Only The Numb Remain (First Teaser)
(Cover Design: Cody Sexton & Neda Aria)
Below is the fifth draft of Part One, Scene One. Massive thanks to Paige Johnson and Neda Aria for their support and suggestions. The final version might be different, but here’s what I have so far. I hope it’s in pretty good shape. Comments welcome ☺️
For this novella, think: Thomas Ligotti’s Conspiracy Against the Human Race + Cormac McCarthy’s The Road + some degenerate Buddhist and Taoist musings.
Hopefully this peaks your interest ☺️
Part One (Scene One)
Calix knelt beside a gulf of rotting corpses, maggots slithering across an expanse of flesh, flies transfixed on melting eyes. Vultures circled in a hypnotizing cacophony, then descending to rip flesh from bone, and eyes from sockets.
Calix gazed into the abyss like a schizoid god. “I hope the Buddhists are wrong. Fires raged in the distance. “Hindus too. I don’t wanna come back.”
A gunshot echoed from the hills, a woman’s howl shattered the air, then another shot, and another. And the wind whispered no more.
Deliah slapped him on the back. “C’mon pal, let’s keep moving.”
“Why?”
On the forgotten road ahead, bones littered the asphalt, and a lonesome pickup truck wrapped itself around a tree. The remnants of its driver lay prostrate on the hood, bones picked clean.
Deliah stared off in the distance, her katana caked with blood of men slain days before, still dripping from the men slain moments earlier.
“Why?” she asked. “You ask why?”
Calix wiped ash and blood from his face. “Nietzsche too.” He lit a Backwood cigar, and let it dangle from his lip. “If this is hell, imagine the horror, the unadulterated ontological terror, the infinite nightmare, of reliving it for all eternity.” With the wind silent, cigar smoke clung to his face. “A mobius strip of terrors. A depression so deep suicide silences it for but—”
“Yo, get yer fuckin’ ass up and move!”
“The eggheads,” Calix inhaled fire. “They sure do have rosey-colored glasses, don’t they? The cruel optimists back at the research base, sending you on this fool’s—”
Deliah snapped her fingers. “The gunshots. Move.”
“Aristotle was wrong too.”
Deliah scanned her surroundings. “Of course. Everyone’s wrong. Is self-preservation not an instinct you possess?”
His eye twitched. “Time, death, it’s all…an illusion, you see.”
“Well, I value self-preservation.”
Calix removed a bottle of vodka from his backpack and took a swig. “Ever wonder if the cruelty, the malevolence, the wanton indifference of the cosmos is mirrored in humanity?”
Deliah scanned the hills. “No, and I wager you’ve had too much time to think.” She tapped his head. “You’re lost up there, old man.”
Calix took a puff. “Oh really?”
“Really. Now, my concern is not dying, shouldn’t that be yours too?”
Calix twirled the Blackwood. “Only the numb remain.”
“Aren’t you supposed to protect me? Isn’t that your reason—”
“—I sat at the base and suffered the ramblings of people wondering why their children, why their family, why this could have happened to them.” He took another swig and a long drag from the cigar. “As if existence tracks familial relations. As if the universe dishes out punishment relative to moral virtue.” He paused. “Even their Frankensteinian notion of Jesus said it rains on the good and wicked alike, but they all searched for deeper meaning. Some kind of coherent narrative to explain—”
Deliah smacked him upside the head. “—The last time you rambled on like a skitzophrenic we almost died.” She stared at the distant fire. “Can we move now? Please?”
“And you suffer these people long enough.” Calix took another swig. “Me, me, me. Why, oh why God, they cry, they beg, how could this, did this, happen to me?” He took a final drag and snubbed the cigar out in a corpse’s eye socket. “Such hubris, such narcissism, such vain biological exceptionalism.”
Deliah didn’t respond.
“I get the distinct impression you’re not listening,
“Because you’re just saying words.”
“You’re a puzzle.” Calix cocked his head. “Why did you venture out?”
