by J. R. Rain
Very good, Sam.
I had been told before—by entities far greater than I—that the majority of my soul resided in the spirit world, wherever that was. That our physical bodies were but a living, breathing extension of our bigger souls; in fact, our physical bodies were but a temporary vessel to be used for personal growth. Now I was being told that a part of me was with this creature, in another world. How this was possible, I didn’t know. How much of me was with him, I didn’t know that either.
An essence of you, Sam. But it can become much more of an essence, if you choose it to be.
A picture appeared in my thoughts. It was of myself and the creature...and we were indeed sitting together on a rocky ledge, although the creature wasn’t exactly sitting. Perched was more like it. Myself, I was squatting near the ledge, naked as the day I was born, looking down at a mist-covered landscape that was hazy at best.
Why am I sitting next to you? I asked. I mean, I thought our bodies were sort of, you know, joined together?
It doesn’t have to be that way, Sam.
Then why isn’t it this way now? Here in my world?
Would you prefer we part ways now? asked the creature. It would be a mighty long drop for you, although, I suspect, you would survive it well enough.
I shook my head at the absurdity of it all, and then asked: Why do you come here? I mean, you obviously have free will. Surely, you aren’t being compelled to come.
More ice broke free from my wings. Stronger winds than I’d ever experienced before rocked me. Rocked us. Still, we powered through the mighty winds which, if I had to guess, had reached well over 300 miles per hour.
I see it as an opportunity, Sam, came the creature’s reply.
An opportunity for what?
To be with you. To, perhaps, help you. To, perhaps, guide you.
But I thought the dark masters forced you into this role, I thought. The ‘dark masters’ were, of course, the entities who fueled vampires such as myself, who gave us our powers and our immortality. All they asked for in return was, of course, total possession of our bodies. Something I had been fighting, and so far, successfully.
Not forced, Sam. We saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.
An opportunity for what?
To give balance to the darkness.
You work with the Librarian? I asked.
We do, came the creature’s reply. He and others like him.
So, there really is a war going on out there? I thought. A war for mankind?
We do not see it as a war, Sam. We see it as an ebb and flow of energy. Presently, your world is ebbing away from negativity and toward something beautiful. The dark masters, as you refer to them, fear this natural progression and seek to stop it, or slow it down.
We continued flying, and I was curious to note my new use of the pronoun “we.” Yes, I now thought of the creature and myself as a sort of weird hybrid team. As we fought through a storm of wind that was surely strong enough to collapse the sturdiest of skyscrapers, I thought, We can’t fly fast enough to escape the Earth’s atmosphere, can we?
No, Sam.
So, there’s no way for us to fly to the moon?
I didn’t say that.
The answer was close. I could feel it. I just had to figure it out. No, I just had to believe.
And so I flew, high above the world below. I quieted my mind and flew in peace, easily enduring the screaming winds, the freezing cold and the lack of oxygen.
I was no longer a mom, no longer a sister or even a private investigator. I was something huge and forgotten, something at peace and...happy.
And as I flew, a single image appeared in my thoughts.
The flame.
It was, of course, the same flame I saw each and every time I summoned Talos...or when I summoned my own human body. I suspect he and I were forever linked by that flame. A flame that connected worlds.
I gasped suddenly.
There was something to this. The flame. Yes, the flame. It was the key to it all.
Now, with the creature remaining frustratingly silent and the high winds of the upper atmosphere somehow increasing, I suddenly knew the answer. I was sure of it.
The flame is a portal, I thought, excited. A doorway to anywhere.
An interesting concept, Sam.
Don’t give me that concept crap. I thought, Am I right?
There’s only one way to find out, Sam.
Indeed, I thought, and summoned the flame.
* * *
Within it, I saw myself.
My human self, that is. Normally, I would move toward her, and she toward me, and we would join again. But not now, of course. Unless I wished to fall for eternity, which I didn’t.
Now, with a nod toward that spunky gal I loved so much—that gal who had put up with so much and handled life and death as best as she could—I dismissed her.
She returned my nod and stepped out of the flame, vacating it.
Now, it was just a single, empty flame.
Okay, I thought to myself. That’s a first.
The flame continued to flicker. Why it flickered, I didn’t know. But there it was, in the center of my thoughts, flickering and burning bright.
Now what the devil do I do? I thought. The creature, of course, remained mum on the subject. Fat lot of good you are, I thought grumpily.
Small laughter just inside my ears. You’re doing good, Sam.
I grumbled some more and continued focusing on the empty flame. So what was next?
Easy, I suddenly thought. Something had to fill the flame. Something had to appear within the flame. I knew just what that something had to be.
Now, as I flew high above the West Coast of the United States, a streaking, hellish beast from another world that cut through the high winds faster than most fighter jets, I saw the surface of the moon.
Within the flame.
The surface took on more shape and detail—craters and rocks and dirt all appeared in perfect clarity. As they did so, something happened. Something startling. Something that would forever change my life.
