by J B Murray
When he pulls the door open and steps into the kitchen, he finds the same. Again, the room before him is identical to the one he left behind. The kitchen is barren, windows smashed, some of the walls crumbling in on themselves. But now two things stand out. The first is the fading colors. The second, the missing snow. He looks out the shattered panes which should allow him a view of the backyard. But all he sees is darkness. It’s such a contrast to earlier where everything drowned in white. As his eyes adjust however, he realizes the landscape isn’t black at all. His eyes just needed time to catch up. Seized by wonderment at what lies beyond the windows, he squints. It looks like… a wall?
The brick beyond the sills are dark; damp almost with a charcoal fungus covering the stone. He reaches through and across the inches separating the buildings. Runs his fingers along the obstruction. The black mold crumbles beneath his fingers, falls in flakes below. Beneath, dark red bricks. Where the hell is he?
With haste he turns from the kitchen and bolts into the living room. The fireplace sits to his left, a few embers glowing within. At the mouth of the fireplace, the remaining pieces of railing and banister lie in the small heap he’d left behind. This carbon copy world both fascinates and frightens him.
Nothing left to do really, other than stay put or move onward, he starts for the front door. It opens, revealing the front porch and a jarring sight. The front yard and the woods beyond, are gone. Before him, lies a long, widened drive. Looking down it, he can see a sparse glow at its mouth. He steps from the porch, down the front stairs and onto the pavement. Turns on heels, shaking his head. The old farmhouse, which had been sitting in an immense landscape of woods now rests between two taller, larger buildings. The one to the left made of the same brick he’d scraped with his fingers in the kitchen. To the right, one made of old stone, rises far beyond what the eye can comprehend, almost castle-like. There’s barely an inch between the buildings. He stumbles backward, taking in the immensity of the buildings surrounding the farmhouse, and shouldering the weight of the discovery. His mind struggles to process it all. The accident. The trek through the snow to the farmhouse and the strange apparition it held. The other-worldly sense that everything is amiss. And now, this transformation of his surroundings. Either he’s lost his mind or it’s much worse. Then it dawns on him. He must be dead.
Annalise is the first behind Jakob as he exits the room. Garrison follows, with Brent close behind. Feeling the need to be protective, Garrison makes his little brother take his hand as he lets Jakob lead them to someplace else. Brent doesn’t fuss about it. He likes holding his big brother’s hand.
They turn left out of the room, heading back down the staircase. All startle, minus Jakob, as the crowd bursts into fits. It seems this crazy place crowned another victor. Sure enough, soon after, everything grows silent as they pay their respects and wait impatiently for the next combatants.
“So what is it you do here?” Garrison thinks to ask. “Do you… I don’t know… run this place?” Jakob stops a tick, giving the question pause before moving on.
“In a manner. You could view it as such. What you saw in the Arena has been going on longer than there’ve been hands on a clock. Time was not even sands in an hourglass when all this started. But since its injunction, there have been a handful of chosen few tasked to warden the Arena and all it encompasses.”
“Huh?”
“From time to time there are certain souls who try to escape the Beyond. Try to slither their way out of its grasp, forgoing the tournament and hunting a host they can inhabit. It’s my job to see this doesn’t happen. Not only that it doesn’t happen, but also enforce punishment on those trying to escape.”
“How did you get the job?”
“Circumstance. It’s a long story. One wrought with demons and a possessed little girl. One I’ve tried to push from my mind so very often. A story I’d rather not relive.” Jakob’s gait slows as he speaks the words, but before he comes to a halt, his pace quickens. “Also, there are more pressing matters at hand.”
“Very true,” Brent says, the voice coming from him that of a man.
In that moment Garrison feels a tug, his arm yanked back. His little brother’s hand slips from his. Pushed, he tumbles to the ground, causing enough commotion for Annalise and Jakob to stop and turn. Garrison sees very little, only the arms that reach from the darkened doorway, scooping up his brother before disappearing again. In a flash Garrison is on his feet, bolting through the doorway. The other side holds a long and darkened hallway. He stops. Listens. Expects to hear footsteps carrying off into the dark, but is greeted with silence instead.
Jakob is soon at his side. He peers down the hallway, closing his one eye and furrows his brow above the other, staring though the dark glass of the monocle. His teeth grind in his mouth as his lips purse in disgust.
“Damn it all,” he says.
“What just happened?” Annalise asks, still unsure.
“Someone took Brent!” Garrison tells her.
“What?”
“Stop,” Jakob insists as Garrison starts down the hall. His hand finds the boy’s shoulder to give him pause.
“But-”
“No. He’s gone for now. You’ll never find him down there.”
“I have to try.”
“You don’t understand. You cannot go down that way. There’s no coming back if you do.”
It’s the only explanation that makes sense. He must be dead. Reynolds can’t seem to grasp anything more rational. It might explain his repeated experience in the farmhouse. The storm which never ended. The anomaly he walked through. This mirror image world he now seems to be in. Only, just the farmhouse is a mirror. The rest of the landscape, foreign. What else could it be, if not death? A dream? Is he still in his car, having never escaped the accident? Unconscious and freezing while his mind runs rampant with these imaginings?
