The Messenger (2011 reformat) Read online

  Belinda, came the final thought.

  One last box, full of clanky sorter parts. Carlton dragged it out, huffing, filthy in dust. That's it. The last one. He sleeved some sweat off his brow, then shone his light down the crawl space to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

  Something glimmered.

  I wonder what that is.

  No more boxes remained in the cubby. But something-he was certain-glimmered on the floor when he angled his flashlight in.

  Oh, what the hell? One more trip won't kill me. And it ain't like I can get any dirtier.

  Carlton crawled back in, the end of the cubby blooming with light as he neared the end. But his eyes bloomed too. The object that glimmered was a bracelet...

  A bracelet that looked very familiar.

  Carlton picked it up.

  And stared.

  This is impossible.

  It was a silver-chain bracelet ringed with shiny dolphins. It looked exactly like the bracelet he'd given Belinda seven years ago, on her twelfth birthday.

  Impossible.

  Maybe it was just his imagination. Yes, that had to be it. It was just some old bracelet laying there, and because he'd been thinking about Belinda, he was subconsciously convincing himself it was the same as his daughter's.

  That had to be it.

  His hands began to tremble when he flipped over one of the silver dolphins and saw the inscription:

  TO BELINDA, FROM DAD.

  Then he heard it...

  Carlton's head shot up.

  He was looking right at the butt-end of the crawlway, which appeared to be nothing more than a square of Sheetrock.

  But there was a sound...

  What the...?

  ...a sound coming from behind the sheetrock.

  Scratching. Scratching.

  It sounded like someone on the other side, scratching on the sheetrock with their fingernails. Carlton put the flashlight right up to the corner and saw that the square had been chalked into the frame. He pressed his opened hand against it, pressed a little harder, and the panel gave a little.

  Hair on the back on his neck stood up.

  The scratching on the other side grew frantic.

  It's...probably...a rat or something...

  Carlton gave the panel a hard thud with his palm.

  Thump!

  The corner nudged out another inch, and then the scratching stopped and gave over to rapid taps.

  Not a rat. A rat couldn't do that.

  But a person could. A person rapping their knuckles against the other side of the panel. Carlton couldn't deny what he was observing.

  There's somebody behind this panel!

  "Who's there?" he shouted. "Is someone there?"

  Finally he drew back and rammed his fist against the Sheetrock, banging the panel completely out of its frame. Darkness swallowed it, and foul air gusted out of the opening.

  "Is somebody there? I KNOW there's someone there! I can hear you!"

  He picked up the flashlight, meaning to thrust its beam in the hole, when-

  Darkness fell on him like an avalanche.

  Carlton froze. The flashlight had died in his hand. He smacked it in the most cliched desperation, hoping it would snap back on, but it didn't.

  Blind now, he thought of crawling backward out of the cubby. It would be easy. He could do it quickly. He could be back in the light. But he didn't.

  He didn't move.

  "Is somebody there?" he whispered into the dark.

  He already knew the answer, before the faint but familiar voice replied:

  "Hi, Daddy. It's me. It's Belinda."

  Carlton's heart didn't seem to beat as much as squirm in his chest. The foul air continued to eddy into his face, evil fetors like rotten meat and bodies unwashed for weeks. Again, part of his senses thought to back up, get out of the cubby and be away from this hallucination or nightmare or whatever it was, but his muscles wouldn't respond to the commands of his brain. He simply remained there on hands and knees, staring into the rank darkness.

  "You should see where I've been, Daddy," his daughter's voice flowed.

  "It's not like in the Bible."

  "What?"

  "But I can only be here for a few minutes. He let me come up, to talk to you."

  He?

  "He's the Messenger. He wants me to tell you some things." The pretty voice seemed to dip up and down. Carlton wasn't sure but as his eyes were acclimating to the darkness, he thought he could make out the dimmest shape just beyond the opening, an indistinct silhouette.

  "Who is ... he?" Carlton croaked.

