Silent Hill: The Dream Machine
by Elliot Bowers
"Lonesome Town"
lyrics by Baker Knight
vocal by Ricky Nelson
Chapter 3
By the light of the moon, blurred by fog, the animals of this forest cavorted and danced around something that had fallen out of the sky. These animals had the usual variety of unusual shapes: lumpy skulls, multiple limbs, extra orifices where there ought be none. The animals were so asymmetrical in some cases that they ought not be able to move at all. But oh, how they danced! Despite having wrong-shaped and highly compromised physiologies, their moves would have put even the most gifted human artists to shame. It was a dance powerful enough to appeal to the most original rhythms of time and space, the fabric of reality itself…
They danced the dance that resonated with the fabric of reality…in order to rip it. As the animals galloped and swayed, spun and swung, it was not long before another one of their kind: a denier: broke open its flesh-cocoon in the trees. Its muscular body still wet with mucous, it crawled down from the tree using all six of its arms: the hands easily sticking to the moldy bark of the tree-trunks.
Oh-ho! Much was to be done, much indeed. There was a calling to be done this night, a grand continuation of the summoning. The others would be disappointed if it was not done. So it shall be done…
The dance of the animals increased in frenzy as the denier's six hands made contact with the ground. Moving with the same crawling motion, the denier made its way to the machine from the sky. Feh! It was second-hand and shoddy, having been disconnected from other machinery for a long time. However, it would work. Such machines had worked for over sixty thousand years; a mere trip across the void between worlds would not damage its workings in the least. So the denier went to work with its six arms, manipulating the valves on the sides of the machine as the other animals continued to dance….
…
Selena was in the bed, though she did not rest easy. Headache filled her mind, a fever heating her body. So full of pain, she sat up and…opened her eyes to see that she was in a metal room: the walls made of hard grayness. There were no lights in this gray room. Yet, she could see everything: as if there was a weak glow of light from above…or below.
As her mind cleared and reasserted itself, it made full sense. The "bed" she now lie on was actually a transition transponder designed with the physical specifications of the same object in the other world. Her fever was caused by the hard radiation filling this room and probably killing her current body. The high level of radiation was also why the room was made the way it was: the floor and walls made of chemically treated, high-density ceramic to prevent the leakage of uncontrolled contamination due to Machine usage.
In fact, all the rooms beneath this one also had ceramic floors to regulate energy. There were many thousands of rooms in this place, all of them occupied by the Machinery and the workers that maintained them: workers with bodies created specifically for their tasks in maintaining the Machines. Some were for the Machines, and some were used as openings to other places. And it was the Flesh Lords who kept things in order, the Deniers their immediate subservient. Things were maintained this way even after these thousands years… Hundreds of thousands of years…
This body still pained her. It was a body more suited to the world she was visiting, a world fresh and relatively untouched. It was such a weak world, one where people believed that time could be measured, that life could be calculated, where reality is what it is: and anything that deviated from their ideals was ignored.
In that the people there were so weak and kept close-minded, it was a world fresh for the taking: in fact, being taken over. To exist in such a world, she had to take on this pathetic, too-slender and pathetically pale-colored body. Such a flimsy slip of a body, it was. It needed to be fed and filled with water, a body that needed cleaning and care… It was a body so weak that she could feel it dying as she stand in it!
No matter, more bodies could be made here. What mattered was that she was here. She raised her left hand to her numb neck to be sure that her red torc was in place. This torc, it was a red circle of metal around her neck, a symbol of her status here as much as there was any. Let the Enemy continue its path, its evil path of Yellow: the lost color of a forgotten star. Only those of Red know the true path.
There was something she had to do. What it was, she could not say. Selena simply felt that something had to be done. She knew this just as ants knew that they had to chew open new tunnels at times or crawl out to seek things to kill and eat. So she stepped out of this particular gray room and into the hall.
…
Out here in the hall, incandescent light-bulbs glowed from within rusty metal light-fixtures: hanging down from a ceiling of burnt rusty metal grating: with spaces covered over by wire-mesh. Pipes and rust-stained wires were visible through the grating, with some of the pipes leaking blood. Her arrival had put an extreme strain on some of the electromechanical workings of already-stressed capacitors, so some liquid leakage was expected. But the pipes of the Machines would not suffer for long; the pipes would heal themselves.
She walked farther along the hall, her high-heeled boots clomping along the metal floor. "Aaugh!" came a man's scream echoing along the walls. The tinny quality of the sound meant that it was coming from a speaker. "Get down in the shelter! Down in the shelter!" Selena looked around, turning her head to try and look for any visible sources of that sound.
"The jerks! They've already roasted the surface with those damned black smoke-bombs! The world's done! The oceans are turning to the color of blood! Everybody's changing now. Isn't it enough…? What was… Aiaia-a-agh!"
Bwo-o-o-mm…! The man's voice was cut off as a deep bass-sound of explosion seemed to shake and rumble. It was just sound, not an actual explosion. That was followed by the sound of hissing radio static-noise. Whatever happened to the man in that other world, it shut him up.
Where the Hell could such pandemonium come from? Selena eventually came to a door that looked pretty much like all the other doors: rusted metal and painted black. She gently put her left ear to the door: hearing the sound of the radio static. This was certainly the source of the grotesque sounds. She could complete her tasks later. At this time, this distraction had taken her attention. The door opened on mucous-lubricated hinges and she went in.
…
In here, this was another gray room: a room with ceramic walls. Except this room had been converted to Machine-use. Dominating the center of this space was a large engine-Machine with a mutilated animal wired to the top. The animal's legs and lower torso had been sawed off to facilitate its integration with Machinery: wires and metal pipes connecting the animal's belly and chest to the engine itself. And the animal's arms were lashed with barbed wire to prevent it from doing anything so foolish as trying to disconnect itself from the machine, or to tear out the speaker that was installed in its open mouth. It was that speaker from which was coming the sounds.
"It's the end…! Oh God, not like this!"came the voice from the speaker. "Oh God! Oh God… The ceiling is falling apart. This shelter's…" Bwoom! "It's the end! Here…we…go!" Then came the sound of crashing and chaos. "It burns! It bu-u-u-urns…! The end of the world! It bu-u-urns…! Gyach…" The sounds were coming from the radio speaker in the animal's belly, sounds from another place and time. As for the animal itself, its little head just smiled. It jerked its head to the side.
