by Tim Waggoner
“Let’s go to Hollyhock Avenue,” he said, then added, “as fast as we can.”
Olivia shot him a look that said she thought the suggestion he’d made was equal parts stupid and insane. She’d warmed to him a lot since they’d started working together, but now she adopted her previous persona—cold, detached, and by-the-book.
“We’ve been given our orders.”
“I just want to see her again and make sure she’s okay. That’s all.”
Olivia scowled and continued driving in silence for several minutes. Finally, she said, “I suppose we can swing by the house, maybe check in with the Intervention Team and offer our assistance. Deanna will be pissed, but I hope not too pissed.”
Kevin smiled in relief. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Whatever’s going to go down at that house, it’s not going to be good.”
Kevin’s smile fell away. He settled back into his seat, looked out the passenger window at the darkness outside the van, and tried not to think about what Olivia had said.
* * *
The first thing Joan became aware of was the pounding pain in her head. She would’ve loved to slip back into unconsciousness to escape it, but it hurt too much, and little by little the pain forced her back to full awareness. She opened her eyes and greenish blue light stung them, setting off a fresh burst of agony in her skull. She squinted to shut out the worst of the light, and tried to determine where she was.
It was dark, and the green light came from torches set at regular intervals around a large structure resembling a park picnic shelter. The Pavilion, she thought. From my dream. Was she dreaming now? She had to be, except the humid air felt real, and so did the sweat beaded on her skin. Not to mention the pain pounding in her head. The left side of her face hurt too, and the skin felt tight and swollen. She thought something had happened to her to cause it, but she couldn’t remember what.
She lay on her side on the Pavilion’s dirt floor. She tried to sit up, but the motion made her headache pound twice as hard, and she gave up. Besides, she seemed to be immobilized, wrapped in something from her shoulders down to her ankles. She slowly inclined her head to get a look at what bound her, but at first she wasn’t sure what it was. Strips of soft, spongy material, slick and wet.
It’s skin, she thought. I’m wrapped in strips of skin.
She inhaled, smelled sweat and blood, and her stomach lurched. The only thing that prevented her from vomiting was the thought of how much more it would make her hurt.
She lay near the Pavilion’s platform. The speakers were in place, as was the podium, black circle painted on the front, an open book resting on top. The Book of Masks. But there were hideous new details. A dozen men and women hung from the Pavilion’s rafters, wrists bound by heavy rope, feet dangling inches from the platform’s surface. They were all naked, and strips of skin had been torn from their bodies. A wave of revulsion shuddered through her as she realized where the skin that enwrapped her had come from. The men and women hung limply, heads lowered, blood running from their wounds and pattering to the platform beneath them. She didn’t know if they were alive or dead, but she didn’t see how anyone could have survived what had been done to them. She felt herself retreating toward unconsciousness, but she fought it. Her instincts told her that, despite all appearances, this wasn’t a dream, and if she hoped to survive, she needed to stay alert and calm —although the latter seemed unattainable given the circumstances.
She heard sounds then. Rustling in the grass outside the Pavilion, soft clack-clack-clack noises growing louder as whatever was making them came closer. She didn’t know what those sounds meant, but they filled her with far more terror than seeing the bodies hanging above the platform had.
She sensed a presence nearby, and despite the pain in her head, she wriggled around until she could see who or what it was. Jon stood behind her, face and clothes still covered with marinara stains. His lower jaw hung slack and was discolored and swollen. He tried to smile, but the most he could manage was to make his upper lip curl in a decent approximation of an Elvis sneer.
“Glad to shhee you’re 'wake, honey. We wun’t want 'u to mishh out on all d’ fffun.” His words were hard to understand because of his injured jaw, but she could make them out.
She repositioned herself until she lay on her back looking up at him. Her head still hurt but not quite as much as before. She turned to look behind Jon and was shocked to see that the pewlike wooden benches weren’t empty. They were filled with naked men and women—hundreds of them—young and old, children and adults. There were so many some had to stand or sit cross-legged on the ground. They were motionless, silent, but then they couldn’t have made sounds if they’d wanted to, for their faces were gone, replaced by patches of smooth, bare skin. She remembered something Maegarr said to her in her dream. You’ve been deceitful, Debbie. You’re nothing but masks, one over another. No masks for these people, not anymore.
“They’re not really my Congregation. Their spirits reside with me now. They’re merely echoes formed from the substance of Shadow, as is this place.”
She turned toward the platform—no, she decided to think of it as it really was: a stage—and saw Mark Maegarr standing at the podium, the partially skinned bodies hanging behind him like slabs of half-butchered meat. She’d seen photos of Maegarr when she’d researched him on the web, but those images were of a much younger man, before he’d broken up Slogeny, left music, and traveled to Suriname. He looked far different than he had in her dream last night too. He wore the same clothes—aviator sunglasses, overlarge Hawaiian shirt, cutoff jeans, sandals—and he still had long white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. But he was much thinner now, cadaverously so, and his lips were drawn back from yellowed teeth in a permanent rictus. As she watched, he removed his glasses, folded them, and tucked them into his shirt pocket. He had no eyes, only twin hollows of darkness from which black tendrils emerged, undulated gently as if testing the air, and withdrew.
