It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
He groaned. What the hell did that mean?
A puff of wind swirled around him, carrying away the odor of wood smoke. The forest became still. He stood like a statue, keenly aware of some foreign presence. The hair lifted on his arms and he was aware of a tingling sensation on the back of his neck, like hot breath whispered from a dank mouth. The fetid odor of decay suddenly invaded his olfactory sense.
“Oh, Jesus, no,” he whispered. Like a fool he had invited her and now she was here. He spun around and stumbled to his knees. Blood pounded in his temples and his heart fluttered shallowly. There was nobody there, of course. Nobody he could see, at least. He suspected she had been there, however, somehow, and she was playing with him, taunting him, trying to drive him mad. He stayed on his knees for a long time, but now he could no longer sense her. Struggling to his feet he nearly screamed at the searing pain in his side.
He needed to eat. Painful as it was to forage food in his condition he knew that if he did not get something substantial in his stomach he would die, and soon.
The wind came up again, lasting longer than before, swirling around his feet and legs like ghostly fingers. When the gust ended abruptly, night was coming down and the forest seemed to have been left in a vacuum, as though the departing turbulence had taken with it every wisp of breathable air.
He left the railroad bed and stumbled down into the dark wood. For days he had stayed alive on plants and bugs and stagnant water. Amazing what one will eat, and drink, when the prospect of starvation looms. Two days past he’d gotten hold of something bad, however; perhaps it had been the swamp water, and had nearly shit himself to death. There was a part of him that wished he had died.
In the days since starting his journey he’d come across an abundance of small animals, but did not have the speed or the skills to catch one. In his fevered dreams they seemed to morph into other more menacing creatures which usually signaled the arrival of the demon woman. He wasn’t sure he could go through another night of terror like he’d experienced last night. He’d build a big fire tonight, stay awake for as long as possible and keep feeding it. Perhaps that would keep her at bay.
After searching he found enough bitter roots and green edible plants to sustain him for another night. After choking them down he went about the task of gathering firewood. It was easy, there hadn’t been any rain in days and the forest was dry. It offered up an abundance of deadfalls and more than enough dry leaves and twigs to kindle them. He worked for nearly an hour, deciding that he would build this night’s fire directly on top of the railroad bed. If a plane happened over perhaps its occupants would spot the fire and send rescuers.
Later he sat shivering by the fire. Even though the days were hot, the forest was cold at night. The stars above him were clear and bright like cold diamond chips, and with every breath he took a cloud of white vapor puffed from his mouth. The forest was alive with its usual night noises: peeping tree frogs, distant coyotes howling at the moon, owls hooting, whippoorwills calling forlornly. Well into the night, however, he realized that he had not gathered enough wood to last until dawn. And he was afraid to go searching in the dark. Besides, he was weary with fatigue and the pain in his side was stiffening him to the point of immobility. Perhaps the demon woman would leave him alone tonight. This was his final thought as his eyes closed and he slumped forward in unconsciousness.
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
He awoke with a start, panic causing his heart to hammer with adrenaline. He was lying on his side beside the dead fire. The night was still and quiet, and numbingly cold. He was shivering, his teeth clacking together. Nothing stirred, not even a breeze. The insects and animals had all ceased their gossip. It was as if the forest was holding its breath. The air around him seemed suddenly charged with electric energy, however. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck, screamed and twisted around trying to sit up. The searing pain in his side caused him to scream again.
It was the woman, or what was left of her, standing not six paces away. There was a glow about her, like phosphorescence, illuminating her grisly corruption in acute detail.
“Who are you?” the man asked, as his clawing hands and digging feet tried to put distance between him and the nightmare. “Please, tell me what you want.”
“You know what I want.”
“No,” the man said, shaking his head.
“You used to like my hot breath on your neck. You used to like it on your nipples, too, and down there.” The demon woman pointed a waxy-looking hand at his groin.
“No,” he said again. “You’re lying. I don’t know you.”
“Are you quite certain of that?”
He gave his head an emphatic nod.
“All right then,” she said. “You want to play games. I’ll play.” She fell to her hands and knees and began stalking slowly toward the injured man, halfway between a seductress and a beast. “You’re going to die out here, you know,” she said. “You’re going to die again and again and again. How do you like that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She moved closer. “Come here, I’ll show you.”
“What are you doing? Stay back.”
“I want you to look me in the eye when you lie to me.”
“I’m not lying!” he insisted. “I told you, I don’t know you.”
“Yes, I know that’s what you said.”
“Well, why don’t you believe me?”
The woman-thing stalked closer. “Because I know better.”
“If you know me then tell me who I am. Tell me who you are and why we’re here.”
She laughed and stood up. “Come, I’ll show you.”
“No.”
“Suit yourself. Do you want to wander forever and never know?”
“Will knowing get me out of this place?”
“Probably not.”
“Then why should I—?”
“Trust me, knowing is better.”
“I’m afraid.”
“I know. I’m glad. That puncture wound in your side is infected. I can smell the decay. You know how you got it?”
