The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers)

by Perkins, Cathy

  “Yeah, this place looks perfect. Let me find us a decent landing pad.”

  Major snipped with excitement, and Samuel felt him temporarily exit his mind. He hoped Major would not take it upon himself to serve Mara to the wolves.

  “I’m almost ready,” said Samuel. “What’s next?”

  “Walk to it. Touch it. Hell, lick it if you have to. Get yourself a physical connection to the object there, which will help target the slip. We won’t land on that fucker, like Plymouth Rock, but we’ll be damn close. Make sure it’s not too close to water. I don’t wanna get my hair wet.”

  Samuel realized he could shut Major out, like closing a door or hanging up the phone. He reached out to Mara, still inside the cavern.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Samuel?” she asked.

  “Listen, and don’t speak. When he gets close, push him in the back.”

  “But I don’t know what you mean—”

  “Mara. Stop. We don’t have time. When he gets close, push him. Do you understand?”

  Samuel felt her head nod. He switched communication from Mara back to Major.

  “I think I’m almost ready,” he said to the old man.

  “I will not miss the howling of those wretched beasts. And the goddamn horde can rot in hell. Let’s do this.”

  Samuel sent a final flash to Mara before opening his eyes. The portal from inside his head now hovered above the ground inside the cave. The opening rose up ten feet and expanded to a length of twelve. He felt as though he was sitting on top of a cloud, looking out of a bay window on another world below. The ambient sunlight spilled from the portal and illuminated the cave, chasing the wolves even farther away from the entrance and forcing their retreat into the forest. Major and Mara held their hands over their faces to protect their eyes from the blazing light they had not experienced for so long.

  Mara stepped forward and made eye contact with Samuel. He winked and then turned to face Major.

  “Sure is a beauty, eh? I knew once you conjured the portal that nothing would stop you from slipping this locality, not even your little Goth princess over there. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind some young pussy, but even that ain’t enough, right?”

  “Just do it,” replied Samuel. “I want out of this filthy place.”

  Major nodded and lifted his chin at Mara.

  “Let’s go, hon. You belong to the alpha male now. Sammy and I are going to send you a postcard, don’t you worry.”

  Mara dropped her head to her chest. When she raised it, tears streamed down her face.

  “Can I just look at it for a minute before you two go?”

  “I don’t see no harm in that,” Major said, lifting his shoulders at Samuel.

  Samuel shrugged and stepped back from the edge of the portal to allow Mara and Major space to step up to it.

  “Take a look at that beautiful, virgin land,” said Major, gazing upon the eastern end of the distant locality.

  Mara inched forward. She shook her head, more tears following. Major stepped to the side and put an arm around her. He whispered into her ear.

  “Could be dinosaurs with eight heads in there somewhere. But you know what ain’t there? This place. This stinking shithole ain’t.”

  Major stepped forward and spread his arms as if to embrace the vista. He tilted his head back and let the natural sunlight ease the tight scar tissue on his face.

  “Now!” yelled Samuel.

  Mara had taken two steps back from the edge and one to the side. She had positioned herself directly behind Major while he was basking in the glow of the portal. With her dark, straggly hair covering all but her piercing eyes, Mara lunged forward with both hands. Her palms struck Major’s black overcoat like a slap to the face. She locked her elbows and extended her arms, driving her weight through the push and forward toward the open portal. Major gasped as the shove knocked the air from his lungs. He stumbled forward and almost regained his balance when his left foot slid on the loose limestone and into the portal. His left leg dropped, and his body torqued to the side as whatever force ruling the portal sucked Major in like gravity would from the precipice of a cliff. Samuel saw the shock and the anger in Major’s eyes as his body slid farther into the portal, alone. His fingers grasped the fuzzy edge of the vortex, and he pulled his chin up to them.

  “You fucking liar!” he shouted. “I swear to God I’m coming back for you, you son of a bitch!”

