4. Shanasee Rain King Motel, Room 7

4. Shanasee Rain King Motel
Room 7
1:00 AM the Next Day

            The man in the black suit pours himself a drink. It’s tequila, from agave grown outside Damana. He is careful with alcohol. His father – and yes, even men like him have fathers – was an alcoholic. He shouldn’t touch the stuff at all, but he needs something to help him relax.

            It’s been a long day. The woman in the black suit has refrained from the kind of idle chitchat that makes long drives up and down their massive country bearable. She’s angry with him.

            He is always careful not to wish to go home to Damana. Wishes like that can lead to pining, and that can distract from work. He is confident they will achieve containment, but he does not know that he will be the one to catch the thing.

            Designation: Templar One.

            Origins: Question mark.

            Nature: Unknown.

            Threat: Very High.

            Sentience: Unknown.

            Contagious: Unknown.

            It is this last unknown that made the woman in the black suit so angry with him. The man in the black suit did not watch Eris Oceans as she stumbled into the desert, to die of heat stroke or dehydration. In a way, she had already died before they even found her.

            The man in the black suit takes a sip from his glass. He has already put the bottle away.

            This is not the way that things usually go. Most of the people he finds in the wake of one of these incidents are able to go on and live fairly normal lives. The luckiest are the ones who remembered nothing, at least consciously. A little neurosis is a small price to pay for a life free of cosmic horror.

            The man in the black suit takes off his jacket and hangs it on the hook the motel has kindly provided next to the bathroom. He pulls the knot of his tie loose and draws it slowly out of his collar. It is made of silk, and feels smooth as it runs along his fingers. It is black, just like his jacket and pants and shoes. He removes the shoes and peels off his socks, placing them neatly on the bed.

            He slowly unbuttons his shirt. He removes it and hangs it up over the jacket. The fluorescent bulb illuminating the sink hums, and he stares at himself in the mirror. The light is not flattering, but he has no need of flattery. He looks into his own eyes and stares for a solid minute.

            He thinks about who he is, how he became what he is, and how he came to do what he does. The woman in the black suit is younger than he is. She is young enough to be his daughter. He expects that she will come to understand eventually. Poor Eris Oceans is dead – this many days in the desert would ensure that. Her companion is dead as well – of that, the man in the black suit can be certain beyond any doubt. These deaths are monstrous, to be sure, but unavoidable.

            And the woman in the black suit will come to understand that eventually, though it might be years before she accepts that truth. For what it is worth, he hopes that she sleeps well tonight, though he doubts she will. She is in the next room over. He has no idea whatsoever what she is doing in there.

            The man in the black suit runs his hand along his cheek, feeling stubble poking through. His hair has grown longer than he prefers to keep it. And his eyes are tired. He looks paler than usual. The color seems to have drained even from his eyes.

            He has driven fourteen hours today. He is going to sleep soon.

            He removes his pants and folds them, laying them across the top of the chair. At this point, he re-checks the lock and bolt on the door. He ensures that the blinds obscure the entirety of his room. He examines the smoke detector and any vents in which there could possibly be some sort of surveillance equipment. He does not expect to find any, and ultimately he is not surprised.

            He returns to the sink-counter, with its square of tiled floor beneath it and harsh mirror-light. He removes his underwear and places it on the bed behind him, next to the socks.

            The man in the black suit pulls the crumpled paper bag from under the sink. Slowly, ritualistically, he unfurls it, allowing him to reach into its mouth. He pulls the knife and the towel from out of it. The towel still smells like bleach.

            The knife is an old one, and it is probably time to take it in to get the handle re-bound. The sheath is also starting to fall apart, but he takes excellent care of the blade.

            He sets the towel and the knife on the counter that stands just outside the bathroom, where the sink is. He then pulls other items from the bag – a whetstone, a lighter, a bottle of pure alcohol, some larger adhesive bandages, and a suture needle with thread.

