Dead Man Walking

by Zach Adams

  Chloe pulled a scratched white cell phone from her pocket and passed it to Isaac.

  “When I got this old thing working again, there were a couple of apps still open,” Chloe said. “Take a look. And then get a new phone already, you dinosaur.”

  Isaac entered his passcode, a secret he insisted not be included in the narration. The dark surface switched onto the home screen; a photo of him, Chloe, Tobias, Donny, Alana, and the Luther twins just before graduation. He pressed the center button along the bottom and pulled up the first app of the two still open. It showed a Google map, beginning at their apartment and leading north out of the city.

  “Go figure,” Isaac said as he scrolled up along the jagged blue line. “Denali National Park. That conspiracy website had a theory that indigenous cultures around the world were drawn to magical hotspots. The Page I took from the museum was tucked in an Athabascan exhibit. L’æon said something about a sensory trace leading north. That’s where Rozariu Mazăre is.”

  For several minutes, no one spoke. They all sipped their coffee. Cats nuzzled humans. Snow battered the windows.

  Volkov was determined to get you to that club, Panic chipped in. But you’ve already been there.

  The magical hotspot must open some sort of gate to other worlds, Isaac thought in reply. In my dreams I went through and got as far as that forest before L’æon…

  ‘Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads, which Isaac had saved as his ringtone, played from his phone as the screen lit up, catching his attention.

  7:06 AM

  Monday, December 31, 2018

  One new text message

  +19075559653: I will see you again very soon, poison Ivy.

  “Son of a bitch,” Isaac said, unaware at first that he had done so out loud. Chloe asked what it was about. He shook the mental dust out of his head and showed her the screen. Her jaw clenched.

  “Sorry, thinking,” Isaac said. “I’ve been having these dreams the past couple of days, but it’s like they’re real. They start out as flashbacks then get twisted, and I see things that I don’t recall happening. The last one, when I was at Tobias’ place, L’æon caught up at the end and ripped me apart in some world I had never even seen before, until I found these stories. Only he must have done something wrong, or I did, because I woke back up at home, the day after Christmas, with the universe unraveling. I had found the forest… I was trying to Ascend!”

  Chloe and Sarah, almost in unison, asked what he was babbling about.

  “It was a human who became the first elf, right?” Isaac asked. “I found the Pages and was trying to do the same. Get to the fountain, drink the water, instant level-up. But something went wrong, and I died before I was allowed in. The story said mortals weren’t allowed in without permission, and I didn’t have it. If I really am the ‘pebble’ breaking the universe, then my guess is that caused some sort of paradox. I have another chance if I get through the gate.”

  “The one in or around Rozariu Mazăre,” Chloe said.

  “That one, yep.”

  “Where a you-obsessed vampire, with his horde of undead slaves -” Sarah interjected.

  “Plus, an unstable gangster you just pissed off, and his entourage,” Chloe concluded for her.

  “Are all attempting to summon an ancient cosmic entity so dangerous no one is supposed to know who or what it is, yes, I get the point. If it wasn’t suicidally insane, I don’t think it would work. To get into the forest, whatever you do has to be big enough to attract god-level attention.” Isaac said. He waved his hands impatiently near the sides of his own head.

  “What do you think you’re going to do?” Chloe asked.

  “I was thinking bust in, find L’æon, and punch him in the face with that bye-bye curse I learned before he can eat me,” Isaac said. He tried hard to sound tough as he did, but even he didn’t buy it. Sarah attempted to disguise a giggle as a cough, and Chloe rubbed her forehead with her eyes closed.

  “I don’t see much choice here,” Isaac told them defensively. “If all this is happening because I failed the first time, maybe I can fix it now. The outcome is the same whether I lose again or if I don’t try at all.” He rose and brought his backpack to his room, giving an appreciative Gamora a few extra head pats as he went. As he stuffed a warmer jacket and three plastic bottles of water in the bag, Chloe appeared behind him.

  “I know it’s stupid, Chloe, but you’re not talking me out of saving the whole damn -” Isaac began.

  “No, be quiet, I’m -” Chloe tried to say.

