by Mark Tufo
“Stop, please,” Freddie begged. “Please.”
“Shut up,” Maysie said. At first his voice carried little force. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Each time his volume, and with it the vehemence in his words increased. At the third utterance he swung at Freddie’s head and did not stop until his friend was completely unrecognizable. The entire skull structure had been broken into such small pieces, so much brain and blood had leaked out the sides, that his face had literally caved in on itself. He looked like a strangely distorted two-dimensional version of his former self. Ragged bits of blood and skin were being flung in all directions as Maysie kept pummeling, determined to drive his friend’s shoulders down into his hips.
“I think he’s quite dead. You may stop now.”
Maysie did so without any further prompting.
“His turn,” the man said, directing Maysie to Bones. Bones immediately struggled against bonds he could not see, though they felt as strong as steel straps.
“Fuck that noise. Maysie, I’ll kill you if you take a single step in my direction.”
“I have to, Bones. He told me to.”
“Maysie, we didn’t know this guy five minutes ago and now you’re going to kill your two best friends because he said so?”
“I have to, right?” Maysie asked looking back at the man, who summarily nodded back at him.
“Wait…hold on,” the man said. Bones appeared to relax, thinking that the man had maybe had a change of heart. “I’ve already watched you beat your friend brainless; maybe this would be better if you both fought it out. Yes, I do believe that would be much more entertaining.”
Bones had thirty pounds and a modicum of experience over his friend, Maysie. He put Maysie in a headlock and proceeded to slam his right fist into his friend’s face until Maysie went slack. Bones let him go and Maysie fell away.
“That was not nearly as entertaining as I would have hoped,” the man said. He had somehow removed the clothes from Freddie’s rapidly cooling body as the other two men fought. “Does this fit me well?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Bones asked.
“Kill your friend and you can go.”
“And if I don’t?”
The man looked over at the nude corpse of Freddie. “I think you already know.”
“I’m sorry, Maysie,” Freddie said as he found a decent sized stone. He lifted it over his head and threw it down in front of him. There was a loud crunching sound as he destroyed Maysie’s nose. The man was in agony, but as of yet was not dead.
“Come on, come on. I don’t have all day,” the man said, impatiently.
Freddie dashed that rock against his friend’s head repeatedly until Maysie took in his final death rattle. “I’ll find you someday, and I will kill you.”
“I look forward to it,” the man said. “If you survive the next three days, that is.” He laughed as he left Freddie, frozen in place again, behind him.
“You said you were going to let me go!” Freddie screamed.
“I am a man of my word. In seventy-two hours that spell will wear off and you will be able to do as you please.”
“There are animals out here!” Freddie was shouting at the top of lungs.
“Then I suggest you be quiet and stop drawing attention to yourself.” With that, he was out of sight.
HE WAS UNSURE why it was so imperative for him to find passage to what was once the country of America. There were vast holes in his memory, who he was or who he had been, yet some of that was overlaid with great stores of knowledge that he felt he had no right to. He had no idea how he had learned them. It became evident to him that he possessed great magical powers; he’d proven it with the trio of thugs he’d encountered, yet he could not remember ever having done magic before. He also knew that it was his job, no, his quest, to seek out others that had powers much like his own. How he was supposed to assemble these people and what he was supposed to do once he had them together was another question he could not answer just yet.
“First things first,” he said as he stood on the prow of the small vessel he had purchased passage on. The journey was swift for a ship borne by wind; the crew was happy to finally disembark their strange guest. He knew he had set himself on the correct course the moment his feet touched the sand on the beach.
“I can feel them; six nearly as strong as I and a seventh perhaps stronger. Excellent. Now I need to figure out how to pull them all together.” For four and a half years he wandered the countryside until fate or good fortune put him in a Lycan snare. It was he who had convinced Xavier that the rightful place of Lycan was to lord over the food they ate. The powerful beast had moved quickly on the suggestion. The man knew that war was the swiftest way to force those with greatness in them out into the open where they could be marked and measured. Once he’d put the cart on its tracks, he merely stepped back and let nature take its course.
