Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (12 page)

“He can’t do
it. I told you he can’t. Pull him out,” said Kole.

Mara looked at
Samuel, and then to Major. “Kole’s right. Pull him before it’s too late. You
know he can slip.”

Major shook his
head. “No, I need to know if he can get back on his own.”

Mara huffed. “No
you don’t. That doesn’t matter. Pull him!”

“I’m not
watching this,” said Kole. He opened the door and walked from the cabin into
the eternal dusk of the locality.

“Do it or I won’t
retrieve him.”

“Is that a
threat?” asked Major.

“Yes,” replied
Mara.

Major rubbed a
hand on the stubble covering his chin. He pushed back from the table and stood
in one motion, causing Mara to step toward Samuel, still seated. He chuckled
and shook his head.

“I woulda
spanked your ass, back in the day. Taught you some manners, missy.”

Mara opened her
mouth slightly, hesitated, then closed it. She narrowed her eyes without taking
them off Major.

“Go on,” he
said with the wave of a hand.

Samuel felt
his head become lighter. He blinked once or twice as the raindrops running down
the windshield zigged and zagged through his vision. They came off the glass in
vivid, neon colors, intersecting the cabin of the car and jutting out into the
blackened garage surrounding it. His head felt light, as if he were swimming in
ether. He turned the CD player on again and it kicked back around to the first
track. Samuel felt the guitar waver through the air and he reached out, almost touching
the notes. The engine ran with a smooth, steady purr.

Samuel
tilted his head back until it struck the headrest, and he looked at the dull
reflection of this other body in the driver’s-side window. He saw the eyelids
drooping and felt a heavy sleep pushing him down into the leather seat. Samuel
blinked and closed these eyes. He could feel the sounds of the car slipping
away in the distance, surrounded by the comforting silence.

He felt the
car shake and opened one eye. Another shake came along with a muffled thump.

“Samuel!”

He opened
both eyes, and a shiver ran across his neck and down his spine. A woman stood
on the other side of the glass, pounding it with the meat of her fist. Her
jet-black, shoulder-length hair fell across her face. Thin eyebrows narrowed
and came together at the top of her thin, pointy nose. Samuel followed the
lines of her high cheekbones.

“Samuel!”

This time he
heard it clearly and knew the woman had called his name. He searched in his
mind for her name but could not unlock the mystery. Samuel’s mouth was dry, and
a dull ache grew from the back of his head, coming forward like a storm cloud.

“Mara?” he
heard himself ask.

She smiled
and said one word. “Duck.”

A split
second later, a red brick crashed through the driver’s-side window. Mara took a
step forward, reached through the gaping hole, and unlocked the power doors. She
took another step forward and yanked open the driver’s-side door. Samuel sat
there with a grin, amused at the amount of activity around him. Mara turned the
ignition off with one hand and slapped the button on the garage door opener
with the other. Within seconds, cool, moist air flooded the garage, and the
carbon monoxide oozed into the night. She reached down and released the
seatbelt that was holding Samuel tight.

“C’mon. Let’s
go.”

Samuel
tilted his head sideways like an old drunk. He grinned again and slapped one
knee.

“Not sure
how I got here, but thanks for helping me out.” He slurred the words at her.

“Major got an
opening, but I don’t know how long it’ll last. I don’t even know if it’s going
to bring us back to that locality. But there’s no time to discuss it. Let’s
go.”

Mara turned,
and Samuel stared at her lithe form as she walked toward the open garage door. He
saw the way her hair rested on the black biker jacket, the chains and zippers
glistening like miniature serpents on her back. He followed the coat where it
stopped, at the base of her spine. Samuel gawked at her well-proportioned legs,
which looked utterly smooth in the tight leather pants, as if she wore an outfit
of crude oil.

“Damn.”

Mara turned
and shook her head. She grabbed Samuel’s arm so hard it made him wince, and she
dragged him into an upright position and tossed his upper body toward the open
door. She blew past him with a blur of black and a hint of perfume.

“Around back
and through the tree line,” she said.

