A Matter of Time

by Brian Harmon

  “What happened to it?” asked Holly, squeezing his arm a little tighter.

  His eyes open for trouble, he entered the gymnasium and approached the motionless creature. When they were close enough to make out its head in the gloom, its cause of death became clear. Someone had shot it in its head.

  But who?

  Wire Ties?

  It would make sense. He had a gun. The natural thing to do if you came across one of these ugly horrors and you were armed would be to shoot the damn thing.

  But then who killed Wire Ties?

  This was all so confusing.

  “We don’t have to dump this body, too, do we?” asked Holly.

  “Not our mess,” replied Eric.

  “Oh good.” She looked the creature over, wrinkling her nose. “Blech. Why do they have to be naked? That’s so gross.”

  He didn’t disagree, although he still thought they’d probably look pretty silly walking around in a pair of pants.

  They left the dead creature where they found it and walked across the room to the far door. They were almost there when someone appeared, blocking their path.

  It was the steampunk monk.

  He was wearing his regular spectacles, the ones without the looking glass shard, and regarding the two of them with a keen interest. “Hello again,” he said.

  “You,” said Eric.

  “Now why would you turn up here?” he wondered.

  “Why not?” countered Eric.

  Steampunk Monk chuckled at this. “Why not?” he agreed.

  Holly crowded behind Eric, wary of this stranger, and rightfully so. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Merely a very busy man,” he replied. From one of his front pockets he withdrew a little plastic baggie. It was full of some kind of gray dust and closed with a simple knot.

  “What is that?” asked Eric. “What’re you doing?”

  “I apologize, but I don’t have time to chat just now.” Surprisingly fast, he twisted off the knotted end of the baggie and tossed it at them.

  Holly’s reflexes were faster than Eric’s. With a startled scream, she shoved him out of the way. The bag struck her in the chest. A cloud of gray dust exploded from it, sending her into a coughing fit.

  “Holly!” Eric grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him, away from the settling cloud of strange dust, careful to hold his breath. Whatever this stuff was, he was sure it wasn’t good.

  The steampunk monk vanished back down the hallway from where he came. He had no choice but to let the maniac go.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I think so…” she replied. Then she sneezed several times.

  Her sneezes were always little. Karen thought she was adorable when she sneezed. Eric thought so too, to be honest, but right now he barely noticed. The last two times the steampunk monk attacked with a mysterious substance, he took a nightmare stroll through his own custom-made hell and Kevin went blind. So what had the maniac done to Holly?

  She sniffled and rubbed her head. “I feel kind of wonky…”

  “Come on. We need to get you out of here.”

  But she shook her head. “You need to go after him.”

  “I need to make sure you’re okay. We have no idea what that stuff was.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I don’t feel bad. Just…wonky…”

  A door slammed open and footsteps thundered in the hallway. Eric turned, startled and ready to fight, but it was only Paul and Kevin.

  “What happened?” asked Paul.

  “Izzy said Holly was attacked!” said Kevin, speaking to the wrong side of the room.

  “I’m okay…” she assured them. “Just dirty…” She brushed at the dust on her shirt, but it didn’t want to come off. It was all down her left arm and most of her neck and face, too.

  Eric wiped at it with his fingertips and then examined it. It looked like some kind of ash.

  “You’ve got to go get that guy,” she told him. “He’s not a nice guy.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay with them.”

  He stared at her for a moment. She didn’t sound fine. She sounded odd.

  “Go!” she insisted, giving him a little push. “Don’t let him get away.”

  “We’ll make sure she’s okay,” promised Paul as he seated himself on the floor and rubbed at his head.

  “Yeah, we’ll be fine,” insisted Kevin. He held up his phone. “Izzy’s still on the line if you need us for anything.”

  Eric pulled out his own phone.

  THEY’RE RIGHT. YOU NEED TO FIND THAT GUY

  Reluctantly, he nodded. “Fine. But be careful.” He gestured at the dead monster. “There are things in here.”

  “Just go!” groaned Paul.

  Eric didn’t like it, but he went.

  He ran out into the hallway in the direction Steampunk Monk went, checking each doorway along the way.

  BE CAREFUL, texted Isabelle. I JUST FELT SOMETHING AGAIN

  “What something?”

  VASTNESS

  He’d nearly forgotten about that. The last time they were in here she felt something she described as “vast.” It only lasted for a moment, but it’d troubled her.

  He reached the end of the hallway and looked both ways. There was no sign of the ugly red coat.

  The light was still on in the furnace room. He could see it glowing through the open door. He decided to check there first. He made his way down the short set of stairs and turned to face the open room. That was where he came face-to-horrible-face with another creature.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Like the one at the high school, the monster in front of him underwent a complete transformation the instant it caught sight of its prey. Its drooping head snapped to attention. Its limp arms shot out. There was no transition at all from its slow, mindless shuffle when it launched itself at him. He barely had time to brace himself before it was on him, its huge, powerful hands clamped around his throat, its jagged teeth bared and eager for flesh.