  "I can't say. His name's a secret, and someone like me isn't allowed to speak it."

  "Someone like you? But you're just a teenaged girl. What do you mean,someone like you?"

  "I'm just a low-level myrmidon, Daddy."

  Myrmidon? Carlton had never heard the word.

  "I'm, like, a sexual acolyte. There's lots and lots of sex down here, Daddy."

  "But you're not even twenty! You're just a teenage girl!" Carlton bellowed back into the insanity.

  "Not anymore. I might as well be ten thousand years old, Daddy. I'll live forever down here. You know where here is, don't you?"

  "You're my daughter! You're an innocent little girl! This is a trick! It's stress! I'm hearing things and seeing things because of the stress of your mother being killed and you being taken! I know you're alive somewhere, being cared for by good people, people who couldn't have a child of their own but wanted one so much they took you!"

  "Oh, I was taken, all right, Daddy. But not by people who wanted a little girl to raise. When Mommy crashed, some men pulled me out and put me in their car. They drove me to Baltimore. They got me on crack right away, so I'd do anything they wanted. They tricked me out mostly, and made me be in movies. The scat movies were the worst but after a while it wasn't so bad. I got used to it, just as long as I got my rock. And they used me for a lot of kink Johns, special jobs, stuff like that."

  Carlton's mouth hung open.

  The tiny voice in the dark continued. "Then I began to wear out from all the dope, started to look beat. Shit, in that business once a girl's past sixteen, she's no good for kiddie flicks and pedophiles. So about a month ago, the guys were shooting another movie, a four-way, and one of the stuntcocks got a little carried away. Fuckin' asshole was big as a rolling pin to begin with, and he was all methed out. Anyway, I had a massive hemorrhage and died."

  Carlton's eyes felt lidless.

  "And then I came down here."

  Did she giggle?

  "Now I'm an odalisque, Daddy. That's what they call a prostitute down here. I'm kept by the wardens of Grand Duke Belarius of the Drakonia Prefecture. He commands four legions-that's about 12,000 conscripts. There's a big war going on now in the Lowlands, so I'm in the field a lot. We have these big tents that they cycle the troops in and out of-you know, for sexual relief. Sometimes I'm on my back for a week at a time, one conscript after another, until the campaign's over. There's no sleep here, either. It's an endless night, and that's all I do. Like I said, Daddy, there's a lot of sex down here. That's pretty much what it's all about in hell."

  "You're not in hell!" Carlton roared so loudly he nearly blew his vocal cords. "You're an innocent teenage girl! Even if you did die, you wouldn't have gone to hell! You'd have gone to heaven!"

  The responding giggle fluttered, then seemed to be absorbed by darkness.

  "Are you sure? Things aren't always as they seem. Mommy's down here too, but she's not an odalisque. She works on a chain gang in one of the waste furnaces in the Industrial Zone. Everything's recycled here, Daddy, including shit. They bake it in furnaces and turn it into bricks. That's where Mommy works, and she'll continue to work there until the end of time."

  "This is a nightmare! That's all it is!" Carlton shrieked, spit flying off his lips.

  "Think what you want. I have to go back now anyway. This is only a partial discarnation. But there's a reason why h
e let me come here today, even for just a few minutes. He sent me to tell you something."

  He, Carlton thought again.

  "He sent me to give you a message. This is the message: Behold the Messenger. The arrival of the Messenger is at hand."

  Now the darkness seemed to howl.

  "I have to go now, Daddy. It's been nice talking to you. But before I go, I want you to look in here. I want you to see me as I am now. I'm not a teenage girl anymore. I'm a seasoned odalisque."

  Carlton's mind was spiraling. All he could make out was the splotched silhouette. "I can't! It's too dark!"

  Suddenly the flashlight snapped back on. The light blared all around him.

  Then he screamed when he pointed it into the hole.

