by A. L. Mengel
Antoine made an attempt at eye contact, but his irises burned. After a few minutes, the demon looked down at him. Antoine looked up and spoke to the demon once again: “Did you know what I was trying to do for you, Roberto? Did you understand? Were you wise enough, and capable of understanding? What Hernan did to you and your mother? What type of life that you were leading? What I took you out of?”
The demon leaned forward, close to Antoine’s ear, he could hear the grunts and a deep throated voice. Yes, I remember…now do you?
Antoine closed his eyes and saw the entryway to his estate. The large, double mahogany doors, the soaring columns, the ornate black steel and glass Gaslamp above the doors hanging from a network of matching black chains. It was just as he had remembered it. And then he saw himself standing outside the door on the expansive front porch; the lights were burning insides, but the shears were closed.
He saw movement.
A shadow…a man. Yes, the figure moving about on the inside was a man.
And then the door opened.
He sighed as the door opened, revealing Roberto, his young Latino conquest; shirtless and muscular, wearing a pair of grey sweatpants. Sweat dripped down the center of his chest and glistened in the evening light. “Antoine I was waiting for you…” And then Roberto’s face shifted and he stepped forward, reaching out to touch Antoine. He reached up and caressed Antoine’s cheek. “Are you alright? Why are you so silent? What has happened?”
But Antoine was far from alright on that particular evening. And Antoine sensed that Roberto could sense it, for Roberto instantly transformed into a caregiver, putting his arms around Antoine, ushering him deeper into the house, taking his bag and placing it on the side bench.
Antoine knew he could not control his emotions. His voice quivered when he spoke. “Darius came to see me this evening. He said he saw a man in a dark robe over on Alton. Near the park. A faceless man with a hood covering his head. A real dark figure. A silhouette of a man. Lived in the shadows.” Antoine paused in front of the foyer mirror. He stared at himself, as the light from the chandelier made his hair appear lighter.
There was a distinct difference in Antoine’s appearance. Once confident and proud, he now had tired eyes. He was not aging, he still possessed his gift, but he felt as though some part of him, deep inside, was no longer alive. The part where Darius resided. He examined his complexion with wide, concerned eyes, and a tired, haggard face.
Roberto moved behind him and removed his coat. “Let’s take you inside. And you can tell me all about it.”
Roberto ushered Antoine in and put his arm around his shoulders. Antoine couldn’t help but notice the heat emanating from Roberto’s body, and the feel of the roping muscle in his arms pressing against his back and shoulders. But he brushed the feelings off and continued sniffling as they walked together, arm in arm, towards the kitchen.
“Why are you so upset?” Roberto asked. “Is there some sort of prophecy surrounding this man?”
Antoine closed his eyes for a moment. “Darius had been doing his usual…routine. Which is not unusual for Darius, at least. He is so enamored with the bloodlust. That young man didn’t have a chance, from what he told me. He even killed a couple of cops that came by to investigate the disturbance.”
“What happened after he killed them?” Roberto sat Antoine down at the table, and walked to the adjoining room to retrieve a fleece blanket. He wrapped it around Antoine and went over to the cabinets and fished two porcelain mugs out and placed them on the counter. “This ‘Hooded Man’ you spoke of? Where does he figure in to all of this?” Antoine looked over towards the kitchen prep area, where Roberto stood, looking over at Antoine. Roberto raised his eyebrows. “Well?”
Antoine rubbed his eyes as Roberto shook his head and filled a pewter pot with water from the faucet and placed it on the stove. Roberto returned to the table and grabbed a white t-shirt that was lying on the counter opposite the cooking area, and pulled it over his head. Antoine stared at him the entire time, watching the muscles in his arms flex as he pulled the shirt down over his torso. And then Antoine looked at Roberto, directly into his eyes, once the young man took a seat on the other side of the table. “So are you going to tell me? What’s all this talk about this guy in the hood?”
Antoine shook his head. “You don’t understand, Roberto. What we found out today – from what happened to Darius – is that we are being hunted. This man in the robe is not a friend. He’s a warrior. And I don’t know who sent him. But he’s coming after us.”
Roberto leaned forward. “Us? Me and you?”
“Immortals, Roberto.” Antoine’s voice had an edge to it. “Do you remember the night in your bedroom? When your father walked in on us? That was not a random night that we spent together. It’s who we are Roberto. We are immortal. And this man…or demon…or angel…I don’t know what he is…this man has some vendetta it seems. But whether or not he does, his purpose is unclear.” Antoine lowered his head into his hands.
“So we don’t know his purpose, and he apparently has no motive.”
“Other than to exterminate us.” Antoine looked up. Roberto was fidgeting and drumming his fingers on the table. “Why are you so nervous?”
Roberto leaned back in his chair and looked over at Antoine. “I just don’t understand this.”
Antoine lowered his eyes. “There is nothing to not understand, Roberto. But let me start from the beginning. This man – this dark figure – has been appearing to immortals around the globe. But now, currently, he has been rumored to be appearing to those of us around Miami quite frequently. And he is said to put us under a spell, or an incantation of some sorts, and has us drink some sort of a potion.”
The teapot wailed on the stove, and Roberto went over to prepare their tea. As he was dipping the teabags into the steaming water, he shook his head and sighed. “You know Antoine…” And then he paused, his face shifted, and he continued dipping the teabags into the water, looking downwards.
Antoine raised his head and looked over towards Roberto. “What is it, Roberto?”
Roberto stopped steeping the tea. He flung the used bags into the sink and raised his eyebrows. “I really wish you would give me a little more credit. You always speak to me like I am a child. Like I have no idea what’s going on. You’re always explaining things to me.”
Antoine leaned back in his chair. “I don’t…”
“You do. You just did. I know that we are immortal. I know that. And yes, I haven’t forgotten the night you transformed me in my father’s house. It all plays very vividly in my mind. But when are you going to start treating me like an equal?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. We are going down this path again?”
Roberto sighed and carried the two cups of tea over to the table. He placed one in front of Antoine and took the other to his chair and placed it on the table. He sat, placed his elbows on the table, and cradled his chin in his hands and looked over at Antoine, eyes wide open. The two sat in silence for a few moments, before Roberto scoffed and flung his arms outwards. “Yes, we are going down this path. Again.”
*****
Antoine focused on the demon as he felt the heat of a flaming torch next to him. And then there was a moment, one very precise point in time, where Antoine no longer felt the heat of the flames. He was no longer overpowered by the smoke. Had the sky been clearing?
He looked upwards. The clouds were parting but the sky remained red. He rose from the altar with ease; feeling light and bodiless, he turned and looked down at the altar.
Ashes.
That is all that remained. The embers still burned, some red hot and orange, amidst a sea of ashes, the greyish, dark dust from whence we came, and to which we shall all return.
TWO
The man named George Stanley, the one who received a message, which came to him, in the back of his mind, and spoke to him, was so often waiting for the deliverer of the message to show himself.
Or
herself.
He never even acknowledged the voice. At least, that’s what he thought.
For years.
But it was the voice that caused his downward spiral, and he never really understood its purpose. It was the voice that had an essence of power in his daily actions; it was the voice that talked to him, very softly, in the snippets between waking and sleeping, those small tears in time…buried deep in his subconscious mind which was inaccessible in his everyday waking life.
George never blamed the voice when he was arrested and questioned – for he didn’t know, at that point, that the voice even existed. And if he had, he wouldn’t have understood its purpose. For the voice, over the years, changed it message, but one thing always remained the same: the voice had chosen him.
It started as a small voice in his head, as his wife, Gaye, lay in the back room dying of a virulent cancer that ate her alive from the inside out. As he would sit in the driveway, downing another can of beer, he would still hear the voice in his head. As he sat and watched Neil. The glistening sweat. The roping muscles in his back, flexing as he restarted the mower after it died.
And George would always reach for another beer from the small igloo, repeating the same ritual each and every time that Neil mowed the lawn across the street. And there were the days that Neil sat with George, sharing a beer, and, many days, George would watch Neil as he would walk across the street, shirtless and glistening with sweat.
There were days that Neil knew that he was being watched; George could tell, because George, plopped in a lounge chair in the center of his driveway, sitting next to a cooler of beer on ice, had no particular reason for sitting there other than to watch Neil.
And on one particular Saturday, as he sat with his small, Styrofoam cooler of canned beer on ice, he reached inside the cooler, popped another can of beer with a hiss, and shoved it into his huggie. He then leaned over the side of the lawn chair – almost toppling over onto the pavement – and grabbed the bag of half-melted ice and poured the remaining cubes into the cooler, slammed the lid back on, and flopped against the back of the chair, exhaling deeply.
There were once crisp and sharp lines; now everything was blurred and starting to spin. But when he looked across the street, he was still able to focus on Neil, despite his drunkenness. “Hey Neil!”
The young man stopped fiddling with his mower and turned towards the man.
“Hi Mr. Stanley!” He waved and called over to his neighbor, returning to the task of putting oil in his lawnmower.
“Why don’t you come on over here, Neil?”
But Neil didn’t come across the street – at least not that particular day. Later that day, when coming to, George didn’t even remember calling out to the young man. For his eyes closed moments after calling out to Neil, as drool spilled out the side of his mouth.
*****
George could still smell the chicken boiling in the kitchen. There was a certain welcoming scent that permeated his nose, as he dropped his backpack on the foyer floor. “Mom? I’m home!”
But the house remained silent.
He followed the scent of the boiling chicken. It was calling him to the kitchen. He could still hear the television in the other room, with some afternoon talk show on, and when he entered the kitchen, he could hear the boiling of the water. The pot was at a rapid boil; drops of water spilled out over the pot and sizzled on the stove, as a copious steam cloud billowed towards the ceiling. He raced to the stove and turned down the heat. “Mom? Are you here?”
His footsteps sounded foreign as he walked to the other end of the kitchen. There was an unfinished crossword puzzle on the long, wooden table, and mom’s purse was on the accompanying bench. George looked back up and into the family room. He could see the glow from the television against the dark carpet, and reflecting on the pictures on the walls. But mom was nowhere to be found.
