In the Midnight Hour

by Katrina VanBuskirk

  He looked at the time. Jesus. It was almost three in the afternoon. He felt like he’d slept for a week.

  Marcus hadn’t left yet, hoping that maybe Remy would come to his senses by the evening. Hopefully Sarae had talked him down .…

  Oh, hell, I promised to tell her what is going on with Remy and the monsters, he thought, but the phone was still dinging and he filed the thought away for the moment. Remy was texting him.

  Marcus

  Marcus

  Answer your damn phone

  Marcus

  “Hello, Laveau and Vincent Associates,” he said into the phone.

  “Marcus?” came Remy’s voice on the other end.

  But … Marcus’s brow furrowed deeply.

  “Remy, what the hell is the matter?” said Marcus.

  Remy just started crying.

  Oh my God.

  Remy was crying.

  That scared Marcus worse than the monsters in the forest last night.

  “What the hell happened?” he asked again, trying to keep calm for Remy’s sake. Nothing had ever thrown Remy this badly before.

  Remy’s broken voice came over the phone. He was evidently trying very hard to hold it together. “Have you left yet?”

  “No. No, I’m still here,” Marcus said soothingly as he hurried to the driver’s seat. Hinto looked up from his perch as he passed. “Where are you?” Marcus said, sliding into the seat. “Listen, I’m starting the RV up now. Where are you?”

  “At Sarae’s house. In Smith’s Creek. She’s ….” Remy broke down into fresh weeping.

  “Hinto!” Marcus called back to the owl. “Find Remy for me. He’s at Sarae’s house.”

  The owl hopped from his perch along the couch and to the headrest of the driver’s seat, Marcus moving aside to give him space.

  “I’m flying out. Follow me,” said Hinto, and he launched himself through the window of the RV.

  “I’m following Hinto to you, okay?” Marcus spoke slowly and clearly into the phone.

  Marcus was freaked. He always preferred to stay levelheaded, but this was almost frightening. The last time he’d heard Remy cry was after the fire, when his whole life had been burned away. This was how he’d sounded when he’d broken down after the tragedy.

  “It’s my fault,” Remy moaned into the phone.

  “Hang on,” Marcus said as Hinto flew up into the air, circled once above him, then began gliding east. Marcus pulled out into the gravel road.

  “I’m on my way,” he said, putting the phone in his lap and roaring forward.

  In a few minutes, Marcus pulled the RV up to Sarae’s house.

  Out came Remy, long-faced, with Sarae lying in his arms.

  Marcus rolled down the window. “What happened to her?” he cried.

  “She’s unconscious,” Remy said dully, bringing her limp body to the RV. “And she needs to go with you.”

  Marcus picked his jaw up off the ground. “Remy, what the hell is going on?” he cried. “I don’t – wait, she needs to go with me?!”

  “They’re after me. I have no choice. Take her with you.”

  “Is this even legal?” Marcus said, climbing out of the RV. “What happened to her?” he said as Remy opened the side door and climbed inside with Sarae in his arms.

  Remy carried Sarae aboard and gently laid her down on the bed. Though he felt at sea, Marcus held it together. Remy needed him. Sarae did too.

  Remy carefully lay Sarae down, and he gently stooped and kissed her forehead.

  “What happened to her?” Marcus asked in a low voice, bending over her, feeling her forehead, listening to her breathing. Her pulse was steady, her breathing slow and regular, but when he squeezed her fingernail at the quick, she didn’t start or wake up.

  “I charmed her asleep,” Remy said in a broken voice through his tears. “I need you to take her with you. Far away.”

  “So you did this?” Marcus asked, confusion now rattling through him.

  Remy went back to her house. “I’m packing a bag of her things,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Now, wait,” Marcus said, calling out of the RV window after him. “I can’t just take her away from her home without her consent. You know that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Remy burst out as he vanished into the house.

  A moment later he was coming out with a big duffel bag stuffed full of stuff for Sarae.

  “Remy, have you lost your ever-loving mind?” Marcus asked as he climbed aboard the RV.

  Just then a scream of a small owl came from outside. A blur of feathers hurled in through the window.

