Wake Of Liberty: 22 – Darkness Descends
My heart sinks low, all the way into my belly. I don’t know what to do. I stay put for a moment, frozen, looking up at them, trying to figure out my next move. Cooley is standing tall above me, like a hunter over his kill. He is tapping his palm with the chamber of his pipe, glaring at me. The crowd abruptly falls quiet. The cackling subsides and a strange hush is now permeating them as if a devious, dark impulse has just settled on them. They are whispering to each other, pointing at me, their mouths crooked, their teeth yellow and jagged. I crawl backwards, toward the wall, and they begin to close in, their eyes gleaming. I don’t know if my mind is playing tricks on me but I catch sight of a shadow flowing through them. A crackling sound rises out of nowhere, like flowers drying up and withering away; then an undertone, like an arcane, rasping wail.
When Christians rose to power in Europe, they were as violent as their former oppressors. Anyone not obeying the word of God was deemed an unbeliever, a heretic, or possessed. Exorcisms were often used to expel the evil spirits. Source: http://www.metamedicavumc.nl/pers_hans.html
Grrhhh. Grraaahhhhh.
It is an unnerving, disgusting noise. My head begins to spin as a result of it. I am about to keel over when a loud, bellowing rush from the side overcomes it.
I turn toward Cooley. He is lighting his pipe and blowing thick, blue clouds of smoke in the direction of the mob. Engulfed and unable to breathe or see, they stop dead in their tracks, yelling, cursing, choking and bumping into each other. The sun is setting and its rays are catching the street sideways, animating the smoke, and something appears out of thin air. It looks like a creature of some kind. I blink and look again. There it still is, hovering above everyone like a nasty thought, its shape protoplasmic and vulgar, mostly transparent with filthy gray streaks running through its long, lashing tentacles, like clots of streaming filth. It is bobbing and throbbing in the midst of the mob, tentacles permeating their bodies, as if feeding on them.
I gaze at the spectacle in disbelief, trying to get my head around what I’m seeing, when a second cloud of smoke from Cooley’s pipe rolls through the air. The creature shudders violently and loses its grip on everyone, shrieking and spinning furiously, like a poisoned horsefly. For a moment it seems as if it’s going to collapse, but then it just fades away and disappears.
“A Grakh, Mr. Smyth. The smoke will keep it at bay, but not for long. It will soon resurge and come back, adapting very rapidly and turning truly nasty. We have only one, maybe two smokescreens at our disposal, at best. Whatever you have to do to get us out of here, you must do it now.”
Then tell me what I must do and I will do it!
“I cannot tell you what to do. If I could, I would have done it by now.”
What are you talking about? Just tell me what I need to know and get it over with.
“I cannot tell you any more than I already have, don’t you see? I am not allowed to say more than I am supposed to. If I do, I will be instantly incapacitated. I have already said enough. The answer you seek is in my words, in my deeds, in the set and setting around you. You have to figure it out for yourself.”
I turn and look at the mob. Overwhelmed by Cooley’s smokescreen, they have lost their momentum. With the Dark One gone, their rage seems to have diminished.
I sense an opportunity. In a bout of pure instinct, I get up on my feet and begin screaming at them, baring my teeth, lunging at them and showing them I am not afraid of them. To my surprise, they fall back in confusion, so I follow the act through. I scream louder, getting bolder with every second, feeding off their confusion. I throw my hands and legs around like mad, spitting and frothing at the mouth, consumed by a sense of unexpected victory and triumph. The crowd begins to fall back, looking terrified.
Then someone shouts démon, démon. Il est un démon!
Panic ensues. A mass retreat in disarray. Excited and overcome by a pang of omnipotence, I don’t stop to weigh out the situation properly. I chase after them, toward the square. I think Cooley is shouting after me but I can’t make out what he is saying.
