7/28/10

The Instance Is Relevant (The Transmogrification Continuous) Part II


Two four legged beasts, the color of coal and the size of lions, flash up from a large hole and fix their piercing hot white eyes upon Lendal. Earth is flowing, funnel like, up from the pit into the sky above them. He backs slowly toward the door, shotgun aimed at the creatures. They snort in unison, begin a low growl, and lean back on their haunches as if to spring.

Lendal turns on a dime and sprints through the door.

“Shut the fucking door!”

“What!?! What’s out there?”

“Just shut it! Shut it now!” He could not disguise the urgent terror in his voice, and Tanner is quickly affected by his fear. The door slams shut.

“Back away,” Lendal orders, pointing the shotgun at the door as he slowly backs up. Tanner obeys, moving quickly to stand a few feet behind his resolute roommate.

BA-BOOM!!

Something massive slams into the mahogany front door, knocking pictures off the walls and sending violent vibrations throughout the house.

“Shit, Lendal. What was that?”

“Some kind of creature. I don’t know. They look like really big fucking dogs, except they aren’t. If they want to get in here, they will. Go call the police!”

“Call the police?! What am I going to tell them? There are some really big dogs trying to break into our house?”

“No, no. Just tell them someone’s trying to break in. We think more then one person. Come on, hurry up!”

Tanner places the 911 call on his cell. While he talks to the operator, Lendal cautiously approaches the front window with the shotgun at the ready. It had become eerily quiet out front, the sounds of earth being moved had ceased. With the barrel of his gun, he moves the curtain to the side and peeks out slightly. What he sees freezes him. It is so unusual, so terrifyingly strange, that he drops his shotgun in horror.

A face molded and crafted by eons of time and the depths of space and mass. Fronting a head somewhat bigger then a lions, black fur lines its edges, with leathery pointed ears arching outwards, rotating and straining for sound. A deeper, polished, hue of black is the complexion of the skin, with large rolling wrinkles like a Shar-Pei, a nose like a gorillas and a gaping fanged mouth that is almost human like, except for its humongous size and hard leathery lips. And its eyes, golf ball sized orbs of light, as white and as deep as stars, piercing his soul and paralyzing him in their gaze.

He is at the behest of this creature; it can burst through the window and tear him apart if it chooses. Lendal simply can not move and can not break the hypnotic gaze that the creature has him locked into. A deeply agonizing feeling overtakes his mind; the gravity of the creature’s presence is forcing its way inside his inner consciousness. Lendal shuts his eyes and furrows his brow, concentrating in a vain attempt to keep the creature from consuming him, but it is inside him on some strong telepathic wave, collecting information. It has now fully seized control of Lendal and begins to take him upon a journey of epiphany and vision. His mind hurls through the blackness of space as distant white lights flash by him at incredible speeds. Then, through what must be clouds of cosmic dust and rainbow nebulae, until he arrives upon a planet of black terrain and volcanic mountains. Now pulled beneath its seemingly inhabitable surface, through lava encrusted rock and down through cavernous layers teeming with alien life forms.

Glistening four legged greenish creatures with lustrous skin, about the size of rhinos, with translucent dome like bumps rising in rows about what could only be their heads. Bipedal humanoids about two or three feet high with thick jagged bodies that look hard and rigid, working in rows of twisted, bright forms of vegetation three times their height. Whispering, incorporeal entities twisting and turning in the zephyr. Twirling tentacled things with spiked orifices dancing along the ground. Lendal is amazed as the life forms pass by him on his way to what has to be the white hot center of the planet. It is here that his journey pauses. A churning orb, pulsating with an amalgamation of energy forms, is sizzling and convulsing. Parts of which routinely lash out violently at the surrounding core of the planet, cracking fissures as shock waves roll and then explode throughout the mantle and crust on the way to the surface. The planet is dying.

As suddenly, Lendal is again looking out the window into the terrifying creature’s eyes, frozen in fear.

“They’re on their way,” Tanner’s voice is echoing in the distance, getting louder and then steady as it returns to normal. "What’s out there? What do you see?”

He stays frozen, blocking the creature from seeing his roommate, and from Tanner seeing it. “Not right now! Upstairs, in my room, in my closet, on the top shelf is a box with the word ‘heavy’ written on it in black magic marker. In that box is a Daewoo Maxi 223 SBR and a couple clips. Bring it down here.”

“What!?! You have a semiautomatic assault rifle in your closet? Aren’t they illegal?”

“The hell with that right now.” Lendal is trying to speak calmly so as not to startle the creature. “Go and get it, and if you think you can lock and load it safely, do so.”

“The police are comin’!”

“I don’t care about them right now. Just do it.”

The creature’s brow furrows, but it does not relinquish the hypnotic gaze that has Lendal transfixed, even as its partner approaches from the yard. It stalks from the darkness of the night into the bright light of the porch. He can now see what the rest of these creatures look like. The head fronts a long, stout torso of coarse black fur covered muscle, with a leathery skinned underbelly and chest. It moves upon four long and brawny bare skinned appendages that end in large metacarpi with six elongated digits each. Once it reaches the side of its companion, and gets a good look at the frightened human peering at it from the window, it opens its mouth and rolls its lips back over its fangs, releasing a short high shriek that causes Lendal to shake.