  Its skin was cold to the touch, like the one at the high school, as if they weren’t really alive, and yet it was a lot stronger than it looked. It took all his strength to hold it back far enough to keep those awful teeth from tearing off his face. And with those big hands closed around his neck, strangling him, his strength wasn’t going to last long.

  He was shoved backward, pinned against the wall, unable to move. Even if he could somehow escape its crushing hands, he was trapped. There was no way out but to fight, and he wasn’t sure this was a fight he could win.

  His eyes fixed on those awful teeth. Too big for its mouth, irregularly shaped, they looked more like chips of cracked flint than bone. And yet, somehow, the sharpness of these teeth didn’t seem quite as horrifying as their filthiness. Yellow and grimy, they looked almost moldy. He couldn’t help but think that even the smallest bite would cause a nasty infection.

  Stars began to dance in front of his eyes. His face and head grew hot. He could feel his constricted blood pounding in his ears.

  This was bad.

  His mind raced, but there was no way out. He couldn’t even try to pry the thing’s fat fingers off his throat because it took both hands just to keep those ghoulish teeth at bay.

  He could feel his strength failing.

  Every time it snapped its jaws, those teeth were a little closer to his face.

  He wasn’t going to have the luxury of quietly passing out from asphyxiation. As soon as his muscles began to go slack, and before consciousness mercifully abandoned him, this thing was going to start tearing bites out of his head.

  This was going to seriously suck.

  Then a gunshot rang out. A burst of blackish blood splattered across the wall next to his head and the creature collapsed into a heap at his feet, instantly and utterly lifeless.

  Eric gasped for air, but every breath felt like fire in his throat, making him cough.

  He didn’
t try to stand up straight. His knees wobbled beneath him, threatening to topple him right onto the monster’s corpse, so he stayed where he was, leaning against the wall and rubbing at his bruised neck as he waited for the coughing to subside.

  When he finally turned his head and looked back toward the hallway, he saw the steampunk monk standing in the doorway, still holding his gun in his hand.

  “That was a close one,” he said.

  “You saved me,” marveled Eric, wincing at the awful sound of his painful, cracked voice.

  Steampunk Monk slipped the gun into a holster inside his coat. “Well, technically, I saved me. A bunch of trouble, that is. Wendigoes are a lot nastier once they’ve tasted human flesh.”

  “Wendigoes?” croaked Eric. He looked down at the strange creature at his feet.

  “It changes them. Makes them ten times stronger. Faster. Smarter. Some say it gives them supernatural powers, lets them turn invisible and move silently. And their victims turn into wendigoes, too, like some kind of vampire, but without any weaknesses.” He shrugged. “Or that’s what I’ve heard, anyway. Maybe it just gives them some kind of freakish sugar rush. I don’t know. But I’m not taking any chances.”

  “What are wendigoes doing in Wisconsin?” asked Eric.

  “Wendigoes have always been in Wisconsin.” He rubbed at his bald head and added, “Sort of… They’re from another dimension, technically, but they can cross over anywhere in Eastern Canada and the American Northeast. That’s where this world is closest to theirs and the border the thinnest. This is about as far west as they’ve been known to appear, but they’ve been here for millennia. Maybe even forever.” He took off his glasses and began cleaning them with a cloth he produced from one of his many pockets. “The Indians knew about them. But then again, the Indians knew a lot of things. They were here a long time. Much longer than most people realize.”

  “Okay…so why are there so many of them here today?”

  “Something’s disrupting the fabric between our world and theirs.”

  “What could do that?”

  “A lot of things, I imagine.”

  Eric rubbed at his sore neck and tried to clear his throat. That wasn’t a very helpful reply, but he moved on anyway. “If these things are so common, why doesn’t everybody know about them?”

  “They can only cross over temporarily. Only for about an hour or two, really. Then they spontaneously get sucked back into their own realm. Even if they’re dead.”

  “Wait… You mean their bodies will just vanish after an hour?”

  “Maybe two or three. I’m not sure. It might vary. But it’s not long.”

  He had to resist the urge to slap himself in the forehead. All that work to drag that heavy thing through the gymnasium so he could hide it at the unseen motel… If he went back now, would the duct-taped trash bags be lying there empty? They probably could’ve just left the ugly beast in the shower. It would’ve taken care of itself.

  Live and learn, he supposed.

  “Same thing if they wander too far from where they entered,” he added. “This guy would probably disappear back to his own world if he left the building.”

  That was good news. That meant he didn’t have to worry about them making their way onto a playground somewhere.

  “They’re intriguing creatures, don’t you think?”

  “Fascinating,” replied Eric, but he wasn’t sure his sarcasm was evident with his voice still creaking from being strangled.

  Steampunk Monk slipped his glasses back on and said, “And so are you.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re extremely intriguing. I meant it when I told you I was a busy man, but I decided to make some time to talk. I have to know more about you.”

  Eric stared at him, wary. If this guy started talking about power and sexual energy, he was just going to start throwing punches.

  “First, I find you at the art gallery, absorbing ambient psychic energy.”

  “I still don’t know anything about that.”

  “Maybe you don’t. Who knows? But then I find out you’re poking around all sorts of suspicious places, including places that are veiled.”