Reynolds takes a second to gain his bearings, though doing so seems impossible. In fact, there’s only one direction he can go. Forward. He turns and looks at the farmhouse one last time before heading down the wide drive leading away from the house. He doesn’t notice the narrowing of the drive until much later. His focus forward blinds him from seeing the landscape on either side change. The buildings surrounding him as he leaves the farmhouse gradually fade, as if lost in a dark fog before reemerging as a wall on either side. A sense of confinement takes hold. The walls close in, the path narrowing. He cranes his neck up, stops in his tracks. When had that ceiling appeared? He turns on heel, walking backward, squinting to see back the way he came. But the that route transcends into a perpetual darkness, is now lost. Reynolds swallows hard. Squints his eyes to see better. Is the dark moving? Something further along the path? It’s difficult to surmise, but he’d swear the shadows beyond were undulating. Cautious steps take him further along the hallway as he keeps his eyes down the way he’s just traversed. No, it’s just a trick of eyes. Nothing moves there. But the darkness is closing in. Making its way toward him. It creeps slowly, as if not wanting to startle its prey.
With his heart quickening, Reynolds turns back and hastens his steps forward, trying to outrun the threatening dark. A noise from just ahead catches his attention. He slows to get a better look, but the dark is just as impenetrable as behind. A scuffling of feet, hastened and off kilter reach his ears while his eyes struggle to make out what approaches. It sounds of someone dragging something or carrying something heavy. He hopes, at least, that is a someone.
“Hello?” He calls out into the dark. Though dark isn’t right. He can’t see further than ten feet ahead of him, as there’s no substantiated illumination to the tunnel. “Hello?” He calls again as his feet take one slow step at a time.
He rounds a bend in the tunnel; hears someone trying a handle in the dark just ahead. A handle that appears locked, giving the amount of times the stranger keeps jiggling it. The sound is loud. The dark might swallow the light, but it does little to dampen the sound ahead; a door handle be
ing forced and some heavy breathing.
“Hello?” He repeats into the dark, strained with impatience. He’s close enough that the person ahead can hear him.
The only return, the sound of the handle. A new sound emerges, giving Reynolds a moment’s pause, as there’s a sudden pop. A door being opened. His feet quicken as he paces the distance between him and this stranger. He arrives in just enough time, though wonders if for the moment, he’s not seeing things. The figure at the door, steps through with a hurried pace, a child tucked beneath one arm. He starts to call out, but the door slams shut, and soon Reynolds is alone again in the dark. He tries the handle himself, but it won’t budge. Won’t even turn.
“Hello?” He pounds on the door, hoping to gain entry or at least receive a reply. His fists pumps against the door several more times before he gives up hope.
Something about seeing the man, or at least, the shadow of a man and the child doesn’t sit right with Reynolds. The instinctual nature of his mind pushes for him to find entry one way or another. He knows the child is endangered. But the confusion of where he is tugs at him as well. He stands at the door for some time, looking at it and then down the hall. Finally, the latter wins out. He needs to know where he is before he can do anything.
He turns from the door and continues, running his fingers along one side of the wall. It doesn’t take long before coming upon another door. This one similar to the last. Across the hall from it, another. He tries both handles but neither turn. Not another ten feet down the hall there are two more. And two after that. A series of them continue along the hallway on either side. He zigzags frantically from one to the other, trying each handle in turn. Finding them all stuck. His breathing grows heavy as the exertion combines with a new sense of nervousness. He goes from one door to the next. Pounds on a few as if someone on the other side might open it. Then moves on.
His hand finds one, and he’s pulling away to the next before he realizes this one turned. He pauses at the next, gives it a little time to sink in before backtracking. His palms are sweating now as his heart races. He takes just a moment to steady himself before reaching for the handle a second time. He turns it. Slowly. It moves. He hears the catch release and the door slips from its frame just a touch.
Voices from his right distract him. Voices? Yes! There are several. He turns his head in their direction, trying to decipher their conversation, letting go the handle. From this distance all he discerns are mumbles. But his heart leaps at the confirmation there are people about. Without giving it any thought he turns back down the hallway at a good jog. The door he leaves behind inches open a little more, as he races toward the voices.
“I have to go!” Garrison insists.
“Just wait. Wait a moment. Allow me to gather my thoughts.”
“We don’t have-”
“Wait!” Jakob yells. His voice booms; takes on an inhuman growl that startles Annalise and Garrison. Silence consumes them all. Garrison can’t help think something else might live inside Jakob, much like the character that possesses Brent occasionally. “Please,” Jakob softens. “Please just give me a moment. I must sort through this all.”
“Sort through what?”
Across the hall, a set of stairs lead up and disappear around a corner. Jakob walks over to the staircase. Taps his cane on the bottom stair before turning and taking a seat. Annalise can’t help think the man’s aged in the last few moments. Earlier he looked bright, proud, his skin carrying a healthy glow. Now though, now he looks dry, cracking, face sunken and tired. Rims of black have grown beneath his eyes, as if he’s not slept in centuries.
