Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (21 page)

Maybe it was there now, circling around the boat, Richard leaning
over the side, looking for the sub. Maybe it hits the hull ...

“Stop it, God, don’t think about it. It can’t be
true.”

The hull buckles, but Richard has already been thrown overboard. He’s
not wearing a life jacket and the sea is so very cold at this time of
year.

“No, they’re fine. It can’t go that shallow, the
pressure difference alone
should
kill it.”

So why is the radio silent?

Susan looked up at the dead lumps of plastic. Black formless things,
ugly and useless with no sound coming out. She felt something then,
some idea forming, but the oxygen mix was so wrong for this depth,
she was too tired and woozy to think properly.

“Let me rest for a moment, then I’ll worry about getting
back.” A gray mist settled in her mind, her thought processes
slowing.

“No, come on. What did you think of?” She looked up at
the speakers again. “What was it? Why are they silent? No, why
are ... so useless ... like that things eye?”

She sat up, a smile rippling across her red-streaked face. It had an
eye; something not needed this deep as there was no light for it to
see by.

“Yet it looked like it had one huge, oversized pupil, on either
side of its massive head. In fact, it moved away from the spotlights,
didn’t it?”

She grasped the panel and pulled herself to her feet. She blinked at
the joysticks, trying to remember how to control the spotlights when
movement caught her eye. Her head felt as though it was made of lead
as she forced it up to the window. A red flickering signaled the beast
moving closer. It was swimming towards her, white teeth gleaming in
the spotlights as the cavernous mouth hung open.

She touched the controls, her heart sinking as she watched the
unresponsive lights flicker. She took a deep breath, the strange mix
hurting her lungs now. Blood from her scalp dripped down her cheek, a
trickle running between her breasts.

Susan saw its huge dark eye, a brilliant intelligence glowing within.
As it swum closer, she felt it measuring her, listening to her rapid
breathing, judging her for her fear and anguish.

Dispassionately, she noted a flounder swimming away from the beams of
light. So there is still life this deep, her scientist brain noted.
It must live off those. Usually.

She touched the joysticks, pausing before pushing them. She was
afraid to try, if they didn’t work now, there was nothing else
she could do. She pushed the joystick and for one heart-stopping
moment it didn’t move. Then something clunked and the spots
began to shift.

“Yes, thank you, yes,” she cried out, not even feeling
her tears mixing in with the blood.

She swiveled the spotlights towards the beast that was still moving
inexorably closer.

“Screw you. See how you like it.” She flipped a switch
and the spots lit up to their full, blinding brilliance.

The beast began rolling its huge bulk away to shield its eye, Susan
following it with the light. It slowed to a stop, a pale gray belly
facing her. She held the light steady, her breath caught deep in her
chest. Her sweaty palms slid on the joystick’s smooth plastic,
so she gripped tighter still. The deep thrumming sound increased,
rumbling deep in her chest as the bathysphere vibrated.

“Come on then, don’t you growl at me. Come face me.”

The beast flipped a fin, its huge bulk moving so the flat black eye
could look at her again. She moved the spotlight so that it was near
the eye, but not quite blinding it.

“See how you like this, you big bully.”

At her words, the noise vibrating her chest increased. The eye
disappeared into the blackness and the Altus shuddered at the
displaced water.

Susan relaxed her grip on the spots. “Has it gone? Did I scare
it off with the lights?”

She peered into the gloom, the breath held in her chest finally
loosening into a coughing laugh. “I did it. I did it!”

To her left, a tiny red flicker glowed. She turned her head and saw
the giant beast’s light pattern thrumming quicker now, the
colors flaring like an explosion. It turned face on, the gaping maw
wide open. Vast rows of white teeth gleamed in the spotlights. The
noise started again, louder, angrier, swarms of bees smashing against
the glass windows.

“No, no, no! Why won’t you leave?” Susan prodded at
the spotlights, but the beast was face on now, its eyes shielded from
the beams. The vast mouth loomed closer, bigger than the Altus,
easily capable of swallowing her whole. White teeth filled her
vision, the deep red of it’s throat a giant moist cavern.

