Fearless by Murron
Atlantis, 07:47 a.m.
Dec 23rd
Carson clamped a hand over his mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. He kept away from the walls, avoiding the sticky spray of machine oil that covered every inch of alien steel. It seemed like they had escaped the latest horror, but Carson’s ears still rang with screams and tortured moans. It was like he’d hear it forever - one voice raging against death in a foreign language. That time they’d seen no-one, only shadows in the halls they hurried past. But there had been the clamour and the stench of oil on fire. Briefly it reeked as if flesh was burning, too. As they were pushing on aimlessly, Carson couldn’t shake the impression that they were crossing the courtyard to hell.
The boy was keeping it together in a way that was admirable and worrying at the same time. He’d put his hands over his ears, stumbling along as swiftly as he could. Only God knew what these experiences would do to such a wee mind.
Behind them, the shouting had died down. Carson slowed to a staggering halt and felt his knees give way at once. He was soaked in sweat and black dots flickered before his eyes. His hands were shaking, too, telegraphing the exhaustion of a body worn by lack of sleep and dehydration. He wiped at his face, his hand coming away slick and salty, then sunk sideways against the wall. He leaned his head against the cool metal, no longer able to care what he’d touch. The oil, however, seemed to be gone. Distantly he noticed that there was a new scent in the air, too. And much to his surprise, Carson found he knew it well. It was a mixture of disinfectant and cleaning liquid, a combination Carson had always thought of as dry smell. He’d lived with those sterile vapours for years on end but the familiarity did nothing to console him. If anything, it added to the confusion that shadowed him ever since the whole cirque du macabre began.
He didn’t have much time to analyse this new sensual assault, though.
Just as Carson thought they were given a moment of rest, a person entered the corridor from an adjoining chamber. It seemed to be a woman — as far as you could tell from her dehumanised appearance. Carson recognised a green polo-neck sweater, long, brown hair, but no face. Somehow the absence of eyes made the creature’s staring even worse.
Enough! Carson’s pleaded inside. He couldn’t take much more, he knew. The urge to flee, to run from this place so fast his feet would barely touch the ground — this urge grew stronger by the minute. A few more apparitions and he would run into closed doors so he’d see no more. There seemed no other escape; the ball wouldn’t shut off. By now Carson had tried.
A second faceless figure joined the first, lifting a hand to stroke an errant strand of hair back behind its ear. The presence of these chimeras, their reality-defying solidity, was utterly abhorrent. Looking at them made Carson queasy all over again. Where eyes or mouth or nose should be, there was only a smooth plain of creamy skin.
Carson shivered and grasped the boy’s shoulder, feeling him tremble likewise. They couldn’t go on. One way or another Carson needed to end this or it would end them. He had never been so sure about anything. In his despair, he went down on one knee and tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder. His other hand went to the pocket which held the Ancient globe.
“Look at me, lad,” he implored. “ Only at me.” Then he closed his eyes, concentrating harder than ever he had in his life. He plunged deep, digging into his memories until one stood out in overwhelming clarity. He held on to that one, focused every fibre of his being on it, building it up detail by detail.
Slowly but surely his pulse slowed down. He could even relax the tight control that kept his body terse. He breathed out.
When Carson sniffed the air carefully, the stench of ammonia was gone. It was replaced by a faint but sweet smell that carried a whiff of berries and cinnamon. Carson listened for a while, but no eerie sounds reached his ear. When he’d made sure that the sense of being watched was also gone, Carson opened his eyes.
The boy still stood in front of him, but the scenery above the child’s head had changed. The dark and dank confines of the Atlantean corridor had been converted into a wallpapered staircase. An strikingly old-fashioned staircase, no less. The railing was made of polished cherry-wood, the wallpaper was pastel-coloured and dotted with tiny violets. Carson experienced a wave of relief so strong that it washed everything else away. It left him drained, utterly wearied as the adrenaline rushed from his system, but Carson was grateful all the same.
By all evidence, you didn’t need red shoes after all.
Carson looked down and smiled as he saw the thick auburn carpet beneath him. He had hoped helplessly that his trick would work but he hadn’t expected it to work so well. They’d been transported into the entry hall of a small house. A very small house, as Carson knew very well. Everything was how he remembered him. Behind him he suspected the open door to a living room. There was a tall lamp next to the telephone table and the door to the cellar down the hall.
Just seeing the familiar surroundings, calmed Carson in a profound way. If he paid close attention, he could still sense the walking terrors lurking somewhere nearby. But for the moment, he was content to ignore them.
“That’s blackberry-pie we’re smelling,” Carson told the boy. “Do you like pie?”
The boy gave it a moment’s consideration, then answered: “Only if there’s cream.”
In Carson’s opinion, that was as sensible an answer as he’d ever heard. He reached out and ruffled the boys hair, grateful for this glimpse of normality in his battered state of mind. The boy grinned a little, looking as if he generously indulged Carson’s antics.
Somewhere down the hallway, noises rumbled like distant thunder. Carson made out a stifled moan, followed by a long and devastated keening. It set his teeth on edge.