He shook his head.
“I do.” She crooked her finger again in that odd way. “Come, I’ll show you.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I think you can.” She turned and began moving down the tracks. He watched her go. In some strange way he did not want to lose her. He was lonely. Yes, her appearance was unpleasant but at least she was someone to talk to. And she hadn’t tried to hurt him.
He began moving after her. He saw her far down the tracks, green and ghostly against the approaching dawn. His side ached beyond pain. His body felt like it was on fire. No matter, he wanted to catch her, so he upped his pace wincing with each step he took.
She stopped and turned toward him. “Hurry,” she called, then turned back around and continued on.
“Wait,” he said. “Where do these tracks lead?”
“They don’t lead anywhere,” came her wistful reply.
They walked for what seemed a very long time. By the time she left the tracks and headed down into the woods the sun had begun to rise. He followed.
A little further on he realized that he’d come this way before, perhaps on several different occasions, for he crossed over a swampy area that looked familiar and he saw several sets of tracks. When he compared his shoe print to a particularly well preserved specimen he was convinced.
Christ, he thought. I’ve been walking in circles.
Presently he began to see that areas of the forest were scorched. He wondered if there had been a recent fire. Up ahead in a large clearing the demon-woman stopped. When he caught up to her he saw the wreckage of a medium-sized jet aircraft, twisted and blackened by fire, and realized that the clearing was only there because the aircraft had taken out trees upon its contact with the earth.
“Well, at least that answers the q
uestion of how I got here,” he said. “Must have been in an airplane crash.” But the more he surveyed the wreckage the more he realized that no one could possibly have gotten out of that mess alive.
“Now you get it, don’t you,” said the woman.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m beginning to see.”
“But you still don’t know why, do you?”
He shook his head.
“Let me refresh your memory. We were on our way to Lake Tahoe from Los Angeles. Or rather you were. You didn’t know I was on board. It was then that I confronted you with the affair.”
“Affair? I don’t understand. Who are you? Who am I?”
“You see that ring around your neck?”
He reached up and touched it.
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
“You never would wear it on your finger. Instead you put it on that chain and you’d tuck it under your shirts. I guess you were ashamed. I don’t know. Why would somebody marry a person they were ashamed of? Maybe for money, huh?”
“No,” he said, backing away.
“But I knew the moment you began the affair. You thought I was stupid? I could smell her on you. You were going to leave me for her and I couldn’t allow that to happen.”
He was beginning to remember now. It had been just the two of them on the plane. He and Daphne. But she wasn’t supposed to have been there. She’d snuck on and had waited in the aft section until they were airborne. He was supposed to meet his lover in Tahoe, and he wasn’t just planning to leave Daphne . . . he and his lover were going to . . . kill . . . oh, God, could he really have been that heartless? They were going to make it look like an accident. That way he’d have all her money. But somehow Daphne had found out. When she’d come up behind him holding the gun to his head he knew it was over. No amount of explaining had been enough to quell her anger or change her mind. Her intent was to take them both down in a blaze of glory.
“You remember what happened next, don’t you Jack?”
“Is that my name? Jack?”
She nodded.
“And your name is Daphne.”
“Correct again.”
His last clear memory of the events before he woke up in the forest was Daphne saying, “I knew what you wanted from the beginning, Jack. And it wasn’t my love. It was my money, my homes, my private jet that I paid for you to learn to fly. Well, Jack, It’s all yours now. You own it!”
Then something happened, some sort of phase shift. He remembered looking down at the altimeter and thinking, It happens at twenty thousand feet. Now we’re at fifteen thousand. Maybe it didn’t happen. But was that now, or was that then. He couldn’t remember. Suddenly he was at the controls again, thinking, I have a chance to stop this before it happens. But he remembered the sound of the gun going off, and the momentary relief that she hadn’t shot him in the head. That maybe he had stopped it before it happened. But the window had blown out and he felt the terrible sensation of decompression. Almost enough to rip his guts out through his asshole. After that he did not remember anything until he woke up in the woods with that phrase cycling through his head. It’s all yours now. You own it . . .!
“But we survived, Daphne,” Jack said. “Somehow we got out of that mess alive. Maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe we’re just dreaming this. I wanted to tell you before you pulled the trigger that it was all a mistake and that I want to make it up to you. What I mean is, maybe I did tell you. Maybe it didn’t happen.”
“You’re kidding, right, Jack?”
“Look at me,” he said, patting his body with his hands. “I’m alive.” But when he looked up again Daphne was gone. He heard her laughter though, like the sound of breaking glass.
Maybe it didn’t happen, he kept thinking as he made his way back in the direction of the tracks. Maybe it’s still not too late to stop it from happening.
It took him most of the day to slog out of the woods and find his way back to the old railroad spur. By then he was exhausted and the pain was numbing. He lay on the tracks for a long time trying to catch his breath. He closed his eyes and might have slept.
