Halloween Horror Special 2016 part 3
The Tusked Mask
Debunking the Legends, Volume 1 by Neet Chipbarton
We all know the stories: Many of us were told them as children; some might pass a book or film store and unknowingly glimpse a work containing one such story; untold numbers of video games and holosims have been made with references to the tales even within the last decade; Ultranet writers from all corners of the galaxy might hold them in their minds when they weave their own plots of monsters, demons, and the horrors from within the human mind; superstitious spacers hold fast to the standardized space routes in fear of wandering into what they call “desolate space.” The accounts differ from writer to writer—a number of which share key plot elements from stories originating from humanity’s history on Earth—but the one thing that is definite is a name: Sakar Obelith. None know what it means, but there are as many accounts purporting to be the real ones as there are limbs on a Glaarnor plant.
To return from the world of fantasy for a moment, we turn to the suggested origins of these tales; currently, all known reports of attacks attributed to this “Sakar Obelith” have been tied by declassified government investigations to space pirate raids, and in fact, the Secretary of Records Office reports that space pirate activity is at an all-time high from the past century due to unchecked expansion of outer colony planets. According to these records, there is only one living survivor of an attack that matches the profile: a John Doe of unknown age, who is also recorded as having repressed memories of the incident. All other survivors, regardless of the extent of their injuries, have perished shortly after being recovered and evacuated from the site of the attack. In the brief time these survivors live after occurrence of the event, they have given vivid but somewhat inconsistent details of “Sakar Obelith”; the most consistent details are as follows: A towering beast, over ten feet tall—sometimes on two feet, other times on four—with tusks on the sides of its night-black face, glowing purple eyes, and a wide mouth of silver teeth from ear to ear.
This image of terror sticks in the mind of many, but it is, of course, not the only one. Embellishments of the original stories have turned Sakar Obelith into a wide variety of characters, each filling distinct and vastly different roles: An ancient being from the edge of the galaxy and kidnapper of misbehaving children, a monster who hunts evil, an incarnation of Father Christmas, and even a god of death... Neet was running his hand over different parts of the recorder device in order to make these words appear, soon to be saved to his memory cloud. At present, he had paused. For many long years, Neet had been one of the two star newsrecorders at Maximus Prime News, but only months earlier, he had requested a transfer to the “Sensationals” department; though he knew he was past his prime, he only begrudgingly made the decision—the choice boiled down to the fact that he would rather save face and take a smaller role than be overshadowed by his much younger colleague and slowly fade into obscurity by means of grim, inevitable obsolescence. The Sensationals usually dealt with celebrity and political rumors, fringe scientific or technological discoveries, and impassioned opinion pieces, but urban legends were not entirely out of its wide-reaching range; though few were willing to restrict themselves solely to this area of the organization, the topic he was currently dealing with was of enough interest to Neet to sate his ever-wandering mind.
Hunched over his desk, he scanned the dark room of his apartment. There was no light except from the dull, glowing recorder in front of him, but there wasn’t much to see in the room anyway. He tapped his fingers on the desk in frustration. His mind had blanked, and he worried deep in his mind that what he was writing simply would not be enough—after all, Neet told himself, though no longer was he the man of the hour in the world of news, he didn’t want to make himself into a complete journalistic laughingstock; some degree of integrity and discernment would doubtlessly be required. He wasn’t entirely satisfied what what he had so far, either: in his mind, it dragged on needlessly while not really giving concrete details, and was lacking something rather… gripping. This piece would not fit in with the Sensationals if it wasn’t sensational at all. He had to go out in the field, maybe… visit some government offices, perhaps go to locations of interest. His thoughts raced at the possibility of once more experiencing some of the excitement that had attracted him to his newsrecorder job in the first place. It was the dead of night now, but in only a few hours, the sun would rise, and the capital would be bustling— the perfect time to get a ticket off-planet…
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The next day found Neet deep in the public archives of the Government Records Office. A boring task, yes, but a necessary one; Neet had done things far worse and far more unbearable before—it was part of the job, after all, and no big deal for a former star newsrecorder. With these thoughts, Neet pressed on. Though he had a 4 o’clock ticket to Marillia, he had to find out what his next step would be after he reached the famed port planet. Something in here would be likely to give him a juicy lead—here were completely unclassified, firsthand reports from investigators of alleged Sakar Obelith attacks, going back almost forty years. If he could find the right one, discern the best places to start, he might just be able to conduct his own personal investigation of destroyed settlements that hadn’t been touched in decades—perhaps not even since the dates of the investigations themselves!
He pulled out a folder and skimmed through it. A few quick taps on his handheld computer and he had established key details that would help his search; this would be quite suitable. He pulled out papers from the folder and took took them over to a table, running a copier over the documents. One lead down, he thought, but he still had a full day ahead of him before he had to leave. Maybe if he had some time left over and a bundle more of leads, he would head over to the Grand Library to start an extensive catalogue of the history of Sakar Obelith fiction.
