Typhon giggles with glee, frothing at the mouth… and his twisted form, his pale copy of Bryce, stretches further up above our heads like a monstrous cobra.
“Rex Rex Rex” he repeats over and over, and he points carelessly down at the quivering Bryce below. “I’m done with this one”, he says to the waiting, watching crowd with a wave of his hand. “Bryce can be taken”.
Hissing and salivating, the abominations scurry towards him.
I leap from my position and close the gap in seconds, grabbing the boy by the collar of his sweater and hauling him out of there, roughly pushing aside the abominations as they cluster around us. They are more cautious of me than they are of Bryce, I knew that much already…
…But still, there’s just too many…
I struggle under the growing weight of the creatures. Their cold, clammy hands all over my face and body… I feel their hot, wet breath against my skin… Their hissing in my ears… I can feel the sting of their teeth as they bite at my arms and legs to keep me in place… To keep me in place so as to undergo the process… I can feel one of my hands starting to become numb as their paralyzing saliva begins taking effect… And I can feel them tugging at Bryce, pulling at his joints as he cries out in alarm-
There’s too many of them… There’s just too many. They’re wild. Unfocused. Frenzied and riled up by their Master. In fact… I realize a truth about the chaos. They’re getting in each other’s way… I can probably get myself out of here, but… but to do so I’ll have to let go of the lad…
He screams louder.
Just let him go, and you can escape, Matthew…
…Fuck.
…And you know what? I prepare to do just that. I make my decision to abandon him. It’s brutal, but tough decisions have to be made down here. I curse and release my grip, bitterly ready to leave behind the boy for whom I’ve already risked so much-
-and in that moment, two voices cry out loud above the clamor.
“MY NAME IS EMMA-RAE!” calls out the Girl, just ahead.
“JAXON!” calls out Blue Hoodie, just off to the right. “My name is JAXON!”
And confusion bubbles amidst the ranks of the abominations.
The clustered crowd around me thins as their attention is diverted and displaced.
“Jaxon…” Typhon repeats from up high. “Emma-Rae…” he grins and dismisses them with a wave of his hand.
The mass of abominations split. The ones further back go for their new targets. For the boy, or for the girl. I swallow a great breath of air as the pressure against me is reduced, I shove away the gaping, gnawing mouth of an abomination on my arm, drawing blood as I do so, and I briefly turn around, reaching back for Bryce, grabbing him and hauling him outta there as fast as I physically can.
Jaxon swings round his blade, I catch it flashing in the corner of my eye. Emma-Rae does likewise.
…But they are too far away for me to help them now. There are too many abominations between us.
“GET BACK TO THE CORRIDOR!” I shout to them, I glance back. Bryce has an expression of terror and bewilderment frozen across his face. His eyes are wide. One of his arms is bleeding and one is fixed in place, hung awkwardly out from one side. Paralyzed, by the look of it. He limps, and a quick look down makes it clear that he is struggling to flex the muscles in one of his legs.
I stop and stumble and hoist him up into a fireman’s carry, no easy feat when one of your hands has basically fallen asleep, and begin barrelling my way back to the corridor.
“ON ME, KIDS!” I shout, already exhausted and now facing the prospect of running all the way back to the main hall with this teenager on my back…
…But…
…But the kids are in no position to join up with me.
I shoulder away one of the screeching abominations, cursing as I feel the teeth from one of their massive mouths crunch into my leg. I stamp right into its throat and it chokes, struggling beneath my boot before it scuttles away.
“…Kidsss”, hiss one of the nearest creatures. “Kids today. Gone tomorrow”.
“Tomorrow never comes” I mutter quickly in response, backing up and into the corridor. Looking to my right, and to my left. I watch as the knives of the two brave children go flashing and slashing.
…I watch as they are gradually lost beneath a sea of the creatures.
“Tomorrow never comes”, I continue. “So lower your expectations”.
“Expectations. Salutations”.
“Lower your expectations. Lower your levels. There are levels below. The levels below are worse. There are worse levels below”.
“There are worse levels below…” the abomination repeats, slinking back a little, though keeping me within pouncing distance.
“GUYS!” Bryce screams, writhing on my back. “GUYS, COME BACK!”
…But they cannot hear him.
The hissing rises.
Emma-Rae’s blade comes up above the tide of abominations for the final time, and she is lost beneath the monsters.
“Fuck!” I swear, still retreating, looking over now to the boy in the blue hoodie. To Jaxon.
I catch flashes of blue amidst the pale skin of the abominations.
An abomination steps on the dropped blade with one its cold hands, and it skids across the floor and away.
The creatures have sensed these two kids to be the easier targets and have largely left us alone, for now, and a quick glimpse through the crowd shows us Jaxon’s fate.
…His is the fate of everyone who gets taken by the abominations.
