by J. D. Cavan
Charlie started coughing. He touched his neck and it burned and throbbed. “Sorry about Jess.” He told Luca.
“Yeah, me too,” Luca replied, with a shrug. “I should’ve known. She was too good to be true.” Charlie had seen that disappointment on Luca’s face before, but something was different about it this time. His pain seemed genuine. The misery of the Serial Seven had firmly set its course.
“Number six, whoever thought it would be a Hardy?” Samantha commented.
“When will it end?” Sarah asked. She looked worse than Charlie had ever seen her. An ashen-white color came over her face, with a dead-looking quality.
“Apparently when we reach the seventh,” Luca uttered, seeming uncharacteristically defeated.
“I’ve had it, truly. This was the one place I could come to get away from it all, to find peace. I can’t do it anymore, guys. I’m sorry.” Sarah was a wreck, but Charlie couldn’t feel the guilt anymore; he was tired of it. He sat up on the end of the bed, flinching from the soreness of the whipping and choking.
“Listen, it’s me the Serial Seven have been after all along, and it’s me that needs to finish this. These monsters know me from somewhere. I don’t know what I did, but must have been really bad, and just like everything thing else in my life, I can’t remember it!” Charlie shouted in frustration and winced in pain. It got quiet in the room.
“Who knows what these things are saying, or if they’re even true. We’ve decided the Serial Seven are after all of us!” Samantha asserted.
“It doesn’t matter, because I should leave you.” Charlie stood and Luca grabbed him by the arm.
“Charlie, I didn’t believe in anything my entire life, until Sam came along. And now you, Charlie. I believe in you. So if you’re going, then I’m going too.” Samantha just looked at Charlie, and he knew they weren’t going to let him leave without them.
He felt something he hadn’t ever felt in his short life. It wasn’t the same as the love he felt for Samantha. It was a deep loyalty, a bond that couldn’t be broken. If the Serial Seven had created anything, anything at all, it was that.
As they packed their things into the pickup truck, each one said goodbye to Sarah. It was clear to Charlie that her time with them was over, and as they drove away Sarah stood on the front porch of the farmhouse and waved to them.
Charlie could understand why she wanted to go with them. Sarah didn’t want to face what was next, and why would she? He couldn’t blame her. No more denial. Number seven was somewhere out there.
7
THE DAYS AFTER the farm were more difficult than Charlie had expected. Maybe it was how awesome the farm had been, or just the lousy places they stumbled upon next. Charlie tried a number of times to think to Samantha in his mind, but whatever had happened in the truck in that moment couldn’t be duplicated. They barely mentioned it, or the other things they had said to each other. It was Luca, Charlie knew, that Samantha felt guilty about, and the fact that Luca still loved her. Charlie felt bad as well, so they both seemed to give up on the idea. What had been so clear to Charlie after opening up and talking to Brad, then Samantha, now felt muddled and confused.
As Luca pulled the truck into another run-down motel, Samantha showed the first bit of excitement Charlie had seen in days.
“Hey, I got a text from Sarah! Brad’s doing really well and she’s feeling like a hundred percent better! She wants to come back and ride with us again,” Samantha said.
“I wish she wouldn’t, as much as I miss her,” Charlie replied.
“Agreed,” Luca followed.
“Oh, so if I get offed by the Serial Seven that’s fine, but not Sarah?” Samantha said, half kidding.
“Sam, come on.” Luca sounded exasperated. Charlie could tell everyone was at that point. “Some can do the Serial Seven and some can’t. Sarah can’t.”
“I wish we could find seven instead of waiting around for seven to find us.” Charlie felt himself getting furious. All the clues and hints they thought they had seemed to mean nothing. Inferno circles of hell, Cerberus hounds, throwing knives, and even the messages he’d gotten from the undead killers themselves had led to nothing. Fear had left him after the farm and Jess, and it was bitterness he mostly felt now.
