EverFall

by Joe Hart

  In all respects Kotis’s son was his copy. The jutting jaw was prominent, as were the wide shoulders. Even his dark eyes were set in the same way, leaving no room for mistaking who his father was. He frowned when he looked past us and did not see Kotis, his eyes questioning Fellow. Before Fellow could say a word, the door to the house opened and a husky woman came from within. Her skin was the same shade as Kotis’s, and her dark hair was tied back tightly, revealing a short forehead. Her eyes were a deep green that reminded me of moss that grew on the shadiest part of a tree. They softened for a moment when she sought Kotis’s form and saw nothing. Then they hardened into something like steel and met my own. Fellow began to speak, and his voice lulled me with the details of our journey. I shrank in the presence of such loss, imagining the mourning vacancy that would soon inhabit their home. When Fellow finished by telling them about the edge of the expansive field where we’d buried him, there was a vacuum in the midst of us. I stepped forward, my brow broken and ten pounds of sorrow hanging from my neck. Scrim sat on my forearm, and I offered him to Fin, who stood, straight backed, beside his mother, with tears shining on the surface of his eyes. I waited for them to spill over, but none did. He was his father’s son.

  Fin held out his arm, and Scrim made the small leap between us before nipping at my hand once. I waited, my arms at my sides, and finally Shila came forward, her height matching my own.

  “You took him from us,” she said after a pause. I nodded, unwilling to break her stare. “And your family is safe?”

  “Yes,” I rasped.

  She lifted her chin once, and then dropped it slowly. “But you are here, cursed without them.” The silence stretched, and then broke as she spoke once more before turning away. “Then there is no greater loss I can inflict on you.”

  Fin watched me for several seconds before his mother beckoned him to follow, his face a war of emotions. He hadn’t mastered them yet, but he would. I knew he would.

  When the door closed behind them, Fellow and I turned away to follow the winding road down into the trees draped in the mountain’s shade.

  So as I write this, five years have passed. Five long years. Five years without the sight of them, the sounds of their voices, their touch.

  For two and a half years I searched for a vent tirelessly. I traveled farther and longer than any human before me, and perhaps even more than some of the creatures that call this place home. I saw things unnamable and atrocities unspeakable as well as sights of dark beauty, alien to anything I knew before. My love for them kept me searching until, at last, I stumbled upon a vent.

  It hung in the air over a desolate field of stone, its shimmering catching my eye immediately. I ran like I’d never run before to it, and saw my world on the other side. Trees as well as a road lined with cars came into view, and I pelted on, hope growing to an inferno that fueled my muscles and quickened my pace. An automated sign blinked a message that I barely had time to read before the edges of the opening stitched itself shut and became merely air.

  That day I quit looking for a vent, and returned to the forest where Fellow and Adrin lived. By then there was a toddler wobbling around their house, his small wooden feet tapping on the floor as he explored the world around him.

  Fellow helped me build a small cabin in a clearing not far from his own. When it was finished, I settled in and resigned myself to the thought of never leaving this place. For, you see, something had bothered me the day that my family vanished through the tunnel and back into our world. It was the fair. Its presence didn’t make any sense. I had left our home in early June, and two weeks passed before Jane and the kids returned. The county fair that visited our town each year didn’t open until late August. More than two months went by while we were here. I ignored this fact like an irritating fly, batting it away whenever it floated to the forefront of my mind while I searched for a vent. Only when I saw the sign through the portal did I finally give in to the doubts that plagued me. I can still see the words blinking with their jubilant letters of neon and high-wattage LEDs.

  It read, Good luck, Saints! Bring home the rings in 2093!

