EPISODE 5

“Weapons of Mass Destruction”

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

DOV:

And we're back with more Kandel Against the Dark. Let's dive right back into Jack's story.

ORSON:

Yes, absolutely, before we took the break, Jack came home to discover that the thing he'd been trying to prevent…to prevent Priscilla from getting ahold of a Mater Node had failed.

She was sitting in front of one, was entranced into it, and there was the packaging for the Mater Node with a note indicating that Gar had bought it. And then, of course, this lit a fire within him, a conflagration. So it sat him on a path. And so let's see how far that fuel takes him.

[TAPE CLIC K]

JACK:

I remember I was shaking uncontrollably as I drove toward Gar's mansion. It was probably the adrenaline. It definitely wasn't fear or doubt, because I had never been so certain of anything in my whole life. Except maybe the day that I exchanged vows with 'Scilla. I had promised to protect and cherish her with every fiber of my being. And I had never failed, not one day, to keep that promise.

But that wasn't true anymore. I'd let her down. Gar wasn't just a threat to our marriage anymore. He had become an active threat to 'Scilla's life. And I was going to do everything in my power to eliminate that threat. It was like I was on rails. There was a sense of righteousness in what I was about to do. It had taken on an almost mythical quality in my mind. Like it was ordained somehow. Unavoidable. What I was about to do didn't just feel like my will. It felt like the will of the entire universe. And my singular existence as 'Scilla's devoted champion required me to be the instrument of this cosmic-level correction. And that was fine by me.

Gar's house was just as garish as you'd expect. It was a massive estate loaded with all the trappings one uses to announce to the world their great power and unlimited means. The best of bedfellows, those two. And part of having unlimited means is having the resources to heavily fortify your seat of power. And Gar had done exactly that. He had taken all the precautions.

But see, in this new world, a world now dominated by the implicit will of the Mater, all of those fancy security systems and motorized gates of the elite had been rendered inert. Neglected and forgotten in favor of the pursuit of still more consumption and even greater satisfaction. Yeah, in this new world, the great equalizer wasn't death. It was the Mater.

Anyway, I had actually spent a considerable amount of time tracking down the security codes to gain entry into the house. But as I pulled up to his drive, there was no need. The gates were wide open. You know, whenever I'd imagined this mission in my head, I'd always anticipated the scaling of a wall or some other covert means of approach to avoid detection. But the reality was far more simple. I just pulled straight up to the front door. And it was clear that my suspicions regarding his security forces had been correct. I stepped out of my automo, gun clearly visible in my hand, and the only eyes there to greet me were those of his stupid fucking gargoyles. Fish heads, of course. Garfish with their jaws agape. So obviously the likeness had also occurred to him and he'd just leaned into it. Hiding in plain sight as psychopaths always do. But I had seen him now.

The massive front door was also ajar. And for the first time, someone was moving through Gar's world with the same impunity he had so gleefully enjoyed as he devoured my wife — and with her our happiness. And his world, as it had now become, smelled like shit. Both literally and figuratively like shit. Obviously the house staff had gone the same way as security. And the power was out and the smell of rotten food was everywhere. But it wasn't just coming from the refrigerator. Strewn all over the house, there were these abandoned containers of half -eaten takeout that had turned various shades of green and brown and blue — most of it hairy at this point. But that didn't account for the overpowering fecal smell. Nah, I wouldn't discover the source of that until later.

Anyway, as I wandered through the place, I was struck by how neatly the house reflected the needless bloat of its owner. Rooms upon rooms that had clearly never been used, except as depositories for stacks of unopened boxes full of who knows what. Impulsive purchases forgotten the second they'd been ordered, I'm sure.

Then, I climbed his ridiculous marble staircase and followed the main corridor to its end. And that is where I discovered Gar's lair. The bedroom, where I could reasonably assume he struck blow after blow against the sanctity of my marriage.

The room was a mess. There were these piles of cash strewn everywhere. Ya know, little altars to greed and carelessness. And there must have been a window or doors left open somewhere because there was a strong draft piping in the stench of decay and rot from downstairs. It fluttered the bills scattered in front of me. They twitched and writhed like little parasites. And I suddenly felt nauseous. I don't know what it was that actually made me sick. I mean, it could have been the stench, or maybe it was the idea of Gar's gluttonous existence made so tangible. Or maybe it was the idea of Priscilla doing her own kind of writhing in that room that finally got to me. I don't know, maybe it was all of them. Whatever it was, it started me heaving. And I managed to hold down whatever was trying to come up, but that was more than enough to make me flee back into the hallway and move on.

