Fathom by Mikel Parry

CH – LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER

Bob Cat spat at the floor. He watched as the saliva oozed its way between the filthy threads of carpet. He was contemplating his involvement, investment, and ultimately, his life.

“What were you babbling about back there anyways? Dark horse? What did that mean?”

He shook his head to clear it while he waited for Demo to answer him. The judge being carried away from his palazzo apartment by the police haunted him. They had come within a sliver of finding him dead. Now, standing in Demo’s trodden down apartment, they were at another crossroad.

Demo was itching at his arm, pacing in small circles around in the middle of the room. He was completely out of his mind. His eyes were bouncing side to side as if watching a tennis match. He suddenly stopped, snapping his fingers pointedly.

“Dark horses is what we are, Bobby. Don’t you see? We’re the underdogs, losers, and rejects of society. But then suddenly we’re called to the front of things; why? Why do we matter at all? Nobody knows us, nobody cares about us. We’re an unexpected variable; a dark horse. Isn’t that what they call it?”

Bob Cat looked amazed. It wasn’t like Demo to actually get a phrase right.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s actually right, for once. You actually said it right. But what are you talking about? You sound like a raving lunatic.”

Demo looked annoyed but also apprehensive.

“Bobby, I need you to do something for me and you’re not going to like it.”

Bob Cat surveyed the room as if he already knew the answer.

“What, what is it you want from me now?”

“I’m going back, back inside the Fathom, one last time. But this time I need more time. More time than Jo’s going to give me. They don’t want to risk losing their precious machine or human guinea pig. But if I don’t get more time inside, I’ll never find Spencer. It’s Spencer who holds the last filthy piece I need to put any doubts to rest. My intuition is already there, but I have to be sure. Being wrong this time could cost me everything.”

Snorting in anger, Bob Cat responded gruffly.

“I know what you’re asking me and the answer is no! You heard what they said. You stay too long in there and both yours and that piece of shite Spencer’s brains will be microwaved to a crisp. I’m not going to do that. You’re not putting that on me!”

Demo grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him in place, and then looked him earnestly in the eyes.

“Bobby, you’ve got to. There’s no other way. I know what I have to do now. I know how to find Spencer and end this! I can do it; you’ve just gotta trust me this one last time!”

“Demo, you could die in there.”

“I know.”

For a brief pause, there was an eerie silence. Demo’s words hung somewhere between hope and sacrifice.

“I know, Bobby. I know I could die, but if not there then on the outside too. This is just how it has to be. I’ve got a feeling I can’t shake. I’ve got to take a chance; it’s now or never. I know I can’t keep dragging myself through this evil and expect to come out clean on the other side. Last time . . . I promise.”

Bob Cat let out a vicious snarl. He was not willing to agree that easily.

“So what is it? Who is it? Why can’t you unlock your jaw for a minute and just let me in on this bloody mess? I can’t work in the dark like this, Demo. You’ve got to let things go back to normal with us!”

“I can’t do that now, Bobby. I can’t let us go back to normal, not yet.”

“I’ll do this one last thing,” Bob Cat reluctantly conceded, “But after that, it’s over. Jacky was right to walk away from this. You’re becoming a monster! This is consuming you whole!”

A complacent nod accompanied Demo’s discouraged voice.

“I know, Bobby. I know.”

Bob Cat walked to the door from where he scanned the room, looking at the fire damage, garbage, and utter disregard for cleanliness.

“This place really is a crap hole . . . you coming or not?”

Demo moved reluctantly, putting the old photo down gently.

I wish the fire would have just burned it all down.

On the ride back to the Fathom the two men sat in silence. There was nothing more to say. Their relationship had finally been strained past its breaking point. Bob Cathy Briar was just another name on a long list of people that had grown to loathe Demo’s cursed existence. How much more could he possibly take?

At the entrance, they were both surprised to see Roslin standing outside with a group of what appeared to be agents of some kind. He looked like he’d been dragged through the very bowels of hell. On seeing Demo and Bob Cat’s arrival, he directed his audience to move on. Among them was an odd looking man standing by Roslin and listening to him intently. Roslin put a hand on his shoulder and whispered something to him. The man nodded then got into one of the black, unmarked cars and drove off.

Who are those people?

Demo’s mind just couldn’t grasp everything that was being spewed at it day after day; secret organizations, scary machines, serial murder, and now another mystery squad.

