The beast chomped at the air like a piranha. It had no lips. Veins bulged against its silicone skin, and I could see the inner workings and organs, which glowed a green that shrieked poison. I stepped back into the grass. It kept coming, so I stepped further back. It reached the line and stopped, the wind from its charge carrying the smell of ossified flesh in a gust. It released a savage bark, beating its chest like an ape. My vision faded to the dark, swirling fog, then snapped back to clear.
So, it can't leave that space. I tried to remember the journals.
'...She used my body to kill what was in the fog...'
Only shadows work here. My dark side, then. I squeezed my eyelids tight and opened them to see myself as I always do: a rogue gonzo journalist. Goggles on my head, trench coat, weapons. A denizen from the apocalypse aftermath. I drew my sawn-off, and the beast turned to run. Not fast enough. I pulled the trigger, and it burst into ashes instantaneously.
I lurched as my mind was bombarded with mental images. Repressed memories. Scars and painful remembrance. The vision faded, and I was back in the dreamscape. I vomited. Standing, I caught my breath. The world around me distorted and shifted like a screen through static.
I stood in front of a suburban home. I looked around. Everything else was a wasteland. I walked up to the door and knocked. The door opened.
A man was yelling at a young woman. The woman was on oxygen, smoking a cigarette. He was clearly upset about this. I waved my hands, but they didn't notice or acknowledge my existence. Unlike on television, their fight wasn't quick jabs. It was a long, drawn-out debate, a bartering of pain that ran too long. I started to walk around the home, spotted mail on a table, and grasped a letter, looking for a name. Not Mr. and Mrs. John Doe. Elizabeth Carter.
Do I know that name?
Then a loud explosion knocked me back into the grass where I'd started, my clothes smoking. Goldilocks was waiting for me.
"Why do I know that name?" I asked.
"Can't go to hell without a ticket," she said. "The Yomi gates won't open unless you're trustworthy. There is something you can do for me. I'll hand you the key." She held her fingers out and snapped.
Awake. Three in the morning. I lit a cigarette and pondered the name. Elizabeth Carter. Where had I heard it? Who from? I kept silent and lay back down. I woke up in an hour or two. No dreams. Nothing.
The little man was up.
"Ready to get breakfast?"
"I wanna go bye-bye!" he laughed, hysterically, goofily.
"Alright, let's change your diaper and go. Did you have to use the potty?"
He nodded, making his way to the bathroom. That small amount of time is all it takes for a two-year-old to do some damage. I opened the door. Fingerpaint.
"Seriously?"
"I went poo-poo," he said innocently.
"Yeah, I know." I started his bath, washed him off, and cleaned the walls. I opened a vent, hoping the smell would be gone by the time we got home.
We drove to a diner and ordered takeout. He was still an artist, and after this morning's wake-up call, I trusted him very little. We got to the store. I unlocked the door, we sat down, and we ate. While I was eating, something caught my eye. Behind the register is where I keep the urns. On one, 'Malcolm Carter' was inscribed.
The vision looped in my mind, showing me parts I'd missed. A simulation where I could go anywhere, at any time.
I listened to them this time.
"Why are you smoking inside with that on!" he yelled.
The older lady was passive. "My life. I will do what I want."
The pattern repeated, her words growing more casual, his more irrational. Then a shift. As he ran at her, she screamed, "Michael, stop!"
I tried to intervene, but I was as useful as a ghost. He wrapped her breathing tubes around her neck and choked her. "You wanna die so fucking bad? Then die! I'm done taking care of you!"
She dropped the cigarette. The ember landed on the plastic tube. She kicked and fought for a moment, then_boom. The tube exploded.
Back to reality. The urn in front of me cracked, leaking ashes onto the floor. I looked at my son to verify that it was real.
He looked at me. "What did you do?"
"I don't know." I went to get a broom, but the ashes were gone. I looked at him, still spotless minus some ketchup from his hashbrowns. "Where did the mess go?"
He just kept looking at me, then at the floor. "Somewhere else. She took them. She had kitty-cat eyes."
"Someone else was in here?" I looked at the door. Locked. The sign said 'Closed'. "What color was her hair?"
