ANTHONY SAT ON his couch, overwhelmed by what Scott had told him. It had just been a regular day until he got home, about 6.15. He’d walked into his little apartment carrying his bag of tools, set them down and realised Scott was sitting at the table. He didn’t have a key or anything, so Anthony jumped when he saw him.
Scott looked awful. Bedraggled, unshaven and messy. No shirt and in his socked feet. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes that were dark under heavy lids, thinly glinting like the scythes of crescent moons. His face was that of a man who hadn’t slept in a week, and Anthony noticed—but made a point not to mention—smears of wiped-away blood on Scott’s wrists and hands, like burgundy gloves. He glanced furtively at the phone hanging on the wall and wished he’d brought his cell in from the truck.
‘So… tell me about the dream again.’
Scott snickered and lit a cigarette. Thin tendrils of smoke trailed out of his nostrils. He smiled a rueful, pained smile and rolled his deeply sunken eyes.
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he asked levelly.
‘Just tell me about the dream, Scott. Let’s start again at the beginning.’
I’m a roofer, not a psychiatrist, Anthony thought to himself. He thought the safest bet was to keep Scott talking. Agree with anything he said. He realised he didn’t really know Scott well at all; their interactions were barely more than the odd quick hello by the bank of mailboxes in the building lobby. Chin-juts of recognition. Scott lived directly upstairs, but the two rarely crossed paths.
Until today, when he got home. Sorry, but I really need to talk to someone, was all Scott had said when Anthony asked what he was doing in his apartment. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how Scott had gotten in. He didn’t have a key.
‘Okay, I’ll tell it again. I know it’s a lot.’ Anthony nodded. Scott took a deep drag off his cigarette, and then a deep breath of regular air. Anthony sipped from the beer can sitting on the wooden arm of his couch, already strung with stained rings. He settled, trying to be at least physically comfortable.
‘I know how it sounds when I say I have dreams,’ Scott began. ‘We all do. But… I’m different.’ Another deep breath. ‘Dreams aren’t just your brain processing the day, or some sort of Freudian thing. For me, at least, I… actually travel. Sometimes people call it astral projection, a bunch of different names, and I’m not really sure what it is I do. But I know—I know—that my consciousness has actually gone from my body.
‘I’ll still be lying in bed, still breathing and all that. But I am elsewhere. And I’m not talking about Wyoming or Tahiti or anything. It’s…’ Scott’s face crimped painfully, struggling to explain. ‘Dimensions, man. Different dimensions.’
‘Okay,’ Anthony said. He sat still as Scott thought and tried to form what he was thinking into words, his brow furrowing deeply. The scythes of his eyes disappeared frequently.
‘I can’t control it. I don’t know where I am when I dream, but I know I’m gone. To different dimensions, and if I could explain what I saw, man, I would. It’s just so hard.’ He closed his eyes tightly. ‘There’s stuff that I’m pretty sure my normal human brain, or anyone’s, isn’t meant to process. Colours that don’t exist here. Shapes. Angles, the way things bend and fold and cross over themselves. Sounds. Everything is… alien. And it’s like hell there. Just fire and, like, terror. Everything was… screams. Predator screams, prey screams. Wherever I ended up, this was a bad place.’ He shook his head and paused thoughtfully. ‘You know, I think maybe part of seeing this place, and the thing, you can’t like, perceive it with just your mind. You need extra senses that are there when you dream. Like that old story about the blind guys and the elephant.’
‘Okay.’
‘Do you have any idea how frustrating this is? I can see it… kind of… in my mind, but I can’t make it come out… here,’ he said, jabbing frenetically at his mouth. ‘I’m sorry if I’m not making any sense. Trust me, man, my brain feels fried. My soul, too, you know?’
‘Don’t worry about it. Just tell me what you can. Tell me about the thing.’ Scott took another long drag on his cigarette, a length of ash falling to the table and then cartwheeling the rest of the way to the floor.
‘The thing,’ Scott repeated. ‘All right. But, you know, I’m not crazy. Please don’t think that, okay? This is some seriously scary stuff and… it’s just hard.’ He stubbed the cigarette out and lit another with shaking hands. ‘Okay, so I’ve travelled all over in my dreams. There’s this one… place, and there’s this thing there. It’s hard to explain. God, how many times have I said that? I wish I could be clearer. You need to understand the thing.
‘I don’t know how big it is, not really. And I don’t think it really matters. But it’s huge. And I don’t mean huge like a, like an elephant or a cruise ship. Like freakin’ huge. Like the size of the moon, maybe. Bigger.’ He stretched his arms as far apart as he could for emphasis.
‘And you said it’s made of faces?’
