Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (11 page)

Samuel stopped
walking and turned to face Major. He shook his head and coughed. “Is that all
you remember?”

Major shook his
head. “I remember waking up at the foot of a tree. I remember looking around
and seeing other ropes hanging from branches and dangling next to streamers of
yellow caution tape.”

“You woke up here,
in this locality?” asked Samuel.

“Not far from
your swingin’ tree, my friend. But it wasn’t my first rodeo. I quit counting
how many times I’ve dropped from that cursed tree.”

Chapter 9

Samuel peered down
the path at the Barren. The three roofs he saw from a distance crystallized
into full cabins. Although not identical to the two he had already discovered,
they had the same look.

Major led them
through towering trees and into the valley. He had gone very quiet since
finishing his story, and Samuel wondered if there was a price to pay for
hearing it. Major looked over his shoulder as he walked, measuring the pace of
the cloud as it approached from the west.

Samuel could
see two people at the Barren, but they were still too far away for him to make
out features. The shapes appeared to be gathering things off the ground.

“A week, maybe
two.”

The comment
caught Samuel by surprise. He stopped walking and shifted his weight to one
hip, waiting for Major to elaborate. When he did not, Samuel spoke.

“Until the
cloud arrives? Until this, uh, Reversion gets here?”

Major did not
reply. He kept maneuvering down the path, stepping over jagged rocks and debris,
and trying not to twist an ankle in the process.

Samuel shrugged
and followed Major. As they approached the Barren, the shapes began to take
form, revealing a man and a woman. He noticed the eyes first. It wasn’t their
gazes so much as the hurt behind them. Samuel shivered and felt an ache in his
heart. The woman appeared to be in her twenties, thin yet magnetic. He imagined
her to have once been an actress or possibly a singer. She had scraggly, black
hair that had not been washed in days. She had remnants of makeup brushed
across her face in random places, and eye shadow that ran down her cheeks like
cracks in a porcelain cup. She held her lips together, creating the single line
of her mouth. The woman’s pointy nose sat in perfect symmetry with the rest of
her face. Samuel flushed after realizing he had been staring at her longer than
was socially acceptable. He looked at the ground and then back up at the woman—this
time, his eyes locked on her neck. Underneath her jaw and across her collarbone
was a diagonal, black bruise. The discolored skin made a line toward her heart,
and the bruise looked recent, but not fresh.

The man stepped
in front of the woman and broke Samuel’s gaze. He sneered at Samuel and shook
his head. “Who’s this?” he asked, directing his question at Major.

Major walked up
and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. He smiled. “It’s speeding up, Kole.”

The man shook
his head and nodded his chin toward Samuel, who stood behind and to the right
of Major.

“Find him in Aokigahara?”

“Yeah,” replied
Major. “He landed in the Sea of Trees, like the rest of us.”

“We don’t need
his help,” said Kole.

The woman
stared at the top of the path, through Samuel, as if he did not exist.

“Posturing,”
replied Major.

Samuel watched
as Kole put two hands on his hips. His dark, rich hair crept far enough down on
his forehead that it could have been fake. He wore a tattered, white T-shirt
that accentuated the taut muscles underneath. A black belt fastened black jeans
on a slender waist, and he wore black, leather boots. A sleeve of tattoos circled
his right arm, and a needle track ran up his left. The top three punctures sat
atop a blue, swollen vein that oozed pus. Two red lines bisected both of his
earlobes where earrings had once hung.

“We’re wasting
time. Did you find anyone who can slip?” the woman asked Major, clearly
indicating that Samuel could not be the man for the job.

“I was hoping someone
else here would, at the Barren.”

“Well, nobody’s
here but us,” said Kole. He kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot.

The woman
stepped past Kole and Major until she stood face-to-face with Samuel. He caught
a whiff of vanishing fragrance, masked by natural body oils, and then it
scuttled off, leaving the vacant emptiness of the locality with its silent
stillness. He felt her eyes latch onto him again, and he could not turn away. Samuel’s
mouth went dry, and he felt a tingling in his feet.

“What’s yer
name?” she asked.

“Samuel.”

The woman nodded.
“I’m Mara. That charmer over there is Kole.”

Samuel dropped
his head to Mara and then turned to look at Kole.

“He’s a dick. You’ll
get used to it.”

Kole glared at
Mara. “Fuck you,” he said to her. “And fuck you,” he added, pointing to Samuel.

Major laughed,
tossing his head back and grabbing his abdomen with both hands.

“Kids, kids,
stop. You’ll have time for your schoolyard scraps tonight. For now, we need to
get our supplies in order. Kole, make sure we have enough wood. You know how
hard it is to maintain a fire here. Mara, get the gruel going. I think it’s
been days since Sammyboy here ate, and he’s going to start feeling it soon.”

Kole waved a
hand at Mara and Samuel. He shuffled past the cabin and toward the edge of the
tree line.

“Whatever you
say, old-timer. Apparently someone put you in charge when we weren’t paying
attention.”

Major smiled
and put his arm around Samuel. Mara turned and headed into one of the cabins,
shutting the door behind her.

“You and I need
to examine some things, see if we can punch a hole in this locality. Based on
the speed of the death cloud over there, we’re running out of time.”

Samuel shook
his head, trying to use the physical motion to make sense of the situation. After
several more attempts, he realized it was not working.

“We have to get
out of here,” he said.

Major turned
and looked at the cloud, then toward the cabin with Mara, then beyond the path
to where Kole was picking up firewood.

“Without a
doubt,” he replied.

***

Major poured
the steaming liquid into a filthy, clay mug, where it bubbled with a light
froth.

“Drink,” he
said to Samuel.

Samuel sniffed
the mug and wrinkled his nose. “A hint of licorice?” he asked. “I hate
licorice.”

