The thing what came out of Dexter

By this time, Dexter’s skin had become translucent, a thin shell covering the thing that had destroyed him. Under the yellowish, parchment-like covering, lumps and tendrils moved back and forth, thrashing impatiently and pushing out, here and there, causing cracks and tears in the drying skin. Only the mouth, impossibly large and tooth-filled, and the eyes, burning red surrounding pit-black irises, showed the horror of the thing waiting to shed Dexter’s skin and be born into our unready world.

“Time itself will come to an end, Paladin.” The voice of the beast that was wearing Dexter’s skin was surprisingly high-pitched, piping and unpleasant. As it spoke, tendrils lashed out of its mouth, probing at the desiccated skin of Dexter’s face, tearing strips loose and bearing them away, into the open maw. “Those From Outside will follow my path, and this little realm will become ours; it will be rent and torn and changed to suit our whim. All that you know will end in pain and hate and terror, without end.”

With a piercing, staccato sound that might have been a demented laugh, the mouth-tendrils shot out and finally tore the skin of Dexter’s face and head loose, pulling it back into the creature’s maw in great strips, filling the air with a series of horrible tearing and cracking sounds. As the skin was consumed, the mass of thrashing, whipping, sucker-ended tendril spread and unfolded. This sudden, final destruction of the visage of a man who had been a friend to each of us brought out shrieks, groans, and no small amount of flinching from our little group, as we each fought the urge to flee headlong away from the monstrosity. The tendrils seemed to focus on our sounds, or movements, and, as more and more of them, impossibly more, unfolded, swelling to three, then four, times the size of poor Dexter’s head. The eyes had separated, each to its own tendriled stalk, above the mouth that gaped from just below where the head-stalks joined.

More ripping and tearing as all of Dexter above the waist split and then vanished, some pulled into the thing’s mouth, but most consumed by the suckers on the end of each glistening, flagella-like stalk that burst forth, freed from their chrysalis of human skin. As with the head, the monster swelled and spread out more tendrils than could possibly have been held in the dimensions of a human chest, and gave the eye-watering impression of unfolding from…somewhere else.

The appendages that had been encased in Dexter’s arm split each into two multi-jointed extremities that spread out fore and aft, and lifted the central structure, Dexter’s legs still dangling from it’s underside, off the ground. One shoe and sock dropped off, and some sort of claw like thing could be seen struggling to break free as the rest of the thing had. The maw of the creature began spitting out painful sounds, and suddenly the world around me seemed to have an unreal sheen to it, like the cheap plastic of a child’s toy.

Enough of this, I thought. Reaching to my waist, the familiar weight of the Colt 1911 came into my hand, and I could feel the sigil embossed on the grip slip into line against it’s mirror, tattooed onto my palm. As I began to speak the Words, time slowed, making it a physically taxing effort to push the weapon and my arm into line for a good shot. A burning began in my palm, and, as the incantation continued, spread it’s fierce pain up my arm and into my chest, searing my heart.

After a period I can’t measure, my eye, arm, hand, and weapon came into line for the shot, just as the incantation ended. Time stopped. I could see the white hot lines burning bright on the metal of the weapon, extending over my hand and arm. Mostly, I saw that the shot was aimed at the abomination a few yards away from me, and would strike just where I wanted it to. I said the final word.

Time snapped back, and I had to squint away from the bright, painfully bright, spectacle of the burning power of the round pulling the lines of heat down my arm, into the weapon, and through the space that separated me from the thing that had killed my friend. The shot made a burning line out of the end of the barrel, with heat and licking fire coming from it. It hit the beast just under the jaw, where it’s form thickened from the joining of the two upper stalks.

For a moment, the thing seemed panicked, with both stalks of it’s upper section flying down and slapping at its midsection. Smoke rose from the point where the shot had struck, and the sun-brightness of it flickered and spun as the tendrils surrounding it lashed and withered under the heat.

But this only lasted a moment. The horror paused for a moment, seeming to consider, and, as it became obvious to us all that it wasn’t going to be killed by this, it’s keening ‘laughter’ filled the air again.

I was paying attention to neither it’s fear or it’s joy. While it had been preoccupied, I had taken my second weapon in had. Though this weapon was also a .45, it seemed to only weigh a slight fraction of it’s brother pistol. As I swung my right arm into line, the weapon seemed to pull my hand forward, so that I had to spit out the three words of the activating spell as fast as I could. I didn’t even bother to aim, as the pistol would make the rounds strike where it thought they should. I spoke the Firing Word and squeezed the trigger four times, feeling the stab of the freezing sigil on this one’s grip shoot pain up my arm, covering it with freezing lines that flared and vanished instantly, leaving only the seared image on my retina and steam rising from the arm of my jacket where the frozen sections that had been exposed to the lines of force met the sections that had been untouched.