The teenager is paralyzed. Frozen. His legs are in process of being swallowed up whole into one of the abominations’ mouths. His arm is lost in the gullet of another.
“JAXON!” Bryce screams out, struggling, but I do not let him go.
The abominations fight each other, pushing and grabbing and throttling with their many hands, hissing and screeching until one of them wins the fight, and Jaxon is once again lost to view.
…They will take everything they can. The abominations will absorb all but his most basic core essence. He will be left as warped and distorted as the beings that surround us.
It’s time to go.
“…I’m sorry kids”, I mutter, turning to take my leave.
I catch Typhon’s eye as I do so. The black eye in the white, now ringed with orange and rivers of yellow, like a hot and burning coal. The stretched and snake-like creature towers over us all.
“Rex”, he mouths, licking his teeth with that serpentine tongue, then loudly, he speaks.
“I’ll be seeing you again soon, Minos”.
“I’m sure you will, Typhon”, I reply sadly, shoving to the side one of the bolder abominations as I flee the scene.
“NO!” Bryce shouts, doing his best to kick me with his working leg. “You have to go back! PLEASE!”
“…I’m sorry bud, not this time”, I reply grimly as I make my hasty retreat through the distorted mall complex.
A couple more corners…. A touch further…
And yes… there it is. The bookstore, just up ahead. I can see the statue of the titan through the glass.
Bryce has begun to sob. There’s no fight left in him now, poor bastard.
“Nearly there”, I grunt, unable to keep myself from slowing at this stage, “a bit further”.
I push us through the double doors of the bookstore with my good hand, and they swing quietly closed behind us. For a moment there is no sound but that distant orchestra. And then, I nearly jump out of my skin- as an abomination creeps round the corner ahead from between the shelves.
It could well be the one from earlier. Perhaps it never left the store after all.
“Fuck! Can you walk, kid?”
“Yes”, he replies, and I set him down. He stumbles and staggers into the nearest shelf, and a book goes falling to the ground.
The abomination cocks its ‘head’, hissing with its great wet mouth as it creeps in a wide arc around us.
“Just get through the door, I’ll be right after you. Go on, now”, I say to Bryce, and to his credit, he does so. He limps, and I make sure to keep myself between the abomination and he.
“Go on. Go on without me. It’ll be okay”, the abomination hisses as I back up through the store, still trying to catch my breath. I bump into a table and send another couple of books to the floor. I grab the Tartarus key in my pocket and hold it out in front of me.
“It’s okay”, I mutter, beginning the little trick: “it’s okay up here, but it’s harder, lower”.
The abomination pauses. “Hard. It’ll be hard without you, Darren”, it whispers.
I hesitate, and a slow chill runs up my spine.
“Wh-what did you just say?”
As I mentioned before, the abominations spout nonsense… They react to the things around them, but sometimes… sometimes they provide glimpses into their former lives. And this too, you can use against them.
I can hear Bryce behind me, breathing hard as he watches our interaction.
The abomination hisses at me, it approaches. I raise the key.
“What did you say? Where did you go? Who turnssss out the lights?”
“Darren”, I repeat quietly. “Was that your name before? …Are you giving me sentences you said yourself? …Or are you repeating what someone said to you, once before? Perhaps a long time ago?”
The abomination has stopped mid-creep. Body angled towards mine.
It does not reply. Nor does it repeat or echo my words.
Gritting my teeth, I step towards it, sweating.
I’m going to go for it.
The penalty for screwing up is rough, but it would be good if I could save just one more.
The abomination does not scuttle away at my approach. Nor does it lurch forward to tear into my hand. It instead sits tensed as I place my palm on the pale, smooth skin of its ‘head’.
“Darren”, I mutter, then clearer. “Your name is Darren. And I free you now, from the clutches of Tartarus”.
What follows is no pause. No moment to consider. Reacting instantly the abomination rears up on its hind ‘legs’ and dry-heaves. It makes a strangled, gurgled screech and heaves again, this time with a torrent of saliva that splashes across the thready carpet of the bookstore.
I watch, wide-eyed, waiting, taking a step back as the monster writhes…
…And at last it convulses violently, and heaves up an entire person.
Naked, and soaking wet. A man, in his mid-twenties, by the looks of it.
And all that is left behind is an empty skin. A twitching, pale and crumped pile of skin. Like what a shedding snake might leave behind, if a little larger, and with more teeth.
Blerugh.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and crouch down, nudging the expelled body.
“Darren?” I ask quietly, and the body stirs.
“What the fuck…” Bryce mutters from behind me.
“Great. More carrying. Love to carry fuckers around”, I grumble to myself as I hoist this disgusting, slippery naked man up onto my back. “Urgh”.
Bryce does not seem in the mood for humor. Don’t really blame him. But he and I walk side by side and back through the mall. Back past the statue of the coiled snake and towards the entrance to Gaia.
