Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (10 page)

“
Mi casa
,
su casa
,” he replied.

Samuel knew
what he meant, even if he didn’t know how he knew it.

“I’m sure
you’ll wake me when I need to get up,” he said to Major.

“I don’t think
we have a lot of time to mess around. The cloud is coming east at a good clip. I
was worried it might have pulled you under. It can do that, like those huge
waves on the Atlantic seaboard. I remember standing in the surf, as a kid,
thinking that they weren’t so scary, until the current tugged at your ankles on
its way back out.”

“A few hours?”
Samuel asked.

“One or two, if
I can keep track. Then we’ve got to jump back on the path and get to the Barren.”

Samuel nodded
and rubbed his eyes.

Major watched
Samuel falling asleep. He tossed several twigs onto the fire before looking
over his shoulder at the massive cloud inching closer.

***

Samuel felt a
hand shake his shoulder. His leg hurt, and he could not feel his right foot. He
opened his eyes and saw that Major had already moved away, kicking dirt onto
the remaining coals of the fire. It was still dark, as it had been since the
sky swallowed the last of the light over the eastern horizon.

“How long?”

Major shrugged.
“How long what?”

“How long was I
asleep?”

“I’m not really
sure. The fire is burning differently now, too. If the Reversion is moving at
the same pace at the Barren, we may already be too late.”

Samuel pulled
himself upright and rubbed the pins and needles from his foot. “Too late for
what?”

“Too late to
slip.”

Samuel waited
for an explanation. When Major remained silent, he pushed. “What’s a slip?” he
asked.

“I think we
should wait until—”

Samuel slammed
his fist into the dirt. “I think you need to start filling me in right now. I
don’t know where the hell I am. I don’t know who you are. I don’t remember
shit. Some things disappear, and other things come back.”

“What did you
say?” Major asked.

“I said you
need to start—”

“No,”
interrupted Major. “What did you say about things coming back?”

Samuel paused,
disappointed his tirade had no effect on Major. “A pocketknife.”

“From where?”

“From my
father’s casket, where I left it ten years ago.”

Major bent
down, his knees creaking. He grabbed Samuel by the shoulders and stared at his
face. “Do you still have it?” he asked in a hushed whisper.

Samuel nodded. He
reached into his front pocket and gripped the contents. He opened his fist to
reveal a paperclip and several coins, but no knife.

“I felt it just
before I came into camp,” Samuel said, his words trailing as he brushed the
dirt and leaves aside, expecting to find his knife where it had fallen from his
pocket.

“It’s a
reflection. It’s gone,” said Major.

“I had it with
me during the hike.”

“Are you sure
you had it?”

“I don’t know,”
replied Samuel. “I guess I’m not sure of much, anymore.”

Major stood and
rubbed his chin. He gathered a few items together and nodded at Samuel,
instructing him to do the same.

“I’d feel
better if we got back on the path, put some distance between us and the cloud. We
can talk as we go. I’m guessing we’re a five- or six-hour hike from the Barren.
I can explain a lot before we get there.”

Samuel brushed
the dirt from his pants and put both hands to his ears as if trying to keep his
head together.

“Whatever. I
think it would be easier if I just ended it. I’m tired of dealing.”

“That’s what
got you here in the first place. C’mon, let’s move. I still worry the cloud
hasn’t gotten to all of the wolves yet.”

***

“Seven.”

“You’re
exaggerating.”

“No, I’m not. Seven
women.”

“At one time?”

Major smiled. The
laugh lines in his face told Samuel that the man had enjoyed the finer
indulgences in life.

“It was mostly
me watching, but I jumped in when I could. Needed to recharge the battery a few
times. Those little pills sure helped with that. The only problem was getting
it back down. That’s where the whiskey on the rocks came in handy. I’d wake up
and they’d all be gone. It would take my brain thirty or forty seconds to
recalibrate, determine where the hell I was and what had happened the night
before. I never remembered everything, but enough to know that the high-grade
call girls don’t come cheap, and that I’d have some explaining to do to my
accountant.”

