Hungry Ray - 4

[bloodcount]

“Dark. Damn, its dark.” Ray put aside his new weapon with disgust after cutting himself for the fourth time in the last half hour. Twice on his hands, once on his foot and once on his eyebrow, the result of bringing the deadly instrument closer and closer to his face as the light waned for the day. Time to stop before he put out an eye. And, really, the day was not so much ‘light’ as it was an absence of complete dark. He took a deep breath and coughed. Stupid dust. It was so fine and insidious he couldn’t draw a decent breath anymore. Also, his leg hurt, the shallow claw cuts there had been bothering him for days.

“Whine, whine, whine,” Ray muttered.

His concentration waylaid, the hunger pain came back with a vengeance. He remembered a delightful story that Stephen King had evidently worked hard on. A pilot, smuggling drugs, had crash-landed on a deserted island with only an enormous bag of heroin for company and no food. With the help of the numbing opiate and a pocketknife this guy had eaten his own legs and was finally reduced to eating his fingers right off of his hands before he died. “'Lady-fingers. They taste just like Lady-fingers,'” Ray muttered and bit into his knuckle. “Actually, I prefer apple fritters.” He spit a flake of mud out of his mouth and got up to take advantage of the last of the light.

He walked to his swivel boulder at the entrance of his cave and crouched for a moment, listening to see if it was safe to go outside. He clapped his hands together explosively. Sometimes the shock of the sound made whatever was lurking outside jump and give itself away. Nothing. Ray wormed his way out of his hole and stood, taking a good look around for any movement. He had cleared the area outside of his new home the best he could and there was little cover left for predators or himself. It was a perfect killing field.

Walking to his favorite watering hole, what he affectionately termed a buffalo wallow, he began to dig around with his hands. The trick was not to get so distracted by grubbing in the mud that he would fail to notice any of the greater predators creeping up behind him. He had come to realize that he was, himself, a large animal and completely unfamiliar to the local population so the fear he generated was his greatest weapon, but he needed more. Shouting, leaping, and intimidation could only protect him so far.

As to nutrition, he was no biologist but he had the vague impression, found somewhere in a medical journal, or Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula,' that the vitamin content in insects were quite high. A larger animal could survive very well off a constant, squirmy-wormy diet.

The problem in Mordor, however, was finding those creepers and crawlers that wouldn't kill him with poison or were, at least, digestible. And they were mighty few. Of those few, many were infested with putrid parasitic larvae and Ray had dry-heaved for over an hour when he first cracked open one of those, luckily in his hands and not his mouth.

Once he had had the notion of setting out for more hospitable climes, if any were to be found, but he had only gone a half-mile before spotting a fourteen-foot reptilian creature. Ray was unhappily reminded of a Komodo Dragon. Komodos drooled. Ropes of viscous saliva drips from their maws, full of flesh eating necrotic bacteria. If a Komodo Dragon bit you, you weren’t poisoned. You were fatally infected with disease as your skin and muscles began to rot. Ray thought ‘necrotic bacteria’ with a shudder of horror.

He had looked at the slime dripping from the beak of the creature. Disease or poison? Either way, talk about a Medically Important bite just dying to happen. The thing had gazed at him with a single-minded interest through its glowing predatory eyes and Ray had turned on his heel and high-tailed it back to his cave. The beast decided to err on the side of caution and did not follow.

Retreating, Ray had encountered three four-footers and two six-footers of the same deadly species that had obviously been trailing him and realized that only his very strangeness had saved his life.

The scrounging was bad today. It was bad every day. He gave up and crawled back inside. Ray didn’t hunt so much as scavenge and edible creatures were scarce. Though grateful for the human ability to throw rocks, his greatest advantage in this hellhole, he decided he could stand to evolve his technology a little bit further. He hoped his new weapon would enable him to leave his black pit of a cave more often. “The walls are a closin’ in!” Ray complained.

Hoping for sleep, and good dreams, for a change, he lay down on the stone floor, wrapped his arms around himself for comfort and closed his eyes. He felt a crawling sensation in his hair and scratched. Too bad the mites were too small to eat. “Yuck.”

He was proud of the weapon. If he got home, “WHEN, not IF I get home!” he was going to write a thank-you letter to novelist Jean Auel, if she was still living when he returned. Her ‘Earth’s Children’ series, detailing the lives of a hard-hit Cro Magnon woman, Ayla, included detailed descriptions of her hunting equipment and how Ayla and Co. made them. The detailed descriptions of Cro Magnon sex rituals were pretty damn enlightening, too. Ray grinned. He could just hear Peter teasing him about his choice of reading material all over again, “Caveman Porn! I can’t believe you’re reading Caveman Porn!”

“Aw, Peter, you’re just jealous. Just because you don’t have the Ice Age’s biggest schlong like Jondalar of the Zelandonii's.”

“Oh, god, kill me now.”

Despite the more wanton aspects of Auel’s literature there were still some great things to be learned. Ray’s weapon was a triumph of Cro Magnon design with a few modern adaptions. Taking a large leg bone of a Howler lizard, picked clean by the insectoids, he had soaked it in water, along with his leather shoelaces, for a week. He spent that week fortifying his home and sharpening his house keys. The gouges he made on the stone floor of his cave were deep as he patiently wore his keys down into what could best be described as shanks. Fine examples of what hardened, murderous prisoners made when they sharpened up silverware stolen from jail cafeterias.

He had carefully split one end of the softened leg bone (a process that took several attempts and several ruined bones) and inserted the shanks at intervals within the crack. He tied his shoelaces around and between the barbs. When the leather and bone dried it would shrink and tighten mercilessly, around the steel. Ray would have a slashing tool of destruction to be very proud of. “Thank you, Jeanie Auel!”

He had been tying the second shoelace when it became too dark to see. Strips of his shirt tied his ragged shoes now.

Scratch, scratch, scratch!

Ray groaned. Here they come again. Nocturnal visitors drawn by his smell, his noise, his very body heat. He picked up his primitive protection again and lay with it on his chest, careful of the sharp steel. Its very weight reassured him.

“What should I name you? Not ‘Ol Betsy. We’ve already got an ‘Ol Betsy back at the firehouse.” Ray remembered a good Far Side cartoon. A caveman was pointing to a diagram of the spiked tail of a Stegasaurus. He was lecturing, “This part is called the Thagomizer. Named after the late Thag Simmons.” Ray laughed. “Perfect! You’re the Thagomizer!”

