The Waiting

by Joe Hart

  The Abel-thing paused in its movement and then continued, stopping only a few feet away from where Evan sat.

  I have enough power to live again, for through their collected energy I will conquer death, and you will be my vessel for life. I will be free of this place and walk again, fully alive within your skin.

  Evan clenched his eyes shut, his jaw spasming so hard he heard several of his teeth crack. He vibrated with loss so deep he thought he would simply rip open and bleed grief onto the black floor until he faded away—away like his wife, and now his son.

  Gently, so gently, he laid Shaun back on the floor, putting his palm over his son’s cool eyelids to close them. He brushed back his hair one last time.

  My beautiful boy.

  Evan stood, facing the gaping maw of the Abel-thing. The clank and rattle of the gears almost twenty feet above him drew his gaze upward, and he watched their turning progress, interlocking and spinning with perfect timing. The clock’s hands ticked backward, and the pendulum slashed the air in swaths, counting off the seconds. Time, delicate and powerful, turning, changing, flowing.

  Evan reached into his pocket, drawing out the long, black key, its heavy steel in his hand comforting somehow. He looked down at Shaun’s lifeless body and gripped the key so hard he thought it might snap in his fist. Evan exhaled a long breath, and he opened his palm, hefted the key—everything has a purpose—and lobbed it upward into the twirling gears.

  There was a screeching whine of steel binding, then an explosive bang that echoed through the infinite space of the clock. A haze of brass shavings came down like sharp party streamers, fluttering with golden flashes. The pendulum stuttered and then stopped, cocked to one side, holding its position before another massive boom.

  The pendulum began to swing again, the hands running forward now.

  The giant mouth in Abel’s front bellowed an incomprehensible word—maybe something in the language that brought everything around them to life—and the creature rushed forward, shrieking so loud Evan almost covered his ears.

  Another earsplitting roar filled the cavern, and Abel stumbled with the sound, but it recovered at once and was upon him. Its hands grasped his arm, yanking him off his feet. He flew through the air and slid several yards on his back, then sat up to watch it approach.

  Abel’s face swam to the surface, the eyes maniacal, gleaming with hatred, then it was gone, and he saw a glimpse of Selena before it changed into a conglomeration of countenances. Dozens of eyes and mouths opening and snapping flowed across its face. Ears formed and changed into a mixture of fingers that scraped the air, which then became an empty hole filled with darkness. The darkness seeped like pus from a wound and reached toward him, its edges becoming sharpened into black razors.

  Evan watched the blades of shadow lengthen and then shoot toward him, and he welcomed their touch, knowing it would be nothing compared to the agony of touching Shaun’s dead skin.

  A gear the size of a tractor tire fell from the ceiling and smashed into the Abel thing.

  Its head split with the impact, the reaching darkness recoiling and evaporating in a billow of black smoke. The gear traveled into and through it, all the way to the floor, splattering its greasy flesh in every direction. Some matter landed on Evan’s bare arm, burning before he wiped it away.

  The Abel-shape knitted itself back together, its form becoming whole before several more pieces dropped away, its shed skin hissing like meat in a frying pan.

  A sprocket at least two feet in diameter crashed into the floor inches from Evan’s left leg, and he stood, backing away from the churning form before him.

  The Abel-thing moved forward, two large pincers of bone erupting from its chest, slicing the space before it as it came. A chain fell in a clattering pile somewhere in the dark, and more flesh sloughed off the revenant.

  No!

  The howl in Evan’s head was the rending of souls, the tearing of time. Malignant and dark, it was the sound of death itself.

  The Abel-thing staggered forward, the pincers dropping from its body and shattering into dust as they hit the floor. It pointed an arm in his direction, the fingers trying to form a fist, but they fell away too, first liquid, then flakes of ash. Eyes bulged in sockets lining its ever-changing face as well as its chest. One by one they exploded outward in pulses of milky fluid, until its body was awash in an acidic pool burning its dark hide into smoke.

  Evan’s heart thundered as Abel’s face came into focus one last time, his features etchings of ancient hatred carved in a melting canvas of flesh.

  The horrific amalgam lunged toward him again, its unhinged mouth lined with a hundred teeth. He put his arm up, bracing for impact as the abomination slammed into him. Its teeth flayed through the flesh of his forearm, and it bit down hard, cutting to the bone.

  Evan grunted and toppled over, his free arm bracing his fall. He stared into the primal shine of Abel’s eyes. An abyss waited there, hatred churning behind the swirling irises.

  You’ll not live!

  Evan grimaced with the sound of so many voices intertwined in rage and agony. His fingers brushed something hard on the floor and he grasped it. His eyelids fluttered under the immensity of the pain, but he caught a glimpse of Shaun’s supine form on the floor, and leaned in closer to the Abel-thing.

