Peripheral

by David Gray

“Look at me, darling,” it croons in a husky contralto as I’m waking. Mind you, I’m tempted. It’s somehow found a voice that circumvents my brain and talks directly to my libido. That voice promises everything, but I do my damndest, in the hazy grayness of morning, not to accept. These waking moments are the most difficult, when I don’t quite have my wits about me, but I’ve planned for it. I tied my blindfold tightly last night, with straps that resist the groping of sleepy fingers.

Ignoring the sexy voice (now droning on with an erotic description of what I’d see if I’d only look), I stumble through my shower and breakfast, feeling my way through the cabin. I’m getting better with the blindfold now that I’ve been at it a couple weeks. Or has it been months? It’s so hard to remember. Each day runs into the next. Chasing a coffee pod out of the box, I find that I’m down to my last three or four. I’ll have to call for groceries soon, if I’m still alive.

When I’m fully caffeinated, I sit at my desk and steel myself. I can feel my journal and laptop, still in the same place I left them, but that’s no surprise. The monster hasn’t shown any physical manifestation, just its incessant whining and wheedling. I’m ready for another day of research and hope. I can easily open doors, but maybe today I’ll find a way to close them.

I slip off the blindfold and instantly a sharp explosion, like a gunshot, cracks through the air behind me. I flinch, but snap my eyes shut and stifle the natural reaction to look back.

“Nice try,” I mutter quietly to myself. I’ve given up engaging directly with it. What’s the point? It only says what I want to hear.

I force my eyes forward and don’t allow myself to get distracted by the shapes roiling in the shadows around me, everywhere but my center of vision. I continue the thread from yesterday—current theories of interdimensionality—but I do this without much enthusiasm. I spent years researching before I answered the siren call of Aldrich, and I’ve already mined every credible nugget of information.

I pull up my web crawler, checking to see if it’s sniffed out anything new about Aldrich, but there’s nothing but the same reports—the church, the lake, the asylum, rumors of cults and manifestations and disappearances. Are any of them connected to the nonsense happening to me now? There’s still no way to determine. Those sightings yielded a few blurry photos, but I’ve had no luck. Cameras, mirrors, reflections in ritual blades, all show nothing but my cabin. Sure, I could take the direct approach and look, observe my personal demon firsthand, but I don’t dare. That’s exactly what it wants.

“You know you want to,” it says, right up against my ear, somehow catching my thought. I swear I can feel its breath, the brush of its lips. Does it even breathe, or have lips? I swat it away and get only empty air. Damn it all, I wish there was something I could grab and strangle.

“A single glance will answer all your questions,” it coaxes, reverting to its normal voice, a deep, gurgly croak, like bubbles rising from a tar pit. I actually like this voice better—it seems more in keeping with the mysteries of Aldrich. The sexy voice always embarrasses me more than entices me, once I’m awake enough to think coherently.

Gods, I wish I could go back to those first few days, when I was free to look. Truly, those were the most exciting days of my life, filled with discovery and revelation, but thinking about it, I’d give anything to erase that first day, that first observation. The alignment of those trees, caught out of the corner of my eye at an unremarkable spot on the trail, and the way the air split when I looked, opening up an alien vista. It was a wondrous beginning, but it seems like the monster and I are speeding toward a fateful ending.

The internet doesn’t give any relief, so I open my journal, turning to the page for Elysium first. What a pretentious git I was, those first days after the discovery, with my fanciful names, but how could I resist, seeing that unearthly splendor appear as the Aldrich forest split along non-Euclidean seams? Golden light and birdsong, waiting and inviting. Perhaps I should have stepped off the forest path and entered. I’d probably be there now, safe from the monster, and Earth would be safe. But by chance I looked away and it was gone, and that’s why I’m here, poring through my notes yet again. How, exactly, did I look away? I somehow closed the door to Elysium, and the others that followed, but I don’t trust myself to do it again, now that I have a monster in the mix.

“I can take you there,” it offers. “Peace, happiness, and eternal rest, but you wouldn’t like it. There’s nothing new to explore, nothing exciting, no mystery. Admit it, you’re intrigued. You need to know. You want to see me.”

