Francis of the Filth Read online

  “We can’t just leave him behind.” It was Salamander Man.

  “What choice do we have?” Pink Guy pressed. “He is almost certainly dead and in the event that he abandoned us in our hour of need, should he continue with us? They muttered backwards and forwards on the matter for some time until Frank, who had wandered off a little, returned with an artifact in his hand. He held it out to his friends for them all to plainly see. He held Safari Man’s glasses, shattered and twisted.

  “He is surely gone,” Frank said sullenly. “My brothers, he is gone. So should we be.”

  At this point they had two great needs: time and coordinates. The clock maneuver had so exhausted Frank of his chromosomes that he needed time to replenish and in this chromosome-weak world, there was no telling how long that would take. They also needed fresh coordinates because none of them knew where to go from here. The primary dilemma for them was that Chin Chin would soon trace them to this place and they would have neither the strength to face him, nor the chance to escape.

  They were in agreement that finding a quiet, secluded hamlet was their priority and Negi Generation 1, who had now joined their troupe, led them westward along the ridge of the hills toward the pink and orange clouds which hung over a region which he knew would meet their needs. Their spirits picked up as they made their way and Salamander Man began to play a merry tune on his recorder. Pink Guy revealed some amusing secrets of the omniverses like the fact that mastoids (mortal-tiered creatures with hideously huge noses) of the realm CX5P4200 reproduce asexually through laughter, and Frank told exaggerated stories of Okinawa and jokes of which the punchline invariably involved Sergeant Benson’s demise. The others, trundling along in single file, laughed along and enjoyed the cessation of hostilities - now known as the Great Negi War - in a way that only those who had known battle could. They made good progress and by the end of the day were several landscapes away from their point of origin.

  None of them were aware of the change in the color of the clouds behind them or the gentle swirling motion that turned the skies into a whirlpool. Above the battleground, now eerily silent and empty, the heavens darkened and the wind whipped up into a chilly gale. Icy rain started to fall and the beasts in those hills which had survived the violence of the day, scattered with a new-found fear. Lightning cracked and the atmosphere parted, delivering a new entity to that environment. It was preceded by two minions, chained at the neck, thrashing and lashing at anything within reach. Gargoylian in appearance, they were wrapped in a wrinkled, gray leathery skin like infants prematurely aged. Razor sharp teeth protruded from their mouths, lacerating their own lips as they snarled and snapped, their drool a mix of saliva and their own blood. The prime entity set his feet on the ground immediately behind them and looked around at the devastation of the landscape, the razed vegetation, the negi corpses that littered the land, the clock still half-buried in the ground, and was both intrigued and not a little concerned at the might which could have wrought this.

  Safari Man remained in his hideout, still wailing in anguish over his profound cowardice and loss of friendship. He sat in total darkness until the rock which he had leveraged up to the entrance of the cave suddenly moved. He looked up with unbridled fear and trepidation. The rock moved again, dislodging enough to allow light to pour into the cavern. A third time the rock moved only this time it was flung with a mighty force to the very back of the chamber. Though he could see nothing of it yet, Safari Man was horrified at the power which had blown a boulder clear across the cavern and he reeled back into one of the tiny recesses of that place.

  Then it came. At first it was almost pleasant, like that of thermal underground pools but quickly turned acrid like the pungent rubbery smell of the subway escalators in New York. Then the odor became thoroughly toxic, burning his nostrils and lungs and he began to choke and gag. A dark presence entered, ominous and fearsome, moving slowly but with unstoppable momentum, and turned to the little Japanese man. He looked down on him with eyes of detestation and contempt. Safari Man soiled himself again.

  It spoke with the voice of immortality. “Oh chin chin ga dai suki da yo.” A stench filled the cavern as he said it. Safari Man was well versed in the language of the dark lord and heard it as though it were his own tongue. “You are now mine,” he said.

  “Chin Chin, I had nothing to do with what’s been going on out there,” the Japanese man squeaked with a quivering voice.

  “So you’re a traitor and a coward.”

  “Well,” Safari Man struggled for words. “A coward, yes. ‘Traitor’ is a strong word and I can’t say that…”

  “It wasn’t a question, you pathetic little rodent. It was an identity that you will wear for the rest of your sad little existence.” He sniffed about like a bear in heat. “Where is Frank?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

  Instantly, Safari Man found himself face down in mud at Chin Chin’s feet.

  “Try again.”

  “He was here. There was a battle. But I fled. I couldn’t take it. I hid myself in this cave. And now they must have gone but I swear I have no idea where.”

  “They left you behind.”

  “Ah, yes. Ha ha ha,” he muttered, standing to his feet again.

  “They must despise you. I don’t blame them. Who wouldn’t?”

  Safari Man retreated and slumped against the wall of the cave. It was over for him and he knew it. He was beyond fear now and had nothing left to lose and no tears left to cry so he spoke directly, almost disrespectfully, to the dark power before him. “Why do you want to kill Frank?”

  “Kill Frank? I don’t want to kill Frank. I want to harvest him. I want to rein him in.” The air in the cave grew frosty and mean as he spoke. “He will come in handy in time. But he’s useless to me right now.”

