FSE

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A man sleeps fitfully. He has carried great weights in his waking hours, and now sheds them one dream at a time. Some tangle him close, like ropes from a sunken galleon holding a diver beneath the surface as his oxygen runs low. Some cause him to flinch and moan as incidents and recollections scar his sleeping mind. His brow furrows as the waking world draws near. A discomfort, caused by being asleep in his clothes no doubt, tugs him back up to the light.

He sits up with a jerk, gasping. A bitter aftertaste and sulphurous tang assails him for a moment. But then the crushing familiarity of his surroundings help to reassure him that he is back where he belongs. His bedroom is laid out as it was before...

Before...

The man looks around, shuffling to his feet as a strange feeling overtakes him. He remembers the Agency. The face of the impassive, suit-clad bureaucrat not breaking its stony resolve as he delivered his tirade and resignation. The...Incident that had prompted his final decision to leave. Shying away from that memory he spooled forward. He had been packing to leave to go somewhere, anywhere but the bright, crowded streets of London. Indeed, his suitcase lay there on the bed, half packed.

So why had he just woken in a chair, fully dressed? Could it be stress finally causing a collapse?

The man shuddered, his mind racing though a hundred darker possibilities. In any case the job for now would be to pack and get away. This momentary loss of control could be investigated at length from the bottom of a bottle on a warm beach.

Stepping forward, the he threw open the curtains, and reeled back in shock.

Outside, instead of the usual skyscrapers and streets, a cluster of odd, brightly-coloured buildings hugged a steep mountainside leading down to a rocky coastline. Sun streamed in from a cloudless sky as sea birds wheeled and made raucous conversation above. Not a single soul moved on the mossy cobbles outside. He swept his eyes left and right, taking in tacky, painted poles displaying arrows and incomprehensible glyphs. It looked like a dreary summer vacation spot that had been left to seed for too many a year. Here and there, beneath the garish paint on the ubiquitous pebble-dash, rot and mould could be seen clinging to old stones.

He wheeled around, looking at his room. It was...his room. Everything was in place, from his books to the patch of dust atop the dresser. Every part of it was as intimately familiar as his own flesh. The incongruity of the view outside the window was like waking up to find an additional toe.

The phone on the bedside table rang. However, unlike the reassuring 'brrring!' he was used to it emitted a strangely organic warble. He grabbed it just to make the damn thing stop.

"Yes?" he barked into the receiver. "Who is this?"

"Who is this?" Echoed back at him. The clipped tones of a woman with a British accent confused him for a moment. He paused, and they came back at him. "Who is this? Am I addressing number Six?"

The man looked around, confused. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and noticed he was wearing a badge of some sort. Not only was he sure he had never seen it before, but he was sure it had not been there a moment ago when he woke up. He tossed the phone onto the bed and tugged it from his lapel to look closer.

The little, tin token was black, with a curiously disquieting yellow symbol embossed on it. It was part spiral, part tentacular triskelion. There was a curiously organic quality to it that made him feel unclean simply from having worn the thing.

Superimposed over the symbol was the number six.

He swapped the handset for the badge. "Hello?" He ventured, half expecting the woman to have hung up in the meantime.

"Is this number Six?" she asked, her tone neutral.

He hesitated. "I suppose you could say that," he said after a moment. He was about to ask her who she was, but the phone clicked and another voice came through.

"Six, my dear chap!" enthused a stranger warmly. "This is Two. I just thought I'd give you a call and see if you felt like coming out to get a feel for the new place." There was a soft sound, part chuckle, part cough. "I know that you'll have a few questions. So just come on out and say hello to everyone."

Before Six could begin asking this new enigma his questions the line went dead abruptly. Swearing, he slammed the phone back in the cradle. Looking outside he thought he saw a dark shape scuttling down a cobbled street. Rushing to the window he looked out. Now he could see couples and small groups of people in garish red, yellow and blue striped tops ambling through the streets and lanes, at least those that he could view from there. He grabbed for the coat he had lain across the foot of his bead when he began packing and stepped out of his bedroom...

...Into an empty, concrete walkway painted in a garish yellow. The sudden change caused Six to stumble and gasp. One moment he had been in his home, and now he was in this short hall, from which projected a couple of doors and an entrance that was slowly gliding open with a hum of concealed motors. He turned round, and there was his bedroom door, sunk into the wall but very solidly attached. Gingerly he crossed the threshold again, then stepped back into the hall.

There was no mistaking it. With a sinking feeling Six realised that either his bedroom had been carefully planted into this house, or someone had gone to utterly insane lengths to turn one of the rooms here into a complete replica. Up to and including himself.

And worse, he could only think of a few groups a person in his profession (or former profession, he corrected himself a moment later) would have come into contact that could do either.

