Mounodoulos

Image created with Bing AI.

Walter didn’t know how he ended up in the cage, the pet of this Entity, but life in captivity wasn’t so bad.

For starters, it—she—was beautiful. And big. Easily two-stories tall. Big enough to hold Walter in the palm of her hand, if she ever deigned to do so. The poetic nature of this was not lost on Walter; he was always unable to resist female charms.

The Entity and her dimension were urban legends that started popping up online a few years back. Stories about people disappearing into the digital world so deeply that they were sucked in to their computers, something like that. Never made much sense to a good rationalist like Walter (some might even call him a skeptic). Nah, like everything else, there were perfectly logical, scientific explanations for phenomena the credulous liked to pass off as supernatural: For example, a lot of these people—addicts, gooners, those who couldn’t separate fiction from reality—probably ran away, checked into rehab, killed themselves in a way where the bodies were never found, something like that. All an unexplained event was was something humanity didn’t know enough about . . . yet.

But here Walter was, pet of an ethereal and ethereally beautiful twenty-five-foot woman, a man in a cage. The cage, and here’s the strange thing, was quite comfortable. First of all, much like the Entity herself, it was big.

Second, all he had was a view of the Entity, but she was easy on the eyes. So easy. She loved to walk around the room where she kept Walter’s cage naked. He couldn’t understand her when she spoke, her language like clouds (there was no other way to explain those breathy, record-played-backwards syllables), but she enjoyed showing off her various parts, and laughed when Walter pleasured himself like he’d just done something cute. And though he couldn’t see much of the room, which resembled nothing so much more than a charcoal-drawn suggestion of a room smudged by a gigantic thumb, he got the impression it was a bedroom, because sometimes she was in there with other Entities, male or female, for a little fun time on what might have been a bed. Walter could see enough of that, and pleasure himself to that too.

It wasn’t a glamorous life, but it was a life nonetheless. Not much different than how he’d lived before being spirited away to this realm. Could be worse. No need to work. No need to hustle. Hell, no need for clothes.

And finally, his living space was full of natural beauty. A pool to swim and bathe in, trees to climb, lots of plant life. Food grew on these plants. Berries and apples, or things that reminded him of berries and apples. Every once in a while, Walter felt like he’d kill a man for a nice, juicy steak, but there were no men around. Until the Entity brought home another pet.

He was naked just like Walter, long and lean, muscular and tattooed, mean-faced and charismatic. The opposite of Walter, all bearded and round-faced and chubby, thick glasses and weak shoulders. There was a burning in his eyes, a restless energy. This was a dangerous man. Walter could just tell. He had the same vibe as the assholes and the gymbros.

The stranger appeared just as Walter had, wandering through the thick foliage near the big rock by the pond in one corner. The Entity cooed and made those breathy noises as he emerged, her beautiful smiling face filling Walter’s view and stirring him to longing. But this interloper was killing the mood.

Walter stayed perched on his tree branch, jealous that this new guy got to experience her attention; it had been a minute since the Entity had paid Walter any serious, sustained care, and yes, it bothered him.

A strange silence descended once the Entity vanished from view. The constantly swirling mists in the blackness used to bother Walter with their unfathomable expanse, but now he found them beautiful. Mesmerizing, even. But not today.

The tattooed guy just stood there, mouth pursed and eyes distant. After a time, he centered himself, pushing his palms down like he was pressing the air itself, and turned to Walter. “The name’s Andre,” he called. “Who are you?”

“Walter,” Walter called back, immediately regretting that he complied with what this dude had asked him. Fuck this guy, honestly. Who did he think he was?

Andre walked over to the tree, bounding effortlessly across the rocks and tree roots and other natural features of this artificial environment. He moved with a feline grace that was hard to take your eyes off. Same with his massive, swinging dong. Walter’s face flushed. Some guys had all the genetic luck.

Andre got to the tree and looked up. “Room for one more, bro?” Oh, God, he actually said “bro.” This was going to be a hell of an eternity.

(Eternity? Is that what this was? Is this really how long they’d be here?)

“Uh, not really. It’s kind of small up here,” Walter lied.

“No problem.” And then the guy, this Andre, dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups.

“What’re you doing?” Walter asked.

“Push-ups.”

“I know. I mean, why?”

“Gotta stay sharp,” Andre said between sharp exhales. “Gotta plan our escape.”

Walter nodded, like he agreed. Escape. Though he could see the suggestion of verdant forest outside of what might be a window or a door on one side of the Entity’s room, he never actually thought of trying to go out there. Why would he? Everything he really needed was right here. Food, shelter, warmth, time alone with his thoughts. Sex . . .

Well, a reasonable simulacrum of sex. The Entity was nearly always there, always available but forever out of reach. Worse than a virtual girlfriend or fembot, but at least she was real.

(“Real.”)

“Okay,” said Walter.

Walter couldn’t help but notice the muscles in the man’s back, or his buttocks, the mostly black tattoos glistening with the sweat of his exertion. Is this what he’d been reduced to, so starved for physical contact that even a naked man started to look appealing? He quickly turned away.

Andre popped back to his feet after fifty or so, dusted off his hands, and said: “I’m coming up there anyway. We have to talk.”

