Posts
Warnings
and/or
Disclaimers.
The subjects, characters, and quite possibly everything inside these pages, is complete and utter fiction.
That being said, I must nonetheless take the opportunity to express certain factual smidgens.
All the geographical locations, and their respective historical backstories, are as accurate and real, on my behalf, as humanly possible. Few poetic license have been taken.
The following books, and their respective authors, do not exist; they are make belief, and if you search for them you’ll look like a loon.
- “Encyclopedia Obscura: Truth behind fables.”
- “The Unseen Buenos Aires.”
The same little caution must be added for all newspaper articles, blog entries, and television programs, depicted in the beginning of some chapters.
All stories, fables, urban myths and colorful anecdotes, that spice up this soup, are authentic and honest. They are as palpable and tangible as the taste of fiery peppers and fine onions in a good meal; they are legitimate and give everything a greater zest.
O.K, folks, lets soldier on: aside from all documented figures, pointed out and referenced on these pages, every other character lacks a birth certificate and lives only in my deranged mind; particularly, I hope, Dorian Graig, Lady Man Jaku and the mad Russian.
I bit confusing right?
The only true north, and exercise, I can give the readers in order to figure out: what is true and what is absolute rubbi,sh is to take a minute of their time and investigate that weird detail which stoked their interest.
“The Dyatlov Pass” incident truly did occur. It is still a mystery and, as of 2013, no one has tooled up a comforting explanation for what the Hell happened on that mountain. It is a bizarre story that creeps the living daylights out of anybody who glances over its strange, unsettling, details.
L.J.Gomez.
January, 2014.
Enjoy....
PART I.
“...It was a black spot, of such immeasurable darkness and deep rotted shadows, that it seemed to engulf light and swallow it down into an unyielding void. It was an unnatural monstrosity; painted on the horizon, not sculpted by the hand of God. Inked into place by the Devil’s own water colors. It oozed oily essence and contaminated, with disconcerting ease, the very turbulent waters on which it floated.
Its damnable existence was undeniable. It had a depraved unnaturally and, over all, an angry and baneful disposition. It was corruption above everything else. It cultivated its wrongness out of a fertile sea, that brimmed with continuously poisonous and foul brutality; a sea that disdained your very presence and fought, with all its ugly machinations, to bleed you dry.
It wasn’t a homeward land; the closer you neared and the greater its true face became. It was quite apparent that one would be generous in calling it a: ‘grey sharp barren rock of filth and excrement’. It was, if anything, a dark stygian formation that blighted the Indian ocean. A pox on every horizon. A sting to the lucidity of a sane man. It was a volcanic, desolate, island; a still born monster rejected and vomited from out of the putrid guts of Hades; spewed onto an unsuspecting world. It danced in the waves nestled among whitecaps of billowing froth, that lapped at is sickened and disease based body.
As our boat neared, you could almost picture the image of a great sepulchral beast, fetid and rotting, belly up in the briny soup. Its cadaverous ribs breaking the surface and jotting, like rusty daggers, into the very shores of Heaven. Each loathsome peak was stained with a vile dark color, the earthly blush of dried clay; mirrored blood. Only carrion birds flew between the passages of such acrid pillars; most peeking, and rending, what little meat they could from the execrable land.
It was a monument, erected to honor the only being capable of admiring its cursed geometry; Lucifer himself.
As the skiff broke through the writhing water, and entered a passing inlet, we allowed the final vestiges of the sun to bathed our faces; soon, we would be far too close to this accursed abomination, and the light, as well as the cloudless and blue sky, would take a step behind the land and sink into its shadowy abyss. Two more strokes of our wooden oars was all it took. Night descended, like heavy rain, on top of us; the isle’s penumbra was snuffing every ephemeral ray of glow from the atmosphere. We were now only a stone throws away from its macabre walls. We entered the jagged reefs and prayed to our Gods for safety, as we broke into the island’s bastard enclaves. We headed straight into one of its lurid corridors, fear flowing through our icy veins.
The heathen rowed deeper into the beast. We were following its veins across its labyrinthian cliffs, pacing ourselves through its slimy waters, searching for the land’s obsidian heart.
