Most of us rushed to witness. What had come into sight at the far end of the sepulchral gallery had nothing to do with anything divine according to human understanding and everything to do with what we’d glimpsed on TV. Two and a half meters high, tentacle-faced, it was a human-scale iteration of one of those monstrous creatures from out of a nightmare, or from the warped mind of some special-effects genius on drugs, or from somewhere utterly
As the thing proceeded towards us, we gripped our various gardening implements, in my case with trembling hands. A hissing invaded my awareness, similar to static on a radio or a breeze through holes in ancient stones on some windswept mountain:
The creature’s great warty body was gherkin-green. Under the swollen, thick-veined dome of that pulpy head brooded baleful red eyes. Suckery tentacles or feelers dangled, writhing, from those inhuman,
A vile odor assaulted us, like the glutinous stench of some coral newly torn out of the sea, although more intense, a penetrating smell of primitive biological slime that oughtn’t to be released into the air but should stay masked underwater, a concentration of the reek of seaweed-coated rocks at low tide.
Abruptly the romantic novelist screamed, setting off likewise the Dutch art student. This broke a kind of paralyzing horrid enchantment, as felt in dreams where you can’t flee, or can but feebly and very slowly, from what menaces you. We retreated so as not to see what was coming — except for the Australian wine merchant, Bruce, and the burly Hungarian who must have felt that he was defending his bride. Those two stood their ground, armed with a fork and a spade.
What happened next was abominable.
As if the creature had speeded up, or even shifted instantaneously, all of a sudden it was upon the two jabbing men, its arm-tentacles wrenching their weapons from their grip with evidently great strength, to be hurled aside. A clawed foot casually tore open the Australian’s clothing and abdomen. A tentacle snaked into the bloody wound to jerk free the tubing of his intestines, hauling his bowels out and out, two meters, three. Bruce Ballantyne may have died of shock before his body hit the flooring, since it didn’t flop about like a beached fish. At the same time, the other tentacle gripped the Hungarian’s neck — and impossibly hoisted his head aloft atop his spinal column coming right up from out of his shoulders. No natural force could have done that to a man! Could the creature manipulate matter by thought, by malign imagination, as well as physically? Head and spine were discarded even as Jack the son howled, “Dad!” and the newlywed Zsuzsa shrieked.
My list, drawn up only a few minutes earlier, began to seem futile except as a probable In Memoriam. Yet the creature didn’t proceed to hurl itself upon the rest of us as we variously cowered back or made a show of defending ourselves. It regarded us, almost as though the two hideous deaths constituted a demonstration of power.
The American evangelist and his wife sank to their knees, praying loudly, “
“Kneel and pray for salvation!” Pastor Jimmy Garrett urged us before resuming his chant. Although Rudolpho and Gianni probably didn’t understand what the American said, the two Italians collapsed to their knees, crossing themselves repeatedly.
“Pray to
Presently we’d cut across the huge open area of more modern and simpler graves, most with fresh flowers in vases, hoping that the closely-set white marble gravestones might obstruct the bulky
Shady pathways wound upward through the groves. As a child, how enchanted I would have been to explore this place, thinking of it as a secret garden. But now.!
At the top of the flight we paused to regain our breath.
Thomas Henkel, unwinded by our journey, surveyed where we had come from. He was a field marshal, if the grave-crowded expanse beneath us were a field. He should have worn a monocle and pointed with a swagger-cane.
“Straight over there!”
Where a broad, tree- lined pathway led from the triple rank of galleries abutting the threefold principal arched gateway stood the thing that Henkel chose to call a
Just then — could it possibly be by the agency of that beast? — a giant oval lens opened in the pearly mist that cloaked the cemetery. From this elevation we could see right over the high perimeter wall. Far beyond the roofed gateway where the creature lingered, beyond where I knew the city’s wide shallow river curved, part stony, part vegetated, I saw part of the raised riverside roadway and many of the apartment blocks, their concrete faded yellow or faded rose.
“Traffic!” Yes, others saw the same. Shimmering, cars and trucks and buses were driving along the highway, undisturbed by any trampling behemoth. No police vehicles nor ambulances were racing, emergency lights flashing. Nor trucks of armed soldiers. Normality, so it seemed. A vision of this part of the city as we’d seen it just an hour or two before.
Or as it was
“We’re no longer part of that reality!” I said to Henkel.
“We shall talk of this later,” he told me.
Zsuzsa was still sobbing inconsolably. The Australian adolescent was trying to behave like a man, although I saw him quiver. We needed protection.
I pointed at what appeared to be the topmost ten meters or so of a Gothic cathedral amidst trees, the railed area around it apparently choked with bushes.
“Could we take shelter in that spire, for instance?”
“Most of the mausoleums are locked,” observed Gabriella.
“A spade can break a lock.”
“Forget all those pseudo-buildings,” said Henkel. “Anywhere with only one entrance is a trap. We’d be fish in a barrel.”
Of course he was right. The yearning to be inside protective walls had made me stupid. My orderly world, my past, was melting away like wax. What twisted shape would result?
Henkel conferred with Gabriella