He spoke to himself out of a desire for comfort as well as to cover the sound of the frenzied scratching of that creature, a five-footer by the sound of it, trying to break into his fortress to get at the miserable human morsel inside. Ah, but Ray was not an engineering genius for nothing. He had blocked the mouth of his small cave with a rounded structure of the hardest stone. He could get in. He could get out. No other ravenous beast could, the sheer thickness and durability of his igloo of bone and boulders was an insurmountable challenge. Except for the mites. Damn, they bit. They bit and bit and bit and Ray understood very well how explorers in jungles went mad from the persistent attacks of predators no larger than the tip of a pin. The thick coating of mud on his body helped but the sensation of itchy, flaking, drying mud was almost as bad as the biters.

Scrape, scrape, scratch!

“I HEAR YOU KNOCKIN’ BUTCHA CAN'T COME INNNN!!!!” Ray screamed in his best Rock and Roll voice. The extra volume was bad for his chest and he started to cough again. Damn dust. The frustrated scratches became wild and Ray laughed, wheezing for air.

It's not nice to tease the animals, sweetheart.

“Sorry, Mom.”

Unaware that he had spoken, Ray turned over on his side, swatting a stinging ‘bug’ he could feel, but not see, on his arm. His skin continued to move after he stopped, drooping to settle around him. Ray rolled his eyes, disgusted. His rapid weight loss had left him the original Saggy Baggy Elephant and he had more skin than meat on his suffering frame.

Meat. Food. Clear, clean water.

“At night I face, the barren waste without the taste of water. Cooolll waterrrrr. ‘Ol Dan and I, with throats burned dry must carry on. For water. Cool, clear water!” Ray sang. Peter’s favorite cowboy song didn’t make him feel better and he gave up.

The hunger pulled on every fiber in his body. He did not eat infrequently enough to become numb and the painful cravings wracked him every day. Every single moment of every single damn day. It was an emotional pain. A pain he could feel in the nerves of his neck, his hands, his hair and the grasping sinews of his arms. Every cell in his body craved. Every beat of his heart pulled at starving veins. It felt as if his teeth were growing longer and sharper through sore gums.

Hunger.

Constant hunger.

Such primal, predatory needs, and the steps he was forced to take to assuage them, were difficult for the kind man. More than animalistic, he felt vampiric. Vampiric enough to dream about drinking blood. Oh, the sensation of something rich and warm filling his stomach. His new understanding filled him with what could best be called a reluctant charity towards the Blood Hags and their ilk.

Food was food. If Ray could catch it he ate it. If it had been dead for three days he shook the bugs off and ate it. He ate the bugs, too, the ones that didn’t make him sick, anyway. Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat. He had become as opportunistic as a scavenging vulture or a hyena and just as low and mean. Sagging and coated with grime like some sort of mud maggot.

Worse than that was a longing for warmth and human contact more devastating than any simple hunger pang. The solitary hunt for food only emphasized his desperation. In the dark the people he loved seemed so close. So close he could almost feel the warmth of their skin in his cold stone tomb. Where were they? Ray impulsively reached out into the dark and found nothing but dust. His hand limply slapped to the floor. He drew unseen swirls on it with his finger.

“God, I want to go home.” He put the Thagomizer to the side. Crossing his arms and curling up again he decided to keep talking. Human noise was good.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

“I can’t sleep, I can’t eat and I’m talking to myself. How pathetic can one guy get? I ask you!”

He rolled over on his back again, rubbing at an open sore on his wrist. It seemed to be taking longer and longer for his skin to heal these days. He blamed the constant dark. Ray didn’t think he had Seasonal Affectedness Disorder, the winter depression brought about by no steady sunlight. “It’s just a bit stressful around here. That’s all.”

Peter had once told him that vocalizing his problems, to another person or even just to the wall, would make him feel better about whatever was troubling him. Vent. Vent everything that’s gone wrong and you’ll feel so much better. Get it all out. To Hell with this stoic shit. Ray smiled as Peter’s lazy tones drifted through his mind.

“I want Peter, Egon and Winston to come in shooting. I want Aunt Lois and Sam and the rest of the Stantz clan. I want all my friends, too. I want to go home. I want to eat every day. Fish. Sweet fisshh three times a day, my preciousss. I want to be clean. I want to be warm. I want…I want a million dollars. A red Mustang convertible and Janine in a white lace negligee, as long as I’m dreaming, why not? Oh, and a pony!” He imagined roasting the pony on a spit and smacked his lips.

The five-foot scratcher let out a disappointed gurgle that became a shriek of surprise and pain as something huge attacked it. Ray felt the vibration of the pounce and heard the frantic scramble. He heard the wail suddenly silenced. There was then the clear crunch of bones and the ripping of scaly hide as the scratcher was forcibly brought into the food chain. Ray’s heart beat painfully hard.

It was a terrible noise but the sound of devouring death was always welcome. Humans are wonderful adaptors. Especially considering how determined and ingenious this human, Doctor Raymond Stantz, PhD, was. Rising to his hands and knees he crept towards the sound of gnashing teeth and tearing muscle. Pressing his hand on a counterweight his ‘door,’ a boulder measuring three feet by three feet, swiveled open a few inches and blood seeped into his cave. The only light in Mordor’s blackest night came from the phosphorous laden eyes of the twelve-foot Howler enjoying its kill right on the human’s doorstep. Ray studied the eyes’ positioning. He watched the lidless green orbs bob up and down as the Howler ate and he carefully listened to the chomping, the slurping, sounds. He slowly opened the door just a bit more.

Aiming just below the eyes he threw himself forward.

The nocturnal, and therefore nearly blind, Howler was taken by surprise as Ray stole half of the kill right out of its mouth, scuttled back inside and shut the door, for all the world like an especially large and skillful trap-door spider.

“YOINK! Hah!” A scream of challenge echoed outside the cave and Ray cheerily disregarded it. “Yeah, come in here and say that, I dare ya!” He dragged the corpse into his own ‘dining room’ and triumphantly felt over his catch to see what parts he had managed to come away with. Felt like he had a hind leg and the tail. Not bad at all. The Howler, possessed of very little brain, sluggishly forgot all about him and returned to its slavering and tearing at what was left.

