The Perdition Tales

Clock-Arm Burns

The four men are gathering in the parlor. Their talk is short, their voices quiet, so quiet I can barely make out what they’re saying, although the sadness in one of them is so strong I can feel it emanating from him like an aura. My vision of them isn’t particularly clear, of course, but how could it be when you’re looking through a hole in a wall the size of a tennis ball? When the men first arrived at this house, I’d been waiting for them up in the attic, but I shuffled along through the walls to this point much closer, where I could keep a closer eye on them. There were vermin, of course – huge hordes of them, both terrestrial and otherworldly – but they dared not touch nor even go near me. Even at their basic intelligence, they knew better. My kind is not to be touched.

I pull out my pocketwatch and feel the gold chain wrapped around my clenched fist for a moment, savoring its cold touch, its perfect craftsmanship, its nigh-indestructibility. Most of my kind have moved on to digital wristwatches, and some are even toying with other, more bizarre creations for tracking the course of events, but I prefer the pocketwatch, with its simple elegance. It is much more on the inside, mind you, but if anyone were to see me, they would see only something “retro.” Silently, I clip the top and the cover flips open. I steal a quick glance from the watch to the four men, then back to the watch again. Plenty of time left. It seems in my anticipation I got here much earlier than anticipated. About a day too early for the first, and my job won’t be done until a few days later than that.

So what am I to do with this spare time on my hands? Back before I joined my kind, back when I was limited and yet unconventionally free, I was a fan of storytelling. Oh, the yarns I could spin, and the words I could utilize…I can’t guarantee those skills still reside in my bones – despite my bones being only apparent – but I have nothing to do, so why don’t you just sit down and I’ll tell you one of my favorite tragedies. Whoops, did I just ruin the ending? Too bad, I’ll continue anyway.

Zach’s town had devolved into chaos. King’s End, the little settlement which had evolved over the centuries, was finally breaking down. It had, in those intervening times between the laying of its foundation and the closing of its casket, stretched itself into the dark woods which surrounded it. Trees were removed to make way for streets and houses and buildings of all manner, but though the heavily shadowed forest had been steadily ebbed away, the darkness which it had contained had remained. Strange things moved in that town, and now an old darkness which the townsmen of generations past had overcome had resurfaced, and with a deadly ferocity. The young man refused to acknowledge the illness by the term Hollywood had overused – zombie – but it seemed frustratingly the most applicable term. Those of King’s End were going mad, dying, and then returning to life (if life is what you could call it) with the sole intent of consuming the living.

The boy with the dirty blond hair knew that the roads would be congested, almost shut down in gridlock by everyone trying to flee, so that exit point was out of the question. He also couldn’t go through the woods for fear of whatever carnivores may be residing there, and even if those rumors were rumors only, it would still be days of hiking through the forest before reaching the nearest town. Such a trek would require far more preparation than Zach had the time to carry out.

So that left the swamp. The muck. The home of alligators – if those rumors were not rumors only. Swimming would, of course, mean almost certain death through consumption or disease, but Zach had a hope in mind: he knew of a place where a few local scumbuckets kept a pair of canoes. If he could make it out to their lone dock, then take off in one of their canoes before they made it there themselves, he might be able to venture out into the swamp and hopefully toward a nearby town.

Luck initially seemed to be on Zach’s side that evening, for his venture into the forest brought him face-to-face with no dangers, neither mad and carnivorous nor sane and carnivorous. Of course, he had heard some terrifying things: shrieks, cries, howls at the moon. It was like the forest itself had drifted into madness, but never did it try and reach out to snatch him away, even when it stared through glowing, silvery eyes which chilled him to the bone.

His luck ran out when he reached the dock: there were no canoes there. He’d heard that there were two – a metal one and a wood one – but both were conspicuously absent from the vacant dock. He’d passed an abandoned car not far from there, so he could only assume that the driver and passengers of it had beaten him to the canoes and taken off without him.

Zach stood there, dumbfounded on the dock, trying to troubleshoot his problem and find a plausible solution, for there had to be one. This was no unwinnable scenario. But as he stood on the dock, he heard the screams from the forest begin to come closer, and those silvery glowing orbs that hid in the shadows were starting to creep ever nearer. He looked up and saw the clouds beginning to drift away and let through the light of a full moon, and in the light he could see shambling forms encroaching upon the dock. He was about to run before he realized that they’d cut off his escape path; there was no way he could get off the dock without running into the shamblers head-on. And as he watched in horror, one rotting body, black skin shining against the pale white eyes that were locked on him, shuffled out onto the dark, its clawed hands stretched out before it, grasping after him. It came closer and closer, and Zach backed away, but as his heart pounded in his chest, he miscalculated his free space, tripped and tumbled backward into the dark, lukewarm waters of the swamp.

