User:Nicolassequeira/Pals Of Pain
Pals Of Pain[edit | edit source]
A Spooky Tale By Nicolas Sequeira
It was a dark and intrinsic autumn, known to those the world over as deep autumn, the time when the world of the dead and the world of the living intermingled, when for reasons scrawled only in dusty tomes the dust rose up and the ashes spread and the atrocities of mankind were laid bare. Through the streets of the world crept a chill, and those who felt this breeze understood that the time was then- that something in the cosmic jambalaya was awry, and only once silent winter crept on with its potent and plentiful snow would the spirits leave. For the time being, every evening was dry and every wooded area was stocked to the brim with bobbing distant wisps.
Detroit, Massachusetts. Ancient city, historic. People who had been there would always remember it for its character, those who hadn’t didn’t know about it. It was the sort of city one forgot after crossing the city limits, which swallowed you once you were past its threshold and then spit you out in your overpriced Mercedes, and oddly enough a conducive area for the dead. It magnetized the ghouls, something in the architecture or the populace or perhaps the general municipality attracted the dead like moths to a lamp. This had been observed for centuries, Detroit had been chock full of proto Americans and Indian curses. Or perhaps it was the music, the haunting Motown which curved its way like a viper from each studio and booth. The bells and whistles were haunting, every Detroit resident knew. Artists were respected based on how haunting their songs could be, how deep into the human soul a given song could reach with its icy yet beautiful fingers.
Marcus Dollop ran along Baker Avenue. Above were the buildings, old and fragile concrete structures. Some windows were boarded up, others gave way to lit patios where beggars crouched in relative squalor. Marcus knew something which the others didn’t know. He knew that there were spirits around, but he also knew that portals were likely to appear- portals to- well, somewhere. Something had happened. He racked his brain night after night, drifted off into a dreamless sleep. He didn’t go online anymore, his computer overheated and froze. No time to call the repairman.
Dollop pondered his place in the grand scheme of things, and he also tried to remember. Stony, cavernous, maybe a back alley? No, that wasn’t it. Something else. A place as familiar as the womb, archetypal Freudian concepts too deep for him to grasp. A womb, an enclosure, deep and solemn and alone, and over his body loomed large the presence, another presence, something that could blot out the sun if indeed it had ever seen the sun-
Marcus’ mind was filled with fog as he trod down the paths toward home. He was really and truly out of it, as close as possible to a mental vegetable as someone could be without getting fired. And the people were staring- though Detroit was open to the supernatural, always had been, and there were few skeptics among them, though Detroit had a reputation as one of America’s most haunted and vile pits, Marcus drew special attention from his associates. They knew something had happened to him, something beyond the control of men.
The portal opened.
He stood in the valley of fire. To either side ran the rivers of lava, coursing in effervescent fury as per usual. And above stood the impenetrable fortress of Moloch, carved from the head of the ancient goat, nostrils flaring and eye sockets dark. For an infinite extent on either side of the skull were the mountains- old, dead, decrepit, a deep fuchsia with crags and ripples throughout. The butcher slung his ax over his shoulder. He doubted he would need it, but if a gnaw-rat came up or an army of the Damned passed through there could be trouble. The fortress was a mile away, and the rocks were difficult for any mortal to traverse, let alone a seven-foot deity.
In the dungeon behind could be heard the sharp, short cries of Gavin McInnes. The Meat Butcher had taken him that morning, and though the butcher was consigned to his duties, McInnes could wait. A man so evil could test even the butcher’s patience, and only one finger had been lost.
From the barren heights soared birds unlike any in the common realm, wings that spread and flapped in convulsions, and way out over the lake of smoke could be seen a herd of filth beasts drinking and choking violently on the billowing cloud.
In light, it was said, the fortress was not dangerous- but as night fell shimmering silver eyes could be seen on the range, and to the south from whence the portal originated marches and chanting regiments were witnessed. The butcher knew not if these rumors were true, or if in fact night ever fell in this sweltering and dead realm, but the fortress and the surrounding lands were one of the few regions which even he felt uncomfortable traversing, especially alone.
Far on the horizon could be seen the shrouded House of Silence, where hooded monks whispered in hushed tones. Nestled in a dead valley where nothing grew, the house was a speck to the sweat-drenched eyes of the butcher, who knew not what went on there.
He trudged on, each footstep a risk, each rock obscuring a fire pit or wrapped in jagged metal. The skull of the goat loomed, and both eyes were black and dead. Through the mouth he crossed, his apron waving in the seething winds, the dust scraping his mouth like the claws of ravens. The head took him in, enveloped him, and lifeless red tones gave way to darkness and echoes, empty unlit halls neglected by eons and without the vestiges of humanity.