            He sharpens the knife. He does this for several minutes. He cleans the knife now, pouring the alcohol along the blade. He then wets the towel with alcohol and rubs the usual place on his abdomen.

            He has some basic medical training. He knows where to put the knife so that it does not damage any important organs or sever any major blood vessels. He has done this many times before. You should not worry for his physical safety.

            He takes two deep, calming breaths, and he pushes the point of the knife into the spot on his abdomen. It is sufficiently sharp, and a bead of blood drops down. It does not hurt yet.

            He takes another deep breath and then slowly, carefully, pushes the knife in farther. First it is cutting skin. Then it is pressing through muscle. He nearly winces, but he has practiced enough to know that this would make things far worse.

            The knife is now over an inch into his body. He focuses on the pain. He conjures, in his mind, the face of Eris Oceans. He sees her, worn and bloody and missing an eye. He sees her identification photo – a record of the woman she once was. The pain becomes excruciating.

            He forces himself to imagine her, hearing her voice not as the small and high-pitched trauma-victim mouse-sound, but as that of a healthy adult woman.

            “She is dead,” he says, whispering, but loud enough for himself to hear.

            He pushes the knife in further, a very deep, animal part of his mind screaming to stop, to relieve him from the pain.

            He does not listen to it. He stares into the mirror, the harsh fluorescent light, with its slight green tint, making the bright red blood look almost brown or black. He stares into his own eyes as the knife cuts deeper into his flesh.

            “Her name was Eris Oceans.” He repeats this like a religious chant.

            His eyes have gotten red. He can feel blood – that which is not spilling onto the tile floor beneath him – rushing to his face, swelling it. He is almost there.

            He turns the knife now, ever so slightly, not enough to shear the skin, but the pain flares through him.

            And you killed her.

            And now a teardrop forms in his right eye. It rolls down his stubbly cheek and cascades down his chest and finally to the floor.

            He takes a deep breath. His shoulders feel weak, and they shake a little as he does so.

            Gingerly, he removes the knife. There is a great deal of blood – more than he ever expects. The incision is about an inch across. He clamps the towel to his stomach. He then removes it and cleans off the wound with the alcohol. He sterilizes the needle and then begins to sew up the cut.

            The physical pain continues as he makes stitch after stitch. But before long, the wound has been closed. He ties off the thread and cuts it with the knife.

            He cleans the wound once again, barely noticing the sting of the alcohol. He places the bandage over it and then begins to clean up. He washes the knife clean and ensures that it is perfectly dry before he returns it to its sheath. He places the items back in the paper bag – all except the towel.

            This towel has been cleaned several times. It has served him well. But the bleach smell has seeped into it from its repeated washes. He takes one of the fresh towels from the motel and puts it in the paper bag.

            Tonight he’ll offer to get the woman in the black suit something for dinner – something of a peace offering, perhaps. Regardless, under the pretense of getting food, he will also transport this towel somewhere out in the desert, where he will burn it.

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2015)

            

3. Fifty Miles Out of Bajada. 18 Hours Later.

Fifty Miles Out of Bajada

18 Hours Later

            Step. Step. Step. Step.

            The woman keeps to a steady speed, but her gait is weak, and she is shaking. The man in the black suit keeps pace with her. The sun is down, and the wrecked car with all the blood and gore spread for several yards around it is a half mile behind.

            The woman continues to walk forward with slow steps. Her arms are covered in blood, and she holds them out, as if she is afraid to touch any other part of her body with them.

            This never gets easier. The man in the black suit has dealt with similar situations before, though never with this frequency. He recognizes that to the people he meets, even his coworkers, it seems that he is somehow callous and uncaring, but he is human, after all, and a sight like this has its impact. But he is trained for it. He knows how to redirect his gut reaction so that it passes around him, doing its work but not interfering with his.

            “M’am, can I ask you to stop walking for a second?”

            The woman, young, attractive, with blonde-brown hair, stops walking. She is missing one of her eyes. It looks like it was cut out of her. He does not believe that she was responsible for the carnage back by the car. But it spared her, for some reason.

