Psyconics

This story contains gore, harsh language, and implied self-harm so you have been warned! Please enjoy.

As I walked down another aisle of the store, the blaring white light above me sputtered out. I looked up at it and turned my head like a confused puppy. Was it not an odd occurrence? One you’d hear about in a wild psychological thriller about incomprehensible horrors and deteriorating psyche. Regardless, I was polite and went to the front desk to notify a worker.

I dinged the bell and leaned my weight on the counter. I peered out the window to see the snow blaring down. It was hard to see further than a mile or so. Outside the door, my partner took a long drag of his cigarette and talked to some woman in a hood. I didn’t question it for now. A lean young man came out from the backrooms of the store and looked at me with a smile. I was flattered at first sight.

“What can I help you with, sir?”

“I just figured I’d tell you that you’ve got a burnt-out bulb in the candy aisle.” 

“Oh, thanks a million! The snow’s only gonna get worse and I gotta get the ladder from the shed.” 

We both chuckled a little. His hair was poofy and beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone make a c-store uniform look so-

The door burst open and I met my partner's cold dead gaze. Finch Jacobson. Built like an Agarthan giant. His parka made him look like a rugged Alaskan explorer. Although, without any of the charm, of course. His sunken green eyes seemed almost pale, but the harder you looked, the more vibrant they were. Self-inflicted scars lined his cheeks. He never did tell me why he did it. He clomped over to me and grabbed me by the shoulder. I wasn’t a short guy by any means but Jacobs was a beast. He started to pull me out of the store.

“We’re going.” 

“You fucker I was busy here!”

“We’re going.”

Before the door shut, I yelled at the cute guy.

“Don’t worry we’ll stop here on the way back!”

He laughed a bit and gave me a coy smirk as the door closed behind me. 

————————————————————

The car ride had been uncomfortable at best. He didn’t explain what was going on and just stared out at the road. He passed the hotel we planned to stay at and kept going. This deal was way out of the way of where we normally met clients and it seemed like the plans had changed. I wanted some sleep but I didn’t mind getting my money today, I thought. I wondered where we’d be going since clearly the diner would be closed.

“Where’s the client today, ‘Cob?”

Silence. Not even a lowly grumble. Cold. Dead. Air. I hated when he acted like this.

“Oh what, are you upset that I was talking to some guy while we’re ‘at work’? Don’t you try and give me that shit again, I saw you talking to that chick outside.”

“What did you hear?”

“What? Nothing man, shit, what the fuck were you talking about?” 

Jacobs was a manic dark-web searcher. A real doctor of truths. The cover-ups he’s shown me always were strikingly believable, but there are some weird things that I don’t know I can trust. There are some practices that he indulges in that don’t make a lot of sense to me. Just a few weeks ago he said he had a dealer of “real” cigarettes that provide all the health benefits without the carcinogens planted by big tobacco. Needless to say, I didn’t know what to expect. 

“She was the client. I said we were stopping for food so that you wouldn’t be listening in.”

“Well, then what’s the big deal? I thought she just wanted to know what happened to her boyfriend.”

“She did but.. Well…”

“Well, what?”

“It was a rabbit hole.”

I didn’t get it. Since when does he complain about things ruining too deep? Into dangerous territory?

“How deep are we talking here? I mean how bad can it be? You’re holding huge government secrets and you’re fine. Hell, you know how to cook every drug known to man. How bad can this be?”

He sighed and tried to collect his thoughts.

“Well the boyfriend, he’s been missing for a long time. Disappeared when he left his friend's house after a party. And his friend, well, not only a big stoner, but he really believes in the implications of fractals and all that. After he went missing the police made a really good case for him but couldn’t find anything. About three weeks later, his body’s found in a field with a fractal pattern burned around the body and a note on him. The note said something along the lines of, ‘I am happy I am free I have ascended’. Parts of his brain, both of his eyes, and bits of his hair and teeth had been removed. His arms and legs had been amputated but the feet and hands were left near the body. The guy's friend is obviously suspect number one, but he was stuck in the hospital with both legs broken directly after the party. Stuck there at the same time and no record of him being released, they simply just ruled it a suicide.” 

“So she wants to know what happened… doesn't she know we aren’t fuckin private investigators?” 

The wind, now, was screaming at the windows. I worried if c-store boy would be ok. We pulled into a lot full of storage lockers and Jacobs parked the truck in front of a large warehouse. 

“I gave her all the information she wanted. She didn’t even know what happened to him or where he was. All she was told was that she was dead. Details of the case were hidden from the press for whatever reason. Maybe to not induce a scare.” 

He cracked his neck and put his 9mm in his parka.