  “Neither will you.”

  Evan heaved himself upright and rammed the winding key he held into its unblinking right eye, which burst under the pressure. The key’s tip was mashed into a sharpened point from disrupting the gears, and it slid into Abel’s head like a knife. He pushed harder, feeling the slimy tissue give way beneath the unforgiving steel.

  The thing screamed, and Evan’s eardrums tore. Blood leaked in rivulets down the sides of his face, but he shoved harder, the key sliding in all the way to its grip.

  Its teeth released the hold on his arm, and the creature shrunk away. Evan lost his hold on the key, and nearly collapsed, the feeling in his ravaged arm mercifully numb.

  The mutating darkness expanded and contracted as it staggered, a writhing tumor. It pawed at the black steel embedded in its face, but the key held fast in its flesh. It cried out one last time and tried to move toward him again, but fell, exploding into a mixture of noxious wax and muddy soot that splashed the floor and ran in every direction. The key tinkled once as it bounced end over end, and then laid still.

  Evan shook and waited for the stinking pool to re-form, but other than smoke and bubbles, it didn’t move.

  The crashes continued in the windings above him, and hot shavings littered his hair, burning for an instant and then gone. The light stuttered and flashed in an epileptic nightmare that made him shield his eyes as he looked up.

  The crescent moon’s mouth was open in a silent scream of suffering, its eye gouting bursts of light in erratic discharges. Cracks blossomed in its silver skin, and more ill light poured through them.

  Good night moon.

  Evan turned and sat on the floor, hearing more and more gears and sprockets fall, shuddering the ground with their impact. The pendulum let loose and dropped, landing with a hollow gong before tipping forward like a sequoia cut at the base.

  He didn’t look up when it fell or when the air of its passage brushed his face. The sounds of destruction pounded his ruined eardrums, but he didn’t hear even a whisper.

  Evan hummed under his breath, a tune from many years past. Something about a baby’s bed and soft dreams, a song Elle used to sing when Shaun was young. Shaun’s fine hair slid beneath his fingertips, and Evan closed his eyes to the melody in his head, as the clock came rushing down around him.

  28

  The sun was warm on his face, and so bright everything was a red glow before he opened his eyes.

  He looked up into a canopy of branches filled with oddly shaped leaves. They looked like long arrowheads with vibrant blue veins running through their structures.

  A scent came to him, something warm and wholesome, reminding him of his mother. Baki
ng bread, or the smell of her flower garden in June. The scent made him think his stomach would growl, but he realized he wasn’t hungry. He was satisfied, as if he’d recently eaten.

  Evan smacked his lips, watching the shimmer of blue sky through the gaps in the leaves, a blue so deep he knew no one could say a name for it.

  He sat up, pushing himself away from a bed of sand softer than silk. The little particles glinted at him, miniature diamonds in the sun. He turned a little, looking down a path to where the sun shone, resplendent in the sky, burning in a perfect orb of yellow. He realized he could look at the sun and not squint; it didn’t hurt his eyes in the least. It felt right.

  Evan stood, brushing off a pair of lightweight pants that he didn’t remember owning. His body felt glorious, strong, rested. He wanted to laugh but only smiled, trying to remember how he’d gotten here. There was a memory there, something troubling, horrible even, and it began to form.

  The clock, Abel, Shaun.

  He swallowed, waiting for the grief to plummet into him, an outside force burrowing through his soul. His son was dead, gone forever. But instead of breaking down and falling beneath the pain, a strengthful peace filled him. He heard the rush of water somewhere ahead. The ocean, waves hushing against a shoreline, a breeze still coated with the smell of bread nudging the thin shirt he wore. He had to see the water.

  Evan moved, his bare feet sinking into the sand only a little, the walking easy. Trees, their trunks glistening with moisture, lined the path he treaded on, their presence easy, sure, as if he walked down a hallway guiding him.

  The ocean was closer now, and he saw it through the trees, a vastness that thrilled and calmed him at the same time. He ran, the trees coasting by on either side, sweet air in his lungs, the sun on his back.

  He emerged onto the beach, the forest of beautiful trees falling away to reveal sand finer than and as white as sugar as far as he could see. A turquoise stream flowed into the ocean, and when he looked at the water, two things made him stop and stare.

  The first was the utter beauty of the sea, its water as flat and calm as a pond, its color a cousin of the sky. Waves, small and topped with white froth, washed the beach smooth, the sand there even and unbroken but for a short line of little stones running like a stream along the entire beach.

  The second was the two people standing at the water’s edge.

