Tentacle Death Trip Page 15

  “Son of a bitch!” Drac yelled, trying to gain focus, trying to turn the situation to his advantage. He was being overpowered by tentacles while his own were impotent. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He swerved the car, trying to get it out of the monstrous grasp.

  Samson’s car had already swerved away to avoid being a target but the moldy ground made his car swerve and eventually swung in a circle until it was facing Drac’s car.

  The convertible top was pulled off Drac’s car and a tentacle dove into the backseat, tearing into the bottom of the car. Then it stopped.

  Drac grabbed his gun and was firing at the tentacles but then realized Samson’s car was right alongside him again with the blowgun on top of it firing away.

  Samson was helping him.

  VII.

  Samson didn’t give a shit about the race. He saw the tentacles attack Drac and the move to help him was instinctual. He wondered if that’s how it felt to be in combat alongside someone you didn’t like. They had a common enemy in Silver so why shouldn’t they team up?

  He navigated his vehicle so he was close to Drac and then used his blowgun on the tentacles. There was no way of knowing if the needles would have any effect on them but it was worth a try. But they weren’t giving up. Drac’s car was being torn to shreds while it sped through the courtyard.

  Samson decided to take a chance and try something risky. He let go of the blowgun trigger and leaned over to open the passenger door with his right hand while steering the car with his left. He was hoping Drac would see him and now what he intended to do.

  Drac’s glass skull turned and his eyes met Samson’s. Then Drac grabbed his large, white gun.

  VIII.

  Drac started firing.

  The tentacles shook at every blast, not letting go but still giving him just the few seconds he needed to get a grip on his car and jump over to Samson’s.

  It wasn’t an easy task. Drac’s spiked shoulder pads and purple cape made it quite difficult to safely jump from one moving car to another. It was a stunt only seen in one’s imagination. People didn’t really do that in real life.

  But Drac did it.

  He surprised himself. The top half of his body fell right onto Samson’s passenger seat and his right hand gripped the open door. His legs dangled, scraping the moldy ground, sending up bulbous spores that crackled in the air.

  Samson hooked his arm under Drac’s and started to pull him in. A tentacle wrapped around Drac’s feet, squeezing his thighs until he screamed in high-pitched agony.

  A blast from Samson’s gun blew the tentacle apart, allowing Drac to pull himself up into the car.

  “Holy shit.” Drac didn’t know what else to say. The rescue had been unexpected.

  “Yeah,” Samson said. “You got that gun, you should use it.”

  Drac hadn’t realized he still had the gun in his hand. He put his arm out the window and fired at the tentacles that were waving in their direction. He watched his car veer off to the right and crash into a pile of red, bulbous skulls that screamed on impact.

  Samson maneuvered the car away from the tentacles, circling around other strange looking plant life and toward an exit underneath a stone arch made of green stone and into more darkness. The windshield fogged up and the headlights of the car did nothing to penetrate the black.

  As they drove through the nothingness, Drac said, “Thank you.”

  Samson nodded. “So what now?”

  “I don’t know,” Drac said. “I doubt we’ll get out of here alive.”

  “Yeah.”

  Drac looked around at the dashboard and then started to run his hands across it while Samson steered blindly.

  Finally, Samson said, “You looking for something?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re rubbing the car like it’s a woman.”

  Drac quickly took his hands away but was still looking at the dashboard with his eyes wide open. “There’s something familiar about this car. I don’t know what it is. I just feel like I’ve seen it before.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  Samson turned the steering wheel right, seeing if perhaps there was a path out of the darkness. But there wasn’t.

  He said, “It’s a long story.”

  “So?”

  Samson said, “Got it from a guy in Dogunville.”

  “A guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  Drac slowly extended his arm and put his hand on the steering wheel next to Samson’s. He said, “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know. Some guy.”

  “What was his name?” Drac said, his high-pitched voice turning deep, guttural.

  Samson tensed up, thinking it was a mistake for him to have rescued the guy but then he realized Drac’s aggressiveness had nothing to do with him. “I think it was Simon…”

  “Simon what?”

  “Simon…Revair, I think.”

  Drac took his hand off the wheel and put it to his skull. The gasoline inside him percolated, stirring up atoms of memory.

  IX.

  Samson saw a cut on Drac’s leg. It was a bad one. He remembered when his son Jack was very young, how used to run up to him after he had gotten hurt and say, “Daddy, I got a boo-boo!” Samson would kiss it, tell Jack he would be okay, and then watch the pain disappear from the boy’s face.

  He wondered if Drac’s father ever did the same. Thinking of that strange glass-skulled man as a child filled Samson with warm empathy and he was tempted to ask about his childhood.

  But there was no time for that.

  The only thing Samson could think about was Jack. Where was he? Was he okay? Was he even alive? Deep down Samson always thought he’d find out what happened to his son and that it would make him feel better, give him some closure. Even if he found out Jack was dead, at least he could feel relieved the boy’s pain was over.

  What if he was still alive? What if he was being abused? Was he in R’lyeh? Samson had to know. He needed to know. He would prefer to mourn his son and not agonize over the unknown tortures the boy might be enduring.

