by J. Thorn
The men looked at her as she trembled.
“What?” Kole asked with a sneer.
“Don’t give them anything, Samuel.”
Major chuckled and shook his head, treating Mara like an insolent child. He turned and spoke to Samuel.
“We’re going to find the talisman, I’m going to show you how to use it, and then you’ll get us all out of here just like you were doing in the tree. Except this way will work. There’s nothing on that path out there but painful emptiness. More nothing until the reversion claims the last pathetic creatures here. It’ll churn us in the cloud along with the horde and the wolves. If you’re fine with that, then so am I. I’ve been punched through enough localities. I’m tired.”
Kole stepped between Major and Samuel.
“Give Major the talisman, you little bitch.”
When Mara’s eyes met Samuel’s, she knew what he wanted her to do.
She lunged forward, placing her hands on Kole’s forehead and plunging her thumbs into his eye sockets. She felt his warm, moist eyeballs against the pad of her thumbs as he screamed in pain. Samuel raised a knee upward until he felt it stop against Major’s pelvis. The old man dropped to the floor and pulled his knees to his chest while writhing in the fetal position. When Samuel looked back at Kole, he was on his knees with Mara draped over his back. She removed her thumbs from his eyes while dragging her nails across his face. Samuel watched the crimson lines appear like whiskers. Before Mara could utter a sound, Samuel grabbed her by the wrist and spun for the door. He pulled it open to reveal the horde exactly where they had left them. Black orbs in gray faces lifted at the change in the environment. Samuel dashed forward, pulling Mara with him. They stepped outside the cabin, and before Samuel could slam the door shut, he heard Major.
“They won’t let you leave,” Major said. His voice sounded shaken, defeated.
“We can try climbing the trees and get back on the path to the other side of the Barren.”
Samuel knew this would not work but he was not going to give up or let Major determine how he was going to leave the reversion. Samuel would rather be torn apart by the horde than leave his fate in Major’s hands and he was not about to leave Mara to Kole’s wrath.
Major’s laugh slid into a ragged, choking cough. Kole remained on the floor with his hand over his eyes, blood seeping through his fingers.
“I’m not talking about the undead.”
Samuel looked at Mara with his head sideways and eyebrows raised. Before they could speak, a distant, muffled howling came from the west, riding the black cloud that hovered above the Barren.
***
“We’ll never catch up to them.”
Major pulled himself upright and placed a hand on Kole’s shoulder.
“We won’t have to. The pack will eat their flesh and leave the rest.”
Kole rocked back and forth, his eyes running with a watery pink mixture of tears and blood. He blinked and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The lines drawn into his flesh by Mara’s nails turned black as the blood coagulated and dried on his skin.
“She’s not like us. We knew the time would come when we’d have to force the situation. We can’t slip three,” Major said.
Kole huffed and dabbed his face with the collar of his shirt.
“She tried gouging my eyes out. I want to hurt her. Bad.”
Major stood and swayed as the nausea radiated from his groin into his lower abdomen. He sat down again.
“Samuel is like us,” Major said, ignoring Kole’s desire to inflict pain. “He slipped into this locality under the same circumstances as we did.”
Kole shrugged, nurturing his wounds and festering revenge. “So what?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m not sure it means a thing,” Major said. “But unless you or I get our hands on the talisman, well . . .” Major’s voice trailed off.
More distant howls reverberated off the mountains, resonating back to the Barren, trying hard to puncture the oppressive silence.
“They’re coming,” Major said.
“Did you call them?”
Major leaned his head back to rest on the wall of the cabin. He did not answer.
“That means you did,” Kole said. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing, old man. Ain’t like these are trained canines sniffing for drugs.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to dig my balls out of my abdomen since he kneed me. Do you have any better ideas?”
Kole wiped another drop of blood from behind his ear and decided to shut up. Major had been beaten down by a man, but he had been bested by a woman, a flimsy girl.
