Bleed Away the Sky Read online

  Royce lifted the rebar higher. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I am the Spittle, of the Ovessa.”

  Royce grimaced. “The what? What are you doing here? You with the cops?”

  The man laughed. “Your authorities have no sway in these affairs.”

  “What?” asked Royce, shaking his head.

  “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the swell of purpose, the gleam of vision. While you are but one of many, my beloved and I will see you all ground down.”

  “What the hell are you…”

  Royce’s words died off as the light began to flicker in his peripheral vision. It began to strobe, a cold white, and he felt the space behind him change. It grew warm, muggy, and fog began to swirl around his feet. The mechanical sounds of gears, chains, and pistons created a sort of industrial drum beat, one accented by moans and whispers.

  Royce still hadn’t turned, his eyes boring into the stranger.

  “What?” was all he could ask once again.

  “Turn and know,” replied the Spittle.

  Royce gripped the rebar and spun, ready to fight.

  They were upon him before he had a chance to scream.

  * * *

  “He’s been gone a really long time,” said Megan.

  “Yeah, but I’m not going after him when he’s like this,” said Kristie.

  Megan folded her arms, displeased. Her brother had been gone almost twenty minutes and she hadn’t heard anything. Not even him swearing at nothing in particular. That in itself worried her. Not so much for Royce, but more for her own wellbeing.

  “I’m going after him,” Megan declared as she got off the couch.

  “Have fun with that.”

  “And when I find him, I’m gonna make sure to tell him that you didn’t care enough to help me look,” added Megan.

  Kristie stared at her for a second. “You are such a bitch.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am. Now let’s go.”

  There was not a sight nor sound of Royce as they crept down the staircase to the first floor. Both girls called out his name in whispering voices as they made their way up the hall to the front of the building. Here was an office, storage room, restroom, and an ornate antechamber. Nothing. No sign of him or anyone else.

  Megan glanced over at Kristie and could tell the other girl was now getting freaked out. Megan wondered if he had gone down to the basement. Maybe he needed to hit the functioning restroom. She was going to be pissed if he was playing a trick on them. Plus, she knew she had seen someone in the lounge. The lounge, the last place to check on this floor.

  As they snuck up to the opens doors that led to the open space, Megan saw someone standing in the center of the gloom. Without having to blink, she knew it wasn’t her brother. Kristie, however, didn’t seem to process what she was seeing as quickly and rushed toward him.

  “Royce, you asshole, you had us scared to death! Where have you been?”

  Kristie stopped two feet from the stranger, her arms out for an embrace, when he turned. He was big, well over six feet and broad in the shoulders. The hooded black cloak hid all of his features in the gloom, but Megan could swear she saw two pinpricks of red, glowing were his eyes should be.

  “Not Royce,” he said in a playful tone.

  “Who…” tried Kristie as she stumbled back.

  “I am the Spittle. I’ve been waiting for you both,” he said, motioning for Megan to enter.

  Megan cautiously came up behind Kristie. “Where’s my brother?”

  “Ah, he is currently under the gentle ministrations of the Invocated.

  “The who?” squawked Kristie.

  “Fear not. I assure you, you’ll meet them soon enough yourself.”

  “Where’s my brother?” Megan repeated.

  “A brother, a lover. Such petty distinctions. I wonder which of you will be more determined?” he mused.

  Megan opened her mouth for a retort when she realized that the light in the room was changing. The moonlight streaming through the windows was growing brighter while somehow the center of the room grew darker. The man in the cloak, calling himself “The Spittle,” was awash in shadows, as was most of the floor. She reached out for Kristie when there was a flash, a burst of dull light that only lasted a second. Only a second, but it was long enough for Megan to see that the lounge was no longer empty. She froze, her fingers inches away from Kristie. What she had seen in that glimpse had defied reason.

  Kristie, however, had seemingly witnessed nothing. She began screaming at the man, screeching to see Royce. Megan started to back away as his calm demeanor turned predatory.

  “So it is the lover,” he said with an edge to his voice. “You would be ‘Kristie’ then, correct?”

