by Mark Tufo
He looked at me strangely, like he didn’t know how to respond. “It is a very subtle scent; the smell of wildflowers in early spring…yet it is like nothing I have ever encountered.”
“The amassing.”
“The what?”
“It is something Azile can see because of her abilities, and me, because apparently, I’m just that lucky. And now you get to get in on the fun.”
“You use a lot of words, Michael, that never seem to get to the point.”
“My wife often wondered if I should have perhaps at some point run for office. Can you imagine me with the nuclear football?”
“You do know that my knowledge of your world falls to a few magazines, right? Could you perhaps be persuaded to get back to the present using terms I may understand?”
I thought about giving him a small piece of my mind but I had so precious little to spare. Also, I was smart enough to realize what I was doing. The amassing terrified parts of me deep down. The less I had to contend with it the better. Nevertheless, I acquiesced to his wishes. “The amassing is something we don’t fully understand. Near as we can tell, it shows up whenever there is about to be massive death; the end of a great battle, a slaughter.”
“To foster or inhibit?”
“Pretty astute, Mathieu, and not the question I would have expected. I do not believe it to be either malicious or empathetic. If I had to answer I would say it is a gathering of souls of the loved ones of those about to depart.”
“Is this a phenomenon from your time?”
“Not one that I was privy to…possible, though. Strange things are nothing new. It’s possible that this has been happening since the dawn of the soul itself, whenever that occurred. There have always been tales of those that passed over coming to show the newly departed the way.”
“And you say you can see this…amassing.”
“Yes.”
“What does it appear as?”
“A black cloud with some tinges of red and blue from afar. When one gets closer it is almost possible to make out faces within the maelstrom. I’m not quite sure that it isn’t pareidolia.”
“What?”
“Pareidolia, the desire to see faces within random patterns. Heard it once on a ghost show I used to watch. Anyway,” I continued when no sign of understanding came across Mathieu’s tilted visage, “when Azile and I were looking at it, we came to the conclusion that maybe it was the loved ones of those about to die that were coming to help them crossover.”
“That would imply fate. That people do not have a choice in the matter. That their time is predetermined from the moment they are conceived. I do not believe I can accept that.”
“Shit, Mathieu, I don’t know what part of that statement I’m even supposed to be thinking about. My stance flip flops on that like a three-year-old in Walmart wondering if I should ask my mother for a GI Joe or a Planet of the Apes figurine, hoping to get both.”
“Michael, new English please.”
“Sorry. Most of my life in this new world has been spent alone in a basement with my own thoughts, dwelling on the past. That I can even communicate at all speaks volumes.”
“I would not go patting yourself on the back just yet.”
“How do I keep ending up with comedians in my life?”
“The universe returns what you project.”
“And a philosopher.”
“Perhaps. I was alone for a long time as well, my friend. Solitude brings forth a great many emotions; I find more solace in a lonely smile than a shared cry.”
“You do realize that as males of our species we are not supposed to be discussing feelings?” I said.
“I am aware.” He was smiling. “Should we go and see this amassing?”
“I told Azile I wouldn’t go anywhere.”
Mathieu was looking at me.
“Right, let me just grab my stuff,” I finished.
Oggie padded along silently next to us. He stayed close; that first week after we made camp he would not even hunt for fear of me leaving. When he did go out, he always made sure to stay within a line of sight to me. Right now I wished he had stayed at camp to avoid any potential danger, but that was unlikely. I could have demanded it, but he wouldn’t have listened. I could have tied him up, but I didn’t have a rope he couldn’t tear through in under a minute. His place was with me, and in the end, I loved having him by my side and was in no rush to not have him there. A time would come, and all too soon, when he would not be there. I would not, I could not, dwell on that. Bailey pretended not to notice our departure; the others actively refused to look our way. Strange set of circumstances to be in. I did not want their companionship any more than they wanted mine, but to be shunned? That was different. I still remembered enough of what it meant to be human that on some level, that stung.
How would I have behaved another lifetime ago to someone I knew that had been labeled a demon? Would I have invited them into my home? Have them watch the kids maybe? Fucking doubtful. No sense in being hypocritical now. I was welcome when I was saving their hides. After that, we had an understanding. Yeah, that’s what I’ll call it. A mutual ignorance of each other’s existence. Benign neglect. The more backsides I saw, the more pissed off I became.
“You have not become used to it yet?” Mathieu asked. “You would not know what to do with more friends.”
“Didn’t we already talk about this whole feelings thing? Get out of my head,” I mostly grumbled, but he heard the good nature beneath it. I was thankful he was so perceptive, and he was right, I would have been just as pissed off if they constantly pushed around me struggling to garner my attention. I was partly human; I wanted what I could not have. Yesteryear, yesterday, today, it’s all the same to me.
We were less than ten feet from the trees. I was scanning, looking for something. “Which way?” I asked.
“I thought you would tell me.”
“I’m looking for a blackness in the darkness of the woods. You’re the one that smelled it, Cujo.”
“Cujo?”
I thought about telling him the story about the rabid Saint Bernard dog. Odds were that he would not like either descriptor. So, since friends were at a premium, I made something up on the spot.
