Otherland

by Almondie Shampine

  “Did you get her, Jerome?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we got her,” he said, his voice estranged.

  “What’s wrong, Jerome?”

  “What the hell you get us involved in, Lydia? I ain’t never seen – I thought we be dealin’ with flesh and blood. Brought my boys, we brought our guns, all ready to take care of the siti-ation.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were all ‘bout gettin’ ready to beat the piss out o’ the old guy, when he jus’ drop to the ground, a black thing come outta him like smoke, started tauntin’ us, tellin’ us, ‘Go ahead. Kill the human.’ Sorry ‘bout yo’ house, dog. We shot it all up, bullets went right through it. Tried turnin’ on the lights, all the bulbs shattered. Cherise got somma yo’ hairspray or perfume or somethin’, and lit it right up in there with fire.

  “So it screamed, tried gettin’ into one a’ my boy’s body who wasn’t in any light, but my boy good and it didn’t seem to take, so it flew away. The old man begged fo’ us to take him with us, so we did. Got him tied up right now.”

  “You did good, Jerome. I knew you’d take care of it. Where are you?”

  “What? I ain’t tellin’ you nuttin’. You gone done enough.”

  Aliyah heard a slap. “Gimme that phone, fool. Hey girl, don’t listen to him. We at my ma’s. You remember where that at?”

  “Cherise, no, she keep bringin’ this shit on us,” Lydia heard Jerome in the background.

  “Shut up, Jerome. You do the same thing if it was one a’ yo’ boys. That who we are. We got each other’s back. Take care o’ our own. That’s how it is.”

  “Cherise, I don’t want to cause any more problems than I already have,” Lydia said.

  “Girl, get yo’ white ass over here. The old fool we got strapped up wants to talk wit’ you.”

  “Thank you, Cherise. I didn’t know what else to do or where else to go. Hey, do you got formula and diapers over there?”

  “Yuh, why?”

  “Just wondering. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER 20

  It was nearly midnight when Lydia arrived to a house that had every light lit. She was met at the door, Jerome carrying a lit torch to get her safely out of the darkness and into the bright house.

  “What you got?” Cherise asked.

  “Cherise, I want you to meet my son, Jasper.”

  “I thought yo’ son was 12 or somethin’. This jus’ a newborn babe. You know what? All this crazy. Nothin’ make sense no mo’. Neve’ mind. He do look like you, though. Come on, baby, get you fed and changed,” Cherise took over.

  “I need help carrying Jacob in.”

  “How long he been out fo’?”

  “Almost eight hours,” Aliyah said worriedly. “But he was summoned. Usually those are quick.”

  “Jerome,” Cherise snapped her fingers. “Get the body from the car.”

  “Buh – body? What the hell, Cherise.”

  “It ain’t dead, fool. Why I got to be the one always wearin’ the pants ‘round here? Man up, Jerome.”

  Lydia bowed her head, hiding her smile, as Jerome and two of his buddies grumbled past her out the door. “Hi, Mama,” she hugged Cherise’s mother.

  “You done brought the devil,” she said, holding Lydia’s face and looking at it. “Don’t make sense. You not that pretty, skinny as bones, and white as porcelain.”

  “Mama,” Cherise chastised.

  “What? Ya think a black demon would want a big black woman, that’s all I’m sayin’. Not some skinny white girl.”

  “He’s not a demon, Mama. He died three years ago. I’m his unfinished business,” Lydia said.

  “Well, you be safe here, chile. I got more crosses in dis house than china. Nothin’ gonna get you here.”

  “Thanks, Mama,” Lydia dropped her head in humility and guilt for having caused all this to begin with. “Where’s Danny, the old man?”

  “He in the basement.”

  Aliyah inhaled and exhaled, finding her strength to face the man that had ruined her life. He looked pathetic and very, very old. He was breathing hard, holding his chest, his face scrunched in pain.

  “Aliyah,” he croaked, when she was ten feet in front of him. “How is it possible? You look 20 years old.”

