Race the Darkness (2 page)

* * *

Death twined around Isleen Walker's body, whispering over her naked flesh, coiling around her heart and lungs, hugging the last sparks of life from her. Twenty-five years of being alive distilled down to a wish. A wish that death would hurry up and grant her its promised relief.

“I'm dying.” She tried to warn Gran, but the words came out quieter than a breath. Her gaze roamed the room—their prison for the past eight years. It was just big enough to contain her and Gran and an overflowing waste bucket, but now it felt too small, too fragile to contain Isleen. Soon she would transcend this space, and no matter what Queen did, she wouldn't be able to tether Isleen here.

Gran slept, face tucked into the corner. Safety was an illusion—beating after beating had proven that fact—but still, they always gravitated to the corners. Gran's once-supple flesh sagged from her bones. Her spine protruded sharply in a pathetic row of spikes.

“…tobesaved. Not die.…protectordiedtoo?” Gran spoke in a smear of barely distinguishable words. She'd been a sleep-talker for as long as Isleen could remember—even before they'd been abducted.

She used to wake Gran from her dreams, but had long since decided it was a mercy to let her stay inside them for as long as they hosted her. Maybe in her dreams, Gran still possessed her wits and all her faculties, and lived somewhere beautiful where nothing bad ever happened.

Footsteps pounded down the hall and stopped outside the door. The sound of the key in the lock scraped across Isleen's heart. Was today going to be a feeding day, a beating day, or a bleeding day? It didn't really matter. It was too late for food; a beating would finish her off; and she had no more blood to give. But there was Gran—

The door rasped open. Queen. Always Queen and only Queen ever entered their prison. If ever a name didn't fit a person, it was hers. Nothing about her was royal or regal. She was no whimsical fairy-tale ruler; she was a twenty-first-century reality. A simple-minded, delusional woman who took pleasure in domination and torture. Under a different set of circumstances, Queen would have been passing her days in a psychiatric hospital, medicated to the point of drooling.

Isleen could smell Queen's stench. Cigarette smoke so stale and foul and thick that Isleen could taste the bite of it in her mouth, feel the burn of it in her eyes. The pungency of flesh that hadn't been washed in years snuffed out the oxygen in the air.

Queen kicked her in the thigh. “The Dragon has not yet died.”

A small gasp, not of pain, but of being startled escaped Isleen's throat. For as long as they'd been held captive, Queen had referred to her as the Dragon.

Queen cleared her throat. Mucus snapped and rattled. She hawked up a wad of nasty and spit it on the floor. “King decreed that if the Dragon shall linger—”

“You will suffer for everything you've done.” Gran crawled out of the corner on all fours. “Her protector is on his way.”

Queen's hunched shoulders straightened. “I am your queen. Bow before me.” It was all a part of Queen's delusional mind—she was a queen and they were her subjects and the objects of her torture. Especially Isleen.

Gran didn't bow, didn't move, didn't understand.

“You will be punished.” Queen opened and closed a giant pair of scissors.
Shkk. Shkk. Shkk.

Dread burned a hole through Isleen's shrunken stomach. “It's not her fault. She doesn't understand.” She tried to move, but her body was too weak, her limbs too emaciated.

“Your Majesty, I am sorry. I have committed the gravest of errors.” Gran executed a bow of supplication, arms spread out, forehead to the floor. “Please accept my humble apology and know that I will never again speak in such a manner to one as powerful as you.” Before Gran had lost her mind, she'd been fluent in kiss-up-to-the-fake-queen language.

Gran must be having a rare moment of clarity.

“Very well. I grant you a pardon. Know this—though I am a merciful queen, I will not tolerate such treasonous behavior again.” She pointed a fat, stubby finger at Gran. “You have been warned.”

Gran kept her pose. Good decision.

Queen turned her grotesque gaze to Isleen. She went through the same disgusting process of clearing her throat and then spoke as if she were making a proclamation. “King has decreed that on the sixth day, if the Dragon shall linger, I am to thrust my sword into its side.”

Thrust my sword into its side
. Isleen understood Queen's words; she just didn't fear them. No matter what Queen did to her now, it would be nothing—
absolutely nothing
—compared to the agony of living. A calmness nestled into her bones, curled up in her guts.

Gran lifted her face from the floor and challenged Queen's authority by looking directly at her. “You don't have the power to kill her.” Insanity warped Gran's tone.

Queen's attention snapped to Gran. “You were warned. Now, you shall be executed.”

