by Mason Sabre
But the boy didn’t answer or indicate he could. He just looked in the right direction at the right time.
Stephen moved sideways, his eyes on the boy’s, watching him, the boy’s gaze followed.
“You can, can’t you?”
Still, the boy said nothing, and it was a little like the woman at the facility. Stephen had no idea what any of it meant. The souls he had taken in the past always came to him. He didn't have to follow them. Sometimes they would speak, but only if they needed to, but they always knew where they needed to be. Something drew them to him.
The boy stepped around Xander, and he was slow with his movements, just the same way Stephen had been when he was cautious.
“I won’t hurt you.”
Stephen moved again, and this time, the boy stayed put. He held his hand out toward the kid, hovering in mid-air and the boy moved, but it was with hesitation, and then he glanced up to Xander, and without notice, he shot past Stephen, almost making him spin.
In haste, Stephen went to grab for him but missed, and the kid darted out through the back wall. Stephen followed, tripping over his non-existent feet.
Chapter 11
Stephen burst from the house with the full momentum of a man consumed by the need to know, a need to unravel the mysteries of everything that was going on around them. His logical mind tried to reason with him, tried to argue that following the kid was insane. It was nothing short of a curious need, and everyone knew what happened to curious cats, even big cats.
Nonetheless, he ignored the warnings in his head. They hadn’t got him very far as it was, so what did it matter?
The boy was a little way ahead and standing in the middle of the road. He could run if needed. Stephen wouldn’t blame him. It was, after all, the body’s instinctive response to do what it needed to survive. Fight, flight or freeze … those were the choices. But even from where Stephen stopped, he could tell the boy wasn’t frozen, and nor was he in flight. No. He was waiting, for him.
“What do you want?”
The boy said nothing, and Stephen let out a groan as he paused in the middle of the road himself, his shoulders squared, his legs set apart in that natural dominance stance he had down to a fine art. His body language always gave a clear-cut message, ‘Do not mess with me.’
The boy stared at Stephen, all bright eyes and innocence encapsulated in the child before him.
“You want me to follow you? Is that it?”
Stephen took a step forward, and while he was no coward, his mind churned out a plea against what he might find. He’d already seen enough death and bloodshed in his life. A whole of twenty-eight years, and already his mind was numb to it, but kids. Fuck. He could never do kids, and in a way, he hoped he’d never be able to. Seeing the dead body of a child and being okay with it … well, that would speak of a heart that had grown so cold, it might as well be dead.
Dead … that was what this boy had to be. He paused in the road deeper into the town, rather than at the gate. There had to be a body on the other side. There just had to be. Just like the woman and the baby. "You're out of luck, kid. I can’t do anything for you.” Not then at least. He couldn’t do anything for himself even.
Still, the boy said nothing. He hardly moved, and despite Stephen’s mind yelling at him to go back to the house, he moved closer to the boy. There was a monument near to them. It was tall and made of white stone. The white marble held a tinge of grey, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was still standing, and that alone made the hairs on the back of Stephen’s neck stand tall. He fisted his hands and ground his jaw as he made himself look at the names of murderers listed there.
All the towns had to have these tributes, these things … these statues of death and the celebration of lost lives. They held the names of Humans in memoriam, for time served against Others and lives lost in wars and battles. One day, Stephen would take down each one he saw. He would rip the plaque from the very heart of the thing and ask all Others to stand. This, the woman, her baby … even the kid standing and waiting for him now. “It has to stop. It all has to stop.”
With each step Stephen took, the boy took a few more. He kept Stephen close enough to keep him in view, and every time he ducked around a corner, he got to the end of the road and waited long enough for Stephen to see him.
“You know, you could just talk. It might make this easier.”
The town was bigger than Stephen realised. He had only seen two gated towns in Exile. The one where he had met Helena was smaller, more compact with the way it was, but this … this was bigger. There was a church. It was open and empty. He didn’t need to go into it to know that. At least they had left the stained-glass windows intact. Grass sprouted up along the path, almost covering the cobbles that led to the door, and a nest sat in the arch. Abandoned cars lay dotted around the road, and one lay at an angle, half mounted on the kerb with the door open, like someone had jumped out while it was still moving. When he got his body back, he’d go through all these and see which ones worked and which were just hunks of metal.
After a long walk and a length of time, Stephen wasn't sure of, they came to the fence. It was the same as the one near to the gates, just as aged, just as put together. It must have gone all the way around, and he wondered if the ditch did too. It would certainly make sense. It dipped in places, though, and some panels were broken. One had an entire chunk snapped away at the bottom, and the boy nipped through a larger hole without ducking. Stephen, bound by the thought of his physical form, couldn't help the natural inclination to imagine he'd not be able to fit.
The boy watched and waited as Stephen hesitated. “Where are we going?”
The boy only stared at him without even a twitch of his lips. He could rival Malcolm Davies at this rate in a contest at the best poker face.
Through the fence, there was nothing but overgrowth and woodlands, like the places Stephen was used to back home. It brought with it a pang of yearning and bittersweet memories he liked to relish in, but at the same time, they slashed at his spirit, and he pushed them away.