  Samuel closed his eyes again. When he reopened them, Mara stood by his side, both of them staring at the cavern wall where an open portal to another locality used to be.

  Chapter 14

  He will not trick me again.

  The hunters from the pack circled their tails, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. Strands of saliva fell from their muzzles, turning the dark soil even darker. Some hunters growled, while others kept their gazes low to avoid signaling a challenge to the alpha male. The wolves’ yellow eyes cut through the darkness with laser precision. The alpha male pulled back from the cave entrance when he no longer felt the elder’s presence, fearful of what it could mean.

  He is gone from here. Banished.

  The pack kept moving, agitated and weary.

  The end arrives soon.

  The horde had gathered at a safe distance behind the pack. More creatures emerged from the trees, off the path, and from other hidden places within the locality. They clumped together, swaying back and forth, blotting out the trees and the ground with their swelling numbers. The horde became a living organism comprising thousands of unthinking beings. The edges oscillated like a giant cell membrane. The Reversion kept advancing from the west, raking the horde to the cave like a pile of leaves.

  The alpha male trotted to a rocky outcrop several yards from the cave entrance. He wound his way up the shards of stone until he stood fifteen feet taller than the rest of the pack. The wolf looked out over the field, where the horde replaced the wheat, still teetering back and forth as if pushed by an invisible hand.

  So many.

  The hunters paced underneath the outcrop while waiting for the alpha male to come back.

  We must pursue. We must descend into the womb.

  The hunters wailed, gnashing their teeth and snapping at each other’s tails, all the while knowing that none among them could challenge for leadership.

  ***

  “What did you do to him?” Mara asked.

  Samuel stood still, staring at the dark-gray wall.

  “I gave him what he wanted.”

  She shook her head. “How did you do it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Samuel replied.

  “Can you do it again?”

  “I’m not sure,” he repeated.

  Mara turned and took a few steps toward the front of the cave. She approached until the yellow eyes of the wolves danced in the darkness beyond.

  “Between the wolves and the horde, we’re not getting out of here.”

  Samuel nodded. In a recess, he noticed an array of angles foreign to rock. Samuel stood and walked toward them. As the inner glow of the cave cast light on it, Samuel discovered a small pile of broken tree branches and twigs. He gathered them in his arms and walked back toward Mara. He dropped the bundle and began to arrange them into a leaning pile.

  “They’re very damp. But it’s worth a try.”

  Mara smiled when she realized what he was doing.

  She helped arrange the wood as Samuel dug in his pockets for the lighter. He could not remember if it had always been there or not. Samuel felt that sludgy feeling returning to his head, slowing his thoughts and forcing him to think hard about simple tasks. He recognized the feeling as the same one he felt when the noose first dropped him into this locality, and he wondered if this was how the end would come, if the Reversion would rewind everything, even the thoughts and experiences in his head.

  “Go ahead and try,” Mara said.

  The comment shook Samuel, and he wondered how long he had been hovering over the fire
wood with his thumb on the lighter.

  “I don’t even know if the lighter works.”

  Mara shrugged her shoulders and sat cross-legged on the ground. Samuel lowered his hand and flicked the lighter. Sparks caught and ignited the fluid in the reservoir. The flame appeared with a green tint, warm instead of hot. He touched the flame to the smallest pieces. The wood cracked and sizzled but failed to catch.

  “It was a nice thought,” said Mara, her face betraying her words.

  “Not sure how long it would have lasted, anyway. It’s not like there’s a stack of firewood in here.”

  She nodded in consolation.

  “It was there, too,” Samuel said.

  Mara waited, sensing Samuel was speaking to himself as much as he was to her.

  “I saw the cloud in the portal, which is why I knew I was slipping him into that one. If it had been paradise, like a picture of the steel-blue waters of the Caribbean you see on office calendars, I’m not sure what I would have done.”

  “You saved me.”

  Samuel huffed, discomfort wracking his face.