The man on my back has begun to stir. It doesn’t usually take them long.
“Good”, I say as I set him down with a grunt. He slips and staggers to the ground, and I reach out a hand to help him back up. He stares at me. At Bryce. At his surroundings.
“Don’t worry about it pal. You’ve been saved”, I sniff. “You’re welcome. You’ll get your voice back within the hour. Now be a good lad and go through that there tunnel”.
Darren turns to look through the doorway for Gaia. At the long tunnel that burrows into the peeling green-blue wall at the back.
“Go through first Bryce. He’ll follow”, I say, and the boy nods.
“…Hey, kid”, I say, and he pauses, looks to me. He looks… awful. Shellshocked. Broken.
“…I’m sorry about your friends”.
He pauses, then nods again, the reality of the consequences of his actions settling in as he begins to crawl through the tunnel. Darren looks to me and I urge him forwards.
…He goes.
And after one final glance around the realm below, I follow.
“Till next time”, I whisper to no one in particular, then head on in behind the others.
…It’s significantly more effort on the way back up. You gotta put out your hands and knees to wedge yourself in place for the steeper parts.
…And Darren didn’t really have any time to acquiesce before this little climb, so on several occasions he crashes back into me, a decidedly unpleasant experience, but it’s fine. I help him back up each time. I’ve dealt with worse.
And at last we ascend through the hole in the floor of Tartarus, hauling ourselves up into the abandoned old store of peeling red and faded black.
The other kids are still up here. They stare at us in alarm. At us three exhausted fuckers. A new strange and naked man amongst them.
Curly steps forward, puts her hand on Bryce’s shoulder.
“Bryce…” she says quietly, concerned. “Where are the others? …Where’s Jaxon and Emma-Rae?”
And Bryce can take it no longer. He breaks. He doubles suddenly over as his body is wracked with sobs. He can hardly get the words out as he falls against the nearest wall and collapses to the floor, face in his hands.
“IT’S MY FAULT!” he manages through wheezes and gasps. “IT’S ALL MY FAULT”.
“…Come on”, I urge, gently but firmly as I step between them to unlock the door. “Everyone out”. I point to the newcomer. “You too Darren. There’s an open clothes store just across from here. Go grab a shirt and some pants”.
I watch as the group help Bryce up and they stumble out into the mall, and I shake my head.
Teenagers.
Thanks to Bryce, two of his friends now lie below.
…But then, it isn’t Bryce’s fault. Not really.
It’s mine. I am a guardian of Tartarus, and the instructions are clear. The responsibility belongs to me, even if you might, to an extent, disagree. I take full blame, for this.
But hell, you know what? I think my estimation of this particular age-group might actually have gone up, a little this evening. What those two down there did for their friend… What Emma-Rae and Jaxon did to try and save Bryce … It was noble. Admirable, if nothing else.
I rub a hand across my face.
I’m feeling my age, tonight.
I watch as the teenagers settle onto a nearby bench, doing their best to console Bryce and to work out what happened, and I watch as Darren stumbles his way towards the clothes store.
I turn and regard the room.
When I first stepped foot into the Tartarus store, five long years ago, I had counted twenty-one mannequins in total. Sixteen had been marked with names and initials. The other five were blank. The storeroom was also full of them.
Well, the storeroom these days looks like it houses the same amount.
But the number of mannequins all around me, stacked and clustered against the walls and the counter, has risen considerably since then.
There must be at least sixty in here, now. It’s a wonder that there’s any space for them.
The world around me is quiet, as I consider this. I can hear the distant murmur of the kids beyond the door, but overall, the sound is low. There is no faint and distant orchestra here.
It’s nice. Calming. Clear. Refreshing. Like drinking cool water after a long and beverage-free drive in the sun. I lick my lips. That’s something else I could do with. Some water. I’ll grab some in a minute. But first…
I walk to the counter and pick up the marker, uncapping it. On the closest section of red wallpaper, on a part that can be easily peeled away, I write:
R. Your name has been compromised. You cannot venture down into Tartarus from here on out. Typhon knows.
I head next to a pair of mannequins leaning against each other in the middle of the floor. A male, and a female.
On the blank canvas of the male’s face I write the following, with a sigh:
‘JAXON’
-M
and on the female’s, I write:
‘EMMA-RAE’
-M
“I’m sorry guys”, I mutter. “I hope someone will find you again some day. It might even be myself”.
And finally, before departing for the night, I head over to the mannequin closest to the door. The one I first saw on my way in, marked:
‘DERR DARREN’
-R
I cross out the name and initial with two black lines, marking an X shape over the mannequin’s face.
I cap the pen and return it to the countertop, glancing at the bottle of bleach and the rag as I do so. Once Rex sees that this soul has been saved, he’ll use these things to wipe the mannequin’s face back to blank.
