1
Barbara Crawford pulled into the driveway of her brother's house and just sat there, staring with contempt and disappointment at the unkempt edifice. It wasn't the grass that was too high for any respectable person to have, nor the tacky, yellow, vinyl siding that was caked under years of unwashed dirt, or even the shingles that appeared as though they should have been replaced 5 years prior; no it was none of those things. What truly invoked her ire and disdain was the fact that the house could have been absolutely beautiful. In all aspects, it was of an architecturally pleasing design. All it needed was a little maintenance to be truly magnificent. In that regard, however, it was the perfect metaphor for her brother David.
David could have been a man of note, a man of importance; instead, he had turned into a drunken, unemployed divorcee with no prospects for a better future. Growing up, he had always been an exceptionally bright child: inquisitive, observant, fast learning. By the time he was in fifth grade, he was already reading at tenth-grade level. Of course, math and science were where he really shined. He had an almost unnatural affinity for the subjects. He was doing algebra by third grade and was able to grasp and converse about Einstein's theory of general relativity by fourth. He had the ability to become a world-renowned scientist had he so wished.
Then came middle school.
The school had been pressing their father to allow David to be moved ahead several grades as he was already far beyond what the rest of his class was learning, but he had steadfastly refused. He agreed that David was intellectually ahead of his classmates, but he wasn't emotionally. He was of the immovable opinion that children should progress naturally with the rest of their class. Of course, their father, Jeremiah, was also a steadfast Christian who attended services regularly and had more than a little disdain for the sciences as they seemed to so often contradict Biblical truths. Because of that, when David entered sixth grade, he was completely bored.
At first, he acted out doing little things like not raising his hand to speak or making funny faces and noises when the teacher's back was turned. As the year went on, however, David's behavior began to escalate to throwing things at the teacher and cutting class. In desperation, Jeremiah sent his son off to a camp for troubled youths during summer vacation. David pleaded not to go, but their father (who always favored discipline over understanding) would not be swayed.
Barbara remembered the day her brother had come back. Or, as she thought was a more accurate statement, her brother's body came back, since the person inside was someone completely different. He was sad; no, sad was too light a word. Depressed? No, still not right. Broken! That's it! He was broken. Something in his soul or psyche, had been irrevocably damaged. What had been a bright but bored teenage boy was now a defeated, empty shell of a human being, dead in all ways but the physical sense.
There had been no effort on their father's part to find out why David was now like this, nor did she think he cared. Jeremiah believed that the Lord never gave you more than you could handle; therefore, no matter what happened to you, you should be able to accept it and rise above it. To Jeremiah, David was just being weak and dramatic (secretly fearing that his son might even be gay). It was after that David began his long, slow decline into being the worthless drunk he was today.
His grades started slipping as did his attendance. Their father eventually kicked him out of the house whenever he turned sixteen. He bounced around from house to house with various relatives who had been willing to take him in until he graduated. After graduation, he entered the Army, but was dishonorably discharged less than halfway through his tour. He did manage to pull himself together enough to get married and have three children (one boy, two girls), but that was only temporary. After his fifth arrest in a year, his wife, Janet, took the kids and left. That was seemingly the straw that broke the camel's back as it were. He found a job laying sewer pipe down in Brazil, packed up, and headed south. That was the last anyone had heard of him for years until she had gotten the letter from him, asking her to visit him last month. While highly skeptical, she still harbored some sisterly affection for him, so she finally decided to come. A decision she was now regretting.
She got out of her car and just stood there, hand on the door handle, debating if she was realy going to go in. He was probably just going to ask her for money or maybe to move in with her, "just until I get on my feet". A phrase he had uttered many times before but never actually did. Given the aforementioned state of his home, it was clear he wasn't doing well. Finally, with a heavy sigh, she let go and made her way up the weed-choked, gravel walkway.
When she had first pulled in, she had thought the blinds on all the windows had been drawn shut. Now that she was up close, she saw that they had been taped over with brown paper bags that had been cut open to cover more area. This strangeness by itself would have been enough to catch anyone off guard; however, there was something else that caught Barbara's attention as she stood at the front door, her finger a scant few centimeters from the doorbell. There had been a shift in the energy around the place. The air was cooler, more still, stagnant, with a strange hum rippling through the air. It made her feel light-headed and off-balance. She was suddenly overcome with the urge to run, run away as fast and as far as possible, and never look back; to never even think of this place or David again. She caught herself, though, and, for some reason, that she could not explain later, she grabbed ahold of the door handle and walked in.