I continued my search, but I wasn't having any luck finding my victim. I'd almost given up when I noticed a door just off of the kitchen. It was the entrance to another staircase, this one descending into the basement. And as I made my way down, another wave of nausea hit me. But this time I knew exactly why. The shit smell was overpowering. It was like wading into an outhouse. And the further down I went, the stronger it got and the harder it was for me to push myself forward.

But once I got to the bottom, I realized that what I had discovered was Gar's rec room. And it was more of exactly what you'd expect — an indoor digital driving range, a full bar, a pool table. And at the far end, a massive home theater set up complete with leather recliners. And it was in front of one of those recliners that I finally found the man himself.

He was on his knees with his ass resting on his calves. His eyes were wide open, but they'd glazed over and they were no longer their usual green. They had turned that same milky blue as the godlike orb he seemed to be praying to. The robe he was wearing was untied and had fallen open. And what that revealed was the ultimate testament to the all-consuming power of the Mater. He was emaciated. Like his skeleton was drowning in an ocean of its own flesh. Massive flabs of flaccid skin just dangled from his frame. All the fat that used to fill those now-empty balloons was just gone. And this whole pile of biological waste had been left to just marinate in a cesspool of all kinds of bodily fluids. It was like everything inside of him had just slowly seeped out the bottom.

And at first I was convinced he was dead, but then I noticed the visible pulsing of his heart beneath the skin on his chest and the steady shallow breaths he was still somehow managing. I had no idea how he had survived in that state. He'd probably been there for weeks — no evidence of food or water anywhere in sight. Ya know, what I'd seen upstairs must have been remnants of a bygone time, long before he'd become fully engulfed by the Node. Before it had fully captivated him. And that thought actually gave me hope that maybe there was still a chance to free 'Scilla from its grips. That he hadn't had time to overtake her yet.

And I also had to wonder how had this pathetic, catatonic piece of shit mustered the energy to send my wife a Node? How was that possible? How was any of this possible? And I still don't have an answer to those questions. And I suspect I never will. If there still is a "someone" or "something" out there that holds that knowledge, I don't get the sense that it would feel much of a need to share it with me. And who the hell knows if I'd even be able to comprehend it if it was offered? Who knows if anyone could. Because I can tell you, whatever is happening, it has already completely and decisively shattered every model we have ever had for understanding our universe.

Anyway, I had finally made it. I had come to the moment of truth. And all that was left was just to pull the trigger. So I stood in front of him between him and his precious Node. And I honestly half-expected that to break the trance or maybe even break his mind. It was actually the fear of that second possibility that had kept me from just ripping Scilla's Node away from her the instant I found her. But neither of those things happened. He just kept staring. As though he could see right through me. Like he was looking deep into the Node and... beyond it somehow. And his distant stare sent a literal chill up my spine. It made me feel empty inside — hollowed out — like I didn't actually exist at all. And that sensation filled me with an intense feeling of dread. And my instinct was just to retreat as quickly as possible. But I didn't. I stood my ground. And after a deep breath, I planted my feet and I leveled the gun to his head.

Again, all I had to do was pull the trigger. But I didn't. I couldn't. But not because I was afraid to. I didn't do it because it wasn't right. And what I mean by that is that it wasn't enough. Not after all he'd done. The idea of simply putting a bullet in his head while he remained completely unaware of my presence — to my bold invasion into his sanctum — was entirely unsatisfying. Now I needed to confront him. To scold him. To make him aware that for the first time in his limitless, privileged life, he wasn't going to win. He wasn't going to get away with it. He was going to answer for what he had done.

The butt of the gun made a strange sound when it connected with his face. And it didn't feel like you'd expect either. It was sort of like whacking a water bottle full of gelatin. It had a give that it shouldn't have. But regardless, it did the trick. He came to and shook his head a few times. And the way that his jowl skin flopped around kind of reminded me of a hound dog shaking off after a bath.

It's really weird the banal places your mind goes, even as you're preparing to do something absolutely life changing — or life ending in this case. Although maybe it was fitting. I mean, I was after all going to put this man down like he was a sick animal, which he most certainly was.

I stood there with the gun in his face, but he just kind of looked at me blankly. Like he didn't quite register what was happening. And I didn't say anything at first. I just stood there absorbing the moment. I think it was starting to hit me just how real my long-held desire had finally become. And he blinked his eyes at me a few times and seemed confused. And then he tried to speak. It was horse and rough at first, and it took him a few tries, but he finally managed a question.

He asked if I was there to give him his massage. As though I was just another one of his servants there to do his bidding. And I didn't quite know how to respond. So I put it plainly. I told him I was there to kill him. And his response was just as matter-of-fact as mine. He just said, "Oh." That was it. Just, "Oh." Like I'd told him that a meeting had just been canceled, or it had started to rain. There wasn't any sense of fear or anger or regret. There was just, "Oh."

