Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (29 page)

Samuel
laughed at his own dishonesty before putting the car into drive. He had already
pulled from the curb before he realized that he had not cleared the snow. The
hard, white precipitation covered his windows and protected him from the
reality on the other side. Samuel put the windshield wipers into motion. The
motor hummed and then rattled, but the wipers remained buried in the snow piled
at the base of the windshield.

“Damn it!”

He reached
under the seat for his trusty ice scraper and came up with the broken bottom
half of it. Samuel tossed it into the back seat and opened the door. The wind
tore at his face and whipped his hair into maniacal formations. Samuel pulled
his coat sleeve over his hand and used his arm to clear as much of the snow
from the windshield as possible. With a round porthole cleared, he stepped back
into the car and set the defrost fan to the high setting.

Samuel’s
bladder decided they did not have time to wait for the defroster to clear the
window. Departure, and urination, were imminent. He bent low and craned his
neck to look through the hole he had scraped. It wasn’t much, but Samuel
thought he could navigate the car for the short, ten-minute drive to his house.
He would stay under the limit, and he would stay alive.

Samuel
navigated by alternately sticking his head outside the driver’s-side window and
then looking through the porthole, which allowed him to stay on the road. He
successfully avoided parked cars, sidewalks, and garbage cans awaiting pickup,
but the solid-yellow line painted on the pavement eluded him.

The first
car passed with its horn blaring and then fading into the distance like a
locomotive in an old western film. He thought he may have heard the driver
yelling, but he couldn’t be sure. Samuel pulled the vehicle hard to the right,
assuming he had drifted into the oncoming lane.

“Couple more
turns and I’m home,” he said.

He
followed the plows and salt trucks through Detroit’s wealthier suburbs as they
made their rounds, the last ones before the shift change and a watery cup of
warm coffee back at the garage. Samuel concentrated on the blinking lights
while the salt pummeled the front end of his car like a localized hailstorm. When
the truck turned right toward city hall and the truck garage behind it, Samuel
remained on the road. He looked into his rearview mirror and saw black, the
narrow secondary streets not equipped with the streetlights like the main
thoroughfares. The cold and the darkness closed in, and Samuel felt the need to
leave his window all the way down. The bitter, winter air seeped in like a shot
of insulin to a diabetic in shock. He sat up straight and blinked. Samuel
looked at the street sign and then recalibrated his bearings, figuring he was
only three or four miles from his house. In one more mile, he would take a
right onto Route 24 for the one-mile stretch that would dump him at the foot of
the development. The snow relented, but the chill did not.

As Samuel
turned onto the local highway, he saw headlights approaching, the first since
he had left the party. He glanced down at the gauges and felt for the seatbelt
strap, hoping to avoid getting pulled over and then having a seatbelt fine on
top of it.

In an
instant, the headlights doubled from two to four. He saw the first set snap out
into his lane and then wink as the car slid sideways, fishtailing on the slick
roadway. The driver regained control and pulled the vehicle back into his lane.
However, the maneuver sent the second set of headlights into a spin itself. They
sped past the first vehicle and cut back into their lane. Samuel became so
enamored with the scene that he did not notice that he had let his vehicle drift.

Samuel’s
vehicle struck the oncoming car, creating an impact that crumpled the other
car’s hood, sending it into an upside-down V, like a cheap accordion. He felt
the brunt of the impact, which threw him toward the passenger side and then
snapped him back, his head shattering the side window. He felt his car spin and
strike three more times, unsure as to what he was hitting. The sound of
crunching metal made him wince. All he wanted was for the car to stop moving,
even if it meant slamming straight into a tractor-trailer. Samuel waited and
waited, the seconds feeling like lifetimes. When it finally stopped, Samuel
faced the opposite direction on the highway, his passenger-side door stuck to
the guardrail.

