Here's how this works... I finished the Black Utopia story as part of ENGL407 at the university. However, this is the first version. I have yet to write the second, where I take advice given to me by the professor and other students and revise it. So, here's it as it is now. I don't know if my formatting from Word carried over in the copy/paste and frankly I can't be fucked to look through it all and check.
Try to enjoy it. Take tylenol for the pain.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wind blew dust in small tornados, picking up trash from the roadside. They cut a path over the highway until a long-haul truck flashed by, scattering the discarded fast food wrappers and soda bottles across the oncoming lanes.
James watched this over the roof of his car. Aside from the wind and the semi, the only sound he heard was the ticking of the fuel pump, the muffled rush of gasoline and the slow, shuffling steps of the gas station attendant. He turned to face the old man who started his gas pumping only minutes before. The old man, denim overalls stained with motor oil and filth, held a blue credit card at arms length.
“It ain’t workin’.” He said. He half-smiled, revealing the gaps of several missing teeth. The rest were stained from smoking and the gums had receded, leaving them appearing to be far too long and loose.
“How many times did you try it?” James squinted in the sun, leveling a questioning gaze at the old man.
“Four‘r five. Machine won’t work.”
James took the card back and reached for his wallet. “I guess I’ll pay cash. But, I’ll need a receipt.”
“No prob’em, sir. Yer nigh ‘bout finished.” As the old man talked, the fuel pump clicked off. James paid the man. As he was getting in, the old man coughed to get his attention. “Yeah?” He asked.
The old man leaned on the open car door and asked, “You that ‘splorer what all the noise was ‘bout some while back?”
“No, I’m not. That was my twin brother.”
The old man guffawed. “Sure.”
“Seriously. Eddie Stuart was my twin brother. I’m James.”
“Well’en what you doin’ out here?”
“I’m on my way to Utopia. Ever been there?”
“Naw. But, I hear once the streets are paved wit’ gold, there ain’t no crime an’ everything free. Don’t see how it’s better than around these parts. Sure, the streets ain’t paved wit’ no gold, but there ain’t no crime cause there’s ain’t nothin’ to steal and things might as well be free for you can get jus’ ‘bout anything barterin’. Why you ask?”
“I’m a private investigator and I’ve been hired to find a tourist who went there on vacation and never returned. Rich family, scared for their daughter; you know.”
“Yeah. Well, you keep yerself safe, ya’hear?”
“Sure.”
James pulled his door shut and drove away. A road sign he passed read, “Utopia: 109 miles.”
James turned the cruise control on and accelerated up to 70mph. He sat back and daydreamed a bit. Eddie. It had been a long time since James had given him any thought.
Edward Ulysses Stuart was the first of the twins born. Their mother had said he climbed his way out of the womb; that he couldn’t wait to explore the untouched corners of the world. And he began exploring at a very young age.
James and Edward were the distant relatives of some of the more wealthy families in
For weeks, he spent all day, every day, in the dark seclusion of the mine. Every morning, he’d go down with lanterns and food and would come out in the evening covered in dirt and grime. After a week or so, he began taking tools with him. Shovels, pick-axes and wheelbarrows. The country house they lived at was soon without any labor implements.
When quizzed about his behavior, Eddie would try to change the subject.
After four weeks, Eddie left the mine alone and never went down it again. When James would ask about it, a look of terror overtook him and fear took his voice.
When the twins were 18, Eddie left for the
Eddie left
James’ first case involved a missing girl and he was shocked to learn that she was missing in the woods that his family owned until just a few years before.
By some freak brainstorm, he knew where to look for the girl- the mineshaft his brother lived in for so many weeks.
He ordered the area cordoned off and he and two officers ventured into the mine.
Their flashlights illuminating narrow shafts of darkness, they relied on their hearing to determine what was ahead of them. As James pointed his flashlight down the mineshaft, the two officers searched around them. One grunted and gestured to an old mine cart overturned. It said “Arkham Copper Mining Corporation” in large white letters. The beam shifted from the cart to one of the supporting beams and a rather out-of-place electric lantern. James gingerly walked over to it; his flashlight aimed at the floor of the mine, and turned the switch. It lit. One of the officers gasped.
James spun around and saw nothing in the dim yellowish light cast by the aged panes of glass in the lantern. “What?” he asked.
The officer, his face pale white, pointed down the shaft. “Something moved down there. Something not human.”
The other officer chuckled, “Looks like Pemberton’s got a case of the willies.”
“I’m serious!” he shouted, “I saw something.” His voice echoed in the mine.