  “How did you know my name?”

  “Why, from Royce, of course.”

  He took a step back and threw his arms out wide, head titled back.

  “All in the name of the Ovessa!” roared the Spittle, as if announcing it to the room.

  The phantom illumination began to flash again. It emanated from no particular source, simply bursting to life from various corners and at different intervals. A grey light, colder than white, it strobed and flickered, causing the scene to shudder. Some type of fog or smoke had slithered throughout the lounge, creating a haze. It brought with it a damp warmth that also carried a putrid stench. Sweat, sex, motor oil, and some type of chemical. It was overpowering.

  The flashes brought to life a new panorama. Here, instead of an empty lounge, the space was filled with bizarre constructs made of metal. Surreal frames or exoskeletons, they were fashioned from all manner of materials. Many were roughly rectangular in shape and stood over twelve feet high, between them a variety of smaller esoteric devices or items. Everywhere lay blood-drenched canvases, some hanging off the tall constructions themselves.

  Megan hadn’t realized that music had started. It had just crept into her head and now she realized it was there. A cacophony so arrhythmic it was almost soothing. The sound of machinery and industry. Through it came the voices, the whispers and sighs. The moans.

  The Spittle drifted back into the fog and others began to glide in and out of the metal monstrosities. All dressed in an assortment of rags, the tattered clothing was white and barely clung to their slender frames. Some were male, some female, many indeterminable. Their skin was coated with a slick sheen that looked thicker than sweat, more viscous. All of them bald, their faces were marred by horrific mutilation – lips, noses, ears, and eyelids all sliced off. Little more than flesh-covered skulls whispered their pledges and promises, threats and demands.

  Rooted to the spot, Megan watched as they surrounded Kristie, cooing over her as they played with her hair and ran their fingers over her body. There was something wrong with their hands, too. Their fingers were too long, too pointed. It looked like their finger bones extended out past the nubs of flesh. The murmuring pack of mutilated creatures forced Kristie forward toward one of the taller metal frames that had a bloody sheet hanging from it. Kristie began to whimper as she neared it.

  “You wish to be with him?” asked the Spittle, placing a hand on the blood-soaked linen. “Let us accommodate you.”

  He pulled it off, and there, hanging in the confines of the metal exoskeleton, Megan saw the sobbing thing that had once been her brother. She screamed because it was him and screamed because such an atrocity shouldn’t be alive. Kristie screamed, too. But while they dragged Kristie closer to Royce, Megan stumbled backward, fell, and then ran.

  She bolted out of the lounge and back to the stairs. Onto the landing, she hit the emergency exit and escaped out into the night. Megan kept running, block after block, until she couldn’t breathe anymore. She had no idea what time it was, but everything looked closed downtown. Collapsing in an alleyway behind a pizza shop, she let the scent of sauce and pepperoni wash over her as she wept.

  The idea that she had just escaped a gang of psychotic ghosts only made her head throb harder. Th
at they had taken Royce was even worse. What was she supposed to do now?

  Fortunately, she had grabbed her purse before coming downstairs. She had her cell phone and the keys to her apartment. She wasn’t on the run like Royce and Kristie, she had only joined them for the excitement. This wasn’t how she expected it to end. Her pragmatic side started pushing aside the horrors she had just witnessed. She could easily get a ride home or even walk from here. Probably call and get her job back at the mini-mart tomorrow. Her mom would assume Royce was on the run. How could she say otherwise? If forced to admit it, she wasn’t too broken up about Kristie. She sat there contemplating it all for over an hour.

  Exiting the alleyway, she started heading up the street and working on some believable lies. The closer to the truth, the better. She could easily say she woke up to find Royce and Kristie gone. Hell, even say they were crashing in that old building. She idly wondered if the ghosts would take their stuff.

  So busy concocting a cover story, Megan didn’t notice the fog that had begun to swirl around her. It grew thicker with each step, and the nearby appliance repair shop sign began to flicker. She froze, trying to convince herself that it was just a coincidence, as the stench wafted up to her.

