by Lee Thompson
They glanced up at him but their hands kept working, sewing the tear, chanting quietly. Mike shivered. Their forms squirmed like bags full of serpents. They finished and stood.
Mike said, “Take me to him.”
They nodded in turn, entwined their fingers, and closed their eyes. The sky lightened and birds chirped, and far-off the falls roared. Mike wiped his eyes, flinching as his knuckles brushed embedded granite. They came to him and led him to the water. He refused to glance down and stare at his reflection though he knew he’d have to do it sooner or later, if not here, somewhere else. He said, “I’ve never thought myself very vain, but I know I’m a wreck, and it hurts as much emotionally as physically. Maybe more.”
The sisters stroked his shoulders, one on either side, the third edging into the water, splashing and laughing like a child. Mike said, “We’re all crazy, aren’t we? Even the eternal.”
The other sisters joined the first.
Mike stared at them for a moment, then went to the place they had fixed. He knelt and dug his fingers into the repaired seam and as he tore it open and a cool breeze blew from the draft, the sisters said, “Don’t,” suddenly still in the water, holding hands, faces drawn.
“Why? What’s beyond it?”
“Hell for some,” they said. “But this isn’t your fight. He has to go it alone.”
Wylie screamed again, closer. Mike’s guts hurt. His whole body ached.
He thought, I don’t have my rifle.
He stood there a moment, considering, then pulled the flap higher and ducked beneath, realizing that the greatest weapon he’d ever owned was the one inside his head and inside his heart.
The space beyond the veil was cold but green, a towering forest long overgrown. It looked like home.
Mike smelled blood.
He stepped forward, wishing he’d brought the knife that Proserpine had been after months ago—the one God fashioned for Judas that he might pierce Jesus’ side because the Son had tasted of humanity, immersed himself in all its wonders and frailties, and there was no going back, they had to force him to stick to the plan. While one betrayer bore the sin of the world unwillingly, others, like April had and David’s brother Jacob, fled life at the end of a rope.
So, he thought, how did my family attain a one-of-a-kind item like that?
Wylie laughed, then whimpered. Mike jogged between trees.
TWENTY-FOUR
April, who I’d kept from walking into the manor’s basement with me months ago, took my hand now as we stood at a dark doorway. Her touch warmed my skin yet my mind knew that her hand was frigid, and I longed to stand there forever, at that place where light and shadows met, where our union wasn’t tormented by death or betrayal or facts, but only the feeling of oneness.
She whispered and squeezed my hand gently, urging me forward, and I suspected she assumed what waited inside for us. And even in death, it frightened her.
But we’re together, I thought, and the love I once had for you, that burned so intensely and cut so deeply it bred hate in the end has come full circle, and our identities are wrapped up in this moment. I don’t want to leave it. I don’t.
“Help,” she whispered. “It’s all we can do for each other now.”
A gentle breeze issued from the darkened doorway. It curled like mist at our feet.
“I miss you,” I said, realizing that it wasn’t only her son that kept her here, and the denial of his death at her hands, but the chains I’d bound to her as well. By force of will, with anger and purity, a connection that needed to be severed permanently at some point, for her to go on and to allow myself to deal with the grief.
She touched my shoulder, kissed my cheek, and I put an arm around her waist and together we crossed into the abyss.
* * *
Mike flinched as he caught sight of Wylie, his face swollen and his shirt soaked with blood. But he didn’t stop his forward momentum, just met Wylie’s eyes and smiled, thankful that he wasn’t too late, that he could still rectify this situation, still get Wylie out of here once he…
Lucas turned his head slightly as Mike leapt, his hand raising the machete as Mike swung and his fist cracked bone in the kid’s face. He hit the ground and Mike took hold of his shoulder and followed him down, landing with his knees in Lucas’s stomach, moving the way he always had when violence took hold and he had to go with it, not thinking too much. He pinned the kid’s hand to the ground and punched him in the funny bone, chopped his collar bone and jabbed fingers in his eyes in less than a second.
Lucas yelped and released the machete. Mike grabbed it, slammed his heel into Lucas’s sternum as he stood, and then swung the blade with all his force.
Lucas’s head rolled across the earth, stained the grass and turned it black. Crawling insects fled the stump of his neck.
Mike turned to Boom Stick, ready to move, ready to end his life with the ghost kid’s weapon.
But he froze, seeing John inside Nutley’s eyes, and thought, No, he’s not dead…He’s not.
Wylie sank to the ground and cried.
Nutley studied Mike.
The sisters skirted the edge of the forest, Red and Pig, and two large Cyclopes in tow.
The look on Boom Stick’s face said he knew they were there but he wasn’t concerned with them. He said, “Who are you?”
Mike shrugged. “Just some guy.”
Boom Stick laughed. “No, you are more than that.”
Mike fought the urge to glance at Wylie, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Red move to his side, wrap Wylie’s arm in a piece of shirt.
Too much blood, Mike thought. He’s not going to make it.
