by J. Thorn
An image of the alpha male snapped into his head. Jack closed his eyes and saw the feral, yellow eyes coming at him. He remembered the teeth, bared and hungry, ready to tear at his flesh.
Jack shook his head and dispelled the memory. He surveyed the cabin. A rickety table stood in one corner, the old-fashioned type meant for writing with a quill and inkwell. The wood appeared grey in the darkened room, and Jack would have been surprised if it appeared any differently in the full daylight. A wooden chair with a three-rung back sat tucked beneath the tabletop. A rudimentary bunk filled the opposite corner. Two rough-hewn legs extended to the floor at each corner, while the long side was tied into the wall. A thin, lumpy pad covered the top of the bunk, which did not hold a pillow or blanket. Like the desk, webs crisscrossed the bunk. The only other item in the room hung from a single nail protruding from the crown molding.
Jack stood in the middle of the room until Samuel stepped inside as well. Samuel looked around as if it were a familiar den where hours could be spent reading books and sipping coffee. He pointed to the wall where an item hung from a thin wire.
At first, Jack thought it was a mirror. Ages of dust covered the surface, hiding the item’s true identity. An ornate, carved frame encapsulated the piece, seemingly out of place with the other basic furniture inside the cabin. Jack approached and wiped the length of the frame several times until he stood in front of a portrait.
Jack could make out the profile of a woman and a child. He walked to the desk and pulled the chair out from underneath it. The interior was covered in dust accumulated over decades. Jack stood on the chair to get a better look at the portrait hanging on the wall. He reached up and lifted the frame from the nail in the wall, stepped down and stared at it. Something flickered deep within the recesses of his mind. Something stirred, something familiar, yet just beyond his reach. Jack walked toward the lone window, and the ambient glow of the anemic sun filtered through the grime. He used his right hand to dispel more of the age covering the portrait until his eyes met those in the photograph—the eyes he knew almost as well as he knew his own.
“Gran and me,” he said.
“It’s a nice photograph, but it’s not real. This is the type of reflection I’ve found.”
Jack caressed the photograph. He remembered the day it was taken. He was outside with a garden hose, spraying his friends and laughing in the stifling heat of a July afternoon. He came into the house sopping wet, and his mother had thrown a fit, grabbing a towel and covering his head as if he were on fire. Gran waddled into the kitchen and waved her hand as if to say, Boys will be boys. Jack’s mom cursed under her breath as his sister appeared with her Polaroid. Gran pulled Jack to her side, next to the sink and they both posed while Jack’s sister captured the moment.
“This was a Polaroid, and I don’t remember the last time I saw it. I couldn’t even tell you where it is.”
Samuel nodded. “It’s what this place does.” He shut the door, leaving the cabin in heavy shadows.
“You said we’d have time to talk,” Jack said. He pulled the chair from beneath the desk and sat down without offering it to Samuel first.
Samuel took a seat on the bed, folding his hands in his lap and looking up at Jack.
“I’m still not really sure what’s happened to me. But I’ll tell you as much as I can remember. As much as I know for certain.”
Jack waited.
“The first few hours were brutal. I wandered through that forest and couldn’t help but think of all of the people who had dropped from the trees, their decaying remains falling through the nooses. I remember thinking how strange it was that the bodies were gone but the artifacts were not. That was my first indication something here was different. I didn’t remember how I got there. That revelation came to me later.”
“Forest,” Jack said. “I remember a forest too, but . . .” He trailed off, waving a hand toward the endless desert on the other side of the wall.
“It doesn’t all come back at once. And some of it never does.”
Jack nodded, accepting the explanation of the gaps in his memory as the only one he would get.
“I met a few people during the journey, some of better moral character than others. Two died in that locality, and the other gave her life for me. The man, Major, he had a sidekick named Kole. They had other plans, but Mara was different. There was a sadness about her I came to realize belonged to me, as well.
