Part 3: “Playback”
Shiny glass eyes peering keep watch from dark windows and quiet doorways of bleached dwellings. Frank and Ernest make their way further through the white city.
WARNING!
*This story contains graphic language and violence.
They reach the tall dark steeple at the end of town traveling through the quieter streets with nobody around in the dark draped shadows. A murder of crows chatter in the dead branches of the single barren tree draping over the cemetery behind the old church.
“Hey, hey.” Whispers a voice. “Over here.”
“Huh?”
“Don't go in there.” It creaks from under the front porch.
“Who the hell are you and where are you?” Asks Frank.
A three fingered black, charred, and scaled hand reaches out from under the porch.
“Don't go in the door. The death of many.” It says.
“Show yourself you ugly toad.” demands Frank.
“Too bright, too bright.” It said creeping around to the shadow. Ernest bent down to look under the porch.
“Holy shit! fuck me!” He jumps back. “That's one ugly mother fucker.” He shouts.
“Sorry kid, but what the fuck happened to your face?”
“He did it. The burnt man. And the scientist. They came from beyond the wasteland.” The boy crept further out of the shadow revealing himself: bone slim and lumpy. Nubs and horns growing off his shoulders and face. Scabs, scars, and open lesions secreting pus across his gray green body. He chokes and coughs. Black chunks hurl from wart encrusted lips. “You come from beyond the wasteland?” The boy hacks. “Don't go in there.” It shakes its gremlin head. “Many bad things.”
The front door swings open and a tall elderly man steps out.
“I told you to be gone creature!” he shouts pointing a shotgun. He fires once in the general direction of the thing lingering under the porch. Dirt flies into the air. The creature child takes off running, scurrying for shelter in the nearest shadow of a building. Its whimpers can be heard as it hides.
“Sorry about that gentlemen.” The old man said. “My name is Chauncey. I'm the caretaker of this establishment. We've been having, what could I say- a pest control issue. Please, please come in. You must be Frank and you must be Ernest. We've been expecting you gentlemen. Your journeys here must have been long and tiresome.”
Frank and Ernest walk up the front steps and into the dark lit mansion.
“Little bit,” says Ernest. “What the hell was that? Was that a human?”
“We're unsure.” Said Chauncey. “We've been trying to figure that out. They keep trying to break in. Right this way gentlemen.” he holds the heavy looking front door open for them. “I'll lead you to Master Shuffle. I'm sure he will explain any questions you might have. Seems this town is besieged by an illness. We've been trying to get to the bottom of it. There is a team of scientists here now working on it.”
“So, what do you need us for?” Asks Ernest. “You have scientists. What good are we? Some old timer Gunslingers.”
“We're probably the muscle Ern.” Said Frank giving Ernest a little elbow to his ribs.
“Bet he wants us for protection. Like body guards.”
“Then the answer is No,” said Ernest. “I don't want to stay in this town more than I have to.”
“But the money Ern. That fat Zelos coin bro. Cha-ching.” Frank runs his index and thumb together. “Gotta pay for that granddaughter’s procedure, right?”
“Master Shuffle will explain everything.” Interrupted Chauncey. “I am just the caretaker. Come. Right this way.”
The front door closes swift behind Frank and Ernest as they step inside. It takes a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dim lit room. Dark drapes choke out the daylight. Blue and purples of a stain glass window illuminates the room in cool hues. Chauncey leads them through the building. Their footsteps echo off the cold stone walls and they enter a hallways with paintings lining the walls.
“Look at this one Ern,” said Frank. “Now that's some creepy shit.” He points to a large painting of an individual eating the head off a smaller person. “What the hell is that about? I think I like it.”
“It's from the early 1800's by a painter named Goya.” said Chauncey. “It's called Saturn Devouring His Son.
“Guess it is open to interpretation.” Said Frank “What do you think Ern?”
“I don’t have an opinion right now.”
“Wouldn't have that hanging on your walls? How about that one? With the ribcage torn open like that and all those skulls? Guess this guy has a taste for the grim and macabre.”