And his lack of reaction, his lack of recognition, really pissed me off. I launched into a diatribe recounting as many crimes against the world and the transgressions with my wife that had brought me to his basement to put an end to him. And by the time I was done, I was all froth and breathlessness. But Gar, he was still just blank. And in that moment, I realized that he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. You know, not that he was denying it. He wasn't in denial. What I mean is that he literally couldn't recall having fucked my wife.

This was a frustrating development. See, the thing about holding someone accountable for their actions is that for it to be meaningful, you really need that person to understand their actions. Otherwise, it's like punishing a baby for soiling a diaper — which I guess given the state of him, that was a pretty apt metaphor. No, you know what? In fact, that was an apt metaphor despite his current state, because he'd always been — at the core — a semi-lucid, hedonistic, undeveloped child. It's just that now he'd completely reverted. Doomed to helplessly exist atop piles of his own disgusting filth.

Yeah, what Gar had become was truly pathetic. And to me, there was a kind of poetry in that. It seemed fitting — divine even — for him to waste away. Literally bled dry by the power of his own glut. I mean, it was the stuff of Shepherdist psalters. And I decided in that moment that to kill him would be an act of dignity and mercy he didn't deserve. You know, it’s funny that after all my planning, after all my worry, after all of my rage and indignation, I was content to simply leave him to his own demise. I mean, I knew he wasn't long for this world anyway, that he'd quietly and unceremoniously expire. And once he had, that the rot and decay that had already begun in earnest would continue to take its natural course. And as it did, the outside of Gar Abydos would finally resemble the inside of the man in ways it only seemed to before. Because it wasn't his gluttony or his selfishness that truly defined him. It was what was beneath all of that — the thing that drove those traits — that really made him who he was: a man fashioned from pestilence and rot and bile.

And this all flashed through my mind in a few seconds. And as it did, I just stood there looking at him. And he just knelt there, blankly staring back at me. And once I'd made that decision, there was nothing to do but just... leave.

But it felt appropriate, necessary really, to say something to close out the occasion. And when I opened my mouth, what came out was so simple but felt so loaded with all of my passion and hate for him. I just said, "Goodbye, Gar." And as I turned to leave, he uttered his response — a pleasantry delivered with all the grace and believability of an automaton. He just said, "Thanks for stopping by." I audibly huffed at the ridiculousness of it because the tone did not match the moment, not even a little. And it got even more ridiculous when he added, "I really should be getting back to it." You know, as though this were any other typical day. As though I was any other person who had temporarily drifted into his proximity and taken him away from more pressing concerns. He really had become just a machine running some socially acceptable script. Always had been, I guess.

A weapon of mass destruction masquerading as a human being.

I had had enough. I meant to go, but that statement, that "I really should be getting back to it", that triggered a question that I had been wrestling with since this all started: "What exactly is it that everyone sees in these things? What is so irresistible?" And that question seemed to really land, because I could see a change in him. It was like he was suddenly fully aware of my presence. Like he'd snapped back to reality just long enough to answer me. And he summed it up in a single word. "Possibility."

I wasn't remotely satisfied. I just stood there looking at him with what I'm sure was the same blank expression he'd been offering me for most of the exchange. But then his eyes narrowed, his mouth curled into a fucking smirk, and he finished his thought. "Like when I saw your wife's ass for the first time." He said it so matter-of-factly that I wasn't even sure I'd heard him right. But some part of me must have heard him, because my ears were ringing and my hand was numb.

I lowered my arm the second I realized it was pointed out in front of me. And that's when I remembered there was a gun at the other end of it. There was smoke hanging in the air and Gar was lying on his back, motionless.

Panic over what I'd done set in almost immediately. I didn't expect to feel that way. I thought I'd feel righteous or relieved. Instead I felt something else. Regret maybe? I don't know, I've never felt regret before, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. My heart was racing and I was having trouble breathing. And there was a whole lot of smoke. That didn't help matters. It stung my eyes and my throat. There was just so much smoke. More than there should have been, at least in my estimation.

And when I stepped toward him I suddenly had this vague, irrational wave of hope surge through me. Maybe I'd only grazed him. Maybe I'd missed him entirely. Maybe he was just playing dead, hoping I'd leave. But that hope evaporated the second I came around the other side of him and saw his right eye. Or I guess I should say, the smoking hole where his right eye used to be. He must have turned his head away from the Node right as I pulled the trigger. Otherwise I probably would have hit him in the side of the head. But instead, what I had managed was a direct shot right through his eye socket. And the flesh inside of it was glowing like a piece of burning paper, smoldering. And that is when the amount of smoke finally made sense to me.

