While my friends moved through the house around me, their names and faces blurring together, I sat on the couch and sifted through the app’s unlimited features on my TV. In bed, I swiped through profile after profile, seeking a woman to be my soul mate. At work, I mostly stared at my computer screen. Around me, in a maze of lonely cubicles, a mix of real people and holoworkers interfaced with their computers and tablets. Wherever I went out in public, I kept my eyes glued to my cell phone. I kept delving deeper and deeper into the app, searching for happiness.
Today I noticed my body turning transparent. My bathroom mirror reflected a ghostly version of myself that flickered.
I summoned Felix again. “What’s happening to me?”
“You’re very popular, Mr. Bradley,” Felix said with a grin. “You’ve had multiple friends download your holomorph into their homes. On HoloMatch, you are currently boyfriend to over twelve hundred women. That’s a lot of downloads, my friend. The drawback is you’re beginning to atomize.”
My body flickered faster. “What do you mean . . . atomize?”
“After awhile the holomorph versions of you begin to disintegrate your body into thousands, and eventually millions, of atoms that live in co-existing realities. It’s a limitation when combining our software with human biology.”
“Why didn’t you warn me before I downloaded the app?” I yelled.
“It’s all there in the fine print of our contract. Once you agreed to Holomorph Corp’s terms, you gave them the right to download your atoms to their millions of subscribers.”
My skin began to pixilate and lose cohesion. Tiny holes speckled my arms. I grabbed his shoulders. “You have to fix me.”
“I’m afraid atomization is a permanent glitch for lower grade subscribers.”
My hands disintegrated. My pixilated flesh and bones flew up toward the ceiling like a swarm of insects. Holding up the stumps of my eroding arms, I howled and began to cry.
Felix tapped his iPad. “Not to worry, Mr. Bradley. We still have time to save you. Now that you’ve surpassed five thousand friends, you’re eligible to upgrade to our Holosphere.”
“Wha-what’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s our most exciting new feature. As the Holomorphs founder predicted, people no longer need the physical world. So our engineers developed the next evolution in reality.” He pushed a button on his tablet and a neon red door opened in the center of my living room.
“Follow me. I’ll take you to a place where you’ll always be happy and have plenty of friends.”
Desperate to feel whole again, I followed Felix through the holodoor.
Manitou Forest, Manitoba, Canada
A damn good day of hunting, Angus Kujak mused as his bloodied hands steered the truck between snow-covered pines. The antlers of his most recent kill rattled against the hood. Kujak rubbed his mutton-chop sideburns, feeling proud. Through the rearview mirror he glimpsed the pile of carcasses strapped to the flatbed. Atop two elk bulls lay his prize trophy—a grizzly bear. Took five bullets, but he’d finally brought her down with a dead zinger through the eye. Definitely a story for the boys at the chophouse.
“Hunting’s been better than usual, eh Jeb?” Snoring came from the passenger seat. Kujak reached over and knocked his cousin’s forehead. “I’m not paying you to sleep.”
Jeb, dressed in blood-stained camouflage and a winter hat with earflaps, sat up rubbing his forehead. “Sorry. Shelby kept me up half the night.”
“What’s she moaning about?”
“Usual. I spend too much time at the pub, not enough with her and the kids.” Jeb unscrewed his thermos cap. The smell of coffee and whiskey filled the truck.
“Man’s gotta have time with his friends. Pass that over.” Kujak took a swig from the thermos. The coffee was cold, but the whiskey went down with a fiery burn.
Up ahead, a white squall was devouring the pines. Snow pelted the windshield, threatening to bury the truck with the rest of the forest. He turned the wipers on full speed.
Jeb said, “Angus, I need to tell you something . . . you aren’t gonna like it.”
“What is it?”
“Shelby wants me to quit working for you and take a job building that pipeline.”
Kujak got a vile taste in his mouth. Jeb’s wife was always henpecking him. Soon after they’d gotten married, she’d cut off Jeb’s balls and stuck them in a drawer. She didn’t care for hunting--Killing animals is barbaric!--or her husband working for Kujak. They’d been hunting together since they were kids, long before Shelby entered the picture, and no woman should come between them. “You wouldn’t abandon your cousin, would ya?”
Jeb looked out his window. “I dunno. Thornhill Petroleum promises good pay plus benefits.”
“I pay you damned good, plus bonuses when you actually kill something.”
“Yeah, but pipeline work’s legal. Mr. Thornhill paid a visit to the pub last night. Said he had plenty of work for anyone interested.”
Kujak slammed his fist down on the steering wheel. “That blasted son’bitch! I’ve lost most of my hunters since that weasel rolled into town. I’d like to string him up by his ankles.”
“You gotta admit, his pipeline has helped business. Ever since they started blasting through Manitou Forest, he’s been driving game right toward our hunting ground.”
“That’s why I need you more than ever.” The road straightened. Kujak shifted into a higher gear. The truck’s engine howled in protest as it drove at forty miles an hour. “Jeb, I been thinking about making you a partner. You’d be surprised how much you can make. I’m selling more than just the meat and hides. The antlers, bones, hooves, and innards, I got buyers for all of it. We can earn . . .”