Nutley moved quickly, his fingers closing around Mike’s throat. Mike let them because he knew that if you let someone think they had you, you could blindside them, teach them the hard way, the final lesson. That we’re all vulnerable, none of us as strong or as smart as we’d like to think.
An image of John flashed deep inside Boom Stick’s eyes, a spark that flared out like cosmos being born inside the madman and his fingers slackened suddenly.
Boom Stick stumbled back, squeezed his head, and screamed.
* * *
I sucked in a breath that felt like flames in my lungs. At first I thought it was David playing a game on the forest floor, like so many of us, playing God because it’s part of our nature to create, to solve mysteries, to understand. But the boy’s hair was too dark, and he glanced over his shoulder. His eyes glowed. He said, “I’m hurting.”
“I know,” I said. “You’ve always been hurting.”
He smiled. “But I like it. Part of me likes it.”
“I know,” I said.
“I hurt other things. Do you want to see?”
“No. I want you to disappear.”
“You can’t make me do anything.”
I shook my head, thinking that Boom Stick at his core was just an upset child, like so many of us once our masks were stripped away.
He moved without me seeing it happen.
He grabbed my nuts and squeezed and I let out a startled breath as I bent over, repulsed, and a sharp pain jabbing my stomach as he kissed each of my eyes and whispered, “I don’t know you yet, but I want to. I want us to share…”
Lucas grins. He’s naked and his hands open, shut, open, shut. I study him and say, “You’re a monster, you know that, right?”
Lucas thinks he’s invincible, thinks he can do whatever he wants, say whatever he wants, no matter the transgression. He tilts his head, eyes filled with dead girl’s asses in his hands, his cock tearing cold corpses raw. He says, “What’s the point of living if you don’t go all out?”
I don’t think Lucas is frightened, think, He believes he’s the one, that somehow, somewhere along the line, we’ve switched places.
Lucas says, “Why do you worship her?”
He’ll never understand…But I say, “I want to know that something matters, that I matter, that I can be forgiven, be loved.
” I shake my head. He moves closer. He touches my shoulder affectionately, and there’s heat there too; he is as worried and angry as I am.
He opens his mouth, whispers, “She’s not real. Your god. This is it. This short existence. And the girl you met out on the road, that led you to betray Sonnelion, she’s not real either.” His fingers touch the side of my face softly. “We are real. This moment. Our friendship.”
I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone. I have many knives, many pains. But I also have self-control, and Lucas is strong, stronger than me. I say, “Let’s drink. I don’t want to think anymore,” though I can’t stop thinking.
We drink until we’re obliterated and Lucas, who downs booze like he takes what he wants, passes out. I stare at him awhile, knowing that neither of us is who we once were, that our cause, our goals, have been muddied and tainted by something else, and I just can’t put my finger on it, and as much as I want forgiveness I want to let my rage free, let it run rampant, knowing that there is more purity in letting it express itself than subduing it.
I open his mouth. He drools on my fingers as I pull his tongue out with one hand, while the other grabs a small knife, my first knife, just a little knife that has served me well through the last few years. It’s stained with blood. His tongue is tough. It spews blasphemy and admiration. I stick the tip of the blade as far back in his mouth as I can get it, squeezing his tongue between index finger and thumb, as hot blood splashes against my fingers and his eyes snap open. I slice deeply. I am the night. I am the coming dawn. And somehow he sees this in my eyes, knows that I can make things worse, that it is a small price he pays for what he’s done. His hand closes over his lips, blood bubbling between his fingers. I whisper, “I love you or I would have slit your throat.”
Only, the time comes when I do just that. Out in the forest, before a makeshift altar of ruined remains, with sunlight cutting between dark branches, and Lucas tied to a tree.
I have murdered innocent people.
Sonnelion no longer speaks to me.
Proserpine flashes in and out of my life and I can’t get enough of her, want to lose myself inside her every waking second, but she won’t let me. And to have that longing in the flesh is worse than a god I cannot see, only hear her whispering direction.
I slit Lucas’s throat and feel his soul slide down my own as I lap blood from the gash, catching some to wipe along the trees and over dead leaves, a gift for the All-Mother, the Silent One.
I sit and stare at the sky for hours. Lucas opens his eyes, spirit separating from body as he steps forward and drops to his knees near me, his hand running over his throat, amazed that the mark I gave him is gone.
I’ve never seen so much grief or relief. He mouths something. He doesn’t know he’s dead.
I say, “Your ass is mine,” something he’s said to the poor, dead girls, thinking it funny as he raped their carcasses.
* * *
Boom Stick turned inward, so the man was hidden, the monster leashed. He studied me with the flat stare of a cobra. I’d never been so afraid or so sickened by anyone in my life.
He said, “I’ve never found redemption. Sonnelion eludes me. Proserpine mocks me.”
April drifted further away.
I reached for her.
Boom Stick glared.
He said, “You’re lucky, aren’t you? Got all the luck in the world, but it’s not fair.” And I felt him moving around inside me, saw a window in the wall, and saw Wylie outside, bleeding all over Mike and his ruined face as my best friend held him, wiped sweaty hair from his forehead, and I’d never seen Mike so scared or worried for anyone and I realized that he loved Wylie like a brother whether Wylie realized it or not.
