In The Library Ch 23

The irony of the electric chair is that it was invented by Thom Edisson, as an extension of his research into alternating currents. I do not know if he refined the death device after he invented the chrono accelerator, or before. But the similarities in the technical aspects are certainly convincing. I do not think, though, that the etheric channeling was paid quite the same attention. So I will be relying on another technique to generate the equivalent of that energy, which is still essential for a time shift to occur. Luckily, human nature is inclined to be both depraved and aroused when faced with another's misfortune, so I think it will work.

I am also relying on the fact that Mac Arbogast is as crooked a bastard cop as ever I have met or shall ever need. Not only has he surpassed himself with the arrest and his conduct of the case, but he is so corrupt and lacking in even basic ethics, that I have been able to rely on him to to supply the soporific drugs that I shall need to make my execution appear to be successful.

It will all come down to timing. It's just as well that the prick Arbogast got a gold watch for "years of honourable duty to the state and to the public, blah blah fucking blah." So long as he is a good timekeeper, then all will be well.

Alexandra has visited me in gaol, as only a true and dutiful mother does. I am not at all certain as to the true extent of our relationship now, but even though I am a filial killer, or so it would seem, it appears that a mother's love can indeed be thicker than water. Or perhaps she has an inkling of what is going to happen. That wouldn't surprise me. I always was slower in the brain than ever she was.

We don't talk of Grace.

I have had my last meal and I have put up with the priest. Seriously, what the fuck would he know about death and dying and duty? Still, he passed the time. Arbogast has also been and gone, and he and the doctor (so much for the Hippocratic oath, but never mind) have rigged the needle. The doc will plunge the syringe just as I enter the chamber, and the glass tube will shatter and grind under his boots.

Then the executioner will hit the switches, and Ol' Sparky will light up with more volts and more amps than ever did the accelerator, and the fucking thing will boot me so far into the future that I will not remember a damn thing, and I have no idea how far it will go. And the sexual power needed to trigger the etheric power... well, I did say that a crowd can be both depraved and aroused when faced with another's misfortune. I'm relying on the spectators (they call themselves witnesses, but they are not witnesses to any truth that I know), I'm relying on them to be so fucked up in themselves that their pricks will stiffen and their pussies will weep as they see that power switch fall.

The clock strikes in the hall. The wheels of the gurney squeak and squeal on the linoleum floor - you would think the state could afford a squirt or two of oil - and the door to the cell clangs open. I am cuffed and placed on the stretcher, and the neons pass overhead down the corridor, one by one, one by one. And the wheels squeak. The door to the chamber is flung open, and the doc's voice is close to my ear.

"Here we go, Cain, here we go, ten minutes and it will look like you've gone. I don't how we will explain it to the Governor, if what you say will happen, happens." There was a dry laugh. "But hey, you can only be executed once. Double jeopardy. If they have a body, eh?!"

And then there was a sting of the needle in my arm, and a slow wave of hot drowsiness crept through my veins. I was vaguely aware of being strapped into the old wooden chair, silver conducting paste applied to my wrists and ankles, and thick copper straps wrapped around twice.

Fuck me this is a stupid idea, but I know it will work because I have seen into my own eyes and I have merged, coming back from the future and moving forward from the past. I see the curtains of the viewing rooms pull aside and there is a shuffle there. But my brain is blackening and my mind is becoming dull as the drugs surge, and there is a shadow on the wall of a hand on a big lever and the black shadowed arm reaches out and my eyes droop and the hand grips the lever and my eyes close, lids shutting red. And I hear the slow click of the lever as it notches away from its dead contact.

And I hear with super human sensitivity the quiet grind of the hinge as one axle of metal grates within the tube of the other part, and the movement is slow, impossibly slow. And the metal grinds on, and I can hear in the dead silence of the room my own heartbeat as a pulse beating under the skin like a tiny drum, beat, beat, beat. And time slows and my heartbeat slows, and there is silence in the room as the last millimetre of the switch movement clicks into place. And I can hear the rush of electricity down the thick cables, the sound of electrons colliding.

And in the moment between the maximum down-swing of the alternating current and the maximum peak of the up-swing, there is an infinitesimal blackness and a still point. And with all my will, with every ounce of my thought and being, with every belief and truth in my life, I urge myself down into that still point and through the eye of that needle into space and time and beyond. And with my last conscious thought, I feel my cock stiffen. And then black silence darkness and white exploding noise and oh fu

-ooo OOO ooo-

ck ck ck. ck ck ck. The click of a bird outside my window threads through my hearing, and I struggle to the surface of my dream. This last week my mind has been dream rich, but that last one, fuck, didn't like that at all. My body had been gripped in a paralytic stillness, a blackness so complete that I could not sense up nor down, and a giant squeeze all over my body. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

"Alex, get up, you lazy sod, you've got stuff to do before you leave." Mum's voice outside my door, and a clank of plates and cups in the kitchen, the family is moving around.

