Link to part 5
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/11fv2lp/the_big_rock_candy_mountain_part_5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
The tunnel is massive, dimly lit in a way that never really let’s you see the true source. The more I try to figure it out the deeper my headache becomes.
We’ve been walking for a few minutes before who I assume is the man running things decides to speak again.
“Well, you two are here, don’t you have any questions? “ He says cordially.
“Who are you? “ Mike says, his tone pure business.
“Glad you asked, I always feel like an asshole explaining things unprompted.
I’m what’s in charge of the mountain, not that the mountain is my only project, but getting into that is just going way off track.
I am what designed the path, your hazards, your trials, and, of course, the promised reward.
I’m not actually just this beautiful shell, but, going around in my birthday suit makes people a little edgy.
You could call me a Demigod, or force of nature, demon, angel, whatever helps. Any of the above is within spitting distance.
If you’re looking for a name, call me Arthur. “ The speech sounds well rehearsed, I shiver thinking of how many people this thing has sent through it’s cosmic meat grinder.
“Why do you do this to people? “ I ask.
“Sorry Kev, but that, unfortunately, isn’t a question I can answer. Right now anyway.
You see, I have an offer for the two of you. One I don’t just give every Joe Six-pack that walks in my door.
Don’t get me wrong, you two are entitled to your reward as stated. And the mountain is everything I’ve promised, infinite pleasure at no cost. Indulging every vice and fantasy till the end of time with nothing in the way.
That being said, cards on the table here… oh, shit, is that a little too soon?
Mike, I can’t rewind your timepiece. You are ten steps removed from anywhere you should be, and frankly I’m surprised you haven’t popped, liquefied, or turned into something strange.
But that also means that we could work, very well together. Unique is very good in my field. “ His slick, used car dealer reply ends with us entering the mountain’s interior.
Caves, cracks and nooks, spiraling infinitely upwards, extending past what should be a horizon, a world scaled honeycomb of hidden contents, creatures, and intent.
I catch brief flickers of things moving, flitting from the shadows, or watching from concealment.
“Doesn’t look like much from the outside, but everything you want is in those caves. Vice without consequence, until the lights go out on reality. No monkeys paw bullshit, just what you earned getting here.
But, indulge me here, let me see if I can sweeten the pot for you two. “ Arthur whispers something In a language I won’t even guess at and from a granite wall springs an office door that would seem normal if not for it’s location.
There’s a sense of vertigo, of displacement as we walk through, Arthur seems unbothered.
We find ourselves walking through what appears to be an upscale office building. Sharp dressed people of various ages and looks mill about.
“Confused are we?
Well, you guys are getting to see how the sausage is made, so to speak.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that neither of you know exactly how things really work, so I’m going to speak in really broad terms.
Do you know the difference between living creatures and God’s?
Not the obvious, but in the grand scheme of things?
Gods started out with unlimited power, a handful controlling every aspect of every corner of reality.
But, as things are want to do, they reproduced, and found that with every generation, their offspring became weaker, less connected to the void.
Humans, on the other hand, well, give them enough time and food, they just become more capable. “ Arthur pauses as we reach an oak door, stained a dark brown.
We enter his office, and find ourselves sitting across from him, his granite topped desk separating us.
“But what does that have to do with you?
It’s simple.
My brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, they run their universe changing, esoteric, mindfuck, religion spawning, bullshit. Trapping people in ‘games’ they could play for 30 years and not realize it.
Me? I’m just a young guy, couple thousand years old, couldn’t get involved with that mess if I wanted to, so I’ve made it my business to give everyone, God and mortal, what they want.
And what I’ve found, is people want entertainment, and they want their dreams, even their nightmares, to come true. Even if they don’t realize it.
So, I find a legend, like you’ve seen, and I make it real, or real enough anyway. People didn’t find the path, they wanted it, and I made it.
And then I take their struggle, and sell it to those able to pay the bill. The void touched get the most out of it, they feed on suffering, but you’d be surprised at how many bored rich people buy a recording or two.
Everyone you see here is someone from one of my projects, or someone they care about they brought into the fold, a person I’ve given a little spark of myself to. That little bit of power is something seekers of esoterica would kill to have, something that makes the pleasures and reward of the mountain look like a consolation prize.
I’m a fuckin Chad, but even I need my support staff.
And you two, christ on the cross, you’d be a get.
