by Joseph Lallo
The driver’s hand held his. He could feel her erratic pulse, see shallow breathing, but he could not move. The grip squeezed his hand as if to say all was forgiven, accidents happen. Samuel felt the encompassing love, and he knelt low to see inside the remains of the car. He used his free hand to reach in and gently push the hair away from Mara’s face.
***
The memory advanced like a fluttering reel of film until Samuel sat at a glass pane, holding a corded phone to his ear.
Kim came into the visitation room and looked at him. She had not been able to apply her morning make-up over red, puffy eyes. Her face resembled the photograph hanging above the dresser, the one of her and Samuel in college. She loved that picture and the wispy memories of youth it represented. They both remembered the night that photograph was taken and always joked that Kim’s hold on her car keys was as strong as the one she had on Samuel’s heart.
“Kim, I thought I was fine.”
“There’s no point. After what we’ve been through, after what you’ve been through, I can’t . . .” Kim trailed off, fumbling through the conversation.
“I’m so sorry. I’m going to make this right,” he said.
Kim sat, her bottom lip trembling.
“The kids?”
“My mother’s,” she said.
“Now what?”
“Now you figure out how you’re going to live with this, Samuel. Now you have to ask God, or whatever demonic force that commands you, for forgiveness and hope he doesn’t strike you down.”
“What should I do about—”
“I don’t give a fuck, Samuel. You do whatever it is you need to do.”
He could hear the pain in her voice.
“I’ll deal with it.”
Kim laughed. “I’m sure you will.”
***
Samuel opened his eyes, returning to the cave where Mara lay at the mercy of the reversion.
“I’m so sorry.”
Mara squeezed Samuel’s hand just as she had on that cold night. She smiled, and the worry lines in her face loosened.
“I can’t believe that all this time you, you knew that . . .” Samuel shook his head, tears clouding his vision. “I’m the reason you’re here, stuck in this prison.”
“Come closer,” Mara whispered. Her eyes closed, and the life drained from her voice.
Samuel moved closer and bent down, taking her hand in both of his.
“I let you see what I thought you needed to see while you were here.”
He nodded, setting at least some of his guilt free. “Mara, I . . . I can’t believe I did that to you, and—”
She squeezed his hand again and shook her head as much as possible. “Life did that to me, not you.”
Samuel started to speak but Mara squeezed his hand, stopping him.
“There isn’t much time. Please listen,” she said.
Samuel dropped his head and waited for her to continue.
“I didn’t see your face at the scene. I passed before you came over to the wreck. But when you arrived in this place, I argued with Kole.”
A memory sparked in Samuel’s head. He remembered seeing the disagreement at a distance.
“We didn’t so much argue about you, although he claimed you were someone from his past. I guess you could have passed through both of our lives, but I don’t really know. I told him you were here for me, for him, for all of us. I explained you had a purpose and a mission to release us from this.”
“But he didn’t agree. Major didn’t agree either, did he?” Samuel asked.
She shook her head.
“They could have been here for other reasons,” she said, a wet cough thundering through her chest. “But I knew why you were here and what that meant for me.”
“What does it mean for me?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I wish I could say, but I can’t. You’ll have to figure that out.”
Samuel looked up. Their bodies appeared to float in pure darkness. The reversion had begun to peck at their feet. Samuel could feel the power trying to dissolve the molecules in his body. The cave and the rest of the dead locality attached to it were gone, swallowed and consumed by the inevitable force of the reversion.
“How? When? Where?”
Mara let the single-word questions hang in the air without attempting to answer any of them.
“If you can figure out why you’re here, the answers to those questions might show themselves to you.”
“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.
Mara nodded. “Yes.” It was all she said.
Mara’s eyelids fluttered, and Samuel felt her breath hitch in her chest. He wiped her forehead with the back of his hand and felt the cool, clammy touch of death descending upon her, challenging the reversion for the last spark of life left.
“This is my time,” Mara said.
Samuel closed his eyes and felt the oppressive force of nothingness closing in on him.
“How will I know? How will I know how I got here and what to do about it?”
Mara opened her eyes and looked at Samuel for the last time. He saw the forgiveness and sadness inside, the emotional turmoil simmering in the deep recesses. She bit her lip and spoke again, her words barely audible this time.
“I will show you.”
***
Samuel saw the inky blackness, like oil-slicked surf, the silent waves pulsing over her body. He felt weightless as the power of the reversion disassembled the atoms left in the locality. He screamed in helpless futility as he watched the darkness creep over Mara. It slid over her foot, and when it retreated it left nothing but empty blackness behind. He watched as the forces nibbled and bit at her essence like fish feeding on a floating corpse.