He looked up at those pale eyes, knowing that he could never climb back up the dock, and the multitude of other forms – some shambling like the one on the dock, others seeming to float in shadow beneath glowing, silver eyes – lined the shore as if waiting for him to march straight into their grasp. Alas, the only safety left was to swim out deeper into the swamp, and that was certainly far from safe.

But he did it anyway. He swam slowly, carefully, wading where he could, always trying to mind his surroundings. About two-thirds of a mile in, by his estimation, he moved over to a nearby tree and climbed up on its roots, pulling his soaked and grimy feet from the thick waters. He needed a break, and he wanted to gauge his surroundings for potential danger of the reptile form. One of the tree branches – bare and sickly like the town itself – evaded his caution and drew a thin scratch against his cheek. Angrily, he snapped the branch off and tossed it into the swamp, then wiped the trickle of blood from his cheek onto the sleeve of his shirt.

He swam again for awhile, but took a break and more cautiously climbed onto another trees roots when he felt himself growing nauseated. His cheek was also burning and he was starting to get dizzy. It must have gotten infected, he told himself as he touched the dried blood on his cheek. It is a swamp, after all. I’ll need some antibiotics when I get to safety. As Zach thought on these concerns, his eyes were drawn to some moving logs nearby, their rough bark drifting lazily through the waters, illumined by whatever pitiful light could penetrate the thick canopy above his head. They’re just logs, he told himself, and then even dared to speak the words aloud, though the sound of his own voice in the now eerily silent swamp only served to unnerve him all the more.

He’d heard the rumors of alligators in the swamp, alligators of enormous proportions, mind you. But like all the other rumors, he doubted they could actually prove true. Alligators had never been seen this far north, and even if some alligators were displaced here, in this muckhole, the swamp would never have provided enough of a diet for them to survive on, let alone thrive to megalithic proportions. It was impossible.

But, then again, he had also dismissed the notion of banshees in the forest who floated with glowing eyes. And he’d also dismissed the idea of some sort of zombie virus that had plagued the town centuries beforehand. No, no, no, he told himself. Impossible. There’s no evidence to support it.

As if in response to his exact line of thought, one of the logs drifted right up toward Zach, and he could see in the dark the smooth contours closest to him, and he observed how the log tapered off in the opposite direction as a tail would have done. Reacting only on gut instinct, Zach shifted his weight to his right side and flipped into the water just as the log shot out of the water, and before he sank into the waters, he heard the snapping of massive, powerful jaws as they clamped down in the exact spot where he’d been crouching.

He’d evaded one of the creatures in this swamp, and he was momentarily grateful for it. That gratitude was short-lived, though, as a great, dark form shot toward him just beneath the surface of the water. Another jaw snapped onto his torso, his body erupting in pain as he screamed and tasted copper, as if the water around him was filled with it. And then something very odd began to happen. The jaws that held him seemed to melt away into the swamp, vanishing completely, only to be replaced with an even odder netting of thick rope. He couldn’t move, his own weight pulling him down as the net around him started to pull him upward. After only a few seconds, he broke the surface, inhaling the air with a gratitude even greater than the instinct which had saved him from the first alligator. He felt himself dragged – still inside the webbed net – over the gunwale of a boat and dropped harshly onto the wooden floor of a boat whose vibrations told him that they were moving at great speed. All of this left him with far more questions. A few of these were answered when the net was cut away and Zach saw-

It’s a bright morning now, and the four men are outside, walking slowly through the mansion’s cemetery. I’m watching through one of the upstairs windows, knowing that they won’t think to look up and see me, and even if they did, the glare from the east-morning sun will obscure their vision. Oh, my story? We’ll get back to that momentarily, so don’t worry yourself.

The men are rambling through the cemetery, moving slowly, purposelessly. One of them stops at a large crypt in the center, a charcoal black miniature of a mausoleum. He calls for the others and together they puzzle over something etched onto the opening. Oh, how I wish they would heed the warning and not open that crypt, for I know what waits inside. But even as one of the men grasps the handle and shatters the beam which bars the door – there is no lock upon it – I can see a shadow cast from within, and in that darkness, something flits out into the morning sun. None of them can see it, of course, but I can. I’ve seen it before; or, rather, felts its cruel curse. It senses the four men, seems to take them in, not only their sights and sounds but their very fateful souls, and then vanishes into the depths and shadows of the cemetery.

