Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (8 page)

BOOK: Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection
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The
dead man stood. His bones cracked. He turned toward the marsh and took stilted
steps to the water’s edge. When the black liquid crept up to his knees, he turned
to face Samuel once more.

“Rest. Sleep. Dream.
I hope you can find the peace I cannot.”

The dead man
pushed forward until the water of the marsh converged over the top of his head.
Samuel watched a single bubble arise and pop soundlessly in the darkness. He lay
on his side and allowed the spell of sleep to arrive.

***

Samuel awoke
tired and achy. He gathered his things and took one last look at the marsh
before continuing on the path, heading east toward the Barren and his meeting
with Major. The dark cloud pushed ever closer as it devoured the locality.

Samuel could
not remember the point at which he had left the path. He recalled the coming of
the snow, and the cold, and the continued silence, but he felt as though one
moment he had stood on the worn ground and the next he was knee-deep in gray
snow.

The cold, heavy
flakes floated from the sky. They landed one on top of another and covered the
ground within an hour. Samuel thought the snow could have been white, but
without daylight and the reflection off the snowpack, the precipitation fell in
waves of gray. Samuel could not see the dark cloud that came from the west, but
he felt it. He knew it was there, above the winter storm in the place where
winter did not exist.

He trudged
onward, sensing east as best he could. The snow came in silent waves, covering
the locality and burying the marsh, the path, and obscuring the mountain from
view. Samuel realized his shirt and pants would not be enough for him to
survive if this was indeed the onslaught of winter. The locality carried no
warning, no shot across the bow with falling leaves of autumn.

Samuel felt the
snow suffocating his breath with the cold wind on his back. The ice kept his
fingers numb, the fatigue pulling his eyelids down. The snowy blanket covered his
body, the frozen earth stealing what little heat remained. He raised his head
and noticed conforming lines standing out against the random, spiky branches of
the leafless trees. He rubbed the snow from his eyes and looked again, pushing
himself up until he was on his hands and knees. He stumbled forward until the
outline turned into a cabin, much like the first one he had found.

The cabin stood
in the snowstorm, its chimney a defiant, obscene gesture to the raging
elements. One door and one window faced Samuel, like they had at the other
cabin. However, this one seemed a bit larger. He held his hands out, hoping to
reach the door before the storm claimed his soul. Samuel staggered forward and
fell on the step. He reached up with one hand until he felt the brass knob, and
the touch jolted him like a bolt of electricity, reminding him that failure to
open this door meant a cold, slow death. His right hand seized. Samuel could
not make his fingers grasp the knob with enough strength to turn it. He would
not even consider what would happen if the door was locked. Samuel let his
right hand fall, and lunged at the knob with his left. Snow caked his head, and
his feet tingled with the itchy pain of frostbite. Samuel felt his fingers claw
the knob. He grasped it and turned his wrist. Without the clinking sound of the
opening strike plate, Samuel assumed he was dead: that the door was locked. However,
Samuel’s left arm fell at an angle as the door to the cabin swung open. He
raised his head and smiled. Samuel crawled across the threshold with a final
lunge and rolled onto his back. He used an elbow to slam the door shut, and it
shook the cabin without a sound. Samuel looked around and closed his eyes. His
breathing slowed as relief and exhaustion pulled him into a state of
unconsciousness.

***

It was the
crackling fire that woke him. Samuel heard the hiss and pop of firewood before
he smelled the rustic aroma of the hearth. He smiled with his eyes closed,
savoring the sound and smell, senses he sometimes neglected in life and never would
again, thanks to this locality. Samuel caught whiffs of scents, but again,
nothing that lingered for more than a few moments before he lost it.

He debated
whether or not he had perished. Maybe it was true. Maybe there was fire. Maybe
he was in Hell.

Curiosity won
the mental duel, and Samuel opened his eyes in the glare of the bright yellow
and orange flame. He placed a hand over his forehead to shield himself from the
unexpected light, blinked, and saw chasers, like an ascetic emerging from a
cave after years of meditation. The warmth relaxed his muscles. As his vision
returned, he noticed a fuzzy aura at the edges of it. He pushed up onto his
elbows and looked around the cabin.

The hearth sat
inside a black potbelly stove. A single iron pipe ran at an angle from the top
and into the brick chimney, which extended up the wall and beyond the ceiling. A
saucepan sizzled, with tendrils of enticing steam spiraling away from the
stovetop. He turned to see a wooden table with two chairs, one at each end. A
napkin holder, candles, and steins sat on top. His rucksack sat next to the
door, along with a pair of suede boots that he did not recognize. Above the
boots, and suspended by a single iron hook, was a long, black, leather trench
coat. Samuel smiled, thinking of the futuristic sci-fi heroes laden with
enormous weapons. A single leather reading chair sat in one corner, swirled
sides with brass rivets holding the soft leather tight over the cushions. Samuel
thought he could become lost in that chair with the help of a good book and a
glass of wine. His eyes moved through the cabin so quickly that he did not
notice that a thick, plush sleeping bag held his body like a cocoon. He felt
his feet. They did not tingle with the burning pain of extreme cold, but
rather, his toes wiggled in warm comfort. He glanced at the window next to the
door and saw nothing but a charcoal square, as if someone had painted the
window to block the outside. Samuel drifted into a deep sleep while the
potbelly stove kept him warm.

***

He felt the
panicky flutter in his chest of awakening in a strange place until he saw the
potbelly stove. Contentment chased away his anxiety until his hunger made itself
known. He had eaten very little since being in this locality. Samuel sensed a
cellular duty to push sustenance down his throat. He welcomed the hunger pangs
and the feeling of being human again, though his brain cautioned him about his
temporary euphoria. It reminded him that he was in a single-room cabin in the
midst of a strange world that was slowly unraveling.