I felt myself rushing to that image.
Rushing to the moon.
* * *
This isn’t happening, I thought.
It can’t be happening.
I can’t really be here.
I’m dreaming.
Dreaming...dreaming...
* * *
I considered pinching myself, slapping myself...anything to awaken. Anything to prove that this wasn’t happening. That I wasn’t where I now found myself. Where I now found myself perched.
I was, I was certain, on the surface of the moon.
* * *
The creature remained silent as I grappled with what stretched out before me: a rolling sea of bone-white hills. Silent, I suspected, so that I could soak it all in without distraction.
Yes, I had always had an affinity for the moon. I was almost—almost—not very surprised when I finally married a man named Danny Moon.
Often, I gazed up at the heavens. But not just to the heavens. To the moon itself.
The moon...always.
Okay, I thought again, nodding, there is a small chance that this might be happening.
* * *
Stillness.
Complete silence.
Before me and all around me was an empty, barren landscape. I expected to feel wind, or to hear...something.
I heard nothing, felt nothing.
No, that wasn’t true.
I felt cold. Colder than I’d ever felt before. I was almost—almost—uncomfortable. But not quite. Not me. And not in this huge form.
I found myself on a steep, craggy rock. A tor, some might call it. I looked down and saw that my clawed talons were gripping a stony overhang. As I shifted, some of the rock broke loose and fell away. But the pieces didn’t fall away in a manner I was used to.
No, they fell away as if in slow motion.
In fact, the rock and dust fragments al
most drifted away, as if descending slowly through the deep seas. I was imminently aware that I was witnessing something few humans—mortal or immortal—had ever experienced.
I’m here. I’m really here. The Moon.
The rock fragments finally hit a bigger boulder far below me, rebounded off it, seemed to hover briefly in mid-air, then continued down, finally landing in a puff of white dirt.
I knew from my research that the moon had only a hint of an atmosphere, and nothing close to oxygen. I didn’t need oxygen, not in this form and not in my human form.
So what now, Sam? the creature asked.
I want to fly, I said.
Then so be it.
But can I?
Stretch out your wings...and let’s see.
You mean, you don’t know?
The creature chuckled in my head. I’m learning right along with you, Sam.
And so I did as I was told. I stretched out my wings—our wings. I stretched them wide...and then beat them once.
There’s not much resistance, I reported back.
Keep going. I can help you.
Help me how?
I’m not from your Earth, Sam, or even from your universe. I can fly in extreme conditions.
Even with little or no atmosphere?
Try me.
I flapped them harder and harder. Now, I sensed the creature’s excitement, as well. Yes, this was a new experience for him, too. And he loved to fly. Boy, did he.
Luckily, so did I.
I continued flapping, generating some air movement around me, but not much. Dust particles billowed and stirred. I wondered if this was the first time they had ever billowed and stirred.
Okay, I thought. Here goes.
I leapt off the rocky perch and into the blackness around me. I sensed the creature was aiding my flight. I also sensed a sort of energy field around me. Was I, in fact, flying within this field? I didn’t know, but whatever was going on, it seemed to work.
After all, I was flying.
High above the surface of the moon.
* * *
It took some getting used to.
One thing about the creature’s body: it was engineered to fly...seemingly anywhere. Through time and space and everything in-between.
I stretched my wings and glided down a rocky escarpment. My shadow raced below me, as the sun itself bathed the surface of the moon as surely as it did the Earth.
That gave me a pause for thought: yes, I was in direct sunlight now, although the light here was muted and surrounded by the blackness of deep space. The sunlight did not seem to affect me or the creature. I next wondered if the sunlight would affect Talos back on Earth. In fact, I often wondered that.
I had never transformed into the giant flying bat back on Earth during the daylight.
You are not affected by the sunlight? I asked.
No, Sam.
So, when I am back on Earth...
Yes, you can transform into me and have my full strength during the light of day.
Mind, I said. Blown.
An Earth idiom, I presume.
You presume correctly.
But I am also much easier to spot, since I am a black, giant, vampire bat and all.
Good point.
No longer concerned about the sun, I continued my flight over the surface of the moon. Surely someone with a telescope, somewhere, was reporting a bat-shaped anomaly moving across the surface of the moon.
I grinned at the thought.
* * *
Before me was a massive, circular ring. An almost perfect circle. And it was, to paraphrase Tammy...ginormous.
I followed the ring of rock, banking slightly; whatever meteorite had hit this had been massive, deeply scarring the moon’s surface.
I veered away from the massive crater and over the empty moon. As I flew, I was aware of one thing. I was alone. Completely alone.
A whole world...
To myself.
I liked that.
I liked that a lot.
* * *
I dipped in and out of valleys, up and over small mountains and hills and ridges. Always, there was emptiness. Always, there was the silence. And with the silence, there was peace.
The only movement was my own flying shadow beneath me, weaving in and out of chasms and over hills, speeding rapidly along, keeping pace.