  Eighty years had passed in my absence. I tried to tell myself that it was a joke, a malfunction of the sign. But whenever I did, the smells and sounds of the fair would return to me, forcing away the lies I told myself with the unyielding truth. It seems that Ellius was right, time here does move differently than on Earth. It may not be exponential, but it is something like it. In the hours that I lay awake when I should be sleeping, I wonder what year it is there. Five years here, a hundred on Earth? Two hundred? But those wanderings of the imagination are dangerous, and lead to other thoughts, thoughts of darkness and brooding contemplation of escapes not from this world but from everything.

  Most days I spend beside my cabin in a chair I built, listening to the constant wind whistling tunelessly through the branches. I think about them then. I envision their lives, the story of how they grew. I see Sara walking down an aisle flanked by rows of watching eyes, all of them standing as she passes by. Murmurs of how beautiful she looks in the swishing white fabric, her steps in time to music I can still hear. I feel her arm in mine, almost like her tiny form when she was hours old, held in the crook of my elbow. And just as I reluctantly gave her away to a waiting nurse, she leaves me with shared tears to join the man waiting for her at the altar. Yes, I can see it.

  I see Jack pushing a small boy who has hair that matches his own on a swing set, the sun laying golden layers of light on them both. Jack pushes, his hand always there when the boy comes back, always guiding, always helping. I feel the boy’s warm skin beneath his thin T-shirt as I hug him, and laugh as Jack says something funny. We both laugh, my grandson and I, and I wonder what his name is.

  I see Jane, her hands around a cup of steaming tea in her favorite mug, the one with the flowers and cardinals on it. She’s older, as am I, but still beautiful. There are wisps of gray in her hair that speak of struggles that years can’t inflict, and I ache to hold her hand, to feel her face against mine. To breathe her air. I used to make her tea, and I see myself doing it again, sorry that I’ve been away so long. Her smile flashes and I sit down beside her to while away the afternoon together in a glow broken only by kisses and tender words.

  Deep down inside I realize what the sign I saw means. I know that eighty years is a lifetime, but I’m only concerned with three lives. I hope the years were good to them. I hope they had happiness and laughter. I hope that Jane found someone to love, someone who loved her back and tried to make things better. Of course I don’t know, because the world is an ocean and has its own way. We are just small grains of sand, moved with the tide of time, unable to stop its passage, and in the worst cases unaware of it.

  So I wait. I wait for time to pull me along at its own pace. I wait for the day when death leads me away to somewhere else, and I think about that too. Because I know that if this place is evil, and it is, there is another place that is good, and that they’re waiting for me there. I see it sometimes when I dream, fields of emerald and skies cerulean. Sugared winds and warm seas that don’t end at a horizon, but go on forever in endless waves of gentle peace. I imagine that time passes quickly there, and perhaps it is only a long afternoon to them until we’re reunited.

  But until that day comes, I will wait, because sometimes that’s all a man can do.

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  Thanks again for reading, I really hope you enjoyed the journey. I normally write a little note at the end of my books to give some insight as to where the story came from, so here we go.

  EverFall came from a walk my family and I went on around our neighborhood last fall. I started looking at the bare trees and the dead leaves on the ground, and smelled the smells of fall we all know so well. The idea hit me as we walked, and when I got home I jotted down some notes, knowing full well that this would be my next novel. EverFall was a different project for me, in that I had never written a dark story set
in a fantastic world. Technically EverFall is in the category of dark fantasy, but as always, I had to get enough horror in there to satisfy my muse. It was definitely an emotional project, in the sense that losing those closest to you is something that scares me a lot. In fact, it scares me more than I want to get into here. So as I wrote EverFall, I had to go to some dark places, and ultimately I came to the conclusion that sacrifice is the ultimate sign of love. Though the story ended sadly, I have a profound respect for Michael, as he sits and waits for death to take him to his family.

  Once again, dear Reader, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You make the trips we take so much fun. I hope you’ll keep coming back to for more rides, because I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this.

  Joe Hart

  April 29th, 2013.

  Excerpt from Singularity

  Chapter 2

  The guard house was empty.

