The Complete Hidden Evil Trilogy: 3 Novels and 4 Shorts of Frightening Horror (PLUS Book I of the Portal Arcane Trilogy)

by J. Thorn

  “Could be.”

  Kole stood and threw a piece of kindling into the corner of the cabin. “I’m out,” he said, walking toward the door.

  Samuel stepped in front of him and spun so his back rested on the cool wood.

  “Nobody’s leaving,” Samuel said.

  “Outta my way, cowboy.”

  Samuel looked at Mara, then Major. Neither moved.

  “I can’t let you do that. If you go out there, who knows what they’ll do.”

  “Looks to me like they aren’t doing anything but making you shit your pants,” replied Kole. “Get out of my way before I knock you out.”

  Major nodded at Samuel. He stepped to the side and turned a palm up toward the doorknob.

  “Fine. Go right ahead.”

  Kole snickered. He bent his right arm at an angle and lifted it to kiss the bicep. “Smackdown.”

  Kole turned the knob, and Samuel heard the gasp from Major.

  The thousands of faces that had been staring at the ground turned up in one motion. Every form revealed a blank, dead gaze, their eyes nothing but eternal black marks, mouths open with tongues protruding like baby serpents.

  “Don’t,” Samuel said to Kole.

  Without a reply, Kole pulled the door the rest of the way open and stepped out on the porch. The creatures groaned in unison. Legs moved toward the cabin with the sounds of brittle bones snapping under the strain. Those standing alone pulsed, and the creatures in the packs shifted forward in a mass of grey, decaying flesh.

  Mara lunged for the door and slammed it shut. She threw herself against it, her chest rising and falling in rapid succession.

  “He’s sparked some interest,” Major said.

  Samuel moved back to the window and watched Kole take two steps off the porch. The bodies continued moving toward him. They marched at a slow pace, but with the certainty that their prey would never escape. Samuel looked deeper, toward the tree line, and saw wave after wave of the creatures coming out of the forest and making their way to Kole.

  Kole crouched, bent his knees, and raised his fist. He yelled something, but the sound was swallowed by the dying locality. The first two that came close to Kole wore men’s clothing. They extended their arms, thumbs touching. Their eyes locked on Kole, and their mouths opened and closed at irregular intervals. He cocked his right arm behind his ear and stepped into the punch. The form closest absorbed the strike, its head twisting with the force of it. The creature’s legs continued to propel it toward Kole. He reared back and struck the walking corpse two more times, each one sending a spray of skin and rotted cloth into the air but not stopping the forward momentum of the creature. Its fingers grasped Kole’s shoulder, while the second one grabbed his waist. Kole flailed, and the fight blurred into random bursts of motion. Others continued walking toward the altercation, including mobs that started beneath the trees and were replaced by more coming from the forest.

  “They’re going to tear him apart,” said Mara, the nail on her index finger secured between her teeth.

  “It’s what he wanted,” replied Major.

  Samuel shook his head and turned back to the fight in the yard. Four more creatures had made it to Kole.

  “Move,” he said to Mara.

  Samuel nudged her aside and opened the door. He heard the grunts of the creatures and the heavy breathing of Kole becoming buried in their reaching arms. He ran over and pulled on the shoulder of one. The creature turned, and Samuel froze. Its dead eyes stared into his, and he felt his heart stammer in his chest. The tongue writhed inches from Samuel’s face. He regained his composure and tossed the creature to the side, where it crumpled to the ground, struggling to regain a standing position. Samuel heard Kole gasp, but could not see the man beneath the pile of rotted flesh. He shoved a hand toward where he thought Kole might be.

  “Grab my hand,” he said as the battle raged in near silence.

