#mistywrites

Wayne keeps trying to get her proper summer jobs, keep her out of trouble. It's a shame dealing pays way better.

It does mean, though, that she's stuck painting the fence outside of Gareths moms house at 1PM on a Saturday afternoon, within hearing distance of the guy absolutely going to town on his Drum set in the garage. On that day, Corroded Coffin is born.

And its easy, to spend the summer with Gareth, who she'd only barely known as the new kid in hellfire before. He's chill, in a way Eddie's never learnt how to be. He doesn't treat her like one of the guys, exactly, though she can't quite put her finger on what it is. Maybe its that he just treats her like a person.

Having to re-do senior year for a second time doesn't feel so bad, if she's got Gareth hanging around.

So its natural, of course, for them to drop by Starcourt on a hot day, and even more so to scramble together whatever change they got left to pick up some Ice Cream on their way out.

Neither of them had been quite prepared enough for what met them as they walked into Scoops Ahoy though.

Stevie Harrington. The Queen Bee of Hawkins high, newly graduated and now... Standing behind the counter in an ill-fitting sailors outfit, bored expression on her face and gravity defying waves of hair, a jaunty sailors hat balancing precariously on top as if held in place by will alone.

And the thing is, Eddie's noticed Harrington, of course. You don't go through the years of high school (plus extra) without knowing about the hottest mean girl in school. And if you are, like Eddie, a raging Lesbian (even though she's only just admitted this fact to herself), and who also has a thing for girls with a mean streak?

Yeah... She knows about Stevie, all right. Gareth also seems surprised by this development, thank god, stopping in his tracks right next to Eddie.

He does not, however, make a pained little noise as they both watch Stevie stretch, the far too short top rising to show off a generous sliver of tan, muscled, midriff.

Eddie... Does. And then promptly flees the scene.

Later, back in Gareth garage while Eddie tunes her baby best she can with only her ear to go on, Gareth says

"Its ok if you're a lesbian, you know"

And it catches Eddie so off guard she snaps the string

------

Stevie works the summer at scoops ahoy. She flirts badly, makes minimum wage, gets tortured and drugged by Russians, and makes a friend for life. They hate each other at first, of course, Robin remembering all to well what Stevie used to be like, and Stevie's just too tired to try and convince anyone she's changed.

Nothing like a plot to unravel and shared trauma to change things though, and if she's honest, Stevie was already starting to warm up to the girl before they even started solving mysteries together. There was just something so refreshing about someone who says exactly what they think, even if that is sometimes by accident.

"This summer is the most fun I have ever had" Stevie tells her, on that bathroom floor. "I really think you could be my best friend, Robin"

And when Robin tries to protest, says that she wouldn't think so if she really knew her. if she knew what she is, Stevie is just confused at first.

"but... Tammy Thompson is a girl"

"Stevie..."

"oh."

And look, Stevie's never really thought about the concept rather than as an insult before. It was something you called a girl you didn't like, that's all. But... Robin's great. She's sweet, she's funny, and she didn't hesitate for a second to save kids she barely even knew. So... the idea that she could in some way be bad, just because she thought Tammy Thompson was cute? It... didn't feel right.

So she rolls with it, mocks her for her bad taste, and way too many things happen after that for them to really have a chance to talk it over.

But later, as they are curled up on Robins bed, too wired up to sleep, too scared to turn off the light fully, she asks her about it. Wants to know what it really means. And... if she asks maybe a few too many questions, a few too in-depth ones, Robin doesn't comment on it.

Just answers best she can. It's several weeks later when Stevie even thinks of the concept that if Robin is into girls, and Stevie is a girl-

"Wait!" She asks suddenly, in the break room of family video "how come you never had a crush on me?"

And Robin just wrinkles her nose, which, rude. Stevie knows what she looks like. She should be everyone's type. "Sorry dingus, I only date cute girls"

"Wha- I'm cute!" Stevie answers, gesturing to her Pink V neck, tight jeans and her carefully styled hair, but Robin just shakes her head.

