Shelly hides in the corner of my eye, holding Apollo in her arms. She wears a skimpy black dress and knee-high leather boots. Her mascara is smeared, staining her face with wet black sticky lines, her lipstick hastily applied and well outside the lines of her mouth, her hair a rat’s nest.
Apollo can never die.
“Don’t look,” Remy says, stroking my cheek with her fingers. “They’re trying to frighten you. Don’t look.”
You belong with me and Apollo. Come home.
The cat’s yellow eyes watch me, unblinking.
You ran away. You ran away and left me.
Shattered pieces of mercuric glass fall all around us like rain.
Our flesh slashed, bloody and littered with tiny protruding shards of broken glass, Remy and I hold each other tight one last time. She sings to me, and it sounds like a chorus of angels.
Hallelujah…Hallelujah…Hallelujah…
Shadows close, and Shelly and Apollo are swallowed into darkness as the singing slowly fades.
“Look at me,” Remy says. Her voice cracks with emotion and desperation as tears of blood leak from her eyes. “Stay with me, baby. Stay with me, stay—look at me, look at me—stay—stay with me!”
“Can you see it?” I ask her, my voice weak, distant and no longer my own.
“See what, baby? What do you see? Tell me what you see.”
The most beautiful light…there…just above the trees…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mac stands at the edge of the tree line, watching the forest. The car alarm continues to wail as I cross the yard and join him there. He glances at me, then returns his gaze to the trees and offers me a cigarette. We smoke one together, passing it back and forth until it’s spent.
“Are you ready?” he asks, dropping the butt to the ground and grinding it out with the toe of his boot.
“Does it matter?”
He shakes his head no as tears spill from his eyes, but oddly, he looks closer to peace than ever before. “Come on,” he says, offering his hand.
I take it, and together, we slip through an opening in the fence and cross into the woods, moving between the trees as the sun rises on the horizon, shooting trails of early morning light that filter through the forest.
We’ve not gone far when I see other lights, artificial blue shafts sweeping through the forest in strobe-like bursts, and I realize it’s not a car alarm I’ve been hearing all this time, but a siren.
There are others here. I can’t see them, but I can feel their eyes on us.
We stop a few feet from the end of the forest. Just beyond the trees lies a busy street. There has been a terrible car accident involving two vehicles, both of which are hideously mangled and smoking. Several cars have pulled over and numerous people are gathered around a body next to one of the cars. The siren I mistook for a car alarm belongs to an as yet unseen ambulance, the blue lights those of police cruisers that have just arrived on the scene.
Mac lets go of my hand. I don’t want him to, but neither of us has a choice.
My name’s McEnroe.
He looks at me and smiles a sad little smile.
You know, like the tennis player.
His nose begins to bleed. And then his eyes.
Only it’s spelled a little different.
McEnroe…McEnroh…
Did you really think that by willing it...
Mac Enroh…Cam Horne…
…by stealing it and riding on someone else’s dying dreams…
Cameron Horne…
—that would actually make it so?
As he leaves me in an explosion of glass and twisted metal, I close my eyes. When I open them, he’s lying in the street surrounded by people I recognize. They’re all there, standing over him, watching and talking and milling about. A stout blonde woman pushing a baby in a stroller hurries away. Roz stares down at him, horrified, a hand to her mouth as she mutters, “I…I’m sure things will work out.” Dario paces about, hands on his head. Sue is on her cell phone, crying. Jeffrey and Isabella and Leigh and Wayne are there too…and a woman with light brown dreadlocks and tattoos stands nearby, watching, her face showing no emotion whatsoever. A filthy and disheveled homeless man hovers by the sidewalk, nervously picking at his long hair and mangy beard. Even Marianne is there, hands clasped before her and lips moving soundlessly in prayer.
And Remy…my beautiful Remy…so much younger somehow, and closer than the rest, she holds him in her arms, his blood smeared across her blouse and hands. “Mac,” she pleads, “stay with me, baby. Stay with me, the ambulance is almost here, okay? Look at me—no, don’t close your eyes, look at me—stay with me, baby, stay with me now.”
I step back into the forest.
The light through the trees, that’s what I remember most, that beautiful golden light. Lying on my back on the forest floor, I look up at those trees. Such beauty, it’s like having sight for the very first time. I breathe deeply and smell the forest all around me as the golden sunlight warms my face.
And in that strange and astonishing moment, I see it all there before me, unfolding like a magnificent dream.
