Desolace Omnibus Edition

by Lucian Barnes

  Moments later the woman screamed. When Edward and Katie caught up to them, they looked to see what the fuss was about. Lying in an increasingly large pool of blood was a middle-aged man with short, dark hair wearing a business suit. A wet paper bag was near one of his outstretched hands, leaking something onto the ground. The man, whom had rushed into the alley with the woman, was standing off to one side using his cell phone. He snapped the phone shut after talking to someone for a minute. Katie knelt down next to the bleeding man to see if she could help in any way. As she did, another woman approached and began to bark orders to those nearby, trying to clear the area around the man. Katie stood up and shuffled to the side to get out of her way, while Edward nervously scanned the area.

  The slender, dark-haired woman leaned over the victim’s face to see if he was breathing. Moments later, she opened the front of his suit jacket, revealing a jagged hole in his shirt that blood was steadily pouring out of. To Katie, the blood looked like a fountain and she was sure if the bleeding weren’t stopped very soon that the man would bleed to death before her very eyes. Secretly she wished it were only herself and Edward here with the man. That way he could use his magic, like he had when Mike had gotten injured, and cauterized the wound with magical fire. Instead, they had to rely on the skills of the woman that knelt over him.

  Sirens began to wail in the distance. The dark-haired woman looked up at the man with the cell phone. “Can I have your jacket please, sir?” He dug a ring of keys from one of the pockets and shirked out of his coat. He reached out to hand it to the woman. She snatched it greedily and immediately began to wind it into a tight ball. Once she was done, the woman pressed the wadded garment to the hole in the bleeding man’s chest. She rose up slightly and leaned further over his body to get the leverage she was looking for, and firmly applied pressure to his wound. The sound of sirens was very close, and within moments an ambulance hopped the curb. Its tires screeched as the vehicle ground to a stop on the gravel littered surface of the alley.

  Two male paramedics quickly exited the ambulance. One went around to the back of it and pulled out a wheeled stretcher, which had a bag holding their equipment resting on top of it. The other rushed over to where the bleeding man was lying. “Please step aside, ma’am. We’ll take it from here,” he instructed, tapping the dark-haired woman on the shoulder. She turned and looked up at him and he immediately recognized her. “Oh. Sorry, Dr. Short,” he stammered. “What can I do to help?”

  “Get some gauze and pack this man’s wound,” she told him condescendingly. “Then keep pressure on it until you get him back to the hospital.” The nerve of this guy, she thought. Was he a med school dropout or something? How did he ever get a job as an EMT if he couldn’t think on his feet?

  Just then, the second paramedic arrived with the stretcher and the equipment bag. The paramedic on the ground beside the body quickly reached into the bag and rifled through its contents. He found the gauze he was looking for, and quickly began to pack the wound as Dr. Short removed the garment she had been staunching the blood flow with. While he was packing the gauze into the wound, the other paramedic began to check the man’s vital signs. “His pulse is weak and thready,” he announced, “and his blood pressure is dangerously low.”

  Less than a minute had passed since the first EMT finished sealing the wound to the best of his ability. “Let’s get him on the stretcher,” he told the other paramedic. They worked swiftly to secure the man to the stretcher. After a brief, bumpy ride across the alley to where the ambulance was parked, they loaded the stretcher into it. One hopped in the back with the patient and pulled the doors closed, while the other ran around to the front and jumped behind the wheel. The sirens began to blare out once more as the ambulance kicked up gravel and sped off toward the hospital. The rush of air, created in the wake of the ambulance speeding away, kicked up a scrap of paper that floated lazily through the air and came to rest near Katie’s feet. She absently watched as it fluttered through the air. When the piece of paper landed, it brushed against her foot. Katie bent down curiously to see what was written upon it.

  Katie no more than glanced at the piece of paper when she began to feel like the air had been sucked from her lungs. She sat down heavily on the grit-covered surface of the alley. Her mind reeled. What she was seeing on that scrap of paper was just not possible!

