Alphabet Soup for the Tormented Soul Read online

  The mammoth, snaking cirri wrapped around my wrist, squeezing my flesh, but I eventually sawed through the rigid tendrils them to free Janice, who was bleeding from her head and clearly in shock. The long, curling legs retreated into the dead sailor’s face, which snapped closed as his skull was pulled shut by the mammoth parasite inside. I dragged Janice away from that host of a man and tried to wrap my head around the nightmare. I knew of deep-sea gigantism, but this was beyond what I’d thought possible. This seemed to be a symbiotic relationship that kept the barnacle and the sailor alive long after he should have died. I stared at his still body briefly before running back to it, dragging it by the feet outside of the store.

  Suddenly I felt the knobbed barnacles on his ankles reaching forth cirri onto my hands as I pulled him, pinching me and wrapping around my fingers. I got him about 20 feet from the store when I had to let go. The freezing rain beat me mercilessly, and I ran indoors as quickly as possible, nearly losing my bearings and my snapback cap due to the severity of the storm and the encompassing darkness of the night. Inside, I found still shaking. I wrapped the tarp around her and tried to comfort her, but her gaze was distant. I wiped blood from her lacerated forehead and applied pressure to the gashes on her neck and the back of her head, thinking of how sometimes deep-sea creatures get stranded in shallow waters due to rising temperatures and water pollution. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) polluting the Mariana and other oceanic trenches have been theorized to lead to the surfacing of some rarely seen species, but this was something entirely unknown. I tried to process what I'd seen while cleaning the red gouges of Janice’s wounds when I heard the horrific scream of a woman outside.

  I ran to the door, cracking it slightly to see the neighbor, Ms. Berthold, emerge from her house, swatting at her drenched and moving sweater. The corpse of the sailor was gone, the beating rain having washed away any trace of which direction he went. I shouted to the woman, but she collapsed, and I realized I might join her fate if I intervened. I watched as she was covered in small moving things. I was retreating back to the door of the shop when I saw the head, dragging itself from those long, jointed legs spilling from the split face of the sailor’s corpse. A horrifically long tentacle extended from the split in the man’s skull, snaking upward like a mammoth worm. I remembered reading Darwin in class last semester, and I finally vomited on the rain-slicked asphalt. Barnacles have the largest “member” of the animal kingdom, a solid “Hell no” filled the air before I realized I’d even said it. Another round of screaming behind me alerted me again to the woman, who was sprinting towards me from two houses down with a horrific wail, crawling with hundreds of living things.

  I watched the woman in horror as she ran towards me, her pink-streaked skin covered with holes , holes from which climbed Sacculina larva the size of lima beans. My eyes widened in the nightmarish realization of what was going to happen to her. Sacculina are a parasitic barnacle that castrates crabs and uses them as a host for their own eggs. To put it bluntly, they destroy their host's genitals and become a giant egg sac there, a giant saltwater nope. I screamed at this point, running sideways to avoid the approaching nightmares in front of and behind me, darting off inland and praying Janice would know to lock the doors. To try and reach her now was not only impossible, it would lead to a fate far worse than death.

  I ran blindly in the consuming darkness further inshore, as nearly horizontal darts of icy rain beat into my Gore-Tex jacket and into my face. My mind was spinning, there was no way to get to my car without being overtaken so I ran away from the lighthouse, deep inland to try and get to my only friend who lived near the store, my bud Ron. Thunder flashed the sky white, illuminating horrible things each time I looked back. I saw what appeared to be giant isopods the size of Labradors crawling from the ocean and hundreds of tiny larvae covering the streets and the sides of houses. There were multiple corpses being dragged by their faces from the segmented legs spilling from within, some of the bodies long rotted and bloated from saltwater, others missing extremities or their lower halves entirely. I ran nearly blind from the storm, but somehow was able to find it, the door marked by a tarnished, brass “26“ belonging to Ron. I pounded on the door with a fist and prayed for a miracle. I looked back to see what appeared to be the friendly Mr. Beckhart charging towards me, but now his face skinless, pulpy and split, spilling chunks of flesh and outwardly clawing cirri. In the last second, the door opened and I slid inside, slamming and locking it behind my drenched, shivering body.

  Ron seemed confused, but I shook him to convey the urgency of the situation and asked him for duct tape to cover the mail slot and all possible gaps in the doors and windows. He seemed vacant and detached, as if he’d just woken from a nap, but I explained everything to him as I raced to secure his small house. His face was clammy and pale, an odd milky white as he slowly spoke, “I moved here because I love the saltwater, the sea, the fish...”, in a monotone voice that didn’t sit right, his eyes turning to the floor. I then saw the fishing cooler in the living room, lid ajar with a wet trail spilling outward and leading over to a red puddle in the middle of the floor. Ron’s sad, tearful eyes drooped in harsh juxtaposition to the smile spreading across his face, dripping thick strands of saliva from parting, quivering lips. I saw the little bumps of grey clustered on his temples and in his thinning hair that framed his tormented eyes, and I ran. I sprinted to Ron’s bathroom with him nearly on my heels. I quickly locked the pounding door, shoving towels into the gap and duct taping them as quickly as my shaking hands would permit.