Sounded delicious! Ray peeled down a strip of hide and bit into the generous meat on the leg. His body rejoiced with every raw mouthful, every cell alert and pleased, truly Ray could have wept with relief. Absolutely no thoughts of disgust over his bloody, stolen meal crossed his mind. Food was food. Freshly killed, it was the best food. Ray ripped off another chunk of quickly cooling meat. It was all good.

It would be better cooked, babe.

“I know, Mom, but it’s okay like it is, really.” Ray was distracted from the leg long enough to realize he was talking to his mother and he shook his head hopelessly.

Not this, too.

As ever, Ray ignored her. He didn’t want to listen to his mother’s voice. He bit into the leg again.

Kid, I’ve got some bad…very bad news to tell you about your Dad and your…your Mom.

Ray groaned. He didn’t want to listen to the sorrowful Cop’s voice either.

It wasn’t so much that they had died but how they had been found! The firemen were shocked out of their minds! I mean they seemed like the most decent people you could ever meet! Especially her! My cousin was there and he said…

And he most certainly didn’t need to listen to the overheard gossip again. Why? Why was all the old hurt coming back? He’d dealt with it all years ago. He’d gotten over it. He’d gone on. He’d…

He’d survived.

He survived his parent’s deaths and he survived the scandalized aftermath and he would survive this dark dimension of wind and blood and mud. He had done very well here. He had security, he had water in the form of a murky spring that bubbled against the far wall, soaking even more leg-bones. He had…Ray relished another bite of the Scratcher’s meat…he had food. Why, he was just rolling in luxury. He even had leisure now.

The leisure to be alone in the dark with his thoughts and memories. Leisure that he somehow never had back home. Too many ghosts and demons to bust, too many machines to build, too much fun with his friends and family, too much TV to watch and too many books and comics to read. Too much food to stuff into his face.

God, he was all alone. He had never been phobic about being alone as Peter was, Ray always found himself to be very good company as long as he kept himself busy but this hellish dimension was almost too much without backup. He tried to fantasize about how his friends would manage if they were trapped here with him. “Winston! Try these purple grubs! They taste like mint!” His joke fell flat in the lonely darkness. Better he was here alone than watching his friends being subjected to this place and he ruthlessly pushed his fantasies away.

But he wanted them, the people he loved. He wanted them close so badly he could smell them, their colognes and perfumes and their natural human scent. Janine smelled of paper-dust and sandalwood smoke the day she surprised him with a first edition mythology book he’d always wanted. It wasn’t even Christmas or his birthday. He desired to have it so she went out and searched shelf after shelf in antique store after store until she found it.

He could see them. He could see the sun shining through the parlor of his Aunt Lois’ mansion on Easter Sunday. He remembered he owed his cousin Sam several letters. He’d give his soul for one of their marathon long-distance bull sessions over the phone.

He could feel them. He felt Winston’s rough hands jerking him away from certain death. Peter grabbing him by the ear for one reason or another. Egon helping him to his feet after a lab explosion had knocked both of them to the floor.

He could hear his Dad patiently explaining to his three year old son why it was a bad idea to take electrical appliances into the bathtub. He could hear his Mother…no! No, he couldn’t hear her, he couldn’t hear her at all. Ray pounded his fist on the hard, stone floor. The shock of the impact shot up his arm, inflaming his anger even more. Anger was a mild word.

He was furious.

“Where are you?!” he shouted. “Get me out of here! How long is it going to take you people? How long am I going to stay here? How…how long? How long?”

As long as it takes. Everything happens for a…

“Don’t tell me that, Mom. Don’t tell me everything happens for a reason. There’s no reason for this.”

Isn’t there?

A raging pulse of hunger and loneliness and anger battered Ray as he lay again on the cold, dirty floor, still clutching his dinner. He shook with horror, his skin jiggling. His stomach was full but he felt so starved and cold. His gums were bleeding, his skin was covered with a mass of lesions, slashes and bruises that weren’t healing well. His clothes were rags and his hair had grown, curling down over his forehead in a filthy tangle. He was lethargic and dreamed of blood. He was so changed, so filthy and dangerous and desperate.

Werewolf. Vampire. Ghoul. The Monster that Hungers, always, always.

“I’m sorry.” His moaned breath blew at the black dust. “Whatever I did to deserve this, I’m so sorry.” He unclenched his fists and tried to calm down. Ray felt he wasn’t only losing weight, he was losing his mind. He was losing the person he used to be.

Probably, he was being punished.

Ray tried to subdue his brain with silliness. It had always worked before in his life. An unending diet of overwork, overstudy, overplay, food and children’s entertainment helped a lot. There was none of that in Mordor, however. Desperate to forget, to stop thinking, he began to sing again. “First I was afraid! I was petrified! Kept thinkin’ I could never live without you by my side. But then I spent so many nights thinkin’ how you done me wrong and I grew strong. And I learned how to get along!” Ray sat up, put away his clawed dinner and let his best Disco Diva song stylings echo through the cave. “Something…something…I! I will survive! Oh, as long as I know how to love I know I’ll stay alive! I’ve got all my life to live and I’ve got all my love to give, I will survive! I will survive! Hey, hey!”

You’re surviving but are you living?

“GO AWAY, MOM!!!” Ray screamed. He choked and coughed again.

I’m not your Mom.

“Not my Mom, not my Mom, not my Mom…” Ray repeated stupidly.

You saved my life, you truly did. Now I'm saving yours. Are you living?

This voice was within him, as familiar as his own light tenor. It sounded so…knowing. “Of course I’m alive! What do you mean living? Live it up? Enjoy this place? I don’t think so.” Ray ranted.

You’re hungry. Even before you landed here you were hungry. Hungry for years and all the junk you could cram into your mouth and your mind hasn’t satisfied you. Face what happened and grow up. Go to the Light, my children! There is peace and serenity in the Light!

With that bit of nonsense, he understood. It was his own voice. The voice of reason that he had fought for years. No. Wait. He didn't have a woman's voice. What? No. What was happening now had absolutely no connection to what had happened to his parents then. What had happened to him. None. None at all.

“I want my Mom.” Ray slapped his hands over his mouth. Oh, god. A grown man asking for his mother. How revolting. He scratched at a sore on his leg and his hand came away wet. Wet? He smelled his fingers. Blood. He was bleeding again. He wasn’t healing well at all and this world was cold. He coughed again and finally admitted to himself that it wasn’t dust. He was sick. All the clever weaponry in the world wasn’t going to keep him alive after all. He curled into a ball on the stone floor and fought to keep control.

