Other Dangers: Slipped Through

by Amanda M. Lyons

  Henry hadn’t been aware how much of an asshole he was before and it was more than a little hard to process now that he was aware.

  Now, only a week after his wife’s death, he was beginning to think for Abby things he’d never thought or felt for Rachel. This bothered him a great deal. If it was as uncomplicated as sexual attraction he could have written it off in some way, made it out to be part of the equation of man and woman in constant contact, but it was more than that. Abby held some value to him, was a grounding force in his life and that was creating connections for him which seemed to swipe away the years he’d had with his wife. How could that be? They’d had a daughter together, a girl who was now seventeen; how could he be doing this to her? It was just another thing he would feel guilty for. What would he tell his daughter? Would anyone believe what had happened? How could he explain Rachel’s absence?

  Henry shook his head and moved toward Abby. She looked at him as if she was puzzled, but dismissed her own thoughts with a shake of her head.

  “Have you learned anything useful, Henry? Or will I have to be your bodyguard again?” In some ways she was teasing him, but the tone made it clear that she was also being peevish, annoyed that he had been taught anything about her world.

  “I know a little,” he hissed.

  “Well, let’s be off then.”

  Abby walked toward the path out of the camp and Henry followed, trudging along with his eyes on the ground, embarrassed and more than a little annoyed with himself for caring about it and his own sense of inferiority about many of his less than adequate skills. He didn’t like being seen as less skilled at traits than Abby now that she’d thrown it in his face, something he hadn’t considered until she called it into question. Apparently if there was one thing he still held onto from the old Henry it was his pride. There was a feeling of being watched then, and he looked back toward the villagers they were leaving behind.

  Pereneaux stood at the edge of the tents, leaning a little on his staff, tired and wan. The expression in his face was full of open longing and sorrow, it weighed on him. He craved something that he could never have again and he mourned it with his entirety. He wanted to be with Abby, that was plain. He wanted to be the one that walked with her on her quest and the one to hold her when they rested, to love and be loved in return too.

  This gaze fell on Henry; the blue lights that were his eyes bore down on him, flaming and angry. He knew what Henry felt and was unsure of Abby’s motives in that direction. He meant Henry no ill will, not really, only craved his position, to damn him if he ever touched his one-time lover. It was a warning and Henry knew it. Don’t touch her, it wailed. Don’t break my last dream for the sake of some lust you don’t even understand.

  He turned then, letting the gaze fall on his back and following Abby on. He didn’t know if he could honor that request, he didn’t know what might come now. Nothing in this new life was clear, not even his own survival.

  The woods spread for miles on either side of the road, greener than any woods he’d seen in his own world, more dangerous too. The pavement was cracked in spider-webbed patterns, various weeds and grasses breaking through those cracks, some of them only a few inches tall and others a few feet high. He tried to guess at how long the roads had gone unattended and wasn’t able. It had to have been years, but how many? He let it go.

  “What year is it here?” He didn’t know why he risked asking, she was almost certain to shut him down.

  “The same as it is in your world,” she said without turning around.

  Startled, he stopped mid-stride for a moment and then started walking again when it was clear she wasn’t going to stop. “How do you know?”

  “You’re not the first to come here, Henry, and I’ve ventured into these other realms as well.” She’d softened somehow, her voice was resigned as she told him these things, a certain sort of acceptance in her words, begrudging as they were.

  “Why?” It had to be asked, though he could guess at the reasoning, who wouldn’t want to be freed from this place if only for a while?

  “Because I wanted to. Do I need any other reason?” She hissed. He was pushing it, had possibly pushed her too far for all of her rules.

  “No, but-”

  “Just drop it, Henry. I don’t intrude on your personal life, so don’t invade mine.”

  “Sorry.” What else could he say? She was so open for a moment there I almost thought she might spill whole lines of information, given me something more to go on at least.

  “So you’ve gained some kindness. Maybe my world’s not such a bad place after all.” Her words were cold, but also a little surprised. She didn’t even pause as she spoke though, not even to look back at him or slant her face toward him.

  “Do you think I’ll see Rachel again?” He wasn’t really sure what made him ask about her other than that he had been thinking of his guilt and all the things he should have done better about before. What could she possibly offer him to soothe such things? Why would he expect her to?

  She turned then. A look of vague shock and distress there in the cock of her head, there and then melted into her least emotive expression in the briefest moment. He’d genuinely startled her, made her show a trace of empathy.

  “She’s gone, Henry. You know that, don’t you?” There’s a note of caution there, as if she wondered if he’d lost his mind.

  “Yes, but-well, will we meet the thing she is again?”

  “Maybe, but I’d be hoping we don’t. If she remembers you at all, she’ll want to kill you…or worse. There is worse, you know.” He nodded that he knew and then she turned forward again, walking on and letting the statement settle on him.

  He followed, watching her walk, letting his mind go as he took in the shape and quality of her movements.

