The Very Last Days of Mr Grey (15 page)

“If you don’t want to tell us where you are, we’ll just have to take it from you. With the spike.” He looked meaningfully at Mason, as though this should mean something.

But Mason had no idea what it meant. He had to admit it didn’t sound good.

Ehd shook his head. “Have it your way.”

“Come on,” Fredriks said, uncuffing the handcuffs and bringing Mason’s hands together in front of him, recuffing them.

Mason had been pushed in front of them as they had walked toward the cliff, and so now partially obscured their view. It was for this reason only that he had a chance of understanding what was going on, that he caught, from the corner of his eye, someone waving. When he looked, he saw a figure in a dark shadow cast by the setting sun, below the drop-off. He squinted, realizing he’d lost his contacts at some point. A woman resolved into view. She was in a dangerous position; one slip and—

She saw Mason looking at her and shouted, “Move!”

It was Sera. Mason side-stepped, putting the agents in her line of sight.

Fredriks grabbed him.

“Let him go!”

Fredriks tightened his grip on Mason’s arm. “Cut it out.”

Sera fired at them.

Mason felt Fredriks release him and then a fist club into the back of his head. “I said cut it out!”

Another shot. The sound was quiet to Mason, who was looking at the ground for some reason. He blinked, and looked up.

Fredriks looked at his chest, then to his partner. “I’m bleeding.”

The other agent gaped.

Fredriks started pulling at his chest, as though he were bound by straps invisible to Mason’s eye. “Get me out of here. Get me out!” He looked to his partner. “Get me out!” He grabbed Ehd by his suit.

Ehd just stared.

Then Fredriks looked at Mason. He pulled out a gun and put it to Mason’s temple.

“Hey,” Mason said.

But the agent wasn’t looking at him, he was looking up. “Get me—”

And then he was simply gone.

Mason stared at the spot where the agent had been.

The remaining agent grabbed Mason by the arm. “Don’t ge—”

But then he was gone too, the sensation against Mason’s arm evaporating, the lingering sense all that remained.

Mason was still for long moments. He looked at his handcuffed hands, and saw they weren’t.

He was crazy. None of it had been real. The agents, Sera, the man—

“Are you okay?”

Mason turned slowly to look at Sera as she climbed up the embankment. He looked around. The car he’d driven here in was gone. “You aren’t real.”

“Snap out of it. Let’s get out of here before they get back.”

“It’s all in my head.”

“No. I don’t know what they are, but they were real. I shot one… Shit, I shot one.” She looked around, and her look of worry turned to suspicion. “And now there’s no trace they were ever here.”

Mason was being pulled, or dragged, up the road and through some trees, toward what Sera said was his car. He wasn’t sure how she had his car, or why they needed to get there. He wondered if he looked like that guy from Fight Club, bruised and beaten and being pulled by someone who didn’t exist.

“I don’t understand it,” Sera was saying. “It doesn’t make sense. Have they figured out a way? Or are they from somewhere else? Or…” She looked at him, her hand still pulling him by the wrist. “What did you do?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. Don’t blame this on me.” He shook his head.

“There.” She pointed with the hand holding the gun.

“Yes,” he said, “that is my car.”

“I’ll drive.”

Mason was reminded of Fight Club again, crawling out of an upside down car that had run off the road. “You were driving my car.” He looked at her. “Why do you have my car?”

“Jesus,” she said, “get in.”

When he was seated in the passenger seat, he asked, “Where are we going?”

Sera hunched over the steering wheel and started the car.

They sat for a moment.

“Sera?”

She leaned back into the seat. “I don’t know.” She looked at him. “I was hoping you would have found the door by now. Maybe you need more.” She looked down to her lap, shaking her head slightly.

“Of?”

“Crumble.”

“No.” With this word, Mason felt a shift, and the sense of unreality drifted away. He was sitting in his car, with a woman. It was warm with the last heat of the day, the setting sun beating through the closed windows and the AC off. He’d known her for a few days. He couldn’t remember her surname. She was breathing hard. He could smell her sweat. She had a gun. “Why do you have a gun?”