But it was really shocking. No one had ever told me — no telly program or flicker show had ever suggested that a point blank gunshot could actually light a victim on fire. I mean, it makes perfect sense in hindsight. I've heard of powder burns before. But apparently the heat of a bullet and the eruption of the flame from the barrel can singe the flesh and actually ignite it. Because that turned out to be the case here. It was an unlucky turn of events for both of us. Well, more for him than for me, if I'm honest.

I remember there was this thin, gray-brown stream of smoke and ash flowing up from the wound. And in what seemed like an overly vindictive flourish of circumstance, his left eye actually moved to follow the path of the smoke as it rose — this stream of his own vaporized eye. And I'm sure it was just an involuntary, dying brain twitch, but still, it was likely the last thing he saw before the life fully drained from him. And it was clear that it had. I watched as the blood pooled behind his head — too much blood. And it was mixed with bits of brain matter and skull fragments. The color of the brain tissue seemed... off. You know, not that I have a lot of experience with stuff like that, but it wasn't right. It made me wonder just how unnatural whatever sustenance the Mater had been providing him was. I don't know why I thought that. I mean, everything leading up to that point had already pretty sufficiently broadcast that fact. But that was the thought at the time.

And as I stood there and that little fire in his head finally burned itself out, I was struck by a distinct sensation that his left eye, having lost all focus of life, was now dilated and staring directly at me. And I do mean at me this time, not through me like before. It was like it had locked on to the glaring shame I was desperately trying to hide from myself. And I felt hollow all over again. Terrified.

And this time I did run. I ran from the basement and up the stairs as quickly as my jelly filled legs would allow me. And I threw up the second I hit relatively fresh air. But I kept moving, even as I spewed vomit everywhere and stumbled out into the garage. I was frantic — holding on to whatever I could to keep myself upright — and I smacked the opener button and spilled out into the driveway. And that is where I landed as everything went black.

Yeah, I think that's enough for now.

[TAPE CLICK]

DOV:

Man, um, well. The, uh, the deed is done.

ORSON: I know. It's a lot to take in.

DOV:

It is. It is.

ORSON:

It is. Very, very powerful, palpable stuff. And pretty extraordinary. I can't, uh, just offhand think of anything quite like it in the annals of the things that you and I have studied over the years.

DOV:

Right.

ORSON:

There is something... certainly the Mater Node is, uh, unbelievable. We can imagine this as just an advanced technology. But at this point, there is something "beyond". This seems like something other, something inhuman.

DOV:

Yes. Dare you say evil.

ORSON:

Yes. Yes.

DOV:

The fundamental —

Or beyond that, a sense of morality beyond anything that we can even fathom. A purpose beyond good and evil that we can't even grasp. It has that feel.

DOV:

The fundamental elements of biochemistry do not seem to obey whatever this scenario is.

ORSON:

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, uh... something has sped up, and there's been a fundamental transformation here that we can't explain in any normal sense.

DOV:

I imagine that he's going to want to get home quickly, having seen what he just saw and knowing that his beloved 'Scilla is, at this moment, in the same position. I…

ORSON:

Yes. Well, he's out. And when we next pick up, it's him coming around. So we'll see what his thoughts are regarding what to do about 'Scilla and what he's just done in that basement.

DOV:

Well, before you press play on that, I do have to take a quick station break. So let's do that. And we will be right back with more Kandel Against the Dark.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

DOV:

Welcome back to Kandel Against the Dark.

Okay, so Jack was unconscious in the driveway, having been completely overwhelmed by finally having done the thing he had come there to do. Gar is dead. And as I said before the break, I suspect Jack is going to want to get home to 'Scilla as quickly as possible.

ORSON:

Oh, well, certainly, certainly. I don't think it's any surprise that that's foremost in Jack's mind. But when he actually does wake up, there's a certain concern that occurs to him and it makes him linger a bit. And well, we'll Jack tell us about that now.

DOV:

All right, let's hear it.

[TAPE CLICK]

JACK:

I don't know how long I was unconscious in that driveway, but when I finally came to, I had lost all sense of what I'd just done. It was like it had never happened. It was like none of the horrible things I'd been living through had happened. I didn't even know where I was. I guess my brain just needed a second to come back online. Like there'd been a total system reboot.

I realized pretty quickly, though, that I was lying on cold concrete, staring up at a full moon. Not in my bed. And not next to my wife. And just the sight of the moon — that perfectly round glowing ball hovering over me — immediately triggered a flood of recognition. The memories of everything started flowing back into my brain in all of their excruciating detail. And with that, I was keenly aware again of that other little moon still glowing in the darkness of Gar's basement — and in front of my wife at home.

