io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we feature a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “The Darkness Between the Stars” by Richard Thomas; you can listen to an audio version here. Enjoy!
The Darkness Between the Stars
by Richard Thomas
Buddy and I abandoned our hydrogen nomad at the edge of the wastelands before trudging around the rusted chain-link perimeter of the abandoned fairgrounds, waiting for the blast of steam and guttural earthly moan to escape from the fractured soil, signifying that it was clear to enter the area. Remnants of old technology lay scattered as far as the eye could see: tubes of corroded brass, mangled springs, and cracked gearwheels mingled with discarded water bottles and decomposing garbage bags—half-covered in dust and ash among the weeds.
For a half-century, the unrelenting elements and merciless salvage crews had ravaged and plundered what was once a magnificent sight to behold. Every structure of the theme park had been long since flattened, erased, torn down, or stolen, to the point that only the legends and tales remained—mindblowing exhibits and theme park amusements with a supernatural twist. We knew what these barren acres used to hold, but if you didn’t know the history, it would be easy to miss the patches of gray concrete hidden beneath the silt, the faded numbers and directional arrows stenciled on the cracked pavement in a yellow so washed-out that it was almost white, and the highlight of our visits: a singular concrete obelisk with a red metal door.
To us, it was a place to escape—away from our helicopter mothers, short-tempered fathers, and dead-eyed siblings all jacked into the similitude, too glued to their screens to ever venture out into this analog world.
Buddy and I were the only kin either of us had left, really, the only ones we could trust. The summer days were dwindling and the final year lay before us. Beyond that, trade schools, and sorted employment, mundane tasks, and a vague promise of marital bliss—an apparent guarantee of soft flesh that we hardly understood. So we stood there, children really, this one nail head bursting up through the earth waiting to be hammered down, a place to meet in the wee hours, the endless nights, and the rainy afternoons that never seemed too warm.
Buddy stood a good foot taller than me, and thicker in every way. It was as if you had taken one of me, had me swallow another me whole, and then had that mass expand in every direction. With long brown hair and a simple face, we sometimes called him Conan, or Tarzan. We, being the jerks in his statistics class, or the jocks on the scatterball team. He was as loyal as a German shepherd, a good friend, not an alarm bell or red flag on him. He suspected nothing, and saw no danger in this moment.
It didn’t matter what we did together—urban spelunking, tunnel hacking, shooting wharf rats down by the contaminated river, or slingshotting rocks at the drones that crisscrossed the fields of rotting corn husks that surrounded this forsaken plot of land. We always had fun together—as it was the company, the honest conversation, the simple dreams we shared—that made it worth the trip.
We stopped next to the red door, its titanium frame dinged and tarnished, ancient chrome hinges straining to hold up its obvious weight. The concrete around it was chipped, but extremely thick, and there was no visible handle to be seen. Despite our determination to get inside, three summers of our primitive efforts—hammers, crowbars, shovels, and sledges nicked from our fathers’ sheds—had yielded no progress and merely added to the already worn-out paint job of this mysterious entryway.
“Derek, look at that,” Buddy said.
“I see it, I see it. That’s new.”
Next to the door and brutalist outcropping was a metal box, like some old milk cooler, the lid open, and filled with padlocks. There were keys scattered in there as well, covered in dust, lying there for hours or days, who knew.
“When were we here last?” I asked Buddy.
He scratched his head, “Weeks? More?”
I turned back to the door, and saw that it was surprisingly ajar—seven latches, unlocked and bent. The gap in the doorway appeared to grow wider with every step closer, as if welcoming us into its waiting embrace, or perhaps like the mouth of a great beast preparing to devour us. Up close, the blackness within the doorframe seemed to be undulating, viscous and impossibly dark, and somehow I knew, it was almost sentient. I had been so focused on the interior that I barely noticed that Buddy, who stopped walking at some point, was no longer beside me. A primal urge deep in my gut screamed for my body to stop moving too, but I was floating away, untethered from the safety of my life into this darkness from between the stars, drawn in by the irresistible call of the void.
