The Revenant Road

by Michael Boatman

  “Hey!” I shouted, lunging toward where the bat-wielder stooped over Kowalski’s prone form.

  The bat-wielder spun and aimed a gun at my face.

  I froze, and the bat-wielder stepped out of the shadows.

  My heart sank as I recognized my enemy.

  Connie Sawyer, the host of The Eighth Hour: Best-selling author; dramaturge; nationally-recognized patron of the arts.

  Critic.

  “Leaving us without saying goodbye, Obadiah?” Sawyer purred. “How rude.”

  “Connie, wait,” I said.

  Sawyer smiled and dropped the bat. “Not on your life.”

  Then she shot me.

  29

  Critical Thinking

  Lightning ripped through the top of my skull. I stumbled backward and fell on my ass. Sawyer was standing between me and the exit. There was nowhere else to go except deeper into the parking garage.

  “Help me!” I shouted, my eyes scanning the area for anyone, an airline employee, even a semi-literate security guard with a gun.

  “It’s nearly midnight, you arrogant bastard,” Sawyer said. “All the little people have gone home.”

  “Connie,” I gasped. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because the others failed,” she said. “Consider it my contribution to a noble cause.”

  “Connie, don’t…!”

  Sawyer’s second shot struck the concrete between my legs and ricocheted off into the night.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “You don’t understand what’s happening! You and the other critics have been put under a spell! Well... not a spell... exactly, more like a possession.”

  Sawyer laughed. “You’re pathetic.”

  “No!” I shot back. “It’s true. You and Copernicus Geller and Graham Rhys Jones and Carter Yamato... You’ve all been... ensorcelled... or something!”

  Sawyer shook her head.

  “The only ‘sorcery’ I’ve encountered recently is the hex you put on me every time I open one of your lousy books!”

  Her third shot whistled past my left ear and shattered the rear window of a nearby minivan.

  “Can you imagine what my life is like?” Sawyer snarled. “Reading every shitty missive that comes across my desk simply because busloads of undereducated freaks decide that they’re worth anything more than the paper they’re printed on? Hundreds of adolescent maunderings from self-absorbed misfits who didn’t get enough attention from drunken parents; sloppy declarations of lost innocence; semi-literate dribblings from village idiots I wouldn’t pay to write my fucking grocery list? Just because they happened to strike a chord with the Great Unwashed? I pay the price in time and mental health, and I’m fed to the tits with it!”

  Sawyer’s eyes narrowed into evil slits. Her face writhed with palpable insanity. “And then there’s you,” she hissed. “You fill the minds of the reading public with your violent, meaningless prattle, and millions of people pay you for it.”

  Sawyer lifted the gun. “But no more. It came to me in a dream. I realized that I didn’t have to suffer anymore. If I kill you, the world will be that much better off.”

  Sawyer pulled the trigger.

  “No!”

  The hammer slammed down, reverberating loudly in the empty parking garage. She pulled the trigger again with the same result.

  Sawyer howled. “Son of a bitch!”

  She shoved her hand into her jacket pocket and produced a handful of shells. One of them hit the floor and rolled beneath a parked Jaguar.

  Adrenaline jacked a surge of energy into my muscles. I scrambled to my feet and vaulted up the ramp that led to the parking structure’s second floor. Sawyer came after me, firing on the run. A hail of bullets peppered the walls around me. As I rounded the corner, a bullet hit the bank of lights over my head and plunged the parking garage into near-total darkness.

  “SHIT!” Sawyer screamed.

  I reached the third level of the garage and nearly ran headfirst into the concrete wall of the structure. I spied an EXIT door on my right, tried it and found it locked.

  “Shit!” I hissed.

  Sawyer rounded the corner at the top of the ramp and slid to a halt. “Where are you, jackass?” she bellowed. From where I stood at the opposite end of the structure, I could see her silhouetted in the light from the lower level.

  She can’t see me.

  Taking advantage of the darkness, I dove under a nearby pick-up truck. There was no other exit from the private garage. If I were going to escape I’d have to get past Sawyer. And the gun.