And I want to be clear, I don't mean that another of the same kind of thing was in my house. I mean, it was literally the same thing. Because that's how I understand it now, with hindsight and reflection. Those two Nodes — and all others for that matter — were all parts of the same whole. Like the cells of a larger body. And that larger body was the Mater. I hadn't quite figured that out yet, but I probably should have. I mean, it's right there in the name, Mater "Node". But I really hadn't had time to reflect on the semantics of it all. And it wasn't really important to me in that moment anyway. What mattered to me then, and what I clearly understood, was the very obvious fact that the longer I laid there, the more time 'Scilla's node had with her and the more empty she was becoming.

And that actually filled me with a renewed sense of urgency, but my body wasn't cooperating. I pushed myself up to a sitting position and was trying to catch my breath, but every inhale felt shallow and completely unhelpful. My vision was all fuzzy around the edges. And as I sat there gasping for air, I found myself peering helplessly into the darkness of that open garage door. And as if I wasn't already panicked enough, I suddenly caught sight of two more glowing orbs hovering inside. I immediately took them for Nodes. And in that instant, and ever since, I have had the distinct impression that they were essentially eyes. Eyes that were watching me. Eyes of a mind all around me, but somehow forever beyond my reach.

But they weren't Nodes, and they weren't eyes. They were just the headlamps of one of Gar's many automos reflecting in the moonlight. But in that brief moment before my mercifully analytical mind finally resolved that fact, I was filled with a kind of terror I had never experienced before. And it shook me. And like I said, that impression, that sense of being watched, hasn't left me since. It's like it burned itself into my soul somehow.

And it's only grown in intensity as things have continued to unfold. A feeling that the Mater, whatever it is, doesn't need literal eyes to see every move I make. And I know that sounds insane. It's an idea completely unsupported by observable fact. But every fiber of me feels the truth of it now. In exactly the same way I knew 'Scilla was my life's purpose the moment I met her. But that purpose has withered now. It died with her.

And this is what has come to replace it.

What I mean is that I understand now that there is an intelligence at the root of the Mater Node's seductive power — and I don't just mean in its engineering. I mean in its very essence. It has actively singled me out. My life has been co-opted. My purpose has been reimagined for its own dark aims, whatever those are. I know now that what I've witnessed, what happened to me, to 'Scilla, wasn't just chance. It wasn't circumstance. We were "chosen" — for reasons I don't understand — to play a part in all of this.

And I guess in accepting that, the great skeptic, Jack Courier, has finally become something of a man of faith — not in a beautiful, loving God like the Shepherdists or Rasulists believe governs our lives, but in something else. Something with far more awful and malignant aims — at least from any human perspective. I mean, who really knows how this intelligence feels about what it's doing to our world? Who knows if it feels anything at all? But if it does, those feelings certainly don't seem to include any concern for us. Not for me. Not for 'Scilla. And certainly not for humanity at large.

[TAPE CLICK]

ORSON:

Okay. So Jack is philosophizing here a bit. Again, he talks about the feeling that the Nodes are eyes and that there's an intelligence behind it. Then he mentions the Shepherdists again, and he mentions the "Rasulists" Now of course we didn't have transcripts to these tapes and could only hear what he said, but somebody on the team mentioned that rasul in Arabic, I guess, means prophet. And so the assumption, the working assumption, is/was that the Rasulists might represent Islam.

DOV:

Okay.

ORSON:

So we have Christianity, Islam, uh, and in that sense... these two belief systems exist in our world and they also exist in this world. And that raises two possibilities: that if these beliefs are popping up, that there may be a unifying truth behind them — which has been, uh, many of your more ecumenical religions, your syncretizing religions have this idea. But there's also another possibility: that, um... and this goes back to... I had mentioned Roget Bardswell.

DOV:

Right.

ORSON:

And his idea was that different universes were essentially reconfigurations of the same things.

DOV:

Ummhmm.

ORSON:

So basically, if you were to take every possible combination of the elements of any given universe and just run it through a different pattern... And so essentially, everything is chaotic, and what we think of as order is just a particular configuration of the same elements. So, in some universes, you get these things... they're almost like building blocks just thrown together. And this was met with a lot of pushback from much of the scientific community. Mathematicians, ya know, wanted to see, of course, some proof. And the thing is, as Bardswell was doing some very interesting things with the math. He published a few papers that showed that you could, sort of, build mathematical systems like this. And he was working very heavily on trying to figure out a very specific system before, of course, he committed suicide. And of course, the sort of conspiratorial idea is that the research that he was doing drove him mad.

And then others say, "Well, he wasn't actu...he didn't actually commit suicide." All the normal things. But given what's going on with Jack and the way that you have these connections... but then thinking that there is this intelligence behind this that is either part and parcel or the universe or is bleeding into it — much as if the body indeed that we found was Jack — his universe bled into ours...