"Yeah Mum, give me ten minutes, I was late in last night. Gotta get my beauty sleep, you know how it is!"

"OK, right. My beautiful boy needs to be at his prettiest for the girls in the big university town, far far away."

That's what I love about Mum, she is always first to take the piss. Keeps me grounded, that's for sure. I guess it's also her way of handling me leaving this town.

I idly stroke my morning wood under the covers, thinking back to the last weekend with B. We had been to the back row of the movies on Friday night, the usual end-of-week cinema, all of the schools feeding their kids into the double feature. This was a big one, one of the new blockbusters shifting the dynamics in Hollywood. I personally thought it was pretty stupid, every shot stolen from another, far better movie, and a daft story about some orphan kid with a fucking light sabre or something. What, didn't they invent lasers in that far away galaxy? Jesus wept. Someone threw an egg at the screen, so the second half of the movie had a great streak from the top to the bottom of the screen.

Anyway, B was quite happy to let my idle fingers tangle inside her panties. She slid down in the seat some, her coat in her lap hiding my hand there, and unzipped her jeans and popped the top button of those tight blue denims. My fingers lazily circled the small softness of her belly before lacing inside her cotton panties.

Even though I could not see them, I knew she had her white cotton-tails on - she would paint a verbal picture in her low voice: "A, they've got the cutest little pink hearts just below the elastic. But you'll never see them, since you're going away. You're my sweet boy, but you're leaving me here in this town, so you're my sweet bastard boy."

And she took my finger and ever so carefully slid it to the base of her soft fur, and placed it at the top of her slit. Her eyes never left the screen, and the shadows of light played on her face. Her lips were full, the tiniest smile the only sign that something was moving. My finger slowly spiralled on her rising clit and alternately flicked it and dipped lower into her wetness, her wet crack, and pulled the slick, slippery juice up over her bud. I kept up this slow play while the colours flashed on the screen and B did her best to keep her eyes open and her face focussed. But then her legs twitched and I knew that she was beyond hopeless now, her hips rising to put more pressure onto my fingers.

She would miss the next bit of the movie now, for she always rose into her orgasm the same way. Her limbs would twitch and she would throw back her head just a little. Her eyes would first open wide, as if the whole idea of an orgasm was a surprise, and then her beautiful smile would broaden, as if she was sharing a good laugh with the universe, and there, one lick of her pointed tongue over her full lips, dark and engorged. Her tongue passed once over the bottom of her full top lip, as if she was moistening the tight lips between her legs.

She told me once that she would lick her lip and then wetten her finger on her lusciousness there, and then that moisture would dive down between her legs to moisten herself, parting the lips of her sex. She had discovered how to double her wetness when just a young girl, and now it was part of her pattern, always. And then her eyes would close, and her mouth open just the slightest bit, and the tip of her tongue would show between her teeth, as if deep in concentration. And of course, she was. Her sweet wet cunt clasped my finger and I could feel her tighten on my finger inside her, her clit pushing hard against the palm of my hand.

She took my other hand and raised my finger to her lips and clamped down tight on my knuckle, so that she would not cry out. And she took her pleasure silently, rising her ass up from the seat to clasp my hand and fingers hard into her wetness, as she shuddered into her silent O. And I heard, as I loved to hear, one small exclamation, "oh, fuck, yes." Just three short syllables, and that was her announcement to herself and to me. B coming. B coming on my finger. I was her sweet boy, and right now, that was my sweet finger inside her.

She opened her eyes, her face still towards the screen. Slowly, she turned her face to mine, her little smile a remembering smile. "Did I miss anything? What's going on now?" And with my finger still in her heat, I filled her in on the story. Luckily for me, no key plot points...

"Come on Alex, get out of bed, son. Things to do."

Thanks Dad, for that. No point carrying on with my shaft then, every bugger in the house was after a bit of me now. Better get up, before my sister weighed in. That would be a bit odd.

"No, it wouldn't." What the fuck, where did that voice come from? Live as fucking day, and it sounded just like me. Jesus, have I got voices in my head? Fuck.

And what the fuck is this? I've bought my hands up from under the covers, and I see big black and blue bruises on my wrists, and there are raised welts around the wrists. I hold my hands out in front of me, and look from one hand to the other. Both wrists, bruised, each blue-black mark working a couple of inches up my arm. I touch one of the bruises, but I can't feel a thing.

"Fucker, don't touch me there. That hurts." Fuck fuck fuck, this is scaring me now, what the fuck is wrong with me?

"Shit, he doesn't know about me yet." And at that point I feel a snap in my head, as if some door was closing. I realised that my head had felt thick and blurred, but was now clear. I sat on the bed, my balls shrivelled up with fear, my cock a pathetic small thing. I sat there for five minutes, until I was convinced that my head was clear, my thoughts my own. Am I under that much stress, facing the idea of leaving this town?

