Nightmare: The Basement Lord and God Almighty (Weekend Edition)
Sunday, March 15th:
Two brothers, about 7 and 9 years old, had fallen ill. A pair of investigators explored their modest suburban split-level. Dr. Gregory House was accompanied by a perspicacious redhead, somewhere between his assistant Allison Cameron and field agent Dana Scully. The boys' father, an undertaker, was not at home, and they hadn't been able to reach him about his sick children. Greg examined an outdoor shower behind the buildingcould he have washed away the ashes of his victims?and found a few loose pennies in the drain trap. [Camully] looked in the nearby crematorium unit. She picked up something like an old hair dryer, its heavy, dark brown plastic casing suggesting an origin in the late 50's. She read the label: "Cathode ray combustion gun"; this was an undertaker's tool for burning teeth and bones at a distance, meant to destroy fragments that remained after a standard cremation.
Meanwhile, the brothers had developed numerous small sores. They tossed and turned, trying to rest on daybeds in the home of a private nurse. They worried about bugs, but the nurse assured them they were clean.
"Of course," Gregory said. 'Insects would be wildlife if they were playing in their basement. We should check downstairs.'
Layers of the brothers' skin split open in long gashes, revealing splotchy black and white sores beneath. Tiny lumps covered their bodies, and sometimes they moved. When no one was looking, beetles and amoeba-like centipedes crawled back and forth beneath their skin, briefly revealed through the broken slits. The boys complained they felt like they were burning up. The nurse developed the same condition, but couldn't see the insects and couldn't figure out how to take care of the children.
Greg and [Camully] cautiously explored the unfinished basement. The phones in their pockets didn't ring when the nurse dialed their numbers. They didn't find any insects, but they found a finished part of the basement that looked much bigger than the house. The farther they went, the more friends had joined them on the expedition. Worried, they tried to leave, but behind the front door they found a red brick fireplace instead of an exit. They explored further into the basement, and found a window that looked onto rooms where none should be. They couldn't hear the disembodied laughter of the Undertaker lording over his domain, but it made them nervous just the same.
'The longer we stay,' Greg said, 'the more of them will die.'
[Camully] returned to the front door and performed a séance to summon the spirit of her dead father to free them. A few moments later, powerful fists smashed the fireplace apart, and a large, friendly man stood where it had been, silhouetted against the blue glow of an ice cave. Glancing past her father, [Camully] looked out the cave entrance and saw a strange landscape. Fish-like servitors of the basement lord shambled over grassy hillsides.
I wandered through brightly-lit corridors, passing a convenience store counter at the corner and following a fork to the left. I found the bathroom at the far end, but it was huge, and most of it had been turned into a video arcade. Patrons fed quarters into machines and mashed buttons.
Meanwhile, a guy wandered down the aisle at the convenience store, eyes glazing over one company's sea of offerings. A triangular plastic case enclosed each product, red and yellow with blue edging. He picked up a package at random, read the labela recreational drug called "Sex Change"put it down again. He picked up another red-yellow package; the label read, "Five Sandwiches."
About twenty of us filed through narrow basement corridors, disused doors, and down tight stairways. Everyone kept on their guard for the reality-altering traps of which the Undertaker was so fond. I think they maimed people or trapped them in mazes or turned them into carp... that kind of thing. I carried a framed oil painting that I'd grabbed off a wall somewhere. It was about 30" by 42"just big enough to be cumbersomebut it could harmlessly absorb the weird energies of the traps. Whenever we saw anything suspicious, or a likely place for an ambush, I held the painting face-out in front of me like a shield.
Just ahead of me, Nick H. made a comment about the dangerous footing. I wore my old work boots, which helped a bit with the scraps of jagged metal and other debris. I should've worn my engineer's boots, I thought. They'd protect me against punctures and live wires.
A younger Nick in a leather jacket crossed the parking lot, stopping at a door to a drug party. The bouncer waited. Nick knew the "password"; he reached out with a forked metal key and tweaked the bouncer's nose. As the man's nostrils bent, his face twisted with ecstasy.
"Hey man," the bouncer said, "don't be stingy," so Nick did it again. The bouncer stepped aside and opened the door.
I walked in the middle of our group as we wound through the trapped basement. We ignored a screen door aheadit looked like a trapand turned right down a stairwell. As I waited for those ahead to descend, I saw a pale figure standing behind the screen door. His long black coat made him look gaunt; white hair peeked from beneath his wide-brimmed black leather hat. He beckoned silently, then disappeared around a corner. We ignored him and continued down the steps.
A couple minutes later, we were walking down another staircase when a single tread buzzed and a sign illuminated on the far wall. It told us that whoever had stepped on that tread (and up to two other people) must descend to the bottom ahead of the group and pass through the door.
