Into the Real

by Z Brewer

  By the time the last electric shock ceased ripping through my body, the words that had been on the screen had been replaced with a picture of a butterfly perched delicately on a red rose.

  The screens went black, and I was left in a pitch-dark room. I must have twisted and strained against my straps more than I’d thought, because my wrists and ankles felt rug-burned. My head hurt worst of all—even more than my jaw. My face was dripping with sweat and tears. No sound came from the darkness. No light. No hope. There was only me and my thoughts. I supposed they wanted me to consider what had just transpired—that every time an image that was remotely queer had flashed on the screen, I’d experienced intense pain. But I barely gave that a thought. Mostly, I thought about the words on the screen. You can’t run from the monster. The monster is you.

  Was I a monster? Did Dr. Hillard have a point?

  I could’ve really used a cigarette to steady my nerves.

  Only . . . I didn’t smoke. Where had that urge come from?

  “Oh, that’s right. Not here you don’t.”

  The gardener. He’d offered me a cigarette and spoke as if he knew another version of me from somewhere else. He’d been here recently too. Placing that rubber thing between my teeth. I could still smell the nicotine wafting off him.

  Lying there in the dark with no sound, I sank into a place of near sensory deprivation. I thought about the gardener and how familiar he’d seemed to me, though I hadn’t recognized him at the time. He was a stranger to me. The Stranger. And I had seen him before. In a white lab coat. In a black snakeskin trench coat. But where?

  Eerie fog coated my thoughts, with the sounds of war echoing in my ears. At first, I thought maybe they were things I’d heard during the treatment; there’d been so many images, flashing across the screens. But no. They were memories. They had to be. They were too real not to be.

  The door opened and fluorescent lights buzzed on, hurting my eyes. Hands undid my straps and removed the rubber hose from my mouth. Hands carried me all the way to my room and laid me on my bed. Darkness fell over me like a heavy blanket. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing just inside the small cave across from my school. But the cave was a half mile away from Camp Redemption, so how could that be?

  My bare feet moved over cool stone and dirt as I walked deeper into the cave, stepping over dozens of empty liquor bottles—maybe from bored teenagers, I couldn’t be sure. There, at the very back of the cave, a large mirror hung in midair. Its frame was black and twisted. Several sharp points jabbed outward, giving it a menacing appearance. I could see no strings or wires holding it in place. It just floated there. Within it, I saw my reflection. I had the strangest feeling the mirror had been waiting for me.

  I looked over my shoulder, toward the entrance. The air felt dense, making it hard to breathe.

  A face appeared in front of me as I turned back, just inches from my own. It was smooth and had the gleam of polished porcelain. A mask. Only I couldn’t discern the eyes of the wearer through the eyeholes. “Wh-who are you?”

  The wearer of the mask didn’t speak.

  In the darkness, I couldn’t quite make out their body, but it looked like they were wearing a costume of some kind. A huge form, wrapped in black snakeskin.

  The texture sent a shiver up my spine. Before I could stop myself, I stretched out my hand toward it. I had to see who it was, lurking within this elaborate costume. After a moment’s hesitation, I held my breath and gripped the mask—noting how warm it was, like flesh—and pulled.

  But it wasn’t a mask after all. It was a face. It was the true face of Coe.

  Coe, the man in the trench coat. Coe, the creature at the school. Coe, the gardener. Coe. Memories of him filled me so quickly, I thought I might burst.

  A tiny sliver toward the bottom of the masklike face opened, spreading wider and wider until it was an infinite black cavern. All along Coe’s throat were toothlike thorns that looked capable of tearing through flesh like it was tissue. I could see that far and even deeper, into Coe’s belly—where I swore I saw a mess of bones and flesh. Atop the stomach contents sat an eyeball that had been ripped from its socket. As I stared, horrified and speechless, the eye turned up to me, looking at me, as if its owner were still experiencing the endless hell of being digested by Coe.

  I scrambled away from him, and Coe’s mouth closed into a small slit once again. I could see the large snakeskin body and long, spindly legs clearly now. But I couldn’t see the cave entrance anymore. I was trapped.