She looked at him for several moments, then at the large gun in her hand. “Protection.” She stowed it in a holster she wore on her left thigh. “You seemed so close.”

“To what?”

She didn’t answer. “If someone else found a way through… And is it even related? Does it mean they— Oh, Jesus.” She looked at him. “You said Martin just disappeared?”

Mason nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then what if they’ve found him?” She stared blankly out the windshield. “That would explain how they found you. Why they are after you. What did they say? About who they are.”

“Nothing. They said they were from the Department of Defense.”

“What else?”

“They kept saying they were taking me home. Kept asking where I was.”

“They think you’re there.”

“There?”

“Where Martin is.”

Mason scoffed. “What, the afterlife?”

She shook her head, but didn’t respond to his question.

“Sera! What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I have to… Where can I drop you?”

“What?”

“I need some time alone.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

She glared at him. Then she said, “I need to speak with Martin.”

“You need to be alone for that?”

“I need to be asleep.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Is there somewhere I can drop you off? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but having you around might make it harder for him to find me.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s just the way it is Mason. I don’t have all the answers.”

Wow, Mason thought. “Fine. Emily’s party is tonight anyway. Take me there.”

“Now isn’t the best time to be partying.”

He threw up his hands. “You are impossible. I don’t care if it isn’t.” He looked at her. “I’d resigned myself to not seeing Emily ever again. I won’t miss this second chance. I can’t.”

Sera glanced at him, then in the rearview. They were alone on the empty road, parked lengthwise across the bottom of a long gravel driveway leading to a huge, gated house. “Emily. I heard that name earlier. Your not-sister?”

Mason shook his head. “Something like that. Come on.” He pointed to the road. “It’s getting dark. It’s going to take almost an hour to get back at this time of day.”

She looked at him again. “Like that? You want to go to a party looking like you do?”

“She’s seen me in worse. What matters is that I get there.” He put on his seatbelt. “Do you want to be alone or not?”

Sera shook her head, but said, “Fine. But you can’t stay.”

“Why?”

“Once I speak to Martin, I need you again. We have to find the door.”

“Haven’t we had to for a while?”

“But now we know the clock is ticking.” She put on her own seatbelt, and put the car in gear. “They’re after you, and our time is running out.”

It was dark by the time they arrived.

“Nice neighborhood.”

Mason nodded. “There.”

Sera stopped the car. “Yeah, it’s the only house around.” She studied it. “Or mansion.”

Mason got out. “How will I know when you’re ready?”

Sera got a distant look. “If he hasn’t found me within an hour”—she shook her head—“then he won’t be finding me.” She looked at the car’s clock. “Say an hour and a half.”

“Where should I meet you?”

“Don’t you need a ride?”

Mason shook his head.

“Meet me at your place then.”

“Fine.”

“How will you get there?”

“I’ll be fine.” He shut the door.

Then he opened it again. “You’re going to wait at my place?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“I have your keys.”

Mason looked to the ignition. Oh yeah. “Okay, well, don’t… do anything.”

“Don’t snoop?”

“Yeah.”

“What would I find?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Mason shut the door.

Mason watched Sera drive away. Then he walked up the drive. Before even reaching the door, he could hear music.

He didn’t know how late he was, but he was here, and he could hear the music, and so it wasn’t too late.

He knocked. And waited.

Then he rang the doorbell. And waited.

A minute passed, and he rang it again.

Finally, he tried the handle, and the door opened.

Before he could get both feet inside, Emily appeared holding a drink.

“Hey!” she shouted over the music. “Sneaking in are you?”

“I was waiting—”

She put her arm around his neck. “Come on, we’re playing pong!”

He was pulled inside and Emily kicked the front door shut.

“Are you drunk?” Mason asked in disbelief.

“Nope,” she slurred.

“Where are your parents?”

Emily shrugged, pulling Mason’s head toward her in the process. “Getting more champagne I think.”

“You’re nineteen!”

She released his neck and elbowed him, way too hard, splashing her drink on his shoes in the process. And he had just washed them. “Twenty bro.” She grinned. “Old man.”

Mason rubbed his ribs. Luckily it wasn’t the side with the stitches.

Emily stared at him. “You’re dirty.” She leaned in. “You look like crap. What happened?”