  Horrific sounds now click, scratch and clatter, in addition to an occasional scream from outside the barricaded window, along with the hammering rain and cracking thunder of the storm. Ron stopped banging on the door, now merely scraping with thin, crustacean limbs on the wood between us, his mind likely gone. I can’t get the image of his twisted, smiling face out of my mind, and I feel that madness is perhaps setting in as I chuckle to myself in his small bathroom. People often fear invasions from the stars, rarely concerned about our own planet, which is over 70% ocean. All I know is, if I get out of here alive, I’m changing fields to focus on becoming a chef far inland in the Midwest, at a restaurant that doesn’t serve

  any form of seafood.

  C is for Clairvoyance

  Ryan Cook

  I’d like all of you out there reading this to try and visualize the following few sentences in your head: Imagine a woman walking along a busy street at a location you don’t recognize. It’s daylight. Probably late-afternoon. You see a street sign that reads “26th Avenue”. It's hot as hell. She is walking by herself, although there are people all around. This woman isn’t you. You are not in control of what’s happening. You are just a spectator, seeing what she sees. Smelling what she smells.

  You see as this person approaches an intersection. You see the cars flying by in front of this woman as she waits for the lights to change. You can actually feel the hands press on her back for an instant before the rough push. You see as the woman falls into the street. She looks left. And you see the bus coming straight towards her. It feels as though it's straight towards you. Its horn blaring. Tires screeching. You even feel the pain she endured, for just an instant.

  And then it’s over.

  That’s how my 'power' works.

  When I have a

  of somebody’s future, I seem to live out their experience as though I was actually there. As though it was happening to me. But it’s just in my mind, like you trying to visualize that woman being hit by a bus. Sometimes I can suppress these visions if I concentrate hard enough. But other times the vision is so clear in my head that there’s no escaping it. Sometimes I’m curious and I want to see what’s happening. Other times I’d do anything to end it.

  Before I get into what’s currently happening to me, I think I need to share more information about my ability.

  I have to be in the presence of somebody to have a vision of them. In fact, they have to
be close by. I don’t think I’ve ever had a vision of somebody that was more than 30 or so feet away. I might be in a grocery store talking to the clerk when all of a sudden, a vision of that clerk’s future appears in my head. It might be a trivial vision. It could be as simple as the woman taking her dog for a walk later that evening. Or maybe making dinner a month from now. But other times it can be something important. Maybe I’ll see that woman crying while trying to speak at her father’s funeral. Or that she’ll fall while skiing in a few weeks and break her leg.

  My visions span from being just a moment in the future to as far off as a month. Only in a few rare examples were they any longer than that.

  Most of my visions are of the future, but sometimes they are of the past. Sometimes it’s WAY in the past. Sometimes I’ll be near an old man and see a vision from his childhood.

  As far as I can tell with my friends and family, my visions always come true. My visions of their past always occurred. Are they always true with strangers? I can’t be certain. But I believe so.

  Sometimes I’ll go days without a vision while other times I’ll have several in the span of an hour. There never seems to be any rhyme or reason to it. To any of it.

  I was only a little boy when I became aware that these visions were true experiences of the past or future. I knew from my ability that my father was having an affair while I was growing up. I knew that my mother would often sit in the house crying when she was alone.

  And I knew a lot about my mother’s past. I had visions of her all the time. I remember the day I told her about them. Things I couldn’t possibly have known otherwise. I thought she’d be intrigued by what I told her, but she was appalled. “You listen to me,” she told me. She sounded furious. “This is the last time we will ever talk about these gifts of yours. The last time you will ever talk about them. No matter what you see. No matter what happens, you aren’t ever to talk about it. I can’t explain why. You’ll just have to trust me.” Her demeanor lightened. “Do you trust me?”

  I told her I did. And, up until very recently, I had never shared even a hint of my powers to anybody. I had never meddled.

  Now I’m going to start explaining what’s been happening to me. And I think I need to start with what occurred last week.

  I meddled.

  It seemed harmless. It seemed so insignificant. I saw in a vision that a close friend of mine would lose a fortune in an investment and I talked him out of it. That’s it. I used my powers to prevent a friend from going bankrupt.

  I was specifically thinking of what my mother told me when I did it. But I didn’t think anything would come of it. It was too little. Too harmless. Besides, how could anybody possibly know?

  But a few days later I received a strange letter in the mail. The first thing odd about it was the name of the company which sent the letter. “The Moirai Initiative”. The name seemed vaguely familiar from my childhood. But what was written was even stranger. There was just one small sentence written at the top of the letter:

  “You should have listened to your mother.”

  I mean… I had no idea what to think. How could this company possibly know that I altered the future for my friend? How could they have known what my mother said to me?