A few of us shuffled down past the rest. We followed the stairs to a small chamber with a green door in its right-hand wall. When I arrived, I saw that a pretty brunette and a curly, attractive blonde had already joined the guy who'd stepped on the trap, so I went back upstairs. After I left, they opened the green door and walked through into a round room. A giant poster on white tagboard blocked the doorway on the far side, the only other exit.
Our group continued a short ways to a wide, white stairway. A huge screen on the wall overhead showed our friends in the round room via a hidden camera. We sat down to watch; I held my painting in front of me and watched through its back to filter out any pernicious traps hidden in the video signal. I thought I glimpsed the man in the black hat crossing the other side of the doorway; he must be something's servant.
"HUMANITY IS AN ACCIDENT THAT MUST BE CORRECTED. CHOOSE." God's voice shook the walls, but God Himself was in the next room, concealed by the poster across the doorway, for none may look upon Him.
The curly blonde approached the poster and read:
20 centodeaths (2,000)
20 kilodeaths (20,000)
20 [something] (200,000)
20 [something] (2,000,000)
20 megadeaths (20,000,000)
20 [something] (200,000,000)
20 [something] (2,000,000,000)
20 ogglodeaths (20,000,000,000)
Each level of massacre caused a different type of catastrophe. She scanned down the list, stopping at random near the bottom. In her mind's eye, the planet's surface turned to lava, swallowing a pair of huge trucks used for mining.
A screen somewhere showed the guy sitting in the convenience store while an overlaid display scrolled through combinations of four alphabetic characters. Suddenly all the scrolling letters stopped at [HeKf], the pharmaceutical shorthand for a medication that would drive him insane. The Undertaker's disembodied laughter echoed again, unheard by the guy at the table.
Face tightened with concentration, the curly blonde in the round room weighed the possibilities, finding none of them satisfactory. I might be able to kill one person in self-defense, but how could I choose an apocalypse? I couldn't live with myself. At last she spoke.
"Great and powerful God," she said, "grant my heart's one killing wish."
Unable to know the minds of mortals, but willing to consider alternative forms of catastrophe, God acquiesced. SO LET IT BE.
A compound longbow appeared in the round room, anchored horizontally across the doorway, its giant steel arrow pointed at an 0 on the poster. Studded with springs and pulleys, the bow's arms must have been 15 feet from tip to tip. The blonde grabbed the string with both hands and backed across the room, pulling the arrow with her, straining against the bow until she backed into her two companions. She fired the arrow through the poster and straight through God's heart, killing Him instantly.
Two brothers, about 7 and 9 years old, had fallen ill. A pair of investigators explored their modest suburban split-level. Dr. Gregory House was accompanied by a perspicacious redhead, somewhere between his assistant Allison Cameron and field agent Dana Scully. The boys' father, an undertaker, was not at home, and they hadn't been able to reach him about his sick children. Greg examined an outdoor shower behind the buildingcould he have washed away the ashes of his victims?and found a few loose pennies in the drain trap. [Camully] looked in the nearby crematorium unit. She picked up something like an old hair dryer, its heavy, dark brown plastic casing suggesting an origin in the late 50's. She read the label: "Cathode ray combustion gun"; this was an undertaker's tool for burning teeth and bones at a distance, meant to destroy fragments that remained after a standard cremation.
Meanwhile, the brothers had developed numerous small sores. They tossed and turned, trying to rest on daybeds in the home of a private nurse. They worried about bugs, but the nurse assured them they were clean.
"Of course," Gregory said. 'Insects would be wildlife if they were playing in their basement. We should check downstairs.'
Layers of the brothers' skin split open in long gashes, revealing splotchy black and white sores beneath. Tiny lumps covered their bodies, and sometimes they moved. When no one was looking, beetles and amoeba-like centipedes crawled back and forth beneath their skin, briefly revealed through the broken slits. The boys complained they felt like they were burning up. The nurse developed the same condition, but couldn't see the insects and couldn't figure out how to take care of the children.
Greg and [Camully] cautiously explored the unfinished basement. The phones in their pockets didn't ring when the nurse dialed their numbers. They didn't find any insects, but they found a finished part of the basement that looked much bigger than the house. The farther they went, the more friends had joined them on the expedition. Worried, they tried to leave, but behind the front door they found a red brick fireplace instead of an exit. They explored further into the basement, and found a window that looked onto rooms where none should be. They couldn't hear the disembodied laughter of the Undertaker lording over his domain, but it made them nervous just the same.
'The longer we stay,' Greg said, 'the more of them will die.'
[Camully] returned to the front door and performed a séance to summon the spirit of her dead father to free them. A few moments later, powerful fists smashed the fireplace apart, and a large, friendly man stood where it had been, silhouetted against the blue glow of an ice cave. Glancing past her father, [Camully] looked out the cave entrance and saw a strange landscape. Fish-like servitors of the basement lord shambled over grassy hillsides.
