by David Beers
Now, if you please, we should rationally discuss this. Sit in a chair and stare at the liquor bottle as long as you need, but hear this out. After, do whatever you feel—now though, sit down.
Daniel listened and allowed the past to come back.
He had felt good that day. A rare feeling, one brought on by a complete success; where the hours leading to it need not be counted because they were an investment. The past three years were at an end for Alex Valdez and Daniel Nayek. To some degree those three years had helped define Daniel, and driving home now, he thought on it.
The sun descended on a distant end of the earth, flooding the sky with hues of orange and red. Daniel rode with his windows down, the warm summer air giving a boost to his elation. Alex Valdez wouldn’t need him anymore. Daniel wouldn’t use the words cured or healed, but Alex had been…helped. The man’s visions were gone and the deaths of his parents were understood in a context of sanity. The world would never be completely right, but Daniel thought Alex and his wife could move on from the myth of a dead god incessantly chasing them.
Daniel played no music, allowing the wind to keep him company.
He shouldn’t have glanced into the rearview mirror. If he could have only looked forward, perhaps everything in the years following would have been avoided. He didn’t though; he glanced back and, in a way, saw the rest of his life. He shoved that glance away for years, trying to forget it or replace it—but at the moment he looked, at least some part of him knew he could never be the same. Not truly.
Daniel expected to see the road and probably cars moving. The same view he had seen innumerable times. Instead, he only saw blackness. He could see everything else normally, outside his windshield and the interior of his car. The rest of the world appeared as it should, except the rear view mirror. In it, where he should have seen the objects behind him with the same clarity he saw the ones in front, a wall of blackness stood. He looked forward again, quickly, convinced a look away would change what he saw in the mirror. Nothing changed. He moved his head from side to side—almost frantically—hoping the lighting would change and fix whatever was happening.
Nothing. He saw no backseat. He saw no back window. No road his car had already rolled over. He saw only blackness in that mirror, but not the flat, dull color of paint. It was like peering into a dark room, space obviously showing in the mirror.
That’s not fucking possible.
He looked forward again, his heart picking up speed as panic took over. His eyes danced back and forth; his breathing keeping pace with his heartbeat.
“What?” he asked; his voice weak and shrill—his mind desperately searching for anything resembling sense. The car drifted to the left as Daniel looked again; he overcorrected, swerving into another lane before finding his own. He looked immediately back at the mirror.
The blackness split. Two small slits, a green glow stemming from them. Then they opened like eyes. Two holes surrounded by blackness with a dark green in them—looking at Daniel through the mirror. He forgot about the road in front and the world around him. He felt fear deeper than panic, fear that stilled his soul and revealed how small he was. Looking into those holes, those eyes, Daniel felt ice water flush his veins.
Blood gushed from his nose; a heavy flow that collided with his collared shirt in a few seconds.
His car drifted again, crossing lanes, but Daniel took no notice. He could only stare at the eyes in the mirror, the knowledge that they could snuff him out, like water to a flame, eclipsed all else.
Three words came to him—words that he would never fully dispel. They originated from inside Daniel’s head, but were sparked from some invasive and foreign entity. Alex is mine.
His car hit the median. The front left corner smashed into the cement, turning the car so the driver’s side hit. At seventy miles an hour, the airbag ejected from the steering wheel and hit Daniel full in the face. Neither the impact of his car into the cement, nor the airbag to his head, mattered to him—he had left reality.
The car scraped along the cement wall; the friction and lack of forward force finally bringing it to a stop.
Vehicles pulled over, rushing to Daniel, calling the police.
Only one thought filled Daniel’s mind—wherever he was.
Alex is mine.
Daniel sat on his porch with Randy in the yard before him. The sun would fall beneath the horizon shortly. He had thought for a long time about pouring liquor, but now sat with only an untouched glass of water. Daniel wanted to move past the car ride, to what this meant for his future—instead his mind continually drifted back to those holes and the world he glimpsed in his mirror. He woke up in a hospital bed, face bruised and body aching. Did he begin pushing those eyes away then, lying in bed? Any excuse, anything his mind could grasp onto, would do—even temporary blindness.
“Is it possible?” he asked a nurse during his time there.
“Sure. A sudden shock to the head could cause that.”
He held onto it. He stored it away, down deep, and began to rely on it.
He never mentioned the eyes or the black world he saw, and with time, they faded. The accident became just an accident. Daniel bought a new BMW within a month and Alex (is mine) moved on with his life. That ride and those eyes became something he needn’t think about.
They had existed though, and—
And you’ve been lying to yourself. You don’t have to anymore. You can remember those eyes and try to figure this out. You can try to find Alex.
He had brought the cordless phone out with him, not in any effort to answer someone’s call, but to make one. Daniel told her to wait until Monday, and then to contact him at the office. Monday was a day away though, and regardless of what the song claimed, too much could happen in those hours. Alex could end up dead or Daniel could lose the small nerve he possessed now. Maybe tomorrow, Daniel would forsake the whole fucking thing and let the two of them deal with it anyway they pleased.
