by Bryan Smith
There goes my insurance policy, Eddie thought.
The girl glared at him another time, then shifted her attention to the kitten, whose demeanor had undergone a radical change. A loud purring emanated from its throat. The girl held it close and made strange cooing noises at it.
A dark thought occurred to Eddie-he might have to kill the girl. He tried to picture himself doing it. Perhaps with some blunt instrument in the room. The idea repulsed him. Maybe he would do it-if given no other choice-but a very large part of him doubted his ability to kill her. Bashing in a woman’s skull, especially that of a very young woman, would put him in league with the sleazy likes of Ted Bundy.
And Eddie had already lost quite enough of his humanity and self-respect, thank you.
He realized the girl was staring at him, an expression of cold calculation evident in the set of her features. Then she wheeled about on her heels, the train of the long dress swishing about as she moved, and was gone from the closet. The part of his mind that valued survival above all else went into a state of high alert. He should get to his feet, charge after the little bitch, and take her down.
Eddie thought about it a moment longer.
Saw himself doing the Bundy thing.
And stayed right where he was.
Shit, he was tired of running. Tired of fighting. The crazy flight to freedom that had begun at one of the several checkpoints Below had taken too much out of him. Just getting this far had required a nearly superhuman effort. He was drained. Out of gas. Which was why he’d fallen asleep in such short order. He yawned, rubbed his bleary eyes, and slumped back against the wall.
How long had he been out?
Ten minutes?
Fifteen.
Just long enough to slip into dream mode.
Hell, he thought, I could sleep again right now.
Let the little goth girl bring the reinforcements.
Maybe they’d do him the favor of killing him while he slept. He felt ready for that ultimate acquiescence. He’d prefer an eternal sleep to another six months-or longer-Below. He was beginning to think he might even prefer it to a renewed effort to get out of this place, mostly because escape didn’t seem possible. He suspected he was a rat in a glass-covered maze, and The Master was watching his every move, laughing softly to himself at each of Eddie’s hopeless attempts to extricate himself from this nightmare.
The hell with fighting this impossible battle.
Better just to sit here and await the inevitable.
But as Eddie sat there considering surrender, he was troubled by thoughts of how far he had come, how tantalizingly close those visions of freedom regained had seemed to becoming reality. The prospect of just giving up ignited an ache in his heart, pangs of regret that taunted him like the remarks of crude schoolyard bullies.
Yeah, Eddie, take the easy way out.
You wouldn’t want to put yourself out.
You fucking wimp.
What’s the big deal, anyway?
It’s only your life we’re talking about.
He thought about being free again. A free man in a free land. He thought again about how things would change if he ever accomplished that goal. He knew one thing-his days with the company were over, regardless of whether they would take him back after an extended and unexplainable absence. The idea of surviving this insane place only to plunge back into the corporate realm was laughable. He would liquidate whatever property and holdings remained, sell all his personal possessions, and venture forth into the world. He would savor every sunrise and every sunset. He would visit other lands all over the globe. He would find that island girl or one very much like her. Most of all, he would never take anything for granted ever again.
The closet door swung open again, admitting a sliver of light.
Something pointed and hard struck his shin.
It felt like the tip of a high-heeled shoe.
“Ouch.”
He looked up and saw the face of the mute girl.
She was alone.
Well, that was curious. Where were the reinforcements? Where was lisa the housekeeper?
Why am I not dead? he thought.
The mystery deepened as she beckoned him forward with a bent forefinger.
Eddie cleared his throat. “Um … you want me to get up?”
She nodded.
Eddie sighed. “Sure, whatever.”
Something vaguely like a smile touched the corners of her mouth, and he didn’t even detect a spark of malice in it. Then she swirled out of the room again, leaving Eddie to ponder the bewildering turn of events.
Enigmatic, Eddie thought.
God, I hate that in a woman.
Eddie walked out of the closet and entered the bedroom. The girl was sitting at a small round table in a corner of the room. She looked up as he stepped into the room. There was an unoccupied chair next to her. Eddie steeled himself for any weirdness that was about to ensue, and sat down next to her.
