by J. Thorn
“He can’t do it. I told you he can’t. Pull him out,” said Kole.
Mara looked at Samuel, and then to Major. “Kole’s right. Pull him before it’s too late. You know he can slip.”
Major shook his head. “No, I need to know if he can get back on his own.”
Mara huffed. “No you don’t. That doesn’t matter. Pull him!”
“I’m not watching this,” said Kole. He opened the door and walked from the cabin into the eternal dusk of the locality.
“Do it or I won’t retrieve him.”
“Is that a threat?” asked Major.
“Yes,” replied Mara.
Major rubbed a hand on the stubble covering his chin. He pushed back from the table and stood in one motion, causing Mara to step toward Samuel, still seated. He chuckled and shook his head.
“I woulda spanked your ass, back in the day. Taught you some manners, missy.”
Mara opened her mouth slightly, hesitated, then closed it. She narrowed her eyes without taking them off Major.
“Go on,” he said with the wave of a hand.
Samuel felt his head become lighter. He blinked once or twice as the raindrops running down the windshield zigged and zagged through his vision. They came off the glass in vivid, neon colors, intersecting the cabin of the car and jutting out into the blackened garage surrounding it. His head felt light, as if he were swimming in ether. He turned the CD player on again and it kicked back around to the first track. Samuel felt the guitar waver through the air and he reached out, almost touching the notes. The engine ran with a smooth, steady purr.
Samuel tilted his head back until it struck the headrest, and he looked at the dull reflection of this other body in the driver’s-side window. He saw the eyelids drooping and felt a heavy sleep pushing him down into the leather seat. Samuel blinked and closed these eyes. He could feel the sounds of the car slipping away in the distance, surrounded by the comforting silence.
He felt the car shake and opened one eye. Another shake came along with a muffled thump.
“Samuel!”
He opened both eyes, and a shiver ran across his neck and down his spine. A woman stood on the other side of the glass, pounding it with the meat of her fist. Her jet-black, shoulder-length hair fell across her face. Thin eyebrows narrowed and came together at the top of her thin, pointy nose. Samuel followed the lines of her high cheekbones.
“Samuel!”
This time he heard it clearly and knew the woman had called his name. He searched in his mind for her name but could not unlock the mystery. Samuel’s mouth was dry, and a dull ache grew from the back of his head, coming forward like a storm cloud.
“Mara?” he heard himself ask.
She smiled and said one word. “Duck.”
A split second later, a red brick crashed through the driver’s-side window. Mara took a step forward, reached through the gaping hole, and unlocked the power doors. She took another step forward and yanked open the driver’s-side door. Samuel sat there with a grin, amused at the amount of activity around him. Mara turned the ignition off with one hand and slapped the button on the garage door opener with the other. Within seconds, cool, moist air flooded the garage, and the carbon monoxide oozed into the night. She reached down and released the seatbelt that was holding Samuel tight.
“C’mon. Let’s go.”
Samuel tilted his head sideways like an old drunk. He grinned again and slapped one knee.
“Not sure how I got here, but thanks for helping me out.” He slurred the words at her.
“Major got an opening, but I don’t know how long it’ll last. I don’t even know if it’s going to bring us back to that locality. But there’s no time to discuss it. Let’s go.”
Mara turned, and Samuel stared at her lithe form as she walked toward the open garage door. He saw the way her hair rested on the black biker jacket, the chains and zippers glistening like miniature serpents on her back. He followed the coat where it stopped, at the base of her spine. Samuel gawked at her well-proportioned legs, which looked utterly smooth in the tight leather pants, as if she wore an outfit of crude oil.
“Damn.”
Mara turned and shook her head. She grabbed Samuel’s arm so hard it made him wince, and she dragged him into an upright position and tossed his upper body toward the open door. She blew past him with a blur of black and a hint of perfume.
“Around back and through the tree line,” she said.
Samuel stumbled behind her as Mara bolted down the driveway and to the gate sitting between two segments of chain-link fence. She flipped the horseshoe up and pushed the gate open, running down the sidewalk and past the propane grill to the fence stretching across the rear perimeter of the yard. She stopped and turned to face Samuel; her face appeared to be floating amidst a sea of darkness. Towering trees silhouetted against the rainy night sky swayed above as if daring entry. She waited another second and then waved silently before leaping over the fence. Samuel watched as she swung both legs to one side and vaulted over the top. He smiled again before he doubled over with a fit of coughs. The more he hacked, the less air made it to his lungs. Tears filled his eyes and mixed with the steady drizzle on his face.
“Get up,” she said.
Samuel felt her tug his arm, which sent a jolt of pain into his shoulder. He rolled over and clawed at the manicured grass with both hands until he felt the cold metal of the fence. Mara grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to the top rail while she stood on the other side. Physics and gravity took over, bringing Samuel crashing over the fence and into a pile of wet leaves. Before he could cry out, Mara was moving again, running between the trees.
He stumbled forward until another round of coughing arrested his lungs. He collapsed and looked back at the house. Red and blue lights appeared, splashing the white siding with resplendent color. A back porch light came on, as did the house lights of several neighbors.
