A sob breaks from me. I burn hot. The revolting rage that would send my Burdened to the front leaves me lonely and instead calls a roar louder than I can stand charging from my throat. I drop to my knees, hunching over, face buried in my hands.
It makes sense now.
The Qualms were deviating. That’s what Taylor was getting at. Maybe we can help them get what they want, but they know we won’t. They knew Tracey and I would do our very best to fight against any evil threatening our lives. I’ve been doing it all my life, and Tracey swore she’d fight it beside me. So, their way to conquer wasn’t to convince us to help them but distract us from their greater plan. Elimination. And have themselves as our final option.
Here’s phase one.
Vertigo
Nathan
Jason fits comfortably in my arms, almost like he’s sleeping, his head lays against my chest though no breath leaves his small body. He’s drenched in blood. I want to see him make his angry face and giggle after, hear his call for me to tickle him, even witness the glitchy morph as he’s trying to contain his Burdened. “Our time was too short, little buddy.” I kiss his head, then lay him next to Taylor on the bed in our bedroom, where I’ve also laid Olar. On the floor, at the foot of the bed, we sat Carmen, Courtney, and Cartel beside each other, hands grasped—as Tracey requested. The three have fought for years against the demons of their past, at least they’ll be at rest.
None of them, not my sister, my nephew, who I’d only had the opportunity to share days with when he’s existed for years, my cousins . . . They didn’t deserve the ending I’ve given them.
Tracey, Little Nathan, and I stand before the bed, looking them over. Little Nathan’s trying to be strong. For who . . . ? I push my free hand over his shoulder and tug him nearer me. He rams his head against my shoulder and sobs. He cries so hard he loses his footing, and I let him kneel, as I flick the lighter. It takes three tries before the flame stands. With an easy toss, the light soars through the air and onto the bed, engulfing it in flames.
“Let’s go, guys.” I lift Tracey in my arms. Her right arm hangs and a thread of fire leaves her fingertips, leaving our trail ablaze as we walk away from our home.
In my truck, we go to the family house. There’s a much-needed relief that takes hold of the three of us finding everyone in it alive.
We shower, and in a spare room, I lay with Tracey beneath chilly sheets. I draw her close to me, hug her tightly against my chest as my flesh is craving for a comforting contact I know I won’t receive from her now. The desolate emotions filling her to the rim are those that crush us both. She cries, body shaking from her sobs.
“Shh,” I soothe and kiss her shoulder. “It’s okay, Sparky,” I lie.
It will never be okay. And I knew that. The day I slipped my hands around her waist and drew her into my claiming kiss that night. I knew I was making a mistake. But one this big . . . I never would’ve guessed.
Tracey cries herself to sleep. I’m right behind her, but a knock on the front door deters me.
I leave her to answer it. Yanking open the door, I look at Tarleton. No. Chislon but in Tarl’s body. “What?” I snap.
“You have to get out of here. They’re coming after you and won’t stop until you have no one left and your only obligation is to turn to them, or you give in. No more lives are worth this war.”
“War?” I step outside, pulling up the door behind me. “They slaughtered my family! My nephew is dead! My sister killed herself because of this! War! This is no war! That was a massacre!”
He lifts his hands, taking a step back.
I shove them down. “My friends are dead. Do you understand that? Do you know how that feels? My lady’s strings are just about broken!”
“Then do something about it!” he shouts.
“Like what?” I fight back. “What do you want from us? We’ve done everything. We’ve read every book and gone everywhere we were asked. Every turn is the wrong one, it’s getting worse and not better! How can I tell Tracey I can help figure this all out when I have the slightest idea what the fuck is going on!”
Light flashes in his dark eyes. “You have a gift that holds all the answers to every question you’re asking. Ask the right questions and get the answers.”
I shove my hands through my hair. “I would kill your confusing ass if I knew how.”