Its carapace was silent and dull, you could catch the alarming clammer of your body’s own blaring anatomy; hear inside your mind a clear voice, as vivid as the speech of a trusted friend, or guardian angel, screaming: ‘... Run! Don’t look back. Run or kill yourself, but do not go any further’. Every organ and muscle, inside of me, twitched with fright. The more you traveled, the greater the pull to dash away; your soul wanting nothing to have with this unholy place.
The island was a land of decay; nothing lived on its soil, nor swam in its waters, its very air was venomous. It was a graveyard and, as such, only Grim Death could venture on its venomous grounds.
This crossing had been a strain on all of us. Calamities and disasters had been our constant companions. As we neared our prize, and I look out at my benefactor and fall victim, once again, to the same avarice that tied me into this malodorous odyssey, I seethe with anticipation at the juicy prize, I am about to sink my teeth into. We lost two-thirds of our crew, among them woman, children and my own wife and our 3 year old daughter, on this blasted voyage. As the compunction further in-trawls me in, I no longer feel ashamed, or sadden, by my sacrifices. On the contrary, I think, that perhaps, it was too small a prize to pay. Looking back, I would have offered every last beaten creature, and more, to our cruel hardship
My employer, a man of unfathomable pockets, meditates, like a granite statue, on the skiff’s prow; his head always pointing to the north, his north, steadfast and locked on our destination. He is wrapped in those peculiar dark vestments, that cover every inch of his person; the dark ebony material looks alive in the overwhelming twilight. It flows over his body, constantly changing with the cimmerian shades.
Besides my employer, a constant illness on my sight, but rigid and immovable as a mighty monolith, stands Lady Man Jaku. Her slight form only a masquerade to draw out fools, and food, for her sport. She has grown fat of spirit during our journey. Her blade always shinning with warm crimson blood. Gravity, the churning of the sea, nor any of the various physical manifestations, that now turns my stomach, hold any force over her, and her master. They look as dead as a corpses, and only move, to proclaim life, when necessity dictated it; and always unnaturally fast, and without sparing undo vitality. They would complete whatever task, they had to do, with ruthless efficiency, and immediately fall back into their lethargic state; conserving energy and building up ardor for their next assignment.
As I get closer to our destination, I look back on the day I sullied my being with my own greed and lust. I think back on the idiots promise, and blood oath, me and my crew swore to this two monsters. I thought, that I could salvage some sort of control in the bargain; relying on her Shinto honor and heritage. Words slipped off my tongue, in a drunken malaise: ‘... You might bring the pot of gold, but I ain’t no ones whipping boy, or lackey... The minute you put one damn foot on my vessel, you forfeit all your rights of privilege, and fall under my command. You may have bought my service, but never my place. In my ship, I, and I alone, make the calls... I am your God, your captain. Do I make myself clear?’ It would take me only 48 hours, after we had left the docks and started out on our 2 month trip, to make me realized that I had been a jester in fate’s court; how they must have laughed at my buffoonery.
We are meters away from dry soil; only a swimming distance from the acrid shore line. The gloom is oppressive and already we must traverse by the light of our torches, even though high above, past the cliffs, the sky is as clear as water in a crystal glass; illumination recedes from this place. It is shocked by its evil.
The boat crashes against the land, digging deep into the ashen beach; breaking the gravel and stopping, all its momentum, in one forceful thud. I turn, my light casting sight on the enclosure; chasing shadows away. I am astounded by the fact, that although I did not hear him, my benefactor has already flung himself from the craft and dashed, more than twenty feet inland. Lady Jaku pierces the night with her grey and blue slanted eyes, slips off her kimono and stands completely naked on top of one of the wooden rails; studying her surrounding. A silent predator looking at her new home.
Her form has been sculpted by the Gods themselves. Venus, in all her majesty, would no doubt feel jealous and ashamed by such celestial beauty; the only blemish visible on her skin was a red slash across her back; a whip’s kiss, that had broken an intricate, colorful and immense, tattoo of mysterious scribbles, in two even segments.
Her skin was as pale as the moon and, like that very celestial body, completely alien to me. Lady Jaku was danger incarnated. She could mesmerize you, with her seductress sway, only to approach closer and gouge out your eyes. On the barge many men had fallen victim to her false demeanor; she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing; a demon passing off as an angel.
