mirror? Not a human being but a human error’ . . . And so we rectify, we return what you have supposed to be excrescence, to make you whole again, to rejoin, to warm ourselves with the singled-out sparks until the great spark, the tongue of flame that will not flicker out, is revealed to us. We shall turn our faces up to it. . . . No longer taking part in your world by proxy but a part of you as you become part of us.”
Saying this last, its voice began to boom, to make the very walls recoil in shivers, and it stood up.
“A part of us, a part of us, the infinite loneliness brought to an end, the serpent with its tail in its mouth swallows, at long last! He swallows and swallows in infinite repercussion!”
And the Tailpipe began then to uncoil, to rear up, and its slick black skin opened pores, which oozed something like petroleum and something like sewage sludge. I saw then that the pores were something else: They were the mouths of little girls, pink and perfect, complete with teeth and tongues, hidden before and now exposed and expressing black rivulets . . . and then steam, steam in place of the black ooze, hissing and smelling of sea trenches and filling the room with a congealing cloud of hot mist.
One of the guardsmen screamed and fired his weapon twice at the Gnasher. The demon’s mouth spread in a caricature of a grin as it turned toward the babbling soldier, and something blurry whipped out from the Tailpipe and encircled the young soldier, who was yanked instantly through the air to the Gnasher, who held him nose to noseless face, the soldier screaming as the Gnasher said,
“Look—it’s magic ! It’s your bullets ! See them!”
I could just make them out—the two rounds the soldier had fired were floating within the Gnasher’s eyes, pointed at him, cartoonishly replacing its pupils. The Gnasher moved—its movements too fast to follow. Then the soldier had no head.
The other soldiers began to fire, and Nyerza was pulling the professor and me back from the demons, from that mist-choked room; I thought I heard the Gnasher call,
“Melissssssaaaa!”
Then we were running down the hall. I looked back to see one of the soldiers, the spindly one with hardly any chin, his mouth twisted up like a little boy trying not to cry, wanting to run after us but a lifetime of fantasized heroism held him back, quivering there in the dirty mist that rolled from the door into the hallway. Then he ran into the room and was instantly killed. In a split second, his blood, most of it, flew back out the door and onto the corridor wall, as if tossed from an offstage bucket. I heard his last cry, a cry for Mama though no word was articulated: the echo of a million, million cries of suffering that had been going on for thousands of years. And I felt like an adult who sees a small child caught by spreading fire in a room; and the adult, who is not uncaring, chooses between himself and the child and runs out the front door, knowing that the child will die.
All the guardsmen were dead, soon after, for the Lull was over. Then the Gnasher and the Tailpipe moved into the auditorium and managed to kill a good third of the conferees before the survivors fled beyond reach. Beyond reach, for the moment.
We were in a basement conference room. The demons might materialize here; but they didn’t. There was a cafeteria buffet on a big military folding table, but none of us could eat, though the professor drank some wine.
Nyerza was wearily saying something about patterns, patterns, patterns noticed already, geographical patterns in the arrival of the demons. “It is not really at random, no not at all. It is around certain urban areas, like the rays from an impact crater on the moon, really, lines of them spreading out from a center, in which is . . . Do you remember the industrial accidents last year?”
Nyerza and Paymenz were near the barred door of the dull concrete room—a chilly room, with
Saying this last, its voice began to boom, to make the very walls recoil in shivers, and it stood up.
“A part of us, a part of us, the infinite loneliness brought to an end, the serpent with its tail in its mouth swallows, at long last! He swallows and swallows in infinite repercussion!”
And the Tailpipe began then to uncoil, to rear up, and its slick black skin opened pores, which oozed something like petroleum and something like sewage sludge. I saw then that the pores were something else: They were the mouths of little girls, pink and perfect, complete with teeth and tongues, hidden before and now exposed and expressing black rivulets . . . and then steam, steam in place of the black ooze, hissing and smelling of sea trenches and filling the room with a congealing cloud of hot mist.
One of the guardsmen screamed and fired his weapon twice at the Gnasher. The demon’s mouth spread in a caricature of a grin as it turned toward the babbling soldier, and something blurry whipped out from the Tailpipe and encircled the young soldier, who was yanked instantly through the air to the Gnasher, who held him nose to noseless face, the soldier screaming as the Gnasher said,
“Look—it’s magic ! It’s your bullets ! See them!”
I could just make them out—the two rounds the soldier had fired were floating within the Gnasher’s eyes, pointed at him, cartoonishly replacing its pupils. The Gnasher moved—its movements too fast to follow. Then the soldier had no head.
The other soldiers began to fire, and Nyerza was pulling the professor and me back from the demons, from that mist-choked room; I thought I heard the Gnasher call,
“Melissssssaaaa!”
Then we were running down the hall. I looked back to see one of the soldiers, the spindly one with hardly any chin, his mouth twisted up like a little boy trying not to cry, wanting to run after us but a lifetime of fantasized heroism held him back, quivering there in the dirty mist that rolled from the door into the hallway. Then he ran into the room and was instantly killed. In a split second, his blood, most of it, flew back out the door and onto the corridor wall, as if tossed from an offstage bucket. I heard his last cry, a cry for Mama though no word was articulated: the echo of a million, million cries of suffering that had been going on for thousands of years. And I felt like an adult who sees a small child caught by spreading fire in a room; and the adult, who is not uncaring, chooses between himself and the child and runs out the front door, knowing that the child will die.
All the guardsmen were dead, soon after, for the Lull was over. Then the Gnasher and the Tailpipe moved into the auditorium and managed to kill a good third of the conferees before the survivors fled beyond reach. Beyond reach, for the moment.
We were in a basement conference room. The demons might materialize here; but they didn’t. There was a cafeteria buffet on a big military folding table, but none of us could eat, though the professor drank some wine.
Nyerza was wearily saying something about patterns, patterns, patterns noticed already, geographical patterns in the arrival of the demons. “It is not really at random, no not at all. It is around certain urban areas, like the rays from an impact crater on the moon, really, lines of them spreading out from a center, in which is . . . Do you remember the industrial accidents last year?”
Nyerza and Paymenz were near the barred door of the dull concrete room—a chilly room, with
Similar Books