Something rammed the side of the truck. The steering wheel spun loose from Kujak’s grip. The truck careened 180 degrees, slammed sideways into a wall of snow. Elk antlers scraped across the hood and punctured the windshield. Kujak’s face hit the steering wheel. Dazed, he stared down at his blurry boots. Blood dribbled from his nose over his lips. “Jesus!” Kujak gripped the wheel until the forest stopped spinning. “You okay, Jeb?”
His cousin rubbed his forehead. “Hit my damn head, but I’m okay. What happened?”
“Felt like a moose broadsided us. See a dead one near the road?”
“Nothing. Not even blood.”
An animal howled from the snowy mist.
“Fuckin’ hell was that?” Jeb crouched in his seat.
Kujak rubbed his eyes. “I’m still seeing double. Can you spot it?”
“Something’s moving fast between the trees. Shit, it’s coming at us from behind!” Jeb yelped.
The flatbed rocked, shaking the cab. Kujak’s neck hairs rose to hackles as something snorted inches from the back window. Claws scraped metal. A blurry shape that filled the back window leapt off the truck.
Kujak’s vision cleared just as the beast disappeared into the falling snow.
Jeb trembled. “W-What the hell was that?”
“Grizzly.” The hunter’s pulse in Kujak quickened. “Let’s bag ‘em!” He threw open the door, grabbed his rifle, and hurried around the back of the truck. “Shit!”
The entire load of carcasses--the two elks and bear--were missing. “How the hell?”
Kujak followed a trail of blood and fur into a thicket of pines. Monstrous footprints made deep impressions in the snow. “Must be the granddaddy of grizzlies. Jeb, get out here.”
His cousin remained inside the cab, his back to the door that was pinned against the snow bank. “I don’t wanna chase a bear that size.”
“It’s running off with our game. Get your ass out here!” Kujak loaded a fresh cartridge in the rifle’s chamber.
Jeb climbed out with his rifle. “Oh lordy, your face.”
Kujak wiped a sleeve across his bloody nose, then marched into the woods. He whispered, “I’ll follow the blood trail. Keep to my left.”
“What if he circles us?”
�
��Shoot the bastard. Now shush.” Kujak crept through the red snow. The drift beyond the road had piled two-feet deep. Sweet Jesus, he’d never seen paw prints that size. His boots stepped from one giant impression to the next. In some places he had to leap, due to the long stride. The claw marks looked abnormally long. The more Kujak studied the pattern, the odder he felt. What kind of bear runs on two legs?
Ahead, the evergreens huddled close together. Snow dropped like a million down feathers. As he weaved between clumps of spruce, Kujak tried to imagine how a bear could run off with the carcasses of three large animals. Scattered across the bloody trail lay broken antlers, a severed elk leg. Tufts of fur clung to branches high above Kujak’s head. His adrenaline pumped with the thrill of the hunt. He had to bag this granddaddy.
Wind howled, long and hollow, like a baying wolf.
Kujak glanced at Jeb, who moved parallel between the trees. Every few feet his cousin disappeared behind pines, then reappeared in a new place.
Jeb froze and pointed frantically.
The brown flanks of a bear moved between the trees twenty yards away. There you are. Kujak locked his scope on the beast’s back and fired. A hole opened in the dark brown fur. The beast roared.
Kujak squeezed off another shot. “Take that you bastard!”
Instead of dropping, the bear in his scope shot toward him, snapping branches. Kujak got off two more shots before a jarring impact knocked him to the ground. His vision went blurry again. More shots fired. To his left. Or was it his right?
His cousin screamed and fired wildly, bullets whizzing through the forest.
“Jeb!” Kujak sat up. The forest spun. He tried to stand, but something heavy and furry pinned his leg. “Shit!” Blind, he stabbed the animal with his knife, but it lay there without a struggle, already dead. Kujak felt along the hairy behemoth that lay on his foot. His hand found a bear’s head; his fingers plunged into a bloody eye socket. It was the bear he’d shot earlier. The granddaddy beast had hurled her twenty yards through the air.
What kind of animal can throw a grizzly?
The gunshots stopped. So did Jeb’s screams.
Kujak scanned the forest, stopping on what looked like a bloody human thigh.
Jeb’s body lay on the ground, an elk carcass covering his head and upper torso. His legs were hidden behind a copse of blue spruce.
Kujak’s scrotum tightened when he heard crunching.
The beast snorted, then yanked Jeb’s body into the thicket. As if taunting him, a severed arm in a camouflage sleeve smacked the tree next to Kujak.
He felt in the snow for his rifle. Found a shattered scope and broken nape. Tossing the useless weapon, Kujak tried to lift the bear’s carcass. He screamed in frustration and immediately regretted it.
The bone crunching stopped. Heavy footfalls stomped through the woods.
An idea came. He soaked his hands in bear’s blood and rubbed his ankle inside his boot. He crawled backward, pulling his pinned foot. After a few yanks, the greased ankle slipped free. He bolted for the truck, half running, half stumbling, his bare foot sinking in the snow.
