A Heated Demise.
An Outerlords Chronicle Story
My vision is filled with the oddities of a normal life. I’m standing in a small kitchen next to the refrigerator. Dishes are piled in the sink, stinking and moldy. A small pot sits on top of the stove, the electric burner glowing an angry red beneath it. Whatever had been in the pot has long since burned away. The metal has blackened and heatwaves radiate from it distorting everything else around it. My gaze is pulled to pictures hanging on the refrigerator door. Photographs showing a family of four seated together in a booth with large plates of food, or huddled together outside of a theatre with the words “Cirque de Soleil” visible above them, are attached with an assortment of magnets. A small child’s drawing of a person is attached to the door, the picture stating in blocky unpracticed letters “I luv u momme.” A dry erase board tells me that the family needs to get eggs, sugar and toilet paper the next time they go out. Behind me I hear a sound like snarling coming through a long metal pipe. I turn my head to see what is making that awful noise, and when I do everything changes.
Everything goes black and screaming fills my ears, it’s coming from everywhere. I clamp my hands over my ears to try to drown out the screaming, but it doesn’t help. It’s so loud that I can feel it vibrating the ground beneath me and it is only then that I realize that I’m lying down. With that realization the noise abruptly stops and light pierces my vision like a thousand suns and I close my eyes plunging my vision into darkness again.
With the darkness, the screams return.
I slowly open my eyes again fearfully, but normal daylight greets me and I can see that I’m lying on a slight hill covered with grass. A bright blue sky stretches above me, here and there dotted by a lazy cloud drifting on a soft breeze. I sit up to look around and see that wildflowers surround me as far as I can see. My vision blurs with tears and I burst out laughing with joy at the beauty of it all. My laughter is answered by other voices behind me, and I turn my head to see a pair of young children playing in the grass not far down the hill upon which I sit. They’re the children from earlier, the children from the photos. Not far from them I can see their parents, and my joy and laughter die.
The man and woman are unrecognizable from their photos. They lay as though they had clutched each other in the end. Both have been savaged by something awful, strips of meat and skin ripped from them. Their bellies had been split open, and what organs remain are spread out around them staining the once pristine grass. Dark flies pour from the bodies in clouds as the children’s rough housing carries them into their dead parents. They don’t even seem to notice. The girl trips over the severed leg of her father and falls into a shallow pool of still wet blood. She gets back up, heedless of the gore now covering her hands and knees, and gives chase once again to her brother. Their laughter makes a mocking harmony to my wretched sobs as the world begins to fade to black.
With the darkness, the screams return…and I welcome them.
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My pillow is wet with tears when I wake up, and I find that I’d covered my ears with my hands as I’d slept. God dammit I hate these dreams, I think to myself as I throw off the sheet covering me, it too is damp from a cold sweat that still clings to my skin.
It’s been years since I first found out that the dreams that I’d been having my whole life were more than just something to ruin my sleep. In fact, they’re a connection to the activity of the Outers around me. I’m not sure how it works yet, but the Knights are looking into it.
The Knights…It’s still strange to think I’m one of them.
By the time I pulled myself out of bed, washed away the drying sweat with a hot shower and dressed, I’d already made up my mind to call Don about my dream. Don was my Exemplar when I first joined the Knights. He’d been my mentor, and now he’s my friend. I don’t think I’ll ever see myself as something other than his Squire, but he’s the only person in the organization that I can talk to about my dreams. He was the one who, early on, recognized that what I’d been experiencing was something to be used rather than feared. Most of the others had wanted to kill me as an Outer when they learned what I was inadvertently doing, but Don had seen past all that and helped me survive.
I looked at the clock and knew that it was too early to call him, so I decided to sit down and write out what I could remember from the dream. It’s what Don would ask me for anyway when I got ahold of him, and it seems to help me process what I see.
A while later after eating breakfast and jotting down what I could remember, I decided it would be best for me to just get on with my day. There was no point in waiting around for Don to wake up. He works the night shift at his bar and doesn’t usually get up until well into the afternoon. As I stepped out of my apartment, I nearly bumped into my neighbor from across the hall.
