Trolley No. 1852

“You make a most interesting point…”

“Then it’s settled,” came my declaration. “I shall replace Selina and her duties as a servitor of the Pyramidiles.”

The ill-skinned woman shrilled in amusement. “Not so fast! As you’ve said, Mr. Phillips. One thing in exchange of another. But I must insist that you earn the privilege of the exchange. You’ve neglected to propose an actual wager.”

“A physical fight,” I said and re-trousered my member. I looked at her in close to a glare. “You’re more than just a woman, madam. You have superhuman powers which would seem to level the playing field. That is my wager. I’ll bet that I defeat you.”

She guffawed. “How quickly the chivalrous gentleman turns to a cad. So you want to fight a woman?”

“But you’re a monstrous woman, Miss Aheb. The odds are clearly in your favor.”

“So if it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get,” she intoned. “A fight to the death. Is that sporting enough for you? The way I see it, this can be the only way your mettle will be proven sufficiently enough to earn the exchange.”

Great Pegana! I thought. She’s going to allow it! “Yes! I want it very much!”

“But it won’t be a fight against me, Mr. Phillips. I simply must insist that you fight my motorman.”

My spirits couldn’t have plummeted any lower. “The thing is an alien monstrosity! That’s hardly a fair fight!”

She coyly shrugged and har-umphed. “Take it or leave it; and mind you, if you leave it, I’ll have you consigned to the terrascape”—she purred akin to a cat—“where the service thoggs will greatly appreciate your skills in the act of fellatio”—and now she laughed outright—“as I’m told those skills are rather expert.”

This seemed about as fair as the Treaty of Versailles; nevertheless, I rendered the only available reply. “I accept the challenge,” and then, hoping for the element of surprise, unleashed every reflexive action within my human capability, and launched myself at the very inhuman motorman.

With all the strength and viciousness that could be tapped of my 146-pound frame, I struck blow after blow to the creature’s face and mid-section, exerted choke-holds and threw finger-gouges to the hideous faceless face, and when I noted the futility of all this effort, I then stooped so low as to kick the thing repeatedly and as hard as I could in the groin…

All to no effect.

“Fight, damn you!” I cried, now foolishly trying to lift its bodily bulk off the floor and slam it down, but, lo, the sheer density of its flesh gave it an unfathomable weight. More kicks and gouges, then, the impacts of which were like striking sandbags. At one point, I even took the appalling frontal tentacle between my teeth, yet even as it was fleshy and pliable, I only succeeded in cracking two of my incisors, for this proboscis was resilient as metal. During the entirety of my assault, the uniformed thing only stood there, unmoving; and I received the impression that it was amused.

“Oh, Morgan, please!” Selina sobbed aside. “Beg Miss Aheb’s pardon! I told you, the thoggs are virtually undefeatable.”

This I was finding out the hard way, indeed. As for begging the madam’s “pardon,” I realised that would prove as useless as the fight I was now giving the monstrosity. “I’m dead, either way!” came my harried shout. “But at least, I won’t die on my knees!”

Meanwhile, Miss Aheb chortled from her arrogant throne. Now I had taken to breaking furniture over the thing’s head; I jabbed it with a shard of broken porcelain, even tried to impale it with a snapped table leg (from an absolutely splendid Thomas Sheraton library table, by the way, circa 1790). The only result of this act was the splintering of the leg’s sharpened end. Lastly, I spied on a wall-mount a sword (an authentic Toledo saber, I believe), yet when I took it down and attempted to cleave the motorman’s head down the middle, the razor-sharp and exquisitely folded blade only bounced off…

“Oh, Mr. Phillips, you really are quite comical,” the horrid woman chuckled. “The reason the thogg hasn’t killed you already is simply because I haven’t yet directed it to.”

“Then be done with it!” I spat. “I’m ready to die!”

“Very well…”

No words, of course, issued from Miss Aheb’s lips to trigger the motorman’s violence; it was instead the merest numerical thought, and in the time it takes lightning to fulgurate, the boneless arms of the beast were wrapped around me, python-like; and I was dragged helplessly to the floor. Any resistance I made to push off the thing’s bulk went utterly without effect.

It mauled me; the terrifying “hand” sliding into my mouth felt like the admission of a live octopus. Even worse, though, was the action of its other hand: it began to unbuckle its trousers…

Gagging, I now felt the morbid, carrotlike pudenda growing to full hardness against my belly.

Miss Aheb amusedly explained, “What you must know, Mr. Phillips, it that thoggs kill what they fight… and fuck what they kill…”

This charming exposition was scarcely perceived. I felt the hand fully in my mouth now and even slither a length down my throat, whereupon it swelled so in size that breathing became impossible. I sensed quite clearly that the monster meant to effect my total loss of consciousness, afterwhich it would surely commence to the task of sodomizing me to death…

As the flow of oxygen decreased, the frantic activities of my brain began to darken. It was not with any conscious regard that I must have considered something akin to this: If Miss Aheb had launched the motorman’s attack merely by thinking the proper numerical sequence, what might happen if I do the same, remembering that their language exists as a form of substituting numbers for letters?

Fading away as I was, a thought abstractly directed toward my marauder crossed my mind; the thought was this: 4, 9, 5…

The motorman suddenly bucked, seizing up with an inexplicable rigor. Then…

The wretched, bone-bereft hand oozed out of my mouth as the motorman rolled off me, dead.

I struggled to regain breath and collect my thoughts after being so close to death. An errant glance upward showed, first, my sister standing tensely, hands clasped as if in prayer. Her face was flushed with relief. A scan to the right, however, showed Miss Aheb sneering from her throne, none-too-pleased.

“I must credit your industriousness, Mr. Phillips, particularly under such conditions.” Her eyes smoldered. “4, 9, 5… D, I, E…”

I rose however shakily, looking down at the dead thogg. “Surely I anticipated that the thing’s mind was weaker than yours. You may have read my thoughts but I’m happy to see that you could not occlude them. You’ve lost the wager, Miss Aheb.”

“So I have,” her accent trailed off to meagerness.

I rubbed my hands together. “So what now? You asked me to prove my mettle and I have indeed done that. Now’s your chance to prove yours, yes?”

Here was the moment that this entire evening of horror had built up to: I had overbound all odds but, now, would this evil matron honour her end of the bargain?

I wasn’t sure but it seemed that the anti-light—this Abhorrescence—had noticeably dimmed as if it somehow paralleled her spirit’s pulse…

“You were correct in your appeal, Mr. Phillips. All humans enjoy the sport of a wager. I suppose in a sense it’s not all that different from the purpose of the Pyramidiles, who live off the psychic horror very much derived from the sport of torture, rape, and prolonged murder on a massive scale.” She sat slumped in her grandiose seat, unenlivened and quite defeated. “It’s true that I’m the ultimate traitor to the human race, as— for the last seven thousand years—I live to serve the Pyramidiles; and I will one day orchestrate the slow extermination of mankind, all for the sustenance and pleasure of my gods.” Her lips drew up into a thin smile. “However, I will keep my word. You’ve earned your exchange; your precious sister shall go free, unharmed, and you shall take her place…”