by N. P. Martin
"I get it. Just shut up."
"Just trying to be helpful, because you know, either way, I’m still getting out of here at some point, even if you don’t…"
I felt like closing my eyes and sighing, but I didn’t want to look weak in front of LeBron, which was proving difficult, given the almost constant pain running through every part of my body.
"Would you like to see your family now?" LeBron asked me, somewhat unexpectedly.
As much as I hated him, I couldn’t deny that his offer filled me with joy. The manipulative bastard probably knew it would as well. "Yes," I said.
LeBron smiled like a gracious host. "Why don’t you go inside and relax? I’ll have your family brought up here so you can all spend some quality time together. I’m sure it’s been a while."
Max laughed inside me. "Who’s the sarcastic one now?"
27
Family Reunion
Once LeBron left, I found myself pacing nervously around the room. Under ordinary circumstances, I might have paid more attention to the plush carpet, the pictures on the walls, or the odd trinkets lying around, but my apprehension over seeing my family again made it difficult for me to think of anything else. The last time I saw them didn’t really count in my mind, given the circumstances at the time. This time, I didn’t have my father to deal with. There was LeBron, of course, but I had a feeling he would stay out of the way, at least for a while. The man was demanding my loyalty, and allowing me to see my family would, in his mind, perhaps make me more willing to give him that loyalty. Which was bullshit, of course, because there was no way I was staying in the Gray Lands to work for LeBron.
"If your body gives up and you die, you won’t have a choice," Max said. "You’ll end up having to stay here anyway."
"It won’t come to that," I said aloud, wincing at the grinding pain in my bones. "I don’t plan on being here much longer."
"So what’s your exit strategy?"
"I don’t know yet. I’ll find a way. I always do."
To be honest, escaping the Gray Lands was the last thing on my mind at that point. My eyes kept going to the door as I waited on it to open, and my family to walk through. I was looking forward to seeing them so much, but I was also afraid, because I was unsure of the reaction I would get from them. Apart from that brief meeting months ago, I’d had no interaction with them in so long, that I was worried I would be a stranger to them now. That’s not even taking into account everything they had been through, and the ways those experiences might have changed them.
"Don’t forget," Max said. "I get to grill your mother on how she escaped me."
"Grill? I don’t think so."
"Speak with her then…you know what I mean. And don’t worry, Creed, I’ll let you have your little moment with your family before I butt in."
"You’ll get your chance to ask your questions, Max. In the meantime, back the fuck off or—"
I cried out in pain as I doubled over, and then dropped to my knees. The liquid lava was flowing through my veins again, and the jackhammer was pounding on my bones…or so it felt like. "Fuck…" I said through gritted teeth.
"It’s getting worse, Creed…"
"Fucking…really…dick…"
"Just saying…"
The door opened, and LeBron walked in to see me kneeling on the floor, my arms folded over my stomach as if I’d been stabbed. "Having a spot of bother there, are we?" he said, sounding completely unconcerned. "Never fear, though, because mother is here…and brother…and sister…"
Still in agony, I managed to lift my head up enough to see three ghostly forms enter the room. Three gray, translucent souls. The last vestiges of my immediate family.
"Dying vestiges it looks like," Max said.
It was hard to disagree with him. All three of them looked quite literally like shadows of their former selves. Much more faded than the last time I saw them.
"August!" It was my mother, rushing over to help me, but her soul was so weak that she barely had any real physical form, so she was barely able to touch me. Her hand passed right through my arm at one point as she tried to help me up.
My family are ghosts…
"I’ll leave you all to it, shall I?" LeBron said. "I’ll be along in a while to offer each of you a proposition. It’s one I hope you will accept, but we’ll see."
The door closed as he left, and it was just the four of us in the room. Five if you included Max, who thankfully was keeping to his word, and not appearing as Evil Creed…yet.
