Trolley No. 1852 (12 page)

“Why, immortality, Mr. Phillips,” the lithe
madam answered via some manner of psychic surveillance. Her coy
smile beamed down on me as her accent buoyed her words. “You know
much of what very few know at all.”

“The legend of the
Pyramidiles and their utmost servitor is obscure
to be sure,” I asserted, “but some trace of their
history has remained.
Cuneiform cylinders
analogous to the cylinder in your own possession, for instance. It
is a legend that
pre-dates
legendry…”

“And therefore?”

My words abraded like
stones grinding. “The
oldest
legend in human history.”

“Very good,” she
congratulated and sashayed about Selina. Her grotesque-colored hand
caressed my sister’s bosom as she did so; whereupon, she proceeded
to a great armchair nestled in the room’s corner: a
throne
for all intents,
composed of adhered jewel-like crystals of the same composition as
the pendants. It was here that she sat, elevated and grinning
cunningly, as some sluttish, monstrous version of Cleopatra, some
iniquitous
queen
of the Halls of Eblis. “And now? Whatever shall we do with
you?”

“Answer my questions,” I dared. “What harm
can there be in that, given that my chances of surviving the night
are in all likelihood non-existent.”

Her expression turned wanton as she
considered my request; likewise, her hands lifted her plenteous
breasts out of the accouchement of her gown, where she then
titillated herself before me. “Your desire to know is like the lust
of a beast in rut, Mr. Phillips. Do you believe that you will be
better fortified by such knowledge when I have your life snuffed
out?”

“I quite indubitably do.”

Her fingertips twirled the papillae of each
distended nipple, generating a sensation which caused her to
seethe. “Very well…”

“In exactitude just
what
are
these
mountain-sized creatures known as the Pyramidiles?”

Some psychic directive
compelled Selina to approach the throne and, with immediacy, bring
her lips to Miss Aheb’s bosom. “They are so much more than
creatures,
Mr. Phillips,
and even so much more than
gods.
I’m surprised a man of your erudite distinction
has failed to make that deduction. They are not millions of years
old, nor even
billions,
but so much older that their existence transcends
time as we know it. They are
ageless.
” She paused to concentrate
on the pleasures lent to her via my sister’s lips. “Creatures? No.
They are poly-sentient bio-machines, self-perpetuating organic
industries, Mr. Phillips. They create vast technologies via their
immeasurable intellect and then
produce
 their own laborers to
make those technologies transitive.”

“The thoggs,” I uttered.

“Oh, yes. But the thoggs
you’ve beheld are but one variety of a multitude. The Pyramidiles
breed them, you see, specifically for implementation on
this
 planet. There
are hundreds more incarnations, for hundreds of other worlds, and
when I say ‘worlds,’ I mean not only other planets in this and
other solar systems but also planes of alternate existence in other
dimensions and other terrestrial realms the likes of which even an
advanced mind such as yours could never cogitate.”

“So that awful abode of theirs is not a
planet of itself?”

“No, nor is it a
dimensional firmament, Mr. Phillips. It is an esoteric terrascape
of their
own creation,
just as the thoggs and all their multiple variations are the
Pyramidiles’ very creation as well.”

I felt enslimed by the
sheer
evil
of the
implication. “And through these vast technologies and with these
thoggs, you travel from world to world!” I outraged, “from
dimension to dimension and from realm to realm, to unleash
horror
 upon the
populace of those places!”

“Exactly,” she cooed and
moved Selina’s lips from the current, well-tended nipple to the
next. “The thoggs you saw were the bipedal hybrid propagated
for
this
world.”

“An invasion is what you’re talking about!”
I shouted.

“Quite right. But this invasion, whenever it
might come to pass, will not be initiated for the purpose of
conquest.”

I knew all too well of the
legend’s most atrocious entails. “It is instead for the blatant
molestation and torture of the human race, the psychic horror of
which the Pyramidiles
subsist
upon!”