“Now, Nathan, you must listen to me. If you don’t leave here, you’ll lose even more of your family. You two weren’t willing to leave the binds broken and part away as your separation intended, so you need to do something about saving what’s left.”
I’m eager to fight him on this, but he cuts me off.
“You can’t be angry with the rest of the world when you knew the risks. Forget about Nemanites and the restrictions of Burdened Sephlem. You knew your rule, now you must reap the consequences of your choices. Make a decision and fast. Meanwhile, get away from the people you love. They’re next.” He vanishes with a flash of light dispersing him into nothing.
I climb the stairs, taking two at a time. I walk into the room and snatch up our clothes we carried here with us, throwing them into a duffle bag. “Sparks!” I shake her. “Sparky, wake up.” When her lids part, I say, “We need to get out of here.”
She slips from the bed. “What’s going on?”
When I meet her gaze, I slow down. I encourage her to sit down and kneel before her. “I had one chance to get things right. One life to correct the mistakes of my past, and I failed. I failed you and broke many promises.” I refuse to say I’m sorry. An empty sentiment meant to express a request for forgiveness because of a mistake. But my idiocy was no mistake. I loved this girl with all of me, but for me and never for her, and that selfishness is why we’re here. “I didn’t love you enough to live for you.”
She yawns. “Huh?”
“I said that if I had it once I’d take it over nothing at all.” I scrape the tear from my eye. “I should’ve loved you enough not to hurt you. Not to hurt them.” I look toward the door, torn apart over the pain I continue to bring to my family. “There was a prophecy placed over me, one that broke open doors to a realm where half-dead roam the world. This monster would be an image of man and beast, a being that exists to show the true colors of man. How he’s both good and evil, angel and demon, heaven and hell. The inner being lives on the outside for all to see.”
“The Qualms?” she mutters, rubbing her tired eyes that are still red from hours of crying.
I nod. “They’ll desire a life they were forced to watch through a screen and desire to be a part of a greater peace, but only to take over for their own destruction. This will be a time where misery sucks pleasure dry, and only by the sacrifice of the knight’s mate can I receive the entirety of my abilities and conquer the overtaking. Or, accept fate and delve into the Seeing of Death living equally among the half-breeds and slowly allowing the evil to take over our minds, death giving no other option.”
Tracey shivers.
I rub my hands up and down her arms. “I love you today.” Gazing in her eyes, I admit. “Before, it was the mating forcing the affection. But, Tracey, today, even without the beat of your heart, an aching for you is constant in me. I love you enough to live for you, for you to live for you. For you to have a life outside of my burdens, for you to awaken in a day you’re swallowed by a happiness you don’t have enough room in your heart to receive.” Her gaze doesn’t break from mine, and I ask, “Do you get what I’m saying?”
Her tired eyes become more awake with a blink. She stares for a minute, then says, “If I woke up tomorrow and had the opportunity to do it all over again, I’d still do it again, just smarter.”
I push my hands from her cheeks to her hair. “You’re crazy, you know that?” A smile tears through my grave expression and an odd exuberance warms my chest.
Tracey nudges her forehead against mine and our noses brush. She sucks in a sharp breath before saying, “Tell me about it.” Our gazes meet. “So,
we need to get out of here?”
Nodding, I rise, grab the duffle bag, and throw it over my shoulder. “In order to keep everyone safe, we have to go. We’ll figure out what’s next after we’re away from here.”
I Heard Goodbye
Nathan
The gas tank’s closing in on E. We tossed our phones a few miles back, chucking them into a river off the freeway. We’re hungry, need some place to crash, and are down to our last hundred bucks.
“There’s gotta be a gas station in Buckston,” Tracey says, pointing to the sign on the side of the road, welcoming us to the one hundred and twelfth town we’ve passed through.