Isleen thrust words from her heart, words she'd always wanted to speak but never dared until now, when she needed to divert Queen's attention away from Gran. “You're not a queen. You're psychotic. You're a bitch. You're evil and stupid and mean. And…and…you smell bad.”

Queen's wide-spaced eyes nearly bulged out of her block-shaped head. Her fat lips snarled back, revealing teeth so neglected they were the same color and texture as Fritos. She switched her grip on the scissors, fisting the handle, and stabbed the blades at Isleen.

She watched the scissors descend, heard the whisper and swish of them piercing her flesh. Felt only a vague pressure and presence of something foreign inside her body. Smelled sweetness in the air and tasted salt on her tongue.

Queen yanked the scissors from Isleen's body and held them up. Blood dripped from the blades, sending red streamers down Queen's doughy arm.

Warmth oozed from Isleen's side, the heat comforting her cold skin.

“Tomorrow, if you are still alive—off with your head!”

Gran waited until Queen locked them back in the room, then scooted next to Isleen. There were no bandages, no cloths, no tissues. Nothing to stop the bleeding.

“Hold on, baby girl. Just hold on. He's coming. He's got to be coming. He will release you. Save you.” The worst part of Gran's mental breakdown was the delusion that someone would find them. In Isleen's most desperate of moments, she had allowed herself to believe Gran. Not anymore.

“Your dreams will come true. All of them. Remember the dreams about him. How you loved him and he loved you. Remember the dreams of sunshine on your face and the cabin you shared. Remember…”

There was nothing to remember. They had just been dreams. Silly dreams. No more powerful than Gran's sleep-talking.

You're not coming. You're not going to save me. Because you don't exist. Never have. I believed in you. Thought you must be real—Gran swore you were. But you were nothing more than hope's fatal dream. We're going to die, and no one other than Queen will ever remember we existed.

A rainbow of colors swelled in front of her eyes. Colors she hadn't seen in years. Colors so brilliant and bright and beautiful that her eyes watered. Death was an alluring kaleidoscope
.

A bloated moon dangled from the sky, tossing silver light across the barren hilltop where Xander's cabin stood. He sat on the front porch swing, listening to the symphony of sounds only night could produce. A breeze full of relief from the summer sun whispered over his skin. From the woods encircling the yard, leaves rustled and branches swayed and clapped as if applauding Mother Nature's concert.

Xander closed his eyes—as close to sleep as he was going to get. To other people it was late, the middle of the night, but to him, time didn't matter. That's what happened when he couldn't sleep. The days and nights blurred and blended together with no division between them other than the color of the sky. It was an exhausting, endless sort of existence.

Tonight was worse than ever. His foot jittered against the porch floor. His insides twitched and trembled as if they were about to erupt through his pores. His brain itched. Itched. Actually fucking itched. Short of eating a bullet, there was no way to alleviate that particular sensation.

He couldn't sit there a second longer. He needed to go somewhere. Do something. Only he didn't know where or what. He'd figure it out on the way.

In less than five seconds, he was in his truck, cranking the engine. The pick-up turned over with a throaty rumble he usually enjoyed, but not tonight. He jammed his foot down on the gas, gravel chucking across the yard until the wheels got their grip and then rocketed down the mile-long winding driveway.

I'm dying.

Tension grabbed hold of his spine. His heart stuttered, stopped, and started again.

Those two words, spoken in that
female
voice, were not a product of the Bastard in His Brain. Those words were an auditory hallucination—another enduring effect of the lightning strike.

It'd been a long time since that voice had spoken to him. But still, there was only one sane way to deal with it—booze. There was another way to get rid of the voice, but that involved psych meds and a trip to the nuthouse. And he had a severe nut allergy.

He was ten minutes from the twenty-four-hour gas station with its beer cooler stocked full of liquid oblivion, but only ten seconds from driving past the main house. He should've moved years ago, but he couldn't afford a seven-hundred-acre tract of land as beautiful and isolated as the one his father owned. The benefits of extreme solitude continued to win over the reminder of rejection every time he drove past his childhood home.

He rounded the first curve in the driveway; the truck's headlights danced across the house's many windows. No lights shined from inside; no exterior lights illuminated the grounds. The place was a giant beast slumbering on the side of the hill.

Anyone else looking at the structure would be awed by the many gables and porches and stunned to learn that an entire medical facility was housed in the expansive basement. But to him the place was a mausoleum of memories. A place where he'd once been part of a family with his dad, his stepmom, and his teenage stepsister who all loved the child version of him. Until Gale left his father, taking Shayla with her, and his dad forgot Xander existed. He'd been just seven years old when love left his life. Twenty-five years later, he could honestly say anger had been a better friend to him than love had ever been.