  The unknown was terrifying.

  He saw Drac enraptured in deep thought, his eyes glazed over and his hands trembling on his lap. The death race had taken its toll on both men.

  And who exactly was that Simon Revair man whose name made Drac respond with such horror? Samson remembered him only from the construction of his car but even that memory seemed to be made of the same thing as dreams. Revair’s face changed in his mind, dropping off like a loose mask while another took its place. Samson realized he probably would not be able to pick the man out of a crowd. The memory had been contaminated by time and perhaps…something else.

  X.

  Ten Years Ago

  The Church of the Starry Engines always held their meetings in a disused storefront, an anonymous room with wooden tables and wicker chairs. Maps, both new and old, covered two of the walls while primordial sigils were scrawled on the others. Constellations of mud and scum covered the ceiling.

  The congregation settled in, sitting in the chairs and on the floor which was stained with motor oil, antifreeze, gasoline, and blood. The whole room stank of machine rituals and primeval combustion.

  An oil-slicked prism sat in the center of the room, emitting pulses of energy that filled each member of the congregation with dread and trepidation. But they did not mind. In fact, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

  A handsome man with bright blue eyes stepped out from a shadowy corner. He had been there the whole time, biding his time, meditating on the future of his group, of his church, of his people. His heart revved like an engine, his mind became a turbine of ancient power. Through his veins flowed the blood of a thousand mechanical horrors, ageless and brewing with hatred for the human race that has infested the earth like fragile insects.

  The man walked up to the prism, stuck out his quivering tongue, and licked the fluids off. He stared into the crystal, saw cou
ntless years of fallen stars being constructed into automotive blasphemies, and fell into a trance.

  He chanted and the congregation chanted.

  He raised his hands and the congregation raised theirs.

  This man, Simon Revair, pastor of the church, took hold of the prism and held it above his head. He instructed a member of the congregation to get his tools. It was time to get to work.

  It was time to reconstruct the ancient machine which would raise its home from the depths of the sea. It would take a decade and there was much more to do but it would be worth it.

  Simon Revair sighed in near ecstasy. Oh yes, it would be worth it.

  XI.

  “What’s wrong?” Samson said.

  “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel…..right,” Drac said, holding his arms down, feeling the vibration of the engine and looking out into the darkness.

  Then: light.

  It came instantly, an abrupt flash of yellow that brought them into the sunlight. They drove into a walled enclosure at least three square miles, with looping stone roads rising and falling like a holographic puzzle.

  There were a myriad of choices of what road to take but it didn’t seem to matter. Samson couldn’t see any way of getting out. As his eyes followed one of the roads that rose to the sky, he saw that it ended in a spiral. It was a corkscrew horror covered in a group of winged creatures that looked like flying lobsters.

  There were other flying things. Orbs that looked like black suns made of meat. Crab-like triangles with thin, pink tentacles. Headless faces floating around blobs of smoke.

  Drac groaned. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Yeah, I know. Look at those things.”

  “No, I don’t mean that. I mean…..”

  Samson looked over at Drac who was staring down at himself. Something was wrong. Drac’s arms were started to melt into the car seat, his skin melding with it.

  “Holy shit,” Samson said, as he drove the car up one ramp and onto a stone road that twisted into unbelievable angles. He felt his hands tingle and saw the flesh on his fingers drop and become one with the leather steering wheel. “Goddamnit.”

  He tried to take his hands off the wheel but they wouldn’t move.

  He tried to take his foot off the gas pedal but it wouldn’t move.

  “What the hell?”

  “Just keep driving.”

  Though he could feel the car’s speed and see the odometer reach its limit, Samson saw none of the surroundings move in the appropriate way. Everything stood still, every crystallized spiral, every fleshy black sun, every winged terror. They all stood as still as a snapshot while the car’s engine roared forward, its wheels burning rubber on the cold, green stone beneath it. The road was bringing them somewhere.

  Samson’s eyes searched the surrounding area and saw it: a door made of metallic hair.

  The road brought them through it. Sparks fell onto the windshield, burning through the glass and bubbling onto the dashboard. The road had brought them into a gigantic dome-shaped chamber. Samson thought that it was impossible. From the outside, the city hadn’t looked tall enough to harbor such a place. But there they were, driving up a spiraling stone road toward the ceiling which seemed to grower farther and farther away no matter how fast they seemed to be going in its direction.

  The dome ceiling split open like a gangrenous wound and revealed a labyrinth of machinery constructed out of stone and giant crustaceans.

  Hundreds of emaciated human bodies hung from the machinery. From the neck down their flesh had been stripped from their bodies. Only their faces revealed the person they had been prior to their torture. Samson searched the faces of the damned. Their expressions were that of souls who have lost all purpose. They were just empty shells, decorations. Their skin looked greased with motor oil which dripped from their feet like slow, dark rain.

  Samson felt his skin loosen from his body. He was becoming just one more instrument of the car. His bones melded with metal. His veins expanded into tubes and pipes and his skin became leather upholstery.

