In His House, Dread Columbus (Ohio)
Frank took one look through his window and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Columbus wasn’t the most exciting place in the world, but it was still a city. Sirens would wail. People would shout. A dog somewhere would yap its head off. All the hits.
Frank took a second look through his window and realized that the first had been, objectively, misinformed.
Something best described as “a creature” flew by the window, its little wings beating leather against wind like it had just freed itself from Hell. Below, a man casually strolled down the street engulfed in flame—though passerby seemed more or less uninterested in this. He saw the yapping dog quite clearly now and realized it barked with such frequency because it had three heads with which to do it.
Frank sat back in his office chair and considered, for a moment, what he was seeing. His typically calm demeanor shone through, but there were some cracks around the edges of his face. His brow furrowed, ever so slightly. His lips smacked together as he drew in a lungful of air. As he let the breath back out, the creature from before flapped by the window again. Or another one did. He wasn’t quite sure. He didn’t think the first one had horns… but then again, it had come and gone so quickly that smaller observations weren’t necessarily reliable.
When Frank found the gumption to minimize his Excel window and stand from his chair to take a good look outside, he realized that the situation—whatever it was—was escalating. There were quite a few of these creatures zooming about. Multiple people were casually on fire. The dog had stopped barking at least, busy now with the devouring of some gentleman whose Reds hat gently fluttered to the ground while he wailed in pain.
Frank took confident strides toward the glass and slid it open with the precise amount of force necessary.
“Excuse me!” Frank said, somewhere above a remark but below a shout, to anyone who would listen.
There was no response.
“Excuse me!” He repeated, now louder.
A woman on the street paused from the conversation she was having on her phone. She looked up to the window Frank was partially leaning out from and bothered to acknowledge him: “Yes?”
“What’s going on out there?” Frank asked.
“What do you mean?” The woman replied.
Another creature flew past the window, cutting the sight line between Frank and the woman on the street for a second. It seemed to screech as it did so, a distinctly giddy revel in its tone that, in all honesty, Frank did not appreciate given the circumstances.
“That, for one,” he said, before reluctantly extending his index finger and pointing toward one of the now several blazing human beings treading the sidewalks. “And them too, while we’re at it.” His eyes drifted momentarily to the feasting Cerberus on the corner, but he thought better of it.
“Oh!” The woman exclaimed. “Those.”
Frank, with the patience often required of the modern office worker, gave her the sort of ‘yes now we’re on the same page’ chuckle one might give a cashier after correcting their math regarding change. The woman smiled and spoke again with the same sort of levity: “That’s the emergence of chaos.”
“Pardon?” Frank questioned.
“The emergence of chaos. The great Ahmanohtep, beloved be His name, has risen from the Scioto,” she wore a casual smile on her face as she said this, “Guess He’s been down there a while!”
“Ahmanohtep?” Frank repeated, realizing that question marks were the only punctuation he’d be using for some time.
“Yes! Didn’t you hear from His messengers? About… I don’t know, a half hour ago or so?” Again, a flying creature broke their eye contact, “Those little fellas.”
“You know, I didn’t,” Frank began, “Could you fill me in?”
The woman frowned and looked back to her phone. She seemed to be lost in thought for a moment as she stared at it, but finally flashed Frank the universal hand signal for ‘one moment please’ and turned back to the conversation he had interrupted. She murmured into the phone at a volume Frank couldn’t make out from so high up. The woman laughed and finally put the phone into her bag before looking back to the man lost in his own office window.
“So, like I said, Ahmanohtep—beloved be His name—has been slumbering somewhere beneath the depths since time immemorial. And now he has risen from the prison our ancestors cast him into so that he may bathe the world in the wild abandon of its final days.”
Frank blinked. “I see… And… this happened in the river? Here?”
The woman nodded, “Yup! Guess he floated downstream. Or upstream. Or whatever. And now he’s here.”
“In Columbus,” Frank added.
The woman nodded again, “Right here in C-bus!”
Frank felt his skin crawl for the first time since all of this started as he heard her speak that name. “Wow,” was all he managed to say.
“It sure is something, isn’t it?” The woman responded jovially.
“It certainly is…” Frank trailed off, thinking. Then he remembered himself as someone began shouting ‘beloved be His name’ and a chorus soon joined in.
“Welp!” he said, looking down to his watch, “I’ve got to get back to it. Thank you so much for your help!”
“Of course!” The woman shouted back with a wave. Then, after but a brief moment, she added, “Beloved be His name!”
Frank smiled and repeated: “Beloved be his name” before leaning back into his office and sliding the glass pane shut.
He took a moment to ensure the locks on the window were engaged before sitting back at his computer, hitting play on the focus music playlist he had been enjoying, and maximizing the Excel window.
About the author:
David Cole (or ColedOne) is a writer and multimedia artist from Appalachia. His work spans video essays, fiction, and poetry in both the literary and gaming spaces. He is very proud of his YouTube work, which seeks to highlight the narrative strengths and oddities of video games.
Find David:
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Website
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