The
silence lasted for a few seconds. His ears rang and the adrenaline spiked his
bloodstream. Samuel felt the warm, sticky blood flowing into his left ear, and
he winced where the dashboard thrust backward into his right knee. He did a
mental check and realized that he was alive and without serious injury. The
euphoria of that revelation lasted until he looked out the other side of the
car at the discarded mess of steel balled up next to the opposite guardrail.

Samuel
climbed from his car and limped over the frozen roadway toward the other
vehicle. He thought he remembered two sets of headlights, but either that
vehicle had fled the scene or the whiskey had created the extra set of lights. He
smelled gasoline and burning rubber, while drops of sizzling liquid pooled in
the roadside ice. He looked both ways and saw nothing but the dead of winter. Somewhere
beyond his vision, a distant siren purred.

A groan from
inside the mangled metal brought his attention back to it. Samuel approached,
unsure where the front of the vehicle could be. He saw twisted steel, dark
plastic, and scraps of humanity thrown together inside the death cage. He
walked toward the car and stepped over a hockey stick, followed by a a book. The
closer he came, the more personal belongings he had to step over.

The car’s
dinging door alarm was on but struggling to maintain sound, as if it was
covered in thick foam. Samuel saw the steering wheel contorted like a pretzel,
and he looked inside the gaping wound where the windshield used to be. He saw
the small, delicate frame of a young woman, the seatbelt tight against her
throat. Jet-black hair covered her face. Samuel shoved his face inside and
heard the ragged, desperate sound of her lungs. He looked at her painted
fingernails wrapped around the steering wheel. The smell of exhaust mingled
with blood made him queasy.

“Are you okay?”
he asked.

As soon as
he spoke the words, he felt like a fool. He could not bear to ask the question
he really wanted to ask.

“I’ll get
help.”

He spun and
remembered the Italian restaurant fifty yards up the highway. It was probably
getting close to closing time, but an old phone booth stuck out near the
guardrail like a beacon of hope. Samuel had just spun toward it when he felt
the warm, weak grip on his hand. He jumped and let out a muffled cry.

The driver’s
hand held his. He could feel her life slipping away, but he could not move. The
grip squeezed his hand as if to say that all was forgiven, that accidents
happen. Samuel felt the encompassing love, and he knelt low to see inside the
remains of the car. He used his free hand to reach in and gently push the hair
away from the driver’s face.

The memory
advanced like a fluttering reel of film until Samuel sat at a glass pane,
holding a corded phone to his ear.

Kim
came into the visitation room and looked at him. She had not been able to apply
her morning makeup over red, puffy eyes. Her face resembled the photograph
hanging above the dresser, the one of her and Samuel in college. She loved that
picture and the wispy memories of youth it represented. They both remembered
the night that photograph was taken and always joked that Kim’s hold on her car
keys was as strong as the one she had on Samuel’s heart.

“Kim, I
thought I was fine.”

“There’s no
point. After what we’ve been through, after what you’ve been through, I can’t . . .”
Kim trailed off, fumbling through the conversation.

“I’m so
sorry. I’m going to make this right,” he said.

Kim sat, her
bottom lip trembling.

“The kids?”

“My
mother’s,” she replied.

“Now what?”

“Now you
figure out how you’re going to live with this, Samuel. Now you have to ask God,
or whatever demonic force that commands you, for forgiveness and hope he
doesn’t strike you down.”

“What should
I do about—”

“I don’t
give a fuck, Samuel! You do whatever it is you need to do.”

He could
hear the pain in her voice.

“I’ll
deal with it.”

Kim
laughed. “I’m sure you will.”

***

Samuel opened
his eyes, returning to the cave where Mara lay at the mercy of the Reversion.

“I’m
so sorry.”

Mara
squeezed Samuel’s hand just as she had on that cold night. She smiled, and the
worry lines in her face loosened.

“I
can’t believe that all this time you, you knew that . . .” Samuel
shook his head, tears clouding his vision. “I’m the reason you’re here, stuck
in this prison.”

