Titan: A Science Fiction Horror Adventure (NecroVerse Book 3)

by Aaron Bunce

  He was a peculiar man, Jacoby thought, eying his rather well-tailored, if not incredibly outdated, suit. He also had a relatively nondescript face—one of those men that he would have struggled to pick out in a crowd, with light brown eyes, a straight nose, squared jaw, and a slightly pronounced chin.

  “I’ll go on down. I fancy a little sunshine. You just lock up when you’re done and meet me down there?”

  “Okay.”

  Alexandria threw Mr. Carter a smile and disappeared into the hallway.

  “Won’t you come in?”

  “Why thank you, Jacoby,” Mr. Carter said, sweeping in noiselessly. Jacoby closed the door and turned.

  “What can I help you with?” Jacoby turned just as the man swept the glossy hat back onto his head, brushed a bit of dust off his sleeve, and lifted his cane. His mustache was meticulously trimmed, curling up and around at the ends.

  Jacoby struggled for a heartbeat, his mind trying to reconcile if the facial hair had been there when the door first opened.

  “I’m so sorry to do this to you, but I’m afraid I am running out of ideas. This was the one thing, I wanted to avoid. Avoid it at all costs, because of how it could soil everything that came before it, but no…not another option I can see.”

  “Hurt? Options for what? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you are talking about.”

  Before Jacoby could move or react, Mr. Carter lifted the cane between them, raised it parallel with the ground, and tapped the end against his forehead. The gentle contact, although barely registering against his skin, staggered him back. The room wavered, his knees grew weak, and a stomach-turning wave of nausea rippled through his guts.

  Jacoby waved his hand out before him and managed to find his balance. He retreated a step, gaining just a bit of distance from the strange man. Mr. Carter’s appearance grew fuzzy for a moment, and when he solidified again, he looked different, although Jacoby couldn’t articulate how.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I’m sorry, Jacky, but you haven’t responded to anything else. If you stay like this much longer, you’ll never come out of it.”

  “Come out of what? What does that mean? What are you talking about? Now, I’m warning you, stay back!”

  “You don’t remember because you’re in a dream. Before this one, there was another, similar but different. Do you remember. You were at a zoo with Anna? And another before that one. Think hard, Jacky, focus.”

  “That is nonsense. I would know if I was…” he started to argue, but as he looked around, his eyes settled on the blue recliner. It wasn’t the clean, new chair anymore, but a dirty, soiled relic leaning slightly to one side. And the smell was there again—alcohol and smoke wafting slowly his way like an invisible wave.

  “I’m sorry, but…”

  He turned just as the cane flashed in against his forehead. The gentle rap knocked his head back, a seizing, electric jolt firing inside his skull. Everything spun, splotchy dark spots eating away at his vision. Jacoby tumbled back on his rear but managed to roll and push up onto his knees, just as his attacker loomed above.

  “Stop!” He knocked the cane aside with a forearm and caught it with his right, but Carter ripped it free with surprising strength.

  “Focus, Jacky. I know you feel it, the frayed edges, the gaps, the reality trying to ooze back into your mind. Don’t fight it. Let it in. Focus in on the chair.”

  “No! You’re fucking crazy, man. This is my life. This is real,” he argued, and again batted the cane aside. A quick push off the ground got him to his feet, but his legs wobbled beneath him. No, not his legs. The ground felt…squishy.

  “Listen, Jacky, I know you like it here…”

  “Stop! I don’t know what your game is, Sir, but you need to stop! Get out! Leave and I won’t call the police. My wife, Alexandria, she’s waiting for me. This is just some sick game and I’m not going to play. Get out!”

  “Damnit, Jacky, listen to me! This is not your home. Alexandria is not real. None of it is. We have had this conversation dozens of times already, in apartments just like this, in different cities. We had an accident, and you sustained a brain injury. I had to induce a coma to keep you from stroking out on us. Look at the chair. It does not belong here. It is your anchor. It will pull you free if you let it.”

