by J. R. Rain
Because we need a launching point. We need a home base. We need a gathering point. Where we are now we are without form and we are muted. We have been tamed.
I’d had enough. I shook my head and concentrated—turned out I had to concentrate harder than I’d expected, as Elizabeth was a devout believer of taking a mile when given an inch. She had filled my mind and thoughts.
Back you go, I thought. Back, back.
She went, but not willingly, and I threw up a half dozen more walls around her, sealing her deep in my mind.
“What was all that God business?” asked Allison, returning.
“I’m not sure you want or need to know,” I said. “And no delving into my mind, either.”
“Fine,” she said. “Then can we get back to what we were talking about earlier? The part about Charlie being a creator? You sort of left me hanging there.”
Our waitress came by and took our lunch orders.
“It’s called a pregnant pause,” I said when our waitress was gone.
“Why is it called that?” asked Allison. “Pregnant pause?”
“The calm before the storm?” I suggested.
“The storm being... a screaming baby?”
“Or a screaming mother.”
“Well, then that was a full pregnancy, complete with a 20-hour labor pause. Now tell me: what do you mean he can create whole worlds?”
Chapter Twenty
It came again, and now Tammy was sitting up.
The thoughts—the very, very evil thoughts—were still a distance away. Maybe even as far away as the bum she could still hear at the Hungry Bear, the bum who was hoping not just for a little money for some real food.
In fact, the roiling, dark, hate-filled thoughts were seeping past the bum even now. Stopping in front of the bum. The homeless man quit thinking of food or money or anything. Tammy sensed his fear. Worse, she almost tasted his fear. That was happening to her more and more these days. Sometimes she could taste an emotion, and if it was anything but happiness, it didn’t taste good at all. Now she tasted sour, spoiled putrescence, as if she had bitten into a rotten hot dog filled with maggots. She nearly gagged. Where that maggot part came from, she didn’t know.
Tammy had unknowingly brought her knees up and had wrapped her arms around them. She found herself rocking, rocking, rocking...
She felt the homeless man cowering, ducking his head, closing his eyes, and praying with all his heart—and as he prayed, she felt something slither up next to the man and whisper, “Soon...”
She felt the man lose control of his bladder, and now she was rocking even harder. Maybe moaning a little, too.
The evil swept onward, slithering, gliding, catching a breeze here and there. Sometimes it paused to watch people in their cars or cross the streets, and Tammy sensed one and all swallow suddenly and feel an irrational fear—and now the darkness continued onward, upward, gliding and blowing and drifting toward her.
Suddenly, she knew what was coming.
The devil.
***
“That’s exactly what I mean,” I said. “Whole worlds.”
Allison’s eyes searched my face, even as her mind searched my mind. I knew from experience that the more recent a conversation was, the sharper it was in one’s memory. This should be sharp enough for her to mostly follow it.
“But I’m not following it, Sam,” she said. “There’s a lot of bouncing around going on in there. You sort of connected your conversation with Maximus to a lot of other things going on with your life right now. I’m untangling too many threads, threads that are leading to other threads, other conversations, other people. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”
“My client Charlie Reed, an engineer at Raytheon and our new favorite writer, is part of a rare breed of humans on this planet.”
“Creators?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But don’t all novelists create worlds?”
“They do,” I said. “But not all are on the same level as Charlie Reed. Not all create the way he creates. Remember the word he chose, rather carefully, back in his office.”
“Love,” she said.
“He infuses his story with love. And I mean real love,” I added. “Maximus thinks someone like Charlie might have spent years loving each and every character, years and years, before bringing them to the page.”
“And so when he does finally write about them...”
“They are practically real, at least in his own mind.”
“But that’s just the thing, Sam. In his own mind. You just said it.”
“According to Max, creation is a funny business. Manifestation is a funny business. We all have the ability to create and to manifest. Some of us just do it better than others. Some of us are more clear-minded and impassioned. And some of us inadvertently channel real life-force.”
“Wait, Sam. Are you stating he’s creating real life?”
“I am. And he is.”
“But...”
“Think of it as the perfect confluence of talent, love and manifestation.”
“But he’s just a man. He’s not a god.”
But even as she stated that, she caught something else in my thoughts—and perhaps even something she was already aware of. I smiled, waited.
“But we are all God,” she said.
“And if we are all fragments of God, even tiny, tiny fragments, wouldn’t it stand to reason that some of us, perhaps in varying degrees and strengths, can access the God source within us? That some of us could, perhaps, perform miracles beyond comprehension?”
“But he doesn’t even know he’s performing them, Sam. He thinks his house is haunted, for crissakes!”
“Accidental creation might just be the most powerful creation of them all.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Just came to me,” I said, sipping on my mimosa. “I know from experience that trying too hard can screw something up.”
“And maybe in Charlie’s oblivion...”
“Creation is pouring through him unhindered.”
“Unhindered?” she asked.
“It’s a word,” I said, “that I like to use from time to time.”
“But why are you calling him a creator?”
