He had escaped his prison. Air to breathe was his, and if the Adrian man had been telling the truth, then Toby could find his wife Emily, and his son, Maximus. Toby loved that name, Maximus. That his boy had grown into the title in every way imaginable made him want a second child, if only to name them Pinnacle, or Ultimatus. He chuckled, and walked to the stairs and the blocked door that had kept him imprisoned as a fire raged above.
But no longer. The door wasn’t locked in his version of reality, and when he turned the knob and exited into the kitchen, the room was as it was the morning the undead rose. The faint smell of toast—brioche, unmistakable—hung in the air, as did the warm embrace of freshly brewed tea. Milk and sugar.
Toby walked outside, and just as the heavy wooden door latched shut, he heard the echo of the man with the crazy hair speak inside his memory;
“Go where they died the first time. They’re likely to be there. If they aren’t, go back home. Think about them. Envision them.”
Emily died here. In the basement he just left. In a sudden panic, Toby spun and burst back into the kitchen, then through the door into the basement. He barreled down the stairs, his boots pounding on the wood like hammers on drums. He arrived in the center of the outer basement room, and called out to her.
But the lungs that didn’t exist, filled with air that wasn’t real, made no noise. He tried to make noise again, but nothing. He tried her name, he tried his son’s, but no words could be formed, no cries could be heard.
He tried begging, pleading, praying to the Lord high above on consecrated ground for his voice, for his family, but even those prayers went unsaid. And a prayer unsaid, couldn’t be answered, at least not here, and not now.
On knees, the sobbing wracked his body. Tears ran down his cheeks again as his lips and chin quivered with grief. He punched the floor, hard and cold, unyielding, and punishing to his flesh, and then bones. He felt pain scream up from his ruined hands and he kept at that until the nerves overloaded his ability to function, and he fell to his side, unable to do anything other than grieve. And laugh. His laughter was the noise his reality allowed him to make, so he did that; he laughed like the madman he was.
Both his cackles and the pain stopped when he heard an echo;
“Go where they died the first time. They’re likely to be there. If they aren’t, go back home. Think about them. Envision them.”
Breathe hitching in his chest he sat up, and looked at his hands. He expected to see split flesh over the tops of broken knuckles, but his hands were normal; unhurt by his savage self-mutilation. The experience had been had, and now he was reset to do something else. He had to leave, he had to go home.
Defeated for only a moment, Toby arose, exited the basement, passed through the kitchen, and out into a perfect summer morning. He could hear the surf rolling up on the shores to the south, but he knew that he couldn’t; the church was too far inland for that. Even at his own house, which was much closer to the southern coast than the church and he couldn’t hear the salt water crashing against the sand and rocks there. He started to run, feeling the warm sun on his face,
This new place, this Other Side… made no sense. It was a paused world, unfinished and raw, filled with spaces that couldn’t be measured, sounds that carried weight that couldn’t be lifted, and scents that triggered emotions that were the most real of all.
He would be home again soon.
When Tobias walked the real world, dead, but with his consciousness tethered to his body and able to wander and interact with the world at large, he sought out his wife and son without pause. Avoiding all human contact, he kept to the shadows, and wandered amongst the undead. They paid him no heed. He knew where his wife was; her corpse first consumed by a rage with no explanation, trapped in the basement of the burnt church, protected from the humans that might end what her existence was. He left her there, and that act killed him every night.
But at least… at least he had that.
And his son… Maximus.
Max should’ve been home that day. There was no school, and Max’s friends had planned on playing football all afternoon. He would’ve been home, and when Toby searched for his son, he went to their house first. Alone, and afraid of what he might find, he let himself in through the garden door, and searched each and every room. He lingered in the basement meadery, looking at the hobby he’d loved so. He left it as is, and kept searching for Max.
He went searching for Max’s friends. They were gone, or dead, or worse.
But no Max.
Then, one late night, while sitting on the brick and stone wall that encircled his small front garden, trying to not cry as he thought of another night alone, Max came stumbling down the street. They froze when they saw each other, then they ran to embrace one another. But Toby couldn’t touch the living, and when Max went in for the desperate, life-affirming hug, he instead went face forward into the street, bloodying his lip.
Toby saw then that his son had been bitten on the forearm, and he still felt that pain. That agony brought on by realization. If, even now, Toby thought too much about that night, he could see the stains of his son’s blood on his arms, and shoulders, where the bite touched him.
He remained with his very confused boy through the pain and suffering, and when he finally, entered death with a whimper, Toby cried his way outside, and shut him in. He couldn’t put him down even though he knew he could. He might not be able to touch the living, but he’d killed more than his fair share of the dead in his journeys across Brighton.
He couldn’t kill Maximus, so he kept him safe, and visited him until he could figure it out.
It was better than nothing, but not by much.
Not long after that, Tobias found himself helping others.
If someone put him in front of a magistrate, he couldn’t testify to when it started, or who the first person he helped was, or tried to help. Time… in the real world was strange, but it was linear, mostly. He understood what came before, and after, and often he was aware of what the now was. Aware enough that he didn’t spill his secrets.
