The Fall: Sanguine Series: Book One

by Chris Laughton

  “Maybe. Maybe,” Mason trailed off, lost in thought again.

  They approached the building Mason worked out of and Trevor pulled the van over into a parking space still a few blocks away. He didn’t want to cause any more headaches for Mason than they already had. “Listen, Mason. I want you to take my number in case you change your mind.” He tore a piece of paper from a small notepad he had in one of the pockets of his pants and started to write it down. It wasn’t like you had business cards in this line of work.

  Mason was unbuckling his seat belt and climbing out of the van. “Thank you, but I won’t.”

  “Famous last words,” Trevor warned as Mason closed the door.

  27

  Mason tried to raise his head, but couldn’t. It wasn’t restrained; he just didn’t have the strength. The same went for opening his eyes. It seemed he didn’t have the energy to move at all, really, and so he focused on what he could hear. It was silent, but even the silence echoed. He heard a drop of water somewhere in the distance. He took a deep breath and realized that he hadn’t been breathing before that. As the air filled his lungs, he heard his ribs pop and some dust fell from his shoulders. How long had he been like this? Perfectly still, unmoving, a statue. He tried not to panic but couldn’t remember how he got here or even who he was. The first moment of his existence seemed to be waking up in this state.

  He could hear a woman muttering now. She seemed to be in the same room as he was. “Oh no, no, no. Stone Man, so tragically loyal.” Now that he was breathing again, he thought he could muster the strength to open his eyes and raise his head. His mouth was painfully dry, and he could feel the grit of dirt between his teeth. His eyelids scraped across his eyes, but they were as dry as his mouth and it proved excruciating. It felt as if there wasn’t an ounce of water in his body.

  The air was growing colder, but he actually felt better as the temperature dropped. Feeling was returning to his extremities, and he tried to calm himself. He had kept his eyes open even though it was uncomfortable, and images were beginning to come into focus. He found the woman who was muttering and tried to force his eyes to make her clear. She was in a stark white nightgown that was in complete contrast to the dark, dank surroundings. He still couldn’t quite tell where they were, as there was very little light, and his eyes were not yet fully recovered. He could see spiderwebs of frost on the floor, spreading slowly outward in front of him, and his breath formed clouds in front of his face.

  “You sleep and you rise and you drink and you sleep again, and it’s all at her bidding.” She had such pity in her voice.

  “Where-,” he tried to speak, but the act was like sandpaper in his throat. He coughed, expelling bursts of dust from somewhere deep inside him. When his breath calmed, he tried to speak again. “Where am I?” he said hoarsely.

  The woman in the nightgown smiled. “You’re here, silly. Which by my count, puts you in… three places.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Well that’s just by my count. Why, is there a fourth I don’t know about?” the woman furrowed her brow.

  “Are you… alright?” he asked, trying to put it as delicately as possible, but from the whimsy in her voice, he wasn’t sure she was all there. She evoked a protective instinct in him, and he was starting to feel well enough that perhaps he could get her out of here if he needed to. Each time he took a breath, it was deeper than the one before. He was straightening up, taller now than when he had awoken, and he didn’t feel as painfully light.

  “Me? Oh, of course, silly. Nobody ever even knows I’m here.” The woman was struck by a thought. “Except you,” she gasped. “But if you’re not one of them, then why are you here?”

  “I don’t even know where here is,” he said honestly.

  She soothingly patted the side of his face from across the room. ‘Wait, that can’t be right,’ he thought, but there was a noise to the side now that drew his attention.

  “You’re awake!” Another woman had entered, this one wearing a flowing black dress. “No matter, I was going to rouse you anyway.” She covered the distance between them gracefully and picked up the skirt so that she could sit down to be at his eye level. As she arranged the dress around herself, he realized he was kneeling. She didn’t appear bothered by the frost she was sitting on, though it had to be freezing. “I have a job for you.” She winked. She had such beautiful eyes and her blond hair framed her face exquisitely. He loved her, that much he knew. She looked over her shoulder and yelled, “Bring him in.”

