by Andy Briggs
When the front door opened, Dan caught a fleeting glimpse of his mother's face. Her mouth wide open and tears streaming down her cheeks as she engulfed him in a hug that crushed the breath from him. With his face nestled against her he could smell nothing but the familiar warm and soothing scent of home. He couldn't hear a word she was saying because her arm covered his ears, but he caught the gist of it.
“I'm OK, mum. Completely fine!”
He pulled away so he could breath and noticed he was being carefully studied by a frowning Police Woman - who was then nudged aside by his grandpa who embraced him even harder.
“I thought we'd lost you, son,” Boris sobbed.
Dan’s thoughts were in turmoil. If grandpa was so regretful then why didn't he say anything about his own nightmare-ish past? If he’d known so much why hadn’t he tried to help earlier? Now he was home, Dan was beginning to have doubts. Had Carlos and Marlow been correct in identifying his grandfather as the kid who once mastered opening a rift between worlds? It had been a long time ago. From Boris’s reaction he was starting to doubt it.
Before he knew what was happening he was whisked into the living room and onto the couch. Everybody spoke at once, including the Police Woman. He didn't know who to reply to first. What he wanted was to sleep, and the sudden attention was overpowering. Drowsiness hit him like a sledgehammer. Relief at being at home, the familiar environment was too much of a lull to resist. Carlos's brew was wearing off. His hand went for his coat pocket - and he was surprised to see his coat was missing. His mother must have pulled it off during the melee. Recalling the details of the last few moments was like scrambling in fog. Just the fleetest images. It was only when his eyelids fluttered that Boris nudged him with a sharp elbow to the ribs and urgently spoke up.
“He's tired. Let me put the coffee on.” He dashed from the room.
Dan fought to stay awake. All he needed a jolt of Carlos’s elixir and he’d be fine for another twenty-four hours. His mother's arm was still firmly affixed around his shoulders, anchoring him to the sofa as she continued to sob. The Police Officer took Boris place and smiled in a friendly manner.
“Hello, Daniel. My name is Officer Janet. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Dan... hate Daniel...” He was finding it difficult to speak, his tongue felt thick as he yawned.
“You had us all worried when you went missing. The woman who was with you, where is she?”
His mother's musky scent and the overly-warm room was sabotaging his efforts to stay awake. The room swam and his words became a drowsy whisper.
“'S OK. She's fine... I need my coat.” He tried to stand but his mother’s vice-like grip held him in place.
“Where is she, Dan?”
Dan spoke but only a slurred mumble came out. He must concentrate. Marlow's life depended upon it.
Rhythmically flashing lights from the Christmas tree and the warm pulse from a ceramic snowman decoration lulled him. The room grew dim and the voices came from far away - but what did that matter he was safe?
Safe enough to sleep...
Ssssleeeeepp.
The last came as a sibilant hiss cutting through his unconsciousness. He'd heard it before, many times. Now he was in the zone on the edge of consciousness he was able to identify it as the voice that lulled him to sleep almost every hour of his life. The same voice that had seized his narcolepsy and used it as a tool for its own gain. He had never recalled it before but now he knew it was the voice of the Darkmare. A voice he had heard his whole life. His oldest friend he was now discovering was his darkest enemy.
Sssssllleeeepppp...
It wasn't a suggestion, it was a hostile command. Something that had ruined his life. Carlos's wake-up juice must still be trickling through his system as the transition between wakefulness and sleep was usually seamless.
“NO!” shouted Dan as loud as he could, commanding his muscles to act and jerk him awake. The smell of coffee punched through the drowsiness and he sat bolt upright, almost spilling the cup grandpa Boris hovered in front of his nose. “Marlow!”
“Yes,” Officer Janet said squeezing his hand, completely misinterpreting the situation, “Marlow Cornelius. Where is she?”
Dan struggled against the warm tendrils of drowsiness trying to pull him back into the comfy sofa. He swore he could feel them, as sticky as treacle, massaging the stress from his shoulders and back, subliminally assuring him that everything was OK and he should just relax...