Whatever disappointment or disgust the outside had, it was magnified a thousandfold on the inside. The walls and the ceiling were cracked with large chunks of plaster missing (not actually missing, since it lay in pieces on the floor). Thick patches of mold-covered what plaster remained on the walls and ceiling. Dust covered what little furniture was in the entranceway. To her left was a stairway leading up to the second floor, its handrail lay broken on the floor beside it. Then there was the stench. It was as if someone had covered a rotting corpse with garbage and sprayed it with excrement. It brutalized and invaded every pore in her body. She could feel her stomach start to convulse. She grabbed a handkerchief from her purse and held it against her mouth and nose in a vain attempt to keep the malignant odor at bay.
Gingerly, she made her way through the entranceway and down a hall with rooms on either side. Things she chose not to investigate crunched beneath her feet. The whole layout felt off, more akin to that of a second-floor than a main level. None of the rooms she passed had doors on them, yet she could not bring herself to look inside. She had an irrational, but undeniable fear that if she looked into any of the rooms, she would see something her mind would not be able to handle, and she would be driven stark raving mad (besides, the room at the end of the hall, the only one with a door, seemed to be calling to her).
The closer she got, the more she was able to hear some sort of sound emanating from the room. At first, she wasn't able to make it out. As she got closer, she slowly began to recognize it. It sounded like a radio from the forties. It crackled and popped in the same thin tone she remembered from watching old movies from the era. What was stranger yet, and what really sent her heart thumping in her chest was that the actual program seemed to be of the era as well.
She, reached the door from which the sound was coming, and all her attention was drawn. It was a dark, heavy wooden door with a faded, faux brass handle. Slowly, she reached out to grasp it as though it was some living animal, waiting to strike whenever her hand got close enough. To her relief (and shock), it turned out to be just a door handle. She turned it gently and slowly opened the door.
The room inside was a bright, almost cartoonish, yellow, as if it hadn't so much been painted but colored in with a crayon. The molding in the room was a pristine white, which further added to the unrealness of the room. The dark walnut floors stood in striking contrast to the yellow and white of the rest of the room. All furniture in the room was along the left side as you entered: a small wet bar, a couch, and a large, antique radio. On the couch, sitting by the bar, was the thing.
Barbara felt herself swoon and nearly faint at the sight of the decaying grotesquety that was half sitting, half lying there. As before, she was able to collect herself. The last thing she wanted was to become unconscious in this house, in this room, with that thing. She then felt the urge to scream, which she had successfully held back until the thing turned its head to look at her, smiled, and said, "Hey, Sis."
2
"Jesus!" Dr. Honda said as he looked at the patient from the other side of a thick, protective glass. The patent, a 43-year-old man named David Crawford. His sister had him brought in, having called 911, crying hysterically that her brother was "melting". Seeing the patient for himself, he could understand the sister's word choice.
The entirety of his upper left body (the shoulder and chest), had been nearly eaten away by something. Bits of bone and muscle shown through blackened skin as small streams of blood and pus flowed down from bubbling boils which formed and popped where the rotting flesh met healthy. Of course, healthy was a relative word here. The skin, which wasn't actively decaying, was a grayish-yellow, with dark blue, throbbing veins visible beneath. Despite the horrific nature of what was happening to him, Mr. Crawford gave no indication of being in pain. In fact, there was a quiet, relaxed joy about him.
Honda was contemplating what he was even seeing when he felt a gentle squeeze on his right shoulder. He turned around to see Nurse Rosa Escobar standing behind him. He smiled warmly at her. She was one of the few people he considered to be a legitimate friend. His smile dissipated when he saw the worried expression upon her face.
Before he could ask what was wrong, Rosa spoke in a serious, worried voice, "Doctor, there's someone here from Homeland Security that wants to see you."
Honda looked at Rosa deeply confused, turned back to look at the patient (who was now looking at him with a creepy, toothless grin), then back to Rosa. "Is it about him?" Honda asked, suddenly very worried.
Rosa's face was stiff as stone, but her eyes darted back and forth, betraying the fear she felt. "She didn't say, only that she wished to speak with you as soon as possible." Her voice cracked with worry as she tried to sound unemotional.
Honda turned back to look at the patient again, whose grin had turned into a large, terrifying smile. He then turned to Rosa, smiled, and patted her on her upper arms. "Ok," he said with forced happiness, "where is she?"