  My foot came down on what felt like a beer bottle, and I fell back, hitting the ground with a thud. Another broken bottle sliced through my left palm. Pain shot through my body, but I barely had time to register it. Coe was inching closer now, pulling that immense body deeper into the cave, closer to me, with those impossibly thin legs. Hunger was in the air—a hunger that I suspected could never be satiated. Coe was coming for me.

  I half expected him to lunge forward, to snap at me or grab me with his clawed hands. But Coe moved with the confident patience of a predator who’d never lost a meal. He inched closer, and the slit opened wide, revealing a long, black tongue that snaked its way out of his mouth and caressed my cheek. A scream tore from my throat, and the next thing I saw was a bloody, broken bottle in my hand stabbing forward, piercing his cheek. I expected the porcelain-looking surface to crack, but it cut and bled like flesh—black, glistening blood. An inhuman sound rumbled from within him—one that spoke of pain and suffering and vengeance and death without his even uttering a word.

  My hair blew back from my face as I ran. I didn’t know how I’d managed to stand or get out of the cave. I just knew that I’d instinctively chosen fight before following it up with flight. I just knew that Coe was behind me, and I wasn’t going to live much longer if I didn’t get out.

  I knew I couldn’t run away, couldn’t escape the nightmare, but I ran anyway. I didn’t stop running until I closed my bedroom door behind me. I was home. I shoved my dresser in front of the door and locked my window, knowing full well that it wouldn’t help.

  Coe was coming for me. And he was hungry.

  I snapped my eyes open into wakefulness and shot up in the bed at Camp Redemption.

  A dream.

  It was just a dream.

  Wasn’t it?

  As I rubbed the ache from my left hand, I noticed the sun was setting outside. I must have slept for hours after the shock therapy. I lay still, steadying my breathing, trying to loosen the knot that had formed in my chest. Caleb. I had to help Caleb. And Lloyd. And the others. We had to get out of here.

  Emergency lights flashed in through my window, splashing the walls with color. Blue and red. Over and over again. A warning of some kind.

  I sat up with a jerk and rushed to the window. An ambulance was parked in front of the house. Two ENTs were loading a gurney into the back. The person on it was too far away for me to make out. I hurried downstairs and burst out the front door. Several staff members were standing outside, along with Alice, Randall, Collins, Caleb, and Valerie. Caleb looked more than a little exhausted. Alice fidgeted nervously. Several other staff members had haunted, worried looks about them. There was no sign of the gardener. The Stranger. Coe.

  Dr. Hillard was talking to one of the ENTs, who scribbled something down on a clipboard before climbing into the driver’s side of the ambulance. The other ENT closed the back doors and hurried to the passenger door. As they were pulling away, I grabbed Valerie by the shoulder. “What happened? Who—”

  Valerie burst into tears and hugged me. “Susan. It was Susan. They . . . they performed an exorcism on her. She’s . . . hurt. She’s hurt bad, Quinn.”

  My heart sank like a stone. I gripped Valerie tight. Though I couldn’t seem to find any tears to shed, I let her cry enough for the both of us, soaking the front of my shirt with her anguish. One of us was hurt badly enough to warrant a hospital visit. She’d been sent here to become worthy of heaven and instead had experienced hell. />
  As if holding court, Dr. Hillard turned to face us all, holding up his hands. “Please be comforted, children. Pray for Susan. She is in God’s hands.”

  “What happened to her?” Caleb’s voice sounded smaller than it had before they’d dragged him away from Lloyd and me. I wondered what they’d done to him, and if it was as bad as or worse than what they’d done to me. My wrists still ached from the straps digging into them.

  In the calmest tone, Dr. Hillard replied, “Susan had an accident. She fell down some stairs. She’ll be fine.”

  He was lying. It wasn’t even a convincing lie, which made it all the more upsetting. As the heat of anger spread up my body, I reached instinctively for the pistol on my hip, but when I felt nothing there, I paused in confusion. I hated guns. I didn’t ever carry a gun.

  Not here, anyway.

  Alice stepped forward. “But even as we witness a loss, we have an opportunity to witness a tremendous win, as one of our own shall emerge from the Serenity Hut renewed.”