  There was a smooth sway of the hips in her stride, the faded camo pants she’d been wearing before, outlining them nicely. His eyes clung to this for a moment and then up to watch her arms swaying at her sides, occasionally scratching at her shoulder where scars had formed, dim and faded, from some past battle. She drew a homemade cigarette from her left pocket and lit it, letting the hand holding it lay near her hip, the long thin edges that were her fingers a delicate form of statuary arched around the length of the cigarette. The smooth small fists of her breasts thrust against the t-shirt, apparent as she drew in the smoke and released it. It was all some dance to him, articulate and beautiful in its complete lack of intent, sexual in some odd way that even he didn’t understand. Her every move was sensual and he drank it in with his eyes, feeling the press of lust in his mind and the aching guilt that came with it when he felt it for Abby.

  He wondered how she tasted, how it would feel to kiss her, to lick the curve of her breast and the line of her thigh. How would it be to enter her and what sort of sound would come from her as he thrust inside of her? The fabric of his clothes now seemed too confining, close against his skin as his hardness grew. The guilty pang grew with it, dragging needles through his insides.

  This was wrong, Rachel was dead, and not for long enough, and then there was Pereneaux. He loved this woman and somewhere she carried the same affections. What right did he have to break that or to destroy Pereneaux’s dream of having her again? What made him believe she would ever want him this way? What claim did he have on her? He willed these images of lust away and wished for his body to relax. It was an impossible dream and so very wrong to keep. She might kill him if she knew, or worse, she might laugh as she had at his lessons. Eventually his body gave in, though not for a long while. A time where Abby remained blessedly oblivious and silent, though he wondered if she knew anyway.

  He thought of the backpack again, the only craving he would feed, far less dangerous and painful than his lust. Though it too held certain dangers. He turned over different plots in his mind, thinking of different ways to prize the secret knowledge without being caught. It would be twilight before the two spoke again; a comfortable silence of hours fell betwee
n.

  ***

  By moonlight, they set up their camp.

  The night was hazy; banks of fog invaded the woods, crawling onto the highway they camped on. This could be a bad thing, Henry thought. All they need is a good cover and then they’ll sneak up on you. I can listen, but I don’t think that’ll be enough. I’d really rather not die here with her in this place, not when I know so little.

  He sat down across from her, watching the glimmer of firelight on her face. The fog drifted around them, breaking up his view of her, accenting the mystery, the deadly secrecy of her form. There was an air of agelessness about her, not that she had no age, but that it was a lie, a veneer. She wore it as she wore her clothes and her courage, reluctantly strong, a mask for the vulnerable being underneath, one afraid of being crushed. She was a sly creature. She’d learned to trust her instincts, to distrust all until they’d proven to be useful, or touched her as Pereneaux had. She watched him now with a tentative distrust and bewilderment in her eyes, defiance screaming from her posture and expression like an aura curling toward him.

  They watched each other openly, with no pretense, no words of explanation. A bitter hating edge caught in her eyes, gliding over into the aura she exuded. It burned him, though he didn’t look away any more than she did.

  In the next moment fog as delicate as whipped cream rushed over, covering the fire and blinding him to her view, and she to his.

  He waited, listening to the clouded woods around them, an edge of unease gliding over him. As he did, the fog closed in, coating him in its hazy hothouse steam. He drew his gun and listened, hearing nothing but the small sounds of the woods as he gripped the gun, trusting instinct over impulse and waiting. It seemed like hours, maybe ages that he waited, chill and silent for the fog to go on, for Abby to make a sound.

  When the fog drifted enough for the fire to be visible he saw that she was gone, and maybe he’d already known that instinctively, but he didn’t think it was true. He turned in the fog, careful to stop himself from making noises, and looked around. She was nowhere in sight, as gone and vanished as his dead wife.

  The fog didn’t dissipate, but instead grew thicker and flowed with further grace and speed. Wolf-like howls raised his neck hair, the drone of insects touching his mind, loud and unbearable. He bit his lip and concentrated, standing and trying to make his eyes look beyond the fog. He didn’t dare to go after her, the fog making such action too uncertain. The steady ceaseless drone of the woods grew as he tried to pick the sounds from one another, the loudness, the sheer wild nature of the sounds grating against his edged nerves. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and concentrated. A dull throb pushed at his temples, accenting his desperation with twinges of pain which nearly blotted out all thought.

  Suddenly a roar came from behind him, animalistic and rabid, diving down on him as his eyes flew open. He was on the ground, a weight on his chest, pushing him flat as he struggled with his fear to raise the gun, to aim. His arm wouldn’t listen, as dead to him as the rest of his body.

  He groaned as he watched the fog rush forward, whatever creature this was diving in for the kill. He closed his eyes, waiting endless moments, waiting for the smooth flesh of his throat to be torn, for the blood to flow, to be gutted like a deer. And the face of it rushed onward to his throat, diving in some suspended moment of time. He would be dead, would know the pain of it. He could taste the creature’s teeth already, the smooth glide of them in his neck, though they weren’t there…yet.