The boy’s head had turned in direction of the sounds and his hands had once more clenched into fists. Carson was not sure how long the sanctuary he conjured would hold, but he had an inkling it wasn’t exactly made to last. What was more, Carson doubted he’d be able to pull the same hoax again. Even what little control he had right now was about to slip away. As of yet, his consciousness repulsed the idea of returning. Still there was a shapeless dread at the back of his mind, looming like darkness on a withered back porch. Carson turned away from it; if the fear overwhelmed him now it would devour him for good. Instead he concentrated on the boy. Carson would hate to expose the lad to the dead and the disfigured again. Especially since he didn’t and couldn’t know what they would face.
During the last stage of their nightmarish progress Carson had become more and more convinced that the fears they encountered weren’t entirely of his making. For one, the fourth and final body had been a complete stranger to him. Furthermore, despite the ugly and sad situations he’d experienced throughout his time as ward doctor and later, hospitals didn’t scare him. So why the scent of disinfectant, hanging in the wake of the faceless people? Carson thought he knew the answer. Some of the fears made no sense to him because they weren’t his anxieties at all. They belonged to the boy, his own lost guide. Though how that should be remained a mystery to Carson. It was him who’d activated the globe after all.
Or had he?
Carson frowned. A different notion crossed his mind. Was it possible that he was merely a bearer, channelling the residue of another subconscious? But why then the visions of Rodney, Aiden and Teyla? If Carson wasn’t responsible for them then someone else of their expedition must be. But who . . .
Carson stopped, baffled by his own stupidity. It had been staring him in the face all along and he, panicked and confused, had been too daft to see it. The globe, he realised, had never responded to him. Of course it hadn’t.
Carson contemplated the small person in front of him with new understanding. Now, safe from the terrors for the time being, the pieces finally clicked into place. Watching the boy, his mussed black hair and straight wee nose, Carson wondered how he could’ve missed it. Indeed, once you became aware of it, the resemblance was as clear as day.
“John.”
The boy pried his gaze away from the door down the hall and looked at Carson instead. The lad was clearly troubled, but made an impressive effort to hide it. Carson smiled and touched the child’s arm fleetingly. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “You don’t have to go there.”
The relief on the small face was plain, even though Carson saw that the boy didn’t quite trust the peace. This expression was now so familiar that Carson almost laughed.
“I think we’ve earned ourselves a giant piece of that pie,” he said instead with a wink. To his satisfaction he noticed that the child already looked less doubtful. Carson stood and led the boy around the staircase. “You know what,” he said, “you just sit down here and I’ll take care of that door.” He gently shoved the child down onto the steps. “If you’re bored, try to connect the violets on the wall into shapes. There’s a dragon on there somewhere.”
Intrigued, the boy turned to the wallpaper. Carson stepped away from him, but stopped one more time once he was behind the railing. Through the wooden poles he watched the lad, who already seemed to have forgotten that he was there. He touched one finger to a violet posy, at the same time rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his other hand.
Him. It was him they wanted. The roving terrors were tracking down the boy and in all likelihood, Carson only happened to stand in their way.
Well, Carson thought and moved away from the stairway, he was decided to stand in their way a little while longer.
Atlantis, 11:38 a.m.
Dec 23rd
John changed his mind. When Zelenka had gloriously broken the door’s code, he’d thought they would finally be close to their goal. That was an hour ago. Since then John had discarded every hope of a smooth progress. This was now the fourth closed pathway they encountered and each time it had grown harder to wrench them open. The third one would only open a crack. They had to squeeze through, handing their gear to those on the other side and scraping exposed skin. It did not lighten their moods.
Zelenka, to whom fell the task of rewiring the panels, seemed to take the doors’ refusal personall. His polite attitude crumbled with every crystal he had to switch. At the moment he was squatting next to the fourth door, levering a piece of covering metal from the wall and muttering derisively in Czech.
Reynolds waited at the other end of the hall, both medics hovering close. Apparently this kind of field-work wasn’t exactly their thing: They were both looking slightly green around the noses. Teyla’s taint, however, topped theirs by far.
John cast another careful look in her direction. He knew by now that she didn’t like people worrying about her, but her current condition made it hard not to be concerned. Her usual tan was replaced by a sickly pale complexion. Repeatedly he had watched her wipe sweat from her forehead.
A clatter of metal, followed by a string of foreign swearwords issued from the door. John decided to put a safe distance between him and Zelenka. He sidled up to Teyla, considered her need for privacy once more then threw courtesy to the wind.
“How are you?”
She continued to stare into the shadowed corners of the hall, but nevertheless she answered him.
“I feel nauseous.”
“Is it the air?” John asked. “You could take one of the medics and go back.”
Teyla shook her head briefly. “No.” John opened his mouth to argue against pride that could knock you out or worse, but she forestalled his speech, saying: “It is not the air.”
John frowned. “What then?”
Teyla lifted her chin and tilted her head to the side as though she were listening.
“There is a presence down here,” she said. “An energy. It is . . . unpleasant.”
For the second time that day John felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rise. Part of him wanted to ask what she meant, but another part, perhaps the clever part, dared not. Teyla continued all the same.
“When we had our summer camps in the mountains, sometimes there would be storms rolling toward us from the valleys. The air grew very heavy then, and crackled on the skin.” She paused, listening some more, it appeared. “It is like this down here,” she continued. “Only much worse. It goes right through me.”