“It’s one of
the few things in this locality that you’ll still taste. That’s gotta be better
than a colorless, bland drink?”

Samuel shrugged
and sipped. The tea burnt his lip and caused him to inhale.

“I want you to
try something,” said Major.

Samuel set the
mug down on the table. He looked through the greasy window of the cabin and saw
Kole and Mara facing each other, arms gesturing back and forth.

“What are they
doing?”

Major grabbed
Samuel’s right wrist with his left hand. “I need you try something.”

Samuel nodded.

“There’s a man that
might be trapped in the ether. It’s a nowhere place, a void. He might have the
ability to punch a hole in this locality.”

“Slip.”

“That’s right,”
said Major. He let a smile creep into the corners of his mouth.

“We can slip
into another locality. That’s not to say we escape the existence and drop into
our home locality. That might be lost forever. You know that, right? Mathematically
speaking, odds are you’ll never see that place again.”

“Now you’re a
statistician?” asked Samuel.

Major released
his wrist and rocked back on his chair. “When you’ve sat at as many table games
as I have, you get to know the odds.” Major continued, not allowing Samuel the
time to respond. “This guy may be able to punch the hole if he’s not damaged.”

“Damaged
like us?”

Major laughed.

“Yeah, like
that. Let’s hope he doesn’t swan dive from the top of a skyscraper or shove the
end of a shotgun in his mouth. That’s what I call damage.”

Samuel looked
at Major, not sharing in his lighthearted giggles.

“Is this hell? Are
we dead?”

“Depends on how
you define ‘hell’ and what you mean by ‘dead’,” replied Major.

Samuel fought
to remain focused on the conversation. He felt like his head was buzzing with
thoughts he could not quite catch.

“What do you
want me to try?” he asked.

Major raised
one hand and let it fall to the table. “I almost forgot.”

He turned as
Kole entered the cabin, followed by Mara. They stood shoulder to shoulder and
leaned against the cabin wall. Major looked at them, and then back to Samuel.

“I’m going to
put an object on the table. I want you to hold it in your hand. Don’t talk,
don’t ask me questions. Just pick it up. Can you do that?”

“He’s a fucking
newb,” said Kole.

Mara was shooting
him red-hot daggers. She pushed a lock of hair behind one ear. “Give him a
chance, Kole,” she said.

Major looked at
Kole and Mara, waiting in silence for them to finish their verbal sparring. “Are
you ready?” he asked Samuel.

Samuel shrugged
his shoulders and laid his right hand on the table, palm up and open. Major’s
hand disappeared underneath his robe and returned with a clenched fist. He
opened his hand and dropped a metallic, shiny object into Samuel’s hand.

The cabin
disintegrated, and the accelerated rush of lights filled Samuel’s vision. He
looked up and to the right and was met by the reflection of his own eyes, but
they were not his. He noticed large red eyebrows on pasty skin and touched a
finger to a widow’s peak that retreated back toward thinning, red hair tainted
with fine, gossamer strands of silver. His hands gripped the steering wheel of
an Italian sports car as it blew past the other metal coffins in the right lane
of the expressway.

Samuel
looked to his left and was met with a darkened reflection of his foreign
container. The body appeared to be mid-forties, paunchy, and pampered. The silk
tie sat askew on his collar, while a diamond stud penetrated his left ear. The
whine of the engine caught Samuel’s attention as the speedometer pushed past ninety-five
on the gauge.

“Death wish,”
said Samuel.

Major looked at
Samuel, his eyes closed and his palm wrapped around the ignition key with the
blood draining from his fingers.

“Do you know
where you are?” Major asked.

“In a car, on a
highway.”

Before Major
could reply, a force snapped Samuel back into the shell occupying the driver’s
seat.

He saw the
glow of brake lights ahead, like the eyes of angry monsters. Samuel caught a
glimpse of the off-ramp approaching in the interval between windshield-wiper
swipes. He guided the car onto the shoulder amidst the sound of horns trailing
off behind him. Samuel turned the wheel to the left and pulled his foot off the
accelerator, bringing the car into a controlled fishtail on the rain-slicked
pavement. He snapped the wheel into the turn and straightened the vehicle out
as it approached a congested intersection trapped within four walls of suburban,
strip-mall hell.

“Running it
into a wall or bridge?” asked Kole.

Major shook his
head. “No. He’s headed somewhere. The driving is reckless, but that’s the
emotional state. He has other plans.”

Samuel felt
the car lurch as he downshifted from second to first gear. His breathing felt
shallow, as if he were drowning in air. He followed the flow of traffic while
checking his rearview for flashing lights. It would be miles before they caught
up, and even then they wouldn’t know which exit he had taken. Samuel made
several turns, until he passed the sparkling new sign for “Golden Meadow”
development. The guard station sat trapped in the middle of the gate, the plump
man inside smiling at those escaping from the gated community.

He turned
through several streets designed after the old, inner-ring suburbs of the
twentieth century, complete with tree lawns, sidewalks, and street lamps. Samuel
spun the wheel into the slick, wet asphalt driveway at 1329. His plump finger
reached up to the sunshade and punched the button that opened the double-car
garage. Samuel pulled the car into the silence so the rain could no longer
pummel the roof. With the car’s engine idling in neutral, Samuel hit the button
again, which dropped the garage door behind him.

He sat in
the front seat as the song on the CD player came to an end. Samuel let the song
fade before hitting the power button. As if in cosmic alliance, the overhead
light of the garage-door opener clicked off, leaving Samuel blinded by the
reflected rays coming from the car’s headlights. He slammed that button too
until he sat in complete darkness. Samuel’s ears adjusted as he heard renegade raindrops
crashing into the steel roof of the garage, while the engine continued to idle
in neutral.