  Standing nearby, Edward looked down at her with a sort of worried curiosity. “What’s wrong?”

  Katie held up the scrap of paper so he could see it.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “What am I looking at?”

  “The date,” she replied weakly. “Look at the date.”

  Edward looked at the paper again in an attempt to figure out why Katie seemed so frazzled. The letters and numbers upon the paper were impossible for him to decipher. Apparently, on Earth, days and years were accounted for in a different fashion than they were on Desolace. In his world, they merely counted the days in a year. “I still don’t understand what seems to have you so upset."

  “According to this,” she pointed emphatically at the date, “it is October 31 in the year 1999!”

  “And that means what exactly?” he asked.

  “It was the beginning of June, in the year 2010, when I stepped through the portal into your world for the first time!” she explained in an increasingly cracking tone. “If this is the actual date, and the scrap of paper looks fresh enough to support the theory, then that means we have somehow traveled backward in time! If this date is correct, I should only be seven years old right now!” Tears began to rapidly form at the corners of her eyes. She had been strong for so long and now the weight of all she had been through came crashing down on her.

  Edward knelt down beside Katie and tried his best to comfort her. As she clung to him and wept on his shoulder, Edward noticed someone approaching them out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and saw the woman that had tended to the wounded man a short time ago.

  “Excuse me. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. Did I hear the young woman correctly? Did she say that she was from the year 2010?” The woman had begun politely, but finished with a hint of sarcastic disbelief.

  Katie looked up at her and tried to blink away her tears. “Yes,” she replied weakly to the blurry form before her.

  “If I sound rude or forward I apologize,” the woman said, “but how is that possible?”

  “Give her a few minutes to get over the shock of the situation,” Edward told her, “and then we will show you how.”

  “Fair enough.” The woman politely offered her hand to him. “My name is Melissa Short, and you are?”

  “My name is Edward the White,” he answered politely, as he gently reached up and shook the hand she offered to him, “and this is Katie Johnson.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you both. I apologize if I seemed a bit overbearing a while ago when I was tending to the wounded gentleman. Edward the White, huh? That’s a very interesting name. Does it stand for something?” she asked civilly.

  “Indeed it does. Even though some like to joke about the white referring to the extreme lightness of my complexion, that is really not the case. Rather it refers to the type of magic that I use.”

  “Magic?” she asked skeptically. “Do you mean like Houdini or David Copperfield?”

  “I’m not sure what you are referring to,” he added with a look of confusion.

  “They are men that perform rather grandiose parlor tricks if you ask me,” she said. “True magic does not exist.”

  “On the contrary. It does. Soon enough you will see that I speak the truth.” Edward gave her a polite smile. “Might I inquire what it is that you do?”

  “Definitely nothing as ostentatious as magic.” She smirked. “I am just a lowly emergency room doctor that practices medicine at Buffalo General.”

  “Somehow I think you understate your abilities,” Edward stated matter-of-factly. “You seemed very skilled and knowledgeable when you were
helping the wounded gentleman.”

  “I agree,” Katie murmured, looking up at her with puffy eyes. The tears had finally dried up and her hitching breaths had leveled out, becoming more normal. Edward turned his head and regarded Katie. Her shock seemed to be subsiding and he gave her a look that asked if she was all right. Somehow, she knew what the look was asking and nodded her head to him, letting him know that she was okay now.

  Edward stood up and helped Katie to her feet. He looked at Melissa thoughtfully. “I wonder what your reaction will be when you find out that everything we have told you is true,” Edward said to Melissa with a grin.

  “Only one way to find out,” Melissa replied, still sounding a bit skeptical.

  He bent down and whispered into Katie's ear, “Care to lead the way?”

  She smiled up at him for a moment, and then began walking back toward the street. “Follow me please,” Katie instructed softly. The three of them walked casually out of the alley and stopped at the curb, waiting for traffic to pass by. When the path was clear, Katie led them across and into the darkened alley beside the building with a glowing red neon sign in its window that proclaimed it to be the Mid Town Deli. That would explain the stench she remembered coming from the dumpster near the portal. Probably rotting vegetables and meat.

