by Lissa Kasey
Not close enough to reveal the light, or anything ominous like wavering in the darkness. Too hard to see it anyway. There was no movement, no shadows, no people. I was alone. Always so fucking alone. I’d dared to hope that with Alex I wouldn’t be. I glanced back and thought I caught a glimpse of the child again. Fuck. Was it playing with me? Leading me on this chase? Why?
If it had Alex, what did it need of me? Perhaps just to show me what it did with him? I didn’t want to see him used as some sort of puppet. Could it control more than one person at a time?
I’d been a puppet before, led around by the strings of other people’s expectations. First by my father, who still tried to pull strings to this day, and then by Tim, now by some unknown member of the group or even a paranormal monster. What the fuck did they all want from me and why couldn’t they do it themselves?
In that moment the rage welled up again, so long had I shoved it down, that it seemed to bubble out of me like lava from a volcano explosion. I spun around, cursing the darkness and the anvil of shadows covering the long stretch of woods. The one light, a good twenty or thirty meters away, did nothing to illuminate all the spaces between the trees.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I growled into the darkness. “You bring him back. He’s mine. You already had him, used him up. I haven’t even finished fixing that, you worthless monster! You want to control someone so bad, take me! Give him back and take me. I’m the useless one, buried in my fucking past full of mistakes and disgrace to my family. I’m the one walking around like I’m already dead and letting everyone pull my strings. Should be easy right? Just do it!”
Alex had been the hero. Fighting and surviving battles for a country that abandoned him when he’d survived. He took care of Lukas and me, and gave everyone an edge of humor and joy that seemed impossible to sustain these days, even when he struggled himself. I remembered him dancing around the cabin, or wrapping his arms around me to deliver kisses, or his tiny smiles during his focused concentration while he sewed. The world had so few left of the pure in heart like Alex was. This monster, cold, heartless demon, whatever the fuck it was, couldn’t have him.
A whoosh of wind staggered me back a few feet and everything dropped into silence. No noise from the woods, the wind, or even my heartbeat, which had been slamming through my ears only moments before, but a vacuum of sound. I blinked and there it was, standing in front of me.
A black-eyed child.
Not the shadowed edges of something like I thought I’d seen in the video, or even a vague outline like that night we’d found Joe in the road. This was solid, almost glowing in the darkness, yet monochrome. I was sure if I reached out, I could have touched it and it would have felt solid. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, only that it was a mix of grays except for the eyes, which were pools of gaping darkness. If the form of a child was supposed to make it feel less threatening, it failed miserably.
It stood only a meter or so away, expression bland, while my skin burned, crawled with that nasty sensation of bugs, and dripped with sweat like I was bleeding. And maybe I was. Bleeding from all my pores sounded like a gruesome way to die, but maybe it would be fast. Faster than dying of loneliness.
I swayed before the child, barely able to hold my feet, body trembling, hand clutching my phone to my chest, though I couldn’t feel it in my grip, just the pressure of my hand closing down hard, an ache of muscle. My lungs wouldn’t move more than a tiny fraction, leaving my air supply low, and vision swirling.
The child stood in absolute stillness like a statue, not looking at me, but into the distance where the single light remained. The wind didn’t rustle their hair and they took no breath that I could tell. All I could focus on was the dark pools of their eyes.
Alex wondered about these things, wanted to give them definition, as though putting them in a labeled box would help ease the terror of them. I had a box for them too, a large one that didn’t erase the fear. Yokai. Demons. Not of this world, but wandering among us.
Every instinct I had told me to run, only I wouldn’t, not this time. For Alex I would stay, let it do what it would, as long as it meant giving him back a normal life. Even if it wasn’t with me.
I gasped at that thought. So far gone for him and not realizing it until that moment. I’d never believed in instant love. Attraction sure, and Alex hit all those buttons, but love? I was a cynical bastard on the best of days. Yet he still made me smile. Even before coffee and when the world kept throwing shit my way. He hugged me and made the world right. It would be okay to be gone if I couldn’t have him. Better that way maybe.
