The Fractured Fallen (A Dark Fantasy Horror): The Edge of Reflection Book 4

by Carver Pike

  “Cut the bitch open!”

  “What?” the soldier next to him asked, looking shocked.

  “Should I start getting used to having my orders questioned? Let me get something straight. The next fucking time someone refuses, questions, or even fucking hesitates when I give an order, I will cut them from nuts to eyeballs! Does that fucking make sense to you all?”

  All around him his soldiers nodded, mumbled, and agreed.

  “Now, cut her the fuck open. Get whatever that is out of her. Now!”

  The girl threw her head back against the ground with a violent thud, and her eyes bulged out like they were going to burst from the sockets.

  Two of Traven’s soldiers pulled out large knives. They looked at each other as if each begging the other to volunteer. When neither did, Traven reached out and shoved his sword through the gut of the nearest of the two. As the man fell to his knees, the other soldier sprang into life, leapt forward, and was about to cut her.

  “Don’t!” the tattooed man yelled.

  “Please!” a belly dancer cried.

  The soldier swung his knife downward and sliced the woman’s stomach open. At the exact moment the blade slipped through the skin, the black ooze shot out of the opening and wrapped itself around the soldier’s face.

  His skin sizzled and popped as he fell back onto the ground in agony. His skin melted.

  Traven backed away and raised his sword like a baseball bat, ready to swing if the creature approached. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Where had the monster come from? They’d said the baby touched the girl, but how could that create such a disgusting beast? The blob suddenly released itself from the man’s face, fell to the ground, and too quickly for anyone to react, it slithered away. The soldier was dead.

  “Where did that come from?” Traven asked, looking to the other gypsies for answers. “Are you telling me a child did this?”

  No one answered, but a few people nodded.

  “Where did they go with those children?” Traven asked. “This is the last time I will ask.”

  No one answered so Traven nodded his head.

  “Do it. Burn them all.”

  His soldiers surrounded the gypsies and began pitching gasoline over them. Traven lit a match on the bottom of his boot, held it up, and prepared to flick it.

  “Wait!” one of the gypsies yelled.

  Traven looked for the source of the voice and found the pretty belly dancer with the exposed breasts.

  “She was my friend,” the girl said. “I’ll tell you where they went, if you promise to kill the child.”

  Chapter 4 - The Hell is a Haylay?

  Haylay leapt through the liquefied portal with strength, power, and determination, not sure where he was going, but knowing what he needed to do when he got there. The determination fled from his body as the bright bathroom light on the other side instantly blinded him.

  Not expecting the short counter, his foot landed in the sink and his body pitched forward. His head bounced off the bathroom wall as his arms flailed and he reached for anything to stop his fall. His right hand found a towel on the towel rack, but as his grip was only on one side of the towel, he continued to fall forward, his cheek sliding across the sunflower wallpaper as his body bent at an awkward angle and finally touched down roughly on the hard tile floor. The yellow towel landed gently on the back of his head, giving him a short reprieve from the bright light.

  “Ugh,” he mumbled as he blew out a breath, puffing the towel up ever so gently, so that it rose high enough for him to see a pair of white tennis shoes standing in the bathroom doorway.

  “Who you runnin’ from, young man? I asked to see yo face! When I ask to see yo face, you let me see yo face, damnit. Hollis, are you listenin’ to me? First you try and lock me outta the bathroom? Now you fixin’ to ignore me?”

  Haylay pulled the towel from his face and heard a gasp.

  “Hollis Heathcliff Jackson!” the woman with the blackest skin Haylay had ever seen yelled as she pointed a fat finger down at his face. “Are you wearin’ a woman’s clothes? And a woman’s hair? And a bra?”

  Haylay suddenly snapped out of his stupor and realized he was being challenged. He pushed himself up to his knees and glared at the woman.

  “Bitch, do I look like…!”

  As soon as the word bitch escaped his mouth, he regretted it. The King Kong-sized woman in the flowered dress rained closed fists down at his face. Closed fists and open palms, both of which seemed to pack a hell of a punch.

  “You lousy little son of a bitch! I done been lookin’ afta you since you was foe years old, and this is the respect you be givin’ Mrs. Curtis?”

  As quickly as the woman had snapped into the nastiest wave of anger Haylay had ever witnessed, she backed off and tears burst from her eyes.

