LJ Idol - Week 26-B: Face to Face
LJ Idol - Week 26-B: Face to Face
(This is a direct continuation of the Open Topic for the week. If you haven't already, that entry should be read first. Both ought to be able to stand alone, but they are specifically designed to be read together, in order.)
Monday, May 10th, 2010
I turn the ringer off and shove the phone into my pocket while looking at the outfall, at that damned tunnel and the darkness within. The last time I was here I ran screaming in terror. Once I'd managed to compose myself I came back and waited for Babs to come out. He should have been right behind me. He certainly should have been out by the time I returned.
What the fuck happened in there, anyway? We were deep in the earth, crawling through a natural fissure of some sort. There was a chamber with... something. I caught a glimpse of what looked like a gigantic dog, of some sort. Babs was screaming, shooting into the darkness and then we were fleeing desperately, scrabbling out of that narrow sandstone crawl-tunnel. Maybe he found a different way out, maybe he got out right behind me and ran the other direction at the outfall, escaping unseen.
Or maybe he was hurt? I hid within daily life, shivering in my own fear, for two days while desperately trying to reach him on the phone, by email, or even to see if anyone else had heard from him. I wanted to forget, I wanted to put it behind me. I wanted to justify my own cowardice. It was only when I was home and holding my own son that I first truly realized that Babs is someone's son himself. For that matter, he's almost young enough to be mine. If it was my son nothing in the world would stop me. If it was my son I'd come after the coward who left him in that hole. If it was my son I would have made sure he got out before me.
So here I am, staring at that goddamn tunnel again, rain dripping off my hat and my shoulders. A part of me was hoping that the outfall would be impassable and I would have an excuse to turn around. Going into storm drains during storms is how people die in storm drains, after all. I try and hold onto that fear as it's the most mundane and rational one I have, at the moment. Lightning flashes and thunder rolls like violence itself. I clutch my flashlight and I run to the outfall before I can stop myself. If I go quickly, maybe the momentum will carry me through and I can satisfy the voice in my head that tells me he has to have gotten out safely.
When my boot hits the rain-soaked concrete of the tunnel lip, I slip and fall, jarring my knee and my shin painfully. So much for momentum. Storm water rushes over my legs and hands as I carefully pull myself back up to my feet. The water is rushing about me, shin deep from the storm, running directly in through the tops of my boots.
This is stupid this is stupid this is so fucking stupid on so many levels god fuck this is stupid.
Dim light from the rainy sky shines from behind me and I make my way inside, limping only a little, fighting against the flow. I don't look back. If I look back I might start running again. Flashes of my frantic escape punch me in the face and I wince my way through each, I worry that my brow might never unfurrow. There was something in here, in the deep dark. Something that Babs fucking shot at. I brought a knife, but it feels short and fragile and impotent on my hip. I should have found a stick. I should have bought a shotgun. Something was hiding in the darkness, something I can't explain.
Or wish I couldn't. My mind fills in gaps with clues gleaned from something Babs recovered just before things went to shit. He shoved it into my hands and, when I finally stopped running, I crammed it into my bag without really looking at it. Once home I found it again, a book written in 18th Century France called Cultes des Goules. What I could gather from haphazardly reading through it is details of a Parisian cult who worshipped ancient gods by eating corpses alongside the "Children of Mordiggian," also referred to as "ghouls." The book implied that these ghouls are a sort of offshoot of humanity, that we share a common ancestor.
It was clearly written by a madman, but the stories were compelling enough that I barely put it down, struggling through an older version of a language I only barely understand. Descriptions of the rites and practices of worshipping Mordiggian, the Lord of the Ghouls, and how to contact the Children of Mordiggian. It detailed hideous practices where a ghoul, or anyone trained in their rites, could consume the knowledge, memories, and experiences of a corpse by preparing and eating parts of it. The brain, the heart, the eyes, in particular. It referenced continual interbreeding with humanity, or exchanging babies as changelings. Kidnapped human children who would become ghouls through exposure to their society and ghoul children left in their place to be raised as humans until they changed monstrously during adolescence.
There were images in the book depicting humanoid creatures with strangely canine faces. I remember the sound of the growls in that chamber and the glimpses I caught and fight to keep what little I've eaten inside. Stories written by lunatics, I tell myself. Strange circumstances, poor lighting, and coincidences carrying off my imagination, nothing more. To believe in such things would be madness itself.