By now, John sincerely wished she would stop talking. He had a hard time keeping things together without level-headed Teyla turning into a fair-day seer. It also didn’t help that he knew how she felt.
To a certain degree, John was susceptible to those vibes, too. He refused to analyse it, but something lingered down here that altered not only the pressure of the air but also reached for his mind in a way that made the spit in his mouth taste sour.
“I never would have thought that the Ancestors could create a place that felt so dark,” Teyla said softly. She looked back over her shoulder, where Zelenka was still fiddling with the door. As if on cue, the scientist kicked a piece of panelling across the floor.
“Zpropadene!”
John did need no translator to figure out what that meant.
Atlantis, 08:03 a.m.
Dec 23rd
The noises had returned and risen in volume. Down the hallway, sounds of grief seemed to gather and trickle along the corridor like loosened gravel. Voices groaned and ebbed away, a child was crying and a few times there were words Carson couldn’t make out. The air seemed to breathe with the weeping, reaching out and falling away in despair time and again. What was worse, the sounds seemed to live in the wall itself, opening a netherworld right behind the flowered wallpaper.
Carson stood outside the cellar, eyes fixed on the door’s worn wood and flaking paint. In his childhood, there had been a narrow stairway behind the threshold leading into a dark room that smelt of earth and potatoes. What awaited him now, he couldn’t guess.
His back still ached from the CPR he’d performed on Rodney and even such a simple movement as lifting his hand to the doorknob was painful. Yet it was more than the pain which slowed him down. Inside his chest, his heart was thrumming at an unsteady, hectic beat. The image of Teyla’s lifeless face flashed before his inner eye and for a split second she opened her eyes again, her gaze white and empty. Carson drew his hand back from the knob and his palm left a milky print on the brass. He tried to be calm, tried to be steadfast, but fear seemed to control every fibre of his body. The visions in his head were stronger than reason — as though his mind had already been in that cellar and now dreaded the abyss it had barely escaped the first time.
Carson slipped a hand into his pocket and his fingers closed around the Ancient globe. It was the source of all his trouble, yet it was also the last remaining proof of a truth more solid than this phantom hall. Driven by the forlorn hope that it would anchor him, Carson clung to the one thing that still belonged to a reality that was slipping away from him more and more.
He told himself that he had no alternative. Whatever worked from inside the globe wouldn’t stop until it had reached the end of its course. He could only choose to meet the apparitions before his refuge failed. For if he faltered . . . if he tried to hide . . . even in the darkness behind his hands he would feel the globe’s shadows sweep past him and fall upon their original prey. Would he hear when they found the boy? Carson was sure of it. No matter how hard he’d try to look away, he wouldn’t be spared a single sound. That way lay insanity. He didn’t think he could bear it. He couldn’t live with his own cowardice. Could he?
Carson closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe evenly, inhale one steady breath, exhale another.
He imagined the boy sitting on the stairs, drowsy head on his knees, and for a moment that image blended with the memory of a grown-up John Sheppard, sleeping on Carson’s couch. It also reminded him of another time and another nightly vigil. About a month ago, Sheppard had been fast asleep on an infirmary bed, his neck covered with black bruises where the bug had latched onto him. He’d dreamt badly that night and Carson had lingered for a while, waiting until the tension left the Major’s face and he breathed evenly.
Carson opened his eyes, fingers around the globe relaxing. He grasped the doorknob once more and this time turned it. There was no resistance. Carson gave the door a gentle push and it swung away from him, opening to a dim space.
As he’d expected, there was neither a stairway nor a cellar behind the door. Instead Carson walked into a square room with scorched walls and no windows. The only source of light was a crack in the sooty plaster and the sickly pale light which fell through there barely illuminated anything.
It showed enough, though.
At first, Carson didn’t know exactly what he saw, the picture was that alienating. But slowly and with merciless precision, his mind sorted out the shapes and combined them to a hideous whole that made Carson’s stomach turn. A few steps ahead of him, two faceless bodies lay on the floor, sprawling in a heap of limbs and torn clothing.
Carson recoiled from the sight and his back bumped against a solid barrier. He reached behind him, fingertips brushing scraps of charcoaled wallpaper, fumbling for a handle that wasn’t there anymore. The door was gone. Trapped in full view of this new monstrosity, Carson couldn’t help but stare.
Steady, a timid voice reminded him, you’ve seen worse in your time. Only he hadn’t. All things considered, he really hadn’t.
One blank face was turned in Carson’s direction, exposing a crude mask of agony. Where the lips should be was a gaping hollow. It looked as though a mouth had opened beneath the tight stretch of skin, vainly fighting for a scream that wouldn’t break free. Carson stared at the deformed bodies, petrified. His gaze travelled along twisted arms, showing him shredded sleeves and charred hands. Shuddering, Carson turned his face away.
I wish I hadn’t seen. I wish I hadn’t.
But it was too late to erase the pictures swamping him with illusions he really didn’t want to fathom. Like how such atrocities could grow in a wee lad whose chief delight seemed to be baseball and pie with cream. Carson remembered the boy’s quick agility, then recalled his troubled face and uneasy glances. It came to him that he would never be able to spare the child these nightmares, because one way or another, they were a future the boy had already lived.