‘I guess so.’ He was gesturing wildly with his hands. ‘The shape kind of moves around, like this enormous, like, ectoplasm thing. But in this shapeless thing, there are faces. Swimming in it, like they’ve been eaten. And they press up against it from inside, and I could see these, like, reliefs of the faces. And, and they’re not human. Like, not even close, not like little green men or things. Like nothing you’ve ever seen.’
‘Okay.’
‘Whatever this thing is, man, it’s bad. It’s like, almost like, some natural force almost, like it’s not a person, not like, an individual. More like a hurricane, or an ice age, or a supervolcano. It kills everything it sees. It’s almost like an embodiment of evil itself. And it saw me. Me. I could feel it, like it was probing right into my soul. Trying to figure out what I was. You ever see a cat toying with a bug? Trying to figure out if it can eat it? Like that, but on like a cosmic scale. It was the most horrifying thing, Anthony, just this incredible invasion of myself, my most sacred essence… I could feel it on me like a million cold fingers, but in my mind. My soul.’
‘And you said… it spoke to you?’
Scott stood, running his hands through his stringy hair. The cigarette clutched in his right hand bent, sparks falling. He paced in the little kitchen, from the fridge at one end, around the table, to the oven. Back and forth. He was jumpy, restless. Don’t set him off, Anthony thought.
‘Yeah, man, but not like we’re speaking now, you know? It’s like…’ he paused, then suddenly slammed his fist on the table. Anthony jumped. The glass ashtray rattled and spilled butts, and the glass of water he’d offered Scott sloshed. ‘Dammit!’ Scott screamed, ‘I don’t know how to say it! This is all like next-level stuff, man, like elevated consciousness shit! I can’t explain this in your fucking kitchen, for Christ’s sake!’ He seethed, his hands clenching and releasing repeatedly. ‘When I’m there, I can see it. Clear as day. It’s like it doesn’t translate to my human brain. I need more… sensory input, I guess, to be able to explain.’
‘Just go slow,’ Anthony said in the calmest voice he could manage. He glanced at the knife block on the kitchen counter, which was behind Scott, who was growing more agitated by the minute.
‘It didn’t talk to me. Not like this. It wasn’t like, hey, dude, what’s up? I don’t understand the language, the communication. But it’s like… immersive. It communicates with its entire being.’ Scott hit himself a few times in the forehead with the heel of his hand, like he was trying to jar something loose. Thin smacking sounds. His ruined cigarette fell and guttered on the cheap kitchen linoleum. ‘It spoke in blue,’ he finally said. ‘That’s part of it. There’s colours and these like, hieroglyphic kind of things, I guess. Symbols. And sound, too, but it’s not really a voice. More like these deep vibrations. Like something underwater.’
‘Sounds like quite the experience,’ Anthony said. Scott kept pacing, growing more manic. His breath was fast and shallow, and raspy. There was a hint of a smoker’s wheeze. Scott’s head kept shaking back and forth, twitching.
‘You have no idea,’ he said with a sardonic laugh. ‘And there’s words too but they’re like nonsense. Gibberish. You know? It would be like going back in time and meeting someone speaking Aramaic or something. It means something to someone, but not to me. Again, just like, alien stuff.’ He rummaged in his pockets and pulled his cigarette pack out. It was flattened and empty.
‘Take one,’ Anthony said, tossing him his own pack. ‘Take as many as you need, man. Sounds like you’ve been having a time of it.’
‘Thanks,’ Scott replied, lighting up and dragging deep. Another trail of smoke from his nostrils. ‘I will never, if I live to be a million years old, forget that. Not remotely human but speaking almost like we do. Crazy like, frequencies and shit, but still at least kind of words. Like if you were walking down the street and an alligator crawled out of a sewer and talked to you in its own language. And that’s where this gets really weird, man. This is what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘So this isn’t the weird part?’ Anthony asked with a crooked smile. Dear God, please let him realize I’m joking, he thought with another glance at the knife block. Scott shook his head.
‘No, man. So… those fingers, right? I told you about the fingers?’ Anthony frowned.
‘The million cold fingers?’ Scott nodded frantically.
‘Exactly! It was feeling me. Trying to… consume me. Take me over. I can’t explain it… goddammit!’ Scott lashed out, kicking the chair he’d been sitting in. It skidded and jostled the table again. More spillage. ‘I’m sorry, man, it’s just so hard!’
Anthony stood and came to the table, pointing at the cigarette pack. He picked it up, trying to stay clear of Scott, and pulled a cigarette out for himself. He’s on something or he’s having a breakdown, he thought. Whatever it is, this is dangerous.