The tunnel bends and I am alone with my flashlight and my fear, cut off from the last of the outside light. My hand trails along the wall, hoping to leach some stability from it. I reach the junction room and I pause, looking down that pick-axe-carved tunnel into the sandstone. The fissure isn't far from here. Instead I go the other way, towards the dead end of the main tunnel, desperately hoping that I'll find some evidence of Babs having left through the manhole at the top of the drop shaft. No matter how much I search, I can't find anything plausible that indicates he was here or that he could have climbed out. The same is true of all of the rest of the tunnels in this system until the only thing left is that damned crevice and in time I return to it, albeit reluctantly.
Kneeling, I peer into the darkness of what was once a natural fissure in the sandstone. It's clear that it's been expanded by use, but it obviously wasn't dug by tools the way the rest of the storm drain was. There is no sound here except that of water rushing and falling all about in the darkness and the occasional thudding of a car driving over a manhole. No smell other than the slightly musty odor of wet sandstone, the less than fresh water, and what drifts within it. The tunnel is wet with humidity, not quite making a fog, but my body is wet and I shiver as I examine the hole.
"Babs?" The sound is small and choked, even in this confined space. I call again, louder this time. "Babs??" The desperate sound my voice makes alarms me, but there is no response. This is crazy this is stupid this is fucking stupid and crazy and I shouldn't be here and I should just cowboy the fuck up and get this over with.
I take a deep breath and I put an arm into the crevice, twisting my body around and forcing myself through the claustrophobic darkness in a contorting sideways crawl. I'm too goddamn old and fat for this shit, but I make my way through, twisting and rocking and angling my body around each new obstruction, stopping frequently to look up, to examine every part of the tunnel. I make my way through this hidden space that has never seen natural light since the sand was laid here by the shallow sea. In another world, in another life only a few days past, I could appreciate the rock for its own merit with the eyes of a geologist. In this new life, I would like nothing more than to have never seen it in the first place.
I'm getting closer to the chamber, ahead of me I can just make out the lip that led down into that void. The tunnel opens up just a little more so I can crawl along on all fours for the last thirty feet or so. I'm trying not to think about what happened when my light plays on something black and menacing in a small void in the tunnel beside me. I reach out my hand, my jaw trembling a little, and I pick up the weapon. The Beretta is heavy in my hand. I've fired one a few times at a range, but I've never carried one of my own. I drop the magazine and count nine rounds left. I rack the slide and a tenth pops out of the chamber. Unsteadily I reload it, I insert the magazine, and I rack the slide again, chambering a round and leaving the weapon ready to fire. I have a gun in my hands and it's ready to fire.
Neither of my hands are steady anymore. "Babs??!!" In the confines of the tunnel, I can't hear the water anymore, only my labored breathing. I ball myself up as small as I can, barely managing to shuffle through the tunnel while keeping my hands free to manipulate the light and the gun. Electrical fire rages in the small of my back and down my leg from a blown out disc in my spine that I'm currently exacerbating mercilessly. I can see a doctor when I get out. I shuffle awkwardly forward, trying desperately to find relief in the fact that I've gone past where we began our retreat and found no sign of him. I try and force myself to believe that this means he's made it out. In the darkness, it's not an easy thing to do. I know I have to press on or I might never be sure.
The tunnel ends and I shine my light into the void of a large opening in the rock. The space is too large to illuminate everything with my light so I let it flit about, trying to see everything at once. There are shadows and pockets in the walls that the flashlight can't reach from where I crouch at the entrance. Reluctantly I slip my legs over the ledge and, wishing there were anything else I could do, I let myself drop to the floor of the chamber. The floor of the space is made of loose sand, fallen over unknown millennia from the ceiling, and reveals little in the way of discernable markings. The walls, on the other hand, are covered with a myriad of strange carvings, ornate scenes and portraits as well as what appears to be crude writings in a manner that I don't recognize.
I've almost forgotten myself in this place as a strange calm comes over me. Suddenly there is noise and movement in the shadows and my vision seems to double in a weird sort of vertigo. I'm casting about desperately with my light for the source of the movement and focusing narrowly upon myself from across the room, the cold white fire in my hand hurts my eyes which are somehow watching me from the shadows.