Hopeless, Ray realized he had run out of all advantages.

Except one.

With a sudden lightning bolt of clarity that brought his eyes wide open he realized there actually was a connection between then and now, between his parent’s deaths and the blackness of Mordor. Everything happens for a reason. There was even a reason for this. There was a way to live here. To be warm and to have light, and security at least, even if he couldn’t have his family and friends. A way for his body to heal.

A way for his spirit to heal.

“Not that. C’mon, please, not that.” Ray begged.

Yes, that. Exactly that. It’s time.

Ray groaned. “I’m not strong enough. I don’t want to live through that again.”

We already had the ‘living’ conversation.

“Shut up.”

It was going to cost him, if he wasn’t killed outright. He could lose everything, his home, his job and his friends, the people he loved.

Haven’t you already lost everything?

Ray twisted in the wind for two complete hours. Counting his breaths and thinking over his options. The Howler finished its meal and went away. Ray slapped at the mites some more. His stomach cautiously worked over the rare feast of fresh lizard meat and Ray bore the pain as well as he could. A full stomach but he was still hungry. He was just starving.

It was the living, cold dark that decided him. It was dark so thick that anything could be hiding in it, waiting to take him down by the neck with long, sharp teeth.

A dark so intense and miserable that Ray couldn’t say, with certainty, that he even existed within it.

“You win, Mom...me...whoever you are.” He covered his face in his hands. “I would have to be a half-starved maniac to give in to this but I have to. I have to do it.” Ray gasped and forced himself to say the words, say them right out loud and make them concrete and binding and inescapable. “What’s more, I want to.” He groaned, realizing the enormity of his admission. The repercussions of the road he had finally begun to walk. Mordor had been no accident, he was meant for this. It was time. Time to break through the memories of his past and the pain and guilt that had bound him for years. Time to grow again. Time to live. Like a desperate fugitive that had been in hiding for too long, Ray was intensely relieved that he had been caught at last.

He was through with running.

“I’ve decided, Mom. I want to live.” The stress of years was released and a shriek tore out of his soul. “I’m going to live!” He screamed to the blackness and he choked again. He stood, gasping, and thrust his fists into the air. “They said I was mad! Mad! But, it’s alive I tell you, it’s alive, it is ALIVE!” Ray had made his decision. Exhausted by his sudden commitment he dropped to the floor and lost consciousness.

Yes, indeed, he was losing the person he used to be.

Or was he was becoming the person he truly was?



*
“Reboot completed.” Egon stated with satisfaction. “Entering coordinates Mordor Zero Gamma Alpha Gamma. Searching…search results in two minutes.” The Dimensional Portal flared into life, throwing bright, wavering lights throughout the basement lab.

Winston was sorting the contents of his med-kit. Ray could run fast but those giant lizards looked mighty fast too. Certainly take the pressure bandages in case he was bleeding. Take the leg and arm splints in case something was broken. Leave the rubber chicken with the Voodoo symbols on it. Winston glared at Peter.

Peter was wrapping silver duct tape around the tops of his boots and the cuffs of his jumpsuit. No insect was going to crawl up his legs. Winston decided that was a good idea and took over the tape when Peter was through. Then he moved to check the bulky proton throwers. As weapons they would work perfectly. He decided to leave the ectoplasmic traps behind. Peter and Ray had not studied Mordor at any length but everything had seemed to be vitally alive so the traps would be deadweight. Winston sighed. This waiting was awful.



*
Ray picked over every inch of his cave until it was as scrupulously clean as a cave could be. He wished he could clean himself as well but there was only enough water to strain and drink. Taking a tip from Herbert’s science fiction novel ‘Dune’ Ray had decided to scrub himself with sand. It seemed to work. He didn’t reek of sweat, rotten meat and blood anymore. He smelled like dirt. He wished he had thought of it sooner. His home was organized, his body was clean, coated with a fresh layer of mud and he was as calm, settled and prepared as he could be. Ray opened the ‘skylight’ in the front entrance of his cave, a small five inch rock just above head height, letting in dim, grey illumination and bent down over an enormous stack of carefully gathered dry bones.

He chose the most dry and set them aside in a small, stacked pile along with twists of dry vegetation, brittle insectoid carapaces and one of his sleeves that had unraveled into rags long ago. Another novel of Jean Auel’s, ‘The Mammoth Hunters,’ had given him the idea of burning bone for warmth and light as, Auel’s research had shown, the Cro-Magnons that lived on the grassy steppes of the ancient world had done. They had been forced to burn bone as they had no wood on those endless plains. Unfortunately, Auel had never gone into the technical aspects of the process other than it took several people with great patience, skill and a large bellows to accomplish it. None of Ray’s Boy Scout training had prepared him for that so he had never even tried.

But what he was about to do he hadn’t learned in Boy Scouts.

To burn bone you needed a hot, intensely hot, flame. No amount of friction would produce the heat Ray needed so…

He sat for a few moments, calming his mind and trying to remember what his mother had taught him so many years ago. Important Lesson Number One: The tools did not matter so much as the intent.

Because magic, magic, oh god, MAGIC was not as complicated as some of its more theatrical practitioners made it out to be.

His environment ordered, Ray set to work on his concentration. Three shallow breaths in through the nose...release in three short huffs through the mouth...three in...three out...repeat until you start to hyperventilate. Ray coughed, dropped the distracting rhythm and concentrated on nice, deep breaths instead. Deep breath in, deep breath out...whoosh. Don't think. Don't be hungry. Don't feel lonely. Don’t be afraid. Concentrate on now...deep breath in...deep breath out. Don't scratch that itch. Don't worry about legs becoming pained and numb. Don’t notice that the bleeding was starting again. Deep breath in...deep breath out...

Ray fell asleep sitting up.

Landing face-first into his pile of deadweed he woke with a shout, reaching for The Thagomizer. Spitting out a 'beetle' wing he regained his bearings and turned back to his task, feeling stupid. Was his nose broken? No. Okay. Well, he was tired! And cold. Determined, he faced the small, dry pile of rubbish again.

Remember, sweetheart, it's the intent that matters. All the hoodoo and trinkets and gizmos in the world mean nothing. They're just tools, a focus, y'know. The power is inside of you. Use what you feel comfortable with. What means something to you. Shoot, I could start a fire with the Oscar Meyer Weiner Jingle!