“Oh. Excuse me Mrs. Vega, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Mrs. Vega is an 84 year old Mexican native who moved to America with her husband several decades ago. They’d decided to settle in Henderson just south of Las Vegas because her husband had gotten work at one of the casinos. Even now with her husband dead for the last six years, Mrs. Vega still rents the same two bedroom apartment she and her husband had occupied since the sixties.
“It is no problem Mr. Sebastian,” she says to me, her thick Spanish accent coloring her words, “I was just leaving.”
I noticed that she was having trouble closing her door because of a large box she was carrying. “May I help you with that?” I ask, indicating her full hands.
“Gracias,” she says and hands over the surprisingly light box. She locks her door and turns back to me for her box.
“It’s alright Mrs. Vega, I can carry this down for you. Are you heading to your car?”
“Yes I am. Thank you Mr. Sebastian,” and we start to walk towards the stairs leading down to the main floor.
“So,” I ask making conversation, “where are you heading on such a hot day?”
“I am taking some of Roberto’s things to the church. They always need more clothes, and he doesn’t anymore.” As she says it she fingers the small rosary that she keeps around her wrist. “My Roberto would want to help.”
“I’m sure he would,” I reply. “I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”
We’d had this same conversation several times since I had moved in across from her, and each time I could still see small tears well up in her eyes every time she talked about her late husband.
We made it downstairs, and stepped out into the heat of the day. Nevada isn’t the most hospitable place to live. The cities of Nevada thrive because of the marvels in technology and engineering that make it habitable. Even with these technologies, like air-conditioning and running water, the weather in a Nevada summer can drive even the most stalwart person back inside. Today was no different. Well over one hundred degrees and not a cloud in the sky, the heat was already beating down mercilessly.
After I put the box into Mrs. Vega’s trunk, I was helping her into her car when I noticed something that caused my heart to stop for a moment. Sitting on her passenger seat, peeking out from beneath her purse, I saw a flier for the Cirque de Soleil. I’ve been using my dreams for long enough to spot a sign when I see one.
“Mrs. Vega, could I follow you to your church to help you unload your box. It’s close to where I’m going anyway.”
“I could not ask you to do that Mr. Sebastian. You have done so much already.”
“Really, Mrs. Vega, it’s no problem,” I reply. “I really am heading that way, and I would be happy to help.”
“Oh, Mr. Sebstian I would love that. Gracias.”
“You’re very welcome Mrs. Vega. I’ll follow you.”
***************************************************************
A twenty-minute drive, turned into more than forty-five due to traffic and Mrs. Vega’s slower driving. By the time we pulled into the lot for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Parish it was early afternoon.
The parking lot had only one other car in it, and after we parked I helped Mrs. Vega out of her car and grabbed the box. We went into the small church and found the Priest walking down the center aisle to greet us. He was a small man, but the way he held himself told of a quiet dignity. The small square of his white priest’s collar perfectly contrasted the deep black of his shirt and slacks.
“Padre,” Mrs. Vega said, “Yo quería traer un poco de las cosas de Roberto para donar.”
“Muchas gracias señora Vega. I know exactly what we can do with these.”
As they continued their conversation, I set the box on a pew, quietly excused myself, and started to make my way back to my car. As I got to the door, I caught a glimpse of a message board covered in notes and announcements of various sizes and colors. I turned my full attention to the board and scanned over the papers held in place with a variety of mismatched magnets. Announcements for the next week’s mass were placed alongside an advertisement of kittens for sale. A parishioner had left a sign-up sheet for volunteers for a local charity and a nearby apartment complex was advertising vacancies with several strips of contact info along the bottom already ripped off. Envelopes were held in place, open, crammed full of coupons, and several business cards were sporadically attached here and there.
As I studied the board, I heard faint footfalls behind me and turned to see the priest strolling up to me carrying the box. Behind him I noticed Mrs. Vega kneeling near the front of the church by rows of lit candles, head down and praying.
“Thank you for helping Mrs. Vega today, young man,” the priest said setting the box down. “It isn’t often these days you see such a quiet act of charity.” The man’s deep caramel skin perfectly matched the tone of his voice, and his accent added a light spice to his words.
“It wasn’t any trouble,” I told the man, “I was coming to this side of town anyway.”
“I am Father Fernando,” he said extending his now empty hand.
“Sebastian Rooks,” I replied shaking it.