There was a pad of paper on the table, pink teenage girl’s stationery. The girl’s gaze shifted to the empty page before her, dipped a pen in an ink quill, shook it, and began to write.
Eddie grunted. “Huh … a quill pen. How … retro.”
Eddie wanted to slap himself-the weirdness of the situation had apparently rendered him incapable of intelligent discourse.
She turned the pad toward him, fixed him with a serious gaze, and tapped the top page with the pen.
Eddie looked at what she had written.
YOU ARE PROBABLY WONDERING WHY I HAVEN’T SUMMONED THE MASTER.
Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Well, now that you mention it, yeah.”
She repositioned the pad and wrote some more. Eddie’s eyes followed the words as she penned them with finely turned strokes.
BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT HERE BY CHANCE.
Eddie was suddenly apprehensive again, recalling the passing thought he’d had at the last checkpoint-that he was being herded instead of chased. Well, here was the first inkling that bit of intuition wasn’t so far off track.
He tried to keep the fear out of his voice as he said, “So … why am I here?”
She dipped the quill in ink and wrote some more.
I SUMMONED YOU.
Eddie gaped at her. “But… why?”
I AM NOT READY TO TELL YOU THAT, she wrote.
Eddie squinted at the infuriating words. “Not… ready… to … tell… me.” He cleared his throat. “Well, that’s just great. You let me know when you can spare a minute to clue me in to whatever sadistic game you and The Master are playing.”
He started to get up.
“Meanwhile, I’ll catch some shut-eye.”
She hissed at him, displaying rows of perfect teeth as white as oysters-movie-star teeth. Eddie’s upward motion ceased, and his eyes widened at the incongruous sight. She was one of the loveliest women he’d ever seen, possessed of a delicate beauty that made his little soldier want to stand up and salute, and yet she looked so vicious.
So deadly.
He sat back down.
The feral quality vanished from her face, and her attention returned to the page of pink stationery, where one slim, pale hand was again spinning beautifully rendered handwriting from margin to margin at a startling speed. She filled half the page, then turned the pad toward him.
Eddie read with mild interest some dry biographical information about the girl, but boredom gave way to shock and terror as his gaze moved down the page.
Her name was Giselle Burkhardt, and she’d first come to this place in 1973, when she’d been seventeen years old and a senior in high school.
Eddie’s brow wrinkled at that bit of impossible information-Christ, the girl looked seventeen right now, thirty years after the claimed date of her arrival in The Master’s world.
But that was easy to swallow compared to what came next.
She’d been on what was to be her last vacation with her family before embarking on a new phase of her life-college in New Eng
land. The car carrying her parents and younger brother experienced engine trouble east of Chattanooga, and her father had been forced to pull off the highway. Thus began a long night of terror that culminated with the mutilation deaths of her parents. Her brother was taken to another room, and she was chained and stuffed in a crawl space, where she remained until The Master was ready to initiate the second phase of her indoctrination. She was removed from the crawl space and tortured by Ms. Wickman until she was screaming her willingness to do anything to end her agony.
Her brother was brought before her.
She remembered how heartbreakingly brave he’d looked as he stood there trembling.
It hadn’t been easy.
She wanted Eddie to know that.
But the pain was more than she could take. And she knew they could keep inflicting pain every bit the equal of what she’d already experienced-and perhaps worse-should she refuse to do their bidding.
She didn’t refuse.
Ms. Wickman gave Giselle a straight razor.
Giselle used it on her brother.
Over a long period of time.
Then finished him.
“Oh my God,” Eddie breathed as he read this. “Oh, sweet jumpin’ Jesus…”
I MURDERED MY BROTHER, the tale’s concluding paragraph began. THE MASTER ALTERED ELEMENTS OF MY BODY CHEMISTRY AND ARRESTED THE AGING PROCESS, ALLOWING ME TO SERVE HIM HERE AS HIS APPRENTICE INDEFINITELY I HAVE SERVED HIM WELL. WELL ENOUGH TO FOOL HIM. I HAVE WAITED THREE DECADES TO ATONE FOR MY SINS, AND THE TIME FOR ATONEMENT IS NEARLY AT HAND.
