Hollow Chpt 3.
by: J.A. Carlton
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Oh God not again please… let me get clear… please…Jeremy Stebbe groaned inside his head. He could've sworn sometimes the groaning actually escaped him but that usually meant that he felt something. He wasn't so sure this time but at least he was aware enough to know they were coming for him. I can't remember the last time I felt anything… the needle stick, the restraints, anything besides the sparkly numbness…wow I'm oddly coherent today…great… say goodbye to a moment of clarity…he warned as his orderly and nurse came in. The orderly stood guard while she administered the shot, but it had been a long time since he'd last fought the meds. It had been a long time since he'd fought anything including the gray-black smoky apparitions that now came to him as well. They didn't used to come to him, just hung around everyone else and tormented him by sucking them dry bit by bit knowing there was nothing he could do to stop them.
Now he had one of his very own. True it wasn't his exclusively, but it was coming more often now and staying longer before it abandoned him for a taste of someone different in this self contained smorgasbord.
Ooh look at that… he noticed a glint of light off the fine gauge needle coming for his arm, wasn't there someone once… someone I used to know? he wondered watching that fine steel sink into his skin a nifty little trick of physics. A fleeting thought of the serum sliding between electrons and atoms and somehow managing to bypass his bloodstream flashed him as it ran through his mind and dodged out the stage door back into the darkness it came from. For Jeremy Stebbe though, he'd just created a moment of his own reality and in just a couple more hours he'd begin to remember things he wasn't responsible for forgetting.
Bye now… don't come back any time soon…he thought watching his keepers leave and chuckled inside his head, though once again, the sound neglected to escape him. For that much, he'd eventually be glad.
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Another shadow flickered to her lower right and yet again, her eyes chased it, and yet again she huffed a chuckle to herself but quickly returned to her files and the book at hand.
Alex had spent the majority of the weekend moving between researching extra-dimensional creatures, creatures of mythology; and cryptozoology, and trying to figure out exactly how to phrase her latest ads and posts. She'd set up four more user names for her e-mail account and posted various ads on twelve different boards. She'd be busy for the next few weeks that much was certain, once the e-mails started coming in. She'd also penned a couple different ads for the local papers with a P.O. Box she'd kept since the last time she'd done this. All that was left was to wait for the ads to drop and the letters to start coming in.
So, knowing the hardest part of her plan was already behind her, she spent a great deal of time cross referencing her database and creating profiles on many of the creatures and beings she'd either seen for herself or that seemed more plausible inasmuch as any of the creatures she saw were plausible at all.
Some day maybe this'll mean something… somewhere.
The shadow flitted through her field of vision once more, this time though she didn't look at it and it stopped and stood still at the periphery of her vision. Alex took a breath and felt her heart take off a bit harder. Well this isn't a good sign…she thought focusing her eyes straight ahead though her attention was on the Wee one. He knew it too and moved slowly toward the center of her field of vision.
"Yeah I see you…" she whispered.
He/it took another step and her concentration was hard pressed to remain on the screen before her rather than to look directly at it.
"What?" she asked softly, hesitantly.
He took another step. He was about two feet tall, lean and muscular and just a little knobby around the joints, and he was covered with curly coarse hair over porcelain cream skin. She could see his face was both flat and somehow angular, almost as if it were two dimensional, not even his wooly beard and long dark hair could disguise the odd mix of squashed point-y-ness. There was what appeared to be a loin cloth slung across his hips and she wasn't sure but she thought he might even be showing signs of arousal, Great he's probably a boob guy… and I'm betting the females of his species don't grow 'em quite like we do…He grinned, his lips stretching tight over sharp conical teeth that reminded her of a dolphin or porpoise, she couldn't remember which. Movement caught her eye and she cocked an eyebrow, pressed her lips together and sighed, Yep, that's a little hard on under there…well… lucky me…and before she could stop herself, her head turned and her eyes grasped his with almost physical force as she asked once more, "What?"
And he was gone, dashed out of her sight with the same speed they always had. She hadn't even seen a limb move but she caught the image trail. Copping trails… man freakin' cid got nuthin' on this crap… wonder what he wanted…wonder what kind of kettle of fish I just opened up… ahh to hell with it… I don't care anymore… they know I see 'em they won't leave me alone… to hell with it… she got up and made her way into the kitchen where she pulled a juicy red apple from the fridge and sliced it up then put it on a paper plate and left half of it on the table while taking the other half to the computer with her. It would be gone by the time she decided to go to bed. I'm so damned sick and tired of hiding, and running away, and pretending I don't see these things… I wonder what would happen if I just…I'd wind up with a new permanent address…and this time I think they'd really up the voltage…I'm sure they've come out with some nifty new drugs too that would probably leave me defenseless…Yeah, thanks but no thanks… this isn't like when I was a kid… a little shock therapy, some lithium and you're cured… you're all better… just pretend it works 'cause if you have to stay there much longer you really WILL go nuts… Ssssshhhhhhhhh… that other part of her mind soothed and wrapped its arm around the shoulders of her past, guiding it back to its little padded room where she kept it happily locked up like they thought they might have to do to her if she didn't stop talking about the demons. Fortunately she'd gotten the hint and stopped before any permanent damage had been done.
