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| - by Phil Brucato How much can one man drink? Sean McCulloch is trying to find out. You've heard of devils sitting on your shoulder? Well, in Sean's case, it's true. Feels that way, anyhow. At night, the little bastards come out to play, dancing inside his skull until he feels like crying. Men don't cry, of course, but if they did, Sean McCulloch would have good reason to. At night - now, every night! - the dreams come, little bits of screaming glass wedged in his subconscious. Spirit dogs and bloody births and dark-skinned women with blue tattoos. Bits of flesh and body parts lodged in the mouths of howling monsters. Severed limbs on fresh, clean snow. It's like some horror movie, one of those low-budget shriekers like they show at the Portman, but with really good effects. Too good. How can you sleep when your dreams are washed in blood? And so he drinks. Drinks a lot. Drinks a hell of a lot, truth be told. And he wishes the dreams would go away. But there's a voice in his head, nagging at his sorry ass. Wake up, it says, and banish me. Call me up and face me, and all of this will go away. Is it the dream, the drink, or the dole? Who knows? Sean hasn't worked in too long a time, and while the checks are there each week at the unemployment line they're a humiliating handout at best. Back home, there are mouths to feed and bill collectors to please, but every week Sean makes a point to water the dragon in his throat on the way home, first. It's no way for a man to live. Oh, no. Best to summon up the cause and dash the little bastard's brains out. I didn't mean that, Sean thinks, realizing who he really meant by "the little bastard." But he does mean it. That's why the drinking has to stop. Reverend Gallender used to say that drink was a demon. Sean hadn't thought he was speaking literally, but it turned out to be true. Now, in the flickering basement of his father's house, Sean lights the candles and checks the circles on the floor. By the dim light, he compares the diagrams in the little red book to the chalk-drawn scribbles on the floor. Good enough for government work, as they say. And deep inside, Sean wonders what the f**k he's doing. This isn't his thing at all, this D&D crap. He always used to laugh at the nerds in the cafeteria, with their stupid games and their Crowley books and their Judas Priest albums and Black Sabbath T-shirts. But as he lights the last red candle, that laughter seems pretty far away. Bleary eyes blur across the room. Loose knees shake as Sean tries to stand up straight. He can't focus. He's too drunk. Are the circles too wobbly? Are the glyphs drawn right? Christ, he can't be sure. He's had an awful lot to drink today. Everything looks like s**t, even by candlelight. It's not just the dreams. It's not just the drinks. It's the chains he feels around his legs every day. You can't see them, but they're there. They started out as love-knots, but they turned into chains pretty quickly. Marsha had been a crush, a little puppy-love gone dog-wild. She was a great lay, but a lousy mother. Now she spends all her time lying in bed, and can't hold a job to save her life. And then there's The Brat. So much for condoms. You can't trust s**t these days. So Sean, who used to run like a stag on fire, is chained up like a dog. And now he can't find a job, either. Things were supposed to work out better than this. Is it any wonder why he drinks? Sean squints and tries to focus on the circle. His eyes have gone on strike. His mouth tastes like he's been gargling with sewage. Black Label with whiskey chasers. Food of the gods, if you're a drunk. Too bad that last beer is gone. "La, la, la, la..." He can hear The Brat upstairs, singing babytalk even though he's old enough to read. Christ, what's wrong with that little s**t? Same old song: la, la, la, laaa. It's enough to drive you nuts. Good thing the door's locked, Sean thinks as he sways around the room and checks his preparations. Daddy would have a hard time explaining this to his toddling son. To be honest, Daddy's not quite sure he understands what he's doing himself. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The Red Book. It has a title, but Sean can't read it. He's not sure why he thinks he can read the words inside, either - they're pretty weird, not even Latin, but some other nonsense that looks a lot like The Brat's babytalk. Except it makes sense to Sean, at least when he's drunk. The words seem to echo in his head, as if a chorus of devils were sitting on his shoulder. And when he hears them, Sean feels drunk but happy, like a stoner on a cloud of Maui Wowie. The Red Book holds the truth. "La, la, la, laa..." Shut up, kid, Sean says inside, but the words never leave his mouth. Living with his parents again, Sean has learned how to shut the f**k up. Sean's not sure why he has this book, why it speaks to him, why he took its weird contents to heart. Some bandy little bastard with a smoky grin had shown it to him one night in The Hound, and Sean just had to have the book. It cost him 20 bucks - the last 20 bucks he had to spare, but Marsha would have to accept that. Dad and