Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Urban Space Chapter 3

The four lads were sitting back watching TV. It was a fairly quiet night. They had eaten dinner, and proceeded to get stoned. After they had cleaned up the equipment, they had played games on the TV for some time. Then they had passed a joint around as they sat back to watch TV. They didn't pick a channel, but rather just turned it on and watched whatever showed. For some reason, there was an old documentary on about the Moving Rocks, the biggest rock band 15 years ago. As they watched it Chris noticed that the leader of the band was staring right at him. The leader suddenly stared directly at the camera.
"I am Darzzlegough leader of the Krecht" he said.
"And I am Sryjan, second in command", said the drummer. The camera turned to the bass player, who just stared and in a guttural voice growled, "I am your worst nightmare".
Chris stared petrified. The other guys were all watching the TV blankly, but none of them had seemed to notice what was going on. As far as they were concerned, the documentary was simply showing a music clip of one of the band's live performances.
The keyboardist was on screen now, and he said, "If you don't join us we'll get you".
Suddenly, a news photographer was at the front of the band taking photos. His flash was mesmerising, and Chris just stared. His body was in stasis, but his mind was overloading. Suddenly, the photographer turned around, and pointed his camera right at Chris. There seemed an eternity before he pushed the button, and the flash exploded in Chris's face, and the nightmare began.

The huge reptilian figure was covered in scaly plates of hard bone. There were a number of squat double-jointed legs around the semicircular base of the body. The body was actually oval in shape. It rose to a peak in the middle where four eyes bulged under a hard crest of bone. It looked more like a short centipede then anything else, but Chris was not noticing things like that. He was screaming harder than he had ever screamed before, long gut wrenching screams as he saw the four eyes just staring at him. In his peripheral vision, he noticed that he was lying on a cold wet sandy beach that stretched as far as he could see either side of him in both directions. The sea was sucking hungrily 20 feet behind him, and there were only low featureless dunes covered in a scraggly sea grass on the inland side - except for the creature. The sky was grey and featureless, he couldn't tell if it was day or night or if there were clouds or any thing. He couldn't move any part of his body except his face. He suddenly realised that he couldn't hear his own screaming anymore, and then it occurred to him that no one else could either. The creature's eyes all blinked suddenly. It was as if a piece of the hooded bone had shut; then as suddenly as it had gone down, the eyes were staring at him again. Although it didn't move, Chris knew there was absolutely no way he could get away.
"Join us" boomed a voice. The creature hadn't opened any orifice, and Chris couldn't see any remotely resembling a mouth. It still hadn't moved, and then he knew that its voice was in his head. "Oh yes you are smart, but not for long". Suddenly, an arm like tentacle uncoiled out from the body of the creature. The end was rounded and about the size of a pool ball. "Come on, we won’t hurt you". The voice was seductively soft and sweet now, but Chris seemed immobile, unable to control even what his brain did. He screamed again, and realised that he wasn't even controlling that.
"You’re not hurting our pretty one are you?" came a new voice. Chris's eyes swivelled from side to side, but couldn't locate the speaker. Suddenly a shadow loomed over him from behind. Looking back, he gagged, and then vomited violently as he caught a whiff of the stench of the new creature.
Roughly man shaped, although twice as tall as an ordinary man, this creature was menacing. His eyes were focused on Chris, and there was only hate in them. Suddenly Chris noticed the drumsticks in the creature's hand, then realised that the clothing it was wearing, although ten sizes too small and ripped from stretching onto him was the same as the drummer from the Moving Rocks.
"Oh yes my pretty" it whined again, its honeyed tongue laced with menace. "Remember me? My name is Sryjan". It reached out with its mind and Chris knew a moment of agonizing terror, as the creatures mind probe struck him. He caught glimpses of boiling mud, vast armies of similar creatures, fiery explosions, and agonising screams and through it all in the background, a maniacal laughter that grated every nerve in his body. Chris had no screaming left. He tried but there was nothing. The tentacle from the first creature started to caress his body. It oozed a substance that seemed to be acidic. As it touched his clothes, they dissolved in a small cloud of steam. The tall creature moved closer and bent his face over Chris's, and this time its voice was all menace. "You have one choice, come willingly or we will make you". Chris wanted to come willingly, he would have done anything, ANYTHING the creature asked, only to get away, but he seemed to have no control over his body, and with absolute terror, he felt his body hawk a lump of spittle up and his eyes saw it flung into the creature's face. It never moved a muscle, but simply let the spit slide over its cheek muscles, and then it exhaled in a short sharp breath. Once again Chris smelt the fetid breath, and almost fainted as it passed over him. But his fainting would have been short-lived if he had fainted. Almost without moving the creature suddenly beckoned to the oval shaped one with the tentacle. The tentacle lifted up and the end morphed. From being a hard round ball, it suddenly turned into a pair of tongs, with crystalline knife-edges. They quivered poised above Chris's abdomen, then with a single motion sliced into his skin, grabbed his right kidney, and wrenched it out. Once again it hovered motionlessly, the kidney glistening and viscera dripping onto Chris's chest. There were no holes and no visible scar. Chris's back arched in agony, and he uncontrollably thrashed on the ground. He wept and screamed, but his throat was so hoarse no sound came out, and then he retched. Vomit spewed up from his mouth and landed back on his face and streamed to the ground. The tall creature laughed unpleasantly. It reached for the kidney and plucked it from the tongs, which morphed back into the hard round ball again. Standing upright, the tall creature howled with maniacal laughter again and throwing his head back thrust Chris's kidney into his mouth and started chewing. His every bite seemed to be agony for Chris; it seemed as if he was still connected to the kidney now rapidly becoming mince. "You are", said the ovoid creature, and fresh terror swept through Chris as he suddenly realised what these two creatures planned to do.
Mercifully he fainted and the creatures and the pain faded away. With a sharp jerk he awoke in terror throwing the sheets off the bed as he realised it was all a dream.


Posted by: Jethro | 1:38 AM |