            “Do you have some identification?”

            She holds out her hands, still caked with red.

            “May I check your pocket?” he says. She lifts her hands in response, which seems to be affirmative. He reaches into her pocket and extracts a thin wallet. There is a photo ID that identifies her as Eris Oceans. Narcian name, but a local license.

            “Can you speak?” asks the man in the black suit. Eris vocalizes only slightly, making an infantile sound.

            He sighs. He steps away and scratches his temple. He really doesn’t want this one to end up the way he thinks it will, but right now it looks like he’s going to have to designate her as a high risk factor.

            He’s been cleared. He’s gone through intense psychological screening. Whatever other talents he might have, the most important one is an unflappable mind. Not everyone possesses such a talent. This Eris is an example of one that does not.

            Containment of the subject remains an ongoing operation.

            This woman is classified as a secondary containment element. There are clear protocols to follow. It rests with him to make the determination. He is trained. He will be able to make his decision and close the matter, but he has not yet done so. Were it not for his training, he would allow this ambiguity to give him a shred of hope, to plant a seed from which visions of a rehabilitated Eris Oceans, recovered and certainly traumatized, but on the path back to a somewhat normal life, might spring. But because of his training, he knows to accept ambiguity for what it is. Such a future is a possibility, but it is only that at this point. Until he makes his determination.

            Cursory examination identified the remains on the vehicle were human and canine. The technician, a younger man, with black skin and a white lab coat, cautiously approaches the man in the black suit. The man in the black suit raises his hand, slowing the technician’s advance.

            “Eris, can you hear me?”

            She grunts, again, with a high pitch, infantile sound.

            “Eris, I need you to speak to me. Can you speak? Just say yes if you can.”

            Until now, she has been avoiding eye contact, but now, shakily, she looks up with her remaining eye directly at the man in the black suit.

            “Yes,” she says.

            The man in the black suit sinks a little. Despite everything, some subconscious part of him had allowed his hopes to get up for this one. He is still not entirely finished with his determinations, but he already knows how it will turn out.

            “Do you remember what happened?”

            She nods. “The dog kept dying. And then Ivan… Ivan… he kept dying. Is he dead yet? Please tell me he’s dead. Please tell me he’s not still dying.”

            The man in the black suit looks back at the technician. The technician should really not be here for this. He has been screened to witness the aftermath, but when there are survivors, it’s not aftermath; it is a situation in progress.

            The woman in the black suit sees this and pulls the technician away, sending him back to do his work by the car.

            “Yes, Eris, he is dead.”

            She takes this news well.

            “Eris, I need you to listen to me,” says the man in the black suit. “Can you listen to me?”

            She nods. Her voice has once again retreated back into her.

            “Eris, I want you to turn ninety degrees to your right.” She does so. “Now, when I leave, I want you to start walking. Start walking east and don’t stop. Can you do that for me?”

            She nods. The man in the black suit walks away. Eris begins to walk out into the desert.

            The man in the black suit takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. This is how he was trained, and it has served him for many years.

            The woman in the black suit is younger, less experienced. “Was that strictly necessary?” she asks him as he walks past her on the way back to the car.

            “Yes, it was,” he replies.

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2015)

2. Fifty Miles Out of Bajada

Fifty Miles Out of Bajada

            The highway stretches out for what seems like eternity. To the east, the desert is all smooth dunes, like slow waves over a yellow ocean. To the west, the vast El-Katha Oasis accompanies the highway, not daring to get too near and provide the cool of shade.

            The day seems like it is going to last forever. Ivan squirts more sunscreen on his skin and rubs it. Eris lets her eyes drift as he does this. He cannot seem control himself as he sensuously rubs the lotion in a repetitive pattern into his muscles, or perhaps she is projecting her own insatiability onto him. His hair is sun-bleached, far too white, especially given how the tanning and burning has made his skin dark. Eris has been careful. She has managed to avoid getting burned.