Her knees gave way and she hit the chair with a bone rattling thump.
Her teeth clacked together on her tongue, and blood flooded through
her mouth. She spat. The redness of the spittle made her stomach
flip-flop.

“I’m sorry, darling. I wish I’d told you how happy
I was with you. You’re right, I don’t need this. I’m
happy enough growing old with you.”

The mouth filled both windows, the deep noise making the panes
rattle. Susan thought of Richard: his kind smile, his understanding,
his patience.

The noise intensified, the jaws closing like a trap just as the Altus
shuddered and shot upwards like a champagne cork. Susan screamed,
grabbing on to the control panel as the sub roared upwards on its
emergency recall trajectory.

She felt, rather than heard, an answering roar from the beast below,
a primal need for dominance thwarted.

“/////san? Can you hear us ye////”

Startled, she looked at the speakers, sobs erupting, huge wracking
sounds that ripped all conscious thought away.

“//God, Ed, what’s wrong … is she … is …
///”

“////…be in pain from the incorrect oxygen mixture.
Probably hallucinating. She’ll be fine once she’s in the
hyperbaric chamber.”

“Susan, darling … twenty minutes and you’ll be at
the surface. Don’t worry.”

Susan relaxed, the tension caused by the beast gone. The Altus was
rising quickly, expelled air bubbles sticking to the windows. But
there was no
it
, no beast lurking, waiting for her to dare to
enter its domain.

“I hear you, Richard, my love. I’m … I’m
okay. I miss you.”

Surprised at the sound of her own voice, high and quavering, Susan
looked at the blood that had dripped from her head wound and at the
contusions on her knuckles. Yet at the back of her mind, something
niggled her. She tried not to think about it, relaxing as the light
grew brighter in the Altus’ windows, but the thought wouldn’t
go away.

Why would a deep sea creature like that need eyes? The depths it
lived in, that she
thought
it lived in, were too dark to see.
The ancient stories of sea monsters, Leviathans, which rose out of
the depths to crush and destroy ships no longer seemed quite so
fanciful.

It was better not to think about it, just like it seemed better to
forget this expensive sub she had decided to mothball. No more dives,
no more risks. Just as soon as they were all back safe on land,
anyway.

The sub shook once, briefly, spinning clockwise while still rising
sharply.

Was that vibration because of the forced rise or …

Susan leaned forward, her eyes glued to the window. Seconds passed,
then minutes, and still there was nothing. She was so paranoid. With
a shaky laugh, she pushed her fringe back, wincing at the sticky
blood matting it.

Everything was fine, there were no monsters chasing her now. Except
...

Susan bit her lip as a low thrumming sound resonated through her
chest whilst a flickering red glow filled the observation window. A
flat black pupil stared in at her.

She wished she could see her beloved Richard one last time.

“The birds haven’t left the garden yet,” Angela
says.

Angela Bradshaw lives on the second floor of Brandon Lodge, a sort of
assisted-living facility that attempts to craft the illusion of
independence for its
lodgers
or
guests
. Hotel to some,
apartment to others, but never a retirement home.

Angela knows better, though. Her kids left her here six years ago,
and she’s seen through the pretty floral wallpaper and the
smiles of those hired to attend to her needs, and she knows what this
place really is. It’s a place for your relatives to put you
before you die because they don’t want to deal with your
feebleness any longer, even though you raised and cared for them and
changed their diapers, they’re totally unwilling to do the same
for you. This place is nothing more than an illusion created to ease
people’s minds.

Like everything else in life, the illusions of comfort and security
in modern American society—from seat belts to
air mattresses—Brandon Lodge was a place for people unwilling
to sacrifice those illusions in their twilight years, hanging on to
them even until the bitter, piss-stained end. Angela wouldn’t
have minded it as much if they’d have let her keep her
cigarettes.

She sits by the window of her room and looks out at the dirty
buildings obstructing an otherwise glorious view of the sunsets and
sunrises, the last remaining jewels she has. Every day, when the
staff comes to change her sheets and clean her room she says the same
thing:

“The birds haven’t left the garden yet.”

