Paul sighed as he walked into the park. He could feel that nagging feeling, he was losing it. He knew what was going on. There was something living inside of him, some terrible thing, that took him over. It wasn’t consistent, but it always happened the same. It started with a feeling, a nagging in the back of his mind. Then, after a while, he was yanked away from his own eyes into darkness. Then, in an instant, he was awake again, in a different place wearing a new outfit. He didn’t know what he did on these jaunts into the darker side. All he knew was that they’d started after his overdose in high school, and hadn’t stopped. Moving to new cities didn’t stop them. Therapy didn’t help. Neither did drugs, prescription or otherwise. He needed to know what was happening to him. He needed to know that he wasn’t crazy. He pressed the record button on his phone and stuffed it into his briefs. Whoever or whatever took over his body, it never changed underwear. Then, lying down on a nearby bench, he muttered to himself, “Get it over with, already.” Sooner than normal, as though the entity had heard him complain, he felt the rough pull on his consciousness, and Paul was gone.
Opening his eyes, Paul was back in his one-room apartment. His arms and face were wet. He was in his underwear and an undershirt. Not the undershirt he’d worn earlier. Shuffling into his laundry and sifting through his clothing, his shirt was nowhere to be found. That served to piss him off at the whatever-it-was even more. He loved that shirt. Fishing into his briefs, he grabbed his phone and turned the screen on. It was nearly noon. He’d been out more than twelve hours this time. If he hadn’t been fired last week for losing his temper, he’d certainly have been fired now. He chuckled to himself as he unlocked the phone. It wouldn’t have captured all of that time, it’d run out of space before it could record that much audio, but it would give him a place to start. Pressing play on the recording, he set down the phone on the counter as he made himself a sandwich, and listened.
First, he heard some movement, and himself muttering, “Get it over with, already.” Then, silence. Movement. Whatever was in control wasn’t particularly talkative.
There was a half hour or so of silence, then he could hear a rapping, like on a metal door. There was a clang, metal against metal, and he heard a voice ask, “What?” HE also heard muted music in the background.
In a voice that sounded like his own but had some kind of old timey British accent. “I art called upon for a goal, a quest I must conquer.”
“What might that be?” the first voice asked.
A loud clang sounded out, the dance music grew louder, and smashing noises followed. Some screaming as well. And a loud sound like that made by cutting steaks from a cow. Silence for a moment, then a woman’s voice asked, “Why aren’t you dead?”
“You think yourself the worst I’ve fought, beast?” the voice that was him but not him replied.
Paul paused the recording. If the woman had thought he would die, then that thick, hacking sound must have been happening to him, not caused by him. Taking off his shirt, he looked at his abdomen. Sure enough, a seared scar crossed his side. He furrowed his brow. It didn't make sense. He wasn’t in any pain, but that was a fatal wound, and a recent burn. He should be struggling to stand up, much less operate like a normal person. Instead, it felt like it happened an eternity ago. Shaking his head, he continued the recording.
The loud smashing noises and screams continued for a few minutes, before the last one fell quiet. Then, after just a moment of silence, the shuffling movement started up again, and once again he heard the noises of the streets. There was another long period of movement, near an hour this time, then another knocking, this time against a wooden door.
The door creaked, and a man answered. “Good to see you again, El,” the man said, “Don’t worry, I’m still out of the game.”
The vaguely British voice replied, “I thank thee for leading me to that den, but there are more. My mount is getting suspicious, and I fear it may result in a separation.”
“Alright, man,” the guy behind the door said, “You didn’t hear it from me, but my old ‘friends’ hang around this shuttered house in the suburbs.”
After a few moments of silence punctuated only by a loud rushing then a binging noise, the voice that was both him and not his replied, “Thank you. For everything.”
The native guy replied, “Thanks for not killing me. I know the stories about you, you know?”
A sinister chuckle followed by the voice saying, “Not all stories are completely true.” Then, the recording cut off.
“Great,” Paul murmured to himself. He was a serial killer with some informant ratting out people they wanted dead in return for his other self not murdering the informant. Just great. Paul grabbed a map. Sighing, he placed a dot at the park bench. He hadn’t heard any doors opening or closing loud enough to mean he’d gotten into a car, meaning distances were taken on foot. Assuming his alter ego was trying to keep a low profile, he’d walk, and walk at a normal pace. That meant in a half hour, he’d only have gotten around two miles, at most.
Paul moved over to his old desk and grabbed a compass. Expanding it to a two mile distance, he drew a circle on the map. He was looking for suspicious metal doors near that line. He didn’t notice any buildings that stood out, so he opened up maps on his phone. Thinking about the noises in the recording, he remembered the music. He was looking for some underground club. Moving around the circle on his phone, he saw Cindy’s Flowers. The name stood out in his memory. He couldn't remember where he’d heard it before, but he had. Looking at the pictures of it from the street, he saw it had a metal door in the alley beside it. He googled it, and the news reported there had been a gas leak leading to a fire. Turned out, they used open flames as moodlighting, and the combination of that and the gas leak caused a lot of trouble. Paul shook his head. Sounded like someone was covering something up, meaning something happened there worth covering up. Something like a deranged serial killer murdering a bunch of people.
