by Carver Pike
Savage Bear took Gibbs’ gun and left him there to drown in his own blood as he escaped to the hallway.
The other gunman didn’t stand a chance. He stood with his back to the door when Savage Bear stalked through. He turned with a goofy grin that was replaced quickly by confusion at seeing a half-naked native instead of Gibbs.
Savage Bear shot him five times in the chest, sending him stumbling backward into the wall. As the man slid down to the floor in a smear of blood, Savage Bear continued down the hall.
An elevator dinged and surprised him. He spun around, his gun pointed at the opening doors, and watched as an elderly couple stepped out. They turned right and walked away from him, never noticing the blood-soaked, half-naked man only a few feet away.
Lucky for them they hadn’t because if they’d been in his way, he would have mowed them down.
Savage Bear entered the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. His fists clenched and unclenched. He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders in anticipation.
Only one guard stood outside the door to Mr. Pontis’ penthouse. He didn’t last long.
As the elevator door opened, he let his tomahawk go with a “whoosh.” The next sound was a “thud” as the guard hit the floor with the blade of the axe buried in the middle of his face.
Savage Bear kneeled down to retrieve his axe, yanking it from the man’s face. He grinned and scraped the man’s blood and pieces of bone from his cheek.
The penthouse door was unlocked. Savage Bear entered carefully, not wanting to spook any guards who may be waiting on the other side.
He was surprised to meet no opposition. No armed gunmen hung out in the kitchen, or in the living room, or in the hallway leading toward the bathroom.
It was there, in the hall lit by the light seeping out of the open bathroom doorway, there where the smoke wafted out and seemed to dance through the air, there where the cheerful humming of “That’s Amore” emitted, that’s where Savage Bear was drawn. The open bathroom door at the end of the long, black corridor was where he was headed.
Mr. Pontis lay back in his gigantic tub, more like a mini-pool full of suds, with a cigar in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.
His eyes were closed and he belted out the tune as if he were Dean Martin himself, on stage with ol’ blue eyes and the gang.
“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie…that’s amore!”
As he opened his mouth to really let the “amore” rip, his eyes went wide with terror.
Savage Bear grinned down at him.
“You!” Mr. Pontis yelled.
Savage Bear dropped to his knees and snatched Mr. Pontis’ hair in his left hand.
“You should be dead!”
Savage Bear brought his knife down and scalped him, giving the man a slow and painful death. He sawed violently back and forth against every layer of skin atop Mr. Pontis’ head. The dying man flailed his arms and he dropped his cigar. His fist struck the glass of whiskey, sending it crashing to the tile floor while the hunter sawed on relentlessly.
Later, downstairs on the casino’s main floor, patrons, both young and old, singles and couples, stopped playing the slot machines, stopped throwing dice, and stopped sliding chips. Savage Bear crept down the aisle, drawing all eyes his way. Even on native land, seeing a blood-soaked warrior was terrifying.
His reflection in the metal-framed machines showed a victorious, animalistic man. His eyes were bulged and bloodshot, his eyebrows raised, teeth barred. Hunched over, as if stalking a wild boar, Savage Bear moved silently across the carpet.
His bare feet shifted from left to right as he turned his attention from one gambler to another, contemplating his next victim. Clenched in his left fist was Mr. Pontis’ bloody scalp.
Casino security and local police rushed down the aisles and pointed their guns at him. He stood his ground at first, waving his weapons around menacingly. Then he surrendered, falling to his knees and letting go of his gun, knife, tomahawk, and the scalp.
Chapter 2 - Sanctuary
Dusk marked the morning on the dark side of the mirror, where all that existed was the pitch black of night and hazy dusk of day. Like an Alaskan winter, minus the severe cold, the Blue Capped Mountains were in a constant shadow, never to see the sun’s rays.
Yet, despite the lack of sun, the trees grew wild and green. Red and orange leaves were in abundance and a crisp breeze cooled the air, making it comfortable to all animals, beasts, images, and even the few humans who’d found themselves trapped in the strange world.
It was a never-ending fall in these mountains, and the folks of the small community named Sanctuary were just slipping from the grasp of a peaceful night’s sleep, finding themselves alive another day, something they’d come to appreciate more and more in this life far removed from the cruel cities of the dark side.
Five log cabins formed into a large circle made up the small village, with an open fire pit at its center. The cabins sat in a dirt clearing, completely surrounded by the multi-colored trees.
Strange sounds, none threatening, but all different, flowed from their branches as birds, bats, and other creatures perched, welcoming the new day.
Marking the entrance to Sanctuary was a wooden sign planted in the ground. Written on it in red paint were the words: Sanctuary: The Calm in the Storm. Population 10.