Eddie stared at the disturbing words a moment later, horrified by the cruelty they described, then he wrenched his gaze away. He didn’t want to look at Giselle, didn’t want to have to look into those dark eyes. He could feel them on him, studying him, taking the measure of him. He cast his gaze about the room, looking for something, anything, to divert his attention-and he realized the cat was missing.
He still wasn’t looking at her when he said, “What happened to furball?”
Giselle turned the pad to a fresh page and wrote, GONE.
Eddie frowned. “Gone?”
She elaborated: THE CAT IS A SHAPESHIFTER, ALBEIT A MORE HIGHLY EVOLVED EXAMPLE OF THAT SPECIES. IT FUNCTIONS AS MY PERSONAL MESSENGER AND SPY
A shapeshifter.
Well, sure.
Eddie had only seen the Lon Chaney wannabes Below, but he remembered his struggle with the creature in the closet and knew she was telling the truth.
Eddie was finally able to meet her gaze again. “What happened … have you always been mute?”
She scrawled a single angry word in big block letters: NO.
Eddie winced. “The Master? He …”
She wrote, I WAS A SHRILL TEENAGER. HE TOOK MY VOICE, A REMINDER THAT MY STATUS AS APPRENTICE DIDN’T MEAN HE WOULDN’T PUNISH ME HE REVELS IN SUCH PETTY CRUELTIES.
Eddie shook his head, “That’s fucked up, Giselle.”
IT WAS A VALUABLE LESSON, she wrote. I LEARNED PATIENCE. I LEARNED TO THINK. I TURNED INWARD AND GREW STRONG IN MY MIND. I HAVE MANY THINGS TO TELL YOU, BUT FIRST YOU MUST LEARN A LESSON OF YOUR OWN.
Eddie tensed. “Whoa, wait-“
She was still writing: YOU MUST KNOW YOUR PLACE. I ALLOWED YOU THE ADVANTAGE LAST TIME, BUT YOU CANNOT OVERPOWER ME.
Eddie started to push the chair away from her.
“Giselle-“
She seized him about the wrist, gripping him hard with one slender hand. Eddie attempted to yank free, but she held him fast-and with little apparent effort. She steadily increased the pressure until he could feel bones grinding. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. Maintaining her grip on him, she stood up and pulled him away from the table. He stumbled along beside her as she led him to the bed. She spun him about at the foot of the bed, spread both her palms open over his chest, and pushed with all her considerable strength.
Eddie flew backward, then momentarily experienced a kind of drowning sensation as he sank into the plush comforter. The girl climbed onto the bed and stood over him. She prodded him with the tip of a high-heeled shoe, urging him toward the headboard. Eddie scooted backward, too intimidated now to do anything but her bidding. The display of strength had frightened him, all that power in that small body.
His gaze was riveted to her face-her beautiful, cruel face.
Then he felt the folds of her long dress brushing his bare torso as she planted a foot on either side of him. She neared the headboard and velvet darkness engulfed him.
A moment later he couldn’t breathe.
Dream went to Karen’s side, knelt beside her, and draped an arm over her heaving shoulders. Karen turned into her friend’s embrace, clutched at the thin fabric of her top, and began to sob even harder. Dream cradled Karen’s head against her chest, felt the wetness of tears against her breasts, and felt moisture appear in her own eyes. She stroked Karen’s hair and made painfully useless cooing noises.
Alicia’s face was a mask of intent concentration as she held Shane’s limp right wrist. She dropped the wrist and leaned over Shane’s face. Dream wasn’t sure what Alicia was looking for, but something in her friend’s expression told her she wasn’t finding it. Alicia pressed two fingers against the man’s throat, waited a few moments, frowned, and sighed. She made eye contact with Dream, who asked the pertinent question with a lifted eyebrow.
Is he…
Alicia answered with a tired nod.
Yes.
And now a tear did slide down Dream’s face.
