The Black Veldt
By Michael Reyes - An excerpt from the novel.
I can’t find any inspiration in the streets above. Every face I come across is plastic and reprehensible. I leave the diner and head underground to Port Authority.
I stagger over to my old bench at the bus depot. There’s someone sitting there.
“They told me I would find you here.”
It’s Glen. His face is covered in shadow and his t-shirt and jeans are torn and bloody. He wears no shoes and he absolutely reeks. I can smell him from where I’m standing.
“What are you doing here, Glen? What’s wrong with you?”
“They came to me because of you, Carvel. Because of what you showed me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Glen jolts forward off the bench. He sneers. His face is covered in sores and weird scars. Jagged crosses line the entirety of his face like he’s been scratching himself. Patches of his green hair are missing.
“You know what I’m talking about! You know, Carvel. You’ve always known. You just hid from the truth.”
His huge bloodshot eyes stare at me, before he eases back across the bench, face once again concealed in darkness.
“I just wanted to help you. And they’re hurting me because of it. I haven’t slept in days. They torture me when I sleep. They rip me open and feed. The Leucrota is only one shadow of that world, a distortion, really. But it shows me some of the others. Carvel … they’re beyond sanity. They’re absolute monsters, and so are the people who worship them.”
I pull hard off the Pall Mall. I don’t take my eyes off Glen.
“You need help, Glen. You’re even worse off than me.”
He snickers.
“The real God has abandoned us. The Solar God, the True Christ Consciousness. It’s gone. We’re left with this demon from the Old Moon. God has forsaken us.”
“There is no God, you stupid fuck. Stop talking nonsense.”
“There is only Yaldabaoth and his army. They are coming from a far country, from the farthest horizons. The Lord and HIS instruments of indignation, to destroy the whole land.”
“You have an overactive imagination. Get help, Glen.”
“I prayed in the church, cowered in mosques, hid in synagogues. It was the worst thing I could ever do. Don’t you see? Yaldabaoth is worshipped everywhere. Don’t you see? Satan is only a pawn, a minor spirit. But the Demiurge receives both the prayers of the pious and the human sacrifices of the wicked! The God of our world is the true devil!”
Glen bolts up from the bench. I flick my cigarette at him, and it bounces off his chest with a shower of sparks.
“The fuck away from me, man.”
“Go to them, Carvel. They’re too powerful. You won’t win. They’ve told me things about you. You’re a murderer. But kill in their name, now. They’ve chosen you to honor their Great Spirit!
“You’re crazy.”
Glen leaps forward and grabs my neck, pulling me close to his scar-crossed and sore covered face.
“They’ll leave me in peace if you go to them! I can’t take it anymore, Carvel. I can’t!”
I jam my elbow into his gut and he reels back, wheezing, as I slip the .44 from my waistband and whip him across the side of the head. He lets out a groan and drops. I kick him in the ribs a few times to get my point across.
“Stay the fuck away from me, Glen. I’m serious! Stay away!”
He’s weeping and coughing on the bus depot floor.
“There’s no stopping it now,” he groans, in between sobs. Blood trickles from his mouth.
I slide the revolver back into my waistband and hustle out of Port Authority. Glen’s right about one thing. There is no stopping it now. I know what I have to do.
The Black Veldt is available for pre-order HERE
Michael Reyes is a writer from Brooklyn living in the Bronx. He's a former Bowery Poetry Club resident artist and Barefoot Theatre Company playwright. His fiction has appeared in Red Sun Magazine, Morpheus Tales, Weird Tales and other publications. He is the author of a dark urban fantasy series named Clock’s Watch. His novel, The Cursed Diary of a Brooklyn Dog Walker, was acquired by Nightmare Press for publication in early 2021. Click here to get on his mailing list.