“It’s French. It means ‘one with a talented sniffer.’”
“It is no surprise to me you have very few friends; you have a distinct inability to lie.”
“So now you’re saying lying is a prerequisite to forming strong bonds?”
“Not at all. But neither is avoiding the subject.”
“Wait—I think I see something.”
“Truly?” he asked, peering hard into the trees.
“No, but I got you to shut up. Come on. If I had to take a guess I’d say it’s this way.” I lightly tapped his shoulder and pointed.
“Any particular reason?”
“Yeah, because it makes me feel less comfortable going this way. What do you think Oggie?” He wasn’t a fan of my course either. In the end, it really wouldn’t have mattered which way we went. Less than twenty feet in under the canopy of trees, we were suddenly in the thick of it and near as I could tell, it stretched a hundred or so yards in either direction from where we were. I stopped short.
Mathieu was looking around.
“You can’t see it?” I asked.
“No, but the smell has increased, there is a cloying to it, a sweetness cloaking a stench.”
“Of death?”
He pondered. “No, not quite that. Earthiness, perhaps, or decay. Things that have died and are returning to their original form.”
“Well I can’t tell you just how comforting that is.”
“I do believe I am getting to the point where I enjoy sarcasm; right now isn’t one of those times.”
“Sorry, defense mechanism. We should probably leave.” Before he could ask why, I told him. “It’s moving closer.”
“I thought you were under the impression it was benign?”
�
�A rifle is benign until someone picks it up and points it at you.”
“Is it not worth perhaps seeking a better understanding through observation?”
“Yeah, this coming from the guy that can’t tell that at this exact moment there is a black swath roughly the thickness and length of a human arm reaching out and about to touch his shoulder.” I’ll give him this, Mathieu did not flinch.
“I can feel its touch,” he said matter of factly. “There is a cooling sensation spreading out from the point of origin.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“Not at all. Why would you ask that?”
“The last time one reached out and touched me I got pushed out of a tree.”
“What were you doing in the tree?”
“Never mind.”
“Something is happening.” Mathieu, big brave werewolf that he was, was finally getting a little unnerved.
The woods were lighting up like the trees had been strung in Christmas lights, and not just a couple of strings, but thousands. The entire grove was taking on an unearthly red glow, the lights reflecting through the colored fog, diffused and ethereal. It wasn’t an “oooohhh…look at how pretty that is” quality to it. It was more like: “how fucking fast can we get away from here?”
Like in previous times, faces began to materialize in the mist. Mathieu was totally unprepared. You can talk about it all you want. Being confronted with a phenomenon is a whole other matter. Basic training and combat training in the Marines Corps was some of the most rigorous training I’d ever done in my life. We’d even on occasion had live fire exercises and yes, it’s scary, accidents happen all the time. And sure, it was unbelievably stressful, having D.I.s yell at you constantly while bullets are flying in your general direction along with the sound of explosions on every side; yeah, it’s not normal, every day shit. And by design, it’s not supposed to be. But all of that controlled chaos at basic training doesn’t even rate a spot on the amphitheater that is War. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people actively seeking out your demise and it can come from nearly any direction, including above. There is no training for that, no preparation, no expectation. The mere fact that so many people want you dead is fucking crippling.
“You recognize any of them?” I asked him, my hands were up and I was slowly backing away. The mist was keeping pace. I had a feeling that to turn and run was not a good option—kind of like triggering the “hunt” instinct in a dog. Speaking of which, I looked down at Oggie. If anyone was a great judge of character it was him, that the fur on his back was sticking straight up…yeah, another indicator things were kind of shitty at the moment.
“This is not turning out like I had imagined,” Mathieu said under his breath.
Frost was coming out of his mouth as he spoke. The mist began swirling directly in front of him, I knew this to be the foreshadowing of faces forming. The first was of an incredibly old woman. She was so ancient that time had dragged her nose down into the classic shape of a crone. She could have had a wart on the tip as well, but I wasn’t getting any closer to find out. I was happy to note that he did not show any sign of recognizing the witch. I mean old school witch, of course. I presently had a thing going on with a witch, and she looked nothing like that.
The old crone began to lose form, the features melding into another, this of a man, early thirties possibly, a heavy sadness to his eyes. Mathieu remained impassive, showing no signs that this might have been a long lost cousin or something. The face of the man melted away, much quicker than the witch’s had. It became a little kid, then a younger woman, a different child; the visions changed rapidly; soon they were coming and going so fast it was impossible to get a clear image of any of them.
“We should go, Michael.” The morphing faces were coming closer, more insistent, as if begging to be recognized. If one were so inclined, one could have leaned in for a kiss. I mean, I wasn’t so inclined, but it could have been done.
“You come to that realization now?” I turned, screw the backing out slowly. “Uh oh,” came out of my mouth, literally and unsolicited. We were surrounded. The mist, fog, or density of apparitions, had swallowed us whole. Even the ground was obscured by the vapor. It rose as high as my knees and was touching the lower portion of Oggie’s belly. He looked up at me, I’d swear he was asking me what the hell I was going to do to get us out of this. The soft red took on a deeper hue, ripples of blue flowed through it like electric eels slicing murky water. If anger could be represented visually, this would be a great example.