Mike, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a fucking dead zone. I can’t read a single thought in those scrambled eggs of yours.
Now Kev, I could make pluck out his own eyes, but you, not so much. It’s like trying to tune into static. “ I’m hanging on Arthur’s words, but then my heart stops, I’m holding a wickedly pointed brass letter opener millimeters from my eye, “See? Easy as hell, can’t even work up a sneeze with you.
I can’t get you back where you came from, but I’ll give you a job back where Kev and Rabbit call home, one that would have you putting out the lights of things worse than Dahmer five days a week.
Oh, shit, Kev, sorry, put that down. “
Without input on my part I replace the letter opener to it’s exact position on the desk. This thing’s control over me is effortless, horrifying.
“Don’t think you’re the ugly girl at the prom there Kev.
The mountain has been a pretty big hit for a long time, but honestly, it’s getting a little stale. For lack of a better term, ratings are down, it’s not worth the investment, and we need something new.
I want something to appeal to these waves of new blood, half century , analog horror, God scraps. Half of them are so removed from the void, they might as well just be humans. So, who better to design the next project that you? A human who managed to navigate the path without turning into a cult leader, or psychopath. “ Arthur’s offer scares me and makes me want to spit in his face.
“Why did you kill him? “ I say, point blank, my voice tired, and thin.
“Yeah, thought that would be the deal breaker.
I could tell you about the minutia for hours, try and justify my position, but that was your best friend, so I won’t.
Your buddy was a fucking genius, and he thought that by raining on my parade, he’d be doing the world some good. He was probably right.
I sat him down, explained that, right or wrong, I’m the guy with his finger on the trigger.
He didn’t listen Kev. I tried talking, I tried scaring the man, I tried letting him go, no strings attached.
But he spent his life learning, and he came here with a plan that would have worked, he wasn’t about to let that go. But I can’t let my projects suffer because some guy has moxy and a bug up his ass.
If it helps, it was quick, basically just flipped off his light switch. Soul intact, sitting wherever it should be. “ The answer is too simple, too blunt, but I don’t know what else I was expecting. This path has been full of callous, utilitarian death.
Arthur gives us a week to decide, to familiarize ourselves with his staff and the mountain.
With the exception of a few pin up gals fond of leather, I never really understood what people meant when they would talk about something being so horrifying it was beautiful, but the caves and grottos of the mountain were fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.
Of course, I could only see a tiny fraction of what was there, but each tier was a hedonistic mega city of focus to some vice or another.
The deeper one travels, the less human the inhabitants become, their bodies changing to accommodate amounts of drugs, food or… activities well beyond human tolerances.
This is a heaven for the broken, those changed so much by life, or the path, that their reward needs to be myopic and paranormal in scale.
I found myself deep within what I could only describe as a heroin enclave, watching twisted people, almost stick-bug like in appearance scuttle into and out of dimly lit cracks and holes. It was two days into our week, Mike takes a seat on the cliff face beside me, his approach silent, as always.
“Any thoughts? “ He says, drinking from a silver flask. The booze smells old and expensive.
“Do I want to be a junkie for eternity, or torture people for a living? No, haven’t been able to come to an easy conclusion on that one. “ I say, wearing my heart on my sleeve.
“Can I ask you a question?
Let’s say the worst man on earth is in a hospital. You know this guy is going to kill a million people. For a fact.
Do you set the hospital on fire? “ The question seems out of left field, but Mike seems serious.
“Sure, I guess. If it’s empty. “ I reply.
“Okay, but what about if it isn’t?
Where does collateral damage turn into murder? “ Wind gusts as Mike lets the question hang.
“ 1, 50, 1000, I don’t fucking know Mike, why are you throwing more impossible questions my way? And if you’re cooking something up, probably best not to be talking about it.” I’m aggressive, the never ending stress and fear starting to fry my emotions.
“I’ve never thought that question was hard.
Which is why, I can never trust my judgement completely.
See, to me, as long as that hospital has anything lower than 999,999 people in it, I’m the good guy.
I think I have a third option that at least gets you home. And don’t worry about Art, if he could see what I’m doing, he’d have noticed the half alive body of one of his peons I’ve been working on. He’s no fucking God, he’s a sadistic universal glitch.