I continued flying—and continued laughing to myself. Mostly, I continued expecting to wake up in bed at any moment.
But I never woke up.
* * *
The creature sensed my worry.
Through the exuberant, unbridled fun of all this—through the excitement of flying across the bleak landscape of the moon, a worry finally surfaced, and the creature voiced it for me.
You can return, Samantha, as easily as you arrived.
Oh, thank God.
You are a gutsy woman to come here without a thought of how to get back.
Oh, I was going to get back. I thought. One way or another.
And I did get back, too. But not before I continued over the surface of the moon, sweeping high and low, seeing firsthand the mountain chains and plateaus and valleys and landscapes that had rarely, if ever, been seen by man.
At least, rarely seen like this, if ever.
I grinned inwardly and dove down into a deep valley, wings outstretched, grinning like a fool. At least, on the inside.
I swept through the narrow valley, my wings just missing the sheer rock walls, then I angled up, and up and up...and exploded out of the cleft and into the black void of space, wings outstretched like a dark angel.
I hovered there briefly, surveying the surface of the Moon...deciding where I wanted to explore next.
I saw it. Another crater. Deeper than the one before. It was wrapped in deep velvet blackness.
I dove down, laughing and grinning. Yes, I was flying over the surface of the Moon. The dark side.
And I couldn’t have been happier.
The End
Return to the Table of Contents
Easy Rider
Chapter One
I try to get to work around nine.
Luckily, I have a very loose definition of try and around. And since I like to think of myself as progressive, I don’t worry about things like time. That’s the beauty of being progressive: I’ll get there eventually.
At just past ten, I arrived at my building. With a mocha latte in one hand and my keys in the other, I smelled the cigarettes and cheap perfume wafting under my office door into the hallway.
Before slipping the key in the lock, I tested the handle. Still locked. I looked around me. My pathetic business complex was quiet. There were precisely four cars scattered around the parking lot. One of them was my van. The others might have been the same three cars I’d seen upon leaving my office yesterday.
Speaking of yesterday, I’d had precisely no clients come in, and had received exactly four calls from Bank of America credit card services. Apparently, I owed them a crap-ton of money. Apparently, they would get it when they got it. They didn’t like that answer, of course, which might have been why they’d called three more times. I was looking forward to more such calls today.
Yippee!
My office is in Huntington Beach, but one would never guess it. It was too far away from the addictive, salt-laden ocean breeze. Too far away from the bikini babes. And definitely too far away from a steady stream of walk-in business.
One might assume that my office was on the wrong side of Huntington Beach, the inland side. It was the side that abutted a little city called Midway City. The side with, of course, the cheaper rent. Cheap or not, I was still two months behind on it.
Now as I slid the key into the lock and, balancing my mocha latte like a pro, I slipped my hand behind me and pulled out the Mossad’s weapon of choice: a Walther pistol. I wasn’t part of the Mossad. I wasn’t a spy either. I was just a private investigator, and mostly, I wasn’t even that. Mostly, I was an out-of-work des
k jockey.
Now, as I opened my office door, I was certain someone had broken in...and was waiting for me inside.
* * *
My office isn’t big, so there aren’t many places for a man to hide. Or, in this case, a woman.
It turned out she wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding, either. In fact, she was sprawled on my couch, sound asleep. I relaxed and slipped the gun back behind my back, just inside the waistband of my jeans. I studied the scene of the “crime.” A coffee mug rested on the floor next to her, filled to overflowing with stubbed-out cigarettes. My coffee mug, in fact, which she’d commandeered from the cupboard over the small sink in the far corner of the office. Next to the sink sat an old, but reliable, Mr. Coffee. Or, as I liked to call it, Señor Café, because I liked to think of myself as international and mysterious. Kind of like James Bond, only bigger and tougher.
Anyway, the coffee mug was a favorite of mine. It also had the UCLA logo emblazoned across the side. I was one of those people who happened to think the UCLA logo should be emblazoned across most things, but I might have been in the minority.
Who she was, I didn’t know. Why she had broken into my office and, from all appearances, why she had smoked the night away, I didn’t know those answers either. I counted seventeen mostly smoked cigarettes, although one or two had only been smoked about halfway. I shook my head. Wasteful.
She looked to be about twenty-something. She might have also been cute, if not for the way she was presently drooling on the arm of my couch.
Speaking of arms, the inside of one of hers was covered with fresh track marks, all puckered and raw. Also on the inside of her arm was a stylized tattoo that said, “Fuck off, pigs.”
I was impressed by the correct use of the comma.
There were many such tattoos covering her body. Or, at least, on the parts of her body that I could see. On her ankle there was a skull with a dagger through it. On her wrists were inked two roses, the stems of which dripped blood. Around her neck—yes, around her neck—was a barbed wire tattoo, also dripping blood. Behind both ears, turgid middle fingers flipped the bird.