  “I really don’t know if I can summon a locality or if it’s all chance. I don’t even know if I can open a locality other than that one. Major could be waiting for us when the next portal opens.”

  “Then we won’t be any worse off than we are now, right?”

  A howl followed by a series of growls made them both turn to face the entrance.

  “I have a feeling that they’re coming after us at some point. When the Reversion gets right up close, these wolves are going to get over their fear of this cave.”

  “I agree,” said Samuel. “And if the horde joins in, we’ll have our hands full.”

  Samuel watched Mara tuck a lock of black hair behind her ear, and he thought how sophisticated she would look in middle age. He imagined that move revealing a shimmer of gray by her ear and the slender hand pushing her hair away from blue eyes that resonated with laughter, and experience, and life.

  “Do you think Kole is dead?”

  “Yes,” replied Samuel. “Whatever that means here.”

  The comment and its inherent mystery passed them by.

  “He was broken. On the inside.”

  “Aren’t we all?” asked Samuel.

  “His pain was so deep he couldn’t live without it.”

  Another howl, this one more intense and louder. The sharp retort echoed through the cave like a gunshot. Mara watched Samuel’s face contort as if she could see the memories floating back to the surface of his mind.

  “I was sick. Middle of winter, aches, the flu, the whole thing. We had been married for quite a while at this point, kind of shed the little kisses and light touches of the first few years.”

  Mara flinched, and Samuel could see her holding the pain inside the best she could.

  “I was in bed and having a hard time falling asleep. We had a big mattress that left a lot of space between us. She reaches over and starts gently rubbing my back with one hand. This was not foreplay. There wasn’t any of that happening that night. She did it because she wanted to, and those couple of minutes of contact felt like a million dollars. It’s that feeling that I miss. I ache inside for that intimacy that comes through years of friendship, disagreements, shared experience. It’s more than sex and more than physical contact. It’s a spiritual connection between two people, unspoken, real, and powerful.”

  Samuel looked at Mara as she wiped tears away with the cuffs of her sleeves. “That’s what’s dead here. That’s what this locality is missing. And if it is, maybe the cloud needs to eat it. The Reversion needs to do its job and sweep this place from existence.”

  “It’s love. I wonder why you can’t say that word? Everything you described is love. Do you think it still exists elsewhere?” Mara asked.

  “Why? Why do you think it has to? Maybe love died like the summer breeze and the sound of gulls soaring over open water. Maybe love is lying in its grave with sunlight, and goodness, and righteousness,” replied Samuel

  “It has to exist somewhere else,” said Mara. “If I didn’t believe it did, I’d walk out there right now and offer myself to the wolves.”

  “But does it exist for us, Mara?”

  “We’re here for a reason,” she said.

  He thought about Mara’s comment for a moment and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m here,” he replied.

  “You do, Samuel. We all do. Some of us haven’t remembered it yet.”

  Before Samuel could reply, a howl from the alpha male brought them to their feet as the wolf’s silhouette appeared at the threshold of the cave.

  ***

  The cloud continued its death march across the empty sky, eating the locality. The rolling swirls of slate and obsidian pummeled the air. From west to east, all but a sliver of the eastern horizon remained untainted by the Reversion. It also dropped toward the surface like a heavy curtain. The cloud pushed down, placing a pillow over the face of the last remaining motion in this world. The silence overpowered everything, and distant vistas disappeared within the coming storm of nothingness.

  The trees of the locality leaned inward, tired and exhausted from the continuous pull of the Reversion. Some leafless branches touched the ground in homage to the unstoppable force engulfing the land and everything in it. Some could not fight any longer, their trunks snapping and toppling the head of the tree to the forest floor, leaving a ragged trunk sticking up from the ground like a broken tooth.