            She has a hard time keeping her eyes off of his arms as he rubs the lotion deep into his skin. Her attention lapses, and in that moment, she does not see the dog wander into the road.

            There is a horrible sound, a yelp accelerated. She slams on the brakes. Ivan drops the sunscreen bottle, and it launches itself at the windshield, splattering its contents all over the dashboard.

            “What was that?” asks Ivan.

            “Dog… I think it was a dog.” She is trembling. She has never hit an animal before. She loves animals. She had a dog once when she was a child, and immediately she imagines the pain that the dog’s owner will be feeling when she finds out what has happened. And then a selfish thought occurs to her. She imagines the horrifying gore that could be left on her car. She was traveling at a high speed. There could be blood and intestines. In her mind, the insides are all intestines, those horrific, unwinding worms that seem to come out of a body, or so she imagines.

            Ivan is frozen, a stupid, open-jawed look on his face. He had distracted her. It was his fault, though even in her panic and anger she also realizes that this is idiotic, and that it is her fault.

            It takes her an eternity to open her door. She steps out of the car and, eyes clenched nearly shut, so that her vision is nearly dark, but for a few bright sources of light, she walks forward.

            “Do you want me to look?” asks Ivan.

            “No!” she shouts back.

            Now panic sets in. What if it wasn’t even a dog? What if it was person? Or a child? She considers how this one moment might have ruined her life. If she had killed a child, she would go to her grave knowing that she had done that.

            And it occurs to her that even if it is a dog, she will still never forget this moment. The memorable moments are so horrific. She thinks about how it is always best to live in those unmemorable moments, when one can perhaps reflect on the memorable ones from the safe distance of time.

            She opens her eyes.

            The car is undamaged. There is no blood.

            She looks back behind the car. There is no dog. No smeared trail of gore and viscera, nor any sad lump of fur and skin. There is no dog there at all. No child. No garbage left to fly off the back of a truck.

            “Ivan?” She is not relieved.

            He gets out. He looks back down the highway. He clearly sees nothing either. “Maybe it got thrown from the road?” The highway is raised, and there is a slope a few feet tall that leads down to the desert floor. Eris walks to the side of the road and looks down. Still, there is nothing. She goes back to the front of her car and inspects it once again. There is no damage. None of the blood or intestines that she had imagined flying out from the dog.

            There is a horrible sound, a yelp accelerated. Every muscle in her body tenses up. She looks up to Ivan, who has turned his head. He is looking back behind the car. He is nearly motionless. His eyes appear to be tearing up.

            “What did you see?”

            Ivan shivers tremendously. He steadies himself on the car. He cannot seem to speak. His mouth opens, and he inhales, as if about to speak, but no words come out. He closes his mouth.

            Eris walks around the front of the car, standing just out of reach of him.

            His mouth opens, and he inhales, as if about to speak, but no words come out. He closes his mouth.

            There is a horrible sound, a yelp accelerated.

            She watches as the dog, bursting like a bloody balloon, vanishes forty feet behind where the car had stopped.

            She steps closer to Ivan. Her mouth opens, and she inhales, as if about to speak, but no words come out. She closes her mouth.

            A brown dog with light fur on its face slowly climbs up the slope toward the highway. It is a fairly large dog, but not unusually so. The dog sniffs the black pavement and then begins to walk out onto the highway.

            There is a horrible sound, a yelp accelerated.

            Eris watches as the dog, bursting like a bloody balloon, vanishes.

            A dark cloud is forming in the sky above. It is not a rain cloud, because rain doesn’t come in this part of the desert at this time of year. The sky is growing darker, and the air is growing colder.

            A brown dog with light fur on its face slowly climbs up the slope toward the highway.

            Eris gets back in the car. “Get in, Ivan,” she says. He does, and as he closes the door, there is a horrible sound, a yelp accelerated.

            The car begins to move, and they travel farther down the highway. Behind them, the sound of the dog grows fainter, but it does not become inaudible.

            Ivan’s mouth opens, and he inhales, as if about to speak, but no words come out. He closes his mouth.