But that option, it’s going to be messy. And while, to me, no one that chose to come here is innocent, I’m aware most people wouldn’t feel the same. “ There is no jester’s edge to Mike’s words, he seems like he’s trying to justify his course of action to himself as much as anybody else.
“Regardless, I thought we couldn’t hurt them, or Art? He let you try that out with your cane, didn’t he? “ My question is only delaying the inevitable, but it’s better than making this decision.
“Yep, and that’s where I noticed the first cracks in arts little façade.
Couldn’t put a scratch on him or the handful of idiots he brought in, not with my hands, not with my cane.
But the next day, I noticed something interesting. Guy spills coffee on himself, fresh out of the pot, screams like a son of a Bitch, starts taking off his shirt trying to get it off.
I chalk it up to force of habit.
Now, screaming when you spill coffee on yourself, that’s one thing, but when I saw the paper cut, it came together. No one bleeds out of force of habit.
Art made this place, but he isn’t omnipotent, he isn’t omnipresent, there are cracks, flaws, and the best part is, he’s too much of an egotistical prick no know they are there.
I can’t shut this place down, but I can do what I’m good at, and cause a massive amount of blood soaked chaos, should be good enough for you to run out the fire escape, metaphorically speaking. “ There is subtext to what Mike is saying. A moral weight of this decision that extends well past whether I live or die.
“That still leaves the fire escape. “ I say, a ‘yes’ in all but the literal sense.
“You have to leave me a little bit of mystery Kev, it’s my thing. “ I think Mike is half way through a sentence, but by the time I turn to him, he’s gone.
How would you adapt in my situation, getting let behind the curtain, seeing the pullies and gears of the murder machine that has been killing your friends?
Personally, I got to know people.
Mike was around less and less, and with each passing hour sitting alone in the sterile, sparsely furnished room, my fear of Art finding out what Mike was doing and taking it out on me grew.
So, I made friends.
It wasn’t hard, most people here had been through some variant of hell, some legend flavored gauntlet that tore them up, mind body and soul.
But everyone had nothing but nice things to say about Art. Chilling considering the path to the mountain, comparatively, was a milder one of his ‘Projects’.
The staff, outside of their jobs, live normal, albeit, charmed lives. Paid enough to never worry about material things, and given enough of ‘the void’ to never age, get sick, break a bone, or choke on a grape.
Two days pass and I find myself sitting in a lunch room, a half dozen members of staff around me, asking me when I plan on signing up for real. At this point it’s all but decided that I’ll be a member of the team, and they couldn’t be happier.
Had the dice rolled slightly different, I’d have taken art up on his offer, became one of these more than human office drones. But my destiny isn’t peace, or answers.
Lights flicker briefly, not a rare occurrence, despite some deep contacts in the government, getting electricity to somewhere not quite in this world is, complicated, to say the least.
But when we are plunged into pitch darkness 5 minutes later, chuckles turn into nervous silence.
I want to ask you again.
How would you feel?
You know what’s coming, and so did I.
Would you feel vindicated? Invincible? The eye of a storm of violence?
I didn’t.
I know this is it, and I know that no matter how smart, how fearsome, and how violence prone Mike is, we are going up against something that claims to be a God. Even if it’s full of shit, it’s doing a great impression.
I have no information on the plan, or what it might entail, and to be completely honest with you, I have no assurances it’s for my benefit.
So, I don’t feel excited, or powerful. I feel afraid, alone and at the whim of nothing but Lunatics, and demons.
Red hazard lights turn on with an industrial clacking noise. My companions in matching black dress pants and white shirts look into the hallway, quiet greets them.
Mitchell, a large man, 300 or so years old but not looking a day over 30 leaves the room, calling to friends and coworkers.
There is a plastic clicking noise, and what might be a gasp. I know, one way or the other, someone is dead or dying.
5 immortals are frozen in fear, as slow, methodical footsteps come toward the room.
From deep within the non Euclidean office building there is noise of panic and pain. I run through all the little tips and tricks Mike liked to talk about when the early hours of the morning turned into narcotic breakfast.
“What’s happening, Art’s family doing something again? “ Tabitha says, with all of the ages she could have chosen, she looks well past her prime, severe, and pale. The type of swallow, soulless look, I’d expect of everyone here.
Tabby realizes she’s only talking to 3 other people. In an instant, something had taken 2 people out of the room.