I wandered through brightly-lit corridors, passing a convenience store counter at the corner and following a fork to the left. I found the bathroom at the far end, but it was huge, and most of it had been turned into a video arcade. Patrons fed quarters into machines and mashed buttons.
Meanwhile, a guy wandered down the aisle at the convenience store, eyes glazing over one company's sea of offerings. A triangular plastic case enclosed each product, red and yellow with blue edging. He picked up a package at random, read the labela recreational drug called "Sex Change"put it down again. He picked up another red-yellow package; the label read, "Five Sandwiches."
About twenty of us filed through narrow basement corridors, disused doors, and down tight stairways. Everyone kept on their guard for the reality-altering traps of which the Undertaker was so fond. I think they maimed people or trapped them in mazes or turned them into carp... that kind of thing. I carried a framed oil painting that I'd grabbed off a wall somewhere. It was about 30" by 42"just big enough to be cumbersomebut it could harmlessly absorb the weird energies of the traps. Whenever we saw anything suspicious, or a likely place for an ambush, I held the painting face-out in front of me like a shield.
Just ahead of me, Nick H. made a comment about the dangerous footing. I wore my old work boots, which helped a bit with the scraps of jagged metal and other debris. I should've worn my engineer's boots, I thought. They'd protect me against punctures and live wires.
A younger Nick in a leather jacket crossed the parking lot, stopping at a door to a drug party. The bouncer waited. Nick knew the "password"; he reached out with a forked metal key and tweaked the bouncer's nose. As the man's nostrils bent, his face twisted with ecstasy.
"Hey man," the bouncer said, "don't be stingy," so Nick did it again. The bouncer stepped aside and opened the door.
I walked in the middle of our group as we wound through the trapped basement. We ignored a screen door aheadit looked like a trapand turned right down a stairwell. As I waited for those ahead to descend, I saw a pale figure standing behind the screen door. His long black coat made him look gaunt; white hair peeked from beneath his wide-brimmed black leather hat. He beckoned silently, then disappeared around a corner. We ignored him and continued down the steps.
A couple minutes later, we were walking down another staircase when a single tread buzzed and a sign illuminated on the far wall. It told us that whoever had stepped on that tread (and up to two other people) must descend to the bottom ahead of the group and pass through the door.
A few of us shuffled down past the rest. We followed the stairs to a small chamber with a green door in its right-hand wall. When I arrived, I saw that a pretty brunette and a curly, attractive blonde had already joined the guy who'd stepped on the trap, so I went back upstairs. After I left, they opened the green door and walked through into a round room. A giant poster on white tagboard blocked the doorway on the far side, the only other exit.
Our group continued a short ways to a wide, white stairway. A huge screen on the wall overhead showed our friends in the round room via a hidden camera. We sat down to watch; I held my painting in front of me and watched through its back to filter out any pernicious traps hidden in the video signal. I thought I glimpsed the man in the black hat crossing the other side of the doorway; he must be something's servant.
"HUMANITY IS AN ACCIDENT THAT MUST BE CORRECTED. CHOOSE." God's voice shook the walls, but God Himself was in the next room, concealed by the poster across the doorway, for none may look upon Him.
The curly blonde approached the poster and read:
20 centodeaths (2,000)
20 kilodeaths (20,000)
20 [something] (200,000)
20 [something] (2,000,000)
20 megadeaths (20,000,000)
20 [something] (200,000,000)
20 [something] (2,000,000,000)
20 ogglodeaths (20,000,000,000)
Each level of massacre caused a different type of catastrophe. She scanned down the list, stopping at random near the bottom. In her mind's eye, the planet's surface turned to lava, swallowing a pair of huge trucks used for mining.
A screen somewhere showed the guy sitting in the convenience store while an overlaid display scrolled through combinations of four alphabetic characters. Suddenly all the scrolling letters stopped at [HeKf], the pharmaceutical shorthand for a medication that would drive him insane. The Undertaker's disembodied laughter echoed again, unheard by the guy at the table.
Face tightened with concentration, the curly blonde in the round room weighed the possibilities, finding none of them satisfactory. I might be able to kill one person in self-defense, but how could I choose an apocalypse? I couldn't live with myself. At last she spoke.
"Great and powerful God," she said, "grant my heart's one killing wish."
Unable to know the minds of mortals, but willing to consider alternative forms of catastrophe, God acquiesced. SO LET IT BE.
A compound longbow appeared in the round room, anchored horizontally across the doorway, its giant steel arrow pointed at an 0 on the poster. Studded with springs and pulleys, the bow's arms must have been 15 feet from tip to tip. The blonde grabbed the string with both hands and backed across the room, pulling the arrow with her, straining against the bow until she backed into her two companions. She fired the arrow through the poster and straight through God's heart, killing Him instantly.