I didn’t mean to anger you. I’m simply curious.
I will not endure your curiosity. There are three things you must know. Only three. Heed them all or you will surely fail, and probably die.
They are as follows:
1. A young woman waits just outside the house. She possesses a very rare gift that she is unaware of. I have hijacked this power and used it to bring her here, temporarily. She is being targeted as part of the scheme that your colleague Joe Santini is involved in. Learn as much as you can from her while you have a chance. She won’t be here long.
2. It may be wise to keep certain secrets from The Order of Merlin during this investigation. You need to do some soul searching. Can you really trust The Order? How would they react to this woman you’re about to meet? How do they deal with forbidden magic?
3. There is danger nearby, below the ground. Deadly danger. Carry your gun when you descend.
That is all. Even with this information, your survival is far from certain, but life is never certain, and it shouldn’t be.
Good luck to you.
Thackery tried to think of what to say. He wanted to ask another question but clearly the entity didn’t like answering questions.
Finally he risked one anyway.
Is that all?
There was no response. Instead, the gleam on the page faded, signaling that the connection with the entity had been severed. A moment later, the writing faded as well.
Thackery stared down at the pad for a moment, hoping that perhaps something else would pop up, but nothing did. Clearly the being had said all it intended to say.
- - -
Simone sprawled on her back in the crawlspace under her front porch, resting on a thick bed of inexplicable pine needles.
She had, apparently, fallen through the floor without leaving a hole.
It took her a moment to realize there was a faint light coming through the wood planks above her; apparently the entire porch had become semi-transparent, like the trees in her house had been before.
I’m not hallucinating, she thought. This is some kind of dream. I’m unconscious in my kitchen right now and this is all happening in my mind.
Either that or she was dead and this was some kind of warped afterlife. After the incredible pain she had experienced, either option seemed equally viable.
The plank floor was only a few feet above. She raised herself slightly, reached out to touch it.
The consistency of the wood reminded her of snot. It felt like she might even be able to grab a handful of it, but when she tried, her fingers just passed through, and the structure held itself together as if her hand had never been there.
Like the trees, I guess, only a little more solid.
Despite the light coming through the transparent surface, it was still very dark down there. Too dark. She wanted out, but with the plywood skirting all around the edge of the porch there was no way to escape except to go through.
Which, she realized, should be possible.
I went through one way, I should be able to go through the other way, too…
But the idea of putting her head inside that weird gooey substance on purpose was terrifying.
Then another thought occurred to her: what if the porch went solid again, and she got trapped under here?
This would all have to be really happening for me to end up in that situation, and there’s no way any of this can be real.
But was it smart to think that way? How could she be so sure?
Simone sat up, raising her arms over her head, and thrusting them into the floor of the porch in an attempt to create a hole for the rest of her body to fit through, but it didn’t work that way. She was easily able to put her arms through and move them around, but the stuff filled right back in afterward, like a liquid.
Her head would have to go through anyway.
Shit.
There was no other choice. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and stood up the rest of the way as fast as she could.
The boards felt wet on her skin as she passed through, and it seemed like the slimy substance should be clinging to her everywhere. She couldn’t help but wipe at her face and body afterward to make sure she wasn’t covered in goo.
Then she stared down at the improbable image of her body embedded in the surface of the porch. The wood planks were a little below the level of her waist.
Kinda like standing in a swimming pool full of wood planks instead of water.
She took a hesitant step, and found it was actually much easier than walking in a pool. The wood floor resisted her movements a little more than water would’ve, but it was only a few inches thick.
What if it turns solid again while I’m standing here? Will it cut me in half?
A grisly image appeared in her mind: the upper half of her body—still upright—a pool of blood spreading around it, her eyes sightless and glassy, tongue lolling out, head tilted to one side.
No thanks.
She stepped a little faster until she was fully free of the porch. Then she stopped about five feet into the area where her front yard should have been, turned around, and looked back towards her house. The entire structure looked somewhat insubstantial now—not fully transparent, but a long way from solid.
Meanwhile, the invading forest landscape had become much more real.
Completely real?
She walked over and touched one of the nearby pine trees to confirm her suspicion. It felt like any other tree she’d ever touched.
Before she could give this too much thought, a movement caught her attention, coming from the direction of the small, white shack that had sprung up in the general area where the road in front of her house was supposed to be.
There was a man standing out there, about 40 yards away, near the doorway of the place. He was very tall and broad, with big eyes and a big nose and big everything else, almost like a cartoon face. He was wearing a shabby brown coat with sleeves that were too long, and had an unruly mop of light brown hair on top of his head. The expression of confusion on his face would have been comical under less stressful circumstances.
They stared at each other in silence.