  A colorful sleeve of tattoos reached out, snapping tight on Samuel’s wrist. He pulled until there was enough for him to grab Kole’s elbow with his other arm. Samuel dug his heels in and yanked again. Kole’s head emerged, his eyes frantic. With his free arm, Kole swatted at his attackers as if they were hornets from a crushed nest. Samuel took another step backward until the resistance dropped, sending him into the railing of the front porch. The impact knocked the air from his lungs. Kole landed on top of him. The door swung open, and Major and Mara each grabbed one of Kole’s arms and dragged him inside the cabin. They dropped him in a whimpering pile near the fire and went back for Samuel. Major spun and shut the door. He ran to the window and looked out. The forms involved in the fight had stopped moving, standing in place as the others halted their advance on the cabin, as if shut down by a master switch.

  “Are you okay?” Mara asked Kole.

  He brushed her hand aside and grabbed Samuel by the shirt collar. He turned his head to the side, trying to force the words over his hitching breath.

  “Thanks for nothing, asshole,” said Kole. He reached back and punched Samuel in the nose. Samuel saw the explosion of color in his field of vision and felt the warm flow of salty blood starting to ooze down his throat. Before he could wince in pain, he lost consciousness.

  Mara slapped Kole in the back of the head. He stood, wobbled to one side, and backhanded her across the face. The sharp slap bounced off the walls of the cramped cabin. She dropped to one knee, her hand massaging the red mark blooming on her cheek. Major stepped up, and Kole met him in the middle of the room.

  “Back off, old man,” he said.

  “Sit and calm down.”

  Kole looked at Major and then at Mara. He snickered and slumped down the wall to the floor, erasing his dust-drawn creations.

  “It don’t matter. Death by zombie or by Reversion. It’s all the same to me.”

  ***

  Samuel winced as he rolled over and sat up, brushing a lock of hair off his forehead. The heel of his palm glanced off the bridge of his nose, and he felt the pain radiate through his entire body. His eyes watered, and he bit his lip. When his vision cleared, Samuel struggled to see past the swollen mess of his face. Major, Mara, and Kole sat in a circle on the rickety chairs, Major keeping one eye on the window and one on the situation in the Barren.

  Samuel stood and swayed, reaching out with both hands to grasp the wall and keep the room from spinning. Dried blood had caked in the creases of his face and stained his neck with dark, maroon lines. Samuel touched the bridge of his nose until the pain begin to blossom. He grabbed a chair and swung it around until it sat between Kole and Mara.

  “Sucker punch,” he mumbled to Kole.

  “Whatever,” Kole replied.

  “Are you okay?” Mara asked as she touched his forearm. “I mean from them, not your nose. That looks pretty bad too, though.”

  “Isn’t the first time I broke it. Probably won’t be the last.”

  Major glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to the window.

  “What did I miss while I was bleeding on the floor?”

  “More,” said Mara. “You can barely see anything but the tops of their disgusting heads. Filthy, stringy hair as far as you can see. They sway back and forth like long grass in the wind, but none of them move. It’s like they’re filling in the gaps so that we’re packed in here.”

  Samuel stooped and leaned over Mara to look out the window. He saw countless, empty, dead faces staring back in the maddening silence. Samuel thought it wouldn’t be so bad if they made noise, or screamed, or pounded on the door. The silence of the decaying locality combined with the ominous approach of the cloud overhead sent a chill up his spine.

  “They won’t move unless one of us tries to leave the cabin. Then their brittle bones shuffle ahead in one mass.”

  “The fuckers wanted a piece of me,” said Kole, never taking his eyes off the window.

  “No,” said Major. He shook his head. “They were holding you down. I don’t think they were trying to harm you.”


  “Nice to know I risked my ass and took a sucker punch to the nose for nothing.”

  Kole looked at Samuel’s nose and then at Mara. “Got your pity pussy all worked up. You should thank me for that.”

  Mara sent a glare of disgust toward him.

  Major pushed back on his chair until the front two legs came off the floor. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to fight through so many of those things, but I do know that if we don’t, the cloud will reach this cabin soon, and the Reversion will take us with it. If there is any hope of survival, we have to get out of here.”

  Mara reached out again and placed a hand on Samuel’s arm, while Kole shook his head and snickered under his breath.