”There’s just no beating Ancient Wisdom.” Ray smiled, letting his mother's voice relax and encourage him. It had been so long since he'd done this..."It feels like reopening a door that's been boarded shut for years." he mused. Inspired by that image Ray set to work. What was it Peter always encouraged? Positive visualization! All right.

Here is the locked door. Open the door and get what you need on the other side. All right.

In his mind Ray suddenly stood facing an enormous medieval drawbridge. A towering barrier of oaken beams and iron chains pulled up against the meaningless nit of a man that stood on the far side of the moat, desperate to get in. "Oh, hell, Peter, It's been too long. I'll never get through that thing. I'm too wasted."

Then don't go through that thing, dumbass. Visualize something realistic, something you have a chance of getting through.

"Just a door, then? Like a sliding glass door maybe?"

Well, it's not just the door is it? It's what's on the other side. The door itself is immaterial and insignificant.

Ray covered his eyes with his hand. The other side of the door? Wouldn't it be easier to just go ahead and die?

Yeah, and you'll be the only human ghost haunting this barren dimension. Unfinished business, Ray. This is unfinished business and the time to face it is now, before you die, before the dark comes. You can do it.

”Why? Why do I have to do it since I’m probably just going to die here anyway. I want to know why!”

Patience, Grasshopper. All will be revealed.

Ray dropped his hand and wiped the wetness on his leg. He closed his eyes and faced the door again. It had shrank. It was the door to his parent's home, to his home, painted white with a half-moon window of frosted glass. He had helped his father paint it when he had been five years old and his clumsy, globular brushstrokes were evident but his dad had never sanded them down and painted over them. It was covered in black, sooty fingerprints, evidence of the firemen's passing in and out. And there, the jamb was broken where Morrisville’s Sheriff had kicked the door in. And criss crossing it, like a toxic spiderweb, were yellow strips of 'Police Line - Do Not Pass' tape. The sheriff's deputy had been so excited about finally being able to use their one, moldering roll of 'Do Not Pass' tape that he had made entrance into the actual crime scene impossible. Ray could hear the sheriff cussing the deputy for being the 'self made sonovabitch' that he was. He could also hear the starlings, the chirp of crickets and the excited, shocked gabbling of the crowd of neighbors. Ray could see them gathered together in a crowd, pointing towards the house and hashing and rehashing the greatest scandal to ever hit the one-horse burg of Morrisville. They did not see him. They did not understand and they never would no matter how hard or how eloquently the orphan boy Ray used to be tried to explain.

Ignoring them all, he reached out and closed his hand around one of the strips. Faintly amazed that it did not pierce, grab or shock him, Ray pulled and the plastic stretched thin before breaking. He reached again and tore down two more strips, then three more. Finally, he was facing a simple white door framed with yellow banners uselessly snapping in the breeze. Ray's bony, chilled fingers encircled the knob...

It wasn't so much WHAT happened but HOW they were found! I mean, they seemed like such decent people! Especially HER!

Almost choking with dread Ray turned the knob and opened the door.

"Hi, sweetheart!"

"M...Mom?"

The house was as much a shrine to esoteric clutter, but never dust, as ever. Silken good-luck kites from the Far East, shaped like red bats and multicolored butterflies, adorned every inch of the walls. The oak bookshelves were bowed under the sheer weight of all the books. Every line and curve and crease and smell were etched on Ray's memory as clearly now as when he saw it for the last time at the age of thirteen. There were no burns, no nauseating smell of destroyed furniture and water damaged plaster.

"Wipe your feet and come sit down." Ray looked past the living room and into the kitchen. His mother and father and Peter Venkman were settling into the breakfast nook for one of Jo Stantz's infamous English teas. Ray could smell the burnt cinnamon and he smiled. Briefly scraping his bare, muddy feet he walked over and sat in the empty chair next to Peter.

Peter was inspecting his tea, swirling it around in Ray's mother's bone china cup, then he reached in a finger and pulled out an inch of orange peel. It still had a Sunkist sticker on it. He leaned towards Ray. "Golly, Beav, don't tell Eddie and the gang but I think Mom is trying to KILL US!"

"Gee whiz, Mom!" Ray complained. His father snorted with amusement, fishing a stalk of indigestible mint out of his own cup.

"Mikhail, don't encourage the children." Jo admonished him and dopeslapped both boys on the side of the head. She was lightning fast and had both ladylike hands innocently, and properly, back on her own cup as Peter muttered something about the cycle never ending. Ray laughed again.

He felt compelled to say something to mark the occasion. "It's great seeing you guys together. I've always wanted you two to meet Peter, and Winston and his family, and Egon, and Egon's mom and Janine, and her family, and..." Ray looked around as if expecting the entire gang to conga their way in and join them. "Where are they? I'm dreaming this, right? Everyone should be here."

"This goes beyond the creative visualization I was telling you about." Peter started, biting into a shortbread cookie. When Jo turned towards Ray he surreptitiously spit it into his napkin. Mick saw him and raised his teacup in a long-suffering toast.

Jo was ecstatic. "This is a full-on vision, sweetheart. Congratulations! It's your first!"

Ray was confused. "This can't be a vision, I'm just sitting on the floor and trying to concentrate."

Jo leaned over and proudly put an arm around her son, unmindful of the drying, flaking mud that rolled off his body every time he moved. "You've been fasting for weeks, unintentionally of course, but it's made you very perceptive and receptive."

"I've been fasting for years and I can't receive squat," Mick complained, bouncing another cookie off the table and into the air. Peter watched in open-mouthed fascination as Mick caught it in his hand again. Fast as a Karate Master, Jo kicked them both in the leg and turned away from their cries and whimpers.

Ray watched, delighted. It was so good to be home.

“Fasting, struggling, surviving; it’s all a very cleansing experience. All your extraneous baggage is being thrown aside, making room for what’s truly important,” Jo continued, her eager round face close to Ray’s. “This is your Passage Ritual. You have to burn off your old self before you can re-emerge whole and new, like a Phoenix!”

“Or a Unicorn!” Mick emphasized.

“I’ve always been partial to Fairies, myself,” Peter joined in.

“You would be.” Ray’s dad allowed his wrist to go limp.

“I…hey!” Peter took aim with a crumpet.

