Stirring Embers: An urban fantasy action adventure (The Light and the Void Book 1)

by Willem Killian

  Eleanor couldn't believe her eyes. She didn't want to. This was infinitely worse than her darkest nightmare. Nightmares ended. You knew they were nightmares. You woke up from them. It seemed that there was no running from this thing. Eleanor wanted to scream a warning, pull Charlene away from the thing, shield her, push her out of her seat and urge her to run.

  But what would be the point? The thing was obviously bigger, stronger and no doubt faster than them. And where could they hope to hide? A train didn't offer any safe rooms from monsters.

  Charlene’s head turned back, looking at Eleanor with a worried expression.

  Eleanor forced her eyes away from the thing and looked her friend in the eye. She tried smiling, but the smile broke apart when it was half-way formed.

  “What's wrong?” Charlene asked again, about to turn her head for a second look, when Eleanor stopped her by grabbing her arm.

  “Nothing,” Eleanor shook her head.

  She was trying her best to get rid of the murderous images her mind kept spewing forth. And then her rational brain kicked in. If the thing wanted to kill her, it would have already. It had ample opportunity before now. If it had wanted her to disappear, it could have grabbed her somewhere in the park. She had walked for more than three quarters of an hour and at some stage, she had to have been alone.

  So, she deliberated with herself, if it wanted me dead, it would have killed me by now. And if it wants to kill me now, it would have to do it in a train car that was forty percent full. She somehow didn't think a train massacre was about to ensue. For now, she thought, we are safe.

  The situation was totally out of her control, so all she could do was go with the flow and see where it led.

  “I,” she stammered. “I thought I saw something.”

  “Something? What?” Charlene asked. “You look like you saw a ghost,”

  “Nothing. I'm just imagining things. I thought I saw,”

  Saw what? Her brain screamed. She took a few seconds. Her brain scrambled, unable to think. Her eyes inadvertently stealing quick, frightened glances at the thing as it stood still, looking at her, flexing its muscles. Its claws protracting and then retracting.

  “Nothing,” Eleanor ended lamely. “Too much stress lately. Not enough sleep. Bad dreams. I guess it's making me see things.”

  Charlene shook her auburn hair. Even though her eyes were in shadow thanks to the cap she wore, Eleanor could see the worry there. She was a good kid.

  “It can't be nothing,” Charlene persisted. “You're terrified. Look at you,” She indicated Eleanor's hands. “You're shaking.”

  Eleanor looked at her palsied hands. She hadn't realized they were shaking so badly. Her entire body seemed to be in shock. What to do? What to do?

  Seeing that she wasn't going to get an answer, Charlene started rummaging in her backpack. She brought forth a toiletry bag.

  “I sometimes suffer from a bit of anxiety. The doctor prescribed these,” She held out two pills to Eleanor. “They always have a calming effect on me.”

  “Oh, no,” Eleanor stuttered. “I can't. It's okay.” She shook her head again.

  The thing was still just standing there, blinking at her. Its huge shoulders rising and falling as it inhaled and exhaled. If I was closer to it, I would be able to smell its breath, Eleanor shuddered. She knew it would be a noxious smell, something belonging to a carrion eater.

  “Please,” Charlene insisted. “It's summer. I'm with you and Rosewater. Summers are good, so I won't be needing them. Besides,” She smiled kindly. “I have enough to last me a month and I have a script for refills. Why not share the happy pills?”

  Eleanor managed a smile and looked at the young woman with admiration. Despite her past, she still managed to care about people. “It's okay,” she said, trying to placate her friend.

  “It'll help,” Charlene said, placing the pills in Eleanor's hand. “I have some water here somewhere,” she said, rummaging around until she found a bottle of water in her backpack.

  “I still have to drive,” Eleanor resisted.

  What if I pass out? What if these pills make me so dizzy I can't even sit upright? Then we'd be even easier pickings. Would it matter? The thing would be able to tear me to pieces, even if I was Dwayne Johnson.