  “Let it pull me free?” Jacoby blew a raspberry, laughing at the absurdity of the man’s words, until the blue chair caught in his peripheral vision. Its weight pulled him in, a strange ripple fluctuating through the air around it. The distortion grew, lapping up and over the apartment in waves, exposing a dirty, dilapidated, and worn floor beneath it. As much as he wanted to look away, to deny it, his head, eyes, and seemingly his entire body started to pull towards it.

  Empty liquor bottles appeared on the floor at his feet, the glass tinged by soot and cigarette butts. Stains and garbage flowed over the floor, leading to the corner, and what looked like the only thing alive in the wretched space—a tangled mass of overgrown leaves. A spot appeared on the wall behind it, where the soiled wallpaper was worn down to the plaster.

  Jacoby knew that spot—the shame and fear associated with it. The chair creaked and moved, that ghostly figure once again appearing on the seat. More anger, fear, desperation. Two worlds collided in his mind, neither able to fulling overwrite the other, but how could he possibly know which one was real?

  He had to smash his eyelids closed to wrench his head away and opened them in time to catch the felt-tipped end of the cane right between the eyes.

  The jolt popped his head back, the dazzling, confusing spin sending everything tumbling around him. A cold burst erupted in his brain, pulsing, aching, and then shooting to a completely different spot.

  “I’m sorry, Jacky-Boy. This must work. It must…” Mr. Carter smiled sadly and dipped his head, and then his body started to melt. His suit, then his flesh, all bubbled and dripped, what was a solid man quickly dissolving and flowing towards the ground.

  “What in the hell?” Jacoby gasped and tried to push away, but his hands stuck to the floor.

  “I can’t leave her. I won’t. I want her. I want this life. Please, just leave me here!”

  “Baby!” Alexandria cried from the hallway beyond the door, but it swung violently shut before she could enter.

  “You’re weak. You’re pathetic.” The man’s voice burbled out of the puddle that used to be Mr. Carter. It bubbled and surged, crawling across the ground like a living thing.

  “Leave him alone,” Alexandria yelled, her fists banging on the door.

  The dark, bubbling pool slid right by his feet, a frantic tug barely ripping his shoes from the ground. It slid right by and, without a sound, disappeared into the shadows around the blue chair.

  “Let me go! Let her in!” he begged, clawing at the ground, struggling with the strength to break free.

  Tap–It was Alexandria’s knuckles on the door. But it sounded more like Mr. Carter’s cane against the floor.

  The cold in his brain trickled down his neck, shoulders, and back.

  Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap–the room’s corners fell into darkness, the walls bowing and flexing outward. A wheezing, sighing breath sounded all around him, as if the room were breathing.

  “Go, Jacoby…before he gets you.” Alexandria sounded so far away now, the distance to the door now stretched to twice what it was before.

  He? Who is “he”? he thought, but couldn’t peel his lips apart to speak.

  The smell became overpowering around him—that wretched, eye burning combination of stale cigarettes, tangy liquor, and body odor.

  “I don’t want this. I don’t want this,” he mumbled, his voice barely escaping his throat.

  The chair creaked and shifted next to him, but no one was in it. A chill breeze drifted from the chair, stinking and painful as it prickled his skin and burn his nostrils. It popped and creaked again, knobby, bone-like shapes starting to churn beneath the fabric.

  Then the chair rumbled, me
tal springs vibrating. It swelled and popped, then shrunk again. Was it breathing?

  His feet started to move to push him away, but hit an empty bottle that had not been there before. It rolled and hit several others, the sound of tinkling glass impossibly loud.

  The chair shifted again, creaking and turning. He watched it, a droplet of cold sweat running down his cheek. Jacoby sensed that it was now aware of him, watching him, however that was possible.

  It’s just a chair. That is impossible. Don’t be stupid.

  Then the chair moved to follow him. The arms popped loudly, the soiled covers tearing as white, boney shapes pushed through. The footrest groaned and exploded outward, the mechanism’s guts tearing themselves apart in a shower of wood and bolts.

  Jacoby wrenched to the side, his hands and feet breaking free from the ground with a loud squelch. The chair turned to track him, the dirty seat cushion peeling open to reveal long, pale shapes—teeth. Air rushed by, rustling his hair. It was sucked into the chair, and then violently pushed back out again.