The Inquisition's methods of dealing with heretics and sinners included gruesome methods of torture and execution. Source: http://www.all-art.org/Visual_History/301-1.htm
I turn the corner and immediately wish I hadn’t. A bigger crowd is waiting for me there, wielding pikes and prongs. At their head looms a short, stodgy priest, brandishing a crucifix, which he points at me. He lifts his other hand high and begins to chant in Latin: exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…
He takes a step toward me, then another, and another. His voice is deep and resolute, instilling confidence in the crowd, following close behind him. They see fear in me and grow even bolder, gripping their weapons tight and itching to use them.
I am indeed terrified, but hardly because of them, not after what my eyes are witnessing again. The Grakh has just reappeared among them, throbbing and hovering above the priest and the rest of the mob with its tentacles immersed inside the backs of their heads, through their brains and spines, and out through their eyes and fingernails. It is lashing, squeezing, penetrating its way through, and the crackling sound resumes, followed by the arcane rasping wail, getting progressively louder and harsher and drawing nearer and nearer and nearer, creeping inside my head, one cell at a time.
For a moment I think that this is it, that death has got a hold of me, squelching the life out of me. I can feel the synapses inside my brain withering and turning to dust.
A warm, rejuvenating wave breaks the deadly grip, washing away the desiccation. The wailing ceases and the crackling fizzles away. A thick, soothing cloud of smoke passes over me and rolls on to envelop the mob and stop it cold in its tracks. Stunned, everyone stumbles and falls. The Grakh is shrieking ferociously, losing its grip and spinning furiously again. I see a little tentacle lashing out of my head and wriggling back inside the center of the vortex before the whole thing disappears. I fall to my knees, feeling faint. The mob looks fazed too, but soon regroups. It is replenished with individuals from the back, fresh and thirsty for blood, and their lines grow thick again. The priest resumes his incantation. Faint crackling rises out of the din.
Cooley rushes toward me and blows smoke over me. It sharpens my mind and rejuvenates me.
I look up at him. He is smiling.
“Here. Use it well. You are on your own now. I hope you know what to do.”
He hands me the pipe and the next thing I know his face cramps up and he crashes to the ground, trembling all over. I look at him in horror, grabbing him and shaking him by the shoulders, yelling at him to get up, to tell me what to do, but he doesn’t respond. His eyes are glazed and froth is spewing out of his mouth. Panicking and without thinking, I grip the pipe tight, take a long, deep drag, and unleash the smoke at the ensuing mob.
It seems to have little effect. Tentacles emerge amid the rabid faces, lashing fiercely in the air, looking for new flesh to penetrate. Shaking, I begin to take another drag, doubtful if it will have any effect at all, when a stocky man appears out of nowhere and lunges at me; he snatches at me with his dirty hands and embraces me, tossing me around like a rag. The pipe falls in the mud and goes out.
Un autre démon – deux démons, deux démons, the mob screams, pointing at us. They start surrounding us. I struggle to break free but the man’s grip is strong. I go for the eyes, the only vulnerable portion of his body. Warm ooze engulfs my hand. He lets go of me, yelping with pain, grabbing his face and falling back. A pint of blood is gushing through his fingers. He crashes in the mud, squealing like a slaughtered animal. What have I done?
The establishment would often neutralize challengers and detractors by branding them witches and burning them at the stake. Source: http://www.all-art.org/Visual_History/301-1.htm
The priest stops and his face darkens. He brandishes the crucifix at me, spewing wrath and malice. The mob, horrified by my act, dispel their fear. They are now seeing blood red, I can feel their gaze violating my flesh. I grab the pipe and point it toward them. It has no effect whatsoever. I try to light it but the matches won’t combust. I scramble toward Cooley, who is now having a seizure, searching him for more matches, but he is convulsing so hard that I can’t pick his pockets. The mob is advancing slowly, ready to lock in, like teeth around meat. I stand and face them, arms stretched out, with pipe and match in hand, shielding Cooley from them. The match spontaneously combusts and I light the pipe, ready to take a drag and hurl it at the Dark One – when an unexpected vision of Cooley being clamped down rushes through my head.