Samuel pushed
ahead as the path widened. He came up on Major’s right as they curved around
the base of the mountain. The path descended with a gentle slope that Samuel
assumed would empty them into the Barren. Samuel felt a renewed bounce in his
step as he let the Reversion take a backseat to Major’s tale.

“How far back?”
he asked Samuel.

“Huh?”

“Childhood? High
School? The drug years? How far back do you want me to go?”

“How long until
we reach the Barren?” asked Samuel.

“Long enough to
get into the good stuff,” replied Major.

He pushed his headband
up on his forehead and looked over a shoulder as if measuring the progress of
the cloud advancing from the west.

“The path turns
southwest for a bit before straightening out back to the east. Just want you to
know that I’m not walking us straight into the cloud.”

Samuel nodded. He
drew a deep breath and exhaled an exaggerated gust of air into the otherwise
silent surroundings. “I can’t get used to the silence.”

Major smiled. He
paused for a moment while his brain decided what he would share with Samuel. “We
grew up in East Harlem, Spanish Harlem, before Clinton moved his office there
and made it trendy again.”

Samuel frowned,
becoming impatient with his own memory. The names struck a familiar chord, like
recognizing the face of a lost acquaintance but not remembering his name. He
decided to let Major continue, and he hoped his memory would eventually catch
up to fill in the gaps of the world he had once known.

“My dad was a
son of a bitch. He’d come home from the corner bar and beat the shit out of my
mom. My brother and I, we’d hide under our beds. Not because he didn’t know we
were there. He knew. We stayed underneath it because he couldn’t get his
barrel-chest far enough in to grab us. Anyway, my mom was from the barrio, and
I don’t ever remember finding out how they hooked up. Quite a scene, right? Some
pale, red-haired Irishman with a sassy, Latina girl on his arm.”

Samuel looked
at Major’s face and saw the mix of cultures. The man’s nose was bulbous and red,
but roots of black hair snuck out from under the ponytail.

“By the time I
was sixteen, I was running with all the wrong folks. You know the story. You’ve
heard it a dozen times. We’d break into bodegas and go right for the register. Later
on, we’d even take a crack at those little ATMs shoved in the corner of the
market. You remember those, the ones that would nail you with a five-dollar fee
on top of what your bank would charge?”

Samuel sniffled.

“School sucked,
and by the time I was seventeen, I’d had enough of the petty shit. I got
greedy, just like everyone else. The subway stop at East 90
^th
would
provide us some sweet marks, the assholes that lived on the Upper East Side in
their multi-million-dollar townhomes with iron bars on the doors and a blinking
security pad at the front. We’d jump ’em and get the cash when they came out of
the station. Not sure why so many got out on the wrong side of Broadway, but
we’d make the most of it.

“Summer of ’88
I headed to the Jersey Shore with the guys in the crew. They had a few dago
contacts in Atlantic City that were getting into the hooker and blow trades. Seemed
like slapping bitches around was easier than risking a cuff in Manhattan. That’s
when I first realized I had it.”

“Had what?”
asked Samuel.

“The nose. I
could smell deals a mile away. Drug deals at first, which I eventually turned
into legit businesses, like used cars.”

Major laughed
at his own joke. He looked at the confused look on Samuel’s face and decided to
continue. “I was great at the table games, too. Five- and ten-dollar blackjack
led me to the high-roller rooms. I played where winnings came with a chick on
your arm and a vial of blow. AIDS was breaking then, but when you’re strung out
on crack and cards, it’s not much of a concern. Not sure how in the hell I
escaped that, but I did. You tag so many assess without a jimmy hat, you’re
rolling the dice.

“I wasn’t much
of a family man. I mean, I had a wife and kids, but I wasn’t part of the
family. My money provided housekeepers, pool boys, nannies, whatever we needed,
but the money couldn’t listen to my wife or help my kids with homework. The
family made me legit, somehow gave me the air of a responsible citizen. That’s
the thing with the white-collar criminals. They sit next to you at the PTA
meetings, you see them in the grocery store, you wave at them as they walk
their dogs. Hell, some of them even pick up dog shit with a blue, plastic bag,
and yet they were robbing taxpayers blind.”