What kind of life is that? Carson thought, deeply horrified. Unbidden, the manifestations of this night replayed in his head and he recoiled from the implications. All this loss, all this grief . . . Clenching his jaw, Carson forced himself to survey the room so he might focus on a strip of ground not covered with corpses. That was how he finally saw the man the child on the stairway would become.
It was not who he had expected.
When he embarked on the expedition, Carson knew nothing about Major Sheppard except he was the one who unlocked the command chair. The necessary proximity of daily life on Atlantis, however, had taught Carson a thing or two about the expedition’s head of military. For example, he got bored easily.
He harboured a love for popcorn that bordered on obsession.
He wasn’t keen on needles but would sooner run around naked than let his anxiety show.
For a man as skinny as he, he could polish off huge amounts of food.
When he was on mild sedatives, he sometimes hummed.
He also volunteered very little about his past and Carson respected that. It was a bit of a relief, actually, to have someone around who didn’t talk about home. Sometimes the memories everyone else was sharing threatened to suffocate Carson with a desperate longing for Earth.
John Sheppard was easy company which Carson had come to appreciate. The chess-games, the times he’d patched the other man up had all secured a sense of comfortable familiarity. He knew there was more to Major Sheppard than met the eye, but Carson believed he perceived enough. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t need to see more. Only in retrospective did he realise how right he’d been. In the end, nothing he’d learned or thought he’d learned about Sheppard prepared him for this. Here was a man he’d truly never met before.
The adult John cowered near the wall, face buried in his hands. Knuckles and wrists were covered with grease or soot and something darker that could be blood. He didn’t move, he didn’t even seem to breathe. In the room’s graceless twilight he’d become a broken, unguarded shape, unable to stir or even show his face.
Carson had wondered what might happen to a child exposed to such experiences — now he knew. Knew more than was, perhaps, wise to know about another person. All of a sudden, the thought of the horrors he’d seen didn’t scare Carson anymore. It only made him sad.
He moved a step forward, then hesitated. He had the instinctive feeling that unlike the boy, this John wasn’t to be touched. Not that touching would be a comfort in the first place. If roused, Sheppard would only have to face the gruesome scene before him. Carson didn’t blame the Major for looking away. If fears of this kind lived inside him, Carson doubted he would be able to build walls as strong as these.
Only they weren’t strong, not really. From what he’d seen so far, Carson decided they offered a deceptive safety at most, entrapping part of John Sheppard with all his nightmares. It also seemed more than likely that the enclosure did not only hoard anxieties, it was also a steady reminder of a larger threat outside. Prisons did not only lock things in, they also kept things out. Looking up, Carson sought out the fissure in the opposite wall. Even as he looked, more concrete came loose and bits of mortar crumbled to the ground. Disquiet seemed to spread from the opening. A rumble vibrated through the room until Carson felt a resounding hum in his body. It felt like a call, narrowing his attention to the breach that looked more and more like a pathway.
So this finally was the place he was supposed to find. It reminded him of something, something he had read or seen a long time ago.
(The eyes are not here . . .)
Air swirled around him in a cooling twist, grazing his cheeks and sweat-slickened temples. Carson paid no heed, transfixed by the hole in the barrier. Within the ragged frame of the fissure, he could see a strip of colour, faint purple and ice green.
(There are no eyes here . . .)
Carson unclenched his hands. Pain, short and fierce lanced through his palms but he paid no heed. Slowly, he walked across the room, careful not to touch any of the bodies, be they dead or /paralysed. He stopped at the fissure which was now broad enough to allow a grown man passage. Looking out, Carson placed a hand on the ragged edge to his left. More grout withered beneath his touch. Absently, he rubbed the matter to grains between his thumb and forefinger.
Before him lay a landscape confined by no walls. It was as much empty as it was sublime. Behind was the black, charred cavern of a room. Ahead were endless plains of gravel, rocky dunes and barren trees under a bruise-coloured sky. The view was fascinating even as it filled Carson with a slowly creeping dread. If he stepped out there, no benchmarks would guide him back to his own self or the rueful shelter of his reality. Out there was the centre of the Ancient globe and it was as vast as an entire universe.
( In this valley of dying stars . . . )
( In this hollow valley . . . )
Every part of Carson’s body felt numb and distant. Fatigue had caught up on him and made him slightly dizzy. Dimly Carson reflected that in this state he would simply stop thinking if he saw any more faceless people. Not that he expected to encounter them again. Something told him that out in the open, he wouldn’t be haunted by phantom shapes or dying friends. A desert of stones would reach from horizon to horizon and there would be nothing else. The plains he saw were desolate, devoid of life or memories. Caught in the open he might drown in the wind’s massive silence, dissolve from the inside, until nothing remained of him but the husk of a man. Loneliness could do that to you.
Carson understood that this was the last challenge. He also knew that he’d run out of strength and defences. What hope he had of escaping to his reality slipped through his fingers. He couldn’t even imagine waking up anymore. At that point, he was too exhausted to try. His hand fell away from the jagged wall and he stepped outside.
Gravel clicked beneath his shoes and the wind was almost welcoming.