  ***

  The fire smoldered over the coals, the heat failing to dispel the chill from the cabin as if the flame itself was losing its will to exist in the locality. Mara stirred a wooden ladle inside an iron pot with a steady, mindless motion while staring at the wall. Kole and Major sat next to each other on their respective chairs, shoulder to shoulder, casting long gazes across the undead landscape. Samuel walked over and stood next to Mara. He inhaled and recognized scent of her hair, and thought that when the Reversion dulled the rest of his senses, he might lose his mind. A chuckle escaped his lips as the term “cabin fever” rolled around in his head.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “So you laugh at random times about nothing? Are you psychotic?”

  “I remembered a phrase that made me laugh, that’s all,” replied Samuel.

  Kole stole a glance over one shoulder and decided that the rotten horde was more interesting than Samuel and Mara’s conversation.

  “Do you remember stuff?” Samuel asked.

  Mara stopped stirring and let the ladle rest against the side. “More than I care to,” she replied.

  “I get snapshots. I see a picture from my past, and the story fills in around it. One second, my past doesn’t exist, and the next, an image brings back a chunk of it.”

  Mara shrugged. “If this Reversion is really the end, and those things aren’t letting us out, I’m not sure it really matters. Not sure anything does.”

  “I agree,” he replied.

  “I don’t think this . . .,” said Mara, with an arm spinning to unfold the cabin, the Barren, the locality, the entire situation. “I don’t think this matters. It’s not in our control.”

  “Kind of depressing.”

  “Kind of true,” she replied.

  Major and Kole remained seated and silent, their eyes following the swaying bodies.

  Samuel felt a desire for privacy, a need to have Mara’s conversation all to himself. He looked about the cabin and its four menacing walls, which seemed to creep in further toward the center. He remembered his dream and the conversation with Kole.

  “I think I need to rest,” he said to Mara.

  She nodded. Samuel balled a rucksack for a pillow and curled up in the corner, while the heat from the fire did little to comfort him.

  ***

  He opened his eyes to a bustle of activity. Glowing orbs of glass hung from a silver cable, warming the room with incandescent light. The strong, bitter aroma of roasted coffee filled every crevice. Burlap sacks that once held beans hung from the walls, decorated with stamps from their countries of origin. A behemoth, silver beast sat in one corner, rumbling as it kept the gourmet ice cream frozen. The machine on the counter whistled, and a barista coaxed the hot air into a frothy mix.

  A man with a black fedora sat in the corner, perched atop a three-legged stool like a pigeon on a skyscraper. He wore a maple-bodied acoustic guitar strapped across his torso, and his fingers moved across the frets, spilling blue notes and minor chords into the swirling mix of muted conversation and clanking dishes. Samuel recognized the melody, an old delta blues standard, but he could not place the song. A microphone jutted from the top of a stand, but the guitarist ignored its existence, his head down and swaying along with the swinging beat created by his right hand above the sound hole.

  Samuel looked down at a white mug on a table. A book and a folded newspaper sat askew, the newspaper dangling from the edge as if trying to escape. He could see the dark swirls in his chai latte as the steam climbed through the air. He noticed a half dozen other people involved in various solitary acts together. One woman bounced her head in rhythm to the song confined to her ear buds, ignoring the guitarist pouring his soul forth from the guitar. One man sat in the corner, a single chair at a small table facing the wall. He thumbed through a crumpled, dog-eared book. A young couple sat at a table across the room. They both wore safety pins for earrings and patches on their black leather jackets, declaring allegiance to long-dead punk bands. The man had his hands on the table face up, while the woman had hers inside of his, facedown. They gazed into each other’s faces, oblivious to everyone else in the room.

  Samuel turned back to the bluesman. He saw the alabaster skin on his hands and chuckled. Purists claimed the white man could never play the blues like the originators, but he wasn’t a purist. Samuel closed his eyes and let the familiar, twelve-bar pattern soothe his nerves.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  The question ripped him from his thoughts, and he opened his eyes to find a woman standing before him, holding a steaming mug and a Danish on a plate. The corner of the wax paper beneath the pastry stuck out at Samuel like a preschooler’s tongue.

  “No,” he replied.