‘This is intense, man,’ Anthony said, turning and going back to the couch. ‘This whole thing. It almost sounds like a bad acid trip or something.’
‘Never touched the stuff,’ Scott said, matter-of-factly. ‘Just smokes and beers, that’s it. Tried weed once, just after high school. Didn’t care for it. I’m not on drugs, as much as I’m sure you think I am.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Let me try again. So it takes you over. It… swallows your soul or whatever it is in you that’s vital. Your being, your essence. The higher part that lives on after you die, whatever you want to call that.’ Scott was digging at his arms, Anthony noticed, ghostly crescents of fingernails appearing. ‘That part of us that glows. It eats that part.’
‘Okay.’
‘Don’t ask me how I know this. It’s really like… those fingers were trying to take me. But at the same time, information was flowing into me, too. I could see… man… I could see entire planets being swallowed. This like, energy field that burns everything. The glowing souls all leave because they’re dead and this thing sucks them up. Hell’s vacuum. But it also needs people to do its work, man. Not that the things I saw were people, but you know what I mean.’
Anthony thought to himself that he really didn’t. Scott flinched like something unpleasant had touched him.
‘It controls them. It needs people, needs beings. It takes them over and they’re like, its zombies, its army. Whatever you call it. And it was trying to take me over.’ Scott stubbed out his half-finished cigarette. ‘Don’t ask me how I know. I saw it. I’m tellin’ ya, Anthony, I saw. God, on my life I wish I hadn’t, but I saw!’ He burst into tears.
‘This is one hell of a nightmare,’ Anthony said after a moment. Scott sobbed, horrible, raw screams from the pit of his soul. The part that glows, Anthony thought. He was clearly deeply disturbed by the dreams. ‘Scary as hell.’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Scott said. The tears streaked down his face and Anthony noticed clear tracks behind them. Scott was filthy. ‘You don’t understand!’
‘I’m trying, man, but this is some seriously messed up shit!’ Calm down, he thought to himself. Don’t feed into this. He’s paranoid. ‘You yourself have said you can’t explain it, it’s stuff that’s meant for our higher consciousness, extra senses… I didn’t see what you saw!’
‘No, you didn’t. Because if you did, you’d be shitting your pants! This thing, demon or whatever it is, is like… godlike. Powerful!’
‘Right. You’ve told me it’s worse than anything we have here.’
‘Exactly!’ Scott screamed, smacking his hands together.
‘Think of it this way, man—it’s not here. It’s in some hell dimension on some… entire other level of reality. It can’t get you! You’re here, man, on Earth. It’s not going to show up at your door.’
‘No, you wouldn’t think so,’ Scott said. His voice, and body, sagged. He reached behind him, into his back pocket, and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He handed it to Anthony on the couch, and went back to the kitchen chair, sitting heavily down.
‘What is this?’ Anthony asked. It was a flyer for a mayoral candidate in the election next month. He unfolded it, seeing the smiling face of Stu Williams. For Mayor, the paper added helpfully. ‘So what? Where’d you get this?’
‘I got home about four and there were two women at my door,’ he said. His head was bent towards the floor and hanging. He twitched, flinched again. ‘They were waiting there, but they made it look like they just got there. They were all happy to see me, and they wanted to talk about this Williams guy.’
‘So what? What does that have to do with anything?’
‘Look at the bottom,’ Scott said resignedly. Anthony’s eyes scrolled down to the bottom of the sheet, below the smiling businessman’s photo. There was something handwritten, in shaky blue pen scratches.
Sira ki habda assentos, ki habda jan
Sira ki planesta os
‘What’s that?’ Anthony asked, not understanding.
‘The language. The word part you can write, sort of in our alphabet. See that thing next to it?’ Anthony looked. It looked like a crudely hand-drawn spiral with a diagonal slash through it and small dots ringing it. ‘That’s one of the hieroglyphs I saw there. When it was communicating with me, the million cold fingers.’
‘You’re sure?’ Scott nodded slowly. Gravely. Anthony felt a chill crawling down his spine.
‘Absolutely. I knew as soon as I saw the women. They might as well have been holding signs. But they didn’t know that I knew. They were normal looking, had little pins on their chests that said “vote”, briefcases, the whole nine yards.’
Anthony lowered the flyer. Stu Williams’ unblinking face stared up at him from his lap.
‘Then what happened?’
‘I let the two of them in. Told them I’d love to talk about the election. Offered them coffee.’ He smiled again, that awful rueful expression that was worse than no smile. ‘They didn’t want coffee.’
‘So, you said you knew. Knew what?’
‘They were from him. It.’
‘Because of this hieroglyph thing?’
