by Carver Pike
“Please, no stepping on any bugs,” Sergio said.
Lisa held on to Gabe’s arm and huddled close to him. In the pool, off on the left hand side, a large seaweed green fin broke the surface of the water. Everyone stopped and watched as it glided across the pool. Conductor leaned forward a bit with his gun pointed at the water.
“Better be careful. Somethin’s gonna jump up outta there and bite your face off,” Dozier teased him.
Conductor looked over at Dozier with a dead serious face.
“Yous be the a funny guy, do yee?” he asked.
With incredible speed, something shot out of the water on the right. A scaly green hand reached out and grabbed Lisa’s right arm. She toppled over, trying to reach out for Gabe, but it happened too quickly.
Gabe reached out to grab her left leg as the creature yanked her down into the water. He kept his firm grip on Lisa’s ankle, refusing to let go, and was pulled into the water behind her. They were dragged deeper and deeper. The dark water rushed past them and Gabe feared they’d drown.
Above ground, on the narrow bridge, Dozier, Language, Sergio, and Conductor all pointed their guns at the water around them. It had happened so fast they didn’t have a chance to react.
“Gabe!” Sergio shouted at the water’s surface.
“I can’t see shit!” Dozier yelled.
“Where the hell did they go?” Sergio asked.
Underwater, Gabe was being yanked towards the bottom of the pool. He couldn’t see anything at all through the dark water. Even a bright light from above wouldn’t have helped at their current depth. It was all murky darkness down below. His friends’ voices above became quieter and quieter until he couldn’t hear a thing.
Suddenly, whatever had been pulling Lisa towards the bottom let go. Gabe reached out for her and pulled her close. She kicked a little, obviously unsure of who or what was gripping her ankle. He held her face against his and she relaxed and allowed him to hold onto her as they thrashed their legs to keep from sinking lower.
Gabe kicked his feet and started to climb towards the surface when an eerie green light suddenly shone up from the bottom of the pond. It illuminated the water around them. They were surrounded by at least ten strange creatures. They seemed to be half man, half fish. Lisa screamed and frantically kicked upwards.
As soon as she did, the creatures opened their large mouths and bared their long, razor sharp teeth. Gabe let go of Lisa for a moment and floated there in front of them, hoping to stall the monsters and give her enough time to escape.
He gripped his gun in both hands and fought the urge to take a big gulp of water. His lungs burned and he needed to do something quick, before he drowned. The creatures had him completely surrounded, but a glance towards the surface showed him that Lisa was halfway to safety.
Gabe gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger. A spray of bullets shot towards the creatures, leaving white bubbly trails behind them. He blasted away as he kicked upward.
Standing on the bridge, the others heard the sound of muffled gunshots coming from below the surface of the water. All four pointed their guns at the water.
“They ain’t gonna make it,” Dozier said. “We should move.”
Language shook her head “no.”
“We can’t leave ‘em!” Sergio yelled.
“We’s gonna be dead too ‘en,” Conductor informed them.
“You coulda stayed on your train,” Sergio hissed.
Behind them, on the left side, Lisa reached the surface and gasped for air. She cried out, thrashing wildly. Sergio dove into the water and helped her get safely to the bridge. Dozier pulled her out and she lay on her back, gasping. Sergio climbed out of the water after her.
“Gabe?” Lisa asked. She rolled to her side and stared at the water’s surface. “Gabe?” she asked again.
No one answered her.
As if on cue, Gabe broke the water’s surface and swam towards the bridge, gasping for air as he moved. Right behind him, one of the man-fish popped up. It opened its mouth, hissed and dove his way, but Gabe spun around and stuck the barrel of his gun into its mouth. When he pulled the trigger, the monstrosity’s green blood sprayed all over the water’s surface.
But Gabe didn’t celebrate his victory. He didn’t have time for that. He swam as hard as he could towards the bridge. Dozier and Language reached down to pull him ashore.
Gabe rolled onto the dry land and looked up at his friends, still shocked that he’d made it out of the water alive.
“There’s like a hundred of ‘em down there,” he panted.
“Aye, them’s the gildwars. Be eat’n ye alive,” Conductor said.
“Where’s Lisa?” Gabe asked.
“Gabe!” Lisa shouted as she crawled over to his side and stroked the hair away from his forehead. “You dove in after me.”
“Always,” he promised.
One of the gildwars popped up out of the water alongside them and Conductor quickly shot it.
“Best be gittin’ on,” he advised them.
“You okay?” Gabe asked Lisa.
She hovered over him, gazing down at his pale, wet face. His chest heaved up in down in exhaustion, and she stroked it hesitantly. She smiled at him. Gabe smiled back as he reached up, gently placed his hand on the back of her neck, and pulled her towards him.