He became the watcher as he discovered Bailey Tynes, Lana Saltinda, Tomas Vangoth, Michael Talbot and Azile, The Red Witch. The last he had exhausted nearly the limits of his power to keep himself shielded from her.
Prologue
PROLOGUE THREE
*
I WAS DEAD. I am dead. Or, at least, I think I am. Last thing I remember with any clarity was holding Tommy’s hands in the netherworld while we did our best to hold on to our “self”, our “id”, our psyche. Something. For what purpose I did not know. Tommy was under the belief that we had, as of yet, not given enough of ourselves, that we still had more to do. How is it even possible to not be peaceful in death? Isn’t that the ultimate definition? We were preparing ourselves for an eternity of wandering. We were alone in a gray, drab, unchanging landscape. That was until we got an offer we couldn’t refuse. Technically, we made a deal with the devil. Who does that shit? Who is so asinine as to fall into bed with the great Deceiver? I’ll tell you who. The fucking desperate, that’s who. Eternity is a mighty fucking long time. Think DMV at the end of the month and you start to get an idea of what Tommy and I were facing.
I stepped through the portal that wasn’t supposed to be there. I had an iron grip on Tommy’s hand as I went, but that was all for naught. We were ripped free from each other as easily as if we were toddlers playing Red Rover. And this is the predicament I find myself in now. I traded one horizontal gray slab for a vertical black one. At least, I think it’s vertical; I have the sensation that I am falling;, though no air is whistling past my ears, my clothes do not ripple. My stomach is not in my throat…yet still I feel as if I’m plunging. I don’t know how long it will be before I go insane. I’ve been talking out loud for what seems years long. I have screamed for others, I’ve cried for help. I have railed at the injustice of it all; I have begged for mercy, and I’ve groveled for true, final, death. Anything but this.
I didn’t notice the change at first; it was so subtle, so slow…I wasn’t even really sure what was happening. It could have even been hallucinations; I was so unconvinced something was actually happening. I could just make out the outline of my hands if I held them in front of my face. It could have easily been a phantom vision, something I so desperately wanted to see that I was forcing my brain to superimpose the image across the blackness. I was rapt; I dared not turn away lest the spectral image vanish. In degrees that time is not measured in, I started to see more definition to my hands, my wrists, my forearms. I gazed upon them like a thirsty man does a pitcher of cold lemonade on a hot summer day. In a place where time held no sway, it was impossible to know how much more had lapsed when the muted light began, almost imperceptibly, to expand out.
I was crushed. Hope had been stamped, stomped, and pissed on. The gray of the world was getting brighter; the Jokester had sent me in a huge circle, and damned if I wasn’t back where I had started. Though this time, I did not have Tommy. Fuck the “circle”; this was a downward spiral from which I would not be able to pick myself up from. Would I just lay down for all time? Giving up would accomplish nothing; though in r
eality, I guess there was no goal. No pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There wasn’t even a pot. If I had a pulse it would have quickened—mentally I believed it had— in this realm that was as good as the real thing.
*
I saw something move past my feet.
*
“Tommy?” I asked tentatively. No reply. My feet touched down; I’d plunged for miles upon miles and I landed as if I’d stepped off a sheet of paper. A sea of souls moved soundlessly and without hope all around me; was my own among them? If the Devil had indeed kept up his end of the bargain, what was I supposed to do now? This was a “Spot the Difference” picture where everyone, everything, was the same color gray in a world of gray colors. I could see hundreds around me; I sensed there were millions. I’d gone from one hopeless situation to another. How long would it take for me to pick out the right one? You’d be surprised…not that long, actually. The first thing I tried to do was go for a little levitation, figuring I could cover a lot more ground that way, scanning over the heads of the multitude of lost. Time might not have any influence here but fucking gravity did. I jumped and came back down about as fast as I would have on Earth.