  Sullivan cupped his hands to the glass and looked into the small space, then reached out and pressed the red button mounted beside a battered-looking speaker. The button elicited no response, and he wondered how long they would have to wait outside in the rain before someone noticed them standing here. He pressed the button again, beginning to lose his patience, and squinted through the rain at the front doors, willing one of them to open.

  “This sucks,” Stevens said, as he turned in a slow circle, taking in their surroundings.

  Sullivan muttered his agreement and punched the button again. “And what’s up with the sheriff not coming to the crime scene? I know he’s been up all night, but come on. You don’t just toss this kind of shit off to someone else.”

  Barry shook his head, equally agitated. “Let’s just get up there and take a look at the dead guy and get out of the weather. I’m getting fucking soaked through this plastic.”

  Sullivan was about to press the button a fourth time when both men heard a sound and looked up to see a covered Rhino speeding toward the gate; a lone occupant sat in the driver’s seat. The agents watched as the figure tapped in a code on a control box next to the gate and the chainlink began to roll to the side. After a few seconds, the ATV sped down to them. Once he arrived, the driver stared at them from beneath the plastic canopy.

  The man looked to be in his early thirties and had narrowed eyes, which Sullivan doubted had ever fully opened, and a large nose, which sat obtrusively on his thin face. He wore a dark blue guard uniform that consisted of a button-up long-sleeve shirt, matching cargo pants, and a baseball hat that had the words SINGLETON PENITENTIARY outlined in bold white letters.

  Sullivan stepped forward and offered the man his hand. “Hi. Special Agent Sullivan Shale, and this is Senior Special Agent Barry Stevens.” The man looked down at Sullivan’s hand for a moment before returning his narrow stare back to the agent’s face.

  “Everett Mooring. Your people are already in the cell.”

  Sullivan dropped his outstretched hand when he realized that there would be no reciprocation, and glanced over his shoulder at Stevens. Barry rubbed his forehead, and then walked around Sullivan, sitting down in the rear seat of the vehicle. Sullivan followed suit and sat next to Mooring.

  The prison guard spun the Rhino around and accelerated up the wet drive toward the still-open gate. Sullivan studied the prison’s exterior again. The dull brick walls were reminiscent of several schoolhouses he attended as a child. A small but intricate arch of stone sat atop the building just above the entrance, the prison’s name carved deeply into the rock. Two paved pathways led to either side of the building. To the left sat a forlorn basketball court, its hoops devoid of nets and its floor covered with standing water. The path to the right disappeared into a thick grove of trees. Mooring pulled the Rhino under the awning that covered the entrance of the building and stopped a few feet from the doors.

  Without bothering to look at either agent, he said, “The desk attendant will direct you to your friends.”

  Sullivan saw Stevens lick his lips and then begin to say something, but Sullivan cut the other man’s words off before they began. “Thank you, Officer Mooring.”

  Without a glance back, Sullivan stood from the vehicle and relished the feeling of being out of the insistent patter of rain. He heard Barry exit the Rhino, and then watched as Mooring drove from under the awning and disappeared around the side of the building.

  “What a fucking ass,” Barry said. “I’ll have to send a special thanks to Hacking for this one.”

  Sullivan turned and looked at him from beneath his still-dripping hood. “That guy’s not just an ass. He’s not happy we’re here.”

  Stevens nodded in agreement, and both agents turned to the swinging double doors and made their way inside the prison.

  The lobby wasn’t very deep, but it ran the width of the building, and with a ceiling that opened into the second story, it gave the impression of a large space. To the left a door led off into an area encased in reinforced Plexiglas, with several rooms containing simple desks and chairs. To the right was an unmarked oak door with a brass handle. A nameplate sat at eye level, but Sullivan was too far away to read the name etched there. A wooden desk shaped like the prow of a ship sat directly in front of the two agents, and their wet footsteps clacked and echoed off the poly-coated concrete floor and slate walls as they approached it.

