Defiled Earth and other tales Page 15
Merrick viewed the wall in front of him. Its swirling globular colours appeared to be sucked anti-clockwise into a writhing vortex. At the centre was an intense, creamy light. He looked down to the uneven, dusty floor and saw a large ringed pentagram etched into the surface.
“Protection?” he asked.
“Protection and containment,” said Jason.
“A test for you, Merrick,” put in Karapetian. We don’t have the capability yet to open the portal. Indeed, we dare not. But we’re interested to see if your mind can perceive what is beyond.”
Merrick’s scepticism had dissolved. This was either extreme foolhardiness or final acquiescence to the inevitable. But his will was an adamantium fist.
Jason looked at Karapetian with crystalline, graphite eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this, Lazlo?”
Merrick interrupted before Karapeyian could reply to his lieutenant. “What are the risks?”
“Minimal, said Karapetian. “Whatever lies beyond is unlikely to interact with your mind—if indeed there is anything waiting there.”
“You, however, can observe,” said Jason.
Merrick saw a blue halo of truth around Jason and nodded. He didn’t need to ask how he would encourage this penetration of the unseen realm. He looked at the whirlpool of colour and projected his mind into it.
It was easy.
At the centre, he experienced an initial resistance to his incorporeal self, as if a thin membrane of PVC was moulding itself to his features, but then it burst into a spray of a billion pixels.
He appeared on the side of a skyscraper. The wind blew through his hair as he looked down, gravity-defying on ant-like denizens a mile below. Blind panic gripped him until he realised he wasn’t falling. Looking up, he saw what seemed to be the sky, but appeared as waves of oily liquid, breaking on each other from random directions.
He put one foot in front of the other and found his motion propelled him downward at incredible speed, as if he were gliding.
In moments he was stood on the pavement, bewildered. Around him moved humanoids—of sorts. They appeared not to see him, yet when his presence was clearly an obstacle to them they walked round him, oblivious. Looking at them closely, their facial features were subtly different from those of his world. The noses were longer and they had downy, lanugo-like hair covering their skin.
They weren’t the only type traversing the smooth, marble-like pavements. Other figures, interspersed like white corpuscles amidst the crowds, walked bipedally or quadripedally. Strangeness assaulted him, yet the diverse population of this parallel world obviously accepted each other’s presence with indifference.
He reached out his hand in an attempt to touch one of them, but they were translucent and incorporeal. His fingers passed through one humanoid’s arm. It flinched in irritation, but walked on.
Turning round, he traversed the street toward a gigantic, metallic archway. The gliding sensation continued as he accelerated towards the feature, yet he found it hard to judge his movements. He needn’t have worried. The flow of inhabitants parted like a stream to his prow, wherever he chose to move.
He was delighting in the freedom of this heady progress when a sound brought him up short. A distant drumming, like native toms ululated from the direction of a side-street as the people around him let out sounds of trepidation and dismay. The rhythm vibrated through the ground as the source approached rapidly.
The crowds parted revealing three immense ape-like creatures, each fully twelve feet tall. One denizen took an instant too long to find shelter and a creature grabbed it. The thing bit off the denizen’s head like the top off a beer bottle, arterial blood spraying in an arc. Tossing the corpse aside, the beast looked around as if searching for something, until another turned its head in his direction. It lifted its muscly, red-haired arm and pointed directly at him.
There was no doubt that he was the centre of their attention because the remaining two focused on him and opened their mouths with an ear-splitting screech. The crowds ran in panic, or crouched behind statues or stone shelters in an attempt to hide themselves from view.
This is not good, Merrick said to himself and looked up. He took to the wall of the nearest building, his feet fixing themselves like velcro to the vertical surface. His fear subsided a couple of degrees as he slid at great speed up the building. But as he looked behind he saw them climbing after him, sinking their fingers into the edifice as if it were cake icing. Their progress was frighteningly swift.
He tried leaping diagonally in an attempt to increase his pace and found, with a frisson of relief that he was pulling away from them. His wall-scampering eventually brought him to the building on which he had entered this nether-world. How far up was the gateway? He scanned ahead for a point of reference but saw nothing. Behind him, one beast ascended quicker than the rest, its open maw dripping sludge-like spittle.
It’s intentions aren’t friendly, he thought, and began moving upward again. Thankfully, he saw a mirage-like ripple ahead against the rolling oily backdrop of the sky. It was then that he felt the breath of the beast behind and his heart started thumping in his ears.
How had it closed the gap so fast?
He glanced behind into the face of horror. Concentrating his will on the portal, he was surprised to see a mirror image of himself appear from the centre of the ripples. He didn’t dare look behind again and dived forward, merging with his doppelgänger as he did so. Up ahead he could see Karapetian and Jason crouched down, their arms held up as if warding off something—and then he was through.
He stumbled to the floor and rolled on to his side. He looked up and saw a wall of red fur pass across his vision and thunder up the steps beyond.
A pair of hands grabbed hold of his lapels and pulled him up roughly. It was Jason.
“What in hell’s name have you done?”
~ ~ ~
About Tom Adams
Tom Adams is a horror and dark fiction author hailing from the north of England. He is still a full time science teacher and has written non-fiction works published by Harper-Collins. These took the form of Biology revision guides and workbooks.
Tom has been writing stories since the age of eight, when he would produce comic books inspired by Marvel and 2,000 AD. At the age of twenty five he wrote an epic fantasy novel called ‘Aukben’s legacy.’ This was very much a craft learning exercise and remains unpublished.
Since then he has written numerous short stories, but only recently started submitting for publication.
His literary inspirations are as varied as Tolkein, Stephen King, Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, and, more recently, Craig Clevenger.
His first self-published book is due out at the end of September 2015 and is a collection of short stories/novelettes entitled ‘Defiled Earth and other tales.’
He is also working on a full length novel entitled ‘The Psychonaut’.
The other string to his bow is writing and recording ‘melt-your-face’ rock epics. You can always try checking out his band ‘Hot Flow Anomaly’ at:
http://www.hotflowanomaly.fourfour.com/ if you want to travel down that deep, dark trench. He often allows these spheres of interest to cross-pollinate each other. Indeed, his blog, ‘Writing in Starlight’ celebrates the fusion of literature and music.
The blog can be found at http://tomghadams.uk/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tomghadams
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Moteridgerider
Finally, Tom has many interests which feed into his muse – hard rock and alternative music, philosophy, politics and spirituality. He is a spiritual atheist – if you can figure that one out!
When he’s not composing, writing or reading, he enjoys the open air – walking, road biking and mountain biking. All in the Middle-Land kingdom of Cumbria, England.
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