( . . . This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms )*
*a/n: Lines taken from the fifth segment of T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men.
Dec 23rd
Carson clamped a hand over his mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. He kept away from the walls, avoiding the sticky spray of machine oil that covered every inch of alien steel. It seemed like they had escaped the latest horror, but Carson’s ears still rang with screams and tortured moans. It was like he’d hear it forever - one voice raging against death in a foreign language. That time they’d seen no-one, only shadows in the halls they hurried past. But there had been the clamour and the stench of oil on fire. Briefly it reeked as if flesh was burning, too. As they were pushing on aimlessly, Carson couldn’t shake the impression that they were crossing the courtyard to hell.
The boy was keeping it together in a way that was admirable and worrying at the same time. He’d put his hands over his ears, stumbling along as swiftly as he could. Only God knew what these experiences would do to such a wee mind.
Behind them, the shouting had died down. Carson slowed to a staggering halt and felt his knees give way at once. He was soaked in sweat and black dots flickered before his eyes. His hands were shaking, too, telegraphing the exhaustion of a body worn by lack of sleep and dehydration. He wiped at his face, his hand coming away slick and salty, then sunk sideways against the wall. He leaned his head against the cool metal, no longer able to care what he’d touch. The oil, however, seemed to be gone. Distantly he noticed that there was a new scent in the air, too. And much to his surprise, Carson found he knew it well. It was a mixture of disinfectant and cleaning liquid, a combination Carson had always thought of as dry smell. He’d lived with those sterile vapours for years on end but the familiarity did nothing to console him. If anything, it added to the confusion that shadowed him ever since the whole cirque du macabre began.
He didn’t have much time to analyse this new sensual assault, though.
Just as Carson thought they were given a moment of rest, a person entered the corridor from an adjoining chamber. It seemed to be a woman — as far as you could tell from her dehumanised appearance. Carson recognised a green polo-neck sweater, long, brown hair, but no face. Somehow the absence of eyes made the creature’s staring even worse.
Enough! Carson’s pleaded inside. He couldn’t take much more, he knew. The urge to flee, to run from this place so fast his feet would barely touch the ground — this urge grew stronger by the minute. A few more apparitions and he would run into closed doors so he’d see no more. There seemed no other escape; the ball wouldn’t shut off. By now Carson had tried.
A second faceless figure joined the first, lifting a hand to stroke an errant strand of hair back behind its ear. The presence of these chimeras, their reality-defying solidity, was utterly abhorrent. Looking at them made Carson queasy all over again. Where eyes or mouth or nose should be, there was only a smooth plain of creamy skin.
Carson shivered and grasped the boy’s shoulder, feeling him tremble likewise. They couldn’t go on. One way or another Carson needed to end this or it would end them. He had never been so sure about anything. In his despair, he went down on one knee and tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder. His other hand went to the pocket which held the Ancient globe.
“Look at me, lad,” he implored. “ Only at me.” Then he closed his eyes, concentrating harder than ever he had in his life. He plunged deep, digging into his memories until one stood out in overwhelming clarity. He held on to that one, focused every fibre of his being on it, building it up detail by detail.
Slowly but surely his pulse slowed down. He could even relax the tight control that kept his body terse. He breathed out.
When Carson sniffed the air carefully, the stench of ammonia was gone. It was replaced by a faint but sweet smell that carried a whiff of berries and cinnamon. Carson listened for a while, but no eerie sounds reached his ear. When he’d made sure that the sense of being watched was also gone, Carson opened his eyes.
The boy still stood in front of him, but the scenery above the child’s head had changed. The dark and dank confines of the Atlantean corridor had been converted into a wallpapered staircase. An strikingly old-fashioned staircase, no less. The railing was made of polished cherry-wood, the wallpaper was pastel-coloured and dotted with tiny violets. Carson experienced a wave of relief so strong that it washed everything else away. It left him drained, utterly wearied as the adrenaline rushed from his system, but Carson was grateful all the same.
By all evidence, you didn’t need red shoes after all.
Carson looked down and smiled as he saw the thick auburn carpet beneath him. He had hoped helplessly that his trick would work but he hadn’t expected it to work so well. They’d been transported into the entry hall of a small house. A very small house, as Carson knew very well. Everything was how he remembered him. Behind him he suspected the open door to a living room. There was a tall lamp next to the telephone table and the door to the cellar down the hall.
Just seeing the familiar surroundings, calmed Carson in a profound way. If he paid close attention, he could still sense the walking terrors lurking somewhere nearby. But for the moment, he was content to ignore them.
“That’s blackberry-pie we’re smelling,” Carson told the boy. “Do you like pie?”
The boy gave it a moment’s consideration, then answered: “Only if there’s cream.”
In Carson’s opinion, that was as sensible an answer as he’d ever heard. He reached out and ruffled the boys hair, grateful for this glimpse of normality in his battered state of mind. The boy grinned a little, looking as if he generously indulged Carson’s antics.
Somewhere down the hallway, noises rumbled like distant thunder. Carson made out a stifled moan, followed by a long and devastated keening. It set his teeth on edge.