“I’m going in,” I said, glancing over my shoulder with a sly grin.
“Derek, no,” he yelled, taking one step toward me.
I wouldn’t see him again for several years.
• • •
I don’t remember being pulled in, only the door snicking shut behind me, as if pulled tight in the wake of my movement. Inside, it was an eternity in a closet, both cavernous and claustrophobic, oppressively silent, like an anechoic chamber where your own heartbeat can drive you mad. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a console with various levers and buttons revealed itself in the sourceless dim light. The pungent smell of ozone pushed a metallic taste deep into my throat.
When I opened the door to share my discoveries with Buddy, a security guard in a dark blue uniform with a thick mustache and long brown hair spilling out from under his cap sat with his arms crossed, sound asleep, in a metal folding chair. My friend was nowhere to be found, and all around us lay nothing but an endless sea of jet-black pavement. The fields of rotting corn were gone, the chain link fence had vanished, along with every trace of the ruined park. It was as if a giant steamroller had trundled across this plot of land—a massive machine, several stories high, a hundred feet across. At the distant edges of the asphalt stood towering walls, topped with sweeping searchlights and barbed wire, easily twenty or thirty feet high. Up above a rocket ship headed to the space station on the moon—they’d finally done it, the shuttles were running now.
I must have made a noise—a whimper perhaps, or a moan, the door squealing as it opened back up, my breathing louder than I thought.
The guard woke up and jumped to his feet.
“I can explain, officer—” I started.
“Get over here,” he yelled.
I did the only thing I could think of in that moment. I ran back inside. But before the door closed, I heard his voice, panicked and familiar.
“Derek, wait . . .” he screamed, lunging for the door, his eyes wide open.
And then I was gone.
This time, for much longer.
• • •
As the door slammed shut behind me, I stumbled forward, banging into the control panel, my head careening off of something solid, and I started to go under.
The darkness pushed in on me, wrapping around me like a festering blanket as panic crushed me, time slipping forward. I tried to push upward, out of the depths, like a drowning diver struggling to find the surface.
But I failed.
Lying on the cold metal floor, sweat coating my body in a desperate sheen, a sour film of regret and despair, knowing the time I was losing, my friendship, my life.
How long I was unconscious, I do not know.
• • •
When I opened my eyes, it was quiet, a dim light throbbing in the dark. A sharp pain erupted from my left temple, a crust of blood flaking away under my delicately probing fingers. Groaning, I stood up, turned the latch, pushed on the door, and stumbled out into the chaos.
The heat was the first thing I noticed. That and the fog. It was like stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire—the smell of sulfur, wind gusting hot and foul, as the land around me hid in the hazy mist. It was cloudy, smoky, hard to see, wet and thick, the world around me out of focus. Panic danced across my goose-pebbled flesh in a wave of discomfort, my lungs resisting every breath. Sweat ran down my face in angry rivulets, my gut clenched in knots.
I stood there, trying to see, looking for a landmark, any sign of the park I used to know. On the ground in front of me a metal chair lay in ruin—bent, rusty, and broken—pieces lying here and there, indentations in the dirt. Hoofprints, toe prints, a smattering of smaller feet running this way and that, and then a few that were much larger, bigger than my head.
Beyond the dusky thick curtain of this reality there were unnerving sounds—great heavy thuds that shook the earth, followed by a high-pitched screech from somewhere above me in the fog, and then angry, sharp barks in the distance. The air above my head swirled and a dark presence flew over me, swooping left and then right, only a faint suggestion of movement, a swimming black on muted gray on dirty white.
A shiny object on the ground by the chair got my attention, as I wondered how long I should stand out here, how risky this really was—predator or prey, eat or be eaten. As far as the food chain, I felt smack in the middle.
I took a few hesitant steps before a column of flame erupted with a toxic belch in the distance, a maelstrom of heat shooting high into the atmosphere, pushing meager, russet light through the gray fog.