The four rounds struck almost in the same instant, forming a diamond pattern around the point where the hot round had struck.

The thing stopped. It yelped, then shook itself like a wet dog, then began to shake madly and whine. The light cast by the five rounds began to spread. Fire sprang out of a few clumps of tendrils, then a few more. Ice and hoar-frost solidified on other patches. As the abomination’s painful gyrations grew in intensity, whole sections of itself became engulfed in primal cold and heat, flame giving way to ice, frost burning away under the onslaught of insistent conflagration. Huge, suppurating wounds formed at the borders of the different sections, only to be consumed and exacerbated as each element spread and fought for space on the thing’s hellish form. As it beat its four legs against the unyielding floor, cold and ice covered almost one entire appendage, which snapped under the manic terror that consumed the keening beast. One of the head stalks leaned down and tried to push the stump of the amputated limb, now attached by a thin strip of skin, against the point of the break, but screamed as the limb burst into flame and melted the eye attached to the stalk.

I tore my eyes away from the spectacle of the thrashing beast, and looked back at Saren’s horrified face.

“Saren!”, I called out, “Saren!” No response from her, my voice bouncing off of her disgusted fascination with the pain of the beast that had come out of Dexter.

“SAREN!” I screamed, to no avail. “God damn it, Saren, wake up! MYKE!”

At the sound of her given name, Saren’s eyes snapped to mine. “Now! Do it now! This won’t kill it either! It’s just gonna piss it off! Send it back, before the rest of it breaks through!”

Saren gaped at me for a moment, confusion written all over her expression. After a second, though, she snapped into focus. She glanced at the beast, which seemed to be trying to beat itself to death, then back at me. With a curt nod, she started singing.

Saren’s voice cut through the awful sounds the thing was making. As her song continued, the thing diminished, shrank, folded back in on itself. Still covered in fire and ice, it was being forced back into the aperture from which it had come, into Dexter’s skin.

Even the bits that had snapped off from the cold or melted from the heat were pulled back into the husks of Dexter’s legs. At last, all of it vanished, and, with a huge cracking sound, the scarred and battered flesh settled to the ground, empty and flaccid.

This was all that was left of Dexter.

I turned and looked at my shell-shocked friends, and realized I had no idea what to say to them.

One day, mankind will conquer all of the ills of the world, of population, information, and government, and no one will want for anything.

And on that day, I think the living will envy the dead.

So... Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhmedy

Blake built himself his own little cubicle in the room we shared. By 'we', I mean he and I and about fifteen other guys, all of whom were part of the 1/503rd Infantry Regiment's headquarters company. We were assigned to a large room on the second floor of one of the buildings near the entrance to Fort Corregidor, just outside Ar Ramadi in Iraq.

The room had been partitioned off by various means, and I myself had used some wood panel, a bookcase, a bunk bed, and a hanging blanket to make my own private section. Blake had gone all out, though, well beyond anyone else. Along one wall, he used wood panel and two-by-fours, which he'd gotten from god knows where, to enclose a 6 by 15 foot area into his own little space. It even had it's own ceiling. The regular ceiling, about 14 feet high, was good enough for the rest of us, but not for Blake. I don't know, maybe he was worried about guys lobbing things over his wall.

He and I spent a lot of the nine months we occupied Fort Corregidor hanging out in his room, mostly talking about comedy. Sometimes, we'd compare religious views, which was always interesting, given that he's a committed Catholic and I'm just as devoutly atheist. But usually it was comedy.

We had, and have, a shared interest in making people laugh, and in what make good or bad comedy. For both of us, it was a way to get our minds off of the vagaries of being in the Army, and in a war-zone, and having to work closely with some guys who were, frankly, idiots. Blake had a worse time with that than I did, as he was a cook. The cooks in our unit weren't the best and the brightest. I most cases, they weren't very good or very bright at all, Blake being the notable exception. He's saw a lot of things that make good stories now, but that were aggravating as hell when they happened.

So, most nights, we'd end up chilling out in the hundred degree atmosphere of his room, watching Eddie Izzard or Jerry Seinfeld in Comedian, talking about doing comedy. We'd ping-pong ideas for sketches off of one another, using his computer to keep track of our genius, and we'd make plans for the day we were back in the States and out of the Army.