Roslin ushered them over.

“It’s about time you got back! I’m getting really tired of your games, Mr. Ward!”

Demo shrugged.

“Speaking of games, what was that all about?”

Roslin cringed at the question. His eyes twitched as he thought about his answer. He was going to lie.

“We had an incident. It doesn’t concern this project, I promise you that.”

Demo rolled his eyes. A promise at this point in their relationship might as well come with knife in the back. But he knew better than question him. Roslin would never tell him the truth.

“I need to get back into the Fathom. I’ll need to have the same patterns matched as before. This is my last chance at this. I need everyone to play nice, just this once.”

Glancing at Bob Cat, Demo caught a subtle nod of solidarity. It looked like Bob Cat would be following through with his part.

The group paraded through the usual routine until they arrived inside the room containing the Fathom. Jo met them with far more resistance than ever before.

“No, no, no. I’m not doing this! This is a bad idea! That section of Spencer’s mind has been accessed too many times lately! And Fathom, don’t even get me started on Fathom. We’ve pulled so much juice fueling your adventures that we could of lit up the city a hundred times over! I need some time to fix things, to cool things off, to let Spencer’s mind reset.”

“That’s not an option. We don’t have time to worry about your stupid machine or that maniac you keep alive for fun! Something big is going to happen. I know it! Now let’s finish this once and for all!”

Jo threw his hands up in surrender and looked at Roslin in desperation, pleading with his eyes for Roslin to alter this suicidal course of direction.

Roslin’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Fine. We’ll have Jo watch the controls and if anything gets too out of hand we’ll shut it down. This means you’d have an indefinite amount of time. Jo could rip you out whenever he deems there’s a risk to the program. Do you honestly think you can be effective in any way given these facts?”

Demo sat down in the Fathom without hesitation.

“Just turn the machine on.”

His comment set Roslin off into a cavalcade of miffed gestures.

“And where exactly are you going?” Roslin asked Bob Cat, who had shadowed Jo into the control room.

“I want to watch the nerd play his video game. What’s it to you?”

Roslin’s eyes narrowed again. He was mildly suspicious of Bob Cat’s sudden interest.

“Can we please just get this going?” Demo asked angrily.

Roslin shook his head.

“Jo, what’s the read?”

Jo was orchestrating a plethora of commands on the super computer in the small room off of this one.

“I’m pulling it up now!”

Demo looked over at Spencer’s still body. It had deteriorated to almost nothing of its former self. Decrepit and weak . . . yet there was still something deathly serious about him.

Long live Spencer the Bloody Vulcan.

“Take me where I need to go, you piece of filth! Take me back to the warehouse!”

Roslin looked slightly disturbed by Demo’s comments to the unconscious Spencer.

“He can’t hear you, Mr. Ward.”

Demo shook his head.

“Oh, yes he can. He, just like me, wants this to be over.”

Just then a thrilled declaration burst from the control room.

“I can’t believe this! He’s actually dwelling! He’s dwelling in the same cognizant space as before!” Jo’s elated response was quickly hushed to a whisper. “Why would he be doing that? I’ve never seen this before.”

“Just turn it on! Let’s finish this!”

Demo’s eyes fell on Roslin. He didn’t break his gaze until the sparks of energy swirling through his mind forced him to. In a brilliant burst of energy and light he was sucked back into Spencer’s mind.

“Yo, watch it, man! You ’bout—”

The man’s words were cut off by a clothesline arm thrust directly in front of him. Demo felt the man’s throat smash directly into him. The force threw the man to the sidewalk.

“—‘knocked my head off’, yeah, I know.”

Man, that felt good. But why?

The scene immediately burst into chaos. Some people screamed and ran, while others formed a small circle around the man who was now choking for air. Demo, however, was looking elsewhere. His eyes scanned back and forth like finely tuned radar zeroing in on its target.

“What’s your problem, man?” screamed a slender woman on roller skates grabbing at her turquoise necklace.

That’s when Demo saw him; every time he’d been right under his nose, stumbling along carrying his batch of newspapers. When his eyes met Demo’s his mouth dropped open. Demo wasted no time reacting. Shoving himself through the crowd, he ran in hot pursuit of the small boy. The boy reacted by tossing his papers high in the air and fleeing with an astounding agility. As Demo’s speed grew so did his rage. It wasn’t like him to be violent, but after all he’d been through, he just didn’t care anymore. If anyone stood in his way, he’d plow into them with no remorse. He wasn’t about to let the boy slip out of sight.

