Infernal Father of Mine (12 page)

We descended into a room with punching bags
hanging from metal railings, each one spaced about every square
foot from its neighbor. A boxing ring sat near the back
corner.

I heard a crash and an animalistic screech from
upstairs accompanied by heavy feet clanging down the stairs. David
and I ran through the forest of punching bags desperately looking
for an exit.

"What if it dead ends?" I asked.

"I'm sure there's another way out," he said,
shoving past another row of punching bags.

I heard ripping and thudding, and turned to see
the raptor shredding the vinyl casings with its claws, hissing and
smashing them so hard the exercise equipment flew off its chains
and smacked into the walls. Timothy rode low, eyes shining with
fury.

"There!" I said, pointing across an open area
with artificial turf. Beyond it was another glass door. We raced
across the padded surface. The thudding of bags and the hissing of
the raptor grew closer.

"Nobody escapes Timothy Burkmeyer!" the vampire
cried. "There will be blood!"

"Stop being melodramatic!" I shouted as I
slammed my hands against the door handle. It swung open, depositing
me in a courtyard surrounded on all sides by several stories of
apartments. I spotted another metal door at the far end of the
sidewalk and sprinted toward it. Glass shattered. Metal shrieked. I
looked behind to see the raptor skidding on the concrete as it made
a sharp turn to follow us.

David reached the door and opened it. A parking
garage lay beyond.

"Oh, crap," I said. The raptor would be on us
in two seconds in that place.

"Here," David said, jerking open another metal
door to our right, revealing stairs.

We ran through. I slammed the door shut and
raced up the stairs to the first landing, huffing and puffing.
Sweat poured down my forehead, stinging my eyes. Something slammed
into the door, leaving a three-toed dent. Just as many talons
speared through the metal and sliced it to ribbons.

"Don't just stand there," David shouted.
"Run!"

We climbed halfway up the four-story stairwell
when the sound of metal slamming into concrete announced the
raptor's entrance. I tested the door at each landing, but all were
locked.

"Why didn't he just get off the stupid dinosaur
and open the door himself?" I said, sucking in each
breath.

We reached the top floor. There were two doors.
David opened one. It led outside to the top of the parking deck.
The doormat on the opposite one had folded inside the door jamb,
preventing it from latching closed. I jerked it open and saw a
hallway lined with doors.

"Which way?" I asked.

"We're dead if we go outside," he said, and ran
down the hallway.

I pushed the doormat away and latched the door
behind me.

David was already checking every door, but none
opened. He stopped at a window halfway down the corridor, unlatched
it, and poked his head out. I looked at a four-story drop and
gulped.

"Safe to say the other doors are locked," he
said, looking out the window. "But there's a balcony on either
side. We might reach one."

I examined the balconies. "The one on the left
is a little closer, but I can't grab the railing from
here."

He nodded. "I can hold onto the waist of your
pants. You can lean out and grab it."

My throat constricted. Even with supernatural
abilities, the drop to the hard concrete in the small courtyard
below would probably break my legs. In the real world, I'd heal.
Here, I'd splat like a bug. I looked at him. "That would require me
trusting you."

He pshawed. "Really now, do you think I'd let
you die?"

"Maybe once I've served my purpose." I narrowed
my eyes. "After all, I will serve, and I will die."

He flinched, eyes full of surprise. "Who told
you that?"

"Nobody told me, David. I heard you saying it
to Mom when I was an infant."

"How could you remember something from that
age?"

I shrugged. "Does it matter? You said it, I
heard it."

He released a grim sigh. "We have no choice. If
you don't trust me, I'll go first."

Already the sounds of the raptor slamming claws
against doors echoed down the hallway. I wasn't sure if it was the
one leading into this hallway, or the one outside.

I shook my head. "I'll do it. After all, if I
die, you'll be trapped in the hallway and Gloria Richardson will
tear you apart."

"That's a rather cynical way to look at
it."

"Here goes nothing." Taking a deep breath, I
perched on the windowsill, holding the top half of the window for
balance.

He gripped the waist of my jeans with one hand
and the window frame with the other. "Good luck."

My butt cheeks clenched. "Don't drop
me."

"Wouldn't dream of it." He smiled. "After all,
you haven't served your purpose, Cataclyst."

Without further ado, I ducked under the top
half of the window and stood on trembling legs. The balcony was
just out of reach by a foot. A ledge with a gutter inches above my
head prevented me from jumping. I had to trust my father. I leaned
forward. For a brief instant, it felt as though I was falling.
Panic sent my arms flailing. At the last instant, my jeans
tightened at my waist, and I stopped, suspended above the deadly
drop. David eased me forward a little more, and I grasped the
railing in a white-knuckled grip.

"I'm letting go," he said.

"Okay," I wheezed through a tight throat. My
legs swung off the windowsill. Wasting no time, I pulled myself up
and over the railing.

David crawled out the window, holding on as I
had. "Grab my arm."

The railing came up to my chest so I couldn't
lean over too far. Our fingers were inches apart. "Can you reach
any further?" I asked.

"I'll have to let go." His face looked pale.
"You'll only have one chance to grab me."

I steeled myself. Nodded. "I won't let you
down."

"Pun intended?" he said, offering a weak
smile.

I showed him my teeth. "You haven't served your
purpose yet either."

"Fair enough." He stood, leaned forward, and
fell.