James nodded, “I believe you, but it’s not there now. Let’s-” He was cut himself when he heard a voice from down the mine.
“Help…” the voice cried, “I’m down here! Help me…please hurry! They’re here!”
“We’re coming!” shouted Pemberton as he drew his gun. The other officer did the same.
They followed the voice down a side tunnel, unsupported by the usual timber frame you see in mines and the passage seemed…newer. Every few yards lay a discarded and broken pick or hammer and chisel. The walls turned from dirt to loose rock. The tunnel opened up into a deep, dark room. The three police stopped.
“Hello?” asked James into the room.
“I’m over here!” shouted the voice, very close now. They worked their way to the right along the wall. Their flashlights couldn’t reach far into the inky blackness.
Soon, they found a wooden shack and heard sobbing from inside. Breaking their way in, they found a teenage girl in a fetal position, crying. It was the girl they were looking for.
She looked up with teary eyes and said, “They’re coming. Can’t you hear them?”
James listened carefully and sure enough, he heard scratching and dragging of feet. A wet breathing sounded from the outside of the shed. Pemberton aimed his gun alongside his flashlight and slowly scanned the outside through the door. Carefully, he poked out and scanned around, then left.
A few seconds later, gunfire erupted and the girl screamed. But her scream was drowned out by a shrill, inhuman scream of pain and torment. It died as quickly as it started and silence took the shed.
“Pemberton?” asked the other officer, “Pemberton, you out there?” He mimicked Pemberton’s scanning of the outside and almost instantly began firing. After emptying his clip, he grabbed the door and flung it shut and backed himself against it.
“I saw it,” the officer said, terror breaking up his voice, “blood on its hands. We gotta get out of here.”
“What was it?” asked James.
“Satan.” The girl answered.
“Yeah, yeah sure,” said the officer, “but I think I killed the one I shot. But, I saw others. Must be the every devil out of hell out there.”
“Ok,” said James, “how do we get out of here?”
The two police began searching the shed with their flashlights. James stopped as his light illuminated some drawings on the one rock wall. He stood and looked closer.
One depicted a person being devoured by a squid. Another was a dozen stick figures bowing to a star with a flame in the middle. Letters were scrawled beneath it.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ia Cthulhu! Ia Shub-Niggurath!
As James tried to figure out what those words meant, a pounding began on the wall next to him, opposite the door.
The remaining officer sighed, “Detective, you run with the girl. We follow the wall until we find the tunnel. You get the hell out of here, I’ll cover us and meet you outside.”
James just nodded and turned to the girl. She was sobbing again. The pounding on the shack’s wall got louder and the boards began to loosen. James pulled the girl up and slung her over his shoulder. He nodded to the officer, who yanked the door open and fired into the face of the creature on the other side.
Not stopping to look at what it was, James ran as fast as he could. Every few steps, the officer would pause and fire a few shots behind him. They quickly came to the tunnel and James ran through, without stopping to see what became of the officer. As he entered the main mine, he heard gunshots telling him the officer was still back there. He ran towards the distant light of the lantern and then outside.
The police outside grabbed the girl from him and took her behind their barricades. James stood just outside the mine and listened.
He heard footsteps and grunting and knew the officer was coming. Suddenly, he heard a yelp and gunshots. The shots ended in a scream and then there was silence.
James ordered the mine entrance blown up with dynamite, sealing it forever.
That was the first he had thought of his twin brother in years. Were those…things the reason why Eddie stopped going in the mine and why he seemed to terrified by it? What were they? And what was so special about that writing?
For months, James found himself preoccupied by the events in the mine. He unconsciously doodled strange designs which reminded him of the drawings on the wall. He also contacted one of his university professors about the writing and he had never seen such strange words before. It wasn’t any spoken language.
He became so obsessed, that he quit the police force and went into business for himself, hoping to discover something about the strange writing.
Then, James got some news about his twin brother. Everyone got it.
It was the lead news story for every major network. “Famous Explorer Disappears Underwater!”
Eddie had discovered a sunken city in the
The networks played a clip from a press conference he gave a few days before.
Eddie stood at a podium and said, “It has always been my calling to explore what hasn’t been explored yet, to see what hasn’t been seen, to illuminate the dark areas on this planet. There is no terra incognita, not in this era of technology.”
The camera zoomed away from him, showing Eddie’s team.
“We have discovered an ancient city sunken deep below the
Murmurs went through the gathered media.
