The Place They Are Safe

by Alan Spencer

  Mark stood on his feet again, though his stomach swelled from the punch.

  The shower stopped.

  Cassie was changing into clothes.

  Peyton stared him down. "You know what to do."

  It was sad for him to watch the way Cassie was hopeful again, especially after Mark did as he was told and shared his "change of heart" with her on the car ride down to the courthouse. She was beaming. Dread sent chills down Mark's body. His blood was an icy tide. His heart was freezing over. He'd tell everyone how he would forget Elizabeth in exchange for a life in Meadow Woods. He wouldn't talk of death. He would accept this gift without question. When he committed, and he yet had to understand what that actually meant, he would forget death and put life first over everything else. Peyton's cunning words would win the day, but he swore he wouldn't forget the man's manipulations. This wasn't his friend who was driving them. It was his enemy.

  "You really mean it," Cassie said, curling up into his side and wrapping her arms around him. "You'll tell them everything you just said. You'll commit? Really?"

  "I want to be here," he reassured her, kissing the top of her head. He sensed Peyton's rheumy eyes on him in the rearview mirror. "I'll tell them I'll give up the past. You guys are my present and my future. I want to live here. This is a better life for me."

  Cassie whispered it in his ear, "I love you."

  They passed up the residential area and were traveling on a back road when Peyton sharply swung the wheel and they skidded off the road.

  Cassie screamed, bouncing in her seat and hitting her head on the ceiling. "What the hell are you doing, Peyton!"

  "I don't know," Peyton shouted. The wheel was turning without him touching it. The truck sped up without him pressing on the gas. "The fucking thing is driving itself!"

  Mark held onto Cassie, as she clutched her head. She had taken a solid blow. The car's shocks protested as they bounded up through the trees of the woods, weaving between them.

  Peyton's voice was a shrill as the sound of wheels breaking over rocks and fallen tree limbs reached its height. When Peyton spoke, it didn't sound like his voice. Someone was talking through his friend.

  "You're the only one who can stop what's going to happen next, and that means you're going to have to see me before I die. You have to face me, Mark."

  Blood trailed down his hands, what leaked out the top of Cassie's head. "Jesus Christ, what's going on, Peyton?"

  Cassie screamed as individual trails of blood ran down her face. The truck was still driving forward, but then it suddenly stopped. The engine clicked off. Then the red came. From the sky, pulsating in the horizon, the burning, phosphorescent, neon burning color painted every surface in crimson. They were blinded, shielding their eyes, and crying in horror. Mark too had to smart his eyes. Everything was an intense bright red.

  A voice shouted in the distance becoming louder with each succession, the sky the source of the words. "COME TO ME BEFORE I DIE! BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE DIES!" On repeat, the same words beckoned Mark. The summonses that caused trees to shake off their leaves, for tree limbs to snap, for the earth itself to fork and break.

  Peyton and Cassie were now unconscious, strewn about the seats as if their lifelines had been cut. He checked their necks for pulses. They were still alive.

  "I'll come back to save you. You guys hold on."

  The moment he planted two feet on the ground, the gaps in the earth, the growing trenches, burbled up with blood in a boiling fervent. A red crude was spitting out of the earth. The growing streams channeled in one direction, north of him, painting the trees and grass in shades of death. Without knowing why he followed the red tide, he did, tracking the crimson compass to find the one who was calling out to him.

  The words echoing off the bodies of trees and reverberating from the sky ceased the moment he reached the top of the hill, the highest point in the woods. Out of breath and his pants drenched in blood up to the knees, he slowed his pace. Mark arrived at the true source of the bleeding.

  It wasn't the earth that was bleeding.

  The top of the hill, the ground was a deep concave hole, where blood was gleaming a dark black cherry. Floating in the center of the red was a white shape half submerged in the red pool. Half a lily white face. A bony hip cracked open by a wound, the bone split and poking through the skin in broken brittle pieces. A foot severed at the ankle. The foot's stump was a clean wound. At the face was a closed eye, the eyelashes gummy with bloody coagulation.

