibly built. An example of architecture from a mind that prefers madness to sanity. “How is this possible?”

“When you are left alone for so long, you get bored. You’ll try… Anything,” whispered Keeper. Vash didn’t acknowledge his words, something else piquing his interest. His curiosity getting the better of him. He didn’t notice Keeper eye up his laser-blaster. Or lick his lips at the sight of the flash-beam.

Vash squatted over, and brushed away a layer of dirt. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know, tell me,” replied Keeper, as he crept forward.

“Like… An engraving in the stone. What does it say?”

Vash was so hypnotised by the engraving, the calcified structures all around him, that he didn’t notice Keeper’s hand wander into a small satchel to his side, made of animal skin. “I had to do something with the remains.”

Vash span around, confused, “What?”

Keeper dove at him, his long finger nails pressed against the young pilot’s face. Vash screamed, but suddenly gagged as Keeper threw a handful of black ooze at his mouth. Keeper pressed this sudden advantage, and pressed a strange, ancient little device to his young captives head. “Time for me to go.” He pulled the trigger, and a bright blast of light filled the area, reflecting off bones and flashing against storm ridden clouds.

8:

Keeper gasped awake. He screamed in pain. “Gods! Gods… Ahh!” He looked at his hands, and didn’t stop screaming. They weren’t his own. “What? No! No!” He clambered up, his every joint yelling at him to stop. Pain. Pain. Hurt. Lay down. Die. Die, please, just die. Let us rest. He limped toward the swamp, and then fell to his knees on arrival on the edge of the ooze. “My ship. No. No. What… Oh, Gods, the old man. He… He…” He turned, and then tore through the jungle, like a man possessed. He arrived back at the spot he awoke in, and then began to claw at the dirt, over the engraving that he had been reading before. “What. Where? Where am I? No. No. Can’t be. Can’t be happening.”

Vash’s eyes, not his own, opened wide. The word, carved into stone by finger nails. “Ysmault.”



End.

An eerie breeze coursed through the alleyways of Hub City as it touched Elijah Morris and sent tingles down his spine. As chilly as it was outside, he found himself sweating; he put a hand to his back and found that his sweatshirt was moist. He looked behind him, wondering if anything laid in the shadows ready to pounce on him. Just an adrenaline rush is all it is…he thought to himself. But even with his weak reassurance he found himself hastily moving his unsteady feet, rushing to leave his brief solace.

As he started to run, he looked at his arm and almost fainted. On his arm, just below his elbow was a tattoo that resembled a feline skull surrounded by crescent moons and triangles. It began to burn, the black ink lighting up like the end of a cigarette. The mark is glowing!

“Shit, shit!”

He pressed his palm over the mark, hoping that the pain would go away. It didn’t.

“Shit!”

He continued to run, gritting his teeth and stumbling out of the alley into a larger street. Several blocks down he spotted a church with open doors. Maybe I’ll be safe there, Elijah thought. A few minutes later he was tripping over the steps into the holy building.

The inside of the church was warm and bright compared to the cold, dark night outside. He knew he had hit the jackpot coming in here. They’re not allowed in here, he thought positively. Still, he didn’t like being in the open—you never know who’s watching and what could happen. He decided to run into a nearby confessional.

He slid open the door and crashed into the seat, breathing hard and wiping the sweat from his brow. He shook off his coat, throwing it to the side, and peeked at his forearm. The tattoo’s crescent moons and triangles had begun to move somehow: his jaw hung open as he watched fiery ink dancing over his skin, rotating in a circle. The skull within had begun to move as if breathing; Elijah felt himself staring into it, awed by its horror, feeling the mark burning hotter and hotter.

“Hello?”

Elijah jumped out of his seat in surprise, bumping his head against the confessional wall and falling on his side. “Jesus Christ!”

“I am not he, but I am his representative on Earth.” On the other side a screen slid, revealing the adjoining booth and a man in shadows who Elijah could only assume was a priest. He chuckled; his voice was warm, comforting and youthful, and yet still had an edge of authority. “Welcome. How may I serve you tonight?”

Elijah began to calm down, taking longer breaths, and putting a hand to his chest in relief. “Father, I need your help. I am a man of sin!”

“Humanity is born to sin: only through faith and choice can one come closer to God, our Almighty Father.”

Elijah shook his head. “You don’t understand. I could die tonight! I need to be saved immediately!”

The Father stayed silent for a moment, then whispered. “Anyone may die at any moment. Do you wish to repent? To be forgiven?”

