At least not that of a human kind.
Parker swallowed hard, feeling his heart beating rapidly in his chest. He had the shakes, and realized that his body was flooded with adrenaline, a sort of primitive response to what he’d just seen, something that had posed no imminent threat but whose power, emanating as it had across the freeway and through those deep, pink eyes, had an effect on him still.
The car behind him honked again and Parker realized that the traffic ahead of him had moved a good twenty yards away. The sun was beating hot through the windshield, as if the A/C blowing full blast wasn’t even on. He accelerated meekly, trying to calm himself and get a grip on things, but it was no use.
He was in over his head.
There was no getting around it now.
He was in way over his head.
And the water was only getting deeper.
CHAPTER 10
AS KYLE AND THE man with the lantern advanced, the white glow of the city seemed to reach out to them, emanating an energy and warmth that spread out over the red hills that surrounded it and down to the shallow ravine where they now walked. From a distance it looked like a sort of bleached-out Chicago.
They had barely spoken for most of the journey as Kyle tried to process where he actually was, and what that meant. How was he still… alive? At least in the sense that he knew the word. Or, if he was dead, how was he still cognizant, aware and functioning the way he always had? Before. Back in his, what should he call it? His other life.
There was no shaking the constant feeling of dread that pressed in on him from all sides, permeating him to such an extent that he was fighting a dull headache now; it felt like when you’re just catching a cold and you know you’re in for the misery but you don’t know how much yet, and your body wants to collapse in fatigue.
Hell was flu for the soul. And it appeared that maybe the legendary heat of this place was actually a manifestation of a fever that was now overtaking him. But this fever could never be broken. There was no love here to make you better, no chicken soup for nourishment. Here there was no comfort to be had, ever, and Kyle knew that it was only a matter of time. In this place the fever would just climb and climb, until you spontaneously combusted, your eyeballs the last thing to burn black so that you could see yourself on fire.
Then? He shook his head. Who knew.
“Then you go to the council,” The Lantern Man replied to his thoughts.
Kyle, genuinely curious, ignored his irritation by the intrusion. “The council?”
“Yes. Basically the caucus that has been assigned to you for the entirety of your life.”
Kyle noticed that the ground was made of volcanic ash. With each step he took, small black clouds erupted and rose to shin height. “A caucus?”
“When you’re born, you’re born into sin. The book tells you that, correct?”
“Yes.”
“It should then come as no surprise that the first of the caucus is then assigned to you, a lesser demon, often not so bright, since the need for cunning or the sophistication of temptations is not usually as high with a child.”
“It starts that early?”
“Mm-hmm. And why wouldn’t it? Young minds are fertile. Don’t get me wrong, on occasion a child will prove to have potential very early on, and in those instances, a child demon is assigned.”
“Why only then?”
“Child demons are rare, of course. The proclivity for true, barren sin, fully conscious of its potential, is rare in children.”
“They’re too innocent,” Kyle added.
“Or too ignorant of the perceived pleasures,” The Lantern Man finished.
“What happens then?”
“In the interference with a child so young by a child of the dark?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, in this place”—The Lantern Man paused and looked around—“they would say genius is what takes place.”
“Genius?”
“Yes. This is when you will find your most inexplicable moments of chaos—the sister who stabs her baby brother, or the boy who decides to empty the clip from his father’s gun into a classroom of his peers.”
Kyle grimaced and sighed. “So here, genius is about evil?”
“That’s a given, don’t you think?”
Kyle nodded, feeling stupid.
“But,” The Lantern Man continued, “it’s also about far more. It’s about pain. It’s about misery.”
“Why?” Kyle pressed as they continued on their journey.
“Because when such horrible acts occur, the benefit is never weighed in the effects of just that moment, don’t you see? It’s never just about the girl and the baby she stabbed.”
“It’s about the mother and the father too.”
“And the grandparents and the neighbors. It’s about the police officers who first arrive and the paramedics who follow. It’s about the medical examiner and the morgue staff and everyone who will attend the funeral. It’s about the reporter who will write the story and every single person who will read about it in the paper or see it on television and feel sick, shake their heads and then—and this is the important part—think that they forget about it.”
“They don’t?”
“No. Of course not. The sands of misery accumulate in the human soul, one grain at a time, and most of you are like vast beaches by the time you die.”
As they grew closer to the city it became a little easier to breathe. Up until now the air had felt heavy, almost thick. Up ahead, maybe fifty yards away, Kyle noticed the edge of the city was clearly delineated by a raised extrusion, where the soil was a good foot higher than the soil they were now walking on.
“Keep in mind that where we are is a place that leads to places. The ledge you see is a clear marker that we will be moving from one place to the next.”
“Is this hell?”
“Yes.”
“How big is it?”
The Lantern Man tilted his covered face towards the horizon. “Bigger than you could ever imagine.” Kyle was beginning to surmise that The Lantern Man could see through the rags.