“Tell me Sebastian, how do you know Mrs. Vega?” He asked, his tone pleasant.
“I’m her neighbor. We bumped into each other on our way out today.”
“Ah,” he replied.
“Say, Father,” I asked, “has there been anything strange going on around here lately?”
“How do you mean?” He replied.
“Oh, nothing specific. I just like to keep my eyes and ears open when I go to a new place. It’s part of my job, you might say.”
“Really?” He asked, interest plain in his voice. “What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a photographer.” I said reaching into my pocket for several business cards. “Mostly I take pictures for events, or private photos, but you never know when something interesting might pop up. Sometimes I do a little side work for local newspapers.”
“That must be very interesting.” He said, absently taking the cards from my hand.
“It has its moments.” I replied turning my gaze back to the message board.
“Well, there is one thing about these apartments I’ve been noticing lately.” He said slowly as he moved to stand next to me.
I looked at the paper with several information tabs removed and gave the Father a quirked eyebrow.
“It’s their fifth flier this month.” He said in a flat tone.
That startled me a bit. Even in the poorer parts of the city, like this area, apartments shouldn’t be going through tenants that quickly.
“Is the place new?” I asked.
“No,” he replied. “We’ve worked with them for years. The church helped the owners fix their roof a few years ago, and since then our parishioners get a special rate if they move in.”
I reached out and tore a tab off the flier with the companies contact information on it, pocketing the small strip of paper.
“Thanks Father,” I said as I turned to leave. “Maybe I’ll give them a call.”
“Mr. Rooks, could you wait a moment?” The priest asked. As I turned back to him, he continued. “If you go to those apartments, could you do something for me?”
“Of course, Father” I replied.
“There is a family that lives there, in apartment 23, the Blaidd’s. They haven’t been to mass for a couple of weeks. Could you look in on them for me? I would just like to know that they’re ok.”
“Sure, Father, I can do that.”
“Thank you Mr. Rooks.” We shook hands and he turned, picked up the box of donated clothing, and walked into a small office.
“Well,” I said, talking to myself, “I guess it’s time to call Don.”
************************************************
Half an hour later I pull up to the Red Rock Apartments, and park across the street. While driving, I’d called Don but just as I had guessed he didn’t answer. I left him a message to call me back as soon as he could, and that I might need his help with something.
The Red Rock Apartments is a fairly typical structure. Light colored brick walls help keep the heat of the sun out, and the landscape outside is dotted with large red boulders. The building is only two stories tall, which makes it a fairly small complex, and on the wall facing the street a sign claiming “Rooms for Rent” hung limply in the oppressive heat of the day.
Getting out of my air-conditioned car is a true test of my commitment since the day had already reached nearly 110 degrees. Heat waves rise from the street, casting everything into a strange kind of picture. Like looking through an old window, or at the bed of a slow running stream. Just thinking about water makes my throat feel dry and my skin feel parched. Nobody else is outside as I quickly walk to the entrance of the building.
The first thing I notice, upon entering the building, is how hot it is inside. It feels almost as hot as it had outside. I quickly spot a set of stairs leading up, just off to my left, and hurry towards them not wanting to spend much time in the stifling heat of the hallway. Upstairs I see a small plaque indicating the direction I need to go to find apartment 23. Unfortunately for me I don’t find the right room until I’d gone to the end of the hall. It’s a strange location for a room. There isn’t a room across the hall, and between it and its closest neighbor, a utility closet sits locked. The heat up here is even worse than the lower level, and I’m dripping sweat when I knock on the door. After a few moments I knock again, a little harder, to make sure someone hears me. Damn it’s hot in here.
I’m about to knock again, when I hear faint footsteps coming from the other side of the door. There is the sound of a lock clicking, and then the door opens a few inches before reaching the end of a short chain and coming to a halt.
Through the small slot I can see a young boy, maybe nine or ten, staring out at me. He has big brown eyes that seem just a little too close together, a nose that seems a touch too small and his dark brown hair is cut into the familiar household staple of a bowl cut, albeit slightly crooked.