My hand gripped his forearm. All his weight
jerked hard, and I thought my arm was about to come out of the
socket. He slipped until only his wrist remained in my grasp. I
groaned, clenching tight as I could. His other arm swung up,
gripped my forearm. I released my hold on the railing, grabbed him,
and pulled with all my might. His face turned red with exertion. My
shoulder ached with the strain and it was an effort not to cry out.
Doing so would alert the vampire. Using my feet as leverage, I
leaned back, teeth clenched tight. His hand found the railing, and
suddenly the weight eased from my body.

David pulled himself over and lay on the
concrete, breathing heavily. "That was scary."

I was panting too hard to reply and simply
nodded.

We were safe, but for how long?

The sliding glass door on the balcony was
unlocked so we let ourselves in. A television mounted on the wall
hissed with white noise. Occasional images flickered onto the
screen too quickly for me to discern what they were. I turned off
the television. "This place creeps me out."

"I wonder if it picks up signals from Eden, or
if those images are something else entirely."

"Eden?"

His lips parted. "That is our name for the
human realm."

"Sure as hell doesn't live up to the
reputation," I said, looking around the room. The apartment was
obviously a bachelor pad. The couch looked like a relic from the
eighties. Worn, shabby furniture crowded the small space. Gun
magazines littered the coffee table. In fact, the only nice things
in the room were the huge plasma television and the game consoles
hooked up to it.

"This place could use a housemaid," David said,
thumbing through one of the gun magazines.

I stepped inside the bedroom and found a metal
locker against the far wall. I tested the handle. "Locked," I said
with a groan. "Considering all the gun magazines lying around, I'll
bet there are weapons inside this thing."

"Keys," David said, pointing to a hook on the
wall near the door. The key ring was attached to a retractable
chain like the kind someone wore at their waist. He tossed it to
me.

I sorted through the keys, testing each one
until I found the one that fit. I opened the gun cabinet and found
an assortment of pistols and ammunition. "Jackpot!"

"You know how to shoot?" David
asked.

"Just like a video game." I shrugged. "Point
and click."

He chuckled. "Maybe you should go with the
small revolver."

I picked up the six-shooter and examined the
cylinder. "Any idea which ammunition it takes?"

David picked up a box of twenty-two caliber
bullets. "It won't stop a velociraptor, but it might stop a
vampire." He gripped a hefty silver pistol and slapped a clip into
it. "Ah, now this is more like it."

I felt my eyebrows rise. "Do
you
know
how to shoot?"

He pulled back the top part of the gun—whatever
it's called—and flicked a lever on the side. "I've learned a few
useful things in my years in Eden."

"You keep mentioning the mortal realm—Eden—like
you weren't born and raised there."

"I've been a few places," he said, grabbing a
spare bullet clip from a box.

I regarded my measly pea-shooter and nodded
toward a long black rifle. "How about I take that too?"

He took it out of the cabinet, examined a slot
on the side of the barrel. "You think you can handle a
shotgun?"

"I've used them lots in video
games."

"Just remember, you're not super-strong here."
He grabbed a box of red shells and showed me how to load the
gun.

"Looks easy enough," I said, and took the
weapon. I loaded my revolver and grabbed a satchel from inside the
gun cabinet so I could load it with ammo. Within a few minutes we
looked ready to take on a small army. "I can't wait to blow Gloria
Richardson's head off."

"I think we should avoid Timothy and pal
altogether," my father said, peering out the bedroom
window.

"How does he even have a dinosaur?" I scratched
my head. "Unless they still exist in the Gloom, it just doesn't
make any sense."

"If people in the real world can project dreams
in this reality, it's possible Timothy dreamed up his
raptor."

I considered the theory. "Sounds
legit."

"It's the only thing I can think of," David
said.

"Maybe we can make our own dinosaurs." I slung
the shotgun strap over my shoulder. "It'd be better than
walking."

"The Gloom has rules just like any other
dimension." David belted a holster to his waist. "Timothy obviously
knows them better than we do."

"He could make himself a tank and blow down the
building," I said.

"But he hasn't." My father headed into the den.
"Either he doesn't want to, or creating things takes more effort
than simply thinking of them."

I decided to test our theory and thought of a
sword appearing in my hand. Nothing happened, so I closed my eyes,
and imagined it harder. When I opened them, my hand was still
empty. "Yeah, I guess there's something more to it than just
wishing something into existence."

We exited the apartment and were making our way
down the stairs when an unpleasant thought occurred to me. "What if
these dream guns don't work?"

David stopped, raised an eyebrow. "Everything
else seems to work, so why wouldn't the guns?"

I shrugged. "Just paranoid thinking, I
guess."

He smiled and patted my back. "Let's hope we
don't have to use them."

I tugged on the shoulder strap holding the
shotgun to my back, wondering if I'd be able to handle the
firepower should the need arise. I imagined the kickback knocking
me down, giving Gloria Richardson a free shot at liberating my
guts. "I agree."

We made our way down to the first floor and
went into the hallway. The place was eerily silent. I imagined
people slumbering in their beds, invisible to us. What if another
dream sequence started while we were in this building and the Gloom
swallowed it up to create whatever landscape the dreamer created?
The thought was unnerving to say the least. Would we be consumed
along with the building or transported to another place? The urge
to leave the possible deathtrap caused my stomach to
clench.

David tested each door on the side of the
hallway facing the street. They were all locked, and they looked
too sturdy to kick down. "Looks like we'll have to exit
blind."

I nodded, tension gripping my
shoulders.