He snatched the coffee. It spilled over the rim and scalded his cold legs. His throat was accustomed to drinking nuclear-hot liquids and he swallowed it all in three gulps. However, he was far beyond the effects of caffeine and it delivered only a tiny jolt.
“My coat!” he barked between coughs from drinking too quickly.
“Tell us about Marlow,” urged Janet.
“I need my coat!” Dan insisted.
Confused by his outburst, his mother burst into a fresh sobbing and rubbed his arm, “Ssshh, I've hung it up. You don't need it now.”
Her very touch was making him relax. He shucked her off and tried to stand, but his legs had decided to sleep even if the rest of him hadn't. He wobbled and collapsed on the floor - his head narrowly missing cracking against the coffee table that grandpa had hastily nailed back together.
“What's wrong with him?” screamed his mother. “What has she done to him?”
“Need... my... coat...” hissed Dan as he shook his head to stay awake. From the helpless looks around him he knew it must look like he was having a fit as he writhed on the carpet. He reached for grandpa, who took an involuntary step back. “Wake-up juice...”
Even in his rehabilitated state he saw grandpa become rigid, his face paling.
Then everybody was suddenly speaking.
“What's happening?”
“I'll call a paramedic!”
“He’s having a seizure!”
“Coat...” muttered Dan.
Boris darted into the hall and rapidly searched Dan’s coat pockets. His fingers found a small glass cylinder and he returned.
“Got it!” said Boris as he wrestled with the cap.
Dan's vision began to grey. Desperate, he tried to sit up, but his arms felt like jelly and his legs were numb.
“Wake... up...”
“Take this,” said Boris urgently.
Dan felt the glass vial pushed to his lips and he drank the liquid. Instead of the sharp jolt he had expected the voices around him became unintelligible and he swore he could hear a bell, but that was unlined by an unusual deep growling.
He caught sight of the open vial in Boris’s hand, and the red bottle cap in the other. Red. He had been given the neurotoxins designed to knock Boris out so he could open the facture between realms.
The last thought to carousel through his mind was how he'd let Marlow down in his own plan. The toxin had such a powerful torporific effect that he instantly fell into a catatonic sleep.
“Pizza?”
It was such an uninspiring thing to say, so not surprisingly it was the first idea that popped into Marlow's head. When Dan outlined his plan it had made perfect sense, although, in retrospect it could have done with another hour or two of brainstorming as it left several key details blank.
Dan was to enter the house first and distract everybody, allowing Marlow to stealthily break in, thus surprising everybody and taking control of the situation so things could be explained without her being carted away by the cops. All perfectly achievable.
Marlow had circled through the park that ran behind Dan's house. The darkness, snow covered potholes and ditches, and the weight of the weaponry she carried had made it almost impossible.
Ditching most of the weaponry in the hedges at the perimeter of Dan's back garden, Marlow sneaked up to the back door, which was always kept open when the family was home.
It was locked.
She had cursed under her breath as she futilely tugged at the handle. No doubt the cops secur
ed the house, a problem she should have anticipated - would have anticipated if she wasn't feeling so worn out.
Every window was shut to both the night chill and any prowling intruders. She circled around to the front of the house, checking the coast was clear from any law who happened to been watching and crept up to the front door. She could hear raised voices inside and shadows cast against the curtains revealed there was a problem. She'd have to act fast - and the only idea that occurred to her was inspired by a rumbling stomach.
She rang the bell.
Boris Glass eventually answered the door, clutching Dan's coat. His eyes widened in instant recognition when he saw Marlow.
“Pizza?” repeated Marlow in a foolhardy hope it would trick the old man into keeping the door open.
Boris thrust the door closed. Marlow slid her foot in the gap, the heavy wood crushing her boot. She shouldered the door open and swung the blunderbuss under Boris's chin. She didn't have time for niceties. He raised is hands, dropping the coat.