I can see hideous rubbery, gray, things with slobbering dog-like muzzles snarling and racing towards me and I can see myself turn and desperately try to climb back into the hole I came from. I can see my claws raised, preparing to strike and I can see my arm fly back behind me as I run, desperately discharging the weapon in my hand. I'm trying to shoot at the things coming after me and I'm trying to avoid the noisy thing in it's hand that is now pointed directly at me. I am screaming in terror and I am snarling in predatory hunger. I am clawing at the sandstone and trying to jump onto the ledge, and fire is erupting in my shoulder where the hateful weapon in my/it's hand has made contact, somehow.
In the strange mirror of my tangled experience, I am desperately scrabbling away, trying to flee and I am frantically jockeying for position amongst my brothers. The searing pain in my shoulder from the gunshot matches the deep tearing in my abdomen from the monsters clawing and biting into me, freeing my insides. What light there is in this place dims as my eyes close in death, even as I raise my head and howl in triumph with the rest of the pack.
I jerk violently back to my senses to find the pack laughing at me and joking in our meeping, glibbering tongue and even this is foreign for a moment. The feeling of disconnect fades slowly as the most recent experiences of the human interloper settle into my being. The rite of the feast has ended, the taste of the meal still fresh in my mouth. My brothers cheated me out of anything bearing lasting knowledge and memory, but what I got instead was the most recent experience of the human, parts which are sometimes fought over because of the very visceral nature of what they can impart. It was a dirty trick and I will make them pay for the risks they've imposed upon me. Some of the Children of Mordiggian have been known to completely lose themselves and become that which they have just consumed, so powerful are the memories and experiences of certain exquisite specimens. Others still become addicted to the stolen experiences and lose themselves seeking ever more and more intense personalities.
In the end, it's all in good fun and I should have expected nothing less. The meal was a good one, especially for how soon it came upon the last. Contemplating the experiences I have just acquired, I realize that there are more out there who might be drawn in.
"{{You laugh, but I know how to use it's device. I know how to make more come.}}"
The pack will respect me and I will get the choice meats, next time. I will bring them a feast such as we haven't enjoyed in decades. And they will come to us.
(This is a direct continuation of the Open Topic for the week. If you haven't already, that entry should be read first. Both ought to be able to stand alone, but they are specifically designed to be read together, in order.)
Monday, May 10th, 2010
- 9:15 AM - On my way back inside now. Please don't follow, I should be out in an hour or so. #
- 9:18 AM - But IF I don't, please make sure Hunter knows how much I love him and tell him I'm sorry. #
- 9:21 AM - Babs is someone's son, too. He's so damned young. I can't NOT go in and see. #
- 9:27 AM - @Janezy The rain is the LEAST ofg my concerns. As long as I can get IN it should be fine enough. #
- 9:30 AM - @ConanDammit Don't bother. I'll be done before you even find it. #
I turn the ringer off and shove the phone into my pocket while looking at the outfall, at that damned tunnel and the darkness within. The last time I was here I ran screaming in terror. Once I'd managed to compose myself I came back and waited for Babs to come out. He should have been right behind me. He certainly should have been out by the time I returned.
What the fuck happened in there, anyway? We were deep in the earth, crawling through a natural fissure of some sort. There was a chamber with... something. I caught a glimpse of what looked like a gigantic dog, of some sort. Babs was screaming, shooting into the darkness and then we were fleeing desperately, scrabbling out of that narrow sandstone crawl-tunnel. Maybe he found a different way out, maybe he got out right behind me and ran the other direction at the outfall, escaping unseen.
Or maybe he was hurt? I hid within daily life, shivering in my own fear, for two days while desperately trying to reach him on the phone, by email, or even to see if anyone else had heard from him. I wanted to forget, I wanted to put it behind me. I wanted to justify my own cowardice. It was only when I was home and holding my own son that I first truly realized that Babs is someone's son himself. For that matter, he's almost young enough to be mine. If it was my son nothing in the world would stop me. If it was my son I'd come after the coward who left him in that hole. If it was my son I would have made sure he got out before me.
So here I am, staring at that goddamn tunnel again, rain dripping off my hat and my shoulders. A part of me was hoping that the outfall would be impassable and I would have an excuse to turn around. Going into storm drains during storms is how people die in storm drains, after all. I try and hold onto that fear as it's the most mundane and rational one I have, at the moment. Lightning flashes and thunder rolls like violence itself. I clutch my flashlight and I run to the outfall before I can stop myself. If I go quickly, maybe the momentum will carry me through and I can satisfy the voice in my head that tells me he has to have gotten out safely.
When my boot hits the rain-soaked concrete of the tunnel lip, I slip and fall, jarring my knee and my shin painfully. So much for momentum. Storm water rushes over my legs and hands as I carefully pull myself back up to my feet. The water is rushing about me, shin deep from the storm, running directly in through the tops of my boots.