As the pain finally began to subside, I was able to look properly into my mother’s face, and what I saw there was more pain. Her pain. "Mother…" I said, my voice a mix of emotions. "It’s really you…"
She smiled, her once soft pink lips now colorless. "Yes, it’s me, son. What are you doing here, August?"
"You shouldn’t have come to this bloody awful place," my brother Fergus said as I stood up.
"Aye," my sister, Roisin, said. "You never could help yourself, could you?"
I stood smiling at the three of them. "I didn’t think I was ever going to see any of you again."
"By rights, you shouldn’t," Roisin said, then smiled as she came forward to hug me. "But it’s still good to see you, Gus."
Fergal came over next and gave me that cocky smile of his that I always remember. "Come here, little brother, and give your big brother a hug," he said standing with his arms out. "Be careful you don’t fall through me. We’re all a bit…drained at the moment."
"Aye," Roisin said. "Thanks to that bastard LeBron. You’d think after escaping from the Underworld and that other bastard, Santos, that we’d catch a break. But no, that would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it?"
"Santos?" I said. "You mean Ma—" I stopped when I realized they wouldn’t know who I was talking about.
"Yes, dummy, they mean me," Max said. "They asked for a name, I gave them one."
"Mean who?" Fergal asked me.
"No one," I said shaking my head, then frowning as I realized something. "You are all dressed in the same robes."
"Bloody awful, aren’t they?" Roisin said.
"I’m surprised the bastard things are even staying on us," Fergal said. "Given our lack of physical form and all that."
"How did you even end up in that room?" I asked them.
"Because," my mother said. "We refused to work with his lord and master, LeBron, that’s why."
"We’ve had enough of being ordered around by Underworld tyrants," said Roisin. "We didn’t need more of it in the afterlife as well."
"LeBron suspended us in that draining room," Fergal said. "Supposedly to teach us a lesson. I think maybe he forgot about us. It seemed like we were in there a long time. Whatever trip he had me on, it put me in some fucked up alien world."
"Same here," Roisin said. "It seems like I’ve spent years running from monsters."
"I was back on Earth," my mother said. "In Ireland before…your father…"
"Aye, the less said about that cunt the better," Fergal said. "I’d spit if I could form saliva."
"What happened after we appeared to you?" Roisin said.
"I hope you destroyed the cunt," Fergal said. "Tell me you did, Gus."
"I did," I said. "Thanks to you guys."
"That’s my little brother," Fergal said. "I always knew there was a tough guy inside all that softness."
"Leave him alone," Roisin said. "He’s proved us all wrong, haven’t you, Gus?"
"I always knew you would do great things," my mother said.
I shook my head in embarrassment. "Great things? Not really. If you knew some of the things I’ve had to do…" I shook my head again.
"I know more than you think, son," my mother said.
"What?" I asked frowning.
"She’s been spying on you," Fergal said. "Ever since we got to the Underworld."
"What?" I was confused. "How?"
My mother smiled slyly. "Do you forget I’m a witch?" she said. "We tend to know a few things."
"I didn’t even think that was possible," I said.
"It is if you find the right people and things to help you," she said. "I was able to drop in on you, so to speak, several times over the years. How do you think I knew you were in trouble with your father?"
I still couldn’t believe it. "I was wondering about that. When else?"
My mother smiled her reassuring smile. "It doesn’t matter. All that matters is, you weren’t truly alone all those years, even if it felt like it to you."
"But I never noticed anything…"
"Your wolf did. Blaze, is it?"
I nodded. "Yes."
"I couldn’t believe it when I heard that you have a pet fucking wolf," Fergal said. "You know how fucking cool that is? I always wanted a wolf."
"Language, Fergal," my mother scolded him.
"Really, mother?" Fergal said. "After everything, you’re still admonishing me for cursing?"
"You know how I feel about it," my mother said.
Fergal sighed and turned away as if he was tired of hearing it.
"You see what I have to deal with, Gus?" Roisin said. "It’s cats and dogs all the time with these two."
