The howl that came next froze Samuel. He turned in the direction of the noise and swore that he saw the yellow eyes bouncing between the scant trees of the elevated forest. Samuel placed both hands on the knob and shook as hard as he could. He leaned back, pulling with his body weight. The paws of the wolves rustled the leaves on the forest floor. Samuel looked over his shoulder without releasing his grip. The alpha male was back, and the light in his eyes spoke to Samuel without the need for words.
“Goddamnit, open up!” Samuel screamed at the door.
The alpha male growled low, fifty yards from the cabin. The wolf downshifted from a full sprint to a light gallop, its ears up and fangs bared. The rest of the pack came into the tight clearing in front of the cabin, the other hunters behind the alpha male. The females and cubs remained safely at the edge of the tree line.
Samuel smelled the wet fur, the odor more pungent than any others had been since he fell from the noose. He felt the low, moaning growl emanating from the hungry beasts. They spread out until the cabin was surrounded. He turned and placed his back on the front of the door. Samuel pushed his heels into the wooden step and drew a deep breath.
“I’m not giving in,” he said to the alpha male. “I’m not dying without a fight.”
The alpha male’s ears twitched. He strutted closer to Samuel. The others took tentative steps closer, careful not to infringe on the territory of their leader. The wolf snarled with saliva dangling from his fangs. Samuel bent his knees and leaned forward until his rear pressed on the front of the door, and he raised his hands up to his chest in a defensive position. The alpha male ducked his head and lunged forward. He took two bounds and opened his jaw in midair as Samuel closed his eyes and braced for the impact. At the moment he expected to have teeth tearing at his throat, Samuel fell backward into utter and complete darkness.
***
Speckles of dust hung in the air, dancing on thin strings of light that penetrated the cabin through gaps in the shake. Samuel blinked twice, feeling his eyes burn from lack of moisture. He lifted his head and turned to face the door while his body remained on the floor, his chest against the bare planks. Cobwebs dangled from the corners of the ceiling and stretched from underneath the cracked plaster. A narrow strip of light framed the door, leading Samuel to believe that it was day, or the closest thing to daylight that existed in this world.
An image of the alpha male snapped into place. Samuel closed his eyes and saw the feral, yellow eyes coming at him. He looked into the beast’s empty recesses, not believing such a creature could ever possess a soul. He remembered the teeth, bared and hungry, ready to tear at his flesh. Samuel even recalled the alpha male’s scent, which had overpowered any lingering odor present.
Samuel shook his head and dispelled the memory. He sat up, stood, and surveyed the cabin. A rickety table stood in one corner, the old-fashioned type meant for writing with a quill and inkwell. The wood appeared gray in the darkened room, and Samuel would have been surprised if it looked any different in the full daylight. A wooden chair with a three-rung back sat tucked beneath the tabletop. A rudimentary bunk filled the opposite corner. Two rough-hewn legs extended to the floor on each corner, while the long side tied into the wall. A thin, lumpy pad covered the top of the bunk, which did not hold a pillow or blanket. Like the desk, webs crisscrossed the bunk. The only other item in the room hung from a single nail protruding from the crown molding.
At first, Samuel thought it was a mirror. Ages of dust covered the surface, which hid the item’s true identity. An ornate, carved frame encapsulated a piece seemingly out of place with the other basic furniture inside the cabin. Samuel approached it and wiped the length of the frame several times until he stood in front of a portrait.
The darkness and age of the portrait made it difficult for Samuel to determine whether it was a painting or a photograph. He could make out the profile of a woman, but not much else. Samuel walked to the desk and pulled the chair out from underneath it. Four dark circles sat on the floor where the dust could not settle. He wondered how many years it would take for the dust to fill those spaces. Samuel placed the chair on the floor in front of the wall and placed his right foot on it. He pushed down, and other than a slight creak of the floorboard underneath, the chair felt sturdy. Standing on it brought him eye level with the fastener and cable holding the portrait on the wall. He reached out and lifted the cable off the nail until the full weight of the portrait rested in both hands, and he stepped back down to the ground. Something flickered deep within the recesses of his mind. Something stirred. Something familiar and yet just beyond his reach. Samuel walked toward the lone window, and the ambient glow of the anemic sun filtered through the grime. He wiped off more of the age covering the portrait until his eyes met those in the photograph—the eyes he knew almost as well as his own.
***
The woman in the photograph stood, positioned in the lower-right corner of the frame. Dark, long curls spilled about her shoulders and rested on her arms. She wore a black top, which, combined with her dark hair, framed a pristine, youthful face. She wore makeup and eyeliner in a way that made her look trendy and hip rather than cheap. Ruby lips pressed together into a thin smile that radiated warmth and good-natured teasing. But it was her eyes that ensnared Samuel the way they had many years earlier. The woman’s green eyes called to him, made him forget his name. They sat evenly spread on her face, and the eyeliner around them accentuated the contrast between her porcelain skin and emerald irises. Samuel used his finger to draw a trail of dust from her cheekbones to her neck, as if he would somehow feel the warmth of her skin under his touch. He smiled and looked to her long, thin fingers cradled around a set of keys. With her head tilted to the side, he could almost remember what she had been saying when the photograph had been taken. Almost.