Through the head bone could be heard falling, as rock grew on the bone and bone grew on the rock, giving way to passages of mixed calcium which withered far down beneath in an order too complex for the meat butcher’s mind to grasp. Moloch would know them well, of course. Striding down there late, knowing full well the state of things outside and choosing from demonic indifference not to notice. Who would go there, a hundred and ten degrees in the shade, on the infinite scorching plains? Not even Moloch, who knew most realms but traveled to few, instead a recluse here in the slopes.
There came a haunting note from ahead. The Meat Butcher stopped in his tracks to admire it, a slow and grinding empty flute. It called to mind complete dissociation of the self, to deny oneself an identity. The Meat butcher had lived a long, long time, millennia- but something about Moloch’s lair the occupations of Moloch never failed to surprise him. Voices from the past rang out. The notes, he had to say, were maddening yet thoroughly intoxicating and wholly appealing.
Out from the skull, into the mountains, deep tunnels and wooden doors with no locks- he clambered on. The notes grew nearer, and soon enough he was in the hall, the foyer where Moloch entertained visitors. The ceiling was of a larger breadth than anyone knew. The butcher assumed it must have been shorter than the mountains, but he knew also that he had never seen beyond the mountains, for only a madman would climb them in vain, and once at the top who knew what one would see- a valley of gibbering slime things or another, taller mountain range.
Moloch stood in the darkness, a quiet being of endless contemplation, who walked outside perhaps once a decade. He was old, but still there, and he was not frail by any means. He could call things at will to him and exit in spiritual form through ritual. The belief in him was waning, but every candle lit in some carpenter’s basement on a lonely and forlorn summer’s night was a beacon in the cosmos- and Moloch would drift and shimmer through.
He continued playing for some time, and the butcher sat on a slab of granite to hear. There was no light in the hall save one shaft far, far above which filled it with grey ambience. Moloch was a silhouette. He put his instrument down and turned to see the butcher, ax in hand, dull in the body yet sharp in the mind. From somewhere far away a drop of water could be heard falling in a subterranean pool.
“Hiya, Meaty.”
“Moloch, you old rascal! How’s things been?”
“Oh, same old same old. No more child sacrifices- they seem to have grown out of that kind of thing- but I’ve outgrown the need for ‘em. Why care about that? I still got at least 3,000 years under my belt.”
“Figures.”
“How about you?”
“Gavin McInnes. I thought I could handle him, but I just need to rest here for a while. Stretch back for a week or so, take in the views- gotta have a vacation once in a while, y’know?”
“True, true. I’ll go get us some fresh whiskey- vintage 1699.”
Moloch disappeared into the darkness, reappeared two hours later with a bottle on a platter and the head of a calf. The Butcher knew Moloch kept these things secreted to and fro. Perhaps they did not rot, for there was no life here, and thus no mold, only the sickly rotting stench of death.
“To old times.”
“To the centuries ahead.”
“You said it.”
The butcher took a deep swig, as did Moloch, and Moloch’s insides rumbled in fury. His disposition was not given to whiskey.
“What’ll you do this week?”
“Sit, watch the water drop, listen to the ambience.”
“How about some Nicolas Comics?”
“Nicolas Comics?!” exclaimed the Butcher. “Hell yes! I want me some of those. The other day I had to deal with some little shit who was harassing Nicolas Sequeira online, name of Marcus Dollop.”
“Do tell. Small world.”
“But will the USPS deliver here, to your mountain fortress on the plains of fire?”
“Sure they will. They deliver everywhere! I’ll go send off for some right now.”
“Thanks. They’ll be a fine read over the week.”
“What’s the address I gotta write to?”
“Nicolas Sequeira, 1424 Columbine St. #1, Denver, CO 80206. Tell him I want College Buddies. I’ve been planning on giving them the meat butcher experience for about a year now, and I should probably do some reading on them.”
“Just a sec.”
Moloch faded away once more, and the light continued. There would be no night here, but in this solitary chamber, obscured from the world he knew, in a world even further from that of men, the butcher rested. His arms were tense like cables, they needed to release themselves, and the same went for all his muscles.
Outside in the hellscape things continued as they always had and always would, and the monks at the House Of Silence bowed in circles, paused at the gates of the ages and stared out into the quiet. Their bony shriveled hands were wrapped in cloaks and silk garments, jewels of long dead kings, and they stood on cracked marble in an amphitheater. The mountains were here, too, they waned on, they did not end. And even the monks, who had pored through ancient volumes in the rooms of the house, did not know what lay just over them. Whoever climbed them would be dead by morning, his throat dry and his eyes gazing up at the heavens as they were pecked out by limping carrion. The chants continued.
“Amek set… Edra ulur amek set…”
It was to be an intrinsic autumn, a long period of self-reflection and leaves falling where leaves grew, and trees dying where life died. In his Massachusetts flat, as the wind howled and the autumnal skies turned a pale orange, Dollop sat, staring at the ceiling. He could not sleep. He could not eat. And winter was still a long ways off.