  It was Zoe, and she flew straight at Remy’s face, screeching, “Wake her up or I will use my claws, you bastard!”

  “You can’t. I’m spelled,” Remy said dully, brushing away the little owl.

  “I am not a mosquito!” Zoe grabbed his hand with her talons and started biting hard with her sharp beak, her wings slapping his hand and face, which was in the way. “What have you done with Sarae!”

  “It’s not hurting me,” Remy said, trying to shake the owl off. “You damn … look, it’s not working, Zoe.”

  The owl made a hair-raising scream and flew up from his hand. Remy left his hand up. It should have been shredded and bitten by the owl’s claws and beak. It was unharmed.

  “You didn’t hurt me,” he said again, dully.

  “I hate you!” the owl screamed, landing on Sarae’s body, and he poofed himself up into fight pose. “Don’t ever touch her again! You don’t deserve her!”

  Remy turned away as the screech owl hissed at him.

  Hinto, on his perch, made a grunt noise, and Zoe subsided.

  Remy spun and faced Marcus. “I’ve already lost my whole family,” he said. “What do I do with myself if I lose you? or Sarae?”

  When he said her name, his face went slack, his arms hanging loose at his sides. “Jesus, Marcus,” he said sounding exhausted. “I don’t want to lose anybody else. But they’re here. They’ve come back, they’ve found me. You saw them last night. And ….” He looked up at Marcus now, his face crushed.

  “Now they’ve infected me,” he said, his face and neck going red.

  Marcus felt the blood leave his face. This didn’t even seem possible. Remy was fast with the magic, and he had defenses from here to the otherworld. “How’d they get to you?”

  “Yeah,” Zoe hissed from Sarae’s pillow, her eyes going huge and black. “Tell your friend exactly how they got to you.”

  Remy dropped his eyes as if ashamed. “Marcus, I need you to get Sarae away from me.”

  “I agree,” Zoe hissed in a low voice, still puffed up on the pillow next to Sarae’s head. “As far away as possible.”

  Marcus shook his head at Remy. “Look. I don’t know what happened to you, but you’ve been my closest friend for most of my life,” he said. “Do you think I could leave you just like that? Leave you to face this danger, whatever it is, alone?”

  Remy turned his eyes away. “Well, you’re going to,” he said.

  “No,” said Marcus. “I won’t.”

  “You need to.”

  “Look. We went to kindergarten together, right?” Marcus said. “Played video games all the time. Built that gigantic Minecraft house on the inside of an entire mountain. It took months. You got your owl and then we were always saving each others’ asses. Driving around, having adventures, just like we said we’d do when we were kids.”

  “Don’t say things like that to me, man,” Remy said.

  “Yeah? Well, don’t do this to me. Don’t throw me or Sarae aside like this.” That came out with some heat. Marcus rubbed his face. “We’ve been through too much together.”

  Remy shook his head, mouth tight.

  After a short silence, Marcus realized something. “So where are you going to go when I leave?”

  “I’ll just hang out in the RV,” Remy said.

  “So now am I supposed to steal Sarae and her truck both just so we can d
rive away?”

  “No, you’d stay in the RV ….” Remy looked around as if the idea was dawning on him. “Oh shit. No, you take the RV with Sarae. I guess I kind of need a car.”

  Marcus didn’t roll his eyes. He was used to this kind of lapse from Remy. “Maybe I should stay. Then I can remind you of important things ….”

  “Stop that,” Remy snapped, cutting him off. “There’s a car lot in Swissville. I’ll buy a car there. I have the money for it. There’s a hotel there, too, next to the edge of town.”

  Marcus sighed. “Man, you are making a huge mistake.”

  “I’d make a huge mistake if I let you stay. Drive me to Swissville,” Remy said, dully. “I need to get a car and a hotel room for the night.”

  Marcus rubbed his forehead. He really wasn’t doing a very good job of talking to Remy. He felt as if his head were about to explode. “Look. I’ll drive you to Swissville, and you can get your car and hotel room, because you just need to lay down. You need to get some damn sleep so you can get your head on straight. I’ll drive away for a while with Sarae if it makes you feel better. But I’m not leaving you for long.”