"It’s because I’m not her favorite," Fergal said. "You are, Gus. It was always you."
"Stop it, Fergal," my mother said, annoyed now. "There’s no need for that. Not now."
I could only stand there and smile. "God, I’ve missed this," I said as I felt tears roll down my cheeks.
"Och, Gus," Roisin cooed when she seen me crying. "Come here."
When she tried to hug me, I fell through her. "Shit…"
"Oh, for fucks sake!" Roisin said. "I can’t even give my little brother a hug!"
"How much fucking soul energy did that bastard LeBron take from us?" Fergal said, looking down at his translucent hands. "There’s hardly anything left of us!"
"Calm down," my mother said. "All of you. The soul energy will replenish over time, as long as we don’t end up in that draining room again."
"I hope you’re right, mother," Roisin said. "I’ve never felt weaker. I can barely feel my magic anymore."
"Same here," Fergal said as he tried to conjure energy in his hand, forming only faint blue sparks.
"That should return as well," my mother said. "I think the more pressing issue is what we are all going to do now. I think it’s clear that we have to go along with LeBron, for now at least, and then—"
"Wait a minute," Fergal said as he held up his hand to interrupt my mother. Then he looked at me. "Gus, what the hell are you doing here? Seriously. How did you even find us for a start?"
"That’s a long story involving the Dark Codex," I said.
"The Dark Codex?" Fergal said frowning. "It exists?"
"Not anymore," I said. "But it did exist, and I learned of your whereabouts from it."
Fergal shook his head. "You have quite the adventures, don’t you, little brother?"
"Sometimes it works out like that," I said, rather ridiculously grinning like a Cheshire cat. Growing up, Fergal was always the cool one, and I used to look up to him. Now it seemed, he was looking up to me, which made me feel weirdly proud.
"Okay," he said. "So you find out that we are here in this misery hole…and you just decide to come visit?"
I felt like a kid again, getting grilled by my older brother. "There’s a bit more to it than that."
"What do you mean?"
I raised my hands like it was obvious. "I came to take you home, of course."
Neither of them said anything for a long moment as they stared at me. My mother was the first to speak. "Oh, August…" she said as she looked at me sadly.
"Why the hell do you all look so sad?" I said. "We can all get out of here, we can all go back to Earth and you can start again, live the lives you deserve…"
"But…" Roisin said. "We’re dead, Gus." She let it hang there in the air, as if waiting for the penny to drop.
"Jesus," I said. "I know that, but it doesn’t matter. I can still take the three of you back with me."
"And then what?" Fergal asked. "You’ll get us new bodies to walk around in?"
"Yes," I said. "You know it can be done."
"We do know," Roisin said.
I shook my head, not understanding their reticence. "So why am I sensing there’s a problem here?"
"Look, August," my mother said in that gentle voice she always used to use when she had some heavy truth to impart. "You must understand, we’ve been dead a long time, or at least we’ve been gone from Earth a long time. A lot longer than it seems to you, in fact."
"A lot longer," Fergal muttered.
"And?" I said.
"We just want to move on," Roisin said. "To our proper afterlives, if that bastard LeBron would ever let us. Can you understand that, Gus?"
I looked at each of them in turn, and they all had the same confirmation in their eyes. Shaking my head, I said, "So you don’t want to come back with me?" It was more of a sad statement.
"Sorry, little brother," Fergal said. "Our lives on Earth are just a distant memory to us now. That time has passed, and I’m afraid there’s no going back."
I could only stand in shocked silence for a moment as what they were telling me sunk in. I felt angry at first, and then a deep sadness settled over me as tears began to roll down my cheeks. "I’ve had this dream," I said staring at the floor. "A fantasy, if you like. It first came into my head when I left Ireland, when I realized that I was completely alone in the world. I had Ray, of course. I still do. But back then, Ray wasn’t around much. It was just me. So to get myself through, I would have this movie in my head of all of us being together again, and…" I looked up at them to see faint tears running down their translucent cheeks. "So when I found out you were here, I thought…we could all finally be together again." I shrugged. "But I guess not, eh?"