"Yellow."
I lit a smoke. The taste of tobacco filled my mouth. Those details were too specific for him to know. "What did she do?"
Gibberish. Unintelligible. Then he went back to his food. The rest of the day was a blur. I kept looking at the cracked urn. I looked up the name on the computer. Elizabeth and Malcolm Carter. A newspaper reel popped up under the top two ads. Both died in an explosion, which was blamed on Elizabeth and her smoking habit.
I threw the urn away_the first one ever. Every ash, even the soot, was gone. The urn was hollow and meaningless. My dad got in at nine in the morning, so my son and I took the day to ride trails. Fishing. Normalization. I tried to be as normal as possible, my temper hidden.
As we sat by the lakeside, it didn't matter. "Daddy, who was that lady?"
"A very troubled acquaintance."
"In trouble? Why? What did she do?" He was fidgeting. He was too young for fishing, not enough stimulation for his age.
"Son, how did she show up and leave?" I shifted to look him in the eye. His response added a note I didn't like.
"Poof! Like magic," he started giggling. I shook my head and smiled. "She was very nice. I like her."
"You like her? What made you like her?"
He pulled a coin out of his pocket. My smile faded. He handed it to me. It was a coin for the ferryman. Old. I'd know it anywhere.
"Why did you wait to hand me this?"
"Because you were mad at her." He went back to reeling in his empty line. Cast out, reel in. I smiled at him, a fake smile I'd never had to use on him before. We floated on the boat, cruising until he couldn't take the stillness anymore.
Back to riding trails. No more talk of the cat-eyed woman. Night descended. We grabbed food to go from the diner on our way home, then sat and ate. I put on kid shows. I told him the same bedtime story as last night. If it ain't broke. He was out like a light.
In my room, the contents of Beatrix's chest were now more than just a few random thoughts. A torrent of questions flooded my mind. I skimmed through the journals I had and hadn't read, looking for any mention of 'her'_this Goldilocks, this cat-eyed woman_and her interactions with Beatrix after the merge. A page caught my eye.
•°●○°°●○•°•○●•°°○○○•°°○○○••°●°○•°•●°●•°
When you see the dark, you think it is evil. But to say that is to say that light is good. I look at a person, at what they write, their words. If they walk in the beams of the sun, many forget that these people would banish darkness.
Without night, the world would burn. The average serial killer writes in the light. Don't take that as me saying that they are evil and you should run to the shadows; I am saying that, like anything, both have their flaws. To be both is to find your true self. To know when to plant the garden. To know when it deserves to die and be eaten before the frost.
Funny, we have a word that views the death of vegetables in a positive 'light': harvest.
Anything dark is distorted by the light, its speakers' words given a twisted smile. But therein lies a problem. When it grows into lies, into buffoonery and catchphrases. The wolf in sheep's clothing is an admission that you're a sheep looking for a wolf. Cemeteries are spooky•evil•haunted_but rainbows can arch over the stones. The world started as a marble. The rest is dead history. Everything is death.
Death is soil.
I used to think the world hated us, the speakers of darkness. But they are taught wrong. They are just as evil as we are, just as capable. There have never been many darker voices that echo through time. Maybe that is the voice the world needs now. Ours. They need to hear, "we all die."
But they don't understand that to us, that is just a line, not the finale. We also go to our own 'other side' with our own customs and lives. We have the same right to be heard. We have the same right to listen. We have the same right to cause damage. But we don't. We label them conformists and isolate ourselves.
This is just as bad, a hypocrisy. The self-proclaimed non-conformist is just as predictable as the conformist.
Justice prevails.
To what extent can one be a hero? To what extent can one be a villain? To what laws do you adhere when both paths are illegal? Unless you take the light oath. The world is getting hotter, and no one notices that the darkness is receding with the waves. They don't see that the darkness won't be lighting the fire_that the monsters are trying to stop it.
If the underworld is real, like everything else here, it runs on a system of production. No one wants the factory to shut down. Demons can wear capes and masks, waging vigilante justice to keep the world spinning. It's been a while since you heard about an exorcism.