Chasing the Ivory Beast

by sigrist

What sorts of things could cause a person to wake up in a strange place? I guess maybe I drank too much, or maybe I was kidnapped by aliens. No, I was on earth, in a hospital that I recognized. Except something was wrong, the windows were broken and the walls were stained with mold and moisture. "Hello?" I called out but there was no response. "Is anybody there? A doctor? A nurse, maybe?"

Nothing.

I removed the needle from my arm on my own, it seemed like the bag it was attached to had gone dry long ago anyway. I swung my legs out over the edge of my bed and tried to stand up but my muscles were weak. My arms moved quickly to shield my face as the floor came rushing towards me but still my chin hit the linoleum. My teeth clacked together painfully and I ran my tongue along them to take count. No real damage done, just a little sore. I climbed more carefully to my feet and took a couple shaky steps. There was a chair in the corner with a puke green plastic cover and I let myself flop into it.

"Is there anyone out there who can help me?" I could hear someone in the hallway, I was sure of it. "Come on, I can hear you! Just gimme a hand."

I stood up and reached for the IV pole to steady myself. Whoever was in the hall had come closer to my door and I said, "What happened here? Why does everything look old and broken?" The door started to creak open and I saw something strange reach into the room. It was like a long black spike with strange little hairs. I felt instant dread as I realized what it was. A leg, just one of six legs. The creature stepped in further and the door swung all the way open to reveal a twisted beast. It was like an insect, except it was nearly as tall as me and bursting out of its malformed thorax was the twisted half body of a human. It was as if the person had intended to take a nap on the giant bug and its exoskeleton was like wet cement, slowly eating the person up before it dried half way through the job.

No, that wasn't it. It was more like the human had formed inside the giant bug and now it was being pushed out like pus from a pimple. Yeah, that's about how gross the thing looked and as I stood there pissing myself it screeched at me through its human mouth and its giant bug mouth at the same time. I tried to move but the thing was quick. It scurried towards me on six skittering legs and all I could do was tilt the IV pole down at the monstrosity. It plunged into the soft spot right at the base of the human body and punctured deep into the ugly thing's body. Bright yellow guts squished out of it as my surprisingly effective weapon cracked through the bottom of the bug beast's exoskeleton, releasing a wickedly rotten stench. It wiggled and writhed, still trying to get closer to me. Its oversized mandibles nearly crunched onto my leg and I leapt back up onto the bed. The thing fell down, legs tick, ticking against the floor as the last of its life twitched out away.

"What," I said between heavy breaths, "the shit was that!" I screamed the choice words and the rest came out in a frightened shudder. It took every ounce of strength I had not to vomit as I scrambled over to the other side of the bed, reflexively trying to put as much distance between myself and the mutant bug-man. I kept a wide berth as I walked around the edge of the room and made my way out the door. Even though the thing was dead I still felt like it would come after me again so I closed the door behind me.

"Nice bum."

I suddenly realized that not only was my hospital gown incredibly revealing, I wasn't alone. I spun around to see a man with messy white-blonde hair staring back at me. He was dirty and he was wearing odd pieces of armour that looked homemade. "I, uh, who are you?"

"Relax, we're on the same side." He started picking through a garbage can and I could tell from the expression on his face that he wasn't impressed by what he found. I couldn't help but wonder what sort of depravity would make a man like that cringe.

"How do you know what side I'm on? What are the sides anyway?"

He gestured to himself and then to me. "I don't see any bug bits, do you?"

"Bug bits? Like that thing in there?"

The man walked towards me and I stepped away, holding my hands up between us. He pushed open the door and look disappointed. "Come on," he said, "I was tracking that little shit and you just go and take it out without asking?"

"I didn't know I'd have to ask permission to save my own life."

"Aw, one little guy on its own shouldn't be enough to kill ya. Anyone who lasted this long probably dealt with a swarm or two. That's the real scary shit."

"What is it? There are more?" I shuddered. "I hate bugs, I hate them!"

"Whatta you mean, what is it?"

"What is it, what is it?" I said it louder and with more attitude. "It's a pretty damn self explanatory question."

The man sucked his teeth at me and leaned back as if to get a better look. "You mean you never saw a bug before?"

"Yeah, I've seen bugs. I've seen plenty of bugs but none that were nearly six feet tall with human pimples growing out of their backs."

"No, I mean a bug!" He rolled his eyes towards the dead thing in the room. "How long were you in this place? Did you miss all the fun?"

