Blue Flame, Book One, Part Two

Part 2: “Playback”

Shiny glass eyes peer out from the dark windows and quiet doorways of bleached dwellings. Frank and Ernest make their way through the white city.

“This place gives me the creeps, Frank. I don’t like it.”

“Shut up, sissy. And come on.”

Frank leads Ernest to a brass door. He knocks his scarred knuckles against the solid metal twice. His knocking barely makes a sound, but the door opens of its own accord. Little flames flicker in the distance. Opium sweetness perfumes the room. Smoke flutters in the air, choking the drab atmosphere.

“Come,” says a monotone voice. “Enter.”

Ernest’s eyes adjust themselves to the gloom. Faintly, he sees bodies along the floor coiled around each other like snakes in ecstasy--white corpses, moaning and copulating, their hands sticking into each other’s decomposing flesh, under the skin, massaging skull and organ in an orgy of pain. Fingers poke and prod, penetrating flesh without blood.

“Come,” repeats the voice. Ernest barely makes out a figure, sitting behind a long narrow table at the far end of the room, hunched over in darkness.

Frank gestures to Ernest. “Come on, it isn’t wise to piss him off.”

“Where did you bring me?” stutters Ernest.

“I’m sorry, Ern, buddy. I had no choice.”

“No choice?”

The brass doors behind them slam shut. Daylight is cut off.

“Come! Now!” the voice demands. Nimble outstretched arms reach for Frank and Ernest as they approach the black-cloaked figure.

“I’ve brought him, Master,” says Frank.

“Good,” says Shuffle, turning slowly in his chair. Glass eyes gleam at Ernest, paralyzing him. Ernest quickly reaches for his gun and fires three bullets at the horrifying creature.

It smiles with jaunted teeth, crackling a horrific laugh, and lifts an open palm. Ernest’s gun rips from his grip and into the creature’s hand.

“I would slowly devour you, if I didn’t want you alive.”

Sweat collects at Ernest’s forehead.

The creature speaks again, its breath white and calm. “Let me explain why you are here. Come, sit, listen.”

Shuffle gestures for the two men to approach. Tiny horns protrude from his decrepit face. Stump spikes hang from his narrow chin. The two men obey without choice, sitting cross-legged before the monster called Shuffle. Candles crackle and dance around them. Shuffle reaches for a small bottle and drinks from it. Then he smiles, licking the dark liquid off his thin black lips.

“Oh, where are my manners, now? Care for a drink, gentlemen?” On the table between Frank, Ernest, and Shuffle are scattered fragments of bone, a shattered hourglass with its contents spilled forth in a pile of motionless dust, a voodoo skull like a shrunken head, and books--lots of open, dusty books. A flickering lamp illuminates them, revealing pages of foreign text that neither man knows how to read--a history written in a forgotten language.

“A toast to nothingness,” Shuffle says, raising his drink. “Everything good and strong in this world decays into slop, as if it were never meant to be. Existence is, at best, an uncomfortable fluke. Nothingness is the natural and original state of being. For eons the universe was such--undiluted nothingness, peaceful and uninterrupted. The ancient tongueless sages referred to this pleasant state as the Void. They were followers of the Flood, my sworn enemies. Like boils desecrating angel skin into blistered scabs, the Flood oozed out from the Great Nothing and infected the universe with substance and form. Loud, over-saturating possibilities bled out as the Flood threatened to drown the Great Nothing. The Void retaliated, erasing what it could of the Flood into a mere stream of existence. After the age of the universe forming itself, these two forces reached a standstill, a balance of being and nothingness. In other words, the Void was Yang to the Yin that should not have ever been. And we exist on the front line of this standoff.”

He takes a generous gulp.

“This is why teeth fall out, why joints ache, why beauty is temporary. Because anything the Flood creates is destined to return to the Void, and suffering is the transition between these two states. I want to end suffering, pain, and misery, as do my masters. And you two gentlemen have the dignified honor of helping us... by retrieving the Blue Flame.”

Shuffle reaches into his cloak pocket and pulls out a crystal.

“Look.” He holds it in his burnt palm. Above the crystal floats a hologram. “This flame will burn eternal as long as this world exists. If a person were inclined to contain it, they would obtain unimaginable powers, indomitable strength...anything you could dream, gentlemen, for it is the lock that seals the Pit from this world.”

