Death Marked

by Sloan, Justin

  “You’ll have her arms wrapped around you, and her warm lips pressed against yours,” Altemus said. “Now, go the hell to sleep.”

  Rohan sighed and looked up at the starry sky. He hoped all of this would make sense soon. Brushing off the sand that had formed a light layer on his clothes, he ducked into his tent, threw himself on his sleeping bag, and allowed sleep to take him.

  ***

  In his dream, he was back home in his apartment in California. He emptied a plastic bag onto the worn kitchen table, and three pill bottles rolled out.

  Senna’s medicine.

  He walked across the apartment. Over the years, he and Senna had picked up secondhand furniture, and the place had a cozily rustic feel. When the doctors told him blue walls would be calming for Senna, he’d slathered on three coats of baby-blue paint to make sure the cracks wouldn’t show through.

  Rohan knocked on their bedroom door.

  "Senna?”

  He heard Senna’s voice from the bedroom. “What?”

  He could tell by her tone that she was in one of her states again. He sighed.

  “Did you take your medicine?” Rohan asked. He rested his head against the door, the pill bottles loose in his hand.

  No answer.

  “Senna, answer the question.”

  No answer again.

  “Open the door,” he said softly, rapping on the door with the back of his knuckle. “I got your refills.”

  “This world is not prepared for the afterlife.”

  Her statement surprised him.

  “Let’s talk about the afterlife when you’ve taken your pills,” Rohan said. “I read an article about Schopenhauer at the library today. We can talk about it. He said some interesting stuff about truth. Like—”

  “Truth,” she said. “Yes, we can talk about truth.”

  Rohan heard something shatter, and he beat on the door harder. “What are you doing?”

  “The truth lies in the afterlife, and we aren’t ready for it!”

  Senna started screaming, and then something thudded against the floor.

  Rohan bashed into the door with his shoulder. It didn’t budge. He got a running start and knocked the door off its hinge, sprawling into…

  …the psych ward? How did he get here? A quiet room with green walls and a square window that looked as if it were designed solely to protect the patients from becoming sallow from lack of sunlight.

  Senna was in a hospital gown, lying limply on the bed. She had slash marks on her arms from the night before, when she’d tried to kill herself. Her skin was pale, and she had a far-gone gaze as she turned to Rohan and smiled weakly.

  “Senna, is that really you? Am I… how?”

  A lucid dream, he hoped.

  He wanted to lift her from the bed and take her in his arms, but his body wouldn’t move as directed. It would only repeat his actions exactly as he had when this was real.

  He fell to his knees and buried his face in her chest. Her hand felt warm and comforting as she caressed the back of his head.

  “Do you remember that time we drove to the Grand Canyon?” she said, pushing him back so she could look into his eyes.

  Rohan nodded.

  “The little bed and breakfast there, and all the tarantulas that came out when it rained?”

  “You hated spiders, but you said they were beautiful, anyway. They were at home.” Rohan held her hand, caressing it as if he knew he might never see her again.

  “Take me back there,” Senna said. “Take me from this place.”

  Maybe they could have escaped. In the early afternoon shift change, he could have figured something out. He was a magician, after all. He could fool the eye with card tricks, steal a wallet from a man’s pocket without him noticing.

  Yet he couldn’t rescue his fiancée from this hell.

  That look he hated so much, the look of absence, took over her eyes again. Her fist nearly hit him, then a foot connected with his shin. He stood, backing up, holding his hand over his mouth as he watched the love of his life scream and thrash in apparent pain.

  “Senna!” he shouted, pleading for her to come back to him.

  He darted forward and squeezed her hand, but she pushed him away and roared. Her fingernails tore at his skin like claws, and he pulled away with a cry. He scrambled to the medical console and pushed a button.

  A few heartbeats later, a team of nurses rushed in, followed by Doctor Altemus.

  All the man’s degrees and training, and he still couldn’t rescue her from her mental illness.

  Altemus stood over Senna, observing, fingers stroking his thin beard. Rohan had forgotten how distinguished the old man had looked, with his cardigan and white coat, glasses and shiny wingtip shoes.

