Rogue

by Greg F. Gifune

  I step back, more a nervous reaction than anything else, and quickly locate the number to the right of the door just to make sure. “That’s not possible.”

  “Exactly, son, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “What’s going on? What is this?”

  “You’ve got the wrong building, kiddo, it happens, nothing to get upset about.”

  “But I don’t have the wrong building. This is it.”

  The woman, presumably Sam’s wife, appears behind him, craning her neck for a look at the man at their door. A short but robust woman, she wears an inordinate amount of makeup and an inexpensive wig far too large for her head.

  “Sadie, let me handle this,” Sam says.

  Smiling at me with obvious dentures, she says, “We’ve lived here for years.”

  The fear is rising, growing stronger, bordering on panic. “Look, I know the building and the apartment I grew up in, all right? This is it.”

  “Son,” Sam says, “what is it we can do for you?”

  Equal doses of panic, confusion and desperation take hold of me. I’m lost in a dream. That must be it, I’m dreaming. “I don’t even know why I’m here, but I…I know this building, I know this apartment, this street and this neighborhood.”

  They look at me with what I’m sure is pity.

  “I learned to ride a bike right there,” I say, pointing to the street. “I—I used to buy Cokes and candy bars and comic books at the store on the corner there. It looked different then…there was a—a grill and lunch counter in the back. Mr. Hodges owned it, a nice old man who used to make the best chocolate milk shakes and cheeseburgers in town. Mrs. Larson lived upstairs in this building and she…I…my friends lived in that building right over there, and we used to play and have sleepovers and…my mother and I used to sit in this apartment and she’d read and I’d…I can show you the room, I—I can show you exactly where it was. I used to sit on these steps—these very steps—and wait for my father to come home.” Everything is crushing me, hitting me all at once, and none of it makes a goddamn bit of sense. “This was my life, do you understand? This was my childhood home. I grew up here, I…”

  Sadie smiles at me with what appears to be genuine sympathy. “Young man, you’re mistaken. You never lived here.”

  I slam my hand against the door casing. “This is bullshit!”

  “Hey now,” the old man says. “Careful there, what are you trying to do?”

  “And such language,” Sadie sighs, shakes her head and fingers a silver broach in the shape of a goat pinned to her blouse.

  The man aims an arthritically crooked finger at me. “You watch your mouth. There’s a lady present.”

  I flex my hands, my body twitching and jerking about like some sort of mental patient. “Why are you lying to me?”

  Sadie leans close to her husband and whispers, “Poor baby doesn’t know yet.”

  “What?” I ask. “What did you just say?”

  “Quiet, Sadie.”

  “But he doesn’t know, he obviously doesn’t know yet, he—”

  “I said be quiet!” Sam snaps.

  The woman shuffles back into the apartment and out of view.

  After a moment, Sam takes a step out and joins me on the stoop. There is something wrong about this old man. “I think it’d be best if you just go on about your business. You never lived here.”

  “What don’t I know yet? What don’t I know?”

  The man steps back into the apartment. “You take care, Zeke.”

  Shivers fire across my shoulders and up into my neck. “I told you my name was Cameron Horne, why did you call me Zeke? Who the hell are you people?”

  As Sam tries to close the door I rush forward and slam against it with both hands. He stumbles back and the door swings open. Sadie screams, and I see a phone in her hand. I grab hold of the old man by his sweater and shake him. “Tell me! What did she mean by that? What don’t I know?” I cock back a fist but the old man just smiles at me as if he enjoys being assaulted. “I don’t want to hurt you but I will, you understand me?”

  “Leave him alone!” Sadie screeches, lumbering toward me with a broom. “The police are on their way! You never lived here! You never lived anywhere!”

  I release the old man as his wife swings the broom. It misses me by less than an inch. I back up; hands in the air. “What do you mean? Tell me. What don’t I know?”

  “Get out of here!” Sadie screams with the broom out in front of her and leveled like a rifle, her wig mussed and her clownlike features glaring at me. “You get the hell out of here!”

