Gods and Monsters

Mikey Hope

At sunset on the sixth day, Adam Guffman, barefooted, approached the thing on the beach.  He picked his way gingerly along the damp sand, carefully avoiding what remained of those who had approached while shod.  It lay on the grey shore by the waterside and bawled as if the world were coming to an end.  Whatever it was in the throes of, its moans traveled far over low dunes and grasses into homes and shops.  

On the first day, exactly at dawn, the tremors had begun. By noon, every window and loose item lay shattered.  Watches soon stopped, or ran wrong. Phones and radios went haywire, reminding folks of stories about the Bermuda Triangle.  Certain frequencies had some success picking up transmissions, but the unfortunates who heard them immediately swallowed their own tongues, eyeballs rolled so far back that their eye muscles tore loose.  Mercifully, they died straightaway.  By sunset, electronics had failed altogether.  By candle and lamplight, townsfolk tried to repair gadgets and restore power but to no avail.  

Some time on the second day, children discovered the thing where it labored and a few of them made it back to town.  One child’s glassy eyes stayed riveted toward “the beach monster.”  One laughed until her ribs cracked. An older boy had to be restrained after jamming a pen into his ear to stop “THE VOICE.”

As days passed, town constables tried to keep everyone at a safe distance, soon learning “safe distance” was folly.  People tried, of course, to capture images from afar but their cameras bricked when pointed at it, and film was instantly ruined.

Sorties upstate for help were attempted, but while bike wheels turned and horses trotted, riders found they couldn’t bring themselves to cross some inexorable boundary into the countryside no matter how they tried.  People from the outskirts arrived to offer help or satisfy their curiosity, but their vehicles and phones also died, nor could they bear to leave, even on foot.  Somehow warnings were given to outsiders and word sent to the authorities -- not that it helped.

According to outsiders’ reports, the Army had cordoned off the town, and the Navy was enforcing a blockade at sea.  Town aldermen had given up any hope of order after Air Force planes and missiles had fallen out of the sky into the ocean.  No one had seen or heard so much as a bird overhead since. Townsfolk assumed there was a “no-fly zone” over the area or that the Air Force had simply given up.  

Eventually they found themselves in their present circumstance: trapped by some compulsion to stay in the general vicinity of the thing without electricity or communications relying on it; with a population going mad from anxious wonderment.  A cult had sprung up around the thing -named “That Which Delivers” by its walleyed members - who described it as like unto an angel or a whale or maybe one of those Sumerian winged-bull statues “Wreathed in Glory,” of course.  Though at first they had been aggressive – there’d been blood in the town churches - they soon vanished. No one knew why.  Whatever the reason, they seemed to have taken the local clergy with them.

So the mayor and remaining aldermen had come to the community college desperately seeking any scrap of information to explain what was happening and what to do about it.  Much of the faculty had gone missing during the week, but Adam had been serving as a teacher's assistant for a Comparative Religions class so he seemed a likely candidate to ask for insight. In spite of his apprehension, he was galvanized into investigating.

The board dithered regarding accompanying him, as if they knew they should but hoped he'd refuse - which he did- but more for his own focus than their safety.  So here he was, with fear and trembling, standing before it as sundown advanced.

At first glance, it appeared to be some kind of beached whale, its pinkish bulk a conglomeration of features humanoid, animal, and other.  It had a head and neck like a bloated bull or possibly a ram. Though it seemed to have limbs they looked vestigial, unfinished, or simply mal-formed, and they didn't all match.  Its tail curled around its mass then upwards for several yards into a mesmerizing spiral, the tip seemingly just beyond sight, infinitely minute.

It bellowed like a distressed donkey-cow, while waves of force emanated from its maw, visibly rippling the air and sand.  Adam's clothes and skin flapped like a skydiver’s. He grimaced, gums visible as he tried to shield his ears with his hands. The braying petered out. Sand fell into mandala-like designs that compelled his gaze so he did his best to avert it without staring directly at the thing’s countenance either.  He had already seen its tongue (tongues?) lolling as he’d approached. Drool-foam dripped as it panted heavily. He heard it lick what he believed to be lips and sigh. Its breath smelt of fresh blood. Old fish. Myrrh?

THOU ART NOT MY SERVANT. WHENCE COMEST THOU?

The thing's words echoed inside his mind. Though he could clearly hear its speech sounds, they were pure consonants, guttural and clashing. Instead, its communications were remembered in sudden flashes, as if heard in a nightmare from which he'd bolted awake; each sentence retroactively writing itself into his brain.

“I-I'm Adam, I'm from the...school-”

THOU SEEKEST KNOWLEDGE, WEIGHER OF FAITHS?  COMEST THOU LATE UNTO THE PANGS OF THE END.