3
Agent Sarah Redcloud stood just inside Honda's office. She was a relatively tall woman, standing around five foot seven. She appeared to be in her late thirties to mid-forties with long black hair, which was braided into a ponytail, and brown skin and eyes which were slightly almond-shaped. She wore a navy blue suit with a light, sky-blue blouse. Her face was blank and stoic; her hands folded behind her back.
"Doctor Pablo Honda?" she asked as he walked in. Her tone was formal and professional. That was her whole demeanor, though.
"Yes," he said in his friendliest voice possible, extending his hand. "Agent?"
"Redcloud. Sarah Redcloud," she said flatly.
Immediately, Honda thought of Sean Connery saying, Bond, James Bond, and had to stop himself from laughing. He motioned for her to sit down as he made his way to his chair and sat down. She sat down in the chair across the desk from Honda. She looked around the room for a bit. Honda knew this was a performative action as she would have had plenty of time to look around before he got there. Still, he was curious as to what she was going to say when she was done.
"Aren't doctor's offices supposed to be all dark wood with shelves full of books? This all looks pretty sparse to me," she said.
Honda shrugged. "Maybe in the old days, but thanks to these," he patted his laptop, "surrounding myself with outdated tomes of forgotten medical lore would just be a waste of space."
Sarah nodded as if in approval of his answer. "Interesting name there," she said, pointing to his nameplate.
"My father was Japanese, and my mother was Ecuadorian. She said since I'd have his last name, she should be able to pick out my first." Honda narrowed his eyes a bit. "What about you, Agent? Native American, I'd guess."
Sarah's face soured rather severely. "Lakota Doctor. I'm Lakota. You can't be native to a country you're older than." Her voice bristled with a seething rage that told Honda not to proceed further.
He nodded, put his elbows on his desk, and leaned forward, resting his chin on top of his hands. "Before we go any farther, I want you to know I can't divulge anything without a court order. HIPA you know."
Sarah reached into her blazer and pulled out a folded collection of papers. She laid them on his desk and said, "I always come prepared".
Honda took them and looked them over. He had seen enough of these to know they were legit, yet there was something that felt off to him. He decided to stall a bit. Maybe he would begin to fell better after they talked for a while. "Mind if I check the validity of these? No offense, but people can forge anything these days. I hope you understand my concern."
Sarah stared at him, dead-faced. She turned and looked at the clock above the door to Honda's office. She then turned back to him. "You have until eight o'clock tomorrow night. That's almost twenty-four hours," she said flatly.
"Or?" Honda asked, curious as to what threat she would make.
"You get a one-way trip to Guantanimo, and your patient becomes the property of Homeland Security." Sarah stood up and added, "Legality is merely a courtesy in situations such as this. Goodnight Doctor," then turned around and walked out.
Honda nodded as she left. He understood perfectly what she was saying. As soon as she was out of eyesight, he opened Google and typed in "Sarah Redcloud".
4
At 8 PM sharp the next night, Sarah came walking in to Dr. Honda's office. He tried to greet her, but she just waved her hand. "The easy way or the hard way," she asked bluntly.
Honda, who was seated behind his desk, just smiled. "That's the answer I would expect from someone who was fired from the police force for assaulting a suspect," he said, half expecting her to become irate and start cursing him and making threats. Instead she looked surprisingly sad.
She sat down and sighed. "I really wish you wouldn't have searched my name," she said. Her tone of voice shocked him because it sounded like she was trying to soothe a child who did something they weren't supposed to. "Since you did look, you also saw where I took down a camp for troubled kids because they were abusing them. The suspect was the receptionist for the camp. I figured she would break the easiest to break, and I was right. I'm not proud of what I did, but I don't regret it. I saved a lot of kids from going through that hell."
"So was it the assaulting a witness or stopping a bunch of child abusers that got you this job?" Honda asked as he leaned back in his chair.
"Both," she answered honestly.
Honda nodded, then leaned forward. "I appreciate your honesty," he said. He paused for a bit, then continued. "The patient, David Crawford, is like nothing we've ever seen before. At first we thought it was either bacterialogical or maybe a fungal infection, but that was quickly shot down. His body, the wound is emitting some form of radiation we've never seen before. It's close to gamma, but not quite the same.
"We were worried at first, naturally. We had his sister checked out, the ambulance crew, but no one else was affected. I mean you can just go in the room with him, stand right next him, and be completely fine. We, I, have no idea what it is or what's causing it." He paused again, then added, "But I'm guessing you do."
"Not yet, not for certain. I have an idea as to what it might be. I need to speak with him, though, to be certain." There was no longer any confrontation in her voice. There was only a soft urgency to it.
