Out Through the Attic
Page 25
“Jesus!” I shouted.
I finally got a good look at the thing. The black circle was two inches across, with a crossbar holding a blue eye at its center. A single, sharp point dipped down from the corner of the eye, framing a pale octahedron with a beam of light shooting from its apex. Above the eye, arranged in a curve, were three dark stars. The beam of light passed through the eye and split, bisecting each star.
“It’s alright, John.” He loosened his grip and patted the back of my hand. “That’s the key.”
“Is this real?” I asked, looking up at the sky.
He paused then, a thoughtful look on his face. Finally, he said, “I don’t know … not with any certainty. I suspect it is. Or real enough, anyway.” A coughing fit took him, and he grimaced in pain. “I’ve always treated it as such.” He took a labored breath and shifted against the headstone. “I wish I had time to explain more to you … about the realities … but … it seems … I’ve just run …out….”
He closed his eyes and let out one last breath. Gray whimpered once and lay down at Ash’s feet. I stared down at him for a long time, too stunned to do anything else. Finally, I realized what I had to do. Moving carefully around Gray, I gently lowered Ash into the shallow grave and covered him up. The dog never took his eyes off me, but he didn’t interfere. It was as if he was waiting for something as I covered over his master and tamped down the earth.
When I finished, I stepped back just as Gray stood up. He circled the grave several times, sniffing. Finally, he stepped on top of the packed soil, lay down, and raised his massive skull, looking straight ahead. Before my eyes, the big dog turned to stone, a smooth marble with every feature preserved. I realized that Gray intended to watch over his master in an in eternal vigil. A single word had appeared upon the headstone: “Ash.” No date. No last name. It occurred to me that it was enough.
Standing there, I felt like I was in the middle of a Salvador Dali painting, with only a melting timepiece absent from the scene. It couldn’t be real. Could it? I don’t know how long I waited. I kept expecting to wake up, or have everything go black. I expected reality, the world of cogs and dregs and hyenas to come back into focus. There was only that place, filled with those sounds.
Finally, I walked back the way we had come, heading straight for the door, which still stood open amidst the swaying wheat. I paused at the frame, examining it closely. It looked like a normal doorway, but I had no doubt that it was something impossible, yet very, very real. I stepped through and closed it behind me. The attic smelled dusty and dry. I heard a police car off in the distance, and a helicopter beat its way through the sky.
It was time to put Ash’s words to the test.
I closed my eyes and thought of something I’d always dreamed about. I pictured every detail … every shadow, every line. The sound of rain on metal, the scent of fire and billowing smoke. It was a place from my childhood, a book I’d read or dream I’d had. I couldn’t place its source, but in that moment, it rose up out of the depths and filled my vision. In that place, there were no cogs. No supervisors or cubicles. There were no hyenas preying upon human castaways. There was good and evil.
I opened my eyes … opened the door. And there it was, a dream imagined … and made real.
A massive, armored leg stood off to the right, its pale, white foot sunk deep into mud. Rain spattered and splashed in through the open door, a hissing downpour that quickly soaked me. I stepped through into a night full of thunder and explosions. Lightning tore at the sky as anti-aircraft tracers raced up into dark, roiling clouds.
If the Universe is what I think it is, being a bear was the reason Ash found me. Or perhaps, I thought, the reason he created me. That thought gave me pause. Was I a figment of someone else’s imagination? Is that what the tattoo did? Gave permanence to something that had none? In time, I might understand how it works. But in that moment, only one thing mattered. I was far from home—albeit just outside the door—and I had a reason to live.
Clarity of purpose.
I stepped to the edge of the cliff, my heavy, armored feet squashing into deep mud. I stared down at Hell’s army. With laughter ringing inside my head, I stepped off the edge, plummeting straight for them. They roared as one. Pulses of purple energy lanced through the darkness, splashing against my shields. I hit the ground and folded into a crouch to absorb the impact. They stormed toward me, thousands of clawed feet shaking the ground like an earthquake.
I raised the blaster, raised the blade, and with a smile, let loose the bear.
About the Author
QUINCY J. ALLEN, a cross-genre author, has published a litany of short stories in multiple anthologies, magazines, eZines, and one omnibus since he started his writing career in 2009. His first short story collection Out Through the Attic, came out in 2014 from 7DS Books, and he made his first short story pro-sale in 2014 with “Jimmy Krinklepot and the White Rebels of Hayberry,” included in WordFire’s A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories.
Chemical Burn, his first novel, was a finalist in RMFW’s Colorado Gold Contest in 2011, and his series The Blood War Chronicles, continues to grow. He is currently working on his first media tie-in novel for the Aradio brothers’ Colt the Outlander IP. He also has a short story appearing in Monster Files, an upcoming Monster Hunter anthology from Larry Correia and Baen, due out in October of 2017.
He is the publisher and editor of Penny Dread Tales, a short story collection series in its fifth volume that has become a labor of love. He also runs RuneWright, LLC, a small marketing and book design business out of his home Charlotte, North Carolina where he discovered the meaning of true happiness.
Please follow me at www.quincyallen.com
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Other Books by
Quincy J. Allen
You can find all of his books at:
www.quincyallen.com/books
The Blood War Chronicles
“Prepare for shocks, grit, and a voice you’ll want to read forever.”
~ #1 NYT Bestselling Author Sherrilyn Kenyon
Blood Ties
• Clockwork Gunslingers •
• Chinese Assassins •
• A World of Magic •
When assassins jump half-clockwork gunslinger Jake Lasater, he knows the Chinese Tong wants to finally settle an old score. Unfortunately, Jake has no idea the Tong is just the first milepost on the road toward a destiny he refuses to believe in.
With his riding partner Cole McJunkins in tow and his ward Skeeter secretly hidden away, Jake squares off against a deadly clockwork mercenary from his past and a troop of crazed European soldiers who want him dead. Add an insane Emperor with knowledge of Jake’s past and a mysterious noblewoman who desperately needs his help—and Jake is faced with a whole mess of trouble, with no end in sight.
Blood Ties launches an epic saga that spans worlds and threatens the human race itself.
Blood Curse
• Airship Battles •
• A Hidden City •
• Ancient Foes •
A ruddy sun has set on the gauntlet that nearly killed Jake, Cole, and Skeeter in San Francisco. Storm clouds loom on the horizon, promising the inevitability of an airship battle with the nefarious Colonel Szilágyi.
Blood Curse, the second book in the Blood War Chronicles, drops Jake and is friends into the middle of a war between the Free Territories and the Empire of Texas. In the shadow of warships, mechanized infantry, and spies, he discovers a world he couldn’t possibly have imagined and begins to understand what fate has in store for him.
Jake doesn’t want that destiny, but his growing feelings for the Lady Corina Dănești lead him down a path of death and destruction on a scale that could encompass worlds.
The End Game Trilogy
Chemical Burn
Chemical Burn: Book 1 - The last thing Los Angeles needed was a high-tech, ex-assassin from another world setting up shop as a private detective
. They got one anyway, in the form of Justin Case, a smart-ass killing machine looking for a little redemption.
When one of Case's closest friends turns up dead, the alien detective and his predatory partner Magdelain track down an Italian mobster secretly hammering L.A. with a new designer drug. Case must call in favors from a bare-knuckles brawler tied to the Russian mob and a hot-bodied sniper who makes a mean cappuccino.
Before the end, he’ll even put the love of his life in harm’s way and risk everything by revealing his greatest secret.
Quincy Allen’s 7DS stories have been included in the following short story anthologies:
Seven Dwarf Stories—“Cornelius”
Linger—“In the Red”
Slayers—“Tasty Tidbits”