“In three days time, we dive on the city and humanity will learn more about her own past in that one dive than has been learned in the last thousand years.”
The network cut the clip.
It’s said that when one twin dies, the other feels like he lost a limp. But, James felt nothing. He hadn’t seen his brother in years and no longer knew him. He was far more concerned about the mine.
James kept searching for the next few years, financing his quest with odd detective jobs. Then his current contract came before him and he accepted it and the money it would bring in.
James snapped back to reality when the road he was on ended in a parking lot. There must have been a hundred cars parked, most of them had thick coats of dust on them and were faded from the sun. Beyond the parking lot was a vast sparkling ocean. James knew that it was man-made and not very deep, but it was still beautiful. Sitting on it, slowly approaching was a white ferry.
James pulled into a parking space near the back of the lot and walked to the ferry dock. A man stepped out of the dock house and said, “I knew you were coming, so I called the ferry for you. You’d best change and get ready to leave.”
James looked at the man skeptically, “Change?”
The man smiled, his teeth were perfect even if the rest of his body was weathered and wrinkled like an old pair of boots. “Your outsider clothes and belongings are not allowed on the island. They would pollute the society. You’ll understand when you get there, now hurry, he’s waiting.”
“He?”
“You’ll find out when you get there. Change.” The man pointed to a bank of lockers. “Open one and take out the clothes inside. Put your outsider clothes inside and lock it. Don’t lose your key, you’ll need it if you come back.”
“If?” James was bewildered.
“You’ll find out when you get there. Hurry, the ferry is almost here and the ferryman is impatient.”
James walked down to an open locker and removed the clothes inside: plain un-dyed, unbleached cloth pants and shirt, sort of a tanish color and slippers of the same material with leather soles. He changed in the open air and locked his “outsider” clothes in the locker and removed the numbered key. He slipped it in the single pocket he had, on the front of his shirt.
The ferryman looked him up and down and grunted. He then went to the pilothouse and started the ferry. It had no cabin, merely a pedestal with controls. James stood at the bow and watched the empty horizon. Slowly, his vision began to blur and he lost his footing. Dropping down on one knee to steady himself, he looked toward the ferryman but saw no one. On hands and knees, he crawled toward the controls. His vision narrowed and he dropped into unconsciousness.
“Yep, that’s him.” James heard the voice but couldn’t find its source in the inky blackness. “Not much to look at.” That was another voice, opposite the first…on either side of him…Both uneducated, southern. “He’s waking up.” A third voice, this one behind him, with a
Two sets of hands lifted him up to his feet, and he found he could stand and walk. He still couldn’t see and felt his way up the pair of hands on his left. They felt cold and clammy. There was the smell of rotten meat in the air.
“Mr. Stewart,” it was the educated voice again, “you can see, you just have to remember to open your eyes. Don’t worry about shielding them, it’s quite dark.”
James opened his eyes and in the distance saw an exit light over an unpainted metal door. “Better?” asked the Texan voice. Out of the inky blackness around the distant light four hooded shadows resolved into form.
“No.” said James. “I can’t see your faces.”
“Indeed, that is the point,” said the educated one, “You would not appreciate it. There is a dark side to this fabled utopia which your brother has created.”
“My brother?”
“We do not have time to explain. Take this and think on it.” The educated voice pressed a coin into James’ hand. “Don’t look at it now. When you are outside in the sun, take it in your hand and then look at it. Ask yourself where it comes from.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. Now, let’s go. He awaits.”
The four shadows grabbed James again and half-pulled him towards the door. When it opened, the light was blinding. He was pushed through the door and another set of arms grabbed him on the other side and pulled him up an echoing set of stairs. James, blinded by the light, saw nothing. He was pulled down a hallway, footsteps cushioned by thick carpeting and then unceremoniously thrown onto the floor and sank into the carpeting an inch. His vision was coming back, the carpet was red.
James looked up and around. There was the red carpet and everything else was golden, but it all had a strange white luminous hue. It didn’t really look like gold, but a deep, inherently human feeling told him that it, indeed, was. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin given to him and it was the same gold substance. Written on it, in black lettering was: “Save us.” James turned it over and on the opposite side it read “Kill him.”
“What is that?” asked James’ own voice, but it came from across the room. His head bolted upright and he squinted to focus his eyes just a little better. He saw himself. He was decked out in a finely tailored black suit with a red shirt and black tie. He wore a luminous golden chain around his neck and white gloves were tucked into his lapel pocket. “Ah,” he said as he walked forward, “A coin.”