And secrets… he had. Paranoia seemed to run rampant in the mind he had left. He feared being discovered for whatever he was, he felt terrified they’d track down where he died, and where he lived. Toby lived in constant, low-grade terror that his new living… acquaintances would follow his trail of breadcrumbs through his past, and find where he kept his family.
He worried about everything, and no matter how well he got to know people, or whether or not they rallied under his leadership, or listened to him without question, he feared deeply, and without rationale. EVERYTHING he had, could be taken from him, and he could not suffer more loss.
After talking the people at the farm that followed him, and took him in, to track down his former firefighter colleagues, and return one of their vehicles to the fire station he worked at, he hid his secretive ulterior motives by providing supplies and knowledge for them to remain safe, and constantly busy. They could doubt him less when they were taken care of.
They still doubted. Especially Mata Sene, and for that reason alone, she was fit to lead Mutual Aid when he left. Her dark, perceptive, soulful eyes saw through him, like the ghost of a person he was. But, behind those eyes, was a wisdom that he could not quite fathom.
Smart, he’d been accused of being more than once. Wise… not as often. He was impetuous at times in his life; choosing humor and the ability to make new friends over the trouble of choosing his words and actions more carefully. By the time he died, he could’ve been a full rank higher, but his nature prevented his further ascent, or at least any sense of rapidity to it.
Didn’t matter anymore. He’d done all the ascending he’d ever do. Now, all he wanted was to find his wife, and son in this strange, paused world and see no more death and suffering. He just wanted to stare into his wife’s soulful eyes, and feel that love, and radiating warmth, and to know that everything might be over, but everything would be alright.
It was going to be alright.
But it wasn’t. Not yet at least.
When Toby realized he’d arrived at his home, nestled in the suburbs of Brighton, near the water on a desirable street. He nor his wife could afford the home on their salaries. They’d nabbed the home after its previous owners had a small house fire, using money they’d inherited after the death of his wife’s grandfather. The perks of being a firefighter. Save the owner’s lives, get access to the sale of the house early, and for cheap after.
They renovated it themselves, and made it into something special. A real and true home, filled with love, and value that they would give to Maximus when they died. In a way, they already had.
When Tobias got to his house, he cautiously walked up the drive and into the front garden along the pavers he’d put in himself. He needed to mow, and pluck some of the weeds that weren’t following his plan. He opened the door, and called out to his boy, no different than when he’d come home after his shifts at the fire station.
Back before Maximus became a teenager—and that was so long ago, he was such a big boy now—the child would scream out for Toby, and come hammering down the carpeted stairs, filled to the brim with elation over his hero dad coming home. Years passed, and his excitement changed. The yelling shrank, and became subdued. He’d be watching football on the television, or playing video games with his friends as often as not now. They’d reunite after Toby had gotten a drink and a snack from the kitchen. Sometimes not for… hours.
But he wasn’t here now. He was… absent. The Adrian man lied?
The Adrian man lied.
His wife wasn’t where he said she’d be. His son wasn’t either.
Feeling that rage build inside his chest, Tobias said down on a stool at the kitchen island. He could FEEL the anger growing in his hands, and fingers. Hot, tight, and unable to remain still, it threatened to take his meager control from him.
And why not? Why should he suffer, alone, in this empty house? Why should he be the one who behaves? Why must he always be the one who suffers in silence, under control? Why can’t he have release from this pain, and fury?
Toby snapped.
He tried to scream but couldn’t, and that made his fury worse. He stood, and gunned the stool through the glass sliding door in the kitchen. The thick glass shattered into a thousand pieces, blasting out into the back garden. The impotence of the door giving way pissed him off even worse so he grabbed another stool and ruined the window over the sink. Fists flew into the cupboard doors, shattering the wood. He swept all their precious appliances off the counter, picking some up and smashing them on the tile floor he and his wife had put in together, swearing every thirty seconds at their overconfidence.
He stomped and kicked at a scratch he made on one of the tiles, furious that it too, had failed on him.
He went down the hall then, back to the foyer and then the living room, ripping everything off the wall to destroy it. Everything but the pictures of his family. Those were kept pristine. Those were his soul, right there. His memories. The only thing that wasn’t pain.
But fuck the rest of it. He smashed, and when he couldn’t scream or yell at the world he was yet again trapped in, he started laughing. Complete, utter, stark-raving madness-laughter. Reckless abandon of sanity unlike anything he ever experienced when he was just a ghost. Just a pathetic spirit unwilling to live right, or die right. A chill came through the house, and the light diminished as his rage built. A cloud took up residence over his world, his eyes, and his soul. A poisonous one.
A sudden thought gripped him, like he’d put his whole mind into a vice.
A question that he answered in his mind the moment it even appeared.
What do you do to liars?
You teach them that lying is wrong.
Tobias—consumed by the idea that Adrian must be made to pay for lying to him—immediately felt his thoughts ripped to the port, and that stupid foreigner sitting on a boat there. Misleading him, lying to him, stealing from him.
And… that bastard… he….
Killed his wife.
He killed his bloody son.