"Too much Jock energy, sorry!" Robin says, flippantly, as she walks out of the room "Wha- what does that even mean" Stevie asks, following her out the door (next time- they interract??? with Each other??)

I had not been conscious, before. I remember a gutter. I remember being dizzy. I remember being cold. I remember everything fuzzy, everything blurry. Then my memory stops. There is nothing in the space between that blurry cold and now, between my death and the worms, the feet, and the voices.

And the hunger.

The hunger is enormous. It is not like anything I remember feeling when I was alive. It licks at my bones. It burns like fire. I lie here in it, dormant and dead, and it urges me to get up, go up, find the feet and the voices. It pricks me. The hunger is pain, and the pain grows and grows.

I lift my arms.

The hunger rises, sharp and strong. It rides my bones. It guides what’s left of my fingers as they scrabble for purchase, as they shove the dirt out of their way, as they pull me up and out of the ground.

I feel the wind on my bones. I see the moonlight, shining on gravestones. I hear the sighing of the leaves in the trees.

The pounding feet stop. The chanting voices go silent.

The hunger wants.  

It drives me forward, toward the warm living skinned ones, the ones who were dancing and chanting. The ones who brought me back.

I hear their screams.

The hunger takes.

—

Everything has changed. The gutter where everything went blurry and cold, where I died, is no longer there. There are no horses. There are large metal containers on wheels in the street. They go much faster than horses.

I stay in the shadows.

I took the clothing of the ones who freed me to hide my bones. Their clothes are warm. They smell of this new world, of the large wheeled containers and the black topped roads. I draw the collar of the shirt up.

I feel the hunger, underneath. It is quiet now, but it will come back.

I need paper. I need a pen. I need to write.

I see a living skinned one. He is stumbling, drunk. The hunger smells him. It rises. It wants.

I skulk along behind the drunk man. He weaves and wanders. He speaks to the air. I wonder if it answers him. Perhaps it is saying watch, watch, death follows behind you, but he does not hear.

The hunger forces its images in front of me. It shows me the bodies of the ones who raised me. It shows me their brains. I do not care. I do not want brains. I want a pen. I want to write.

The drunk man fetches up against a house door. He fumbles in his pocket for a key. He misses the keyhole, scratches up the doorknob. I come up behind him. I can smell the alcohol on his breath.

What would he think of bony fingers appearing to guide his skinned ones?  I am tempted. But the hunger will not do it. It wants surprise. It wants cover. It does not want a skinned one running screaming through the streets.

Finally the drunken man hits his mark and unlocks the door. I am his shadow as he steps into the house. I slide behind him as he turns to close the door. I spot paper and a pen on a small round table to the right.

The hunger wants.  I tell it I do not care, that it can have him. I just want the paper and pen.

The hunger takes.

—

The drunk man lies on the floor, surrounded by blood. I arrange his body so that he looks peaceful, like he just went to sleep and lost his head. I wish the hunger had waited before taking his brain. I cannot ask him how to work these new things, this pen that does not need ink, this stove without fire, these switches on the wall.

I play with the pen, twirling it around my bones. I press the top, and something comes out of the bottom. A nib. I press it against the paper, and it makes a smooth mark.

I begin to write.

I write of the worms, of the grave markers, of the young warm living skinned ones dancing and chanting in the night. I write of the moonlight, of the wind, of the brightness of my bones. I write of the hunger, its pricking pain and its constant gnawing need. I write through the night and into the next day. The hunger is quiet. Interested. I feel it watching me.

I go out, wrapped in the clothes of the drunken man. I found clean ones in a small room inside the house.

I wander through the streets, keeping away from the large metal containers. They scare me. The streets are still as I remember, though they are solid and black and have changing tricolored lights strung across them now.

My publishing company is still in the same building. I go back to the drunk man’s house. I find an envelope, address it to my publisher, and stuff my story inside.