Everyone thinks she’s senile. She’s not though, and it’s
one of her few comforts she has when people give her their
condescending looks and pretend to see the birds out there while
giving her the pills to take in a plastic cup. Even reduced to this
state, Angela is still one step ahead of the others. She crushes the
cup in a withered fist when she’s done and contemplates
spitting on the nurse.

Nobody yells at you when you’re old. You get treated like a
child, but you can’t get punished for bad behavior. Might as
well act out, now and again, right? The only thing that makes Angela
swallow and not continue in this impish mindset is that the pretty
nurse before her doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of her
bitterness. She’s just trying to make a living. Probably has a
boyfriend she lives with and they’re both struggling over
bills, and the sad young woman no doubt resents playing nurse maiden
to these old shits and their soiled mattresses.

So Angela is good, and smiles and says, “Be careful, for when
the birds do leave the garden, I can’t protect you.”

The nurse smiles politely and nods her head, but Angela can see in
her eyes she doesn’t understand. None of them do, really. Their
minds are too bound to the earthly plane to see what’s going on
around them, but Angela sees. They think her eyesight is going but
it’s stronger than ever. Every day she beholds terrifying
wonders with them, the chaos of the hidden universe.

When she was a little girl, they were just vague shapes and colors
floating all around that she’d try to grab out of the air in
tiny fists. It’s a common misconception that children are more
attached to ethereal planes because they’ve yet to become
corrupted by the distractions of the material world, but this is only
half-true. Some children just have certain gifts, but like any talent
without cultivation it withers and dies. That’s what made
Angela different. She never stopped trying to see colors in the air;
the colors that went beyond what the human eye can perceive. Colors
that no one has ever seen or dared dream could exist. Angela never
wanted to lose them.

Eventually the floating colors became shapes and distinct voices in
the air. They were people and creatures and birds and things, and
they belonged to her. Her eyes were open to a world just beyond human
comprehension. At times they were beautiful … at others, they
were terrifying.

The negative energy left in the wake of her first divorce had
attracted an entire horde of nasty things to her eldest teenage son,
and every night she kept a close eye on the darkness of the hallway
to his bedroom. They would wait outside his door, snarling and
hissing, their unnatural genitalia erect with desire; they were
itching to claw their way into his door. They were hungry, and wanted
him. They couldn’t though. Angela held certain powers over
them, and this she’d discovered early on. So long as she willed
them away, they could not harm her son.

Those things hated her, and every night would whisper their threats
in her ear. “
We’ll get him, you bitch, and we’ll
get you. You can’t keep your guard up forever. The second you
falter we’ll tear into your cunt and force his severed cock
down your throat. He is ours. We will have our prey.”

If only her son had known of the horrors that lurked outside his door
all those years, and of the sleepless nights she’d spent
struggling to keep those demons at bay. Would he have so willingly
forced her to this place in exile? Angela sighs, wondering. That’s
a question she doesn’t like to spend much time thinking on.
She’s seen all kinds of promises.

If Angela has a friend at Brandon Lodge, it’s Suzanne Yvette
who lives directly across the hall from her. She comes over every
morning for tea and a good bible study.
Suzanne is a sweet lady
,
Angela thinks, though the poor woman seems absolutely drenched with
delusion. She’d arrived at Brandon Lodge shortly after Angela
did, and her children and grandchildren had promised a visit every
week. Angela had overheard the promise, and with a scowl she made
certain to see how long it took before the promise wore thin.

Not long at all, it seemed.

As expected, at first Suzanne was visited regularly; every week with
smiles and hugs and dinner. They’d take her out for a few
hours, either to a restaurant or a movie and her grandchildren would
proudly show off the A’s on their report cards. Then Suzanne’s
family began to miss odd weeks, and it seemed understandable, but
then they only visited once every two weeks, then three weeks, then a
month. Then a few months would pass before a visit, until it came
that, begrudgingly, Suzanne’s family would collect her on odd
holidays, sometimes Mother’s Day or the Fourth of July, though
not always.