“Whatever this original source entity is, wherever he came from and whatever he’s trying to do, is invariably explored through more creation. More and more creation. We are such creations. And our creations are such creations. And onward and downward.”
“So, in effect, someone like Charlie is helping God, by creating more?”
“Yes. As do all of us. We’re all creating and manifesting, both big and small.”
“I’m hardly manifesting, Sam. And I can’t think of a single thing I’ve created.”
“Everything is creation, Allie. The cook is creating our meals. Someone created this table and chairs. City planners created Main Street. You have sculpted and created your body. You have created the look you are wearing now. Someone, somewhere designed and created the clothing you are wearing. All of life is creation, an ongoing, neverending flow of creation.”
She blinked at me. Then blinked again. And kept on blinking until she finally said, “We’re both crazy, you know that, right?”
“Life just might be crazier.”
“So, we’re all creators in our own little way. Fine. Then explain how any of this actually helps God.”
“I don’t know, Allie. But whoever or whatever he, she or it is has an unerring need to expand ever outward, out into infinity.”
“Why?”
“If I had to guess—”
“And you do,” said Allison, winking.
“I would think it is searching for itself.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“I’m not sure I am either, Allie, but—and I believe this might be true—I was just recently told that even God doesn’t know how big he is.”
“And he wants to know?” asked
Allie.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“If I was God, who the hell knows. Wait, so you’re saying that me putting my hair into a ponytail helps him to somehow expand into this unknowable place? You know, since I created my hairstyle and all.” She winked again.
I looked at her and thought about it. “Yes,” I said. “In a small way, it does. In a small way, watching his own creations creating something of their own, helps him expand out, incrementally, into forever.”
“I think we need to start drinking more, Sam.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“And our friend Charlie?”
“He’s doing even more creating. Perhaps on par with hundreds of thousands of us, all rolled into one.”
“But if he’s doing all that creating...”
“Where are his creations?” I asked, finishing her thought.
“Right. We know—or think—one of them is showing up at his house.”
“And Max had a theory about that, too,” I said. “The world of Dur, he suspects, is now very much a real world. Not here, exactly, but perhaps nearby. Perhaps side by side with our own.”
“Like a parallel world?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So why is Queen Autumn showing up here, in our world? Why doesn’t she just stay in her own?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think we need to ask her.”
Allie looked at me. We both cracked a smile at about the same time. “The world of Dur is real, then?” she asked.
“I think so, Allie.”
“King Philos? The Foul Wizard Xander? The First Knight Rory? All the warriors and ladies and squires... they’re all real?”
“More than likely.”
“Wait, Sam! Do you remember where Charlie left off in the story?”
It didn’t take me long to think about it. I, like Allison, was eagerly awaiting news about...
“Autumn’s baby,” I said, “was kidnapped.”
“And now Autumn’s here, supposedly haunting Charlie’s hallway.”
“But maybe she’s not haunting,” I said. “Maybe she’s here for something else.”
“Maybe she’s looking for help.”
I thought about that. Thought about it hard. Meanwhile, I didn’t have to read Allison’s own mind to know where it had drifted off to. She wanted to very much believe the world of Dur was real, and I didn’t blame her. If it was real, then it was populated with characters that we had both come to love, even if their stories weren’t finished. Yes, Charlie had done one hell of a job of creating a rich and magical world.
A helluva job.
“Sam, do we tell him?”
“Tell Charlie that he’s a creator, that he holds hundreds, if not thousands, of people’s lives in his hands?”
“Seems pretty heavy, I know.”
I thought about her question, and kept thinking about it all through lunch.
Chapter Twenty-one
“What?” said Anthony, looking up. He’d been sitting on the floor with his knees up and his head covered by folded arms.
Tammy knew he’d been talking to his father for most of the day, as he had been doing for the past few months. Funny how she rarely came up in their conversations. She’d never been that close to her dad. He worked too much, was out too late, and when he was home, all he wanted to do was get on his computer and work even more... or play catch with Anthony. Or go on long walks with Anthony. Rarely did they ask her to join them. Other than a goodnight kiss on her forehead, Tammy didn’t have too many memories of her father.
She told herself that she didn’t care that her father almost never asked about her—at least in the conversations she listened to. These days, she mostly tuned out the two of them. She could only stand so much of Anthony’s sports stories. Or how much he missed his dad. Or how he wished his dad was out of his head and standing here, with him. Her father, for his part, made no promises and only consoled Anthony, which she thought wasn’t too terrible of him. It would be worse if he was making promises he couldn’t keep.
Danny Moon was getting better at communicating with Anthony. Her father, she saw, was more lively and active these days, and seemingly resided in the very front of Anthony’s psyche, unlike Elizabeth who resided very deep inside her mom.
Was her own father trying to take over Anthony’s body? The way her mother feared Elizabeth was trying to do with her? Tammy didn’t know. Her gut said no. Her gut said her father was simply excited to be active in their lives again. And equally relieved to not be in hell. And Anthony was just as excited to have his father with him again. Side by side. Two peas in Anthony’s pod.
