Into their third decent of the 2020 Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s season, pilot Fred George and engineer Maurice Oliver, of the deep-sea submersible, “Aegir” cautiously approached the sea bed. The yellow and black, two-person craft had been named for the Norse God of the oceans.

During their second assent, the duel propellers of the craft had kicked up so much silt that the pair could hardly see beyond their own flood lights. This time they were allowing the weight of the craft to easy them into a closer position with the ocean floor.

Finally, after hours of dropping through the inky blackness, the radar showed they were nearing bottom. George turned on the forward and bottom lights, then gently throttled the submersible forward.

“Top side, this is Aegir – we’re on the bottom,” Oliver spoke in an even and calm voice into the mic.

“Roger, Aegir,” returned a woman in the same evenly paced voice.

“What is that?” George asked as he brought the power to neutral.

Oliver looked at where the pilot was pointing.

He could see a lengthy white object that seemed to be tapered, “No idea.”

Together they worked to position the craft over the object and then carefully retrieve it from the soft silt. Gently, it was placed in the retrieval basket in front of their bubbled canopy.

“Looks like a spear point, perhaps obsidian. We’ll know more once we get top side,” Oliver said.

“Well, what ever it is, it doesn’t look like it belongs,” George offered.

Wife: “Does it look like I’ve gained weight since the quarantine?”

Husband: “Honestly, you weren’t that skinny to start with — so no.”

Time of Death: 3 pm

Cause of Death: COVID-19 related

I hope to always care about things the way my dogs care about sticks.

 

Tired, he felt himself beginning to doze off. Taylor got to his feet and leaned on his spear, continuing his vigil.

Night time came and still he stood guard. It wasn’t until it was dark that a sudden stirring came as a faint glow from the cauldron of stones.

“There you are, bastard,” he said, moving closer to the ledge to get a better look at it.

He watched with a combination of fright and fascination as the creature twisted about, trying to render a hole through the lining of the two realities. Suddenly he felt the ground beneath him shudder and the beast, if that’s what one could call it, bellow and bay.

It pushed hard against the envelope, coming closer and closer to the ledge where Taylor stood. It was now or never, as he raised the spear over his head and spring on the demonic outline, like a mountain lion.

The spear slipped though the membrane with easy and with Taylor’s help was driven into the creature. It was with a hideous and tortured squeal that they both disappeared.

The ungodly thing struggled for only a few minutes, then became suddenly still. Taylor withdrew his spear and stood triumphant on its carcass as the body slipped through an unknown universe.

Like his reality, this one was filled with stars and other celestial bodies. But unlike his reality, he could breathe and when he spoke, he heard his voice echo.

Taylor rapidly slipped through the reality, through an entire university in less than 45 minutes. Then without warning, the dead body of the slayed beast struck an unseen force, a sac of some sort and Taylor found himself toppling into it.

He slipped through the tissue-like lining and found himself in the deep cold of the Indian Ocean, southeast of Madagascar, though he would never know this. Instantly,Taylor Rundel was crushed like a watermelon in a kitchen’s trash compactor and soon all of his being ceased to exist as the creatures of the deep feasted on what remained.

My wife uses so much hand-sanitizer that the odor makes it difficult to have dirty thoughts.

That night as he lay in bed asleep, he dreamed a nightmare; the thing, the creature, the face with the teeth was trying and succeeding at busting through the barrier. It was a barrier that once Taylor awoke, realized was a membrane that kept an alternate reality, perhaps an entire alternate universe from violating this one.

That morning, he decided he had to stop it before the horror on the other side tore that protective fortification. This too, had come to him in his nightmare.

That day he returned to the spot. He searched the stones and walked among them unable to find a possible portal or gate. Neither did he he the beast again.

Taylor did find a large and jagged piece of white obsidian, a volcanic rock that should not have been where it was. He kept it, considering in a gift from the gods on this side of the veil.

With the stone and a carefully selected Pine Nut tree, stripped of its branches and about ten-feet long, he returned to his apartment and began crafting a weapon. By the time he was done, he created a spear, that with the heft of his 200 pounds, he was certain would kill the awful thing.

That evening, an hour and half before sundown he left his place and headed for the formation. All night he sat on the ledge above the formation, looking down and into the center of the rocks.

Nothing.

Not okay to reopen a business. Okay to loot and vandalize a business.

“Son of a…” Taylor Rundel  began as he looked at his dead camera and seen that the battery had drained. It had been a brand new one, purchased the day before and had registered fully charged that morning when he slipped in in the camera.

It had taken him a good couple of hours to hike to the spot on Hungry Valley Indian Reservation, where he’d seen the strange shadow on Google maps. Taylor didn’t expect to see very much once he’d found the place, but he did want to take a few photographs.

Frustration washed over him like the dark clouds that seemed to appear from no place. As he sat and rested, he looked at the natural formation of rocks, which reminded him of a sort of stone-hedge.

As he watched, he realized that the cloudiness was more localized than he ever seen. A vague shadow grew and remained in the center of the stones.

Then Taylor thought he saw something more within that shadow, a form that he did not recognized. When it shifted again, he saw it clearer; a large shape that seemed to be trying to escape an opaque balloon.

What saw in that shape was terrifying and he scramble backwards from where he sat. It twist this way and that, pressing what he believed to be a head covered in tentacles, eyes and teeth.

Taylor wasted no time collecting his camera and racing away back to where he’d left his new ’92 Ford truck.

Beware of people who are in your circle, but aren’t in your corner.

Fine! I won’t give up. But understand this: I’m gonna cuss and complain about it every friggin’ step of the way.