Gorgon

CHAPTER 7

Izmit, Turkey, sixty miles east of Istanbul

Arf-arf-arf-arf-arf-arf.

Zayda screwed up a weathered eye and tried to shut the sound of the dog’s continued barking from her mind. It was hard enough trying to make sense of what was on the television when the reception made everything look like it was covered in radioactive snow. She looked across to Yarni, her husband, and then to the new antenna that was still a pile of metal poles, loops of wire and bags of screws stacked near the door.

Arf-arf-arf-arf-arf-arf — on and on the noise went, threatening to grind her brain to mush, and her fat husband just sat reading a paper, oblivious to the clamor. Zayda stared at him, hoping her volcanic gaze would set the newsprint on fire. But he continued to sit there, his head nodding slightly, blue cigarette smoke curling up beside his puffy, grizzled face.

Her lips moved in a curse, and she groaned to her feet and crossed to the window. Instead of throwing it open, she shouted at the glass: ‘Shut up, cursed mongrel!’ The window seemed to rattle with the ferocity of her words, but Yarni hadn’t budged, and of course the barking didn’t stop.

She turned back to the window. The sun was setting, and she could just make out the ancient clock tower in the city center. It was old, but just a speck in history compared to her home. She angled her vision so she could just glimpse the ruins of a Roman aqueduct touching one of the hills. Izmit, built on the fertile plain of the inland Sea of Marmara, had been one of the eastern-most capitals of the Roman Empire for more than half a century — but was old even back then. Now, the city was desperate to modernize, but in the hills, where Zayda and Yarni lived, life was still bucolic, insular, and resistant to anything more modern than television and the motor car.

Zayda pulled back from the window. She would have enjoyed the view if not for that fucking noisy dog! She spun around at her husband. ‘That Boushkin — barking, barking … all the time with the barking.’

Yarni’s cigarette went from one side of his mouth to the other and a slit opened in his lips. ‘Must have seen a fox.’

Zayda stomped over to her husband and grabbed his arm. ‘Well, get out there and shut him up. He’s driving me crazy!’

Yarni jerked his arm away. ‘Piss off, woman, it’s cold out there.’ He continued reading.

Zayda swatted her hand up through his paper. ‘If you don’t, I will.’

She waited a few seconds. The only movement was Yarni’s eyes slowly taking in the print.

‘Fine, then I will shut him up — permanently.’

She clomped to the door, snatching up the coal shovel on the way. She paused, daring him to stop her, but he lifted the paper higher so that only his gray hair was visible above its pages. Zayda pulled open the door.

Arf-arf-arf-arf-arf-arf. Out on the porch, the sound was even worse. There was just a faint glow on the horizon now, and the yellow luminescence from the windows only bathed the hard ground for little more than ten feet from the front steps. The dog was chained near the shed; she could see it was at the chain’s full length and, oddly, facing toward the house, as if the fox, or whatever was upsetting him, had made its way inside.

‘Boushkin, you stop!’ she commanded.

The dog flattened its ears and whined, then continued barking.

Zayda made a guttural sound of annoyance that caused her breath to steam in the dark, cold air. She stepped down, gripping the shovel tighter. Either the dog, or the fox was about to get a headache to match her own.

Yarni curled his toes inside his socks. He drew on his cigarette but got nothing but cold, stale air. He thought about relighting it, but after examining its length decided instead to flick the butt into the fire.

He peered around their small cluttered room, and frowned. ‘Zayda?’

How long had he been sitting there alone? Was his wife still outside? Stupid woman. The barking had stopped ages ago … or at least he thought it had. He shook his head. There was no way Zayda would really hit the dog. She might not like it, but it was the only thing keeping the foxes away from the chickens.

Yarni looked toward the curtains; it was dark and cold outside. She’s not that stupid, he thought. He got slowly to his feet and stretched his back, then rolled down his sleeves. His forearms were massively muscled, attesting to a life of hard work. Dinner wouldn’t cook itself — he’d see what was keeping her. He pulled his shirt down over a paunch that caused his belt to strain on its very last notch, and lumbered toward the door. He looked briefly at his jacket, but shrugged — he’d only be a few minutes.

He left the door ajar and stood on the porch, scanning the dark front yard. There was no sign of his wife.

‘Zayda. Zayda!’ He stepped down into the yard and called again. He stopped to listen. It was unusually silent — there should have at least been the hoot of an owl, or the rustle of creatures starting their night-time forage. Not to mention the dog.