Gabe Cutter, thirty-three years old, with long hair combed back and a full beard, stepped out of the tree line in front of the sign wearing a thick flannel shirt, looking like an unusually happy lumberjack with a stack of chopped wood in his arms and an axe strapped to his back.
He glanced down at the sign and gave it a soft kick to straighten it a little.
“Population eleven soon,” he sang out.
His voice echoed through the air, scaring a few of the strange birds, and they flew out of the trees, chasing each other through the sky in front of him, all black with odd “w” shaped wings.
Gabe took a knee and watched the birds dive and do loops. His breath came out in a fog of cool smoke, the last remnants of the night. Soon the day would warm up.
Gabe left the pile of logs on the ground and walked to the end of the trail, where the path began to wind its way down the mountain and toward the uncivilized world.
It wasn’t an easy climb getting up the mountain. When Lisa made the decision to stay on the dark side with him, and Ivy, her image, had told them to go to the Blue Capped Mountains to make a peaceful life, he hadn’t truly believed it possible.
A tranquil life on the dark side of the mirror? Who could believe there was such a thing? This world seemed to exist for no other purpose than to make people suffer.
If the Soothsayer had told him, back when he’d first entered the strange world, that he’d have to witness his friends being picked off one by one by the supernatural monsters around them, he may have called off the whole mission. He may have never chased after his image, the serial murderer known as Cutter.
The Soothsayer claimed that Gabe was the Haissem, the Messiah spelled in reverse, chosen to change both worlds forever and put an end to the darkness.
Yet, here he stood, at the end of a mountain trail, looking down at the dark world around him. He had put an end to nothing except Cutter’s life, and essentially, the lives of all his old friends. Here he was, hiding, playing house with Lisa and his new friends.
Gabe looked out over the hills, valleys, and trenches that ran from the base of the mountains to the horizon, and for a moment felt that he was standing at his uncle’s home in Colorado, a place he’d visited many times in his youth.
Smoke rose to the air here and there, and it was easy for him to imagine ski resorts preparing to open for the winter. He closed his eyes, felt the cool breeze on his skin, and breathed in deeply, smelling the faint scent of wood burning. He imagined cabins with families starting breakfast by campfire.
In reality he knew that the smoke rising to the sky and the smell of burning wood was on
ly evidence that fighting and killing was going on in the hidden world below.
Families didn’t exist. At least not children. There were no children on the dark side of the mirror. More than likely the burning he smelled meant great loss for someone, and if it really was breakfast he smelled, it probably consisted of burnt flesh.
Like most mornings, this was how Gabe started his day: remembering the past, with a hope for the future, but a doubt that good things would come. Thoughts that could put any man into a funk slowly dissipated when he remembered that he had Lisa waiting for him back home.
To think that not so long ago he’d passed her off as a kid sister type, then fell in love with her as she risked her life to help him track down his image, and finally, he’d given her his all, one hundred percent, complete devotion, and she was about to give him a son. Or daughter. Either would be fine with him.
Gabe approached Sanctuary carrying his pile of wood. No signs of life greeted him as he entered the village. The horses tied up behind the cabins were the only friendly faces he saw.
Either he was still the only one awake, or the rest of the members of his new family were lying lazily in bed, fighting to find a good reason to rise and step foot out their doors, a task he’d struggled with many times himself.
He carried the wood over to one of the cabins and dropped it on the bottom step.
“Bronc!” Gabe yelled.
A moment later, Bronc, a large Native American man, stepped out of the cabin wearing only a pair of jeans.
His face looked to be made of stone, wise and strong, but experienced in sadness and loss, a fact that made him look older than his fifty years.
His chest was as thick as a Clydesdale’s. His long black hair hung down over his shoulders, all the way to his scarred chest, where some beast’s talons had nearly ended his life in his thirtieth year.
It was a story Gabe had heard often during their campfire tales, one of their few forms of entertainment.
“What you want? Trying to make baby here.” Bronc shook a fist at his friend.
Gabe threw his hands up in defense.
“Hey, images can’t make babies,” he reminded him.
“You and Lisa did,” Bronc argued.
Gabe shrugged his shoulders and laughed. He’d told his friend many times that he and Lisa weren’t images, but the big brute either didn’t get it, or didn’t care.
He handed a couple of logs to Bronc.
“It is the trying to make baby that’s fun, right my friend?” Bronc joked and then laughed whole-heartedly. His full, boisterous laughter was his trademark. It echoed through the air and made Gabe join in.
“You’re nuts,” Gabe said, causing Bronc to laugh even more.
He took the logs and placed them on the porch.
“Maybe if we keep trying, the God you always speak of will grant us miracle and give us baby,” Bronc wished aloud.
“If you don’t hurry up and get in here I will make baby by myself,” came a woman’s voice from inside the cabin.