“Yeah, me neither,” Major said. “Besides, the pack don’t know the deal. They’re only working on animal instinct.”
“You sure about that?” Kole asked.
“What’s it matter,” Major said.
***
“Don’t stop,” Samuel yelled as they dodged the oncoming horde that tried to reconfigure itself and block the path.
They sprinted for the tree, but several of the undead arrived first, making it impossible for them to climb the rope. Samuel recalled the view of the landscape, adjusting the altitude to fit where he was on the ground. When the howls rolled in underneath the dark cloud, Samuel pushed his legs to pump even faster.
“The pack. The alpha male. They’re back.”
“What are you talking about?” Mara asked as she followed Samuel, struggling to keep his pace.
“We’ve got to get back on the path and find ourselves another shelter.”
Samuel didn’t have time to consider why the horde was now allowing him to move freely. He was focused on getting Mara to safety.
Deva was accelerating the unwinding of the universe, pushing Samuel toward the cave in the east where the two would meet. Deva’s powers grew stronger the closer he was to the last open portal in a reversion. In this place, that spot was the cave. Meeting there would give Deva more influence on the outcome, much like cell phone reception improves closer to a tower. So anything that happened in that cave would favor Deva. If the cloud swallowed Samuel before he got to the cave, it could dump him into an infinite number of unknown universes—and it could take Deva thousands of cycles to find Samuel again. Deva accepted the calculated risk.
Mara could only make out a word or two as Samuel ran, projecting his comments into the heavy, dead air. The horde started to recede as Samuel and Mara put space between them. No new creatures appeared from the west, which led Samuel to believe they could outrun the horde created by the cloud. He pushed the image of the alpha male from his mind, as well as the inevitable reversion that crawled ever eastward. He kept on the path, which was only visible for ten or fifteen feet into the distance. Samuel thought if a new group of the undead stumbled upon the path he’d have no choice but to run at them.
“Up there,” Samuel heard Mara say as he dodged right to miss a low-hanging branch.
He saw the outline of a structure about ten feet from the path. Samuel traced the shape with his eyes and knew it was another cabin, almost identical to the ones he already discovered in this locality. When he took a few more strides, his hunch was confirmed. Samuel slowed and let go of Mara’s hand. She leapt to his side as they both stood in front of the door.
Samuel turned to see the first of the horde coming into view, shuffling down the path in slow pursuit. More howls reverberated through the silent stillness until they raised the hairs on his neck. Mara looked at Samuel, and they made a decision without speaking. Samuel stepped into the inky blackness of the cabin, pulling Mara behind him. He slammed the door shut, her sweaty hand in his and his heart hammering in his chest.
***
Major opened the door to a desolate and empty scene. He had become so accustomed to the horde occupying the space that the Barren felt like an underwater realm, filled with a formless void of darkness and silence. The locality held no trace of its occupying army of the undead—it had pulled up stakes and set off on the path, following S
amuel and his talisman. He could not muster a lick of concern over the girl. She was cute, like a pixie, punk-rock chick, but Major felt he was far beyond the ability to ever experience a crush again. While he felt no direct animosity toward Mara, he would gladly remove her if she was in his way.
The howls grew in intensity, but Major did not need verbal confirmation to figure it out. He could feel the alpha male coming. And the wolf was angry. He had been denied the hunt and the spoils.
“We going after them?”
The question broke Major from his thoughts. He turned to see Kole standing several feet back. He had dirty scraps of cotton in his hands to dab the blood from his face. Kole blinked constantly, and his puffy, red eyes looked possessed.
“Can you see?” Major asked.
“Yeah, enough,” Kole said.
“The horde followed the path, which I’m sure they used. Samuel said he saw it extend to the east on the other side of the Barren. No doubt he headed that way with Mara.”
Kole growled at the sound of her name.
“And now the pack is coming hard out of the west. Seems like we got ourselves a party.”
“What are we going to do with them?” Kole asked.
“It may not be up to us,” Major said. “If the horde or the pack get to them before we do . . .” Major let his sentence trail off with a shrug. “Hike up your boots, Sally.”