And then that noise again, rumbling, roaring, air escaping a monstrous deflating balloon. He remembered looking down at the altimeter and thinking, It happens at twenty thousand feet. Now we’re at fifteen thousand. Ten! Five! Maybe it didn’t happen. But was that now, or was that then. He couldn’t remember. Eardrums bursting inside his head. Blood spewing from his mouth and nose. Altimeter spinning wildly backwards.
Pitching, yawing, screaming.
He opened his eyes. The moon had come up above the trees and he watched it rise into the sky.
He heard a sound, sat up cocking his head, straining to make sense of it. He had dreamed but could not remember what it was about. In his mind there was a vague recollection of some sort of tragedy.
He stood on shaky legs, looked back the way he had come. The forest was still. Nothing was in sight.
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
The man did not know what that phrase meant any more than he had four days ago when he had come awake in the woods injured and afraid with it cycling through his head.
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
ROOM 9
THE BEGINNING
1
“I knew John Lennon back when,” the woman on the barstool said. It was a casual remark, one that would have probably been ignored if John Lennon’s name had not been a part of the mix. Rick Sanchez gave the speaker a sidelong glance. She was okay looking, mid-to late forties, still pretty but a little worn around the edges. She seemed nervous, and fidgety, her index finger patrolling the rim of her martini glass. Not a martini, though, Sanchez could tell by the color that it was a Cosmopolitan, the latest female fad drink.
Sanchez had come in for a drink after a grueling day covering a major Upper East Side tenement fire that had claimed the lives of three children and two adults. He felt sick in his heart, he was tired and cold, and all he wanted was to be left alone to contemplate the profundities of life and death and decide what angle he would approach the story from. He turned back to his drink without replying to the woman’s comment.
“Now someone’s following me,” she said. “I think they want me dead.”
He looked at her again, frowning this time. “What did you say?” Frigging nut case!
“They want me dead.”
“Who wants you dead?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone. I think it’s because of what I know.”
“Whoa, back up,” Sanchez said, his interest suddenly piqued. “What do you know? And what does it have to do with John Lennon?”
“He used to take me to this . . . place.”
“Lennon? Yeah, right.”
She frowned. “I’m not kidding, man. He took others there too. Now they’re all dead.”
“Really.” It was more a bland statement than a question.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Put yourself in my place, lady.”
“Deb,” she said, offering Sanchez her hand. “Deb Stiles.”
He stared at her outstretched hand for a long moment before taking it. “Rick Sanchez.”
“I know who you are,” she said. “I’ve read your stuff. You have this . . . connection, so much compassion.” She pointed at the television monitor above the bar. “I’ve been sitting here for two hours watching the fire story, wondering what to do. I saw you there in front of that burning building, pacing and writing in your notebook. I saw the anguish on your face and knew that you felt for those poor souls. It’s funny how we grieve for those who are lost, even if we don’t know them personally. Part of being human, I guess.” She shrugged.
“Did you really know John Lennon?”
“Yeah, I knew him. When you came in here and sat down beside me, well, I took it as a sign.”
“Please, lady.”
“I know, you think I’m crazy, but I have to tell my story before it’s too l
ate. The world needs to know the real truth about John Lennon and what really happened back then. I’ve been unsure about who to talk to. I don’t know. I saw something in your eyes, read something in your body language.” She stopped, took a sip of her drink. “Have you got a little time?”
“Listen, lady—”
“Deb.”
“Listen, Deb, I have a story to write . . .”
“Yes you do. Maybe the most important story of your career. Are you going to throw it away?”
“I want some proof.”
“Proof?”
“That you really knew him. That this is not just bullshit.”
“There’s an old man.”
Sanchez cocked his head. “Old man?”
“I don’t know. He shouldn’t be alive, but he is. Maybe he’ll talk to you. And I have some things.”
“What things?”
“Of Lennon’s. You’ll have to see for yourself.”
“This better be good.”
She sighed, slid off the barstool. “Come with me. I’ll show you.”
“How far?”
“Just come with me.”
2
The sun had settled behind the craggy range of mountainous buildings and a raw January wind sliced thru the city’s canyons like blades of ice. Sanchez was wondering what the hell he was doing. He pulled his coat collar up around his face as he followed the woman on a convoluted route across busy streets. Traffic streamed hastily by, as if trying to escape the frigid air. Clouds of carbon dioxide puffed from exhaust pipes turning the city into a dreamscape.
“I think we’re being followed,” she said. They’d just crossed into an alley and behind them the noise of the busy street had begun to subside.
“What?” Sanchez said turning. Sure enough a car had pulled into the alley behind them and was sitting there at idle, engine purring like a giant cat. It was a large and long boat-of-a-vehicle with a low roof and narrow windows, circa late seventies or early eighties. At least that was the impression. And although Sanchez did not recognize the make or model he had the distinct sense that the car was somehow not right, out of place, skewed slightly off center. The vehicle was glossy black, and the paint seemed distorted, mirage like, as if he was looking at a reflection. All of the windows—at least all the windows he could see—were filmed over, reminding him of the low-rider pimp wagons from that same era.
Servants of Darkness (Thirteen Creepy Tales) Page 5