The only thing I had available to me was my voice. “Mike! Mike! Michael fucking Talbot!” I screamed for hours. My old drill instructor would have shed a tear of pride if he could have heard me. My throat never hurt, never got parched; my tone never quivered or quavered. I just kept going. I called myself all manner of things and threatened myself if I didn’t show up “right soon” I was going to kick my own ass. Thousands of souls drifted past, apathetic to my pleas, none ever looking at me or acknowledging my presence or even touching me. It was Times Square on New Year’s Eve crowded here, but not once was I jostled. I about begged for the contact, even a few times running at a particular soul to see what would happen. They would invariably and easily slide right past and around. It was like we were repelling magnets; we could never touch no matter how much we tried. Surrounded by many, yet still lonely, I started screaming again.
“Mike—get your fucking ass over here! I don’t want to be here anymore!” The weird part was that I heard “…here anymore” come back as an echo, as if it had reverberated off of something, but what, I couldn’t tell. Everything was the damn same. “MIKE!” Again the echo, only seemingly closer, yet I had not moved. Now, I’ve heard the phrase: “If you can’t get to the mountain, bring the mountain to you.” That’s all fine and cool as a saying, but I was petrified at the thought of something Mount Everest-sized barreling in my direction. Got to admit, I was pretty tentative when I said, “echo”. If I’d had skin, I would have jumped out of it when the word was immediately returned.
I was looking up, braced for the giant, mountainous pile of rocks to grind me into oblivion, so much so, I nearly missed what was standing in front of me. That would have been kind of difficult though, because it was me, or I was him. Something along those lines. My jaw just about dropped as the “other me” showed up, his eyes grew wide in shock, fear,…elation? Who the fuck knows. I reached out, thinking that maybe this was another ruse. Instead of being repelled, we were drawn to each other. One moment there were two distinct and separate entities, the next we were one. There were a few milliseconds of awkwardness as there were two separate and distinct beings and then—like lifelong friends who can easily pick up a conversation no matter how long they’ve been apart—we were finally reconciled.
I wept. I was once again in possession of my soul. What the fuck I was going to do with it? Well, that was anybody’s guess.
Prologue
PROLOGUE FOUR
*
I WAS NOW one with myself. Doesn’t get much more Zen than that. Well, not quite. For the longest time I had been mind and body; now I was mind and spirit. I’d been given this chance for a reason. There was no sense in a reunion tour if I could not get the entire band back together. Beelzebub sure didn’t do this out of the kindness of his heart. And even he wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to make an offer like this unless someone else had given him the chance to do so. And if all of these grand puppet masters were in play that meant there had to be a way for me to succeed. But how? It wasn’t like there were exit signs pointing the way out. Well, if it worked once it might work again. What the hell else was I going to do?
“TOMMY! YO, TOMMY!” Unlike my previous success, there was none forthcoming from this venture. Was I supposed to just walk around until some other omnipotent being shuffled the deck and threw me a card? Fuck, I hated being a pawn on the universe’s largest playing field. Just for shits and giggles, I tempted fate.
“Deneaux! Hey, you salty old bat! You out there?” If there were ever one without a soul, it was her. Mean broad. Probably lost hers in the womb when she wrapped her own umbilical cord around her twin’s neck to get rid of the competition. Sort of relieved when I got no response, truth be told. I didn’t push my luck again. The personal space cushion I had been granted when I was merely conscience expanded once I was reunited with my soul, as if the others were somehow shunning me for making this rare connection. Not that any of them paid me any mind. I didn’t have a problem with this; it afforded me a better view of where I was, which ultimately meant nothing in this unchanging, bland-ass place. I walked; one part of me was in constant celebration with the fact I was two-thirds whole, and one part of me was in despair that I was only two-thirds whole. For a good long while, I walked with my head hanging down watching my gray feet nearly meld with the gray ground.
