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No Pain, No Gain
A Cthulhu Mythos Short Story by Spike Valance
Part Five
***
Tension was highest in the humid evening, so laden with anxieties and expectations. A hidden restlessness was meandering among competitors and spectators flocked from every side of Massachusetts waiting for competition’s start. The day of Kingsport Athletic Contest had finally come and the best athletes from Boston, Kingsport, Arkham and Martin’s Beach high schools and colleges were ready at the starting line; like a cathartic outlet excited folks in the gods unleashed fanatic shouts to encourage all their own champions aligned; all except Axel, missing two days since.
His parents were persuaded he was sleeping over by friends but none of the schoolmates could confirm that, neither could Hayley, awfully worried for him and afraid of the worst accounting her boyfriend’s latest sullen acquaintances. Also Axel’s social media account were inactive.
Nope, here he comes at last, a little late! The Number 11, Axel Ross from Arkham High School! the sports reporters eventually exclaimed through the loudspeakers; the athletic teen was indeed advancing at brisk step towards the starting line, still wearing his jacket and pulling the hood down over the forehead and the eyes.
The referee gestured at him to uncover himself but the youth was paying no heed nonchalantly or smugly; all he did was just reaching his position. The turgid and oily muscles of his gleamed in marble-like sheen under the flashing spotlights and sponsor’s LCD placards, tendons twitched and stretched like steel braces, veins pulsating like pumping pistons.
The starter was just waiting for a sign, the umpire shouted something at the teen but Axel went on ignoring everyone like in an entranced autism; a schoolmate of his too whispered him to stop joking but no reply followed.
Staff members were called and ordered him to come back in locker room and dress the uniform, but nothing, no sign or word. At that point the umpire approached and took the hood off Axel’s face; those presents got like petrified and starter himself gaped in disbelief letting the gun fall and shooting in air; none of competitors too dared moving by surprise, except one who sprinted like a missile nearly an instant before the shot sound began propagating in airy medium; neither did spectators have time to spot and follow that lightning run accompanied by Firestarter’s furiously psychedelic rhythm.
Axel Ross covered the entire first lap in less than 30 seconds and went along the all of remaining laps up to the finishing line in 1 minute barely. No doubt that it was a new record: that Arkham teenager had just outclassed Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt’s results at the same time, in a flash; hardly anyone else might break his record.
Umpires were forced to wave at stewards in order to halt the prodigious athlete, whom continued running despite the contest was over – actually it had neither ever started since no competitor had moved from his own position; and under the circumstances none ever could.
Two or three hundred meters ahead a pair of stewards had the idea to pull a rope and strangely that was enough to put the young Flash’s unstoppable run to an end; Axel stumbled and frantically collapsed on the ground, though with neither the feeblest cry. He just landed in a corner upside down like a marionette thrown on the ground.
As stewards and umpires ran to the youth, competition had to be suspended and security called. Paramedics and stretcher-bearers themselves were astonished before what they found and made almost a superhuman effort to bring the fainted youth’s body away. Stewards were forced to prevent Axel’s parents and girlfriend from following or just watching the rescue operations, all the more because there was nothing else to do for the teenager in his conditions.
One might wonder or infer which images have crossed Axel’s far away mind in the latest instants of his life slowly slipping away. Perhaps seeing himself soaring towards sidereal spaces the rash teen was finally aware of his irreparable mistake, especially as he gazed at the ultimate destination of his ballast which he intimately knew, having it seen between the dream and the waking world and deliberately chosen the way there, somehow.
Seeing again through glassy and tears-veiled eyes that slimy waste, those hideous lichenoid mangroves and the giddy, hideously carven arcades and balustrades of that anthracite ziggurat or paraboloid-shaped tower and hearing again those buzzing sounds and that ceaseless beckon superimposing them, the youth understood the creepy and appalling meaning of Yuggoth and Kynarth Beyond the Rim, of Thuggon, Shaggai and other cosmic abysses where abominations of unmemorable ancientness brewed and primeval horrors beyond the wildest nightmares and the utmost abomination trafficked swiftly and recklessly.
Now Axel Ross had come to know the Ultimate Secret of Thuggonian Science and he wasn’t alone in the Black Cylinder.
He got devastated by what he saw and learned, but there was nothing else he could do. The Science of frail Mankind has its victims and martyrs, why shouldn’t other Sciences elsewhere progressed in aeons have their own as well?
At 20:35 of August 12 2015 the young heart of Axel Ross, rising star of Athletics, ceased to beat.