I do not know how the mail works now.  I have to drop it off myself. I go back out. The sun is setting. Warm living skinned ones are everywhere. The hunger awakens.

I tell it that it must wait. I must drop off my package first. I go into the office. There is a large desk facing towards me. I drop the package on it and hurry out. The hunger wants.

This time it is a woman. Tall and beautiful, with raven dark hair. She is hurrying home. I slip ahead of her and hide in an alley. As she comes by, the hunger reaches out. It takes her. My bones must feel so cold against her warm skin.

I bite her shoulder. She struggles. The hunger urges me on, riding my bones, guiding my fingers up to her hair.

She twists away from me. We both stumble. She recovers first. I reach out for her, the stolen clothes forgotten, my bones tinted warm yellow in the setting sun. My fingers grasp the air. She is running away, screaming. Screaming.

The hunger is cruel tonight. It does not let me write. It burns.

—

Always, always, the hunger wants. I do not know how long it has been since that first night. The hunger drives me. It finds its victims. It takes its brains. Sometimes they get away before the brain is touched. The hunger roars then. It roars in my head and it will not leave me alone. I cannot write on those nights.

The other nights, when the hunger has had its meal, it is quiet. It lets me write. It watches. I feel that it reads.

I have seen my stories in the windows of bookstores. I have also seen stories of the mysterious anonymous author in the newspapers. This makes me sad. No one remembers my style. No one remembers me. They have no idea who could write such stories of the worms, the gravestones, and the deaths of beautiful women. I am forgotten.

I also see stories of a serial killer. The Zombie Killer, the newspapers blare.  Every week, there are more bodies without brains. More than the hunger can account for.

One night I see the beautiful raven haired woman. She is changed. Her skin is gray and slack. Her hair is dull, and much of it has fallen out. Her eyes have no soul, no beauty. They have only the hunger.

I watch as she stalks her prey. She has no class. No sense of style. There is nothing artistic in the way she takes her victim, nothing darkly beautiful in the way she eats the brain.  She leaves the body in a heap in an alley, next to a large pile of rubbish.

The hunger has reproduced itself. It has made for itself unconscious unalive children.

I retch.

—

I will not allow the hunger to use me to make more monsters. I procure heavy chains, a trowel, mortar, and bricks.

The hunger fights me. It wants. It wants to go out into the city. It wants warm pulsing flesh. It wants living brains.

I tell it that it should have taken my brain first.

I go to the house of the drunken man. It is still empty. No one has come. The man must have been alone in the world. He still lies in the front hallway, still at rest in the pose I created for him. He is beautiful in his decay.

I walk past his body. I open doors until I find what I want. A stairway leading down.

The hunger rises. I scream, my voice hollow and creaking. The hunger burns inside my bones. I grip the banister and force my legs downward. The hunger is pain, and the pain is unbearable.

I go down into the drunken man’s cellar. I chain my legs to the wall. The hunger screams, and I scream, and the screams of the dead and the burning and the hungry echo off the cellar walls.

I brick myself up. The hunger screams with every brick I lay. It wants. It wants it wants it wants. The heat of its wanting sears my bones. The bricks blur. I cannot see. Still I lay them, one on top of the other.

The hunger rides my legs. It forces the bones against the chains. It hurts. It hurts and I am dizzy and I am cold and I cannot see, but the chains hold.

I lay the last brick in place. The hunger jerks. It throws me against the wall. It takes my fingers, forces them to scrabble against the bricks, loosen the mortar. I scream. I am on fire and the hunger is pain and I am drowning in it, I cannot see and I cannot think and the cold blurriness comes, the last thing I remember before waking in my grave, and then it is dark.

—-

I hear nothing.

Down, down in the ground, black and dark and dead in the everlasting night, boxed up.  Alone.  Even as the flesh rots and the seasons turn and the grass grows.  Alone.  Alone.

Alone.

The hunger is gone. My bones are cool and mildewy. Nothing rides them. Nothing controls them. I do not feel pain. I do not feel anything.