DOV:

Right.

ORSON:

It makes you wonder if these things are simply, you know, the universes are built from the same building blocks, but what's behind them is something a bit darker, a bit more — if not chaotic — more indecipherable to our limited human minds and experience.

DOV:

Sort of the threads behind the tapestry.

ORSON:

Yes, yes. You can't guess what it looks like …

DOV:

No, no.

ORSON:

…on the backside. You just see the picture and it seems orderly. But behind, there's a tangled mass of threads that could fray at any time. And Jack is wrestling with these kind of questions, I believe, as are we in the wake of what we found and what we're hearing.

DOV:

I also want to jump in real quick. It strikes me, the comments he's making about... which began with noting Gar's eyes, and then after the shooting, uh, the clarity, the sort of... the focus of the dead eye looking at him. And then, of course —

ORSON: Chill...chilling imagery.

DOV:

Yes, very much. It reminds one of the works of Poe and Keystone. These eyes becoming such heavy themes in some of that work.

ORSON:

Yes, uh, the Poe story, uh...

DOV:

The Tell-Tell Heart.

ORSON:

Tell-Tell Heart. Yes. Yes, and uh...

DOV:

And Keystone's The Witness.

ORSON:

Yes, yes, yes. You're right. Yes, he used the same... well, he was a major fan of Poe. So again, taking these elements...these elements and re-scrambling them, re-imagining them. Sort of a little microcosm of what we've got going on here.

DOV:

Exactly. And I don't want to get too in the weeds on this. I just, I found that very interesting.

ORSON:

Indeed. Okay, well, let's move on, shall we? And let's see where Jack takes us next.

[TAPE CLICK]

JACK:

But as I sat in that driveway, I hadn't learned much less accepted any of that new truth yet. All I knew was the profound terror of the moment and the sense of resistance that came with it. Just like Gar, this thing was trying to steal my wife and I needed to destroy it.

But first, I needed to understand how. And it occurred to me that what I had down in that basement was a perfect opportunity for experimentation. If I could neutralize that Node, I would know exactly what to expect from the one at home.

So, I immediately set my sights on finding something — anything — I could use in my coming battle. I was groping around in the dark like an idiot, but as my eyes adjusted, I happened to catch sight of the perfect implement: a sledgehammer — heavy and made for destruction. And it had a long handle that would allow me to keep a safe distance from my enemy. So armed with that, I descended back into the basement.

Not much had changed since I was last there. Gar was still right where I'd left him. And so was the hole in his head. And the sight of that reality meant that the nausea had reclaimed its spot in the pit of my stomach, too. "Everything in its right place", as my mother was so fond of saying.

Anyway, I had come back to exactly where I'd left off. And it was no less horrific than it was before. So I was more than happy to turn my attention away from the carnage of my misdeed and focus on the task at hand. So I stepped into the glare of the Node, and I tightened my grip around the handle of that hammer. I felt a little like someone stepping up to one of those strongman carnival games. You know, the one with the giant mallet in the bell at the top of a pole.

Again, it's strange the banal associations your brain makes, even in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. But as it turns out, it wasn't an altogether inaccurate comparison. Because when the head of that sledgehammer connected with the Node, it produced a loud, ethereal sound. And there was a kind of ringing to it. But it was mixed with something else, something more animalistic, almost a howl. Like something in pain. And it was deep. I could feel its low frequency vibrating in my chest. But as loud and present as it was, it also seemed... distant somehow. Like it wasn't really coming from the Node itself. You know, just like the otherworldly hum I'd heard it make at the AwlMart when I first encountered it, this noise seemed to be coming from somewhere... beyond the Node. Somewhere outside the confines of the basement and from every direction at once. Like it was coming from... behind the air somehow. Yeah, I've been struggling to describe it from the beginning, but yeah, that's the closest I've come. It was coming from "behind the air" — which still makes no sense.

Anyway, the second strike produced an entirely different but no less unnerving sound. This one was more like a buzzing. A harsh, high-pitched buzz. And it was physically painful. Not just to my ears, either. It actually made my brain hurt. Like the worst headache I had ever had. And my eyes snap closed in a wince. And this all might have been enough to send me running again if it weren't for the fact that when I finally did open my eyes, I saw that I had actually cracked the surface. There was this fissure in the brightness of the Node's glow. It was as black as any black I had ever seen. And the glow was flickering. Failing. I was definitely hurting it, and I wanted to hurt it some more. I pushed through the pain rising in my head, and I put everything I had into that third swing. And that one did the trick.