  Samuel felt an immediate sense of connection with the woman, or more accurately the girl. But he also felt a deep sadness. She appeared to be on the verge of womanhood, sparkling eyes, slight hips, and an optimism about love and life that she would share with everyone she knew.

  She wore her jet-black hair below the shoulder in wavy patterns that reflected deep, purple hues in the light of the coffee shop. Samuel loved the way it framed her oval face. The woman’s skin shone with a brilliance punctuated by dark eye shadow and glistening, maroon lips. She shed her bulky winter coat to reveal a lithe form beneath. Faded, black jeans clung to her shapely legs and rode low on slender hips. She wore a ragged, gray sweater over a black, nylon top that held her breasts upright. Samuel guessed her to be in her early twenties, but with a vulnerability that made her appear even younger. He made eye contact, trying to avoid being hypnotized by her blue eyes.

  “I’m Mara,” she said, extending her hand outward while placing her coffee on the table with the other.

  “Samuel,” he replied.

  “I never approach guys. Even at the bar. Sorry if this is a bit awkward.”

  He smiled and waved off the fumbling attempt at ice-breaking. “It’s fine.”

  Mara paused and took a long look. She gazed at Samuel, and he saw electricity pass through her face.

  “Oh my god,” she whispered.

  Samuel sat still. He lifted his mug to his lips until the coffee singed his bottom lip.

  “What am I doing here?” she asked.

  Without waiting to confirm her revelation, Samuel explained. “I know I’m asleep. Dreaming. Maybe you are, too. Even if you’re not, I think we can communicate this way. I did with Kole.”

  She froze, as if that name had slapped her across the face. She looked around at the bluesman, the punk lovers, the bustling barista.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Mara looked at her hands, holding shiny, red nails up to her face. “It feels so real.”

  “Most dreams do, until you wake up.”

  She nodded in agreement. “How can we— What should—”

  Samuel laughed as Mara’s brain struggled to process what was happening. “I don’t know. The dream scenario I had with Kole was, well, not quite as comfortable as this one. Why don’t we enjoy our gourmet coffees and talk?”

  Mara looked over each shoulder as if the authorities were about to break down the door in an FBI raid.

  “I think we’re good until I wake up. Scone?”

  She smiled and leaned back in the chair. �
��I miss this,” she said, twirling a strand of hair around her slim fingers. “I miss my hair, the fragrance of my body wash, insignificant things.”

  “Funny how life’s little pleasures escape your notice until you lose it all,” Samuel replied. “I miss my music.”

  He turned to face the man in the fedora. The melody had changed. The key had changed. However, the faceless guitar slinger continued to jam those comfortable, familiar chords.

  “Tell me about you,” Samuel said.

  Mara blushed and passed a hand in front of her face.

  “Sorry. That sounded so bad. Didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He shuffled in his seat and moved his mug from one hand to the other.

  “It’s okay. I’m not very good around guys.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, leaning forward. “Guys at your school must be tripping over you.”

  Mara shook her head. “Dropped out second semester sophomore year and never went back. I commuted, anyways. Didn’t really buy into the whole college experience.”

  Samuel left it at that, sensing the scab on that wound had never entirely healed. “I get it.”

  “What was college like for you, you know, back in the day?” she asked with a wide smile.

  Samuel leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “It was hard carrying all the clay tablets back and forth to class. We didn’t even have the wheel back then.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way—”

  Samuel took a turn at dispelling the clumsiness. “I know.”

  Mara sipped from her mug. Samuel loved the way she cupped her long, slender fingers around it on both sides. If she had a scarf, she could be on the cover of one of those trendy catalogs for European kitchen gadgets.

  “You’re kinda cute for an older guy.”

  Samuel blushed. The bluesman had stopped playing. He was shuffling through a handful of papers while holding the guitar on his lap.

  “Tell me your story,” Samuel said.

  “Can’t we just sit here and drink coffee and leave it at that?”

  He sensed reluctance in her voice, but felt a pressure to force the issue.

  “I don’t think that’s why we’re here. I think I’m getting these dream opportunities for a reason. It must have something to do with the Reversion.”