I’m sorely tempted, and deeply afraid I’ll give in. Frankly, it’s only a matter of time. My curious spirit has always driven me, drove me to Aldrich if truth be told. The rumors, the innuendo, the legends were too much to ignore, much to my downfall.

Turning the page, I remember finding Magrathea next, appearing through chance alignment of the kitchen doorframe and the front door while I was fixing lunch. Once you see them, there’s no unseeing these alignments manifesting in the periphery of vision. Why didn’t I realize the peril then, the danger of seeing them, and worse, acting on them? But I wouldn’t give that second experience away for the world. The Magrathea planet (dimension?) was glorious. Thank the stars there was a chair handy, or the vastness would have swallowed me whole. My mind still recoils from the memory.

“As it should,” it says. “Your mind is minute, self-contained, succulent. You barely understand the fabric in plain sight, the cabin and the forest, your feet and your hands, much less triumphs of that magnitude. Few can encompass the Ascendent Constructions, but in time, with my help, we could expand your…”

No clues there, since Magrathea was clearly beyond all comprehension, and again, the view closed without willful effort from me. The next page shows Valhalla, with its palaces in the hazy distance and dragons in the sky, lovingly sketched on page after page, then the stormy seas of Atlantis, and on and on. Damn, I was innocent, unaware of the dangers I was courting, until a careless turn of the head split the air and the monster took notice of me.

I slam the journal closed, frustrated. As always, my silly, self-involved scratchings yield no new insights, no brilliant ideas for repairing the damage I’ve done. I suppose I’ll need to do the honorable thing and destroy this portal permanently. I still haven’t decided how. I’m too squeamish to use a gun or a razor blade, but maybe some sleeping pills. Maybe tomorrow, but I have enough hope left to carry me through another night.

“Your thirst for knowledge is admirable,” it flatters. The shadows thrum with the motion of serpentine coils, glowing orbs that would surely resolve into eyes if I chanced a closer look, angular spines or claws or teeth or eldritch organs entirely not of the Earth. I feel something cold slither over my shoulder, under my shirt. I slap it and find nothing, but my fingers come away with the acrid smell of camphor and creosote. I need to stop looking, even in the periphery. It’s gathering strength, even with the scraps of attention I give it.

“You have talent, that much is clear,” it praises. “Think of what we could accomplish together.”

“Tell me,” I coax. Maybe the foul beast will let something slip I can use.

“You’re raw, unfocused, untethered. Raw talent is dangerous and thrilling, and I have grown too small and too large. You could be the GateForge and I the Compass, exploring the manifold realms, unifying the fragmented.”

“Very poetic,” I say, striving not to roll my eyes, “but I’m not thrilled by the concept of unification. It’s never quite worked out here on Earth.”

“Exploration, then. Observation. Curiosity. That is your creed, is it not?” For some reason, the creature is now parroting a proper English gentleman.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Together it would be ours to fathom,” it promises.

“Hmm, I’ll think about it.”

As I’m slipping the blindfold back on, there’s a sharp knock at the door and a gruff voice shouts, “Everything okay in there?”

I grope my way to the door and ask, “Yes, I’m fine. Who are you?”

“Deputy Armbruster, Aldrich Police. Do you mind if I come in? We’ve had reports of a gunshot.”

“Don’t trust him,” the monster warns, whispering in my ear. I’m half convinced this is another one of its ruses, but I still open the door. I blindly stick out my hand and get a callused handshake. So, not a ruse, unless the monster has gained corporeality in the last two minutes.

“Come in, Deputy. I heard a loud noise earlier, but I don’t think it came from here.”

I hear heavy footsteps surveying the room, but I don’t dare remove the blindfold. With him wandering around, I’m bound to look in the wrong direction.

The deputy stops next to me and says, “Let me guess: you’re seeing things in the shadows and hearing voices.”

“Um, yes? How did you know?”

“The blindfold is a dead giveaway. This is Aldrich, after all, and this cabin has a reputation. Glad we caught it in time. Give me a minute and I’ll get help.”