  “I’m sorry, but it has to happen, I know -”

  “Would you just shut -?”

  “Enough! This is my first and possibly last chance to do something, you know… Right. I can’t back out.”

  “Ivy, you might find that if you kindly close your mouth, it will stop all that melodramatic speech from spilling out like that. You’re not the one with a car anymore,” Chloe reminded him as she dangled Tobias’ keys in her hand. “We’re all going.”

  Isaac, Chloe, and Sarah all attempted to rest while they could.

  “When I was tied up in Volkov’s garage, he said there were twenty hours until the Forgotten One would appear, that was about three and a half hours ago,” Isaac explained to the others. Chloe clenched her fists and jaw when his encounter with the drug dealer was mentioned.

  Chloe departed to her bedroom in silence. Sarah curled back up on the couch but didn’t close her eyes.

  Isaac, full of adrenaline and in no hurry to stop his body moving so his thoughts could take over, crouched to the floor and resumed making up for the lack of attention he had offered his cat over the past few days. Nikola quickly joined, which Gamora began to take offense to. Before a feline fight could break out, Isaac inched forward to sit between them and pet each with one hand. The older of the two cats decided this was an appropriate compromise.

  Several minutes later, Chloe returned in her pajamas, her hair hastily tied back, and glasses crooked on her face. Apparently, rest wasn’t happening for her either. Before she made it halfway down the hallway, Sarah sat upright, keeping the blanket draped over her shoulders.

  Chloe took the opposite seat without a word and zoomed in on her incomplete computer tower, grabbing tools that surrounded the machine on the coffee table.

  Isaac stood up with a groan and returned to his own bedroom. Gamora and Nikola followed, curling up at his feet when he collapsed into his bed. He fell asleep before Panic and Rage could start another fight in his head.

  Later in the afternoon, the three of them prepared for the drive. Isaac stuffed a few water bottles and a bottle of aspirin into his backpack and tucked his Pages into a notebook next to them. At the last moment, he remembered to pull on a light but warm coat over his Star Wars sweater. When he left his room, he saw Chloe helping Sarah strap a holster under her jacket.

  “What’s with the gun?” Isaac asked.

  “It’s mine,” Sarah said. “We don’t have a magic trick to throw around in the wasp’s nest we’re heading to,” Chloe nodded along with her and showed another one under her own coat.

  “And this is the one Uncle Vic gave me after he taught me to use it. What better face for target practice than Alexei Volkov?” Chloe said.

  Isaac, barely comfortable operating an automobile, considered himself far too twitchy to be trusted with even more means to kill himself or others. The presence of firearms always made him nervous. He was aware, however, that Chloe and Sarah knew what they were doing much better than he did.

  The trio snuck back out of the apartment, timing their exit to avoid being seen. Chloe led them to the rear of the building where she had parked Tobias’ car, and they departed. There was some argument over the music choices on the drive - Isaac assuming command of the auxiliary cord and plugging his iPod in to play the Talking Heads while Chloe demanded he put on Queen. Sarah, in the backseat, had her own headphones in and was blissfully unaware of the siblings’ bickering. The only other musical event of the trip
was Isaac putting on John Williams’ “Imperial March” as they approached Rozariu Mazăre after dark. While he found it amusing, the other two merely rolled their eyes.

  After a three-hour drive on a frozen, darkened highway, with the snow whipping back up into a proper blizzard as their journey neared its end, they reached Rozariu Mazăre.

  “Lots of people for such a remote spot,” Sarah pointed out.

  The parking lot was nearly full, and a crowd of people had gathered at the door in anticipation of the opening. They all stood still, staring at the building. The club beyond was a windowless single-story brick structure painted black with thin lines of red around the edges and doorway, and spotlights shining through the roof. In front of the entrance, facing the crowd stood three dazed men in faux-police uniforms, holding automatic weapons.

  More hollow, the brain gang said.

  Behind the hollow, in an apparent supervisor position, stood Luka, in leather and denim with an appropriately large gun strapped to him.