“No, wait,” Bronc protested. “Baby needs look like me!”
He turned and dashed into the cabin.
“You just tell Emma she owes me some soup for this firewood,” Gabe called after him. “If she brings the root soup for supper, I’ll make sure we have kylo.”
Gabe entered his own cabin and placed the remaining logs on the floor next to the fireplace. The inside of his and Lisa’s home was simple.
They’d brought some utensils and tools from the lowlands before heading up into the mountains, but most of the furniture was handmade from the trees surrounding Sanctuary, including the crib that sat in the corner next to where Lisa lay in bed waiting for him.
She was propped up with pillows, her pregnant belly peeking out of the thin linen gown she wore. Her face was like an angel, still somehow innocent despite the atrocities she’d seen since crossing through the mirror.
Her long brown hair hung in tangles down to her shoulders, framing her beautiful face. Her brown eyes were calm and hopeful. He loved that about her. She still looked at him like a man, like the man who would take care of her and make this life work out. She had no doubts in him.
Gabe dropped to his knees and shuffled closer to the bed, where he leaned over to touch her stomach. She slid over and met him halfway. He spoke to the baby, with his mouth only an inch away from Lisa’s belly.
“Baby, you hear me? You awake? Daddy loves you.”
Lisa ran a hand through Gabe’s hair. He looked up at her and their smiles met.
“Out walking again?” she asked.
“I can’t sleep much these days. Maybe I’m just excited. Baby’s coming soon.”
“Seems to me you’d better catch up on your sleep then, before he does come.”
He nodded.
“How you feeling?”
“Tired, and heavy,” she replied. “My feet and back ache. And I had to put the kylo out back. It was making me nauseous.”
“You shouldn’t be dragging that heavy thing around. Sorry for leaving it in the house. I’ll skin it later. Told Emma to make her root soup tonight to go with it.”
He got up and pulled off his flannel shirt. He walked over to the kitchen area, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a pitcher. He poured himself a drink of haven sap, a milky substance drained from one of the local trees.
He sat down at a small table and looked over once more at his beautiful wife lying on the bed. God, she was gorgeous.
He remembered the night she’d decided to stay with him on the dark side of the mirror. She had the opportunity to go back to her normal life.
Ivy, her image, was dying on the other side due to a stab wound inflicted by Cutter. While bleeding out, Ivy gave Lisa the choice: stay on the dark side with Gabe, or switch places with her and go back to the normal world.
The choice had to be made quickly, and could never be reversed. Once Ivy died, Lisa would no longer have an image to switch places with, meaning she’d be stuck on whichever side she chose.
Just like Gabe was stuck on the dark side once his image shoved him through the mirror and shot himself in the head, the evil bastard’s last sucker punch.
Lisa gave up everything for Gabe. She decided to stay and stick it out with him, meaning she’d never see her family again, and would never live a safe, normal life.
“It’s probably that haven sap that’s keeping you awake all the time. That stuff makes me jittery,” Lisa warned him.
“Closest thing to coffee. Man, what I wouldn’t give for a Starbucks iced coffee right now.”
“Are we playing that game again?” Lisa whined. “You know that always drives us nuts. Last time I couldn’t stop thinking about peanut butter cheesecake. You’re evil. It’s hard enough with my normal cravings.”
She got up from the bed and stamped her feet all the way over to the table like a spoiled child.
“What I wouldn’t give for a mocha frappachino,” she played along.
“Even a bagel with cream cheese would be nice,” he added.
“No, I want blueberry waffles,” she said with a dreamy expression.
Gabe looked down at the cup of white sap and swirled it around. Lisa leaned forward and wiped a smear of the thick substance off his top lip.
“Hey, I was saving that for later,” he said as he leaned forward to kiss her. She pulled away from him, wiping her mouth.
“Eww, I don’t know how you can drink that stuff without any sugar or water added,” she complained.
Gabe laughed and sipped from his cup.
“You know, Bronc and Emma are trying to have a baby.”
“Is that what woke me up?” Lisa joked. “I thought one of the horses was rattled by a snake.”
Gabe laughed. “Seriously. They’re trying.”
“But that’s not possible.”
“Try telling them that.”
Lisa stood in front of him, staring down at her stomach. She put both hands over her belly and moved them around in
a gentle circle.
“We’ll be the first to ever have a baby over here, and he’ll be special.”
“He?” Gabe asked, as he stood up from the table and moved around behind her. He reached around to join her in making circles on her stomach, with their fingers entwined.
“What if it’s a girl?”
“No, it’s a boy,” Lisa said, shaking her head. “I feel it.”
Gabe liked the sound of that. A boy. He liked the way Lisa stared back at him, as content as one could be with the life they now lived.