Fallen behind? Catch up here.
DOOM MAGNETIC!! - CHAPTER EIGHT:
THE JAR
William Pauley III
The piercing shriek of electrical static startles me awake. Through the static comes a voice, one I recognize, but not immediately.
“…the way things have to be, well, for now anyway.” It’s the voice of Dr. Kilgore. He’s conversing with Gusto. I can see them…vaguely. For some reason my vision is tinged in a greenish hue. It’s then I notice I’m submerged in some sort of liquid. There are tubes running out of my nose and mouth and the electrical static noises I’m hearing are coming from a tinny speaker that’s been placed inside one of my earholes, the one without the pink bubble. I also notice that I now only have four of my arachnid legs, two on each side, and their movement is limited due to a glass barrier that completely surrounds my head, giving them about one inch of space in which to maneuver in.
“We’re currently working on a solution for mobility, but these things take time…and not to mention, money.” The doctor continues.
“Well you know you don’t have to worry about money, doc,” Gusto says. “The government’ll take care of that. They’ll do anything for their best agent. Shit, Qoser’s saved them a thousand times the amount of money this procedure’s gonna cost. Won’t be a problem, Doc.”
The conversation continues, but I tune it out. I slide one of my legs up along my face until it reaches my ear. The pink bubble. Haima Pulmonata. I grab ahold of its tail and begin to pull. Immediately a strange shift in vision occurs. As I continue to pull, my vision doubles, then triples. I can feel the slug’s mouth gripping desperately to my brain flesh, struggling to hold its ground. My eyes begin vibrating, nearly losing my eyesight completely. I let loose of the demon and it wriggles its fat body back inside my skull.
My vision returns to normal.
“…but don’t you see, if we do it that way then we’ll never be able to…” Their conversation continues to hit me in waves. I don’t bother trying to piece it all together just yet. I’m deeply concerned with the parasite living inside my skull at the moment. No time to listen in on a couple of bantering idiots.
I push the pink bubble all the way inside my earhole and in an instant my vision shifts away from my physical body into an ethereal one, standing ten feet away from my living head, which I now can see is being kept inside a jar.
I walk over to the jar and run my hands along the glass. I cannot feel it. I cannot feel anything. Inside the jar, I notice that my eye is closed and mimicking REM sleep, as my eyeball is twitching back in forth in rapid succession. Even though they appear to be good for absolutely nothing, I must admit it’s quite pleasurable having my hands and body again—this ghostly form of my real body, that is, my human form. Everything seems to have been restored, free of all scars. Even my eyes are both fully intact, just as they were so many years ago. I’d give anything to have my physical body return to this state, especially now, after this incredible astral projection…well, almost anything.
“…don’t think I think about these things, man? I know it seems kinda loco, but hey, you gotta admit, it’s a pretty good idea, dontchu think?” I hear Gusto say. I turn my head towards them and instantly my vision is transferred to another ethereal version of me that is standing right next to them.
“Okay, yeah, I admit, it’s pretty good, but it’s also pretty impractical. A project of that nature would be so incredibly tedious, it could take years to pull off, and that’s not including the amount of hours we’ll need for testing and tweaking. We’re looking at maybe a decade’s worth of work here. Easily.” The doctor answered. It’s apparent they cannot see me, or the seven other me’s standing in the room with them now.
“You get all your guys on it. Are we clear, amigo? I want this thing finished as soon as possible. I don’t give a flying fuck-all about how much it’s going to cost, just get it done. You have until Friday, understand me holmes?” says Gusto.
The doctor tightens the muscle of his jaw. “Understood.” He mutters the word through clenched teeth.
“Good. See you Friday.” Gusto bumps fists with the doctor and leaves the room. Once the door is shut, the doctor throws his clipboard against the wall and walks over to his desk.
“They have plans for us, you know,” a voice says, my voice. One of the other specters is speaking to me. “They’re giving us a new body.”
“A new body? Better than the last, I hope,” I say.
“I kind of liked the last one. Spiders have always interested me though. Fascinating creatures, they are.”
“Well, of course they are, I’ve always been interested in them too, but not to the point to where I wanted to be one. Did you ever feel the thing? It was terribly itchy. It felt treacherous rubbing against my neck.”
“I suppose it did have its pros and cons.”
Awkward silence. I hate awkward silences.
“So, this is pretty insane, isn’t it?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“All of this out of body business. It’s quite maddening. I’m surprised the doctors here could even pull it off. I’m impressed.”
“I’m not sure what you mean. The doctors didn’t cause this. This is all because of the Haima Pulmonata. The blood slug has attached itself to the part of your brain that triggers out of body experiences. This is why when you apply pressure to the pink bubble, we specters appear.”
“Fascinating. Outstanding,” I say. I stare off into the distance, my mind racing. I look at the others standing around me and shift my vision to each one of them. In a single second I travel from spook to spook, across the entire room, until at last I’m back to the spot where I’d started.
“You can leave the room, you know,” one of the specters says to me.
“Leave the room? How?” I ask.
“There are others outside. Focus your mind. There are millions of us everywhere. Holus bolus. Just concentrate.”
I close my eyes and try to envision myself outside the room. Lights flicker and a barrage of blurring colors encircle me, throwing my brain into a trance and sending me not only outside the room, but to places outside the city, outside the country. All within seconds.
My brain pulsates. The Haima Pulmonata convulses. I release pressure on the pink bubble and the world around me disappears in an instant.
Everything is white.
Paid subscribers! The next chapter of this story will be posted on March 28th! Stay tuned for Touch.
The Jar
© William Pauley III, 2011
All rights reserved.
Share this post