  “You will,” Remy said with a moan, looking back at Sarae. “You’ve got to.”

  Marcus climbed up in his seat. “Get up here and sit down,” he said. “Talk to me.”

  “You can’t stay,” Remy said robotically, slumping down in the passenger’s seat.

  “You already told me that,” Marcus said mildly, finally regaining his composure. He checked his mirrors before he pulled out into the road. “Look, Remy, I don’t know what’s gotten into you. First you’re running out of LA and completely abandoning your business that you spent all that time building. I’m still getting a crapload of phone calls from clients in LA wondering where you’ve gone.”

  “The LA business was getting to be a drag,” Remy said, buckling his seat belt.

  Marcus shook his head slightly. That hadn’t been what Remy had been saying a couple of days ago, which he was neck-deep in his business work in LA and loved it. “I mean, sure we were getting chased off by a bunch of guys wielding crowbars. But LA is a big city. I don’t get why we didn’t just lie low for a little while.”

  Remy toyed with the puzzle box he’d been carving — the work was still unfinished. “I was called to come back here,” he said. “I was called here to fight those spirits that want me dead. And now, the spirits and powers that are gathering here will be targeting Sarae next. If I hadn’t come, she would have had to face all this alone. To be honest, they would have swallowed her whole. No question.”

  “I see,” Marcus said, though he didn’t quite understand what Remy was talking about.

  Remy ran his finger along a wooden link. “Unfortunately, I think that my arrival … accelerated things in the spirit world. And that’s why I need you two to leave. Quickly. Before they come after you, too.”

  Marcus shook his head. “I bet Sarae could defend herself.”

  “I’m not taking that chance,” Remy said, his voice hard.

  “I implore you to reconsider,” Marcus said. That was a line from a campy movie they watched all the time when they were kids.

  Remy smiled a brokenhearted smile. He looked back over his shoulder at Sarae – and grief flooded his face.

  Zoe hissed at Remy as soon as he turned around. “You have disgraced, you have dishonored your line,” the little owl said, his feathers puffing up in indignation. “I saw what you did.”

  Marcus’s eyes just about popped out of his head at Remy. “Jesus, Remy. What the hell did you do to piss off her owl that much?”

  Remy looked away quickly, folded his hands in his lap. He was exhausted, more tired than he’d ever felt in his life. “I’ve wrecked everything,” he said quietly. “Better to go alone.”

  Black Night

  “Lie back in the chair,” Sarae told him.

  This was a dream, Remy realized, sitting back in the soft chair as she’d told him.

  There were no Trapped Dead accosting them, no gruesome ghosts. It was just Remy and Sarae in a dark room that smelled faintly of roses. He could see her figure standing before him in the half-dark, her eyes heavy with desire as she ran her hands over his bare chest as he made himself comfortable.

  This was the kind of dream that he liked.

  Remy sat back onto the softest chair he’d ever felt, easing his legs apart. Her cool hands slipped into his jeans, and the thrill of her touch so close to his aching cock made the small hairs on his arms and legs stand on end.

  She unzipped his jeans and pulled his boxers down. When his cock sprang free, she sighed and wrapped her hand around it. “Look at that,” she murmured as she began to stroke it. It hardened in her hand, hardened so much that it hurt.

  “Stroke me harder.” With a groan, Remy raised his buttocks off the soft seat and slid his jeans off.

  Sarae, being contrary, released him. “Look at you, lying there naked like that.” A soft rustle as she climbed atop him, her cool body over his. This was a very good dream, because Sarae had absolutely nothing on. Her breasts brushed over Remy’s chest, warm and soft.

  “Mm,” he said, cupping their soft heaviness in his hands, stroking her nipples with his thumbs.

  She jerked slightly, pressing her clit against his body. He could feel the heat from it.

  “What do you want?” she whispered, looking deep into him, her heavy eyes full of desire.

  “I want to feel you getting off on me,” he said.

  Remy pulled Sarae close, pulling her tight against him, loving the feel of her skin against his.