After a shower and breakfast, my morning freak-out was mostly forgotten. Maybe I had fallen back asleep? The blazes on my wrists had faded also, and now were just dark blemishes. Jesus, that was fucking weird, though. All I could think was that I'd somehow bruised my wrists doing something. But couldn't think what.

"You all right, son? You don't seem yourself this morning." Fuck, Dad, don't you start.

"Dad, I'm leaving town tonight for a city I've never been to, with people I don't know. No, I'm not quite myself. I'm bloody scared, to tell the truth."

"Don't blame you, when I was your age I reckon I was much the same. Still, you're my son, so you'll be fine." Typical Dad, never says much, but when he does open his mouth, it's generally not bullshit and makes a lot of sense. I surprise myself and give the old man a big hug. I'll miss him. But he knows that.

-ooo OOO ooo-

I flew down to the city, the old Fokker Friendship churning along at 15,000 feet, high enough to realise how bloody huge this country was, but not so high I couldn't make out details. Below I could even make out the thread of a train working its way up the range, the track circling and curving as it made its long way into the mountains. I'd know that train very well by the time this next three years was done - this flight a rare treat because of the cost.

But the university was new, the people all new. I quickly fell in love with the place, met a cool stoned chick at one of the orientation week parties, but then found myself completely out of my depth with her. And she was from an even smaller town than I came from.

But there is a strangeness about this place. As I walk around the city, and later, find an old bike and ride around, I find that there are places with a strange pull about them. There is the huge civic library on the other side of the lake. It's a fairly new building, maybe ten years old, but whenever I am in it, there is a shimmer of age about it, something much older. Car wheels on a gravel road, big motors running. Where did that flash come from?

Outside, down by the lake, there is a small cafe, that must have been built in the first decades of this place. I am curiously drawn to it, and will often stay there for hours, with several coffees and a lot of books. I have gotten to know the young woman who owns it. She is strikingly beautiful, but remote. She says that she inherited the place from her mother, who worked there till the day she died. The daughter has a beautiful tumble of golden hair cascading down her back, down past her waist. And the hair has an extraordinary silver blaze all down the length of it, maybe one inch wide, like a ripple of molten metal on a wave of gold.

The place is surrounded by cats, she must feed a dozen of them every day. They wrap and slink between her legs and around her skirts, their gold and green eyes watching wherever she goes. They circle around me also, but never come close. It's as if the damn things are watching me too, but I am uneasy under their gaze. They dart away from my feet, and never come near.

And the university library, there under its clock tower. I find myself avoiding the shadow of the tower as it shifts across the quadrangle with the circle of the sun each day. I can't avoid the library, for that is where I must find my books. There is a bronze plaque in its entry lobby that announces that it is the Grace Memorial Library, built by the Cain Bequest in memory of a lost daughter.

And there are birds. There are more birds in this one city than I have ever seen before, and more species, and more shapes and sizes. It is an impossible place, and one that has attracted ornithological experts from all over the world. Even one of the Cain family has published. In the lobby of the library, there is a rare first edition of a work entitled "A City of Birds, with a Speculation on their Arrival and Breeding Patterns", by Emily Cain who was, it would appear, the sister of Grace.

-ooo OOO ooo-

So, I have arrived back in this city. I am locked away for the time being, of my own accord, and silent. Madness must be a slow thing, but there is plenty of time, there is no need for haste. His eyes see and his ears hear, but I am deep and sunken in his mind, and I do not hear and I do not see. Not yet.

I do not have the power to win his mind, not yet. But I will, soon, for my sister is here, and she is awakening and will soon want feeding. And he will nourish her, and she will nourish him, and I will grow stronger.

In the basement of the civic library there is an ancient and fucked up machine, decrepit and broken down. But every now and then the lights in this city dip, and the engineers don't know why, and there is another crack of time, and another loss of memory, and another corruption.

For Grace my sister clutches two tiny feathers still, close to her breast.

Sometimes, only sometimes, I can see with her children's eyes, circling and soaring, tiny birds like a veil over the sky.

Today I see him, myself, leave the library and stagger up the avenue of trees to his room in the college. And from a window on the ground floor, I see a currawong start from the ground, a blaze of white stark upon its blackness. So Grace my monstrous sister has fed upon her first meal.

And as he leaves the library, I see in the trees a thousand birds, all waiting and watching. And they will all have their turn. And she will grow stronger, and stronger, and stronger.

And we will chase each other back and forth through time, my monstrous sister and I, her even more monstrous brother; and I see now the fate that will befall me, feeding and feeding and feeding.

For there, lurching on the ground in its huge, shambling form, its huge wings dragging the ground, is a buzzard. And the buzzard waits for its prey to die from weakness, from exhaustion, from sickness. And then the buzzard will feed.

And Grace my monstrous sister will finally triumph over her even more monstrous brother.

For my name is Alex Cain, and the monstrous child is my daughter.