“I have it!” says Tanner suddenly behind him.

He does not turn around, “Were you able to put it together, buddy?”

“Locked and loaded.”

“Good, good. I’m going to slowly back away from the window and let the curtain drop. Keep that pointed at the window, if anything comes through, start firing and back away.”

“What exactly is going on out there?”

“That will have to wait, just trust me. Really Tanner, I just don’t know.”


...TO BE CONTINUED.

7/15/10

The Instance Is Relevant (The Transmogrification Continuous) Part I


“Lendal! …Lendal! Hey! I’m trying to study!”

“What!?!”

“Turn that down; I have a test in Particle Creation tomorrow. Just a few decibels, please, I can hear it all the way downstairs!”

“OK. OK.” The music lowers and the door opens. “Hey Tanner, I’m sorry. I thought you were at the library tonight.”

Tanner pushes his glasses back against his nose. “No, they were closing early for some sort of meeting tonight. Thank you, this is going to be a tough one.”

“Yeah, no problem. I took that class last year; you are going to have to stay on your toes in order to keep that grade point average of yours. Professor Bonner is a tough old coot.”

“I know,” Tanner agrees. “He gives a test every week, sometimes two, and all the reading! He’s wearing me out.”

Lendal rubs his shaved head and lets out a sigh, “What a bastard. Sorry, I’ll keep the volume low. Hey, did you mail the bills off?”

“Oh!” He throws his hands up in the air. “Slipped my mind. I’ll get that together after my test tomorrow, swear.”

“Make sure you do. A couple of them are already past due.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Well I have to get back to studying.”

“Right. Good night Tanner, see you tomorrow.” He closes his bedroom door.

“Night, Lendal.”



Scrape. Scrape. Shook! Shook! Waaa-woooom! Waaa-woooom!



“Wha…?” Tanner opens his tired eyes as he comes to consciousness. “What the hell is that? Digging?” He lifts the book off his stomach, sits up on the couch, and reaches for his glasses from off of the coffee table. The unmistakable sound of earth being physically manipulated is coming from the front yard. Tanner looks at the DVD clock, it’s roughly two a.m. He feels very uneasy, even a little scared. It’s not like anyone is trying to break in, but there is heaviness in the air and the sounds coming from the front yard are so very loud.

Standing up, he thinks about peeking out through the drapes of the large front casement window, but decides that he had better wake Lendal to back him up. He bounces up the stairs, skipping steps, and is before Lendal’s door within seconds. Knocking upon the cherry wood, he calls out in a hushed voice, “Lendal. Lendal, get up!” He does not answer, Tanner opens the door half way and leans in. “Lendal, get up! Something’s going on in the front yard. Get up!”

Lendal sits up quickly and removes the covers from over him. “OK. OK. I’m up!”

“There are weird sounds coming from the front yard, come with me while I check it out.”

“Sure, sure. Hold on a sec.” He gets out of his bed, kneels down and reaches underneath it, feeling around for something. After a few seconds he pulls out a 12-guage pump action shotgun.

“Whoa, I didn’t know you had that! Wow.”

“Oh yeah, you know it. It’s not anything you advertise, you just introduce it when you find yourself in predicaments”

Tanner nervously brushes his wavy blonde hair back upon his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing too serious. I’m just a little uneasy.”

“Well, my dad taught me that you can never be too cautious, and he taught me how to use one of these.” He positions the fore-end of the gun in his left hand, elbow bent and tight against his left side; his right hand releases the safety and then rests against the receiver with his finger on the trigger guard, the stock is tightly pressed up against his right side. He moves his arms straight out and holds the shotgun uniform to his body and then brings it back to its prior position. “So it’s coming with us.”

As they hurry from the bedroom to the staircase, rumbling and whooshing sounds fill their ears. Tanner quickens his pace and begins hopping down the stairs.

“Tanner!”

Tanner pauses midway and looks back to see Lendal has paused by the hall railing. “Come on!”

“I need to put some shoes on, I’ll be right there.”

Tanner turns and finishes his jaunt down the steps, he then slows his pace and tip toes to pause before the front window. A few moments pass and he can hear his roommate coming down the stairs. When he feels his presence a few paces behind him, he moves to stand at the right side of the window. Slowly, with deliberate movements, he moves the curtains with his left hand and looks outside.

“Well?” Lendal is getting anxious.

“I don’t know. I don’t see anything; of course I can’t see the whole front yard from here. There might be some movement in the distance, not sure. Is that a dust cloud?”

“Alright, this is what we are going to do. You are going to open the door slowly, but keep behind it while you do. I’ll stand at the ready, just in case.”

“OK, let’s do it.”

Tanner did as he was instructed. The rumbling and whooshing is loud enough now that Lendal can feel it in his chest. He stands in the door opening with his shotgun at the ready, and peers out. The house has a large porch that runs across its entire front side, with a balustrade along the bottom and ornament brackets against newel posts at the top. The porch light illuminates a portion of the large front yard as it stretches out and vanishes into the black of the night. He can see some movement at the edge of this, in the gray, and it would seem that there is a large amount of dust swirling around in that vicinity. He believes he can make out what is there if he will just step a few feet forward, and so does. He pauses a foot or so before the porch stairs and now clearly sees what is going on in his front yard.

“Holy shit!”


...TO BE CONTINUED.