  I peeked under the body of the pick-up. From where I lay I could see Sawyer stalking me among the cars near the front of the garage and muttering to herself.

  “Pompous bastard!”

  About thirty cars separated us. At the rate she was moving she would find my hiding place in a matter of seconds. Kowalski’s words came back to me then: “A Fatalist can use his own life energy, place it inside any weapon, and use that weapon to focus his will.”

  I looked around, searching the floor for something, a brick, an empty bottle, anything I could use as a weapon. If Kowalski was right the solution to my problem might be as close as the reach of my right hand.

  “Stop hiding and face your public, Grudge!”

  The floor beneath the pick-up truck was maddeningly clean.

  What about her gun?

  The idea thrilled me and terrified me at the same time. Back at Juno’s mansion I had apparently amplified the power of Kowalski’s gun, added some aspect of my life force to make the bullets lethal enough to badly injure Trocious.

  Maybe I could use that power to turn Sawyer’s advantage against her.

  “Grudge!”

  Sawyer was five car widths from my hiding place. I closed my eyes and opened my mind, searching for the red room which housed my father’s legacy.

  Nothing happened.

  I concentrated harder, formed an image of the gun in Sawyer’s hand; how it would feel gripped in my fist. Then I imagined the gun exploding, envisioned burning shrapnel hot enough to blind Sawyer, ripping through flesh and bone.

  Yes.

  I felt something give way inside me. Then my vision went red.

  Yes.

  I opened my eyes as the world around me... shifted. My bones hummed, and the fabric of reality shuddered for the briefest of instants.

  “I’m coming for you, motherfucker!”

  Nothing happened.

  I was doing something wrong.

  “Screw this.”

  I was tired of being a victim, a passive reactionary tossed about on the ocean of circumstance. Rage propelled me out from under the pick-up truck. Maybe more direct action was required to make the red Power work.

  I stood up and pointed my finger at Sawyer’s gun.

  “Explode!” I commanded.

  Startled, Sawyer jumped back a step.

  “Rip her eyes out!” I thundered with as much authority as I could muster. “Take her face off!”

  Sawyer’s brow furrowed: Her eyes widened with a kind of stunned wonder as she raised the gun.

  “You really are an idiot.”

  And a man in a red turban stepped out of the shadows and grabbed her by the hair.

  Sawyer fired. But her aim was thrown off by the turbaned man’s assault. With a snarl she spun around to face her attacker, leveled the gun at his face.

  Sawyer screamed. She dropped the gun, reached up and tore out two handfuls of her long blond hair. Still screaming, she turned, bolted toward the rear-facing wall of the garage and flung herself over the low railing. She plummeted three stories and struck the private roadway headfirst with the sickening crunch of bone on concrete.

  In the awkward silence that followed, I turned and faced my red-turbaned savior.

  He was dark-skinned, Indian or Pakistani. His white shirt was stained with blood, his neck, abdomen and chest a gutted ruin, which did little to distract from the fact that he had only one arm. It only took a moment to place him
:

  He was one of the mutilated dead I’d met at the bar, the one who’d been critical of my drinking.

  The red-turbaned man stared at me without speaking.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “You saved my life.”

  The dead man nodded solemnly. Then he turned his back on me and walked toward a patch of darkness.

  “Wait,” I said.

  The turbaned man stopped, but kept his back to me. Already I could see his form beginning to fray at the edges. Fearing that any sudden movement might cause him to dissolve and blow away, I approached him cautiously.

  “What did she see? When she looked at you?”

  “The end of all things,” he whispered. “The death of the future. Such visions lie within the power of the One who Commands me.”

  “But why?” I asked. “Why did you save me?”

  The dead man seemed to consider for a moment. Then he shrugged and spoke in a voice like dead leaves skittering along October streets. ”Because She Commands,” he said simply. “And She has taken an interest. In you.”

  As if that were enough, the dead man turned away again.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  The dead man stopped again. But this time, he turned and faced me. His eyes grew brighter and he smiled, as if unexpectedly relieved of some awesome burden.