The chase continued. If it wasn’t for Demo’s extraordinarily gangly body, he might have lost him a time or two. But he was fueled by a desire; a desire to finally rid himself of this hell. He watched as the boy darted into an alleyway. Demo followed closely, refusing to give in to his burning lungs.

“Oh, no you don’t. Not this time!”

Following suit, he dove into the alleyway to see the fleeing boy shimmying up and over a fence. Demo let lose all the energy he had left. He reached for one of the boy’s shaky feet just as he dropped down to the other side. He missed. Letting out a roar, he pounded on the chain link fence; he needed this to feel real.

“I’m going to find you!”

Demo watched the boy disappear out of view. Calmly, he turned and took a deep breath. His eyes watered with a salty sting. His emotions had truly become unchecked. He had just taken a massive risk, a risk beyond measure. But he had been right. Even inside Spencer’s world, there was a mindset in his manifestations. Children still had a fear of adult authority figures.

But now came the tricky part. He knew where he needed to go. He knew how to get there. What he didn’t know was what would be waiting for him. The thought of it made him sick. But it had to be done, even if he was a lamb headed to slaughter.

Let’s finish this.

Demo retraced the route carefully, doing his best not to interact with any of the chaotic manifestations of Spencer’s mind. Things had been rattled. Behaviors were now sporadic, unfocused, and unclear, roles diminished, details forgotten. If his goal was to upset the status quo, he had done so with flying colors. But jubilation had no place here. Soon things would escalate into another realm of perdition.

Walking past the parked Cadillac DeVille, he already knew what was inside it. Details of the real were hanging in his imagination like skeletons in a closet. At the entrance of the warehouse, he plunged his fingers into the massive door’s crack and pulled. His heart raced around its cardio vascular racetrack. He knew that everything from this point on would be beyond belief.

Peering inside, all the memories of his nightmarish encounter there flashed before his eyes. It was beyond surreal to be doing what he was doing. This place represented so many things. But there was only one thing he really needed to see. History had a way of repeating itself for even the most genius of intellects. If he was right, the contents of this space would shatter his perception of how far the tentacles of evil could reach. He had to know.

Examining the room carefully, he was surprised how much could change by reversing time. The cluttered room of his reality was as clean and organized as ever in this reality. Everything was nicely organized and maintained. Then he saw it. It hadn’t been diminished by time like everything else. Its stainless steel doors remained firmly shut. Demo approached it cautiously, doing his best to prepare himself for what he was about to see. As much anguish as it brought to his soul, he hoped he was right. Prying the two massive doors open, a fiendishly cold blast of air rushed out, revealing a blood chilling image.

Demo collapsed to his knees. He had been so blind. He had always believed they would never be capable of such heinous acts, such depravity. But the manifested evidence didn’t lie. Tears filled his eyes and then froze to the outside of his face.

How could you do this?

The room was as before, only with newly deceased tenants that had been posed in a lovers embrace. Their last breaths had been undoubtedly been taken in sheer horror. There was more to this, of that he was sure. But he didn’t need to see it. He didn’t want to. The bodies were being prepped for disposal once they’d been properly appreciated. It hurt his soul to say it aloud.

“Mom and Dad . . .”

Just then he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. The boy had been watching Demo discover his bloody secrets. But Demo knew the child wasn’t alone. He wasn’t the one in charge, after all. Slowly turning around, he spoke boldly, feeling both a deep sadness and a burning rage.

“Spencer, it’s time you stop running!”

The boy scoffed at Demo’s remarks and disappeared into the shadows.

“There’s no Spencer here. I’m Angel. I haven’t done anything wrong!”

Demo tracked the path of his voice. He had to find the kid and his accomplice. He followed the boy’s seemingly mindless banter up into the rafters above the warehouse floor.

“Dio, tell the bad man to go away! He’s ruining it! He wants to hurt us!”

Demo saw a flash of the boy scurrying across a catwalk into an obscure corner, where h climbed a ladder hidden there with an intense fervor.

“Spencer, stop hiding from me! You know why I’m here!”

He swallowed a cantaloupe sized lump in his throat. Just how long would the play acting last before Spencer became Spencer the Bloody Vulcan again?

“It’s over, Spencer! You’ve got nowhere to go!”