He disgusted and terrified her in equal measures, but she didn’t want him to know how much he got to her, so she tried to sound calm as she said, “And I suppose you’re an echo too?”
He didn’t smile—she wasn’t sure he could the way his mouth was—but his eye tendrils emerged and undulated rapidly, giving the impression he was amused.
“I’m the real deal, Joannie-girl. Or should I say Debbie?”
She didn’t understand what he was talking about—except she did. It was as if she had split in two. One of her was Joan Lantz, wife of Jon (who at the moment wasn’t exactly himself), drug-dependency counselor, and new homeowner. And one of her was a woman named Debbie Garcia, mega-fan of Slogeny, follower of Mark Maegarr, member of the Congregation, and long deceased.
She experienced a dizzying moment where she didn’t know which woman she was, or if she even existed at all. But then the two parts of herself joined together and merged, and when she spoke next, it wasn’t with Joan’s voice or Debbie’s, but a blend of both.
“You’ve spent a hell of a lot of time and effort trying to get me back, Mark. I didn’t know you loved me that much.”
“I did love you, Debbie. Just as I loved Brian and Monica. Yeah, I loved every member of my flock, but you three were special.”
Images flooded her mind then, memories that belonged to Debbie. Memories of alcohol and drugs, but most of all sex among the four of them. There wasn’t anything they didn’t try, from the most tender and loving of intimacies to the most debased and degrading acts. It had all been the same to Debbie. Whatever Maegarr wanted, Maegarr got. The Joan part of her was filled with disgust. Not so much at the acts themselves, but at Debbie’s all-too-eager willingness to give herself over to another’s desires regardless of what she wished. It was a denial of self, almost an annihilation of Debbie’s personality, leaving her nothing but an empty shell, a doll for Maegarr to use however he saw fit.
“So special that you were willing to feed us to the Gyre along with the o
thers, right?” she said.
“Only so you might be reborn into Paradise!” Maegarr’s eye tendrils jerked spastically, an indication that he was upset, she assumed.
“Once we were dead, we could see the Gyre for what it was,” she said. “There’s nothing after it. Nothing at all.”
“You’re wrong, darlin’.” He stretched out a hand. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”
For the last several minutes while she’d been speaking, she’d been wiggling and straining against her grisly bonds, trying to loosen them so she could slip free. But despite being slick with blood, the flesh strips held her tight as a constrictor’s coils.
“Who are those poor bastards hanging behind you?”
Maegarr lowered his hand and glanced back at the bodies, eye tendrils undulating wildly.
“Just some busybodies who tried to crush my groove. A friend took the fight out of them, and then the Durg skinned them for me.”
As if in response to hearing their name, large ebon-shelled insects trundled out of the night and surrounded the Pavilion, although they stopped short of entering it. Their mandibles opened and closed, making that disturbing clack-clack-clack sound.
“The original Placidity existed on the edge of Shadow, so I created this version inside it, just a hair’s breadth away from what most losers think of as the real world. This is where the Durg hang out, breaking down the bits and pieces of reality that slip into this dimension.”
“I don’t get it. Why’s Placidity in my basement?”
“It’s not literally in your basement, darlin’. That’s just where the crossing point is. In other words, a bridge. I made most of the bridge from Shadow, just like I made other bridges so the Durg could enter your world when I needed them to. But those were temporary one-way gates. To make this one last, it needed to be anchored solidly in both dimensions, Shadow and Earth. And you did that for me, just like a good little girl.”
She thought of the pages she’d received in the mail. “I did it when I read the text from The Book of Masks in the basement.”
Maegarr nodded. His eye tendrils had retreated for the moment, making his face resemble a skull covered by the thinnest layer of parchment-dry skin. “Those pages served their purpose well, but now they’re back where they belong.” He patted The Book of Masks, then continued speaking. “You thought you could escape me by reincarnating yourself, your spirit latching onto a fetus’s body like some kind of in utero leech. But you couldn’t hide from me forever. I found you, and when I did, I sent Monica and Brian to fetch you. It didn’t work out so well the first time, so I waited a couple decades before trying again.”
The Joan part of her didn’t know what he was talking about. First time? But the Debbie part knew, and now that they were fused, what one knew, the other did. Joan understood that Ashley and Billy had really been Monica and Brian, and that they’d killed her parents as part of Maegarr’s sick plan to get her back. But instead, she’d killed them and survived. But that hadn’t been the last she’d seen of them. They’d returned once more, this time reincarnating as Allison and Wes. These revelations came as a shock to Joan, but all Debbie felt was sorrow. Such madness. Such waste…
Maegarr continued. “Once you’d moved into my trap—I mean your new home—I sent you a dream. I hoped it would rile up the part of you that was Debbie, just enough to make you curious. I gave you a loose thread to tug on, and once you started pulling on it…” He spread his arms wide. “Well, here we are.”