“Get up!”
Mara broke him from his gaze, and he scrambled upright and followed her path. The bark of a dog and a bleating car horn reminded him that he was running through a copse of trees separating two streets of a modern neighborhood. He ripped the tie from his neck and focused on the light reflecting from Mara’s wet leathers.
Shouts broke through his hazy head as dark figures burst into the backyard like a black avalanche. He put his hand to his forehead to try to ease the pain. Samuel felt as though a tank had taken a detour through his skull.
“I can almost see it,” Mara shouted back at him.
He followed her farther, until he saw it as well. Samuel rubbed his eyes, turning to look at the flurry of activity coming their way, and then back to Mara. She was there. It was there.
Mara bolted for the door. She lunged and grabbed the doorknob in one motion.
“C’mon! It only stays open for a second.”
Mara waited, breathing heavily and looking from side to side.
Samuel slowed to a trot and placed his hands on his hips. “The cabin?” he asked.
“If you don’t step through here with me, you will die.”
Samuel shook his head. He looked down at his clothes, held a hand up to his face. “This ain’t me. I’m dreaming or something.”
Mara bit her bottom lip. She let go of the doorknob and walked toward him. “I want to show you something.”
Her voice dropped as though she were breathing the words. A hand came up and stroked the side of Samuel’s face. His eyes met hers and his breath hitched as he tried to encourage his lungs to work while keeping his heartbeat in check. Mara took his hand and turned toward the door of the cabin. She looked over one shoulder and smiled at him. She winked.
Samuel allowed her to lead this foreign body to the threshold of the door. He no longer cared about the pursuers. He no longer heard the manhunt emerging a few hundred yards from the tree line.
“Damn. Yeah, sure I’d like for you—”
Before he could finish, Mara’s knee drove upward into Samuel’
s groin. Colors exploded in his vision, and before he could cry out, he felt the sickening crunch of her fist smashing the cartilage in his nose.
Mara opened the door and dragged his bleeding and disoriented body through with her.
***
“Reckless.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Kole stood with two hands wrapped around a mug. He sipped and smirked while tattoos stretched across his bulging muscles.
“The other guy still trapped in the ether?”
Major did not reply to Kole’s question, and Kole shook his head.
“So now we know Samuel can slip, but we don’t know if he can do it alone. Pointless.”
Major shook his head. “He can,” he said.
“You don’t know that,” replied Mara.
Samuel stirred. His mouth opened and closed as he grimaced in unspoken pain.
“Worse than a hangover,” Kole said, before returning to his tea.
Major shrugged and walked over to Mara. “You volunteered to go get him. Kole would have done it.”
Mara ran a hand through her stringy, greasy hair. She took a deep breath and exhaled over her bottom lip.
“Yeah. I did.”
Major reached out and tapped her shoulder with his fingers. “Deep breaths. You’re here.”
“Right,” she said, shrugging off his hand like a renegade snowflake. “I’m back here, safe and sound, in this shithole locality that’s getting eaten by the cloud, with you three assholes.”
Kole laughed into his mug, sending drops of tea to the floor.
“Where am I?” Samuel asked.
Major turned away from Mara and sat on the chair next to him. His legs moved beneath the rough, wool blanket like two monsters prowling the depths of the ocean.
“Back. In this locality. Against the odds.”
Cramps gripped Samuel’s stomach, and the meager light from the fire hurt his eyes.
“Right. That explains it,” he said.
Kole grinned and walked around the other side of the cabin to face him. “I don’t know what the old man or the little girl has been telling you, champ, but you ain’t ever going home. Once you slip, you’re done.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Mara. “He’s a cynical dickhead.”
“I’m honest. Tell him, Major. Tell him what you know. He deserves to understand the situation, just like we did.”
Samuel sat up as fireworks exploded behind his forehead. His tongue felt like a ball of yarn inside his mouth. Mara returned from the edges of his vision carrying a cup, presumably one with more of the licorice tea. Samuel accepted it from her, his hunch confirmed.
“I wasn’t in my body, but I was back in the real world.”
Major sighed and looked at Kole, and then Mara. They waited, neither speaking nor moving.
“We thought we could rescue that man, but we couldn’t. We’re on our own. You were in him, and he was determined to find a gruesome end. He probably did, once Mara pulled you back.”
Samuel nodded at Mara. “It looked like the world I remember.”
“Yes, it probably did,” replied Major. “But if you had been a kind of tourist, you probably would have discovered minor anomalies with that place. French fries may not exist there, or Jimmy Page may have been a founding member of Black Sabbath.”
“Does this have something to do with the parable you told me when we first met? Something about the lion and its different parts?” Samuel asked.
He struggled to recall the earlier conversation through the pain in his head. Major looked at Mara and Kole. Mara nodded, and Kole threw an arm into the air.
“Tell him, old man.”
Major squared up to Samuel and spoke inches from his nose. “What’s the first thing you remember from this locality?”
Samuel looked at the ceiling. Bits of memory had come back, especially when he was able to hold reflections, like the picture on the wall and his pocketknife. Without the physical prompt, he struggled again.
