Avalon City Saints: Chapter 6
6: Brinkman - The Writing On The Wall
Descending the broken escalator once again, Brinkman found DCI Eavis at the entrance to the platform, talking with a pair of Specialist Firearms Officers. “She’s on her way,” said Brinkman.
“What?” said Eavis.
“Fast Eddi,” said Brinkman.
“Oh, great,” said Eavis, then nodded at the two SFOs. “This is Sgt Bleach and PC Fishwick. Tell Doctor Brinkman what you just told me.”
Sgt Bleach was a tall, white man with close cropped hair and piercing blue eyes. His tone was matter-of-fact, verging on the condescending. "We've been securing the area," said Bleach. "There were no further hostiles, but we've found something pretty strange, further along the tunnel."
"Strange?" said Brinkman.
"There’s this weird pattern on the wall," said Bleach. "A load of creepy symbols in a big circle."
"I think they call it a ‘ward’ or something," said Fishwick. The PC was a foot shorter than his superior, with a darker complexion and much more relaxed tone. He was clearly excited to be talking to Zac Brinkman. "I just done the Tactical Occult training course, last month. There’s definite touch of the meta-fizz about it. It makes you feel really weird just looking at it. It’s giving off this, what-you-call-it, this 'unearthly light,’ yeah?"
Brinkman groaned inwardly. He had no time for the term, 'metaphysical'. As a scientist, he was perfectly comfortable with the unknown. Labelling things as ‘magical’ solved nothing. That was not to say that he had not come into contact with individuals, whose modifications could not easily be explained with current scientific understanding. Frequently, such individuals would describe themselves as users of 'magic'. Brinkman was having none of it. 'Magic' felt like cheating.
For a second, he thought of Tash.
“So, what do you reckon?” said Eavis.
"No one's touched it have they?" said Brinkman.
"No, forensics are up there, taking photos," said Eavis. "They've been told to wait until you get there."
“I’d better have a look then,” said Brinkman. “What about Fast Eddi?”
“I’ll send Doctor Bibi to liaise with her,” said Eavis.
“Right,” said Brinkman. “Sgt Bleach, if you would like to lead the way?”
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Fishwick and Bleach guided Brinkman along the platform, over a pile of rubble and down onto the train tracks. They switched on their gun-mounted torches as they entered the pitch dark of the tunnel. The air was thick and smelled of ozone and dust. The tunnel sloped downwards and curved right, before being sealed off completely by a wall of grey, concrete blocks, presumably constructed when the Lovington station had been decommissioned.
"Over here," said Bleach, leading them through a small maintenance door in the left hand wall. Inside was a room split in two. Half of the room was filled with antiquated, cobweb covered furniture, including an old, cathode ray television set. On a dusty table was an ancient, yellowing copy of the Daily Vale. The date read, '2nd June 1965'. The crossword was half finished. “Looks like an old staff room,” said Fishwick. “But check this out.” He trained his torch the far wall. The other half of the room had had the plaster and bricks removed to reveal wall of damp, jagged rock. It was the inside of a natural cave. There, in the centre of the flint wall was a circular pattern, around two meters in diameter. It was a made up of a series of interlocking circles, all surrounding a myriad of symbols. As Brinkman peered closer, the symbols seemed to be from a variety of sources, both occult and mundane.
The pattern glowed with a deep blue malevolence.
"I thought you said that forensics were down here?" said Brinkman.
"They were meant to be," said Bleach.
"We didn't pass anyone on the way down," said Fishwick.
Brinkman moved cautiously towards the circle. As he did so, his foot hit something on the floor. Crouching down, he found a broken torch and smartphone. The screen of the phone was cracked but was otherwise working. From somewhere, far away, a low drone began to eminate.
"Get behind me!" hissed Brinkman, stepping toward the rock wall, placing himself between the glowing circle and the two police officers. "Get back! Call Eavis! Make sure no one else comes down here!" The droning sound grew louder.
"Doctor Brinkman…" said Bleach
But his sentence remained unfinished.