Before Walter could work up a suitable response, Andre had clambered up the big tree, its thick branches easily holding his weight. The tree looked like an apple tree, bigger than any Walter had ever seen growing up in upstate New York, but the fruit was a bit different, and the blossoms a deep pink tinged with yellow at the edges.

Eventually, Andre seated his naked form next to Walter. He held out a hand, which Walter realized he was supposed to shake. He did. This close, he got a better look at the stranger’s tattoos. Some were obviously military oriented. There were insignias, mottos, badges or something, and even a tattered American flag, the red and blue, rare splashes of color, popping, with “We the People” inked underneath. So he was one of those. Elsewhere, on the man’s chest, Walter spied hands pressed together in prayer and an ornate crucifix. So he was one of those as well.

“Andre Dudek,” Andre said.

“Uh . . . yeah. Walter Michaels.”

“Great to meet you bro. So listen, how long you been in here?”

Walter had to think. He turned away, admittedly reluctantly, from Andre’s chiseled form and gazed upwards. There was no sky, not even a visible ceiling to their enclosure, just those swirling mists and, up above, a faint effulgence of light. “It’s hard to say. The days just sort of blend in here. Like, I feel like I’m asleep most days.”

“Because of the apples?” said Andre, as he looked around their leafy surroundings.

Walter shrugged. He’d never thought of that. “If I had to say, a year? It could be a year.”

“You didn’t keep track? No hash marks on a rock or nothing?”

“Uh, I kind of started but got bored.” Walter shrugged again. Something outside caught his attention. “Oh, here she comes.”

Andre turned his gaze to the cage floor. “Where can a guy take a dump around here?” He looked to Walter and choked on his next question when he saw what Walter was doing. “The fuck, man?”

He didn’t get it. The Entity had come back, and this time she wasn’t alone. She’d brought a friend. A male Entity. She began undressing, immediately exciting Walter, whose hand had quickly reached his own crotch in anticipation.

Andre scooted back, maybe getting a splinter on his ass for his trouble. “The fuck are you doing? Stop that?”

“Shut up,” Walter murmured. Was he proud of himself? No. But this was how he passed the days. This was all he had. This was . . .

(This was how he’d ended up here.)

Andre slapped Walter’s arm. “Cut it out.”

Walter shrugged the bigger, stronger man off and resumed his measured strokes.

“Cut it the fuck out, man! What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you?” snapped. “Look at her.”

“Nah, fam.” Andre stood up on the branch and turned his back on the Entity.

Whatever, thought Walter. His loss. Walter kept on keeping on, enjoying the action unfolding before him.

The clear glass (It was glass, wasn’t it?) wall of the cage provided him with a perfect viewscreen, his own private show. What more could he ask for?

(Hadn’t he always wanted to do one of those Spartan races once? Learn the guitar? Start a family?)

“Keep watching,” said Andrew. “Keep watching, faggot. Enjoy blowing your load over a fucking demon.”

Walter ignored him. They were embracing now, kissing wildly. They turned, giving Walter a fantastic view of the Entity’s backside.

Andre wouldn’t shut the hell up. “I’ve talked to survivors,” he went on. “I know what we’re up against. What you’ve been up against this whole time. It can be beaten. You just got to want it.”

Walter didn’t know what he was talking about. Something in the back of his mind told him to stop, that this tattooed Jesus-freak was right. But that rational part of his brain, oh-so logical and Spock-like, was screaming into the wind of Walter’s animal lusts. It was terrible. Every time he did this, he felt ashamed and empty immediately after emptying his nutsack, but it was a slow-moving trainwreck, a horror movie where he, in the theater, screamed at the girl he knew was not the final girl to not go into the basement, it’s a trap, but she never listened, no one listened, so then Walter exploded all over the place and—

“Nnngh . . .”

Andre let out a disgusted breath after Walter’s groan. “You done?”

“Yeah.”

The Entity turned to him then, smiling the way she always did when he finished. But then she did something he’d never seen. Her eyes narrowed and then she just appeared in front of the cage. Her face was different too; those inviting blue eyes turned red, her skin grew pale and then gray. Large teeth were just there in her mouth, and she screamed at Andre, who still had his back turned to her. She hissed, her wordless words taking on the vibe of a giant snake or some monster from antiquity. Walter flinched, scrambled back, would’ve fallen if he hadn’t been so close to the trunk of the tree.

Andre, leaning against a higher branch, only relaxed his frame further and started biting his nails.

The Entity banged on the glass or whatever it was once, twice, three times, shaking the tree, shaking the pond, shaking reality, before she backed away and again resumed her beauteous aspect. She almost looked embarrassed as she turned her now normal eyes to Walter. I’m sorry you had to see that, those eyes and that smile said, but, you know . . . him.

Yeah, him. Walter understood. But he also didn’t. Things didn’t make sense anymore. Why couldn’t they go back to the way they were?

The Entity left the room then, and Walter noticed the male Entity wasn’t there either . For all he knew, the guy (thing?) just stepped back a few paces and was lost in the mists, just like Walter’s owner had done just now. Nothing but swirling mists and blackness, though Walter’s eyes were drawn in a way they never were to that window and the endless jungle beyond.