Shuffle quickly closes his hand over the crystal with a wide smile. Neither man dares to speak.

“The Blue Flame floats above an accursed Pit,” He fans over the open books on the table. “I believe the pit beneath this village is the very ‘Pit’, the portal to the Void where my masters are banished. It is a one-way portal if you will, and if you fall into it you may never return. Instead, you will sink into the Void, where the lucky are merely erased, and the unlucky meet my masters, eternal creatures beyond the limits of your perceptions.”

Shuffle twirls his pointed fingertips. “Through my endless search across unspeakable worlds, I have come to this bleak pathetic village of the strange and dying. I have found the accursed Pit and the Blue Flame are hidden beneath this very village. It has brought me here. It is the reason why this city decays and mutates into grotesque remnants of the living. The people here are saturated by the darkness of the Pit, just as I am—unwilling slaves to the Pit’s desire.”

Ernest spits. “Then why do you need us? Go get that damn flame yourself.”

“Because, my dear guests.” Shuffle reaches out and presses his thin blistered claws against Ernest’s face. “I am much too tempted to join my masters in the Void. I am without fear, and fear is needed to retrieve the Blue Flame. And by the smell of it, you two still have plenty.”

Ernest looks at Frank.

“Go now, retrieve the Flame, unlock the seal, and bring it to me.” “And if we don’t?” asks Ernest.

Shuffle’s eyes squint. “And if you don’t, there will be serious complications to your existence gentlemen.” He smiles and lowers his head. Without any warning, he springs forth, a black ghost leaping onto Ernest’s chest and knocking him over. Saliva drips from his razor teeth. A narrow serpent tongue extends from his mouth and licks Ernest’s face. “Your fear tastes delicious,” he snarls, as his sharp fingers tighten around Ernest’s neck. “If you don’t obey me, then your fear has only begun.”

Shuffle creeps back and over the table like a transparent mirage of spider legs. “I would love to dine on the divinity of your souls right now,” he hisses. “But I need your services. Thus, I will spare your lives for this little exchange of favors.”
Shuffle slouches back in his throne, solidifying into a more human form.

“Now go! You have the map, and three days.”

Frank and Ernest get up, tripping over each other and falling among the rotting bodies on the floor. The brass door opens once again.

Outside, beaming daylight dries them into the white earth. Their eyes blind, their brains lost, and confused.

“What the hell did you get me into, Frank?”

“I’m sorry, Ern. I truly am. I didn’t know. I didn’t know, and then he-- it—told me, if I didn’t bring another, he’d kill me. I’m sorry buddy.” Tears gently stream down Frank’s face as he falls to his knees. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I had no choice.”

Ernest kicks Frank in the ribs, sending him into the white dust. “I’m out of here!”

He kicks him again. “I’m getting the hell away from this place. I’m never going to think about this town again!” Blood trickles out the tiny puncture holes in Ernest’s throat.

“You can’t leave, ” Frank pleads, holding his chest. “You can’t go. Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? There is nowhere you can hide. He’ll find you. He finds you in your dreams.” Frank frantically searches his pockets. “Our only chance is to find the Flame.” Shaking all over, he pulls out the tattered cloth. “It’s here Ern.” He opens it and points. “Right here, under this city.”

“I ain’t going down there man. Even if there is a Blue Flame or if any of that insane story about a pit is true. I ain’t involved. I ain’t going down there to find nothing, man. You see that creature in there? That isn’t human! That isn’t something I want to deal with.”

“Please, Ernest, please. I beg. I need you.”

“Let go of my leg.”

“Please?”

Ernest kicks Frank again, sending him back into the dust. “Don’t ever contact me again. We ain’t friends no more.”

Ernest wipes the sweat off his face and the blood from his neck. “I ain’t going to help you find no Flame, and I ain’t going to help you do nothing no more buddy. You’re as good as dead to me.”

Frank sits hunched over in the dirt, weeping, as Ernest walks away without looking back.

Written by Charles Denton
Story by Charles Denton and Joe Lipscomb
Illustrated by Blaine Garrett
Cover Art by Joe Lipscomb

Copright 2012 Dim Media