- - -
Thackery regarded the young woman who had mysteriously appeared at the edge of the woods next to Joe’s house.
She was fairly tall, with dark skin, large soulful eyes, and wavy black hair that hung well past her shoulders.
She wore a frayed gray T-shirt with a Led Zeppelin logo , a pair of faded jeans with holes in the knees, converse sneakers, no jewelry, nothing fancy about her hairstyle. She didn’t even appear to be wearing very much (any?) makeup.
Still, despite apparently not trying very hard, she was unusually good looking to the point where it was almost a little distracting. Malcolm was enough of a red-blooded male that he couldn’t help but appreciate it, but also old-fashioned enough that he felt vulgar for leering since she was clearly about two decades younger than him.
Considering how lovely she actually was, it was quite something that the circumstances surrounding her manifestation were so remarkable that they made her beauty seem a trifling side-issue—something only to be noted in passing.
Much more pertinent to the actual situation was the fact that he could see right through her, as though she were some sort of hologram in a futuristic movie.
Or, perhaps, a ghost.
Behind her stood a large two-story house with yellow siding. The house was even more transparent than she was. He could just barely make it out if he squinted his eyes.
Over the last few seconds he had just watched her stand up inside the front porch of the house, as if it was just as lacking in actual substance for her as it was for him. Then she had jogged until she was clear of the porch, and stood there for a moment, gazing up at the house in dumb amazement. Finally, for no apparent reason, she approached a nearby tree. In a very purposeful way, she ran her hand along the bark.
While her hand was on the tree she had be
come aware of his presence, and since then they had been staring at each other.
The whole sequence of events was very curious. Malcolm knew there were many obvious clues in what he’d just seen that would tell him a great deal about what was actually going on here, but for the moment he was too shocked to put it all together.
He quickly tried to gaze her aura, but couldn’t see anything at all, which was interesting. Auras didn’t show up in pictures either, or videos, or any sort of reproduction.
Maybe she wasn’t really there?
Or at least not all the way there…
He waited for her to say something, but soon realized she would not, and finally decided to open the conversation himself.
“Hello there,” he said. “Can I, perhaps, help you with something?”
For several breaths she stared at him suspiciously. When she finally spoke, her voice was a frightened whisper. “Please don’t talk to me.”
He was momentarily taken aback by her outright rejection of his simple, friendly overture, but quickly recovered and whispered back, “why?”
“Because you’re not real, and if you don’t shut up, it’s going to confuse me even more.”
Not real? Fascinating.
“I suppose it’s entirely possible that I’m not real,” he said. “But then again, what is reality anyway? Is anything really real the way we think it is?”
She looked away from him, and spoke as if to herself. “Jesus Christ, what now? Have I invented a goddamn philosopher to come contemplate the nature of the universe with me?”
“You think you invented me?”
“Yes. I’m hallucinating, or dreaming—probably dreaming—and you’re some weird image that has crawled up out of my subconscious mind. And I really would prefer it if you would stop talking. It’s so much harder to ignore you if you keep saying things.”
“I’m not sure what you think is going on here, but I’m willing to wager a fair amount that you are not hallucinating.”
“Naturally you would say that.”
“If I’m part of some hallucination, I can assure you I am entirely unaware of it. But I’ll concede that it is possible. Then again, maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe I’m hallucinating you. Or, perhaps, we’re all figments in the imagination of some giant alien with infinite intelligence. It’s certainly all very interesting to contemplate, but for the moment, let’s pretend that I am actually real, and I’ll pretend you’re real, and then we can have a quick discussion without all those difficult questions clogging things up.”
She gave him a long level look, then sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine then. If I listen to whatever you want to say, will you go away and leave me alone when you’re through?”
“Yes. That sounds good. We can have a little talk and then we’ll part ways.”
She shrugged. “Alright, if that’s what it takes. Let’s talk.”
“Excellent. Let’s see then…” He tried to think of where to start, and finally decided to go with the most obvious question. “How, exactly, did you get here?”
“I walked out of my house and here I was.”
He gestured towards the building behind her. “That’s your house?”
“Yes.”
“Did I imagine it, or did you just walk through your porch, like it wasn’t really there.”
“You saw that?”
“Yes. How did you do that?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m just imagining it.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“I told you, I’m right outside my house. It looks a little different than usual, but I can still see my yard—sort of—and I can see my road and my car…”
“But you can see me as well?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And how did I get here?”
“I dreamed you up.”
He sighed, this wasn’t getting them anywhere. I need to broach the subject more directly.
“I believe that the two of us have been brought together intentionally by a very powerful entity—perhaps an actual god—and I need to know why it was done. It is possible—likely—that you’re in great danger.”