He held the phone because if tomorrow came and any of those things with it, then he would begin lying to himself again.
He dialed Brittany Valdez’s house, the number sitting on a Post-It Note Daniel had taken from the office Friday—before drinking himself into oblivion.
“Hello?” she answered, her voice small.
“Mrs. Valdez, it’s Daniel Nayek. Sorry to call you at your house again.” He paused, unsure how to continue. “I…I wanted to talk to you about Alex. Do you have time?”
“He’s checking his messages. Not answering his phone, but at least listening to the messages I leave,” she said quietly, answering Daniel’s question in her own way. “I don’t know what to think.” Her voice broke.
“It means he’s alive.”
“I hope so.”
Daniel took in a few breaths, knowing no clear path would emerge directing him how to progress. His years of professional training had helped build a wall around the place he was entering; he wasn’t sure there was a way back if he continued, either.
“We,” he paused after saying the word, realizing it was the first time he had used that term. “We have to find your husband; there are things I have to talk to him about.”
She laughed, high and incredulous. “You need to ask him some questions, so we need to find him? Is that what you’re fucking telling me right now?”
Daniel closed his eyes. Goddamnit. Her husband could be slitting his own throat and you make her think you want him back so that you can prod him with psychiatry.
“That wasn’t what I meant. I haven’t been honest with you two or myself. I’m coming to terms with things…and they have bearing on you two.”
He stopped talking but she said nothing.
“Have you reported him missing?”
“This morning.”
“What did the police tell you?”
She remained quiet for a few seconds, as if determining how much Daniel Nayek needed to know. “Basically that they’ll tell me more when they know more. The crime rate b
eing what it is in Atlanta, I don’t know how much effort they’ll put into this.”
Daniel didn’t hear her.
“He’s checking his messages—what type of phone does he have?”
After a second, “why does that matter?”
“It might not; I’m not sure. What kind?”
“One of the Google ones. I don’t know exactly.”
“But a smart phone, right?”
“Yes.”
He could be wrong, but he didn’t think so. When Daniel’s GPS was turned on, it could locate his phone within three feet of its whereabouts. Without the GPS, it was something like half a mile. The cellphone company had to have the ability to look it up; would they give out the information though?
“If his cell phone is on him, the provider would have to know where the phone’s at. Your phone always gives off some type of signal now—they’ll have the information; you just have to get it out of them.”
“Then…” She trailed off, the possibility dawning that she could find her husband so easily. “I’ll have to call you back.” The words rushed out, barely a necessity of polite society.
“Mrs. Valdez, please call me back?”
“Yeah, okay.” The line cleared.
Hours passed. Daniel thought about going inside to piss, but relieved himself off the porch instead. It was his backyard, after all, and he doubted anyone would be looking at the moment he decided to pull his dick out. Watching the stream hit the grass, he understood that men never truly mature. They only act like they have.
Daniel’s thoughts wove a line between his own parents and Alex’s. He had seen the similarities from the very beginning of their therapy. He never mentioned them to Alex, never planned on it either. It could have endeared Alex more to him, could have made the relationship stronger and maybe benefitted the therapy—for Alex to know that Daniel had ventured into similar waters of psychiatry for similar traumas. Even with that possibility, Daniel didn’t want to—that life was gone and he wouldn’t bring it back, not the memories or the drugs they led to.
He hadn’t let Alex or Brittany into that part of his life, and still he had heard that voice tell him Alex is mine. The relationship had been strictly clinical, and still he felt strong enough about the couple for his brain to…allow a break from reality to happen? Daniel understood there was a strong possibility—perhaps probability—that his experience was a stressed induced hallucination. Still, he couldn’t deny the possibility that he had seen something. That he had felt something. That, very briefly, he saw a glimpse of what Alex Valdez claimed to live with. To find the truth, he needed Alex, himself, and another psychiatrist in one room.
The phone rang. He looked at it strangely, almost forgetting why he was sitting out here. It rang a few more times before he answered.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Nayek, it’s Brittany Valdez.” Her voice sounded near breaking, as if she could sleep until the sun cooled.
“You don’t sound well, Mrs. Valdez.”
“Fighting a corporation can do that, I imagine.”
“Did you win?”
“Kind of.” She sighed. “Alex’s phone is dead, or thrown away, or broken. ‘No longer being serviced’ is how they put it. They finally gave me his location though, where he was at four this afternoon. Actually gave me an almost continuous path until four. He was in a city called Saltillo; it’s in Mexico.”
Daniel leaned back in his chair and looked out on his lawn, seeing nothing. He shivered as the meaning of Mexico struck him.
“He’s heading to Mexico City?”
“He has to be.”
“What happens when he gets there?” The question was as much to himself as her. In this area, they were equal in their knowledge of Alex.
“I don’t know. He’s sure It’s real. He’s sure that this fucking thing is going to kill him. What do people do when they feel ancient gods are after them?” She laughed, terror in it.
“Have you called the police?”
