Here's the completed Jaws of Life story that I started back in October. I'm thinking about writing a collection of horror stories, perhaps interspersed with the remnants of my Resurrection novel that I never finished. I'm 40 years old now, for chrissakes. I got to finish some shit.
...
The
Jaws of Life
As
I stood before those masticating jaws, I suddenly knew that I
couldn’t do it.
“I
can’t,” I said to the gate agent.
“Excuse
me?” he asked. He wore a red jacket with a little mouth pin speared
through the lapel.
“I
can’t walk inside that mouth, and let that thing eat me.”
“Uhhh,”
said the gate agent. His toupee reminded me of a snake trying to
swallow an egg.
I
looked around for my clothes and saw them in a black garbage bag in
the waiting area, so I started walking toward them.
“Wait,
what are you doing? He is expecting someone! You’ve been prepared!”
My
skin was saturated with butter, and black pepper fell from my graying
locks.
“I
just can’t,” I said. Part of me wanted to apologize, but I
couldn’t. Not with those peg-like teeth and that giant tongue still
visible beyond the threshold.
“What
am I supposed to say to Him? They’ll make me talk to him, you know!
I’ll be the poor sap that has to give an explanation! Look out
there! Look at him! Does He look like something you’d want to climb
up on a giant escalator and shout inside the ear of? Because that’s
my day now, buddy. All thanks to you.”
I
looked outside the window and saw Him sitting there, cross-legged on
the tarmac, giant hands resting folded in his lap.
“I’m
sorry. I can tell them that it isn’t your fault.”
“Of
course it’s not! It’s yours! What you can do, buddy, is get back
over here and climb past the threshold, and start your journey to the
Great Beyond, like every other sixty-year old man! You think you’re
the first person to have reservations about climbing inside of a
giant mouth? It’s what we do, though, alright? It’s part of the
deal we struck with the Gods. It’s the only way to the Great
Beyond. You want to see your wife, right? Your parents? All your
deceased loved ones? Then stop chickening out and get the fuck over
here!”
All
while he spoke, his volume had crescendoed from a whisper to a shout.
I went over to the bag and put my clothes on, ignoring how the greasy
butter made me feel. I knew that part of my hesitation was due to the
fact that my system had always resisted the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. Yet who could die this way? Years of propaganda tried to
prepare the mind for this gruesome end. However, the sight of that
open maw quivering with anticipation filled my mind with more fear
than I could even contemplate.
“I’m
going home,” I told the gate agent.
He
threw up his hands and shook his head, the toupee threatening to come
loose from his skull.
“No
one will pick you up from here. This is supposed to be a one way
ticket. And you have to wear this now. No buts.”
With
one quick motion, he slapped a sticker directly on the center of my
forehead. I knew what it said.
Heretic.
…
“What
the hell are you doing here?” asked my son as he opened the door to
my former residence.
I
was haggard and tired, having walked for hours on the highway, and
perhaps I did resemble a walking corpse in the failing light.
“Coming
home,” I replied, as I tried to push past him.
“Woah,
wait, wait, wait… you left the temple without ascending? Please
tell me there was a like a problem, a technical setback.”
“Yes,
son there was.”
“Oh
thank the gods…”
“I
didn’t want to climb inside a giant mouth,” I admitted.
The
hallway of my old home was strange, the lighting weak and amber, as
though it was somehow leaking through the blinds from a sodium lamp
outside. In the kitchen I saw my daughter in-law sitting at the
table, her face mortified.
“Dad,
you gotta go back. Is that a heretic sticker on your forehead? Oh my
god, I could lose my job! Do you realize what you are doing to us?”
“They’re
lying to us, son,” I tell him. “They slather you with butter and
put pepper in your hair right before you’re supposed to climb
inside. They give you a hallucinogen to cloud your mind. We’re food
for them. Those monsters.”
“So
you really are a heretic.”
We
have never left the entryway, and my son has backed away from me, as
though I am some creature with an infectious disease.
“Never
would have expected this from you. You raised me right, took me to
church, told me to work hard, to always vote. Now at the end of your
life you’ve turned into an iconoclast. Not just that, a fucking
heretic!”
“Jerry,
you’re shouting,” said my daughter in-law.
She
whisper-yelled this from the kitchen, but the consequences of this
argument have manifested in two small shadows standing atop the
stairs.
“Grandpa?”
The
kids came bounding down and embraced my legs. I placed my hands on
their little heads and feel the force of life itself, and I wonder
how anyone could willing embrace the narrative that we aren’t
needed anymore after six decades.
“Oh
Frank, what have you done?” said Lauri, my daughter in-law.
She
has stood finally and tries to pull the kids away from me.
“You’re
supposed to be in Heaven with grandma!” said my grandson.