  The pad of its foot pressed down on his chest, his ribs crashing down on him under its weight. The warm breath of it misted him; a deadly caress of moisture easing through the fog he knew was still there though he didn’t open his eyes to see. The terrible anticipation of death weighed down on him, easing slowly onto his consciousness. The broken century of it elapsing quicker and quicker as he waited for the resolution, progress intent on destruction.

  Claws tore into his shirt, ripped it open and dragged languorously, painfully, over his bare skin. The grazed skin welted and bled. It was taunting him, teasing its kill like a cat with a mouse.

  “How does it feel to be preyed upon, Henry? Do you like it? Are you fucking getting off on it?”

  He opened his eyes, the lids gliding back, his vision momentarily blinded by the pressure he’d put on them and then the creamy drifts of fog.

  “Abby?” He asked, confused, and she howled with rage and threw herself off him.

  “You bastard,” she hissed as she wept, still unseen in the fog. ‘I’m no whore to be looked at as if I were to be bought. I’m more than the sum of my tits and my ass! Don’t you dare look at me like that!”

  A bank of fog drifted back and he saw the gleaming hurt confusion in her eyes. The raging agony ripped him open more deeply than the imagined creature might have, and then her face was gone, obliterated by fog. But he heard her, the wrenching agony of her sobs carrying the distance between them.

  “Do you know the pain I have gone through so I could get beyond this shell? That all of us have to survive this fucking world!”

  There was a sound as of things falling, small light things and clanging larger ones, of bitter tears being wept. She came out of the fog, the fog floating away in hurried wisps as she moved toward him on the ground. He threw himself to his feet and shook his head, denying what he saw.

  She was naked, her accusatory hating face thrust upward.

  “Well? Is this what you want? To fuck me? Huh?” She wept and he could not help but to watch the tear glide down her cheek, over her throat, along the edge of her collarbone and to the peaked nipple of her breast, large and full as he’d known it would be despite the small size of the breasts themselves.

  This wasn’t what he’d wanted, not like this, not with tears and anger and no hope for anything else. That single tear resting on the tip of her nipple spoke of more than any of her words or the hate that spilled from her.

  “Well? What do you want from me?” She howled into the night, the force of it shaking her body, wrenching her chest in as she gasped a ragged breath. Her ribs jutted softly from her scarred flesh, the stranger markings of her earlier battles stark against her white flesh.

  The emotions he felt were horror and disgust, not with her, but with himself, guilt tore at him, for his wife and for his daughter, as distant as islands, and for this woman who stood unclad before him.

  As vulnerable as her nakedness made her, it gave her a terrible strength as well. She made no attempt to cover herself, though she must crave it. He felt it and saw it in her body language, but she’d set out to do one thing and she meant to complete her task. The deadly beauty she exuded leant her the feel of a panther, her stance as she waited screamed outrage, and the panther lurking beneath leapt at him, rushing against him and tackling him with all her fury.

  She tore the remains of his shirt from him, dragging claw-like nails down over his flesh as she did it. He struggled to stop her, fought her angry attacks with firm denial, but she was stronger, the force of her hate and her pain lending her the force to do it. His pants were tugged deftly from his body and then he too was naked. She straddled him at chest level, the feel of her pubic hair scratching softly at his chest as she slapped him in the face, throwing his hands away and herself into her revenge.

  He wept for her now, knowing that some part of her must be screaming for her to stop, but her rage wouldn’t allow it to happen. Silent, angry tears coursed down a vacant face, rage making the green of her eyes wild and animated. She eased down his length, massaging him, and to his horror he reacted, the tumescence of before returning as she touched him. Licking him, she bit him at the base of his cock, hurting him, abusing him, taking advantage as she felt he had done with his eyes.

  When she grew tired of this she thrust herself over him, dry rocking him as she slapped and punched him in turn, dragging ragged, deeply painful claw marks down his body. She rode him, hate gleaming in her eyes as she tore at him. Purely physical orgasm arched through each of
them as they approached climax, groans and angry curses escaped her, and he wept as they bucked as one, meeting hip to hip.

  They came as one, howling in anguished raging terror, and rolled away from one another. The fog granted blessed anonymity in this cold night. Blood and sweat mingled on his body, drawing hisses of pain from him. He continued to weep, lying there on the ground. He didn’t know how long he remained like this, only that thunder came and lightning, then rain. It drenched him and broke the fog into wisps around him. Still he wept, the rain pressing down on his naked body, scouring away blood, sweat, and the bitter dregs of his sordid orgasm.

  He stared up at the sky, the arching lines of lightning tearing open the purple-black clouds gliding over the jet evening sky. When the rain ran to mist he looked around after what seemed like hours and found her gazing up as he had, her knees pressed close to her chest as she rocked, naked in the rain.

  The moon was full and bright, the stars sharp diamond edges in the night sky. It rained all of that night and somewhere amid the torrent, he fell asleep.

  ***

  When morning came, he rose and put on a pair of pants from his pack, drenched as they were despite the leather of the pack. She sat by a fire. He didn’t care how she had made it, cold clung to his bones and dug at his mind. He shivered and shook, trying to draw in the warmth of the fire, but again and again, it eluded him.