  Belinda was no teenage girl now, she was a mature woman-a woman, yes, and more. She lay naked within the recess, her sleek body and long legs stretched out lazily over what first appeared to be a couch but as Carlton let his vision focus he saw that the couch was formed of severed hands. Some of the hands appeared to be human, some clearly were not. Some sported more than five fingers, others had just two or three. Some were taloned. Some were flaked with snakelike scales, some covered with tumors, mold, or nameless filth, while still others were mummified or decomposed down to bone.

  Then Carlton noticed something else: the hands were moving. This demonic couch of hands was alive.

  Belinda's heavy breasts sat flawlessly erect even though she was lying down. Sweat coated her body thick as glycerin; her pore-less perfect skin shone white as summer clouds, a stunning contrast to large, blood-red nipples and flame-orange eyes. Her hair seemed luminous, hanging in yard-long, sun-blond tresses off each shoulder. She moaned, closed-eyed, grinning like a cat. Her buttocks, legs, and back squirmed in the most erotic luxury-it was the hands, all those severed but living hands caressing her from underneath, kneading her flesh.

  Carlton's eyes roamed up his daughter's elegant body to her face.

  Blushing-pink horns sprouted from her forehead, and in the pre-orgasmic grin, Carlton saw fangs and a slender forked tongue. Eventually she pulled two hands from the moving mass-a demonic hand and one that seemed octopod-then sighed when she placed them on her breasts. The hands kneaded her independently, coaxing more waves of writhing pleasure. Finally she picked up a third hand-a large human one-and began to masturbate with it.

  The image blared bright...bright as a car’s headlights in his unblinking face.

  "Good-bye, Daddy. I'll see you again someday. And remember what I said. Remember his holy message."

  Carlton's heart felt like a dying lump.

  "The arrival of the Messenger is at hand ..."

  And then she was gone.

  The vision vanished, leaving Carlton alone in utter silence. The cubby seemed cold, like a walk-in refrigerator, and the flashlight's beam reflected off the narrow walls so brightly it was hurting his eyes. I must've fallen asleep or something, he told himself, and had a nightmare. And what a nightmare it had been, the cruelest invention. How could his mind manufacture something so awful?

  The imaginary bracelet, too, was gone. None of it had been real. All that remained was the square hole in front of him, the panel of which he'd knocked out previously. He took a few moments to still his mind, to let the remnant images of horror evaporate, then looked at the hole again.

  I can't leave it like that. Gotta put that panel back in.

  He crawled forward, moved his head and shoulders into the opening, and roved his light around. The space beneath the post office seemed vast but totally empty. No pipes, no wires, nothing he might expect. He didn't even see the panel. It must've fallen below the opening.

  For whatever reason, and as hard as he was trying to forget the illusion of his lost daughter, the vision's strange words dripped back into his head for a mere second:

  Behold the Messenger. The arrival of the Messenger is at hand.

  When Carlton leaned farther into the opening, he saw the space wasn't totally empty.

  There was something there. He reached forward to touch it.

  It looked like a box.

  Chapter Two

  I

  Marlene always had to have her morning coffee, a big one. Always black, no frills. So that's what she got today, at the Qwik-Mart two blocks down from the main post office.

  The only difference between today and any other day was this:

  Marlene didn't work at the main post office anymore. She worked at the west branch office, which had only opened yesterday.

  She looked the same. Short, pretty, mocha-brown eyes, and buffed straight hair that could be called dark blond or light brunette, depending on the light. She was in excellent physical condition, after a decade with the post office; half of her delivery shift had always been in a vehicle, but the other half was on foot, which left her legs toned and tan. Many an eye regularly glanced back at her official post-office shorts, and at the light blue top that always seemed strained across a more-than-adequate bosom. In her midthirties now, Marlene looked as desirable as any woman in town a decade younger.

  "Marlene," said Marvic, the gray-bearded proprietor of the Qwik-Mart. He was from the Balkans, and had an interesting accent, which sounded part-German and part-Arabic. "Please do not take this the wrong way, but you do fine justice to those shorts."