“Did
they kick you out?” asked my granddaughter.
“No,
Grandpa’s going to Heaven, he’s just a little delayed,”
explained my son.
“I
don’t want to go to Heaven, either,” said my granddaughter. “I
don’t want to walk inside a giant mouth.”
“Good,”
I said. “You shouldn’t want to.”
“Alright,
Dad, you got to leave,” said my son.
“Where
am I supposed to go?” I asked.
“Here.”
He
thrusted a wad of cash toward me.
“Take
it. Go sleep somewhere and think about what you have to do tomorrow.”
He
pushed me outside and shut the door in my face.
…
I
wandered down by the docks, and the fog crept in, seething around
everything like an encompassing spirit. The streetlights were faint,
just murmurs, and I was cold. It was a seeping cold, the kind of cold
you feel from being wet—it starts in your fingers and passes
through your hands and soaks into your core—and the only way to
cure it was to sit at a roaring hearth with a steaming cup in your
chilled palms. The water lapped against the pier with a consistent
rhythm, and I considered stripping down and jumping into those icy
waters. There will be no hearth, never again, and wouldn’t it be
preferable to freeze and drown rather than to be eaten by a giant? So
went my thinking, and I had already removed my shirt and taken off my
shoes when I felt a hand fall on my bare shoulder.
“What
are you doing, my son?” asked the priest.
“I’m
going to jump into the water,” I admitted.
“Will
you come with me? It’s warm in the church. I can give you something
to drink.”
I
felt something collapse inside me, and so I followed the priest.
In
the church I felt the vestiges of the past and the horribleness of
the new. The old iconography had been removed; there was not a cross
in sight, nor did I see any signs of Jesus or the Apostles. Instead,
in the center of the altar was a looming statue of a giant, hands
outstretched and raised toward the heavens. In its palms were people
sitting peacefully, their tiny faces radiant with glory. The giant’s
mouth was tightly shut, however, and it wore clothes to hide its
musculature, unlike the real thing. There was nothing uncanny about
it, really. It resembled a statue of a man. Having looked inside the
maw of the creature and observed its bulk sitting on the tarmac, I
can say that the sculpture is misleading at best. Through the thick
malaise of depression and apathy came a sharp burst of anger as I
turned toward the priest.
“That
statue is a lie,” I told him as he brought me a cup of coffee.
He
paused and looked at it for a moment before handing me my cup.
“Yes,
I think you are right,” he admitted.
“They
don’t look like us, really,” I said. “Maybe a crude
resemblance. They have two legs, two arms, and a head. But their skin
is gray, and there are massive lumps on their shoulders, and their
eyes have a deep emptiness in them, as though they have stared into
the abyss and taken some of it with them. They are monsters, not
saviors. And you’re feeding us to them.”
“You’re
right. I can’t argue with that.”
The
priest sat down on a pew and leaned back with a great sigh.
“I
devoted my life to the cloth,” he said. “I believed with all of
my heart. Sure, I had the occasional doubt, but I knew that the
Creator was real and that salvation was possible through belief. And
so I believed. I believed when these things crawled out of the earth
and came down from the sky. I believed when they materialized out of
the air, when they rose from the ocean depths. It wasn’t until all
resistance crumbled that I lost my faith. I kept waiting for us to
persevere, but there was nothing we could do. All weapons were
useless against them. “God helps those who help themselves.” We
couldn’t help ourselves, so one of two possibilities was true.
Either God wasn’t real or the arrival of the giants was a trial we
had to endure. A compromise was brokered. And you are right that we,
the great religions of the world, negotiated it. They wanted to eat
all of humanity, you understand. We promised them that, but they
would have to wait if they wanted us to cooperate. Time doesn’t
mean anything to them. In the face of total annihilation, senicide is
a worthy compromise, wouldn’t you agree?”
“It
doesn’t appeal much to me at this moment,” I said.
“No,
of course not. But you’ve had sixty good years, am I correct? You
had a family, children, grandchildren. A successful business. A nice
home, vacations, good times. You’re among the luckiest human beings
to have ever existed, really. No dying from infection or watching
your children get eaten by a bear. All the comforts and joys of
modern life have been experienced. And now it is your time to pay
your debt to society. Nothing of what you have enjoyed will be left
for future generations if you don’t start your journey to the Great
Beyond. Think about your kids and grandchildren. Think about their
children’s children. Think about the human race.”
He
was right, I supposed. I remembered the appearance of the giants and
the brief war that followed. But the propaganda was what really
disturbed me. That, and the fact that I had to be eaten by a giant
monster.
“Why
do we have to lie to everyone? Why can’t we figure out some way of
killing them?” I asked.
“Smarter
people than you and I have contemplated that question,” he replied
wearily. “Suffice it to say a better solution has not been reached.