‘No. They showed me that after. But as soon as they turned and looked at me...’ Scott twitched. ‘They were thinking in blue. Everything was blue.’
‘And this… you knew these women are what, from another dimension? Because of the blue?’
‘No, no! That’s not it at all. They’re just people, Anthony. Jane and Susan from up the street, who cares. But it… the thing, it took them over. The million cold fingers. I was able to resist but somehow they weren’t.’ He looked up, dead into Anthony’s widening eyes. ‘It got them. It… possessed them or invaded them, whatever, and they were here to get me.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Anthony said drily. ‘So where are they now?’
‘They didn’t get me. I couldn’t let them, see, that would have been the end of me. I’d be dead but my body would still be here, still moving around. Taken over by… the thing. Another puppet like those women.’ Scott discarded the cigarette in his fingers that had gone out and pulled another one out of the pack on the table. ‘They’re still upstairs,’ he said, ‘the women.’ Jesus, he took them hostage, Anthony thought.
‘What do you mean, they’re upstairs?’ There hadn’t been a single creak of a floorboard from overhead.
‘They’re still in my apartment,’ Scott said. ‘They’re dead. I killed them.’ Anthony started in horror. The emptiness in Scott’s voice when he said it was chilling. Terrifying. Immediately, he had no doubt that Scott had killed the two.
‘What?’ was all Anthony could manage.
‘Dead,’ Scott repeated, nodding. He flinched again and turned an angry eye at Anthony. ‘It was me or them, see. It wasn’t going to be me. I knew what they were as soon as they started thinking blue at me. That thing, that monster.’
‘Jesus! Look, Scott, this is serious. I know you’ve been having these dreams or whatever, but please, for the love of God, tell me you’re kidding. This is some kind of a joke. Please tell me that. Say those words.’
‘Words don’t change facts, man.’ Scott seemed to be winding down. Telling the story took it out of him. ‘They’re in my kitchen, right up there.’ He pointed to the ceiling, his apartment directly above. ‘And they’re dead. I killed them.’
‘My God, Scott, you’ve got to be joking!’ Anthony shouted, leaping up off the couch. ‘What the hell is this? I come home from work, and you’re in here, no explanation! Then you’re telling me about these crazy dreams you’ve been having and some cosmic horror beyond the comprehension of us little people! Now you’re telling me that you killed two innocent women because you were seeing blue?’ He seethed. How did he get dragged into this madness? Why this apartment? I barely know the guy. Why not anyone else in the building?
‘They thought blue at me. I could see it in my mind. And if it matters, they were dead before I killed them. The thing, it killed them and filled their bodies with itself.’ He chuckled. Flinched again. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘Yeah, no shit!’ Anthony yelled. He rose off the couch. ‘Listen, this has gone too far. I’m calling the fucking cops. This is your last chance to tell me you’re bullshitting me.’
Scott took one more long drag off the cigarette and dropped it, burning, into the ashtray. He reached down and pulled an old-style switchblade knife out of his pocket. He clicked the button, and the blade sprung out. It was bloody. Setting it on the table, Scott looked up at Anthony, his red eyes showing far more years than the rest of his body. He looked absolutely ancient, like wicker, like he was made of fear and pain and would collapse at the slightest touch. He flinched again, like a nervous tic.
‘They’re dead, Anthony. I told you. Do you have any idea how badly I want this to be a joke? To jump up and tell you “gotcha”? Just pullin’ your leg, pal?’
‘Not as much as I wish that was the case. I’m calling the cops.’ Scott flinched again as Anthony started to walk across to the corded phone on the wall. He picked up the receiver, turned and looked at Scott at the table. He was flinching, repeatedly. His head whipped to the side when the shudders hit him.
‘Stop it,’ Scott cried. His hands flew to his temples, as if seized by horrible pain. ‘Stop it!’
‘Too late,’ Anthony said. ‘I’m calling the cops and you can sort this out with them.’
‘Stop it!’ Scott screamed again, his voice outsized. It seemed lower, more bass than before. Deepening. Anthony had dialled 9-1-1, the phone jangling in his hand. He froze with the receiver almost to his ear, riveted by Scott’s voice, changing, deafening in the apartment. ‘Stop thinking blue at me!’
‘What is your emergency?’ the efficient woman’s voice came through the receiver as it lay on the tile of the kitchen. Blood pooled around it and splattered over the worn keypad. ‘What is your emergency?’ she repeated. There were sounds but no one was speaking. She listened closely. It sounded like ragged breathing, almost gurgling sounds. That stopped after a moment. Then sounds of footsteps running. Running away.
‘What is your emergency?’ she repeated.
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