Kole bristled at Major’s insult and wiped another drop of blood from his face.
***
Samuel had lost the ability to register sensations. He groped like a drowning man bobbing in the infinite ocean. He felt his eyes bulge and dry as he forced his lids open only to see nothing but blackness. He flailed his arms in hopes of striking Mara and verifying her existence, as well as his own. He opened his mouth and screamed, but the space stole the words from his ears. He sensed his body floating and stopped fighting the momentum. Samuel drifted until the images in soft focus came to life inside his head.
“Another round?”
The bartender looked at him with his mouth slightly agape, the beginnings of a smile that would never quite blossom.
“I don’t think so, pal.”
Samuel shrugged his shoulders and looked at the young woman sitting next to him. She wagged her index finger back and forth while stifling a drunken giggle.
“C’mon, man. One more for me and the lady. We’re walking through campus after last call. Not like we’re getting behind the wheel.”
The bartender rubbed the iron-cross tattoo on his outer bicep and snapped the dish rag down on the edge of the bar. He grabbed a clear, tall bottle covered in Cyrillic and poured two fingers of vodka into each shot glass.
“Six bucks.”
Samuel reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a ruffled ball of paper money. He slapped a ten-dollar bill on the polished maple bar and lifted one shot glass with each hand.
“Thanks, man. Keep the change.”
Samuel spun to face the woman on the stool next to him. Her face glowed, a mixture of alcohol-infused color and youth.
“Don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it back to my dorm,” she said, accepting the shot glass from Samuel.
He felt a bolt of electricity as her hand touched his. The charge traveled through his torso like a whiskey burn and settled in his groin with a slow smoldering. She moved her leg inside of his and ran her toes up his calf. Samuel looked down at her bare foot, untethered from her sandal, and fantasized about seeing her perfectly painted toenails next to his ears.
“You can always crash at my place. My roommates already left for the semester. Got the whole place to myself.”
She smiled and let her eyes peek at Samuel’s lap. She let the look linger.
“Certainly don’t want you to be all alone now, do we?”
Samuel looked around the bar at the survivors. The underclassman and underage kids had binged through the early evening and had already been escorted home or put into a cab. The shot and beer regulars had not returned yet, although once spring bled into summer, they would come to reclaim their neighborhood bar, at least until dorm move-in day in August. For now, Samuel felt like the bar was his, and the people finishing their drinks in it belonged to him as well. He had taken the remainder of his finals yesterday and printed out the last history paper in the university computer lab that morning. Samuel’s parents wouldn’t be expecting him home for another week, and it would be a week after that before he’d be back on the assembly line at the factory, making enough money in the summer to pay for his books in the fall.
Pride motivated Samuel more than the promise of a good job or the adulation of his family, who marveled at him as he became the first to steer toward a college degree. In fact, Samuel believed most material possessions owned him. He had a car, a beauty of Detroit engineering. Samuel loved his 1988 Dodge Daytona, but he still had a year of payments left. He belonged to that car, or more accurately, to the bank that owned it. He spent long hours at the circulation desk. The countless stupid questions and disparaging glances from blue-haired librarians felt like a chain tethering him to a world he knew he was inevitably entering. The position as a circulation desk assistant came with a stipend which, to Samuel, was another way of getting owned. He savored the few moments in his life when he felt truly liberated, and this night was going to be the first in a string of six or seven that would belong to him and him only.
“I’m afraid of the dark, so maybe you could come into my room, tuck me in.”