Yet today umpires and various experts of the Sports Executive are wondering whether the youth’s record has to be ranked above those of Olympic champions or rather Paralympic athletes accounting the teen’s physical conditions. As much heated is the debate about Axel Ross’ case itself and the outcome of his prodigious but disconcerting blind run but most of officers and reporters agree that a recent murder case in Arkham’s outskirts had some link to the young athlete’s death; and that allowed Police to seize Mister Ops Gym in the neighbourhood of the crime scene and put all of its employees under arrest, except the owner and an elusive Doctor West, up to date wanted by FBI and Interpol.
It’s been when a previous offender called Doug Snider has been found dead in a car wreck buried in rotting garbage; the corpse was so horribly disfigured that forensics officers and coroner himself were forced to have antiemetic pills before going on with crime scene inspection.
It was not the right sinewy arm of his violently torn off the torso and thrown a few metres away underneath a bloodstained syringe mat, neither the weirdly spiralling tracks of nonagonal ecchymoses staining the hairy swollen chest in unsettling satanic geometries, but the man’s head to disconcert the most; at first detectives inferred a rifle shot exploded at such a close distance to make the victim’s face blow up, but there weren’t either the slightest traces of burning or heat shock in the exposed flesh; rather the face looked like gnawed but no rogue dog, coyote or other kind of feral beast’s set of teeth could account for the bite marks found digging deep inside Doug Snider’s head, deep into the cranium which’s been found creepily empty.
And that wasn’t but the latest of a chain of equally disturbing murders reported in several places of the USA and each in the neighbourhood of gyms and fitness centres, suggesting the trail of some devious serial killer.
As detectives inquired the Moldovan abusive gyms employees – all stowaways and previous offenders too – about where Mr. O and Doc West had escaped, those were so shattered to require a severe assisted treatment at Arkham Asylum before their expulsion from USA; they just stammered incomprehensible ravings in their East-European idiom with sparse uncertain American headwords. Sheer deliria like West’s head flown away… flown away… You-got, You-got… Masta back Wezen… Thug-on, thug-on… da Hi’ Tower, da Hi’ Tower… – “Head” was supposed to mean boss but were they alluding to a lair or a stash as well?
Officers gave them the third degree to know where their boss was gone but the madmen restricted themselves to repeat that obsessive refrain Wezen… Wezen… da Big Hound… Thug-on! Masta back there! followed by another name constantly alternated and repeated as in a mantra or a threnody. It sounded like Emo Thug… Emo Thug… Ya Emo Thug! You Supreme! Broder o' Eagleneck Ya, Ya!
Emo Thug? Eagleneck? No criminal or previous offender with such a nickname in the Police archives. Same when then the increasingly neurotic Carpathians continued raving other nonsense like Great Motha Shub-Niggurath, mercy! Mercy! Spare me! Spare me!, until shaken by strong tremors they started yelling Ma head! Help me! The 'migos! The 'migos! No, please! No! and finally Don’ wanna go there! Ma head don’ wanna go there! Lock me up in cell! Lock me up in de cell, please! And thro' da key ‘way! Emo Thug! Eagleneck! Cat-Hoola f*** taggin'!
The Amigos? Was a gang of Mexican or Latinos involved too? Investigations are still ongoing to ascertain this.
As for Axel Ross’ case, in biomedical symposia some of the scientists who had taken part to the autopsy recalled the chronicles of analogue physiological rarities in geese and chicken albeit with a slight tip of patent disconcert, whereas anatomists, usually unaffected by dismay or disgust aroused by the sight of torn or ravaged corpses, mutilations and other natural or man-made horrors, went on discussing the case with less dismay, interested, almost fascinated by the precision of the modification – it couldn’t be defined differently – affecting the teenager’s lifeless body.
While exposing the audience their own theories they probably could not forget Mrs. Ross’ shouts as she saw her son’s body in the morgue for the first time. No desperate cry could compare the frightening high-pitched groan the distraught and weeping mother yelled at the coroner and police officers “My God, my son?! What’s happened to my son?... His face? OH MY GOD, HIS FACE?!!”
Unsettling memory apart and despite the almost flawless preparation in the subject, they couldn’t do anything but infer the nearly Science Fiction hypothesis of a formidable, so far unknown and never experimented surgical or bio-engineering technique of some sort, able to act at lumbar and parasympathetic nerves’ level with extraordinary results; a Miskatonic University PhD and the professor following up his research concerning Ross’ case were sure enough that the two symmetrical rows of holes gaping from the neck’s base down to the breastbone and the strange network of cabled metal wires of unknown alloy behind them had certainly played a role in the prodigy on the racetrack before Axel Ross’ demise.
Up to date indeed no human being has been watched moving, walking and running at unprecedented speed, in perfect coordination of movements and in total lack of eyeballs and central nervous system.