I flashed back to that day on the mountain trail. The noise, the silence walloping me into stillness, the waver in the road, the pain on my skin, and the darkness. Almost like the child’s eyes, so deep, endless, welcoming. That day hadn’t been filled with thoughts of the man I loved. No. I’d been seething with irritation and anger. Planning to recreate my life, start over, reinvent myself because I hated everything I’d become.
For the first time I reflected back and could remember in detail how I felt that day, that deep well of black reflected something inside me like a mirror. Revealing the self-loathing. Anger at my own weaknesses. And an almost suicidal level of depression. All balled up into a glowing mass of throbbing pain inside me. Shoved down, pushed aside, while I tried to move on from all of it, without really acknowledging any of it. How much work had I done, pretending to heal my trauma, only burying it instead? Going through the motions of moving on, I was a fraud.
This was why my skin broiled whenever they were near. Not some sixth sense, but an arising of self-hatred putrefying my soul. They awakened the darkness inside me, things I couldn’t ever run from because they were part of me. A lifetime of failures. Reflected them back at an intensity that made me want to run screaming from myself. Worthless, pointless, useless.
I squeezed my eyes shut like that could somehow block the pain.
Had Alex seen that too? Probably. Nothing about me seemed to surprise him. And maybe he had seen all the flaws, but what had he said? That he loved me anyway?
I recalled the night in the car when we’d found Joe. How his words had cracked something inside me. Opened up some sort of sense of peace. A dream that I wasn’t really alone. He had said, when I look at you, I see Micah. Who teases me, and makes me smile, who dances with me, and is patient when I ask stupid questions about a world I wasn’t part of for a long time. And who creates magical things to cast away the fear and anxiety and build a new future. I’m thrilled that you let me be a part of it. Whatever this future is you’re building.
I was more to him than a sex toy. More than a pretty thing to look at or a way to make money. He didn’t expect me to follow his rules or respect him just for being older. He watched me cry, held me while I bled, and gave me back all the passion I threw his way. He seemed to like that sometimes my brain was a storm of ideas, jumping from one to another, and my silence never bothered him.
Until I rid myself of all this self-loathing, how could I be worthy of him? Was that why it kept taking him?
When I opened my eyes the world around me sparkled with new illumination like I’d taken off sunglasses to reveal the truth, not only about myself but about the entire world. Shadows lessened, and structures and shapes outlined in colored lights. Even the child pulsed with a faint orange radiance. Fire. Hadn’t Alex said it was fire? The djinn of legend were beings of fire.
Energy snapped and fizzed in my free hand. I looked down to find a ball, a glowing hunk of what appeared to be steaming shit. It weighed a ton, and was hard to hold up, yet looked like nothing at first, until the colors became shapes of memories, and swirling feelings, all those unwanted terrors, self-hatred, and loneliness. All gripped in my fist like I was unwilling to let it go. Why would I hold onto something so awful? What was it gaining me, other than weighing me down? I stared at it wondering why my instinct was to keep it. And that’s what my gut said, keep it, we’d worked har
d for it, and it was ours. But what was the point? Letting it weigh me down wasn’t going to bring Alex back to me.
If I wanted to move forward, I’d have to either let it go or learn to work past the weight of it. If I let it go, would it release me? Could I finally move forward? Or would it always be an anchor keeping me in place?
Wasted energy, I thought, staring at that glowing pile of shit. All of it was a waste of energy, life, power, and love. This constant fear that had ensnared me for the last two years, only finally easing when Alex came into my life and brought his sunshine. What he’d broken in me was the cycle of self-loathing. Chiseled away pieces of a wall to keep out pain, and covered me in warmth.
I flipped my wrist and dumped the ball, letting go of all that hate, anger, and bitterness. It dropped away, like a lead weight shoved free from my shoulders.