“There was something she wanted to know that was nearly impossible for me to get my hands on though. She wanted to know what her boyfriend’s last words meant. He sent her a cryptic text that sent me looking for a meaning for days on end.”

I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on at all. I wasn’t ready to fight a serial killer. Or the mafia? Or… something else??? I didn’t know what he was planning at all. Eventually, I caved as he stared at the snow pelting his car. 

“What the hell did he say?”

“He said that his friend finally told him about something related to fractals that he can understand. He was going to meet the author of a book that actually seemed like it held the cure for some issues in his life. Something revolutionary.”

“And what was that?”

He handed me a small revolver and looked me in the eyes for the first time since he dragged me out of the store.

“Psyconics.”

There was a stillness in the air. The word itself made the wind grow soft in its whispy solo. We stared at the overwhelming warehouse. It stood a rock in the blistering blizzard. I caved in the moment and turned to him.

“What the hell are we doing here ‘Cob?”

Again he held back words. His eyes had a fear I’d never seen before. I could tell he didn’t want to answer for my sake but knew he’d have to.

“I’m going in there. If I don’t come out, drive.” 

“Finch, what is in there?”

He shrugged. “Psyconics.”

He opened the door and the wind forced the door out. He stood staring at the door and went back to close the door.

I was alone.

I felt a stillness. Not a comfortable stillness, a stillness as if you were punched in the stomach and couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t even process that you were punched. I blinked hard and scrambled my things together and as I was getting my shit together, I watched him step into a side door. When I opened the car door, the wind picked me up and made me fall out onto the dirty snow. I glanced up quickly as the door slammed shut. I couldn’t let Jacobs get too far ahead of me. He was in over his head and I could tell. 

The door was heavy, yet not locked. As if whatever was in there was expecting Finch. They wouldn’t be anticipating me. I held my breath and swiftly snuck through the door. 

Almost all of the lights were off. One was left on, hanging above a man. He typed and typed and typed onto a computer as an unfamiliar melody wafted around the building. A wire was stuck in the back of his head and led into the darkness. It was hard to make out, but I saw the silhouette of Finch. I could hear him better than I saw him, yet the man at the computer remained typing. Was he stupid or just deaf? Either way, I held my revolver in hand and walked crouched a few yards behind Jacobs.

I walked around to get a better view and bumped into a table. I was lucky it was built into the ground or it would’ve got me caught for certain. I looked at it hard in the darkness and made out very little. A saw? A scalpel? A ruler? There was another long object I couldn’t identify and didn’t try to. There was no time to wonder who this man was.

Jacobs stopped right as he got in the light and looked down at the man.

“Doktor.”

Nothing.

“Doktor!”

The man's head darted back. His face seemed wrangled and scarred. His cheeks and neck were scattered with blisters with some boiling and bleeding. His glasses didn’t sit straight on his broken nose. He wasn’t too old but he seemed… aged. As soon as he realized who he was talking to, he closed the laptop and smiled wide.

“Ah Herr Jacobs! What a pleasant surprise. You have taken your sweet time to come see me.”

“I have.”

“Have you still been scared, Herr Jacobs? Fearful of all you will learn? The truth? The way to truly be powerful? To be inhuman?”

“I have.”

“Fantastich! Prima! Fear is the best way to learn. But not to worry, my dear boy, all will be solved. All good, all good.”

“Yes, Doktor.”

He sprung out of his chair and grabbed onto Finch’s shoulders. Pulling him down to him. His eyes were focused on the darkness and not Finch. 

“Herr Jacobs… the infinite potentiality of my creation could kill 20 men. What makes you think you can handle its power? I am a god as long as I am connected to the Glyph. But do you see what it has done to me? DO YOU SEE?”

Jacobs swallowed and bit his bottom lip.

“I understand, Doktor.” 

“Wunderbar Jacobs, wunderbar! You know, I have been searching a long time for a man who understands like I do. You are perfect. You listen, you don’t question me. You’re far better than my old partner ever was. Why don't you ask me what happened to him?”

Finch was uneasy. His arms gently shook and he scratched at his parka where his gun was.

“What happened to your old partner?”

The man simply stared at Jacobs and looked down, shaking his head. He laughed gently at first but grew more bombastic. As if he was held at gunpoint to laugh. He pulled a remote out of his ragged jacket and the lights came on pointing at the wall. The wall I only now realized was covered in flesh.