“Yes, art is a matter of taste,” said Chauncey.
“Yeah, I guess. Damn, look at this one.” Frank points a stump finger. “It's like the body is rotting into a wall. Bones all sticking out. And this one. Is that a leg? And she's sucking the tongue of an alien or something? This shit is gross.”
“That's a Beksinski, and that one is an Giger. Both are quite priceless. Master Shuffle has an extensive collection of both. His taste is very selective.” Informed Chauncey.
“I'd say. That's fucked up. This Mr. Shuffle sure isn't into that flowery-warm-feel-good deer in the meadow type paintings like my grandma had when I was a wee boy.”
“Precisely sir. He rather despises those.”
Chauncey leads Frank and Ernest into the lower level of the building. A light flickers down the long damp hallway and opens a large dark door. Inside individuals in white robes study monitors hooked up to patients. One individual lays on a table with wires and tubes sticking out of his chest and arms. Dark fluids pumping in and out. A bright blue light overhead glows. It illuminates the rippling scales and nubs that scatter across his burnt and scarred torso. Half the man's bald head has deep wounds with horn like protrusions jutting out from his cheek, chin, and bone.
“What the hell is going on here?” asks Ernest. “What is this place? Ernest looks around at the four other individuals not strapped to tables. Three of them are wearing lab coats and carrying clip boards studding dim computer screens. The dark skinned female in a black dress notices their entrance and diverts her attention from attending to the scaled and scarred body with all the dark tubes.
“We are trying to figure out what the illness is in this town,” she says walking over. “Where it is coming from, how it is mutating the people here, and possibly find a cure.” Chauncey closes the door as Frank and Ernest step inside. “but none of this makes any senes.” She shakes her head. Two motionless shirtless frail bodies are strapped to inverted tables. One of them has a wandering eye that stares over at Frank and Ernest. It pleads with its gaze.
“Cool, this is like a fucked up mad scientist lab,” says Frank. “You all got Dr. Jekyll, or Frankenstein locked up in here? Or better yet? Some freakish pickled heads in jars? I kind of what to go home with a souvenir.”
“I don’t think we’re on vacation Frank,” says Ernest. “We’ve been sent here by Jack Gemini. We’re looking for an individual named Shuffle.”
“I am Shuffle.” The scarred man says sitting up and pulling the tubes out of his arms and chest. Fluids squirt from the flailing tubes and dark liquid dripping from puncture holes in his body.
“I am so glad you two made it.”
“Sir, you must sit back down.” Says the woman. She pushes a small table of medical tools across the room. “If you want this procedure to work.”
“I need to welcome my guests.” The man says getting to his feet and walking over to Frank and Ernest. He reaches out a burned right hand with a large scar on the palm.
“Hello Frank. Ernest. Welcome to my home. I hope your travels have been pleasant.”
Neither man wants to shake the hand, but they do, feeling the cold in Shuffle’s callused clawed grip. Frank visibly shivers.
“If you don't mind me saying.” says Frank. “You kind of look a little crispy around the edges. Left out in the desert much?”
Shuffle chuckles and snarls. “I understand,” he says. “My looks aren't what they used to be.” The smile reveals sharp teeth. “It has been by my own doing, or undoing.” He pauses for a moment. “A desire I once had.” He drifts off in thought staring off to a distance no one else can see.
“Come, come. Let me show you around.” He says after a long permeating pause.
“I must protest Sir,” says the woman. “You have not completed your procedure.”
“Very well.” Shuffle returns to his table. “Let us complete this.”
The other three scientists scatter around the room and attend the other two patients. The man bound to a table with one eye searches the room. A scientists lifts the white cloth that drapes over the top of his head. His skull is missing revealing the pink lumpy mush of his brains. The scientists make notes on a clip boards while poking thin metal instruments into different regions of tissue. The wandering eye looks out searching, pleading in silence, staring at Ernest.
“What the hell are you doing to this man?” Ernest asks.“This is sickening.”