A Cthulhu Mythos Short Story by Spike Valance
Part Five
***
Tension was highest in the humid evening, so laden with anxieties and expectations. A hidden restlessness was meandering among competitors and spectators flocked from every side of Massachusetts waiting for competition’s start. The day of Kingsport Athletic Contest had finally come and the best athletes from Boston, Kingsport, Arkham and Martin’s Beach high schools and colleges were ready at the starting line; like a cathartic outlet excited folks in the gods unleashed fanatic shouts to encourage all their own champions aligned; all except Axel, missing two days since.
His parents were persuaded he was sleeping over by friends but none of the schoolmates could confirm that, neither could Hayley, awfully worried for him and afraid of the worst accounting her boyfriend’s latest sullen acquaintances. Also Axel’s social media account were inactive.
Nope, here he comes at last, a little late! The Number 11, Axel Ross from Arkham High School! the sports reporters eventually exclaimed through the loudspeakers; the athletic teen was indeed advancing at brisk step towards the starting line, still wearing his jacket and pulling the hood down over the forehead and the eyes.
The referee gestured at him to uncover himself but the youth was paying no heed nonchalantly or smugly; all he did was just reaching his position. The turgid and oily muscles of his gleamed in marble-like sheen under the flashing spotlights and sponsor’s LCD placards, tendons twitched and stretched like steel braces, veins pulsating like pumping pistons.
The starter was just waiting for a sign, the umpire shouted something at the teen but Axel went on ignoring everyone like in an entranced autism; a schoolmate of his too whispered him to stop joking but no reply followed.
Staff members were called and ordered him to come back in locker room and dress the uniform, but nothing, no sign or word. At that point the umpire approached and took the hood off Axel’s face; those presents got like petrified and starter himself gaped in disbelief letting the gun fall and shooting in air; none of competitors too dared moving by surprise, except one who sprinted like a missile nearly an instant before the shot sound began propagating in airy medium; neither did spectators have time to spot and follow that lightning run accompanied by Firestarter’s furiously psychedelic rhythm.
Axel Ross covered the entire first lap in less than 30 seconds and went along the all of remaining laps up to the finishing line in 1 minute barely. No doubt that it was a new record: that Arkham teenager had just outclassed Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt’s results at the same time, in a flash; hardly anyone else might break his record.
Umpires were forced to wave at stewards in order to halt the prodigious athlete, whom continued running despite the contest was over – actually it had neither ever started since no competitor had moved from his own position; and under the circumstances none ever could.
Two or three hundred meters ahead a pair of stewards had the idea to pull a rope and strangely that was enough to put the young Flash’s unstoppable run to an end; Axel stumbled and frantically collapsed on the ground, though with neither the feeblest cry. He just landed in a corner upside down like a marionette thrown on the ground.
As stewards and umpires ran to the youth, competition had to be suspended and security called. Paramedics and stretcher-bearers themselves were astonished before what they found and made almost a superhuman effort to bring the fainted youth’s body away. Stewards were forced to prevent Axel’s parents and girlfriend from following or just watching the rescue operations, all the more because there was nothing else to do for the teenager in his conditions.
One might wonder or infer which images have crossed Axel’s far away mind in the latest instants of his life slowly slipping away. Perhaps seeing himself soaring towards sidereal spaces the rash teen was finally aware of his irreparable mistake, especially as he gazed at the ultimate destination of his ballast which he intimately knew, having it seen between the dream and the waking world and deliberately chosen the way there, somehow.
Seeing again through glassy and tears-veiled eyes that slimy waste, those hideous lichenoid mangroves and the giddy, hideously carven arcades and balustrades of that anthracite ziggurat or paraboloid-shaped tower and hearing again those buzzing sounds and that ceaseless beckon superimposing them, the youth understood the creepy and appalling meaning of Yuggoth and Kynarth Beyond the Rim, of Thuggon, Shaggai and other cosmic abysses where abominations of unmemorable ancientness brewed and primeval horrors beyond the wildest nightmares and the utmost abomination trafficked swiftly and recklessly.
Now Axel Ross had come to know the Ultimate Secret of Thuggonian Science and he wasn’t alone in the Black Cylinder.
He got devastated by what he saw and learned, but there was nothing else he could do. The Science of frail Mankind has its victims and martyrs, why shouldn’t other Sciences elsewhere progressed in aeons have their own as well?
At 20:35 of August 12 2015 the young heart of Axel Ross, rising star of Athletics, ceased to beat.