“NO!” Mick ducked under the table. “Are you trying to kill me?!”

“Bothofyoukissmyassandgotohell!” Jo snarled and stomped at Mick, Peter having wisely moved out of range on the other side of the table. “I’m trying to be profound here!”

“I’m sorry, honey.” Mikhail reemerged and sat next to Peter, grinning Ray’s grin at her.

“I’m sorry too, honey.” Peter apologized, both men were contrite and smugly out of her immediate grasp.

Jo shot them both an angry, but somewhat amused, look with eyes that matched Ray’s shade of amber exactly. She turned back to her son and gasped. “Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to wake up. I’d rather die than wake up from this.” Ray shook his head and hid his eyes with his hand again. Jo threw her arms around him and pressed him close. Mick scrambled around to his son’s other side and wrapped long arms around Ray and his wife. Peter sat where he was and looked on with unfathomably sad eyes. Ray buried his face in his mother’s shoulder and sobbed. She smelled like cinnamon and oranges and tea. Home.

“You opened the door for a reason, Ray,” Peter finally said. “What was it?”

Ray raised his head. “I’m cold and it’s dark. There are beasts. I’m trying to start a fire.”

Peter shook his head. “No. Why are you here? Here! Now. Why?”

Ray thought for a long time. “I want to go home.”

“This place, Ray,” Peter raised his index finger and drew circles in the air with it, “And your family have been dead, ashes, for years. You can’t go home, again.”

“I don’t mean me, I mean…I mean I want a home.” Ray looked to his parents for clarity but they simply returned his gaze with love and sympathy.

Peter leaned his elbows on the table and began to roll a round shortbread cookie back and forth between his hands. “You want a home? You have a home. With us at the firehouse. And we want you to come back. We’re busting our asses to get to you.”

Ray shook his head again. “No, that’s not what I mean!” A slow, uncontrollable sob stopped his speech and he tried to understand what it was he wanted. A home, a home…He looked around at his parents. “I want a home…for you.”

“For us, sweetheart?” Jo and Mick Stantz had Ray squashed comfortingly between them and he was unwilling to ever move again. He turned to his mother.

“A home for you, Mom. I want you back. Please, Mom, I’m so sorry. It’s been Dad, Dad, Dad and the workshop and the engineering and how much I missed him and…I never once mentioned you. I never talked about you. I never said…how great you were…I never told the guys what happened…nothing…I’m so, so sorry.” Ray laid a battered hand against his chest, he could feel his heart beating hard enough to burst. Unable to face her he buried his face in her neck again. “I’m sorry I waited until I was starved and filthy and desperate before I even…I’m not worth it. I’m not worth it but please, please come home, Mom. I love you.”

Jo’s face twisted into hot tears and she smiled, a beam of love and pride for her son. “I love you, too, sweetheart. Please don’t be sorry, you never did anything wrong. Everything happens in its own time, not a moment too soon or too late. Of course I’ll come home and you’re more than worth it. Oh, baby, I never left!”

She covered his hand with her own and Ray felt a warmth and a peace that had been missing for many years fill his soul. He grabbed her close and then closer still until she was within him, within his soul at last and he shuddered with relief and joy. Ray laughed and wrapped his arms around himself. “Peter! It’s okay! She said it was okay! Isn’t she great? Mom’s great!” Peter smiled and nodded.

“You’re great, too, Raymond.” Mikhail pulled Ray in for a last hug, smiled and disappeared, leaving Ray and Peter at the table alone. Ray’s head dropped to the tabletop and he sobbed and choked until his strength gave out and he just sat with his head down, weak and filled and overcome. It was over. The suffering and the guilt and the anguish of years was over. He had forgiven her. Mom had forgiven him. Hell, she’d never even blamed him. Mom was home. Mom was home…

He realized his childhood house had gone and he was sitting in the darkened kitchen of the drafty old firehouse that he missed so much. Peter still sat, unmoving, at the other end of the rickety table that served Ray’s new family.

“Ray.”

Ray looked up at his friend and screamed. A pentacle the size of a half-dollar had been carved with a straight-razor into the pale skin of Peter’s forehead and the blood of it was dripping into his sad green eyes, down his cheeks and onto the collar of his jumpsuit.

“Peterpleasenononono…” Ray babbled and reached to stop the bleeding with his bare hands. Peter caught and held them.

“I’m so sorry, Ray, in advance. This is what you’re up against. And I meant what I said about not being able to go home again. What’s the Number One Iron Clad Rule of the Firehouse?”

No magic. Ray didn’t want to say it. So he didn’t. “Peter, I’m not turning back now. I can’t. Rules were made to be broken.”

Peter stared at him with wide eyes for a moment and then he smiled. “Ray, you really are the wondrous one. If anyone can convince us to break that rule, it’s you.” Peter stood up and slid his chair under the table again. The blood was suddenly gone and he looked down at Ray with warmth. An enormous cockroach was crawling up the wall behind him but he uncharacteristically ignored it. “And believe you, me, Ray, we’re going to need convincing in order to prepare us to survive the years ahead. The machines won’t solve all our problems. Or even half of them. It’s time for the team to evolve and that is your mission, should you choose to accept it, blah de blah.” Peter leveled a significant look at Ray and the filthy man nodded with sudden understanding, fear and determination. “See you soon, Ray. This tape will self-destruct in ten seconds.” Peter waved goodbye.

“Peter, WAIT!” Ray reached for his friend and met only a grey waste.

Grey, dim light and cold air. Black dust. The distant howling of some deadly creature. Hunger and pain.

Mordor.

Ray was awake.

Tears had cut a clean channel through the dried coating on his face and he reeled, gasping. He uncrossed his numb legs and fell back onto the floor, assaulted by the memories of his first vision. He fainted.

*

“Peter, did you hear me?” Egon reached out and shook Peter Venkman’s shoulder. Peter and Winston were standing in front of the portal, throwers drawn, cuffs taped against buggy intrusion, ready for the scene for clarify.

Peter jumped and looked up at Egon in confusion. “Do you smell tea?”

“Tea?”

“I could swear I smelled tea.” Peter looked around and sniffed the air. “I don’t smell it anymore. Weird. Sorry I zoned out on you, Spengs, what did you say?”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to accompany you two?” Egon glared at the portal. “I could set the controls to automatically retrieve all four of us.”