He knew whatever was happening to her physical body was a different experience than what was happening to her spirit. Samuel smiled, seeing Mara’s angelic face from the coffee shop in his mind’s eye, rather than the pasty, sickly face of her lying in the cold dirt of the cave and waiting for death.
Samuel watched as the last remnants of Mara’s body disappeared beneath the relentless pursuit of the reversion. With her body gone, he became a drifting ship amidst a horrific ocean of darkness and silence. The reversion began the same process on him, albeit at a much slower pace. He reached down to touch his knee and became queasy, uncertain of his bearings and feeling, like an astronaut tumbling through deep space, carried into oblivion without the slightest friction to stop it. He closed his eyes and opened them to try to stabilize his mind, but the attempt failed. Samuel opened his mouth to scream when a voice entered his head. He knew it was Mara before she even spoke.
I must show you what you can no longer access from your own memory. If I don’t do it now, the reversion will claim you forever.
Samuel cried, ready to follow her, ready to do anything to escape the fate perched on the threshold of his humanity.
Your final moments, those inaccessible to you since you arrived here. Those moments will enlighten you, provide answers to questions you have not asked. They will also explain your presence here, and once you have that knowledge, you will know what you must do.
“What if I don’t?” he asked.
All you can do is trust in what I have to share.
Samuel felt Mara’s essence dissipate. The energy in his body shifted, and he felt his mind snap back into the physical realm. The blackness of the reversion retreated until the fuzzy hole of a dream reality filled the middle, like viewing it through a telescope. The blackness surrounding the edges of his vision reminded Samuel this was something for him to witness, but the reversion still held him in its clutches.
The objects swam through his vision until they began to settle and form within the frame. A burning knowledge began in his stomach, and the pain blossomed outward as the scene materialized. When the objects stopped and the lens on the vision focused, Samuel cried. He remembered the scene, he remembered
the cast, and even though the pain tore through his psyche, he also remembered his lines. Samuel was not sure he could manage to sit through the clip until he felt the inner strength of Mara, speaking to him.
You must. And from your suffering will come your salvation.
***
Samuel slid the triskele from underneath the thin mattress that smelled of piss and disinfectant. He smiled and held the item in his hand, pleased to have been able to smuggle the talisman into his cell without hiding it within one of his body’s orifices.
The cinder-block wall stared at him from all angles, disguising up from down and inside from out. The stainless-steel sink sat next to the basin that functioned as a toilet. Both fixtures faced the bars of the open cell and anyone that happened to be walking the corridor of his ward. A black marker sat in the corner of the room, while a simple calendar hung from the wall above it. The air inside the prison hung as if it too was sentenced to a life of pure, dead boredom.
“I’m cold,” Samuel yelled.
He shuffled to the front of the cell and looked out. Samuel saw nobody.
“I need a fucking blanket.”
The sound of scraping metal preceded the methodical tapping of boots on the polished floor.
“’Bout time.”
Samuel stepped back and waited as the guard approached with a thin blanket folded down to the size of a postcard. He looked at Samuel and sniffed, turning his nose up at the stench.
“Flush the damn toilet, you animal.”
The guard tossed the blanket through the bars. It landed at Samuel’s feet. He bent down and picked up the linen. Samuel listened as the boots clicked their way back to the front desk, sealed off with the massive, steel door shrieking into place.
Samuel unfolded the sheet masquerading as a blanket and did the mental calculations in his head. He looked up at the heating duct burrowing through the cinder-block walls and hoped the sheet was long enough. He took the thin, felt slippers from his feet and knotted the end of the sheet around both until the ball of cloth outweighed the rest of the fabric. He looked up at the three-inch gap between the ductwork and the ceiling, and then visually measured the ball in his hand.
He walked toward the sink and splashed his face with water. The pungent stench of chlorine invaded his mouth, and Samuel remembered the inmates telling him to never drink the water from the sink inside the cell. Samuel laughed at that advice and its absurdity in his current situation. He looked at the calendar and the mangled photo tucked under the corner. It would not matter for Samuel. He would never see his family again.
He punched the wall and felt the skin on his knuckles pull back until the warm blood flowed over them. Samuel punched the cinder block again until the bones in his hand succumbed to the power of the cement.
The lights in the corridor buzzed. Samuel looked up to see the overhead fluorescent bulbs wink and extinguish as the electricity retreated from the wires. Several wire-encased sconces flickered to life where they were mounted between cells. The curfew buzzer sounded, followed by a sighing symphony of incarcerated souls. Samuel did not feel tired, but then again, he lost track of day and night long ago. He slept when the lights went out and woke when they came back to life.