  “Leave,” Altemus said.

  “But—”

  Altemus grabbed him by the shoulders, eyes staring down at Rohan, demanding attention and immediate obedience. “She’s in good hands, son.”

  Senna screamed again, louder this time. Other voices in the ward joined her screaming, and soon the area was a cacophony of excruciating wails.

  Rohan put his hands to his ears and stumbled, hitting the wall. This wasn’t from the memory. Wails, moans, cries, screams, and voices whispering in different languages. They closed in on him, as if a hundred invisible, tortured people surrounded him.

  A gray mist engulfed him. And then something dark ahead—a person? The silhouette of a man became clear, looming a few feet away. Yellow pinpoints of light flickered where the man’s eyes should have been.

  "Turn back," the voice said. "This path only results in loss, in pain."

  Rohan moved toward the shape, unsure what to say. Around him, the voices returned, howling and screaming. Black shapes appeared from the mist.

  Hands. They were reaching for Rohan.

  "Run!" the shape cried.

  The mist exploded in a burst of pain and he fled.

  The hot air of the desert woke him with a jolt. Pulling himself together, he realized he was back in the tent… and Senna was still dead.

  For now.

  Sand rubbed against the nylon of his sleeping bag as he sat up.

  His heart raced. He had dreamt about Senna’s death before, but never so vividly.

  And the chanting, the voices… he could still hear them. He sensed the strange man’s presence, as if he were sitting in the tent.

  Rohan untangled himself from the sleeping bag and crawled outside. The sky was clear, filled with more stars than he had ever seen in his life. They shone with a bright, clear light that made the dunes and tents seem to glow. A gentle wind blew across the desert, shifting the sands, and he smelled the remnants of the campfire. He came around the tent and saw embers still smoldering, pulsing orange and red. Ahead, Altemus and Lev’s tent was illuminated from the inside, and their shadows darted across the fabric.

  Rohan squinted. Had they brought a lantern?

  No, he would have noticed. Not a lantern—candles, then. It had to be candles.

  He pulled himself up and started for the tent. His back ached from the long hike.

  As he got closer, a chanting sound from the tent grew clear—it was Altemus. Rohan couldn’t make out what he was saying, but the old man was whispering one moment, singing the next, and speaking a foreign language.

  “What the hell is going on?” Rohan asked himself.

  He peeled back the flaps of Altemus’s tent. The old man and Lev sat, eyes closed, in the middle of a circle of candles staked into the sand. The candles flickered softly, giving the inside of the tent an orange vibrance. Incense twirled between the two men like a snake preparing to strike.

  “Stand,” Altemus said in a deep, guttural voice.

  Lev jumped to his feet. He opened his eyes, but only the whites were visible. The Russian moaned and staggered forward, his arms out in front of him as if he were blind and trying to feel his way around.

  Altemus reached into a backpack and pulled out something wrapped in roug
h, white paper. Unrolling it, he revealed a cow’s heart. He squeezed it in his hands so that the blood fell into the middle of the circle. His chanting resumed, his pitch becoming more frenzied. Lev moaned again and lifted his hands into the air, looking at the top of the tent.

  Rohan recognized the ritual—it was the same ritual from the temple.

  “The first blood is complete,” Altemus said, shaking his fists victoriously.

  Lev stumbled toward Rohan. Guessing the Russian couldn’t see, Rohan moved to avoid him. But Lev changed direction and they bumped into each other. Suddenly, Lev grabbed Rohan’s neck in a firm grip.

  “Stop!” Rohan screamed, clawing at Lev’s hands. “What the hell are you doing?”

  But the Russian gritted his teeth and groaned, his fierce eyes staring back in pure white.

  “Let me go!” Rohan cried.

  Altemus’s eyes flew open and he ran over, grabbing Lev’s hands to separate them.

  Rohan stumbled back, coughing. “What is this? Is he possessed?”

  Altemus reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of smelling salts. He passed them under Lev’s nose, then kicked up a cloud of dust that extinguished the candles.

  Darkness enveloped the tent.