It kept both of us sane, or at least saner than we would have been otherwise. Occasionally, though, right at the start, one of us would look at the other and say, 'So... Caaaaaaaaaaaaahmedy!' This was the sign that we probably weren't gonna be writing anything that night, or even talking about performing except in the most abstract sense. It was our way of letting each other know that that night was just gonna be about hanging out, and feeling some kind of easygoing normalcy which comes along with spending time with a sympatico individual.

Iraq was a strange experience all around. It was made even stranger by somehow finding one of my best friends there.

It's a sobering realization

I like to think I'm a pretty well-rounded guy, the type of dude who's interested in more than the everyday pablum you find on TV. I was, for instance, quite thrilled to see that Akira Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' was available for viewing tonight.

It's on right now. So is VH1's 'I Love 1975'.

One guess: which am I watching?

sigh....

Meeting people at a new school

Apparently, this happened on my second day at the Quaker boarding school I eventually graduated from.

I was sitting, eating lunch at at table with a kid I didn't know, whose girth met or exceeded my own. As an icebreaker, I leaned over to him and whispered, "Y'know, I've only seen two fat people at this school. Me, and you."

Blind Idiot Translation

I was reading, today, about a phenomenon known as the Blind Idiot Translation. Basically, it's where something is translated from its original language by someone with only a rudimentary understanding of that language. This usually has the effect of ruining the work in question. Sometimes the translation is unintentionally hilarious, but more often it's simply a string almost-but-not-quite-comprehensible nonsense.

Since my time is worthless, I figured I'd give you an example, taken from my own writing. I dug up an online translation program, Yahoo's Babel Fish, and translated one of my blog entries from English to Japanese, and then back again.

Here it is, in all of it's joyous senselessness!



You try by your, as for the decision which kills between, you are brought up in me for being rather long. When I return from Iraq, they'd Platoon I'd which is broken at on; As for d which is part at the line company moving human everyone of the infantry. As for me being moved by Able Company in noncommissioned officer and the Simmons same platoon, person I' You obtained; d used the majority of the years when it drives for HUMMM-V.

Still, I trouble we' Approximately 6 months which the rear starts possessing; The house which can by d immediately after the start 2006. I drank the movie, my room which is seen passed most evenings independently. With method of working my every day of the thing which is the soldier, you did not obtain that under any condition with all clear methods without of being. I passed most nights and the weekend when exactly shock is drunk after the shock.

The 1st platoon was the group of the good man. They' The majority of the heavy raw materials being middle, d which is the right, the city of Ar Ramadi of our battalion parts directly we' So it is; d year we' Being posted outside because of the majority; D which is used in Iraq. It seems that I like the majority, like me.

But I think, I wasn't You obtained and I couldn't which it corresponds; The vibration of t it is loose that. As for me, me all raw materials you which are done; You tried; It re-was supposed to. I me thought of thing at least.

I did speaking to the pastor and 1 morning. I asked to him concerning the possibility of changing my specialty something other than the infantry to. Because as for me at that office which how has expressed me I wasn't You killing who, as intended to be able, me who feel there it destroyed; t sufficiently good soldier. The idea' But from beginning the basic training me certain d now as for that I happen, it was something which is and has known.

I couldn't It is that in t. As for me cause of the death of one someones of the thing where the companion of the platoon dies in me, it was not possible to be.

I Anderson spoke in noncommissioned officer Simmons and Lt. One time respectively. But what which changes greatly. As for Simmons noncommissioned officer my person, we' Was; d two degree it is blasted together. And Anderson Lt, he good platoon leader, the smart person and the graduate of the West Point, seems that really worries our everyone, was. Those tried the fact that it helps. As for me those must've It presumes. But that didn't seems that is changed with anything. And I couldn't t is dissatisfaction for the second time.

As for with, me I how thought terribly whether I was the other person, which rank of the millstone, I couldn't It had done; The hateful person who was broken by the fact that also t is a is added. That' What which was called the person who has the problem of a certain kind always in s, it had to be handled, it is there was every [wa] always.

And night of 1 Sunday, as for me I wasn't It decided which can take another week of failure and goes. As for me I'd It decided on the other hand dies

In which I am chased by werewolves

I ran as fast as I could. I had been running for quite a while, so that was not very fast, but I was still moving. The pack of werewolves that was following me made sure of that.

They weren’t really werewolves, not in the classic sense. This particular Earth parallel had found its destruction at the hands of a plague that killed most of the population and drastically reduced the intelligence of the survivors. The few who were still alive had become feral creatures and responded badly to anyone that entered their territory. I had entered their territory. Now, I was prey.