  Two men in black fatigues and combat boots were dragging another man between them. The man appeared badly beaten and gaunt, but still conscious. Through a swollen eye, the beaten man looked his way. “Oh fuckin’ ‘ell, not ‘im.”

  The woman in the black dress squealed and clapped her hands excitedly. He loved to see her happy. She turned her attention back to him. “You must be so thirsty.” It was true, he was. Every fiber of his being was screaming for him to drink. He looked around for the woman in the white nightgown, but couldn’t see her. He looked at his hands, flexing each one as feeling fully returned to them. The woman in the black dress leaned forward and kissed his forehead before turning to point at the beaten man.

  “Drink him,” she said simply. He instinctively licked his lips, accidentally cutting his tongue on his teeth. His lateral incisors were longer than the central ones and sharpened. His canines though were even longer. They extended past his lower gum line and were the daggers responsible for slicing his tongue open. He closed his mouth again and felt the sharp teeth slide neatly into sheathes his mouth had formed for them. The taste of his own blood made his heart pound, so coppery and delicious. He felt something stir within him. The few drops that flowed down his throat before the cut healed were invigorating, and it was all he could do to stop himself from biting his tongue again to have more.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this.” The woman in the white nightgown was at the door of the room and turned to leave. Because she exited, so did he, and now they were upstairs in the cabin. Had that been the basement? And how had her coming up here meant he did too? He couldn’t keep his mind focused on pondering these mysteries. Any time he tried to pin down the question, it slipped away from him back into obscurity.

  “Oh, you’re here,” the woman in the white night gown said, startled. They were both sitting on the couch looking out the open front door of the cabin. “I’m sorry, if you’re here, then I definitely shouldn’t be.” The woman stood and walked across the room. She felt so familiar, but he didn’t know from where. He watched her walk towards the window when she turned and said, “There. That’s better.”

  He looked next to him on the couch where the woman in the black dress was staring back at him and crying. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Seeing her cry broke his heart.

  “You left me! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS LEAVE ME?!” she screamed at him, bawling now, each sob contorting her entire body.

  He opened his mouth to speak but was at a loss for words. He turned back to the woman in the white nightgown, hoping for some support. She had her brow furrowed again. “Oh, that’s not better at all!” she said.

  The woman in the black dress was gone. “Sorry, I didn’t know she wasn’t herself,” the woman in the white nightgown said as she giggled to herself at some private meaning.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Mason sat up in bed with a start. Rebekah came out of the bathroom toweling her hair off. “About time, sleepy head,” she said. “You know, for saying you never sleep, you could’ve fooled me.”

  Mason said nothing, still trying process what had just happened. He hadn’t lied to Rebekah; he didn’t sleep. On the nights when she wanted him to stay in bed with her, he simply put himself into a sort of unconsciousness with an internal timer to get back up in the morning, but it was entirely optional and more to avoid the boredom of lying awake in bed for hours. Whatever he had just experienced, it wasn’t a dream. Details of it were certainly fading from hi
s mind like one, though, and he didn’t want to worry Rebekah.

  “Is everything alright?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sorry. I guess you just startled me,” he said, but she didn’t look entirely convinced. “I’ll get ready and then let’s get some breakfast, ok?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said, and sat down in front of a mirror to do her make-up.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Mason sat with Rebekah in a coffee shop near her sister’s apartment. Seattle, once known for its coffee culture had receded towards the mean post-Fall. There simply wasn’t enough money for expensive, gourmet coffee, even in a city like Seattle that was doing better for itself than some others. Still, the coffee wasn’t bad, and the location was convenient for Rebekah. She planned on stopping by to talk with Gwen later, as she did most days since they got back from the cabin. She hoped that by continually showing her sister that she was actually clean, she could begin to repair the relationship. She had started to entertain the possibility of looking for a job, but Mason had told her to take things slowly. She was clean, but she was also surrounded by temptation again, and there was no need to rush anything.