There was a feral air to the place, a roughness to it. It was more like somewhere they would find strays in a site away from Humans and Society. Most of the time, the Humans were too afraid to venture into those areas, unless they were armed, but they were raised on horror stories of gore and the terrible things Others did. Ironic really, when it was the Humans who caused the problems to begin with. Society never got their feet dirty either. Sometimes they were just as bad with their pretentious rules and regulations.
Stephen tried to ignore it. Growing up, it hadn’t been so hard to believe everything he had been taught, but the older he got, the more things looked out of place and formed in his mind as injustice. So many times, Stephen had gone into areas overrun with strays to warn them what would happen if they dared to think of themselves as a pack. Strays could not form groups of unity, and he realised now, how bad that made him. How much it made him like the Humans. He could have tossed it away with thoughts of doing his job, and god knows, his brain tried to justify it by just doing as he was told, but it was wrong. It was crazy and unfair, and one day, he would fix it. He would fix everything.
Sighing to himself, Stephen pushed himself through the hole and out the other side. The boy had moved a distance ahead, but he still waited. He waited just enough where Stephen could see him and not lose him.
He followed the boy all the way through until they came to some water. There wasn’t a large body of it, more like a stream he’d been used to seeing back home, but it was too broad to jump across. Up and down the bank, it only grew more extensive, and from what Stephen could see, there was no bridge or no way across.
“Looks like we’re swimming?”
Blank eyes … eyes that said nothing. The boy turned, and instead of wading through it, he walked across it, like Jesus fucking Christ.
"Fae," Stephen said. He had to be water fae because they could walk on water. They could control
water and bring it up. Hell, they could drown a person in their own saliva given a chance.
Stephen hadn’t realised how far from the house they had gone until he turned around and saw the distance they had covered from the fence. They were no longer in the woodlands. Stacks of rubbish replaced trees; old sofas, cupboards, broken baths … all the waste of houses not needed, things the Humans didn’t want or care for. Just beyond the household things, piles of rocks and rubble made small mountains. Black bin bags created barriers. Most of them were sealed, but some bags had split and spilt their guts. A breeze ruffled the tops of them … a breeze Stephen couldn’t feel and one that didn’t ruffle the boy’s hair.
When Stephen reached the top of the heap, the boy was already down the other side and at the bottom. His floppy mousey hair didn't move, but the dust behind him swirled with the wind neither of them could feel. He had his hand over his eyes, using it as a visor to guard himself against the glare of the sun behind Stephen. If Stephen needed any more confirmation, the boy could see him, that was it.
“Where are we going?”
No answer.
“Fine.” Stephen sighed, and with cautious Bambi-like steps, he made his way down the dirt, arms out at either side. Any moment he would topple and land on his arse in the filth. The boy stayed where he was, but his eyes fixated on the spot where Stephen had just been standing. Stephen glanced back, half expecting to see someone else … the woman, perhaps.
“What are you looking at?”
The boy moved again, and Stephen shook his head and let out another sigh.
“Fucking Alice in a hole. I swear, if a rabbit comes out asking me the time, I’m going home.” He paused. “No. That’s a lie. I’ll eat the damn thing first. Then I am going home.”
This time the boy tossed a small smile over his shoulder before carrying on and heading to the edge of the trash heap. It was flattened out at the side, and steel pipes made up a row of grey monsters—sewer pipes—pipes big enough to live in. Back home they had areas made up of them that formed underground caverns and places for strays to live. He knew about them. Society had known about them, and if they behaved, no one did shit all about it.
“Can you talk? Can you hear me?”
The boy gave a shake of his head. It wasn’t much, but it was something Stephen could take. He ran off again.
“Great.”
They wove through tunnels and holes, and Stephen put his arms out again, keeping his balance as they ran along the top. There were pallets with bags full of sand and stone. A cement mixer stood ugly in the centre. There were work vehicles, a small crane, a digger, and at the end, a lone tube stuck out from the moss-covered wall with a sinister eeriness.
It made Stephen stop only five feet away from the boy, but he didn’t run. Instead, he stepped into the tunnel. Stephen couldn’t see through it or around it. All there was was darkness and light … light at the end.
“You’re my reaper?”
Cold and ice settled into Stephen's entire being, and his spine ached with the sudden chill that lanced through his body. He held the side of the tube, not even shocked he could do that, and then he looked back to where he had come from … Helena, Aiden … the children.
“I’m not afraid.”
He’d never been afraid of death. If anything, it surprised him to be alive, to have made it as far as he had, but, as he pictured Helena sitting by his bed, his body on the table, the machines beeping out the signal that there was still life.
“What if I turn back?”
The boy gave no reply, but Stephen didn’t need it. There was no back, just the light, at the end of the tunnel.
Chapter 12
If there was one thing Stephen remembered from all his father’s teachings, it was that no decision was ever small, not even if it appeared to be at the time. Each thing, no matter how seemingly insignificant it might be, could come back and mean more than any grand gesture.