  “Don't worry, gran,” Charlene teased. “These have the opposite effect. They're happy pills, not sleeping pills. They make you feel better and somehow make me more aware of the world around me. They don't make you sleepy,”

  “I don't like taking pills,” Eleanor whispered, leaning closer to Charlene.

  “You'll love these,” Charl smiled, indicating that Eleanor should put the pills in her mouth. “There are a bunch of side effects like liver failure from prolonged use, but you're only going to take them once. It'll help, I promise,” Charlene said.

  Eleanor relented and swallowed the pills. The thing still hadn't moved. It was just standing there. Watching her.

  Was this a mistake? Eleanor thought as the pills traveled down her gut. She hoped that Charlene was right. Perhaps she needed something to take the edge off. She didn't think pills would do the trick though. Nothing short of a gatling gun and perhaps a hypersonic missile or two to back her would ease her mind.

  At some point the door had closed behind the thing, without Eleanor having realized it. It slid open now and the thing hissed, trying to move out of the way. The man behind it, a young guy in his mid-twenties, took a step back and looked at the door weirdly, thinking the sound had come from it. He was about to take a step into the carriage proper and his foot stopped midway in the air.

  He frowned anew, changed his angle, and almost slid sideways along the corridor. He couldn't see the thing, but he sensed it was there. And he had heard it, or so Eleanor thought.

  Eleanor was elated. She wasn't the only one that could sense it. She was perhaps the only one to see it, but other people sensed its presence somehow. She remembered the same phenomenon at street level when she had first seen the thing. People had walked around it, as if on some primitive level they knew it was there.

  This gave her hope.

  Perhaps she wasn't headed for a padded room just yet.

  Charlene was glad that Eleanor had taken the pills. She looked as if she had had some kind of panic attack a few minutes ago. Charl had seen and experienced her own panic attacks before and this hadn't quite looked like one. For one, Eleanor was already more relaxed, despite having the pale skin color, shaking hands and darting eyes. If she hadn't known better, Charlene would have thought that her friend had seen a ghost.

  When it happened, Eleanor's face had suddenly changed into a death mask of sheer terror. It looked as if she had seen something terrible.

  Charlene's first thought had been suicide bomber. Although her brain told her to duck and perhaps roll to the floor if there was time, instinct made her spin around to look. She was ready to take flight or fight, adrenaline spiking through her, her muscles tense and ready for anything. Eleanor had tried to stop her from turning around, but there had been a split-second gap, which had been enough for her to see...

  Nothing.

  There had been absolutely nothing there. No sign of danger.

  Now that Eleanor was calmer, Charl surreptitiously risked a glance over her shoulder towards the place where Eleanor had been staring. There was still nothing there, except for the guy who had just entered the coach. Early twenties with glasses, beard, and a beanie on his head, the guy was persisting with the yuccie trend. He was trying too hard and looked more like a hipster to her. Had he been the reason for Eleanor's meltdown? He looked too much like a snowflake to have scared Eleanor. Besides, he had entered well after El had gone schitzo. The hipster/yuccie wannabe walked past where they were sitting, a frown on his face. In his stride, he turned around, looked toward the door from where he had entered, gave a slight shiver, looked nervously away and headed towards the front.

  Charl looked back at Eleanor, who still had a look of subdued terror plastered
on her face. Every now and again, when she thought Charlene wasn't watching, she stole glances towards the door.

  But there was no one there. Everyone was now seated and nothing seemed out of place. What the hell was going on? Even the atmosphere had changed. Where people had been chatting amiably a few minutes ago, a heavy silence had descended, interspersed by muted conversations.

  Something had definitely changed, Charlene thought. She glanced at her fellow passengers. Most were on their phones or busy reading, but a few also looked around from time to time with a bemused or downright confused look on their faces.

  Others sensed the change in the air, too.

  Charlene kept turning every few minutes, trying to see what Eleanor was spying on. She decided she might need a different angle, and so she scooted across and sat down next to Eleanor. She still couldn't see anything out of place. Judging by Eleanor's gaze, she kept looking at an area down the central aisle and at the back of the compartment. There was clearly nothing there, but Eleanor kept glancing that way, towards the door.