Yet today umpires and various experts of the Sports Executive are wondering whether the youth’s record has to be ranked above those of Olympic champions or rather Paralympic athletes accounting the teen’s physical conditions. As much heated is the debate about Axel Ross’ case itself and the outcome of his prodigious but disconcerting blind run but most of officers and reporters agree that a recent murder case in Arkham’s outskirts had some link to the young athlete’s death; and that allowed Police to seize Mister Ops Gym in the neighbourhood of the crime scene and put all of its employees under arrest, except the owner and an elusive Doctor West, up to date wanted by FBI and Interpol.
It’s been when a previous offender called Doug Snider has been found dead in a car wreck buried in rotting garbage; the corpse was so horribly disfigured that forensics officers and coroner himself were forced to have antiemetic pills before going on with crime scene inspection.
It was not the right sinewy arm of his violently torn off the torso and thrown a few metres away underneath a bloodstained syringe mat, neither the weirdly spiralling tracks of nonagonal ecchymoses staining the hairy swollen chest in unsettling satanic geometries, but the man’s head to disconcert the most; at first detectives inferred a rifle shot exploded at such a close distance to make the victim’s face blow up, but there weren’t either the slightest traces of burning or heat shock in the exposed flesh; rather the face looked like gnawed but no rogue dog, coyote or other kind of feral beast’s set of teeth could account for the bite marks found digging deep inside Doug Snider’s head, deep into the cranium which’s been found creepily empty.
And that wasn’t but the latest of a chain of equally disturbing murders reported in several places of the USA and each in the neighbourhood of gyms and fitness centres, suggesting the trail of some devious serial killer.
As detectives inquired the Moldovan abusive gyms employees – all stowaways and previous offenders too – about where Mr. O and Doc West had escaped, those were so shattered to require a severe assisted treatment at Arkham Asylum before their expulsion from USA; they just stammered incomprehensible ravings in their East-European idiom with sparse uncertain American headwords. Sheer deliria like West’s head flown away… flown away… You-got, You-got… Masta back Wezen… Thug-on, thug-on… da Hi’ Tower, da Hi’ Tower… – “Head” was supposed to mean boss but were they alluding to a lair or a stash as well?
Officers gave them the third degree to know where their boss was gone but the madmen restricted themselves to repeat that obsessive refrain Wezen… Wezen… da Big Hound… Thug-on! Masta back there! followed by another name constantly alternated and repeated as in a mantra or a threnody. It sounded like Emo Thug… Emo Thug… Ya Emo Thug! You Supreme! Broder o' Eagleneck Ya, Ya!
Emo Thug? Eagleneck? No criminal or previous offender with such a nickname in the Police archives. Same when then the increasingly neurotic Carpathians continued raving other nonsense like Great Motha Shub-Niggurath, mercy! Mercy! Spare me! Spare me!, until shaken by strong tremors they started yelling Ma head! Help me! The 'migos! The 'migos! No, please! No! and finally Don’ wanna go there! Ma head don’ wanna go there! Lock me up in cell! Lock me up in de cell, please! And thro' da key ‘way! Emo Thug! Eagleneck! Cat-Hoola f*** taggin'!
The Amigos? Was a gang of Mexican or Latinos involved too? Investigations are still ongoing to ascertain this.
As for Axel Ross’ case, in biomedical symposia some of the scientists who had taken part to the autopsy recalled the chronicles of analogue physiological rarities in geese and chicken albeit with a slight tip of patent disconcert, whereas anatomists, usually unaffected by dismay or disgust aroused by the sight of torn or ravaged corpses, mutilations and other natural or man-made horrors, went on discussing the case with less dismay, interested, almost fascinated by the precision of the modification – it couldn’t be defined differently – affecting the teenager’s lifeless body.
While exposing the audience their own theories they probably could not forget Mrs. Ross’ shouts as she saw her son’s body in the morgue for the first time. No desperate cry could compare the frightening high-pitched groan the distraught and weeping mother yelled at the coroner and police officers “My God, my son?! What’s happened to my son?... His face? OH MY GOD, HIS FACE?!!”
Unsettling memory apart and despite the almost flawless preparation in the subject, they couldn’t do anything but infer the nearly Science Fiction hypothesis of a formidable, so far unknown and never experimented surgical or bio-engineering technique of some sort, able to act at lumbar and parasympathetic nerves’ level with extraordinary results; a Miskatonic University PhD and the professor following up his research concerning Ross’ case were sure enough that the two symmetrical rows of holes gaping from the neck’s base down to the breastbone and the strange network of cabled metal wires of unknown alloy behind them had certainly played a role in the prodigy on the racetrack before Axel Ross’ demise.
Up to date indeed no human being has been watched moving, walking and running at unprecedented speed, in perfect coordination of movements and in total lack of eyeballs and central nervous system.
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