Marin's Dale

5

 This time, it prickled. It prickled like a barb wire fence, carving off in many tangles, creating abscesses in his brain, and bringing the most unique terrific sensation of pain Tyler could not describe.

Do not resist

And it stopped. It stopped the instant Tyler decided it was useless. When the futility of such a fight was finally realized, in that moment the pain died.

Now look at me

Tyler was glancing down the far road, the girl to his side. The road seemed all the same, as if they had been walking for miles and their steps were an illusion There was no forward or backwards or lateral movement. No matter the effort applied in their muscles, bones and tendons—fueled by their hearts to find something—no matter what, they moved nowhere.

Look at me

Tyler felt the voice, so flat and direct. As long as the voice was, there was no reason to be in pain. Without the voice, the agony would surely return. But with it there, filling his veins and brain, he knew exactly what it was he had to do.

He had to listen.

Tyler looked up. To where, he didn't know, but it was already there. The silhouette of a man in the distance. More like an apparition than anything. He was moving closer Tyler thought, but then again, he couldn't tell. It had to be a man.

What else could it have been?

Look at me

Tyler couldn't peel his eyes away. It was more than interest, more than fascination or fear, or the unknowing. For Tyler, it was something altogether alien, pulling his body and mind toward the approaching phantom, forcing his bleary eyes into a tunnel vision of sorts. The burning cars and trees pulled away, as if by manual force of larger hands. Just the road and the moving black form.

"What do you want?" Tyler yelled. He knew his voice was shaking, but he couldn't help it. Whoever this was, was inside his head already. If anything, his fear was already well known. If anything, everything in his head was already known.

You are most astute, Tyler Diehl

Tyler took a breath before taking a step. He turned quickly to the girl with a "stay here," but she too was facing the approaching figure. To her, Tyler was but an afterthought. Perhaps it was in her head as well...

The figure came to the center of his vision. Tyler could feel his heart running in his ears and the back of his skull harder than any drug or physical exercise he could remember.

It was a man.

Or so it seemed. A long tattered trench coat, too big for any man, but somehow, fitting for this one. He must've been 7-feet tall, and he had these gnarled leather boots, like something from a John Wayne movie. But his face...

His face was the most insincere attempt at something human Tyler could fathom. In all the movies, all the novels and nightmares throughout his life—Tyler had never seen something so... fake. It reminded Tyler of those poor bastards who were mutilated in fires or car accidents, or had their faces bitten off by animals. It was a face like that, like some translucent plastic had been molded to a human skull. There was no hair. There were no ears.

The eyes, like the girl's, were all white. All, eggshell white. His voice came again, again from within Tyler's own beating brain. But the mouth of this humanoid man did not so much as budge. The thin horizontal slit for a mouth, with the poorly formed lips, remained still.

What's a matter?

Tyler took a step back. The voice was louder now. And then the strange horizontal slit turned upwards.

You don't approve?

Tyler looked away to the girl. But she was joining the side of the tall humanoid. "Stay away from him," Tyler grumbled. He looked again to the deathly face and vacant eyes of the towering figure.

Tyler swallowed.

"What the fuck do you want?"

The humanoid stalled. Or so it seemed to stall. But Tyler knew that somewhere inside that malformed, eerie skull, somewhere behind those eggshell eyes, there was a power that Tyler would never truly grasp. Lurking within its mind, there was a power and intelligence that for all Tyler knew, had destroyed his town and life forever. Tyler stared at the girl, wondering if maybe she too was alien.

Finally, the humanoid responded. The voice was there. The creepiness was there. And its flat, monotone permeation rattled his brain.

Come with me, and all your queries shall be satisfied