Necropolis: Book 4: Hybrids Read online

  Necropolis: Hybrids

  Book 4

  by Michel Weatherall

  Credit Page

  Necropolis: Book 4: Hybrids© Michel Weatherall 2016

  All rights reserved

  Title font (xxii Arabian Onenightstand) provided with permission and courtesy of Lecter Johnson

  www.dafont.com/doubletwo-studios.d1527

  Cover for Book 4: Hybrid: Montreal's Skyline

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced, scanned, distributed in any printed or electronic form in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Published by Broken Keys Publishing

  [email protected]

  Published 2016

  First Printing

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9948189-4-2 (print)

  ISBN 978-0-9948189-9-7 (digital)

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Dedication Page

  Dedicated to

  my son, Drew.

  You're stronger than destiny.

  You can change the world.

  Also available

  by Michel Weatherall

  A Dark Corner of My Soul

  Mother-Machine

  The Symbiot (I)

  The Hunt: Symbiosys (II)

  Chapter 1: Marie

  November, 1994

  (10 ½ years ago)

  The female soldier pulled the trigger as she spoke the words, “Drop the baby.”

  The symbiot-facet in Marie's multimind attempted to defend herself, but its reaction wasn't quick enough. Blood and brains exploded from the back of her head, as she slumped down to the ground, her last conscious effort to protect Tamara from falling.

  Tamara!

  It was the last coherent thought to have gone through Marie's mind before she fell through the Gateway into Nyarlathotep's Prison-Universe; that broken disjointed shadow-realm.

  She was no longer physical. That much she recognized, and as she felt her life-force want to leak away into death, she felt another stronger quasi-sentient force holding them together.

  Whereas the Symbiot-facet could not exist within our universe without a host to hold them together, now, incorporeal, the symbiot's relationship became reversed. Now joined as a multimind, the Symbiot-facet maintained Marie and Shantigra's cogency. Some sort of strange ghost-like matrix.

  Marie remembered this place. She had been lost here before... before her husband Lorne has found her. How long had she been here?

  She knew it was the wrong question. There was no Time in this broken universe. Time was disjointed – it didn't flow like our universe did. If Time could be said to exist at all, it was in isolated clumps. She was no longer restrained by the confines of Time.

  Memory was a difficult thing in this place. She was more of a memory herself; a half-remembered echo of someone she used to be. Her self-awareness – her identity – was in constant flux. Language became impossible – just a flow of images, emotions, blended identities.

  She was vaguely aware that she would drift eternally. She knew and believed this was the beginning of Forever...

  She allowed the shadows to wrap and caress her. She just needed to stop thinking and be absorbed into this great Nothingness...

  Chapter 2: Tamara

  Tokyo, Japan, May 29th, 2005

  (4 days ago)

  Tamara bolted upright in her bed, her forehead drenched in sweat. Her brown Asian eyes were wide with panic.

  “Otouchan Hiro!” Her voice was high and shrill and fearful.

  “... otouchan Hiro...” this time she whispered as she took a deep breath.

  It was dark. It was the dead of night. It was just a bad dream. She didn't want to wake Hiromitsu. It was only a bad dream, she tried to convince herself.

  Her mind was running amok, remembering and imagining all the details of her nightmare.

  The City was crooked! It was broken and bent – warped – and somehow, had no horizon, no skyline! Like it was insanely curled up upon itself! But that couldn't be. That was impossible!

  Although Tamara had visited it a thousand times in her recurrent dreams she never felt at home here; it was anything but familiar or welcoming.

  Alien, ancient beyond imagining, but stranger still were its occupants. She couldn't see them, but she could feel them. They were aware. They were reaching out to her. She could feel their cold ghost-like fingertips brush against her as she wandered through the Cyclopean city. And they were ghost-like, for they were – somehow – dead yet dreaming. Silently waiting.

  It was a paradox. This crooked city wasn't home to a populace. It was a morgue, a crypt, a sepulchral city. It was a giant twisted and bent tomb. It was a Necropolis.

  If she allowed herself to remain long enough, she would begin hearing It. The Crooked City's one undreaming occupant. Krulgh. She had heard Its mad whispering call often enough to know its name.

  But no! She was dwelling on her bad dream. She needed to control this; she needed to stop it! She needed Clear Mind.