He squinted at a shape beside the shed. It could be Boushkin, lying flat on his side, legs stiff like he was already frozen solid. But it’s not that cold, he thought, and then, The old witch really killed him.

‘Zayda, you can bury the dog,’ he called out, walking toward the body. Maybe she’d gone to finish off the fox as well, or at least check on her chickens. As he kneeled he raised his head to yell again. ‘And you can watch the chickens now — you get Boushkin’s job.’

He put his hand on the dog. The body was cold and hard — even his fur was stiff spikes. His white eyes were wide, and his tongue protruded from his open mouth, stretched wide in terror or madness.

There was a small sound from behind him, like weeping, he thought. He half-turned. ‘Stupid woman. I said, you can watch the —’

A figure moved in front of him, and he looked up. A feeling like a thousand razor blades welled up from his gut. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came. A small dot of pain in the center of his head grew to a stuffy inferno that pressed his eyes and ears from the inside. It was if something was blooming deep inside his brain.

His eyes began to cloud over, and he fell beside the dog. As he looked into Boushkin’s cold, mute face, he seemed to say: I tried to warn you.

The streets were narrow and empty. Many of the rooftops were newly tiled, or domed and rebuilt a hundred times over the centuries. The crowded architecture made Guyve look like a concrete scab on the green surrounding countryside. Smoke from fireplaces too numerous to count lifted from chimney tops, but struggled to rise more than a dozen feet in the still air before falling into the laneways to create a mist that reeked of pine wood, garlic, and roasting meat.

Gökhan and Maluk Demit walked home slowly, their backs sore and their boots muddy, after spending the last twelve hours pitching hay and mucking out barns on the town’s outskirts. Both men were in their forties, had never married, and probably never would unless they sought a wife in one of the larger towns further up or down the main road.

Gökhan, the elder of the two, carried a parcel of goat meat. He reached out to slap his brother on the shoulder. ‘This Sunday we’ll go to Ulu Camii Mosque — the Great One.’

Maluk groaned. ‘Again? I think you go to pay homage to the widows afterwards more than to worship inside on your knees.’

Gökhan laughed. ‘I pray for love every time — is that such a bad thing? So far, all I have in return for my prayers is you.’

Maluk laughed. ‘And my curse is worse — I ended up with you.’

Gökhan shoved his younger brother, and shifted the meat to his other arm. He jerked to a stop. ‘Oh, oh, looks like we have a late traveler … and sounds like he’s sad. Do you hear that crying?’

Maluk followed his brother’s gaze. ‘What’s that on his head?’

The figure was just coming out of the mist. As soon Maluk’s eyes alighted on it, and he saw, really saw, he felt a fist clamp down deep in his skull.

Beside him, Gökhan grunted, doubled over and vomited. Instead of the wet splash of stomach juices and partially digested lunch, what actually hit the ground was more like drying cement.

Maluk’s mouth opened in a silent scream and he dropped to his knees, clawing at his face. His skin started to crack and craze like a clay pot that had been left too long in the kiln.

The figure looked down at the two men, or what was left of them. One was doubled over, his fingers digging into the ancient cobblestones. The other’s frozen hands clawed at a face that was now as solid as the ground beneath his knees.

The creature turned its head slowly. It didn’t see the town of Guyve, just as it hadn’t seen Izmit or any of the others it had passed through. Instead, it saw a land that had existed thousands of years ago, when the ancient towns were little more than huts, or caravan trails, and the humans were few. The small beings had worshiped it then, gladly offering up morsels that it had either consumed immediately, or stored for later use. But then it had been trapped and imprisoned.

It looked at the silvery orb overhead, hating its clarity and dryness. It longed for warmth, wetness, and an endless blue twilight. It ached for the tall cities of its homeland, with silver spires that touched the sky. Most of all, it felt the pain of separation from its own kind. The years of imprisonment, of solitude, had caused a loneliness and sadness that was fathomless. They had also given it a ravenous hunger that was all consuming.

It sensed the millions of living beings all around and felt overwhelmed. They had multiplied so quickly. Since its release, though, it was growing stronger; every small life absorbed gave it energy, nourishing it, making it more powerful than anything that had walked the land since the time of the saurian giants.

The moon’s silvery light was strong enough to cast a weak shadow of the creature on the wall of the laneway. It saw itself and once again felt the irresistible urge to find its own kind. They still had work to do.

It drifted carelessly past the dried husks of the men. The small beings existed only to worship it, or feed it.