If only they had left that crypt shut, if only that thing within it had remained in its prison, then their lives would still be their own, and their town would not soon fall to its terrible fate. But…if they hadn’t taken this first step then I wouldn’t be here for them, now would I? And Zach would not have run so callously into the swamp to face his strange fate. Speaking of which, I may as well get back to my story. My pocketwatch tells me we still have plenty of time.

Zach was laying in the bottom of a ship. It looked old and worn-black, with some wooden planks that looked to have either grown over with mold or rotted away completely. And yet, it was still staying afloat, like some unsinkable, festering whaling vessel. The men onboard are a scrappy-looking bunch, their clothes old and raggedy, torn in some places, the stink of the unwashed emanating from all of them. Of course, they had just pulled Zach out of a swamp, so he wouldn’t be one to complain about a particularly heinous odor. One man had on a tan fisherman’s hat complete with lures around the fan, and another had a notably elongated handlebar moustache. Others simply turned their backs and resumed their various labors, as if a single glance at the young man they’d hauled aboard in their nets was all they needed to satisfy their bizarrely-muted curiosity. The net was pulled away by a tubby man in a T-shirt that seemed too small for his mid-section, but the most he would say to Zach was “move off!” while he worked to pack away the net. The startled young man tried asking the men what was going on, how they could get such a large ship to move through a swamp totally crowded with trees, but they all turned their backs to him as if uninterested.

Zach scrambled to his feet and tried again, but the more he tried, the more he realized that the men weren’t displaying a simply disinterest; they were being downright evasive. Aggravated and disoriented, he froze when he stepped up to the splintered, old gunwale and saw what lay beyond the ship: it was no longer a swamp, but some black and terrible sea. The dark waters that lapped below their feet were lit only faintly by the cold, unblinking stars overhead, with neither moon nor sun anywhere to be found. But neither were there trees, or outgrowths, or riverbanks, or anything but those endlessly cold waves that rolled pitch like charcoal.

“Where are we?” Zach asked aloud, but the only response he got was from the man with the handlebar moustache who yanked him roughly back from the edge.

“You’re our link,” he said. “Now don’t you go falling overboard, eh?”

“What does that mean?” Zach begged, growing exasperated. “Two minutes ago I was being attacked by an alligator, and now suddenly I’m in a ship out in the ocean? What the hell’s going on?”

“Hell’s got nothing to do with it,” the man with the fisherman’s hat said.

“Who knows? It might,” cackled the man with the handlebar moustache.

Frustrated and wanting to throttle the men, Zach took a deep breath and noticed a light coming from behind a doorway nearby. He opened it and found it leading belowdeck, down some steps and into the galley and the belly of the ship. Concluding that he’d get no straight answers from the sailors on deck, he dared to venture down below, and so he followed after that dim light.

The furthest room he found was, indeed, the crew’s mess hall, which he was fairly sure was called a “galley.” This was empty except for a few lanterns which were lit, and a light from around a bend that he assumed led to the kitchen and scullery. Seeing nothing of interest there, he backed up and began opening up some of the doors along the hallway. Some were full of random storage, and two held hammocks and personal effects, but the sixth room he glanced into piqued his interest: it was a room seemingly empty except for a table that held a miniscule collection of arcane books. Each of them was faded and leather-bound, with golden lettering that was never all there. They were of varying sizes and thicknesses, but they each reminded him of a section of his hometown library. There were some select books that the King’s End Library held in stock to which, for reasons unknown to Zach, the enigmatic librarian never allowed anyone access. And, being the only librarian in the small town, she was allowed to withhold those books, much to the chagrin of a mind as keen and curious as Zach’s own. But he had seen those books from a distance, glanced at them from the end of a long hallway, and those very books came to mind when he saw these dusty old tomes riding as cargo aboard this queer ship. Unable to restrain himself, he reached out to touch one of them.

It felt warm in his hands, as if it had been handled by a thousand people immediately before him, and yet it didn’t feel as worn as such a book would. It felt strong, durable, nigh-indestructible, like he couldn’t tear a page from it even if he wanted to. And as he began to scroll through the pages, that sense of power began to emanate from the page. One image after another seemed to dance before his eyes, arcane imagery hovering in the air and drifting through his consciousness such that he wasn’t reading the book so much as he was experiencing it, the way one would experience a movie on the big screen.