All my fault, she thought.
She’d taken the stupid detour because she was a fucking flake. Memories of the escalating tensions in the car in the moments preceding the detour were temporarily banished from her conscious mind. All she knew was that a human being was dead due to her foolishness. She was such a worthless shit. If only… if only …
If only I’d gotten it right that time, came the inevitable conclusion.
The thought made the scarred area around her left wrist tingle. She experienced again the sense-memory of the blade penetrating her flesh. There had been pain, yes, intense pain, but there had also been relief. Tremendous relief. There’d been a sense of falling, of plummeting from a great height, and then the sweet release of unconsciousness.
If only …
Dream’s tears flowed unimpeded now.
She made a shushing noise, slipped an arm around Karen’s neck, and again eased her into a sitting position. She cupped a hand under Karen’s chin, held her head steady, and said, “Honey, I’m gonna need you to get up now, okay?”
Karen’s shoulders sagged. “Shane …”
“I know, sweetie, I know…” She glanced at the man’s ravaged body, winced at the tickle of nausea at the back of her throat, and brought her gaze back to Karen. “He’s just resting.”
“That’s right,” Alicia said, taking the verbal baton from Dream. “He’s resting. We’ll get him some help real soon, but first we have to get you out of here.” A forced smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “Okay, sweetie?”
Karen swallowed a lump in her throat, sighed, and looked at each of them in turn. Dream and Alicia each felt a flash of shame at the look of desperate pleading in her eyes. “Don’t coddle me.” She sniffled. “I know he’s dead.”
She tried to get to her feet. “Whoa …”
Dream and Alicia caught her as she wobbled, held her until she was steady, and began to walk her back to the car. As they stepped through the line of trees, Dream heard something behind her. Something stealthy. She risked a backward glance, saw a flicker of shadow at the periphery of her vision, gasped, and stumbled over a rock. The other women gave out a shout as she pitched forward and tumbled down the incline.
Her uncontrolled descent came to a painful and abrupt stop in the ditch. Her body was gouged and scratched, and she ached all over. She tried to move, but a line of pain arced through her like a jolt of lightning. She cried out again and looked up to see a panicked Alicia kneeling over
her.
“Goddamn, Dream, try to give me a heart attack, why don’t you?”
Dream winced as she turned her head toward the dark line of trees. “I saw something back there, Alicia. I looked back and … saw something.”
She shuddered at the memory.
Alicia frowned. “What?” She glanced in the direction of the woods, then looked again at Dream. “What did you see?”
“She saw what I saw.”
They both looked at Karen, who was sitting up on the guardrail now, staring at the line of trees, that green wall that now seemed like the demarcation between the sane, natural world and a land of nightmares.
Her voice had a faraway, dreamily detached quality to it. “The thing that got Shane. A real, honest-to-gosh monster.”
Alicia sighed. “Jesus…”
Dream seized Alicia’s wrist. “She might be right.” The other woman’s skepticism was immediate and obvious, but Dream plunged on. “Or maybe not. But there’s something out there. Something that didn’t leave when it was done with Shane.”
Alicia’s gaze again went to the line of trees. “Fuck me.” She swallowed a lump in her throat and fixed Dream with a serious expression. “I don’t believe in monsters, girls, but I do believe in mad dog killers. So maybe some Hannibal the Cannibal wannabe is out there. And I don’t know about either of you, but I don’t aim to be another notch on his knife handle.”
Dream recognized the logic in Alicia’s words. Her theory made so much more sense than the idea of some supernatural abomination, but there was something about her memory of the barely perceived thing at the edge of her vision that snickered at concepts like logic and reason. Something in that flicker of shadow that made the idea of monsters resonate in her heart with cold certainty.
She held tight to Alicia’s wrist and began to haul herself up. Bits of dirt and bramble tumbled off her, and various parts of her body complained. Alicia cried out, surprised by the abrupt movement, but Dream managed to get to her feet. She tightened her grip on Alicia’s wrist and began to move toward the guardrail. Alicia stumbled along with her, protesting every step of the way.