“Misunderstanding.”

Emily’s smile fell.

Mason shook his head. “I got in a fight. I’m fine.”

Emily’s smile returned, a bit. She took a drink. “You’re just a disaster magnet.” She quickly added, “Go clean up. I’ll make you something. Meet me in the kitchen.” She pointed, twirled around needlessly, and was facing him again. “Okay?”

“Sure Creepy.”

Her smile broadened, and she hugged him. “Am I a little creepy?”

“Lil’ bit. Careful,” he said, cringing at the tension near his stitches.

“I love you.” She let him go. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too Creepy.”

“You’re too sober. Go clean and I’ll have you drunk in the minutes.” She frowned. “Whatever.”

Mason shook his head and headed upstairs.

In the bathroom, he took off his shirt. The stitches had bled a bit, but nothing too crazy. It was his face that was the problem. He didn’t even need to lean in close to the mirror to tell it didn’t look good.

He washed the blood off his face, then began wiping at his body with toilet paper. The delicate tissue disintegrated as he rubbed.

He sighed and looked toward the shower.

A minute later he was cringing at the sting as hot water streamed down his bruised body and over his stitches.

When he was done, he wrapped a towel around his waist and examined himself in the mirror.

He still looked like crap, but at least he didn’t have blood all over himself now.

He found some mouthwash and rinsed his mouth. He almost choked when the sting hit him, and had to spit it into the sink before he asphyxiated.

He tried again, and tears formed in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks as he swished the liquid around. He discovered a loose tooth.

“Hello.”

Mason looked up, into the mirror, and choked. Then he coughed up the remaining mouthwash all over the mirror, causing the figure he saw there, standing behind him, to be distorted.

He turned around, coughing, about to say how much the person scared him, when he saw the thing, and saw that it was
not
a person.

In the shower he’d recently vacated stood a creature of nightmares.

It was covered in purplish fur, and looked like a flat-faced yeti. Its face was white and too large, the features dissymmetrical. One eye blinked slowly as the mouth—if that’s what it was—opened to take in Mason, to swallow him, not whole, but in many small, painful bites.

Mason screamed. “Gwahh!”

“Heeelllll,” it moaned leaning away from him.

Like a tiger, he thought, ready to pounce. “Get away! Back!”

“Ighh” it said deep in its throat, sounding like a phlegmy demon. It shook its head.

Mason couldn’t believe it, but the gesture really was unmistakable. It was disagreeing with him. The nerve. “Stay away!”

“Hell— Hell— Hell—”

Jesus Jesus Jesus. Mason wanted to run, but this signal wasn’t seeming to make it to his legs.

“Hell— Hell— Oh,” it said. “Ma— Mauve.”

Mason had fallen. He hadn’t noticed. He stared up at the hellspawn standing in the shower. He tried to speak. Instead, he croaked.

The thing tilted its head, like a dog.
Or a curious cat
, echoed in Mason’s mind. “I, Mauve.”

“Oh.” Mason stood. “You…” He trailed off. Well, he might as well just say it. “Are you going to eat me?”

An irregular noise emanated from the creature.

“Are you laughing?” Mason asked indignantly.

“I don’t eat,” was its—Mauve’s—cryptic response.

Mason realized he was talking with a purple demon-beast with weird eyes. “You can talk,” he stated redundantly.

“I observed. Learn your speech. Odd speech, no sense it makes. But I learn. Learned. I learned. Have done. Is that right way?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess. Wow. I’m insane. You’ve… been watching me?”

“Yes good.”

“What?”

“What.”

“Wait, that’s what I asked you.”

“Means this?”

“What?”

The thing nodded.

“I’m so confused.”

“Means this what?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Sorry.” The thing put its head down. Despite how frightening it was, this made it seem sad, and, God help him, cute. A seven foot tall cute furry creature. Yeah, just like a grizzly bear. Very cute. Until it rips your guts out.

Mason, possibly triggered by the bear thought and a documentary he thought he’d seen about the hibernation habits of bears and why they ate a ton of grass before conking out for the season, got an image of his guts in its guts and the inevitable pile of shit they’d turn in to.