  “25,” she said shortly.

  “I was 23 when you were seven, and now I’m 62.”

  “I found other ways to escape the things that you and Dwayne did,” she said bitterly. “I spent more years of my life hiding than I did living it. They said you wanted to talk to me.”

  He had tears in his eyes. “What we did to you was terrible?” he said.

  “I know,” she said coldly.

  “Dwayne, he’s intent on destroying you. He won’t let go. He won’t stop. He’s … obsessed. When he died, I thought … I thought I could finally be free of him.”

  “Your soul is as black as his because of the things you did. What makes you think you deserve to be free of that,” Lydia raised her voice.

  “I know, I know. I messed up. I – I never felt good about it, Aliyah. I regretted ever getting involved. One thing led to another, and because I was a part of it … He used me as much as he used you, Aliyah. The real Aliyah -.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I didn’t know about it at the time. Dwayne and my friendship went way back. We grew up together. He was, well, he had been, a very good friend to me. He got married and had a daughter, who was named Aliyah. He doted on her. He loved her so much, but his wife wanted a divorce. She took the child, ran. I’d just graduated from the academy at that time, so he asked for my help in locating them. I did.

  “Then he asked for a ride, said he was going to talk to his wife to try to make arrangements. Instead, he came running out of the house, carrying the child, told me I was as much a part of the abduction as him, and needed me to drive. I didn’t know what to do. I never should have - He was my friend, I trusted him.”

  “I had no idea what he was getting me involved in, but once involved, he owned me. Told me he’d ruin my life if I didn’t help him, so I figured if I just helped him that once, it would all be over.

  “Then he called me one day, frantic, hysterical, telling me she’d died, and if I didn’t help him, he’d turn me in for abducting her to begin with. He said we needed to find another child that looked like her to take her place, so that no one would suspect what had happened to her. He said it’d been an accident, that she’d drowned, but she’d already been registered in school, and so if he reported her death, they’d run the DNA, learn that she was the abducted child, and both of us would go down for it.

  “I knew, at that point, I was already in too deep, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to spend my life in prison for a simple act of helping out a friend that I’d trusted. So I did what he wanted. I found you, you took Aliyah’s place, no one knew anything. I stayed away as much as I could. I spent my life dreading his phone call, that he would ask me for another favor and threaten my life.

  “I didn’t know for many years what he was doing to you. If you could know what I knew, when he was married, and having his daughter, he was the best father there was. Losing that had made him insane, like I’d never seen him before. I thought that once he could feel like he had his daughter back, all would be good. He’d be happy. He’d be good to you. He’d love you like he’d loved his real daughter.”

  Aliyah clenched her fists. “I had to pay for the fact that I wasn’t his real daughter, that I hadn’t been born to him, that I’d had seven years’ prior of a life with my actual parents before they died. I mourned my parents. I’d loved them. He wanted me to call him Dad when I knew that he wasn’t,” she said harshly, having difficulty with her breath for all the pain she was feeling.

  “The more he demanded my love, the more I knew I wasn’t his daughter, the more I mourned my family that had been stolen from me. You don’t have to go into the details of your participation, Danny. I remember, and I’
ve spent my life trying to forget. He used you to hurt me. He used you to try to show me that he was the only one that truly loved me and wouldn’t hurt me. And you played right along, Danny. You did exactly what he wanted you to do.”

  “I’m sorry, I told you, I was in too deep. I didn’t know how to get out. I was just as much a victim to him as you.”

  Lydia laughed bitterly, “No, Danny, you weren’t. At any time, you could have gotten out. You could have turned him in. You could have refused. There are so, so many other things you could have done other than what you chose to do. That’s why your soul is as black as his, which is why it was so easy for his soul to possess your body. If you’re looking for my forgiveness, you’re not going to get it.”

  “I know, I know. I was a coward, and I’ve spent my life running from the consequences. You’re right that I could have made different choices, but I didn’t make those choices, because I was too afraid. And now I know that there is no getting away from the consequences of those choices, but I am willing to offer an exchange with you.”

