“Jack, I’m here! I’m not dead. Jack!”
With a last flicker of sunlight, the gash closed and left his demesne in muted shades of gray, but not before it had filled his future with promise. He wanted to laugh at the sounds of her screams breaking what had seemed to be eons of oppressive silence. This was almost too delightful.
The yellow-orange glow of his imagined sun now seemed dim as a flashlight but he didn’t care. Soon enough, he would walk in the true light. The boundary of gray ash was at least a mile ahead and below him at the edge of the rolling hills that approximated the terrain he had grown up with. Behind him sat a semblance of his childhood home, a modest three-bedroom ranch his father had only managed to keep by working two full-time janitorial jobs. His mother’s confinement to a wheelchair ever since he could remember was one of the main reasons he had enjoyed so much childhood freedom, freedom he had used to his full advantage…until that fateful day.
He glanced to his left where the hills rolled out to form a staggered line against a tall evergreen forest in the distance. In the real world, there had been a path through those woods, but here it made no difference. Here, a walkway would open wherever he desired to walk out that way.
“Jack, I’m here. I’m waiting for you!”
He would have told her she was wasting her breath, would have told her that fighting the inevitable would simply add to his enjoyment, but hearing her say that name gave him an almost electric thrill.
“Jack, I’m here. Jack!”
His eyes focused on the bleached white tree that grew up like a bone sentinel at the border between his land and hers. Of all the constructions in his underworld, it was the one thing he hated and the one thing he intended to change once he clawed his way back to the real world. Even if it meant that his childhood forest had to burn for weeks on end, that tree would fall.
As his hills sloped down toward the ashlands, he contemplated the planning and unrelenting sustained effort that had finally brought him to this crossroad. It had taken him two decades to learn how to turn his tortured visions into actions in the real world, and even then it had only been a tiny thing that turned the tide.
Hannah’s pills.
He smiled.
Twenty-one years ago, chance and a wretched, pathetic soul had sent events skewing in the wrong direction but finally the pendulum of justice was swinging back. Soon, there would be an earthshattering restitution like the world had never known. And, as with Hannah’s death, it had all begun with that one tiny event: wouldn’t Jack be surprised when he found the small prescription bottle tucked away in his own jacket pocket? And the knowledge that he had in some way been responsible for the death of his wife—oh, the irony and the upcoming pain it would produce were priceless.
His body aching with the effort of recent efforts, he regretted the need for the long walk to Hannah’s impact site. Before he reached the gray border between his land and hers, he knelt down and waited for the patch of grass in front of him to disintegrate so that he could jam his fingers into the warm ash. As he pulled his hand away, a thick walking stick formed in his grip. Goosebumps spread across his shoulders at the prospect of fetching her back to his side of the realm. Here, she would be certain to tell him everything he needed to know. He smiled thinly at the prospect.
Leaning on his new walking stick, he stepped over the border into her, as yet, unformed nether.
“Jack!” she screamed.
He moved quickly through the shifting dunes and fell into soft areas twice. Was it possible she was starting to understand how the nether worked? He shook off the thought. Either way, she would be his soon enough.
“Jack, please come get me!” she called out, her voice clear and unmuffled.
He stopped and stared in her direction. Only a few hundred feet ahead, he saw her soot-covered face become visible as she pulled herself out of the ashen hole. But then she collapsed face first from the effort.
“Thank you, Hannah,” he said.
Now he wouldn’t have to climb down to get her.
Not having actually spoken to anyone in decades, he had been wondering what he might say to keep her calm long enough to capture her, but when she didn’t get back up or roll over to look at him, he knew his fortunes were running high. A predatory smile split his face.
She was unconscious.
Knowing the risk he took traversing his demesne to hers, he hurried toward her. The less time he spent on her ash the better. Dust billowed up from his pistoning feet.
Am I ready for this?
He knew he was. It was time to right a terrible wrong. It was time he took back what was his and throttled the man who had wrested his life away. Ignoring the tiny vines of ash that kept wrapping around his ankles, he strode forward determined. Hannah stirred and lifted her head to him. He increased his pace. It was impossible to know how her mind would interpret him. He had to stop her.
She screamed.
Knowing that at any moment she could start having visions from her life, and knowing that her ash would turn those visions into muted likenesses, he rushed forward. She could not be allowed to control her nether!
“You’re Death! Oh my god, I'm dead!”
He surged forward.
Her body shook from fear as she scrambled to her feet. Gray dust swirled like cemetery fog around her. A tire rose up from the ash.
Soon.
She backed away, but he darted around the tire and lunged for her.
“I’m so sorry, Jack!” she trilled. “You have to be strong. Death...”
She trailed off and for the first time seemed to notice her shifting surroundings.
Fearing he was too late, he paused realizing she saw him as some form of grim reaper.
How right she is, but maybe I can seem less threatening?
“Hannah, it’s okay,” he said calmly, smoothly. Of course, it was impossible to know exactly what she would hear. This was after all her nether. “I’m here to help.”
“Stay away from me!”
Suddenly, half of a car rose from the ash, its front end smashed flat from an impact.
He danced around it and paused three feet from her.
“Hannah, don’t you recognize me?”
Her eyes were swollen with grief, profound loss and the fresh realization of death.
“Who?”
“You know,” he said gently, sweetly, taking a step forward.
“No. No I don’t.” She shook her head. “Are you here to guide me to whatever comes next?”
That hesitation was all he needed. Like a rattlesnake, he snapped forward and smashed his walking stick against the side of her head with all he had.
She fell to her knees and feebly lifted her arms in defense.
How could she think she had any chance of standing against him? He lashed out and kicked her in the head, ribs and face. The last blow sent her flat on her back moaning. He lifted his walking stick well over his head. It swelled with his rage.
“Are you the Devil?” she croaked.
“I might as well be,” he bellowed, driving the message home with the crack of wood against skull.
End Part One
Be sure to see
“The Dislocated Man, Part Two”
coming September 2012
ALSO BY LARRY DONNELL
Junkie Love
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A Gift, Of Sorts
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Tales of the Enochian: 01
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ALSO BY TIM GREATON
Supernatural Suspense and Dark Fiction
Her Yearning for Blood
Episode One
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Distilled Shadows
A Collection of Dark Stories
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A Colonial Evil
Episode One
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Emotional Fiction
The Santa Shop
(The Samaritans Conspiracy - Book 1)
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Red Gloves
(The Samaritans Conspiracy - Book 2)
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Under-Heaven
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Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Pheesching Sector
(A 6,000 word sci-fi story)
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Zachary Pill, The Dragon at Station End
Trilogy
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Her Yearning for Blood
Episode One
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Table of Contents
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The Dislocated Man, Part One Page 3