  As the three of them rounded the corner into the small, side-alley near the back door of the deli, the swirling blue portal came into view. Almost immediately, Melissa’s jaw came unhinged and dropped open in disbelief. She stood that way for several seconds, unable to speak. Her mind spun crazily, as if it were just as ineffective as her mouth. As improbable as it seemed, it appeared that the others had been telling her the truth. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was seeing, but it certainly appeared to be magic of some sort.

  “What … is that?” Melissa finally managed to ask.

  “It is the portal that we told you about a short while ago,” Edward stated. “In terms that you would be more likely to understand, it is the magical means by which we entered your world.”

  “Forgive my ignorance. Am I correct in assuming that this portal thing is a magic doorway of some sort?” she asked.

  “That is exactly its purpose,” Edward told her.

  “Where does it lead?” Melissa asked, even though she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “It leads back to my world. A place called Desolace,” Edward informed her.

  Melissa began to nervously play with her hair. “I don’t know what to think,” she began. “I feel almost as if this is some strange dream that I can’t seem to wake from.”

  “I assure you. You are awake,” Katie said. “I felt much as you do now the first time I saw one of these,” she added, trying to put Melissa at ease.

  “Well. If I am awake, then perhaps I need to go home and get some sleep.” Melissa gave a nervous laugh, and began to turn around to do just that, when a hand descended onto her shoulder.

  “Please. Wait,” Edward pleaded. “We could really use someone with your skills traveling with us.”

  “Whoa. Hold on!” Melissa's nervousness turned to fear. “You want me to go with you to this other world? No way!” she nearly yelled. Melissa began to shuffle her feet backward. Suddenly, she didn’t trust either of them. She wanted to get away as fast as she could, but she also didn’t want to turn her back on them. With each passing moment, her feet backpedaled faster and faster.

  Edward and Katie kept pace with her, continuing to plead their case. Melissa was now moving backward so rapidly that she was getting near the entrance to the alley. She made up her mind to turn and make a run for it. Perhaps she could dart across the street and lose them, hoping that traffic could help her. As she began to turn and carry out her plan, her feet got tangled up. Melissa fell so quickly that she didn’t have time to brace herself. With one arm pinned beneath her body, she hit the ground. Hard. Her head bounced off the gritty, unyielding surface of the alley, instantly rendering her unconscious.

  Katie shook her head in dismay. “I don’t know why she seemed so scared,” she confided to Edward. “Maybe it’s just me, but the first time I came in contact with one of the portals I was more curious about it than scared.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t have the strength of character that you do.” Edward knelt down to check Melissa’s injuries.

  “Is she all right?” Katie asked.

  “She has a rather large bump on her head, but other than that she appears to be okay. She’s not bleeding or anything at least,” he answered.

  Katie thought for a minute. “How angry do you think she would be if we just took her through the portal? I know we need her help, but it seems like we would draw too much attention to ourselves if we stuck around and waited for her to wake up on her own and convinced her to go through the portal willingly.”

  “Likely, she will hate us for doing that against her will, but what other choice do we have?” Edward asked, more to himself than to Katie. “It will take some time, but I think she will forgive us. Eventually,” he said with a hopeful smile.

  “So. How are we going to get her through the portal?”

  “That part shouldn’t be too difficult. Prop her up,” he instructed Katie. “I’ll grab her hands and carry her.”

  “Piggyback?” Katie asked.

  Edward looked confused for a second, and then realized what she meant. “I’ve never heard it called that before. I, myself, have always called it horseyback,” he said with a grin.

  As Edward bent down with his back facing Melissa, Katie grabbed her by the shoulders and propped her up into a sitting position. She raised each of Melissa’s arms up so he could grab a hold of each hand. He pulled them forward until her elbows draped over his shoulders, firmly hugged her hands to his chest, and slowly began to lift Melissa from the ground. He stood up, slightly hunched over to balance her weight on his back, making it easier to carry her. He turned toward Katie once Melissa was comfortably situated on his back. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be,” Katie replied.