  “Don’t you get it?” the old man says, winded. “There’s no help for you here, son.”

  Sadie opens her mouth and something black and thick slowly oozes out. Her wig, cockeyed on her head, reveals a small section of scalp that is nearly bald and covered in strange bumps that appear to be protruding pieces of bone, skeletal and gnarled fingertips frozen and jutting out from inside her skull. She reaches up and pushes her wig back into place as best she can.

  “Blessed is the slayer,” she says, slurring her words as a bloated black tongue—long dead—dangles from her bloody lips, “destroyer of all that is holy.”

  Stumbling away and back down the steps, I run for my car.

  * * *

  A storm rages in my mind, dragging me deeper into madness. I have no memory of driving but find myself in Braintree some time later, parked outside Cliff’s office.

  In a daze, I fall from the car and stagger across the sidewalk. A small group of young professionals laugh and chat as they pass by. I melt into their ranks, then wander out the other side and lean against the double front doors of the building. The day has turned gray and ominous, the wind still blowing, ushering winter closer and closer still.

  Once through the doors, I cross the lobby to a bank of elevators. Visions remind me I never want to step foot in an elevator again, so I turn and instead take the stairs, hurrying as best I can to the third floor.

  I’ve only been to Cliff’s office once before, but locate it quickly, at the far end of a long hallway on a floor housing numerous public offices.

  A modest number of cubicles fill the worn, drab room, a series of tall windows along the back wall providing a grimy view of the streets below. Cheap industrial carpeting covers the floors, and a low hum of quiet conversations hang in the air.

  A reception desk separates me from the cubicles, and along the wall to my left are numerous people—mostly women with young children—sitting in plastic chairs waiting for the next available social worker.

  “Can I help you?” a middle-aged woman at the reception desk asks.

  Behind her, I see Cliff step out from his cubicle as he finishes up with a young couple. He shakes their hands, then guides them toward me.

  “Excuse me?” the receptionist says. “Can I help you?”

  “I need to talk to Cliff for a minute,” I tell her, waiting for him to notice I’m there. “It’s okay. He’s a friend of mine.”

  When Cliff sees me, I force what is probably an absurd smile and wave him over. He returns the smile and ventures out and over to me. “Hi,” he says tentatively.

  “I need your help.”

  Cliff’s face registers concern. “What’s up?”

  “Can we go somewhere a little more private?”

  “Sure,” he says, nodding, “but can you tell me what’s wrong first?”

  “You’ve got to…” I bite my tongue to keep myself from breaking into pieces, and lower my voice. “You need to get me to a doctor or a hospital or something, I…I need help.”

  With a look of deep concern, Cliff glances around as if to be sure no one else is listening. “Okay, I—of course, I—do you need an ambulance?”

  “An ambulance?”

  “Well, are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

  I move closer. “Remember the things we were talking about before?”

  “Before?”

  “At O’Callahan’s.
”

  Cliff’s eyes lack their normal familiarity, their usual recognition. He subtly steps back, closer to the reception desk. “If I can help you in some way, I absolutely will, but you’ve got to tell me what this is all about, okay?”

  And just like that, I’m cold as a grave. “You don’t know who I am, do you.”

  Cliff smiles uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, should I?”

  This time I back away. The people in the chairs all stare back at me like I’m a freak. “We went to college together.”

  “No kidding? You went to—”

  “We’ve known each other for years, Cliff. You’re my best friend.”

  “Um…okay.” He gives the receptionist a quick sideways glance, and she picks up her phone and begins dialing even before he’s returned his attention to me. “Why don’t you have a seat for a minute and we’ll get you some help, all right? Would you like a cup of water? There’s a cooler just down the hall and I—”

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask, a tremor ripping through me.

  Cliff again looks back at the receptionist. She whispers something into the phone, then nods to him.

  “How could you…” My mind is dying as the rage rises again. “How the fuck could you not know who I am?”