  “Veiled places?”

  “Don’t play dumb. You know what I’m talking about.”

  He meant the unseen. “You were the one who dumped that body at the motel. You killed that man.”

  “Yes, I dumped the body there. No, I didn’t kill him. That was my…associate.”

  “Busty woman? Really friendly?”

  Steampunk Monk smiled. “That would be her, yes. She called me and told me she found a guy snooping around and took care of it, but that I needed to come and dispose of him.” He grimaced. “I hate taking orders from that conceited succubus.”

  Eric cocked his head. “Succubus?”

  “Figure of speech. She’s foul, but she’s human.”

  That was good. He was worried for a second that he might’ve meant she was an actual succubus. It wouldn’t surprise him. Nothing surprised him. And she was obsessed with sexual energy. That was very succubus-like.

  “But we’re talking about you, not her. How is it that you seem to be immune to all my traps?”

  “What traps?”

  “You were here before. You were in the safe house. You were in the motel. I took precautions against intruders at each of those locations and yet you’re fine. Even just now, I tried to get rid of you again and that girl protected you. It’s like you’re shielded somehow. Even when I squirted you at the art gallery. You should’ve been out of commission for at least four or five hours, but you shook it off impressively fast. You turned up at the safe house when you should’ve been in a hospital room somewhere, sedated and strapped to a bed. Just what exactly are you?”

  Eric shrugged. “I’m just an English teacher.”

  “Just an English teacher,” he repeated.

  “That’s right.”

  “And an ordinary art lover.”

  “That, too. Yes.”

  “Hm.”

  Eric changed the subject: “What did you do to my friend back there?”

  “The little redhead? She’ll be fine in a few hours. She’ll be better than fine until then.”

  He didn’t quite understand that part. “What?”

  “You’ll see. I test all my concoctions thoroughly. I’ve tried them all myself. They’re not lethal. They’re designed to distract and disorient, not kill. Ideally, they make it impossible for someone to function well enough to nose into my business.”

  Eric considered this. “It just messes with your head, then.”

  “Some of them. Others have physical effects as well.”

  “So it’s all temporary? Even blindness?”

  “Of course. Unlike a lot of my associates, I don’t like to kill or maim everyone I cross paths with on the job. Not unless I’m left with no other choice. You just never know when you might need a person again.” He scrunched up his face in an indignant expression. “And they’re just not going to be much help to you at all after you empty a handgun into their chest.”

  This guy clearly wasn’t a fan of Mistress Janet. That wasn’t too much of a surprise. In his experience, agents didn’t work well together. And that was probably a good thing.

  “So I take it you do know those two buffoons who were following me on Main Street.”

  This caught him off guard. “Uh…” Well that was stupid. Why didn’t he just walk back to the gymnasium and introduce everybody.

  Steampunk Monk chuckled. “The blindness will wear off by this time tomorrow. Some effects last longer than others.” He narrowed his eyes. “But I still can’t understand how you avoided them all. Every entry point in this building was rigged.” He reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a little roll of paper, tied at both ends. It looked like one of those New Year’s party cracker things, but homemade. “As soon as you opened the door, this would’ve broken open above your head. The powder inside should’ve rained down on you. I k
now they worked. I found two of them broken and empty. Depending on which door you entered, you would’ve been rendered either paranoid or distracted, making it nearly impossible for you to focus well enough to be any more trouble to me for the rest of the day.”

  That was when it dawned on him. He recalled his first visit to this place. He didn’t get hit by this guy’s trap because he wasn’t the first one who walked into the building. Karen went in ahead of him. And it was shortly after that that she began to act strangely. But why didn’t it get him on the way out? They used a different door when they left and they left together. Or for that matter, what about when he opened the kitchen door?

  But then again, he was fairly sure the kitchen door didn’t open from the outside. It could only be opened from inside, meaning it wasn’t an entry point. One could only exit the building there, so it probably wasn’t rigged.

  But he didn’t want to discuss any of that with this man. The less information he shared, the better. Instead, he moved on. “And at the bungalow?” he asked.

  “I dusted the fan with one of my powders. It was set to turn on with the lights and should’ve blown it right in your face when you flipped the switch.”

  He didn’t turn the light on. He walked into the room in the dark. It was Holly who turned the lights on. And then she turned off the fan. He even remembered her sneezing and commenting about the dust.

  “You should’ve been at the mercy of your emotions. Anger, sadness, fear, lust… And yet you must’ve handled my associate well. If you’d angered or bored her, she would’ve killed you in a heartbeat. She’s funny that way.”

  Holly was emotional today. She was unusually frightened of the basement stairs at the bungalow and during their encounter with the wendigo at the high school. She was sobbing after she read Hector’s letter and she was beyond furious after witnessing his encounter with Mistress Janet. Even during the times between those obvious stimuli, when she wasn’t furious or terrified or sobbing, she’d seemed a little snippy and defensive.

  Steampunk Monk narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “And then there was my smoke jar at the motel. That should’ve left you feeling like the ass end of the worst drinking binge of your life. But here you are again. Perfectly fine.” He shook his head as he considered it.