  A heavyset black woman in a uniform that matched Mooring’s sat behind the desk typing on an aged keyboard, and only looked up from the screen before her when Sullivan placed his hand upon the desk and leaned forward.

  “Yes?” she said, looking surprised to see them standing there.

  “Special Agents Shale and Stevens from the BCA. We’re looking for the rest of our crime-scene team.”

  “Identification?” she asked. Sullivan and Barry both pulled out their wallets and opened them to their photo cards that confirmed who they were. The woman studied both IDs, then nodded and turned in her seat. “See that door there?” she said, pointing to a solid steel door set into the back wall of the room. “I’ll buzz you through in a moment. An officer is positioned on the other side. He’ll direct you to the rest of your team.”

  “Thank you,” Sullivan said before stepping around the desk and heading for the door. A moment later a loud buzzing sound filled the lobby and Sullivan grasped the cold handle and pulled the heavy door open with a resounding clack.

  Behind the steel door the prison expanded into an impressive two-story block of cells that ran away from the men in an almost illusionary impression of infinity. Two steel staircases shot up from the floor on opposite sides of the enormous room and ended on the second level. Doorway after doorway encased with chunky bars of iron lined both the first and second stories. The white paint that covered the cells no longer remained intact and chunks were missing here and there, giving the rows a speckled, shabby look. Several sets of disembodied hands could be seen poking out from the mouths of the cells, but other than the sound of the door slamming solidly shut behind them, the holding area was silent.

  A young prison officer sat behind a wooden desk to their immediate left, and he shot up out of his seat as the two agents stepped through the doorway.

  “Are you BCA agents?” the officer asked in a voice that cracked with what could have been something bordering on panic.

  Sullivan nodded and opened his billfold again, revealing his ID. “Special Agent Shale, and this is—”

  The young prison guard moved around the desk and began walking down the long first-floor corridor, his footsteps snapping like gunshots off the concrete. Sullivan looked at Stevens, and the other man merely shrugged.

  “You have a more intimidating name anyway,” Barry said and brushed past Sullivan, with a smirk on his face.

  The prison stretched out before them like an indoor runway. Sullivan looked back and forth from one side of the walkway to the other. Inmates of all ethnicities, wearing orange jumpsuits, stared back at him. Most sat on their beds and their heads turned as the guard and two agents passed by—new
scenery in an otherwise drab and routine-enforced world. A few prisoners stood at the doors to their cells, but their eyes did not meet Sullivan’s as he looked at them. Instead, they stared either at the floor or to the side, the direction in which the group headed.

  As they walked, Sullivan realized that the prison’s shape was that of a T. At the very end of the corridor, the building shot outward in either direction and ended in a solid brick wall. Two more staircases accessed the upper level of the rear wall, and he could see a few more sets of eyes peering out at him from both the first and second floors. Their footsteps were the loudest noise in the airy space, and soon Sullivan realized why he felt the edges of unease grating against him: there were no yells of anger or defiance from the cells. No catcalls or agitated mutterings filtered out to them.

  The prisoners were quiet.

  Sullivan looked around again, searching for a jeering face or a middle finger being raised behind the bars, but saw only darkness and silhouettes.

  The guard swung left at the far end of the vaulted hall and proceeded toward a set of steps that turned 180 degrees on a wide landing and descended into an eerie yellow glow. Stevens threw a look over his shoulder and Sullivan followed.

  The stairway dropped down two levels and emptied out into a narrow passage, the floor they walked on earlier closing over their heads like a cave. The right side of the hall was poured concrete, unpainted and stained from things Sullivan didn’t want to guess at. The left held five doors made of solid steel and resembled the entry into the holding area. All of the doors were shut tight and had small portholes at head height roughly the size of a softball and reinforced with wire mesh. A thin slot only a few inches wide and a foot long had been cut in the middle of each door. The entire area felt like being in a submarine—the bolted bulkheads, the painted doors, and the close ceiling.