“Well, I texted Sarah and told her where we are, so if she’s coming, she’s coming. I miss my gal pal anyway.” Samantha leapt out of the truck and headed into the motel room.
The room was particularly crummy, and Charlie was getting more and more grumpy. There was an old man running the place who could barely walk, and Charlie found himself worrying if he was number seven before realizing the idea was totally ridiculous.
It poured rain the next day and they all just lay around the room watching T.V. Their plan was to eventually head to San Diego and try to get two-bit jobs again. Night came and Luca got hungry.
“Let’s go out and get something to eat,” he said.
“Go ahead, I’m not up for it.” Charlie replied.
“I don’t think so—not with seven out there. We stick together.” Samantha waited by the door.
“It could be months from now, maybe a year, before seven shows up. I’m not going to live in fear. If I die, I die. At least you guys won’t have to deal with it anymore,” Charlie said, catching himself in a self-pitying moment.
“That’s a good point,” Luca joked, and they all broke out into some rare laughter.
“Alright, we’ll be right down the street at that nasty-looking diner if you change your mind,” Samantha said, and they both walked out.
Charlie lay on the bed, turned the T.V. on and then shut it off. He let his mind go blank. He’d been racking his brain over and over again—all the pieces of the puzzle, each killer, number one through number six, but nothing made sense. His moments with Brad and Samantha had seemed groundbreaking at the time but came to nothing now. A direction somewhere was nowhere. Even the strange messages—We all turn—and that Jess had asked if he’d remembered him, did nothing to help. He’d not only hit a wall, but a cement wall. He finally shut his eyes and before he knew it, he’d drifted off into sleep.
His eyes sprang open and his heart pounded when he heard a knock at the door! He popped out of bed and took a couple of steps backward.
“What do you want?” he shouted in his best angry voice, still only half awake from his sleep.
“Charlie, it’s me!”
He paused, as if trying to stare through the door. “Sarah? Oh jeez, hang on! Is that you?” Charlie cried as he ran over to the door and opened it. Standing in the pouring rain was a person wearing a long gray coat with a hood pulled up over their head. Charlie stepped backward, and with a spike of anxiety he focused his eyes on the figure as it slowly raised its head.
With a huge smile on her face, Sarah said, “Hey Charlie.” Charlie closed his eyes and breathed out. He then quickly let Sarah into the motel room. Her energy lit the place up immediately.
“I’m here to stay this time,” she said as they hugged tightly. Despite being worried about her safety, Charlie was so happy to see her. It changed his whole mood.
“I didn’t want you to come here,” Charlie admitted as they sat down at the table.
“I know, Samantha texted me. But Charlie, I’m better now.”
“We’re sitting ducks as usual, and there’s nothing you can do to help that. I’m just saying, I’m putting you in danger.”
“Charlie, you know I was helpful. I bet things are less clear without me. I can help figure things out. I just needed a little time… to realize my life would never be the same on the farm without my best friends and my brother. And if anything happened to any of you, if seven hurt you, I just wouldn’t be able to live with that.”
Charlie felt his heart expand again and tears came into his eyes. A fresh bolt of energy raced through him. They were all together for a reason! He stood up and started pacing the room.
“It’s just so frustrating. It’s like I’m getting some of it and pu
tting things together, but so much is left unknown!” He hadn’t ever wanted more to remember who he was than in that moment. Sarah was looking at him with understanding.
“You’ve come this far. More will come soon, I just know it,” she said. Charlie nodded his head before sitting back down at the table with her.
“I just feel blocked, like the answer is right there on the tip of my tongue, what the Serial Seven means and what I’m supposed to do, but I can’t get it! You know, do you ever have that?”
“Of course, all the time with my art!”
“What do you do?”
She shook her head like she wasn’t sure, but then smiled. “I get out of my brain and then it comes to me,” she finally replied.
Charlie had truly missed Sarah. She was so pure of heart. “How?” he asked.