  “Oh my God, baby!” she said. “You’s gay, ain’tcha Hollis? The girls at the pool been tellin’ me yous gay, but I ain’t believe it. Ohhh baby, when yo daddy finds out he gonna kill ya. And you ain’t gon be able ta show ya face in church no more. Oh Lord, tis the end of yo world, Hollis. Why you done did this?”

  Haylay recovered from the barrage of kung fu open palm strikes he’d encountered and made his way out of the bathroom. He sat down on the bed, a few feet away from Mrs. Curtis.

  “Mrs. Curtis?” Haylay asked, testing the waters.

  She had said that was her name, right? God, he hoped he was right. This woman was about to lose her mind, and Haylay didn’t like being on the losing end of it. She suddenly leaned forward and hugged him, burying his face in her shoulder.

  “Baby, why you callin’ me Mrs. Curtis? I ain’t that mad atcha. I’m still Mama C. to ya, you know that. What’s wrong with you, Hollis? It’s them boys down at the studio again, ain’t it? They beat you up again?”

  “I’m just tryin’ to be myself, Mama C.,” Haylay said, hoping those were the right words to move this conversation in a good direction.

  “Baby, you shoulda done told me you was gay. Oh, you gon have ta leave this house. Yo daddy gon kill ya. How he gon preach last Sunday ‘bout bein’ a pure Christian, then tell his congregation his son dressin’ like a woman?”

  Mrs. Curtis’ eyes welled up again with tears that broke free and ran down her cheeks.

  “I guess it’s ‘bout time you get ya own place. I always said it ain’t healthy for no boy to be livin’ with his daddy when he’s almost thirty years old.”

  Haylay shook his head and looked at the room around him. Posters were all over the wall. Singing in the Rain, Some Like It Hot, Cabaret, and other movie posters were plastered everywhere. A life-sized cutout of Marilyn Monroe stood in the corner of the room, right next to a similar one of Liza Minnelli. Suddenly a song blasted from a cell phone up on the dresser. Cher sang, “Do you believe in life after love?”

  That was this dude’s ringtone? Haylay didn’t know how he recognized the things in the room, but he did, and he had to wonder how on earth this guy’s dad, and apparently Mrs. Curtis, hadn’t noticed he was gay.

  “He’s quite possibly gayer than I am,” Haylay thought aloud.

  “What?” Mrs. Curtis asked.

  “Nothin, I was just thinkin’ out loud. Look, Mrs…Mama C. I don’t mean to disappoint you. I just…I’m just tryin’ to be myself. I didn’t mean for you to catch me lookin’ like this,” Haylay said.

  Mrs. Curtis hugged him once more.

  “I know, baby. You a sweet boy. Always have been,” she said as she hugged him tight and stood to exit the room. She turned back to him as she was about to open the door. “Please, fo the love a God, take off that women’s stuff. Yo daddy gon kill ya,” she said once more as she slipped out of the room.

  Haylay collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, where he saw a poster of Johnny and Baby having their final dance at the end of Dirty Dancing.

  “Seriously?”

  The door to the bedroom swung open.

  “You did it?” squeak
ed a young woman’s voice.

  Haylay sat up and stared at the girl, who was very pretty, but couldn’t be a day over seventeen. He was trying to figure out a way to ask the girl her name and who she was, when relief came in the way of Mrs. Curtis screaming from somewhere else in the house.

  “Heather! What I tell ya ‘bout leavin’ dishes at the table? Just cause I’m a housekeeper don’t mean I’m gon clean up yo mess!”

  “Sorry, Mama C.!”

  Haylay studied the pretty girl for a moment. It was all slowly making sense as he felt himself start to adapt to his surroundings. His reflection’s name was Hollis, who lived in this house way later in life than he should have, with his father and his sister, Heather. Mrs. Curtis was the housekeeper, definitely not the real mama.

  “Why you look like a chick?” Heather asked, biting at her bottom lip to show her disapproval. “You said you were gonna tell dad you were gay, but you didn’t say anything about cross-dressing.”

  “Heather,” Haylay played with the word on his lips.

  “What?”

  “Why you got a white girl’s name?” he asked, not really joking at all.

  Luckily for him Heather thought he was and picked up a pillow to throw it at him.

  “You should talk with a white ass name like Hollis. That’s a straight up Abercrombie & Fitch name.”

  Haylay suddenly got the sense that they played this game all the time.

  “Heather Heather, white as a feather.”