  Edward turned back toward the portal, which swirled complacently about a hundred feet from where they stood. Stopping in front of it, he tentatively put one foot forward into the portal, even though he hated the way going into the portal made him feel. Nonetheless, he gathered his resolve and continued forward. Seconds later he disappeared from the alley and Katie stepped into the swirling blue gateway to follow him.

  Chapter 21

  A hum, barely audible over the crashing water of the falls at the entrance to the small cave, began within the portal. The colors shifted rapidly within it, making the portal appear to have life of its own, as if it were breathing. Days had gone by since Amber had watched Edward and Katie disappear into the portal. During that time, Amber had witnessed more strangeness than she had ever thought she would see in a lifetime. Not that she had a life, or knew how long her current state would last. Still. Seeing Mike, who she presumed was dead, enter the small cave and feed on the horse’s blood was something she could have done without. Then seeing a wolf come crashing through the waterfall into the cave and being knocked unconscious from the force of the water; only to find out that the wolf was actually Jack, the person that the others had referred to as a werewolf. An hour or so after he had come through the cascading water he had regained consciousness, but not before he had changed before her very eyes back to his human form.

  For the first two days after Edward and Katie had gone through the portal, Amber had kept a nervous eye on Mike and Jack. Each day, about half an hour before sunrise, Mike would venture sullenly into the darkest section of the cave he could find, avoiding the light of day. It was obvious that Jack knew there was something not quite right about Mike, too. He didn’t leave the cave once he regained consciousness, and would often sit for hours watching Mike. The lack of trust rolled off of Jack in waves. Looking into his eyes, Amber could tell that the brief friendship between the two men was on very shaky ground. There still seemed to b
e a sort of mutual respect between them, although it was more like the kind of respect you would associate with predatory animals. A tenseness that said, “you stay out of my way, and I will stay out of yours”.

  At least Amber didn’t have to witness any more of Mike’s feedings in the days that passed. When Mike wasn’t sleeping the day away in the darker section of the cave, he would sit near the horse with his head down and weep steadily through the night. Jack would watch over him with a curious mistrust. He didn’t understand why Mike was weeping. All of Jack’s instincts told him that Mike was a predator; and crying was not something you were accustomed to seeing a predator do.

  At the end of the second day of Amber’s vigil, the horse had taken its final breath. This only added to the grief that Mike had been feeling. Sometimes he sobbed so loudly after the horse died that it could likely have been heard on the other side of the waterfall.

  The portal was beginning to thrum like a tuning fork. The high-pitched hum coming from it apparently hurt Jack’s ears, because his hands were plastered over them and he wore a look of pain on his face. It looked as if something was being pounded into his skull. Moments later, Edward walked out of the swirling blue portal carrying a person on his back. At first, Amber thought that Katie had gotten hurt. Then, she noticed the woman on Edward’s back had shorter hair than Katie.

  Edward noticed the high-pitched hum coming from behind him, and turned to see what it was. As he turned, Edward watched as Katie emerged from the portal. Once she was through, mercifully, the humming noise stopped. She saw Edward and immediately circled behind him. With Katie standing behind him, bracing the unconscious woman, Edward began to crouch down. Katie called out from behind him. “Okay. Let her go. I’ve got her from here.”

  Edward released his grip on Melissa’s hands and watched as they slowly slid back over his shoulders. Once Melissa was resting comfortably on the floor, they began to notice the differences in their surroundings. Amber was cowering in one corner of the cave near the portal. Two men were seated near the cave entrance. One was Jack, but who was the other? He looked like … Mike? That was impossible. Mike was dead! His face was buried in his hands and it looked like he was crying. It took a couple of minutes for the shock to wear off enough that Edward began to hear the insectile buzzing of the flies swarming ... around what he had at first thought to be his sleeping horse. He began to realize that the horse wasn’t sleeping at all, it was dead.