            The cloud grows larger and lower. It is no longer a cloud, but fog. The fog is thick and wet and grey. The highway is dark now.

            And an emaciated man with dead eyes appears in front of the car. The car stops.

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2015)

1. Off Route 27A

            Yael Tucker sits in her dusty blue truck. There is a black cardboard cup filled with lukewarm tea in the cup holder. The radio is tuned to 87.3 FM, and hisses with static of a silent airwave. In the passenger seat, there is a shotgun and a box of cartridges. The right side-mirror has been smashed, and only a few shards of glass remain on the mirror’s mount.

            Above, the sky is pale blue. It is hot within the cabin of the truck. The windows in the doors are still up, and the light shimmers in the distance over the desert floor.

            The truck is a half mile off of Route 27A. 27A is the highway that leads between Towatki and Bajada before becoming simply Route 27 as it continues north toward Damana. Yael cannot see any of those cities from here. She is in the desert.

            A mile away, a rough rock cliff rises, and a few scraggly plants grow in its shadow. The truck dings at her, indicating that she should fasten her seatbelt while the vehicle is on.

            Yael turns the key, and the motor powers down. Her face is covered in sweat. She wipes her forehead, only to smear dark red blood across it. She looks down and finds that her sleeve is positively dyed crimson. She takes the shirt off, leaving only her sleeveless undershirt on.

            She has no idea where she is, except that she is just off route 27A.

            She does not know how she got there. She does not know how long she has been there. The clock on the dashboard reads that it is three in the afternoon. Her clothes stick to her because of the sweat, and her right arm is still red with blood. The light hairs on her arm are slicked down with it.

            Hesitantly, Yael grips the door handle and pulls. The door swings, creaking. She is shaking as she lifts one sore leg up and over the threshold of the vehicle’s cabin, stepping down on the desert hardpan.

            She steadies herself on the side of her blue truck, but it is painful. The metal has grown extremely hot in the sun. The oven-like air from the truck blasts its way out behind her. The air outside is hot as well, but it is a relief from the sweltering sweatbox from which she has emerged.

            She feels shaken, as if she had just experienced nausea. She stumbles slightly, freeing her other leg from the truck, but steadies herself. Her legs are burning with a powerful ache. She is thirsty.

            She walks around to the back of the truck. She keeps water in the covered compartment underneath the flatbed. When she comes around to the back, she finds that the tailgate is open. Its surface is dark with blood. She peers beyond it, and there is a man propped up against the back of the truck’s cab. It is his blood.

            The man is of a medium build and heavy. He has close-cropped curly hair and a dark beard. His eyes are closed. There are flies buzzing around him. If he is breathing, his breaths are shallow. He wears an olive-grey uniform that is stained dark with blood.

            There is a name on the uniform. It reads “Welker.” Welker has a holster on his belt, but the gun has been removed. There is a rusted and dinged shovel next to him.

            She climbs up into the back of the truck. Cautiously, she approaches Welker. He does not react. She places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. Welker falls over. She feels his neck for a pulse. She cannot find one.

            The bloody trail does not end at the tailgate. Someone must have dragged Welker through the desert and gotten him up into the truck. The trail leads onward, out into the desert and up to that rough cliff. The trail shrinks to a vanishing point, but the direction is clear.

            She returns to the cab and retrieves the shotgun. She checks it and finds that it is unloaded. She takes a box of cartridges and stuffs it into her back pocket. The gun is heavy and the metal of the barrel is hot. Her bloody right arm is sore as she hoists the gun onto her shoulder.

            Half a mile down the trail, she finds the remains of a chain-link fence. There is a sign on the fence that reads “Warning: Trespassing Forbidden. Hazardous Environment.”

            The sign is covered in dust. It is bent and the paint has cracked.

            She returns to the truck. She puts the shotgun back in the passenger seat. She sits once again in the driver’s seat and turns the truck’s motor on.