  Charlene, interest peaked, looked at the offending spot again. Could it be one of those dead spots she had heard about. Or were they called cold spots? She couldn't remember. It didn't matter. The point was that Eleanor kept stealing glances at something and her own gaze kept being pulled to that same spot. Did Eleanor see a ghost? Could that be it? That would explain why she wouldn't talk about it.

  It would also explain the dude's behavior. He had walked right through the supposed dark spot and seemed shaken by the experience.

  Ever since Charl had been little, she had been fascinated with the supernatural. She made up her mind. She was going to investigate. She made to get up and walk to the area in question when Eleanor pulled her back down.

  “Charlene, don't,” she whispered.

  Now this is interesting, Charlene thought.

  “I just want to go to the bathroom,” she said innocently, trying to gauge the look in her friend's eye.

  Eleanor didn't fall for it. She knew Charlene was curious by nature. It was evident that Charl was about to go in the direction of where the thing was. Did Charlene sense it somehow?

  “Go to the bathroom behind us.” Eleanor said. “Use the front one.” It was meant as a suggestion but sounded more like an order.

  “Why not that one?” Charlene asked as if a petulant tween.

  “I have a bad feeling about that one,” Eleanor offered.

  “A bad feeling about a bathroom?”

  “What?” Eleanor said distracted. She looked back at Charl. “No. Of course not.” She shrugged it off, as if the suggestion was ludicrous. “Not the bathroom. I just,” she paused, gathering her thoughts and feelings and failing miserably.

  The thing was grinning at her again. It casually crossed its massive arms and nodded its head as if waiting for her reply. Can it hear us from three rows over? she wondered. And does it understand us?

  “I uhm,” Eleanor swallowed. It felt as if the pills she had taken a few minutes ago were stuck in her throat. She reached out for the bottle of water and took a sip. “I just have a bad feeling,” she ended lamely. “I can't explain it. I just don't want you or anyone else for that matter, to go to that part of the train.”

  “Are you psychic?” Charlene asked. “I never knew that about you.”

  Eleanor looked at her quickly, looking for hints of sarcasm. Charl didn't show any - she was just trying to lighten the mood. Eleanor smiled in return.

  “I didn't either,” Eleanor licked her lips nervously. “But,” she paused. “I don't think this has anything to do with being psychic. It's just,” she sighed and looked at her younger friend, “a feeling.”

  “Okay,” Charlene said, leaning back in the chair. “As a woman, I've learned to trust my feelings. And I respect you. Not just as a friend, but somehow,” she looked shyly down at her hands and suddenly looked much younger than her seventeen years, “like an adopted big sister always looking out for me.”

  It was difficult putting all her feelings towards Eleanor into words, and this probably wasn't the right time or place, but Charlene felt a strong bond towards her older friend.

  Eleanor had been there with phone calls and even two visits at her home during the last two years when Charlene had desperately needed someone to talk to. She had felt totally alone because her mom was always pulling double shifts as a nurse to bring in extra cash. If it wasn't for Eleanor, she might have run away for good or done something even more stupid. Eleanor wasn't just the coolest person she knew, she was a rock. Her role model. It didn't seem like anything could faze her, which was why her current behavior was so out of character that it felt downright wrong.

  Charlene felt a short stab of guilt because she didn't see her mom as her role model. The woman was a nurse after all; helping people in need, caring for them. She was also a single mom. All single moms deserved hero status, simply for working their butts off to provide for their kids. Especially when her deadbeat father and her mom's second husband had both run away in the space of fifteen years. Both times with just about all their savings. Charlene didn't miss either of them. She had never known her father and Jim had been a verbally and physically abusive piece of shit. They were better off when Jim hit the road a year ago.