His eyes moved toward the top-right corner of the frame, where another figure stood. The man stood behind the angelic form. He wore his hair slicked back without the creep of a widow’s peak. The man wore a white T-shirt beneath a black jacket, and his waist disappeared into the black background of the photo. He appeared to be leaning against a wall, his body behind her but his face turned toward the photographer. The man wore a fuzzy beard, spotty and uneven. Like the woman, he too sealed his lips into a slight smile, as if the photographer had told a joke at the moment the camera shutter opened, capturing both subjects before the remark would force them into open laughter. The man’s left arm disappeared behind the woman, while his right hung at his side.
Samuel placed the frame on the ground, leaning it against the wall underneath the window. He sat down on the floor and stared at it again. His mind raced, sifting through logic that no longer computed in a world that did not follow the rules of the one he knew.
He shook his head. In one moment, one brief observation of one photograph, a significant portion of his memory returned. That did not bother Samuel. What shook him to his core was how an old photograph of him and his wife had made it inside a desolate cabin, abandoned for decades, in a dead world. That troubled him more than not knowing why he had descended into this hell in the first place.
***
“She was gorgeous.”
Samuel jumped at the sound of the voice. Even though their conversation had not been extensive, he recognized it.
“She still is,” Samuel replied. “I didn’t hear the door open.”
He turned from his spot on the floor in front of the photograph to see Major sitting on the chair now pushed back against the far wall. His silvery mane sprawled over his shoulders like the spider webs inside the cabin. The black headband he had worn to hold it back was no longer in place, and neither was the ponytail. Major’s receding hairline held firm against the encroaching inevitability, even though the man was clearly within his sunset years.
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean?” Samuel asked.
“I mean, maybe. She was gorgeous, she is gorgeous, and she is no longer gorgeous. All of that.
”
Samuel stood and approached Major. The old man sat, unbothered by the sudden closing of distance between the two.
“Where did you go?” Samuel asked.
“You need to slow down and let your brain catch up with your mouth. You’re asking questions before the answers to the previous ones make it inside your head. We’re safe here. For now. I’m sorry I had to leave you so quickly, but if I hadn’t, the wolves would not have driven you to this place, and that had to happen.”
“What had to happen?” asked Samuel
“There you go again.”
Samuel stopped and put a hand to his forehead. He ruffled his hair and dropped back to the floor next to the framed photograph. He leaned against the wall and felt the chill leaking through the wood. The light that had filled the window earlier now faded into lonely blackness.
Major nodded before speaking. “I can tell you a bit, but when I stop, I have to stop for reasons beyond your understanding. Can you live with that?” he asked Samuel.
“No. But I’m going to lie and tell you I can,” replied Samuel.
Chapter 5
Samuel sat cross-legged on the destitute bunk while Major remained in the chair. The old man grimaced as he lifted one leg and placed it over the other.
“The ligaments go before everything else, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Remember that.”
Samuel smirked and tapped his fingers on his thigh.
“Give me a second, Samuel. I need to think about how to frame this for you.”
Samuel nodded. The old man stared at the ceiling, one hand rubbing the end of his chin. He opened his mouth, held it for a moment, and then shut it again. He repeated this two more times.
“Are the wolves coming back?” asked Samuel.
Major held a finger up to Samuel, lines creasing his forehead, which drove his eyebrows down in the middle.
“Did you ever play a musical instrument? Like a violin or a guitar?”
Samuel furrowed his brow and thought about the question. So much of himself remained as nebulous as the world outside the cabin.
“I think so.”
“Good enough,” replied Major. “Do you know how sound is created on a stringed instrument?”
Samuel shifted again as the stiff base of the bunk dug into his backside. “What does this have to do with anything?”
Major shook his head. He swatted at the air in front of his face and fell back into the chair. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Sorry,” said Samuel. “Tell me.”
Major took a deep breath and continued. “When you pluck a string on a guitar, the vibration creates the sound. The string vibrates very quickly, and the sound is not constant. The note is really an infinite series of oscillating sounds.”
Samuel shrugged.
“Let me tell you the parable of the blind wise men and the lion. The blind men are hunting the lion, following its trail. Hearing it run past, they chase after it and grab its tail. Hanging on to the lion’s tail, they feel the one-dimensional form and proclaim ‘It’s a one! It’s a one!’ But then one blind man climbs up the tail and grabs onto the ear of the lion. Feeling a two-dimensional surface, this blind man proclaims, ‘No, it’s really a two!’ Then another blind man is able to grab the leg of the lion. Sensing a three-dimensional solid, he shouts, ‘No, you’re both wrong. It’s really a three!’ They are all right.”
Samuel held both hands up. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“Just as the tail, ear, and leg are different parts of the same lion, this place and the one you’re beginning to remember are different parts of the same world.”
For the first time, Samuel stopped tapping his finger. He looked at Major and then at the floor of the cabin. He turned to face the framed photograph and then the lonely window on the other wall.
“So how do I get back to the tail, or the ear, or the leg, or whatever the hell part of the world is mine?”