  Safari Man, still loyal to Frank in his heart, spoke on. “How so? He’s just another rankenfile.”

  “You want to play me?” He was incensed. “You know he’s chromosome rich and evolving all the time. That clock move was something. I’ve rarely come across such power. I felt it reverberate across the omniverses.” He spoke in a way that approached awe. “But it wiped out most of his chromosomes. I need to give him more time to replenish. But it will take forever in this realm. So I will have to make a few adjustments to my agenda.”

  “What is your agenda?”

  Once again Safari Man found himself face down in the mud in front of Chin Chin, only this time, the dark lord rested his foot heavily on Safari Man’s head. “My agenda,” he breathed “is none of your business”. He let Safari Man breathe again. “Except to say that I will be taking you on a short pleasure cruise with me.” He then laughed an awful screeching laugh that was eerily similar to the cries of the Wretched in the dark sea. “Pleasure for me, that is.”

  ~

  Negi Generation 1 led the posse onto a clearing of level ground at the foot of a small hill by a gently flowing freshwater stream. This part of the realm appeared uninhabited so, though they were away from the thicker vegetation and somewhat exposed, they were at ease and began to prepare for the night. Without the aid of any clear leadership, each made their own contribution and their efforts produced a surprisingly unified and very pleasant result. Negi Generation 1 returned from foraging in the hills with another susquian and several mitostrons (large avianesque rodents about the size of a young capybara) to eat. With the aid of Drone, Pink Guy found a large number of edible plants and berries. Alpha Centurion prepared a roaring fire for the barbecue. Frank sat off at a distance and looked up into the sky. He could sense that something was off before he was able to observe the unnatural hues and behaviors of the clouds in the distance. He watched them turn and discolor and he pondered them, sometimes fearfully, sometimes with an intrigue that bordered audacity. Salamander Man squatted on a rock in the middle of the stream and played his recorder, pausing only to caress his nipples for a moment before playing on. Pink Guy joined him later on his ukulele. It
created a calming atmosphere at the end of a very traumatic day.

  They feasted and fooled about and farted until the sky grew completely dark and the only light they could see by was the fire which Alpha Centurion continued to stoke (with nutty little giggles) well beyond what was needed. It was Pink Guy who first felt the chill which he initially mistook for a natural drop in temperature. Frank caught it shortly after and the two of them locked eyes. They turned toward the hill to vaguely make out an enormous dark creature quietly descending from the vegetation. As it drew nearer the fire they could make out its form and tier.

  Alpha Centurion had no such knowledge. When he saw it he jumped a mile in the air. “What the fuck is that?!” he shrieked. Before them stood one of the ugliest creatures to roam the omniverses. A hideous-looking bug with umpteen long spindly legs on each side of its torso, it was essentially a gejigeji the size of a bus yet with a mortal face. “How do you squash a bug that size?” Centurion asked. “You can’t,” Pink Guy responded. “It’s not a beast, it’s a chimpilla and its name is Gitzon.” He approached his superior defiantly. “What do you want here?” It struck Pink Guy hard, knocking him head over heels into the stream. “Put a leash on your friends,” it said to Frank in a waspish voice. “Unless you want to see them permanently ruined.” The others all immediately fell in line behind Frank.

  “As much as I’d love to stay and play with you all,” it said sneering, “I’m only here on business.” It spoke with a wicked raspiness and its face scrunched up as it spoke, as though forming words required tremendous and painful effort. “Stand over there,” it said to Frank, smacking him off his feet to a spot on the other side of the fire. “Thank you.” It turned and faced the remaining members of the brotherhood. “The dark lord has decided that he would prefer to have you in other realms.”

  “What other realms?” Salamander Man asked in deep distress.

  “Oh, she speaks?” Gitzon said. “Then you will go first.” It reached up and over with one of its long gangly legs, picked up Salamander Man and dropped him into the centre of the fire which was still roaring with activity. “Noooo!” Alpha Centurion called. Suddenly the mischievousness of making such a conflagration overcame him and he buried his face in his hands, guilt-ridden to the core, and howled. The horror of this sound was only surpassed by that of Salamander Man who screamed an agonising ‘Nyeees!” for a few short moments before disappearing altogether when Gitzon spoke into the fire a language that was unintelligible to any of them.

  Immediately, Drone took flight and raced away but he was no match for the speed and dexterity of the chimpilla who grabbed him in another skeletal leg and flung him hard into the heart of the fire. It uttered once again into the flame and Drone was gone. This left Alpha Centurion and Negi Generation 1. “You,” it grumbled to Negi, “piss off”.

  Negi was caught completely off guard by these words. “What?”

  “You don’t know what ‘piss off’ means? Perhaps you’d rather be with your friends in the fire? We don’t need you. You’re dead weight. Piss off to whatever sorry little hole in the ground you came from and never come back here again.” Negi Generation 1 looked at Frank and with welling eyes, wished him all the best. He then took flight with his little white legs spinning as fast as they could go, and his brown negi hair sprouts flailing about, and disappeared into the darkness.