  One was a boy with light hair, wearing the same type of clothes Evan did. He stood with his feet in the waves, his arm cocked back before he slung it out and threw a rock in a straight line. The stone flew a dozen yards and then skipped across the water in bright hops—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—before it sank out of sight.

  Evan turned his gaze to the other figure, a woman with hair that matched the boy’s, wearing a flowing white dress that came just below her knees. He studied the curve of her back, the slope of her shoulders, how she shifted from one foot to the other, swaying in time to the waves. She turned then, her face coming into view. His eyes traced her chin, her lips, the nose he’d kiss sometimes, to her declaration that she hated it while laughing. Her eyes, the last time he saw them so full of pain, now clear, glistening in the sun.

  Elle smiled at him.

  Evan ran down the beach, his legs carrying him before he knew he was moving. The boy turned, hearing his approach, and he saw Shaun’s face light up, his eyebrows leaping, his mouth opening in a cry of wonder. Then he was with them, holding them close, feeling their warmth, the realness of them. Elle’s hair tickled his face, and he knew that he wasn’t dreaming. No dream could be so vivid or so kind.

  “Daddy,” Shaun said, the words clear, without a slur.

  Evan knelt, and Elle came with him, their knees digging into the sand. Shaun looked at him, clear-eyed, studying his face.

  “You came, you’re here.”

  The joy at hearing Shaun speak nearly knocked him off balance, and tears slipped down his cheeks. “I’m here, buddy, I’m here.”

  He pulled Shaun to his chest and felt his son’s small arms wrap around his back, strong, holding him tight. Elle leaned close to them, and Evan kissed her, her lips tasting of the apple balm she used to wear. She cupped a hand to his face, holding him, tasting him too.

  When they finally broke apart, Elle tipped her forehead against his, their eyes drinking each other in.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “There’s so much—”

  Elle pressed a finger to his lips. “I know, I know.”

  She kissed him again, her own tears now flowing. Shaun sat back from them, holding on to Evan’s hand. When Evan looked at him again, he saw the scar from the accident was gone, and a memory came back to him, clear and unrefined, poured into his mind by a gentle hand.

  “Wawee. You were saying ‘Mommy,’ weren’t you?”

  Shaun smiled, nodding. “I saw her in my dreams. She told me we were coming here soon.”

  Evan turned his gaze to Elle. She smiled, gripping his hand tighter.

  “We’re together again,” she said.

  Evan nodded and heard the clack of rocks beneath his hand. He looked down, seeing that they were next to the river of stones, and that each one of them was a perfect skipper.

  29

  The house was quiet except for the wind pushing against the eaves.

  Mist beaded on the windows, throwing pinpoint shadows against the floor. The air was still. Dishes sat in the kitchen sink, the food particles drying, milk and juice in the bottoms of glasses hardening. Clothes hung in closets, motionless. The gray light was constant and baleful.

  The basement stood silent, a rectangular strip of tape on the floor. A layer of thin glass shards pointed up like leavings of hatched eggs. Pages of diagrams were strewn about, their edges overlapping. A doll’s disembodied head lay in the darkness, its sapphire eyes staring at nothing.

  A crumbled pile of black wood was against the far wall, jagged splinters in a halo on the floor. A steel disk with a crescent moon protruded from the top of the mound, the moon’s open eye burned black, elongated, as though exposed to some great heat. Four timing hands were scattered amongst the debris, the pile no more than kindling, good for firewood but not much else. Bright cogs, their minuscule teeth rounded, poked out like hungry fish rising through a dark sea.

  A chime came from inside the rubble, once, onerous. It stretched out, filtering throughout the basement, and then faded into silence.

  Author’s Note

  First off, I hope you enjoyed the ride.

  I hope you were entertained, at times your eyes widened with fear, and possibly tears. All in all, I hope I did my job as a storyteller.

  This particular tale came so strong and fast that I barely had a chance to finish my previous novel before it spilled out onto the page. The basis for the story is very close to my heart, maybe too close in some instances, and I pray that shined through in the writing. As I’ve done many times in my other works, I took musings from my everyday life that scared me silly and sewed them into the fabric of the story. If you’ve ever held someone’s hand in the middle of the night and wondered if it really was theirs, then you know what I mean.

  As always I want to say thanks for spending some time with me and I appreciate any feedback you have to offer, whether it be in the form of a review or simply an email to tell me what you thought. I hope you’ll come back again and we can set off on another journey together. There’s always one more road to walk down and your company makes the trip worth every step.

  Joe Hart

  November, 2013

  Other Books by Joe Hart

  Lineage (novel)

  Singularity (novel)

  EverFall (novel)

  The River Is Dark (novel)

  Midnight Paths: A Collection of Dark Horror (collection)

  The Line Unseen (short story)

  The Edge of Life (short story)

  Outpost (short story)

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