  She got out of her bed and took her meditation seiza bench from beneath and left her bedroom. She turned no lights on as she walked down the darkened hallway.

  Tamara was tiny, even for a 10-year old Japanese girl. Her tiny feet padded silently on the carpeted hallway as she entered another dark room.

  She sat upon her mediation bench and started with her breathing exercises, her hands lying limp upon her lap, her back and head upright, her eyes closed.

  Slowly, eventually, her breath became calm and steadier. She visualized a cup of loose-leaf tea, its tea leaves spinning chaotically... then – slowly – settling to the bottom of the cup – calm – still. Like her mind; calm – still.

  Her breathing became deeper still. She could no longer remember the dream. All there was now was peace and calm.

  An older Japanese man silently entered the dark room. He held a second seiza bench under his arm. He spoke quietly to Tamara, “I heard you call out... May I join you?”

  Tamara wasn't startled or surprised, she was aware of his presence even as he entered the room. “Yes, otouchan Hiro.”

  The graying Hiromitsu sat seiza beside Tamara in the dark room. Slowly the room became filled with a sense of peace and tranquillity. After a prolonged period of silence and stillness Hiromitsu quietly spoke. “Tamara. Was it the dream again?”

  “Yes, otouchan Hiro,” she answered. “But its gone now. I can see clearly.” She exhaled long. “I am calm.”

  “Good. You should get back to sleep. You will need your rest. We have a long journey before us tomorrow!”

  Tamara opened her eyes and smiled warmly into the darkness. She always did that. Hiromitsu didn't know why, but she always came out of meditation that way – smiling.

  As she stood up she flashed him her smile. Hiro swore at times there was a faint glimmer of green or gold light in her eyes. Sometimes – even in the darkness – they sparkled.

  He smiled back as she helped him stand. “Goodnight my baby girl.”

  “Goodnight, otouchan Hiro. I can't wait for the International Music Competition! I can't wait to see Kanata,” she struggled with the last word.

  “Canada,” Hiromitsu corrected. “Montreal, Canada.”

  Chapter 3: Dante

  Montreal, Canada, June 1st, 2005

  (1 day ago)

  He knew she was dead. She was always dead. The nightmare started this same way every
time.

  He -knew- she was dead. She lay on her back. Her blue eyes staring at the ambulance ceiling.

  She must have been pretty in life. Blonde, just like him. Blue eyes, just like his. Not like his. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot; the contrast made the blue stand out all the more. They carried a hint of fear in them. It disturbed him. He could see the look of horror and hopelessness frozen and etched in those dead eyes. She died alone and in fear, he knew it.

  One side of her mouth hung limp She may have been pretty in life, but not so in death. Although he wanted to look away, to advert his eyes, he couldn't. Her corpse lacked respect. She lay on her back, with little more than a piece of cloth, or blanket, or blood stained hospital gown on, her legs spread wide. She lacked dignity in death. This haunted him.

  He was vaguely aware of an annoying sound. Something faintly on the outside edge of his perception. He couldn't tell if it were a muffled siren or... whispering. It was a distraction.

  He returned his attention to the young blonde woman's corpse. She died in this ambulance. She had been pregnant. She was pregnant in death. The baby died too. He was never born. He refused to look between her legs. It wasn't right. It wasn't proper. And he knew what was there. He didn't want to see it.

  Although he had watched this nightmare a thousand times, he always wondered who she was. He knew her name. But her name wasn't who she was. The muffled siren or whispering always called her. Her name was Amber. He tried not to listen to the whisperings. It was more haunting still to his young mind.

  And although he knew what would come next, it never ceased to startle him. The weight of anxiety was stifling:

  The blonde corpse gasped! The sudden violent intake of air made him jump – every time.

  As her body jerked with spasms she wailed like a pitiful banshee. He covered his ears. This part frightened him the most. Her cries were joined by another voice. The unborn blue-gray baby began crying with her.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped the nightmare would end. But the tighter he held his ears, the louder and louder the Whisperer became.

  He could keep his eyes shut no longer, and as he opened them, he made eye-contact with the baby. Both their eyes were blue but with green-gold flecks... and then it vanished. The baby simply disappeared.

  The walls of the ambulance peeled away from reality like the skin of a banana. The Whisperer became louder still, and the blonde woman disappeared. That final look she gave him before she disappeared.... so sad, so lost, so full of injustice and anger and bitterness... He began weeping. Why was she mad at him? He hadn't done this, had he?