He’d almost lost her and until that moment he had no idea how it would hurt. He needed her now. Maybe he always had.
He kissed her, a long, slow kiss that blocked out the craziness around them. All that mattered at the moment was Lisa. She was his.
“What the fuck!” Dozier yelled from somewhere on the outskirts of his mind. “They’re all over the fucking place!”
Gabe snapped out of it when he heard the others shuffling nervously behind them. He sat up and climbed to his feet, reloading his gun before handing a pistol to Lisa.
“Shoot anything that moves,” he told her.
Gabe pulled Lisa by her hand down the narrow dirt path. A loud hiss came from behind them. One of the gildwars ran straight at them. It stood about seven feet tall and had webbed feet. Its skin was green and scaly, almost slimy looking, and its face was wide and beastly. It had a large mouth and its eyes were completely white.
“Tressspasssorsss!” the gildwar shrieked at them.
Lisa was the first to start shooting, her fear evidently taking over, where Gabe was paralyzed by sheer awe. It took him a moment to snap out of it and when he did, he joined her in the shooting. The gildwar shook and fell backwards as the bullets ripped into its chest.
One of the gildwars raced straight at the others, its webbed feet slapping the dirt floor. Language saw it coming and met it with a spray of machine gun fire.
Other gildwars leapt from the water all around them. Sergio caught one in midair with a bullet to the head. Another one shot up out of the water next to the bridge and Dozier smashed his axe down on its forehead, burying it in a watery grave.
“These things just won’t stop coming!” Sergio yelled.
“You know how many eggs fish lay?” Lisa asked in between bursts of her gun.
“A lot, huh?” he asked.
“A hell of a lot, Sergio. These things could go on forever!”
They reached the end of the pools as an army of gildwars had begun to assemble outside the water. They surrounded the pools, hundreds of them, and there was no way Gabe and his friends would be able to fend them off. The gildwars charged forward, their webbed feet hitting the ground with the force of hooved horses.
The humans and images raced for the fence. Conductor reached it first and moved out of the way so that Dozier had plenty of room to do what needed to be done. He raised his axe high above his head and swung it down hard against the fence, cutting a gaping hole right down the middle.
Conductor climbed through and assisted the others. Gabe was the last to crawl through the fence and he did so just in time.
The gildwars chased them to the hole in the fence and then
stopped suddenly, as if an invisible force field was holding them back.
Conductor kept running, trying to get as far away from the fence as possible. Gabe, at the rear of the others, stopped about twenty yards beyond the fence when he realized that the thunderous footsteps behind them had stopped.
He turned around to see the gildwars all lined up on the other side of the fence. They stood side by side, gripping the fence with their webbed, taloned hands. Their chests angrily heaved up and down, obviously upset that they’d missed out on their feast.
“They’ve stopped,” Gabe informed the others.
The gildwars growled and hissed.
“You have to come back sssometime. We’ll be waiting,” one of the gildwars threatened.
“It’s the water,” Lisa said. “They need the water. Like a fish.”
“I say on the way back we dry that place up,” Dozier said.
Chapter 4 - Firecracker
A rusty, tan Ford Ranger sped down the highway under the bright sun. Behind the wheel, Cutter puffed on a cigar. He looked out the windshield at the bright world around him.
It still amazed him that he could travel all over this world and the only thing he had to worry about was one of those pesky highway patrolmen. There weren’t any crazed venomous birds flying around. He didn’t have to worry about meeting gorgeous sirens along his travels that only wanted to shack up with a man for the night, but intended to rip his heart out.
Surviving on the dark side of the mirror took not only a cunning mind and cold heart, but a bit of raw, evil talent. You had to think nastier thoughts than the nasties. You had to do dirtier deeds that the dirtiest doers. You had to be able to strike fear in the hearts of those who prey on fear.
Cutter knew he was one of the best. That’s why everyone wanted a piece of him. The women wanted him and the men wanted him dead. He was okay with that though. He could live with that…as long as he could keep living.
Ivy sat in the passenger seat, as far away from him as the ripped leather seat would allow. The inside door handle and the one that rolled down the window had both been ripped off, long before he’d taken possession of the truck, so he didn’t have to worry about her trying to escape out the door. She leaned against the window and stared out at the green trees passing by.
“I like trucks,” Cutter announced through a cloud of grey, sweet smelling smoke. “Be better if it was a stick though instead of this pansy ass automatic.”
Ivy rolled her eyes at him and went back to staring out the window.
“Roll your eyes again and I’ll put my cigar out in one of ‘em.”
The pickup sped down the highway and passed a sign that read: Manhattan 30 miles. Cutter leaned forward in the driver’s seat.
