If I’d only known the box collecting dust by my computer would rip the mystery off the existence in a way that would leave a fearsome wound, gaping...
Like they say, it was a dark and stormy night. (
1 (All contributors footnoted below for flow!)
As usual, the goddamned wi-fi was down. (
2)
Stranded from the whimsies of my outside world distractions, I amused myself-the things that pile up while one is engrossed overly much in online activities. Here was this box a friend overseas had posted to me, marked "Ether Net." I was amused thinking how Johann, Angela and I used to talk about Sir William Crookes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and their Spiritualist propensity for describing entities in the "ether."
I dusted off the box, fished out a cable, and looked for a port.
Which wasn't too difficult, for, as they say, "Any port in a storm." Unless they were talking about drinking wine in a tavern until the storm was over... (
3)
The lights flickered and the shadows danced on the ceiling. (
4
A hush fell across the bar as a stranger strode in from the rain...(
5)
He was dressed all in black, rain poring from his long coat and hat, which shadowed his visage. The patrons of the bar stared at him, warily. (
6)
None more so than Abe, visibly startled by the sparsely-damp visitor. He dried the spilled Natural Light draft from his gnarled mechanic's knuckles while taking a break from the pinging poker machine in the next room.
It's the sort of night you might see a ghost, to be certain. Abe's often-lulled eyes betrayed just such a fear as they roved the roiling shadows that robbed the stanger intermittently of shape. )
"Port in a storm, fella?" asked Piper, pulling Gilley an imported draught, as well as her weeks' third double shift.
"A sweet chase at the end." The stranger's words rolled audibly over the storm,from beneath his brim. I felt he was attracted somewhat to my curious box, and was relieved when Gilley picked up his rhapsody about the recently-defunct Kepler Telescope.
"Imagine what it would've said," said Gilley, "If only it had been enough alive to appreciate the worlds it glimpsed. There's an epic poem there. Shame Bradbury is dead. Or maybe Clarke. Hell, even Ellison."
Abe shuffled back to gambling, providing the newly-hushed bar the mechanical cheer of impulseness again, aside from the smooth wine flow into the glass of the man in black.
Suddenly the door slammed open, but the chill was carried on no wind. It misdirected us as to how the shabby-haired little boy came to stand beside Abe at his game machine. "When is Mommy coming home?" pleaded the child. A coppery echo ferried his plaintive voice.
"She promised she'd tuck me in. Why can't she come home?"
"Leave me the hell alone!" spat Abe, twisting off his stool and storming out to our midst. He jostled Gilley's drink, passed close to the stranger and questioned him. "Did you bring this kid? Is this some stunt?"
"Calm down, Abe!" said Gilley. The stranger peered from beneath his brim without a word.
"It's just a kid, what's your damn---" Gilley's words died in a gasp. (
1)(Cecil Disharoon)
The stench of death drew a gurgling wretch from my throat and Gilley's bloodshot eyes appeared from beneath his brim. There was a dark gray mist hanging in the air and the boy appeared to float rather than walk across the floor toward me! His arm was extended and his fingers were twisted but definitely pointed toward me when I regained my breath! The shriek was nightmarish and Abe was sobbing as he turned to see me backing away only to be stopped by the wall behind me. (
4)
The child-like form distorted into many mouths, a physical flow of tentacles from the inhuman mass that had spoken so plaintively. Piper cursed as she went for her shot gun behind the bar. Abe had no chance as he fell in the door way, crying out in terror.
The strangers eyes beamed darkly in thin slits, as his command boomed from beneath a drooping mustache. “The box! Touch the wires together!” I could feel him nearly ready to pounce for it, himself. I think he sensed my reflex to treat any movement as an attack. The pale fear on my countenance surely reflected my revulsion as I watched Piper try to draw a bead on the hungry thing ravaging the luckless mechanic. I didn’t know him so well- I’d known his family’s business since I first came to town in need of a tune-up. Simple common humanity alone evoked pitiful sympathy for last animal sounds to emerge from the victim awash in the invading storm.
The gun blast rocked my electrified nerves as I ferreted the workings of the bizarre gift placed within my care. Why me? I shed the confusion. React to the ebon interloper’s instruction- or die!
I could only hope, the split second I activated the connection, I had not played into some more loathsome machination. Then the spectral form inside sprang from between my shaking hands.
Wrestling with the eerily glowing form, the apparition that had terrorized us seemed once again pitiable, though no less revolting. United we watched its struggle, until the phantasm strands enveloped the murderous thing. Then before our eyes, it shriveled like an aging pepper. Then, the snare seemed to crawl with a life its own back towards the box I’d dropped on the barroom floor.
Timelessly, after the box closed with a hiss, we all stared after its motionless form. Our eyes drifted to the impassive visitor, and Gilley was the first to finally request an explanation. He stammered: “How…? Who…? Wha…?” Then, mixed into a nervous laugh: “Fuckin’ ey!!!”
The night-clad stranger stood, but did not advance, merely staring at Abe’s remains. “I could smell gasoline and automotive oil on your friend there- from that and his hands, I would presume he was a mechanic. It’s a logical deduction he was contracted for a repair, on the car belonging to the woman of the child we saw. It’s entirely possible some other crime was committed, but without a motive, I think it likely he committed no violent crime- only negligence. A faulty tire seems less likely than some malfunction in the poor woman’s steering. I would guess this was the repair the man failed to properly perform.”
“How in God’s name would you know?” said Piper, as the macabre vision of Abe’s mangled remnants began to translate in her adrenalized brain.
“Forgive me if my intuition yield a cold review of the departed,”
said the stranger, stroking the corners of his mustache.
“You see, I’m working from the nature of this device- what I’ve discerned of its workings. Anecdotal evidence suggests, within a radius as yet unclear to me, heightened emotions can call forth constructs of a nature, one might not imprudently call, otherworldly. The same invention then provides a sort of snare to capture the monsters in their physical form---too late, I’m afraid, to save your fellow patron.”
He reached out his gloved hands, in which I immediately placed the infernal box. “I see you require no coercion in ridding yourself of the thing. I can promise nothing of my own character or wisdom, but I will take it hence with no questions, by your leave.”
“Just get take it and go, please,” said Piper, still gripping her shotgun. “Wine’s on the house.”
“I will do so,” said the stranger, tucking it beneath his arm. “Bear in mind, it’s activated by a profound sense of guilt. Whatever’s eating a man may...well...I shall not be glib. Guilt is the province of the living.” He turned halfway out the door beside the ravaged corpse, and gave a hint of a smile.
“As for what mysteries this machine lays bare...let life have its mysteries. May we live to resolve their stories, and imagine our wits, a match for injustice. May we engage them. Before they engage us.”
His presence evaporated by the occluded moonlight, even as the storm abated. Piper took the grim task of calling emergency, while Gilley played some hunch, restored wireless service yielding some marvel to his hands. Myself, I shuddered at the memory of a Honduran woman I’d kindly referred to Abe’s service some weeks before. I remember her gratitude as she took on my casual recommendation: our town had a handy answer to her suspension trouble.
Contributors, Thank You!
1- Cecil Disharoon
2 (Keith Howell) 3- (Danielle Piper Proctor) 4- (Joe DeAloia) 5- (Jo Duffy) 6. (Angela Dawn Disharoon)