“When I started out, the pack came. I can’t quite understand why they decide to attack and why they retreat. But then again, there’s a lot about this place you’ll never understand. I mean, the reversion itself is hard to wrap your head around.”
“You’ve run into the pack before?”
“I have. I’ll get to the alpha male and the others later.”
“Okay,” Jack said.
“It starts in the west and oozes toward the east. It was a storm cloud roiling in the sky, and you could almost feel it breathe. The pack and some of their other friends, kept us moving toward the end game, where the reversion would finally eat the entire world. On my way to the Barren, I came across reflections, items or visualizations, from my life that would show up and then disappear again, just like the picture you have in your hands right now. My old pocketknife, Scout, appeared. Not sure if that’s a reflection or not.”
Jack’s face slid into a twisted tangle of worry and confusion. “But how did you get here? How did we get here?”
“That’s a more complicated question,” Samuel said. “I have an idea, but I can’t say if mine is closer to the truth than any other. I’ve been in another locality at least one other time, but it’s quite possible I’ve been in them many times. I’m stuck. No, that’s a poor way to describe it. I haven’t fulfilled my duty, and I’m afraid until I do, this is my existence.”
Jack bit his bottom lip. “Are we in New Mexico? Arizona? Saudi Arabia?”
Samuel laughed, forcing a furrowed brow from Jack. “Nothing like that, I think. We’re in a place that’s much like our own and yet nothing like it.”
Jack stood and placed the photograph of his dead grandmother back on the wall. He walked toward the door and placed a hand on the knob. “I’m leaving.”
Samuel sat on the bed, staring at Jack.
“I don’t know what kind of bullshit you’re pulling on me, or what you slipped into my coffee, but I’m out. Fuck you and this crazy fucking reversion. I’m going home.” Jack yanked the door open and swung a foot over the threshold until his brain processed what his eyes witnessed. He yelped and pulled his foot back, one hand still grasping the doorknob.
“What is it?” Samuel asked, rising from the bed and taking a step toward the open door.
“This is impossible. There’s no way this is happening,” Jack said.
Samuel reached out and turned Jack’s shoulder so he could step toward the door. The scene spreading out in front of Samuel made him stagger backward as it stole the breath from his lungs.
Chapter 3
“Move.” Samuel pushed Jack to the side and filled the doorway. He gazed out at the landscape while still struggling to catch his breath.
The desert and its lonely sentinels, the sand dunes, stood guard. Pools of flame torched the sands, the fire curling upward. The sky remained black but for the blaze, which resonated with a deep amber glow. Samuel looked to the west, where the unmistakable cloud curled in on itself. He watched it tumble above, moving soundlessly over the landscape and swallowing everything in its path.
“It’s on again,” he said to Jack without turning to look at the young man.
“What are we going to do?” Jack asked.
Samuel reached down and felt the triskele on his chest. He could not tell if the burning sensation was real or not. He had no way of knowing if the talisman was now coming to life, signaling that he needed to as well.
“Come here,” Samuel said. “Scan the desert and tell me what you see.”
Jack squinted and placed a hand ov
er his forehead. He saw pools of fire licking the sands. He identified what appeared to be a massive storm cloud coming over the western horizon, and he heard not a sound. “What am I supposed to see?” he asked.
Samuel sighed and rubbed his forehead. He almost wished the horde had returned instead of this.
“What’s that?” Jack asked, pointing overhead.
It started as pinpoints of light against the black sky. Samuel thought they resembled stars, but that quickly changed. The light grew into droplets of fire that rained down upon the desert with impunity. The rain of fire doused the sand with flame, and each drop ignited another pool.
Samuel stepped backward and shut the door. The light from the desert fires danced behind the greasy windowpane in the wall as they sat down, Jack on the bunk and Samuel on the chair.
“Did you bring a fireproof umbrella?” Samuel asked with a smirk.
“Guess we’re stuck here,” Jack said.