She surveyed again for threats. “Lone wolf up ahead, let’s move.”
“His mouth is streaked red. Forget about it. He’s had his fill. You’re smart. I studied you at the research base. One of them goddamn save-the-world types. Moral crusader, some saint with a broken cause, no?” He took a long drink from his bottle and let out a laugh. “You people amaze me. If you’d read Confucius, you’d know the goodie goodies are thieves of virtue. If you really studied the natural world, you’d surrender—”
“—You got me twisted, homeboy. You don’t fuckin’ know me. You don’t know the first fuckin’ thing about me. You’ve heard things. You’ve seen things. But you never took the time to get to know me, so here’s the cold hard truth: your musings, the world you’ve constructed in your mind leaves you wanting.” She cocked her head. “If only you’d taken the time to talk to me, to listen, you’d know me. I think you’d like to know me, but you never did.” She paused. “You’d know why, against my better judgment, I agreed to your escort.” She hung her head. “But I doubt you’ve listened to anybody but yourself.”
A man approached with a crooked smile, jagged scars masked his face, a bald head tattooed with faded tribal tattoos. He white knuckled a rusted dagger. His hands stained with blood.
“The stench of your life follows you.” Calix slipped a 6-shooter from his belt. “This won’t end well for you.”
“Look pal,” Deliah said, “it’s in everyone’s best interest if—”
He grinned. “—Ya look mighty fine this—”
As if time froze, Calix cocked the gun under the man’s chin. “You’ve never met me, but I’ve met you a thousand times in a thousand different guises. The inevitable bullet shouldn’t scare you, friend. Oh no, not that, rather your very existence should shatter your psyche. All your life has lead you to this moment. With me.” Calix’s eyes bore into the man’s. “The ground of being conspired to bring you to such an unfortunate position. And the true horror is you never had a choice.”
“Hey, hey, hey, listen man, listen, ok? I’m just trying to survive out—”
Calix cocked the hammer back. “Do you see? Has your ego shattered yet? Death’s spector does that. In this moment, right now, you must see we’re all irrelevant in this cosmic tragedy, puppets with strings cut. Do you see? The universe didn’t abandon us. No, it never cared to begin with.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Hear me out, ‘kay?”
“Relax,” Calix said. “You can’t talk your way out of this. Take a deep breath, and accept the inevitable.”
Tears welled in his eyes. “Why do I feel free?”
“Because you died before you died.”
“Calix—” Deliah started.
Blood baptized Calix’s face and the man fell into to the rotting sea.
“Was that necessary?”
“His death?”
Deliah rolled her eyes, “The speech.”
“They all beg for mercy,” Calix said. “Mortality’s prospect clarifies their wretchedness, the hollowness of the void they think’s a soul, and they all find Jesus in the end, don’t they? Maybe they don’t vocalize it, but they do. They clutch their Bibles and cry out, some for their mothers, for anything to save them from what they know they know is coming.” Calix cocked a grin. “My gift to this man was that of letting go. His whole life he clutched to spoiling flesh. He saw he didn’t have to.”
Deliah sighed. “Can we go now? Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Then you crack their Bibles, and inscribed in blood, is a catalog of women they’ve raped, murdered and eaten. Or worse. And trust me, the shit I’ve seen would divorce your psyche from body.” He loaded another round into the chamber. “But God don’t live here, doubt he ever did, and if he did, his presence was mere existential probation.”
Deliah checked the man’s backpack and produced a charred hand. She bent over and spilled vomit on the pavement.
Calix took another swig. “Like I said, I've seen him a thousand times in a thousand different guises. You live long enough and you realize there’s no new experiences, no new people, only recycled tropes and archetypes.” He paused. “I’ve seen worse.”
“Out here? No doubt.”
“Hollywood. Before the fall. Worked there a few months.”
Deliah swung her sword down the road. “Jesus Christ, can we finally go? This degenerate preacher shtick got old a fuckin’ week ago.”
Calix cocked his head. “Off to the next red light, I suppose.”
Shameless self promotion:
