ASHBURN
A (Sub)Urban Fantasy Novel
By Michael W. Layne
OTHER BOOKS BY MIKE
The Science of Magic Fantasy Series
The Applicant (FREE Prequel)
The Conservation of Magic
The Equilibrium of Magic
The Complexity of Magic
Trent Walker Supernatural Thrillers
Trapped in Whittier
Hunted Under Vegas
Buried in Alaska
The Whittier Trilogy (Discounted Trent Walker Three Book Bundle)
Horror/Thrillers
The Gate (FREE)
Running Club (FREE)
The Closet and Thirst (A Pair of Horror Short Stories)
All Available on Amazon.com
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Epilogue
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
ASHBURN
This book is dedicated to the memory of David Bowie.
I never knew Hell was green.
The grass. The money. Everything.
I thought it was red with bloody streams.
But not everything is as it seems.
From Ashburn Blues
by
David Steele
Chapter 1
MY NAME IS DAVID—David Steele.
Yes, that David Steele.
But, you can call me John.
At least for now.
Chapter 2
I REMEMBER SITTING UP in bed with a start, my skin covered in sweat. The morning sun forced its way into the bedroom through a break in the heavy curtains as I breathed hard, trying to recover from my nightmare. While my mental haze lifted slowly, I sorted through what was real and what wasn’t.
In my dream, I’d been a rock star performing in front of a sea of demonic monsters trying to take my soul.
The rock star part was true—or at least it had been for about two weeks in 1981, right before the launch of MTV, when a singer’s looks started to count more than his voice.
As far as being at a concert, I was in a bed instead—a place I’d seen far too much of in recent months, because the last time I’d checked, I was still dying of lung cancer.
I sat up and took a deep breath, bracing for the agony that always followed. But for the first time in a while, I didn’t cough anything up—no blood and no bits of thick, rotten, black goo.
Best of all, I wasn’t in any pain.
My lungs were clear, and I smiled. But only for a second.
I scanned the bedroom for my favorite Gibson electric, but it wasn’t there. That’s when I realized that even though I was awake, something was still wrong.
I rubbed by eyes to clear them of sleep. As the room came into sharper focus, I realized I was in someone else’s bed—something that happened every once in a while, when a woman wanted bragging rights for sleeping with David Steele, the famous one-hit wonder.
But this morning was different.
I held my hand in front of my face. My long, aged fingers that could pull a seven-fret spread effortlessly were gone. Instead, my hand was covered in the smooth skin of youth, with digits that were crooked in places, like they’d been broken and left to heal on their own.
“What the hell is going on?” I said out loud even though there was no one there to answer.
Then I heard something—a deep, menacing growl coming from the floor and growing louder, moving closer.
For a second, I thought I’d fallen asleep again and was having another nightmare, but I wasn’t so lucky.
Frantic, I searched the bed, feeling around for something I could use as a weapon, but all I could find was a pillow. I held it against my chest even though a few inches of down feathered softness wouldn’t protect me from much of anything at all.
Even so, it made me feel safer.
I held my breath and peeked over the edge of the bed, searching for the source of the monstrous sounds that were still getting closer. When I saw the creature walking across the carpet, I released a breath I’d been holding without knowing it.
It was a dog about as tall as my knees, with short, thick, grayish blue-and-black mottled fur and a round area of black on one side of his face that made him look like a pirate with an eye patch.
I laughed, feeling half foolish but also relieved—until he bared his teeth, and the hair along his spine stood on end. That, plus the way the animal glared at me with glowing crimson eyes convinced me not to reach down and pet him.
I’d owned dogs all my life. I even used to bring my dog, Rocky, to all of my shows. But the evil thing that was inching closer to me was only part dog and a lot of something else altogether.
I clutched my pillow-shield tighter and stared, wide-eyed at the animal, waiting for it to attack.
“Who’s a good boy?” I whispered through clenched teeth. With a flex of his haunches, he launched into the air and landed on the bed, straddling my feet.
I scooted back, away from him, until I was sitting with my back pressed against the headboard, with my pillow still in front of me. The dog crawled closer, leading with his razor-sharp teeth. His growl grew louder and more intense with each step. When he was close enough that I felt the hot exhale of his breath, he lifted a front paw and pushed against my pillow harder than a dog his size should have been able to do. Still waiting for him to attack at any moment, I gathered my courage and prepared to push him away using the pillow the instant he made his move.
Although I was afraid and at the animal’s mercy, a spark of rage welled up inside me, and my fear gave way to anger.
I felt my lips pull back as I showed my teeth, matching the dog’s snarl. It was a ridiculous gesture since I posed no threat to him. But whether I was acting on instinct or had simply lost my mind, for a moment, I felt like I was the most dangerous creature in the room.
The dog didn’t seem to agree, but as the seconds ticked away, the rage in his eyes dimmed.
He looked like a normal dog, but he didn’t budge as we continued our face-off. At last, he moved his snout closer until it almost touched my nose. I took an inadvertent whiff and raised my eyebrows at the animal’s stench.
Someone needed a bath and a dental cleaning, and it wasn’t me.
The dog sniffed my neck, then sat down on top of my stomach. With his tongue lolling out of his mouth, he scanned the room, bored. When he turned to focus on me again, his eyes were big and brown, and I had to resist petting him.
Both of us waited in silence as another thirty seconds passed. Then he moved.
He wagged his tail back and forth a few times, then used my crotch as a launching pad to jump off of the bed.
His dismount was a little painful, but on the positive side, he hadn’t tried to eat me—yet.
As an extra bonus, I was wide awake even though I hadn’t had a single drop of coffee.
I started to get out of bed, but my hand touched a silky piece of material—a tiny pink thong buried in the covers. I arched one brow and left the panties where I’d found them, wondering who they belonged to and if she was still around. Maybe the night before had been better than I remembered.
I stood up, still wary of the dog, but he only watched me as I surveyed the dimly lit surroundings. The bedroom was normal by all definitions, with a nightstand on either side of the bed and piles of books stacked wherever there was room. A wicker laundry basket stood in the corner, with a bunch of dirty clothes surrounding it and on top of it. A wooden dresser sat next to a free-standing, full-length mirror, and of course, a flat screen TV was mounted on the wall. The room had all the basics of modern-day living, but not a single piece of art, a family photo, or any other personal item that would have given the place a little personality.
The dog shot me a glance, then trotted over to his fluffy bed on the floor and started chomping on a large bone he held steady between his two front paws. As I looked closer, I saw he was munching on a human shin bone. I didn’t want to think about how he’d gotten ahold of the bone, but seeing it made me think of my own legs, which were carrying me without effort for the first time in months.
With my heart doing a drum roll, I positioned myself in front of the mirror and faced a reflection of someone who wasn’t me.
I stared at the stranger in the mirror and tried to stay calm. Don’t get me wrong—I was pleased to be alive and healthy again, but waking up in someone else’s shell was still stressful.
The good news was that my body was young and in amazing shape, and my new face was also everything my old one had never been—square-jawed and handsome. In fact, if I’d seen the guy in the mirror walking down the street a month ago, I would have hated him on principle alone.
The bad news was that my hair was buzz-cut short, and I was wearing tighty whities for underwear.
I had tons of questions swirling around in my head, and I was pretty sure the answers weren’t in the bedroom. But before I went anywhere, I needed to find a pair of boxer shorts or something else to wear, or else I was going to go commando.
As I made my way to the window, I stretched my new limbs and my neck. I squeezed my fist and grinned as the muscles in my forearm responded.
With one hand, I parted the bedroom curtains and squinted at the sudden glare from the outside world. It was early in the morning, but the day was already too bright. As my eyes adjusted, I looked out at a scene so foreign to me that I could barely speak. I’d seen photos of it—I think in National Geographic—but I never thought I’d experience it firsthand.
I wasn’t in the city anymore where I’d lived most of my life. Instead, I’d woken up in the suburbs.
I swallowed hard, and the dog wedged his block-head between me and the curtain so he could look outside, too.
Down below, two fit, middle-aged women jogged past oversized rubber trash cans and a street sign on the corner that read Ridgeway Drive. As their feet slapped the sidewalk, the sprinkler system next door hissed to life, barely missing them in their brightly colored running clothes. I pressed my nose against the inside of the window and checked up and down the street, but all I saw were houses—lots of them—each one nearly identical to the next, except for the style of their custom brick and stone veneers and the size of their overly green lawns.
I closed the curtain, and the room returned to blissful darkness. I sat on the edge of the bed and reminded myself that I was alive, and that I had every reason to be ecstatic.
But a piece of me was still annoyed.
“None of this was part of the deal,” I said into the air again—not shouting, but speaking loudly enough for the dog’s ears to lay flat. “Not this body. Not this dog. And not wherever the hell I am.”
I laughed at my pitiful reaction. Why did I care where I’d ended up? I’d beaten cancer and cheated death—things that never happened to people in real life. I laughed again and felt truly grateful—not to God or to any of his angels, but to a dark creature named Ahriman—the demon who had saved my life.