“I want to do anything that will keep me from going to hell!”

“But are you sorry for your sins? Repentance is not a light matter.”

Elijah’s brows furrowed. “Look Father, I don’t have time to confess all of my mistakes. I need to do a faster, express version. Can’t you do a little holy-water or something? Light some incense? Anything?”

The Father paused for a moment. “So are you not in any way sorry for your transgressions?”

Elijah sat up. “What? Look Father, I don’t have time to do one of those Christmas stories. Right now I am in serious danger and I need your help.”

“It’s interesting how much you insist on my help…Yet you didn’t need my help to commit murder tonight.”

He slams the book shut. “Well I’ve think I’ve had quite enough of those dreadful stories…And it is almost morning. Did you enjoy the tales? They weren’t all bad I suppose, don’t you—“

“Cuh-cuh-Cain?”

You turn around. You can’t tell where the voice came from until a plump head sticks itself out of a doorway behind you. A short, chubby man slowly walks in wearing a purple suit. His hair is similar to Cain’s, but shorter, sleeker, and black. He puts a finger to his chin as he begins to speak again. “Suh-suh-sorry to dis-tu-turb you, Cain, buh-buh-buh—“

“You’re annoying me Abel…”

You turn around to look back at Cain. Where he had seemed content moments ago, now he seemed angry and growing angrier still.

“Buh-buh-buh-buh—“

“I hate when you stutter you twit…”

You turn to look back at Abel. You could have sworn he was dry before, but suddenly he is covered in sweat. “Suh-suh-sorry Cuh-Cain, I cuh-can’t help it—“

“Oh, but I can…” Cain says ominously.

You turn back to Cain. You jump in fear as you see him suddenly standing and holding a rather long knife in his hands. He is breathing hard and fast, and walking slowly towards you and Abel.

“Nuh-nuh-no cuh-Cain…duh-don’t, puh-please—“

“What I hate is that once you get started, you don’t stop. Stutter-stutter-stutter. God, I wish it would stop! God I wish it would end. And you know what Abel?”

“Wha-wha-what, cuh-Cain?”

“I know how to make it silent in here. I know how to make it stop.” Cain was grinning again…but if he was smiling devilishly before, now he was far beyond that…you could almost imagine he was the devil himself.

“Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-no cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh—“

“Let’s end it, shall we brother?”

Suddenly Cain jumped. You freeze, throwing your hands up in the unlikely event that flesh will stop steel…and for a moment you believe you have, until you here screams and a violent wet sound behind you.

You turn to find Cain viciously stabbing his brother. Abel didn’t even try to run; even now he has ended his protests and accepted his fate. And that angers you and fills you full of a righteousness you didn’t know you have. You jumped out of your seat and tackle Cain, knocking him off of Abel, knocking the knife out of his hand, and punching him in the face. But you’re too late: Abel is already dead.

You sit in a pool of Abel’s blood, looking at your bloodstained hands. “What kind of terror is this?” you say.

“Oh—that is the least of your terrors my friend.”

You turn to find Cain rising from the floor. There is a look in his eye: fear. “I’ve knocked the knife out of your hands. You can’t harm me!” You say.

“I don’t have to…”

Cain’s hair parts even further than before, revealing a mark on his forehead that you couldn’t see before. “Didn’t you read the Bible? Don’t you know our story? I was branded…branded with a mark made by God himself…”

You shake your head. Your body begins to ache all over. Your skin tingles and your hair feels like it’s on fire.

“Didn’t you read the book?” Cain shouted. A wind swept through the room, shaking the furniture and knocking items that were perched on the shelves and counter space. “Didn’t you read what my mark means? You should have left us alone; it is part of my contract with our lord Dream that I can kill my brother.”

You hear a sound that you can barely hear with your stomach squeezing so tightly. You see out of the corner of your eye that Abel is rising! He shakes his head as his wounds heal, stumbling to his feet. “Wha-what’s guh-going…oh God,” he says.

“You should have left us alone!” Cain shouted as your nails begin to arch inwards, drawing blood. “Didn’t you know? Anyone who harms me will suffer a fate seven times worse than death! You should have known!”

Your bones begin to tremble as your muscles convulse and try to tear themselves out of your body. Your eyes begin to pulse with a painful tone. “May God have mercy on you…or what is left of you…”

A crow perches on a tree outside and caws three times.

Damn his Vincent Price voice.