“Trust me gentlemen. It is no where near what you think,” says Shuffle as the tubes are re-connected to his body. “These scientists are here to help. They are trying to cure this man, as they are me, and the others. We’re stuck here, in Kasia.” Shuffle gestures around the room to other bodies covered in sheets. “All of us have been exposed to something. Something terrible. Something dark. Something beyond our world I believe.” Shuffle points to the man with the wandering eye. “That man cut out his own tongue and eye. He did the same to his entire family weeks ago. Their bodies found rotting in bed.”
“What the fuck?” Frank asks. “This is messed up! I don’t want to be here if you all are sick with whatever! I don’t want to catch the fucking nastiness! I’m getting a one way ticket out!”
“You are being paid well.” Said Shuffle. “You two will be fine. I have a simple task for you.”
“What’s that?” Asks Ernest.
“There is a place on the other side of this town. Travel to the far side of Kasia. You’ll see a tower out in the distance. A massive stone structure in a sea of desert. There is an opening in the tower that leads to a horror, a pit, a flame.” said Shuffle.
“Sounds pleasant.” Said Frank.
“Years ago I was trapped inside this tower with a three other individuals. When we entered I found the artifact. Or what I thought was the artifact I had been searching for. How wrong I was. There were skeletal remains in the large cavernous room we mined our way into. The room must have been sealed off encapsulated inside the stone structure for eons. The skeleton was tall, humanoid like slouched in the corner. Much too large to be a person. The clothes were threads and dust. A large ax lay across a long femur bone and the skull was missing, or replaced with a skull of a massive bison. It all was so strange. Then I saw the glow. I mean, it was always there. I saw it the moment I entered the room, a looming blue fire flickering weightless. But at that moment it felt like the light saw me, or the darkness. I am uncertain. It pulled at me as did the smooth dark pool beneath, with no reflection. A sea of magnificent darkness. What splendor it was. I touched the cold black liquid. My hand unable to push through and a great emptiness filled me. I did not realize I was on fire.”
“When we were found, I am unsure how we got out, madness had drove the other men to self mutilation. They had stabbed out their eardrums to silence the voices. It didn’t work. They clawed at their eyes with broken dirt infested fingernails to unsee the things they saw. They still remained. I do not know how I survived. But my body went under an extreme mutation. As you can see.” Shuffle touches the bone horns growing out the side of his face. “That is all I can remember. So much darkness. Void. I finally crawled out into the daylight after God only knows how long. And now, years later, these similar symptoms have reached Kasia and are infesting the citizens here.”
Two scientists push a small cart over with syringes of dark fluid. They begin administer them into the arms of the men. The men begin to scream silent tongueless yells shaking and convulsing, bound by straps.
“What the fuck?” asks Frank.
“They are trying to cure these men with a serum we've created. You see, while I laid in the cavern of the flame those many years ago, I witnessed the white blinding light. I looked. I looked too long. It felt so heavenly awful. So pleasantly painful,” said Shuffle. “The beauty in that darkness. So, so welcoming. And when I reached inside that fire, that blue eternal flame, past all the pain. I felt it. I held it. Inside it loomed, an object, and I tried to pull it free as my flesh boiled and burned. I pulled, and something broke. A part of me. A part of it.” Looking at the scar in the palm of his hand Shuffle continues, “They had to drag me out. I would have surely held on until I was ash. For I had no intention of letting go. I had no control, neither of the times.”
“Sounds like a great place.” Said Frank. “Sun tan in seconds. And nope, I’m out of here.” Frank turned to head towards the door.
Shuffle shoots a hard look at Frank. “That's when it began. A leak. Something below the flame. A darkness.” He said. “I, we, don't understand what it is.”