I picked up the tarnished badge and turned it over in my hands.
It said Buddy.
A chittering from behind me snapped my head in that direction. Above the open door of the concrete closet that was my only refuge came a hiss followed by a stream of white, sticky substance, encasing me in fibers that, within moments, numbed my skin and deadened my limbs. I fell to ground, unable to move, my flesh spasming with pain.
From out of the gloom, eight disjointed legs appeared over the doorway, jet-black and blanketed in coarse hair and fibers, supporting a bulbous head covered in glossy black eyes. Its jagged, metal mandibles clicked together as it danced with rapturous glee—bobbing up and down, its pulsing underbelly glowing red, as it came closer to my prone body.
Its shadow engulfed me, a musky smell of sour flesh and rotting meat filling my nostrils, overpowering my lungs and burning my throat, causing me to gnaw the inside of my cheeks in a jabbering panic.
And then as quickly as it arrived, the hideous creature disappeared, in one whooshing movement, a harsh wind sweeping over me, several feathered legs reaching out, hooks pulling at me, tearing the web, and pulling it off of me in great, sticky strands. It disappeared into the looming sky with hardly a sound, a great bellowing caw making my skull ache. Oily black feathers filled the air as metal gears and pins rained down around me, a melodic cacophony as they struck the hard surface below me.
As I passed out, the toxins from the webbing finally accomplishing their job, the earth reverberated, shifting my body in painful lurches toward the doorway, as a million shiny beetles conveyed me to the opening, the door closing with a gentle click.
• • •
When I woke up, a cold certainty encased me. How long had I been out this time? I stood in the darkness, the console black and quiet, and then I shoved the door open and was greeted by a great nothingness.
As if standing at the edge of an empty elevator shaft, or the rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, what lay below me was eternity. My mind reeled and I lurched forward, grasping at the door frame in desperation, one foot suspended over the chasm, my eyes straining for anything recognizable in the darkness beneath it. Swimming in the pitch were black currents, oily slicks that shifted their shapes, as here and there a spark of sickly yellow light exploded with a brilliance that dazzled me. I moaned gently, exhausted and bewildered, my eyes closing against my will, leaving the afterimage of the flash burned into my retinas.
I tried to see again.
Twitching in and out of the darkness were coils of phosphorescence, a muted sienna lined in a glossy red with pinpricks of squirming black tadpoles dotted across its surface—none of it making sense. In a flash, I felt the whole of the void surge towards me with a violent urgency, a hunger rippling across its murky substance, a desperate shriek piercing my ears. I pulled at the door to shut it out, but it resisted my efforts, the encroaching abyss relentless in its endlessness, tugging at the door, my flesh, my mind. With every ounce of my remaining energy, muscles burning, tendons straining, I ripped it free from the darkness and pulled it closed, tears streaming down my face, blood pooling in my eardrums.
And then a different kind of darkness wrapped around me, pulling me under.
• • •
When I regained consciousness, the door hung open a crack, a sliver of ethereal light leaking inward. In the faint glow from the control panel, and in a rage of insanity, I turned every knob I could see to the left, all the way down to zero. When my fumbling hands found the giant lever on the far right side of the console, I yanked it downward and then slammed the door shut.
“Do what you will!” I yelled into the darkness.
And then I collapsed on the floor, and violently wept.
• • •
When it felt like the right amount of time had passed, I barreled into the door, flinging it open wide, banging it against an alley wall. Standing before me was the OmniPark, in all its glory and prime. A Victorian mansion constructed of dense masonry in odd geometrical shapes and a glassy conservatory loomed nearby, brick walls rising up around it, and in the distance a botanical garden, like none I’d ever seen. Statues of innocent cherubs mingled with several planting beds filled with vivid flowers, and thick, green ornamental bushes trimmed into the shape of hourglasses. A constant ticking filled the air, as a great many clocks were displayed beyond the glass windows, brass and metalwork everywhere. Above and into the distance a monorail ran on a track, gliding silently in a circuit around the park.