“Hot damn!” he said with a snicker. “The Slums of York. New York City!”
“What is it with you and New York City?” Ivy asked.
Cutter ignored her question and continued talking. “We’re gonna stay at a hotel over by the Delecroix Opera House.”
“Where Allie’s going?” she asked.
Cutter held up a hand as if threatening to backhand her.
“Would you shut the fuck up for one damned second? You’re like a fuckin’ little tweety bird,” he said.
“Sorry,” she replied.
“Listen up, we’re stayin’ in that hotel, and I don’t want any shit outta you when we get there. You just keep your trap shut and play the part of the mistreated wife. Do you understand?”
She nodded. He reached over and pinched her leg.
“You know you could play the part of the mistreated horny wife if you want. Kinda miss that about you,” he said with a laugh. “Gotta say. It’s one of the finest pussies on either side of the mirror.”
She turned away from him and once again focused on the scenery outside the window.
“You were a firecracker,” he added.
***
Ivy thought back to the day that she’d appeared on the dark side. She was the equivalent of what girls on the bright side would call sixteen. They didn’t really have ages over there.
What was the point? There was no one waiting for you on the day of your appearance each year with a pink frosted cake and candles. There were no wishes to be had. To even think of such things was foolish.
Ivy had appeared in Darkar, the image of Detroit, in a bathtub. There’d been no water in the tub. In fact, it hadn’t looked like it was used for bathing at all. It had dried blood caked to it. She didn’t know why.
She hadn’t stayed in the room long enough to find out. Completely confused, having no idea who she was or what she was doing in the tub, she’d stood up and nearly fallen over. Her legs had been weak. She hadn’t been used to using them. As far as she knew, she’d never used them before.
There was a mirror in the room and Ivy had stared into it for a long time, admiring her own beauty. That’s when the first thought of sex had come to her. She didn’t know where it came from, but she had a yearning to touch herself. So she did for a moment but had been interrupted by a man.
John was his name, and he was the first man she ever slept with. He wasn’t a handsome man and he hadn’t taken her by force. He was an arsonist, that was his flaw, his dark desire, and she did things to him that night that made him forget about fire. In the morning, she’d left.
She wandered the streets for a long time until she found her first brothel. That’s where women like her belonged. They did what they loved to do and were paid for it. She never looked back.
She’d learned to control her urges a bit since then. The old her would have still wanted Cutter no matter what he’d done to her. The new her was repulsed by him and thought only of Gabe, the better version.
The thought of Gabe turned her on and she had to cross her legs to keep herself tamed. This reminded her of Lisa, the goody two shoes version of herself. The cute as a button, sophisticated one.
Knowing what she knew now, she was sure that her appearance on the dark side was triggered by Lisa’s first negative thought, more than likely a sexual one. Perhaps Ivy was born the first time Lisa had masturbated. The thought almost made her laugh.
Then sadness struck her as she realized that in a strange, sick way, she and Lisa were connected. They were only separated by a mirror, and she knew that if the innocent Lisa was running around on the other side, she was in great danger. There was no time for naivety over there. Innocence would get you killed.
She glanced over at Cutter, who was smiling his stupid, cocky grin, and sighed. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 5 – The Slums of York
It was dark out but they pressed on. They’d grown tired of small talk and simply moved forward, wanting to find the Slums of York and a place to rest for the night. The terrain was hilly, which gave their exhausted bodies a hell of a time. Not only did they have to force their feet to go up the hills, but they had to slow as they tended to race down the other side.
The land was ashen and rocky, with patches of grass that fought hard to grow despite the lack of sun and water. It reminded Gabe of the pictures he’d seen of the moon, minus the gleeful astronaut leaping to and fro. There was no bounce in their step. They had to work to get where they were going.
At the bottom of the next hill, Dozier stopped and leaned over to rest.
“I thought I got all those years of smokin’ out of my system, but this is a bitch, y’all.”
“How much further is it?” Lisa asked Language.
She shrugged.
“Maybe we should rest here,” Sergio suggested.
Gabe looked around at the terrain and was sure he saw shadows moving. On the dark side of the mirror, it always felt as if something was lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce and take you out.
“I don’t know about that,” Gabe said. “We’ve been attacked twice tonight and I don’t know about you, but these hills don’t seem too safe to me.”
“Not everywhere on this side is dangerous, man,” Se
rgio argued. “Believe it or not, most of the creatures are kind of confined to their areas and most won’t mess with you if you don’t mess with them.”
“Since when did you become the authority on all things on the dark side?” Dozier asked sarcastically.
“We could sleep in shifts,” Lisa offered. “Two people can keep watch at a time.”