  The voice of the Spittle came through the darkness to her. “You cannot run. You belong to the Ovessa now.”

  Megan spun around, looking for him in the dense gloom. “No! I got out of the building, I escaped!”

  “No, you didn’t. You fled in your mind, but not in space,” spoke his voice, dripping with amusement. “

  “What are you? What do you want?”

  Darkness became more tangible, shadows thickened. Flashes of light cut through, delineating new areas, creating new space. The fog rewove reality, building the metal structures and billowing out the bloody canvases. That unmistakable smell that had imprinted itself onto Megan’s psyche drew her memory back, a memory of a place that was already here again. Its song of metal and whispers and moans began to play once more.

  The Spittle strolled up to her, red eyes burning through the gloom of the hooded cloak. “We are everywhere, for we are outside. Outside your laws and your understanding, outside your science and your faith.”

  Leaning in, he was all smoldering ember eyes and gleaming teeth. The hood now drawn back, his hair flowed over his shoulders in black waves of ink. His body was composed of pieces of a white material, akin to bone or tooth. The body was held together by tendons and ligaments stretched across his frame. No muscles pulled, no skin covered him. He wasn’t a ghost, he wasn’t human.

  He gestured and a structure behind him was revealed in full. Megan couldn’t even take in a breath to vomit. Royce and Kristie hung side by side, living abominations somehow not allowed to die.

  “Please,” coughed out Royce from where he hung, suspended on a meat hook.

  “No,” replied the Spittle.

  Megan felt her knees giving out. “Why?”

  “You should be honored,” said the Spittle. “My beloved believes you should be granted an audience with the divine.”

  “What? Which one…”

  Then Megan saw her gliding through the fog. Another person in a black cloak, this time fully opened to reveal what lay beneath. A woman made of the same bone carapace, her hair cascading black liquid. She was beautiful, like a living statue, one awoken from the depths of hell.

  Megan desperately attempted words, but nothing came.

  “Humans are so fragile, so feeble, but will do anything to believe otherwise,” said the woman as she stroked Megan’s face. “Would you like something to believe in? Let us show you a truth.”

  Megan watched as the woman gestured up to where the ceiling used to be. The space spilt open and spilled out light, its glow felt as a weight upon her. It fell on Megan, consuming her. Repurposing her. The Invocated all around fell to their knees.

  “For you are the Spittle,” said the woman, as Megan was broken down.

  “For you are the Sigh,” the man replied to his beloved.

  “All for the honor of the Ovessa.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Texas had been relatively uneventful so far. Another stretch of shitty diners and worse motel rooms. Audrey wasn’t necessarily having a bad time, but she wished she could be having more fun for Elliot’s sake. They had stopped off at a little roadside attraction yesterday, filled with ceramic art and other handmade pieces from the area. Some of the pieces were actually quite nice, but not for the prices they were asking. All it had done was depress her, thinking about how she couldn’t even afford a small trinket.

  Today was a little better. They were cruising down the road, the sun was bright, and they were blaring The Smiths at high volume. She crooned along with the vocals between drags from her cigarette and tried not to think about her future. She’d quit smoking two years ago, but had picked it back up recently, fortunately keeping the quantity down. For some reason, they tasted better when she only had two a day, anyhow.

  “We’re gonna need gas soon,” said Elliot over the music.

  Audrey nodded and went back into her head. It still threw her that Elliot wanted anything to do with her. It turned out that their dad had always known about her, but hadn’t known that her mom had died. Audrey had been the product of a very short relationship between Melissa Darrow and Allan Byrnes, and when he had discovered that Melissa was pregnant, she told Allan she wanted nothing to do with him as a lover or husband or father to her baby. Dejected, he had moved on and met Elliot’s mom. While Elliot’s mother knew that Allan had another child out there, Elliot himself hadn’t known until his father was dying. Allan Byrnes had developed cancer from working at a toxic waste incinerator, of all jobs. The lawsuit and subsequent settlement were funding the trip, something Elliot felt he should do with his sister. All Allan Byrnes knew after twenty-odd years was Audrey’s name, but Elliot had tracked her down. To say their meeting had been awkward was an understatement.