She turned her head so she could see Jon. He stood motionless as he gazed upon Maegarr.
“And him?” she asked. “How does he fit into all this?”
“Something got inside him,” Maegarr said, and chuckled, the sound harsh and grating, like the edge of a dull razor blade being dragged across bone.
It was Joan’s turn to feel sorrow then. Jon was an innocent victim who’d gotten involved in the fucked-up scheme of a dead former rock star/cult leader, and now some sort of alien force had invaded his body—Maegarr’s doing, no doubt—and his mind and soul had been destroyed and replaced. His body might not be dead, but everything that had made him Jon Lantz was gone forever.
“You sound pretty damn pleased with yourself,” she said bitterly.
“Why shouldn’t I? I’ve won, haven’t I?”
“Maybe. But your plans don’t always go the way you want, do they? My parents’ deaths didn’t work out the way you wanted. I killed Ashley and Billy before they could deliver me to you. And instead of weakening me, the experience—traumatic as it was—only strengthened me.”
Maegarr didn’t reply, but for the first time since making his appearance, Maegarr looked unsure, less confident.
“And you didn’t expect Allison and Wes to turn on you, did you? They’d gotten to know me again in their new incarnations, and we became close again. They came to realize that what you were doing was bullshit, didn’t they? That’s why they wallpapered over the basement door. Maybe they had to go through with selling me the house so I’d end up in your fucking ‘trap,’ but they tried to prevent it from springing shut on me. Maybe what they did wasn’t much, maybe it was all they could get away with while you were watching them, but it was something.”
“They failed,” Maegarr said. “And they paid the price for screwing me over. They’re reunited with the rest of the Congregation now.” He tapped his chest with a bony finger. “The gang’s all here.”
So Allison and Wes were dead—again. She’d have to mourn them later. Right now she had her own ass to save.
“You lost control of them. They weren’t yours anymore. You don’t know why it happened, and that bugs the shit out of you, doesn’t it?”
Maegarr looked at her, eye tendrils extended and waving slowly, but he said nothing. She went on.
“Entropy isn’t everything, Maegarr, and it certainly isn’t inevitable. It can be beaten. You want to know how? By us. We can change. Grow. Become something more than we used to be—even after death, if we’re lucky. That’s what happened to me, and it’s what happened to Allison and Wes. You know the reason you’re so goddamn in love with entropy? It’s because you can’t change. Behind your horror-show exterior, you’re the same self-important asshole you’ve always been.”
She’d continued to work on her bonds all this time, and she thought she might be close to getting her shoulders loose. After that, it would be easier to get all the way free. Just a little more…
Her last shot at Maegarr had scored a direct hit, and he came out from behind the podium, jumped down from the stage, and walked briskly toward her, eye tendrils extended to their full length—a good two feet—and thrashing like mad. When he reached her, he crouched down in front of her.
“You’re wrong about me, darlin’.” His voice was a menacing purr. “Can’t you see how much I’ve changed?”
He leaned his head closer and his eye tendrils caressed her face. She couldn’t help it. She screamed.
The tendrils continued tasting her flesh for several more seconds before finally withdrawing back into their sockets. Maegarr stood and looked down at her.
“I was going to conduct the Rite of Dissolution, unmask you, and then let the Durg liberate you from your physical form. But there’s no real reason to hurry. I’ve been patient for almost three decades. I think I can wait a little longer.”
He looked at Jon, or rather, the thing inhabiting Jon’s body.
“What do you say? Up for a little fun before we get down to business? I mean, thirty years is a long time to go without getting some, you know what I’m saying?”
Jon looked down at her. His injured jaw prevented him from smiling, but his eyes danced with dark glee.
“Yessshhh,” he said.
Then the two things that resembled men but were something else entirely came toward her.
CHAPTER 8
It was full dark by the time Kevin and Olivia reached the house on Hollyhock Avenue. A Maintenance van was parked at the curb, and two other
vans sat in the driveway.
“Stop,” Kevin said. Olivia gave him a look but did as he asked, pulling behind the van at the curb.
One of these vans should belong to the Surveillance Team that had replaced Olivia and him, and standard procedure dictated that the Surveyors remain in this van during an intervention and monitor the situation. That meant the Surveyors should still be present, and since they would be aware of Olivia’s and his approach, they would contact them to find out what they were doing here. Both of their phones should be ringing by now—but they weren’t.
Kevin turned to Olivia. “Call Deanna and find out what’s going on.” Without waiting for her to reply, he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the passenger door, and got out.
There were no streetlights on Hollyhock, but enough of the residents had their porch lights on, providing at least some illumination to see by. He hurried to the other Surveillance van’s passenger door and rapped a knuckle on the window three times. No one responded. He rapped again, and then leaned his face close to the glass and tried to peer inside. Maintenance vehicles were equipped with tinted glass, and Kevin couldn’t tell if there was anyone within. He tried the door and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. No Maintenance employee would be foolish enough to leave his or her vehicle unlocked, not with the sort of technology they carried inside.