“It makes sense you’d find those right off the bat,” a voice said from the doorway. Startled, Zach slammed the book shut and turned on his heel. There was a clean-shaven man standing in the doorway wearing a raincoat that looked highly reminiscent of detective noir garb. Zach wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the man had a magnifying glass and a revolver in his pockets. “The men up there, they won’t talk to you, will they?”

Zach shook his head, then cleared his throat. “What’s going on here?”

“Well, let’s see what you can decipher already.” The man nodded toward the books.

“You stole these from the library, didn’t you?” The man nodded. “And you’re…getting away by taking an old ship through the swamp? How’s that possible?”

The man smiled wryly and held out his hand. “Name’s Galloway, and before you think it, I don’t want to hear any jokes about Galloway in the galley. They’re not annoying, I’ve just heard them all. You must be the link.”

Zach cautiously reached out and took Galloway’s hand. “My name’s Zach. Why do people keep calling me that?”

“We’ll get to that,” Galloway said. “But first, you’re half-right: we did take these from the library. Not all of them, mind you, just the important ones. But we didn’t escape out to the swamp. You see, son, these books are magic, and we are using that magic to leave the world behind.”

“In a ship,” Zach said, unimpressed and unconvinced.

“In an enchanted ship. There’s all kinds of stuff in those books if you keep on reading.”

“You can’t leave the Earth in a ship.”

“Call it a spaceship if it suits you.”

“No offense, but you’re out of your mind,” Zach cracked.

The man simply smiled back and waved the younger man to follow him. Reluctantly, Zach laid down the book he’d been holding and followed Galloway through the hallway, up the stairs and out onto the darkness of the topdeck. “Look up and around. Do you see how the stars lie only behind the ship? Do you see how even the blackened waters are beginning to recede? We’re leaving the universe behind, Zach. We’re going out beyond the edge. Together, we’re going to find the source.” He turned to the younger man with a dark look in his eyes. “You’re going to help us find the source of everything that left us behind.”

Zach took a step back and took a deep breath. Yes, the stars all seemed to have receded to one half of the sky behind the ship. Yes, the waters looked like they were getting darker, lower and harder to see. But to be leaving the universe behind? That was impossible. “Even if you could somehow get an old ship like this into space – suppose you encapsulated it in an energy field or something – you could never get past the edge of the universe. The universe is expanding at the speed of light, and you’d have to exceed that to even get beyond the furthest point. And from Earth, it’d take almost fourteen billion years to get there. There’s no possible way you could get outside the universe, it’s just impossible!”

“If you traveled through normal space, of course that’d be impossible,” Galloway said slowly, delicately. “But those books describe ways of opening up other paths. We’re taking a shortcut, Zach.”

“You mean a wormhole?” Zach responded. “Like a real, functional Einstein-Rosen Bridge? Wait, wait…are you telling me all those symbols in those books are really equations for the construction of interstellar passageways?”

“Believe what you want, Zach.”

Zach stared at the receding darkness as his mind reeled. He had so many questions, so many avenues of thought to pursue, but there was one question in particular which continued to dog him. “Galloway, how did I end up aboard this ship? I mean, one minute I was in a swamp in King’s End and the next you’re pulling me up in a net.”

“Well that’s an answer you don’t want from me. You’ll have to consult the-”

The mansion is full of people now, or what once were people. My four guests can’t see them, of course, but I can. Nothing is invisible to me, being what I am. But one of the four men is beginning to see, to open his eyes – really open his eyes – and see everything around him. These shades, these ghosts of people who shouldn’t be here, he can feel them. He can hear them. And I think…yes, there he is. He can see them now. It’s this house, this mansion, it’s as if it’s reaching up into him and changing him, slowly. It’s doing that to all of them. Even if they did leave this place – if the one they freed from the crypt didn’t necessitate my preventing them from leaving – their vision would be far wider than they’d ever known before. But the clock is striking midnight on this one, and the ghosts are surrounding him now with their malevolent confusion. Please excuse me for a moment…

There are only three of them now. Three living souls occupying this place, unless you count the dog that one of them took in, but the mechanics of that factor are not my expertise. It is odd, though, that the ghosts here are moving so slowly. They’re almost perfectly still, as a matter of fact, as if time itself has slowed to a crawl. Well, there’s still plenty of time before the event is to happen, so perhaps a continuation of Zach’s story will help speed things along.