Tabitha, myself, and two twins, Maxine and Max, sit in silence, vague, ominous noises coming from the hallway.
“ For your own sakes, just do what he says. “ I say, deadpan.
If I had a choice, I’d have called the whole thing off at this point. Signed up to be a paranormal producer, and let the world keep spinning just the way it has.
But what enters the crimson room can be accurately described as the personification of my lack of choice.
It’s Mike, as… Mike as I’d ever seen him. Soot blackened coat torn, garish costume drenched in blood and damage, he saunter into the room. Something is off, I can’t quite put my finger on it.
“It’s just this asshole? “ Tabitha says, voice dripping with distain.
The staff were evasive about exactly what Art’s gift entailed, but this, frail, old woman moves in a blur toward the wild eyed clown there was no way he would be quick enough to avoid her.
But he didn’t need to be.
She impales herself just below the jaw line, Mike has a death grip on a brass letter opener, in the same style as Art’s.
Her distorted screams raise in pitch as he lifts her, bone cracking, dull, brass blade working its way past soft palate and into sinus.
Mike looks up as if doing a scene from Shakespeare. A twist of the blade stops the ancient female from being able to scream without giving her the mercy of death.
“Oh, you mean Mike?
Oh no tabby, I’m not that clown.
See, Mike, he likes to play to win, he has goals, concerns, all that stupid shit. He likes to play to win.
But I’m the guy who comes out to play when shit’s hit the fan, call me Giggles. “ That voice, I don’t know if this is an act, with Mike, maybe it doesn’t matter, but there is a deep, vindictive bent to it.
The twins try to help their friend, but Mike uses her body as a shield, every twist or plunge of the blade making the two pause.
I can’t control my breathing, I begin to shake, this isn’t what I wanted, this isn’t what any of these people deserve.
Something hits me in the face, light, a folded sheet of paper, a bloody fingerprint like a wax seal on one side.
By the time Mike manages to finish Tabitha off her body is a mangled wreck, the brass blade in just about the same state.
He casts it aside, sitting casually on a cheap table.
One twin runs, thinking the clown to be disarmed, Max, begins to beg for his life, making esoteric oaths of fealty I’m sure Mike neither understood nor cared about.
Mike gains max’s attention, slowly taking off his top hat, like a stage magician he pulls something from it, something small, and deformed, looking absolutely confused as to the situation it finds itself in.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what happened.
After a drawn out moment of holding the kitten, Mike throws the thing, like a God damned softball, directly into Max’s face.
There was a noise like an auditory skip, and a tiny dull flash of something that might have been related to light.
The feline, was fine, unperturbed even, now rolling, blood stained on the floor.
Max on the other hand, the man looked like he was hit with a sledgehammer, a gaping hole in his face, dripping blood and shedding bone.
He was on his way out to be sure, but Mike took no chances, he picks up the cat-like and uses it to bludgeon Max to the point of decapitation.
I expect him to snap out of it, to run me through his plan, but Mike simply turns to me, I see nothing of the man I know in those eyes.
“You, useless fuck, stay out of the splash zone. “ He says, sprinting out into the hallway with a sinister echoing chuckle.
I open the paper, hands shaking, dull light barely enough to read the childlike scrawl.
“ Kev, if you are reading this, shit has gotten bad. Some part of my plan fucked up, and, well, I broke.
It isn’t an act, it isn’t part of the plan, it’s what happens when I let myself get overwhelmed, when I get too fatalistic.
I’m not talking some transformation, or another voice in my head. No man, this is just good old fashioned mental illness, disassociation, delusions, the works.
If I’ve got far enough, you should be able to find the device that will get you out of here. There will be a portly guy with a very nice family in the real world, he isn’t keen on me meeting, he will power it up and get you going.
If not, I’m sorry man. I’m not a hero, fuck, I’m not even a villian. I’m a guy with some serious problems who swung for the fences. “
I laugh, it’s all I can do, angered Demigods all around me, my one ally mentally broken and slaughtering innocent people? This place is nothing if not a giant morbid joke at my expense.
All of you have been telling me this from the beginning, so I listen. I’ve come too far to curl up and die now.
The walk to the control room is a series of nonsensical twists and turns that should have done nothing more than taken me in circles.
The sights on the way though.
This wasn’t a fight, or settling a score, people left mortally wounded, others cut open and displayed. It felt like rampage, ritual and revenge all blended together.