  "Come to me. You must come to me. Hear me, and what I have to say. You're the only one who can save them,and yourself."

  Mark raced to the blood pool and waded in the mess to reach the wounded man. He was youngish looking. Talcum skin. No bodily hair. A smooth round head. A gaping knife wound gleamed from his right jaw up to the side of his skull. Mark tried to lift the man up, to move him, but the victim moaned and warded him off with a weak hand, a hand that was nearly cut off at the wrist. Only an axe could've caused such an infliction.

  "W-what can I do for you? Anything, I'll do it. Just tell me."

  That's all he could say, holding the man in his arms, trying to comfort the victim, the victim of what? and understand why Mark hadn't passed out like Cassie and Peyton when the red light appeared.

  "Who did this to you? Why are you here?"

  What are you?

  The man's mouth didn't move. It remained ajar, allowing blood to stream off his tongue in saliva consistency.

  Mark seemed to be hearing his thoughts.

  You can't save me. My wounds are too great. These blessings are no longer mine to give. They've been taken. Get them back. Kill him, or else this won't end. This defiling of our happiness will never cease.

  Kill.

  Him.

  One final lightening crimson flash in the sky, the final pulsation of light, and the man died. The blood seeped back into the earth. Gurgling back down, the trenches in the earth repaired themselves. Trees and roots crunched, fidgeting and returning to their original positions. Then without the red, the man's body vanished into the earth, sucked in like the crimson, and everything turned into pitch black darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Pitch black night everywhere. The air grew frigid cold. Bordering on winter. The climate of that time of year in Meadow Woods as it would be in reality. The night was silent. It didn't raise alarm nor did it bring relief. He sensed a earth-aching calm spread across the land, and it settled in bone deep. The eerie silence reactivated his thought processes. It was eleven in the morning, and somehow it was night. The dying man covered in lacerations and bruises was the cause of the unreal events. The curing of his cancer. The lake turning into an ocean. Everything. The higher power in charge had perished.

  Who had killed this higher power?

  The pale man steeped in blood broke through into his thoughts and told him to kill the one who had killed him.

  These blessing are no longer mine to give. They've been taken from me.

  Who did he have to kill? The whole event was unreal; the man dying in his arms, the warmth of his blood turning cold, and the words in his mind, they were filled with despair and regret. He felt the sadness now, the burden that caused gooseflesh to burn his skin and for him to burst out into sorrowful tears. Tears as heavy as when he lost Elizabeth (the last image of her in a coffin, as the lid shut during the wake, and the funeral director insisting he move on to the burial). He balled himself up and rocked in a fetal position.

  Kill him

  Kill him.

  These blessing are no longer mine to give....

  ...they've been taken from me!

  Kill him.

  Ripped from his pitiful state, a growl filled the night. "WHERE IS SHE?"

  Stomping, the earth absorbing the impact as if boulders were crashing down from on high. Coming closer, Da-dum, Da-dum, Da-dum, Da-dum, Mark swiftly rose up from his haunches. Then he was running as fast as he could move.

  "When you hide from me, it
only pisses me off even more! And when I find you, I'll SMASH you!"

  Mark lost his footing as the earth shook once again after another set of concussions. Sensing someone incoming, Mark rolled just in time to avoid the shrapnel of an established oak tree bursting. The limbs, the body of it, even the bark, exploded into many pieces. The pieces rained down on him. Mark blinked sawdust from his eyes, and running again, he kept moving, darting and dodging even though he couldn't see where he was going. Whatever it was, they were closing in. The exhale and inhale of a man, a beast, a boar, he didn't know what the hell it was, had him racing on in fear. Mark refused to turn around and find out what it was, especially after feeling the warm breath on his back and flecks of frothy saliva pelt him.

  "WHERE IS SHE?"

  Another tree was ripped from the earth. The roots broke, sounding like dozens of taught ropes being cut by a dull knife. The tree sailed in the air like a spear, and it came down, smashing through another set of trees a mile off.

  "SHE'LL DIE BY MY HANDS! I'LL WATCH HER BLEED TO DEATH!"