In the galley, Zach laid out one of the books beneath the light of a hanging lantern and flipped it open. He scanned the pages in search of the word that Galloway had recommended, but found himself lost in the strange symbols and odd languages that the book contained. If they were complex quantum equations that allowed one to access sub- or even hyperspace, then they were written in a form he had never even remotely encountered in his life, and he doubted his ability to decipher them. But Galloway had told him to search out one word: Veritaseron. Zach had little training in Latin, but he knew that the root word “veritas” meant “truth,” so that was at least a clue toward the answers he needed. Perhaps that word was the first part of a cypher that would help unlock the rest of the book. Or perhaps that was the chapter title of a translated portion that could explain what he was seeing.

He stopped about two-thirds of the way through the book. There was an odd symbol on a page, and inside it was the word he sought. The symbol itself looked like one of those impossible drawings by M.C. Escher, like a Mobius Strip twisted into the shape of a seven-pointed star with Celtic iconography around it. He flipped around a few pages, but it was all the same untranslated script and tangle of strange symbols, nothing relating to the single, elegant Veritaseron page. What the hell am I supposed to do with this? he thought in frustration.

He glanced over at the floor and noticed something which caught his eye: a piece of white chalk. It was wedged in the corner where the wall met the floor. An idea flashed into his head, and he remembered that in some ancient meditation cults, a symbol surrounding a single-word mantra was often used to help someone focus and organize their thoughts. In a rush, he moved over to the wall, grabbed the chalk and began scribbling a much larger version of the Mobius Star on the rough-hews wood of the galley. He worked at it for about ten minutes, and when he’d finished, he finished with the word Veritaseron written crudely in its center. “Okay, now I meditate,” he said out loud, inwardly adding the word pointlessly.

There was a rustling sound from nearby, and Zach’s head flicked to the left. Someone had doused the light from the kitchen, leaving it all in shadow, but even in those murky depths, he could see someone slowly moving around the corner, a strange, hulking-yet-lanky shape with oddly disjoined legs. But what struck him most were the burning, green eyes that glowed in the darkness. “I am here at your behest,” a voice as smooth as olive oil flowed out from the shadows.

“Who are you?” Zach asked. There was no reply for a moment and then his eyes turned back to the symbol he had just finished drawing on the wall. “Are you…are you Veritaseron?”

The thing in the dark let out a slow chuckle. “No, good friend, I am not the Veritaseron. I am merely a…colleague. My name is Janus. And you, I believe, are Zachary.”

“Zach. How did you know that?”

“The Veritaseron is the spirit of truth,” Janus responded. He’d stopped moving as he eyed the one lantern which had remained lit; he stayed just beyond its reach. “I am, in some ways, its mouthpiece. Actually, somewhat of a translator.”

“Were you in the kitchen this whole time, Janus?”

“No, I was…wandering to and fro upon the Earth.” Zach couldn’t see his face but he could sense a devious playfulness in Janus’ voice, and he could only imagine that the strange man was smiling. “But when you called for the Veritaseron, I found the passage here.”

“Called for…wait, you mean this, like, summoned you or something?”

“Or something.”

“And you used some more quantum tunneling to get here?”

“Your questions are tedious. Ask what you really want to know.”

“How did I get here? Where is here? And why do these people keep calling me ‘the link’?”

Janus huffed. “I am impressed. Usually people want to know more about me and my friend. Very well, skip the formalities.” Again, Zach could sense a smile upon this bizarre man’s face. “Before I answer these questions, Zach, you need to have a bit of context. How do you believe that the universe has come to be?”

“The Big Bang,” Zach answered without hesitation. “It’s been scientifically proven. Astronomers have seen the expansion rate of the universe and they’ve noted the Cosmic Microwave Background-”

“You are correct on the surface,” Janus responded. “But in what reality did that occur?”

“What do you…I don’t know, this one, I guess? I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“When the one you call God began to create the universe, he did so in the great vacuum which many beings call ‘The Void.’”

“The Big Bang Theory doesn’t require that there be a God-”

“I don’t care, Zach. Your objection is tangential, anyway. The focus of my story is not that which God created, but that which God did not create. I am speaking of those strange, nameless entities which were drifting around out in the Void before God created his first spark of light. They are mostly unknown to your kind, though other races have come to know and fear such things.”

“You’re talking about things…out in the Void…before the Big Bang?” Zach asked.

“Yes.”

“And these...Void-things…suppose I accept that they were real. What happened to them?”

“They mostly remained out beyond the universe, satisfied with themselves, if a bit annoyed at that sudden pinprick of light out in the distance. But legend has it there were two which chose to willingly enter into created reality, two Void-things which dared venturing into God’s terrain. One was called Death.”

“And the other?” Zach asked after a few moments of silence.