  “Jeez, this place stinks,” Isaac complained as he rolled up his window. Chloe asked what he was talking about. “You can’t smell that? It’s like a cloud of vinegar vapor just wafted over here,” Chloe opened her own window slightly and smelled the air. She thought for a few seconds, then shrugged.

  “Sarah, you smell anything?” She asked. Sarah inhaled and shook her head. Isaac chewed a piece of heavily aromatic spearmint gum from a pack Tobias had left in the console, hoping it would shield his nostrils. All three of them left the car and got in line, with Chloe and Sarah stepping ahead of Isaac almost immediately, forming a wall in front of him. No one else in line reacted to their arrival in any way.

  The undead guards, with Luka’s approval, let in guests one at a time. Isaac thought they had slipped into the crowd under the radar until Luka said something into his palm.

  A moment later Lucinda, still in her dirty dress but with a dark cape and hood over it which didn’t quite mask the bruise covering half of her face, stepped out of the building with Donny, leashed and apparently sleepwalking. Now everyone in the crowd had their eyes locked on Isaac.

  “L is g-glad you have accepted your invitation,” Lucinda said from the doorway. Luka beckoned for Isaac to approach, and he felt now was not the time to be defiant. Chloe and Sarah followed him, and the zombified guards stepped into the crowd with jagged teeth and claws bared.

  “They were not invited,” Lucinda said. Chloe scoffed and stuck her hand under her coat; Sarah saw her movement and did the same.

  “Try to keep us out, you spooky bitch,” Chloe told the vampire. The pair continued to advance with Isaac, hands on their concealed weapons. A few members of the crowd groaned in a strange sort of warning.

  The hollow bolted into the crowd, sharpened fingers flailing. The girls had their guns out as the creatures closed the distance between them. Chloe shot first, clipping one of the hollow in the shoulder. It jerked backward at the force but seemed unhurt otherwise. The guards leapt into the air and descended toward their targets. The girls emptied their clips in response.

  Isaac hit the ground on reflex at the bark of the guns and clapped his hands over his ears.

  Are those the correct terms? ‘Emptied their clips’? Panic asked.

  Would you shut the hell UP?! Isaac screamed back.

  The noise of gunfire and the guards’ snarling sent several nearby partygoers, who until this moment had been mostly unaffected by the situation, into fits of confused wailing.

  Warm blood splattered from the undead creatures, who seemed not to notice their injuries. Isaac, Chloe, and Sarah noticed for them, as some of the still-warm fluid landed on their exposed skin.

  Do not care for that one bit, Panic chattered.

  As Isaac rolled onto his back to see what was happening, the guards landed on the girls. He tried to stand and tripped over the next person in line.

  Sarah managed to catch one of the hollow trio in the head, which fell limp to the ground. Its partners howled and began to claw at the girls. Isaac watched in horror as they attempted to ward off the vicious beasts with their arms. As anxiety produced cold sweat all over him, he slipped each time he tried to catch himself on the icy ground.

  “AGH!” Chloe shrieked. A hollow had clawed a long gash into her left arm. She shot her attacker in the leg and kicked at it, giving her a gap to dodge the monster.

  The second hollow lunged for Sarah with its claws outstretched. She put a bullet through one of its hands, distracting it long enough to take a large step back, and slip on the ice. Chloe slid by and stopped her friend from hitting her head.

  What can we do? Panic cried. Isaac thought he recalled something useful, but his blood pressure didn’t find it comforting.

  …He was pointing the palm of his left hand at the scene, his thumb extended at a right angle. He twitched his hand down at the wrist and every molecule in the room sang out in unison, connected by static electricity…

  Isaac lifted his palms from the ice and gravel, imitating the gesture to the best of his memory. He lacked the practiced grace L’æon had but did his best. He held the pose for a moment before the final twitch, to ensure his aim between the girls and the monsters was solid.

  Ironically, the girls have significantly better aim than you, Panic and Rage both told him.

  I will surgically remove you both if you don’t start being helpful, Isaac thought in return. It seemed to shut them up long enough for him to focus.

  With one last twitch from his wrist down, Isaac shouted, “Dí’prætä!”