“I don’t know,” replied Major.
“Why not?”
“Imagine walking on a vast beach, near the ocean. You scoop up a handful of sand. You sift the sand until a single grain sits in your palm. A strong gust sweeps off the water and knocks that single grain of sand out of your hand. Could you bend down and pick it up off the beach? Would you know which grain was yours?”
“Are you trying to say there are millions of localities that are part of the same existence?”
Major shrugged. “Maybe billions, maybe there are an infinite number of localities. Maybe there are billions or an infinite number of existences. I really don’t know.”
“That’s really hopeless,” said Samuel.
“Depends. If your locality was a healthy, vibrant place, it might feel hopeless to leave it. On the other hand, if all that you knew was slowly dying, unwinding, coming apart, it might feel like getting into the lifeboat before the ship sinks.”
Samuel nodded.
“There is one more thing you need to know before we lie down for the night, something I want you to think about. Let your mind turn it over while you sleep. Just like grains of sand on a beach, these localities exist very close to one another.”
***
The men slept and awoke feeling no more refreshed than they had the night before. Samuel opened his eyes and watched Major remove two cylindrical objects from his bag and place them on the floor. The designs on the labels had long since faded. Major used a tool from his belt and pried the lid off the can. A faint and barely recognizable scent rose from the floor.
“Sauerkraut?” Major asked Samuel. He handed a can to Samuel while using two fingers to dig into his own.
“Cabbage of some sort, right?”
Major nodded while shoving more of the wet, cold breakfast into his mouth. Samuel scooped up a handful and felt the consistency of the substance, detecting a hint of salt, but the sensation dissipated until he was left eating a tasteless, odorless meal.
“I thought I remembered sauerkraut being really strong.”
“You’ll get those feelings or intuitions the longer you’re here. It’s like your mind slowly unrolls them for you so your psyche isn’t run over by the flood of data.”
Samuel let the comment roll around toward the back of his head. “Why isn’t this cabbage strong? Why can’t I smell it or taste it?”
Samuel stopped and cocked his head sideways.
“I don’t know, either,” said Major. “I mean, I can feel it. I know you have, too. Things here feel like they’re not quite 100 percent. You know what I mean. Just look at the tint of any flame you light here. It’s always off, some shade of yellow or green. The sun, the odors, my taste buds. None of them operate at full speed. This locality feels like it’s at 60 percent.”
Major smiled while Samuel remained staring at the floor.
“Each locality seems to have distinct traits that could be unique, but vary from one to the other. But they all keep a thread that unifies them. Like our blind men chasing the lion, they’ll never grab a beak or a fin. They could grab a stub of an amputated tail or half of an ear that was bitten off in a fight, but it will always be lion-like. Never not lion-like.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Neither do I, but you get used to it with each passing cycle. Eat your sauerkraut. We need to get out of this cabin before Wolfman Jack and his crew come back to finish you off.”
The two men finished their meal and sat on the floor of the cabin while their stomachs rumbled in protest. Samuel glanced at the framed photograph leaning against the wall. Major nodded toward the nail.
“Can’t hurt to put it back,” Major said.
Samuel stood and replaced the photograph on the wall. He stepped back and looked again, and he nudged the corner up until the frame hung straight.
“That shit pops up everywhere.”
“What does?”
“Reflections. These little reminders of other localities. They don’t ever seem to be as vibrant as the origin
als. That’s why I call them reflections.”
Samuel nodded.
“And there’s no point in trying to take the reflections with you. Your attention will be somewhere else, and when you look back, the reflection will be gone. I know you considered rolling that photo up and tucking it in your waistband, but you’d end up with nothing but a blank piece of photo paper sooner than you’d realize. Best to leave it here and not torture yourself with it.”
“Where to?” Samuel asked. He dusted his pants off and faced away from the photograph.
“I’ve got a feeling someone who can help us has popped out. He’s at least a two-day hike from here, and through some pretty tough shit. Gonna make the fight with those wolves seem like walking your dog in the park. Plus, I’ve got two other friends I’d like you to meet.”
Samuel raised his eyebrows. “Or I could sit in this cabin, staring at the reflection on the wall while waiting for death.”
“Something like that,” replied Major.
***
“I hope Major finds him before the wolves tear him apart,” said Mara.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass. About Major, newbies, or the wolves,” replied Kole.
Mara tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shook her head at him. “Of course you do, Kole. You know Major can’t slip on his own. At least not where he wants to be. He’s going to lay that charm on anyone he has to in order to get what he wants.”
“And how is that any different than what happens in the real world? I’ve had many people turn on me; men I thought were friends but were really out for their own asses.”
Mara shrugged. “You have to trust somebody. As long as you know Major will sell you out to get what he wants, what’s the big deal?”
Kole shrugged off Mara’s question. “I’m not the one making a big deal about Major, am I?” He rubbed a hand across the tattoo sleeve on his right arm, trying hard to remain focused on the conversation he’d had with Mara dozens of times already. “Maybe you have a good reason to get back to whatever life you had, but I don’t. I’m just as happy to stay here and let the cloud eat me.”
The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers) Page 29