You may think I’m crazy. You may not believe a word I say.
But I remember it all.
That beautiful light bleeding through the trees…the last dying breaths of a sad young man who understood his destiny and my truth long before I did…and a moment in time when anything is possible amidst the break of dawn just beyond the forest…
“But that’s not sunlight,” I ask the shadow in the corner of my eye, “is it?”
It’s fire.
Such horrific majesty…
The fires of Hell…
There, at the very end of the rainbow.
Welcome home, Zeke.
And then I’m just another crazy wandering the city, a dark figure huddled in a doorway in the rain, hands stuffed in my coat pockets, hood pulled up over my head to hide my face, a horribly distorted reflection in passing car windows. Unnoticed and biding my time across the street from a dingy old abandoned hotel. Full of empty corridors, long-forgotten dusty rooms and an old elevator, it waits just for me as I watch my fleeting empire of smoke and mirrors slip away to darkness. Hope swallowed by night…love devoured by hate...so much sand through my fingers.
They’re waiting for you…They’ve been waiting so very long.
I cross the street and slip into the building.
Everything happens in an instant. A million memories and thoughts and feelings fire through me. Words, images, smells, touch, tastes…it’s all there and all at once.
The elevator doors open, but there is no faceless operator. There isn’t even an elevator, just a dark, vacant shaft.
And so we do battle, Paradise and I, because the abyss is my home, not by choice but providence. I never had a chance. But nearly any caged animal will run given the opportunity, even when they know there is no real hope of escape. Because it is those few moments of freedom, those few wonderful moments they’ve never experienced before and never will again that gives them joy when the shackles are snapped back in place. For a moment, just a moment, I had it all.
“Forgive me,” I whisper, and spreading wide my arms, step into air.
As I fall, piercing the darkness, I close my eyes, and in one final act of defiance, remember what might have been, in a place where devils burn away like so many fallen leaves; a hopeless runaway—a rogue male—has his moment in the sun, and even ephemeral glimpses of deliverance turn the darkest pits of Hell into a kind of Heaven.
If only for a little while…
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Although the Office of Public Safety and Security is a real department in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, my interpretations, definitions and executions regarding all matters (including procedures, characters, locales and situations relating to it), are completely fictional and solely my own creations, and are in no way meant to reflect an accurate or real portrayal of the department, those employed there
, or the fine work they do on a daily basis for the people of Massachusetts.
Rogue is loosely based on a short story entitled Runaway, which was originally published in 1999 in Issue #3 of the magazine Deadbolt. Thanks to publisher Jim Lay for publishing it and for believing in the premise. The plan had always been to take the concept and turn it into a novel, and after all these years, I’m glad to have finally gotten the opportunity to do so. Thank you to Shane Staley, Dave Thomas and everyone at DarkFuse for helping to make that possible. Thanks also to my wife, Carol, and to my family and friends. I was often less than pleasant while working on this piece, and although I know you’re all used to it and realize how I sometimes get when writing a novel, I appreciate your patience nonetheless. And finally, my sincere thanks to my readers and fans all over the world for their continued enthusiastic support. Each and every one of you makes this not only possible, but worth it.
—Greg F. Gifune
Thursday, September 25th, 2013
New England. Night.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg F. Gifune is the best-selling, internationally published author of several acclaimed novels, novellas and two short story collections. Called, “One of the best writers of his generation” by both The Roswell Literary Review and author Brian Keene, and “Among the finest dark suspense writers of our time” by legendary best-selling author Ed Gorman, Greg’s work has been published all over the world, translated into several languages, consistently praised by readers and critics alike, and has garnered attention from Hollywood. His novel The Bleeding Season, originally published in 2003, has been hailed as a classic in the genre and is considered to be one of the best horror/thriller novels of the decade. Also a respected editor with years of experience in the field in a variety of positions, Greg presently serves as Senior Editor at Darkfuse. He resides in Massachusetts with his wife Carol, a bevy of cats and two dogs, Dozer and Bella. He can be reached online at [email protected] or on Facebook and Twitter. For more info on Greg and his work visit his official website at: www.gregfgifune.com.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.
To discover more titles published by DarkFuse, please visit its official site at www.darkfuse.com.
Table of Contents
ROGUE
Connect With Us
Other Books by Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
AUTHOR’S NOTES
About the Author
About the Publisher
Rogue Page 17