I hear him step out to the porch and make a call. “Bob? The one at the old Wilson cabin is back. Yes. Partial manifestation already, best one I’ve seen, and the Forge is in a blindfold, so I think we’ll need all seven. Thanks. See you then.”

While he’s talking, my monster whispers, “Really, you can’t trust them. You need to get out of here now.”

“And can I trust you?” I ask quietly.

“More than him and his acolytes,” it says. “Look at me, and I’ll help.” There’s something about the way it says this, with none of the wheedling, none of the fanciful language, that makes me listen.

“Best to keep the blindfold on,” the deputy calls from outside. “One wrong look and it will escape.”

In minutes, I hear cars arriving and feet crunching across the gravel. My hearing has gotten far more acute lately, so I easily hear him whisper, “He’s the one we’ve been waiting for, a true Forge. Bob, Carl, you’re on restraints. The rest of you prepare the sigils, and I’ll do the exsanguination.”

“It’s now or never,” my monster warns, and I take a chance, peeking out from under my blindfold.

Two of the guys are unloading a heavy Saint Andrew’s cross from the back of a truck, and another guy hands a wicked obsidian blade to the deputy. He tests the edge, then looks up, catching me watching.

“We’ll dispatch that monster in no time,” he says, striding purposefully toward me.

“Please,” my monster wails, its coils slithering madly around me, just out of sight, the stuff of nightmares but strangely familiar. I feel the gentle touch of a slippery tentacle stroking across my back, and I know: it’s time to choose the known danger in front of me or the unknown danger lurking in the shadows.

I take my leap of faith and glance to the side, wiping the shadows away to reveal a horror of winding tentacles and staring eyes and gaping mouths. In my periphery, I see another type of horror flash across the faces of the deputy and his men. He brandishes the blade, but it does no good. The monster floods into our world, flowing in great waves of flesh from behind me, beside me, around me, slithering liquidly along my arms, caressing my neck with cool mentholated oils. The men scream, but it’s over as soon as it begins, and the cross falls noisily to the ground.

I stumble out to the porch because, realistically, what good would it be to run? This behemoth, mounting to the sky, would be on me before I took three paces. My knees buckle, lowering me to the steps, and I survey the mistake I’ve made. It’s hard to look at it, now that I finally can. My mind interprets it as a cephalopod, but only because I’ve seen so many Cthulhu illustrations. Tentacles writhe in the parts I can comprehend, so many glistening tentacles, and they never stop. They disappear around…corners? My mind rebels, so I stop trying to follow them—as written many times before, that path leads only to madness. And eyes, so many eyes, watching me. Sizing me up? Will I be on the menu for dessert?

“That was delicious,” comes the sexy contralto from something that’s probably a mouth, judging from the hundreds of fangs (or maybe spines) that surround it. It’s horrible and I struggle to keep down my breakfast, but there’s also a beauty to it. The fangs have an elegant curve, ivory scimitars arranged to form a mesmerizing five-pointed star, rhythmically irising open and closed.

A tentacle slithers from under-within-behind another dimensional discontinuity, pausing in front of my face. The creature asks, “May I?”

“Yes?” I answer, not quite understanding the permission I’m giving.

The muscular tentacle wraps full around my neck and snakes wetly up across my chin, the tip gluing itself to my forehead. The slightest twitch will decapitate me, but at least it will be quick.

“This will hurt,” bubbles up from a long split in the behemoth, rumbling so deep I can barely make out the words. “Brace yourself.”

My entire body convulses as fire fills my head and sears down my spine, but it’s over in an instant. The monster drops its tentacle down to my hands, snaking up my sleeve and stroking along my arm, oddly comforting, and the view in front of me suddenly makes sense. I understand the faceted geometry of the cleft and the tentacle—it’s so simple and obvious—and with a quick twitch of my eyes, I wrest it open to expose a sea of writhing flesh, the entirety of my monster, at least what I can currently comprehend of it.

A dozen tentacles, slick and sinuous, emerge from the seething mass and surround me, lifting me triumphantly through the cleft in space, the rift I created and now control. A chorus ripples across a thousand mouths, asking, “So, GateForge, where would you like to go first?”