“A name secret even from me,” Janus sighed as he spoke.

“So what does this myth have anything to do with this ship, or with me?”

“Because you, Zach, have been adopted by one of the Void-things. You have become a son of Death.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I believe the modern colloquial would be to call you a reaper.”

“Wait, you’re…you’re saying that I’m a grim reaper?”

“You don’t seem so grim to me.”

“Those are just myths,” Zach objected. “The Grim Reaper is just a metaphor to help people grasp the concept of death. Death isn’t an actual being, it’s…it’s just life confronting entropy.”

“That’s a simple view of the world,” Janus responded. “But if you’re going to stick to a rigid empiricism, then accept this: I have seen it. I have seen many reapers, all adopted by Death, tapped to serve its purposes in this universe. The force of entropy made manifest, and you, my boy, have become a part of that grand equation. It began in the swamp, when you contracted an ancient virus which started to change you. Then, when you died only a short while later, you became a living death, tasked with the responsibility of collecting souls as their bodies broke down. You are a reaper, Zach, and the sooner you accept that the better off you’ll be.”

“This is nonsense. If I’m a reaper, and I’m supposed to be collecting souls for some dark god from outside the universe, then what am I doing on some Godforsaken ship traveling beyond the edge of the universe? What, is this ship taking me to that Void-thing or whatever?”

“No. This ship is on a mission of destruction. They seek out the Void-things, for reasons known only to your insane humankind. But on their way out of reality, they performed a spell.”

“And?”

“It was a spell to catch a reaper. You see, Death – the grand-master-Death – resides within the universe. But they intended to travel outside the universe. They needed a link, a lifeline to pull themselves back if things go…well, as they’re going to. A baby reaper is still connected to its father. So your umbilical is their anchor line. That’s why they call you ‘the link.’”

Zach stumbled sideways and collapsed into a chair. “I think I need a drink,” he said as he buried his head in his hands.

Janus sighed from his shadowy kitchen. “Everyone thinks they’re ready for the truth when they call upon the Veritaseron, but no one ever understands the consequences. The first time they summoned us here, they were doomed. That is the cost of the truth he contains.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“The Veritaseron,” Janus repeated, as if Zach had gotten lost that early. “I told you it’s a spirit of truth. It’s not a malevolent being, bent on human destruction, and yet destruction always lies in its wake. It’s like being supernaturally radioactive. It has a corruptive influence on fate and destiny, so when the two of us come together, everyone usually comes to a cold and bitter end.”

“And what are you, exactly? The spirit of translation or something? This is freaking ridiculous.”

“Some would call me a demon. But I have no qualms with your kind, Zach. You’re not human, not anymore. What’s the matter? Are demons and reapers really so contrary to what you’re willing to believe?”

“Not…not entirely, I guess. It’s just that there’s no evidence of them.”

“Are you saying there’s no evil or death in the world?”

“Well, yeah, of course there are, but there are explainable causes for them.”

Janus laughed under his breath, but then stopped in mid-breath. “Well as much as I’d love to stand here and debate philosophy with toddler death, I’m afraid I have some advice you’re not going to like. You need to kill these sailors, Zach. For their own good, they need to die.”

“What? I can’t kill these people!” Zach almost yelled out.

“It’s easy for you. All you have to do is think it and then call out for them. Their names will form in your mind, their bodies will die and their souls will gather to you for guidance.”

“I’m not asking how to kill them, I’m saying I won’t do it.”

“Then you’ll hear them suff-”

Janus’ voice was drowned out by a cry from up on deck. Startled, curious and desperate to emancipate him from the creature in the kitchen, Zach turned and darted down the hallway and up the stairs to the topdeck. The sailors were all pressing themselves against the gunwales and looking overboard. The man with the handlebar moustache was standing beside the one in the fisherman’s hat, and Galloway was standing beside the fat man in the striped shirt on the other side. The fat man’s belly was pressing through the bars, but he and his companion stepped back as something small and black slithered over the rail and down to the deck. It was long and serpentine, but with a jumble of legs pointing in all directions. Without a hesitation, the man in the fisherman’s hat swung around and stomped on the pitchy thing, which only made a crunch, but otherwise let out no sound.