  His stalker, the powerhouse, kept on chugging after Mark. The stomps kept him off-kilter. Mark kept having to right himself. He couldn't keep the effort up for much longer. His body was giving in to exhaustion.

  "WHERE IS THAT BITCH?"

  Then up ahead, headlights cut swatches of yellow between the dense trees, and The Blue Beast was roaring to life. Speeding from the scene, the truck was gone in seconds, bouncing onto the main road and screeching on.

  The thing stopped pursuing Mark and followed the truck, smashing with his fist tree after tree to clear a new path of pursuit.

  Mark was shocked to discover the thing was actually a man.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Mark stayed on the shoulder of the road. He was bent over panting and struggling to catch his breath. The concussions of impossibly heavy footsteps continued from far off, what were slowly become less and less audible.

  That was just a man, he kept thinking, who uprooted a fucking tree with his bare hands!

  He had to find shelter, a place to sort out the unreal events he just lived through. Other unsettling things announced themselves the longer he studied his surroundings. The road signs were blank. The street itself had no yellow lines down the middle, this being a highway. The chill in the air was ice cold. The winds turned to gusts, each burst of air a dry slap to the face. Shivering uncontrollably, Mark chose a direction at random and followed the road, for the darkness was so deep, there was only one path to choose.

  He was thrown forward for what felt like a half hour, at times slowing down, and other times speeding up. Mark was weak and scared, being in such a dark place. He kept moving until he literally walked face first into a sign. The sign itself he couldn't see. He trailed his hand across the smooth aluminum surface. He waved his hand in front of his face and was blind to it. Where could he go? He was truly blind. It was so dark.

  What was happening in Meadow Woods?

  Out of the darkness, there came a light. He was still in the woods, he realized. He didn't recognize the property, nor the small clearing. The road was different, as were these woods.

  This wasn't Meadow Woods.

  Then where am I?

  The house was a meager cabin. Green shutters. Dark wooden panels. The chimney was coughing out smoke. Firelight flickered from the windows. The only light in a maze of black, he hurried to the cabin as fast as his tired body would allow. He nearly collapsed onto the porch. Mark knocked on the door.

  "Please, help me. I don't know what's going on out here. It's so dark."

  The rap wasn't accompanied by steps from within.

  Thoom!

  A rough square of the door burst, the section near his head. Wooden shrapnel cut up his ear and left cheek. Mark thought he'd been shot in the face, but they were merely flesh wounds. Minor. Though his ears ached from the deafening blast, he stayed against the wall next to the door and waited.

  "Stay away, damn you! I don't know what you are, but I know I don't want you here!"

  Another blast, this time Mark's eardrums pulsated with stinging ringing. He cupped his ears and stuck his fingers in them to check if he could undo the damage, how it ached!

  "I mean it! Stay out! I won't run out of bullets!"

  The gruff of the old drunkard was unmistakable.

  Gibbs, get your head out of your ass.

  "I'm not who caused this. It's me, it's Mark—"

  The section of wall between his armpit and hand exploded outwards. He was thrown forward in shock. Striking the ground, he feared Gibbs would come after him and unload on him. Mark kept crawling, throwing his arms out ahead of him until he reached the corner of the cabin. He leaned his back against the side of the house and stayed calm. He checked his body. He hadn't been shot.

  Gibbs hadn't fired another shot for minutes.

  Did the idiot think he'd hit his mark?

  Gibbs wasn't in the mood for negotiations or reasoning. What did Gibbs see when everything went dark? Did he know something Mark didn't?

  It wasn't long before he heard the front door open and Gibbs step out onto the porch. That's when Mark snuck through the back door. Entering the cabin, he observed how there wasn't a kitchen, bathroom, or a living room, but instead only a wide open space. The walls were occupied by hundreds and hundreds of books on shelves. The placed smelled musty and of acid-eaten pages and old paper. Many of the books had been knocked from their shelves and strewn in tall piles.