  “My name is Sukhdeep,” he said gratefully. “Sukhdeep Singh.”

  The red-turbaned man faded, became one with the shadows in the deserted garage.

  “Remember me,” he whispered.

  Then, with a deep sigh, Sukhdeep Singh was gone.

  30

  A Fractured Fairytale

  “The spook you saw in the garage was an Envoy,” Kowalski said, later. “A messenger from the higher-ups.”

  We were sitting in a small office near the runway where our plane was being fueled. Kowalski’s injuries were minor, a bump on the back of the head the size of a robin’s egg and a bloody nose from where he’d struck the asphalt when Sawyer ambushed him. He was being tended to by Eddie Moreno, the bald Healer I’d seen earlier at Juno’s house.

  “Two in one night, Nev,” Moreno chuckled, after making sure Kowalski was alright. “You guys are gonna kill me.”

  Moreno had healed the deep scalp laceration I’d gotten from Connie Sawyer by simply laying his palms on my head and telling me to think about my favorite porno film.

  “It’s just moving energy around, Obadiah,” he’d said when he was done. “Tantric energy, sexual healing, whatever you wanna call it. That’s why I’m so damn healthy.”

  I offered a weak chuckle and wondered where else Eddie Moreno’s hands had been.

  After making my way back down to the first level of the parking garage, I’d found Kowalski sitting in his car screaming into his cell phone for backup. Moreno and two burly hunters had appeared twelve minutes later. After another phone call, this time to Pearl, an airport supervisor had taken us to his office and left us alone to “sort ourselves out.”

  “You sure you guys don’t need more firepower?” Moreno said. “Two ain’t a lot of juice for a squatter like...

  “No thanks,” Kowalski said, cutting Moreno off. He got up from his chair. “This one we’ve got to do alone, Ed,” he said. “Understand?”

  The bald man stared at Kowalski for a long moment. Then he nodded. The two men embraced, and Kowalski shook hands with the two burly hunters. Then Moreno and the others walked toward the door.

  The bald Healer turned back as if he’d remembered something he’d forgotten to say.

  “Give ‘em Hell, Kowalski,” he said simply. “You give ‘em Holy Hell.”

  * * * *

  An hour later, we boarded a jet, a small charter, with five other passengers: a businessman en route to Chicago where we’d have to land for refueling, an elderly black couple whose children had arranged for them to fly to the Windy City for their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and a drunk who bore a disturbing resemblance to Dr. Phil.

  Before take-off, Kowalski pulled a thick leather volume from the shoulder bag he carried and handed it to me.

  “Read this,” he grunted.

  I reached for the book, and then recoiled like a housewife who’d just found a cobra in the breadbox.

  “It’s not that book,” Kowalski said.

  “What is it?” I said, not sure if I should believe him.

  “History lesson,” he grunted.

  As the pilot announced preparations for take-off, Kowalski lay back and closed his eyes.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” I asked. “You did sustain a pretty serious head injury tonight.”

  Kowalski grunted. “I’m fine, dear,” he sneered. “Moreno fixed me right up. Besides, a few contusions ain’t gonna kill this old bird. Trust me, I know.”

  My father’s partner lay back and closed his eyes, leaving me to face the thing that had been nagging at my awareness like a tic burrowing beneath my skin. I looked at my watch. Its luminescent display flashed the time and date like a harbinger of doom.

  12:01 AM. July 25th.

  Lights out for Kowalski, O-Dog!

  My teeth clenched tightly in an effort to bite back a surge of rage.

  I decide my destiny. Not you, not him, not that thing in the basement. And not some fucking book.

  I’d uttered those words with the deepest conviction that they were true: Despite everything that had happened I still believed it. And if it was true for me, it had to be true for everyone. Including Neville Kowalski.

  July 25th, O’dog.

  “Over my dead body, you twisted fuck.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I looked up at the flight attendant who hovered over me holding the glass of orange juice I’d requested. Her name tag read ‘I’m Chloe! And I’m from San-Diego!’

