At the Strand of Nightmares

Necropolis

There was a sharp taste in my mouth, a taste of salt and food that had seemed to lose its freshness long ago. It was horridly dry, as if I had been sleeping for a hell of a long time. All I could think was that I need to brush my teeth, or at least get a glass of water-help remove that horrible taste from my mouth.  I sat up in my bed, it didn't seem to be mine at all. I hadn't sleep on a bed this soft in years. Usually I just sleep on the couch, or perhaps I didn't sleep at all. This bed felt secure though, as if I never really had to leave it-perhaps it'd be better if I never did leave this soft spot of unsettling comfort.

As I finally decided to get up and start my day, I noticed something horribly odd; my body hadn't felt this young in fifty years. The spring in my step long since depleted had now returned. I felt my much longer hair touch my shoulders- oh, I remember the day when I decided to cut it. The fashion had really changed quite a bit from the sixties into the eighties. It wasn't so commonplace for a man like myself to have hair that long. Of course, I had no one's expectations to care for, but I always did want to be a man of taste.

I walked about in this strange room. It didn't feel like a bedroom at all, the white marble on the walls, the granite tables bearing rectangular wooden boxes. I didn't want to admit to myself what I could swear such boxes were. I just wanted to live for another few minutes believing I really had been turned a young man again-perhaps I'm in some large palace.

I walked about for a while, until finally I heard someone call from the other side of the room. "Sir," the strangely familiar voice said, "We will all be here for the meeting in a few minutes. Don't worry, you won't have to wait around much longer."

I look over and see the man. "What meeting? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh," and another voice chimes in. This one the voice of a young German woman. "I see we've gotten another one of these idiots, now, don't we, Mr. Calabini?"

"Yes, I believe you are right, Adelaide," the man said with a nod.

"We haven't had any like this in a while, now have we?"

"Oh, no," he replied, his mind searching through files of memories, it appeared, "His partner came here not even two years before this. Which reminds me, I must see him after this..."

"That is right," Adelaide said, thinking back, "See, I've only had to deal with someone, oh, twenty, twenty five years ago?"

Twenty five years? She couldn't even be twenty two...

"Worry not, Adelaide," Mr. Calabini said, "Your time without seeing anyone will be made up today. There will certainly be at least, oh, eight, nine, maybe ten thousand people in this building shortly."

"Brilliant," she said with an odd smile.

"Here they come..."

Sure enough, I turned around, and there must have been dozens of people that had filled every square inch of the large room. Again, I felt like I should have known these people, but my mind had fallen into a scramble I couldn't recall a single name. Adelaide stepped forward first, scant clothing rippling across a slender frame, but I beat her to speaking, shouting out, "Where the hell am I?"

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" she rebuked with a snicker, "Do you even know what's going on?"

"No, I really do not," I said.

"You dead," she said matter of factly.

"No," I gasped, "That simply couldn't be possible."

"Couldn't it?" she sneered, "You've only been sleeping in a nice, soft, cushy coffin for the past two weeks! Turn around, you'll see it."

I turned around, and sure enough, there it was, a coffin. The wooden box sitting atop a granite table, much like the others. "I just woke up in that this morning? How did I not notice that?"

"I told you," Adelaide said with a cool air, "You're an idiot. You only saw what you wanted to see, and in your case you wanted to see yourself as being a living man, so you were afraid to come forward and face your fate, but rather here you are, dead, in our city, unable to hold back any longer."

"City?"

Mr. Calabini piped in, "I don't believe city is exactly the fitting term my comrade meant. You might be more familiar with the term, "Necropolis," city of the dead. Never mind any further semantics."

"Semantics?" I asked, "And why, pray, mustn't I worry about these so-called semantics?"

"Oh, never mind those pesky things," he replied, swatting the air, begging my ignorance. "Adelaide, please, speak first..."

"You have no clue who I am, do you?" she asked of me, "I can see so much as that..."

"No, but I feel like I should know one of you," I sighed, "You all seem familiar, but I can't place a finger on it."

"Well, you wouldn't know all of us personally," Adelaide said, "But it's really a shame you couldn't even think of my face. Monsters don't remember their victims, I suppose."

"What do you mean?" I asked, my mind only feeling more dislodged.

"Reeperbahn, 1911, does this mean anything to you?"

"No, but I'm thinking it should," I sighed, "I can't remember much of anything now."

I looked down, apparently not even able to look in my eyes anymore... "I was the whore you raped on the streets of Hamburg, tossed to the side, and left for dead. Who would believe a prostitutes story that she was raped? But you did that to me- and I had to bear that knowledge that I was robbed, degraded, thrown away. Apparently a victim among many..."

A felt a void in my stomach grow. A deep feeling of violation, of torment. I felt the desire to run away and weep, try to make this internal, agonizing torment go away, but something tells me that I couldn't very well do that...

Mr. Calabini stepped forward, "1945, Mr. Offenbach. I started a career for you and for partner, for the conglomerate you both ran. You screwed me over in the end, though. You took from me everything I had- I couldn't find a job for almost a year, you hear? My wife and I, we lost everything. You must feel that fear now, Mr. Offenbach, the fear of not having a roof over your head or food to eat. You must feel my wife's fear, too. The fear that her family would crumble. You must feel the fear of our children, the uncertain sensation that they simply couldn't understand?"

There is was, the fear rising within me on top of what what there before, rising, rising, and rising again, turning into an intense anxiety attack.

"We aren't done, you know," Mr. Calabini said. "There are thousands more you must speak with."

"Done with what, exactly?!" I screamed in my pain.

"Done with our justice," he sighed, "Done with making you feel what we had to feel in our lives. We aren't real, you see. Our souls are elsewhere, we are representative shadows of everyone you ripped off, ruined, hurt, abused, left behind, robbed blind, and drove mad with your presence. Your power, Mr. Offenbach, only ever grew, but as did the count of souls you must now answer for."

"Where. Am. I," I stuttered out, holding back a scream.

Adelaide looked at me with a snickering gaze, "Mr. Calabini already told you, this is a Necropolis, anything further is merely semantics."

"Where. Am. I."

She looked almost pleasured I asked again, "It is Tartarus. It is Gehenna. It is Abaddon. It is Hel. It is Annwn. It is the Inferno that Dante spoke so much of, and you are in the ninth ring of it."