"The fun?"

"Yeah, the sky ripping open, the faces of god raining hellfire down on us. The rapture, armageddon, like in that old movie! Except this time it's not some big space rock or whatever. This is the real deal mystical evil shit!"

"I... I think I might need a second opinion." I suddenly started to realize that I didn't know this guy and I had no idea what the hell was going on.

"Yeah, good luck finding one." The man drew a rusted blade and looked to me. "Where do you even keep your weapon dressed like that? Is it some kinda weird fetish shit?"

"Weapon? I don't have a weapon!"

"Why the hell not?"

"I just woke up here! I have no idea what's going on! The last thing I remember is, I don't know, driving to work? Was I in an accident?"

"Well, you know how to use this?" He handed me the blade. I couldn't identify it but I assumed it was probably made by the same clumsy blacksmith who made his armour.

I held my hands back. "Why? You're not gonna fight me are you?"

"You really don't know shit about shit do you? Look, bugs don't travel alone and their guts have a very strong smell." He sniffed the air and prompted me to do it as well but I didn't have to try hard to smell the dead monster. "When this buddy's little friends smell it, which probably happened a couple seconds ago, they are gonna come running."

"What? How many?"

"A scouting party this far from home? Probably just two or three more. If you listen good you'll hear them coming."

I strained my ears and realized he was right. I grabbed the blade from him and he drew another. I wasn't sure where he kept these things but they seemed awfully well hidden. "They'll be coming from both directions so you watch that way." He put his back against mine and screamed out a wordless shout as two giant bug monsters came at him while a third came into the hall in front of me.

"No!" I shouted at it, unable to think of anything else to say or do. "You do not exist! This isn't real!" I held out the blade and the bug hesitated. I lunged at it and it swung its giant mandibles at me, knocking me off my feet. I could see that the blonde man was pretty occupied with his own two attackers. The bug moved closer to me and I waved the blade at it. Its jaws clamped on my weapon and I had to hold it tight with both hands to keep my grip.

With no other option, I lunged into the bug's bite. My blade slipped forward and the bug opened its jaws. I fell forward and my weapon sliced through the things head, cracking its exoskeleton and spilling its yellow guts. I fell on top of the bugs dead body and my face came so close to the human attempting to press itself out of the bug's thorax. It was a woman. She stared at me with the one eye I could see. She was crying as the life slipped from her as well.

"Woo hoo!" The blonde man shouted. I turned to see that he had dispatched the two other bugs. "Hot damn, you sure you never fought a bug before? Seems to me you took care of yourself rather sufficiently."

"Rather sufficiently?" I said in a mocking tone. I hadn't known him long but it seemed out of character to be speaking so articulately.

"So you like, for real just been in a coma this whole time?"

"I guess so. I mean, I must have been. Why else would I be here with no memory of any of this."

"It is quite the quandary."

I narrowed my eyes on the man as I got to my feet. "You're a bit of an odd duck but there's something familiar about you."

"Doubt it, never seen you before. Look why don't we find you some pants and get the hell outta this shit hole?"

"Where are we gonna go?"

"Seems to me we got a pal ready to lead the way." He pointed towards the pile of bug parts that had once been his attackers. Sitting on top of the carnage, somehow untouched by the fluorescent yellow viscera, was a pristinely white rabbit.

"Uh, what the heck is that?"

"You mean you been out so long you don't even know a bunny when you see one?"

"No, I mean, isn't it kinda out of place here?"

"It came for us."

"Why?"

"So we can follow it."

"But why?"

"Look, people who ask questions like that, they die. All you gotta know is the bugs are bad and if the white rabbit comes, you follow."

"Why?"

"You are incorrigible."

"There it is again, that fancy vocabulary popping up. Are you smarter than you let on?"

"Don't worry about it, I'm nothing more than I need to be. Let's get you something to wear and we'll get outta here."

It didn't take long for us to find my clothes, folded neatly in a drawer in my room. I pulled on my pants but they were a little loose, I probably hadn't eaten anything in a long time. "Is that little bunny of yours gonna take us to some food?"

"It's gonna take us exactly where we need to go is all I know. If the bugs are our damnation, the ivory beasts are our salvation. Everybody knows that. I'm not surprised, the way you handled yourself. We can be partners now, the white rabbit probably sensed that."

"None of this makes any sense."

"So you remember the way things used to be like it was yesterday I bet. You can probably still remember the words to Nickleback songs. They were the best, weren't they?"