Before leaving he explored the rest of the building, finding only a basic bathroom and simple kitchen. It seemed he was in some sort of bungalow, and one that had seen better days by the looks of the cracked roof and obvious age of the fittings. Every surface was painted that same sickly yellow, the paint still slightly sticky under his fingertips.

Six stepped out into the street, immediately shielding his face against the sunlight. It was quite brighter than he had expected, and warmer too. He took a look around and noticed a pole with a number six engraved on it outside his 'home'. The walls of the little building were worn and painted in a fading grey that had flaked off in several places. It looked and felt like a little bunker, especially compared to the garish, if mouldering, mushroom-like buildings alongside it.

At a loss for exactly which way to go he set off towards the middle of this strange village. He could see a few people walking that way too, and tried to hurry to catch them. However he kept losing them in the tangled maze of streets. He paused, panting, by a building that seemed to be some sort of shop. Considering going in for a moment he instead turned as he heard the sound of a band striking up a rather amateurish tune not too far away.

It took another turn and a scramble up some steep, stone stairs, and Six suddenly found himself on the edge of a town square. To one side a brass band seemed to either be trying to play five different songs at once, or had decided to launch some kind of act of musical warfare. In the middle of the square was a circular pool filled with what looked like filthy, oil-choked water. A fountain that may once have provided some cheer to the scene was no longer running on this effluent, and the leering cherub supporting a cornucopia that struck Six as being rather maggot-like was smeared with moss and dirt.

Advancing in pairs or singly around this pool were dozens of people. He saw men and women, old and young, people of every ethnicity and type. They circled, following some unknowable one-way system, chattering and jabbering to each other in every language from French to Latin. The babble rose and fell like the waves of the distant beach, and although Six understood little of it the tone and seeming rhythm made his head spin.

"Hello Six," panted a middle-aged man in an oddly-cut suit as he climbed the stairs behind him. Six spun around. The man grinned at him and levered himself up to be on the same level, using a white umbrella as a walking stick. Clearly out of breath the man doubled over for a moment before offering his sweaty hand to Six. "Thought...Thought I might have missed you. You seem to have found your way around without me."

After a moment, Six shook the man's unpleasantly clammy hand. He noticed the badge on his lapel had the number two, although the man in front of him sounded completely different to the one that had identified himself by that number. "I think there is a mistake," Six added, wiping his hand on his trouser leg. "I'm not supposed to be here. And I am not a number. I am a free man."

Two chuckled and settled himself on a crumbling brick wall, looking at Six as if he had made a very pleasant joke. "Well you certainly look like a number," he added, nodding in Six's direction. Six glanced down and noticed that he was wearing another copy of the badge he had left in his house. He grabbed it in disbelief, and then it stay put for now. "In any case, you are most definitely supposed to be here, my good man." Two tapped his umbrella on the ground. "Welcome to the Village, by the way. I'm sure you'll fit right in."

Six balled his fists and tried to remain calm. "I resigned," he whispered. "I resigned. You have no right to bring me here to this...whatever the hell this is!" His voice had risen as he talked, and the last word was bellowed at the sweating man looking back at him serenely. "Who are you? Where is this place? What do you want from me?"

Two smiled like a teacher who has been given the chance to indulge a rather dim pupil. "Information. That's all we want. Information," he gestured to the marching crowd, who seemed oblivious to the exchange. "You have resigned. 'Retried from the industry' so to speak. Well, this is a pleasant little corner of the world where you can relax. Unwind. Like these good people did. And while you are here, part of our little community, you can give us something in return."

"Information?" Six asked, incredulously.

"Information," Two agreed. "You are a man that has seen a lot of things and knows a lot of secrets. We all are. Or were. We've given up those secrets for this place." He gestured expansively. "Security. Self sufficiency! Sunshine and ice-cream. No more nightmares, no more Agency. Just the Village. Think of information as your rent." He smiled and nodded. "There's no set way of paying too. If you want to paint, paint. If you want to write, write. You should see our library."

"I might pay it a visit on my way out," Six grunted, his eyes starting to wander over the landscape. The town square gave a commanding view of the lower town, although there were yet higher peaks and streets to go.

Two laughed until he began to cough, giving great, racking heaves. Six glared at him, then noticed that nobody else, not even the squalling band, was paying any attention. A knot of tension coiled in his gut as Two began speaking again. "Oh, my good man, you ARE a breath of fresh air. I'm afraid there is no way out of the village once you are here. We take care of that very well. Watch."

He stood and tapped his umbrella twice on the ground. Despite the sharp sound not carrying very far everyone in the square froze. Except for one man. A wild-eyed, dishevelled figure staggered on, elbowing his way through the stationary figures around him, babbling madly in German. Two tutted.