The chains are rusted. They come undone easily. Many of the bricks have fallen. I move a few more. I step outside of my cell.

I still hear nothing.

I walk up the stairs.

The drunken man is still there. Still undisturbed. He is now just bones, just as I am. I step over him. I walk out the front door.

I hear nothing.

I see everything.

Weeds are growing up among the cracked pieces of the black topped road. There are rusted broken large metal containers everywhere, their tires flat, their doors hanging open. The other homes in the neighborhood sit derelict, their windows broken, their roofs sagging.

There is not a living thing in sight.

The hunger wanted.

–

Farmer Brown turned left on Redbrush Church Road. The Pleasant Rest cemetery came up on his right.

The spikes on the cemetery’s wrought iron fence leered at him as he drove by.

They found his body on Ol’ Knocky’s grave.

The grave was in the far southern end of the cemetery, down by the edge of Tate’s land. Folks said that if you knocked on the gravestone three times at midnight on Halloween, Ol’ Knocky would knock back.

He’d been down there a few times on Halloween with his friends as a boy. None of them had ever had the gumption to knock more than once. He’d gone back when he was older. He and Mae had left Ol’ Knocky in peace, but they’d sure had some fun.

He drove past the end of the fence. The sun tipped the trees with gold.

–

He parked his truck in Tate’s driveway and jumped out. The house was small, only two bedrooms. Tate had built it himself thirty some years ago.

He walked up the path of square stone blocks to the concrete porch. Leaves crunched under his shoes. When he reached the door he stopped for a moment, inhaling the smell that clung to the house. It was musty, closed-in, the smell of dust motes in a slanted sun beam.

The doorbell was dead. The wires hung loose where the button used to be.

He knocked once on the door.

He stood for a while and waited. A breeze sprang up.

He knocked again, louder.

The breeze shook the branches of the trees surrounding the house. Leaves spiralled to the ground.

Farmer Brown knocked a third time, as hard as he could.

He heard movement inside. Something squeaked, a door closed, and heavy footsteps came from the back of the house. The front door swung open. Tate stood there, silent. Farmer Brown spoke.

“Good afternoon. How are you?”

“I’m doing all right. Can’t complain. How about yourself?”

“Fine, fine,” Farmer Brown answered.

Tate was lying. He was not doing all right. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin under them bagged.

“I’d invite you in, but the house ain’t quite to rights. I ain’t felt too good lately.”

Farmer Brown looked down at Tate’s hands. The thick brown fingers slid across each other, like snakes crawling all over each other in a pit.

Tate noticed him looking. The hands went still, limp.

“You want something to drink? Water, tea? I might have some pop.”

“No thank you, I’m fine. Listen, there’s gonna be a killin’ frost tonight. You got anything to cover your pumpkins? I got a tarp in the back of the truck.”

No answer. Tate deflated, drew back into himself. A crow cawed in the distance. The breeze came again. Leaves skittered across the porch.

Inside the house, something squeaked.

Tate lifted his head. He stepped back into the house, started to close the door. Farmer Brown tried again.

“You got any old blankets in there?”

The door closed. The lock turned. The heavy footsteps receded, a door closed inside the house, and something squeaked.

–

Farmer Brown walked down to the pumpkin field, carrying his tarp. Wasn’t like Tate to just shut the door on him like that.

The crow cawed again.

He stopped at the edge of the field. The pumpkins were ripe, just days away from harvesting. Normally, this time of year, Tate was crazy about his pumpkins. He’d set up a sign on the side of the road, Tate’s Pumpkin Patch, and sell ‘em for Halloween. Some years he got all up into it, with hayrides and carving contests. Didn’t seem like he had a mind to do any of that this year.

Well, wasn’t his place to tell Tate what to do. He’d just cover up what he could and go on back home. It was getting on towards sunset. Mae’d be wondering where he was before too long.

He put the tarp down on the ground, found a rock nearby to hold it. He set off down the field, looking for more rocks.