"See, nonsense. You're speaking gibberish, obviously you're just as confused as I am."

"How did that one good one go? Dun, nuh, nuh, now! You know that one?"

"Please, stop speaking."

"Look, you done getting dressed or what? That white rabbit is waiting and you don't wanna make the ivory beasts mad."

"Right, whatever. I guess I'll just go with all this. I don't know, maybe I'm still unconscious. Maybe this is all just happening in my head."

"Then that means I'm just up in your head too." He hit me with the flat side of his blade and I felt the pain. "Can a guy in your head do that?"

"Yeah, probably. Pain is just a sensation of your brain, you can dream pain I think."

"Should we see what happens in a dream if I hit you the right way?" He turned the blade in his hand and skewed up his face like he was genuinely curious.

"You know what, I don't think we need to experiment with that."

"Good, so let's get going!" We left the room and found the white rabbit still sitting on top of the dead bugs. We approached it and it hopped off the heap. Even though we were quick to follow, it was around the corner before we could catch up. This game continued for a while, every time we turned a corner we were just in time to see which direction the rabbit had gone.

"Wait," I said, "I know this hospital, it's not this big. I feel like we've been going down hallways all day."

"Nothing's what you knew it was now."

I stopped talking then and we walked quietly after the white rabbit until finally we reached the exit and the rabbit was gone. I pushed open the doors, expecting a breath of fresh air but instead it smelled rotten outside. Everything was in ruins, the city was destroyed and overhead I noticed huge faces poking down towards me from the sky. They were lined up forehead to chin as they reached to the west. "What the hell?"

"Told you, the faces of god raining hellfire and all that. Course they haven't done that in a while. Now they just hang out up there looking creepy."

"This has to be a dream."

He stuck the point of his weapon gently against my back and said, "I'm still willing to test the theory."

"No, I don't think we gotta do that. So, where'd your white rabbit go?"

"He's not my white rabbit, he's ours. I never saw one before I met you, that means there's something about me and you together that he liked. Besides, looks like his job's done anyway." He pointed with his blade and I followed his line of sight. Standing about a hundred feet away was a startlingly white horse. It glanced towards us and clopped its hoof against the broken sidewalk.

"Another ivory beast?"

"You guessed it."

"And this one wants us to follow it too? I mean, we barely kept up with that rabbit."

"No, I'm guessing she wants us to climb on."

"She's doesn't even have a saddle and I've never ridden a horse before."

"Stop worrying so much." He jogged over to the horse and I watched him climb onto her back like a pro. He led her over to me and held out a hand. "Come on, just hold on tight to me."

I let him hoist me up onto the horse and I wrapped my arms tight around his waist as he kicked the horse's sides. The animal started galloping down the street, following the faces of god. "Where do they go?" I raised my voice to be heard over the beating of hooves and rushing of wind. "The faces? Where are we following them to?"

"I dunno, really. Never had the balls to follow them but like I said, the ivory beasts come calling, you answer."

"Right, this seems smart. I'm so happy that we decided this was a good idea."

"Me too! So excited to see where we end up!" He shouted out and it echoed around us. I just held tight and tried to beat the odds by staying upright on the horse despite the incredibly bumpy ride. We galloped for a while and at some point I started to realize there were voices everywhere. It was a quiet chorus of whispers and I had trouble figuring out where they were coming from or what they were saying. Then I looked up and realized the faces in the sky were quietly singing to us but the volume started getting louder as we rode onward.

"La la la la la, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, ow!"

"They're singing!" I shouted.

"Yeah, I can hear that."

"We're gonna turn this mother out."

"Why are they singing?"

"We're gonna turn this mother out."

"Dunno, never saw them do that before."

"You've got a real type of thing going down, gettin' down. There's a whole lot of rhythm going round."

"Why are they singing this song of all songs?"

"You know it?"

"You've got a real type of thing going down, gettin' down. There's a whole lot of rhythm going round."

"My brother used to play this song real loud to cover my screams. He liked to torture me. He'd collect gross bugs and put them in my clothes or my hair and this song was always playing so mom wouldn't notice."

"Ow, we want the funk. Give up the funk."

"That's messed up. Sounds like you had a crap brother but maybe he was just getting you ready for all this shit, you know?"

"No, he made me terrified of bugs, I can't even deal with a spider in the house now."

"Well, you just killed two of the biggest bugs out there without even batting an eye. Doesn't seem like you're having trouble dealing with them now."