  “All right, you need to calm down.”

  “This isn’t possible. What the hell is going on?”

  “Lower your voice and calm down,” he says, cautiously slipping by me. “We’ve called the police, do you understand? Now why don’t you come with me and we’ll go outside and talk calmly and wait for them, all right? Then we can get you the help you need. No one’s going to hurt you or give you a hard time. We’re here to help, okay?”

  As Cliff reaches for the door, the long sleeve of his shirt creeps up his arm. Where skin should reside there is only bone, blood and chunks of flesh dangling free, a raw glistening patch just above his hand that runs from wrist to forearm and disappears beneath the sleeve.

  I push him out of the way, rip open the door and charge back into the hallway as the receptionist lets out a scream.

  Running through the corridor, I can hear his shoes clicking the floor behind me as he follows. “Wait!” he calls out. “It’s okay, just come back! Stop and let me talk to you!”

  I hurl myself down the stairs, taking three and four at a clip and crashing onto the platforms between floors before barreling down the next flight. When I reach the lobby, I increase my speed and shoulder my way through the front doors with such speed I lose my balance and tumble onto the pavement.

  The initial contact knocks the wind from me, and although my shoulder hits first, my ribs, back and knees throb with pain by the time I come to rest near the curb. Ignoring the pain, I scramble to my feet in time to see Cliff standing inside the glass front doors, staring at me as if in a trance. As if…possessed…

  The moment that word drifts through my head, he begins to smile.

  People on the street hurry by like specters, bodies distorted, faces hideous masks of horror and sacrilege, movements erratic, violent and not human, their dark prayers whispered backward in ancient tongues.

  I can still see Cliff watching me through the smudged doors, scraping his fingers across his bald dome hard enough to draw blood that trickles down across his face and into his goatee as he laughs. His face and neck bathed in blood, Cliff’s body begins to quake and shudder in the throes of seizure, his laughter now a horrible screech.

  I turn away and look to the heavens, eager for God. Instead, I see gray sky streaked with bands of orange and red, a slowly dying sun bleeding out across pewter clouds and a ghostly mist disguised as the dreams of the lost, the hopes of the forgotten and the tears of the damned.

  I should be terrified. But I’m not.

  I’ve seen the rainbows in Hell before.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Like always, it’s the car alarm that wakes me, although I’m not sure this time if I was ever fully asleep. Watching shadows on the ceiling, I reach blindly across the bed for Remy but she’s not there. I roll over, pull the sheets and blankets to my face and breathe deeply. I can smell her. My God, even her scent is beautiful.

  I crawl out of bed and wait. It doesn’t take long.

  Through the window, I see a sudden gust of wind disturb a gathering of leaves in the front yard. I watch as the leaves swirl to form a small funnel, whirling about and suspended a few feet above the ground like a mini tornado.

  From the center comes a shadow, dark and vague, slowly rising from the mass of orange and brown leaves. A hooded being cloaked in black, arms extended out like a giant bat, its feet dangle in midair beneath it.

  I want to run, want to scream, but I stand frozen in place, eyes tearing as the entity rises higher still, floating just inches from the other side of the glass, its eyes little more than burning embers against the backdrop of dusk and faint traces of surviving moonlight. Yellow feral eyes, slanted and oddly majestic, as if belonging to a demonic feline, blink at me, slowly.

  One arm curls, the black shrouded sleeve engulfing the being’s limbs sliding away to reveal a hand with fingers that more closely resemble talons. A single crooked claw extends outward, then curls back, beckoning me.

  “No,” I say, uncertain if I actually spoke the word or only thought it.

  It’s time, Zeke.

  Others come from behind it, walking in an uneven line from the nearby woods. Moving closer, they take up position behind their leader. Dozens of glowing eyes pierce my logical mind, laying waste to any semblance of sanity I may have had left.