–

He was at the end of the field, close to the cemetery, when he saw a good-sized heavy rock. He bent down to pick it up.

When he stood up, the scarecrow was there.

It had not been there before. He was sure of it. He saw the field in his mind. Rows of pumpkins, grass, dirt, the shadows of the trees stretched long across the ground. Not a straw man to be seen.

Tate had never had a scarecrow, not that Farmer Brown knew of.

He remembered the bloodshot eyes, the coiling hands. Might be a lot about Tate he didn’t know.

The scarecrow was a good six foot. The pole looked weathered, like it’d been standing there in the rain and the snow and the sun for years. A pair of jeans swung in the wind, stuffed with straw. A red plaid shirt was tucked into the jeans, the arms stretched out across the cross pole. Bits of straw clung to the ends of the sleeves.

A fly landed on his hand. He shook it off.

He looked up, past the jeans and red plaid. Saw the white scarf.

It was a fine scarf. He wondered how much it must have cost. Must have been a pretty penny. Too bad about the stains. He stared at them. Listened to the flies buzzing.

In the distance, the crow cawed.

A snatch of song from childhood came back to him.

knock three times three times dead knock three times and lose your head

The scarf uncoiled itself, reared, struck.

It wrapped around his neck and yanked him forward. Dragged him face to face with the scarecrow’s head.

The smell hit him full in the gut. Bile rose in his throat.

Bulging eyes stared at him. Blood dripped from the nose. The half rotted mouth hung open like a tomb on Judgement Day. The swollen tongue twitched.

The scarecrow squeaked.

He pulled hard against the scarf. In response, it tightened around his neck. Cut off his windpipe.

He was going to die and they would find him here in the pumpkin field, stinking to high heaven, and Mae would be alone and he would never see her again.

The scarecrow squeaked again and again, the squeaks rising in volume until the thing was shrieking. Its screams stabbed into his brain.

The scarf cut into his skin and he couldn’t breathe and he felt something hard and rough in his hand.

He was still holding the rock.

He brought his right arm up. Swung it around. Drove the rock right into the scarecrow’s nose.

The thing let out a single high pitched squeak that reached into his bones and turned them to water.

He lifted his arm again, brought it down with the force of a tidal wave. The rock slammed into the scarecrow’s cheek. The scarf went limp.

He could breathe now. He took a deep breath, filled his lungs with the odor of decay and putrefaction. Raised his arm.

Blood flooded through his veins. His muscles burned.

Unable to squeak, its tongue stilled, the scarecrow moaned out a dirge.

His arm whistled through the air and came down like a scythe. The rock smashed into the side of the scarecrow’s head and kept going. Bones crunched. Skin tore and fell away.

The head came off the pole and thudded to the ground. The rest of the scarecrow followed, taking Farmer Brown with it.

The moaning stopped.

–

All of Farmer Brown’s bits ached. He could feel bruises forming on top of bruises. He was bleeding. But he was alive.

His hand was empty. The rock had fallen and disappeared.

He rolled off the scarecrow and looked up. It was nearly dark now. The moon was already in the sky. He could see every crater, every valley.

He could hear the footsteps when they came. Heavy and slow.

“I didn’t ask you for no help.”

Tate was coming down the field.

“You shouldn’t have come out here. I didn’t ask you to come out here.”

The footsteps stopped. Tate stood over him. Farmer Brown took a breath, a deep sweet breath, and spoke.

“I didn’t know you had a scarecrow.”

Tate’s face twisted with rage.

“I don’t.”

Tate held something in his hand. Something long and thin. And sharp. The knife glowed in the twilight.

Farmer Brown pulled his knees up, braced himself against the ground. Before he could get up, Tate’s boot came down hard on his chest and knocked the breath out of him.

He watched Tate raise his arm and thought Mae. The knife plunged.

–

Tate put his arms under Farmer Brown’s shoulders and lifted.

He hadn’t asked the man to come down here. He hadn’t done anything.