Click! As easily as that, the animal changed the frequency. There were no more sounds of shaking or quivering, no more screams of pain from that long-lost man in a world being taken over. Instead, there was just the sound of someone in another place, another time, singing a cowboy song:
Oo-oo-o-ooh, o-o-ooh… Oo-o-o-ooh, oo-ooh!
There's a place…where lovers go-o-o,
To cry their troubles away!
And they call it…Lonesome Town,
Where the broken hearts stay!
…Lo-o-o-nesome To-o-own!
You can buy a dream, or two…
To last you a-a-all thruogh the years.
And the only pri-i-ice you pay,
Is a heart full of tears.
…Full of tears!
Selena staggered away from the converted-animal radio, tears in her eyes. The animal looked at her with twinkling eyes. Was it not for the speaker embedded in its mouth, it would probably had smiled. Now the animal smiled and stared as if it knew everything about her. Oh yes, the animal knew everything about her. And the song continued to play from the speaker in the animal's mouth:
Goin' down…to Lonesome Town!
Where the broken hearts stay!
Goin' down…to L-o-o-nesome Town!
To cry my troubles away!
In the to-o-o-own of broken dreams,
The streets are filled with regret!
Maybe down in Lo-o-nesome Town,
I can learn to forget.
To forget… Suddenly, Selena felt herself became extremely angry. "How dare you present me with such a horrid song!" she shouted, her voice becoming rough. "When I come into full power and control of the Machines, you shall pay dearly. Sixty teracycles of pain for you when I do! Then you shall see that my purpose is strong!"
The machine-animal just grinned at her, the head atop its mutilated body just looking amused. The gleam in the little beady eyes were glints of amusement. If the animal's lungs had not been torn out to make way for wiring, it probably would have been laughing out loud at her. As it was, Selena could hear the laughter in its thoughts.
This only served to make her even more angry. Here it was, this lowly servant that was currently less than nothing. And it saw her as a thing of derision! Hah-hah-hah… She had the impression of a man laughing himself silly. These were only thoughts, but they had all the power of actual speech. The machine-animal probably would have made obscene gestures at her had its limbs not been severed: any number of obscene gestures from any culture.
Selena felt anger filling her mind with a red-colored rage, that beginning to heat her body. Her hands clenched into hard and pale fists as she thought of the worst things that could be done to this hollowed-out creature with the radio in its belly. She thought of tearing out the embedded Machinery and watching the creature bleed the very same blood being pumped into it through the pipes connected to the ceiling.
It was these pipes that began to quiver. There was the sound of machinery in the rooms below beginning to churn up with extra energy in response to Selena's anger. This room became warmer as heat and extra radiation bled into this almost-dark room. Pounding sounds began to echo along the floor as the metal walls began to vibrate. Oh yes, this was how it was done. She would see to it that this blasphemous soul learned to respect her!
Blood gushed through cracks in the metal wall at the left, blood which soon caught fire from the sheer intensity of the radiation leaking up through the floor. The floor itself was actually beginning to glow with a reddish color of its own. Selena had the vague idea that her skin was beginning to redden from the immediate exposure, and the insides of this body were beginning to bleed. Her body was dying in this sudden increased flood of beta rays, gamma radiation, and even other kinds of radiation not known to humanity.
As for the animal that dared to defy Selena, it had none of the immunities or strengths that Selena had. It was more tightly bound to its body than Selena was: even more so as it was bound to a Machine. The animal was not far from being made part of the Machines themselves, which it probably would be after this punishment has been properly completed.
The animal opened its mouth in a silent scream of pain as its hollowed-open body was overcome with blood-colored fire: the fire coming from the pipes built into its body. The effect was much like that of watching what some humans called a bar-be-cue. Except that the meat was still what humans would call "alive." Well, nothing was actually alive in this place. Nothing was dead either, for there was no such thing as the peace of death in this place. Only the Others believed in the peace of death.
When the burning was done, there was just a rusty metal scaffolding when the animal once was atop the machine: a rusty metal scaffolding supporting a ribcage and blackened, barbecued head atop it, a burnt speaker within the jaw. The pipes leaked blood into the framework where there had once been the animal's flesh: the blood leaking onto the simple wires and transistors that served for a radio. The radio, once tuned into the world of that doomed man, now played hissing static.
Three massive, bloated figures dropped down from the dark ceiling: their gigantic heads nearly as large as their bodies. Their heads were large as they had to hold massive mouths. These animals were called gub-shufflers: animals with the purpose of eating metal. When their bodies were full, these gub- shufflers would jump into Machinery and be ground to pieces: recycling both the metal they had eaten and themselves.
They were here to eat used metal, and they would do so now. Using grubby and calloused hands, the gub-shufflers began to pluck away pieces of the metal framework…and put them in their gigantic chomping mouths. This was followed by sounds of metal being chomped and crunched. They didn't mind that there was still some burnt meat on the metal at all; it added to the flavor.
Perhaps in the space of several hundred human years from now, the animal that was the radio would emerge from the Machinery in a new body. Perhaps this time, it would know better than to ridicule Selena!
As for Selena's own body, it had "died" as she watched the gub-shufflers eat the animal. Only her strength and superior abilities allowed her to keep the body standing. It would have been simple to allow the body to lie down when she left it to get another . But that would leave the torc around the neck.
She would have this body rejuvenated, then. A visit to another room or a return visit to that fresh new world would rejuvenate it. Hmm, yes… After her tasks here were completed, she would return to prospects in that world. As the gub-shufflers continued to eat the burned machinery, she left this room…
…
"…Igh!" Selena's hands went to her own neck as she suddenly sat up in bed: in her own bedroom. She was in bed… It was an actual bed, in her bedroom: not the other place. Throwing off the bed-covers, she turned on the bed-side lamp and walked over to the full-length mirror: one that resembled the mirror she had elsewhere. Never mind that she was naked. It was all the more convenient for an inspection of herself.
She looked at herself in the mirror, all of herself: face, neck and body. All over, her skin showed no signs of corruption: her body was still the smooth color of milk. Her right hand to her abdomen, she felt no reddening or feeling of burning sickness inside. So her body was still alive, of course: though her throat was still somewhat sensitive to touching.