  I pushed the entire situation from my mind and went on with my day. I remember walking downtown and seeing a man who was clearly a drug addict sitting on a park bench. He looked up at me. And then I had one of my visions. I saw him as a teenager, years ago, talking to his mother. She was telling him about the dangers of taking drugs. He acted uninterested in the conversation. The vision ended and I continued walking.

  I only had one other vision that day. A woman was beside me on the bus. In my vision, she was talking with her mother. The mother was warning her daughter that she “just has a bad feeling about him”, and she shouldn’t start dating him. This was advice the daughter clearly didn’t listen to, given the black eye she was trying to hide with makeup as she stood beside me on the bus.

  It wasn’t lost on me that the letter I received had said “You should have listened to your mother”, and that both of my visions that day had been of people precisely doing the opposite. But I was still trying to convince myself that it was all a coincidence.

  The following day, I was no longer able to convince myself.

  I received another letter from the Moirai Initiative. This time there was just one word written. “Revenge.”

  I had a few visions that day. As usual, they seemed to happen at random: A man beside me at the 7/11. Or on the subway. Or a waiter in a restaurant.

  One vision was of a woman having sex with her husband’s best friend as a response to finding out he was having an affair. Another was a well-kept man who was clearly homeless in the past. He was lacing heroin with some sort of poison as a ‘gift’ for his two acquaintances.

  Both of these visions were examples of revenge. It was no longer coincidence. The Moirai Initiative, whatever it is, was controlling my power.

  And things were about to get a lot worse.

  The next morning’s letter said simply “Supernatural”.

  I had no idea what I was in for that day. My visions had never shown me such things before. Such horrifying things. I had glimpses that day of a world I had never known before.

  I had dozens of visions that day. When they started, I tried desperately to get home and lock myself in to avoid them. But it took me hours to get home and I was bombarded by visions:

  A man who had lost control of his left hand and it was trying to kill him. He was screaming in terror as he tried to hold it back with his other hand.

  I walked by a little girl and had a vision of her lying alone in the dark at night, terrified. She was hearing monstrous sounds from inside her wall, but her parents wouldn’t listen to her. But something was definitely there, and it was coming for her.

  I saw a young man who, in his near future, would be infected with disgusting crustacea or something that had attached to his skin.

  A man who seemed to hear the last words of the recently deceased echoing in his head.

  A woman who would become possessed by some spirit, and would soon start ripping her own skin from her body

  A man staring into a mirror in disgust. But it wasn’t himself reflecting back, but some horrific entity.

  And worse. Much, much, much worse. But I don’t want to think about it any longer. I no longer want to write about such things.

  The implication of what the Moirai Initiative was showing me was not subtle. This company has some sort of control over supernatural powers. They clearly control mine. I was supposed to have followed my mother’s advice and never meddle. But I did.

  And now they want revenge.

  Mother.

  Supernatural.

  Revenge.

  But the next day I didn’t receive a new letter. Over a week passed without word from the Moirai Initiative and my powers went back to normal. Just the usual random, mundane visions from people I encountered in my day.

  Until this morning.

  I think it will be the last letter I’ll be receiving from them. It said just one word again. “Murder”.

  And I only had one vision that day. Just one.

  When I was visiting my mother. It was of her future.

  I don’t need to share with you all what the vision was, because you already know it. Her walking down a busy street. The push from behind. The bus.

  It’s probably even an employee of the Moirai Initiative that pushes her. To get their revenge.

  I know that she’s going downtown tomorrow. That’s when it will occur.

  And the question is… will I let it happen?

  I can save my mother but then I will further face their wrath. All of us will. A company that seems to control powers that I can’t even begin to understand.

  But I’ve decided I have to stop it. I have to. What kind of son can just sit back and allow their mother to be
murdered?

  No, that can't happen. I’m going to stop her. To ask her what the hell this company is all about. To ask about my powers. To save her. To try and save the both of us.

  You hear that, “Moirai Initiative”?

  I’m going to stop you. So bring on whatever you have.

  Bring your best.

  D is for Daniel

  DoverHawk

  When he was 16, my brother was diagnosed with a rare disorder called Alien Hand Syndrome. It began after he experienced a massive stroke that nearly killed him. After rehab and therapy, he was able to overcome nearly all the negative effects caused by the stroke. He was soon able to walk and move normally again and speak with almost no noticeable speech impediment. Unfortunately, the single most detrimental side-effect of the stroke was not cured – his alien left hand.

  With Alien Hand Syndrome, the affected individual has little or no control of their hand. His hand would act of its own accord, grabbing things, hitting things, and knocking things over without any regard to what Michael wanted it to do. He would often have to restrain his left hand with his right in order to get it to stop acting out in public places.

  Over the next several years, his condition only became worse. He went to therapy to try to get his hand under control, but no matter what he or any doctor tried to do, his left hand would act out. It became violent and almost spiteful. Instead of knocking things over, it started throwing things. It would hit people if they got too close, and even hit Michael from time to time if he tried to stop it from doing what it wanted.