Marlow shoved her way into the house. Marlow trampled over Dan’s coat as she entered the hallway, kicking the front door closed behind. She marched a terrified Boris straight into the living room.
Bryony Glass was kneeling over her son, gently tapping his cheek and urgently uttering: “Wake up, Dan! For heaven's sake, wake up!”
Marlow saw her gaze wasn't on Dan, but on the shadows slowly swelling in the corner of the ceiling. The Police Woman hadn't yet noticed and reacted the moment she recognized Marlow striding in with a weapon. She leapt to her feet - calculating whether she had time to disarm the intruder without endangering anybody. It took a split second for her to decide it was impossible. She raised her arms in a placating manner.
“Put the gun down, Marlow. The boy's having a seizure and there are more officers outside.”
Marlow ignored her. “It's not a seizure. Wake him up!”
“I'm trying!” Bryony squealed. “What have you done to him?”
“What've I...? Hell, ask your Pop about that one. He's the one covering all this up.”
Bryony's gaze slipped to Boris, who had managed to step away from the business end of the gun. The guilt on his face was evidence enough.
Marlow knelt next to Dan. “What d’you give him?” Then she saw the empty red-capped vial on the table. “Oh no... tell me you didn’t!”
“He asked for it!” snapped Boris.
“No! That was for you... damn it! He needs the wake-up juice. The one with the white cap! Where's his coat?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Police Woman tense, ready to spring. Marlow didn't bother looking up, but waved the blunderbuss in warning. “Don't think about it.”
Boris held up Dan's coat. “You mean this?”
The flicker of hope Marlow had been nurturing suddenly extinguished. Her own large boot print was stamped over the pocket, from which a wet stain pushed through the fabric. Boris carefully turfed the pocket inside out, revealing crushed glass.
“Ah, crap...” wailed Marlow.
Then Bryony screamed in terror. Marlow felt as if she was possessed by Hunters of old as her fatigue ebbed and the lifelong instincts her father had drilled into her seized control. Instantly alert and in control.
With one hand she reached out and grabbed the Police Woman by the scruff of the neck. The cop screeched as Marlow pulled her aside. She hadn't seen the twisted shark head, the size of the coffee table, swim through the dense dark hole that had formed in the corner ceiling. Beyond the beast, Marlow could see a faint purple light playing on nightmarish mountain peaks. She had only a fleeting glimpse of the Dreamscape before the bulk of the creature blocked it as it attempted to haul itself out. The ferocious head snarled, dry skin pulled taut against slender opaque fangs. The head lunged forward, mounted on an implausibly long neck.
“Dream's over,” growled Marlow as she raised the blunderbuss and pulled the trigger.
Both barrels clicked on empty chambers.
The beast butted Marlow squarely in the chest. Something crunched and excruciating pain rippled across through her side as a rib broke. She was lifted off her feet and hurled across the room, into the wall. Plaster crunched and she fell hard on the floor.
The Infiltrator roared, its malevolent gaze on Marlow as it heaved its bulk from the portal. It didn't see Officer Janet snatched a small table from the side of the sofa and broke it across the fiend’s head. Wood splintered, but it was enough to leave a nasty gash exposing blue crystalline flesh beneath. With a squeal it diverted its attention to the other humans in the room.
Officer Janet and Bryony retreated to the corner of the room. The sight before them was beyond anything they could rationally comprehend. Primitive instinct instructed them not to scream, but to close their eyes and remain utterly silent in the hope the beast would vanish like all good nightmares did.
Except this one.
Jaws opened wide with a visceral scream - which was suddenly cut short as a sword blade stabbed through its jaw and up into its skull. Marlow twisted the blade as she retracted it, decapitating the monstrosity. The head fell, shattering on impact. The rest of the body twitched, then turned into blue ice then imploded as the portal around it closed.
For a moment there was nothing but the sound of heavy breathing and sobbing. Then Marlow pulled herself up, one hand clutching her broken rib, the other twirling the midnight katana blade in a lethal fluid gesture. She slid it back in the sheath on her back, then retrieved the blunderbuss.