The boy’s head had turned in direction of the sounds and his hands had once more clenched into fists. Carson was not sure how long the sanctuary he conjured would hold, but he had an inkling it wasn’t exactly made to last. What was more, Carson doubted he’d be able to pull the same hoax again. Even what little control he had right now was about to slip away. As of yet, his consciousness repulsed the idea of returning. Still there was a shapeless dread at the back of his mind, looming like darkness on a withered back porch. Carson turned away from it; if the fear overwhelmed him now it would devour him for good. Instead he concentrated on the boy. Carson would hate to expose the lad to the dead and the disfigured again. Especially since he didn’t and couldn’t know what they would face.
During the last stage of their nightmarish progress Carson had become more and more convinced that the fears they encountered weren’t entirely of his making. For one, the fourth and final body had been a complete stranger to him. Furthermore, despite the ugly and sad situations he’d experienced throughout his time as ward doctor and later, hospitals didn’t scare him. So why the scent of disinfectant, hanging in the wake of the faceless people? Carson thought he knew the answer. Some of the fears made no sense to him because they weren’t his anxieties at all. They belonged to the boy, his own lost guide. Though how that should be remained a mystery to Carson. It was him who’d activated the globe after all.
Or had he?
Carson frowned. A different notion crossed his mind. Was it possible that he was merely a bearer, channelling the residue of another subconscious? But why then the visions of Rodney, Aiden and Teyla? If Carson wasn’t responsible for them then someone else of their expedition must be. But who . . .
Carson stopped, baffled by his own stupidity. It had been staring him in the face all along and he, panicked and confused, had been too daft to see it. The globe, he realised, had never responded to him. Of course it hadn’t.
Carson contemplated the small person in front of him with new understanding. Now, safe from the terrors for the time being, the pieces finally clicked into place. Watching the boy, his mussed black hair and straight wee nose, Carson wondered how he could’ve missed it. Indeed, once you became aware of it, the resemblance was as clear as day.
“John.”
The boy pried his gaze away from the door down the hall and looked at Carson instead. The lad was clearly troubled, but made an impressive effort to hide it. Carson smiled and touched the child’s arm fleetingly. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “You don’t have to go there.”
The relief on the small face was plain, even though Carson saw that the boy didn’t quite trust the peace. This expression was now so familiar that Carson almost laughed.
“I think we’ve earned ourselves a giant piece of that pie,” he said instead with a wink. To his satisfaction he noticed that the child already looked less doubtful. Carson stood and led the boy around the staircase. “You know what,” he said, “you just sit down here and I’ll take care of that door.” He gently shoved the child down onto the steps. “If you’re bored, try to connect the violets on the wall into shapes. There’s a dragon on there somewhere.”
Intrigued, the boy turned to the wallpaper. Carson stepped away from him, but stopped one more time once he was behind the railing. Through the wooden poles he watched the lad, who already seemed to have forgotten that he was there. He touched one finger to a violet posy, at the same time rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his other hand.
Him. It was him they wanted. The roving terrors were tracking down the boy and in all likelihood, Carson only happened to stand in their way.
Well, Carson thought and moved away from the stairway, he was decided to stand in their way a little while longer.
Atlantis, 11:38 a.m.
Dec 23rd
John changed his mind. When Zelenka had gloriously broken the door’s code, he’d thought they would finally be close to their goal. That was an hour ago. Since then John had discarded every hope of a smooth progress. This was now the fourth closed pathway they encountered and each time it had grown harder to wrench them open. The third one would only open a crack. They had to squeeze through, handing their gear to those on the other side and scraping exposed skin. It did not lighten their moods.
Zelenka, to whom fell the task of rewiring the panels, seemed to take the doors’ refusal personall. His polite attitude crumbled with every crystal he had to switch. At the moment he was squatting next to the fourth door, levering a piece of covering metal from the wall and muttering derisively in Czech.
Reynolds waited at the other end of the hall, both medics hovering close. Apparently this kind of field-work wasn’t exactly their thing: They were both looking slightly green around the noses. Teyla’s taint, however, topped theirs by far.
John cast another careful look in her direction. He knew by now that she didn’t like people worrying about her, but her current condition made it hard not to be concerned. Her usual tan was replaced by a sickly pale complexion. Repeatedly he had watched her wipe sweat from her forehead.
A clatter of metal, followed by a string of foreign swearwords issued from the door. John decided to put a safe distance between him and Zelenka. He sidled up to Teyla, considered her need for privacy once more then threw courtesy to the wind.
“How are you?”
She continued to stare into the shadowed corners of the hall, but nevertheless she answered him.
“I feel nauseous.”
“Is it the air?” John asked. “You could take one of the medics and go back.”
Teyla shook her head briefly. “No.” John opened his mouth to argue against pride that could knock you out or worse, but she forestalled his speech, saying: “It is not the air.”
John frowned. “What then?”
Teyla lifted her chin and tilted her head to the side as though she were listening.
“There is a presence down here,” she said. “An energy. It is . . . unpleasant.”
For the second time that day John felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rise. Part of him wanted to ask what she meant, but another part, perhaps the clever part, dared not. Teyla continued all the same.
“When we had our summer camps in the mountains, sometimes there would be storms rolling toward us from the valleys. The air grew very heavy then, and crackled on the skin.” She paused, listening some more, it appeared. “It is like this down here,” she continued. “Only much worse. It goes right through me.”