(Why couldn’t he stop looking at that window?)

Something had changed. Something big. Walter didn’t know if he liked it.

Andre’s voice cut through these foggy thoughts. “That’s what you’ve been spanking it to all this time?” He snorted. “Come on.”

“I’ve never seen that before.”

“Well, you’re gonna fuckin’ see it again and again and again. You’re not gonna be able to unsee it, do you understand? Because I’m not going to let you see that thing the way she wants you to see her one more time.

“All you need is the balls to turn away, man. That’s all you need. Now, we figure out how to get out of here.”

“What if I don’t want to leave?”

Mr. Muscles didn’t know what to say to that. He sat back down on the tree, one arm resting on a knee and just sort of staring out into space. “Is that glass?” he said at length.

“Uh, no. Probably like glass but . . .” Walter ended his go-nowhere sentence with a shrug.

“You’ve checked, haven’t you?”

“Um, like once, a while ago, but . . .” Another shrug.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Andre murmured and shimmied down the tree just as quickly as he’d clambered up. Walter watched him step over to the edge of the enclosure and stick his hand out. He didn’t know what he was expecting: For Andre to recoil in shock? For his hand to press flat against a smooth, transparent surface? To pretend he was Marcel Marceau or something, doing the old “trapped in a box” routine? But Andre’s hand just went through the barrier between cage and outside world, and nothing happened to him, at least visibly. What the hell was this?

The look Andre shot Walter should’ve withered the tree. Still holding Walter’s eyes, Andre stick his arm further out, up to the shoulder, then half his body. Walter worried/hoped something might reach out and eat him, or he’d fall down and break his neck and die, but such an ill end would have to wait another day.

His little demonstration complete, Andre walked closer to the tree and craned his neck and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Get down here.”

“Uh, no,” Walter said.

“Get down here right now, you faggot.”

“Shut up. Leave me alone,” said Walter. He was sleepy now, hungry too. He suddenly felt like a deflated balloon. Slowly, he reached for an apple.

Thwack. Something beaned him right in the ass cheek. He cried out, looked down, and saw Andre release another apple.

Walter ducked his head in his arms in time for the apple, or whatever it was, to strike his elbow and explode in a spray of juicy pulp. Damn, the guy had an arm.

“I’m gonna keep throwing this shit until you come down here!” said Andre. He had his arm cocked, another apple in hand, ready to follow through on his threat.

“All right, all right, hold on,” said Walter, as he began his own laborious climb down the tree.

Andre dropped the apple when Walter’s feet hit the sandy ground. “Come here,” he said. “I’m sorry about that, but I needed to get your attention. Are you all right?”

“No,” said Walter, but he walked to Andre regardless.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. But come on, man, look!” Again, Andre stuck half his arm out into the ether. “There’s nothing there. You can just . . . walk out.”

Walter shrugged. “Like I told you: what if I don’t want to.”

“Just try it.”

“No.”

“Just try it.”

“I told you I don’t want to. What’s your problem?”

“You can’t.” Andre smiled. “You just can’t. You’re too whipped. Too pussy whipped. You know, Greeks have an expression for this.”

“You’re Greek?”

“No, my wife is. Mounodoulos. Means ‘pussyslave.’ Mouni, pussy. Doulos, slave. Mounodoulos. That’s you.”

Walter’s face flushed. Who did this guy think he was? “Just because I respect women doesn’t make me . . .” But Walter had already forgotten the word.

“Male feminist, right? An ally? Never make a move, do I have that right? You get resentful at them, start to hate them as much as you put them on a pedestal. It’s too much work, yeah? Rejection sucks. I get it, brother, I really do. But this . . . this isn’t the answer.” Andre gestured at the wall. “Put your hand through.”

“Will you leave me alone if I do?”

“About this, yeah. Do it.”

This guy was a real jerk. Walter debated bum-rushing him, pushing him through the glass, but if it didn’t work, he’d get a beatdown in return. So he just walked to the cage wall and stuck out his hand.

He felt nothing as his hand passed through what his eyes and his mind told him was the barrier. “Happy.”

Andre pointed with his chin. “Walk through.”

“Fine.”

“What’re you waiting for?” asked Andre, his arms crossed.

“I’m going.”

Andre made a florid gesture towards the wall, après vous.

But Walter couldn’t après his way vous through the barrier. His brain told his legs to move, but nothing happened. “I can’t,” he said after several futile moments of silent struggle. He took his hand back and stared out into the mists. This was weird.

Andre snorted a laugh and shook his head with disdain. “Thought so.”

That gesture flicked a switch deep in Walter’s amygdala. This fucking asshole was so cocksure, emphasis on the cock, that he knew what was going on here, why didn’t he leave? Walter told him as much: “If you know so much, why don’t you fucking leave?” And then he ran forward and shoved the guy, a great big two-hands-on-the-chest, fighting-back-against-the-bully shove that, mirabile dictu, knocked Andre on his ass.