The orb hit the ground and blasted outward in a booming circle of radiant color. When it touched the child, they shivered, colors flowing over them briefly as though it were absorbing the energy. Then it lifted its head to stare at me, expression changing to one of interest.
I stared back, unmoved by the dark eyes of swirling terror. Yokai. Demon. Black-eyed child. Djinn. Ghost. Normally I never called them, knew better than to make demands. Locked in my own sorrow they had ignored me, found me uninteresting, despite knowing I was sensitive to their presence.
Now they found me tasty. My emotion, power, life, whatever. That was what had drawn it to Alex, wasn’t it? People gravitated to him because he was a source of light in the darkness. He was a beacon of warmth; I merely reflected his glow.
I sucked in air, willed my heart to stop racing, and swallowed back the fear, waiting for the child to respond, do something, other than stare at me with that unnerving gaze. This wasn’t death. Not anything like that writhing mass of souls I’d seen on the road that day. Would they give me Alex back? Perhaps an exchange, my energy for his. Mine might not be as bright as his, but I was willing, so long as he could be free.
They seemed to look us over, but shook their head.
Marked. I heard the word, a breathy whisper echoing through the silence, but the child’s lips didn’t move. The only sound, like it was in my head instead of a real spoken word.
Who was marked? Alex? Me?
The child’s hand breezed over my wrist, not touching, more a wave, and agony erupted from my skin. I screamed, couldn’t help it, felt like it was burning me to the core. A pulsing energy scorched over my arm, an imprint of blues and greens, and seared flesh swirling like an elaborate tattoo on my wrist. The ball of self-loathing seemed to reappear in my grasp as though I’d never let it go, weight slamming back down on me.
I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy to release the baggage of the past.
The etching curled up my arm, and I could feel it racing over my shoulder and across my chest, tracing line after line until every inch of me throbbed in agony like it was being cut into my skin. The pain insanely intense and brutal, yet not unfamiliar.
As the glow faded, leaving the mark slowly vanishing beneath my skin, I realized it couldn’t be a new infliction. A tug on my memory echoed back to that walk in the park, the silence, the pain, and darkness. A buried memory of torment, and the first arrival of that horrific touch, a mark. Claiming me. For what?
Marked. They said again. Not ours.
What the fuck did that mean? Something else had marked me? So we couldn’t do an exchange? My life for Alex’s? I glared at the vanishing glow on my skin, lines going from thick nasty burns, to ink lines, to nothing. Felt the weight of it through my entire body. Instead of trying to release the ball of trauma that clung to me, I crushed it beneath my fist and let another emotion rise. A whipping fire of anger, burning away the sadness and loneliness, leaving only room for determination. Rage poured over me. Not buried or shoved aside this time, but the living fire-breathing dragon of a lifetime waiting to be set free.
Alex liked dragons. He’d like this fire too, right? He’d be okay if I wasn’t meek and obedient? If I wasn’t always the guy to diffuse the conflict and tell everyone it was okay? He’d still love me when the last of the ice melted from my soul, right?
The world flickered for a moment, starlight and moonlight flashing out for a few seconds around me. Darkness overtaking me. A heat settled in my gut, while pain throbbed over my skin, a reminder of the mark that might have faded but still bound my soul. It wanted control, I realized. The way the mark snaked through me, like the fire, fueling negative emotion, seemed self-sustaining, until it met with the cooling force of my affection for Alex. From that came a trickle of other emotions, love for Sky, dreams for Lukas, and even distantly the warmth of my parents, all bits of sand falling onto the fire, squelching the worst of the blaze.
Marked.
I thought about that for a moment while I stood in the war of emotions. Something had been feeding on me for the past two years. Slowly devouring my positive energy, keeping me stagnant in pain, afraid, and lost in the dark. That was why the child couldn’t use me. There wasn’t enough of me left to offer it anything.