“It is their food, which
they derive from countless worlds and innumerable domains—yes.
We’ve just come from one such domain, a quasi-terrestrial sphere
that existed in another phase-shift. It had a population of a
trillion, Mr. Phillips, and the slow, systematic torture,
mutilation, and protracted murder of its pacifistic inhabitants fed
the Pyramidiles full to bursting. It was
glorious.
”

And eventually, they’ll do
the same here,
 I realised.

Miss Aheb broadened her sluttish smile.
“Yes. They will.”

The rest, now, remained
fairly elementary. “Depositions of human sperm,” I croaked. “This
is the purpose of your inviting the most virile of men to this
‘free’ bordello, and hence the ruse. It’s no real bordello at all,
but a
collection outpost!
You pilfer the semen from all these men, night
after night, then deliver it all to the Pyramidiles whose
bio-mechanical capabilities isolate the
human
characteristics that are
specifically desired and then immix those characteristics with that
of their own!”

“Custom-made thoggs, Mr.
Phillips,” she went on. “Genetic constituents from human semen is
amalgamated with certain constituents belonging to the Pyramidiles.
The result: creatures of servitude and utility that are ideally
suited to earth’s environment.” The ardour imparted to her
sensitive nipples via Selina’s mouth was all-too-ostensible; the
noxious woman’s chest rose and fell more rapidly, her infernal skin
beginning to sheen with perspiration. Still, though, she continued
to explain as though this revelation of diabolism was of itself
libidinally stimulating. “The average human ejaculation contains
hundreds of millions of spermatozoa, Mr. Phillips, yet only several
hundred are chosen for propagation: the choicest, most motile and
highest quality per batch. That is why it’s taken several millennia
to produce a serviceable number of thoggs. But since time
per say
is of no
significance, what does it matter?”

“It matters quite a bit with regard to your
actual mass-dispersal of the heinous creatures upon the earth!” I
yelled. “When exactly is this ‘invasion’ of yours to take
place?”

“Only when we’ve
manufactured exactly
two billion
thoggs, Mr. Phillips.”

My indignation spilled over. “But that’s the
human population of the world today!”

“Precisely.”

“At least give my race a fighting
chance!”

“Really now, Mr. Phillips.
Fairness is not on our agenda. Only the efficacious
slow-destruction of mankind. I know that the Pyramidiles will enjoy
a veritable
feast
on the pain and horror generated at the hands of the
thoggs.”

By this point my infuriation left me utterly
stupefied…

Miss Aheb urged my sister’s mouth from the
well-sucked nipple. “That felt delicious, dear.” Her svelte hands
directed Selina to the foot of the throne. “Do here now, my
darling,” and then she raised the hem of the gown. “You know how I
simply adore your mouth on me.”

Selina knelt before the madam’s parted
thighs, then lowered her face…

More, more outrage. “Release her! You’ve
demeaned her enough for tonight!”

The atrocious woman’s brow rose on the
tainted face. “Oh, but not just her, Mr. Phillips. You too,
yes?”

“Indeed,” I growled.

“Tell me. How did the
motorman’s jism taste? Was it delectable? Ambrosial? Hmm? I’ve a
mind to send you back there, where you’ll be forced to suckle their
cocks for time immemorial.” She chuckled rather fatly, closing her
eyes against the pleasures now being administered. “I can arrange
it so that the wares of their lusty loins will be all you ever
eat—
ever
—for a
million years.”

“Give my sister her freedom, and I will
consent to that!” I spat.

“Consent? Oh, Mr.
Phillips. Your chivalry is quite laughable. I hardly require
your
consent
to
do with you as my fancies direct.” She pressed the back of my
sister’s head, to affect keener purchase, then looked at me again
and laughed.