Samuel waited for his eyes to adjust, staring at the battered photograph. He kissed two fingers on his right hand and touched them to Kim’s face. Samuel would give anything to be standing in that frame, his hand on her back as they smiled at the optimistic future awaiting them. He sat on the edge of the bunk and put his face in his hands.
There could be an appeal.
He swore at himself as soon as the thought appeared. His attorney had taken him through those permutations, and an appeal was as likely as the guard opening the door and setting him free.
Then stop stalling and get to it, you fucking coward.
Samuel stood and nodded his head, shaking the last bit of doubt from it. He took the end of the sheet containing the slippers and balled it in his right hand. Samuel stepped back and lobbed the sheet toward the duct. The first two tries bounced off the wall and fell back to him. The third toss landed on top before sliding across it and out the other side. Samuel stopped, hoping the guards would not have heard it strike the duct.
It’ll never hold you.
He cursed the voice trying to keep him from ending the pain once and for all.
“Got steel straps tied into the block to reinforce the duct. It’ll hold.”
He winced at the sound of his voice. It sounded foreign to his ears.
Samuel pulled the loose end until the knot held between the top of the heating duct and the wall. He clutched the sheet with both hands and pulled his feet off the floor. Samuel dangled a few inches in the air, neither the sheet nor the duct giving any indication they would not be able to finish the job.
He climbed on the bunk and stood on the edge of it. Samuel took the loose end and tied it around his neck several times, taking all of the slack from the fabric. He reached up and tied a knot behind his head. Sweat poured from his skin, causing a shiver in the cold chill of the cell. Samuel’s mouth went dry, and his palms became moist. He slid the triskele out of the waistband of his underwear and held it in his right hand. Samuel did not pray. He did not ask forgiveness from the all-powerful forces of the universe. If the talisman did not serve him as he crossed over, nothing would.
His bare toes extended over the edge of the bunk that sat two feet from the floor. Samuel looked up again to verify the knot held at the top before reaching around to check his noose held firm. He took shallow, rapid breaths, trying to exhale the last remnants of hesitation.
When Samuel stepped off the bed, the last things he smelled was the distant aroma of moldy bark.
***
Samuel pushed the twisted sheet from his shoulder and let the makeshift noose coil on the ground like a dead snake. He looked up at the decaying branch, shook his head, his eyes darting about the empty forest as his heart raced in his chest.
He drew a breath, exhaling slowly and wincing at the pain in his throat as his lungs tried to pull in more oxygen. He smiled from the joy of being alive until the memory of his prison cell wiped it from his face. Like a leaf at the mercy of the wind, the image of the bars floated from Samuel’s reach. Worry rushed back in to fill his mind as he struggled to find a connection, a reason for being here.
He noticed the sun dropped closer to the horizon as if touching the tops of the trees to ignite them. Darkness crept closer, surrounding the far edges of his vision. He closed his eyes and felt forgiveness in his heart. He could not recall her name or remember why she had granted him absolution.
To be continued...
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Acknowledgements
The beta readers for this project, SB Knight, Ren Warom, Peter S. Scott, and Adam Phillips provided invaluable feedback and helped to mold the story into what it has become. I would like to thank my fellow authors that have supported my endeavors over the past year, including Scott Nicholson, Vicki Kiere, Jack Albrecht, Dana Martin, Pat Mason, George Sirois, Virna DePaul, Tammie Clark Gibbs, Tim and Claire Ridgway, Taylor Lee, Carolyn McCray, and everyone else I am forgetting at the Indie Book Collective. Talia Leduc brought her magic red pen to this novel and her suggestions were exactly what I needed. In addition, I am eternally grateful to a host of faithful readers, reviewers, and bloggers, such as Elizabeth Buttle, Bryden Yeo, Bernadette Davies, Stefan Yates, Carol Scott, Cole Dowden, Regina (from Goodreads), and Katy Sozaeva.
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About the Author
Healed by the written word
Want a story that's rooted in a fundamental aspect of being human?
I believe reading dark fiction can be healing. My overriding mission is to connect with you through my art, and I hope to inspire you to do the same. I’m a word architect and driven visionary. I’m obsessed with heavy metal, horror films and technology. And I admire strong people who are not afraid to speak their mind.
I grew up in an Irish Catholic, working class family and was the first to go to college. I didn't have expensive toys, so I used my own imagination for entertainment. And then I abused alcohol for entertainment. I spent the first thirty years of my life convincing myself I wasn’t an addict and the last ten worrying about all the potential threats the substances hid from me.