“The bailout?”
Samuel asked. His face twisted, as if someone else had used the term.

“Oh, you bet I
got a chunk of that. We all did. By the time the mid-2000s rolled around, I had
several business holdings in various countries. I had secret, offshore accounts,
and enough capital to pay my mid-managers hundreds of thousands in bonuses. We
had holiday blowouts that made the gangster movies look like children’s
birthday parties. Women everywhere, and not the skanks from the street. I’m
talking top-notch girls, good pussy. The kind that makes you forget your name.”

Samuel
shrugged.

“By 2008, I had
offices in Manhattan and Newark. Jersey was a dump, but it was easier to hide
assets there than it was in the five boroughs. I had departments trading
mortgages for years, and we all knew that shit was going to crash. Anyone—including
the Fed—that claims they didn’t know is a bullshitter. There was an unspoken
panic that rippled through our ranks about six months before the shit hit the
fan. Guys were getting out fast, selling assets, liquidating the adjustable-rate
loans. We all knew those were going to kill us. By the time Goldman Sachs
became the media’s whipping boy, I had stashed four hundred million that I
thought would be invisible. That’s what I thought.”

Samuel noticed
a hitch in Major’s throat. His pace on the trail quickened as they turned
directly into the path of the cloud that soundlessly rolled over trees as it
approached the east.

“But then a few
of my guys turned. They had been working with the FBI the entire time. I had no
idea. These were guys that had been with me a long time, going all the way back
to our private bordellos and roulette wheels in the shadow of the boardwalk in
Atlantic City. These were guys I trusted with my life.

“My wife had
left and taken the kids with her by then. My new girl tipped me off. I was
shacked up with this broad in one of my Manhattan penthouses. I can’t remember
exactly how we got together, but she was doing some hardcore porn at the time. I
saw her in a film and knew I wanted a piece of that ass. Anyways, she rang my
cell about eleven thirty in the morning, which I knew was trouble because she
never got out of bed before noon. She told me that the Feds had been there and
were on their way to my office. She said they had warrants and paperwork and
all the bullshit they needed to put me away for a long time.”

Samuel stopped.
As the path curved to the right and descended down the gentle slope of the
mountain, he saw the tops of several cabins. They looked exactly like the
others he’d encountered, and the curvature of the land would no doubt reveal
more as they approached. Major followed Samuel’s gaze.

“Yep. That’s
it. The Barren. We still got another hour to reach it.”

“So what did
you do when the cops arrived?” Samuel asked.

“I had to take
care of things before they did. There was no way I was going to rot in a cell,
become Bubba’s girlfriend. I couldn’t do that. Plus, the lead prosecutor was a
dickhead from way back. In fact, I think I may have jumped him in a subway
station, back in the day.

“After I got
the call, I went to a hidden panel in my office. I didn’t even have time to
open the safe, and if I did, what was I going to do? They were coming. I
couldn’t find the bullets to the revolver that was under my desk, so I pushed
through a drawer of sex toys until I found the velvet rope. I had glass walls
in my office that gave you a stunning view of Manhattan. That turned the ladies
on, and they’d even let me tie them up. Some of those lays got crazy. I stood
on a chair and pushed the ceiling tile to the side. With the rope in one hand,
I tossed it over a steel beam. The end came back to my other hand, and by that
time I could hear them coming. The private elevator dinged a single tone, and I
heard footsteps in the marble foyer. If I had more time, who knows? I might
have reconsidered. But I didn’t. I tied a knot at the top underneath the beam
and took the other end and twisted it around my neck. I wasn’t schooled in the
knot-tying, Boy Scout bullshit, so I triple looped it just to make sure it
wouldn’t give. I remember standing on the chair with that noose around my neck,
and I was laughing. Maybe it was the absurdity of it all, or maybe I had lost
my mind by that point.

“The door to
the waiting room slammed against the wall, which meant the raid was only
seconds from reaching me. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and leapt off
the chair. I think they came through at the same time, because I remember someone
shouting and feeling hands grasping my legs, but they were too late. Those
knots held better than they were supposed to because they snapped my neck.”