  The car sped toward a group of human bodies and Samson saw the face he had been thinking about for years.

  Jack’s face.

  His son was older, yes, but it was him. His skin had been flayed but it was him, Samson was sure of it. He let out a groan.

  Drac said, “What is it?”

  “My son.”

  “It’s not your son. Those are just bodies.”

  “It’s him!”

  Drac scoffed. “It’s just one of Silver’s tricks!”

  With all his strength, Samson steered the car in the direction of Jack’s body. The road was going to bring him close enough for Samson to drive off the road and into the air.

  Drac said, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m going to get my son.”

  “You’re going to kill us!”

  “What the hell are you talking about? What do you think is going to happen to us?”

  “That’s not your son! Not anymore!”

  Samson pressed his foot down on the pedal, taking advantage of the fact that he was part of the car now. The tires started to rumble and as Samson looked out of the windshield toward his son, he saw something else.

  Behind the flayed bodies was a monstrous creature made of wet, green flesh and a grotesque shell. Dozens of wings protruded from its body while two giant orbs served as eyes that stared out at Samson and Drac with ungodly ambivalence.

  The monstrous creature let out a breath and the flayed bodies started to sway back and forth until their fluids battered Samson’s car in a torrential downpour of blood and oil.

  The giant orbs blinked. Wings fluttered and bodies started to fall.

  In horror, Samson saw Jack’s near lifeless body fall to the road in front of him and steered the car into it. If he could just get him to land on the hood….

  For a second he saw Jack’s eyes looking at him. Could it be possible he recognized his father? It seemed that way or at least that’s what Samson hoped. The body crashed into the car and through the windshield. There was a shower of glass and blood.

  Jack landed in the car, the top half of his body lying in the backseat with the other half in the front. With an inhuman groan, he pulled himself forward so he could see his father.

  Jack’s face was weathered and pockmarked from years of being exposed to cosmic horrors. His flayed body exposed not only his bloody flesh but also tiny stone insects embedded in the muscle and fat. Jack bared his teeth which were stained with ancient seaweed ink and his tongue oozed out of his mouth: a pink tentacle covered with inhuman taste buds.

  Samson could only move his eyes enough to see a small bit of his son’s face, the boy he lost but had never forgotten, the boy who grew into a man in an incomprehensible hell.

  Through tears he said, “Son.”

  A shriek escaped from Jack, emanating not from his throat but from the stone insects. Then a guttural cough from Jack’s mouth said, “Dad.”

  Tears of salty motor oil flowed from Samson’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

  XII.

  Drac listened to the exchange between Samson and Jack and felt jealousy.

  His own father was an intelligent man but lacked the devotion and kindness that was evident in Samson. Drac doubted his father would have had the same emotional pull towards his son.

  Before him appeared a circular shell, immense in size and sparkling with colors unknown to any earthly rainbow. Images flickered on the shell like cryptic runes on a primordial television. Drac saw his father sitting at an ornate wooden table, a book opened in front of him. A young man sits down at the table. At first Drac thinks the young man is him but then quickly realized it is not. It is Simon Revair.

  A black envelope is pulled out of the book and handed to Revair who opens it and pulls out a photograph. His mouth gapes and his eyes widen. Drac’s father closes the book, stands up, and pats Revair on the shoulder.

  Drac tried to clo
se his eyes to the images on the shell but cannot. He had just watched his father offer him, his firstborn son, to the Church of Starry Engines. Gasoline tears started to pump out of his eyes. The roar of the car’s engine invaded his skull and brought pain and memory. He thought of his father and cursed the man for his betrayal, for his devotion not to his son but to his research and his church.

  All of the images faded and Drac was left looking out at the gargantuan beast staring down at him as the car sped upward into an empyreal abyss.

  XIII.

  There was no sky left, just crab shell clouds and that giant beast staring them down, its moist skin oozing octopoid sweat that flew down like hungry hail, smashing into the car, peppering it with holes.

  That’s when the road cleared. With a groan that sounded as ancient as it was ear-destroying, the creature flew out of sight and Samson saw they were now heading straight toward a translucent wall covered with throbbing suckers and tentacles made of quivering mirrors.

  And they went right through that wall, a multiverse of tentacles engulfing the car.

  Jack pulled himself up onto his father’s lap, alien sounds erupting from every remaining cell of his body. He started to melt.

  Samson tried moving his hands off the steering wheel to hug his son but he was still just part of the car, just another instrument in a biomechanical horror. But he felt Jack’s body soften and meld into his own. They were together and would be so forever and that was better than nothing.

  “I love you, Jack,” he said, trying to determine if his son’s consciousness was going to be a part of him as well as his body.

  The car shook and the passenger door was ripped open.

  “Drac!” Samson said but there was no answer. He managed to turn his head a quarter of an inch to see that Drac was done. The top of his glass skull was gone. It now resembled a champagne glass full of gasoline. Drac’s eyes fell out onto his cheeks, hanging there like bulbous hangmen.

  What Samson was headed toward had nothing to do with a death race. It was beyond life and death, beyond anything that anyone on earth could have ever imagined.