Samuel
stumbled behind her as Mara bolted down the driveway and to the gate sitting
between two segments of chain-link fence. She flipped the horseshoe up and
pushed the gate open, running down the sidewalk and past the propane grill to
the fence stretching across the rear perimeter of the yard. She stopped and
turned to face Samuel; her face appeared to be floating amidst a sea of
darkness. Towering trees silhouetted against the rainy night sky swayed above
as if daring entry. She waited another second and then waved silently before
leaping over the fence. Samuel watched as she swung both legs to one side and
vaulted over the top. He smiled again before he doubled over with a fit of
coughs. The more he hacked, the less air made it to his lungs. Tears filled his
eyes and mixed with the steady drizzle on his face.

“Get up,”
she said.

Samuel felt
her tug his arm, which sent a jolt of pain into his shoulder. He rolled over
and clawed at the manicured grass with both hands until he felt the cold metal
of the fence. Mara grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to the top rail while
she stood on the other side. Physics and gravity took over, bringing Samuel
crashing over the fence and into a pile of wet leaves. Before he could cry out,
Mara was moving again, running between the trees.

He stumbled
forward until another round of coughing arrested his lungs. He collapsed and
looked back at the house. Red and blue lights appeared, splashing the white siding
with resplendent color. A back porch light came on, as did the house lights of
several neighbors.

“Get up!”

Mara broke
him from his gaze, and he scrambled upright and followed her path. The bark of
a dog and a bleating car horn reminded him that he was running through a copse
of trees separating two streets of a modern neighborhood. He ripped the tie
from his neck and focused on the light reflecting from Mara’s wet leathers.

Shouts broke
through his hazy head as dark figures burst into the backyard like a black
avalanche. He put his hand to his forehead to try to ease the pain. Samuel felt
as though a tank had taken a detour through his skull.

“I can
almost see it,” Mara shouted back at him.

He followed
her farther, until he saw it as well. Samuel rubbed his eyes, turning to look
at the flurry of activity coming their way, and then back to Mara. She was
there. It was there.

Mara bolted
for the door. She lunged and grabbed the doorknob in one motion.

“C’mon! It
only stays open for a second.”

Mara waited,
breathing heavily and looking from side to side.

Samuel
slowed to a trot and placed his hands on his hips. “The cabin?” he asked.

“If you
don’t step through here with me, you
will
die.”

Samuel shook
his head. He looked down at his clothes, held a hand up to his face. “This
ain’t me. I’m dreaming or something.”

Mara bit her
bottom lip. She let go of the doorknob and walked toward him. “I want to show
you something.”

Her voice
dropped as though she were breathing the words. A hand came up and stroked the
side of Samuel’s face. His eyes met hers and his breath hitched as he tried to encourage
his lungs to work while keeping his heartbeat in check. Mara took his hand and
turned toward the door of the cabin. She looked over one shoulder and smiled at
him. She winked.

Samuel
allowed her to lead this foreign body to the threshold of the door. He no
longer cared about the pursuers. He no longer heard the manhunt emerging a few
hundred yards from the tree line.

“Damn. Yeah,
sure I’d like for you—”

Before he
could finish, Mara’s knee drove upward into Samuel’s groin. Colors exploded in
his vision, and before he could cry out, he felt the sickening crunch of her
fist smashing the cartilage in his nose.

Mara opened
the door and dragged his bleeding and disoriented body through with her.

***

“Reckless.”

“Aren’t
we all?”

Kole
stood with two hands wrapped around a mug. He sipped and smirked while tattoos stretched
across his bulging muscles.

“The
other guy still trapped in the ether?”

Major
did not reply to Kole’s question, and Kole shook his head.

“So
now we know Samuel can slip, but we don’t know if he can do it alone. Pointless.”

Major
shook his head. “He can,” he said.

“You
don’t know that,” replied Mara.

Samuel
stirred. His mouth opened and closed as he grimaced in unspoken pain.

“Worse
than a hangover,” Kole said, before returning to his tea.

Major
shrugged and walked over to Mara. “You volunteered to go get him. Kole would
have done it.”

