Hello friends.
It has been a while since I last sent a communication from the void. It is cold and dark here, yet light exists, pale and sparse.
I have been busy scribbling in the last few months, hopefully not in vain. I have two stories and a novelette out for consideration. I plotted and started a novel, and have my writing schedule for the year planned and written out.
All is well so far this annum and I hope you all are well, dear readers. i have prepared something for you all, a special treat. Completely free, of course…that is, if you will give me your attention for just a few moments. I call it The Underpass…
The Underpass.
It stinks of piss and shite and other, fouler things, and when the man called Asmodeus spoke, Martin’s eardrums burst.
Martin stood at the mouth of the underpass, jaw clenched, lips drawn thin. Cars blurred overhead to a single multi-coloured line of light and noise, kept at bay by a high chain-link fence. The warm summer evening wind blew through the tunnel’s cavernous entrance like a sigh, and tussled his brown hair, making Martin feel much smaller than his six feet-two inch frame, and much, much younger than the 34 long years that he’d lived so far.
The entrance was a wide, concrete maw, tattooed with gang graffiti and band posters. Despite these new physical adornments, it still looked the same all these long years later; the same tunnel he saw in his nightmares, a black hole. He’d put the physical distance between this place and himself years ago, dropping out of school at 15 and moving to London to join the theater – make believe was better than reality and living the lives of others was preferable to living his, but the respite he found in pretending to be someone else was only ever short-lived, and as the curtain finally fell; his own life would ebb back into his head and he’d be back here.
London never proved far enough. Somehow his past would catch up with him and whispers about his brother’s disappearance would fall upon the ears of his cast-mates and fellow actors and suddenly he’d be the talk of the theater scene. He’d only been back to Glasgow once since he left, when his father died of liver failure, a raging alcoholic since his darling boy went missing and his bastard of a son left home. The funeral was drenched in heavy freezing rain, and Martin was not made welcome, not by his mother, nor the numerous cousins and friends who cast their suspicious eyes on him. He instead sat at the back of the chapel and hoped the old bastard was rotting in hell.
They’d never believed his story, not his family, not the police, not the line of head doctors who followed them, diagnosing an array of psychiatric disorders, and prescribing tablet after pill after drug. Eventually Martin gave up on the truth and agreed with them that he’d hallucinated the whole thing and that his brother had been abducted. He put away the memories of the man made of light and the doorway to another place, stuffing them into the box in his mind and there they stayed. Then he’d gone off to London and left the past in Glasgow.
Until his mother died.
He’d got the call at his writing desk. In a way he was relieved having been suffering through an impenetrable bout of writers block. Alone, in an empty house, with an empty head, staring at an empty screen for a week. Martin quickly packed a bag and caught the red eye to Glasgow.
His mother passed away like a tiny, frail bird, in a dirty bed in a noisy hospital ward, and he’d held her hand and she had only stared at him, her ragged breath rattling in her chest until it stopped moving and she stopped staring. Martin called the funeral director and made arrangements to bury her. Until she was in the ground, he had nothing to do, except visit his memories.
Standing before the place where his young brother disappeared, Martin gazed into his past. For it was here that Jamie went into the light, through the door following the man with two walking sticks, leaving Martin alone in the dark.
With twilight falling Martin Drake stepped into the underpass.
The wave of deja vu hit him hard. The underpass was the city’s toilet, a place for all the detritus, and flotsam and jetsam of modern disposable life to wash up. The graffiti was new but the same decay still clung in the air. he could almost feel his brother here with him, Jamie’s soft young voice still rang in his ears…Marty…don’t leave me!
Halogen lighting strobed, illuminating the inside of the tunnel. Martin could see that the far end had been barricaded up, wooden boards placed across the entrance, trapping time like a prisoner.
Apart from several blankets and a fetid mattress, the tunnel was entirely empty. Reality felt thin. Martin could almost hear Jamie’s laugh, could almost see his brother walking ahead of him as they cut through the underpass on their way home from school. If he just reached out, maybe he could reach through the years and take him by the hand and pull him out of the grasp of that terrible stranger.
“Asmodeus”.