“Maybe,” Samuel said. “The undead tried pinning us down in my last locality. Seems as though the reversion was not satisfied with that outcome.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Samuel sighed, wondering how much time they had before the fire ignited the cabin. If the reversion wanted them to stay, he surmised the cabin would hold them prisoner until the cloud pushed through the desert.
“Do you have any idea why you’re here? Do you remember anything before waking up in the suicide forest?”
Jack shrugged with the pain of ignorance on his face.
“Did you ever play a musical instrument? Like a violin or a guitar?”
Jack furrowed his brow and thought about the question. So much of himself remained as nebulous as the world outside the cabin. “I think so.”
“Good enough,” Samuel said. “Do you know how sound is created on a stringed instrument?”
Jack shifted again as the stiff base of the bunk dug into his backside. “What does this have to do with anything?”
Samuel shook his head. He swatted at the air in front of his face and fell back into the chair. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “Tell me.”
Samuel took a deep breath and continued. “When you pluck a string on a guitar, the vibration creates the sound. The string vibrates quickly, and the sound is not constant. The note is really an infinite series of oscillating sounds.”
Jack shrugged.
“Let me tell you a parable of the blind wise men and the lion. The blind men are hunting the lion, following its trail. Hearing it run past, they chase after it and grab its tail. Hanging on to the lion’s tail, they feel the one-dimensional form and proclaim, ‘It’s a one. It’s a one.’ But then one blind man climbs up the tail and grabs onto the ear of the lion. Feeling a two-dimensional surface, this blind man proclaims, ‘No, it’s really a two.’ Then another blind man is able to grab onto the leg of the lion. Sensing a three-dimensional solid, he shouts, ‘No, you’re both wrong. It’s really a three.’ They are all right.”
Jack held both hands up. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“Just as the tail, ear and leg are different parts of the same lion, this place and the one you’re beginning to remember are different parts of the same world.”
Jack looked at the floor of the cabin. He turned to face the framed photograph and then the lonely window on the other wall. “So how do I get back to the tail, or the ear, or the leg, or whatever the hell part of the world is mine?”
“I don’t know,” Samuel said.
“Why not?”
“Imagine walking on a vast beach, near the ocean. You scoop up a handful of sand. You sift the sand until a single grain sits in your palm. A strong gust sweeps off of the water and knocks that single grain of sand out of your hand. Could you bend down and pick it up off the beach? Would you know which grain was yours?”
“Are you trying to say there are millions of localities that are part of the same existence?”
Samuel shrugged. “Maybe billions. Maybe there are an infinite number of localities. Maybe there are billions or an infinite number of existences. I really don’t know.”
“That’s really hopeless,” Jack said.
“Depends. If your locality was a healthy, vibrant place, it might feel hopeless to leave it. On the other hand, if all that you knew was slowly dying, unwinding, coming apart, it might feel like getting into the lifeboat before the ship sinks.”
“There has to be a way out,” Jack said. “We can’t exist just to sit here and wait to die.”
“I don’t know if it’s waiting to die or waiting to be born. Either way, you’re right. There is another possibility.”
“What is it?” Jack asked, moving to the edge of the bunk and ignoring the flames burning the sands outside.
“Slip. We could slip.”
Jack sat, shifting on the bed and staring at the ground. “And that means?” he asked.
“Think back to the grains of sands on a beach. In this world, there are ways to transport yourself from one grain of sand to another. You can leave one world and end up somewhere else.”
Jack smirked and shook his head. “You mean like a time machine?”
“Time is relative, isn’t it? Maybe it was Einstein who said time and space is the same thing. I don’t remember. What I do know is that changing time and changing location might not be all that different.”
Jack nodded, the name “Einstein” ringing with a familiarity just beyond his reach. “Okay,” he said. “Then where’s the time machine. Let’s slip the hell out of the burning desert.”
“Well, it’s not that easy.”