This is stupid this is stupid this is so fucking stupid on so many levels god fuck this is stupid.
Dim light from the rainy sky shines from behind me and I make my way inside, limping only a little, fighting against the flow. I don't look back. If I look back I might start running again. Flashes of my frantic escape punch me in the face and I wince my way through each, I worry that my brow might never unfurrow. There was something in here, in the deep dark. Something that Babs fucking shot at. I brought a knife, but it feels short and fragile and impotent on my hip. I should have found a stick. I should have bought a shotgun. Something was hiding in the darkness, something I can't explain.
Or wish I couldn't. My mind fills in gaps with clues gleaned from something Babs recovered just before things went to shit. He shoved it into my hands and, when I finally stopped running, I crammed it into my bag without really looking at it. Once home I found it again, a book written in 18th Century France called Cultes des Goules. What I could gather from haphazardly reading through it is details of a Parisian cult who worshipped ancient gods by eating corpses alongside the "Children of Mordiggian," also referred to as "ghouls." The book implied that these ghouls are a sort of offshoot of humanity, that we share a common ancestor.
It was clearly written by a madman, but the stories were compelling enough that I barely put it down, struggling through an older version of a language I only barely understand. Descriptions of the rites and practices of worshipping Mordiggian, the Lord of the Ghouls, and how to contact the Children of Mordiggian. It detailed hideous practices where a ghoul, or anyone trained in their rites, could consume the knowledge, memories, and experiences of a corpse by preparing and eating parts of it. The brain, the heart, the eyes, in particular. It referenced continual interbreeding with humanity, or exchanging babies as changelings. Kidnapped human children who would become ghouls through exposure to their society and ghoul children left in their place to be raised as humans until they changed monstrously during adolescence.
There were images in the book depicting humanoid creatures with strangely canine faces. I remember the sound of the growls in that chamber and the glimpses I caught and fight to keep what little I've eaten inside. Stories written by lunatics, I tell myself. Strange circumstances, poor lighting, and coincidences carrying off my imagination, nothing more. To believe in such things would be madness itself.
The tunnel bends and I am alone with my flashlight and my fear, cut off from the last of the outside light. My hand trails along the wall, hoping to leach some stability from it. I reach the junction room and I pause, looking down that pick-axe-carved tunnel into the sandstone. The fissure isn't far from here. Instead I go the other way, towards the dead end of the main tunnel, desperately hoping that I'll find some evidence of Babs having left through the manhole at the top of the drop shaft. No matter how much I search, I can't find anything plausible that indicates he was here or that he could have climbed out. The same is true of all of the rest of the tunnels in this system until the only thing left is that damned crevice and in time I return to it, albeit reluctantly.
Kneeling, I peer into the darkness of what was once a natural fissure in the sandstone. It's clear that it's been expanded by use, but it obviously wasn't dug by tools the way the rest of the storm drain was. There is no sound here except that of water rushing and falling all about in the darkness and the occasional thudding of a car driving over a manhole. No smell other than the slightly musty odor of wet sandstone, the less than fresh water, and what drifts within it. The tunnel is wet with humidity, not quite making a fog, but my body is wet and I shiver as I examine the hole.
"Babs?" The sound is small and choked, even in this confined space. I call again, louder this time. "Babs??" The desperate sound my voice makes alarms me, but there is no response. This is crazy this is stupid this is fucking stupid and crazy and I shouldn't be here and I should just cowboy the fuck up and get this over with.
I take a deep breath and I put an arm into the crevice, twisting my body around and forcing myself through the claustrophobic darkness in a contorting sideways crawl. I'm too goddamn old and fat for this shit, but I make my way through, twisting and rocking and angling my body around each new obstruction, stopping frequently to look up, to examine every part of the tunnel. I make my way through this hidden space that has never seen natural light since the sand was laid here by the shallow sea. In another world, in another life only a few days past, I could appreciate the rock for its own merit with the eyes of a geologist. In this new life, I would like nothing more than to have never seen it in the first place.