The patterns formed on the wall were triangles in a triangular shape that grew bigger and bigger as the border of a larger one. A Sierpiński Triangle. They were made of assorted limbs, flesh, and untraceable chunks of viscera. Assorted bones could be sticking out of flesh where they didn’t belong. Hand-picked to connect vile bits of organ to one another. To hold together the monster of a corpse it was. Despite seeming to be parts of humans assorted together, the mass bled from the nails holding it to the wall and writhed towards the light. The Doktor continued to laugh. I fell to my knees trying to hold back the bile in my throat. 

“Oh is it not perfekt? Such an alluring pattern, no? Such a beautiful sight! The Glyph breathes with life because it holds the soul of a god! The form of flesh I’ve manufactured is so pure that the higher being mistook it for an angelic body. It lives off of me, my life. A sort of… symbiotic relationship, hah! I become blistered and weak in exchange for, well…” 

He pointed directly at me. Stared into my soul. Did he really sense I was here? I nearly shit myself as I sat perfectly still and quit breathing. 

“You see this ding in the dark? A rat or some raccoon?”

“No Doktor.”

He held out his hand and spoke unintelligible words. When he grasped his hand, I felt an unexplainable pressure squeeze my insides. I held my stomach as my rib cage collapsed and ribs burst out the opposite sides. They pressed my organs tightly and compressed my lungs hard. I screamed in horror with what breath I had. I didn’t have time to feel the agony. 

He laughed. “Oh? What do we have here?”

He motioned his hand toward himself and I was violently pulled into the light. I held out my hands to scrape the floor before my ribs. They trembled when I laid on the ground in pain. I heard him speak one last time before I passed out. 

“What a foolish foolish worm. What do you want to do with it, Jacobs?”

—————————————————————————

I came to, strapped down on a table. My hands had been taped up to stop the bleeding and my ribs had been haphazardly placed back inside of me. My head swiveled around and the first thing I noticed was the scalpel, saw, ruler, and now-visible femur on the crimson-stained table. I was about to cry knowing my torture had only just begun. I looked to my left and saw Finch standing alone under another pale light. I grabbed his arm and looked at him in disgust. 

“What have you done?”

I coughed hard and one of my bandages came loose. I bled deeply with dark red rivers pouring down my leg. Looking around first, he walked over and patched me back up. The Doktor walked slowly into view under the light. He looked at the light hanging above my head and it burst into shards. 

“Ohohoho my piteous squib, what good news I have für Dich! Such a wonderful idea Herr Jacobs had. You may not like it, but he decided that you should witness the power of the Glyph before you become part of it! Yes yes, you are a lucky one! He thinks you are worthy of this gift and I also believe it to be so. Und what a gift it would be, to be melded in a shared consciousness with an angel! You and all of the other precious bits of mind.”

I shook and writhed. I couldn’t let this happen. I tried my hardest to reach for my gun but my arms were chained down. I couldn’t help but scream.

“You’re both insane. UNGODLY LUNATICS! YOU-“

He held out his hand and softly put his fingers together. My lips felt stapled together. The harder I tried to speak, the more I felt the muscles in my lips tear. 

“Shh shh shh, no use in fighting it now. It is certain.” 

The Doktor walked towards the mound of flesh, the “Glyph”. He smiled and rested his hands on a section of flesh. They sunk in and he scratched the skin. The Glyph let out a cry from the holes made by its skeleton. 

“Und the best part… Jacobs himself will be the one to do the job! He will hone his power in the angel and contort you into place to start the new Glyph! So so so Wunderbar yes! It finally is his time to prove himself!”

I gave up thinking. I closed my eyes and cried with no sound. I tried hard not to listen but I couldn’t stop myself. 

“Herr Jacobs, are you ready?” 

He didn’t speak. I heard tears fall on the concrete floor.

“Why must you cry, Jacobs?” 

“It’s such an honor, Doktor. Forgive me.”

The Doktor laughed and patted him on the back. 

“The cord will be yours, son. You will be a new God!”

He screamed in agony. I heard the vile noises of the cord coming out of his brain. Blood dripped to the ground. He wouldn’t stop screaming. He kept going and going even after I assumed it was out. I could smell the warm blood pooling in his hand. He shook it off and chuckled manically. 

“Quickly now! Into your brain und we can-“

One shot. I didn’t even hear him grab his gun.

His body fell to the ground.

Finch walked over to me and tore the chains off of the table I'd laid on. He picked me up and carried me out of the building. He kept muttering something under his breath. It sounded like “I’m sorry.” He kicked open the door. The wind was slow and cried a melancholy tune. Jacobs placed me gently in the backseat. I didn’t open my eyes. I was still terrified. He grabbed something out of the back of the truck and went back inside for a few minutes.

I only remember hearing 3 more things that day.

The light of a match.

The start of the truck.

And Jacobs gently murmuring:

“Fucking Psyconics.”