  This normally was where his nightmare ended...

  ...but as he watched, as the final residue of the ambulance vanished, he found himself in an abandoned city. A city of the dead. A corpse city. Not abandoned, but populated with the waiting dead.

  It was a warped city. Bent. Like it was build on the inside of a giant cereal bowl. Like it was frozen in time – he could feel it holding its breath. Somehow sentient. He could sense The Warped City was in some strange way alive. It watched him. He could feel the approach of The Whisperer. The 'flavour' of it simply terrified him; Its whisperings becoming louder by the second.

  No! This place scared him. He knew, he sensed on some esoteric level, that The Warped City was all wrong. He knew he could stop this dream. Just focus...

  It broke. Simply dissolved. But behind the dream was another. Once again, Dante found himself in an abandoned city. Another nightmare city, but this time by far worst. It was his home. Old Montreal's market, but not only was it abandoned.... it was devastated. Ruined. Leveled. Apocalyptic. Corpses lay about in droves. Carrion birds picked at them.

  He wanted to wake up now. He wanted to leave. He wrapped his arms around himself, desperately hoping for some sense of security. Where was Mama Ver? Why wasn't she helping him? And for a single horrifying moment, he imagined her among the dead. The fear overwhelmed him. His strange eyes sparked briefly with light, and the entire doomsday dreamscape of Montreal shattered like glass.

  He cried out, “No! Mama Ver!”

  Dante startled awake. His room was bathed in the indigo-blue light of a Batman nightlight. He flew out of his bed and ran from the room. He could hear her footsteps in the hallway.

  As he turned the corner, his Mama Ver was there to catch him in her embrace.

  “Shh...” she cooed. “It's only a dream, sweetie. It's alright. I have you. I have you.”

  Dante signed frantically. He was frightened. Veronica gently held his hands. “You're going too fast. Shh... I can't follow you. You're signing too fast.”

  Dante deliberately slowed down. “She was there again!” he signed. “Amber was there in the ambulance again. Everyone was dead. The city was gone. Something was coming! I was in The Warped City and...” his signing became blurred and sloppy and Dante began crying.

  Veronica turned him around and held him as the two sat on the floor. She began rocking back and forth and she sang to him.

  “A, you're adorable, B, you're so beautiful! C, you're a cutie full of charm! D, you're so darling and, E so exciting and, F, you're a feather in my arms!...”

  Veronica's outward facade was one of compassion and motherly love. But inward, she was stifling her frustration. No ten-year old child should have to deal with these issues, especially not an Autistic one.

  “...G, you look good to me, H, you're to Heavenly, I, you're the one I idolize!...”

  The therapists and psychologists provided no help!

  “J, we're like Jack and Jill, K, you're so kissable, L, you're the love light in my eyes! M, N, O, P, I could go on all day! Q, R, S, T, alphabetically speaking, you're OK!

  U make my life complete...”

  Veronica stopped singing, gently turned Dante's face towards her. “You know you make my life complete, don't you?”

  Dante was calm now. He smiled and placidly signed to her. “Yes, Mama. You are the world to me too.”

  “We have a busy day tomorrow,” Veronica began. “You're going to need your sleep. You need to be at your best for the International Music Competition, right?”

  Dante wiped a lone tear from his cheek and he nodded his agreement. “Can I sleep in your bed?” he signed.

  Veronica smiled and kissed him on the forehead. “Will that make it better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bien oui! Of course you can.”

  Chapter 4: The Music

  June 2nd, 2005, Montreal, Canada

  Olympic Stadium

  International Junior Music Competition

  (Now)

  Dante wasn't scheduled to compete for the first 40 minutes. He seemed to enjoy simply sitting with her and listening to the other children play their various pieces. Veronica wished she could be as calm as Dante seemed to be. The waiting was the worst for her. She was anxious and nervous and had butterflies in her belly the entire time.

  Eventually the judges called Dante to the stage along with a boy from Toronto. The Torontonian boy was to play first. His chosen piece was Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and botched one of its bridges up, in all likelihood due to nerves. All Dante had to do was play his chosen piano piece – which he did – and won his first round of competition.

  The Torontonian boy exited the stage, his lower lip quivering. Veronica noticed Dante was particularly affected by the boy's loss.