“Let’s hope you’re right.” I take the exit that leads us to a small town with lanterns for street lights and stone paved roads. We find a filling station a little under fifteen miles from the freeway, one so old the price and gallon counter are still mechanical and the nozzle hangs off the side of the pump. “Sparks.” I stand in front of the passenger’s rolled-down window. “I’ll run in here and see if there’s anyone living who can charge me for the gas.”
She scopes out the area. “This is the oldest building I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah.” Dirt and gravel crunch under my boots as I cross the ground to the door. Its screen framing is light, but whines as I pull it open. After I enter, it slams closed and there’s a chime from somewhere in the small store. Chips on a rack expired last year, and the food in the isle is sparse.
An older man, likely the age of the filling station, comes from a back door, cane helping him make his way to the cashier’s station in the front. “Hello,” his aged voice rattles. “You have to have some patients, young man. I’m coming.”
“No rush, sir. Take your time.” I lean against the counter and admire the vintage posters of old muscle cars taped down on it.
“Well,” he says, making it behind the counter. “You’re a new face around here.”
“Take it you don’t get many visitors.”
“No. We don’t.” Getting settled, he leans over the counter, smelling of whiskey and tobacco. “What do you need?”
I point toward the outside. “Those pumps spit out any diesel fuel?”
“No. But we’ve got a diesel tank round back.”
“Thanks.” I slide fifty-five on the counter and grab two in-date candy bars. On my way back to the truck, I toss the candy in the passenger’s window and round to the driver’s side. “We need to head around back for the diesel fuel. You pumping?”
Tracey laughs. “Let’s get the gas and go, this place is creeping me out.”
The pump spits nothing but dust.
“Maybe it’s not been used in a while and takes a bit to get going,” Tracey says, resting her arms on the rolled down window as she leans out of the truck to watch me.
“That’s not how it works, Sparks.” I rest my shoulder against the truck and squeeze the shit out of the nozzle trigger, wishing something would flow. We can’t be stuck in this weird-ass town.
For Buckston to be old school, it’s populated. From the filling station on the corner, I am able to see kids play on a plastic playground set in the front yard of a house across the street. Two children laugh, sliding down slides and leaping off ladders as three others swing and build sandcastles. On the opposite side of the street, an older couple sits on their porch swing, hand-in-hand, with comfortable smiles as they chat and watch the town. A group of high school aged kids stroll down the street, smoking cigarettes, faces also full of comfortable smiles.
I look over the small neighborhood again, willing sight to my vision to see beyond what’s before me.
In every person and even pet, a Qualm lives, cloak-less, half shadow and the other half pale flesh with one red glowing eye. They board the people as though they were hosts and exist within them as if they were the owners of the being. The person who should control the body is nowhere to be seen. Not a human in sight.
Finally, the fuel flows. The old man from inside the station yells from the back door, “Sorry, I forgot to turn it on.” His mention sends everyone in hearing range, which considering they’re all advanced by the Qualms—that’s everyone in sight, looking in our direction.
I assume that off a glance, they’re able to recognize Tracey and me, as many from our past were able to do. They throw a curious glance our way and without a care, go back to their business.
I breathe.
Stopping the pump early, I hang it and then jump in the driver’s seat of the truck. “We’re getting out of here,” I say. “They’re all Qualms. Every single one of them, Tracey,” I respond to her hair-raising expression.
“Are the people happy, like they said?” she asks.
“What people?” I throw the truck in drive and floor it.
My truck putts, jerks forward, and then the engine fries. “The fuck!” I turn the key. She stalls, sputtering.
“Nathan.” Tracey shakes my arm. I’m working on getting something out of my truck so we can at least get the hell out of this town. “Nathan,” she calls again. “Nathan!”
“Yeah!” I snap, catching a Qualm infected human advancing on us. Gaze intense, smile intact, speed walking, steps growing faster and faster as those around him join his pursuit. “Okay. Let’s make a run for it.”
Tracey and I jump out of the truck. We sprint, racing down a street.