James rubbed the coin and the writing smeared away. He looked up again. “You’re supposed to be dead, Eddie.”
“Indeed I should be, but, alas, I am alive and well.” Eddie bowed. “What brings you to this, my utopia, oh brother dear?”
“Work.” James purposefully answered vaguely. What the hell was going on, he thought to himself, Eddie disappeared on that undersea expedition.
“Never mind that…,” Eddie searched for the word, “inconsequential business. You must help me. I know this is sudden- we’ve only just been reunited after years of me being dead and we should be emotional and thankful that we’re both alive- but I don’t care. I am on the brink of the greatest event in human history and I need your help to bring it about. Look around you.” Eddie raised his arms and swept around the large palatial room, like a throne room. “This magnificent place is but one tiny fraction of the wealth given to me. My city is literally paved in it. My buildings are clad in it. And it is all a gift.
“You stand there, looking confused, as if I am insane. But I tell you that this is evidence of the wonders that await the human race. Utopia for all! Peace and wealth for all! No hunger, no sickness, no neediness!” His eyes burned in ferocity. “Freely given to us by our benefactors! All of humanity will thank me for bringing it about!”
Eddie’s arms were still up and he turned around and slowly brought his arms down, pointing at the far wall. Slowly, on cue, the gilded wall parted at the middle, revealing a grand staircase heading down. A gust of damp, sour air plowed across the room and shocked James into action.
“What are you talking about, Eddie?” He asked. “Benefactors? I’m not here for any of this. All I need is to find this girl.”
“Forget the girl, James,” Eddie shouted, “This is far more important! You are witness to the dawn of a new age! Follow me.”
James was surprised to find two sets of arms grab him on either side and pull him to his feet and they led him toward the stairway. The smell was…rotten. The dampness made it stick in his nose and it got worse as he neared the stairs themselves.
The staircase was sharply sloped downward into darkness. James recoiled from it. It was the same luminous gold, but was tarnished in the creases of its ornately carved balustrade. They were shaped like squid tentacles and were decorated with a strange symbol that frightened James at the very core of his being. He had seen it in the mine, alongside that alien writing. It was a five pointed star with a flaming eye in the middle. They were on every individual baluster. The banister was also gold, but worked to resemble a giant snake, slithering down into the depths.
“Heed my warning,” said the person to his right, he sounded like the educated shadow, “and don’t believe what he says. He means to destroy the world, to kill all of us. Look at the gold- it does not come from this world. Stop him. You are the only one who can.”
James started to reply but was hushed by a low growl. It took him a while to realize that it came from his brother, who had his arms up again and was slowly descending the stairs. James listened closely and realized that Eddie was quietly chanting to himself. He couldn’t hear the words as he was pulled and pushed down the stairs after him.
As darkness enveloped him, James felt himself jerked to a stop. His own face appeared before him. “What you are about to see, James,” his brother said, “Is a secret. But will be revealed soon. It is the portal to the future. Come.” Eddie turned away and James was pushed fully into the darkness and ran, face first, into something. Flames came to life to his sides, torches, and he saw what he had hit.
It was a door. Not gilt, as the rest of the walls he had seen were, but ancient timbers, bound together by massive wrought iron bars. Eddie walked up to it, mumbling something, and they opened outwards, pushed up lumpy robed figures who were also mumbling a chant. Eddie signaled for the group to continue.
Through the door was a massive cave, carved out of the living rock. Illuminated by torches and by a giant crack in the ceiling, which let in a single spear of light from above, it was amazing. James followed the beam of light from the ceiling down to the floor only to see that there was none- it was a giant pit. So deep that the light was trapped inside.
The dank, rotten smelling air seemed to pulse. First it was pushing on his face, and then it was coming from behind him, as if the cave itself was breathing.
On the edge of the pit was a platform with what looked like an elevator. Robed figures were turning a crank, pulling something up from the pit. As it neared the light, James saw the strangely iridescent gold. It was being pulled up from the pit.
“A mine?” James asked no one in particular.
“No.” said his brother from the edge of their narrow walkway. “That hole leads deep underwater. Atlantis, James- that pit leads to Atlantis.”
“Impossible.” James could not wrap his mind around it.
“Yes, it is impossible. But it simply is anyway. Come, let’s go down to the edge.”
James was pushed down a set of rickety wooden stairs and looked at the cave wall as he went. It was full of tool marks. “Impossible.” James said again.
“No, James, very possible. A people with a vision can achieve anything. As Archimedes said, 'If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world’. And I have. We,” Eddie put his arms out, as if to hug the cave, “did it all.”