Demo stretched his legs out onto the catwalk where the boy had been. He raced forward into the unknown without the slightest idea of what might come next.

“Leave us alone!”

This time the plea was much closer. It came from a darkened corner hidden just out of view. Just as Demo was about to reach him, the boy darted into a storage room. It was shrouded in a shadowy blanket, making it the perfect spot to hide. He was standing in the doorway, his eyes filled with fear as if he’d seen a ghost. He held his hand to the dark shadows of the room.

Was this really Spencer the Bloody Vulcan? My, how things had changed.

“Make the bad man go away, Dio! I don’t want him to hurt us!”

Demo stood there completely petrified.

Dio, who was Dio? Why does this feel so wrong?

He watched in horror as out from the shadows appeared yet another small boy. His childlike features belied his truly malicious intent. When he spoke he spoke brazenly with no fear whatsoever.

“You’re not wanted here!”

The second boy stepped towards Demo, holding the other boy’s hand tightly.

“We don’t need you!”

Demo’s mind spun into a flurry of pure madness. All of his worst fears had come to fruition. Surviving would be the challenge of his life.

“I know what you’ve done. I know what you’ve both done. I’m here to put an end to this!”

The demonic little boy spoke yet again, taking another bold step towards a now backpeddling Demo.

“We’ve done what was right! We’ve done what is right!”

Demo caught a glimpse of the first boy who was now being led by by the other.

“Spencer, you can put a stop to this! You don’t have to take his orders!”

“Shut up! Dio is my friend! Dio knows what’s best for me!”

The boy called Dio was now within mere feet of Demo. His eyes looked ablaze with the very fires of hell. His intent was unmistakably evil.

“Spencer, he’s not even real! Don’t you understand? Don’t you see? This isn’t real! It’s already happened! You don’t have to relive this anymore! You don’t have to be a prisoner!”

Demo watched as Spencer’s eyes suddenly met his. There was something about the brief interaction that suddenly changed the flow of things. Demo refocused his attention on the maleficent child who was now within a step of him. The boy’s eyes burned a blood thirsty red as he lunged.

“All wrong must be cleansed!” he screamed in an unearthly voice.

Demo fell backwards onto the catwalk, the child clasping tightly around his neck. The inhuman strength of the boy was astounding. Demo was being completely dominated. He fought hard to keep air flowing through his lungs. His attacker grunted like an animal trying to squeeze every ounce of life out of him. He needed to use the only weapon he had; the truth.

“He lied to you, Spencer! He used you! He’s left you for dead and moved on!”

This comment made Spencer’s childish apparition squirm in pain.

“No, shut up! He would never do that to me! He promised!”

Demo was in dire need of life-giving oxygen. He needed to move quickly or die.

“Think about it! Why am I here? Why did you have to trap Anthony? Do you honestly think I’d risk my life just to rot away in this hell? He’s found another pupil, another victim to do his dirty work! You’re nothing now, Spencer. Nothing!”

The young Spencer stood up straighter, his facial expression now more in keeping with the calculated killer he had become.

“Liar! I am his everything! I am justice, I am righteous, and I am his right hand executioner!”

Spencer’s childlike voice had been replaced by that of an aged tyrant. Although his physical manifestation remained the same, his consciousness had called in the true monster. Demo was losing ground and found himself perilously close to the edge of the catwalk. He caught a glimpse of what lay below; a fall from this height would smash him to bits.

“I’m not lying! I saw the bodies for myself! I saw the scales of justice. I saw the eyes of beauty!”

At the mention of the phrase ’Eyes of Beauty’ Spencer’s complexion changed drastically.

“Eyes of beauty, eyes that truly see . . .”

As Spencer trailed off, his other manifestation, the one Demo only knew as Dio, pressed on.

“Spencer, you can stop this once and for all! I can help you end this! I can release you from this hell!”

Spencer looked lost. Amidst the desperate pleas from Demo and the demonic growl of Dio, he was as calm as he’d ever been. Suddenly, the world around them began to vibrate wildly and images melted in an almost funhouse mirror way. Spencer and Demo grabbed madly at their heads. Bolts of searing pain gripped them both.

“What’s happening? What are you doing to me?” bellowed Spencer, further shaking the tenuous fibers of reality.

Demo didn’t know what to think. In horror he watched as pieces of Dio were ripped away and scattered into a million pieces.