Speaking the man’s name seemed to shift reality. His memories disappeared and Martin was struck by how vulnerable he was in the tunnel, alone. The air felt heavy and thick. Martin turned to leave but his legs would not obey him any longer. The halogen lights died and the world became a black soup.
“Hello, Martin.”
The voice filled Martin’s head, vibrating on a frequency he could barely hear nor bear. It hadn’t even spoken English, instead some ancient language, older than words themselves. Martin put a hand to his face, suddenly wet, and his fingers came back crimson. Head pounding, his nose bled, and the ache in his balls made him feel nauseous. Screwing his eyes shut to stop them expoding, he clamped his hands over his ears, but the vibration of the man’s greeting reverberated in his head, growing louder and louder until the darkness swam into the corners of his vision. He screamed as his eardrums ruptured. And then the world was silent.
The tunnel filled with light that poured from a door in the wall a few meters away. Martin saw him come through the door, the man with two walking sticks. He was slightly built, but the remarkable thing about him was that he glowed from every pore in his body, from his eyes and his mouth and even his fingertips, a light that seemed made of liquid and clung to everything around it. Asmodeus’ form was hidden by the long overcoat he wore and a hat that was pulled down over half of his face, exposing only his vulpine grin.
“Martin. You have come back to me, after all these years.”
Even with ruined ears, Martin could still hear the man speak. His lips did not move, the smile still carved into his face, exposing his razor teeth. Martin wiped the tears from his eyes and nodded.
“Curiosity gets the better of us all, doesn’t it, Martin? Tell me, why have you come back now?”
“I’ve never been able to forget.” Martin spoke, unable to hear his words but feeling them vibrate in his head.
“You wish to see what lies beyond the door?”
Martin shook his head. “I want to know why I wasn’t I good enough for you? Why him?” He began to cry like a child, heaving, gasping sobs.
Asmodeus was close now and he wiped the tears from Martin’s cheek with a glowing thumb.
“You still feel that bitter sting of rejection? Poor child. You can never cleanse yourself of it completely.”
Martin looked up at Asmodeus’ face and allowed the being’s light to spill over him.
“You were, and still are, unworthy of my attention. When I came before, you fled. I had no need for such a person. But Jamie…oh he was filled with such greatness and potential. He was so heartbroken that you’d abandoned him. His brother, his protector, abandoning him to a monster. I used that grief to shape him into something…more.”
Asmodeus’ head turned slightly, as if heeding an unheard signal, or call. He nodded gently and turned back to Martin.
“He has fulfilled my expectations. He is now such a cruel, spiteful thing. The place that lies beyond the portal needs things like him. Don’t worry, Martin. You’ll see him again. He will be waiting for you when you are ready.”
Martin let out a slow, deep sob and crumpled to his knees.
Asmodeus placed both hands on Martin’s face and closed his eyes with his thumbs. Martin felt Asmodeus’ lips gently touch his forehead.
“Until that day.”
And the world was black.
“Hey mate…mate?”
Martin awoke with a flash of pain in his head. He sat up, cradling his head where it met the ground at speed, and groaned. A thin, bearded face, stared down at him.
He pushed himself up onto his elbow, looking for the door, but all he found was a blank concrete wall.
“Unworthy…” he whispered.
“Mate, you alright? You need some help?” he asked, grasping Martin by the shoulders and hauling him to his feet, but Martin could not hear his words.
The man was disheveled, clothing ripped, hair matted. He glanced up and down the tunnel before pinning Marty to the wall and rifling through his pockets. Marty saw the flash of a blade but did not flinch when the man put it to his throat.
“…unworthy…”
“Yeah, whatever. Hold still.”
The man took Martin’s wallet and watch, dropping the knife in the process, and ran off towards the tunnel entrance, leaving Martin alone.
Martin slumped and slid down the wall. His eyes settled on the dropped blade. It was rusty and dull, but Martin knew it would do the job required.
He removed his jacket and placed it across his lap. He took the dull knife and put it to his wrist, drawing it up his arm, opening the vein there and did the same on the other arm. The warm blood pulsed out onto his lap, onto his jacket, onto the ground.
Martin lay back against the wall, closed his eyes and prepared to himself to meet Jamie again, after all these years.
John Paul Fitch 