  He had expected a thin, crystal-clear bubble of cosmic energy to materialize between his targets, as it had when he first witnessed the spell, but that is not what happened. An unstable, wavy wall of semisolid air erupted from his palm and struck the feral beasts, launching them well over a hundred feet away, into some trees.

  I can do Jedi stuff now. Good golly that is awesome, Isaac thought.

  Nerd out later! The brain gang snapped.

  Glad that they finally said something sensible, Isaac rose to his feet and helped the girls do the same. There were bloody scratches on their arms and faces, but nothing obviously lethal. Both were flushed and gasping for air as they lifted their guns back to the air.

  The guards were sprinting back. Chloe and Sarah opened fire as soon as they were in sight, but the creatures couldn’t get over the crowd as Isaac’s wall of air had remained suspended in their path as the residual energy slowly faded. Though the vinegar stink overwhelmed, Isaac thought he could detect a faint scent like old books as the energy dissipated.

  “That all you got?” Sarah called out to the vampire, who had not left her spot by the door.

  “The hollow are ordered to protect the gate until the Remembrance,” Lucinda said. “You were not invited.”

  “They’re with me!” Isaac yelled.

  Luka let out a short, grunting noise that could almost be mistaken for amusement if the walking Swiss (or rather, Russian) Army knife had any emotions.

  “Plus-one doesn’t get plus-two,” The gangster said. Having apparently exhausted his vocabulary on the speaking roles he had been given thus far in the story, he cleared his throat and leaned back against the wall.

  Isaac groaned and indicated for the girls to step back with him and regroup. The pair asked him what was going on.

  “Volkov invited me here on L’æon’s behalf,” Isaac explained. “Only I can -”

  “If you think I’m letting you go in there alone, you are out of your damn mind,” Chloe cut her brother off.

  “It’s not a matter of you letting me,” Isaac replied. “They have a lot more reinforcements than I have the ability to Force-push into the distance. Either of you touch that door, something will eat or dismember you. Likely both, trust me. Turn around, drive to the nearest place with cell service, and call Tobias for help while I buy some time.”

  “We didn’t come all this way to -!”

  “There’s no way around -!”

  S
arah pushed the bickering siblings a few inches away from each other and cut in.

  “What if Isaac goes in, and we find another way to sneak in?” She suggested. Chloe nodded in agreement. Isaac let out a sigh.

  They really won’t give up, the brain gang said. Guess we have to improvise…

  “Okay, fine,” Isaac said. He began walking back to the car as he spoke while Chloe and Sarah followed. “I will go in with them. You two wait in the car until the guards all go inside, then bust in, guns blazing. Copacetic?”

  Chloe and Sarah climbed into the driver and passenger seats respectively and accepted this plan. Once the doors were closed, he leaned into the open driver’s side window.

  “One more thing, in case this doesn’t work…” Isaac said to Chloe. She looked up at him, eyes wide.

  “What’s up, Ivy?” Chloe asked. He cleared his throat.

  “Call Tobias. Næ’vös shívæ,” The girls looked confused as his face left the window. Chloe put her hands on the steering wheel against her will.

  “Wait, what - No!” She shouted at her brother, her face contorted in rage.

  “I’m sorry,” Isaac said. He patted the hood gently and said, “Næ,”

  The engine roared to life. Chloe, still not fully in control of her hands and making rapidly less audible sounds that were somewhere between pleading and threatening, drove the vehicle away from Rozariu Mazăre. Within minutes, they were on the road and out of sight, and Isaac was once again on his own. He bypassed the line and approached the front door.

  Lucinda looked remorseful as she led him and Donny, still in his semi-conscious state, silently into the dark club.

  “Donny, man, it’s me,” Isaac said to the walking coma patient.

  “Donald Adam Grigoryan. Genghis Don. Wake up!” He continued. His friend did not respond.

  “He is not asleep,” Lucinda told him. He asked what he was if not asleep.

  “He is becoming hollow,” She replied. “I’m sorry…”

  If I don’t die here, I will find a way to fix this, Isaac thought, unable to make words leave his mouth. He followed them into the vampire’s lair.