“All kinds of ways. I take a walk or meditate, or sometimes use my Tarot cards and that—”
“Tarot?”
“Yes,” she said, grinning cheerfully, “I’ll get my deck and show you.” She went into her backpack and pulled out her Tarot deck. Charlie had seen her use the cards many times and always thought it was kind of random, but now he was desperate for some answers of his own.
“Good thing I always keep these with me. I’ll just pull the first card out of the deck I feel some energy for, turn it over and see what we get!” Sarah quickly mixed the cards up and then closed her eyes before finally pulling one card out and putting it down in front of him. He looked down at the card and noticed there was a knight or king of some kind standing in a chariot, holding a spear with two animals sitting in front of him.
“Oh, wow!” Sarah said as she gazed at the card.
“What?” he said anxiously.
“The Chariot card,” she said. “And it’s upright.”
“What does it mean?” Charlie almost shouted.
“Alright, ready?” she said, and he nodded his head. “It’s a power card. The prince or king is riding in the chariot as you can see, with two sphinxes that are supposed to be pulling the chariot, but there aren’t any reins, see that?” She pointed to the card.
“Yes, I thought they were just sitting there.”
“No. But the reason there aren’t any reins is that the prince is so powerful he can use his thoughts to control them. His mind is that strong!”
“Crazy.” Charlie felt goosebumps.
“And there’s more. In the Thoth Tarot Deck there’s even more animals, sometimes considered elements, that the prince controls with his mind,” she said.
Charlie found himself captivated. “What does it all mean?”
“It’s universally understood that the interpretation of the card is that of power and decision, that now is the time for you to get focused in your life and make the kind of very important decisions you need to make. Determination and the will to take leadership—it’s a calling for you, Charlie, and now is your time. It’s up to you to lead. It means you must be very assertive and focused in your aims. It’s as big as your place in the celestial universe!” Charlie stood up and felt it, the strength inside him.
“I feel it Sarah, I do.” He started walking around the motel room again. Sarah stood up and stopped him by grabbing his hands and holding them. He felt it; she was right. There was power developing inside him. He was getting stronger and stronger, almost unstoppable. He looked into Sarah’s eyes and they were so alive, her face was glowing.
“Thank you, Sarah!” he said before she brought her lips to his. It was a kiss that took his breath away and shocked him. He felt her energy and their power together. It was as if the room could be blown into pieces. He pried his lips from hers—his heart was still pounding.
“See Charlie, what we can become,” she said to him. She kissed him again but then Charlie felt something else, something bad. He pulled back from her and shook his head a little, and thought of Samantha. What am I doing? he quickly asked himself.
He stepped away from Sarah and her beautiful smile dropped a little. His head stopped spinning for moment and he caught his breath.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” he told her. Sarah moved closer to him again.
“It’s okay Charlie, I understand,” she whispered. “It’s Sam.”
Sarah’s so caring, Charlie thought. He glanced down at the table where the Tarot deck sat. His eye caught the Chariot card again. He studied it and a level of terrible panic rushed over his body. Printed on top of the Chariot card was the Roman numeral seven. He whipped back toward Sarah.
“My card is the number seven?” He studied her face, and her warm expression dropped.
“Yes Charlie, your card is the seven card,” Sarah said, in way that made his skin crawl for a moment.
“I don’t get it…” Charlie mumbled to himself.
“I always loved you, Charlie. You were more than all the others. You were so different than they were, and I tried to forgive you. Forgive you for what you did. But I couldn’t,” Sarah whispered.
It felt like a little sting at first, before the real pain came. Charlie stumbled backward, holding his side. Her sharp blade had cut easily into his body, above his hip and below his ribs. He glanced down as his head spun and blood poured out of him. There was no more fear or pain, or rage, just numbness and shock. His mouth hung open.