When he sees me, I see him flinch back and start to close the door. I’m not exactly a scary guy. I stand maybe a breath over six feet tall, and though my last couple years of training have hardened me, I’m not heavily muscled. The thing that is remarkable about me though is my face. It’s all sharp angles and planes made up of high cheek bones and a strong, square jawline. My light tan skin and large eye sockets seem to make my brilliant blue eyes shine.
“Hey, wait a second,” I say as I get my foot in the door to keep it from closing. “Are your parents home?” As soon as I ask it, I know just how creepy it sounds.
“No,” the boy says trying to push the door closed. “Go away.”
“Father Fernando sent me to check on your family.” I tell the boy as I put my hand in the small gap to help keep the door open. “My name’s Sebastian, what’s yours?” As I say my name, the boy looks up sharply at me and starts to adjust his hands for better leverage on the door.
Have you ever experienced one of those moments when so much is happening at the same time that it all seems to go in slow motion? Well, I had one of those.
As the boy begins to shift his hands on the door, I notice that behind him I can see another person in the room, a little girl of no more than six. She’s just standing there staring at me with hatred in her eyes. If you’ve never seen a small girl hate something, you’re lucky. In her hand she holds a small red cloth which she has stuck in her mouth. As the boy’s hand starts to move, I notice that the apartment is even hotter than it is in the hallway. It’s so hot in fact that my hand pressing against the door is starting to feel uncomfortable. Third, I catch a faint whiff of something foul smelling coming from the apartment. Then, right before the boys hand touches mine to push on the door, the air duct behind me begins to groan…and I know.
The boy’s hand touches mine, and everything speeds back up again. A sharp tingle races up my arm and down my back, causing my muscles to spasm, and settles into the familiar place in my stomach. At the same time the boy jerks his hand back and shrieks a pain filled cry clutching it to his chest. He hops back from the door and, with his weight gone, the force I was using to keep the door open easily rips the cheap chain from the wall. With the door standing open, I catch my first glimpse of the entire apartment. It opens up immediately to a small kitchen on my left attached to the living room in front of me. The kitchen is dominated by an island that seems too large for the space, and the top of the island is stained red, with small streams dried black running down the sides.
The boy in front of me still clutches the hand he touched me with, and he gives it a few shakes like someone would do if their hand were asleep. As he does this, he looks up at me with a seething rage and begins speaking to me with a strange voice. It sounds like more than one person speaking from the same mouth.
“Well, Knight,” he says with scorn dripping from every word. “I’d not expected to be found. How did you do it I wonder? Was it my progeny who gave itself away? It’s much too young I’m afraid, and the young cannot control themselves.”
I don’t answer the boy, but instead step into the apartment and close the door behind me. I know that going into this fight is a bad idea, I don’t have my equipment and my backup isn’t even awake yet, but I can’t let this thing go.
“Who’s Champion are you?” I ask the boy.
“I serve Outerlord Eideros, Knight. Are you afraid?”
“Afraid,” I scoff at the boy. “Obviously your boss hasn’t told you about the Baron he lost to me.”
“You weren’t alone then, Knight.”
“Neither was he,” I reply, and I make a quick lunge at the small child.
As I strike at the boy with an open hand, he lifts the hand I hadn’t touched earlier, and makes a strange twisted sign with his fingers. With my hand barely an inch from his face my palm slams up against something hard that I can’t see. With a tingling in my arm, I keep on the pressure and I see his eyes widen in alarm as my hand presses through whatever had been holding it back.
“How?” The boy quickly gets out before I seize his head in my hand. After that, the rest of his sentence breaks down into low agonized moaning.
Painful shocks, like surging electricity, race up my arm and down my back settling into the pit of my stomach. The power pools there and I can feel it slithering around inside me like a living thing. As I keep holding on, I begin to notice that there is something in the boy’s large brown eyes. Small worms begin to move around the sclera and then drop from his eyes like disgusting tears.
I’m so focused on what is happening in front of me, that I’m caught completely off guard when something hits me from the front and slams me back hard against the door. The boy and I crumple to the floor together and I see standing in the living room, still sucking on that small red cloth, the little girl staring hard at me. She raises her other hand towards me, and I can see in the corners of her eyes small black lines franticly wriggling.