I don't know what I expected, exactly. An explosion? More smoke, maybe? Or at least some kind of brilliant flash as whatever energy was inside of it was snuffed out. But what I got instead was the light going out with all the ease of a telly being switched off. Even the noise was lackluster this time — just a tinkling somewhere between breaking glass and the crumpling of paper. And then the room was just dark and silent. Impossibly silent. Like I'd suddenly been dropped into the middle of outer space.

And in that weird quiet, I was suddenly overcome with a profound sense of peace. This sense of rightness. And I felt hopeful, because if it was that easy to destroy the Node, maybe the spell over 'Scilla's could be broken just as easily. Maybe everyone could be freed, and the world could be saved. And maybe — with time — things could go back to the way they were.

But that hope was painfully short-lived.

Because from somewhere inside that pile of shards, that light started to grow again. And I thought for a moment that it was healing itself somehow — and that's the word that came to mind, "healing". Because at the time, that seemed like the most appropriate word. And it seems even more appropriate knowing what I know now.

But regardless, it turns out that isn't what was happening at all. The remains of the Node were exactly that, "remains". They were jet black, and whatever life they had in them was definitely gone. This was something else. Whatever was producing this light was coming from somewhere beneath the pile — probably from the same undefinable place as the Node's death rattles had come from. And the strangeness of it all made me step in for a closer look. But I really wish I hadn't.

The black shards slowly began to slide apart and give way to the source of that light. It was dozens of little... spider things — little glowing spider-looking creatures. That's the best way I can describe them. They were all a bit different from each other. Some had eight legs, like you'd expect from a spider, but some had fewer, and others had many, many more. And as each emerged from beneath that broken Node, their brightness increased exponentially, all of them glowing with that same terrible light of the Mater from which they'd hatched, but far stronger than it had ever been.

And they just kept coming, spreading outward in every direction, as fast as their little legs would carry them. And I stumbled backward and immediately caught my heel on Gar's corpse. And that put me on the floor where I landed partially on him and partially in his waist. I shot back to my feet as fast as possible, but it was already too late. There was no escaping this onslaught. They were moving too fast. All I could do was brace myself for what was coming next. I just watched helplessly as they scuttled toward me. But for them, I was apparently just an obstacle to bypass. They didn't seem interested in me at all. My feet were like little deltas that temporarily split their flow before they reconverged behind me.

But I had maybe a second of relief before I realized that I was now surrounded. And I started to wonder how many of these things were going to pour out. I worried that they'd just keep coming, filling the room, maybe filling the whole world for all I knew. And my heart sank, because that's when I knew I hadn't "vanquished" anything. I hadn't freed the world of this Node's power. I'd done the opposite. I had freed whatever these terrible things were from the confines of the Node — all with a few hasty swings of a sledgehammer. And I cursed myself for my carelessness.

But then the source just suddenly stopped producing more. I don't know why. And the deluge became more of an expanding ring. And as that ring — that bioluminescent shockwave of bugs — traveled farther out into the room, it seemed to dissipate. You know, like the light of those spider things was vanishing into an unseen distance the walls of the basement should have made impossible. And then, just like that, they were gone.

I exhaled the breath I didn't even realize I'd been holding, and I regretted it instantly. Because my next inhale was through my nose. And the fact that I was now covered in Gar's juices meant that the smell hit me even harder this time. I doubled over and immediately had to bury my face in the crook of my arm to keep from retching. And for a minute, I just stayed there. I was desperately trying to reassure myself with the idea that at least the immediate threat seemed to have passed.

But I was wrong.

Because when I finally raised my head, my eyes immediately caught sight of Gar's corpse again. And something was different now. His head was backlit. All I could see was the silhouette of the back of his head and a milky blue halo surrounding it. Something had lingered. I made my way around to the other side of him, and sure enough, there was a single source of light emanating from his face — a glowing spot covering his left eye.

At first, I thought one of those spider-things had just crawled up there. And while I really didn't want to see what it was doing with his eye, I thought that maybe this would be my last chance to really observe one of these things. Because I still thought I might be able to learn something useful from it. You know, that maybe I could make some sense out of what was happening.

I would give anything to be that blissfully ignorant again. Because when I leaned in for a closer look, I realized there wasn't any spider-thing anywhere. That glow was coming from the eye itself. And it was moving again. Vibrating. Twitching erratically. It may as well have been a Mater Node in miniature buried in his eye socket. And it was getting brighter. It got so bright, I could actually see the veins in his eyelids. Dark red webbing against pink — like when you cover an e-torch with your hand. But there was something else I could see through those lids, too. Something more substantial and less translucent: eight thin, little... somethings — four behind the upper lid and four behind the lower. And they were moving in unison. I watched the skin around his eye bulge like it was pulsating. And then with a final thrust, the eye finally broke free from its container with a disgusting, sticky sounding pop. And this thing, this glowing but still undeniably human eye, used what I finally realized were its newly grown legs to skitter across Gar's face.