"You see that gentleman?" he indicated the figure who was now screaming at the top of his lungs as he pushed his way around the pool. "Doesn't fit in. Plays by his own rules you see." he looked up at Six and tutted. "Unmutual. And clearly a good demonstration of our security."

Six was about to fire back a comment when a thrashing, bubbling pseudopod lifted out of the oily 'water' of the pool. Eyes and fanged mouths formed along it as the appendage snaked between the stationary figures after the German. It grabbed him by the arm and hoisted him up in the air, screaming in pain rather than the rhythmic incantation he had been bellowing before. Six winced as the weight and strength of the tentacle broke the bones with a sound like a boot coming down on a rotten log.

With a flick the ropey member tossed the man into the pool which flowed around him like an obscene maw. His limbs flailed at the spongy surface for a moment before the whole thing convulsed. Six locked away, sickened and numb as the human shape that had been visible a moment before was simply flattened by a force that he personally knew could shatter a building.

He looked up as Two tapped his umbrella and the crowd began walking again like nothing had happened. "There are more of them out to sea," he claimed conversationally, as if discussing an amusing species of puffin and not an amorphous horror. "We call this one Rover. So long as you keep your badge on and don't upset things you and he will get along just fine."

"That was..." Six almost named the thing, and caught himself. He knew better than to reveal the name of these creatures, thanks to his years of keeping up the appearance for the Agency that such things did not exist. He saw Two eyeing him almost expectantly and finished with; "...Abhorrent."

Two took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his face with it. "No, it was a shoggoth," he added patiently. "Let's not insult each other by pretending that you don't know what it is. If you really had no idea you'd have been running down those steps the second it appeared. And for your information the only other way out of here is through the mountains. And what lives there makes the shoggoths look like an attractive option."

Six considered that for a moment and looked away. He turned his gaze from the chanting crowd circling the abominable entity in its rancid stone basin and looked out to sea.

"I think you are starting to get the idea," Two mumbled, levering himself up from the wall. "This place is not something you can just walk away from. You are here now and you stay can be an agreeable retirement of sun, sea and sand or..." he paused and scratched his chin with a fingertip. "...well, I am sure that you were recruited for your imagination. I'll let you decide what else it could happen if you are unhelpful."

He did consider it. Although he was also considering several other things. The presence of the shoggoth was a shock, and had rocked his idea as to who was running this 'Village'. He had initially assumed it had been the Agency. But the appearance of the monster had made him think again. However, a dangerous voice, the same voice that had penned his letter of resignation and seen him throw it in the face of his superiors, was asking him a question. It reminded him of the Incident, and why he had finally given in and resigned. If the Agency was capable of...that, then they were still capable of using a shoggoth and some village in the middle of nowhere to pump people for information.

"Who are you?" he asked Two again, his voice dangerously calm. "Who's running this place?"

"I am number Two, and number One...well, he's the boss," Two intoned. He scratched his chin harder, digging the nail into his flesh. "Hmmm, will you excuse me for a moment, Six? I feel a need for a change..."

Six was about to ask him what he meant when Two dug his fingers into his chin with a grunt. He dropped his umbrella and clawed at his open mouth, grabbing his jaw and pulling hard. Six looked on in shock as Two began to draw blood, his nails raking his skin harder and deeper by the moment.

With a crack he broke his jaw, gagging on blood as a trembling spasm ran through his whole body. Six grabbed the railing and stared, aghast as Two began to peel himself open, yanking on his jaw which came free in a welter of watery blood. His scrabbling hands pulled it lower, peeling away not only his flesh but also his clothes like the ribbon of gore was some grizzly tab. Things...pulsed and twitched in the gruesome chasm that Two peeled into himself. Letting the flap of flesh and bone hang free, the choking horror drove writhing, almost boneless fingers into the tear...and pulled.

Two came open like a pod of flesh and bone. He split like a seed that had been expertly cracked. Six took another step backwards, his foot hanging in space for a moment before coming down on the stair as the ruination of Two's body opened further, splitting and spurting, as something pushed out from inside it.

Crawling into view as if Two's body was some obscene portal was a blonde-haired youth in his twenties, wearing a similar suit to the collapsing flesh-sac. He struggled and gave a few grunts of effort as he pulled his arms free and pushed down, yanking the old Two's body off like a pair of trousers. He paused to straighten his jacket, blood and ichor boiling off him, leaving no stains. Indeed, the body of the old Two was falling apart into dust and ruin at his feet, vanishing like a nightmare and leaving less trace behind.

With a flourish, Two kicked the umbrella up and caught it with a wide, child-like smile of satisfaction. He adjusted his badge and watched with a sardonic chuckle as Six sped down the stairs and fled towards the beach.