  Whispers emanate from the others, chants I do not understand but that sound oddly familiar. I can hear them through the window as the things float closer. The one in the lead drifts so close its face becomes visible. The cracked, bloody pale skin stretched across its head appears as if it might split apart at any second.

  Did you really think we wouldn’t find you, Zeke?

  “This is all a dream. You’re not real.”

  You’re the one living a lie, Zeke.

  The chanting forms move closer, the volume of their whispered mantra growing louder, nearly deafening.

  “Where’s Remy?” I growl. “What have you done to her?”

  Suspended outside the window, the creature watches but doesn’t answer. Its vile black tongue tracks cracked and bloodless lips.

  “If you hurt her, I swear to you I’ll rip you to fucking pieces.”

  Yessss…

  “I’ll show you pain like you’ve never imagined.”

  That’s it, use that anger, Zeke. Embrace it.

  “What have I done?” I ask, the taste of my own tears clinging to the back of my throat. “What have I done to make this happen?”

  The thing extends its arms and slowly descends. The others are coming now too, I can hear them moving through the walls and into the house. I can hear them climbing the stairs, their odd chanting growing louder, clearer as they draw nearer.

  I turn away from the window and it’s in the bedroom with me, standing right next to me, so close I can smell its rancid breath, feel it exhaling against me. “This is a nightmare,” I manage. “I’m dreaming.”

  Yes, Zeke, but your dreams belong to us.

  And then it shows me my dreams. Flashes of death and depravity beyond comprehension flicker like old film before my eyes.

  You belong with us.

  “No…stop it…make it stop…”

  It’s time, Zeke.

  “I’m dreaming,” I tell it. “I’m dreaming I’ve gone to Hell.”

  We all try, Zeke.

  “My name is Cameron Horne!”

  Once or twice, we all try to change our destiny, our very existence.

  “This isn’t my destiny. I have a life, the life I’ve always wanted. Why are you…why are you trying to take it from me?”

  The demon grins, lips peeling back to reveal bloody gums and razor teeth.

  “Tell me,” I say, pleading with it now. “Please, tell me.”

>   The perfect life…it’s all a lie, Zeke…created and born in your own mind. The history and memories of parents who never were, a childhood filled with wonder and love that only exists in this world of deceit you yourself designed and produced. The perfect house, the perfect wife, the meaningful and righteous job…all of it lies. Did you really think that by willing it—by stealing it and riding on someone else’s dying dreams—that would actually make it so? Didn’t you know we would eventually find you?

  The others are just outside the bedroom doorway now, their chanting gnawing at my guts like rats, their ghoulish faces twisted into impossible smiles of…affection?

  Every bird leaves its nest but eventually finds its way home, Zeke. We’ve come to bring you back…back to where you belong, where you were born and where your real life is…your real family.

  I back into a corner, wishing I could dissolve through the walls as they had and escape this madness. “What…What are you saying?”

  The others move closer still, forming a half circle around me, their claws reaching out to touch me, but not to harm to…to pet…to stroke…

  We’ve come to take you home, Zeke. To the very place you ran from.

  And in that horrible instant comes a recognition I had buried so deeply I’d hoped I would never again have to face it. The true nature of who I am. Of what I am.

  What I have never wanted to be but can no longer deny in a dream world I’ve constructed, stolen and assumed as my own. A chance to be normal and happy, a chance to be good. A chance to be…human.

  Welcome home, Zeke. Welcome home.

  * * *

  I want my life back.

  It’s not your life.

  “Bad dreams,” Remy whispers in my ear, her breath hot against my face, her arms holding my head tight to her chest as she rocks us slowly back and forth. “It’s just bad dreams, sweetheart.”

  “No,” I tell her softly. “They’re not.”

  “It’s a cycle,” she says. “Life…Death…Good…Evil…”

  I can feel my blood coursing through my veins, pulsing in my temples, dripping behind my eyes. Somewhere in the distance there is a horrific shriek, but it’s not human. Metal…machine…screeching and crashing, twisting, glass shattering and then silence…awful deadly silence…