  Eleanor had been the one to support her when Jim the Slapper started turning his backhands her way. Charlene had a sneaky suspicion that it was thanks to Eleanor and her connections in the NYPD that Jim had finally decided to call it quits and get out of Dodge. The worst part was that her mom missed the shit head. That was the reason why Charlene couldn't see her mom as her role model. Her mom simply wasn't strong enough. It was sad, but true. Instead, she looked up to Eleanor. The award winning bad-ass psychopath killer who always said it like it was, but with class and finesse. So, it was worrying to see her so rattled.

  “If you have a bad feeling, I respect that.” Charl leaned forward and twisted her body, patting Eleanor's hand. “I'll stay here. Don't stress.” That settled the matter and she leaned back in her chair, getting comfortable once again.

  Yet it was strange seeing her friend like this. Eleanor was always the strong one, convinced in and steadfast in her decisions and convictions. Seeing her this shaken was something new. The more Charlene looked at that spot by the door, the more she became unpleasantly uneasy. Was there something there? Something she couldn't see? When she concentrated on that space, the hairs on the back of her neck stood upright. It was like something was scratching ever so slightly on the surface of her brain; as if something was there, but her eyes couldn't perceive it. Or perhaps they could and her brain just didn't know how to process it.

  But why would Eleanor's brain be able to process it and not hers? That begged the question: was there actually something there, or was she now sharing in Eleanor's paranoia? Was this what the psychologists meant when they spoke about group or mass hysteria? Charlene wasn't sure. It was something she would have to look into. She would usually have asked Eleanor, who was a walking encyclopedia, but the subject matter would be inappropriate in this situation. She also couldn't pull out her phone and Google it sitting next to Eleanor, so that would have to wait.

  The truth of the matter was that Eleanor would not be prone to something like hysteria. She was a woman who believed in unconditional truths and in cold hard facts. Something was desperately wrong here, and Charlene started to feel it herself.

  CHAPTER 13

  The thing moved and Eleanor nearly jumped out of her chair. It had been standing still for so long, that she had become convinced that the thing had gone into a kind of hibernation. Or that it had turned to stone, like a gargoyle. Its eyes blinked much less than humans and it's breathing had also gone shallow and almost imperceptible.

  When it moved, it reminded her of how dangerous this thing was.

  It moved like a predator.

  Swiftly.

  Quietly.

  Deadly.

  Before Eleanor could react, the thing loomed
up behind a passenger who was in the process of standing up. She was an elderly lady, well into her seventies. Despite her age, she was traveling alone and was clearly independent. She was well groomed and obviously took pride in her appearance. Her gray hair was cut in a modern style and she wore clothes that still looked fashionable. The only thing that betrayed her age was her movements. They were slow and calculated, which is why the beast's act was so cruel.

  He playfully nudged the old lady back into her chair.

  Unlike the bike messenger and the pedestrian shoves, this wasn't a violent action, but rather one from a naughty child. It was meant to be cruel. The old lady fell back into her chair with a cry of dismay. Her facial features immediately distorted into a mixture of confusion, indignation, and a hint of fear.

  Eleanor's initial frozen reaction was shattered when she saw the old lady's face. The woman was looking around, trying to figure out what had happened and who had done such a thing. Most of the passengers around her hadn't even noticed what had happened.

  Eleanor moved before she even knew what she was going to do. She crossed the compartment purposefully in a few strides, her attention wholly focused on the pensioner, ignoring the thing looming over the old lady. She was surprised when the thing stood aside and moved into the aisle to the back of the train. She saw it standing there like a statue again. From the corner of her eye, she tried to keep it in her sight, knowing that there was absolutely nothing she would be able to do about it if the thing decided to pounce. She couldn't confront an invisible monster in front of scores of people. Especially not in front of Charlene. She wanted to be a role model and friend to Charlene, not some crazy lady. If she lost her shit in front of Charlene, she would never have her trust again. And so she ignored the thing and focused on the old lady.

  No more than five seconds had passed since the woman fell, before Eleanor kneeled down before her.

  “Are you okay, Ma’am?” she asked.

  The woman offered a grateful look and a nod of the head.