Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2020 21:32:05 GMT -5
NATHAN GREY
monster lurking in the dark? It would
be like sleep without dreams.
NATHEN GREY LIMPED FORWARD across the frozen lake. His bare feet were blackened by frostbite and their toes curled into gnarled nubs, forcing him to walk with an awkward, unbalanced gait. The jeans he was wearing didn’t stop the cold from sapping the feeling from his legs, nor did the flimsy t-shirt whipping about his upper half. He tried fighting the creep of deadness invading his torso by frantically working his criss-crossed arms to rub his shaking hands up and down the sides of his chest.
The skin of his face was red and irritated by the dry, frigid air sweeping down from the surrounding mountains and his lips had started to turn a dark shade of purple. Above them, mucus draining from his nostrils had frozen on his upper lip and icicles were forming in his hair and eyebrows.
He angled his head up hopelessly to search for the sun but it was hidden away behind a barrier of thick, somber clouds, letting little heat reach him. Or light, for that matter, and what did eek through the murky shroud was a bleak, muted blue that stained everything it touched a gloomy indigo.
Something was telling him to keep walking even as his lumbering steps were becoming more and more difficult to maintain along with his faltering balance. He managed to trudge another ten feet before finally his lifeless ankles buckled and he fell forward onto his knees and hands. His breaths were heavy and arduous, and each time he exhaled a stream of crystalized water vapor spilled from his mouth.
He knew this was the end. He could go no further and there was no hope in fighting off death as it was slowly devouring his body. He could feel his blood thickening into a slush, causing the veins to push up against the skin all over his face, neck, and arms. His thoughts betrayed every instinct he had to keep moving. Acceptance of the inevitable was taking hold and he realized there was no need to keep fighting.
He was ready to lie down and await his fate when something in the water caught his attention. It was a black mass bobbing in the water up against the frozen sheet of ice. He reached out with his unfeeling hand and began wiping side to side, clearing away the drifts of snow clouding the surface. With each slice of his hand he could make out more details and soon it became obvious that it was a body. He kept rubbing, suddenly filled with new life and purpose. With one final sweep of his deadened palm he revealed the hideous truth.
It was him down there in the water, dead and bloated, staring up with lifeless eyes. Before he could consider what was happening, he saw another silhouette in the water drifting his way. He moved as fast as he could to clear off more of the snow and to his horror it was another him, also dead, though this one was missing its eyes, replaced in their sockets by a swarm of parasitic fish which were eating their way into the Dead Him’s brain.
Alive Nathan reared back onto his knees and that’s when he saw the outline of more bodies, dozens of them, all slowly being pushed through the water toward him. He tried to stand, to get far away from his haunted, bloated faces looking up at him. His breathing became labored from the effort. His lungs were struggling now to hold onto the algid air long enough to draw any oxygen from it.
His legs straightened first then his back and finally his head lifted. The shore wasn’t much farther. You can make it, he told himself, and with a strong will he took his first step, and then another. Each time his foot lifted, strips of blackened skin were left stuck to the ice. He reached out with a hand as the shoreline grew closer, no more than twenty feet away. He dared not look back to see the bodies gathering to float after him, maybe hundreds of them now, all turning into a growing mass of darkness which made the ice appear like volcanic glass.
Ten more steps. He just needed to reach the shore, then he could disappear into the treeline and maybe even build a fire. Hope had started to warm the dark corners of his brain. The ice pulled the last strips of flesh from his feet and now each time he lifted a foot it left behind a smeared print of blood. He started to stumble as his knees struggled to stay aligned with his hips and finally fell forward, landing in the crunchy snow covering the dirt of the shoreline.
He scurried forward on all fours, heading quickly for the first line of trees just ahead. When he reached the big birch in his path he turned and put his back against the white bark. Was he safe? He tried catching his breath but everything hurt. He looked down at his feet and saw the sludge-like blood oozing out from their soles.