“I...the mayor asked me to try...we just...wonder what you are.”

EVER HAVE MY KIND APPEARED THUS, SEEMING AS FLAME AND WHEEL, WINGS AND EYES, LO EVEN FLESH IN ITS WEAKNESS. THE BULL, THE LION, THE BEAST, LEVIATHAN AND LAMB ARE WE, YOUR LORD CREATORS. EVER HAVE YOU SERVED OUR WILL.  I AM THAT I AM. YET I AM NOT THAT I AM.  KNOWEST THOU THAT THE WHOLE CREATION GROANETH; THEN SUDDEN DESTRUCTION COMETH AND NONE SHALL ESCAPE.  

“Is that what happened to your servants?  They spoke of your...Glory.”

I BECAME AN HUNGRED AND THEY GAVE ME MEAT.

Adam gulped. His head turned back towards town’s illusionary safety. He noticed his footprints were gone, erased by nautiloid resonance patterns.

“It was then that I carried you…in the belly of the whale.” his mind chattered unbidden.

THE SWEET SAVOUR OF THINE FAT DOTH CALL TO ME AS THE SMOKE OF AN OFFERING. DRAW NOT NIGH HITHER. SIX DAYS HAVE I LABORED, BUT FOR NAUGHT. EVEN A LORD MAY ERR. WHEN THE SUN SHALL SET, IT SHALL BE FINISHED.

“You’re…some kind of god, but you say this is all a mistake? Gods don't make mistakes.”

KNOWEST THOU NOT OF THE FLOOD?   

“The Flood…and you...you ate your followers! You're a monster if anything!”  

YE DO ERR TO NAME SUCH AS THEY WERE SEPARATE.

“I don’t- I'm not a linguist. “

DO YOU PREFER THIS?  HEAR ME AS YOU WISH.

“Yes, that's…better...What about separate names?”

IT IS A MISTAKE TO CALL GODS AND MONSTERS DIFFERENT WHEN THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.  EVEN GODS MAKE MISTAKES. YOUR HOLY BOOKS ARE FULL OF THEM.  THIS WORLD IS ONE.

“’The whole creation groaneth and none shall escape’...Are you the Demiurge? This is the Eschaton?!”

I WAS TO REMAKE THIS WORLD BUT I AM NOT IN THE WORLD AND CANNOT BE REBORN.  AS MY TRAVAILS END IT SHALL FOLLOW.

Adam looked down the thing’s length to where its tail spiraled away. He focused on the spot where it ceased being plainly visible against the purple sky.

“You’re stuck… You failed to manifest somehow…But isn't there anything you can do? Can't you hold on a little longer?  Scriptures say this world was created for a purpose.  Do you...do you need a disciple...a...a sacrifice?”

ONLY A WITNESS. SOON NOT THAT, FOR WHAT CAN BE SEEN IN DARKNESS?  THIS WORLD IS STILLBORN. I WAS TO PURGE IT AND BUILD ANOTHER.  NOW NONE SHALL TAKE ITS PLACE.

“So there will be nothing?  That’s the best you can do?! How can a god just give up on the universe?!”

 IF A DISH IS DROPPED THE FEAST CONTINUES. IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS.  THE DOGS WILL CLEAN THE FLOOR. THE FEAST GOES ON ELSEWHERE.

Adam choked, wracked with anger and betrayed horror.

“I...I don’t understand anything…”

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM NO MORE. IT IS FINISHED.

The thing’s breath huffed out in a rancid cloud as its tail stretched further overhead.  Adam looked into its dead goat eyes - rolled outward, fixed in the dying light. Adam wheezed as the air suddenly cooled, coating everything in frost. The massive hulk slid away, appendages jiggling limply as the sand under them both flew up into the deepening vortex above. Finality broke across Adam’s tear-streaked face as he lurched up pin-wheeling skyward. Frenzied laugh-screams were smothered like a baby’s swaddled cries as even sound disappeared into the all-devouring maelstrom.  

Heaven and Earth passed away: dunes and grasses, ocean and trees, town and hope and light.




Mikey Hope lived in and around Atlanta, Georgia for many a moon, providing art and massages to all the people of the land until one day, he got a wild hair somewhere a wild hair ought not to be and he moved to New York City. This came as a great surprise to everyone, but especially New York City.  

Now he awaits the activation of his clone army so that each may fully pursue one of his interests including: writing genre fiction, exploring his new stomping grounds, tabletop role-playing, creating digital art, teaching and performing massage, and making music.

He enjoys inflicting his nefarious scribblings upon an unsuspecting internet, whether in the world of tabletop RPG's, 13 Stories Til Halloween, or other spots on the web.


On a related note, his artwork may be viewed at his DeviantART page: preternatch.deviantart.com/
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