He eased off the gas and coasted past the house, not wanting to make too much noise. He didn't want to wake Uncle Matt, and he especially didn't want to wake Roweena, the Stone family housekeeper. She might be an employee, but she'd chew his ass for driving around in the middle of the night as if he were still a teenager. She worried about—

You're not coming. You're not going to save me. Because you don't exist. Never have. I believed in you. Thought you must be real—Gran swore you were. But you were nothing more than hope's fatal dream. We're going to die, and no one other than Queen will ever remember we existed.

“Get the fuck out of my head.” He yelled the words, breaking his number one rule—never talk back to the voice. Talking back meant he'd descended to a whole new level of cuckoo in the cranium. He clenched his eyes closed for just a second, hoping for a reset when he opened them.

A figure stood in the middle of the driveway, facing away from the truck.

“Shit.” Xander slammed on the brakes, the truck skidding in the gravel before stopping only a few feet away from a vehicular manslaughter charge. The sound of his heartbeat and ragged breaths were as loud as an air horn to his ears.

Dad.

His father stood in the middle of the driveway, dressed in a pair of plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt. His thick, gray hair smashed and bent, forming an unattractive case of bedhead. What the hell was the guy doing?

Xander sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. He wasn't making the first move. To acknowledge Dad would be a violation of their unwritten code of conduct. Each pretended the other didn't exist. It'd been that way since Gale left them, taking his father's heart with her.

But that voice. How long before it started talking again? He needed to get half-pickled to get it good and gone.

Fuck the rules.
He honked one short burst.

Dad didn't flinch or acknowledge he was standing only feet from Xander's bumper in the beam of his headlights.

Xander rolled down the window. “Move.” His throat tingled from the force of his shout.

Dad acted oblivious. As if he weren't standing in the middle of the driveway, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Xander trying to get booze.

Xander tore open the truck door. Decades of anger rode between his shoulder blades. Hundreds of unuttered words flooded his mouth. He stomped toward his dad. “What is your problem? I'm just following your rules. I got the message ten years ago when you didn't show up at the hospital after I was struck by lightning. When you never even asked Row or Matt whether I was alive or dead. Now get out of my…”

His words faded when he saw his father's face. Fine wrinkles flared out from the corners of his eyes and deeper ones cut furrows across his forehead. His mouth was turned down in an endless frown. The last time Xander had been in the same room with his father, the guy was in his forties. The man before him was two decades older and looked like he'd suffered a tremendous loss.

Tears streamed down the older man's cheeks, splashing onto his T-shirt.

Pain slammed into Xander's temple. He jerked and pressed his palm to the side of his head. He could practically feel his brain pulsing inside his skull.

Dad's gaze cut to him. “She needs me. I can feel her desperation, but I can't find her anymore. It's been too long.”
I love her. She's my soul. My everything. I need her as much as she needs me.

For a moment, only a moment, compassion chiseled away Xander's hard edges. But then blades of bitterness and rejection and anger stabbed through the tenderness. “This is about Gale? It's always been about Gale. It's been over twenty-five years since she left. Get over it. And get out of my way.”

She's my fearless.
Dad cast his gaze down the driveway.

“Here we go again.” When Gale and Shayla first left, Dad had raged for weeks about some local legend and the bear totem that resided on the hill nearby. But that's all anyone knew—the rantings and ravings of a man gone manic in his grief. “You're not making sense.” Xander grabbed Dad's arm and hauled him to the edge of the driveway. “Stare at the night all you want. But do it after I drive past.” He got back in the truck and drove on, refusing to look back, or think about Dad or the voice. He'd think about beer. A chilled beer. He could practically taste the tang of that first swig. His mouth watered.

At the end of the driveway, Xander barely braked, just cranked the wheel to the right and skidded out onto the road, laying a strip of rubber and squealing the tires in a way any high school boy would admire. He gunned the truck's engine to get to the top of the tallest hill in Sunny County.

Alcohol was less than six minutes away. God, how he needed a beer. Or five. Fuck that, he needed a case. Hell, he should go straight for the tequila. Anything to kill the voice.

As he neared the top of the hill, his headlights played over a motorcycle parked along the wide berm of road and then snagged on a man. A huge beast of a guy stood staring up at the centuries-old carved wooden bear like it was his own personal savior.

The animal posed on its hind legs, mouth open in a frozen snarl, looking real. Alive. Ready to attack. It wasn't the kind of thing to attract tourists. It was more likely to repel them.

What the fuck was up with the carving? His father obsessed over it. And now this freak?