  The last time I’d seen Lloyd, he hadn’t exactly looked “renewed,” in any sense of the word. He’d looked hungry. He’d looked tired. But he hadn’t looked defeated, which was the most important thing.

  As if he were taking us all out for ice cream, Dr. Hillard spoke in the kindest-sounding voice. “If you’ll all please follow me.”

  We walked around the house, and at the sight of the building where I’d been electrocuted—sorry, I mean “treated”—my stomach turned at the memory of the experience. That feeling stayed with me all the way to the Serenity Hut.

  When we reached the prison shed, Dr. Hillard withdrew a set of keys from his vest pocket and unlocked the padlock that had been keeping Lloyd inside. The door swung open, and Dr. Hillard gestured for Lloyd to exit. Valerie gasped at the sight of our friend.

  In his trademark calm tone, Dr. Hillard addressed Lloyd, but as he did, he looked at the rest of us, like he wanted to make sure we were seeing what happens to someone who rebels against Camp Redemption. “Lloyd, please share with us what enlightenment you received from our Lord after your time in solitude. How do feel after your treatment?”

  “I feel . . . good, to be honest. I thought about you the entire time, Doc.” Lloyd’s expression sent a worried chill through me. Had they broken him at last? Was the Lloyd I’d been so charmed by now forever changed into whatever they’d deemed appropriate? I glanced at Caleb, who looked as concerned as I felt.

  Alice straightened her shoulders in triumph. A look of pride washed over Dr. Hillard’s face. They’d won. They’d always win.

  Then the corner of Lloyd’s mouth lifted in an impish smirk. Offering the good doctor a wink, he said, “Incidentally, you might wanna mop the floor. It’s pretty sticky in there.”

  Alice took a sharp step toward Lloyd. Only a stern glance from Dr. Hillard stopped her. After all, they couldn’t risk an injury so grave that another ambulance had to be called. She spat at Lloyd, “You’re disgusting. And a poor example of what any human being here on God’s green earth should strive to be.”

  Dr. Hillard’s jaw tensed. I couldn’t help noticing his hands had clenched into fists. “Obviously, we’ll have to resort to more aggressive treatment. As Saul was shown the light on the road to Damascus, you will be cleansed, boy.”

  “When are you gonna understand, old man, the more you do to me, the more you hurt me, the more I come to enjoy it.” The fire in Lloyd’s eyes had returned. “You’re not curing me of anything, ‘Doctor.’ You’re just getting me interested in leather bars and BDSM.”

  Dr. Hillard’s lips pursed in revulsion. His eyes were locked on Lloyd’s, but Lloyd wasn’t backing down. “Perhaps your humility will emerge once you’ve spent an additional three days in the Serenity Hut. With daily flagellation to tame the demons within you.”

  Lloyd swallowed hard. He didn’t say a word, but he did struggle some when two men forced him back inside the shack and placed the lock back on the door. Once the door was closed, I swore I heard soft sobbing coming from within. My heart cracked into pieces at the sound of it.

  Alice’s eyes filled with fear, which tightened my chest in panic. If she was worried about Lloyd spending a full five days locked away, it had to mean that Dr. Hillard had snapped.

  His calm, confident demeanor returning, Dr. Hillard spoke through a crack between the boards—the same crack Caleb and Lloyd had laced their fingers through. He said, “Some demons can be resisted, some forced out, but the demons infesting your soul, my dear boy . . . I fear they must be starved and beaten from you.”

  Turning on his heel, Dr. Hillard led us back to the house. None of us spoke during the walk. Once we’d stepped inside, before she retired for the night, Alice reminded us that it was almost curfew and that we should pray for Susan, Lloyd, and ourselves before bed. Her demeanor was subdued.

  When she was gone, I looked into the eyes of each of my friends and said, “We’re getting out of here. Tomorrow. And we’re taking Lloyd with us. Before any of the rest of us end up in the back of an ambulance.”

  8

  Behind me, I heard the telltale flick of a lighter, followed by Coe’s voice. “I told you to watch your head.”

  I turned to face him, my thoughts swirling as I tried to figure out how he’d moved in a blink from my side to the tree he was leaning against, but came up empty.