“No, Egon, too many unknowns.” Peter double-checked his thrower. “No one knows we’re gone, too many man-eating lizards, and we need you here in case something goes wrong.”

“I’m quite sure all our precautions have prepared us for any emergency.” Egon insisted.

“Yeah, Pete,” Winston joined in. “God knows, nothing has ever gone wrong before!”

Egon took the hint and gave in, striding unhappily back to the locater’s control panel.

“Suck it up, Egon, other than Ray, you’re the best qualified to stay behind in case something goes wrong. Sorry about that.” Winston smiled ruefully. “Hey, Pete, ever get the feeling we’re expendable?”

“As pretty as we are? We’re downright invaluable!” Peter shook his thick brown hair and Winston flexed a generous muscle.

Egon interrupted their nervous grandstanding, “Ray and I added Pschokinetic Energy detection capabilities to the portal itself.”

“You did? When?”

“Last Thursday. We decided using the handheld PKE meters were too limited in their range and led to prolonged and dangerous exposure in whatever dimension concerned during a search. We hadn’t tested it so we were going to wait for success before we told anyone.” All three men were watching the shimmering portal impatiently. Egon continued his lecture. “As soon as Mordor shows itself the locater will be able to pinpoint Ray’s location exactly, using his biorythms. It will re-orient to his position immediately. All you need to do is step across and grab him.”

Providing he’s still alive, Peter thought but didn’t dare say.


*

When Ray awoke again he was calm and strengthened. How long had he been out? A long, long time. He must have needed it. His emotional collapse had rejuvenated his entire body. He was going home. Not right away, of course, he had too much to do around here, but the certainty that he would be headed home someday, and not dying here to be picked clean by lizards, made him ecstatic. He was also devastated. In a good way. Was it possible to be devastated in a good way? He lay in the dust of his cold cave floor and pondered the question. "Dr. Miner once asked the class if there was a difference between pleasure and joy," he said to himself, filling up the silence. "Most of the other kids said there was no difference but I said there was. Joy is a total explosion of good feelings. Pleasure is just encountering something you like or expected. I mean, people can get pleasure out of a really bad depression, y'know, 'Wow! I've Never Felt This Bad,' and so on and so forth." He smiled and rubbed his eyes. “This is joy, my friends.”

The hunger pulled at him, pulled so hard his muscles were sore from it, and Ray got up to scrounge again. With a small shock he realized that being hungry didn't matter so much anymore. That's the way things work in this dimension. Mordor was cold and hungry and lonely so, when in Rome…

He practically danced to the door, waited ten minutes, listening, then he went out. He stepped down to the buffalo wallow and began to dig around. “Fisssh, my precious, we would gives our left testicle for a nice juicy fish, yes, my precious! Gollum! Gollum!” Suddenly creeping himself out, Ray stopped that imitation and grabbed up a thumb-sized segmented, multilegged thing. That was its name, the Segmented, Multilegged Thing and Ray bit into it with relief. If he could only uncover two more Things he could be somewhat satisfied. Miraculously he found seven more and almost did a lunatic dance right there in front of nobody. "It must be breeding season!" Fearful of doing his mudhole too much ecological damage he stopped eating. How could he have found so many?

Maybe his remaining advantage helped?

Ray felt a light inside his soul and body that had been missing for many years. Not so much missing, really, as ignored and suppressed. It blazed now, a light so real, so physical and malleable he felt he could pull it out of himself, fold it into an airplane and send it flying. Yes, he had released one hell of an advantage within himself. Thanks, Ma. Ray realized he was happy. He wasn’t even coughing that badly this morning. His leg had stopped bleeding and the scratches were scabbing over nicely. Even the murk seemed to be a livelier shade of grey than before. Mordor was beautiful. The bugs were beautiful. The bones and the stones were beautiful. “There’s a liiiight, over at the Frankenstein place! There’s a liiiight, burning in the fireplace!” he sang. “There’s a light, a light, in the darkness of everybody’s life!”

Hope.

Hope and a glorious new beginning. “Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!” Ray shouted, months early, but he’d never meant it more. A nasty, keening wail rose over the land and Ray spun around to see the black outline of a Howler as big as a bus about fifty yards away. The Howler was beautiful. Ray stood his ground and screamed back at it. He was answered and soon all of Mordor was filled with the defiant shrieks and cries of two brutal and deadly animals. Then the coughing started and Ray pointed a finger in the air as he conceded victory. The Howler charged and Ray shot back to his cave. “YOU JUST WAIT, ASSHOLE!” was Ray’s parting shot and he squirmed his way to safety. Once inside he shut the door and laughed and laughed and laughed.

He was so full, at last, he was afraid he would burst.

He kept on laughing as he rolled over and over back to his pile of ‘kindling.’ It was time to try again but he continued to sputter as he organized all his materials. Pile of dried bone there, rags from his sleeve, brittle bug shells and dried weed here. Ray sat, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his knees comfortably.

Deep breath in…deep breath out…Ray gathered the released power in, focusing it, honing it as he searched for what would work for him. Power? Good grief, how dramatic.

Remember, Sweetie, it’s the Intent and not the Tools!

“I gotcha.” Ray said, nodding. He remembered his mother’s old lessons more and more clearly and he welcomed every bit of advice and instruction. He also welcomed the memories. Like a flood of warm, joyous water washing over him he welcomed the memories he had suppressed for so long. Hot summer days with his Mom surrounded by lemonade and old Celtic and Nordic rune-charts or chilly winter nights in the woods tracking the paths of the constellations. Hours in the back yard learning about fire, water, earth and air. He smiled, remembering her recipe cards in the old steel box full of How To’s. How To insure good dreams. How To call birds into your hand. How To start a fire. How To levitate. Where was that box? He’d have to find it when he got back. Oh, there was such magic in the world.

Ray missed Jo. Goddamn, he missed her.

Every ounce of mythological and paranormal fascination Ray Stantz possessed, the very person he was, he owed to his mother’s early instructions on the unseen aspects of life. Denying her had been a terrible mistake and he was determined to rectify it. He turned his mind to his Latin degree for the proper words to use as a focus and swallowed, nervous. He hadn’t lit a fire like this since he was in danger of losing out on a Fire Badge in Boy Scouts thanks to wet wood. He almost started a forest fire then. He should have used Sterno hidden in the dirt as his friend Pendleton had done but he wasn’t as devious as ‘Ol Penn had been. Ray opened his eyes and looked down at his kindling. He visualized a longbow and a steel tipped arrow…he mentally nocked his arrow and pulled the string back, gathering his strength. He took careful aim…

“Accendo!” he let the arrow fly. An invisible force left his body with lightning speed and…

BANG!