  Mason had just told her about his meeting with The Project and how he was fairly certain Trevor had saved him from being killed. The pace of a coffee shop meant the customers milling about behind them never stayed long enough to pose an eavesdropping risk.

  “Wow, so much for nothing changing, huh?” she observed.

  “Yeah, they have another guy like me, but apparently I’m a cut above him.” He puffed out his chest in a fake show of machismo.

  “I’m sure you are, darling,” she patronized, patting him on the shoulder. “So what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. Trevor said he could handle it. He said I wasn’t in danger, but I’m not sure. That Westfield guy was running the show, so if he wants me dead…”

  “You know, if we need to just bail, my family has a cabin in Cut Bank, Montana. It passed to my sister, but I’m sure she’d let us use it.”

  He gave her a disbelieving look. “She’s not exactly my biggest fan.”

  “Yeah, but she always hated it there. Besides, she’s not that petty.” He was still giving her that same look. “Alright, fine. I would say that I was pretty sure you’d be miserable. She’d agree then.”

  “There you go,” he replied, returning his gaze to the window and taking a sip of his coffee.

  Rebekah pulled out the phone he’d just bought for her; he’d said that after that ‘meeting’, he wanted to make sure he could contact her quickly if he needed to. Truthfully, she liked feeling that connected to him. She had one number saved, and it was his. Most phones were refurbished from pre-Fall or basic feature phones now, but she was still proud to own one. It made her feel more like a normal person, and not an addict.

  She looked up Cut Bank, Montana. There was almost no cell network left to speak of, but most traffic had switched to wi-fi before The Fall anyway, with the greatly expanded range it had developed. Seattle had retained most of its wi-fi infrastructure, so she had no trouble connecting. “It says here that it’s ‘The Coldest Place in the Nation’,” she trumpeted proudly.

  “That sounds… awful. I think I actually would be miserable,” he told her.

  “Wait, do you even care if it’s cold?” she asked, suddenly curious.

  “Well, I don’t think I need to worry about frostbite, if that’s what you mean, but yes, it’s still uncomfortable.”

  “Huh,” was all she could say.

  “Given how we first met, I would think you were no fan of the cold either,” he joked. He hoped it wasn’t a sore spot for her.

  “I’m not! But there’s a huge forest on the property, and you seem pretty strong. You can chop us plenty of firewood, while I stay warm and covered in blankets inside,” she smiled, evidently not taking offense at his reference to her time on the streets.

  They sat in silence, looking out into a gloomy Seattle day. It was overcast and raining, and everything had the desaturated look that only that weather could bring. It was cold, but well above freezing, and so people were walking about on the streets in light jackets instead of the winter fare they had been when Mason first met Rebekah. The people here were used to this sort of weather, however, even if begrudgingly so, and it was tough to spot an umbrella.

  “So what would you do?” he asked.

  “Probably just wear an extra warm coat,” Rebekah deadpanned.

  “About The Project, I mean,” he noticed the smirk on her face, “but you already knew that, ass!”

  “You mean, what would I do if I was some sort of immortal cyborg that could apparently play a key role in a conflict vital to the future of humanity?” her response had been pretty clearly rhetorical, but he was still looking at her expectantly. “I’m not sure I have the right life experience to give you sound advice there, champ.”

  “I’m not sure anyone does,” he observed. Silence returned for a few more moments. “You know what?” Mason exclaimed, startling Rebekah slightly. “When I rented the cabin, the couple that owns it said they were actually looking to sell.”

  Rebekah hid her excitement by taking a sip of her coffee. “Oh yeah?” she said, attempting to sound nonchalant.

  “What if we bought the place?”

  “Well, I think I have about three crypto coin to my name, so I don’t know about this ‘we’ business.”

  “Ok fine, what if I bought the place?”