“I remember dropping from the tree. Someone tried hanging me, I guess.”
Kole whistled and shook his head, amused.
“Someone hanged you?” Major asked, his voice prodding into Samuel’s memory.
“Or maybe you were trying to get off by yourself. What do they call it? Autoerotic asphyxiation?”
Kole laughed, but Mara remained stoic.
Samuel’s face glazed over. He looked to Kole and then back to Major. “Suicide? You think I was committing suicide?”
“Kole tried, as did I. Mara has not been able to unlock her memory. If you can, that would mean three of the four of us ended up here as a result of a suicide attempt.”
Samuel’s hand came up to his throat, and he remembered the bruises. He looked at Major’s neck.
“I remember the circumstances, and I think you will too, eventually.”
“Yeah, just in time for the cloud to eat us all,” said Kole.
“Can you shut up for more than three minutes at a time?” Mara asked.
Kole shrugged and went back to the stove to pour himself another mug of tea.
“So we slipped in the process and ended up here in this locality,” Samuel said. “And the Reversion is eating the place, and it’s coming toward us.”
“Don’t forget the fact that we don’t know if we can all slip, and if we can, we don’t know what we’re slipping into or if we can get back. Could be a world of blind supermodels where you’re the only guy, or it could be a dark, empty world getting eaten by a black cloud.”
Major glared at Kole. “He can be gruff, but what he says is true. We seem to be in a holding tank of some kind.”
“What about the wolves? What happened to them?” Samuel asked.
“I don’t know,” Major replied, his voice trailing off, but with a thin veneer of truth covering his words.
Samuel opened his mouth to ask about the other spirits he had encountered on his way to the Barren, but then he reconsidered. Mara read the look on his face.
“What? Is there something else?” she asked.
Samuel shook his head and turned back to Major. “So how do we get out?”
“I had hoped the man you slipped into would have had the answer. But he doesn’t,” said Major. “The solution must come from within these walls.”
***
Samuel watched Mara move about the Barren. She walked with a determined grace, as if every step had its own purpose. He followed her to the tree line, where she gathered sticks for kindling, snapping the twigs to place them in a bag.
“Need some help?” he asked her.
Mara shrugged without lifting her head from the forest floor. Samuel approached, bending down to pick up pieces of broken branches.
“So you don’t remember how you got here?”
Mara spun on him, her eyes glaring with untold emotion. Her nostrils flared, and she closed her eyes. Samuel watched the surge pass. Mara opened her eyes and responded.
“It’s none of your concern.”
Samuel nodded and continued picking up the pieces of wood.
“No. No, I can’t remember,” she said as if his apparent lack of concern had pulled the answer out of her.
“Did you go to your senior prom?”
Mara stopped and made eye contact with Samuel. A slight smile forced the corners of her mouth up.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“Prom. Did you go?”
“Yes.”
Samuel let the one-word reply hang in the silence.
“Did you?” she asked in return.
“Not my own. I was too cool. Spent the night sitting in the woods with my other loser buddies, a case of beer, and a bag of weed. Had a girlfriend that was a few years younger when I was in college. Ended up going to her prom at my old high school when I was twenty-one. My younger brother was in her class, so I was at their senior prom three years after not going to my own.”
Mara waited until she was sure Samuel had finished recounting his e
xperience.
“That’s pathetic,” she said, her face relenting with a reluctant smile.
Her comment brought another wave of recollection from Samuel. He brushed past the light banter and dug deeper into his patchwork of memory. “I know I had a wife, but that’s about it. I mean, I saw the picture on the wall, the ‘reflection,’ as Major calls them. I knew that was my wife, but I don’t remember anything. I couldn’t remember the name of the thing that sparked fire when I first woke up here.”
“A lighter,” said Mara with a lighthearted tone.
“Yeah, a lighter. So I get these bursts of memory, but it’s more like being asleep on a train. The ones I can remember now are only snippets of my life.”
Samuel waited. Mara looked at him and shook her head.
“The fire is probably low. Let’s get this back to the cabin,” she said.
Samuel followed her, watching her hips sway with every step. Mara’s feet appeared to glide across the organic debris on the forest floor. Before she opened the door, he spoke.
“There’s something he isn’t telling me.”
Mara turned to face him. She dropped the sack of kindling next to the door and put her hands on her hips.
“And there’s something you’re hiding, too.”
She stepped toward him and turned her worried eyes up to his face. “I don’t know where we are. I don’t know what this place is, and I’m not sure I even want to return to my locality. It’s not like it’s likely that would happen anyway. But this Reversion will wipe us from existence, and I don’t want to be here when it does.”
Mara stepped around Samuel and pointed to the west, where the pulsing, dark cloud loomed higher in the sky. “You see that? It’s coming for us, and when it does, we’re finished.”
“Major knows how to get out of here? Is that why you’re at the Barren?”
“I’m at the Barren because the Barren is the only place to be. I know you’ve met our friends the wolves, and I’m not convinced they’ve been sucked up by the cloud. So if you have doubts about this place, or us, there’s the path.” Mara pointed at the narrow trail leading to the tree line and to the west.