  “What kind of exchange?”

  “I want you to kill me so that he can’t take possession of me again. Kill me, and I will face the consequences. I don’t want to be controlled by him any longer, and I’m now prepared to face whatever consequences I have to. In exchange, I will tell you your real name so that you can find your family.”

  “My parents are dead.”

  There was silence as he bowed his head, then slowly shook it side to side. “Those were lies. All lies. Your parents never died. We told you that so that you would … forget them.”

  Lydia, or Aliyah, or whoever she was, dropped to the ground in tears. “All these years my parents have been alive?”

  “Do we have an agreement? In exchange for this information, you will kill me?”

  “Yes, yes,” she cried.

  “Your name is Savannah Somersteen, from New Jersey.”

  “Heightsfield” she whispered.

  “You remember?”

  “Heightsfield Central School. I lived on Durham Ave.”

  “Now it’s your turn,” he said.

  She stood, looking down on him with so much hatred. She could easily, easily kill him without remorse. It’d be too easy, so she turned away and shut the lights off instead.

  “I know about our son!” he cried out as she ascended the basement stairs.

  “You aiight?” Cherise said in concern as Lydia moved into the kitchen.

  “Release him,” she said simply. “Keep his hands bound, but leave him out there in the darkness. It’s where he belongs.”

  “What happen? What he say?”

  Lydia just shook her head, keeping her lips tightly closed, but showing all that needed to be known in her eyes.

  They went to Cherise’s bedroom with the sounds of Danny’s desperate pleas of terror, out there, alone in the darkness, while they were surrounded by light.

  Yet still, the Light knight hadn’t returned.

  CHAPTER 21

  Dwayne felt the summons he’d been waiting for while searching for another body to possess. He opened the portal door and felt more purpose and accomplishment than he’d ever felt in his human life, as all the Dark souls filed through.

  The night came to be filled with the screams of humans, their normal routine lives disrupted forever. Too many lights would cause a power surge that would put all their homes in darkness. Then they’d all start killing each other, every man unto himself, not knowing what was good or what was possessed, not willing to take the chance to find out, because the greatest skill the Dark had was deceit.

  To take the appearance of being good, so that the good would not be trusted. That’s how easy it all was. Fear was an active thing that everyone kept at bay. Once triggered, nothing could stop it from taking its own course. Fear, and only fear, made people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.

  ***

  Lydia rubbed her groggy eyes. “Something’s happening. Can you hear it?”

  “Yuh, scares the bejesus outta me. Why ain’t he come yet? This seem bigger than you,” Cherise said.

  “It is. What time is it?”

  “Three. We be sittin’ here fo’ hours. Wish we could fast-forward time so it be light out, again. This torture.”

  “He should have returned by now,” Lydia said worriedly. “Something’s keeping him from returning. I can feel it. There’s something very wrong. I need to go back there.”

  “I’m goin’ wit’ you.”

  “You can’t.”

  “You ain’t tell me what I can or can’t do. I’m involved in dis now. How am I s’pposed to know what to do if you don’t show me? They expectin’ you. They ain’t expectin’ Cherise.”

  “It’s not that simple, Cherise,” Lydia tried explaining. “Only those that have been there before can get there and find their way back. You have to know how to manipulate consciousness and leave the body. I know you’ve got it in your mind that this is the bible’s heaven and hell, but it’s not like that. It’s so far from being that simple. White is Dark and Black is Light. Angels can be demons, and Lost souls are soul suckers, worse than the vultures that feed on the dead.

  “You’ll see things – your own worse fears – the worst possible things you can’t even imagine, you can’t even prepare for. The moment you feel fear or attempt to turn back, your body will pull you right back in, if They don’t get to you first.”

  “Girl, you know how many drugs I done growin’ up befo’ I had one too many bad trips? If I hadn’t ended up in the hospital screamin’ ‘bout the walls and everyone’s faces meltin’, I think Mama woulda put me there herself. Cleaned me up fast, girl, caused me hallucinations fo’ years afterward, so there ain’t nothin’ I ain’t already saw.”