  She turned to look directly at him. “Just how rich are you?” she asked. It had been heavily implied by the fact that he didn’t seem to mind permanently living in a fancy hotel room, but she had never asked just how much money he had.

  “Enough, and with the video of my crash, and telling you what I am – which don’t get me wrong, I love that I don’t have to hide it from you – and The Project finding me, it’s just been a little too much lately. I’ve gone my whole life with exactly zero people knowing about me, and suddenly I can’t even count how many people know. I just feel like I need to get away and lay low for a while. I’m not saying we live there the rest of our lives, but even once everything settles down, it would be a nice vacation spot to own. And it certainly couldn’t be a terrible thing for you take it easy for a while longer, right?”

  She raised an eyebrow. Inwardly, she was overjoyed that it sounded like when Mason planned his future, she was an assumed part of it.

  “I’m sorry,” he continued, “I’m not trying to offend you. I just mean that I know it’s hard being back.” Since they’d gotten back from the cabin, he always danced around the subject of her addiction. Rebekah thought it was sort of cute the way he was afraid to mention it.

  “I can’t tell you how to spend your money, but I certainly do love that cabin, especially now that it has less skunk” she said, her head spinning at how much the place would cost, although the way he tossed out the idea, it didn’t seem as if it was a significant sum for him.

  Mason mulled the idea for a moment. “Alright, well I’ll head up there and rent it for another day, just to sort of get a feel for the place as an investment.”

  “Am I not invited?” she asked.

  The ‘dream’, whatever it had actually been, was fairly hazy in Mason’s memory, but he knew it had something to do with the cabin. He knew it wasn’t rational, but the superstitious side of him wanted to be alone the next time he visited, just in case. “It’s not that kind of trip. I may not even stay the entire night. I just want to look at the roof and the foundation and all the other things that matter when you buy a home, but don’t really care about in a rental. Go hang out with your sister and your niece.”

  He was wary of returning to the cabin for some reason, and didn’t enjoy lying about Rebekah about why she couldn’t come, but at least he knew she’d be safe.

  28

  Alexander arrived with Miranda at his Facility in the base of the Appalachia Mountains just before sunrise on the second day. They had stopped the prev
ious dawn at a motel. Though Alexander was loathe to use them, Miranda had assured him it was perfectly safe to do. She spent much more time in the field than Alexander did these days, so he trusted her judgment. Besides, with her gifts, she could ensure there was minimal risk. They chose a motel where the rooms had indoor entrances and bathrooms with no windows to minimize their risk. The trick was to pay the man at the front desk extra to not be disturbed and promise to pay more upon checkout if they weren’t. Given that they were pulling in just before dawn, and how nice Alexander’s car was, the man at the front desk likely hadn’t thought much of the request. No doubt just a rich couple used to throwing money around to get their way, though he might have found it odd they rented two rooms. They requested they be adjoining and mentioned opening the doors between them to hopefully make it appear mundane. In truth, it was because the safest place to sleep in a motel room was the bathtub, so they needed two. Alexander had also mentioned there would be even more in it for the man if he watched over his car during the day.

  That wouldn’t necessarily preclude the man from attempting to rob them, however Miranda had taken care of that danger. Alexander called her kind ‘Persuaders’, but that was only because there wasn’t really a word for it. To put it simply, humans could not lie to her. After they had finished renting the room, Miranda acted as if she was just making a joke while exiting the office. The man at the front desk had complimented Alexander’s car and Miranda had seized on the opportunity, asking, “Now you’re not just going to tell someone that you have a couple rich guests to come steal from, are you?”

  The man had laughed it off and said, “No, no, of course not,” and the mood had stayed friendly, but Miranda’s damage had been done. The beauty of her gift was that not only were humans incapable of lying to her, but they were also incapable of retroactively lying to her. Whether or not the man had any ill intent was now irrelevant: he’d find himself incapable of telling anyone about the two of them until after they left, as that would make his answer to her joke a lie.