Beyond the fences of the garden and past the walls of the mansion I could hear revelry, the smell of grilled meat and fried food, the laughter of children mixed with the shouts of parental guidance, and the clanking of metallic rides. There was half a glass dome to one side, and beyond it a series of caves, with enormous mammoth tusks over the main entrance. At the farthest point was a space station, with its chrome-topped rocket ships gleaming in the sunlight. And to the other side, two different paths extended into their exhibits—one made out of stone, and the other dirt. The former seemed to be built out of cells and membranes, microscopic creatures as large as people, and cars. The latter some sort of primordial forest, with prehistoric trees and ferns, a massive dragonfly mounted over some dining hall, its translucent wings refracting light.
I took this all in as if my mind was a camera set on long-exposure, absorbing an overwhelming amount of colors, sounds, smells, and sensations.
The maelstrom of stimulation made my head swim.
All I wanted to do was go home.
I struggled to catch my breath, as two individuals engaged in an animated conversation at the other end of the alley—a lanky man in an impeccable suit, hair slicked over, glasses perched on his nose, and a woman with dark hair, in a stylish dress, a multitude of brass pendants and charms encircling her neck. From this distance it was hard to tell if they were fighting or just excited, a clipboard in her left hand, the man glancing at his watch. And then they embraced in a kiss, quick and passionate, before parting, glancing toward a door at the back of the mansion, and then in my direction.
Their gaze held, both of them frozen for a moment, and then they walked my way.
If I’d had the energy, I might have climbed back inside, but the exhaustion of my travels only made me weep silently, as they approached me, grins sliding across their faces.
“Son, are you okay? You look disheveled and lost. I’m Dalton, and this is my wife, Evelyn. This is our park. And from the looks of the open door here, you seem to have stumbled across something that I thought was locked and secured.”
I could only nod, his face kind and beaming, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“How did you get back here? Can we take you home? You from around here?”
They continued to stare at me, and then his wife elbowed him, and whispered in his ear. They looked me up and down, taking in my vintage denim jeans, my mycelium leather high-tops, and my t-shirt with the word SUPREME on it, cycling through its preset loop of colors and patterns.
“On second thought,” Dalton said, “I don’t know if where you are from is the right question.”
“Too true. More like when are you from, my dear?” Evelyn asked before smiling, clutching her clipboard to her chest, red lipstick framing her white teeth.
I told them about the destruction of the park, the way I’d gone forward, and then back, the things I’d seen along the way, and what I’d left behind. They nodded at every improbable detail without a hint of skepticism. Evelyn retrieved her purse and withdrew a box of Animal Crackers, the lions and elephants inside their cages a welcome snack. This was followed by a large plastic bottle filled with an oversweet orange liquid that could only have been Tang.
When Dalton stepped inside the metal door with a small flashlight in his teeth, I didn’t have the energy to warn him, let alone stop him. I could hear him clicking buttons, cranking dials, and the unmistakable sound of the large lever being pushed back up again, pointing up toward the stars.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through,” Evelyn said, her hand on my shoulder a comforting presence while we waited for Dalton to emerge. The gardens loomed beyond her shoulder, but it was as if I were lying down in those kaleidoscopic flower beds as her perfume drifted over me—hypnotic jasmine and gardenia with subtle violet and sandalwood underneath. I knew that scent, as my grandmother used to wear it.
They call it . . . Chaaaaarlieeeeee!
And I smiled for the first time in hours, days, eons.
“When you get back, Derek, you must destroy it. It’s a dangerous invention that we haven’t figured out how to wrangle yet,” Dalton said as he stepped out of the machine.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Do your best,” Evelyn chimed in.
I looked back down the alleyway, and there stood two strangely familiar people—a buzzcut man in slacks and a striped shirt talking to a woman with a bit of bob in a peach pantsuit. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, and yet, I wasn’t sure why. He offered her an ice cream cone and she leaned in to lick the top scoop. He smirked beneath his aviator glasses, and they both laughed. They were almost unrecognizable and then it all slammed into focus.