She stared back at me, reading me like an open manuscript, registering each word and image that fell from my pages; she knew what I thought of her. She knew, that if given the chance, I would have ended her life. She was not my enemy, only a rather obtuse, and terrifying obstacle, that impeded me from advancing towards my new station in this world. A slight grin perked up, for a second, at the corners of her black painted lips; here for an instant, but lost in a breath’s way. She had spotlighted her emotions; a callous mistake unpardonable by her master. The woman who never let her frailties show; who was suppose to be only a mirror, reflecting the weakness of others but never herself; had defied her Lord, in the exact hour of his renewed apotheosis, and endowed me, with flitting glance at the creature that lurked underneath. She wanted me to bare witness to her smile and let me know that I was but a rodent caught in a tiger’s jaw; a plaything for her, to do with me as she desired. I did not even merit an ounce of fear ,or distain; I was non entity to her. She was a shrike, while I was a cowering worm.
She straighten her back, broke off her penetrating gaze and leaped, head first, into grimy water. She shot, like a lethal whaling harpoon, into the murky depths of this darken cove. Her posture had betrayed one final thing to me: I had thought, up until now, that my survival had been a fluke of destiny, but as I prepared to enter this accursed land, I deduced, and rightly so, that I am was alive because she had permitted it; not her master, but the witch. I still have a purpose to perform. One I fail to recognize, but one, that I fear, once completed, will ultimately align me into Lady Man Jaku’s crosshairs.
If the woman or girl, for her age was as cryptic as her, was a wolf, than her Lord, my benefactor, was a Dragon; and worst what we came here to seek and afterwards beg from, was, in comparison, a God.
Lady Jaku resurfaced and swam to the shore. She pushed herself out of the water and slid across the sand; coiling against the black grains, dousing her whole body, and hair, in the muck of this putrid wasteland. When she finally did finish, she was covered completely in its embrace with a coat of arid flesh. She looked like a black obsidian statue carved out of nightmares. The only white, that broke from such a frightening bust, were her lamp like eyes; golden red pupils slashed across my soul.
The woman came up to the side of the barge and withdrew her swords. They were called ‘big- little’ or, in her native tongue, ‘daisho’. They had been adoringly crafted, even the lace, she now tied around her bare hips, had a rich hue to it; I have no doubt that it was truly made from gold filaments and blood soaked treads. She passed her fingers lovingly over them, with care, taking her time to withdraw, only a little, both the long katana and shorter wakizashi; enough for the steel to reflect our torches’s light and wink menacingly at us.
Fear clamped its claws over my heart.
I had an inherent inclination, to pull out my gun, and knife, and kill my final crew man and leave this place; abandon the Japs to their prize and cut my loses. Intuition and common reason, and told me to flee; but my devilish wants told me otherwise. I ignored my own faculties, and cut down my sixth sense at the neck, as I took my first step unto the black sand. My boot dug into the soil and I stared up at the passage. The mouth of rock, I had to enter through, had reinvigorated my proclivity; I was once again charmed by the bounty that lay ahead.
My inborn impulse for self preservation was drowned out; survival was an immaterial thing, in the face of eternity. Life yearned for death and death feed of life; it was this lesson, on the dynamic flux of existence, that had, in part, pulled me to this graveyard.
Gustav, the cook, left the oars and joined me. The man had been transformed in his new charged. He had passed from feeding the sailors to protecting them. Later, he had discharged that mantel and took the role of an undertaker, sending bodies off the side of Calavera to their watery rest. Now, the Welsh behemoth carried on his shoulders a mighty load: the knowledge of all the burdens, and sacrifices, he had endured in order to become the last survivor, besides me, of this dammed expedition. He too had sold part of his soul.
We both made our way up the culvert towards the mountain that laid to the horizon; Lady Man Jaku was only a couple of steps further inland, her master was already a dot residing into the background. The silence bore on our nerves till it quenched our need to speak; as if that act onto itself would defy some vindictive ghost that sought the smallest transgression, on our part, to torment us. We were entering a land of shades and specters; we had to abide by their rules. Our instincts were the only real weapons we had at our disposal.
I write now, minutes after those few moments of, what in retrospect one would call, peace. No sooner had we ventured deeper into the beachhead, that a great commotion overtook us; a wild shriek glided down the path our silent benefactor had take; impacting forcefully, like a medieval mace, against our frames. It was a clamor composed of a thousand voices, each more distorted and horrific than the former.