He walked into the living room and flipped off the television. And then the house was in a veil of silence; for when he called out, now a third time, his voice truly reverberated against the silence.
It wasn’t until later, in the hours following his arrival home, when he would lay on his bed in the fading daylight, as the chicken spoiled in the cooling water on the stove, ever so slowly as the toxic film formed on the surface of the water, he lay in his bed, unable to close his eyes, staring upwards towards the window, unaware of the passing time save the setting sun.
And then he heard the garage door open, a faint rumble from across the house, and then there was darkness. But first, a brilliant, white light blinded him, as he covered his eyes with this hands. And then, when the light faded, he stood in darkness. He could still feel the hardwood floor beneath his feet, and sensed that he was still in his house – at least somewhat – but there was a changed sense. A sense of crossing over.
His eyes adjusted to the shadows. The table was still there in front of him. But covered in moss and dirt, and overgrown shrubbery. Out towards the back TV room, an earthen floor led to thick oak trees, with bent trunks, fingering their way across the moss and bushes, forming a wooden furniture set dotted with green leaves.
He took a few steps closer to the TV room. “Hello?” His voice sounded shrill and lonely against the silence of this strange forest. Through the darkness, he saw a small beacon of light, a tiny white light, which grew larger, ever so slowly, and as it grew larger, it seemed to pulsate. But as the light got closer, he saw a flowing, white gown, blowing in an unseen wind. A woman approaching him, with long flowing hair.
It was mother.
George tried to run, but his feet would not move. His mother floated closer, and he could recognize her long, flowing brunette hair. She had the same brilliant red lipstick that she always wore. He looked up at her as she stopped just short of where George was standing, and levitated above the ground. She looked down at him and smiled. “George, do you know what your destiny is? Do you know what you have been chosen to do?”
He shook his head.
“You have been chosen, dear George. My sweet little boy. My sweet little angel. You have been chosen to be the one. You will have so much power.”
“What have I been chosen to do?”
She drifted downwards, as her long, flowing white skirt billowed out, and looked him directly in the eyes. Her face seemed to brighten. “You will bring salvation to the damned.”
George took a step back and shook his head. “I don’t know what that means, mother. The damned? Who are damned?”
She held her arms out, and George leaned over and rested his head in the crook of her arm. It was the same warmth and softness that he always remembered. “My dear, dear sweet George. You always come home, always come looking for me. But I am never there. Do you remember the day that you came home and I wasn’t there?”
George craned his neck and looked up at her. She looked down at him and smiled. “Yes I do,” he said. “Yes. I remember the day. You left chicken boiling on the stove and I couldn’t find you.”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes. But I was upstairs in the bathroom. Did you search there?”
George shook his head.
“You should look there. And then, when you find me, you will understand why you are seeing me here. And why I am delivering this message to you.”
George closed his eyes for a moment, and when he woke up, he was again alone in the darkness. The softness that he felt was simply a thick carpet of soft moss. He sat up and looked around. “Mother? Are you still here?”
But there was no answer.
I am upstairs in the bathroom...
His mother’s words reverberated in his head, as he drew his knees close to his chest, he hung his head downwards and closed his eyes. But the soft moss wasn’t soft moss in the least. The darkness, where it may have been somewhat sudden, was a strong presence in young George’s life for several years, and when he had thought that he was standing in his kitchen on an afternoon after coming home from school, he was not.
For when he
opened his eyes, he saw harsh overhead florescent lighting. The smiling face of Doctor Johnson. His same skinny glasses. He saw the same tiny nose hairs.
George looked around the room. He recognized his father standing in the doorway with several nurses in light blue scrubs. He was talking with the nurses and nodding, and turned his head to look over in George’s direction every few moments. His father brushed the nurses away and rushed over to the bedside. He looked down at George and smiled. His hair was mussed and he had stubble on his face. His eyes looked tired. “George! You are awake!” He bent down and hugged his son.
George looked around the room. He saw the stark, lime-green walls, the television mounted on the wall towards the ceiling, the window that looked out towards the nurse’s station. “Where is mom?”
George looked up at his father. He looked older than he had ever looked. The lines running down his cheeks looked more pronounced than ever before. “George, she’s gone. That’s why you’re here.” George watched his father look over towards the doctor.
“It’s common for him to have some form of amnesia after a traumatic experience like this.”
His father stood next to the bed and looked down at George. He leaned over the bed and bent down close to his son. “Do you remember anything?”
George closed his eyes for a moment. “I remember the smell of chicken…”
Father looked up and over at the doctor. The doctor looked up from a clipboard he was holding. “Memories will return, slowly, in time.”
*****
George snapped awake as he almost toppled out of his lawn chair. “What the fu – ?” The sun had long set, and he looked at his watch, noticed it was close to three a.m.
“Shit! Fuck!”
He ran inside the house, leaving the chair and cooler in the driveway. He struggled with the door handle – a normally quite simple task – and flung the door open and charged into the kitchen. “Gaye! Gaye, are you alright?!”