  She kissed his lips, and he opened his mouth to her as they kissed deeply, their tongues flicking and rubbing together. His cock stiffened as their kisses grew deeper, as her body moved gently against his.

  Then she straddled him. He eased back in the chair as they continued kissing, sweet languid kisses, her skin pressing against his, her body sliding against his.

  Their kisses were the only sound between them until she moaned softly.

  Her body arched over his in the half-dark as she rubbed her clit against his pubis, and her soft folds and the curve of her ass brushed against the side of his cock. Those soft strokes was driving him out of his head.

  He roughly slid his hands over her hot ass and gripped her. “Give me some of that.”

  Sarae’s soft breath ruffled against his face. “You said you wanted to feel me get off,” she said, laughing softly. “I like this. I like feeling you excited.”

  Remy groaned. She moved back slightly with another laugh. She rose off him just a little bit – and he grabbed her and guided himself in, just the tip.

  She slid down on him, taking him in all at once. She smiled at his involuntary moan. “Do you like that?” she asked teasingly.

  “Yes,” Remy said. “Give me more of that. I want to feel you fucking me.”

  Sarae slid down all the way, her eyes closing in pleasure, a soft grunt from her throat. She opened her eyes slightly and tightened her walls around him a few times, just to show him who was boss.

  Remy grabbed her hips and thrust up, hard. That loud gasp of pleasure from her was everything he’d ever wanted.

  “Come on, then. Let me feel that,” he said.

  She began to ride him hard then, her lithe body swaying as she filled herself with him again and again. Her breath came faster as she rode him harder, her sweet little breasts swaying over his face. He wanted to kiss them, to hold them, but the sweet agony of her tight pussy was almost too much for him to bear.

  He couldn’t hold himself back. She slammed herself down on him again and again, stroking him hard, and Remy threw his head back, and he grabbed her hips and thrust into her, bucking against her, wanting more, the pleasure mounting.

  Her whole body tightened on him, and her nails bit into his arms as she suddenly quaked on him, crying out. He thrust into her as the orgasm began, thrusting again and again until he flooded her.

  They collapsed tog
ether, breathing heavily, Remy kissing her. Maybe being apart from her wouldn’t be so bad, he told himself. If I can dream about her like this ….

  She lay panting in his arms, her sweet brown eyes so vulnerable, his arms around her. He wanted to protect her always.

  Harder to do in real life than in a dream.

  Sarae raised her head, smiling.

  “It’s so good to see you enjoying yourself,” she joked.

  Something tiny scuttled out of her mouth and down below her jawline.

  Remy leaned back, squinting. “Wait, what the hell was that?”

  “What was what?” Sarae asked.

  Remy blinked, confused. “Um ….”

  No. This time he saw it clearly, not a made up thing. A tiny insect, like an ant with wings, scurrying out of her mouth.

  “Sarae?” he asked.

  She smiled slowly.

  And out of her mouth poured a gout of winged ants.

  They crawled across her face, some flying in the air, a cloud of wings and insect bodies. Winged ants swarmed his face. With a scream, Remy threw himself back, ants getting into his mouth, crawling into his nose –

  — and he jolted awake with a half-stifled cry.

  “Whoa, Remy, you all right?” Marcus said.

  Marcus was driving the RV and they were still on the road to Swissville. In the back of the RV, Hinto and Zoe were having some kind of argument in owl language.

  Remy spun around to see Sarae still sleeping in the back. Zoe, who was keeping guard on her pillow next to her head, hissed at Remy as soon as he turned around.

  “Don’t even look at her,” said Zoe. “You’re infected, that’s why.”

  Remy, stunned, turned to face front.

  “You’re welcome,” the little owl snapped.

  * * *

  They had barely arrived in Swissville when Remy was suddenly hit with a vision of the future, one just as fierce and hard as flashbacks.

  He was lying on the ground, trying to scoop his intestines back into a hole that had been torn into his gut, trying to keep them from spilling out through the worst pain he’d ever experienced.

  He heard Sarae crying with pain, her voice wobbling as if she was being shaken.