The rock wall thrummed with an intense sub-sonic pulse. Brinkman felt every bone in his body hum like a subwoofer. His stomach lurched. The stone circle strobed violently, searing its blue-white pattern onto his retina. The image filled his consciousness, obliterating his reason with relentless, burning significance.
Brinkman fought back, asserting his senses. He reinstalled in reason; weaponized his understanding.
Reality alteration was taking place. He braced myself. He had been through worse. He clenched his teeth. The physical world roared and shifted.
Then, they were elsewhere.
Subscribe nowBrinkman sways with disorientation, but remains vertical. Although, ‘vertical’ seems to be a debatable term here. Gravity, too, feels very different; somehow lighter and stuttering. The air is cold and ancient. Brinkman doubts that the atmosphere is often disturbed by a human respiratory system. His senses decide, for the sake of argument, to say that he is standing in a valley of flint rock. There is a distinctive, pallid, orange light that Brinkman recognises. He is somewhere within the frustrating tract of exo-space, which he has previously named the ‘anoiasphere’ in his incomplete scientific writings on the subject. For a second he welcomes the chance for further study, when a terrified scream reminds Doctor Brinkman that he is not alone.
Sgt Bleach is curled in a foetal ball and shrieking hysterically. The atmosphere filters the sound, as though heard through water. PC Fishwick is squatting, hunched over and vomiting. Brinkman crouches down to Bleach. The police man’s eyes are whirling. Standard human physiology is not designed to exist in this sort of place. Brinkman shakes Bleach gently by the shoulders. He stops screaming and gazes back at Brinkman with vague recognition. Brinkman tries to explain what has happened. Bleach's eyes glaze over, and he starts muttering gibberish.
Brinkman knows that he needs to get the officers out of that place and fast. The forces of this plane of existence are too much for their fragile bodies and untrained minds to process. There does not appear to be any trace of the missing forensics team.
The rock beneath Brinkman and the two officers is carved, with the same circular symbol that had been on the tunnel wall. A memory flashes across Brinkman’s mind. DCI Eavis talking about a sighting of Ethan Schuze across town. Is that how he travelled so quick? Did he take a short cut through the anoiasphere? Schuze’s modified physiology could withstand the distorted physics of this place. But Shuze was just an illiterate thug. The means of him gaining access would need to be simple. Maybe it was Schuze’s physical presence that was enough to open it. Brinkman shakes his head. He does not have time for this now. He needs to get Fishwick and Bleach out of here immediately. If the circle has let them in, there must be a way for it to let them out.
The symbol is a doorway. The symbol is also the key.
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Sgt Bleach continues to scream. PC Fishwick is now dry heaving and his nose is bleeding. Brinkman tries to calm the two police officers the best he can. Sgt Bleach is inconsolable. Brinkman lays PC Fishwick into the recovery position.
A shadow passes over them. The dim light grows darker. The temperature drops further. Brinkman feels something nipping at the edges of his perception. Some form esoteric entity is approaching.
Brinkman looks up.
He sees them.
Higher dimensional entities are often tricky to comprehend, purely in a visual sense. Whatever the things are, in the sky, above his head, they resemble a storm cloud of electrified snakes. They twist and roll in impossible directions. It is nauseating to watch.
Sickly, green energy arcs from the swarm, charging the atmosphere with static and an acidic, stomach churning stench. One 'snake' comes loose from the swarm, spinning away and spiraling toward the ground.
Preparing himself for attack, Brinkman puts himself between the prone police officers and the descending creature. The thing is the size of an articulated lorry and thundering towards them. Brinkman ducks. The colossal thing hurtles over his head and crashes into the ground several meters behind them. On impact, it bursts into a mushroom cloud of quasistatic energy, sending a spray of fizzing, electric viscera raining down.
Brinkman realises that the monster was not swooping towards them at all. The strange local gravity had confused him. The creature had been falling, seemingly already dead.
Brinkman shields his eyes and looks back up at the swarm. His first thought is that the things are fighting amongst themselves. But when he squints, he just can just make out a human figure at the centre of the maelstrom.
The figure spins and somersaults with such poise and lethal grace that Zac recognises her immediately.
“Tash,” he whispers.
Chapter 7 in two weeks!
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