I turn toward him. He is shaking violently, his limbs striking the mud uncontrollably. I can feel his anguish in my bones, as if what is happening to him is happening to me. He is trying to break out of his body and be free but he can’t do it. I kneel down and grab his hands, shouting his name and shaking him by the shoulders. He is there, I know it, I can feel his presence behind the disabled flesh, screaming out to me, his voice bouncing back inside its biological casing. Something tells me that if he doesn’t escape now he will remain trapped there forever, held in an arcane kind of stasis until every cell around him rots and dissolves – and even then he won’t be freed but will pass on into whatever will have consumed that flesh and remain captive inside it forever. I wonder whether this is what awaits me too: an eternity spent absorbed and sealed inside prison after prison, starting with my own corpse, my very own psychophagus, which will happily contain me until it is torn to shreds by the mob and thrown into the pyre and consumed until only ash remains, and buried under heaps of earth until all sight of its existence is gone, remembered by nothing other than morbid thought and festering memory. Consumed by the Dark One and made part of his scum, putrid existence.
It is a far cry from turning into a spirit and flowing through the Field.
No matter. It’s no use trying to guess what is going to happen. Reality has caught up with me and is staring me in the face. I will get to know what awaits me soon enough.
I take a deep breath, then turn to face the mob. They are towering over me, ugly and mean. I can barely make them out. The setting sun is gilding their figures, bathing them in its egg-yolk orange rays, yet upon touching the filthy gray shadow of the Grakh it changes to a tinted green gleam. A film of tears is distorting my vision even further, stretching their figures out of shape. I know they are about to devour me, but I don’t feel enmity toward them, even though I understand the extent of the suffering that awaits me in their hands. I just feel a tremendous sense of sympathy for them, mindful of the ignorance festering inside their brains.
I lie down next to Cooley, in the mud. A wave of calming tranquility begins to flow through me. I am not disappointed or frightened anymore – on the contrary, I am strangely calm; sad Cooley is gone, but not devastated. I am in fact grateful and happy at having known him, at having taken this tour with him. It has been the most stimulating, fascinating time of my life – an event beyond anything I have ever experienced or imagined, of which I appreciate every minute.
Source: wikipedia
I turn and look at him. His convulsions are less spasmodic now, less intense. He is losing the battle and fading out gradually. His face is still a mask of terror, which I cannot bear to see any longer. I bring the pipe to my mouth, close my eyes, inhale deeply, and blow all the smoke on him instead, just as he had done to me a few moments ago. The thick animated clouds wash over him and instantly calm him down. The convulsions stop and his face relaxes.
For a moment I expect him to spring back to life and save the day with a magical snap of his fingers. But nothing happens. He is just lying there, motionless and quiet.
I close my eyes. The end is here and I welcome it, I embrace it. The crackling has turned harsher now, scraping away layer after layer of my sanity with each outburst, opening up the way for the screeching tentacles. I can feel them puncturing their way inside my head, biting into my cells and memories. The pain begins at the back of my head and spreads out gradually, insidiously, like a ravenous, flesh-eating fungus. I brace for whatever horror is about to follow, waiting for insanity to completely consume me and set me free from the horrible awareness of what is happening to me. I see a field of greenery appear in the distance, bathed in bright yellow light. Birds and butterflies are flying in it, and little people of some kind are running from tree to tree and thicket to thicket, hiding behind trunks and bushes, in the thick branches and under lush ferns, all at the same time, coloring the place up with their bright yellow and emerald tunics as they skid through the grounds. They do this three times, appearing and disappearing again, three times in total before they hide for the last time, leaving the place looking empty – but not quite.
I take a deep, deep breath. The field is calm and still, and the horrible crackling has stopped. There is silence for a long while, or for a second, I can’t tell; then a crystal, resonant hum bursts out of nowhere and fills my mind, my head, my entire body from skin to sinew. An intolerable, immeasurable force latches onto me and pulls me in all directions – it pulls and pulls until I am stretched across the universe in a long, thin filament of existence, all sense of proportion devastated and my psyche pealing with terror and awe. I feel as if I am going to come apart and be scattered across the fabric of space, never to be assembled again. My instinct tells me to fight it but something stronger urges me to let go. Something inside me shudders and snaps. ZANG!
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