Silly girl, she thought to herself. Foolish of me, thinking such morbid thoughts. Chiding herself, she walked back to bed on her bare feet, the chill air on her bare body as she turned off the bedside lamp and covered her body with the bedcovers. She was, however, unable to take back to sleeping…
…
The golden color of the morning sun brightened the land, coming through the windows. Selena awakened and walked to the bathroom. The morning sun was irritating enough to goad her out of bed. It also reminded her still sleep-heavy mind that it was again time to live the day.
It took an hour to be ready. Freshly showered and dressed in another working outfit: jeans, blue-buttoned shirt and sensible shoes on her feet: she locked the house door behind her before leaving. Outside, it was full-morning on this residential street. She stepped down the porch steps and crossed the short lawn in getting over to the car. Getting over to the school was important to her now. The other janitors knew things about her and about what existed in this town.
Selena opened the car door and sat in, closed the door and turned put the key in the ignition.. When she turned the ignition, the car engine and radio both came on. What was this? She didn't remember leaving the radio turned on… In fact, she much preferred to drive without the car radio on; radio reception in this town was atrocious half the day: only working during the afternoon when the nightly fog was evaporated away by sunlight.
The radio continued to hiss and occasionally sputter out sounds interspacing the static as she prepared to drive. She checked the rear-view mirror, checked the gauges and generally made sure this car was good for the drive. It was.
And the car radio's reception seemed to improve when she began to drive the car down this street, as sunlight continued to brighten. "…Are reminded to avoid them.." His-s-s… "Contact the police. Do not attempt…" Sh-h-h-ht! Hisss-s-s… "Contact Animal Control directly, because animal remains are carriers of a thus-far unidentified disease. The Animal Control department will…" Bzzt! "Should be draped in gold ornaments such as jewelry or watches. Any small amount of gold will help. If no gold is present, then potential victims…" Hsst! "…Items of brass or other similarly toned metal. In other news…"
She was not even paying particularly close attention to the radio as the news man continued to try and talk its way through the static and interference. Rather, the radio was more like a passive voice to keep her company. Selena was lonely. What she needed were friends and other people to be with. All that she had done in this town for the past few days: besides reading religious texts obtained from work: was go shopping and start working at Arnie's job.
Eventually, the radio became free enough of static that the newsman's voice was soon more audible. "There was little evidence of miscellaneous activity at the location despite witness reports. Witnesses reported seeing bright lights and children within the vicinity of the field at the time of the incident itself. This had led police to believing that local high-school children were engaged in illicit after-hours activity.
"However, the police report that little was found at the scene itself. The Pleasant River Police Department claims to have only found broken parts of manufacturing machinery and empty ceramic bowls: both of which being of unknown manufacture. All such objects were sent to the appropriate department for further analysis. Teenagers are advised to avoid suspicious holes in the ground and to remain indoors after daylight hours as there is the hazard of encountering infected wildlife."
The radio continued its chatter as Selena continued to drive, thinking about what else to do in this town. Just perhaps she should begin to seek out Arnie's friends and take them on as her own. After all, it was appropriate for her to take into as many aspects of Arnie's life long enough to make closure of them. She was still here during a transition kind of time: still working out the rough parts of her new life.
…
2.
…
She arrived at the school an hour before the school busses would come here. Smith and Karl, those janitors in blue jeans and buttoned work-shirts, feet protected with work-shoes, were already walking the grounds of the school. Smith was pushing a rubber-wheeled cart full of repair equipment, while Karl would occasionally crouched down to check the brassy devices half-embedded in the grassy ground. These devices repelled the kind of trouble found in the woods.
"Good morning to you both," said Selena as she approached. "I see that the day's miscellaneous-related activities have…begun." A sudden headache caused her speaking to stumble: a sudden knifing headache thrust into her head. It, the pain, was low enough for her to tolerate.
"Good morning to you, too," said Smith. "Hey girl, anybody ever tell you that you talk kinda funny? Nobody's gonna mistake you for being a local, that's for sure!" He began pushing the wheeled cart as Karl began walking towards the next machine in the ground. "Yeah, we're just checking these resonators to make sure that animals don't show up today. The police drive by here every night, making sure things are okay." He put on an angry look. "Would ya believe they said they saw one of those mysterious strangers walking around here? And I just fixed one of the messed-up resonators yesterday! You saw me!"
"If that was so, then none of them should have been able to come close to the school," added Karl, kneeling by one of the brassy machines embedded in the ground. "The Animal Control department is good for giving us equipment to keep problems away from the school. But the equipment they give us requires a lot of attention…" After checking something on the top of the machine in the ground, he stood up again. "I get the idea that they're deliberately not giving us the best equipment they have or something. Probably because they don't trust us with it."
As they kept walking along, with Karl checking the next set of equipment over, Selena felt the headache fade…then come back again. She chose to stand about six meters or so away from the embedded device that Karl and Smith were inspecting. It was much like the headache that occurred yesterday when Smith had flicked on the resonator. Safe for normal people, Smith had said yesterday. Selena insisted that she was as much a "normal" person as anyone else. So what if she came from somewhere else?
The fact that she was affected by the janitorial equipment, that was the only sign of something having been wrong with her. She thought back to the day when she left her old town, the fear and worry about being changed. Yes, her eyes had changed color. It was a symptom of having been infected: changes in parts of the body, a lack of hunger… Infected, not contaminated. If she had been contaminated, which was a great deal worse, she would not have been here: walking around in full daylight and able to dressing in normal clothesand talk to people.
Karl glanced over at Selena before resuming his maintenance. He had done so with a slight look of concern. When Smith looked back at her, he winked at her. It was as if he was thinking, Don't you worry, cutie! I know all about you. In that he knew the resonators affected her the same way it affected certain things, it was as if Smith knew other things about Selena: secret things. She could not have felt any more violated if Smith had walking into her bedroom at night and ruffled through her drawers of underclothes, or checking what kinds of feminine products she used. So she was affected by machines? It was because she was still different, not fully adjusted to here.