However, this is not what the day held for Neet. The fleeting hours slipped away from him, and before he knew it, his time was up, left with a mere spattering of viable information. It was off to Marillia for him, and from there, he had concluded, his best option was to head to an old colony planet that went by the common name of Thresk. The world had once been home to a small mining and farming community of about 150,000, but a little over twenty years ago, all of its inhabitants were reported as having been killed in some sort of attack. When the authorities arrived, the ruins—houses, mines, and all—were still burning. Craters marked various spots across the city, signs of an orbital bombardment using military-grade tech. The controversy that surrounded the investigation was brief but heated; many, especially friends and family of the numerous deceased, wondered how simple space pirates would have gotten such equipment—posited that the government itself had ordered the destruction of the colony—but after the military disclosed a raid, a week prior, of a military base in the sector, any opposition quietly died down—the incident was never spoken of again, never so much as reaching front-page news before all was said and done. Faced with this information, Neet had been intrigued: might there actually be a dark conspiracy in the works? Perhaps the swath of muddled stories, blended into preexisting fairy tales, was deliberately engineered for the sole purpose of hiding heinous crimes of genocide from the public?
Neet took in all the sights of the destroyed colony from a vantage point on a hill about half a mile away. He heaved a heavy sigh. Though over the years he had hardened his heart to the pain of others, death was something that always made Neet emotional. No matter how, people had died here. They deserved an answer. Even if the story was, on the surface, no more than speculation about an old urban legend, there was indeed a dark backstory behind it all. Neet vowed to scrape away the muck with his own two hands, like he used to do, like… his thoughts trailed off. Maybe if he did this, maybe he could convince people that he still deserved a spot in the limelight, maybe he might…
Neet denied himself any further thoughts that would distract him from his mission. He couldn’t afford to be selfish now. He had made his decision already. There was nothing wrong with that. Heading down to the settlement itself, Neet ran his hand against the aged, dusty stone that used to make up an archway leading into town. Untouched for ages, it left a layer of sediment and ash on his hand. Burned out homes greeted him next, their fronts drooping down as if in pain, crying out for inhabitants who would soon meet grisly fates, whose bodies would forever…
A chill ran down Neet’s spine as the realization came upon him. In the report of the investigation, there was not a single picture of a body. Earlier, he was not keen enough to note this, but much later, here, it had suddenly hit him while lost in thought. No coroner reports, either. For all anybody knew, the dead had simply gotten up and walked away—had simply vanished. Of course, there were no bodies here now, no remains of any kind, nor any signs of death bar the destroyed town. Even in the warm daylight, it was all so unnerving: a picture of disaster frozen in time. Absentmindedly, Neet flicked his fingers across his recorder, putting down rough thoughts and pages full of little notes to himself. His experience made this somewhat of an unconscious habit, and he wasn’t fully aware of what he was writing down. Later, he’d figure that out, turn it all into something much more cohesive, into something he’d be proud of.
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Time passed, and by night, Neet was ready to depart. This day had been both physically and emotionally draining. In hindsight, he should have been prepared, but he thought that nothing would have quite prepared him for the sight—no, he mused, it’s something you need to see for yourself, in person, to understand. He wondered why not a single person in the entirely of the galaxy had known of this before—how nobody, not a single person, a single person among many trillions, had stumbled upon these barren grounds of massacre. He hadn’t even put much thought into it until this moment, busy, too concerned with his own life and his career as he had been. He had been too absorbed into his job, Neet admitted to himself: too busy to even fall in love, start a family, go out to the poor regions of the worlds and do something tangible—he was a hollow, empty drone locked on one sole purpose in life. Was it just him? Did others feel this way about themselves? Did they go about their lives for years and years before realizing this?
Neet suddenly felt a lot worse about himself. He hadn’t anticipated this type of reaction at all. He was growing older, yes, but he wasn’t that old, even—not old enough to have a sudden existential crisis and regret the entirety of his past… not old enough where he couldn’t still do something. He left the atmosphere of the planet tense and on-edge. Perhaps he wouldn’t go all the way back to Marillia today; he might find some inhabited space colony or moon and rest there for tonight. He weighed his options, and was about to carry on in his voyage, when a quick, loud noise filled the cockpit of his vessel. For not more than a few seconds, time enough only for him to notice, a green blip appeared on his info screen. From his years of piloting, he knew what it was: the start of a distress call, cut short. In a moment, he had brought up maps, calculators, and infographics. It looked as if the message came from the direction of a planet about an hour away—an unremarkable rock Neet had missed as he passed by it on his way to Thresk. Only three pieces of information were recorded about the planet: its name, Ilnadaan; its population, zero; and its terrain, mountainous over much of the surface. Everything else was blank. No attempts at habitation, only one scientific venture, but nothing else at all. His fingers twitched slightly as he considered his next course of action. With the weak tech aboard his ship, any messages he sent from out here would likely not be picked up for many hours, at best. He could go into more inhabited territories to fetch help personally, but by that time, it might be too late; while he had the brief signal fresh on his mind, he would be able to find the crash site quickly, but if he came back later, it could take longer to find it—precious time that could mean the difference between life and death for the people down there, the ones who sent the signal. Maybe their equipment had survived the impact, and maybe he could even send a better distress call from the surface… quickly making his choice, Neet reassured himself and headed to the planet.