I try to get quickly to my feet, but the heat in the room seems to pull the energy from me and I can’t do more than roll toward the kitchen before the carpet at the girl’s feet peels up into strips and begins to lash at me. I barely miss getting hit, and the linoleum floor where I had been lying splits with the force of the lashes.
By the time I look up from my roll the girl is nowhere to be seen. The carpet still whips at me, but I continue my roll and get behind the island in time to avoid getting bloodied by the lashing tendrils.
I stand up behind the island and extend my arm toward the mass of living carpet. With a thought, I imagine the carpet disintegrating. The power pooled in my stomach convulses painfully, and immediately I see millions of specks, like ants, appear covering the carpet. Within moments, the specks have ripped apart the carpet leaving nothing more than the bare wood floor beneath. I race through the living room and push open the door I see at the end of a short hallway.
Suddenly, a black cloud rises in front of me and I throw out the thought of an invisible wall between me and the cloud. I feel the energy in the pit of my stomach shrink further and then realize that the cloud isn’t another attack, it’s a mass of flies, kicked up from a pair of bodies by my sudden arrival. Amid the bodies and the flies, the little girl kneels staring blankly at the smaller of the bodies, still sucking on her red cloth.
I imagine the flies popping, and the energy within me claws at my insides. A shower of dead fly parts blankets everything in the room, and the little girl doesn’t stir in the slightest.
I move into the room and kneel down next to the child who doesn’t even blink. As I reach out to take her free hand, she jerks back slightly and suddenly looks at me. Her eyes are filled with writhing worms, like thin black lines, and I can barely see her pupils.
“What do I do now?” The girl asks, removing the cloth from her lips leaving them stained deeply red. Her voice sounds, strangely, like several voices at once. “My elder is dead.”
“You can go home,” I say to the girl that isn’t a girl.
“Really?” She asks. “How?”
“I can send you there.” The lie comes easily to my lips.
“That’s good.” She says and begins to lean against me.
I hold her in place as she screams and my whole body spasms as a new energy starts to pool in my stomach alongside what is left of the energy I stole from the boy. The new energy has a quality of uncertainty about it, as though it’s not sure what’s happening to it. Just before the spasms fade, I hear two things. The first is the sound of small pats hitting the floor, like heavy tears. The second is the girl’s voice, just the one now, whisper “Mommy.”
I slowly lay the now dead child next to her parents and go to get her brother from the living room. He’d been tossed by the mass of whips the creature inside the girl had created and he lay sprawled against the far wall across from the door. When I get to him I notice that miraculously the boy is alive, though unconscious. Perhaps because the creature inside him was old enough, it hadn’t killed the host body when it had invaded. Perhaps it was because the boy was older and stronger than his sister that he lived. Whatever the reason, I’m glad that someone survived.
I gather him into my arms and this time when I touch him nothing happens. When I get to the door of the apartment I turn to look back at what had been done. It’s obvious that something awful has happened here, so with a thought I set it all on fire. It burns so intensely and so quickly that the flames don’t have time to spread before I snuff them out with another thought. I turn then, with the boy in my arms, and carry him out to my car. The heat outside is a relief on my skin after the oppressive heat of the apartment, though it’s still hot enough to keep any prying eyes indoors. The boy fits snuggly into the back seat of Maxine, my Nissan Maxima that my daughter named, and as I drive away from the Red Rock Apartments, I weep.
Later that night I finally get ahold of Don and tell him everything that happened. He drives over to my place and trades a bottle of scotch for the boy. Don will take him to the other Knights in Las Vegas and get the boy taken care of from there. Don’s a great guy.
I hear on the news the next day about a freak fire that killed a family of four on the east side of Las Vegas, and later I go over to tell Father Fernando in person that the family mentioned on the news were the Blaidd’s.
Further investigation by the police turns up that tenants had been leaving the Red Rock Apartments because of faulty air-conditioning causing many to seek residence elsewhere. When the owners were asked about it, they stated that they had hired several repairmen to fix the issue, but none of them were ever able to find the problem. Since the fire, however, the problem seems to have resolved itself.
As for me, I nursed that bottle of scotch for a couple days before finally going to visit the graves of the family. Since the fire had destroyed their bodies, there hadn’t been anything to bury. The city did give the family a single headstone to recognize them though.
The girl’s name had been Emily.
It’s carved right next to her mother’s.