  Jacoby frantically scrabbled forward, pulling himself towards the closest corner. Hide. Run. Hide. His eyes landed on the overgrown plant, its shadow concealing everything accept the worn spot on the wall.

  His hand broke free and slapped the ground just ahead. If he could reach that spot, he would be safe. Jacoby didn’t know how he knew, or why, but it felt right.

  “Worthless. Pathetic. Weak.” The voice without sound, without form, grew louder.

  Jacoby ripped a foot free and tried to push himself forward, only to have a horrible pain tear into him. He looked down to find shards of shattered glass sticking out of his foot. It glittered beneath and all around, thick like crushed ice on the ground.

  The chair chattered again, just as long, boney forms shot out and onto the ground—long and segmented, like the skinless bodies of dead snakes. They flopped and thrashed, wriggling towards him.

  Jacoby ripped his other foot free, the glass crunching as it came down again. He winced and tried to cry out, but his voice was gone. He lifted a trembling hand towards the plant—his refuge, his place of safety, just as a hard, cold grip latched onto his legs.

  The pull tore him free of the ground and turned him over. The glass crunched beneath his back as he slid, those horrible boney shapes pulling him towards the dark chair, its form now broken open and moving, chewing the air like an expectant mouth.

  “No! Stop!” he tried to yell, his lips still fused together.

  “Fake flesh and blood…” the chair droned as his feet approached. Then it bit.

  The pain shot up his foot and leg, jagged, the cushions pulling back, exposing jagged teeth like dark, diseased gums. The chair open and came down again, pulling and biting, teeth piercing and grinding him deeper.

  Jacoby punched and clawed at the ground, his breath gone and his eyes wide. He watched his body disappearing into the monstrous chair, then desperately looked to the door. He couldn’t hear Alexandria’s voice anymore, nor the sound of her fists knocking.

  Pain bit into his thighs, then his waist. He punched and pushed against the chair, fighting to push himself free, but he had no strength left. His left arm buckled as the chair opened, the flap lifting right above him, revealing that which the darkness concealed before. It wasn’t fabric, but flesh, churning and alive. It swung down again, teeth biting into his chest and arms.

  Jacoby’s breath caught and he slipped deeper. Terror wrapped around his thoughts, strangling him as his head hung in the open, the last bit to be consumed. He looked inside the beast as it opened to take that final bite, the horrible, stinking, fleshy hell pulling him in.

  The chair groaned and the jaw snapped down towards his face.

  Jacoby screamed and threw up his hands. He jolted and moved, but the bite never fell. Silence and darkness hung over him.

  He gasped for breath and found that his lips were no longer stuck together. His hands crawled up over his face—clammy skin and sweat-soaked hair. He moved his feet, then lurched up into a sitting position, his hands bunching up in dry socks.

  No glass.

  No blood.

  A gentle glow appeared to his right, the light floating through the air. Then it was above him, its meager glow burning his eyes. A woman’s face appeared behind it, materializing out of the darkness.

  “Oh my god! You’re awake?”

  +10 Days

  A single, echoing claxon sounded overhead. The speaker crackled, the voice distorted and faint.

  “Shit,” the woman cursed. “They were supposed to wait. Just hold on for a moment, Coby. Don’t move. It’ll be over in a moment. Okay. Trust me. Hold on.”

  Jacoby grunted and struggled for a moment, his gaze sweeping the dark space around him. The light was there one moment, its soft, orange glow illuminating her pale face and blond hair, and then it was gone. Voices echoed off in the distance. One was louder than the others–harsh, synthetic, and harshly enunciated. It was counting down.

  They all went quiet, just as an invisible weight fell over him, pushing him laterally, his body sliding with the force. Jacoby fumbled and caught the edge of the platform beneath him. His grip caught, slid, and caught again.

  “Alexandria, where are you? What’s going on?” he called out.

  Only the blaring claxon responded, followed by a definitively female voice. It counted down. His heart started to race as his confusion mounted, the strange, rumbling pressure pushing on his body cutting out a moment later.