That was how the tunnel felt as he teetered on the edge. There was a pull inside his chest, an ache that wanted him to take a step, to follow the boy, but there was doubt in his mind too. It was big, growing, a gnawing in his brain.
“Red pill or blue pill?” he muttered to himself as he held one foot inside the tunnel and one out. He gripped the ridged edge, almost afraid if he let go, his body would decide for him, and he would walk inside without understanding all the options and consequences.
A small expectant face peered at him from the inside, and he stepped closer and nodded. It was the first time Stephen had seen the boy doing anything close to communication, and while he didn’t want to let that go, he also didn’t want to force himself into something he might come to regret later.
“Give me a second.” His breath stuck in his throat as he took his foot out of the tunnel and stepped back into the dusty yard. The tunnel was just that, a tunnel, but it was the fact that it was a tunnel and there was a light … it meant something. Stephen wasn’t one for believing in religion or stories of hell and all that stuff, but he also wasn't too close to it that if it were ever shown to him, he would deny its existence. Before he came to Exile, he hadn't believed so much in the concept of souls, but he’d been shown they existed in more ways than he could ever understand. Who was to say what was right or wrong until faced with it? “It’s a bloody tunnel.” He took another step back into the yard, and almost turned and ran, but he knew himself … he knew if he backed down from something, he would hate himself. He was many things, but a coward was not in the arsenal of names anyone could give to him. He made himself stop, almost yelled at himself to stay the hell where he was and face this fear.
Watching him, the boy came to the edge, without coming out. He had come back for him, which was something that brought a tingle down Stephen’s spine. The kid never came back. No. He waited, he teased, but he never bothered to go back if Stephen's step faltered.
“If I go in there, can I come back out?”
A glance over his shoulder and then a nod to Stephen, but no words. He stuffed his little hands in his pockets, and for the flash of a second, the boy seemed like he had more weight on his shoulders, than some men would carry in their entire lifetimes. He went back into the tunnel, leaving Stephen to stand alone outside.
Aware that time was ticking, Stephen moved to go back to the tunnel. “It’s just a service tunnel,” he said, and he nearly convinced himself of it.
If he died for real, then it was meant to be … that was what Freya told him. It was what she said about everything. So, it wouldn't matter if he went through this tunnel or not; if he were meant to die, death would find him, and Helena would be free. She'd be safe, and the babies would live.
Rubbing his fingers at his temple, he let out another long deep sigh. “Just go through the damn tunnel.” He clenched his hands into fists and pushed back at his own self-doubt. If he ever got the chance to be face-to-face with Lee Norton again, this … everything that had happened in the last two years was their fault, and if he died now, that would be on them too. He’d make sure to live just enough to make them pay for that alone.
The closer he got to the light, the slower his pace became and the brighter the light grew, but also, the view at the other side was slowly coming into focus like uncovering a picture little by little, but then maybe if it all came into view at once, the beauty of it would be lost, and this, he knew without a doubt was something to be marvelled at.
Heart clenching, he stopped at the end of the tunnel and squinted into the light. The colours were so bright, so vivid, spikes of emotion rose along his spine and bloomed out through his body in warm and soft waves. He’d never seen anything like it … knew he would never see anything like it again. He had seen beauty. He had seen it every time he’d looked at Helena … really looked at her, but this … he was sure he was looking at the start of creation itself. A sight so magnificent, so grand, he would never forget it, but perhaps he would spend his life trying to bring it back to himself.
“Wow.”
No word could ever convey what he meant, what he felt inside.
He stepped outside, but as he did, pain lanced through his body and shot down from his shoulder to his left hand and took him down to his knees. He gasped, heaved almost, as he tried to force air back into his body. Spearing pain ran through his muscles and weaved into the ridges of his scars. He held his breath and arched his back, letting the pain wane to a pulsating throb. It had been a long time since the scars on his arm had done that, but it knocked the breath from him and made him jolt like he'd been shot. "Christ." He had to use the side of the tunnel to balance himself. His body focused on the pain, and he wanted nothing more than to crumble to the ground and let it ride him.
Eyes watering, he sat back against the mouth of the tunnel and blinked his way back into focus. He was in a garden. One that went further than he could ever dream of seeing. Every colour was an exaggerated explosion of shades he couldn't even begin to name. The green of the grass was bright, the sky, the flowers. Even the small trees bloomed and reached out toward the bright sky. Clouds dotted the sky and let the sun peek out from behind and cast down warm rays of light. They called to Stephen. Made him want to reach into them and feel the golden beam touch his skin, and he could feel it. It made him forget the pain for a moment as the warmth of it bathed his skin. It was like nothing he had ever felt before, nothing he ever remembered, and if anyone had asked him right then to describe how it felt, he'd not have been able to find the words.
Pushing himself up with the aid of the edge of the tunnel, he staggered a step or two. Behind him, the tunnel vanished. He rubbed at his eyes, almost unsure what he was seeing, what his mind was telling him. This was all madness … all of it. Not just now, but all the moments that led to this one. “Shit.” Maybe he’d been drugged, hit his head, something … anything that could explain all the bizarre goings-on.