“What the hell was...?” Officer Janet stammered as she struggled to maintain her sanity.
“Carcharodon Nightmarus,” Marlow quoted as she fished ammo cartridges from her pocket and loaded the weapon. The pain in her chest was making it difficult to speak. “Try and wake Dan up.”
Bryony nodded and scrambled on all fours to her son. Cartridges loaded, Marlow snapped the barrel in place and aimed at Boris. “You got something to tell me?”
“I do.” Officer Janet was struggling to maintain her composure, but seeing Marlow had given her something real she could cling to. “Marlow Cornelius, you're under arrest.”
Keeping the blunderbuss on Boris, Marlow slowly turned to face her with a look of pure defiance. “I don't think I'm gonna let you arrest me today.”
The cop considered for a moment, then nodded and stepped back.
Marlow turned to face Boris and waved the gun in a threatening gesture. “So?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Sorry for landing me in in the shit, for one.” She glanced at Officer Janet and indicated to Boris. “Did he bother to tell ya he hired me to look for the kid?” The cop shook her head. Marlow turned her back to Boris. “And I bet you never told your daughter about your own past, right? What you passed on to Dan?”
Bryony looked up from gently shaking Dan. “What's she talking about?”
Boris's eyes never left Marlow's as his hostility melted in to resignation. “I'll tell you later. Wake him up!”
“He's not coming around! What have you done to him?” she shrieked at Marlow.
“God's sake! Will everyone quit asking what have I done to the kid? I wasn’t even in the room! I did nothing except save his butt! Old Boz here gave him a shot of something designed to knock him out,” she pointed to Boris to clarify just who was supposed to be unconscious.
Boris dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse in Dan's neck. “He's in a deep sleep. Almost like a coma.”
Marlow punched the air in helpless frustration. “You were supposed to take the neurotoxin, open up the rift to bring the Darkmare through so I could pop it and end all this.”
“Excuse me,” said Officer Janet cautiously stepping between them to get their attention. “Can somebody explain what is going on.”
At that moment a great wail rose from outside. A hideous otherworldly roar that made ever human who heard it tremble in unquestioning fear. It was immediately followed by the unmistakable wail that only a mass of panicking people are capable
of making. Then a deep rumbling, the sound of rending metal and a dozen car alarms suddenly shrieking in unison.
Marlow ran to the window. Cupping her hands against the glass, she peered out. When she turned back to the others her expression was unreadable.
“What has happened?” Officer Janet asked firmly.
Marlow ran her fingers through her hair. “The end of the world by the looks of it.”
Chapter Fifteen
On the far side of town, the sky had rent open as if made of glass. Through the broken shards of reality was a whole new world. Snow clouds had torn and the sky... or rather, the nether-sky, was like those Marlow had only ever peeked at before. A deep purple lit by some far-off alien sun, with swirling red aura clouds rotating like time-lapse footage.
But that's not what chilled Marlow.
A mass of crawling limbs and undefined shapes undulated through the crimson haze, heading for the bridge between worlds. The vanguard of unspeakable terrors pushed into the town. They were distorted, a heat haze between dimensions blissfully masking them. But push through they did.
Homes immediately opposite blocked the view, so Marlow couldn't see the damage caused but the flicker of flames towering high into the night sky spoke volumes. The town was the battlefront.
Boris peered out, trembling. “Dan did this?”
Officer Janet pushed past and cupped her hands around her eyes to see for herself. They all heard the faint gasp of astonishment from her.
“You were supposed to be the one. This is what you used to do, right? Well it looks like Dan can do it much better than you.”
Bryony's eyes narrowed as she looked between them, then focused on her father. “You knew all about these things? About Dan's... condition?”
“When I was younger...”
“My dad helped you so you thought I'd be able to help Dan. Why didn't you say anything? Was it because you were too embarrassed about what he’d inherited from you?”