I'm getting closer to the chamber, ahead of me I can just make out the lip that led down into that void. The tunnel opens up just a little more so I can crawl along on all fours for the last thirty feet or so. I'm trying not to think about what happened when my light plays on something black and menacing in a small void in the tunnel beside me. I reach out my hand, my jaw trembling a little, and I pick up the weapon. The Beretta is heavy in my hand. I've fired one a few times at a range, but I've never carried one of my own. I drop the magazine and count nine rounds left. I rack the slide and a tenth pops out of the chamber. Unsteadily I reload it, I insert the magazine, and I rack the slide again, chambering a round and leaving the weapon ready to fire. I have a gun in my hands and it's ready to fire.
Neither of my hands are steady anymore. "Babs??!!" In the confines of the tunnel, I can't hear the water anymore, only my labored breathing. I ball myself up as small as I can, barely managing to shuffle through the tunnel while keeping my hands free to manipulate the light and the gun. Electrical fire rages in the small of my back and down my leg from a blown out disc in my spine that I'm currently exacerbating mercilessly. I can see a doctor when I get out. I shuffle awkwardly forward, trying desperately to find relief in the fact that I've gone past where we began our retreat and found no sign of him. I try and force myself to believe that this means he's made it out. In the darkness, it's not an easy thing to do. I know I have to press on or I might never be sure.
The tunnel ends and I shine my light into the void of a large opening in the rock. The space is too large to illuminate everything with my light so I let it flit about, trying to see everything at once. There are shadows and pockets in the walls that the flashlight can't reach from where I crouch at the entrance. Reluctantly I slip my legs over the ledge and, wishing there were anything else I could do, I let myself drop to the floor of the chamber. The floor of the space is made of loose sand, fallen over unknown millennia from the ceiling, and reveals little in the way of discernable markings. The walls, on the other hand, are covered with a myriad of strange carvings, ornate scenes and portraits as well as what appears to be crude writings in a manner that I don't recognize.
I've almost forgotten myself in this place as a strange calm comes over me. Suddenly there is noise and movement in the shadows and my vision seems to double in a weird sort of vertigo. I'm casting about desperately with my light for the source of the movement and focusing narrowly upon myself from across the room, the cold white fire in my hand hurts my eyes which are somehow watching me from the shadows.
I can see hideous rubbery, gray, things with slobbering dog-like muzzles snarling and racing towards me and I can see myself turn and desperately try to climb back into the hole I came from. I can see my claws raised, preparing to strike and I can see my arm fly back behind me as I run, desperately discharging the weapon in my hand. I'm trying to shoot at the things coming after me and I'm trying to avoid the noisy thing in it's hand that is now pointed directly at me. I am screaming in terror and I am snarling in predatory hunger. I am clawing at the sandstone and trying to jump onto the ledge, and fire is erupting in my shoulder where the hateful weapon in my/it's hand has made contact, somehow.
In the strange mirror of my tangled experience, I am desperately scrabbling away, trying to flee and I am frantically jockeying for position amongst my brothers. The searing pain in my shoulder from the gunshot matches the deep tearing in my abdomen from the monsters clawing and biting into me, freeing my insides. What light there is in this place dims as my eyes close in death, even as I raise my head and howl in triumph with the rest of the pack.
I jerk violently back to my senses to find the pack laughing at me and joking in our meeping, glibbering tongue and even this is foreign for a moment. The feeling of disconnect fades slowly as the most recent experiences of the human interloper settle into my being. The rite of the feast has ended, the taste of the meal still fresh in my mouth. My brothers cheated me out of anything bearing lasting knowledge and memory, but what I got instead was the most recent experience of the human, parts which are sometimes fought over because of the very visceral nature of what they can impart. It was a dirty trick and I will make them pay for the risks they've imposed upon me. Some of the Children of Mordiggian have been known to completely lose themselves and become that which they have just consumed, so powerful are the memories and experiences of certain exquisite specimens. Others still become addicted to the stolen experiences and lose themselves seeking ever more and more intense personalities.
In the end, it's all in good fun and I should have expected nothing less. The meal was a good one, especially for how soon it came upon the last. Contemplating the experiences I have just acquired, I realize that there are more out there who might be drawn in.
"{{You laugh, but I know how to use it's device. I know how to make more come.}}"
The pack will respect me and I will get the choice meats, next time. I will bring them a feast such as we haven't enjoyed in decades. And they will come to us.
- 3:15 PM - #
- 3:21 PM - Some #
- 3:28 PM - Something funny happened. Please come. Help. Fast. #
- 4:07 PM - @MNUndergrounders Something cool in tunnel. Pic. Entrance north of Ford Bridge. //ngdp/pics/7HI73 #
- 4:13 PM - @MNUndergrounders Please hurry. #