Normally, I wouldn’t have had a huge problem with this. I can bridge across most dimensional rifts, so my normal response to having unfriendly locals chasing me was to ‘port myself to a more genial locale. This particular parallel, however, had been declared off limits by the Travelers Guild, in all of their idiotic wisdom. They had done whatever they do to keep people out, which meant that I could not open a bridge at will. In order to avoid the ‘werewolves’ and leave this place safely, I had to reach a stationary gate. Luckily, the locals really were quite stupid, and the gate was now very near.

Yes, I know that I ended my last entry in the midst of what should have been a very lucrative card game. Various things had occurred which led inevitably from that point to this. Suffice it to say that the Immunoman who had sat across from me during the card game, the Infected fellow in the full isolation gear, had turned out to be not very nice at all. When I had chosen to give up my seat at the table, he had accompanied me, and explained that I was going to undertake an incredibly dangerous trip to a forbidden, diseased world and bring something back, or else.

I scoffed of course, even going so far as to laugh into my whiskey and deride his intelligence. He had then explained that one of the officials of the Gambling Hell was well aware of my placing bets through a proxy while also receiving a percentage on my play from the house. This official, a close friend of the Immunoman to whom I was speaking, was prepared to issue a lifetime ban on me for breaking the rules of the house.

Furthermore, a close friend of mine, who had collected my winnings from Andros and X after I had left the Hi-Low table, had been taken as a hostage. In the off chance that I was willing to accept a ban from the Hell just to spite the Immunoman, who I had admittedly come to loathe in a remarkably short period of time, this friend would then be exposed to the Immmunoman’s touch, which would result in their messy and painful death.

Alternately, I could choose to accept the snatch and grab mission. Not only would my violation of the Gambling Hell’s rules be overlooked, I would be allowed to have the percentage I had bought from the house. My friend would be released unharmed and still in possession of the cash they had received before being kidnapped.

All that would be required was to step through a gate, and find something. Granted, on the other side of the gate would be a world in ruins. A world destroyed by a hideous disease, for which there was no cure. Once in this hell, I would have to search out the very dangerous, highly contagious locals, secure a piece of still warm flesh of not less than two kilograms, then make a happy jaunt back to the gate. What could go wrong?

This might seem like an odd and pointless thing to ask someone to do. Why not just leave well enough alone? You see, the Infected made their money by curing disease, oddly enough. Their mighty immune systems let them be exposed to infections that would destroy most other organisms, and distill a cure from their blood. They were unparalleled masters of curing diseases. They also needed diseases to survive, as a way to keep their immune systems occupied fighting outside invaders, and new sicknesses were always needed. A new, uncured disease could therefore be sold to both those who might contract the disease and to the Infected themselves. A third source of income could be gained by buying sole rights to the world the infection had come from, then allowing immunized colonists to reclaim the abandoned world and kill off the diseased original inhabitants. All of these together would profit the Immunoman who secured the first strain of a new disease immensely. More than enough to make the commission of bribery, kidnapping, and blackmail worthwhile, really.

This is how I found myself leaning against a wall in a room on the second story of a ruined house in the middle of what had been London, unless I missed my guess.

My gasps for breath served as a counterpoint to the constant thumping coming from downstairs. The disease that had run amok on this world had reduced the intelligence of the survivors to the point where I had bought myself some breathing room by simply closing the front door behind me as I entered the house. No longer understanding how doorknobs worked, the werewolves were reduced to throwing themselves against the door as hard as they could. One would beat itself senseless against the still solid oak while the others ran in circles, barking and yipping. Three to one said that if I just kept quiet for long enough, they’d forget why they had been trying to break through the door, and go running off, chasing birds.

Of course, there always have to be the smart ones, two of whom I heard coming up the back stairs. They must have circled the house and found an open back door. They had no concept of stealth, though, so when the door finally burst open, I was ready for them.

The first one through took a solid blow to the side of the head, delivered by the hunk of meat I was engaged in bringing back to the Immunoman. As the hunk of meat was most of a left arm, it worked quite nicely as a club. The werewolf fell into a heap under the window, as I punched the second one in the head with my left hand.

As I believe I mentioned, my left hand is not flesh, but metal. As such, striking the werewolf with it did me no harm at all, while doing a great deal of damage to it. My fist was in fact stuck in its skull, so that by turning and bringing my arm around, I managed to throw the now limp body at the other werewolf. Which worked out nicely, as both of them were pushed through the window, falling into the front yard below.

So I continued on my merry way. Down the rear stairs, out the back door, across the backyard, quickly over a wall, and there I was at the gate leading out of this place.

Well, now, there you have it. Blackmail, through a gate, stealthy search, steal an arm, a bit of running, some medium violence, back to the gate, and bob’s yer uncle, the job was done.