Edward Lee - Trolley No. 1852

How, though, could I deny it now?

More surveillance was necessary for me to make a proper assessment of this phantasmata I was now sitting in the middle of. I required a forward view, which would no doubt expose me to the greatest risk yet. Nevertheless, I took my chance, realising no other subsidiary manoeuvre.

I stood upright at the back of the trolley.

What faced me were the backs of my sister and the aberrant motorman; nothing could be more imperative, I knew, than to prevent them from seeing me. Yet I was the one who needed to see. And see I did…

To my unabating horror.

Past the shoulders of Selina and the thogg there stretched a vista so strange, so unutterably alien, that the very glimpsing of it fleeced the breath from my lungs and instigated a slugging of my heart. It was a horizon of sorts, extending to sheer endlessness, a screaming, demented infinity that transcended all manner of measure. Sounds like wicked wind blended with some human aspect seemed to shriek from all directions; and dust (though dust that glittered) flitted through the ultra-terrestrial haze, filtering a purview of impossibility. The only apparent “natural” objects in view were the two track-rails extending in perfect linearity for incalculable miles ahead. Who could possibly have lain them? I wondered in fascinated terror. And just how long do they extend?

These and myriad more questions overflowed in my struggling and shock-wearied mind. This land and sky of undefected planes, I knew, could not exist via any known laws of nature or relativity, nor could the trolley’s very passage—a vehicle with no perceptible mode of power. But my unblinking eyes bloomed then, when the flat, vacuous void ahead at last relinquished some of its unfathomable homogeneousness, the blistering panorama’s monotony finally breaking to reveal the tiniest eruptions of some facet of feature.

Pyramids! I realised through a headache-inducing squint.

Yes, miles or hundreds of miles distant, their ranks rose as the trolley approached: a morass of pyramid-shaped objects whose angles all existed in perfect uniformity. Some spired higher than others, but beyond that, they were all of the same, and I knew now what they could only be…

The Pyramidiles.

That hideous race of faceless, immobile anti-beings so decadently and blood-thirstily revered by the Ahebites of pre-dynastic Egypt.

It’s true! It’s all true! my palpitating thoughts screamed.

The myth of the Pyramidiles was no myth; so then neither could be their principal servitor on earth, the witch-priestess Isimah el-Aheb, now known as Madam Aheb of the 1852 Club…

And it was into the midst of these appalling parasites of undying turmoil that the trolley ventured. God only knew what would happen once we arrived.

Whether it was hours which lapsed, or days, the prospect was beyond my mental potency to estimate. Neither Selina nor the noxious motorman moved from their forward posts, but eventually, the range of minuscule pyramidic eruptions grew larger as more distance was gained; then, hours or days later… they loomed, and in their looming I stood utterly paralyzed. The smallest of them stood hundreds of feet high, yet the tallest easily spired thousands of feet into the obscure, unilinear stratum above; each Pyramid was indeed a colossus; and being cognizant that each of these things were alive made the observation all the more horrific. That incessant living wind-like screaming rose in pitch as the trolley clattered directly into the thick of the things. I could see them and their mammoth flesh-walls; could see the most horrific trait of all: whatever it was that covered their living pyramidal bodies (presumably some foreign laminae that served as skin) was of a wet, sickly white, like that of a bullfrog’s belly, tessellated with an even more sickly green.

Just like the skin of Miss Aheb and Selina…

It was an uncontemplatable labyrinth that existed between the bases of these horrid, titan creatures; and through that labyrinth the trolley now wended. I thought of a lone skiff coursing betwixt glaciers, or the most meager train locomoting between the most enormous mountains. The Pyramidiles’ “skin” made me physically ill to behold, yet now, given their size when compared to our proximity, it was all I could see to either side. The slimy dermis shivered as we passed, showing revolting dilating pores that shuddered as if via some mode of respiration. Great hoselike lines swerved in every direction, pulsing—and I knew that these could only be the things’ veins. But in veins flowed blood, circulated by hearts, and it was the nature of such that I would’ve preferred to kill myself than to speculate or, worse, bear witness to. Just as frightening queries, however, did race mad through my mind; for one: How much space did these appalling hulks of flesh occupy? Dozens of square miles? Thousands? More?

The trolley stopped.

I ducked to re-conceal myself behind the seat just as my horribly masked sister turned. Two sets of footsteps on metal told me that she and the motorman had debarked…

Now was my chance, risky as it may have been, to make a closer examination of the two poles covered with the inexplicable masses, but I knew I must be very careful and very quick.

A peek over the side showed me Selina and her grim attendant walking down a queer lane formed between two of the monstrous pyramids of flesh. On hands and knees, then, I traversed the entirety of the rear car’s aisle, hopped across the coupling, and continued as such to the trolley’s forward area, and slid into the footwell of a seat nearest the debarkation steps. Small oval holes had been cut out at the bottom of the vehicle’s sideboards (likely for drainage during rain) so with my cheek to the floor I again looked out. There was no sign of my sister or the motorman…

Next, my hands and knees took me to the simple mounts into which the bizarre dowels had been erected.

What in the name of…

This close I was easily able to discern the strange substance which composed the “wizened masses” that the poles were designed to carry. Easy to discern, quite, but easy to cogitate?

By no means.

These masses that could be likened to bunches of shriveled grapes were actually multiple hundreds of unrolled prophylactic sheaths. Each had been fixed to dozens of outward pointing metal rods spouting from the dowel; and onto each more than several of the barrier sheaths had been fixed via tiny clips. Each dangled limply, weighted at its end by the portion of human sperm that had been jettisoned into it. Rows and rows of soiled condoms, two veritable TREES of them, came my outrageous yet clearly incontestable observation. It was to these outlandish “trees” that the club’s harlots had been clipping the spent, vulcanised barriers all along; and no doubt for a considerable time—many days, I would reckon, or more than likely many weeks…

I ducked back, to hide myself again several seats rearward, not knowing what to do or what even to think. Moments later, the footsteps re-boarded, and a peek around the side showed my masked sister lifting one of the dowels from its mount, and the grub-handed motorman lifting the other. Again, then, they debarked, carrying with them the sperm-laden dowels…

When I peered through the current drainage port, I gasped; for now, standing before the trolley were a dozen hideous, naked creatures beyond the stuff of nightmare. Their hands and openly displayed penises existed identically to that which I’d seen of the motorman during his service to Miss Aheb. However, unlike said motorman, these wore nothing, and had no parchment masks—which was surely the worst part, for their faces… Their faces…