As the other two janitors continued their work, Selena followed close behind. She was far enough away not to be too intensely affected by the devices, but she was close enough to at least put up the appearance of supervising. She was an authority over them: in charge of them. It was her responsibility to point out any faults or mistakes they have made. For example, they had assumed that animals only traveled by air or over-ground. Over ground. But what about…
"Karl, wait a moment!" exclaimed Selena. She excitedly strode closer to where the other two janitors were working…coming just close enough that the headache was barely tolerable: enough to bring a frown to her face. "It is true that the resonators are, in fact, functioning. Yet also true is how animals have been able to appear close to the school…or come from within the school! Despite the placement of devices, the animals are still able to penetrate the sanctity of the school's security."
"Come on, what's your point, girl?" asked Smith, getting annoyed. "Look, you're new here. You just got the job. I know how you're probably excited and all. But you still gotta learn about what we do. So just hang back and watch us at work! We'll talk about stuff later."
"No, you shall hear me out!" insisted Selena, her irritation prodded by the headache. "Up until this point, there was an emphasis on barring infiltration from the surrounding area. This constitutes a wall of deterrence. Walls are excellent for keeping out things large and obvious from the most obvious of entrances. Yet what of other ways of infiltration?"
"Why don't you talk normal?" asked Smith, still annoyed. "Your accent is thick as frozen tree sap in the dead of winter! Hell, I don't know… Maybe they don't have winter where you came from and you don't understand what I'm saying! Probably don't understand half the words coming out my mouth!"
As Smith ranted, Karl stood up from the embedded device he was inspecting. He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Maybe its you who doesn't see all there is to see. Or understand."
"What! You too? Don't tell me you're siding with strange foreign-girl here! Talk, Karl. Go right ahead and make yourself look crazier than you are."
"Selena's talking about other ways into the school," explained Karl. "A cousin of mine had a gopher problem, you see. Damn things kept digging holes in her back and front yards: made someone trip and break their right wrist. Would you believe my cousin had a fence going all around her property? A fence, Smith. Get it? Fences don't always work, especially against burrowing pests."
"What the…?" began Smith. Then came a look of shock and amazement as realization struck. One could almost imagine a very bright light bulb lighting up over his head. "Oh, doodley-fuddle!" he yelled. "How the flop-doodle could I have been so bone-headed to not see that? Can't keep underground vermin out with just fences!"
"Janitors!" came a shout in the distance. The vice principal came running out of the school, his flabby gut and butt flopping in his buttoned shirt and overly large pants: tie flapping and sweat stains under his armpits. He came running over to here. "You all! Hey…!" he yelled in coming. Everyone turned to look. When he finally arrived, he was out of breath and looking set to fall over. He bent over, exhausted, breathing heavily and gasping for air. "Somebody's in…there… It's a mysterious… One of…those… Those…" He sucked in a deep breath. "A mysterious stranger!" he finally screamed.
Karl snapped the fingers of his right hand. "You're right on the money, Selena!" he said. Then to the principal, "Where was the mysterious stranger? It was around the bathrooms, right? Or maybe…it was staying close to some of the air vents in a ceiling…"
The principal angrily nodded, cheeks flopping. "Yes… Yes…! Now what…are you going to do about it?" He had recovered enough of his breath to be angry and authoritative. "We can't have people like that just walking around the school and throwing people around like mannequins!"
This led Selena to asking, "You mean to say, without touching them?" The principal just glared at her. "I am aware of such things." She turned to Smith, recalling how he was repairing the inner workings of a piece of equipment. "And I take it that the resonators have independent power supplies?"
"Batteries will last 'bout sixty thousand years…unless there's a nuclear war!" confirmed Smith. "Even then, they'd last even longer. This kind of machinery loves high levels of radiation, seems." Before becoming a janitor, Smith himself wouldn't have believed that any kind of machinery could last that long. Then again, before becoming a janitor in this town, he wouldn't have believed in the sort of things kids imagined that lived under their beds or inside closets. Difference was, those sorts of things didn't just come from closets.
…
They began by wheeling the cart into the elementary school front entrance: now-darkened halls going to the left and right. Atop this push-cart were three cube-shaped resonators: the dirt still on their sides from having been dug from the soil outside. These devices were cold and silent for now. But when it came time, they would vibrate with energy enough to repel troubles and dark tidings.
The three made it into the front lobby-area without incident and saw windowed administrative office across the way. Inside there, behind the glass, the two secretaries were sitting back to back: the chubby one and the skeletally skinny one. Those two were chatting and looking over school documents. Perhaps not even the end of the world could not deter them from their daily routines. And the way the light from in that windowed office glowed out into this darkened hall, it was like looking into another world: a world that remained calm, bright and sane.
"Damn, since when did it get so cold?" asked Smith out here. He rubbed his hands together. "Nah, stupid question. We know why. Just like we know why the lights look like they're being sucked for electricity."
You! Selena quickly turned to the right, quickly looking around. As she did so, looking for the source of the voice, the lights overhead flickered…before going dim again. Karl stopped pushing the cart to look back at her. "I had been heeded," she explained, crossing her arms across her midsection. "And now… A sickly ache has taken hold. A fever as well…"
Smith saw that Selena's face was moist with perspiration, her skin looking even more pale than usual. She seemed to be seconds from collapsing. "Hey girl, maybe you oughtta go sit down. Do something," said Smith. "How can you be hot at a time like this? I'm freezing. I got on thermal long-johns underneath this and it still feels cold in here You must be getting sick. And this can't be the right time for that!"
She closed her eyes and raised her right hand in a gesture that meant, Stop. "A moment please. A bit of pause is all I require." A few deep breaths, and she opened her eyes again. "I am able to continue this particular venture. This task shall be culminated regardless of my level of discomfort as I shall not swoon! So let us move on… That way." She pointed to the left hallway.
"Yeah, may as well," said Karl. "When we find the troublemakers, I'm going to turn on the resonators. Okay, Selena? These devices all switched to operate in sync with each other, so when they do…" He saw Selena nod. She knew what would happen if she was within range: pain for the trespasser and pain for her.
