The Rooster [TFTG]

The Rooster

I could see him there, shuddering and trembling, massive and blacker than squid-ink-black, looking for all the world as though Aubrey Beardsley and E.A. Poe had actually screwed and this thing before me was the result; I suppose it was just what I should have been expecting, considering my proclivities. I will never cease to be amazed at how these things do that. The ancient and earnest thing tried desperately to assume more and more obscene shapes as I approached. My feet kicked up voluminous, almost comical drifts of vermin, swarms of misshapen flying things buffeted me, it smelled of road-kill and asphalt in summer; I let it happen so I could stay focused on the demon’s location in ‘space’. I knew I was in a deserted-brand-new townhouse, in a ghost city at the edge of the Gobi desert in China, but the better part of me was presently inhabiting the same space as my wanna-be-ghastly target and it paid to pay attention.

“Orias!”, on good days I loved this part of the job, and so far today was going like clockwork.

He stopped showing off all at once and sort of froze, cocking one eye at me in profile, “Maybe”.

He looked ridiculous there, sort of reminding me of the black spy from Mad magazine, only massively huge and toothsome, garbed in a black Edwardian evening frock, the great black felt and sable hat slowly sliding off of his head, peacock feather lolling to the ground, “I could be.”

He had a point, mistakes had been made before, but if the math-heads back at the NOOR had gotten their number crunching correct then this had to be the place, “Well, this is the Hour of Orias, isn’t it?”, “And I don’t see anyone else hanging around squatting on a grimoire”, I was craning my neck sarcastically trying to look behind him and all around him for hidden Oriases. Orias allowed the cocked eye to slide a glance down at the thick tome that he trod under one foot in almost heraldic fashion, an awful sight; to anyone but me, “Nope, just you.”

He just stood there for a moment, sort of a still–life of himself, some of the vermin had stopped wafting and they were now gathered in batches looking on to see what would happen, ”Listen, you know who I am, so you can just drop the whole song and dance. I know who you are and I know what you’ve got. Now give it me please so we can both be on our way.” I immediately cursed myself for being polite, “training!”, I thought, clenching my teeth, I hated training.

His grin, as wretched as a cradle-scythe, dropped from his face and the whole mass of Orias collapsed, looking like a child’s inflatable birthday-fun-jump that had been gashed with a screwdriver. The whole silly mess resolved itself to a bald old man that plunked down in what finally became an old green corduroy recliner. There was a book shelf and a reading lamp. Orias looked just like Uncle Fester in a black snuggie. A great horrid black cat like something from a Goya painting leapt from his lap revealing the Grimoire of The Moon clutched in his pudgy fingers, as expected. I heard a tiny, comically high-pitched voice near my left foot screech, “OK boys take five! Smoke ‘em if ya got em”, and wished I had a cigarette.

Orias, looking like a frustrated child now, glared, trying to sear me with his disappointment and spite as I thought to myself, “My god, how easy is this anyway?”.

Orias looked off to one side as though addressing someone behind him, “And so you do, and so I am and yes, this is the appointed Hour of Orias, so aren’t you special; the last bit coming out as though Orias were trying to expel something nasty from his mouth. Which was ironic, I thought, considering how nasty he was; he was really broken up.

He turned back toward me in a snap, “Let’s look at you then, The Rooster, all wrapped up in your snazzy new T-suit”, spin around then, so I can see you.

“There won’t be any spinning….”

“But oh yes, come! Look at you!”, he was spitting on my T-suit now, “Humans, Ha! We knew from the start you were worthless. Look at youuu!”, shooting his gaze all over me now mockingly, “You come before me here, now, wrapped in a lie. Your presence here only made possible by deceit and murder, No! Worse! You all let that man suffer in madness before you murdered him, poor Nikola”

Part of my brain wanted to stop there and start to try and figure out how this thing, demon, whatever it was, could be spitting on the goggles of my T-suit; and that would be the left hemisphere of my brain. But training, and the fact that my brain is special, which is why I got this job, helped me to wrench my attention back to Orias.

It’s not the fangs and claws that’ll kill you in the interlunary zone, it’s little, solipsistic mind slips like that. But thanks to a complete accident of genetic heritage (let’s just say for the moment that I’m a love child) and funky wiring in my corpus callosum, which the Army docs say causes me to fall within the ‘autism disorder spectrum’, demons like Orias here are no problem.

Orias had stopped spitting and was waiting on my response, “You could just save it, you know, Orias? Just give me the grimoire”. I don’t know where the patience came from in these moments, post-mission and in de-briefing, these moments were always the ones that haunted me, not the danger or visions. It was as though a hand would settle on my head and I would become more serene and patient, despite the fact that there was still some small human part of myself that was repulsed by this sympathy for the devil, “It won’t go well for you if I have to take it out of your mitts, hand it to me like you’re supposed to, and we can just both get back to work”.

“And what work do you suppose that would be?”, Orias looked up at me now with a quizzical and challenging look, gentle but confident. Just as I find some small pleasures in my work, these guys have theirs little joys as well. They always seemed amused to hear about what human beings thought was ‘going on’, and ancient Orias was no different. I knew better than to engage in any lengthy dialogue, but I would have my fun as well, “You, ‘strangle’ men that prey on virgins, don’t you Orias?”