Please, let’s no longer ask why circumstances can’t be different.
We are unable to change the way the world is; we are just two men
adrift in an ocean that will swallow us one day. I have stronger
hallucinogenics that I can give to you. Take them with you. Return to
the airport tomorrow at six o’clock. Then you can ascend to the
Great Beyond and the world can keep on spinning. Think about this, my
friend: everything depends on you right now. You are responsible for
the fate of us all. Every person who does not ascend weakens the
truce between mankind and the giants. You have to show up tomorrow.
You will, won’t you?”
I
looked at the capsules the priest placed in my hand. Giant,
bright-red horse pills. Would I be able to swallow them? I didn’t
seem as though I had a choice.
“Sure,”
I said. “I’ll do as I’m supposed to do.”
…
I
took one of the pills as I walked out of the church. It was still
cold but the fog had lifted, and the moon had poked through the
clouds, painting the way forward. I walked onward, waiting for
something to kick in, a jolt of faith or purpose. Past the ruined
industrial buildings and deeper into the city I went, leaving behind
the scattered memories of a life. It seemed, as the drug took effect,
that every step I took triggered a memory and a little burst of
emotion. Standing on the hillside as a child, looking for Kirsten
Summers in the darkness as the children played tag. That house in
Chicago with the painted red walls and moldering basement shower. My
old dog, black and shaggy, sitting on the armrest of the couch, his
long nose pointing through the window blinds. Kissing my wife for the
first time against her red Firebird. Suddenly, I stepped out of the
past and realized I was standing in the middle of the street in the
heart of downtown. Not a car was in sight, and a strange quiet hung
in the air, as though the current hour were a forbidden time for the
living. The buildings were huge, the lights flashing, the streets
wide, the steam billowing out of the sewer grates. Would this exist
without me? When I vanished down the throat of a monster, would I
take the entire universe into the bowels of the beast? The drug was
supposed to heighten my connection with the living world, but all I
felt was alienation and doom. Had the priest given me the proper
pills? Or was I seeing the world how it truly existed, through my
eyes and my eyes alone?
There
was no way for me to know any of what I desired. Perhaps I would
ascend when the giant consumed my body, even though I knew the truth.
Maybe when you believed something, you made it true. As I meandered
out of the street, I felt the resistance of my heart soften. There
was no way to fight, no where to run. I was doomed, and all that
remained was for me to begin the long walk back to the terminal.
“Hey,
Heretic. Come here,” said a voice in an alleyway.
All
I could see was a black leather-clad arm, a bare finger extending
from a gloved hand motioning toward me. My end was preordained, so
what would be the harm of being knifed in an alleyway?
A
hooded face came into the light. I saw a chin and nose and not much
else. The voice was female but harsh, like she smoked packs of
cigarettes constantly and gargled with whiskey.
“They’re
going to make you Ascend tomorrow, ain’t they? You want to do
something to change the whole bloody process?”
“Yes,”
I said without any emotion.
“They
couldn’t kill them from the outside, but they haven’t tried from
inside,” said the woman. “You hop in that mouth with enough high
explosives and that giant won’t eat another human again.”
“That
would dissolve the agreement,” I said. “We’d be at war with the
giants.”
“Wouldn’t
war be better than this bullshit? Lying to everybody that they’re
gods and we’re going to heaven when we jump in their mouths?”
Her
voice dripped with disdain.
“We
didn’t rise to the top of the food chain to go back down it. This
world is full of too many people unwilling to resist. You’ve
already proven that you don’t always do what you’re told. My
group has something figured out tomorrow. We’re going to convince
everyone that’s Ascending to wear four pounds of plastic explosive
layered over their body. We’ll take out the monsters in a one fell
swoop. How would you like to be a part of that? While everyone else
walked willingly to their demise, you decided to put a stop to the
whole rotten system. That’s a legacy to be proud of, friend.”
“Sure,”
I said. “Why the fuck not?”
“That’s
the attitude,” said the woman, who still refused to step completely
into the light. “Come with me. We’ll fix you up, and you’ll fix
those goddamn giants and go down as a hero, not a sheep.”
Without
hesitation, I stepped into the darkness of the alleyway.
…
I
walked down the terminal, struggling to hold on to that sense of
displacement, the feeling that I wasn’t really where I was. Agents
in red coats passed, hurrying toward their terminals to escort people
to their Ascension, but I took my time, of course. No amount of
philosophy or purpose had prepared me for my death. It didn’t
matter that I had plastic explosive hidden on my person, and my drug
consumption had failed to alleviate the fear. All of it had went by
so fast, quick as a flash—my adolescence, my youth, my marriage, my
kids, my career—and now I was at the end. Why couldn’t I hold on
to a moment? Why couldn’t I just slide back into the past and
ruminate forever? We always had to be marching forward, the
inexorable progress of time. Except it wasn’t progress from my
perspective. It was degeneration. It was time to be culled.