  I said, “How did you . . .” But I stopped, knowing better than to ask the riddle master for useful information.

  With his nicotine-stained fingers, he offered me a salute. Then his body sank into the tree, through the bark. Not becoming one with it or encased by it, just through it, like a corpse sinking into a scummy pond. He faded away, swallowed by bark and moss. Just like that, once again, Coe was gone.

  “Hey, Quinn.” I hadn’t noticed Lloyd approach, so when he spoke, it startled me. Not just because I wasn’t expecting to hear his voice. But because the last time I’d seen him, he was being dragged away by homophobic zealots, and the time before that he’d died by my hand in a world fraught with actual monsters.

  He had no idea that Caleb was dead. Or that Lia had killed him. Or that I had just stabbed him through the jugular with a rusty claw hammer in an alternate life.

  My hand was trembling as I brushed hair back from my face. I tried to appear calm, but my eyes kept darting from Lloyd to the tree where Coe had disappeared and back again. Lloyd raised an eyebrow in concern. “You all right?”

  I was about as far from all right as a person can get, but how the hell was I supposed to explain that to him? I was having a hard time looking into his eyes now without seeing the horrified realization in them once the hammer had pierced his skin in the other Brume. Overwhelming guilt filled me at having caused him pain, but I’d have been lying if I’d said I didn’t feel a sense of justice as well.

  He said, “Does Lia know you’re out here?”

  “Do I look like I care at the moment?” I took a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and tapped it against my palm. My thoughts swirled around the question of how to solve this paradox. Coe said that I had to choose which life I wanted to live. Even if I could decide, how could I possibly implement that choice?

  With the filter of a smoke pressed between my lips, I accepted a light from Lloyd, closing my eyes as I inhaled. The burning intake of breath that would normally have brought me an instant sense of relief and calm simply burned without purpose, filling my mouth with an acrid, empty taste. Unsatisfied, I dropped the butt to the ground and crushed it with my boot.

  The Stranger was nowhere to be found, but it was becoming clear that his hints at other lives weren’t without merit. Those lives were very real—as real as this one. The Stranger had told me that I had a choice in which life to live. If that was true, I needed to remember everything I could about those other existences.

  “What’s going on with you? You’re a world away.”

  Three worlds, actually. “Nothing. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “Care to sh
are?”

  Across the street, life was carrying on like business as usual. A mother was holding her daughter’s hand as they climbed the steps to the front door of the high school. Two men in civilian clothes greeted a third as he approached. A light breeze rustled the park’s trees. I wondered, if the Allegiance and Resistance destroyed one another, how different the world would look. Maybe it would be as savage and broken as the Brume where monsters roamed free. Maybe our worlds weren’t so different. But at least in that Brume, that Quinn could live their truth openly. At least that Quinn had some semblance of what it was like to live free . . . even if they did seem lonely.

  I brought my thoughts to Lia. I’d done the right thing by ordering Mika to take her into custody. But that didn’t mean I felt good about it. “Caleb’s dead.”

  Lloyd’s face went white with shock, but soon reddened in anger. “What?! How?”

  “Lia.” Her name felt foreign on my tongue. “She shot him.”

  The question of why hung on his lips, but he didn’t give voice to it. Maybe he understood that now wasn’t the time for whys. “Shit! We’re . . . we’re . . .”

  “The word you’re looking for is ‘fucked.’”

  “When did she do it?”

  “About twenty minutes ago.”

  He frowned. “The moment they catch wind of the news, the Allegiance is going to start killing civilians. So what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. But for now I’m going to stand here and consider lighting another cigarette.”

  Lloyd shook his head, his mouth a thin line. “Come on, Quinn. A real man doesn’t run from his problems.”

  I thought about the Allegiance’s creed. As God intended. I wondered if God’s real intent was that we all end up dead so the world could be cleared away for some new form of life. Intent or not, like it or not, we were headed in that direction now. All because of Lia. Without meeting his gaze, I said, “What if I’m not a ‘real man’?”

  There was a distinct pause before he replied. As he did, he took a small step back. “What are you talking about? You’re not . . . gay or anything. Are you?”