A gust of wind brought with it the sound of screams and the smell of soot. The winds seemed to stick to Kyle like Velcro and tug at him.
Moving abruptly, The Lantern Man bent over and grabbed a handful of ash-dirt and flung it into the air in front of Kyle. Black and heavy, it hung there momentarily, and like a charcoal drawing revealed the contents of the wind: miniature images of tortured faces, thousands of them, stuck swirling in the wind, their bodies contorted unnaturally and their hands elongated so that the fingers looked like prickly spider legs, reaching out and gripping at him.
“We need to hurry,” The Lantern Man commanded.
“Why?”
“This is The Shaman’s wind.”
“Who’s he?”
“A hunter. A wanderer of the desert. A collector of those who try to avoid their councils.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“From what I know from The Gray Man, you succeeded and failed in your mission.”
“And?”
“As such you’re supposed to be here… and not. You’re an anomaly of the highest order. To The Shaman, who is obviously beginning to sense you now, you must seem like one of those that he hunts: one who is fleeing his punishment. When, in fact, you haven’t been deemed worth punishing yet.”
Kyle looked sideways at his companion. “Yet?”
“We all face judgment, Kyle, sooner or later. The question is whether this is your ‘sooner’ or your ‘later.’”
“How about neither?”
The Lantern Man didn’t laugh. He grabbed Kyle and pulled him through the wind and onward. “We need to hurry. The wind will carry and tell him that we’re here.”
“I don’t imagine that would be a good thing.”
“No. Especially if he’s close by.”
Before long they reached the ledge. Distance had betrayed its true depth. I
t was a good three feet high.
“Remember, when you step forwards it will feel odd at first. You’re traversing fields.”
A sense of melancholy came over Kyle as he remembered his notebook back in high school. On it he had scrawled out the same idea. The Gray Man had wanted him to remember it—to know that time and place were elastic.
“Fields? You mean, like planes of existence?”
“In human comprehension, that’s the best description that fits.”
“Then what?”
“Then you’ll be in the city.”
“What about you?”
“I cannot follow. I’m not allowed.”
“But you said you were here to help me.”
“Help get you to the city, yes. But now we’re here. From this point on, it’s up to you.”
Kyle looked around. Behind them the black ash and red sand spread out in twisting layers all the way to the horizon. If the sky had been the empty void of outer space, Kyle would’ve sworn that they were on the surface of Mars.
“What am I supposed to do next?”
“When you get into the city, stay moving and keep alert.”
“Is there anyone I should be looking for?”
The Lantern Man tilted his rag-wrapped face, tipped his hat and motioned his lantern in the direction of the city. “Now that is a funny question,” he said.
Then, as if a flip had been switched, he disappeared.
Kyle looked at the ledge. He could feel a slight vibration, as if there was a force field of some kind rising from the ground where the ledge began, separating the city’s boundary from where he now stood.
He hesitated when, in the distance, he heard the howling wind approaching again, louder this time, and with it the sound of sand-muffled hoofbeats, as if a rider on horseback were swiftly approaching.
That was all it took for him to step forwards onto the ledge. The force field that he had just imagined being there did indeed exist, and it sent a shockwave through his body and jolted him forwards, across the threshold and into the blinding light of the city.
THE BREAD MAN sat quietly in the lawn chair just outside the garage door and waited. Time had taught him that when he was confused or frustrated things only got worse if he tried to think for himself. Better to wait for The Other. Things worked out better that way because The Other always seemed to know what to do, why to do it and how to do it best.
So, for now, he sat still with a sweating can of Schlitz in his hand and listened to the crickets, who were evidently in the midst of mating season and going mad in the grass all around him, the males screeching for attention across the wide country of his backyard where, somewhere, perhaps between the lemon trees and the weeds, the females hid.
Hid and teased.
Regardless of the species, that’s all females ever did anyway: they hid and teased and withheld.
Pretty Ashley was inside the garage, weeping away because her ability to tease him was gone now. She couldn’t hide behind the counter of the liquor store anymore and ignore him one delivery date then smile at him coyly the next, like he was some stupid kind of Attention Machine with buttons to be pushed whenever her self-confidence was low.
Nope.
Now she was all his.
He cracked his neck and tried to ignore the fact that this was already making her less interesting by the hour. She’d given him what he wanted, a brief release of tension, but not what he needed, which was the exquisite violence of taking her completely. Only then would the throbbing in his temples subside, usually for a week or so, enabling him to think straight again.
An airplane passed by overhead, high in the sky, the roar of its engines almost imperceptible, a small tail of exhaust smoke trailing behind it. He imagined all those people up there, off to wherever they were going, living their tiny lives framed inside the definition of the business trip they were on or the sunny vacation they were going to. Off to their distractions and mild entertainments, all to forget their troubles and the swiftly disappearing moments of their own lives
The Bread Man took a long swig of his beer, closed his eyes and tilted his head back.