“OW!”

With an ear-splitting gunshot suddenness his pile of kindling exploded, sending shards of sharp, burning bone in all directions. “Ow!” Ray threw his arms up to shield his face, too late, splinters of blackened bone had embedded themselves in his skin. “Ow, ow, ow!”

Suddenly, he forgot his pain as he watched the strip of fabric writhe and burn away. The flames cast a healthy orange and red glow throughout his cave and the darkness was pushed back to the farthest corners. The colors were so lively and the light was so bright that Ray’s eyes watered in pain but he continued to watch until the strip was fully engulfed and only a snake of ash was left behind.

Ray let out a low gasp of sheer delight. It was the most gorgeous thing he’d seen in countless, grey days. Orange! A bright, pretty orange! He put a hand to his chest. “Be still my heart! Wow!” And there had been warmth! He had almost forgotten what heat felt like he had become so used to the cold. “Wow. Wow. I did it. Look Ma! No hands!”

Sitting in the darkness once more Ray felt the pain return. He pulled two stinging splinters out of his right cheekbone, “Almost lost an eye there, stupid,” and seven more from his arms and hands. He was sure several more were stuck in his hair and what was left of his clothes and he brushed himself off, carefully. His hands were shaking and he took several more deep breaths to calm his elation. He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten how good wielding his abilities felt. No more dry reading and interpreting of scholarly, forgotten books. Newly released memories clamored for his attention and he was going to enjoy savoring them later but for now…

Deep breath in…deep breath out…

He gathered together another small pile of kindling and arranged them carefully in a small stack. He left the bones out this time. Realizing he was a hell of a lot stronger now than when he was a ten year old Boy Scout, Ray cut the size of his mental weaponry in half. He moved further back, nocked a smaller mental arrow to the bow again, pulled…focused…a lesser Latin word.

“Igniculus!”

BANG!

“OW! GEEZ!”

The delicate dried grasses and brittle carapaces flew up in a swarm of stinging red ash, coating every surface of the cave. “Ow, ow, ow!” Ray swatted at the stinging coals and frantically shook the embers out of his hair. “Oh, man! Stop! Cripes!” Well, this was better than the ‘Murray the Mantis’ show. “Sonovabitch!” Ray started to laugh. He had absolutely no control but it was there! He was doing it! He was actually doing it! He was playing with fire. Quite literally, he was playing with fire and Ray became subdued for a moment, thinking of the consequences. Thinking of Peter’s scars. Their reactions. With the ease of long, long practice he banished his unpleasant speculations. Like Scarlett said, he’d think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!

Ray dropped the Latin and the ‘Bow and Arrow’ theme entirely. He turned to his world of fantasy reading and picked up a long leg bone. He held each end lightly between his fingers and concentrated on the midsection. Less is best. And when in Mordor…

“Elbereth!”

WHACK!

“FRIG!”

Imagining his fingers had put them in danger and Ray dove for his mud spring to put himself out. He plunged his hands in and with a ffssst!! sound the flames were doused.

“Ahhhhhhoooowwwwwww!!!!” He inspected the damage to his fingertips. A couple of minor cracks were oozing blood and about one, two…five blisters were forming. Not as bad as it could have been. Ray lay on his stomach and swirled his sore fingers in the cool mud. The relief felt so good it was almost worth the pain. The leg bone itself had imploded completely and was gone. Impressive in a really horrible and excruciating way. His fingers throbbed victoriously. “Okay, think.” Think. A lesser visualization. A harmless focus, something cute and trite and hopefully PAINLESS. Ray pondered his options. Then he rolled his eyes and smiled. Getting up he collected another pile of fuel, plus bone, together and backed away to the farthest corner of his cave, just in case. He relaxed, concentrating, visualizing a gentle fire emanating from the kindling. He felt a rush of vigor within his body drowning out the pain of the stinging burns, then he began to sing.

“Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meier Wiener! That is what I’d really like to be!” The kindling began to smoke and a small flame shot up from the dried grasses with surprising suddenness. Ray’s eyes widened in excitement as the healthy red glow highlighted his haggard face. “’Cause if I were an Oscar Meier Wiener,” The bone, too, began to glow and Ray lessened the intensity, finishing the jingle in a whisper. “Everyone would be in love with me!”

And the bone was burning. A steady burning!

Ray darted forward and placed a large, dried Howler skull on top of the kindling. The flames reared up through the empty jaw and eye sockets and the skull, too, began to burn. Suddenly Ray was facing a good, steady, slow, warm fire. A normal fire would not have burnt bone so quickly, there wasn’t enough of a draft in Ray’s cave to keep up the intensity necessary, but this was no normal fire and Ray was ecstatic.

“Keep going, please keep going!” he begged and it did. He knelt down before it, stretching out his arms to each side and the warmth penetrated his body with the most delicious, important heat Ray had ever known. He was hypnotized by the brilliant golds and reds and he fought down a real and surprising desire to throw himself onto the flames.

Fire! He had fire!

A great deal of the hungry mental ache that he had endured in the wasteland was eased by this primal necessity. Light. Light and warmth in the darkness. Ray groaned and turned around to warm up his back, the skull blazing merrily bright. He shuddered with the bone-deep pleasure of it. Light and warmth and security provided by the work of his own burnt and wasted hands. His hands, Doctor Raymond Stantz’s empty hands, he raised them in the air to emphasize his triumph, too tired to dance around like a madman the way he wanted, and noticed his shadow on the wall. He formed a rabbit. He wiggled his fingers and the rabbit’s ears wiggled as well. Ray laughed. He made an elephant and the elephant’s trunk saluted him. He remembered a pleasant drawl accuse him of blocking the view, speaking of elephants. He made a bird and remembered a redheaded woman running in mock fear. “Rodan!” he shouted and laughed again. Hungry Ray was full at last. He was sated and happy, almost drunk with relief and heat and power and warm memories. No, he would not die here. His friends were on the way. He would see the people he loved again. They’d all sit down together and eat a feast in his honor and genuine sunlight would illuminate the pristinely clean and joyful scene.

Then the real trouble would start.

tbc