I fell on my knees clasping my palms over my ears, trying to suffocated such wickedness; protecting my rational senses from such horrors. To my right Gustav flung himself to the ground trying, in vain, to mitigate the onslaught. We both looked like a pair of ostriches; hiding our heads in the sand.
Lady Man Jaku held her ground, oblivious or, perhaps, unperturbed by such malady; the fiend was in her element.
The land had been awaken and, in its sulfuric first breath, it wished to wound us. I felt the sleeping beast stir under this place; a growth that we had come to call upon. Every portion of my being shivered, as fear pricked down my scalp and sweat cascaded down my back.
The howl subsided. It sunk back into a tiny whisper, ever present, that traveled down out marrow.
We all knew what we had come here to do; what wild madness we sought to honor. The wind groaned, while Gustav and I flung back onto our feet. We trenched on, ignoring the pain, defying our strength. We had come to Hell, and now we were about to invite ourselves onto one of its Baron’s dinner table; we were absolute fools.
Without any warning, an almost with a break from this reality, Gustav broke back in arch. He fell on his spine, flat against the ground, and began twisting, in an abnormal way. His bizarre spams traveled down his neck, all the way to his feet. With an outlandish force his muscles contracted and bones started to crack under their strain. The man’s gelatinous form contracted in mighty, but brief, spells of energy. He twisted and erupted in frenzied jerks. His skeleton snapping at its core. His human morphology was transforming before my very eyes. Blood sported out of his mouth. His eyes burst from his skull. Ripples coiled around his arms, traveling up his body.
There was something inside the poor cook. Something was eating him up from the inside out, traveling in his interior; making roads out of his mangled flesh. Each time it passed it feasted at his flesh, and the meat would cave in. Canyons of empty epidermis assembled all over his skin.
He screamed in pain, and choked on his own vile. I was stupefied, simply frozen in my step, unable to react, let alone help him.
‘Kitanai buta...’, I heard a voice, sleek with distain, say.
I finally reacted when a spray of arterial blood hit me in the face.
‘Anata no sakebi to wa shuri kono tochi...’, Lady Man Jaku said as she flung her katana to the side and drops of red flew away from its polished sheath. Gustav’s head laid 2 meters away from his neck. ‘Watashi no ken o yashinau to anata no chi de tochi o kayasu.’
I had not even seen her move, let alone decapitate the oath. She slither close to me, her katana still drawn; I feared that I had finally outworn my usefulness. If I tried to unholster my weapons, she would no doubt take offense and make me suffer. I had seen it once, on the ship. One of my sailors had asked her: ‘... I wonder, you Jap whore, is your twat horizontal or vertical... Whatever the case may be, I got a big brown sausage to break it in’, the next thing we all saw was the man’s severed testicles being crushed by the woman's bony fingers; he died in a matter of minutes. I would rather be murdered fast, than allow myself to be played with by this barbarian; I decided to put out no defenses.
She reached me and coasted her blade up my shoulder, right until the hilt hit bone. She pressed herself against my body, the deadly instrument resting inches from my clavicle, its sharp edge only a flick from my throat. We were abreast, one next to the other. She got closer to my cheeks, and in perfect english, one who’s intonation was far better than my own, and with a lovely jasmine perfume, as an aftertaste of her dichotomy, she said: ‘Come little child, we are far away from your boat. This is our territory, here you hold no divinity. Move, or lie next to your final companion... We are your Gods. Your captains. Have I made myself clear?’ She flipped the sword to the other side, withdraw it from me, and slid it back down into its scabbard; she gave me her back and continued her trek.
As I looked with horror at the stained rash of dark scarlet on my jacket’s pad, I find that I was mistaken; I am something to this woman; a rag to wash and clean her weapon. I am useful to her as nothing more than a doily.
I kept my pace, knowing that after today it would all be over; praying that what killed Gustav would however slumber inside my own person, for, as you have read, we are all polluted by them. Iam but a walking dead men waiting for Azrael to catch up.
I mourn for my lost humanity, but rejoice at what lies ahead.
August 26, 1883
Sunda Strait;
Krakatau, Indonesia.”