He walked backward. Farmer Brown’s boots scraped over the dirt.

Tate hadn’t done anything. It was the voice. The voice that screamed and screamed and never gave him any peace.

He hadn’t done anything. It was Ol’ Knocky. It was all Ol’ Knocky’s fault.

Farmer Brown’s head bumped against his chest.

The wind rustled through the trees. Leaves rose and fell in little gusts.

He came to the cemetery fence. Dragged the body through the gap he’d made three weeks ago.

Ol’ Knocky’s grave was in the row nearest his land. He laid Farmer Brown’s body down on it. Knocked on the tombstone.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

He sat on the grass in the dark and waited.

–

Rusty Jenkins sat in the rocking chair on the porch of the general store. It’d turned cold. Winter was coming on. His daughter didn’t much like him being out in the cold air. He’d have to give up the general store and spend his time at home soon.

The door slammed. Mae Brown stood next to him, shaking and breathing fire.

“They said you was the last person to talk to him. What did he say?”

“Said he was going down to Tate’s. I told him. I said a boy got his head tore off down there t’other week.”

Mae stared at him, wild fear in her eyes.

“He didn’t pay no account. Went down there anyway.”

She didn’t wait to hear more. She ran down the porch steps and out to her Bonneville. She slammed the car door, gunned the motor, and peeled out of the parking lot in a shower of gravel. Headed down to Tate’s, he’d reckon. No one ever paid any account to what old folks said.

Rusty settled back in the chair. Rocked back and forth. Listened to the creak of the floorboards. Maybe he could get his daughter to buy him a rocking chair like this one.

He picked up his Dixie cup and spat a stream of tobacco juice into it.

Secrets, so many secrets, beyond the stars. If only one could see.

In his dream he floated above the ruins of an ancient city. Spires reached up from the dark depths.

If one could see.

He drifted down towards stone stairs so big and wide that he was sure giants must have once walked upon them.

Beyond the stars.

The stairs were green with algae. The water had worn away whole sections of the stone, leaving stairs that ascended into nothingness, that swayed gently in the water, that seemed to speak, to say that they had led somewhere once, that they had been attached to fellows, that they had been useful. But those days were long gone, and now the stone chattered to itself while the water passed over it, muting its voice.

Secrets.

He climbed the stairs, lightly springing from one to the next. The water held him, supported him, carried him up. It swirled around him, and he heard the whispers.

Secrets in the sea, secrets beyond the stars, if one can see. See.

He saw the statue at the top of the stairs, the statue that must have been carved by a giant’s hands. He saw the tentacles, the claws, the giant wings, the gaping mouths full of sharp long teeth. He saw the eyes. All of them.

See.

Through the years, two other dreams had come. His favorite was the one with the bridge, the great giant golden thing rising up out of the ocean, glinting in the sun. The water was dark and green, and beneath it he saw the shapes from the other dream, the stairs and the spires and the statue. The bridge sprung from the sunken city, and it went up and up to the sky and through the atmosphere. That dream was always silent, blank. There was the golden bridge and the sun and the water and beneath it the ruins, and he was there, infinite, and all was silent.

The third dream, the one that completed the triad, was his least favorite. In this dream, he walked on a black blasted alien landscape. He walked and walked on hot black sand, a blood red sky above. He walked forever, with a voice whispering around him, filling the hot sticky air.

Th’och nguh rhila Tenyachogll lalihr hugn hoc’ht

The voice grew louder and louder as he walked, and the air grew heavier and hotter, and then he would reach the ring of fire. Tall towers, black against the dark red sky, burned with green fire. White robed figures danced and leaped in front of the fires. He could make out bodies hanging from the upper reaches of the towers, just above the leaping green flames.

Th’och nguh rhila Tenyachogll lalihr hugn hoc’ht

The figures in the white robes took up the whisper, chanted it, screamed it, made the air vibrate to their cries.