“Michael?” Mathieu sounded distant, alone and afraid. I could just make out his outstretched arm as it groped for me. I reached over; just as I was about to make contact, the haze flowed around and over his arm, engulfing it completely. And just like that, he was gone. I called for him; well, call might imply that I didn’t scream and yell for him, because I did. He was gone, pulled completely from this world, or from my realm at least. Is that considered the same thing?
Then as I looked around, I mean, “around” as in looking a few inches in any direction, I realized that maybe Mathieu wasn’t gone, that maybe it was me. I grabbed a handful of Oggie’s fur, then immediately bent down to wrap an arm around his midsection before I picked him up.
“Where I go, you go,” I told him. “Although maybe if you laid off a rabbit or two you wouldn’t be so friggen heavy.” Oggie was all about being close and getting his daily doses of pats from anyone that would give him a few seconds of their time. Being hauled up off the ground, though, was not something he was used to, and probably didn’t care much for. Right now, though, he was a fan. He gave my face a tentative lick.
“You’re welcome. Now we need to find Mathieu and get out of this soup.”
I didn’t know in which direction to go, there was no way to get oriented, I had a general sense that Mathieu had been off to my right and that the way out of here was to my back. But I had spun looking for him. And, if I were indeed someplace else, would those directions matter? Would any direction matter? Purgatory had been a drab shade of gray. The sky, the ground, gray—the people, all gray. I use the terms “sky” and “earth” because as a human I cannot imagine those elements not being there. It is a way to give substance to nothingness. But in reality, there are no delineations, it’s just space. Lost souls are merely pushed along through whatever comprised their cosmos. I did not have that sense of sad vastness here that I’d experienced in Purgatory, but it was similar, of that there was no denying. I needed to take action, to decide on a direction and just head that way. I was about to give this strategy a go when that old familiar shifting of miasma began to happen in front of me, only this time it wasn’t one swirl, it was half a dozen, a dozen…maybe a hundred, appearing within the fog. All around, faces peered at me, swaying in non-existent breezes, ripples of current running across a forehead then sweeping down a cheek, then becoming fog again.
Unlike with Mathieu, these visages did not change. They stared into me as if attempting to find that very soul I had willingly given up. What would I do if one of the faces peering back at me was my own? Would he look upon me with contempt? With anger? For so freely letting go something so hard earned?
“Fuck you,” I mumbled. “You would have done the same thing.”
Oggie looked at me, there was no doubt he was wondering who I was talking to. I did not want to touch any of the faces, I didn’t think that was wise, but I didn’t want to have an eternal staring contest either. I moved to the right; the cocoon of faces moved along with me. The eyes on the face in front of me grew wide for a heartbeat then narrowed as his eyebrows furrowed down. His lips pulled back and his teeth became exposed as he took on a ferocious look. The face became familiar and froze, a mask of hatred as if carved in stone. I stopped moving. I might have jokingly threatened that his face was going to stick like that, I mean, if I wasn’t in danger of swallowing my Adam’s apple. I started cataloging through people I had known; I had to reach way back to put a name to this one. Afte
r the intense stand-off passed, I looked around at the other faces, I could suddenly recognize all of them. Durgan, Easter Evans, Jawless Redneck, Ratspindler, Fritzy, Bobbie Fucking Chan, so many more than I wanted to list off. It struck me that Deneaux was absent; that did not sit well. Was she still alive? Was it possible?
I think I had a decent enough grasp on otherworldly realms that hovered around us that I made the assumption that hell didn’t want her. How many times had death come to collect her black and withered soul only to only realize that his docket did not include a place to deposit the shriveled, burnt little husk? And lord knows she would never ask for forgiveness to move on to the top levels. What the fuck did any of this mean? Was I on the precipice of dying? Azile and I had thought that perhaps these were loved ones come to assist in the transition period. What did this say about me that I was now surrounded by those that felt mostly negatively toward me? Are the hated ones so petty that even in death they would derive some sort of pleasure from the demise of their living foe? That was kind of a rhetorical question. Of course they would. Hate might be petty, but it is also the most lasting feeling of all.
The blue electric streaks came in faster now, like a massive thunderstorm was brewing all around. This phenomenon had gone from mildly dangerous to extremely so. I was absolutely certain that touching that crackling energy would stop all manner of life within me. I’d mistakenly believed, once upon a time, that the living could not harm the dead and vice versa. Sorry for how graphic I’m about to become, but that stupid theory had been blown out of my ass like a bad fajita. Still, I’d already dealt with the undead, the living dead, and now the lifeless dead. These were ghosts, what else could they be? But how do ghosts form cohesion from nothingness? Do they have meetings on the specternet and figure out where to rally? Or is the mist merely a portal influenced by the living that are around it? Neither explanation made complete sense. Certainly people that are about to die don’t gain that bit of information before they go. Death is a quick, sudden striker who does not telegraph his intentions.