Walter stood heaving, fists raised like a boxer, ready for anything, for a complete ass-whupping, but it didn’t matter because he felt alive. To his disappointment, Andre remained on the ground looking wistfully into the mists, almost near tears. “I’m glad you’re showing some fighting spirit,” he said, “but you know what? I said, do you know what?”

“What?” Walter snapped.

Andre met his eyes. “I can’t leave either.”

---

Their fire caught the Entity’s attention, who gave up her screaming and banging to try and sweet-talk, or what passed for sweet-talk, Walter and Andre back to paying her attention. When that also didn’t work to interrupt their conversation, she left the room. Something about Walter, her obedient pet, also turning his back on her had set her off in a way Andre’s impertinence had not. Walter was glad she’d left, though he feared she might be up to something in the meantime.

The Entity was also angered by the crude coverings Walter and Andre had made out of the big leaves growing in the small jungle near the pond. Modesty was not in vogue here, wherever here was, which itself was the question Walter was trying to unravel.

“I don’t get it,” Walter said in response to Andre’s latest revelation. “If this is a pocket dimension, or something like that, how’d we get here?”

“How’d you get here? Just like me. You woke up one night in the dark, pushing your way through a jungle, thought it was a dream, and then boom, you were here.”

“Yeah. But if she’s a demon, like you say, but you’re a Christian or whatever, how does God let this happen?”

“We’re not gonna get into the problem of evil right now, but you want my take? My uneducated take? I’m no theologian, man, but you ask me, this is a test. We’re being purified.” He tossed another branch into the fire. “We’ve failed a few tests but this is God giving us another chance to prove ourselves.”

“Like purgatory.”

Andre shrugged. “Something like that. The machines, man. Not just AI, but all of them. They’re susceptible to spiritual influence. These demons, they work through computers.”

“AI and all of that.”

“Yeah. That’s got to be a piece of it. Nobody knows for sure, but there’s this, like, collective consciousness. The demons are legion, right?”

It was a point to ponder, though a good skeptical materialist like Walter had precious little frame of reference. “Are we . . . in the machine?”

“You know something? Survivors and people who look into this told me no, people are definitely gone. One dude out in Seattle who got back, turns out there was a months-long missing persons report out on him. His family was freaking out, and when he got back, it was legit like he’d disappeared into the wild. He didn’t even have to make up some bullshit cover story because there was a whole paper trail of credit card purchases, witnesses who saw him far away in East Bumfuck, Idaho, and shit like that. Which worked for him because he couldn’t deal with what people would say if he told the truth. Fact is, from what he told us, he didn’t believe it himself. But there’s too much corroboration for it to be some sort of mass hallucination. And then here we are.”

“Here we are. Why are you here, though? You’re married.”

“Was.”

“Oh.” Walter tossed a stick of his own into their fire. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Second wife. Thought I’d learned from the mistakes with the first one.” Andre laughed. “Yeah. No kids with her, thank God. This one, though, it was good for a while. We’re still technically married, but she walked out with the kids.”

“Can I ask why?”

“You can. And I’ll answer, what the hell. I got too into the lifestyle, you know? Fitness guru, online masculinity stuff. All of that. It helped turn my life around, why not other guys? The ‘red-pill.’” Here he did air quotes with his fingers. “You probably hate that shit, but you know, there was something to it. Made some good money, but the life, man. Everything has to be content. Content, content, content. Everything. It’s hard to just live when you’re mining your life for some post or stupid video. And my wife got sick of it.”

“Hmm.”

“Didn’t help that we had wildly different views on things. Case in point.” He shifted to sit facing Walter. “Oldest daughter, right? She’s nine. Asked me one day, ‘Daddy, can I be an astronaut?’ I told her, ‘Do whatever you want, honey, but if you’re up in space, it’s gonna be hard to take care of the kids, or even have them.’”

Walter couldn’t stifle his laugh. “Oh man . . .”

Andre laughed too. “Yeah. My wife lost her shit, man. That was the final straw on a back full of them. She just fucked right off. We later agreed that I should leave and she should have the house on account of the kids and stuff . . .”

“Why didn’t the kids stay with you?”

“Now that’s a question for the ages.” Andre’s laughter trailed off, and his eyes returned to the fire. “Some red-pill guru, right?”

“Well, I’m here because, you know . . .” Walter shrugged and held up his hands. “Crippling porn addiction.”

“Like most dudes.” Andre tossed a little rock into the fire. “Me? Prostitutes.”

“We can’t form meaningful connections,” Walter mused. “That’s why we’re here. Living in a computer screen.”

“That’s really deep, you know that?” Andre gave Walter a light punch on the arm. “You’re on to something, bro.”

“So we can’t walk out,” said Walter. “Why? Did any of these survivors get into that?”

“Yeah. Yeah, they did. And this is the hard part.” Andre swallowed heard and looked like he’d ingested a particularly bitter truth.

“So what’d they say?”

“They said you had to find something you hated more than you hate yourself.”

Those words hit Walter harder than any rejection, any family death, any other piece of bad news. He wanted to cry, but wouldn’t. Not with an uber-alpha like Andre sitting next to him. But once he’d gotten his own emotions under control, Walter saw the wetness on Andre’s cheeks, reached over, and took him in an embrace.