A cracking sound pulled his eyes back toward the ice. There was nothing to be seen but he heard it again. And again. And again. And then suddenly a fissure appeared in the ice, and quickly it grew, splintering in all directions. Water spit up through crevices and spread across the surface. He tried to move but only managed to push harder against the tree trunk.
Then the ice sheet fractured completely and chunks of ice shot forth into the air and water spewed after it like a geyser. He screamed louder than he ever had screamed in his life at what came next—a massive thing rose up from the water, skin black and slick, large as a breaching whale, with a roar like no beast he had ever heard before. It’s eyes were magma. Its teeth were swords. A pair of wings unfolded and spread to reveal a countless number of rotting copies of himself and all their mouths were agape, howling a dreadful cacophony of dissonant vocalizations that could only be produced by those damned to a fate worse than death.
There was nothing Nathan could do as the red-eyed demon opened its terrible maw and striked. It’s teeth seized him in his midsection and hoisted him into the air. His blood spilled down his chest and covered his face. The great beast opened its maw and he started tumbling down its throat and into the void of darkness…
THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT WOKE Nathan with a gentle nudge on his shoulder. Groggy, shaken, he sat up in the seat. The cabin was dimly lit and to his right there was only a void of darkness beyond the thick glass of the window. He then turned to look up at the woman who said something in a language he didn’t understand. “I’m sorry?” he said, still half out of it, through the white mask over his face.
She effortlessly switched to English and said quietly, “Your watch, sir. The beeping is disturbing the other passengers.”
The alarm. He hadn’t even noticed. He quickly disabled it and said, “I’m sorry. It’s a reminder to take my medication.” He glanced around the business class cabin, at all the passengers nestled in their luxurious fold-out seats, surrounded by little dividers to offer a little bit of privacy not afforded to the economy passengers in the rear cabin. Most of the people around him were still fast asleep but a handful were watching movies on the screens attached to the seat backs.
“It’s alright, sir,” she said. He could tell she was smiling under her mask by the way her eyes lifted and cheeks pinched.
Nathan asked quietly, “How far are we?”
“We’re over the Atlantic. About halfway to København. May I offer you some water to take your medication?”
“Yes, please.”
She fetched a bottle of Aqua d’Or from the small cart in front of her. He thanked her and apologized again for the alarm. “You’re welcome,” she replied and then turned to the cart and started pushing it up the aisle toward the cabin.
He reached down to grab the brown messenger bag next to his leg, then set it on his lap and opened the top flap. His hand dug around inside until it found the orange prescription bottle. CLOZAPINE 200MG…TAKE 1 TABLET BY MOUTH 4 TIMES A DAY. As he worked on opening the safety cap, movement outside the airplane yanked his attention to the window. His heart began to race as his eyes searched the expanse beyond the airplane’s wing. It was just a dream, he told himself as the cap came loose from the bottle.
That’s when he saw it—flashes of burning red for eyes and monstrous teeth agape, racing toward the airplane. He jumped in his seat, nearly spilling his pills all over the place. His eyes slammed shut while his right hand reached to the window and slid down the shutter. He was breathing heavily and his face shined with sweat. After several long, drawn out breaths, he opened his eyes and saw the plane was still intact and around him all the passengers weren’t being devoured by some nameless, giant monster.
He pulled his mask down long enough to swallow one of the pills with a few quick sips of water. His heart was still thumping in his chest but its pace was beginning to return to normal. He put the bottle back into the bag and searched around inside until he found his airpods. One went into each ear then he pulled up Spotify on his beat up iPhone 8. It was covered in scratches and the screen was cracked in two places but he couldn’t afford to replace it. His thumb swiped through a few screens before starting the playlist labeled CHILL THE FUCK OUT. First track was Bon Iver’s 22 (Over S∞∞N).
Nathan let himself drift away with the music, leaving any images of red-eyed devils back on that frozen lake, far far away from the real world.