The door behind them opens letting in a damp breeze. “Oh? I am so sorry. excuse me Sir. I did not know you were having guests.” A short man wobbles across the room pushing past Frank on a cane and smiles bleeding black gums. “Just here for my medicine gents. Can't be getting on with my day without my daily dosage.” One half of his face sags off bone with deep drooping eyes. He coughs in his sleeve. “How funny, I use to be the doctor around here. Now I'm the damn patient. The irony of life. We all can't live forever I guess,” he says as one of the scientists hands him a glass bottle of liquid. He tips is back, whisker beard dipping in the fluids and dripping down his chin. “Glaa,” he chokes. “You damn assholes can't make this shit taste any worse I swear.” He sets the glass on a table. “Thanks Mr. Shuffle.” He waves. “I'll be seeing you tomorrow,” and back out the door he limps.
Frank and Ernest exchange looks.
“You see gentlemen,” says Shuffle. “With all my strength and all this technology, I haven't been able to make the screaming stop since that day.” He said, lying down on the table under the bright light. Long dark shadows cast sharp angles across the scars and thorns protruding his body. “It's in my head. Like these poor souls. Trapped. Like a pipe that’s under extreme pressure, ready to burst. I need your help to end this curse, from this town, from these men, and from myself. Before the pipe explodes.”
The female scientist whispers something in his ear. Shuffle smirks.
“I need you two gentlemen to break the seal I wasn't able to do. I need you two to destroy the Blue Flame. I fear it may be our only hope for a cure to end this disease.”
“Um...” Said Frank. “That might be above and beyond the job description.”
“Right? how?” Asks Ernest. “Doesn't sound easy. It looks like it cooked you alive, more than once.”
“You are correct. I almost had it. And if I try one more time it quite possibly will be my demise. Ever consuming, like the moth drawn to the flame, eaten by the light of its own salvation. My addiction. It calls to me, the singing, the ringing, the screaming. I cannot even go near it for it constantly calls. But I cannot leave either. So, between two worlds I am trapped, as far away and as close as possible. I am strong enough to resist, but do not have the strength to leave.”
“How are we supposed to do this?” Asks Ernest. “I'm not about to stick my hands into some an open fire. Throw some water on it?”
“If it were that easy my friends. If only.” Shuffle smiles a mouth full of sharp fangs and black gums. “ Dr. Masayoshi here was able harvest an extraction of the fluids leaked from beneath the Flame and create a serum.”
A thin man sitting in a far corner wearing a mask over his mouth turns in a chair and walks over with a briefcase. Neither Frank nor Ernest saw him there until now.
“I have paid you both ample amounts to come here and with my wealth comes privilege and power. Now, gentlemen, I need you both to sit in those chairs over there and take this serum with the hopes it will give you the ability to destroy the Blue Flame, and cure this town.”
“Ah fuck, I hate needles,” said Frank. “This was definitely not in the contract.”
“Relax gentlemen,” says Shuffle, “Trust me.”
Scientist lead the two men towards open chairs. Dr. Masayoshi brings over his brief case and sets it on the surgical table. Straps are bound around Frank and Ernest's legs and arms. Ernest tries to resist for a moment, but knows. It is too late. Nothing can be done. His thought is in hopes Sierra has the money she needs.
“Fine,” he says. “Get it over with.” He grinds his teeth.
Dr. Masayoshi pulls off his mask revealing a thin lipped smirk. “Excellent.” He says. “It hurts less if you don't resist.” He pulls out a large syringe of black fluid and injects it into the bulging vein of Ernest's arm. Ernest watches as the fluid, like a worm, crawls up his arm creeping closer to his heart. He feels the cold trickle slither up his face and his eyes roll back into his head. His clenching hands go squeeze the chair for a moment and then go limp as the fluid reaches his head and spiderwebs across his face in a knot of black veins. Ernest stops breathing. His head falls forward.
“Oh shit! Oh fucking shit!” Yells Frank. “You just fucking killed Ern! You fucking bastard! Get me out of here! Get me out of here!” Frank yells trying to wiggle his way out of the nylon straps.
“Just wait,” says Dr. Masayoshi. “Watch.”
In a sudden gasp of air, Ernest's body jolts to life. He begins coughing and a rupture of black fluids spew from his mouth and nose. Something wiggles on the floor.
“You're next,” says Dr. Masayoshi smiling at Frank. “Just a little pin prick and it will all be over.”