Noted,
he
thought.

Samuel climbed
from the warmth of the sleeping bag, standing naked in front of the fire. He
let the heat warm his skin until it hurt, and then a little bit more. His
clothes lay draped over the back of one of the chairs, and he decided a meal
would take precedence over modesty.

As if the cabin
had suspended time while he slept, the pan on the stove continued to sizzle.

“That can only
be bacon,” Samuel said as he rubbed his hands together and licked his upper
lip.

He saw the
familiar, reddish strips bubbling, crispy at the ends, and he inhaled the aroma
until he could almost taste it. Samuel grabbed his shirt and slid it over his
head. With his right arm retracted, he used the sleeve to lift the pan off the
stove and onto the brick pedestal supporting it. Without waiting for the grease
to stop dancing, he grabbed a slice of the bacon and held it in the air in
front of his face, blowing on it until he could take a bite. He felt the warm,
salty sensation flood his mouth, and he closed his eyes, leaning back against
the wall and chewing like a junkie with the needle still protruding from a
vein. At first Samuel’s stomach lurched. He felt a rumble and heard a gurgle. He
paused, and then he devoured the other three strips lying in the grease.

Samuel looked
up and noticed a steel decanter hanging from an iron hook just above the stove.
It spouted a line of steam into the room, and he cocked his head sideways,
trying to remember if it had been there a moment ago. When the heady aroma of coffee
beans filled the room, he no longer cared. He stood and grabbed a stein from
the small table, pouring the dark coffee from the decanter and watching as the
liquid formed a black center within the silver mug. He brought it to his lips
and let the bitter tang flood his mouth. When he was convinced it would not
scald his tongue and ruin the taste, Samuel drew the coffee into his mouth and
let it warm his chest like a shot of whiskey.

The window
remained unchanged. Samuel cupped both hands around the stein to help insulate
the beverage and keep it hot as he walked over, expecting to see a brilliant
sunrise creeping over the trees like the ones in the movies. But the window
remained an opaque, dark hole in the wall. Samuel could almost feel the ominous
cloud flowing to the east, toward him, devouring the rest of this broken world
in its path.

He frowned and
set the stein on the table before looking at it and picking it up again,
draining the last remnants of the coffee before setting it back down. He noticed
that the fire did not seem as bright or as warm as it had when he fell asleep
the night before. Had it been the night before? How long had he slept? Before
Samuel could consider the answers to those questions, he saw it on the floor,
and it almost stopped his heart.

 

 

Chapter 8

 

It was
impossible. Even in a place where the clouds ate reality and the dead spoke,
this was impossible. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. It
remained.

Samuel crouched
down to take a closer look, resisting the urge to pick it up, as if it might
shock him or something worse. He closed his eyes, counted to five, and opened
them. It remained.

He remembered
the mother-of-pearl inlay on the narrow handle. He could smell the oil his dad had
used to protect the blade and keep rust from forming where fingers touched it,
and he saw the thin, black indentations used for drawing the blades out with
the edge of a fingernail. He grasped the pocketknife in his palm and squeezed
until he was sure it was real. That was when it flooded his head with memories
of that day.

 

“For three
hits?”

“That’s
right.”

“I can do
that. We play Penn Hills next week.”

“No. Not in
the season: in one game.”

Samuel
looked at his dad and shook his head back and forth.

“Not even
Tommy Malone gets three hits in one game.”

“Then you’ll
have to be better than Tommy if you want the pocketknife, son.”

Samuel
shrugged. He pushed the ball cap back on his head and whistled. He checked the Little
League schedule on the fridge, and ran his finger down the Under-10 league
games until it stopped on April 14, 1979.

“Alpine
Village. On my birthday. That’s the one.”

His dad
raised his eyebrows and nodded.

“Danny Cranston
plays for Alpine Village. Word has it that the kid has a mean curveball.”

“C’mon, Dad,”
Samuel said with a smirk. “He’s a lefty! I’ll see that pitch coming from a mile
away. I’m behind on the fastballs, but if he throws that curve I can pull it to
left field. That corner is shallow at Hawkeye Park.”

Samuel’s dad
squinted at the schedule.

“Didn’t
notice that. Looks like you play those guys at home.”

Samuel
nodded and crossed his arms.

“I think you
should tell Mom now. I’m getting that knife.”

Samuel kept his
eyes closed and his hands wrapped around the pocketknife. He felt the memory lurch
ahead.

 

“Let’s go,
batter,” said the umpire, standing behind the catcher.

Samuel
winked at Tony as he crouched low and raised the catcher’s mitt into the strike
zone.

“You ain’t
hittin’ Danny’s curve,” Tony said.

“Watch me,” Samuel
replied.

The umpire
dropped into position. Samuel placed his left foot back inside the batter’s box
and dug the toes on his right cleat into the dirt. He drew the bat back behind
his ear, just like his dad had drilled into his head during all of those trips
to the batter’s cages. Samuel noted the runners on second and third, and heard
the moms cheering. He did his best to block it out and stared hard at Danny
Cranston, perched on the mound.

The first
pitch came faster than Samuel expected. It blew past his nose and dropped into
Tony’s mitt with a snap, followed by the umpire’s declaration of a strike.

Samuel
stepped out of the box and closed his eyes. He thought about his other at-bats.
This was his fourth time at the plate and probably his last chance at that
third hit of the game. Two singles. Fine. Those were still hits, even if they
didn’t count as RBIs. A third single was still a hit, too.

BOOK: Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection
4.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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