Epilogue - The Residence of Evil

Note: This is perhaps the most brutal story in the entire Ancient Destroyer Cycle. I'm sorry if it offends, as I tried to emphasize horror over simple grossness. Many thanks to ASCer's Bill Livingston and Selek, early supporters of this effort, and to TrekBBS regulars T'Bonz and Space Turkey, who made me feel I was on the right track as I concluded. Special thanks are freely offered to Federation Historian Istannor, whose generous loan of concepts and characters was never withdrawn, even when my focus was not quite in synch with the entity's. After reading this whole story, I hope its clearer to some why I waited til a year after 9/11 to complete such a horror-fest.

The story of Peter Kirk does not end with this. A closing piece could show a happy holiday aboard a magic starship, where a heroic crew was never more so than when they raised the spirits of a lost, lonely little boy. That same piece could show a girl kissing a boy, awaking him from a decade of living hell, and beginning a romance to rival the very best. It could show the resolve that a young man was given by the adversity depicted here, resolve that no evil officer, nor any dragon, nor even a well-intentioned but awkward Traveller could shatter. Or at the last, a closing piece could show the boy, now a married man, returning to the oddly restored planet of his birth, there to swim naked with his beloved wife, striving to put aside the bitter in favor of what good memories there were.

But we will see none of that here. For this is a horror story, and horror stories end in a certain way.

-------------------------------------------------

APRIL, 2268

For a year and a half they had sat in a place where there were no seats, where they had no legs to fold or pace with, and where time mattered not at all, because that was all they had.

He saw himself as a slightly older version of James T. Kirk, sporting a moustache and now a goatee. She saw herself as a slender woman with raven-dark hair and a smallish but notable figure. She had altered her ears back to the points they had when she was born. She had this option as he did because their bodies weren't. They were spirits, remembering what they had looked like or wished they had in life.

The only event of note had been over six months earlier, when Brianna's angry spirit came through, moaning about how Peter had killed her. When the dragon head came and ate her up with relish, Sam lowered the trousers he didn't have and waved the penis his future daughter-in-law had ripped away. Mommy dearest at last knew her eldest birth-son's opinion of her, and what she might suck, should she pass that way again. She wouldn't, and that raised a point.

"Sam, you waited a long time to tell her off. Was that why we had to stay here?"

"No. She knew how I felt, and didn't care. Maybe we're waiting for your Dad?"

Relly shook her absent head.

"Heee-llo!? Romulan! He's probably got another century and a half coming. Whyever we're here feels imminent."

Sam raised a finger.

"Jim. We're waiting for...okay, dumb thought. But we've apologized to everyone we could find that would hear us."

She nodded.

"And most of it wasn't even our fault. We had demons, diseases. We were victims, too, dammit!"

Sam nodded, the obvious qualifiers applying as before.

"I mean, the best parent we had was the one furthest away. That has to count for something."

Then, he felt he knew.

"Its Jean. She's going to judge us."

And indeed, a bright lady did emerge. Just not The Bright Lady.

"Jean's no part of this, Sam. You two are mine. And may God himself help you."

Relly stood up, and pointed.

"Bri? But the Ancient Destroyer wolfed you down right in front of us."

The woman embraced the two children she would gladly have raised, given the chance.

"Try again, honey."

Sam saw at last the face of his true mother.

"Winona? But didn't you take over Bri's body when Peter..."

She gently covered his lips.

"That was for a short time, Sam. Now its done. I'm here, and to complete my penance for trusting a sister I knew couldn't be trusted, I will have to observe you undergoing your punishment."

Relly looked down.

"Hell?"

George emerged from a bright light.

"No, sweetie. Peter's prayers saved you from that."

Sam felt heavy.

"Then he is the messiah."

George shook the image of his head.

"No. Not a messiah. A champion. There are a lot of differences. A messiah would undergo a wholly different preparation. Winn--I'll stand with you, as you watch--if you'll have me."

She embraced her man, forty years always meaningless.

"I can still see you in that ridiculous red and blue outfit. Kids--its time to go. Please understand. You did too much. Made too many excuses. You don't even understand what you did wrong. You will. The privilege you eschewed in life will be the right you no longer have in death."

There was no talk of brow-beating stepmothers or personality viruses, the duties of a failed champion, or not feeling like a man as they went to a place far more physical, and where the evil was nearly a solid thing. Aurelan turned and ran the non-distance and held George not at all.

"Pop, please don't hate me!"

She would have been weeping, had she eyes to weep, and would have been shaking, with the body she didn't have.

"Shhh. Relly, I could never hate you. We're both failed champions. But you owe Peter. You left him to drift, and you exhausted him. You should never have tried to control him in the exact ways you did. Accept your punishment. It will only be for three days. But its either this or the pit."

Winona smiled at her boy.

"I love you, Sam. No qualifiers. But you must show your love for the son you punished for mere biology."