He guided the ship around to where he had set himself on going. He judged that he probably had enough space in his cargo hold for six humans, and medical supplies for four; hoping this would be enough, he eased the thrusters up in anticipation for atmospheric reentry. But just then, it all went wrong. There was a sudden jolt from the side, as if some debris has crashed into the vessel. All the instruments went wild for a moment, as the ship spun around wildly, mid atmosphere; panicked, nauseous, and disoriented, Neet desperately tried to right the ship, or at least get to a position where he could ease the ship to a gentle crash landing.
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That didn’t exactly happen. Neet awoke leaning halfway outside the shattered windscreen of his ship. A small piece of the controls had broken off and lodged itself into his body, just above the hip. Though he was reassured by the fact that he could stand without much trouble, he worried about the injuries he could not feel. The back end of his ship—and his supplies—had emerged relatively unscathed, much to his relief and good fortune. He might be able to patch himself up a bit, though regardless, his current state meant he would not be able to carry as much food or water. He cursed aloud. Some rescue mission.
Gathering what he could, Neet set off. At this point, he figured that finding the other ship that had crashed was his best bet at survival, even if doing so would be more troublesome now that Neet didn’t exactly know where he was going, but it’s not as if he had any other options, he decided.
He surveyed his surroundings. Mountainous, indeed. A huge peak loomed ahead of him, and about 50 feet in each of the other directions was the edge of a giant chasm. Even if there were routes in and out of the chasm, heading down would not be practical, whereas there would doubtlessly be some manageable trails on the faceted surface of the mountain. Beyond that, the massive mounds of stone spread out and overtook the chasm as the dominant terrain; on the opposite edge of the pit behind him were stretches of hills, the chasm continuing on either side of the landmass. As he watched the horizon, Neet could barely make out the tip of a mountain rising above the hills, and beyond that, and thin, fleeting wisp of smoke. His whole body seized. He knew not how long the trip around the chasm would be, and, as he had decided earlier, going into the deep canyon itself would certainly mean death.
Hobbling forth, Neet started his trek. The treacherous route took him many days to traverse, and with each passing day a new wave of dread overtook the seasoned traveler. By night, he slept, but sleep did not come easy, afflicted by both the cold and his own state of mind. By the time he reached the hills he had run out of supplies, though walking was easier for him on the gentler slopes. A day after reaching the hills, he rested, certain he would die that night; though worn in both the body and the mind, Neet’s resilience prevailed. By morning he had done more attending to his injuries, and though the journey was still painful, the going was not as arduous on his body. It took him another day to get past the mountain he had seen prior, all the while facing the perils of the daytime heat; beyond that was a ledge overlooking a valley, which, to Neet’s wonder and relief, held the wreckage he had been searching for, a crashed haven—a mighty behemoth torn from the sky—constantly releasing the smoke signal he dreamed would bring his salvation. There was a narrow but passable route down; he hurried along it, panting furiously and chest heaving. He slid on his back the last couple yards, so eager was he. He sprinted to the ship, shouting the whole way: his mouth dry, it came out mostly as screeching wails, a pitiable sound that begged for mercy. His gaze darted around. There was nobody around outside the ship, no signs of encampments hastily set up, no response to his cry. He slowed to a stop, the body of the ship towering over him, casting its judging shadow, the thing that would decide his fate.
Distraught, he entered, and wandered among the hollow of the ship. It was rather expansive—might’ve had a crew of twenty, at most—and appeared to have an equally impressive crew of robots: their bodies were strewn across the ruin, bits and pieces of them all over. A few appeared to be still functioning, to some degree, withering away in their robotic death throes; in life, so-to-say, these robots served to quickly carry out tasks aboard vessels that humans used to in the past, greatly reducing the number of required crew members.