---

Time passed—their hashmarks cut into the tree said seventy-nine days, in serous training. Pushups, squats, tree-climbs, all manner of little tricks to help Andre stay shark and Walter get fit. It was amazing how a steady diet of apples (which didn’t induce sleep after all), berries, and water, combined with isometric and body weight exercises with a little cardio thrown in, could result in a relatively cut physique. The first time Walter saw his shoulder muscles, honest to goodness delts, in his reflection in the pool, he actually screamed out loud.

The self-abuse stopped. Whenever the Entity would try to get their attention, Walter and Andre made a theatrical show of doing more calisthenics or push-ups, or even kneeling down in prayer—the Entity seemed to particularly hate that, which made Walter wonder if there was something to it after all. And every once in a while, when Walter bothered to look at the Entity in her demonic form, he was filled with molten revulsion that he ever cranked his shaft to that. It would be hard indeed to find something he hated more than himself living with this.

They schemed and they planned. They practiced fighting with makeshift staffs or rocks used to simulate daggers or just with their bare hands. Whenever one of their spirits flagged, the other would point to the jungle visible through that triangular window or door with the curved sides, so tantalizingly close, and remind the other that this was the goal. This was the prize. Escape. Control. All they had to do was find that elusive thing to overcome their shared senses of self-loathing. Far, far easier said than done when self-loathing was a part of your being. Welcome to the pity party, pal. Give me a black tie for my black heart and start the music.

Now, sharpening sticks against sharp rocks, making crude spears and javelins whose tips they held over the fire, Andre asked an interesting question. “Did she ever touch you?”

“It,” said Walter. “You’re the one who said we need to start thinking of her as it.”

“Right. So did it?”

“No. That’s strange.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Because I swear she has held me.” Walter shook his head. “Could’ve been a dream. I’ve had weird ones here.”

“It’s only been a few months for me and I’m feeling that too,” said Andre. “Having dreams when you’re in a dream is guaranteed to fuck you up.”

“But this isn’t a dream,” said Walter, his heart racing and his mouth gone dry. “You said it’s a different dimension or space. That’s what you said.”

“I know, but . . .”

“No. You said the survivors said that like entire backstories had been constructed to explain his disappearance.”

“Walter, chill.”

“You said we’re not just some vegetable in a catatonic state in a coma in some hospital. You said—”

“I know what I said, God damn it!” Andre took a breath to regain his self-control. “I know what I said. But there’s so much I don’t know. I’m just saying maybe . . .” He stopped and jerked his head to their private jungle by the pond.

Walter heard it too. Rustling.

“Has that ever happened?” Andre whispered. Walter shook his head. In all his time here in this cage, he had been utterly alone. Not so much as a bug had crawled over a leaf or up his skin. It was a dead scene except for Walter and his own dead soul.

Andre made some curt hand gesture other military dudes probably would’ve understood. Walter just took it to mean “Get your weapons ready.” He grabbed his long spear in one hand and a bundle of javelins in his other, standing in a crouch by the fire. Andre did the same and then motioned for Walter to approach the jungle from the left while Andre would take the right side. Splitting up felt like the right thing to do, but it still bothered Walter to be separated from his more capable companion.

He had no time to worry when something that could’ve been a tiger burst from the foliage. It was the same blue-gray of the entity, with the same red eyes. Its muscular body seemed to flow like waving silk as it bounded towards Walter.

No scream came from his lips, no war cry, no bellow of animal rage. He froze, spear gripped in hand, caught between fight and flight like the true beta simp cuck he was. All that training for naught. Story of Walter’s life.

Andre’s first javelin didn’t pierce the tiger-thing’s skin, but his second one did. it didn’t die, didn’t even bleed, but it looked like it was in pain. The wound closed in a great gout of mist that pushed the javelin out and, before it had hit the ground, the tiger-thing leapt at Andre.

Now Walter screamed. Now he snapped into action. This monster would not hurt his friend. Walter dropped his javelins and thrust his spear two-handed into the thing’s rump, twisting the spear as he pushed, fighting against the force that tried to dislodge his weapon.

It was working. He was pinning the tiger-thing down to the ground. All of those new muscles were working, something turning out right for once in his stupid worthless life. He screamed more, wordlessly longing for an army behind him. But his strength failed when the wounded creature’s eyes turned from red to blue, those teeth softened, and then he knew, he knew . . .

“It’s her!” yelled Walter. “Oh, God, it’s her!”

“Then kill it!” Andre screamed back. He took his spear and tried to stab the Entity’s face, but she—it—kept dodging, its snapping jaws keeping Andre at bay.

“Don’t stop!” Andre exhorted. But the Entity filled Walter with such fear and such awe even now. Why did this thing hold so much power over him?

When it began to transform once again into a beautiful, naked woman, so close to him now, so close, he knew all of that masculinity bullshit amounted to nothing. He fell to his knees once again in her thrall. Girls rule, boys drool, and on and on it goes.

She grew, now big enough to easily subdue Andre. She walked right past Walter, close enough for him to smell her aphrodisiacal sweetness, Goddess brushing by man in the Garden of Eden, and stepped right out of the cage, still growing.