“I had to use them to find out where he was. The phone company wouldn’t give his location to just me. It’s out of their jurisdiction, though.” She laughed again, nearing hysteria. “Do you know any Spanish?”
“What are you going to do?” He ignored the jest.
Silence followed for nearly a minute.
“I’m going where he’s going. I’m going to that fucking hotel.”
Daniel felt his choices, the infinite number he had held Friday, quickly being eliminated to only two: Sit Out or See It To the End. See if those eyes actually looked at him from another place or his training still held. He couldn’t shove all this back under the rug, and if he Sat Out, he would never know. Maybe that thought chose for him: answers would be lost forever if he stayed.
“Would you mind if I came?”
13
Days Past
Alex
Alex hadn’t made a reservation. If things were as he saw them, he wouldn’t need one. There would be a room waiting for him, and something else, too. Something that had been waiting for a long time.
Four days from his home in Atlanta and only a few hours from Hotel Indigo. Probably the only hotel in Mexico City still open after two decades. Alex would end something there that never should have started, and if he couldn’t, at least he wouldn’t be a part of it anymore. He felt no qualms about that—he drove this distance to die on his own terms.
And if possible, to keep Brittany from dying too.
He didn’t want to hear anymore messages after the last one—after she said I love you. He listened to it, put his phone in the hotel sink and ran water over it. He was compelled to listen to every message she left—and they drained him. Regrets plagued Alex, none as big as meeting his wife though—bringing her into this and then leaving without a word of explanation. Without seeking forgiveness.
The sun sat below the horizon, but Alex was in his car ready to begin the last drive of his life. Darkness filled the unpaved hotel parking lot, and the light in the front office had gone out as the proprietor went to bed on the cot behind the desk. For Alex, sleep hadn’t come the night before; the picture in his head wouldn’t let it. He had to get what he saw out, to force it on the world rather than hold it in—so he carved into the wall without thoughts of damages or costs. Only now, in his car with the keys in the ignition did that occur. Last night was lucid; perhaps allowing Alex to finally understand what stood before him. What hunted him. Something so massive, so complete, that His dormancy seemed nearly impossible. Carving that face had been no artistic endeavor; it had brought Alex closer to Him. It allowed them to communicate.
Communication always leads to understanding. Much of the time, understanding leads to peace—because people aren’t diametrically opposed; in the end, they always crave the same basic things. Alex found understanding but no peace. He drove now to a past of ritualistic killings, a past of violence. The Thing that this place embodied knew nothing of the word peace and would never embrace it. Only death could be found in this God, and Alex started his car with that knowledge in mind.
“Only death,” he said to the warm morning air.
The sky went black at two in the afternoon. The sun didn’t set, but night fell from the front of the car anyway, washing over the blue sky and the day in a matter of moments. No moon and no stars. The only light remaining in the entire landscape emanated from Alex’s car. He slowed to a stop, not bothering to turn off the road. He put the car in park and looked out his window; blackness began immediately, impossible to see further. He looked on, amazed at the totality of darkness; having never before seen so little.
He held no fear, only awe. Alex opened the door and stepped out. He walked until he could see no farther and stood there. It looked like black space could stretch forever yet Alex felt at any second he could walk into a wall, such was his vision. He turned around and looked at his car, a glowing lamp in the universal darkness surrounding it.
“Why stop me now? You’ve known I was coming,�
� he whispered.
A wind came from the same direction the night had—the direction of the hotel. It started mildly, only a breeze against Alex’s body. He faced it, having to squint as it picked up force. Words spoke in the wind; tiny fragments of knowledge running against his ears. Voices from people he didn’t know, speaking in a language he didn’t understand. The words, whatever they meant, were outlined with horror and anger. Sentences were abruptly cut off and replaced with another as the wind blew on. Alex stepped closer to the car, the people speaking changed as he moved. He realized then that the entire area was filled with an infinite number of people talking—all filled with similar terror.
He walked to his car, feeling a slight urge to run. He knew whose voices he heard and knew who they spoke of. They lived in Him, were Him, had been sacrificed to Him. They were the dead of a thousand years, perhaps repeating their last words before coming to be with Him eternally. He sat down in the car, slamming the door as the wind picked up speed. He could hear it rushing against his car but the door cut off the human sounds. Alex leaned forward, placing his head against the steering wheel. Then he heard them again—slower now, the sounds bleeding in from the vents. The voices were strained, weaker, but still carrying emotion.
All he could do was listen to them, understanding the tones if not the language.
He closed his eyes, hearing a hurricane outside and the words of dead men inside. Time passed as he sat without making a sound. No light came and he turned his car off—finally awash in complete darkness.
Time could have stopped or kept moving, Alex didn’t know. This could end or continue forever—perhaps he would die of thirst in this car, listening to The Choir of The Dead play endlessly.
Had his parents told him this would happen? He knew he had shamed them, perhaps even embarrassed them, in his disbelief. He had simply walked away. His belief, or lack of, never changed their minds—never even shook them. He saw why now, sitting in a coffin surrounded by the same darkness he would see underground.