Clop, clop… Clop-clop-clop-clop… There was the sound of bony hooves in the hall to the left. A look over there gave a view of something, a vague sort of something looking in this direction. Selena angrily reached towards one of the resonators on the cart and flicked it on: and staggered back when the headache immediately followed: everything suddenly covered over with a dazzling pain! She was not able to see what was happening for the space of a few pain-filled seconds.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…!" laughed the animal, traipsing and prancing about as if in mockery even as the resonator made its body tremble. It then turned and clopped its way down the hall and going around a corner.
Then Selena recovered when Karl had switched off the machine. Smith spoke up. "You missed it! That thing was dancing… I've seen animals do a lot of things, but I've never seen one of them do a tap-dance routine! Maybe they've got brains after all."
"It remains here, though unseen," said Selena with dead certainty. She could hear whispered thoughts within her mind. The other two couldn't hear it, but she could. "The mysterious stranger has minions in thrall." She walked towards the front of the cart and tugged at it. "I shall guide forth."
As Karl pushed, Selena controlled the direction of this cart. They continued to make their way into the semi-darkness of the hall. There were open classroom doors to the left and right, each open door an opening into a potential hiding place. The florescent lights overhead were on, yet they were just very dim. "Yes, this is certainly the way," she said. "We are coming closer." She could hear the animal mocking her as they came closer. This was a hallway.
"Ha-h-h-h…!" came the victorious braying laugh from the animal as it leapt out from an open door to block the way forward. Smith was generally correct about the animal resembling a deer. It had four graceful legs and a lean body. Except, at least a dozen horns were sprouted from where its neck was supposed to have been. "Hah-h-h!" it cheered again, doing that mocking dance on its hooves as it waved its horns about threateningly. It soon became apparent that the laughter was not coming from where the neck-stump sprouted horns: but from the mouths that lined both sides of its ribcage: The animal was laughing in stereo.
"Damned freak of nature!" shouted Smith. He walked forward with fists clenched. "No stupid mutant hunter's trophy is gonna scare me off! I don't got a rifle now, but I'll be damned if…" Ha-ha-ha! He raised both arms up, trying to protect himself as the animal reared up on its hind legs and raised its horns in the air.
Selena was again quick to act. Suddenly, she had flicked on all three resonators before staggering back herself. This was…like being struck with a wave of electrified ocean-water… But despite the onrush of pain, her head bowed, she quickly snapped on the other two resonators and began to stagger away: swaying and gasping for air. Now, in addition to the waves of pain, it was as if the entire hallway was full of white light and noise all trying to fill her aching head! Everything just hurt so…much…!
Flicker! Flick-flicker… The animal collapsed to the ground in a quivering heap of muscle and shaking legs. The resonators continued to resound with a bone-shaking sound as the animal continued to shake itself apart. Before long, the animal had shaken itself until it was no longer coherent: a blurry mass that vaguely resembled something alive. Then even that faded away.
Smith turned off the machines and listened for other sounds. He stayed by the machine cart while Karl went over to the entrance area, where Selena sat huddled against a wall. He saw that the lights over there had returned to normal, giving him a better view of the girl. Her dark hair was in disarray, obscuring her pale face, and her legs were tucked in as she hugged herself.
When Karl tried to put a hand on her right shoulder, she quickly shrugged it off. "Begone from me!" She screamed: hands raised in a warding gesture. Then, with weak legs, she stood without assistance and began to tuck lengths of hair behind her ears again. Karl noticed a trickle of blood coming from her nose: two more streaks trailing from her ears and down the sides of her neck. The trails went down to the collar of her blue-buttoned top. She ran a quick finger over her top lip and adjusted her collar. A quick glance at her fingers revealed a dark stain: a result of what had leaked from her nose. It was blood… "The so-called mysterious stranger is waiting for us… Waiting for me. Now he has retreated elsewhere within the school," she said. "The animal is gone, so the mysterious stranger has less a presence here."
There was the sound of hard-soled shoes rapidly coming down the darkened hall. Selena turned to see a massive figure of a man in red coveralls and red-leather trench coat running this way! This was followed by the flickering light of a bright bluish beam. The gigantic man was so huge that he had to run stooped over to prevent the top of his head from rubbing the ceiling.
But despite his size, the mysterious stranger was deathly afraid of the bluish beam glaring from Smith's modified flashlight. "Gotcha, you pervert!" he shouted in chasing the figure. As the figure ran by, Selena saw large blotches of burned black on the red leather trench coat as he: or it: made a mad dash for the door.
The man vanished before he actually made it to the door itself. "And don't come back!" shouted Smith, waving the modified flashlight. He turned to look in this direction. "Yeah, Karl!" he shouted, the flashlight off. "Looks like I was right about the 'Bridgette' idea, wasn't I? Give those freaks a phony taste of the ol' flauros and they start running like their own god was after 'em!"
"The opposite, actually," said Selena, looking at the odd sort of flashlight that Smith held so proudly. A flashlight? It was not quite that. The blocky front of the thing was the width of a spread hand, but the "flashlight" lens itself was the size of a man's eye. She had an unsettling feeling just looking at it. But whatever she felt, things were probably six hundred times worse for the man who ran from here: having been burned by the flashlight. "Smith?" she asked. "Is that…object quite safe to brandish with such careless bravado?"
"Hell, honey!" exclaimed Smith. "'Careless' was when that joker in the leather trenchcoat thought he could strut on into this school and wait for the kids to show up! Besides, this thing's perfectly safe. It's just your everyday household flashlight… Well, after it's been juiced up with a little something from the Animal Control department." He turned the odd flashlight towards part of the entranceway floor where the trench coat-wearing figure last stood, played the beam over the spot. The glow from the light was certainly 'juiced up,' making for an extra bright spot of illumination. Selena had a headache just from looking at it.
…
3.
…
"I hear and understand." Hsst! "I say again, I hear and understand. Over and out," said the policeman in the dark blue uniform, speaking into the radio handset. He then returned the handset to the holder attached to the console as static began to wash out the signal. The officer sitting in the passenger seat: also known as the "shotgun seat": tried re-tuning the radio to another frequency band, gave up. Of course, every police car in this town was equipped with a two-way radio. But the trouble was that the things failed to work half the time because of the town's fog. Last night's fog still hadn't fully evaporated.