"Guess you're right." Despite the dread and general creepiness seeping into my soul, I chuckled.

Half the faces then two choirs as half of them sang, "Ow, we need the funk." And the second half sang, "Let us in we'll tear this mother out."

The harmony made me shudder and I had to struggle even harder to keep my grip. Eventually I noticed the line of faces in the sky was curving down towards the ground. We could just barely see the final head, resting on the ground and singing at us with its gaping mouth.

"This is where shit gets tricky." The blonde man said.

"We don't have to like, go in there do we? Inside that thing's mouth?"

"It'll be fun, like an adventure." He hopped off the horse and held out a hand for me.

"Nope! Not happening, turn around horsie, let's go... I don't know, anywhere else." It fell forward onto the horse's neck and tried to compel her to run away but with a flick of her muscles she threw me onto the ground.

"La la la la la. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, ow!"

The faces were singing in unison again as the horse turned and galloped away from us.

"You know, I expected me and you to be Scottie Pip and Michael Jordan. Now I feel like I'm Luke Longley, bro."

"What does that even mean?" I tried to fight the man as he dragged me towards the giant head and its black mouth. I drew the blade he'd given me and leveled it on him. "You can't make me go in there."

The man easily flipped me onto my back and pinned my right hand and the blade against the ground. "People look at me, they just think I'm a meathead. But, it comes to competition, I'm filet mignon and they're a bunch of Steak-umms"

"I miss when your only crazy thing was the whole slipping in and out of a proper British sounding vernacular. Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because when the ivory beasts tell you to do something, you do it!" He hoisted me up and faced me towards the giant head.

It opened its mouth to sing one more line. "We'll tear this mother out!" And then an army of mutant bug creatures came spilling out. They were cramming out of the things mouth with such force I was surprised they didn't rip open the things lips or cheeks. They were running us down and I wanted to escape but the blonde man held me tight.

"This is it now, just let them take us."

"Let them what?" I screamed and swung my blade as the bugs drew near. The man and I were engulfed in a sea of writhing insect legs and human limbs. They were grabbing us, holding us tight as they brought us back towards the giant mouth through which they'd entered this world. I screamed as the blonde man stayed perfectly quiet. Just as we were being brought into the black hole of a mouth the blonde man finally turned to me and he touched my shoulder.

"Remember how you kept saying this was all a dream?" When I only answered with a terrible screaming cry, he leaned in closer and said, "You were right."

He was gone then and I noticed the blade in my hand was burning. I looked at it and it was shining with a light so bright it was hurt my eyes. "Holy crap." I lifted it above my head and sliced through the air. The ray of light cut through the head and extended up through the line of faces, ripping the sky open with a blinding flash of hot white light.

I opened my eyes and realized in a hospital room. There was a blonde doctor at my side. "Hello and welcome back, I certainly hope you accomplished your goal."

"My goal?"

"Don't worry, the recovery can be quite jarring at times. I've completely forgotten my whole recover speech, I sincerely apologize. You've just come out of an ivory beast induced coma."

"Ivory beast?" I recognized the words and then I recognized the face saying them. "The bugs, you were there! You took me to the bugs and I didn't want to."

The doctor laughed and patted my back. "But you did! This was all a practice in relieving your entomophobia. Your debilitating fear of insects. We used a drug synthesized specifically to rewire your brain to overcome your fear."

"Well, did it work?"

"Let's find out." The doctor rolled over a table with three jars. In the first was a dozen or so ants. He opened the lid and held it out for me. "Would you put your hand in the jar?"

I didn't hesitate as I slipped my hand in and smiled as the little insects tickled my skin. I shook them off my hand and withdrew it, then the doctor held out the second jar and said, "Would you pick up the cockroach?"

I reached inside and picked up the big bug without hesitation and the doctor finally handed me the jar with a hairy tarantula. "Just one more."

I put my hand in and the giant spider climbed up my wrist. Or at least, I would have thought it was giant before. "I don't feel afraid at all," I said, "I feel like these are nothing compared to those weird creatures you made me hallucinate."

"Oh, we don't make you hallucinate anything. The drug interacts with the fear centers of your brain and your deepest fears shape the path of your journey."

"And are you in everyone's drug induced coma, or just mine?"

"Your brain does take elements of your real life and incorporates them, just like any other dream. Now, if you'd just put the tarantula away, you're free to go."

"Well, what are you gonna do with the little guy?" I asked as I smiled down at it, "You think I could take him home?"