He fell to one knee. Sarah’s beautiful smile, the one he’d turned to when he was most despaired, morphed into an evil smirk. Just like all the other killers, her eyes turned deeply dark, a hard, black shell staring soullessly at him. “No!” Charlie cried, and the rest of her finally changed as well. Her vibrant face became dead, empty features of tissue and bone.
“Goodbye, Charlie,” she said in a low voice, one that had already turned sinister.
Charlie could feel the pool of his own blood below him. She must have known right where to put the blade, was his last thought before the lights went out on his world.
The Serial Seven
HE WASN’T CHARLIE anymore; that was all he knew. Whatever he was, he flew high over the mountains and cities and then down over the fields and towns, covering miles and miles of space. Indescribable forms of light surrounded him as he moved through the clouds and air, as if he was part of the elements and particles of nature.
He suddenly shifted and was under water in the ocean, deep down and traveling fast past fish and other marine life. He came out of the water and onto the desert plains, traveling at incredible speeds. The world blurred past him before he stopped suddenly in a rain forest. It was silent but for the water falling from the sky. The smell of dew and colors of green so fluorescent they vibrated. He was a drop of rain and he disappeared into the rich soil of the earth, only to come up high into the trees, through the roots, before resting in the clouds and then on rays of the sunlight as it settled on the grassy field below.
He then traveled back down, into the earth and past the many layers of earth’s core, before reaching the beginnings of time. Volcanoes and lava and giant creatures roamed the planet as he watched in fast motion the ice ages and tectonic plates shifting, then shot up into the sky and then into space, where he circled the moon and sun and planets before coming back and orbiting Earth. As he came down he could see the entire planet rotating in space. But it looked very different. The continents weren’t the same at all, but broken up into four main landmasses, all separated from each other. The earth was a quadrant.
Then he saw his life as a Thought Changer, with Jack and the man in the hood, Mr. Scott. He knew in that instant that Jack was his brother and Mr. Scott his father. Then he watched his life when he was young and homeless, living on the streets with Jack, and then when he met Samantha and Luca.
Then he could see himself in the middle of a busy city, standing next to Samantha and Luca. They were waiting for something important to happen. The scene changed radically to an image of Samantha as a woman, a warrior princess or queen adorned in robes, jewels and carrying unknown weapons of some kind.
Like the switch of a channel, thi
ngs changed again. Now he stood outside a dark and empty street in a small town. It was night and he was looking at an old house sitting on a hill with a distant city behind it in the background. The wind was blowing trees that scattered the property. The door of the house mysteriously opened, and he felt drawn toward it.
Then he was in complete darkness. He had a moment of consciousness. Had he been in the past or future? Or was this all just a phantasm of nothingness before he died and drifted off to the other side? It didn’t matter and he let go, and felt himself slide away. An incredible feeling of relief fell over him, as if his body was a million-pound jacket and he’d just taken it off.
* * *
THE NEXT THING Charlie heard was the sound of his own heart. It was beeping noisily. He noticed the tubes in his arm and the brightness of a white hospital room. Samantha was standing over him.
“Hey,” she said softly. Charlie tried to speak but nothing came out. “Don’t even try.” She touched his forehead.
“You made it, buddy.” Luca was next to her and Charlie nodded his head a little before he fell unconscious again.
* * *
IT WAS A full day before Charlie was sitting up in his bed when Samantha and Luca came in.
“The doctors are blown away. You’re almost fully recovered and they said there’s no way you should be breathing at all!” Samantha announced.
“You were actually dead for a little while.” Luca handed Charlie a coffee. “Best coffee in town,” he said with smile.
“Thanks.” The brew was hot and good going down. The smell of beans filled his nose.
“You can tell me now,” Charlie uttered. “I need to know and I need to get moving.” They both looked down at the floor and then back up.
“Sam took care of it.” Luca’s face was dim.
“She was one of them all along, huh?” Samantha said.
“Fooled me totally.” Charlie took another drink of his coffee.
“All of us,” Luca muttered. “It turns out she wasn’t even my real sister.”