He said, "Stupid fog. Stupid radio! Stupid everything! You know, it's times like this when I wish the Animal Control department was just a little more cooperative. Just a little bit more. I'm not asking for a lot more, just a tiny bit more. Sometimes, I think that woman sounds more like a robot than a human being. The last time I asked her about giving some of our motor-pool mechanics some of that fancy communications equipment they use, she talked about regulations regarding the 'dissolution of coherence.' What's that supposed to mean? For goodness' sake, they're the Animal Control department!Since when do a bunch of dog catchers get equipment fancier than what the Army's got? At least the Army helped us out as much as they could, not like Animal Control. Our radios don't even work half the time. I bet they've got wrist-sized radios that could communicate from here to high heaven: fog or no fog!"
"Yeah well… Animal Control is helping us out," said the plain-faced policeman in the driver's seat, his voice tired. "Remember, they've got to follow their regulations just as we've got to follow ours. They're professionals, and they weren't just sent here to chase pets on the loose, either. They've got to do things by their books. That blonde woman of the Animal Control department told me all about it. So that's why there are limits to the kind of stuff they can give us. If they just decided to give us versions of all their most powerful equipment, we could hurt someone or something because we don't know all the ins and outs."
"Wait a second…" began the policeman in the other seat. "If they taught us, don't they think we'd be able to handle it? Town Hall trusts us with pistols, shotguns, tear gas, tasers and harder-than-steel batons. With our special tactics unit, we've got automatic rifles, grenade launchers and even explosives. What does Animal Control have that we couldn't handle without the right training? What? Tell me… Do they have hyper-blaster laser guns from the space-aliens? Flamethrowers with unlimited ammunition? Super chainsaws that never run out of gas?"
"Hmmph… Yeah, they've probably go some things like that…" mused the policeman in the driver's seat as he stared out the front window. The nightly fog was nearly gone, giving a clearer long-distance view of the downtown street: not that there was a great deal to see in the first place. It was a weekday afternoon, and it wasn't the time of year for that flood of tourists to come through. Traffic on the street only consisted of the occasional van or car that went along the street.
That police officer was, in a way, probably right to complain about the way police business was conducted in this town. There were often instances in which what the police of Pleasant River had to do things that went far beyond the standard dictates of small-town policing. Standard procedures were studiously followed and practiced in most all the other nearby townships and such. But around here, standard procedures could only go so far.
Hs-s-st…! The police car-radio came on in a hiss of static, followed by a woman's voice. It wasn't that woman: It was just the dispatcher. "Car One-Nine, this is Dispatch. A possible code Red-Ceiling is in progress on Burning Pine Lane. I say again, a code Red Ceiling is in progress. Suspect was said to be six feet tall and appeared dressed in a red-leather trench coat. Over."
Almost in a bored way, the police officer in the driver's seat picked up the radio handset and spoke into it. "Dispatch, this is Car One-Nine. We copy on the code 'Red Ceiling.' We now proceed to Burning Pine Lane, over." He looked at the other policeman, who looked slightly frightened…to tell the truth.
"Copy that. Other units will be alerted as available," responded the dispatcher's voice through the radio. "This is dispatch, over and out." Then the radio was again washed over with static. Meaning, the dispatcher probably contacted other police officers "as available." With a code Red-Ceiling, more officers was usually the better option.
Anyway, it was time for these two police officers to patrol the streets for the kind of trouble identified by the code Red Ceiling. Who came up with the code name, what the Hell it had to do with what it meant, the police officer in the shotgun seat didn't know. What mattered was what it meant: "Red Ceiling" was the radio code for a mysterious stranger alert, the kind of strangers accompanied by "foreign" wildlife. The car engine turned on, the transmission put in gear, and this car was on its way.
…
This policeman in the shotgun seat kept looking to the right, looked ahead, then looked right again. This residential street was just several streets away from where the downtown area began: one of the more densely populated neighborhoods with houses close together along gray-paved streets. Of course, the dispatcher said to look out for a figure in a red trenchcoat. The dispatcher also said that this was a Red Ceiling problem. That could mean anything besides a man in a red trench coat. Cases like this, a zombified horse the size of an elephant went galloping full-speed down the street past this car, he should not be surprised.
Why the Hell couldn't it be something ordinary? Why couldn't he be chasing purse-snatchers in Paleville, or locking up drunks in Edgaines Town? He grew up in a city, put up with and survived the sort of things that happened there. He thought that small towns were quaint and comfortable, nice and slow… Sure, this town was slower-paced, and the people were more polite…
It just made things all the more creepy. Why the Hell did he sign himself up for this town's police department, this patrol? Because as soon as he graduated from police academy, this was the first town that said yes. Other openings were already filled by other recruits. Now here he was, chasing something that was probably cousin to the boogeyman himself! But he was loyal to his job and wouldn't quit, though times like this that called that loyalty into question.
There was a glimpse of moving darkness between two houses, stepping around the corner to go into a backyard. Ah, screw it. "Hey, stop. The perp just went to our right," he said. Perp was shorthand-speech for perpetrator: a person perpetrating a crime. "You stay back. If we need backup, you can drive away and call it in. You know how bad the radios can become when one of them is around…" Useless was the word: Radios were worthless when they were nearby.
He got out of the car, the other officer looking. When they did catch the sneaky jerk, the least they could bust him on was trespassing and intimidating officers of the law…or something like that. This car slowed down, and this policeman opened the door and climbed out. Thinking to himself, Would a gun work on this freak?
Bullets worked before…to an extent. So did the sight of a shiny badge. Funny thing was, wearing a badge in plain sight seemed to scare those freaks off in a hurry. If an officer was in plain clothes, not wearing the badge outside the clothes, things were different; the animals and such tended to be a little more bold. And if that failed, bullets worked. It may take nine bullets, it may take nineteen, but bullets always worked against them. It was just that, with problems like this, you could not always be sure. Maybe these would be another case of a police officer disappearing?
Pistol at his side, extra magazines of ammunition on his belt, it wouldn't be that way. He turned fear into willpower as he stepped into the space between the houses. Hell yes, he was afraid. That didn't mean that he wasn't able to do his job. As stray streams of wind howw-w-wled across the opening to the space between the houses, he edged closer to the back yards. He reached for his holster, quickly unsnapped the strap that held the pistol in it, drew his weapon pointed upward: ready…
And out! Having hopped out of the alley, he took up a saddle-stance with pistol aimed forward. He quickly aimed left, then quickly right… Left again… Nothing moved other than the wind and himself. To his left and right were two typical, nearly identical back-yards: two square spaces of dark blackish-green grass, two rear patios, and a few trees between them. There was no fence to separate the two yards. These must have been close neighbors.