By now, John sincerely wished she would stop talking. He had a hard time keeping things together without level-headed Teyla turning into a fair-day seer. It also didn’t help that he knew how she felt.
To a certain degree, John was susceptible to those vibes, too. He refused to analyse it, but something lingered down here that altered not only the pressure of the air but also reached for his mind in a way that made the spit in his mouth taste sour.
“I never would have thought that the Ancestors could create a place that felt so dark,” Teyla said softly. She looked back over her shoulder, where Zelenka was still fiddling with the door. As if on cue, the scientist kicked a piece of panelling across the floor.
“Zpropadene!”
John did need no translator to figure out what that meant.
Atlantis, 08:03 a.m.
Dec 23rd
The noises had returned and risen in volume. Down the hallway, sounds of grief seemed to gather and trickle along the corridor like loosened gravel. Voices groaned and ebbed away, a child was crying and a few times there were words Carson couldn’t make out. The air seemed to breathe with the weeping, reaching out and falling away in despair time and again. What was worse, the sounds seemed to live in the wall itself, opening a netherworld right behind the flowered wallpaper.
Carson stood outside the cellar, eyes fixed on the door’s worn wood and flaking paint. In his childhood, there had been a narrow stairway behind the threshold leading into a dark room that smelt of earth and potatoes. What awaited him now, he couldn’t guess.
His back still ached from the CPR he’d performed on Rodney and even such a simple movement as lifting his hand to the doorknob was painful. Yet it was more than the pain which slowed him down. Inside his chest, his heart was thrumming at an unsteady, hectic beat. The image of Teyla’s lifeless face flashed before his inner eye and for a split second she opened her eyes again, her gaze white and empty. Carson drew his hand back from the knob and his palm left a milky print on the brass. He tried to be calm, tried to be steadfast, but fear seemed to control every fibre of his body. The visions in his head were stronger than reason — as though his mind had already been in that cellar and now dreaded the abyss it had barely escaped the first time.
Carson slipped a hand into his pocket and his fingers closed around the Ancient globe. It was the source of all his trouble, yet it was also the last remaining proof of a truth more solid than this phantom hall. Driven by the forlorn hope that it would anchor him, Carson clung to the one thing that still belonged to a reality that was slipping away from him more and more.
He told himself that he had no alternative. Whatever worked from inside the globe wouldn’t stop until it had reached the end of its course. He could only choose to meet the apparitions before his refuge failed. For if he faltered . . . if he tried to hide . . . even in the darkness behind his hands he would feel the globe’s shadows sweep past him and fall upon their original prey. Would he hear when they found the boy? Carson was sure of it. No matter how hard he’d try to look away, he wouldn’t be spared a single sound. That way lay insanity. He didn’t think he could bear it. He couldn’t live with his own cowardice. Could he?
Carson closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe evenly, inhale one steady breath, exhale another.
He imagined the boy sitting on the stairs, drowsy head on his knees, and for a moment that image blended with the memory of a grown-up John Sheppard, sleeping on Carson’s couch. It also reminded him of another time and another nightly vigil. About a month ago, Sheppard had been fast asleep on an infirmary bed, his neck covered with black bruises where the bug had latched onto him. He’d dreamt badly that night and Carson had lingered for a while, waiting until the tension left the Major’s face and he breathed evenly.
Carson opened his eyes, fingers around the globe relaxing. He grasped the doorknob once more and this time turned it. There was no resistance. Carson gave the door a gentle push and it swung away from him, opening to a dim space.
As he’d expected, there was neither a stairway nor a cellar behind the door. Instead Carson walked into a square room with scorched walls and no windows. The only source of light was a crack in the sooty plaster and the sickly pale light which fell through there barely illuminated anything.
It showed enough, though.
At first, Carson didn’t know exactly what he saw, the picture was that alienating. But slowly and with merciless precision, his mind sorted out the shapes and combined them to a hideous whole that made Carson’s stomach turn. A few steps ahead of him, two faceless bodies lay on the floor, sprawling in a heap of limbs and torn clothing.
Carson recoiled from the sight and his back bumped against a solid barrier. He reached behind him, fingertips brushing scraps of charcoaled wallpaper, fumbling for a handle that wasn’t there anymore. The door was gone. Trapped in full view of this new monstrosity, Carson couldn’t help but stare.
Steady, a timid voice reminded him, you’ve seen worse in your time. Only he hadn’t. All things considered, he really hadn’t.
One blank face was turned in Carson’s direction, exposing a crude mask of agony. Where the lips should be was a gaping hollow. It looked as though a mouth had opened beneath the tight stretch of skin, vainly fighting for a scream that wouldn’t break free. Carson stared at the deformed bodies, petrified. His gaze travelled along twisted arms, showing him shredded sleeves and charred hands. Shuddering, Carson turned his face away.
I wish I hadn’t seen. I wish I hadn’t.
But it was too late to erase the pictures swamping him with illusions he really didn’t want to fathom. Like how such atrocities could grow in a wee lad whose chief delight seemed to be baseball and pie with cream. Carson remembered the boy’s quick agility, then recalled his troubled face and uneasy glances. It came to him that he would never be able to spare the child these nightmares, because one way or another, they were a future the boy had already lived.