  Rohan could barely make out the silhouettes of Altemus and Lev.

  “Details,” Rohan said, winded. “Now.”

  “You’ll understand in due time,” Altemus said quietly.

  Lev’s body jerked, and the Russian looked around in nervous confusion, as if woken from a nightmare. “What happened?”

  “It’s okay, Lev,” Altemus said, patting the Russian on the shoulder.

  “You were in a trance, that’s what happened,” Rohan said. “You almost killed me!”

  “I guess… I wasn’t myself. It’s like, I remember, like I wasn’t here, but somewhere else watching it happen. I’m sorry, Rohan.”

  Lev wiped sand from his legs. Looking exhausted, he walked to the corner of the tent and sat with his knees up to his chest, slowly rocking back and forth.

  A motion caught Rohan’s eye as Altemus glanced at his watch.

  “You arrived just in time,” Altemus said. “Time to go.”

  “Hold on,” Rohan said. “Tell me what the hell you were doing!”

  Altemus opened the tent flap and gestured outside. Lev staggered to his feet and followed him.

  “Do you want to see Senna or not?” Altemus asked, looking back at Rohan.

  He had a good point. Rohan could sit here demanding answers, or fulfill his promise to the love of his life and be with her again. The choice was an easy one, and as Altemus and Lev headed into the dunes, he ran after them.

  It was indeed time to get this crazy night over with.

  Chapter 4: The Door to Hell

  Walking through the desert at night was like a lesson in extremes. Instead of the searing heat of the sun, a cool breeze sent a chill across his exposed arms. Still, he preferred the cold any day over the heat that seared his lungs and stung his nostrils. He was glad to be moving forward, away from the strangeness of the experience at Altemus’s tent, and closer to Senna.

  The stench of vodka told him Lev was nearby. Sure enough, Lev slipped next to him and wrapped an unusually friendly arm around Rohan’s shoulders, taking a swig from his canteen. His teeth were yellowish in the starlight. Perhaps he felt bad for attacking Rohan earlier.

  “You know what you’re about to see, foreigner?”

  “Aren’t we all foreigners here?”

  “This was all the Soviet Union, once,” Lev said, with a wave of his flask to emphasize his point. “Far as I’m concerned, it still is.”

  “I see why Russia has such a good reputation,” Rohan said.

  Lev frowned, then barked a laugh and took another swig of vodka. Shrugging, he said, “Well, tonight you will see a miracle.”

  “I’ve looked up this Door to Hell,” Rohan said. “It looks like—”

  “No, no. Words, pictures, they do it no justice.” Lev waved his hands, swatting at Rohan. “You Americans think you can just look up everything on the Internet and pretend you’re there.” They walked on for a moment before Lev continued. “Some say The Door to Hell is simply a gas field… but we Russians know it’s more than that. There’s more than science behind it.”

  “What, then?” Rohan asked.

  “Been burning since the seventies, when a group of Soviet scientists tried to burn it out. So they call it a tourist attraction.” He leaned in close enough for Rohan to see his bloodshot eyes. “But those tourists, the Turkmenistan government—they don’t know the truth behind it. They don’t know what it can do, and why it burns.”

  Rohan was getting irritated at Lev’s cryptic comments. “So, are you going to explain what the Door to Hell can do, or are you going to try to impress me with legends and fairytales?”

  Lev simply chuckled to himself as he walked ahead.

  A dim orange and yellow glow bloomed on the horizon before them, revealing what they soon saw to be a massive crater, where an aura of fire met the stars.

  The crater stretched two hundred feet across and was completely engulfed in fire, like the surface of the sun. Thousands of small fires burned in the crater, with a large flame billowing in the center. The flames burned with an incessant roar that made it hard to concentrate. The air was thick with the scent of natural gas and burnt soil.

  If it weren’t for the milky swath of stars in the sky, Rohan would have truly thought they were at the door to Hell itself. He stared, lost in the crater’s mesmerizing depths.