Now, as she stood in his doorway, she said, “Something’s... coming.”
“Yeah, my vomit if I have to keep looking at your face—okay, I know. Dad wants me to say sorry. Your face doesn’t make me want to vomit… very much.”
Tammy rolled her eyes. “Tell Dad to be quiet for a minute. And you shush too. Something—or someone—is coming. And I think it—he’s—coming for you.”
Anthony’s green eyes narrowed, then widened, then narrowed again. “You look scared,” he said.
“I am.”
Truth was, Tammy was feeling a little... excited too. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure she knew what the word titillated meant, but if it meant what she thought it meant, then that’s what she was feeling. Tammy, of course, had never met the devil before. Only in her mother’s and Anthony’s memories. And the man who claimed to be the devil had been hunky as heck. Of course, she had also watched that same man explode into a bloody mist when the devil had made him walk in front of an oncoming train.
But he’s the devil, Tammy reasoned. Maybe he could bring the hunky guy back? From the dead and all that.
“Tammy—do you hear it?”
She did. Whispering. Lots of whispering. Hundreds if not thousands of voices whispering. Foul whisperings, too. Dark whisperings, hate-filled whisperings. Tammy was suddenly certain that she was hearing a legion of demons.
She couldn’t move. Vaguely she recalled her phone in her pocket. She knew she should call her mother. But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. The whispering... so evil, so vile, so determined to destroy.
“C’mon, Tam!” said Anthony, rolling up to his feet effortlessly. As he dashed forward, he grabbed her hand and pulled her along. His strength was undeniable. Tammy couldn’t have resisted if she wanted to. As it were, she followed behind, sometimes stumbling. Aware that her brother moved like a jungle cat. Aware, also, that evil seemed to be pouring out of hell itself and showing up here, in their cul-de-sac.
She was back outside in the setting sun. Correction, the sun had just set. Her mother, she knew, would be at full power now. She blinked into the still-bright sky. The single tree in their yard swayed. Wispy clouds streaked the sky, like a paintbrush stroke. The street was empty, even of parked cars. Correction, not empty. There, down the street, maybe seven or eight houses away, was a lone jogger. A lone, female jogger, whose ponytail sashayed from side-to-side as she ran, whose hips moved in perfect rhythm to her churning arms. A jogger who kept her elbows in and hands up. To Tammy, the woman looked like she might have had some kick-boxing training or something. Then again, her mother had never bothered to take her to boxing or kickboxing lessons at Jacky’s gym. After all, the universe didn’t revolve around her, but it sure as heck revolved around her little brother.
“I don’t see anything,” said Anthony. “But I hear something, I think.”
As the woman approached, her long shadow stretched out before her. To Tammy, her shadow seemed maybe a little too long. And too narrow. And oddly shaped, too. Were those claws where her hands should be?
“It’s her,” said Tammy.
“Who?”
“The jogger!” she heard herself scream.
After all, the woman’s very strange shadows had literally risen up from the sidewalk and became anything but shadows. They morphed into something three-dimensional and hug
e and far, far scarier in real life than she could ever imagine. Yes, Tammy had seen the three-headed hellhound in her brother’s own memory—and even vaguely in her mother’s memory, although her mother’s memory had been a memory of a memory, and those were never very clear.
This was clear as day. This was real and it was happening now.
***
She heard her brother say, “Oh, my God,” as what had once been a shadow grew in size, and its massive claws dug deeply into the sidewalk, tearing up concrete chunks and flinging them everywhere. The creature rocketed toward them and all Tammy could do was scream.
Or try to.
In fact, before anything could escape her lips, something massive loomed over her. Something massive and fiery and towering over the house itself. Tammy knew what it was, but she was too frightened to look. Too frightened to think. Too frightened to do anything but close her eyes and finish that scream she had seemingly started so long ago.
The ground shook. A thunderous, cavernous roar froze her heart in place.
And as the ground shook harder and the cacophony of growls rattled her teeth—three growls, in particular—something superheated and bright flashed overhead. It could have been a lightning strike. It could have been a guardian angel racing to their rescue. But Tammy knew what it was. She had seen it before. It was the flash of a fiery sword.
And as it charged overhead, it was followed by an ungodly shriek that turned immediately into wails of agony. So loud, Tammy was certain that her eardrums would split open.
***
When Tammy cracked open her eyes, she saw the three-headed dog was now a two-headed dog and it was running in circles in her cul-de-sac.
The severed head lay not too far from their driveway, it massive bloody jaws snapping over and over. Jaws that finally stopped snapping. And not too far behind the injured mythological monster was the female jogger. To Tammy’s eyes, the jogger had never missed a beat, and had continued her easy pace unerringly toward them.
There was a monster in front of her, a gravely wounded monster running circles in the cul-de-sac where she had played soccer as a kid, and baseball, and learned to rollerblade. Where Daddy and Anthony had played catch. Now, a devil dog ran seemingly blindly, shrieking loud enough to wake the dead.