“I hope this goes a little way towards alleviating your burden, man”, I mutter, before clenching and unclenching the fingers of my bad hand, encouraging the blood-flow to return.
I stride out into the mall. The kids are all teary-eyed, Darren stands awkwardly at the side wearing ill-fitting clothes and unsure what to do.
“Darren”, I say, “Do you know where you are? Do you know your way home?”
The man nods. Mumbles something incomprehensible.
“You know how long you’ve been down?”
He hesitates.
“I can’t say for sure, pal, but your name’s been on that mannequin since Easter, I remember the displays the mall had set up. So you’ve been gone for about ten months, or more”.
He stares at me, and I nod to him. “Best of luck pal. I’ll be seeing you”.
…And he nods once more, and wanders away.
My approach might seem cold, but I’ve done this before. He’ll be alright, don’t worry about him.
I turn next to the kids.
“It’s time for you guys to be heading home now too”, I say to them, gentler than before.
“But Sir”, Curly asks me, stepping forwards. “What about Jaxon and Emma-Rae?”
“You’ll… you’ll see them again someday. I don’t know when. It’s rough, I know, and I know that none of you are likely to get much sleep tonight, but you need to be heading home now”. I nod to Bryce. “And make sure your brother gets that key back. Don’t ever tell him you were down here”.
Curly nods at me reluctantly, and she returns to the group.
…The group of five.
And I watch them leave. They catch up to Darren and walk with him, looking after him, perhaps.
I wait to see if Bryce is going to say something. He turns back to me on his way out just once, washed with the others in the purple light through the sky-windows, but he remains silent.
And after they have left my field of vision I return to Tartarus. I lock up the front door with a click and I slide the key into my pocket. I haul down the metal sheet with a rattle and walk back to my chair, slumping down with a great, slow sigh.
I reach down for my coffee and take a sip.
It’s cold now, of course.
“…Hm”.
*
And so that’s that.
Lots of open threads, unfortunately, here at my little story’s end. Sorry about that. C’est la vie.
But I’m still doing my job, here in the mall. And trying to do it a little bit better, too.
…Or am I? Fuck.
On the whole… YES. I am more vigilant. I’m far more cautious. Nobody’s been let in.
…And nobody’s been let out.
That being said, however… I have an occasional guest these days; a guest who comes by sometimes during my shifts.
…It’s Bryce, of course.
He comes alone and he sits nearby on another of the massage chairs. I tried to shoo him away the first time, but you know what he’s like. He’s a stubborn bastard. So I let him sit with me, on the condition that he didn’t bother me.
He’s suffering, the poor guy. And I don’t blame him. He’s guilt-wracked. Nightmares, and the like.
…He’s wanting to go back down, you know.
Back down into Tartarus.
…I haven’t allowed it.
Bryce wants me to open the door and to allow him to return to try and save his friends. He feels that it’s his responsibility.
I take the fact that he is actually asking me as a sign that he’s truly returned Rex’s key. That Rex is being more careful with it. Or maybe that Bryce has developed some form of begrudging respect for me. …Perhaps it’s both.
But Typhon will be growing impatient, by now.
I know that Typhon is desperate for Rex to return. To welcome my colleague back to Tartarus and to throw open his arms and to make the man an offer. An offer to beat the one made by our mysterious employers all those years ago.
I shift in my seat.
When Typhon is in a bad mood he can be very unpleasant. Very damned unpleasant indeed. And I don’t know what he would do to Bryce if he thought he could use the boy to lure Rex back down. He was careless, before. He was willing to let the abominations consume him. He was arrogant; thought that Rex would come back down regardless…
…But Rex has done well. He’s held out from his obsession. He’s stepped up his game as well, perhaps. I haven’t asked Bryce if the guy’s still drinking. A part of me doesn’t want to know. I suspect that he probably is, to some degree, though hopefully he’s at least cut back.
Typhon won’t make the same mistake. And so, I cannot allow Bryce back down, as badly as he wants to go. Credit to the kid, he isn’t whiny about it. He doesn’t pout or beg, he just nods and settles back into his seat. Staring bleary-eyed at the door to Tartarus. Sometimes he drifts off.
Through the sky-window, the clouds roll gently across the moon, and the mall is bathed in shades of gently- but ever-changing- purple. Indigo, to violet, to lilac, and back.
The music comes crisp and clear through my headphones.
‘Jolene’, again.
Bryce had tossed this pair to me one night. Still in their box, brand new.
“They’re not from me”, he’d said. “Avery bought them for you. They’re the latest model of the shit ones you’re using now”.
And damn, they sure are nice. They’re more comfortable too.
Maybe kids aren’t so bad.
Frustrating, sure. Irritating and anxious and stubborn and emotional…
…But hell. Don’t mean they ain’t good people at heart.
Indigo, to violet, to lilac, and back.
The world turns.
…And Tartarus turns beneath.