“Come
closer,” Mara whispered. Her eyes closed, and the life drained from her voice.

Samuel
moved closer and bent down, taking her hand in both of his.

“I
let you see what I thought you needed to see while you were here.”

He
nodded, setting at least some of his guilt free. “Mara, I . . . I can’t believe
I did that to you, and—”

She
squeezed his hand again and shook her head as much as possible. “Life did that
to me, not you.”

Samuel
started to speak but Mara squeezed his hand, stopping him.

“There
isn’t much time. Please listen,” she said.

Samuel
dropped his head and waited for her to continue.

“I
didn’t see your face at the scene. I passed before you came over to the wreck. But
when you arrived in this locality, I argued with Kole.”

A
memory sparked in Samuel’s head. He remembered seeing the disagreement at a
distance.

“We
didn’t so much argue about you, although he claimed you were someone from his
past. I guess you could have passed through both of our lives, but I don’t
really know. I told him that you were here for me, for him, for all of us. I
explained that you had a purpose and a mission to release us from this.”

“But
he didn’t agree. Major didn’t agree either, did he?” asked Samuel.

She
shook her head.

“They
could very well have been here for other reasons,” she said, a wet cough
thundering through her chest. “But I knew why you were here and what that meant
for me.”

“What
does it mean for me?” he asked.

“I
don’t know. I wish I could say, but I can’t. You’ll have to figure that out.”

Samuel
looked up. Their bodies appeared to float in pure darkness. The Reversion had
begun to peck at their feet. Samuel could feel the power trying to dissolve the
very molecules in his body. The cave and the rest of the dead locality attached
to it were gone, swallowed and consumed by the inevitable force of the Reversion.

“How?
When? Where?”

Mara
let the single-word questions hang in the air without attempting to answer any
of them.

“If
you can figure out why you’re here, the answers to those questions might show
themselves to you.”

“Do
you know why you’re here?” he asked her.

Mara
nodded. “Yes,” was all she said about it.

Mara’s
eyelids fluttered, and Samuel felt her breath hitch in her chest. He wiped her
forehead with the back of his hand and felt the cool, clammy touch of death descending
upon her, challenging the Reversion for the last spark of life left.

“This
is my time,” Mara said.

Samuel
closed his eyes and felt the oppressive force of nothingness closing in on him.

“How
will I know? How will I know how I got here and what to do about it?”

Mara
opened her eyes and looked at Samuel for the last time. He saw the forgiveness
and sadness inside, the emotional turmoil simmering in the deep recesses. She
bit her lip and spoke again, her words barely audible this time.

“I
will show you.”

***

Samuel
saw the inky blackness, like oil-slicked surf, the silent waves pulsing over
her body. He felt weightless as the power of the Reversion disassembled the
atoms left in the locality. He screamed in helpless futility as he watched the
darkness creep over Mara. It slid over her foot, and when it retreated it left
nothing but empty blackness behind. He watched as the forces nibbled and bit at
her essence like fish feeding on a floating corpse.

He
knew that whatever was happening to her physical body was a different
experience than what was happening to her spirit. Samuel smiled, seeing Mara’s
angelic face from the coffee shop in his mind’s eye, rather than the pasty,
sickly face of her lying in the cold dirt of the cave and waiting for death.

Samuel
watched as the last remnants of Mara’s body disappeared beneath the relentless
pursuit of the Reversion. With her body gone, he became a drifting ship amidst
a horrific ocean of darkness and silence. The Reversion began the same process
on him, albeit at a much slower pace. He reached down to touch his knee and
became queasy, uncertain of his bearings and feeling, like an astronaut
tumbling through deep space, carried into oblivion without the slightest
friction to stop it. He closed his eyes and opened them to try to stabilize his
mind, but the attempt failed. Samuel had opened his mouth to scream when a
voice entered his head. He knew it was Mara before she even spoke.

I
must show you what you can no longer access from your own memory. If I don’t do
it now, the Reversion will claim you forever.