It made its way to the floor and started toward me. And I wanted to run, but I didn't. I froze. I was in too much shock to react. And I just stood there and watched as it came to a stop at the tip of my toe. And then it looked right at me. And when I say it looked at me, I don't mean with the kind of eyes you would expect from a spider or any other kind of bug. It looked at me with the eye that made up its body. Gar's eye — or what had become of it anyway? And reflex must have finally kicked in because without even thinking, I crushed it with my foot.

And that triggered something else: as my foot came down, Gar's corpse jerked. Like it felt the pain of that eye being crushed. And then the boiling started. Well, it wasn't exactly boiling. It was more like hundreds of little turbulent distinctions. The loose skin on Gar's face looked like it was... again, it looked like it was bubbling or simmering. You know, I can't really find a better way to describe it. You know, the fact is there just isn't a good word to describe what I saw because it isn't something that happens. But nonetheless, there it was happening right in front of me. And it intensified quickly. Whatever was pushing from beneath, whatever was trying to emerge from that cocoon of flesh, was clearly getting more and more aggressive. And that's when the skin started to tear. And from those gaps, more of that light was piercing through — little shafts of shimmering light.

And that was enough to break the spell of terrified fascination I had been in. And I ran. I ran because I didn't want to see what was coming next. But I found out soon enough that no amount of running was going to protect me from what was coming next. Nothing would.

DOV:

Wow, man, I gotta tell you, we have reached a level of grotesque and disturbing that I frankly was not expecting as we began this journey. The undulating skin, the, uh.... his body basically boiling as if it were pasta. This is incredibly disturbing.

ORSON:

And it's not merely the described sight of what happens to Gar's body. It's the implications of it.

DOV:

Yes.

ORSON:

That his body has not merely become emaciated and has been drained in some way by...

DOV:

It's been supplanted.

ORSON:

It's been transformed.

DOV:

Right. And it would appear unrelated to the fact that Jack broke the Node. This is something that was happening regardless.

ORSON:

Yes. Or... yes, perhaps what happened with the Node triggered his final reaction to it. Uh, much, uh...he said to ring like a bell. Perhaps this was a resonant feature. But the possibility for that already being there appears to have been... already existed within Gar. And I have to say when we heard this, when my team heard this, without saying anything to each other, we all just happened to get up and leave for lunch at the same time. This was terrifying. And it was really at this point... we all believed that this was real at this point, at least in my team. I can say that for certain.

But the implications... this was the first point that we really began to feel the danger, that we began to feel a threat, that if something of this horror, this "otherness", this... this transformative alien aspect that Jack has stated is hopeless, at least in his feelings now... If that came through along with the body and the briefcase and everything that was in it, would it have some transformative effect on our world, if only a sliver of it? For Jack, I think what he was most focused on was, "Is what just happened to Gar going to happen to 'Scilla?" He had to have been thinking a million different thoughts. And so, what does he do?

He runs from the basement, both I think in terror and in the hopes of getting to her. But think of that. He's in the dark. He's crushed this spider, uh, this spider-thing.

DOV:

The eyeball spider.

ORSON:

Right. Either of the same nature as the things that came out of the Node, or at least a close cousin. Uh, would they be coming back in defense of it? He's standing here between the remains of Gar and the remains of the Node, the remains of the things that he's done. And he's seen these spider-things crawl off into the distance.

And he runs from the basement as he running into emptiness. He mentioned the feeling of being in outer space. Was this just simply a sensation, or did he sense something more? He ran. It was all that he could do. In the absence of any other action, he moved forward. And where he moved forward was towards 'Scilla. Right.

DOV:

Well, with that, it would appear we have run out of time for tonight. And honestly, right now, I also feel a desire to run. We're going to...

ORSON:

I know that feeling well. I've, uh... it came up several times in the course of this.

DOV:

I can only imagine. I have not been in physical proximity to any of these items. I can only imagine. You have taken us on a harrowing journey thus far. I, for one, could never have imagined where this story, these tapes, would take us. And I don't mind saying that I think I've been fundamentally and permanently changed for having heard what I have here tonight. I want to thank you again for traveling here to be with us in person on such short notice. It is always an honor to have you.

ORSON:

Thank you so much for having me. And I can't wait to share more with you tomorrow night.

DOV:

That feeling is mutual, I assure you. So that's all we have. We will be back tomorrow with the conclusion of Jack's story, whatever that may be. So until next time, Ameriga, keep your lamps alight and your minds afire. I'm Dov Kandel and this has been Kandel Against the Dark.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

END OF EPISODE 5