            The truck jostles and heaves as it makes its way over the rocky hardpan. The radio signal remains a low static hum. There is a path that is clearly apparent, where dust has been kicked up and the scraggly plants have been flattened. Yael follows this path.

            As she approaches the rough cliff of dark red stone, it becomes clearer to her that it is very large. There are spires of gleaming metal and charred trees at the top of the cliff. In the bright daylight, it is hard to see, but she notices that there are flames licking the metal – bright, purple flames.

            Before long, the trail leads her to a road. The road circles the rocky cliff and then begins to ascend it. When she reaches the top, she finds a mass of wreckage. Metal beams, and a large metallic cylinder that has been smashed and is charred lie across the top of the cliff. There is what appears to be some kind of ruined building beneath the wreckage, but there is so much debris that it is hard to be sure.

            Closer now, the vibrant purple flames are easier to see. The flames hover in midair, as if they are burning invisible objects. There is a body in the road before her.

            The body looks like a rag doll that had been tossed aside by a child at play. She stops the truck. She steps out and approaches the body. It is a man wearing dark blue camouflage. His face is painted in similar patterns. There is a dark fluid coming from his eyes. It is pungent and unpleasant and deep black. The body itself has shrunken. It has been out in the sun for a long time. Several days, at least.

            Yael returns to the truck. She opens up the compartment with the water. Alongside several gallon-sized jugs is a jacket. It is the same olive-grey color and style as Welker’s. She picks it up. The name on the jacket reads Tucker.

            Yael drinks some of the water. She then pours some over her arm. The blood was clearly not hers, and as far as she can tell, she is free of injury. She imagines it is Welker’s. She does not know who Welker is, or rather was.

            Yael looks out over the desert to the east. The Great Sarona stretches out for thousands of miles before her. Yael takes a deep breath. She sees a glimmer out in the desert. There is something there. Either it is reflecting the sun’s light or it is itself a light.

            “…tion… A-7-6-B. Release… Station…” the radio blurts. Yael returns to her truck and attempts to better tune the radio, but she cannot find a stronger signal than that on 87.3.

            She drives down the hill. There is a road here that leads back in the direction of Towatki. She drives off of it, instead heading east. The signal on the radio grows stronger.

            “Station A-7-6-B. Release Measures…”

            She drives for nearly an hour. The battery indicator on the dashboard drops from 75% to 65%. The radio signal grows clearer. The message, on repeat, goes thusly:

            “Station A-7-6-B. Release Measures Engaged. Breach Observed. This is not a drill. Breach Observed. Templar One has lost containment.”

            The blinking white light comes closer. Alone in the vast desert plain, there is a small building, not much larger than a freight container. The building is a half-cylinder of corrugated steel. Next to the building is a short radio tower. It is from the top of this tower that the brilliantly bright, flashing light emits.

            Yael gets out of the truck, once again taking the shotgun with her. She loads the gun, but keeps the safety on. She approaches the door of the building. It is slightly ajar.

            She opens it and steps inside. There is a desk with a microphone and radio equipment. In the back of the building is a computer console with several monitors. Some of the monitors read “Containment Failure.”

            Sand has blown in through the door and has collected in a small cone.

            Yael walks over to the computer console. The central monitor indicates that of the five containment facilities, two have been breached.

            “You’re back,” says the man behind her.

            Yael turns. The man is white, with short, thinning hair and dark sunglasses. He wears a black suit. He smiles, but she does not think it is a friendly smile.

            “I see you haven’t buried him yet. It’s been a while. I would worry about the smell. Bury him in just a foot or so of soil and that will do.”

            “Where am I?”

            “Just off Route 27A.”

            “What is this building?”

            “Your office.”

            “Who are you?”

            The man in the black suit shrugs.

            “You don’t remember either?” asks Yael.

            “No, I remember just fine,” says the man in the black suit. “You really should bury him. He deserves it.”

            The radio recording is playing out loud in the room. She hears that name again: Templar One.

            “What is Templar One?” asks Yael.

            “I was hoping that you could tell me,” says the Man in the Black Suit.