He did some looking around just to be safe: doing a quick walk-around of the yard on the left, then the one on the right. These were indeed two typical back-yards. The patio of the yard on the left was developing cracks, and some kid left a "Blue Robbie" plush toy outside… Nah, there wasn't anything special back here. Let's try the other yard.
Again, there was nothing. He did his looking around by taking a route along the perimeter. This yard had a fence next to it, separating it from the one next over. There were no kids' toys around, but there was a large red outdoor grille: a waist-high, gas-powered sort of thing used to barbecue the meat of your choice: beef, pork, horse, dog… Hell, even hard-to-cook sloth-meat would probably brown up quite nicely on that thing. Then he noticed the burned patch of grass.
He knelt next to it, getting a better look as what he thought were fingers slipped beneath the ground. Was that…? Nah, it couldn't have been. He reached for the baton on his pistol-belt and used it to prod the patch of burnt grass. The grassy ground was a little soft: but otherwise solid. He couldn't have seen what he thought he did.
It was nothing but exactly that: just a circular patch of burned grass: which was burned black. The grass in this part of the state was typically a blackish-green color to begin with, but this grass was burned to the color of night. Maybe the house owners had knocked some greasy, burning meat onto the grass during a cookout? Yeah, that had to be it. That must have explained the awful smell coming from it, too: which also made him feel a little odd…
This wasn't a crop circle or anything like that. It was just a typical, ordinary patch of burnt grass that so happened to have been burnt into a circular shape. Well, okay… This was an otherwise well-kept back yard: and well-equipped. Except for the patch of burnt grass, there wasn't a darned thing wrong back here. Time to get back to the car. So this policeman stood up, holstered his pistol and began walking back towards the car. They would probably catch the perp if he was in the neighborhood: or they scared him away.
…
4.
…
It became a much more sunny day by the afternoon. There were no birds chirping and trilling this time of year. Yet there would have been such pretty sounds if they had been. It seemed like that sort of day. The weather had even become more comfortable. It made the activities of the janitors somewhat more enjoyable.
After school had been dismissed for the day and they had done a preliminary cleaning of the area, they resumed the other responsibilities of janitorial service. This meant checking various devices inside and outside of the school, making sure that they worked. Karl had his doubts about the machinery given them by the Animal Control department and insisted on double-checking all of them: the ones outside as well as the ones inside. They were more easily able to do so, checking the efficacy of the machinery, because Selena could do so from a distance. She could feel how well they were working.
Because the resonators made her feel just so terribly sick. That was why she had to stay back at least six meters whenever Karl and Smith checked on a device. In addition to just the resonators, there were other devices used to keep trouble away. The outdoor-mounted lighting meant to illuminate the school grounds after dark, they were not ordinary florescent lamps. They were something else, something that even Smith didn't fully understand: though he spent a great deal of time trying to understand the machinery given them by the Animal Control personnel.
They were at the east side of the school when she Smith was atop a step-ladder, Karl holding the bottom when Selena had a whim to turn around. It was the feeling that she had to look for something… The whim became an urge as she walked away towards the shrubs that bordered the nearby stand of trees. She went closer, making the urge grow into a compulsion. There was something that she had to find over there.
Sh-shrish-shrish…! Something large and heavy ran through the shrubbery and underbrush to get away from here as Selena approached. It startled her for just a moment before she stepped into the shrubbery itself. She picked and tugged aside branches of shrubbery and such until she found whatever it was that made her want to come here.
Whatever it was, she could not have been sure. It was actually more than one thing. There were several hand-sized devices: covered with rust. One of them even had a thick-looking gray glove stuck to them, sticking to the rust. The torn wires meant that these things must have been torn away from a much larger device. And the rust on the casing didn't just seem it was caused by rain. It more resembled dried blood. These would have been considered pieces of junk were it not for how these objects made her feel. No, there was something…
She could only pick up one of the fist-sized machine-part and hold it cradle-style in her arms. She wanted to carry the other two and would have if this one wasn't so heavy. The other two hand-sized pieces of machinery lie on the ground, as with the one that had a thick gray glove stuck to its rusty case. This left her standing there for a moment as she thought of what to do next. She did not want to leave any of the machines out here, not even for a moment. The moment she turned her back, those pieces of equipment could blink out of existence.
"Hey, you okay over there?" asked Karl, walking over. He had walked over from the school's side: was now at the edge of the shrubbery. Smith was down from the ladder over by the school itself. "Wait a second. I'll be there." Then he waded and pushed his way into here in making his way to where Selena stood with the machinery at her feet. "Why're you holding a piece of junk like it's a baby? Or… Oh." He picked up the piece of machinery with the thick glove stuck to it: not touching the side with the glove. "Hmmph… I've seen something like this before." Turning towards the shrubs, he shouted for Smith. "Hey, Smith! Come see this!"
…
They re-entered the school with what they had found, went through the hall and into the janitorial office. Or at least that what they planned on doing. Smith stumbled just outside the office itself as one ankle tripped over another. Wham! "Damn that hurt!" he complained, getting to his feet. When he did, he realized that the machine-part was no longer with him. He had lost it.
It wasn't as if the part went skittering down the hall or anything. This was a plain, clean, flat hallway: There were no objects under which the machine part could have fallen under or behind. He looked around, looked again… The object was nowhere to be seen. "Gimme a second. I'll find the thing!" he said aloud to the others.
"Find what?" asked Karl from inside the janitorial office. "The part is already on top of your desk. What're you doing out there? I thought you'd be excited about working on this…" He stepped out into the hall, brushing flakes of rust off of his workshirt sleeves. "Don't tell me you're finally scared of unauthorized experiments with new-found stuff. Years of me warning you, and now it's catching on."