Dr. Honda stood up and motioned to the door with his right hand. "Follow me."
5
The first thing they noticed when they entered the room was the stench. Both had been around dead and decaying bodies before. While unpleasant, it was still one they were familiar with. This, however, was something much more. It was the smell of violation itself. It assaulted you on every level, seeped into your pores, making you feel unclean and defiled.
Sarah walked up to the bed her face was dead, betraying no emotion or discomfort. "David?" Sarah asked, her voice was firm and direct.
The piece of rotting flesh which had been David Crawford opened its eyes and turned toward Sarah and smiled. The eyes had gone completely yellow with the irises having gone black, and the pupils red. It's breath was so rancid, you could actually see it rising like steam from its mouth.
"Aw, Detective Redcloud, so nice to finally meet you," it said happily, its voice producing a gargling sound as though it were under water.
"You know me?" Sarah asked, unphased.
"No, but it told me about you," it said, still smiling.
"What did?" Sarah asked a bit more pointedly.
"The object," it said in a confused voice as though it didn't know why she didn't know what it was. "It was beautiful. Love incarnate. One of the other workers found it while they were digging, but it wasn't meant for him. No. It was meant for me and me alone. It waited in the ground for me to come and find it. It told me things, showed me things; grand vistas of the strange, profane, and other worldly. It showed me things almost no mortal man had ever seen before. All this it gave me in exchange for one small favor - I had to deliver a message to you."
Doctor Honda kept looking between Sarah and what had been David Crawford. He had no idea what was going on, how this thing could even know who she was, why it seemed so happy despite its decrepit condition, or why Sarah seemed so unphased by it.
"What's the message?" Sarah simply asked.
"He waits for you in the tunnel of time, outside of all creation." The thing then shrieked in a voice that no human being could ever produce as its body disintegrated before them.
Honda covered his mouth to keep him from screaming. He stumbled backwards, on the verge of fainting. He turned to look at Sarah who had simply turned around and started walking off as though nothing happened. He quickly regained himself and started running after her.
He caught up to her in the hallway and grabbed her by the right, upper arm. "What the hell was that back there? How did he know you? Answer me please!"
Sarah looked at him sadly and patted him on the cheek in a strangely maternal gesture. "When I was investigating the camp, I found out that there were things out there, creatures, spirits, forces, whatever you want to call them; that surround us, fly through the air, whisper on the winds. These things we have grown to call demons or specters, are far older and more terrifying than what you could ever imagine. I do battle with those things. I fight the night. The government knows about them, so I work for them to fight the others."
She then looked at him a bit and suddenly gave him a hug. Honda was struck by the action. Up until now, she hadn't acted like a particularly emotional or sympathetic person. With a sad, conciliatory voice, she whispered, "You shouldn't have investigated me. When you did, you plucked on some very dangerous strings. Not just pluck, you downright strummed. Because of that, you got their attention. Pray you don't get their interest."
Honda looked at her, his eyes wide, not quite believing what he was hearing, but unable to deny what he had just seen. "Is that what you have? - their interest?"
Sarah shook her head. "I have something far worse; their hate."
Suddenly, all the lights began to flicker on and off. Honda looked around, frightened. He didn't know why he was frightened, only that he was. He looked back at Sarah. "What is this, what does it mean?"
Sarah shook her head sadly and sighed, "Their interest."
Out of the corners of his eyes, he could suddenly see hundreds, no, thousands of twisted, grotesque faces. A myriad of voices screeched and howled in his ears. He closed his eyes and covered his ears but to no avail. The sharpened tips of thousands of claws traced their way over every millimeter of his flesh. He started to feel his knees buckle beneath him and he was just about to scream, when it suddenly all stopped.
He lowered his hands and opened his eyes. All was as it should be. The lights were fine, the only faces he saw and voices he heard were those of the hospital staff. He looked around for Sarah, but she wasn't there. He began to run frantically through the halls, trying to find her. He made it all the way to the front door where he suddenly stopped. He looked out into the darkened night. When he was five, he saw the movie Jaws for the first time. He remembered how afterwards, he would just stare at his bath, thinking that Jaws was in there and was going to get him and tear him apart as soon as he stepped inside the water. He felt that way now about the night, about the darkness. Out there were an infinite amount of mouths just waiting to sink their fangs into his flesh and devour him.
"Well, I might have your interest, but now you also have mine," he said with grim determination under his breath. "Ok Sarah, time to find out where you are."