  Elliot obtained her email address through her website and persuaded her to meet. Not believing his story of being a long-lost brother, she arranged their meeting at her corner bar so she could have some liquid courage just in case. The husky, dark haired young man gave her pause, but those hazel eyes were the same she saw in the mirror every day. Elliot had been crushed to learn that her mother had died so long ago, that she had lived in foster care, and that he’d been denied his sister for all those years. He was so earnest, so kind, she couldn’t help but feel a certain yearning to know him better. She cast aside her usual paranoia and proceeded to meet with Elliot about once a month as he finished his last year of college.

  Then, two months ago, he proposed the road trip. A final gift from their father, something they could do together. Audrey had been hesitant to say the least, but he’d been so excited by the prospect. It took some juggling of finances to ensure her apartment would be there when she got back, but she had acquiesced.

  “Oh, this place looks ridiculous. Let’s stop here!”

  Audrey glanced over and smiled. A gas station that looked like something out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel appeared on their left. The pumps hadn’t been updated since sometime in the 1970’s, and the storefront had a variety of bizarre tchotchkes hanging off its wooden porch roof. Immediately Audrey’s imagination went to the family of cannibals that ran the joint and how they preyed upon unsuspecting travelers. The half a dozen or so cars parked out front didn’t dissuade her from her fantasy.

  Elliot parked the car and they both climbed out. He checked to make sure the pumps were actually operational and then went inside. Audrey paused to examine the items hanging from the roof. Dreamcatchers, wind chimes, decorative pieces, all kinds of things. A strikingly beautiful girl, pale and redheaded, about maybe fourteen, sat in a rocking chair carving a piece of wood on the porch. Audrey said hello, but the girl didn’t seem to notice her.

  The inside was exactly as she had pictured it. Average convenient store items like soda and chips stocked right next to animal p
elts, tobacco pouches, and bowie knives. Audrey picked out an iced tea from a cooler and went to find Elliot at the counter. Waiting with him, she noticed a series of little carved wooden animals sitting on top of a glass case. They were simplistic, but all well-proportioned. Each one had been sanded, stained, and sealed.

  The customer before them in line finished his transaction and Elliot stepped up. The man behind the counter looked tired but was quite friendly, thanking them for stopping in. Elliot paid for the gas and the beverages, and was about to walk away, when he noticed Audrey wasn’t moving.

  “These carving are beautiful. Are they done by the girl outside?”

  “Yes, they’re all done by my daughter,” he said, beaming with pride.

  “I’ll take the owl,” said Audrey, pulling her wallet out of her purse.

  “Audrey, I can get that,” said Elliot.

  “You pay for enough, I’ve got this.”

  Audrey handed over a ten-dollar bill, the price for the small carved owl, and smiled as she cradled it in her hands. It made her happy knowing that girl had crafted it, probably right there on the porch, while her dad worked inside.

  Elliot went to pump the gas, but she stopped by the girl again. Audrey watched her carve for a moment. The piece was still in the early stages and she couldn’t yet make out what it was going to be. The girl was engrossed in her work, seemingly unaware of Audrey’s presence.

  “You do wonderful work,” said Audrey. “I’m glad I bought this.”

  The girl paused and stared up at her. A look of confusion danced on her face for a moment until she spied the owl in Audrey’s hands. Then it was a look more akin to sadness.

  “I wish I was an owl. Do you wish you were an owl?”

  “Um,” tried Audrey.

  “It would be meaningless then, all that darkness. Because it would belong to you.”

  “I guess so.”

  “But it’s a little wooden toy. And we’re just toys, dancing, screaming, and fucking. Pointless, except for the amusement of others.”

  Audrey gawked at the girl, trying to comprehend where these words were coming from, these nihilistic proclamations. The girl gave nothing away in her demeanor, utterly calm as these things fell from her mouth.