  Suspicion shadowed Chloe’s faded showgirl-good looks.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  I accepted the orange juice. Sitting back in my seat, I turned my attention to Kowalski’s “other” book.

  It was the length and width of an eight-by ten photograph. The cover was made from some animal’s hide, sheep or calf’s skin. It was soft, smooth to the touch. A scent of musk clung to its cover and to the pages.

  I started to read as the jet taxied toward the runway.

  I didn’t look up for the next hour.

  * * * *

  “I bear witness to a tale begun long ago, a tale unfolding still. I bear witness to the yearning frailty of Man, to the dreadful power of Night’s Embrace, and pledge my soul to its utter defeat. Even unto my own destruction.”

  The Hunter’s Doom

  “The hunters have always been among us, guarding our world against the deprivations of the Shadow Tribes, the denizens of that other Realm which they call Malek Ash, the Wraithing.

  “It is a realm where the vilest dreams of Man take shape and substance, striving in Darkness to return to the Light. It is in our world that they were created, and it is our world they hunger to rule. For the Wraithing is full to the bursting with their kind, and the Shadow Tribes vie among themselves for the right to become as Hallowed Ones, to return here, shrouded in terror and majesty, summoned by the anguish of their creators. This is the First Mystery.

  “But the Hunters stand amid the gap between worlds, placed there by a Power greater than evil, greater even than good: for that Power is the undying Will of the Nolane, and it answers only to itself.

  “The human functionaries of the Nolane comprise the Second Mystery: The Hunters, a tattered echelon who possess, in greater or lesser degree, the talent of resisting the Shadow Tribes. These Talents aid the Hunters in discerning the movements and devices of the Enemy, for they dwell in Darkness, and men will not See.

  “It is a simple thing, therefore, for the Hallowed Ones to cloak themselves in guises fair or foul, to obscure the senses of Man and gorge themselves upon His flesh. For the flesh contains the trappings of mortality upon which they feed. It is through consuming the flesh, or t
hrough the castigation of a mind in torment, that the Hallowed Ones feast upon human souls.”

  “Nuts?”

  “Jesus!” I gasped.

  Startled, I jerked and my foot kicked the snack tray out of the flight attendant’s hands. Peanuts and pretzels rained down on the old couple sitting in front of me.

  “Sorry!” I cried. “Oh my God!”

  “It’s alright,” Chloe the flight attendant said.

  “I was just...Oh my God!”

  “It’s alright, Mr. Grudge.”

  As the flight attendant cleaned up my mess, I swallowed, trying to force my heart back down my throat. I shut my eyes, but the words from The Hunter’s Doom reverberated in my self-imposed darkness.

  “Good book?”

  I opened my eyes. The old man and his wife were staring at me over their seatbacks.

  “Um...” I said.

  “We love scary books,” the old woman enthused. “My husband Ozzie reads Koontz. I think he’s a hack. I love King. I read The Tommyknockers in one sitting.”

  I nodded mutely, my brain still too raw to provide much in the way of a polite response. Beside me, Kowalski snored softly to himself.

  “I think there are two types of people,” the old woman was saying. “King People and Koontz People. What do you think?”

  “We read your books too,” the old man said. “Don’t think we didn’t recognize you.”

  The old woman hit him on the shoulder. “Ozzie, hush!”

  “Damn it, woman! I’m talkin’ to the man!”

  “You’re embarrassing him!”

  The old man made a farting sound.

  “Mildred and I met Koontz at a charity event in Boston,” he continued. “What a prick.”

  “That wasn’t Koontz, Ozzie,” Mildred said. “I’ve told that you a million times.”

  “I know Dean Koontz when I see him, woman,” Ozzie snapped. “I’ve read all the man’s books! I oughtta know what he looks like.”

  “It was Samuel Delaney, man. Dean Koontz is white!”

  The old couple went on that way for the next twenty minutes. I listened to them argue until we got to Chicago.

  Anything was better than Kowalski’s history lesson.