When he woke up from that dream, it took a long time to come back to reality, to see the green and blue and brown of this world, to hear the human voices speaking in a tongue he knew.

He never told anyone about the dreams. He watched, and dreamed, and waited.

—

Rufus took advanced physics and calculus in high school. He did not have friends. He never dated. He wandered around town, studying the bridges. Railway bridges, highway bridges, pedestrian bridges over small creeks. He made his parents buy a draft table for him. He sat for hours at the draft table, drawing the bridges.

Sometimes he would go to sleep at the draft table. Once, slumped over a drawing of an old railway bridge, he had the water dream. When he woke up, he found that a small picture had taken shape under his hand. It was the statue from the dream, the being with the tentacles, the claws, the great wings, the dozens of mouths, and the eyes. All the eyes.

See.

In college, Rufus majored in civil engineering, with a specialization in structural engineering. His freshman year roommate said he was weird. He said that Rufus made strange sounds during the night, low guttural vocalizations that did not sound like any human language. He said that Rufus did not talk or socialize, that he only studied and drew bridges. He said that the way Rufus looked at him really freaked him out, like Rufus was looking straight through him, like he wasn’t there.

Rufus lived alone his sophomore year.

—

One night a new dream came. In this dream he hung in a vast black silence. Strange silver shapes swung in great circles above his head. He felt an immense sense of time, of eons passing. The silver shapes changed and moved in new patterns. And still he hung in the infinite silence.

Th’och nguh rhila Tenyachogll lalihr hugn hoc’ht

The alien syllables came from his own lips. Immediately, as if answering his call, the golden bridge became visible. It stretched down beneath him, shining and perfect. He wanted it, as he had never wanted anything. It hung in the blackness, supported by nothing but his desire.

Th’och nguh rhila Tenyachogll lalihr hugn hoc’ht

He woke that morning with a sore throat.

—

Rufus graduated at the top of his class. He went on to graduate school, receiving his master’s degree in civil engineering. Doors opened for him, despite his gaunt look and the rings under his eyes and his wild stare. Or perhaps it was because of those things.

He kept a drawing of the statue from the water dream with him at all times.

Secrets, so many secrets, beyond the stars. If only one could see.

He took a job with a prestigious engineering firm.

The dreams came every night then, crowding upon each other, spilling over their boundaries. He floated in black space above a ruined city burning with green flames. He lay on his back in the hot black sand, looking up at a sky full of algae-covered stairs to nowhere. He wore a white robe and danced around the statue of the being with the tentacles and the wings and the claws and the mouths and the eyes.

All the eyes.

See.

He took the drawing of the statue with him, and people stared through him, their eyes vacant, their faces slack, and they said yes to his questions. To his demands.

Th’och nguh rhila Tenyachogll lalihr hugn hoc’ht

—

The Observant plowed through the dark green waves. Rufus had planned, researched, and dreamed for decades, and now he was here. He was so close that he could taste the algae.

He tried to not sleep. He walked up and down the deck. He studied the maps of the sea floor, the ones that showed the odd formations that had whispered to him of green crumbling stairs and tall spires. He played Solitaire. He drank through the ship’s supply of instant coffee. He drew pictures of bridges. But still, his body betrayed him, and he slept.

Rufus dreamed.

He dreamed of water dripping. Drop after drop, dripping down on stone.

Then he was on his back on the old sewer grate, staring upwards. The pulsing blood red vault of the sky arched above him, and below him, in the sewer, the water dripped.

If one could see.

Then he was deep in the water, drifting down past the spires towards the stairs.

Beyond the stars.

Metal sprung up from the wide platform at the top of the stairs. It pushed itself up through the water, up and up and up. He watched as it broke the surface, glittering gold in the sunlight.

Secrets.

The spires around the platform lit up with green fire. White figures danced in the dark water.

The statue, the many-eyed thing in the center of the platform, began to move.

Th’och nguh rhila Tenyachogll lalihr hugn hoc’ht

Rufus woke up screaming.