It took a long while, but The Other came at last. The Bread Man heard him first, rustling up some leaves behind him, and then he felt him, emanating, right next to him.
“You can see my problem?” The Bread Man asked timidly, eyes still closed. He never opened his eyes unless The Other commanded it.
“Yes.” The voice was like wet gravel in a cement mixer. The crickets had all fallen silent.
“She’s in season and I can’t finish the job.”
“Why not?”
The Bread Man was stunned for a second, then repulsed. “Because that would be gross.”
The Other laughed softly. “Squeamish, are we?”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
“You’re correct, but not because it would make you uncomfortable.”
The Bread Man felt a cold hand on his head, and then The Other grabbed his hair and clenched it violently. Letting out a barely muted scream, The Bread Man dropped his half-empty beer can onto the cement walkway next to the lawn.
“I couldn’t care less about your comfort, goat,” The Other whispered into his ear, his tongue brushing against The Bread Man’s temple.
The Bread Man was convulsed by a wave of nausea. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he squeaked, arching his shoulders as his head was pulled further back, his neck now fully exposed. If The Other’s tongue could poke through those rags, then what if it had teeth?
“There’s a better reason for not doing it. A real reason. Beyond your silly definitions of comfort,” The Other spat into his ear.
“R-really? Puh-please tell me,” The Bread Man moaned, not wanting to die. Not yet, anyway.
“Did you know that in the olden days, a woman’s monthly blood allowed for the only blood sacrifice in which no one got hurt?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s true. No violence was required for the sacrifice. No pain, anguish or death. It was a natural abomination to the way we like things. Do you understand?”
The grip on his hair loosened, allowing The Bread Man to nod a bit.
“Now. I told you to take her in the third week of the month, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“So? Why did you take her in the second?”
“What? I didn’t. I did as you asked.”
“No. You idiot. You didn’t.”
The Bread Man was frozen, his confusion welling up like a wall all around him.
“You can’t even keep your week’s straight, you fool.”
Out in the street in front of the house someone was yelling for someone else to move their car. The sound carried to the stillness of the backyard where The Bread Man sat, his mind racing, the smell of hot grass and pollen filling his nostrils as he tried to assemble the days of the month.
As if enjoying his fear, The Other didn’t move, giving him the proper time to sift through his panic. Finally, with dread, The Bread Man realized his mistake.
“I’m sorry,” he managed, his eyes still closed tight. “I always do my best by you. I do.”
The Other exhaled, his breath smelling like hot mud, then released his grip on The Bread Man’s hair.
Bits of dirt and rock crunched underfoot as he stepped around the chair and made his way to the lawn. The Bread Man dared not move, but he had to ask, “What now?”
“Now you’ll have to hold her in abeyance and seek another. We need a sacrifice now, to appease my master. Today or tomorrow at the latest. Or the timetable is ruined and I will have to report my failure. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“It means you’re a dead man. It means I will make you stay awake the entire time that I eat every one of your internal organs, one by one, starting with your intestines, a bite at a time.”
“No! I’ll make it right. Who? Just tell me and I’ll get her.”
“You’re damn right
you will.”
Pain shot through The Bread Man’s body so severe that he defecated on himself immediately, the initial jolt followed by another that forced him to clench his teeth too hard. He felt one of his molars break, the filling in it falling out and sliding down the side of his throat, the sharp edges digging into one of his tonsils and making him gag.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese…” was all he could manage, a barely whispered squeal.
The pain stopped and he felt his body go limp in the chair.
After a minute or two, The Other finally spoke in a firm, even tone. “Do not make any more mistakes… are we clear?”
The Bread Man nodded vigorously.
“Good. There’s a girl, a waitress, at the Denny’s. Do you know which one I’m talking about?”
“The skinny one? With the tattoo?”
“Yes. That’s the one. You like her, don’t you? You’ve liked waaaatching her.”
“Yes,” The Bread Man replied, thinking of the waitress’s perky tits.
“Well. We owe her.”
“Owe her?”
“Yes, that stupid cow helped the other side recently, her and her big mouth.”
The Bread Man swallowed hard. Feeling was just beginning to return to his extremities as The Other continued. “I was going to leave her for later. She has… potential. To be led our way, I mean. But all those days she spent in Sunday school will only make it harder. I was going to savor the time it took to bring her down, but now she’ll have to serve another purpose.”
“How should I get her?”
“Follow her home. Get her there. She lives by herself.”
“Okay.”
“Your punishment is that you cannot have her. You can only kill her. Are we clear?”
The Other had never asked this of him, and The Bread Man, mind already filling with thoughts of those perky tits, was about to protest when he wisely thought the better of it. So he simply nodded.
“Bring her here alive. Wait for my order to kill. When you’re done, I want her head cut off and left where everyone will see it. I will need the power.”
A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2) Page 10