Behind them, however, Zach could see larger bodies floating by, strange and shimmering black, making the men look miniscule in comparison. The other men spun back around, and further out in the dark, they could see-

Only two of the men are left. I went ahead and claimed another one of them while I was telling you that story. I’d say I hope that’s not too disconcerting to you, but I honestly don’t care. I do, however, feel bad for one mistake I made: one of the two remaining men saw me. I was watching from the window at the top of the stairs, and one of them glanced up and saw me as I checked my pocketwatch. It was my mistake, my own stupid, careless mistake, but it was so quick that I think nothing will come of it. If anything, he’ll simply assume I’m one of the ghosts that haunt this dark home; in some ways of thinking, he wouldn’t be incorrect.

The two men are sitting alone in the parlor, a single candle lit on a nearby table. Beside the candle rests a sleek, blue handgun with the word ”Backlash” etched across its grip. One of the men is trembling, and his eyes are roving back and forth between his empty palms and the weapon on the table. I flick open my pocketwatch. The time is so close now, mere minutes away, but it’s not time yet.

Some of the sailors went bustling down into the galley, Galloway at their lead, his trenchcoat swishing behind him dramatically as he ran. The man with the handlebar moustache followed behind him, but the others stayed on deck, ignoring Zach, who was entranced by the enormous, amorphous forms that glided by in the dark. There were no more waters now, no more stars, just the faint light of lanterns on the ship’s deck reflecting off the oily black skin of hideous forms that floated like whales in the outer dark – what Janus the so-called demon referred to as the “Void.”

There was a sound like horses’ hooves clopping slowly across the deck, and Zach turned to see an unnaturally tall man with shaggy black hair all over his naked body come standing up beside him. The man – if a man he was – had hooves instead of feet, and horns sprouting from his head, looking with his olive-hued skin less like the quintessential devil and more like an overgrown satyr. Zach couldn’t initially tear his eyes from Janus’ glowing green ones, but the dark forms in the Void grew ever larger and ever closer, and soon he found his eyes flicking back and forth between the two. “The time is growing short,” Janus said in his same low, smooth voice. “You have to kill them, Zachary.”

“I won’t do it.”

“You’re a reaper,” Janus barked. “You’ll be claiming lives for millennia, if not eternity, and a merciful end is the best beginning, now do it!”

“I…I can’t,” Zach stammered. “I’m a scientist, not a murderer!”

Janus let out a sigh that floated in the air like a ball of hot air. “Then as a scientist, make sure you pay attention to what happens next. Good-bye, my friend.”

With that, Janus turned back to the galley and started walking down the corridor, which began to glow a strange, orange color. As he came near, he passed by one of the old tomes one of the men had dropped as they fled belowdeck. The movement was so subtle that Zach couldn’t be sure, but it almost seemed like Janus cringed at the book, as if he was both disgusted and afraid. Then he passed through the orange-glowing door and vanished from sight.

One of the men screamed from nearby. Zach spun around just in time for the scream to vanish over the lip of the boat, as if one of the men had leapt overboard. The fat man in the striped shirt was pressing his back against the mast, and not far beyond him, the man in the fisherman’s hat was huddled down on the inside of the gunwale, curled up in the fetal position. A glance beyond him told Zach why.

The shapes in the Void were beginning to move closer and closer, some of them even brushing against the side of the ship and causing it to shake violently, as if they’d all been hit by a whale. Swarms of smaller, black things began zooming toward the lights, knocking some lanterns to the deck, where their light was overcome by the small creatures. There was another jarring sound and then a squish, as if some gelatinous thing had smacked into the bow of the ship, and a few seconds later, dark tendrils began slithering up and over the gunwale, feeling blindly about. Zach stepped back in horror when some of these latched onto the man in the fisherman’s hat. They wrapped around his wrists and pulled him to his feet, then thicker tendrils wrapped around his throat and waist. Some of these opened up to reveal sharpened teeth that sank into his flesh, and the man began to scream, but before Zach had a chance to reach him, the man was pulled out into the dark and soon lost, though his screams could still be heard for a long while.

“Please, please, please, please,” the man with the striped shirt muttered to himself as an elongated form spun toward him like a drill, shooting from a direction Zach hadn’t noticed. This wrapped around the man’s arm and pulled him into the air above the ship, where other forms latched onto his other limbs, and soon a whole crowd of amorphous forms were fighting for him, all claws and teeth and tentacles. His shirt began to rip, and then worse things started falling from the sky in tune with the man’s screams. But even when so more fell that the man must surely have been dead, he continued to scream as he, too, was pulled out into the shadows beyond the ship.

Zach was about to duck down below deck when part of the ship suddenly exploded outward and he saw the man with the handlebar moustache being dragged away by some great, lumbering thing, claws sunk into his impossibly-screaming chest, blood pooling from his nose and mouth as the darkness overcame him.