An
agent approached me, a blond woman with flecks of gray in her long
hair.
“It’s
time for your preparation,” she said.
“We
wouldn’t want it to have indigestion,” I said.
She
didn’t even blink an eye.
“Sir,
we recommend that you undergo a seasoning to make your Ascension as
smooth as possible.”
“I’m
going to respectfully decline,” I said.
“That’s
your choice, but it is likely to affect your status in the
Afterlife.”
“There’s
not going to be an Afterlife, and you know it,” I muttered.
She
extended an arm and pulled the sticker that said “heretic” off my
forehead in one deft motion.
“No
more of that,” she said. “It is time to believe.”
“But
I don’t believe.”
“You’re
here, aren’t you? Actions speak louder than words.”
“You’re
right,” I said. “Take me to our gods.”
As
we approached the terminal, I could see it on the tarmac, sitting
with legs crossed, gray-skinned, muscular, gigantic. The yellow eyes
stared straight ahead at nothing. Workers scattered around it, busy
little insects. One of them looked to be operating a machine to file
its toe nails.
“Have
you been out there on the tarmac?” I asked.
“Yes,”
she replied.
“What’s
it like? Been around one of them?”
“Surreal.
You know that they’re not of this world. You can feel an
attraction, almost like a foreign magnetism. I don’t know how to
describe it. It really is inexplicable.”
She
was right that they didn’t look real—even staring directly at a
giant through the window, I kept thinking that it was an illusion, a
model or a projection. The mouth, however, did look alive.
You
could look down the jet bridge and see it, a quivering cavern of
moist, dripping flesh. The pink tongue, the peg-like teeth descending
from the upper jaws like stalactites, the throat and bulging tonsils
in the rear. The pictures hanging from the walls of the jet bridge
featuring idyllic natural scenes and inspirational words like “hope”
and “love” did nothing to dispel the sensation of sliding down to
your doom. I stopped before the entrance and turned toward the gate
agent, in an attempt to delay the inevitable and muster my courage.
“What
happened to the other guy? The one with the toupee?”
“What
do you think happened to him?” she answered.
“Did
his Ascension come early?” I asked.
“I
don’t know, but you try talking to a hungry giant that eats people
and tell him that his meal has been denied,” she said.
That
was a catalyst to get me down the ramp. Someone had to feed the
monster, and it was going to be me and my plastic explosives. It took
only a few seconds to walk down and stand before the opened maw. Hot,
rancid breath billowed over me. Every natural instinct I possessed
fought my command to step into that mouth. With a shaking, sweaty
palm, I removed the igniter from my pocket and hastily connected it
to a dangling wire hidden underneath my shirt. I was ready—not cool
as a cucumber, mind you—but the deed must be done and there was no
way out of it now. It took all of my resolve to step over the
threshold and place my foot on that pink tongue. Nothing happened.
The jaws didn’t slam shut. With my finger on the trigger, I left
the jetway and entered the maw.
I
kept waiting for the jaws to compress, for the teeth to come down,
for the tongue to come alive like a snake. Any movement on its part,
and I would press the trigger and ignite the plastic explosive,
destroying my mortal form and hopefully that of the giant’s in the
process. The tongue quivered for a second before subsiding. A string
of saliva fell from the roof of the mouth and stained my shoulder.
Christ, why prolong this I
thought. Just fucking press the button…
It
happened so fast that I couldn’t react. The tongue threw me upward
and I lost my igniter, and for a moment I thought that it would
swallow me in one quick gulp, but then I was out on the jetway,
dripping on my hands and knees, staring out at a mouth that was now
shut and backing away. Yellow
eyes viewed my prostrate form with alien dispassion. Suddenly, it
spoke in a lugubrious voice heavy with gravel and portent.
“This
one does not believe,” it uttered, rising above the tarmac.
Farther
down the tarmac, an explosion shook the jetway. The giant didn’t
even turn to examine the carnage. It turned toward the setting sun,
and began to walk away as sirens and screams rang out. I
looked down and saw that my shirt was
unbuttoned and the explosives were visible for all to see. A
ball of bright light briefly caught my peripheral vision, and my ears
were suddenly assaulted by a beastly bellowing that lowering my head
in pain. When it ceased, I saw my giant—he was mine, somehow, in
what way I don’t know—shimmering in the horizon, his form
shifting between the physical plane and that of the immaterial. After
a moment he ceased to be, and there was nothing left of the whole
process, just burning infrastructure and myself lying confused on a
jetway leading to nowhere, the sun going down on the faraway hills,
the future a ruin hiding something, perhaps, in its immolated ashes.