The man turned his face toward the truck, blinking from the brightness of the headlights. A thick black mark—what the hell was it—slashed up his face from mouth to cheekbone, giving him a sinister, half-evil look. He glared into the lights until Xander drove past.

Xander glanced in the rearview mirror. The truck's taillights tossed a bloody glow over bear and man, highlighting the play of muscle and sinew hacked into the wood and making the black mark on the man's face appear to be a gaping hole.

Xander's breath locked inside his lungs. As crazy as it sounded, he half expected man and bear to move. To charge after him.

The truck raced down the hill, the man and the bear fading from sight. Xander's gaze snapped to the road in front of him. Yeah, obviously, he was on the verge of losing it.
It
being his sanity.

Booze. Booze always helped. He needed to get some. Now.

Five minutes later, in sight of the gas station with its flashing neon BEER sign, a rush of energy stung his face and then rolled down his body—the Bastard in His Brain. The sneaky ass was about to stage a coup. Damn. All Xander could do was watch as he inexplicably turned the vehicle onto the highway and headed west—away from liquid salvation, away from reason and rationality, away from sense and sanity.

* * *

Three hours later, Xander parked on a mud strip that he suspected might have once been a driveway. The Bastard in His Brain had decided to take him on a vacation to Crazyland, where the only way out was
through
the funhouse. How else could he explain passing up alcohol and driving halfway across Ohio for this—a strange trailer secreted away among hundreds of acres of cornfields?

Despite dawn tipping the horizon in cheerful color, an ominous void and a bleak desperation hung over the place that went deeper than the structure's disrepair. One side of the trailer sagged lower than the other, giving the impression of an enormous teeter-totter. Windows were missing, their gaping maws covered with boards or plywood or simple cardboard. The screen door dangled by its bottom hinge.

Xander wanted to reverse the truck and lay twin strips of
fuck you
on the asphalt on his way down the road.
Wanting
wasn't enough—not nearly enough—to overpower the Bastard. He got out of the vehicle, leaving the keys in the ignition. He would run up, scan the inside of the trailer, satisfy the Bastard, then sort out his shit on the drive back home.

A miraculous hush fell across the landscape. No birds chirped, no insects chattered. No corn leaves rustled. Pure, undiluted silence invaded his ears, and it was more stunning and fascinating than anything he'd ever heard. He stopped. Listened. Nothing. Not one sound. He couldn't even hear the rapid
duh-dum, duh-dum
of his heartbeat.

He closed his eyes, savoring the quiet. Was this why the Bastard had led him here? To find relief from the constant barrage of noise? Was there something significant about this location? Something significant about the trailer? He needed to find out. 'Cause if this spot was devoid of sound, he was going to be moving.

He walked up the crumbling cinder-block steps to the trailer, his boots crunching loud and startling against the decay. So much for the complete-void-of-sound theory. He reached through the skeleton of the screen and jiggled the knob. Locked.

From the other side of the door, the thud of heavy footsteps approached. Someone lived here? The place looked like it should be inhabited by rats and rodents, not humans.

“Open the door. Now. Or I'm bustin' it down.” The urgency in his voice surprised him. What surprised him even more—he meant every word. He'd get in this trailer one way or another. Didn't matter that he was trespassing or about to break half a dozen other laws. He
needed
to get inside. Not guilty by reason of the Bastard in His Brain—a.k.a. insanity—would be his defense.

A fist slammed into his temple—or at least it felt like a fist. Xander winced at the tuning-in. Damn.

The door cracked open. All he could see was a too-large-to-be-normal jaundiced eyeball staring out at him, locking on Xander's scars.

He bears the mark of the Beast. King warned me about him. He is here for the Dragon, but it is too late.

The mark of the Beast. Well, that was a new one. Xander touched the puckered skin on his cheek. He almost admired the originality. Almost.

“Go away. You're trespassing.” The female voice was deep and thick, mucus snapping around each word.
King must confirm the Dragon's death before the body can be burned and the evil ashes soaked in holy water.
“I'll call the police.”

“You won't call the police, or you would've called them already. Let me in. I won't ask again.”

“Go away.”
King would not permit such a risk to anyone, even one marked by the Beast.
The door slammed. A lock snapped into place. A chain rattled.

Was she fearless or stupid or crazy? He leaned toward crazy, considering her thoughts of dragons and kings. He shouldn't judge. He was short on sanity too.

Abandoning all of his self-control and the last of his logic, he rammed into the door, snapping the lock, busting the chain, and impacting with the heft of her body on the other side. He leaped across the threshold. The stench slammed into him—a physical entity that pushed him back a step.