“I know the way you’re looking at me,” Jakob says, his head bowed. “The change.”
“I… I…” Annalise stutters.
“No, it’s all right. It’s true, what you see. And it’s a direct effect of this situation we find ourselves in.”
“What is it then?” Garrison insists.
“We have a feind in our midsts. Someone who has broken the Veil. With intent! Someone who intends to leave the Beyond. And I believe he intends to do so by hijacking your little brother.”
“Then we must go after him!”
“Yes, we must. I agree. Only, this would go much better if I could put the pieces together. I’m sorry young man. I grow tired. It is part of the Veil being compromised. I gain my strength from it. I just need a moment to collect myself.”
“What happens if we don’t catch him?”
“To your brother, or to me?”
“Both!”
“Your brother will live. Though I cannot vouch for the soul that will inhabit him. He will, by all means, no longer be the person you knew. I, on the other hand... I will wither and fade away. Then someone new will take my place.”
“You almost sound as if you want it?” Annalise says.
“I’ve been here a long time child. I’ve not had rest in more decades than I care to count. Somehow an eternal rest seems alluring.”
“But… but we won’t be able to get back without your help. Will we?”
“No. No I don’t surmise how you’d manage.”
“Then you can’t quit on us now. We need your help.” Jakob looks up at Annalise. Her eyes verge on the brink of watering, the desperation clear. He turns to Garrison and sees not desperation so much, but a resolve within. This boy intends to do what he has to regardless of his help. Something in the boy’s gaze hardens Jakob a little more. He nods. “Please,” Annalise asks.
“Very well.”
Jakob stands and moves in front of the doorway leading into the hall. He stretches his neck and adjusts his monocle. His eyes pierce the darkness, trying to see further in, guessing at which way the child thief would have gone.
“Now do as I say,” Jakob tells them. “Stay to the center of the hall. Away from the doors. And open none of them. The consequences could be catastrophic.”
“How so?” Garrison asks.
“Open the wrong door and you won’t have to concern yourself about your little brother any more. Though your friend and I will have to consider the best way to sweep what remains of you from the floor.”
“Oh.”
Jakob takes a step through the door and into the dark. Garrison and Annalise follow when Jakob comes barreling out of it backwards. He tumbles to the ground in a heap, someone atop him. The last thing any of them expected, especially Jakob, would be a man running headlong toward the door.
Reynolds hadn’t actually seen the man standing there. He’d turned just for a moment as he thought he heard something behind him. When he turned back, the man was there. Reynolds had no time to stop his feet. He ran headlong into the guy and the two topple out of the hall and into relative light.
It takes a moment for both to untangle. Jakob gives a shove to Reynolds, disgusted that he’s lying on the ground, and reeling with the shock of the impact. Reynolds rolls to his back, gazing up at Annalise and Garrison, who look down with inquisitive stares. Jakob makes a fuss while he pulls himself to his feet, brushing off his clothes in a huff. With a sigh, Reynolds smiles at everyone.
“Thank God. I wasn’t sure you’d be real.”
“Of course we’re real. Why wouldn’t we be.”
“I don’t know. After everything that’s-”
“My god man, do you not look where you’re going?”
“Yeah,” Reynolds starts as he sits up. He scratches the back of his head. “Sorry about that.”
“Someone could have been hurt.”
“But could you, really?” Garrison questions. “I mean, if we’re just souls-”
“Yes, yes. I see your point. And in turn I offer the Arena. Of course, one can get hurt. Relatively speaking.”
“Again, my apologies. It’s just, I lost the other one through one of the doors. Didn’t want to miss you guys. I heard you talking and-”
“You saw someone in there?” Jakob asks, his eyes widening.
“Yeah. Well… at least, I thought I did.”
; “And they went through a door?”
“That’s the way it looked.”
“Can you describe the person?”
“No. In fact I can’t even be certain it was a person. They looked more of a shadow.”
“Still, what did they look like?”
“It looked like a man, mostly.”
“Just a man?”
“Well, weird thing is, I would have sworn he was carrying a child. Under his arm.”
“That’s him!” Garrison bursts.
“Most likely,” Jakob offers.
“That’s who, exactly?”
“It doesn’t concern you,” Jakob says flatly. “This matter is-” Jakob stands erect, his eyes squinting at Reynolds, who’s now pulling himself to his feet. “Another one.”
“Huh?”
“Halfling.”
“Like us?” Annalise pipes in.
“Not like you. Like the child.”
“My brother?”
“Yes. The Veil is in worse shape than first expected. We must move swiftly.”
“What did you just call me?”
“A Halfling.”
“What is a-”
“We’ve no time to discuss this,” Jakob insists, turning his back.
“Wait! What is this place?” Jakob moves forward never offering an answer. Reynolds looks to the two kids who shrug. He senses somethings amiss. Both the young boy and girl look strained. Worried. “Well then… where are you going?” There’s no way Reynolds is just gong to let this bunch head off without him. Not with all the confusion running rampant in his mind. Not now, that he found an actual somebody here in this strange place.