Helpless, Walter watched her grow back to her customary size, Andre clasped in her hand. He couldn’t see his friend’s face, but though he squirmed, he did not scream. Now the Entity brought Andre to her mouth, now full of vampiric fangs. If she couldn’t have their attention, then the thing would eat them. And what would those mysteriously appearing cover stories say? How would the authorities explain this to Andre’s kids?

Walter knew the secret then. He just got it. Whoever told Andre you had to find something you hated more than yourself was wrong. You had to find something you loved more than you hated yourself. A hard burden to push up that endless hill, but at thar moment Walter knew he loved Andre more than he had ever loved another person. Not eros, but philos, pure and uncut. This thing would not hurt his friend.

Walter ran right over that invisible barrier, passing through without fanfare. He should’ve been falling, but he didn’t. He ran and ran and what looked down became up, or maybe it was the other way around. With no reference in that misty blackness, it was impossible to say. But soon he was at the Entity’s foot, which he stabbed, noticing with amusement that even demonic spirits like this bothered to paint their toenails.

It howled, a swirling jumble of chaotic sounds that meant nothing but made Walter dizzy, so he stabbed again. And again. “Put him down!” he yelled, adding “you cunt!” because it felt right.

The Entity stopped screaming. It looked down at him, and though Walter knew it was a demon or something like that, he felt an irrational admiration for the view of her pudenda and massive bosom.

No, turn your eyes away. Don’t be a mounodoulos here at the end. He shifted his focus to Andre still in her hand.

The Entity bent down at the waist. Walter scrambled back, spear held at the ready and prepared to stab, to do anything to save his friend, his first true friend in forever, but it placed Andre gently on the ground. And it was smiling.

“Are you all right?” Walter asked between heaving breaths.

Andre nodded and walked unsteadily towards Walter. He didn’t look hurt, just . . . spent. “Felt so good, man . . .” he groaned.

“What do you want from us?” Walter demanded of the Entity. “Huh? Let us go!”

Still smiling, the Entity backed away and pointed toward the aperture, the egress from this eternal nightmare. Walter hesitated, waited for the trick, for her to squash them underfoot or turn into, he didn’t know, a gigantic wasp and sting them to death. But no, she kept her finger aimed at their only hope of freedom. Walter might have been hallucinating, but the Entity almost looked happy for him.

“This was . . . a test,” said Andre. “And you . . . you passed.”

“You did too, man, you did too!” Walter couldn’t contain his joy. He hugged his friend tight, tears rolling down his cheeks. “We did it. We did it!”

“You did it,” said Andre. He patted Walter’s back a few times then tried to back away. “Not me. I’m . . . I’m the only mounodoulos here.”

Only then did Walter break his embrace. “What are you even talking about?”

“I know the word because that’s what my wife called me. That’s my sin.”

Walter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This place isn’t for you. Let’s go! Your girls.”

Andre’s waved hand bore the weight of one thousand drunken nights in flagrante delicto with strange women. “Better off without me.”

“Shut up, shut up!” Walter shook his friend, cognizant of the Entity towering above them. He turned back and saw it’s satisfied look replaced with that of a very hungry woman, eyes transfixed on Andre who could not look away. It started to move.

It was do or die time. Maybe Walter wasn’t as muscly as Andre, but he had a bigger frame. He ran at his friend, thrust his head and shoulders under Andre’s arm, and lifted him in a fireman’s carry. Walter had to drop his spear, but there was no way he’d be leaving his friend behind. Death before dishonor, a statement the old Walter would have found corny and trite. Not anymore. He ran towards the exit.

This final act of defiance roused the Entity into a renewed paroxysm of anger. Or maybe it was just affronted. Still in the guise of a giant woman, it ran after them, comically, like an angry maid struggling to catch a mischievous cartoon mouse.

Up ahead, an emerald triangle in the blackness, the door leading to that vast verdant jungle never seemed to get closer. Walter knew he had to keep running, but knew he also had to keep an eye on the thing chasing them.

“Watch out!” Andre yelled, awoken from his torpor. “Move!”

Walker didn’t know which way; he just zigged, zagged, whatever. The Entity’s giant foot slammed down behind him, causing the invisible floor to shudder.

“Keep moving!” Andre shouted. “Don’t go straight!”

Attention no longer divided between competing forces, Walter did as his friend indicted. He bobbed. He wove. He juked like a football running back (Wasn’t that the term? The sport? The position?). Again, that gigantic foot nearly hit him. Boom, boom.

How much longer? Andre was getting heavy. How much more could Walter run? A lot more. Because he had too.

“Left! No, your left!”

Shit. Something smashed into Walter’s back and he went flying, landing with Andre in a tumble of mostly naked limbs, stopping with the other man’s nuts resting on his shoulder. Overhead, that giant foot came down, but they couldn’t scramble to their feet in time.

“Run!” Walter, still on his knees, shoved Andre, who rolled as though tumbling down a hill, far enough away that he avoided being pinned down by the Entity’s big toe.

Now Walter knew what Andre had meant about this creature’s touch. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he once again felt shameful stirrings in his crotch. It was so soft, so all-encompassing, so good . . .