The girl smiled, which precipitated a burp, which turned into a full revolution ignited by the acidic burn in her stomach. She turned in time to project the vomit over the bar and onto the webbed plastic mat that kept the bartenders from slipping on the wet floor. She coughed and spattered like an old truck, and Samuel could do nothing but stare at the skin horizon that appeared under her shirt and above her shorts when she leaned forward on the stool. He studied the smooth, white skin, turning his head sideways. Samuel was glad she did not ruin that space with a tramp stamp, like most of the girls in college. He knew the ’90s were just the beginning for tattoos, and he really liked the hot biker-chick look. But on this lady, he was hoping to slide in behind her and enjoy the unobstructed view of the beads of sweat that would collect in the small of her back. He imagined her long, blonde hair splayed out and falling down over the sides of her breasts. He would grab her hips and hold on for as long as the ride lasted.
“Get her out,” the bartender said, unfurling countless paper towels off a roll and dropping them to cover the puke.
The remark and ensuing odor of sickness snapped Samuel out of his fantasy. He noticed he had been rubbing her back while she vomited, and his fingers had moved further south until they caressed the waistband of her hip-hugger jeans.
Samuel blinked, returning him back to the present and his mental prison. He took shallow breaths, knowing the memory was not finished. He thought of Mara, wondering if she was being forced to relive a time from her past, the reopening of wounds that had never quite closed.
He felt the warm, penetrating feel of her tongue in his mouth. Samuel pulled her closer with two hands on her hips. The alcohol killed the taste of vomit on her lips, but did not protect his nose from the odor of summer trash coming from the dumpsters in the alley.
“Right here. I want you right here.”
Samuel put his hands on her breasts and pushed them up, feeling the stiffness of her nipples through the thin T-shirt. He looked into her eyes and saw the hazy glaze of 3 a.m. in them. The woman’s head moved in stuttering motions as Samuel fought a losing war against the vodka shots.
“I have a queen-size bed in my room. We can do all kinds of stuff on that.”
She grinned and slid her hand inside his jeans. Samuel moaned, tilting his head back against the wall until more loose mortar rained down on them.
“Get a fucking room.”
Samuel and the woman looked down the alley at the opened steel door at the back of Joey’s G
rill. A short-order cook with a soiled apron and a cigarette dangling from his lips emptied a garbage pail into the dumpster with a wet smack.
“Get out ‘fore I call the cops, or worse yet, ‘fore Slimy Larry comes back to his cardboard house and stabs you both in the gut.”
Samuel giggled, and the woman slid both hands around his waist.
“I can’t walk no more,” the woman said.
“I think I’m parked around the corner, at a meter.”
She stepped back, lifting her head off his chest. She drew an index finger down over her bottom lip, smirking at Samuel before waving it at him. “Naughty boy. Gonna have to punish ya.”
“The house is only a few blocks. I’ll be fine. No faster than twenty-five, I promise.”
The cook shook his head. He flicked his cigarette into the dumpster while stepping through the steel door, pulling it shut with a sound of metal on metal echoing through the alley.
“‘Kay,” the woman said. “But hurry.”
Samuel led her to the sidewalk. A few lonely souls skulked by, caught in drunken limbo. The bars had last call, and the breakfast restaurants hadn’t opened yet. He glanced to his right and watched the neon sign of the bar flicker into cold darkness. He turned in the other direction and stared until he saw the taillights of his Dodge, the twenty-inch tires snuggling up to the curb.
He had done this before. Many times. Samuel knew the drill, knew his limitations like every good drunk. He would ease into the street, stay slow and keep to the residential streets. Avoid traffic. That would allow him to reach home safely. Intellectually, Samuel understood the risks he was taking, but the young college girl pawing at him skewed all of the statistics. He would return to his room and they would explore each other like first-time lovers. It was the aroma that drove him mad. Samuel could smell her.
“Lezzgo, silly,” she murmured, placing a hand in his lap.
Samuel shook his thoughts loose and put the key in the ignition. Fear slid across his face until he realized it was the wrong key. After four more tries, Samuel discovered the ignition key and started the car. The Dodge came alive with a throaty rumble after he pushed the clutch to the floor and pumped the accelerator three times. Pearl Jam’s “Oceans” came through the speaker system, and the woman fumbled for the volume knob, turning it until Samuel felt like Eddie Vedder was singing to them from the backseat.