James and Eddie stood at the very edge of the pit. It wasn’t the cave breathing, it was the pit itself. The rotten smell was overwhelming.
Eddie shouted, “Let it begin!”
On cue, robed figures appeared from the shadows all around the pit. Eddie put his arms up. “Ia Cthulhu! Ia!” he shouted. The people responded in kind.
“Since the dark times before time itself, the old ones waited. Their world was taken from them and given to lesser creatures, mere mortals.”
“Ia!” chanted the congregation.
“We are inheritors of this world, a world which is not our own. But we see the light. We see salvation.”
“Ia!”
“The old ones wait in the void between worlds. Their messenger, Cthulhu, calls for us and them.”
“Ia Cthulhu!”
“He gifts us with wealth and prosperity. We gift him with sacrifice.”
“Ia!”
Another group of robed figures emerged onto the elevator platform, four of them, dragging a naked girl with them. James knew her, he was hired to find her. Eddie turned to him and said, “I think you’ve solved your case.” Then he turned back to the pit. “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming,”
“Ia Cthulhu!” chanted the congregation.
“Cthulhu fhtagn! Cthulhu waits!”
“Ia!”
The figures on the elevator platform pulled the girl to her feet and edged her toward the blackness below.
James pleaded, “Eddie, you can’t do this. She’s just a girl.”
Eddie turned back to him, burning torches reflected in his eyes, “No. She will not believe. So she will be one with Cthulhu, our benefactor. Our savior.”
James shut his eyes and Eddie turned away.
“As great Cthulhu gives us wealth and power, so we must in turn give to him. We cannot give back what we were given, so we give of ourselves.”
“Eddie,” James said quietly, “it’s not too late. You can walk away. Throw the gold back down and bury it.”
“You refuse to understand, brother, what is given to us cannot be given back. It would be an affront to our benefactor. We accept of him and give of ourselves. Watch.”
On the platform, the robed people rocked themselves back and forth, chanting. The girl didn’t seem to know what was happening, drugged, and put her arms up; taking part in the chanting without understanding. Then as one, the four jumped off the edge with the girl in their arms. They did not make a sound. No one did. After several minutes of silence, the assembled crowd quietly said, “Ia Cthulhu.”
Eddie raised his arms and said, “A portal will be opened! Ready yourselves! Cthulhu is prepared to bring his people back into their world! We will usher them…”
Eddie continued as James slowly walked around behind him. He thought, we cannot give back what we have been given…it will anger whatever is down there. He looked down at the coin he was given. And then he looked at the pit.
The educated shadow behind him walked up behind him and said, “Yes. Do it. End this. We cannot.”
James turned and looked at him, “Why?” he asked, “Why can’t you?”
The man pulled back his robe hood. His skin had a greenish hue, his mouth was fish-like. James noticed, for the first time, that his hands were webbed. His eyes had green whites and his pupils were narrow slits. “You see,” the educated one said between needle-like teeth, “We are transformed into servants of the master. I can walk to the edge. I can want to drop it in, but I cannot. The master has that control over us. Save us. Save the world. Drop the coin.”
James turned and looked at his brother, arms raised, chanting. Something had been lowered from the ceiling, an octagonal ring. It had a glowing triangular green light at each corner. It seemed to hum and the pit’s breathing seemed to get stronger.
James slowly walked up beside his brother, looked at him. His brother connected eyes with him. And he dropped the coin down the pit.
Eddie’s eyes widened and appeared to bulge out of his head. “No!” he screamed and lunged at James, missed, and fell to the floor. The whole cave began to tremble. The robed figures around the pit scattered into the shadows. James ran towards where he came into the cave and just as he climbed the stairs, they collapsed. He stopped at the doorway and watched as a large chunk of the cave roof broke free and fell down into the pit. More pieces followed and the cave collapsed into itself.
James sat alone on the ferry as it slowly chugged back to friendly lands. He had it figured out, he thought- the cave with the pit and the mine. They had gone too deep underground. They had awakened something evil and lurking. The cave was gone, but James couldn’t help but think about that mine. It was still there. Its entrance was sealed, but the evil was still inside; lurking, waiting to be discovered again. More to his horror, he realized that there must be millions of mines which had tunneled deep enough-millions more opportunities for the evil to be released into its old world.
3 comments:
The thing's hollow, it goes on forever and, oh my God, it's full of crap!
Agreed.
شركة مكافحة حشرات بالهفوف
Post a Comment