It was Andre’s turn to fight back. Walter was dimly aware of being tugged, out of the Entity’s—once again, a her—warm embrace by the cold, hard hands of a real human being. When the Entity knelt to try and scoop up Andre, he dodged in the proper direction. The Entity’s movement caused her toe to lift just enough for Walter to wriggle away, the love of his friend overcoming his desire to always be in contact with that all-consuming touch.

With both of them running serpentine, it was difficult for the Entity to catch them. It made a grab for one, then another, missing and screeching in frustration. Walter pumped his arms, his legs, not caring that his makeshift leaf loincloth fell away and he sprinted as naked as a newborn. They were all naked now, men and demon, just the way God intended.

The door, the door! It was bigger now! It was closer! This fact gave Walter new life and he ran harder, still behind Andre but still ahead of the woman-shaped thing chasing them. Go go go. No one would ever call him lazy ever again, not after this.

They were almost there! All Andre had to do was walk out and Walter would follow and then they’d be home free! Then—

Andre turned and stood, right at the threshold of the door. He gazed up with slack-jawed longing at the Entity and fell to his knees; Walter could see his erection, already in the thrall of this demon.

But Walter did not slow down. He crashed into his friend, trying to drive him out into the wild. Andre struggled and held his arms out against the doorframe, preventing Walter from pushing him through. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Go, go!” screamed Walter, pleading. He was crying now. “Just go!”

Andre grunted through clenched teeth, the muscles on his neck straining to keep himself from leaving that dark and misty place. “No!”

“You’re ready! You can go!” Walter pushed but could not dislodge the stronger man. “Your kids, your wife, your—”

“It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.”

Oh God, it was so close now. Staring down at them. Laughing in lengthy arias. Walter wished it would turn back into its demon form, but it stayed maddeningly beautiful, maddeningly alluring, maddeningly hateful.

“It’s not hate! You had it wrong! You don’t need something you hate! You need something you love!”

Walter didn’t know if his words did it, or fear, or his newfound strength, but he got Andre through that damned hole. They tumbled forward, but not before the Entity made one last grasp, dragging something long and sharp down the length of Walter’s back.

The wound burned as he lay on the dirt. Walter forced himself to sit up, forced his eyes to open, and caught a glimpse of the Entity’s eye, now demon red, in the doorway before it swiftly pulled away, leaving only that swirling misty blackness. And it wasn’t a doorway, really, because that word implies a door. Here, there was nothing keeping Walter or Andre from walking right back in of their own free will.

Andre sat with his arms on his knees, panting through silent tears. Walter crawled over and put his arm around his friend. “You all right?”

It looked like Andre wanted to talk, but he could only shake his head. At length, his eyes returned to the door, an aperture in a dense mass of foliage, man-sized bushes and trees so tall they blocked out the sky, if any, that led back to the Entity’s lair.

“Come on, let’s move,” said Walter. “In case she shrinks and comes through.”

Andre let Walter help him to his feet. “She doesn’t need to,” said Andre when he regained some composure. “She knows she doesn’t.”

They moved through the less-choked portions of this endless jungle, down what might have been a road if you squinted. “But we’re out,” Walter said. “We made it. So . . . where to now? What did those survivors say?”

Andre looked around, taking in their surroundings. For a moment, Walter thought he was really making observations, assessing the situation, and formulating a plan, a strategy, whatever cool military guys did. “I don’t know,” was all Andre offered. “They said they just wandered around.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Andre gently freed himself from Walter’s embrace. “They found other guys, but when they got out, they were alone.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere. So what was it for you?”

Walter dusted his ass off and tried to ignore the question. “Is the cut on my back bad?” he asked.

Andre slowed so he could take a look. “Uh, hard to say but there’s a lot of dirt on it. I don’t like that. Not as bloody as you think. Now answer my question.”

Never one to express his feelings, Walter clammed up. And then he remembered he’d just escaped months (years?) of captivity at the hands of a twenty-foot-tall demon women and was wandering around naked with another man in an absurd apotheosis of a primeval rain forest and figured what the hell. “You.”

Andre twitched like that hurt. He stared into the distance for a bit, clearly fighting back tears. “Don’t know why you’d waste your time on me. But thanks.”

That stung deeply. Walter didn’t know why the man couldn’t just take a fucking compliment. He said so. Andre laughed, said it was the story of his life. “I’m not going to ask you,” said Walter, holding up his hand to forestall Andre’s next sentence. “Your kids, your God, whatever, I’m just glad you’re okay. I’m just glad we’re getting out of here.”

“About that,” said Andre.

“Yeah, we just need to keep waking.” Walter looked around, pretending he knew what he was looking for. “Do you know how to track? From your military training?”

“I fought in deserts and shit, bro, not jungles. But that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah. We need food, water. I’m getting thirsty. Wish we brought some apples.” Walter laughed at himself. “Like we had a chance when that she-tiger tried to rip our throats out. Man, that was wild.”

“Yeah,” Andre said, with a weak laugh Walter could tell he didn’t mean. “But let me finish, bro. That’s not what I mean. What I’m talking about is–”

“Halt!”