Placing a dot at the flower shop on the map, Paul thought a moment about the next step of his mystery night. The other one had been an hour away. He probably was still walking, which put it meant four miles at most, and probably closer to three and a half. Setting the compass for the latter, he traced a circle from the shop. It was a pretty large radius, especially considering that someone who’d just killed a bunch of people would probably have blood on him, so would probably walk in odd patterns. He needed to narrow it down, somehow.
He tried to parse out any hints of the location. The traffic noises grew quieter around there. And the binging. Not a bell, a metro arrival noise. A low traffic area near an aboveground metro stop. Paul marked with red pen the metro stops both near the line he’d drawn and aboveground. There were several. He needed to narrow it down more. Smiling, he realized he could. He had the exact time. Rewinding the recording to the point where the metro binged, he searched the system’s schedule for places with trains arriving around 12:49 give or take a couple minutes. Only two of the aboveground stops fit the bill. Throwing on pants and grabbing his keys, he headed out to check the places out. The wooden door his murderous self visited was in one of those two areas.
The first stop he went to was north of the city’s center. A quiet, rich neighborhood. Not where he’d expect the partner of a serial killer to live. Then again, Paul wasn’t really the type that anyone would expect to be a serial killer in the night, so looks might be deceiving. He looked from his car at the doors of the houses adjacent to the train stop, but they didn’t feel familiar. He began to drive away when he heard a familiar voice arguing with someone. “I don’t care about them, I care about us,” the man from the recording said loudly. Looking at the yards, he saw only one person in any of them. A middle aged man, leaning on a lawnmower, looking away from the road, talking on the phone.
Paul pulled up to the curb and parked the car, walking across the street to the yard in question. The man hung up the phone and, turning to see Paul, was surprised. “El?” he asked, “I thought we were good after last night.”
Paul raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”
The man sighed and nodded. “Right. Not Lammy.” Walking towards Paul, the man reached out his hand. Paul backed up, nervous. The man laughed. “I don’t bite. You must be confused. I’m Duchamp. Please, come inside.” He nodded his head towards the front door.
Nervously, Paul followed Duchamp into the house. “So,” he said, “What’s going on?”
Duchamp laughed. “A lot. Any question more specific, or do you want me to just pick a random thing?” The middle-aged man sat down in the living room's armchair.
Paul didn’t sit don. “Am I a murderer?”
Duchamp shrugged. “No, but you do kill.”
“Why do I black out?”
Duchamp furrowed his brow. “How shall I put this delicately?” he pondered aloud, then finally sighed, “You see, you’re dead.”
Paul returned to his confused look, but he did seat himself on the couch in utter disbelief. “I’m dead?” he said.
Duchamp shrugged. “I never really talked with El about the details. Before you started blacking out, you suffered a near-death experience, right?”
Paul nodded. “Yeah, Oh Deed on coke. Why?”
Duchamp bit his lip. “You didn’t though. You actually suffered a death experience. But El needed a mount and you got unlucky.”
Paul’s eyes widened. “So, that’s what the mount is getting suspicious meant. I, he, whatever meant I was getting worried.” Duchamp looked confused, so Paul clarified, “I recorded audio from last night.”
Duchamp nodded. “I see. That’s how you found your way here.”
“Metro arrival,” Paul stated. “So, what on earth is going on with me? Who is El? How am I a killer but not a murderer? What happened in that club last night?”
Duchamp shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, dismissively.
“I just found out that you think I’m dead, and that I regularly kill people during my blackouts. And last night I lost my second favorite T-shirt.”
Duchamp sighed. “Alright. What do you know about a man named Lomarok?”
“Who?” Paul replied.
“Kids these days,” Duchamp muttered to himself. Then, to Paul, he continued, “Please tell me you’ve at least know of the Knights of the Round Table?”
“You mean king Arthur’s posse from myth and such? Yeah, of course. There’s like Lancelot, and Percival, and Gala-something, and a bunch more. Why?”
Duchamp smiled sideways. “Trust me on this one, you’ll want to research them a lot more once we’re done here.”
“Just answer my questions, no need to be so mysterious.”
Duchamp took a deep breath. “So, first things first, throw away everything you think is true and everything you think is fiction. Much of what the world thinks is myth is completely, or mostly, true.”
Paul raised his eyebrows at the man. “And why should I believe anything you say?”
Duchamp leaned in. “Because I need you to not go crazy, not die, and not lock yourself up. Lomarok, at least, understands that I’m retired. The next Knight to trundle through here probably won’t care.”
“Retired? Retired from what?” Paul pressed.
Duchamp leaned back in his chair. “Alphonse Duchamp, retired mage, at your service.” After a pause, he added, “This is the part where you introduce yourself.”
Shaking his head, Paul sighed and said, “Paul Ericson, resident crazy person and evidently something called a ‘mount’ for some ‘Lomarok’ dude.”
Duchamp smiled widely. “Well then, Paul. Let’s get you up to speed, shall we?”