"Very well, yes…"

"Yeah. Well, I don’t know how far all that goes, but I know that they are having a surplus problem with female children in China, Orias. And the vans with the clowns are beginning to appear again in American cities. While you’ve been tied up plumbing the depths of the Moon realm with that Grimoire, given to you by the Chinese, I might add, not gained by any power of your own, your work has gone undone."

Orias’ face went blank and slowly the blankness was replaced with a pleading look, “But this was so much nicer, to have something interesting to read after all these other books, I’ve worn the flavor out of all of them; why, Rooster?

I was beginning to realize that he was not making some in-joke with the Rooster thing, I began to wonder if he really thought that was my name and as I clamped down on that speculation he spoke again as though reading my mind,

“You may not know, Rooster-boy, but we all do”. “The Rooster"! "Ta Da!”, he says with a flourish of his hands, “Going anywhere he likes, saying whatever he likes to whomever he pleases, taking other people’s books”. “Strike him down and another one is spawned”. "We used to be able to escape you and you would go a whole lifetime not knowing who you are. But now you’ve got the damned suits!"

I began move closer to him, thinking, “Geez, these guys sure are hung up on hell and bats and that sort of thing considering they are a bunch of demons”, just as I realized that, “Oh, that’s a reflection of my internal…”

I managed to wrench my attention back to Orias but it was too late, Orias was no longer seated, Orias was everywhere. I was engulfed now in a swirling maelstrom of Orias, he was wailing in my ears louder that Ozzfest, “And then what of you Frank Arkanian?! And what do you suppose your life will end up as with my connections?!

I knew what was coming. And I relaxed, felt that hand on my head again as the visions began. I saw myself years later, shuffling at night in a poor neighborhood, the vision started at my feet, unkempt long toenails, worn out shower flip-flops. I didn’t look so good. I followed myself in the vision to the liquor store and watched from above my balding head as my 50-something year –old self assembled a meal from the offerings on the store gondolas. I was invited in my mind to become overwhelmed with sadness for losses that I could not identify but that the demon would convince me were true. I had been through this before, it’s the part of the job where the money gets earned, in my opinion, and I’m the only one so I guess it is the only opinion that matters. But I have to say that I don’t mind, it’s times like these that one learns who one really is and what one really believes. And my nuts were starting to itch in that damned suit.

"I know who my master is, Orias, just the same as you, save the histrionics, you’re just mad, let it pass. It’s already bad enough…."

Orias was Uncle Fester again, standing before me looking for sure like he was about to cry, and, in fact, as a last ditch effort he did allow one or two giant crocodile tears to slide down his cheek, “But look at it”, he cooed, “Full Unicorn-leather bindings, so lovingly produced, one of a kind you know?” He was caressing the thing so lovingly, I refrained for a moment from taking it. “Please? the distraction is so delicious…”

I reached out for The Grimoire of The Moon, now we were both holding it, Orias, not looking at me or the Unicorn-hide bound tome, finally released it, "Ah, back to work then, stupid work for a demon, seems to me.” “ I could come with you, you know, teach you stuff, I do that.” He was looking at me. “ More stuff than they’ll ever teach you”

“Stand back, you don’t want to get scorched in the field”, I keyed the simple mechanism that would render me in energy and shoot my electro-magnetic signature back to the specialized aircraft that the support team and I jokingly referred to as the “Astral Plane”, I thought it was funny, anyhow.

Orias stepped back, then further back, kicking at a gathering of cigarette smoking vermin sending them scattering in a blue puff, probably Dunhill, “You know you look like a big stupid shiny lizard in that get-up, right?”

“Yeah”, you better take off that filthy snuggie before you get back to Hell, I hear they are really flammable”. I departed from interlunary China.

Interesting story, never actually bothered to read the short story threads, and never knew that there were so many people writing stuff in them. But ya interesting story bro, at first it was kind of meh, to many insinuation not enough # blowing up and fighting, and at first the hints on things and people of interest was a little way to vague, and kind of made you go "whatever" but in all I think most people know who uncle fester is.

And as I read it more it did make me interested in the little short story and who its characters are and what world there inhabiting is, and who the rooster is, and this demon character and the what the whole things is about. At first I thought you were talking about the rooster, but then it just seemed the way your character was dressed and cool and collected would of made him stood out like a rooster in a pen. All in all it became a whole lot more interesting as I kept reading, and it made me want to find out more about the story and characters.

And it seems there is a whole Grimoire theme thing going on as well, I only read yours and E23's which is really good short story also, but dam here I thought all the writers were on the regular forums and mostly stuck to the political forums writing there fictions. Cool stuff anyways.

reply to post by galadofwarthethird


Galad,

Thank you for taking the time to read, I am so happy that you found something you liked. I would like to add some more that will have some combat between the Rooster and demons, so there is some violence coming right up, I will try to work in an explosion just for you.

I wanted to mention that I am trying to include crazy ATS-type topics in to the story line that can be Googled for more information, or may even trigger memories for folks that read the same kind of creepy stuff that I do. For instance: you can Google, "Orias, Solomon, Strangle", for interesting results, or *"Clowns, White Vans", for even more fun if you are so inclined.

Thanks again for the positive comments.



X.

*You might also try, "The Clown at Midnight"

Twisted. Interesting if you continue it.

SnF.

Kinda reminded me of some Douglas Adams parody, and it was very well written. Details you shy not from.

Well done -- you give just enough detail that those of us unfamiliar with the genre can be drawn in and entertained, and I would guess not so much detail that it is redundant for those who are well versed in it.

Interesting concept too, the 'suits'. good stuff!