Alex had been returned to us in shambles, unwell, and used up, on the verge of death. In some ways, their use of him had been kinder, faster. They could have killed him, left him in a ditch somewhere. Instead they had given him back to us to restore. My own demons, they were killing me slowly. Perhaps that was why others who had vanished like I had, had all been found dead. Why it decided to let me live only made sense when I realized how much it still had control. And that was terrifying.
Marked. The child agreed and nodded, seeming to agree with my thoughts. Did that mean Alex was marked too? He had a faint scarring on his palm that he hadn’t had before all this madness had happened to us. Perhaps his mark was different than mine.
I thought about why they would have returned him, and it was really the same reason I’d survived. We would be useful. They could feed on us. Find us with ease, and take another joyride. Did that mean I’d been used like Alex had been? Was there a way to remove the marks? Or did it only end when we were dead?
The child provided no answer, merely took a step back.
Sound and definition returned all at once, my heart pulsing hard, the wind blowing, leaves shuffling. Even the sensation on my skin faded. They weren’t taking me today, and I realized they didn’t have Alex either. If they had, they wouldn’t be here right now. Did that mean Alex was out in the woods somewhere? That didn’t make sense either because the child would be there, right? Watching him? Hadn’t he said they watched us?
I glanced up at the trees and wondered if it was more than just Alex’s demon who watched us. Was mine out there too? Was it different? Like another type of creature, or simply another version of a black-eyed child?
I stared in the direction of the light again. These shadows didn’t need artificial lights and text messages. They took me in broad daylight and Alex while he was on camera. A little forest gained them nothing.
I balled my hands into fists, angry again, irritated by the lack of answers and clarity. Alex had said he didn’t think this mess was paranormal. He’d also begged me not to go into the woods alone. Had he seen all this coming? Who was messing with me? Not a what, but a who this time.
Odd how the fear faded that fast. Sure I’d shoved it down beneath my anger, but the weight of doom, that felt like something outside of me. An impression imposed by something else. More of an eerie ‘I’m here,’ presence to remind me I’d never truly be alone. The child stayed where it was, staring back into the distance again. Uninterested in me.
Watching. Only it wasn’t looking toward the light anymore, but back toward the lot and my car. Was someone there? I could still sort of see the shape of the car, but no lights anywhere in that direction. Whatever was out here with me, dragging me into the night, wasn’t the paranormal monsters that had marked Alex and me. Those monsters didn’t need elaborate ploys and abandoned woods. They could find us anywhere. Which meant whatever wa
s out here was human, and really pissing me off.
Chapter 29
I turned away from the child and stalked through the woods, anger raging, feeling the weight of it intensify with every step. Heart pounding even as the light began to illuminate a small area of woods. I don’t know what I’d expected, other than maybe some horror of Alex’s shattered body laid out with elaborate lighting. However, all that sat in a small clearing was a flashlight/lantern and a box.
Of course the box conjured up a million scenarios and nightmares, but I examined the surrounding area with my gaze, clinging to a tree, hoping that if someone wanted to gun me down, they’d have to work for it. There was no sign of anyone. Simply the light and the box.
I approached it slowly, waiting for something to jump out at me. Nothing moved. I stood a few feet away, waiting, and watching the trees.
“Alex,” I called. My voice echoed a little, but no other sound filtered back to me. I picked up a stick, about two inches thick and a yard long, and nudged the box. For all I knew it could be a bomb or Alex’s severed head. The box wasn’t locked, and appeared to be a cheap sort of thing that could be bought at any craft store and then decorated. I’d done similar in my life for costume props. Nothing popped out of the box and it didn’t explode.
When I opened the lid, a scream shattered the silence. Not mine, but human and horrific, like someone was dying. I dropped to my knees, searching the area for the sound, straining for the direction, though it felt all around me. It wasn’t my scream, or anything like the sounds I normally heard at night. More like something out of a horror movie. It didn’t sound like Alex either, not masculine enough to be his voice, even in pain.