  When he finally managed to pull his eyes from the flames, he saw that Altemus had set up a field table on the edge of the crater. Altemus took the skull out of the velvet bag and held it up to the sky as if to make an offering. After a moment of closed-eye mumbling, he lowered the skull to the center of the table and began speaking in a language Rohan didn’t understand.

  The skull’s markings glinted in the firelight and the symbols seemed to snake together. They weren’t just reflecting the light—they were emitting their own.

  In a deep voice, Altemus said, “The time has come.”

  Lev rubbed his hands together, eyes glinting in the flames. Rohan felt a surge of excitement swelling within him, his heart beating quickly at the thought of the unknown.

  Altemus snatched the skull with one hand and jammed it into the sky.

  The heat of the fires vanished like a candle flame snuffed with a breath. A beat of nothing, and then a chill wind carried a wave of sand across the desert. Above, clouds rolled in from nowhere, filled with lightning and whispers.

  Altemus and Lev were chanting, but it sounded like their voices were magnified a hundred fold.

  Rohan spun, searching for others in the darkness, but there was no one else. The flames from the Door to Hell flashed and jumped higher in response, and a crash of lightning splintered a cloud.

  Lev let out a cry of excitement. “Our time is coming!”

  Altemus pointed a finger at Lev. “Yes, yours certainly is.”

  Lightning crashed through the sky. Altemus punched Lev in the stomach, and the Russian stumbled backward toward the edge of the crater.

  “Hey—” Rohan said, reaching out.

  The fire in the crater began to spin, swirling inward like a whirlpool of flame.

  Lev screamed, and only then did Rohan see the blade in Altemus’s hand. With a final chant, Altemus drove the knife into Lev’s stomach. The Russian screamed again, louder.

  “What… have you…?” Lev stumbled back, eyes wide in shock. He reached for Rohan. “Help….”

  Before Rohan could respond, Lev collapsed, sliding in the sand until he lay broken at the edge of the crater, the deep cut in his stomach glistening in the light of stars and flames. Altemus knelt and pressed a cloth to the wound, almost as if he meant to help the man. But then, he stood and squeezed the red-stained rag, dripping Lev’s blood onto the glowing skull. The blood sizzled on contact, and the skull grew b
righter.

  “We’re nearly there,” Altemus said, then gestured to the Door to Hell.

  Rohan stepped back. “What the hell is this? You killed him!”

  The area around them flashed and took on a bluish purple tinge. Rohan looked into the crater. The flames were gone, replaced by glowing light that flowed like a river—like the Northern Lights, ethereal, colorful, and ever shifting.

  The river of lights flowed around a single point in the center of the crater, which grew slowly until it was big enough for a man to fit through. Visions of another land flashed in the hole—a landscape that looked peaceful, but also not of this world.

  All noise had stopped. The heat of the flames had faded. A cold sweat coated the back of Rohan’s neck. Crunching sand grabbed his attention, and a flash of steel in the corner of his eye made him jump aside just as Altemus lunged with the knife.

  “You said you would bring Senna back!” Rohan yelled.

  “Not exactly,” Altemus said with a grin. He swiped at Rohan, but missed. He circled him, ready to pounce. “I said I would reunite you. In sacrificing you, it will release my Anne from the afterlife. You get to be with your love, I get to be with mine.”

  “All of this… it was for you?” Rohan asked in disbelief.

  “Why else?” Altemus lunged, but again Rohan dodged. He looked around frantically for something to use as a weapon, but the sand was bare.

  Altemus lifted the blade, smiling, almost peaceful. “Come, it’s time you joined your love in death.”

  Rohan’s legs twitched. He was ready to run. To live. But if he stayed, if he fought, he could end it right here and now. If he won, maybe he could release Senna’s spirit.

  Rohan stepped forward and swung at Altemus, but the old man was ready for him. With a swift block and a sweep of his legs, Rohan was on his back.

  Altemus came down hard with the blade, but Rohan diverted the knife so that it plunged into the sand.

  “You can’t alter your destiny,” Altemus said as he dove for the weapon. “You will die tonight.”

  Rohan scooped up sand, throwing it into Altemus’s face. Altemus blocked with his sleeve, but Rohan lunged, taking them both to the ground.