“No. No, it couldn’t be.”
Samuel smiled as he felt the young man’s personality opening up. He had a wicked grin and soft sarcasm that made his mannerisms magnetic. He waited, unsure how much Jack could process so soon after his arrival in this place.
“You need a physical object to slip. A talisman.”
“Do you have one?” Jack asked.
Samuel’s hand moved toward the triskele underneath his shirt before dropping back to his lap. He shifted on the chair and looked at the window. “I do.”
“Then let’s go, man. Get us the hell out.”
Samuel smirked again. He might be able to trust Jack someday. “Remember the grains of sand on a beach?”
Jack nodded.
“When you slip, you’re at the mercy of the wind. We’d have no control over where we go, where we end up, or what shithole of a locality we land in.”
“Can we both ride on your ticket?”
“I think so,” Samuel said. “Pretty sure it’s a two-for–one special on Reversion Airlines.”
***
“I’m more concerned about the boy than I am the man.”
“Agreed,” Deva said. “He is youthful, rash.”
“Could he persuade Samuel to slip? We would lose him forever.”
“Forever isn’t as long as you think it might be, Shallna.”
Deva poured a dark liquid from the decanter into his chalice. He drew the cup to his mouth and sipped, leaving speckled droplets on his white beard that arrived along with the most recent reversion. The stone pillars extended into the darkness overhead as if they somehow kept the mountain from crashing down. Shallna took a seat across from Deva at the table, letting silence fill the subterranean hall.
“Does it matter whether the reversion delivers Samuel or whether he arrives at the peak of his own accord?”
Deva nodded and then drew another drink from his chalice. “Yes,” he said. “It does matter. The reversion would drop him upon us, exhausted and not willing to challenge his ahimsa. That is what we want. Should he be determined enough to make it to the peak under his own powers, he may believe he still has a choice in the matter. I am tired, Shallna. I need the transformation to occur without undue complications. I want Samuel tired and worn.”
“You sound uncertain, my lord.”
&nb
sp; Deva slammed a meaty fist on the stone table, knocking liquid from his cup. “Of course I am. Don’t be a fool, Shallna. He has the proven ability to slip, and that in itself breeds uncertainty.”
“Can you send more resistance? The horde, perhaps?”
“Ah, the horde,” Deva said. A long, slow smile spread across his face. “How I wish I could reanimate that undead army to add to the lake of fire dropping from the sky.”
“Lake of fire?”
“Yes, Shallna. The men are imprisoned inside the cabin underneath a lake of fire. The pack awaits further command and would willingly chase them to the ends of the world. But the horde, I believe, have served their purpose and could not be brought to this locality.”
Shallna nodded and waited for Deva’s next move.
“Summon more libations, Shallna. We will need to wait and see what it will take to trap them and let the reversion do what it must.”
Shallna stood and bowed before scuttling off into the dark recesses of the cavern.
***
The men sat in silence for hours. Jack contemplated their conversation while Samuel stared through the hazy window at the firestorm raging beyond the cabin. He knew the fire would not ignite the wood, yet he took no comfort in the knowledge. Samuel could not see the reversion from the window, but he felt it creeping closer, as it had done before. The pace had quickened, and he knew he would need to make a decision soon. Samuel laughed to himself, drawing an odd stare from Jack. He thought of his escape attempt over the undead horde, and how he wished they were his adversary now. Fire felt more threatening to Samuel, and he doubted his ability to outrun it the way he had the horde.
“Are things coming back?”
Jack looked at the ceiling and then to Samuel before answering. “Some. But most of it is stuff I recognize but can’t quite place. It’s like being at a party and knowing the faces but not remembering any of the names.”
Samuel nodded, knowing exactly what Jack meant. “Do you recall anything from your previous life? People, situations?”
“Besides Gran?” Jack asked. “Not really. I can’t even picture my mother’s face, and all I have of Gran is her broken body on a deathbed.”