  The chimpilla wrapped itself around Alpha Centurion and began to prod him with its knuckley feet and feel him out with its antennas. “You’re cute,” it whispered in deep, amorous tones. It salivated as it said it. Centurion was a ball of screaming terror, taboo words and thrash, and this only served to excite the chimpilla even more. It put an antenna deep into Centurion’s throat before placing it in its own. “I like the taste of your tonsils,” it said with the hint of a smile. “I’ll bet you taste good all over.” Alpha Centurion, rediscovering the fight in himself, began to bite at the joints of Gitzon’s legs in between screams. This had little effect other than to further endear himself to the chimpilla.

  “I thought you were here on business.” Frank spoke with the same tone of defiance that Pink Guy had. The creature looked over at Frank with revulsion. It picked up Alpha Centurion and tossed him into the centre of the flames without so much as even looking in that direction. With a brief shrill from the runt and another burst of unintelligible words from Gitzon, Alpha Centurion was gone. “You want to do business, let’s do business.” It began to slither towards Frank as it spoke and its words now came with spittle and hiss. “Just know that if it were up to me I’d have sliced you into pieces and had you for dinner before the eggs were ready.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing we don’t have any eggs.”

  It pressed its ornery face up to Frank’s. “I hate you so much.” The words seeped out. “I want to damn you. I want to make you one of the Wretched.”

  “Remind me to never let this guy near a public high school,” Frank said to himself.

  It looked ready to strike Frank again. “But I’m only here with a message. I’m confined to the message. Tomorrow you will be given co-ordinates. Go where they take you and don’t ask questions. It is a high chromosome realm. There you will replenish and the dark lord will harvest your chromosomes in his good time. With that, I must leave.” As it slithered away Frank heard it mutter, “but I will damage you.”

  Frank dropped and sat up against a flat topped rock. He was shaking. There was no longer any sound other than the crackle of the fire, and no light save that coming from the flames. Beyond him, out there, there was no longer anything. Sight, sound, presence all ceased to exist. He was alone. And it petrified him. He took his mind back to the start of the day - whatever period of time that was - when Safari Man woke him in New York. Back then, he had a warm bed, friends and respite from the madness of the omniverses. Now, he had nothing but fear and an antipathy to life. He lay down but was far too worked up to sleep. And the night seemed to drag on for aeons. At some point he drifted off but unease was never far from him.

  He was woken in the dim light of an overcast morning by the sound of an almighty thud. The impact it made shook the ground and Frank sat up startled and looked about him. There were no further movements or sounds. The fire had desisted to a large heap of embers. A very gentle breeze blew over the wispy shoots coming from the ground, and the stream they had camped by produced a very lazy flow that meandered around the rocks. Frank continued to look about him. He surveyed the vegetation on the hilltop, the empty plains that stretched out in the opposite direction and the tedious gray of the sky. Nothing. He roused himself and made his way to the still waters. There he washed his face, his arms and hands, and drank freely.

  He waded downstream a little before making his way back to the campsite. The scenery was less familiar to him in the morning light. The terrain appeared sandier and less stepped than it had in the twilight hours. A large pale branch up ahead had gone completely unnoticed in the evening preparations. The flora was more sparse and less lush than he had remembered. Suddenly he thought it prudent to gather firewood to keep the fire alive as it’s much easier to kindle a fire than start one. As he was about to step around the pale bough, it struck him with alarm that it wasn’t a branch fallen from a nearby tree. It was Negi Generation 1. His body had been mutilated and he lay lifeless on the ground. It was clear to Frank, from the sound that woke him and the damage to the corpse, that he had been dropped (or thrown) from a very great height. Most disturbing of all were the lacerations all over his body. He studied them fastidiously. The coordinates of Frank’s next realm had been carved into Negi Generation 1’s flesh. He fell back horrified, making primal sounds from the back of his throat. Just when he thought he could no longer be scared, a new horror would befall him and he would learn the meaning of fear all over again.

  It took him a while to regain his composure. He had a dreaded sense that by following these co-ordinates he was simply moving from one nightmare to another more treacherous one. But what choice did h
e have? He took a moment to consider his options but there was simply no choice that worked. Inevitably, he succumbed.

  He grabbed a small, sharp stick from the bank of the stream and, driven by anger, thrust it into his forearm far deeper than he needed to for the task. Blood shot out and Frank began to create the crimson circle that was beginning to define his life, on the ground around him. In an utterly morbid and detached voice, he repeated the co-ordinates that had been cut into Negi’s body. The response was rapid. He fell into a trance, collapsed onto the ground and began convulsing. His field of vision narrowed and all he could recall seeing were the tendrils of a small tree growing over the stream reaching out to him. They touched his face, gently and affectionately at first, but gradually more menacingly and forcefully, till its clutches were tugging at his features and pulling at his hair. As though anaesthetized, Frank could say or do nothing in response. He was screaming inside but his body seemed incapable of responding. The entity wrapped more and more entrails around his face, ripping at his flesh and gauging at his eyes. At the moment of his ultimate suffering, Frank found his voice. “I’m sorry!” he screamed. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it!”