Boom Stick said, “I want what you have.”
I turned away from the window and faced him.
He could easily kill me, I thought. I’m no match.
He said, “Give me the key. Show me how you won their trust.”
April ran her hands over the glass and whispered, “They’re so lucky.”
“I have something to give,” I said, looking at April, her dark hair coiled in her pale hands.
I moved to her side, hugged her for the last time and as strong as I thought I could be at times, it hurt to let go, more than I had ever imagined. I kissed her forehead and said, “I found your son.”
She pulled back a step and looked around, holding my hands, but the connection nearly fading as our fingertips hooked before she could part. “Ethan?”
I nodded.
Boom Stick frowned, pulled a rusty knife from behind his back, stepped forward.
I pointed at him. “He’s right there. He’s been gone so long, aching for your touch, your instruction, your love.”
She glanced at him, looked confused for a moment, then her eyes brightened, seeing what wasn’t there at all, or maybe it was, maybe in Nutley she saw the lost life her son could never live, the longing that ran into the deep darkness of eternity, the uncertainty of paths never crossed, decisions never made. She ran to him, her arms wide, and Nutley slashed the knife across her midsection but she closed him up, pulled him to her breast, her lips pressing against the top of his head, smothering him. He beat against her. Flailed and cursed. He screamed, his face a mask of terror as she snatched the boy from the ground and cradled him, and carried him into the darkness, never once looking back.
She whispered, so loudly in the gathering stillness and looming shadows, “I will never lose you again.”
TWENTY-FIVE
David shared a common pain with me.
Where I saw April, he saw Jacob.
Both traitors, even to themselves, yet loved.
He stood beyond the others, cradling his mother’s head with the same kind of love that April had shown Nutley, thinking only of reunion, that things had been righted, her burden lifted.
The Cyclops brothers, Jake and Les, moved quickly to Nutley’s fallen form. They knelt on either side of his head and Jake pried the knife from the old man’s hand and used it to cut Nutley’s right eye free. He handed the blade to his brother, who went to work on the left, making more of a mess of it, until they wept together, and backed away with their prizes.
The sisters held hands.
Mike held Wylie.
Red held Pig.
Lucas lay headless, dead eyes staring at the sky.
I coughed, a coldness working serpentine magic through my body.
Everyone looked so worn.
I asked where Doug was but no one had the answer and those who did were gone.
TWENTY-SIX
We stood in the kitchen of my house, looking over the graveyard and the Johnston Manor. Mike was unusually quiet, both of us exhausted. For one reason or another, this place was a threshold into darker things, shadows running so deep they descended to Hell. The manor was the oldest home in Division, massive on the outside, but even bigger inside. I’d spent time growing up there when my father was too busy to keep an eye on me, passing me off to Mike’s family so he could concentrate on his hypocritical leanings.
I said, “Do you ever wonder about the history of your family’s house?”
“No.” He turned away and poured more coffee into his mug and then carried it into the living room. We sat on the couch and Mike grimaced. “I heard the history from my mother when I was twelve.”
“News to me.”
“You know how King Solomon’s temple was built?”
“One stone after another?”
He laughed and shook his head but his face paled as he spoke. “Solomon gained power over demons. He made them build his temple to honor God, to show the spirits they were nothing more than tools, dogs.”
“Your mom said demons built the manor?”
“My great-grandfather wasn’t Solomon. He wasn’t even religious. And my mom was a liar.” His twin sister’s ghost danced in his eyes.
I nodded. None of it really mattered. What’s done can’t be undone, and some mysteries ar
e beyond reasonable explanation, or manners with which to deduce them. I said, “Do you think Duncan’s dead?”
“More than likely.”
My heart sank. I was hoping he’d lie to me, that he’d be the one who could remain hopeful for us. But no, he was honest, practical; it glowed like bright light from his core. He couldn’t pretend and I couldn’t ask him to. I thought of Kim and the pain she’d endure as she recovered from the torture Nutley had put her through, the scars he’d given her. I thought of Wylie, getting stoned just to deal with the pain of losing his hand, and the pain it caused everyone when they saw him try to reach for something without thinking and failing to grasp it. We knew pain. Some more than others.
I said, “Do you believe in an ultimate evil?”
Mike studied me a moment, but he was really studying himself, and everyone he had ever known. He said, “I think we’re all evil and we have to work at being good, the people who really want it anyway.”
I nodded, thinking about what he said, how right he usually was, and pulled a cigarette from his pack. I rolled it between my fingers as shadows gathered on the lawn, reliving my best and worst moments in the gathering darkness and remaining light.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lee Thompson has work published at Delirium Books, Shock Totem, Dark Discoveries and other places that’ll get under your skin. His fiction is like a dark Twilight Zone meets Alfred Hitchcock Mystery. Check out sexy pics of him online: http://leethompsonfiction.com.
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