The shapes swirled around and shot for the lights, yet even in the dark, Zach could see…could see that none of the things were going after him. They had taken the others, had ripped them to pieces, had gnawed the flesh from their bones, and yet it was as if none of them even noticed that Zach existed. They were treating him like…the way they treated each other. That was when he finally realized that what Janus had told him was the truth. He had been adopted by one of these hideous monstrosities, and as such he was no immune to them, and granted a small facsimile of their power. Which meant that he still had a chance to save Galloway; or, rather, to rescue Galloway from the fate of his fellow sailors.

Zach raced down below deck and found Galloway in the galley, his back pressed against the wall across which Zach had drawn the symbol to summon the Veritaseron. The symbol was smeared now, faded as if it had been drawn a hundred years ago, rather than twenty minutes. The other wall of the galley had been totally torn away by the thing that had made off with the man with the handlebar moustache, and beyond it a multitude of forms all swam by like nightmare fish at an aquarium. For a moment, they saw yet another sailor being dragged away from his perch on the upper deck, but he was laughing maniacally as he disappeared, all vestiges of sanity burned away. He cackled like a hyena even as blood poured from his mouth and chest. And then the darkness had him, took him away, though his laugh remained behind.

Galloway’s eyes locked on Zach as a great mass bubbled in through the hole in the wall. This mass was not like the others: it seemed to glow with its own interior luminescence, and bubbles formed and popped and reformed all over it. It looked more like a tidal wave of glowing sludge than any real, living organism, and yet it moved like a predator, quickly flooding around Galloway’s ankles, which immediately began to smoke and steam. Galloway screamed as the glowing mass rose up to his knees and slowly made its way to his waist. Fumbling, he reached beneath his coat and drew out a revolver, then pointed it at his own head. “They don’t want you,” he stammered, his energy ebbing rapidly away. “But neither can they have me.” He pulled the trigger and blood and brains splattered against the wall behind him. But he was still alive, and conscious, and aware. He pointed the gun at his head at a different angle and pulled the trigger again. More blood. More brains. No death.

Zach looked at him, concentrated, thinking his name, trying desperately to end his suffering and call his soul toward him, but on some deep, dark, cold level, he knew it was too late. It was too late for Galloway and his men to die.

Galloway screamed as the mass moved across him, and then the screams were muffled as he was consumed by it completely. The ship began to shudder and break apart. Terrified, his heart racing faster than it ever had, even in the swamp, Zach ran back up toward the topdeck, took one look at the collapsing, overrun ship, and then jumped overboard into the empty darkness swarming with the others of his father’s kind.

Zach wandered in the dark as the men continued to scream around him. He could never see them, could never find them, but he could always hear their cries. At some points, he nearly lost his own mind, and began at others to wonder if the screams were real or merely etched so powerfully onto his memory that they only seemed real. But regardless, they were still there, still crying at him from the dark, and after awhile, when he could no longer bear to hear them, he located the tiny pinprick of light in the far-off distance, then felt his connection to the one who waited there and followed it back to reality.

Once back inside the universe, Zach wandered the dark corridors of space and time. He huddled in corners beyond men’s perception, shaking in fear when he thought back on the sailors he had refused to save, and eventually, he came into the full acceptance of his role. He was a reaper, culled from humanity and destined to claim the lives and souls of his old kind. There were ancient battles, where reapers gathered by the hundreds, and Zach first met his brothers and sisters. There were terrified mortals dying of horrible diseases to whom Zach showed mercy, and guided them on to what lay beyond. And there were days, strange, far-off aeons where even reapers lost their power. Zach feared those days, feared the truth that someday, even his adoptive father would die. But until that day came, his father still had work for him to do.

Oh, how different things could have been if these two men before me hadn’t opened that crypt. They released the Veritaseron, you see, and even now I can feel it wandering in this now-doomed town. Long after I am done here, I will have to return and reap this town, leaving only a young boy who will flee into the swamp and, after untold spans of time, accept his role as…me. Everything – the rising dead, the ship beyond the universe, my transformation – all of it could have been avoided had the Veritaseron been left alone. But, then I wouldn’t have come here in the first place. Time is funny that way.

The men are fighting now, of course. And all it takes from me is a casual thought to roll the candle into the drapes…now the house is burning, burning around the two men as they wrestle for that gun. I know the fates of both men have been corrupted, but, as I did with Galloway, I can choose to let one of them live. But I made a mistake with Galloway. As I rub my pocketwatch with my hand, I can’t help but wonder if I should make that mistake again.