Being forced to watch this
further exploitation insinuated a feeling of utter uselessness on
my part. Whatever excess of intellect I may have been possessed of
seemed just as useless, for my faculties delivered nothing in so
much as a plan of action. Primordially, at least, I might try to
give direct fight to Miss Aheb, but being apprised of her
powers—for instance, of psychic thought-decryption—I could only
imagine that far greater proclivities were at her disposal; while I
also suspected that the motorman must be lurking about in some
reasonable proximity. I tried to dim the tenor of my conscious
thoughts, therefore (to keep them out of her telepathic grasp) and
pray that some
sub
conscious resolution might spring to mind.

Her hips writhed in response to Selina’s
oral tendings; and not long thenceforth came the patented spasms
that signaled orgasm, Miss Aheb’s monstrously skinned yet comely
body flexing and clenching in the midst of the sought-after
release. Once sated, she nudged Selina off with a flick of hand.
“That was wonderful, my love.”

“You’ve changed her just as you yourself
have changed,” I blurted loudly, “in the atrocious tainting of your
skin. It allows you to share some aspect of the Pyramidiles.”

“It does far more than that!” she scolded.
“It’s their blessing to us, Mr. Phillips. Just as your earthly
babies are ‘christened’ with holy water to receive the anointment
of your so-called God; so too are Selina and I anointed, as the
Pyramidiles give us grace by bestowing the cosmic beauty of their
skin to our paltry human bodies.” She held out her arms to give
accentuation to her breasts’ “anointment,” the flawless orbs made
revolting by the swirls of discolour. “But in their anointing us,
we receive not only an aspect of their beauty but also the blessing
of their immortality, along with other wondrous traits.”

“That obscene pendant,” I
hastened. “Like the crystals of the chandelier, it generates a
similarity to the Pyramidiles’ atmosphere, correct? This grotesque
light that is
not
 light but somehow illuminating nonetheless.”

“You’re correct, indeed.
It’s not mere light, it’s the
Abhorrescence,
whose nether-rays
halt aging to all those in the midst of them. Even you, Mr.
Phillips. For the time you’ve spent in this room as well as your
time on the terrascape, you have not aged a single
minute.”

This, too, seemed to explain the cessation
of time during the soul-searing journey to that wretched
domain.

The witch-priestess was giving answer to my
questions, yes, but a question even more paramount remained…

When?

“Exactly how many thoggs have been birthed
thus far?” I asked.

Her grin couldn’t have
broadened any more wickedly. “Of that… I’
ll leave you to guess,” and then, as if summoned by a
bell-toll, the motorman made its entrance, clothed but maskless,
the most salient feature of its face—that grotesque, scarlet-tipped
tentacle—writhing.

“I presume it is telepathy that enables you
to communicate even to a monster with no ears,” I said.

“The thogg’s proboscis is
the nerve cluster which allows it to see and hear. But it is to the
beast’s
brain
that my thoughts are delivered,” Miss Aheb said. “However, if
you
must
know,
these mental commands are reflected in the actual language of the
Pyramidiles. Not words, but numerals.”

“Gematria,” I uttered.
“The substitution of letters with their corresponding numbers. The
little written record there is indicates that theirs is a language
of
mathematics.
”

“I’m
impressed,
Mr. Phillips,” she seemed
to genuinely enthuse. “Your studies of my gods are quite extensive.
I don’t think in words to the motorman, for instance. I think in
numbers. Were you a little brighter yourself, you might have
deduced the meaning of the trolley before you even got
here.”

My expression clearly showed I did not
understand.

“1, 8, 5, 2,” she said. “One, denoting the
first letter of the alphabet, Mr. Phillips.”

“The letter A.”

“And 8?”

“The letter H.”

Her smile beamed, as the rest of the truth
dropped to my gut.

“5 is E, and 2 is B,” I quailed. “1,8,5,2
equals AHEB.” How could I not have seen that before?

“Very good,” the woman mocked. “And were I
to think the numbers, 11, 9, 12, and 12, and then make an
indicative gesture toward your beloved sister?”