No one really knew what to say after that. It was clear that they had no desire to return to Earth. It was also clear that it had been arrogant of me to assume in the first place that they would even want to.
But before we could discuss the matter any further, a loud voice broke the silence, and I realized Max had appeared in the guise of Evil Creed. "All right," he said. "Enough of this maudlin bullshit already. It’s depressing."
"Oh, Jesus…" I said shaking my head.
"What the fuck?" Fergal said turning around suddenly.
"Who…" Roisin began.
"No…" my mother said.
Max smiled. "I’m glad you recognize me, Brenda," he said. "Even in this guise. Do you like it, by the way? He cuts a dashing figure, your son, especially when I wear him." He laughed then, as if his great moment had finally come.
Both Fergal and Roisin were looking at me now, the real me, while my mother still stared in horror at Max. "Gus, what is this?" Fergal asked, a hint of fear in his voice, though he probably didn’t know why at that point.
"I was planning on getting to this…at some point," I said.
"He was taking his sweet fucking time, is what he was doing," Max said.
"Shut up, Max!" I barked. "Let me fucking explain, will you?"
"Oh, go ahead," he said. "This should be fun, although I think your mother has already worked it out, haven’t you, Brenda?"
My mother turned her head slowly to look at me. "August?" she said. "This can’t be what…who I think it is?"
I puffed out my cheeks and held up my hands. Christ, I hardly knew where to start. "Basically…I’ve been possessed…by a demon…"
"Jesus Christ, Gus," Fergal said. "How’d you let that happen?"
"I couldn’t stop it," I said.
"Why not?" Roisin asked.
My mother answered the question for me. "Because it’s Santos," she said in horror.
Fergal and Roisin looked at each other, then at me, and then finally at Max.
"Surprise motherfuckers!" Max shouted, his eyes glowing red now.
My brother and sister instinctively backed away from him. "What the fuck?"
Fergal said aghast.
"How can this be?" Roisin said in horror.
"Ask your mother," Max said. "She knows. Or ask your little brother. He knows better than anyone." A wicked smile came across his face as he looked at me.
"The fucker marked me after he killed all of you," I said.
"Yes," Max cut in. "He’s only alive right now because he said he was coming here to—" He sniggered to himself. "—rescue all of you. Of course, you all know why I’m here, don’t you? Especially you, Brenda. I imagine it was your doing that you all managed to escape my domain." He shook his head, and then instantly appeared beside my mother, pressing his face toward hers. "I need to know, Brenda, how did you do it? Tell me now!"
My mother took on a frightened look as she stepped back, and then at the same moment, the door opened and LeBron walked in. "I’m back!" he announced, as if we’d all somehow missed him.
In the blink of an eye, Max disappeared. "Goddamnit!" he screamed inside me.
"What’s the matter, Max?" I said. "Afraid of LeBron?"
"Fuck you, Creed!"
"He can hurt you, can’t he?"
"He can fucking try!"
"You’d best behave then."
"Screw you! Screw all of you!"
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
"I’m glad you are in good spirits," LeBron said as he came forward. "I think it’s time we all talked now…"
28
Ultimatum
"All right, boys and girls, let’s get started," LeBron said like he was some school teacher about to teach a class. He stood in the center of the room, still wearing his shiny red suit. He smiled and clasped his hands together as he was about to speak again. "As I said, I have a proposition for you all…the McCreedy family…" He smiled again as if that was funny to him.
"Are you going to ask us to work for you again?" my mother said.
"Yes, as a matter of fact," replied LeBron. "And much like last time, you will not have much of a choice. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Let me first explain to you what I have planned for this place."
"You mean the Gray Lands?" I said. "The place that doesn’t actually belong to you."