What kind of life is that? Carson thought, deeply horrified. Unbidden, the manifestations of this night replayed in his head and he recoiled from the implications. All this loss, all this grief . . . Clenching his jaw, Carson forced himself to survey the room so he might focus on a strip of ground not covered with corpses. That was how he finally saw the man the child on the stairway would become.
It was not who he had expected.
When he embarked on the expedition, Carson knew nothing about Major Sheppard except he was the one who unlocked the command chair. The necessary proximity of daily life on Atlantis, however, had taught Carson a thing or two about the expedition’s head of military. For example, he got bored easily.
He harboured a love for popcorn that bordered on obsession.
He wasn’t keen on needles but would sooner run around naked than let his anxiety show.
For a man as skinny as he, he could polish off huge amounts of food.
When he was on mild sedatives, he sometimes hummed.
He also volunteered very little about his past and Carson respected that. It was a bit of a relief, actually, to have someone around who didn’t talk about home. Sometimes the memories everyone else was sharing threatened to suffocate Carson with a desperate longing for Earth.
John Sheppard was easy company which Carson had come to appreciate. The chess-games, the times he’d patched the other man up had all secured a sense of comfortable familiarity. He knew there was more to Major Sheppard than met the eye, but Carson believed he perceived enough. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t need to see more. Only in retrospective did he realise how right he’d been. In the end, nothing he’d learned or thought he’d learned about Sheppard prepared him for this. Here was a man he’d truly never met before.
The adult John cowered near the wall, face buried in his hands. Knuckles and wrists were covered with grease or soot and something darker that could be blood. He didn’t move, he didn’t even seem to breathe. In the room’s graceless twilight he’d become a broken, unguarded shape, unable to stir or even show his face.
Carson had wondered what might happen to a child exposed to such experiences — now he knew. Knew more than was, perhaps, wise to know about another person. All of a sudden, the thought of the horrors he’d seen didn’t scare Carson anymore. It only made him sad.
He moved a step forward, then hesitated. He had the instinctive feeling that unlike the boy, this John wasn’t to be touched. Not that touching would be a comfort in the first place. If roused, Sheppard would only have to face the gruesome scene before him. Carson didn’t blame the Major for looking away. If fears of this kind lived inside him, Carson doubted he would be able to build walls as strong as these.
Only they weren’t strong, not really. From what he’d seen so far, Carson decided they offered a deceptive safety at most, entrapping part of John Sheppard with all his nightmares. It also seemed more than likely that the enclosure did not only hoard anxieties, it was also a steady reminder of a larger threat outside. Prisons did not only lock things in, they also kept things out. Looking up, Carson sought out the fissure in the opposite wall. Even as he looked, more concrete came loose and bits of mortar crumbled to the ground. Disquiet seemed to spread from the opening. A rumble vibrated through the room until Carson felt a resounding hum in his body. It felt like a call, narrowing his attention to the breach that looked more and more like a pathway.
So this finally was the place he was supposed to find. It reminded him of something, something he had read or seen a long time ago.
(The eyes are not here . . .)
Air swirled around him in a cooling twist, grazing his cheeks and sweat-slickened temples. Carson paid no heed, transfixed by the hole in the barrier. Within the ragged frame of the fissure, he could see a strip of colour, faint purple and ice green.
(There are no eyes here . . .)
Carson unclenched his hands. Pain, short and fierce lanced through his palms but he paid no heed. Slowly, he walked across the room, careful not to touch any of the bodies, be they dead or /paralysed. He stopped at the fissure which was now broad enough to allow a grown man passage. Looking out, Carson placed a hand on the ragged edge to his left. More grout withered beneath his touch. Absently, he rubbed the matter to grains between his thumb and forefinger.
Before him lay a landscape confined by no walls. It was as much empty as it was sublime. Behind was the black, charred cavern of a room. Ahead were endless plains of gravel, rocky dunes and barren trees under a bruise-coloured sky. The view was fascinating even as it filled Carson with a slowly creeping dread. If he stepped out there, no benchmarks would guide him back to his own self or the rueful shelter of his reality. Out there was the centre of the Ancient globe and it was as vast as an entire universe.
( In this valley of dying stars . . . )
( In this hollow valley . . . )
Every part of Carson’s body felt numb and distant. Fatigue had caught up on him and made him slightly dizzy. Dimly Carson reflected that in this state he would simply stop thinking if he saw any more faceless people. Not that he expected to encounter them again. Something told him that out in the open, he wouldn’t be haunted by phantom shapes or dying friends. A desert of stones would reach from horizon to horizon and there would be nothing else. The plains he saw were desolate, devoid of life or memories. Caught in the open he might drown in the wind’s massive silence, dissolve from the inside, until nothing remained of him but the husk of a man. Loneliness could do that to you.
Carson understood that this was the last challenge. He also knew that he’d run out of strength and defences. What hope he had of escaping to his reality slipped through his fingers. He couldn’t even imagine waking up anymore. At that point, he was too exhausted to try. His hand fell away from the jagged wall and he stepped outside.
Gravel clicked beneath his shoes and the wind was almost welcoming.
*a/n: Lines taken from the fifth segment of T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men.