“My parents . . .” I began.
“This moment in time was chosen,” Dalton said, as I pulled my gaze from the alien version of my parents I’d just seen. “Time beats us all down, son. Your parents were once young and vital. But you should get going, I’m afraid. Ripples can be made.”
He was right—I had to leave. Before things came undone.
Evelyn gave me a gentle hug before Dalton shook my hand with authority and ushered me back through that red metal door. It took all of my courage to seal it again behind me, fearful of where the infernal device might take me, but the last thing I saw gave me a moment of peace. Dalton and Evelyn smiled arm in arm, their eyes twinkling with tears, beaming with pride for what they’d built, burdened by sadness for what had failed. They now had confirmation of something beyond their park, something bigger than us all. Their life’s work had led to something extraordinary, and that seemed to fill them with hope.
I’d take it.
• • •
When I stepped outside again, Buddy was smoking a cigarette and tapping his foot, looking frustrated and impatient.
“Dude, what the hell,” he said, dropping the butt, and stamping it out. “You were in there an hour! I tried tugging and banging on the door, but it wouldn’t open. I almost called the . . .”
I rushed forward and threw my arms around him as if to prevent myself from being pulled back into the machine. He didn’t hug me back, remaining stiff as a board, in shock, but I wouldn’t let him go. He must have seen the desperation in my eyes the moment I had stepped outside because he didn’t say a word until I released him.
“Hey . . .” he started with a mix of confusion and anger in his features.
I gripped him by the shoulders, holding him at arm’s length, tears welling in my eyes. He softened at the sight of my pained expression, recognizing in me a deep terror, having been shaken to my core, and in a feverish panic I recounted all the things I’d seen, every visceral detail oozing out of me into the present moment—sour, and glossy, almost sticky to the touch.
“I need to see it,” he said, stepping past me toward the gaping maw that had nearly swallowed me forever.
“No! Buddy, no!” I yelled, and he stopped dead in his tracks. The curious grin on his face quickly washed away, blood draining from his face as he recognized the barely-contained insanity in my eyes.
“We need to lock this up, right away,” I said. “Now.”
I grabbed the door and slammed it shut, a whimper that begged to turn into a crying jag, sliding the latches over the hooks, one at a time. Whoever had opened this door before us, wherever they were now, this portal had to be closed.
“Hand me the locks,” I said. And he did.
One by one, I locked it shut, spinning the dials on some, clicking the others shut as we gathered the keys out of the bin.
At the hole in the chain-link fence, we bent the wire mesh back into place, securing it to the post as best we could so it looked intact from a distance. There wasn’t much more we could do, except tell everyone that there was nothing here, nothing worth exploring, discouraging them from going inside, hoping that the dried-up, drifting topsoil might soon cover the place completely.
Two keys were in his pockets, and two in mine. And as we walked home in silence, the nomad’s battery dead, I dropped one in a sewer grate, a plink down below, followed by a whining of gears as an automated sewer bot investigated the noise. Later, he’d toss one in a dumpster behind the plastic surgery mall, the sickly sweet smell of liposuction waste filling the air. I told him to lose the other one, and to never tell me what he did with it. I’d flush mine down the toilet, later that night, wrapped in a bit of toilet paper, as I watched the water swirl hypnotically into oblivion.
Before we parted, at the intersection on the top of the hill, where north was his house, and south was mine, I tried to explain.
“Buddy, I . . .”
“It’s okay, man. I get it. And honestly? I don’t really want to know. Some things, once they’ve been seen? They can’t be unseen.”
“Once they’re known,” I continued, “they can’t be unknown.”
We stood with our hands stuffed in the pockets of our jeans.