He stepped past Karl and went into the janitorial office: strode boldly over to the three desks side-by-side. "Hmph! I'm not scared!" he said. "I'll master any machinery I can get my hands on…"
Now in here, he saw that Selena was standing close to the machinery atop the desk, the blue sleeves of her work-shirt surprisingly free of rust. He wouldn't have minded standing close to her under most circumstances, but now he had work to do! "Pardon me, ma'am, but I've got machinery to figure out…" he said, gently pushing her aside.
Frowning, she complied: stepping aside. She could not understand why, but she felt a compelling need to… To what? Why was she so protective of this machinery? It seemed to be the very same kind of machinery that ruined her hometown. Perhaps it was part of its workings, to generate sympathy to those who had lived underneath its power. As Smith took a basic toolkit out of a large desk drawer, the lowest one, Selena put her hands behind her back, resisting the urge to stop him. Whatever he was going to do to the machinery was probably good, better if he was going to destroy them.
Before long, Smith had various devices of his own atop the desk: along with a small notebook already half-full of machine-related notes. He opened up the notebook, looked over the three pieces of machinery and jotted some things down and noted today's date. That done, he took up a battery-like device and applied two of the small electrified clamps to two wires of a small machine: one black wire and one white wire. This promptly filled the room with a thrumming noise. "Hmmph, that's interesting! Got it right on the first try. Guess their technology isn't that far off from ours, huh? Or maybe this is ours, and we just don't know it."
Selena shook her head once. "That is doubtful. They are not at all like you and I. The workings of their machinery is as foreign as Heaven is to Hell!" she declared. "Still, congratulations on striking upon the right combination, finding the correct alignment of the machine-part."
"Hey, wait a second… Was that a compliment? Thanks…!" said Smith as the buzzing sound reduced in intensity. The sound didn't go away; it was just reduced. Keeping his hands clear of the loose wiring, he rotated this machine-part to set it with the small front facing him: the side with the three black buttons and a thick plastic-looking knob. "This thing's labeled! Can't read the lettering… It sure as Hell doesn't say, 'Made in China.' Looks Greek or something…"
Selena bent over to look more closely. "It's not at all that kind of language. It says, 'Reverse Truncator, Red Shift Manipulation." Karl looked at her, and she stood up straight. "It's written the Old Way. Did not everyone in your childhood have to learn of it?"
"What do you mean, 'Old Way?' Like Hebrew or somethin'? The only other way we learned to write and read was in script!" said Smith aloud. He eyed the three black buttons and the knob, knobs on a device with these strangely written words. "Heh, wonder what would happen if I…" He took hold of the knob and turned it one click to the right. This made the buzzing noise in this room heighten in intensity, filling his ears and head with the sound of vibration. It didn't feel bad. Didn't feel good either, but it was just a little disturbing. He began to note this down in his small notebook.
As he had done so, Selena had slowly sat down at the janitorial desk next to this one. He took a look at her to see if anything was wrong. Something seems to have been since he had turned the knob. A red flush of color had spread up her neck and across her cheeks. Her skin was so pale and lacking in color that it must have been too easy for her to blush. She sighed, stared at the machine-part then cleared her throat. "Ahem… Do not adjust that part of the device any farther to the right. It is…disturbing."
"Hey, why not?" asked Smith, a goofy grin on his face. He had seen that sort of flush on a woman's face before. "This can't be bothering your or anything, right? What if I…?" He saw an angry frown come to her blushing face as her right arm come up halfway, as if she was getting ready to slaphim. "Okay, okay! I won't. Geez… The knob is making me feel a little sick, too. So I'll just turn it the other way…" He tightened his grip on the rusty device and turned the knob back one click to the left.
Selena felt the warm flush leaving her body. Now she felt…dirty. Whatever negative effect that machine had on the other two men, it had an extremely positive effect on her: obscenely so. When Smith asked for a reason why not to turn the knob any farther to the right, the word pervert came to mind. Smith was not at all a gentleman mindful of the ladies. Perhaps, at a later time, she would have to find a way at retribution for his attitude. In time, she would. In time…
"I'm am now turning the knob to the left," he announced. "Just so you know, Selena. I must've offended you some when I turned it the other way without telling ahead of time, so now I'm going to turn it the other way just so you know ahead of time." He did so, the knob moving with a heavy click. Cl-cl-click-click-cl-click…! He yanked his hands away in surprise as a painful noise filled the room.
This made for an intense racket of hissing radio static and rapid fire clicking sounds coming from one of the tools Smith had set atop his desk earlier. That would be the Geiger counter! The lights flick-flick…flickered and there was the sound of wind blowing through this industrial-style room. "Who-o-o-o…!" came the long, cold yell. Pounding and beating sounds came from the walls and the ceiling, trying their damned best to get in. From where, it was hard to tell. And the Geiger counter was ticking so rapidly, so loudly that it seemed almost angry enough to explode.
Smith and Karl were stock still with confusion. Annoyed, Selena made a grab for the machine and…clicked…the knob of the machine back to the center position. The clicking from the Geiger counter went away, going from the loud noise to a more gentle click-click-clicking sound…before finally fading away.
"Good move!" said Karl, coming back towards the desks. "That's probably third time you saved us today." He had moved back a few feet when the noise had begun. He eyed the Geiger counter and saw that the indicator needle on the device was now far away from the red again. "Smith adjusted that thing as so it only makes noise when radiation is above a certain threshold: way above normal for this area. Another few seconds of exposure at that level…"
"…And Karl and I would've had our hair fall out, our insides rot, and get more kinds of cancer than you could shake a radium stick at!" finished Smith. "Wow! Yeah, I said it before. I'll say it again. Girl, you pulled our bacon out the fire there!" He looked at the rusty metal machine-part and the other two machine-parts atop the desk. "They're dangerous, I really wanna keep my hands on these things… But they're wa-a-a-ay over my head. Whoever or whatever had these things before, they must've been pretty damned dangerous temselves."
" They want…" began Selena in a half-whisper. She was looking at the wall opposite these desks. She shakily pointed over there. The other two looked over there and saw the marks. Thick lumpy shapes now stood out from the wall in bas-relief: as if people on the inside of the wall were trying to push their way through.. The word people was used loosely as some of those pressing hand-shapes had three fingers apiece instead of the normal five. These were mixed in with the convex shapes of cloven hoof-marks. Had the machine-part been active for moments longer, radiation exposure would have been but one of their problems.