The younger spirits moved forward, and the older spirits watched. They would not see what their children saw. But they would see their reactions to it.

"George, they aren't ready."

"That's why it has to be this way, Winn."

The younger Kirks materialized in the center of a room. Focus was difficult, til a tall dark man stood up. They recognized him as Tomas Cartwright's son Brock.

"Master John Gill..dead. I am his...heir. I claim his place as Master...Terran Order Of Lord Ghidorah. Who will gainsay...accession?"

An Admiral with an odd haircut, name of Osborn,  spoke up.

"Master Gill brought the German Leader's precious DNA to us, that we may restore a true Human power to life. What do you bring?"

Cartwright pointed to a pretty woman, who, despite a lack of makeup, still managed to look like a painted whore. She brought a knife down to a figure the Kirks could not see. Sam winced.

"This is Hell? A bigots' rally?"

The woman cut the pants off the figure, laughing as she went. Cartwright muttered some words. Sam and Relly's hearing was still adjusting to all the words.

"The enemy..of..Ghidorah..declare..Bacchanalia"

Relly spotted a Vulcan woman in the crowd of Terrans, and saw her disrobe with the others, except for Cartwright. Why she was there of all places, Relly couldn't say. But the vicious bitch didn't like the helpless figure, as the blood she drew with her mouth from his privates flowed down her cheeks. A fat lunatic then inserted his span into the figure's backside, and there was a shriek. He began pounding the figure into the floor as he almost literally drilled.

"Don't like it? Good! I'll do it harder! My only regret is--you aren't your xenophilic uncle."

The figure was passed to five more men, before the unpretty pretty lady had her turn. The now-obviously male figure was sat upon. She laughed as his member made entry to her rear lips.

"Up and Down!"

Her cheeks seemed to tighten like clamps, making her tight enough to move the victim with her, as she bounced. His back also slammed against the hard floor, and bones were heard to crack. The cheers of the nude, self-pleasuring crowd sickened the ghostly pair.

"Sam? What could he have done?"

"Maybe--he tried to leave. I heard the Order punishes that hardest of all."

They already knew. But denial would soon be taken from them. The ugly-pretty mounted the victim on top. Sam never imagined before this that a woman could truly rape a man. Her slamming was just as harsh vaginally as anally, and her breasts bounced wildly as she went, indicating to Aurelan that perhaps they were not original equipment. Dazed and shattered, the victim reached up with his head and suckled one of them.

The woman sneered, and her face distended worse than any vampire's. She punched her victim in the jaw, shattering part of it. That he would dare know pleasure she didn't dictate robbed her of even the traces of humanity she kept for show.

Her next words would rob Sam and Aurelan of the comforting illusion that this grotesque display had no connection to them. She pulled up the victim by his hair, and the Kirks froze in agony as his beaten face was clearly visible.

"This is NOT being done for your pleasure, Peter!"

Stronger than she seemed, the woman tossed 13-year old Peter Kirk at Cartwright's feet. A boot struck the boy across his head. Another man started in on him from behind as Cartwright taunted.

"Didn't like that, did you? Don't like any of it, I'll bet. Well, too fucking bad, Mister Kirk. You liked it well enough when you played little hero at my rally, and ruined my presentation. So call this an exchange. You took our rally--but you're giving us the keys to this galaxy. Welcome to hell, Peter Kirk. Welcome to hell."

Sam shrieked.

"Don't you touch my son, you motherfucker! LEAVE HIM ALOOONE!!!"

Sam felt himself shrink, and now in his own mind, he was the child he had always been, but still the obscenity played out before him, as it would for three days. He pleaded to unjust fate.

"Please, he's my son. Take me instead. Let me take his place!"

But it was as Winona had said. The responsibility they had not taken for Peter in life would not be permitted them in death. Aurelan tried to stay sane--and at her envisioned mental age.

"There must be thirty of them. Leave--leave my baby alone. You--he's my baby. Don't touch--"

She remembered something vital.

"Sam? Why isn't he fighting them off? He's as strong as he needs to be, right?"

The crying little boy Sam now was couldn't hear her. But she could hear Cartwright and the one called Osborn, who also kept back from the carnal nightmare of flesh.

"A binding spell? Are we into voodoo, now, Norman?"

"Brock, Brock. The spell was developed by the snot's own parents. The grandmother psycho tapped their files, and we made it really work. He won't raise a finger to defend himself."

Aurelan would in fact watch as the spell failed as it had before, and Peter did a lot more than just defend himself. This would come too late to help her.

"My baby. I gave them the tools to rape my baby. I did this. We did this."

She looked again, as the violation continued on and on, and she too regressed in self-image. Sam and Aurelan tried to look away, but the rending of Peter's backside never left their view. Unseen themselves, the mental images of two five-year olds hugged and cried and pleaded for mercy on behalf of one they could no longer help.

"STOP HURTING HIM!! STOP HURTING HIM!!"

This is not the end of Peter Kirk's story. But this is how horror stories end.