  “Uh huh, because you were cool as crystal after first seeing Dwayne,” Lydia grinned at her sarcasm.

  “Uh-uh, don’t even go there. I was ready to kick some black demon ass, standin’ over you like that, moanin’ like he was gonna …”

  Lydia involuntarily shuddered, images flashing before her eyes. She had an idea of what she was going to face on the inside, as the subconscious depths played on one’s present worst fears to keep them from crossing, fears she hadn’t had to face in all the years she’d been absent of memories. Suddenly, she knew that she would not be able to face them without Cherise, as just like then, she would be overpowered.

  “We’ll need to lock ourselves in the basement. Leaving the body makes it vulnerable, defenseless and unguarded. Make sure your Mom will be all right with Jasper for a while. Remember, time is different there. My journeys there when I was younger sometimes seemed an eternity that I’d been there, and I’d disappointingly awaken to having only had a half hour go by here. Other times, I’d return at the same time I left, but there was a time that Dwayne told me I’d been out for an entire summer vacation.”

  “Can I ask you somethin’?” Cherise looked at her intently, uncharacteristically serious.

  “Hmm.”

  “All the time I know you, you was like dis scared little thing, can hardly get you to leave yo’ apartment. I tell you a big black spirit be towerin’ over you, and you don’t even flinch. Now you tellin’ me that travelin’ to this place is full o’ nightmares and worst fears, yet you been there a hundred times. Why is that?”

  Lydia heavily sighed. “I wasn’t going to talk about it, because I want to move forward from my past, but I have a feeling that going in there, you’re going to see too much anyway. Going together, it’s not just your worst fears you’re going to face, it’s mine as well, so it’s best if I prepare you.”

  There was a long silence until Cherise started clicking her long acrylic nails. “What I faced in life was hell on Earth. That’s why I lost my faith. I believed I was already in hell, and that there was nothing worse than what I’d faced here. I did everything I could to escape, and since I couldn’t escape physically, I found another way. I was only a small child when I found Other
land.

  “I was never afraid there, but neither was I wanted, because I was human. It’s like I was trapped between two worlds, and not able to belong in either one of them. I just kept winding up in one trying to escape from the other. That’s been my entire existence as far back as I can remember. Escaping. Running. Hiding. Neither worlds would give up hunting me, so finally I found a way. I knocked Dwayne out with some heavy medication one night, and I dragged him to Otherland. This was after they’d changed the Bylaws that any humans that found their way there could no longer leave. I was the only one they couldn’t contain.

  “I returned here and ended his human existence, believing that finally I could live my life and stop running, but Otherland would not stop hunting me. Everywhere I went, they’d find me. Dwayne’s black spirit standing over me isn’t anything new to me, Cherise. Sadly, it’s normal to me. It’s been my way of life. People fear losing their jobs, or their car breaking down, or not having enough money to pay the bills. I feared going to sleep; that a spirit would find me vulnerable and imprison me inside the Darkness right next to the very one I’d spent my life escaping from.

  “I gave up. I surrendered. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I returned there voluntarily, and even though I could escape their spiritual restraints, I remained imprisoned in the Darkness and awaited the Ceremony trial. That is where I pleaded with the elders and the High master.

  “Well,” Lydia chuckled. “I wasn’t really one for pleading then. I more demanded the High master to prove himself. Told him if he was so all-knowing, then he should know what brought me there to begin with, and if he had one single merciful ion in his soul, he would call off his spiritual dogs and finally allow me to live a life of my own free will.”

  Cherise smacked her – hard enough to sting. “You get a chance that no one else gets ‘round here to stand befo’ our Lord, our Heavenly Father. To see him -.”

  “I didn’t see him. He doesn’t make appearances, I guess you could say, and he’s not God, the Spirit, the Holy Ghost,” Lydia said mockingly. “He’s just the High ruler in Otherland that they worship like you worship your God.”