They run after us, all of them, charging from their porches and discarding their play sets. We’re barely evading them, just keeping enough distance to not get caught. We hit a corner where three-story flats line the street. We have only seconds to think of our next move, running between two of the buildings, out of sight of the street.
“Hey,” someone whispers from a basement window of the building to our right. “You’re the Knight, right?”
Shrugging, uncertain, I answer, “I guess.”
He waves us down. A man, a boy actually. A thunder of running footsteps advance on us. My options are limited.
I help Tracey through the window and follow her in. The boy quickly, quietly closes the window.
“Thanks,” Tracey says. They shake hands and then we do. “Is this some kind of bunker?” she asks.
Shaggy brown hair, bushy eyebrows, and a teenage beard spotting his chin, the boy stands at Tracey’s height. Baggy clothes hang off his skinny frame. “There’s nowhere that’s safe around here. So, yeah, you can say that.”
“How have you gone unseen, or untouched?” I ask him.
He goes over to the window we had entered through and peeks outside. The light blasts into the dimmed room, causing Tracey and I to shield our eyes. When he’s found what he’s looking for, he closes the window back and seals it tight by multiple locks.
“I know how to stay out of sight. My home is undetectable and unknown to anyone except me.” His gaze falls to the floor. “Well, my dad knew about it, but when those things started taking over, he didn’t make it.” He runs his hand across his nose and adjusts his sorrow-turning expression into one more relaxed. “Before he died, we caught wind of what was going on and made this.” He motions around himself, as the small hut-like space. “Upstairs, which you can’t access from down here, is ransacked, and the latch used to get down here blends in with the wood floor that’s covered in trash.” He points to a corner in the ceiling, coated with cement. “We reinforced it.” Crossing the floor, he comes upon a couch and rakes piles of newspapers to the floor, revealing cushion. “What’s your names?”
Tracey gestures. “I’m Tracey, he’s Nathan.”
“Tracey.” He nods. “Nathan.” He meets my eyes. “I’m Brayden.”
“How old are you, Brayden? You look pretty young to be on your own,” Tracey says, as the identifying film slips over her eyes. He’s just a human boy, thankfully.
Brayden cleans off a table piled high with boxes and more newspapers. I pick up one that falls near my foot. The headline reads, ‘Alien Evasion or The Rapture.’ In the supporting image, however, the five people pictured, with the
ir arms draped over each other’s shoulders, appear happy.
“I’m fifteen. I’ve been living down here for almost a year now.” He waves us to the couch. “Come sit down. Sorry this place is a mess. I never have company, and I don’t have much room for storage.” He’s right. His small home is only big enough to hold the couch and the table with the towers of boxes and newspapers from corner to corner. Our backs are just about against the wall, separated by more stacks of boxes and piles of newspapers. The three windows are covered in cardboard and paint that blends in with the color of the black brick walls.
“You’ve been hiding down here for a long time,” Tracey says. “Don’t you need things like groceries and water?”
“I was a sophomore in high school when things went to shit around here. My dad and I used to go camping, and we did a lot of hunting. I quickly learned how to maneuver through the streets without being noticed. Only at night, though. Those things seem to think we only function during the day, so those of us who aren’t afraid to venture out only go out at night. Things started getting weird around here about two years ago. It started at school and slowly took over the entire town until people either killed themselves or we became one of them.” Brayden snatches two bottles of water from a fridge stored within a box that’s also stacked high with more boxes.
He hands them to us.
“We. . .” He clears his throat. “I. I didn’t know what to do, but every time I pressed my dad’s shotgun to my chin, I heard him tell me, fight for your life.” He leaves us, heading over to two box piles stacked as tall as him that are sitting in the corner against the wall. It’s across the floor from a cot. Opening the flaps of the boxes, he reveals a TV and game system. “Dad always told me, put down that game and go play outside. Now I’m wishing I could. But the game keeps me entertained. Everything in town works as normal, except the people.”
Finite: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Sephlem Trials Book 4) Page 33