  Marlene smiled, nonchalant, as she pulled the plastic cut-out tab from her coffee lid. "Thanks, Marv. My husband tells me the same thing every morning but he has an easier way of saying it. He just tells me I've got a killer ass."

  "I would definitely concur with that."

  "Well, I better go, Marv. Work's two blocks away, and I'm late."

  "But wait. I thought you mentioned yesterday that you no longer work at the main post office."

  "That's right, Marv. I got reassigned to the west branch."

  "But that's on the other side of town, isn't it?"

  "Sure is. I just have something to drop off here first. Have a good day!" Then she left the store, knowing Marvic's eyes were following her. Marlene appreciated the compliment. It made her feel positive about herself. It made her feel complete.

  A few minutes later, she was parking in the front lot of the main post office. She paused a moment in the sun, to look at the long and rather sterile brick building. The west branch looked so much nicer even though it was so much older. The west branch was quaint, its drab bricks painted a vibrant white, with pastel blue trim, and children's art work from the local elementary school adorning the front windows.

  But this place...

  This place looks like shit, Marlene thought with rare profanity. It wasn't even her own voice in her head, but she wasn't capable of comprehending that. It was something else.

  And the people inside...are shit. The voice darkened.

  It's time, my lovely Marlene. It's time to deliver a message, isn't it?

  "Yeah," Marlene replied to herself in a hushed voice.

  The motion-sensitive front doors parted; Marlene walked into cool air, so cool in fact, her nipples seemed to pucker. The sensation struck her with such intensity that she thought obliquely of her husband- the way he'd come up behind her by surprise, slip his arms around her, and tweak her nipples. Yes, yes, that's exactly what it felt like-

  Someone standing right behind her. Right up against her. Pinching her nipples.

  But that was impossible. Even Marlene, in the strange daze that had struck her since yesterday when she'd gotten off her first shift at the west branch, knew that no one was standing right behind her.

  "Hi, Marlene!" said Emmy, her friend at the first teller window. The line of familiar customers looked over, too, and all smiled and waved. “How was your first day at the new office?"

  "Oh, it's great. I love it."

  "But I'll bet you miss this place don't you? Just a little?"

  Marlene shot her friend the warmest smile. "Of course, and I miss working with you guys too. A lot."

  Really, really? she thought in that weird
voice again, the voice that seemed like her own but with another voice hissing behind it.

  You don't miss this place. You don't miss these people.

  Marlene frowned to herself.

  And they won't miss this world...

  "Well, we miss you too," Emmy went on, stamping a postmark onto a customer's package. "But it's all for the best. Opening the west branch really takes a lot of the workload off us. I still can't believe how much Danelleton has grown in the past year."

  "Yeah," Marlene muttered.

  She was just standing there. Staring.

  "So what are you doing out our way?" Emmy asked.

  Marlene almost felt as though she were hovering. It took her several moments to answer: "Oh, I just..." Then a long pause.

  Emmy cast a concerned look past the register. "Marlene? Are you all right?"

  Now Marlene's eyes felt hot, like coals punched into her eye sockets. Her words droned from her mouth. "I just stopped by to say hi."

  Emmy was squinting over, and so were several customers in line.

  "Plus I needed to drop off this package."

  "A package?" asked another teller. "For us?"

  "Yeah. Special Delivery" Marlene said.

  Marlene stood wavering in place, yet she felt quite secure in what she was about to do. That voice in her head, too-part hers, part someone else's-etched with confidence. I am the Messenger. Bring my message...

  Again, she felt as though someone were standing right behind her, surely a male figure, for she could still feel his incorporeal hands running up and down her sides and sweeping up over her breasts. Were someone to be looking closely, they'd be able to see it, the most minute indentations sliding up against the fabric of her work shirt.

  "Marlene, what is wrong with you?" Emmy said more sharply now. "And what's this about a package? What, something of ours got mis-delivered to your branch?"