  “Alexandria, where are you?” he called again, his breath and voice coming easier now. “Hello? Where am I? What is going on?”

  Jacoby searched the darkness as a strange silence settled over him, broken by a chorus of back-and-forth shouts. But he couldn’t seem to understand what they were saying or where exactly they were coming from.

  The floating light appeared beyond the doorway again, the woman’s disembodied face hovering behind it. Was he dead? Shit…had he died? Questions tumbled forth into his mind; too many to parse or begin to answer.

  His panic kicked in, a leg-twitching urge to break free. He immediately pulled on the last memories available–Alexandria wanting to show him a surprise, and then Mr. Carter appearing at their door. Jacoby didn’t want to remember what came next, but the darkness and that horrible chair felt more real than anything else in his mind at that moment.

  It made him want to run, break free, and hide. The woman’s face drew closer, and his hope fell. Not red hair, but blond, with blue eyes, and a peculiar pattern covering the left side of her face.

  “Who are you…? What do you want?” he asked, pushing to roll free, but his legs…they wouldn’t move.

  “It’s okay, Coby. It’s Anna. You’re safe.” She set the glowing shape down–a lantern of some kind, and sprawled forward, pulling him to a smothering hug. “I didn’t think you’d wake up. It looked like you never would. My god, I thought I had lost you!”

  Jacoby struggled for a moment–the dark room, the blanket tucked tightly around his body, and the painfully cold air on his face just working to deepen his confusion. He tried to make sense of his tangled thoughts–Alexandria and their comfortable apartment, their life together, and its seemingly dark opposite–the horror that still left his chest tight and his palms clammy. And yet, nothing helped him understand where he was or how he’d gotten there.

  The chair bubbled back up in his thoughts, summoned forth by the darkness around him. Jacoby didn’t want to think about it, but like before, its gravity seemed to pull it front and center in his mind. He’d woken up in that chair, equally confused and disoriented, before things turned dark and it became a nightmare inducing monster. But why?

  “He told us you’d wake up, insisted on it, in fact. But every day that passed and you wouldn’t respond, we become less confident. I think he was starting to lose confidence, too, although you know Poole…he was trying to hide it. There are just some things we can’t hide from each other anymore. You know how it is,” Anna
squeezed him again, the strength of her embrace adding to the weighted darkness. She was startlingly strong.

  A few coils of her blond hair fell over his face. The smell, the sensation, stirred something deep inside. But what?

  Where is here? Why can’t I remember anything?

  “I can’t breathe. Stop. Please stop!”

  Anna pushed away, her eyes going wide in the gentle glow. She clutched her arms to her body and watched him, her breathing faltering several times. There must have been something wrong with his eyes, as a subtle glow tinged her outline, one that didn’t quite seem to match her movement. She bent to the side to look back out into the dark room next door, and the translucent overlay followed a heartbeat later. Yes, the outline was her, but also different. It had incredibly short hair and different clothes. Was she wearing a dress? Glasses?

  “Coby, it’s me. Anna. What’s wrong?” she said, turning back.

  A loud click sounded somewhere in the darkness.

  Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick…

  Light flared–bright and white, the glare stinging his eyes. Anna recoiled from it, too. He blinked through the pain, but refused to close his eyes for long. The surrounding room was small, efficient, with narrow bunks molded right into the walls. It all looked and felt familiar, but how? It was a thought, a memory perhaps, but lay just out of reach.

  “He’s awake!” someone exclaimed from just outside the door and he turned just in time to see a figure with shoulder-length black hair enter.

  “Emiko, I don’t think he remembers…”

  Emiko, he thought, playing the name over in his mind. It felt familiar, too, like the memory of cold water on parched lips. He wanted so desperately for the connection to form, for it blossom in his mind and wash away the confusion. But…

  Emiko walked closer and bent low, right in his face.

  Jacoby recoiled, alarmed by how readily she invaded his space. She was Asian, with shoulder-length black hair and brown, curious eyes. That strange glowing overlay hovered over Emiko, too–an altogether different version of her that didn’t quite fit with the more tactile version or move in time with it.