Tree limbs snapped behind him.
Kujak didn’t look back. Kept his eyes on the truck. Thirty more feet.
A roar like nothing he’d ever heard echoed across the valley. A whirlwind of snow blasted around him.
Twenty more feet to the truck. Kujak charged up the hill.
An elk antler whirled past his shoulder, skidded across the road.
Kujak jerked open the driver’s door and jumped behind the wheel. He fumbled for the keys, his fingers greasy with bear’s blood. “Come on, come on,” he pleaded.
Another antler struck his door.
He turned the key, ignited the engine, and jammed the accelerator. The truck slid sideways as the passenger side wheels spun. He shifted into reverse.
Beyond the frosty windshield a giant shape loomed in front of the truck.
The wipers pushed away the snow, revealing a skeletal creature with pale skin. It had long white hair and a horrid face with black holes for eyes. Its lips had been chewed to shreds. A serrated mouth grinned as it pointed at Kujak and shrieked. The sound pierced his eardrums with ice-pick stabbings of pain. His skin crystallized with frost as a chill coursed through him. Kujak felt his belly caving inward. The muscles tightened around his bones.
The beast picked up what was left of Jeb and ran off into the woods.
Kujak sat behind the wheel, shaking. His Cree friends had warned him not to hunt in Manitou Forest. That’s the Wendigo’s hunting ground. He’d always laughed off talk of Indian superstitions.
His heart turned to ice in his chest as he shifted into drive and pushed the pedal to the floor. The old Chevy flatbed fishtailed then finally straightened. It took a mile before he found the nerve to look at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His face was gaunt, his plump cheeks sunk inward. The irises of his eyes had turned pure white. His teeth grew sharp as icicles. He thought of Shelby, the boys at the chophouse, and that bastard Thornhill. Kujak’s bloody hands gripped the wheel. With a voracious hunger for meat gnawing at his belly, he drove back toward town.
She can’t be dead, Nick Meyers thought with a stabbing pain in his chest, as his taxi left Mainland China and entered a mountain tunnel. Riding in the backseat, Nick fought back grief that threatened to make him sob again. Instead, he focused on his anger, the dark ally that propelled him on this mission, and the grief retreated into the shadows of his brain. Nick touched the pistol hidden beneath his jacket.
I must find her.
The taxi exited the tunnel and drove across a bridge that led to the island of Hong Kong. The floating city where every kind of merchandise was for sale. Including souls. Neon signs reflected on the car’s windows. The cab driver, a rail thin man with greasy hair and a stench of cheap cigarettes, swerved in between cars and scooters, honking and cursing in Cantonese. Nick’s body flung forward as the taxi screeched to a sudden halt at an intersection clogged with traffic. Exhaust fumes assaulted his nose. Nick rolled up the window, trapping in the heat. “Can we take a different street?”
The cab driver looked up in the rearview mirror. Babbling some kind of gibberish, he pointed to the traffic and shrugged.
“There’s gotta be a faster route.” Nick opened his wallet and slapped five hundred Hong Kong dollars into the cabby’s skeletal hand.
The taxi lurched onto the sidewalk, honking at pedestrians, finding a side street that opened up to the bay. Nick’s tension released a little as the taxi moved at a steady clip along the water’s edge. Barges and tugboats trundled across the moonlit bay. Sampans with ribbed sails moved mysteriously silent among the clanking, metal vessels.
The cabby stopped at a corner near the docks. “This as far as I go. The place you look for is down Peking.”
Staring down a dark alleyway, Nick chewed his lip. Still time to back out, he thought. You could just tell the cabby to turn around. Or better yet, catch the ferry home. Face it, Nick, she’s dead. Dead and gone.
The cabby lit up another cigarette. “You sure you want to go in there?”
Nick nodded, even though his body resisted leaving the cab.
“I can stay for fifty more Hong Kong dollars.”
“Not necessary. Thanks.” Nick tipped the driver then stepped out. The taxi peeled away, leaving him alone at the curb. He scanned his surroundings. The docks at this end of the city were dark and devoid of people. Water lapped against the wood pylons and slips of empty boats. The civilized section of Hong Kong curved around the bay where the neon skyline reflected pink, green and orange lights on the water. Directly across the bay was the mainland city of Kowloon, where his home was nestled in an upscale neighborhood. Just an hour ago he had been pacing the floors of his kitchen, mentally arguing with all the voices inside his head.
The rational voice lost and now he was here, standing at the threshold of uncertainty.
But what if she’s alive?
He enter
ed the alley, wary of the many shadowy crevices and silhouetted dumpsters that smelled of rotten cabbage. As he walked briskly, a growing vibration in the pavement pulsed through the soles of his shoes. Up ahead echoed music and the pop-pop-pop of firecrackers.
Nick stepped over a grate where steam rose from the sewers beneath. Past the vapor, the air became thick and balmy, as though he had stepped through a portal from modern Hong Kong into the pulsing heart of ancient China. Glowing red lanterns with serpentine streamers draped overhead. He had to duck in places just to weave through the dangling maze.
DARK NEEDS: Three Twisted Tales of Horror Page 5