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By the time she was rubbing the grit out of her eyes and shuffling the path to her bedroom for the night Alex had come to a conclusion of sorts. She would take her vacation time, there were places she'd heard of, places she'd come across in her research that seemed to scream out 'paranormal shit happening here!', and she had to know if she was crazy or not. She also thought she might try and find Jeremy, then decided against it, convincing herself he'd played her and finding out for a fact were two different things.
Yeah… and if the wee people are asking me to notice them… well that can't be a good sign… it just can't but it's got to be a sign of something… so… I know what happens when I try to avoid or ignore them… let's see what happens when I go charge into their world… let's see how they like it… she smiled at her bit of exhausted bravado as sleep crept between the sheets with her, wrapping itself into her body and mind with the comfort of a long lost lover who'd just found his way home.
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Dreams were a varied and tempestuous landscape for Alex, with the exception of the killing nightmare that almost never wavered, all others were very rarely the same in meaning, effect, or quality. It was a land she believed mirrored her life experiences, a place where literally anything was possible, whether she wanted it to be or not.
She felt herself walking down a short set of cement stairs, the walls around her were painted yellow and adobe in style, they were arched and rounded, very soothing and the décor of the wine cellar she'd just entered was unmistakably South Western with strong bold colors it seemed only non-whites could make work together.
Black lacquered wooden racks lay constructed into the yellow adobe walls, their notches filled with bottles of various colors, shapes and sizes. This was one well stocked wine cellar. She felt a smile pull at the corners of her mouth as she veered to the shelves on her left at the far side of the room. Deep yellow light filtered through the stained glass and she wondered briefly if there should be sunlight coming all the way down here at all. Shrugging her question off she moved forward, a patch of gray coming into view on her left as she noticed a small opening with a small staircase in front of it. It looks like a kiva, but why the stairs? she wondered dropping the hand that was hovering over a 12 year old Merlot and turning instead, toward the odd little door.
The nearer she drew to it the more she could see that the wood was ornately decorated with symbols, swirls, colors and images that refused to be recognized in the whole of her consciousness. She knelt on the third step and pressed her hand to the door. It swung easily inward almost as if it were some living thing that expected and had lain waiting for her.
Leaning her head to the side she peered beyond the door into a rounded gray hallway of sorts and though she couldn't believe it, her legs pushed her up the remaining stairs as she entered the tunnel on all fours. She thought it would go on for some tremendous other-worldly distance but in a matter of a dozen yards she found her hands reaching for a bar embedded into the top of the tunnel.
The world she pulled herself into was lit with blue and left a flat styrofoam taste in her mouth. She came out onto the street from what appeared to be a runoff drain and as she took in the litter and debris somehow fluttering even in the stillness of this new landscape it didn't strike her right off the bat what she was seeing. Instead her focus was on the absolute abandonment before and surrounding her.
No… I don't like this… this isn't good…I need to go back… she told herself and turned toward the drain she'd crawled out of but found it sealed. It wasn't as if she'd really expected to be able to return to the world she'd come from but she'd hoped. Natch… okay… wow it's cold she thought feeling as if the heat were being drawn from her. She looked down and groaned finding herself naked, great! cause this couldn't have gotten much freakier! she felt her head shake and started moving away from the drain, her feet cold against moist feeling tarmac.
A shock of color seemed to burst into existence on her right catching her attention as if it were motion. She was drawn to it with nearly moth-like single mindedness and as she approached it, her eyes examined the litter around her, paper, leaves, everything was colored blue, the shadows and shapes all the same shade, the delineation that betrayed form a gift of shadow alone, and she began to realize what else she was seeing. Oh God! she groaned inside and pressed her hand to her mouth. An arm lay over there, a severed hand a little further away… a chunk of flesh smeared along the ground just ahead, human tissue waving like paper in the non-existent breeze… every piece of litter that wasn't litter or leaf was a part of a person. Something's wrong here…Oh really? Cause what it's so natural to see body parts polluting the landscape? There are no torsos, no heads, just limbs and chunks…she noticed as another shock of color appeared a little further ahead, toward one of the large towering buildings that seemed no more substantial than some cardboard model could be.
The shadows that delineated shape, at first a darker blue with deep gray edges became swatches of red, far too red, far too fresh to be real. Whatever happened here happened recently… but where are the heads and torsos? Why are there only these parts here? and her belly trembled as she moved onward, following the patches and streaks of red as they appeared, guiding her toward what end she could not begin to fathom.
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tbc…
not much further now
but still some distance.
Hope you're liking.
Please R&R.
sifi