He kept walking around the wreckage; even though the ship had landed rather diagonally, most of the floors were accessible simply by walking. As he gently slid down a tilted catwalk, he happened to notice an open door, one of the first he had seen: meandering back up to the door, he peered inside—filled mostly with darkness, there was a dim, flickering light within that provided a gentle aura of vision across the interior. As the light went on, then off, then on again, he could barely make out the features of a human body. Gradually, he drew nearer to the figure, cautious not to trip over the various stuff that had gotten spilled across the floor; closer observation showed it was but a corpse—copious amount of blood had been splattered over the area, and the body itself was in rather poor shape. Though, Neet questioned to himself, it didn’t exactly appear as if its injuries were entirely consistent with those sustained from a crash. He paused, weak from hunger. Perhaps there would be food aboard, or… or, perhaps…
Neet glanced at the corpse. He couldn’t, not yet. He wasn’t quite that desperate… the idea still somewhat revolted him. He didn’t even know if he would ever be willing to sideline that part of his humanity.
********************
His search ending fruitlessly, Neet left the ship, back onto the wide expanses of the valley. The sun was beginning to set as he climbed back up to the rim. Swallowing, as if trying to suppress his helplessness, he moved his body and head from side to side, futilely trying to spot another soul. As he reached the ledge his eyes fixed on a rock a short distance away, jutting out from the ground like a blemish; though it was dark, he thought he could make out another shape there atop the rock. He scampered forward, stopping on a slow, deliberate step.
“H...hhhh…” the words would not come to him. “W… wwwhoo…?”
It turned! It was something breathing, living! Maybe it was a member of a group of survivors working on a way to get off this blasted rock; even if if was but a single man, even if he were to die on this desolate hellhole, he would die with someone to share his misery with.
He edged closer. He was almost at the rock. But something was not right. The figure ahead, though it was the shape of a human, was far too large to be one: from a distance, he had not noticed this irregularity, but as he drew nearer and nearer, he realized that it dwarfed even the rock it perched upon. Neet faltered. His feet stiffened; his arms locked at his sides. A pair of deep purple eyes returned his stare.
Solid. Unrelenting.
Neet turned and screamed. He heard it move. He ran. He ran. He ran along the ledge with great fear and swiftness just as large. Every time his feet pounded the ground, he could feel his teeth rattling in his mouth against his gums. He did not think once about stopping or slowing, even as he saw the path getting more and more narrow in front of him, even as he felt the earth behind him falling away, down into the canyon; though he knew he would be unable to find his way back along that route—indeed, he was fully aware he might become trapped along the sides of the cliff—all he cared about was getting away from it, the devilish tormentor he had witnessed. He knew what it was, what had come to deliver to him his finality. At last, he collapsed to the ground, his chest burning, pounding—his mouth drier than ever. The ground he was on currently was unstable, but nearby and downward was a ledge that reached deep into the wall of the chasm. If needed, he decided, he could wedge himself in it. Finding this the preferable option, he leapt down. In here, his last resort, he waited for hours. Sleep came to him on and off, even as he tried to fight it in fear of it being his death, halting his escape from the monster. He would not submit to it, he pledged; he would flee and flee until exhaustion and starvation took over and rendered him lifeless. Or, he would fling himself into the shadowy depths below before he was ever caught.
He craned his neck out, probing for knowledge, seeking a hint that could save him or commit him to the inevitable. For a minute, it was oddly silent; this tentative ease was then replaced by blaring screeching, emanating from above. Neet choked on his despair. He took off again in some direction, stopping only when he could hear nothing else, even as he felt like releasing his will to delirium and simply sinking to the floor, defeated by the wear on his very spirit. At this time, he shouted out to the heavens.
“GODDAMN YOU, MONSTER! I’VE DONE NOTHING TO EARN YOUR WRATH, NOTHING WICKED TO SUFFER A DEATH LIKE THIS: ALONE, AFRAID! LEAVE ME BE!”
But there was no response. Nothing but the vast emptiness: the sound of silence, lingering, full of seething dread.
********************
Neet didn’t know how much time passed after that. Whether it was an hour, a day, a minute, it mattered not in this hell of anguish. Misery continually scratched at his every waking thought. He even mused about turning back. Maybe Sakar Obelith was a nice fellow after all. Maybe he just wanted to give him a gift. After all, maybe the splayed corpse in the ship was just an unhappy coincidence! Perhaps he had nothing to do with the death; in fact, there was no reason he should even correlate the two encounters!
He laughed aloud, thrusting his arms out and spinning in a circle. Yes, that might be a nice idea after all.
Neet trudged on. He was walking through some mountains now: they all looked the same. Now, he heard something again, behind him. He didn’t stop, he didn’t turn; he didn't run either. He just kept his course, walking endlessly toward death.
In front of him, it stood. A hulk of a man, a beast that had to be seven feet tall at the least. Two black tusks framed the helm it wore, a mask the color of the boundless night. Solid purple eyes, without feeling, made its face, and along with these, a metallic grate of dull silver over its mouth.
And for him, it was a god of death.
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR HALLOWEEN
THE END
...until next year...
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