“It’s also possible that I’m laying dead in my kitchen floor right now. Actually, I’m leaning more and more towards that explanation with every word that comes out of your mouth.”
Thackery wasn’t great with American accents, but he thought he could detect the faintest country twang, somewhat like the accents of some Texans, and she spoke with a slow cadence, dragging out her vowels a bit.
Somewhere in the south, I guess?
“Where are you, exactly?” he asked.
“I already told you, I’m standing in my own front yard.”
“No, I mean, where do you live?”
“Reed County, Virginia—just outside of a little town called Goldbrook, but since you’re in my head, you should already know that.”
“What’s your name?”
She paused a moment, stared at him suspiciously, then finally said, “Simone Copeland.”
“Okay, that’s good. We’re getting somewhere. My name is Malcolm Thackery.”
“That has to be the most British sounding name I’ve ever heard. It sounds made up. Guess why? Because it is made up. Because I made it up. Probably just now.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps… If your theory of the situation is correct. But let’s continue to assume that everyone here is real, just for the sake of conversation… Can you think of any particular reason why you would’ve been magically transported to Arizona?”
“Arizona?”
“Yes. I’m in Arizona, near the Texas border. A little place called Vernon’s Trail. And since you’re in Virginia, it is a bit strange that we would be running into each other, don’t you think?”
She looked away from him, and shook her head. “Okay that’s it, I’ve had just about all I can take. This is exactly the kind of thing that drives people over the edge.”
“I’m sure this is very traumatic for you, but let’s stay on topic. Can you explain to me exactly what happened just before you walked out here and found me? You mentioned something about your kitchen. I promise you it’s really very important. You could be in grave danger and I might be able to help if you’ll only explain a few things.”
She looked at him for a long time, then shook her head. “No. I’m not telling you anything else. The more I talk to you, the more I believe you’re real.”
Then she looked down at her feet, crossed her arms, and pointedly ignored him.
- - -
Simone stopped paying any attention at all to the strange Englishman, but that didn’t make him shut up.
He kept talking anyway, and then he walked right up next to her, started yelling things, all sorts of nutty stuff: about some kind of conspiracy, about psychic energy, and gods and demons and dragons… It was exactly the sort of delirious ranting that crazy people in asylums were known for—or at least she thought so, based on what she’d seen in TV shows and movies; maybe she would have a more direct experience of asylums soon, if this sort of thing kept happening to her.
Finally she closed her eyes, and put her fingers in her ears, tried to focus on her real life, thought about her house, her job, things she knew were actual, not dreamed up. It seemed like the thing to do.
The man responded by yelling even louder, so she started humming a happy song to drown him out, and in her mind she invented a mad little chant about how he wasn’t there, how he wasn’t real, and kept repeating it to herself again and again.
Then, abruptly, his voice started getting quieter, as if someone had turned down the volume knob on his vocal cords. She took this as a good sign, and kept on with her chant, started humming louder.
All at once, the pain came back, just as sudden as it had in the kitchen and even more fierce. It was like a hundred sharks were swimming in her brain, making tunnels with their teeth, and at the same time everything flared white, like a nuclear bomb had gone off. Even
with her eyes closed the light seemed to burn all the way to the back of her skull.
She heard herself screaming as she fell, and it was the last thing she heard before losing consciousness.
Chapter 8 - Down Deep
The woman was gone.
When she'd first begun to fade away, Malcolm had been trying, and failing, to make her listen to him. Then she had suddenly clutched the sides of her head, face twisting with agony, collapsed in a heap, and went poof like a bad special effect in an old movie.
The whole process from the initial fading to complete disappearance took about 15 or 20 seconds.
Now, the only sign that she’d ever been there at all was a slight indentation in the pine needles.
He thought of the terrible pain he’d seen in her face. Had she died? Is that why she vanished?
And also, how on earth did she appear there in the first place?
He tried to recall what the mysterious entity (a god? A demi-god? What in the bloody hell have I got myself into here?) had told him about the woman during their brief chat on the Ouija-Pad, and found that the exact words came to his mind very easily, almost like they’d been etched there:
…She possesses a very rare gift that she is unaware of. I have hijacked this power and used it to bring her here, temporarily…
“A gift?” he muttered, “Really?”
Teleportation… He’d read ancient accounts of magicians who supposedly wielded powers like that, but always dismissed them as fairy tales. It seemed terribly unlikely that any regular person could have that much power without the aid of gadgets or demonic help or something along those lines.
He tried to imagine the massive connection to The Stream someone would need in order to alter reality to that degree, and realized it was exactly the same sort of oversized, outrageous potential it would take for someone to survive a link with a titan.
The DARK Trilogy: Titan's Song Chronicles Volume 1 (Books 1 - 3) Page 7