Chapter 3
FIRST THINGS FIRST, as my dad used to say.
I went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and sat on the edge of the unnecessarily huge tub to plan my next move.
My top priority was figuring out where I was, but first I had to find something to wear. Unfortunately, the best I could scare up was a pair of tan khakis and a white polo shirt. The good news was that I also located a pair of boxer briefs, which were a thousand percent better than the Homer Simpson tights I’d woken up in.
I dressed and looked at myself in the mirror, shaking my head at the uptight and uncomfortable outfit that made me look like a man-child on his first day of school.
I hope you’re enjoying this, Ahriman, I thought to myself as I threw the tighty whities into the trashcan and left the bedroom.
On my way down the stairs, the dog followed right behind me, so close I was afraid of stepping on him. After arriving safely on the ground floor, I shuffled around, checking out the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen. It was a fine house, but everything was made of the same light wood, like someone had spent their life’s savings at Ikea to furnish the place. After discovering the coat closet, the bathroom, and the laundry room, I finally found what I was looking for—the door to the garage.
But as I went to open it, the dog whimpered. Even though I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, I looked down at the dog’s face with its eyepatch of black fur and sighed.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for animals.
“What do you need?” I said. “Want some breakfast?”
His tail wagged furiously. I’d hit the jackpot on my first guess.
The pantry was mostly devoid of people food, much less anything dogs would be interested in. It was, however, filled with plenty of wine and bottles of liquor. The fridge was mostly empty as well, except for a dozen bottles of red wine that shouldn’t have been refrigerated in the first place. I closed the refrigerator and touched the handle to the freezer door.
When I did, the dog let out a loud bark that made me jump.
I reached in and pulled out a rack of frozen-solid ribs. There was no way I was going to wait for them to defrost, but they’d melt eventually, so I set them down in his food bowl with a thud.
“Sorry boy,” I said. “You’re going to have to wait a few hours for breakfast.”
The dog didn’t seem to mind at all as he licked the block of ribs like it was a giant meatsicle.
I started to leave again, but the dog’s whimpers stopped me again. When I turned around, he was standing at the back door, imploring me with his big brown eyes as his tail thumped hard against the floor.
“Okay, I get the message.”
As I passed his food bowl, I noticed it was empty except for a single smear of blood, and I laughed, wondering how the crazy dog had hidden his breakfast so quickly. When I touched the leash hanging on the wall, he went ape-shit, jumping up and down and grunting. But when I looked outside, I saw the backyard was fenced-in, so I left the leash where it was and let him outside.
With the dog taken care of, I made sure the back door was open then snagged a set of keys hanging on the laundry room wall and headed for the garage. I was hoping for some American muscle—maybe a Camaro. Wha
t I got wasn’t as good, but it was what I expected in the ‘burbs—a brand new, pearl black, Audi A6, complete with a six-speed stick shift.
I hopped in, clicked the garage door opener, and backed out into the morning air, squinting at the harsh sunlight reflected off the fog that had settled in.
Within seconds, I was rolling down the street, trying to figure the quickest route back to civilization. I turned on the car’s GPS, but without knowing my destination, it wasn’t much help. So I turned it off and decided to rely on luck instead.
But one of the problems with the suburbs was that there weren’t many landmarks. Each house I passed was equally spaced from the next, and every driveway had a different, but similar high-end luxury vehicle parked in it. The only way I could tell one home from another was by the artificial color of their mulch, their choice of garden statue, and whether they’d had enough money to pay for workers to relocate a decorative white granite rock to their front yard. All in all, it looked like someone had built a house, hit the duplicate key a million times, and called it a community.
“Bunch of sheep,” I said out loud before taking a left at the next street. With no clear path in mind, I hung a right and then another before coming to a stoplight at a four-lane road.
Civilization, at last.
I flipped a coin in my head and decided to take another right. As I revved the engine, getting ready to turn, a dozen men and women in shorts and fluorescent shirts appeared on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. They were running at a good clip, two abreast through the foggy morning. The reflective parts of their gear glowed so brightly, I had to squint when I looked at them.
I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was real or a trick of the sunlight, but their feet didn’t look like they were touching the ground. That was weird enough, but what really confused me was when they collectively gave me the middle finger as they passed by.
Maybe they were just a bunch of health nuts who didn’t like my car with the crappy gas mileage, but getting dissed by a bunch of strangers was still a pretty sucky way to start the first day of my new life.
“I thought runners were supposed to be nice,” I said, shaking my head as I made my turn.
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