Mara
ran a hand through her stringy, greasy hair. She took a deep breath and exhaled
over her bottom lip.

“Yeah.
I did.”

Major
reached out and tapped her shoulder with his fingers. “Deep breaths. You’re
here.”

“Right,”
she said, shrugging off his hand like a renegade snowflake. “I’m back here,
safe and sound, in this shithole locality that’s getting eaten by the cloud,
with you three assholes.”

Kole
laughed into his mug, sending drops of tea to the floor.

“Where
am I?” Samuel asked.

Major
turned away from Mara and sat on the chair next to him. His legs moved beneath
the rough, wool blanket like two monsters prowling the depths of the ocean.

“Back.
In this locality. Against the odds.”

Cramps
gripped Samuel’s stomach, and the meager light from the fire hurt his eyes.

“Right.
That explains it,” he said.

Kole
grinned and walked around the other side of the cabin to face him. “I don’t
know what the old man or the little girl has been telling you, champ, but you
ain’t ever going home. Once you slip, you’re done.”

“Don’t
listen to him,” said Mara. “He’s a cynical dickhead.”

“I’m
honest. Tell him, Major. Tell him what you know. He deserves to understand the
situation, just like we did.”

Samuel
sat up as fireworks exploded behind his forehead. His tongue felt like a ball
of yarn inside his mouth. Mara returned from the edges of his vision carrying a
cup, presumably one with more of the licorice tea. Samuel accepted it from her,
his hunch confirmed.

“I
wasn’t in my body, but I was back in the real world.”

Major
sighed and looked at Kole, and then Mara. They waited, neither speaking nor
moving.

“We
thought we could rescue that man, but we couldn’t. We’re on our own. You were
in him, and he was determined to find a gruesome end. He probably did, once
Mara pulled you back.”

Samuel
nodded at Mara. “It looked like the world I remember.”

“Yes,
it probably did,” replied Major. “But if you had been a kind of tourist, you
probably would have discovered minor anomalies with that place. French fries
may not exist there, or Jimmy Page may have been a founding member of Black
Sabbath.”

“Does
this have something to do with the parable you told me when we first met? Something
about the lion and its different parts?” Samuel asked.

He
struggled to recall the earlier conversation through the pain in his head. Major
looked at Mara and Kole. Mara nodded, and Kole threw an arm into the air.

“Tell
him, old man.”

Major
squared up to Samuel and spoke inches from his nose. “What’s the first thing
you remember from this locality?”

Samuel
looked at the ceiling. Bits of memory had come back, especially when he was
able to hold reflections, like the picture on the wall and his pocketknife. Without
the physical prompt, he struggled again.

“I
remember dropping from the tree. Someone tried hanging me, I guess.”

Kole
whistled and shook his head, amused.

“Someone
hanged you?” Major asked, his voice prodding into Samuel’s memory.

“Or
maybe you were trying to get off by yourself. What do they call it? Autoerotic
asphyxiation?”

Kole
laughed, but Mara remained stoic.

Samuel’s
face glazed over. He looked to Kole and then back to Major. “Suicide? You think
I was committing suicide?”

“Kole
tried, as did I. Mara has not been able to unlock her memory. If you can, that
would mean three of the four of us ended up here as a result of a suicide
attempt.”

Samuel’s
hand came up to his throat, and he remembered the bruises. He looked at Major’s
neck.

“I
remember the circumstances, and I think you will too, eventually.”

“Yeah,
just in time for the cloud to eat us all,” said Kole.

“Can
you shut up for more than three minutes at a time?” Mara asked.

Kole
shrugged and went back to the stove to pour himself another mug of tea.

“So
we slipped in the process and ended up here in this locality,” Samuel said. “And
the Reversion is eating the place, and it’s coming toward us.”

“Don’t
forget the fact that we don’t know if we can all slip, and if we can, we don’t
know what we’re slipping into or if we can get back. Could be a world of blind
supermodels where you’re the only guy, or it could be a dark, empty world
getting eaten by a black cloud.”