“Like my grandfather’s funeral,” Buddy said without taking his eyes off the horizon. “He looked so gray in the casket, like a cheap wax dummy of the man I loved. Then, afterward, in the alley behind the funeral home, I saw my aunt kissing some staff member, half her age. On the ride home, my father pulled over and vomited on the side of the highway. Just left the car door open, bent over in the weeds like some kid at a frat party. His face was like he’d seen a ghost and he couldn’t stop trembling so I had to drive the rest of the way.” He slipped a cigarette out of the crumpled pack and lit it, letting that first exhale drift up into the night sky before he spoke again. “I could have done without that day entirely.”
I took the cigarette from him, inhaled deeply, and handed it back. As I exhaled it up into the night sky, my ordeal seemed so far away now. Fading already.
“Tomorrow we find a new hobby,” I said, and we managed to share a half-hearted laugh.
That fall, and into the spring, we’d hack our encephalobots for more credits, rig the evaluations for our future employment, take a bullet train to the west coast, and kiss some synthetic girls. We’d finally take a shuttle to the moon, the Earth and our problems here diminishing in size with every mile of travel into the great beyond. We’d yell at each other, beat each other senseless, then end our friendship over slights and betrayals, both real and imagined, before picking it up the next day, or the day after, as if nothing ever happened.
• • •
When I got home that night, I crept through the side door, waiting to hear the scolding voice of my father, or confront the worried face of my mother. But neither happened. They hadn’t even noticed I’d been gone.
I passed my old man in the living room filled with cigarette smoke and dog hair, slumped in his faded brown leather recliner, wearing his perpetual scowl while engrossed in a documentary on ancient Egypt. He didn’t even acknowledge my presence standing out beyond the light of the television.
“Dad, I just wanted to say thank you for all of your hard work, for everything you do for this family.”
I left it at that, not sure if he was capable of hearing me. As I climbed the stairs out of view, glancing back for just a moment, his eyes met mine, and I swore for just a second he softened. He didn’t reply, before returning to his show, but his expression had said more than enough.
I passed my mother, hunched over the delicate glow of the magnifying lamp in her sewing room, humming along at her workbench, surrounded by cluttered shelves of pattern books, piles of vivid fabrics, and endless spools of thread in every possible color.
“What are you working on, Mom?” I asked.
She raised her head, mouth open slightly, pausing in mid-stitch.
“Fixing a hem on your favorite jeans. You’re so rough on them.”
“I love those jeans,” I said. “Thank you for taking such great care of me.”
She stopped working for a second, a twinkle in her eye, biting her lower lip, the needle catching a gleam of light.
Before she could respond, I shuffled down the hall, so eager to find my bed, and collapsed on top of the covers to the familiar sound of the heater downstairs kicking in. A lingering smell of fried chicken drifted up through the floor vents, paired with vanilla from a nearby candle, and a faint hint of lemon-scented cleaner.
I closed my heavy eyelids and slipped into a waiting dream.
Because I still could.
About the Author
Richard Thomas is the award-winning author of nine books: four novels—Incarnate, Breaker, Disintegration, and Transubstantiate; four collections—Spontaneous Human Combustion, Tribulations, Staring Into the Abyss, and Herniated Roots; and one novella of The Soul Standard. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker (twice), Shirley Jackson, Thriller, and Audie awards. His over 175 stories in print include The Best Horror of the Year (Volume Eleven), Cemetery Dance (twice), Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Bram Stoker Award winner), The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors (Shirley Jackson Award winner), Weird Fiction Review, The Seven Deadliest, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Qualia Nous (#1&2), Chiral Mad (#2-4), PRISMS, and Shivers VI. He has also edited five anthologies. Visit whatdoesnotkillme.com for more information.
Please visit LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE to read more great science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared in the August 2024 issue, which also features work by K.A. Wiggins, Dominique Dickey, Cat Rambo, Matthew Hughes, Archita Mittra, Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe, Deborah L. Davitt and more. You can wait for this month’s contents to be serialized online, or you can buy the whole issue right now in convenient ebook format for just $3.99, or subscribe to the ebook edition here.
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