Mom had money, anyway, and Sean was damned sure he wouldn't see anything like this book again. After he bought it and paid his tab, he stumbled home with it. Read it under streetlamps as he passed from light to light. Wandered between the pools of light like some drunken bug, scanning the pages that grew brighter, then blazed with intensity, then faded as he left each streetlamp's comforting glow and headed into the dark again. He and Marsha fought when he got home. But he had The Book, so he didn't care. Marsha hadn't seen it - she'd blow a fuse! - so he waited until she went to bed before he took it out again. Pacing back and forth while Marsha cried in the other room, Sean felt the urge to read The Book burning at his palms like a rash. It wasn't until he heard her snoring that he took it out and flipped it open and watched its letters dance. They did, you know. And as he checks the circle one final time, they dance for him again. They look like worms, he thinks. Worms squirming on the pages. Worms of ink, living letters. Dancing on the page for him. God, I'm so f**ked up! Sean wants to get clean. He does. This is no way for a man to act - drunk and mopey and hating his kid! But somedays, it just seems like there's a weight on his chest. A fire in his guts. A devil or two (or three, or more...) ripping through his skull on a bender. And now there are the dreams, and Sean just can't take it anymore. No matter how much he drinks, the s**tstorm never goes away. But The Red Book might help. He knew it when he first saw The Book. Just by looking at the pages, incoherent as they might be. The Book would help him out. Would help him summon up the demons of the bottle and the demons in his head. Summon them up so he could lock them up and beat 'em into submission and make them promise not to screw with him any longer. The Book could do that. The voices in Sean's head said so. Worms in the brain. That's what they used to call it. It's worms in the brain that make you crazy. He checks the lock on the basement door again. Hears The Brat babbling to himself upstairs. Ryan'll keep out of trouble, he thinks. He knows how to amuse himself while I'm gone. The ceremony might take awhile. Sean McCulloch gets to work. The voices guides him as he strips naked and totters into the circle. As he takes the chalk in trembling fingers and begins to trace a spiral from the outside leading in, he begins to chant. Words from The Book. Words that make no sense. Embarrassed, he chants in a low, unsteady voice:"Bruhalla ka et nostrum bel. Ballah het an kastra no...." "La, la, la, la. La, la, la, la..." It's coming from upstairs. It's messing with his concentration. The Brat is singing again, and Sean can hear it through the door. Sean continues, feeling like a fool. Gradually, his voice rises and the words come more quickly. The cold basement seems to stir. The shadows from the candlelight seem to dance in the corners like the letters in The Book. Sean can almost feel the room recoil, drawing away from him as he chants the words louder: "So takena konkola swe, dok sele hes Karnala es. Foebok os konjimma oth! Sonjula! Sonjula! Es! Mahsstrac, Mahsstrac, es...." "La, la, la, la. La, la, la, la..." Sean digs his nails into his palms and chokes down the urge to scream. The dragon is boiling at the back of his throat. He needs a drink! He needs to yell! He needs to rush upstairs and.... He can see the woman. The woman in the snow, in his mind's eye. That dark-skinned little bitch with her big belly and that weird blue s**t in her skin. Barefoot in the snow like some kinda hippie. She laughs at him. She shames him. She's more a man than he will ever be. "Khaaaloobh! Khaaaloobh!" The words bust up from Sean's guts like maggots. He can't stay silent. He's got to yell: "Hath gat an korra et! Parray! Parray! Abhorra din kandalla Kil na Korr!" He doesn't hear the basement door open. The little feet on the stairs. He wants to be clean. He wants to work. He wants to be a good father to The Brat. He does! In his dream, though, the dark-skinned bitch is laughing at him. He's pathetic! She guards her child so fiercely, goes through so much to have him and keep him. Sean can't even stay sober. What a loser. What a failure. Above his voice, he hears them screaming. The people in the dream-village. The children in the monster's mouth. So many children. All noisy, all screaming, all too wrapped up in their stupid little worlds to know how loud they are... "Laaaa!! Laaaa! Laaaa..." So loud. Christ almighty.... "Sola a tinkola es!" Sean's screaming, now. "B'hari! B'hari! Lin ta kolero bran macha tola ki!" Smoke coils in the corners. Comes together from the candles and swirls like worms in the still basement air. "Laaaa!! Laaaa! Laaaa..." Right next to him. Sean spins suddenly, lashing out from the circle. "Shut up, you miserable little s**t!" His hand hits something meaty. Something else hits the wall. And then The Brat is in the corner, its mouth welling with little bits of red. The Brat? My son? Ryan? The screaming stops. Sean suddenly wishes he'd had even more to drink. Then the door to darkness opens.
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