  Gibbs remained at the front door. Clutching a shotgun, he re-loaded it with a shaky grip, one loose by fear and hard alcohol. Tip-toeing forward, ready to close in on the man, Mark held his breath and narrowed his eyes on Gibbs. Bounding towards him in one leap, he wrapped his arms around the man in a reverse hug. The double barreled shotgun clanged to his side, and luckily, it didn't go off. Mark kicked it aside, trying to move on from the attack and represent himself as a friend when Gibbs wrapped his legs around Mark's legs as if clinging on for dear life. His weight brought them both down hard.

  Mark landed on his ribs, his side radiating pain. Thinking fast, Mark pressed his knees between Gibbs' shoulder blades as the man tried to crawl forward. The old man screeched in pain. The pressure point exploited, Mark threw out the words, "I'm not what you think. I'm the same as you. Same as you, Gibbs. I'm Mark Tripdick. I found this house. It's dark, and I found this house, and I, and I'm as scared as you, man, so quit shooting at me. If I wanted to hurt you, I would've overtaken you by now. If we're going to figure this out, I can't have you trying to blast me to hell."

  Gibbs's face against the floor, "Then get off of me, boy!"

  Mark heeded the man. He eased up off of him. They were standing face to face.

  Gibbs looked on at him aghast. "Why are you covered in dried blood?"

  "It's really hard to explain." Worried Gibbs would change his mind and not trust him anymore, Mark kept his voice calm and his words succinct. "Peyton and Cassie were driving me to the courthouse for everyone to decide if I should stay here or not. We didn't get very far. This bright red light filled the sky, and it was blinding. So blinding, it rendered my friends unconscious, and when I escaped the truck, I heard this voice. This voice was speaking to me. It was a man bleeding from many wounds. He'd been cut up pretty bad. There was blood rising from the earth. The ground was spitting out blood everywhere. It's insane, I know, but it's what happened. There's no other way to tell it."

  Gibbs was unflinching. He didn't believe, he didn't disbelieve. "What else happened?"

  "This man said the blessings he'd given to this town were now taken away. That I had to save this town from someone. Then after he died, the red light vanished. The cracks in the earth were as they were before. But then this thing comes at me ripping trees from the earth and crying out for a woman. Then I take off. Run for my fucking life, and I end up seeing a light from this cabin, and here I am."

  Mark was winded telling his story and was relieved Gibbs decided to finally speak
. "I passed out when the red light cut through the morning sun. I woke to darkness, and my house was now a cabin. Many of my belongings are missing. But I have more books now. I don't know why they're here. They weren't here moments ago. They were just here when I came back to consciousness."

  Gibbs started to re-shelve the books. "Funny thing, there aren't any words on the pages. They're all blank."

  Mark looked at one of the books. He stiffened. What he didn't tell Gibbs was that every word was at it should be. The pages were not blank. They had words.

  Gibbs kept rummaging through the books, turning pages, and then spiking them back onto the ground. "No words. No words. No words. No fucking words."

  Mark changed the subject. He needed the man coherent and calm.

  "What about everybody else? Did you see a truck drive near here? Cassie and Peyton were out in the woods with me when the thing that smashed up the trees attacked. I watched the truck drive off. Do you think Cassie and Peyton got away? Come on, man, did you see it? I need your help."

  The man's hostile reaction increased. Sorting through book after book, his anger boiling hotter, he grabbed the bookshelf tower and tipped it over. A great ball of dust rose off the ground. Gibbs skulked to the next shelf and thumbed through book after book without gaining any new ground.

  "Where are the words? The words!"

  Gibbs was on his hand and knees, swimming in hundreds and hundreds of books as if the small pile gave birth to new texts and tomes and hardback and leather bound books. Gibbs gave a great startle right before he was buried in books.

  Reaching for Gibbs's arm, Mark yanked back with all his might. He saved the man from the burial. The pile remained of books as it was, the entire cabin a literary battleground. Books that weren't there before had materialized and new ones kept materializing. Hundreds and hundreds of books!

  Gibbs was on his hands and knees, his head tucked down between his shoulders to catch his breath, his fingers bleeding from numerous paper cuts.