—-

The divers came back to the Observant with strange tales of a giant undersea city. If not for their photographs, only Rufus would have believed them.

He spread the photographs out on his drafting table. Here was the landscape that had haunted him for decades.

Secrets, so many secrets, beyond the stars. If only one could see.

He looked at the picture of the statue. He studied the tentacles, the claws, the wings, the mouths. He stared into the eyes.

See.

He began to sketch.

—

The workers complained of bad dreams. Some, on seeing the ruined city and the statue, refused to work on the bridge and left. Rumors began to spread, of the wild-eyed man in charge of the operation, of a cult on the island nearest the bridge. There were whispers of disappearances, of workers who went on shore leave and were never seen again.

Rufus raised their pay.

He had taken to drugs to stay awake. He sometimes found himself sitting at his draft table, a drawing of the many-eyed thing crawling up his beautiful bridge before him, with no memory of how it got there. The voices of the workers came to him through a fog, and they had to repeat themselves many times before he understood what they were saying. White figures danced and leapt at the edges of his vision. He felt weak and feverish, and then the cough came.

He was forced to take to the bed in his cabin. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the ship move beneath him. He fell asleep, despite himself, and dreamed.

He dreamed of crawling across the hot black sand beneath the blood red sky. He saw the black towers, burning with green fire. Bodies swung above the flames. He could see runes carved into their skin. The white robed things danced around him, and he saw their faces. He saw all the mouths and all the eyes. The eyes stared into him. The mouths all writhed.

Th’och nguh rhila Tenyachogll lalihr hugn hoc’ht

Then he was floating in the vast blackness, the infinity of nothingness. The silver shapes, so far off in the distance, so far that he would never reach them, swung above and around and below him. The shapes sung, their song on the very edge of hearing.

Secrets, so many secrets, beyond the stars. If only one could see.

Eons passed, and then he was in the dark green depths. The water shut out the song of the stars. The stone spires and stairs whispered of the feel of the water on their surface as it swirled around them, as they crumbled and gave way to it. Algae grew and covered his skin. More whispers came, on the very edge of his hearing. Whispers of men.

Then he was above the water, floating in infinite silence. His bridge appeared, hanging in the sunlight. A terrible joy overtook him, and he screamed.

Tenyachogll! Tenyachogll! Tenyachogll!

He woke when one of his men poured water on his head. When he opened his eyes, they drew back from him. A few crossed themselves.

He told them to work harder and faster, that the bridge must be completed soon, that he would triple their pay. They did as he said, but he heard the whispers. The whispers that he had gone mad, that it was the devil’s work, that no good would come of man reaching for the stars.

Rufus stayed in his cabin, and drew bridges.

—

They called him to the deck when it was done, when they had breached the atmosphere, so that he could see the last bolt put into place. He saw how they watched him, how they kept their nets and ropes at the ready.

He walked to the ship’s railing. Let them stare. All those eyes.

See.

He coughed, a great hacking cough that forced him to hold on to the railing as it shook him. He would not be climbing the bridge. Like Moses, he had led his people to the promised land, but he could not enter it.

He looked up, far up into the sky, but of course he could not see the end of his bridge. The sun glinted off the golden span. He shielded his eyes against the glare, and remembered the sewer grate and the great blue sky above him.

Secrets.

Word came on the radio that it was done, that the last piece had been put into place. The workers cheered. He knew they wanted to go home, to forget the people who disappeared, the strange sights from the nearby island. He knew they would be drunk tonight.

Here was his bridge, and it was done, and he did not know what he would be doing.

Beyond the stars.

He looked down at the green city under the water, at the spires and the stairs and the statue.

The statue began to move.

Only One can see.

He saw the platform at the top of the stairs slide apart. He saw the tentacles waving, feeling their way out of the stone tomb. He saw the huge claws scrabbling for purchase. He saw the wings as they began to spread. He saw the mouths, full of razor sharp teeth, opening and closing. He saw the eyes. All of them.

See.