“It’s happening! Our minds are beginning to fall apart!”

Suddenly, the room was populated by every creature or thing ever conjured up by either man’s vast imagination. Every nightmare, every dream, every triumph, every failure, all the suffering and the happiness began coursing through this reality like a hurricane. Every synapse fired off at random in a reflexive attempt to survival.

“Make it stop! Make it stop!” screamed Spencer in anguish.

But as Demo tried to speak, a memory slammed through his mind that took immediate precedence over all the others; the harrowing night his partner had died. In a flash of blinding light he was there again. In what felt like an out-of-body experience, he gazed on the bloody frames of his own history unraveling in cinematic fashion. He was sucked into the midst of it like a bad acid trip.

“Mike, Mike, what is this? What’s happening?”

Demo got up from the couch, clenching its sides for support, the worn fibers squishing beneath his fingers. His head ached from well-deserved hangover.

Why is this happening?

He looked down at his feet. There was the pistol he had long tried to forget. It had been fired multiple times, leaving the chamber empty, the smell of discharge still lingering in the air like a poisonous gas.

No, not again!

He reached down and picked it up. Why couldn’t he remember anything? Why was he feeling so much pain? He was suddenly overcome with the intense urge to look across the room.

No, don’t do it! Don’t look; you know what’s there!

But he couldn’t stop himself. Giving in, he rested his eyes on the corpse of his partner.

No, no, please stop this! I can’t, I can’t do this!

He walked over and looked into the lifeless eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Demo collapsed to his knees. He was overwhelmed by a deep remorse that soaked every molecule in his body with sadness.

“What have I done?”

Tears streamed down his face, his suffering continual. He wanted to change this; he wanted things to be different. He wasn’t alone.

“You killed him? You killed one of your own?”

Demo turned to see Spencer; only in this manifestation, he was his familiar, adult deviant self. Demo winced at the sight of Spencer in his self-perceived form. His dastardly features were vile in every regard, a true dark soldier. Spencer walked up to the deceased body and hovered for a moment.

“So, now you know how it feels like to lose. You know how it feels to be wronged. Yet you were willing to take a life.”

“Don’t touch him! I didn’t kill him! I didn’t do this!” commanded Demo.

Spencer looked at him with dead eyes.

“He was always there for me. Just like your dead friend here was for you. He guided me, taught me, and cleansed me of all wrong. He showed me the truth that set my mind free. It’s fitting that the one thing neither of us truly understood is what tore us apart.”

Demo stood firmly in place. Something was about to happen. He had only one chance to use what he had learned from all of his hellish time with Spencer. One chance to pry Spencer’s mind open and pull out anything he could to seal the deal. As much anger as it evoked, he had to give what Spencer thirsted for; praise.

“It wasn’t your fault. He was using you all along. You did what was right. You were the angel the world needed.”

Spencer glanced at Demo then continued.

“I suppose it’s poetic, really love always is. Love of that vile woman! We could have had it all! We could have changed everything, together! Made this world pure! They would have seen our work, our message! But she had to come along! He promised me she was worthy, cleansed, pure, one of us! But how could anyone have what we had? What we had was special, pure, untainted! Our work was beautiful.”

Demo piped in.

“Was?

Spencer shot a menacing look Demo’s way. A wicked, nefarious grin crept across his face.

“Maybe that’s why I slipped up. Maybe I wanted to be caught. If I can’t have him then nobody can; he’s my master, my teacher . . . my benevolent god! But he forsook our bond and remained free, tainting our masterpiece with the filth of lesser men! I’m glad she died. I’m glad she couldn’t be saved! If I’m to suffer for my righteous acts, then so shall they all! I want them to suffer! I want them to die!”

The conversation was cut short as the same supernatural chariot that had swept them away returned. Reality twisted beyond all recognition. They felt themselves losing their souls. It was all coming to an end.

“Who couldn’t be saved? Who?” demanded Demo as his hands suddenly stretched and contorted becoming part of the raging storm around him.

In complete horror he watched as the deformed shape of what was left of Spencer began to cackle like a lunatic. The world around them was collapsing one fragment at a time. Everything was passing into a haze, nothing feeling real anymore. A blinding light blotted out any remaining visuals , and then everything came to a magnificent end with a final burst of brilliance that faded quickly to complete darkness. The fates and futures of both men were dispersed into the infinite fathoms of space and time.