A cool touch, a kiss of a breeze rubbed against my cheek. I’m not even going to speculate where it came from, what was the point? What it did, effectively, was make me look up to attempt to figure out who had done it. The next thing I know, I’m looking at a lost soul that could have doubled as a scarecrow. Had to be close to seven feet tall and as thin as a rail. If he had been housed in a body I don’t think he could have weighed more than a hundred pounds. Tufts of straw-like hair stuck out at odd angles atop his head. Long, curved, bony fingers were suspended in the air held aloft by equally thin arms. He was reaching for something only he could see. And I was extremely happy to note that it wasn’t me. But why was he of such importance? He paid me about as much heed as anyone else in this place.
My mind was wont to drift up here, just as much as when I was on terra firma, if not more, because there were zero fucking distractions. I’d like to say there was an “aha!” moment, but I’d be lying. I was thinking of Scarecrow Man, then absently wondering if I would run into the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man and right from there I went to wishing I had Dorothy’s ruby red slippers so I could click my heels and go home.
“Naw. No fucking way it’s that easy.” I was actually trying to talk myself out of it. “If it was that easy why wouldn’t everyone just do it?” That thought dimly lit a bulb in my head. A soul couldn’t, because it did not possess the ability to form rational thoughts. Or at least, something along those lines. Souls are all emotion and feelings, but I got the distinct impression that as far as intelligence went, a sea slug would probably outpace it. Mine could not and would never think about what I was about to do. To be honest, that was probably for the best; I had no idea if the body I was going to wish myself back into was even still available. Who knows? I could have been up here for a couple of years. Then my maggoty, decaying, worm-eaten flesh-housing would be some terrible skins to wear. Then what?
Chapter 1
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 1
*
“THERE’S NO PLACE like…nope not going to say it.” I just began to dwell on my past, what I’d lost, what I had gained along the way, the things I still wanted to do, the people I still wanted to see and those I wanted to end up with. I don’t remember having any true consciousness of what was happening other than one moment I was surrounded by muted gray, the next by pitch black darkness and a heavy crushing weight pressing on every square inch of me. Panic was my immediate reaction, unmitigated panic. Petrified even. There was no doubt in my mind
I was underground; now I just had to wonder how far. I wanted to kick with my legs but I didn’t have the ability to do so. My arms were crossed over my chest; I was able to maneuver them so that my hands were near to my face and I started pressing like I was on a weight bench attempting to do some reps—though having a spotter right about now would have been awesome.
I couldn’t quite feel the rocks I was moving but I could hear them, the grind of stone on stone, as I did my best to push them away. The exertion was beginning to take its toll. I was getting hot, sweating profusely, and I didn’t know if anything I’d done in the netherworld was going to be worth it. How much would it suck to cheat death, win my soul back, and then die in the dirt? I cried out as I pushed again. Something shifted; the pressure atop me lessened by a degree or two. A large rock rolled off. The word “cairn” flitted across my head, though I had no idea how big it was or how deep. Had to be better than being six feet under the ground, didn’t it? The more rocks I was successfully able to hear roll off the mound, the easier it got to roll rocks off. Stands to reason, right? It was still happening agonizingly slower than I wanted it to. I’d been trying to slow my breathing down and conserve what I figured was an air pocket. But how the hell do you do that when you are using every bit of energy you possess to free yourself while also as scared as you have ever been in your entire life?
Now obviously, I have more than my fair share of psychoses or neuroses or whatever, but is there a person ever that did not have a fear of being buried alive? Could there be any worse experience as a human who does not have an affinity for moles? I think I cried out in joy when a sliver of light broke through the top of the rocks. At first, it was no larger than a dime slot, I expanded it to coaster sized. I drew a heavy breath in relief, but instead of being able to revel in the sweet victory of attaining fresh new air, I realized just how stale what I’d inhaled was. Was this some sort of cosmic joke on the Devil’s part? Had he been fucking with me the entire time, and even now I was back in purgatory where I would experience being buried for all eternity? How does one handle an unending panic attack?