Walter and Andre fell silent, both having the wherewithal, and the nerves, to get into fighting stances. No animals hooted or fled at the scream; this place was as lifeless as Walter’s erstwhile cage . . . save for whomever had just called out.

But Walter relaxed. Andre had said survivors of this place met up with others once they made it outside. They were likely friendly. “We just got out!” he called back, ignoring Andre’s gesture to shut up.

Men stepped from the jungle, about a dozen, lean and hard, wearing those giant leaves as clothes and carrying stone-age spears with sharpened-rock tips. Their faces were streaked with mud like warpaint, their heads festooned with leaves and twigs; one guy had fashioned his headband into something resembling a buck’s antlers. The leader was an improbably tall, improbably chiseled black man with a long mass of dreadlocks tied back who looked like every Klansman’s worst nightmare. “Welcome to the jungle, brothers!”

Everything happened fast. The embraces. The introductions. The leader’s name was Kyle and he was from Colorado. “There are more of us,” he told Walter and Andre. “Some wander by themselves, some in groups. Some find their way out, some don’t.”

“How? Why?” Walter asked in one of the conversation’s few breaks.

Kyle shrugged. “Some say you have to want to get out of here. Some, like me, make it their mission to help others escape. Some, like . . .” His pointer moved like a divining rod until it settled upon antler-man. “. . . Scott here, stay because they’re not ready. Because here, unlike the outside world, we can be a tribe. A gang. There is hunting in this jungle, and the hunting is good.”

Andre, who’d been mostly silent this entire time, finally spoke. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I can’t go back. I’m not ready.”

“Your family! Your kids, your wife . . .”

Andre’s sick grimace said it all. “I’m not kidding when I said they’re better off without me. Out here . . .” He looked up. “Out here, I can be like a monk. A desert father. Jesus fasting in the wild. I need to get away from myself, from everything. They’ll forget about me. I hope they do.”

“No!” Walter didn’t believe this. How could this man, so vital, so full of force, think so little of himself? “You got this! Let’s find our way out of here!”

Kyle stepped between them, extending his arm out like a boxing referee. “If a man isn’t ready, he isn’t ready. I’m not kidding when I say you have to want to leave. I could go out there and be home like that.” Kyle snapped for emphasis. “But I have a mission here. We’re all on our own path, my friend. We’re all men. Respect that.”

It hurt. It really did. Though they only knew each other for a brief moment, Andre had changed Walter’s life for the better and, Walter hoped, forever. To see his guru so defeated made him question everything Andre had taught him.

No. The man might be human, but the principles were true. He hugged Andre fiercely, and enjoyed it when the other man squeezed back.

“Where do they live?” Walter asked. “Your wife and kids. I want to tell them you’re okay.”

“Haddonfield, New Jersey. Jamie and Callie and Irene Dudek.”

“I’ll make sure they’re all right, and let them know you’ll be back someday. Not to believe what they’re being told about you being gone.”

“Thank you. I wish I could guarantee I’ll be back . . .”

Walter shook him. “You’ll be back. You have kids, man. What would, uh, what would Jesus say about you abandoning them.”

Andre turned away. He pointed a finger heavenward. “Don’t give up on Him, all right? I’ll come back if you promise me that.”

Walter would do anything to have Andre back in the real world, whatever that was. “I promise.”

“They’re not the problem, Walter. Don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean. It’s not them, or not just them. It’s us too. Big time. Don’t hate them.”

When Andre’s meaning hit, Walter’s cheeks flushed. “I . . . I don’t.”

“But you do. That’s why you’re here. We’re here. There are different kinds of hate.”

“Understood. Take care of yourself. I’m out of here before I start crying.”

Kyle and his men all offered their encouragement and farewells, and just for a moment, Walter thought about staying with this band of men. It wasn’t like he had a lot to go back to, just some bullshit email job and an empty apartment. But he had a mother still alive, uncles and aunts, a few cousins, a brother and a sister he hadn’t seen since Thanksgiving three fucking years ago.

A girl he always liked but never had the guts to ask out. Maybe he still had her number. Maybe she was still single . . .

“I love you,” he said at last to Andre, to all of them, to nobody. And maybe, just maybe, to himself.

“Shh,” snapped Kyle. He and all of his men crouched, ready to hunt. Kyle gestured to Andre. “Give him a spear,” he whispered. “We move.”

“What’s out there?” Walter whispered back.

Kyle smiled, mean and lupine. “We kill demons.”

“I love you too,” said Andre. And then he and the others melted into the jungle.

Walter continued down the path, doing his best not to think, just walk. He had a mission of his own. Several missions, but one most important of all. One he owed to a friend he never thought he’d have.

At some point that felt totally random but was probably not, Walter decided to delve into the jungle. When he’d fought through the stinging vines and endless leaves and branches, when his feet were sore and bleeding and he swore he heard the sounds of a wild demon chasing him (maybe it was his Entity, his personal succubus?), when he finally emerged out of the woods into the clear early morning light outside of a gas station in Bettendorf, Iowa, about as far from New York City as one could get, the first thing he did after explaining himself to the cops and getting some clothes, was to purchase an airplane ticket to New Jersey.

- Alexander

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