Every noise makes me stop dead, I know what Mike is capable of, and after that note, I know it may get pointed in my direction.
But it isn’t Mike that finds me. The steel, keypad locked door to my freedom Sits at the end of the hallway, but between it and myself, appearing out of thin air, is Art.
He looks out of breath, hair slightly askew, demeanor just a step off of his normal arrogance.
“Where is the clown? “ Art says to me, black and crimson energy starting to gather in his right hand.
“Please, I had nothing to do with this… “ I start to plead, my valor having been spent.
“Of course not, you don’t have the fucking balls, that God damned jester though… “ There is a noise behind us, with a flick of his wrist, Art sends the energy speeding down the narrow hallway, for the briefest of moments it illuminates a silhouette silently stalking toward us.
Art sneers, another rot reeking energy bolt screams down the hallway, tearing a gauge out of one grey plaster wall, in the flash Mike’s grin glows.
A click, a hum, and the office building from hell is harshly illuminated once again.
The scene is the pinnacle of the mountain of brutality I’ve had to climb.
Bodies, some living some not, hang from the ceiling, torn open, slashed from neck to groin, they drip a constant patter of droplets, blood falls like a biblical curse, camouflaged until now by the hazard lights.
Mike drops a hefty looking control box, hastily hard wired into the grid. It makes me wonder how much time he spent setting up this fun house.
“Well, I’m right here asshole, you think you thought of something no one else has managed to? By all means, let’s see it, life gets real boring after the first millennium. “ Art gives nothing more than a casual glance to the morbid display, walking toward Mike.
The brim of Mike’s hat hangs low, shadows obscuring everything but his fang like, crooked grin.
“You think I came here to win a fight? Mike might have.
Me? I’m just here to see how much damage I can cause. “ As Mike reaches for his hat I see Art track his every move.
The cat flies through the air, but stops a foot from Art’s face, hovering, confused, in mid air.
The noise behind us starts to rise to alarming levels. No matter how good Mike is at causing shit, this can’t all be his doing.
“Might have worked, didn’t. “ Art says simply, a shimmer of grey energy around the feline begins to constrict, at first there is nothing, the creature showing that same invulnerability from before.
But with visible concentration from Art, as the field turns almost opaque, the creature is crushed, left to fall, formless on the stain resistant carpet.
I scream, the in unison look I receive from the two murderous bastards in front of me silences it.
The noise becomes too much to ignore, I look down the hallway, and off in the distance, lit in shocking detail is a mass of the denizens of the mountain.
It’s a scrum, a melee, a mosh pit with lethal consequences. If there are sides to the approaching battle I can’t make them out.
“So you riled up the locals and got a cat killed, great plan King Arthur. Any last words? “ Art doesn’t even move, he is simply holding Mike by his neck, screaming over the din.
Mike seems to have some, but his eyes are glued to the corpse of Jr. On the floor.
The mass begins to move, and boil, gaining volume, and spreading. Art chokes Mike, his other hand plucking an eye from the clown’s skull.
Mike’s attempts to free himself are futile, but as the rapidly shifting blob of flesh and organs launches itself at the Ceo of Purgatory, Art stumbles, falling over as one leg is engulfed.
I sprint, I try not to look back, but I do anyway, I see Mike, art, and whatever the semi solid that was Junior get overrun with the denizens of the mountain.
Mike must have figured some things out because, as promised, when I began to slam my fists against the cold steel door, I was greeted by a portly man who placed me into a large clear cylinder before working away on keyboards of brass and bone.
It’s been a year since I got out of the mountain, and while I can’t say it’s been the best year of my life ( getting used to life down a couple of fingers isn’t fun.), I can say it’s been the most free.
I’m working, I’m, mostly drug free, and when I’m not, it’s fungus and Mary Jane, not coke and kibble.
And up until last week, I didn’t hear word one about the mountain.
Till the day a bunch of men, pushing seventy rolled up in the type of van father’s warn their daughters about, the outside painted like psychedelic vomit.
We had a conversation, and I’d almost decided they were full of shit, until a back window rolled down. Billows of skunk smelling smoke pouring out.
“You got the balls for round 2 Kev? “ Mike says, his face a nearly skinless mess.
I don’t know if I do.
Link To The Klink
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/11y9h8q/the_klink_mikes_story_part_1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button