It would only be fair to hurt him the same as he’d hurt Toby. It would be easy to. Just show up, and find the bastard, and get him in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Leading Adrian into an alleyway of the dead would be child’s play.
Tobias walked out into the perpetual morning sunshine, and breathed deep of the fresh air. He kept laughing, and started the long walk to the port where the man who betrayed him was. In good time, Adrian Ring would suffer, and if Toby had anything in abundance…
It was hatred for Adrian Ring, and all the time in the world. In fact, it might feel better to make Adrian suffer, just the same Toby had.
Yes. That made more sense. It was only fair, too.
November 2014
November 4th
I took a few days off here to collect myself, and get some sleep. For some reason, I’ve been exhausted. I’m not sick, I’m just… I dunno. Comfortable enough to rest?
Knowing that Bell End’s people are sorted, and mostly on our side is a relief, but I think the real comfort comes in knowing that Bell End himself is sorted. Call it a gut instinct, but I knew something was off about him. As good a guy as he seemed, there was something I kept picking up on. Turned out he was a fucking ghost, which was not at all what I expected, and totally fucked up.
But… he’s handled. I believe.
The rest of our crew here is still trying to wrap their head around the idea that there is a whole different flavor of undead out there. What scares us more than the sheer spooky aspect of it all, is that as far as we know, they’re mostly intangible.
If one of them decides to fuck with us… can we shoot it? Do we need to stab it? Can it even hurt us?
Tobias said he couldn’t touch living people, but could touch things, and even hand things to other people. That tells me he could easily beat us to death, and if he got his hands on a gun, he could definitely pull that trigger, and those bullets could definitely fuck us up.
So like… worst case imaginable, right?
I’m also wondering what exactly causes this to happen? I can theorize all fucking day and night about it, and never know the answer. But… it’s fun to ponder.
Fun. That’s the word, right?
He was a man of minor faith, at least. His wife worked at the church, which tells me her faith was more powerful in her life, than his. He worked in public service, didn’t sound like he was a veteran, and didn’t mention anything about his family. No indications of drug addiction, or weird ritualistic beliefs outside of church.
He did… die at a church. So there’s that, and that feels key.
But, we’ve been to churches before, and we’ve dealt with the dead as well as survivors in and around them, and never encountered anything like this before. At least, not and being aware about it. There’s a good chance some of the survivors we’ve taken on at various points of our journey were actually ghosts.
What about when I saw that black convertible, driving by with the redhead in it? Was that a real person? Was it a ghost? No way I’ll ever know.
The staggering amount of variables in my life makes me want to cry.
There’s no crying in baseball, though. Well, maybe a little. I once cried my ass off when I was in third grade. For some reason they assigned me to a T-Ball league, even though the year before I was in a regular little league. I remember, clear as day, my dad taking me by the shoulders, and squatting down in front of me, in my tiny little uniform, with those shitty stirrup socks that always fell down.
“Adrian, the fastest way to get out of the T-Ball league is to show them you don’t need that stupid stand to hit the ball. So you go over there, and you play your position, and when you get up to bat, you hit that damn ball so hard the stand breaks. Show them you don’t need the stand. Don’t just tell them.”
Wise words that have stuck with me, thirty-odd years later.
/> I whiffed on my first swing, but then I saw my mom and dad in the stands, with my brothers and sisters (some of which had games before me, or after me that summer day) and I saw my dad’s calm, assured face. He’d seen me hit. He knew I could swing.
Next swing I murdered that goddamn leather wrapped ball. In my memory, it flew a hundred and fifty yards, striking down a vulture in the sky, ending the communist threat, and banishing Mumm-Ra from ever harming the Thundercats ever again. I was a true American hero. I was an eight year old version of Kevin Bacon in Footloose.
In reality, it was a blooping drive directly over the head of the umpire standing behind the second baseman. Plopped down in centerfield, and I pumped my little legs as fast as they’d go, past first base, right past second base, and the kid who literally held the ball as I ran past him, straight to third, where the kid at second threw the ball over the head of the third base player. I remember my coach screaming for me to keep going, so I fucking embraced chaos, and kept pumping my little cleat-tipped stumps until I streamed across home plate and collapsed into the on-deck circle, out of breath, seeing stars, and completely happy with life.
I got two more base hits later in that game, and the next week, I was promoted to a non T-Ball league.
I drank Blue Label and watched porn with my father and brothers every weekend for the remainder of the summer, celebrating our fucking masculinity. Got a little strange for dad when Tommy put his gay porn on, but you gotta support family, even when their porn isn’t your cup of tea.
I made that last part up. Not the part about supporting family, the entire porn and whiskey part. We couldn’t afford Blue Label and Tommy wasn’t aware or out with his sexuality. We did however have a lot of Milwaukee’s Best straight from dad’s cans when he sat them down. Dad sprinkled salt on the tops of his beer cans before drinking them. Not sure why. I remember Caleb asked him about it once, but I don’t remember his answer. He also put salt on his apples, and always cut them into slices. Salt on the apples I get. Sweet and salty, sure. The beer… I dunno.
Dead Cities: Adrian's March. Part Four (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 12) Page 16