  The horde remained, most of them fastened to the last remaining piece of solid, real matter. As the Reversion continued to churn from the west, the horde began to revert as well. Clumps of undead flesh fell from their bodies in silent mounds of rotted bone. Teeth and hair trickled from the creatures’ heads, followed by limbs no longer strong enough to withstand gravity, the lone natural force left virtually untouched by the coming disease. Scraps of clothing that had long ago turned into dirty, gray remnants floated to the ground in silence. Some of the creatures standing on the edge of the clearing collapsed on themselves, leaving a pumping, empty jaw on the ground spewing nothing but meaningless silence.

  The pack suffered along with the horde. The alpha male’s hunters hunkered down in a clearing not far from the cave, but several remained motionless and still for far longer than would be natural. Two of the hunters lay with their noses nuzzled underneath their tails, the rise and fall of their chests no longer visible. The alpha male strode amongst the wolves and noted the change, one he felt within.

  It must be now. Nothing will remain.

  Of the six hunters with their muzzles in the dirt, three stood in response to the alpha male.

  The horde shall join. There is not much will left in the dead flesh, but I command that on His command.

  The hunters growled and circled their leader. They paced back and forth, staring at the black hole in the mountain. The alpha male trotted forward and circled around. Three dozen members of the horde shuffled, their legs dragging them toward the entrance to the cave. Several more attempted to march until their atrophied bones dropped them to the ground in a pile of dirty fabric and gray flesh. Seeing the movement, the alpha male looked into the sky as it closed in on the tops of the few trees brave enough to reach up into it.

  The alpha male brought his ragged army to the edge of the clearing until he could feel the subtle exhalation of the mountain coming through the mouth of the cave. He paced back and forth, growling and snapping at the air.

  Come out. We are not done.

  ***

  “We can’t stay here.”

  “I know.”

  Mara lowered her head and wrapped her arms around her torso. Samuel moved closer to the entrance, where silent movement caught his eye.

  “The alpha male is calling me out. He must sense the end of the Reversion drawing closer, as well.”

  “I’ll come with you. I’ll fight, too.”

  Samuel smiled at Mara and nodded, knowing that she would do so regardless
of what he said.

  The water running down the walls of the cave intensified, but did so in silence. Samuel turned and paced the edge of the walls, his eyes searching for anything that could be of use in their predicament. Mara watched and then did the same, starting at one end of the main cavern until she worked her way back to Samuel. Neither gathered anything useful for what they knew was an inevitable conflict.

  “Think, Samuel. Can you reopen the portal on a different locality than the last one?”

  Samuel closed his eyes and let the nothingness encompass his inner vision. He waited without hope, knowing that the knowledge to open a portal to escape the locality was escaping him, like the old horror movies when the car would not start no matter how many times the ignition was turned.

  “It’s there, but I can’t access it. I can’t say if I could open something, and if I could, I’m not sure where we’d land.”

  Mara looked toward the entrance, where several of the hunters joined the alpha male in his pacing, accentuated with hisses and growls.

  “Maybe this is not our last stand. They don’t seem to want to enter here, the wolves or the horde. Maybe we push through the cavern and go deeper into the mountain.”

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust and shook her head back and forth. “I’d almost rather have my throat ripped apart by the wolves.”

  Samuel nodded, understanding why she would suggest such an alternative. “It could come to that anyway. Let’s try to avoid it with the understanding that we may have a last stand.”

  Before Mara could answer, the alpha male crossed the threshold with a yelp. His cry broke the silence of the Reversion like the crack of a whip. The other hunters followed, all enduring the hurt caused from crossing over into the cave. The horde came next, slagging forward and oblivious to the pain the crossing had delivered to the pack. They shuffled in a single-file line, arms dangling and heads cocked to the side as if held to their shoulder by an impenetrable force.

  “C’mon,” Samuel said to Mara.

  He ran into the labyrinth of tunnels that led deeper into the mountain, hoping to avoid the dead ends. He heard Mara’s breathing and her feet slapping against the dry powder on the cavern floor. The growling of the wolves came too, reverberating through the cave and not far behind.