  “Oh, good one, never heard that one before, jerk,” she said as she walked over to his armoire mirror to check her hair.

  Haylay could see her looking at him through the reflection.

  “If you’re gonna look like a girl, at least look like a pretty one. You look like hell,” she said.

  Haylay gasped and considered going off on the girl, but remembered he’d been swimming in a river, nearly eaten by a savage wolf-like creature, and had slept on the muddy ground. She was probably right.

  “And how’d you get rid of your black eye and all that? You just got your ass handed to you and your face is nearly spotless.”

  She was asking too many questions. He considered fessing up, just telling her the truth, but would she believe something as crazy as the story he had to tell? Maybe not. Probably not. And if she didn’t believe him, it could backfire.

  Heather sat down next to him and leaned against his shoulder.

  “At least you stopped crying,” she said. “I’ve been picked on plenty in school. The black girls don’t like me ‘cause they say I act white and the white girls don’t like me ‘cause they say I’m not one of them. My two best friends are Mexican and Chinese. And sometimes I think we’re only friends because of the situation.”

  Haylay felt sorry for the girl.

  “I know you want to kill the guys who beat you up last night. Or change dance schools, but neither is the answer, big brother,” she said. “Any dance school you go to could be on the same street as a bar full of assholes, and if it’s not a bar, it might be something else. Hell, a nearby gym could be full of jock assholes. And killing the guys who did that to you will only land your pretty ass in jail.”

  She kissed him on the cheek and started for the door.

  “Can you do me a favor, sweetie?” Haylay asked.

  “Sweetie?” the girl asked as she turned around to face him.

  “Call me Haylay, at least when dad’s not around.”

  “Hailey? And you said I had a white girl’s name?”

  “No, Hay Lay.”

  “The hell’s a Haylay?”

  “It’s just a name, that’s all. It’s what I’d like to be called.”

  She rolled her eyes and continued toward the door.

  “Change into something more presentable before dad gets home,” she called out over her shoulder. She then turned toward him, looked him over once again, and shook her head. “And I’ll go with you later to find a good wig, and some pretty clothes, if that’s how you want to dress yourself. If you’re gonna be my sister, you’re gonna have to be a little more fashionable than that. At least we can do something about the way you look if you’re gonna stick with that God awful name.”

  When she left the room, the world was strangely silent. Haylay had never been in a world so quiet. Even at Sanctuary in the Blue Capped Mountains, he’d never been surrounded by no sound at all. He closed his eyes for a moment and let it all soak in. Birds chirped outside, but that was all.

  He glanced at the clock on the dresser. It was 7:00 a.m., and outside the sun was shining, even brighter than it had shined on his side of the mirror. As he lay there in peace, enjoying the tranquility this new life had to offer, he suddenly felt the urge to kill.

  Heather had mentioned a dance studio, near a bar, and assholes who’d beaten him up. That was the source of the pain the real Hollis had felt. It was the calling card that had summoned Haylay and brought him through the mirror. It was the reason he was here and suddenly it made all the sense in the world.

  He would hunt down the men responsible for Hollis’ pain and suffering, and he’d kill them slowly, with a grin on his face. He was an image after all; it’s what they were made for. Why should he be any different?

  Chapter 5 - Below a Different Deck

  The underbelly of the ship was as different as its inhabitants. Viking’s area was dark, dirty, and smelled of beer and sex. The strange carvings of his people marked the wooden posts of his bunk. Scraps of old weapons had been tossed about.

  A woman lay naked on his bed, sleeping, with only a woven blanket covering her ass. His bed was wide open for viewing as he, like his people, had no shame in letting others view his sexual antics. He was a man and didn’t mind if anyone saw the things he could do to a woman. At least that’s how he’d explained it to Slither the first time he’d asked the big bastard to do his thing in private.

  Slither’s area of the ship was nice and tidy. Incense burned from a small plate atop a nightstand. The smell of jasmine filled the air. His bunk was hidden by a veil of Japanese-style silks draped down to provide privacy to his sleeping area. In front of his bunk was a round mat used for meditation, which was how Slither spent a good part of every day. He took pride in cleanliness and felt that living in the right atmosphere kept your mind as free from clutter as your body.

  It was Changeling’s part of the ship that bothered Slither most. His/hers was the oddest area. Its bunk was a strange place that smelled of strawberries. Covering the bunk from view was a sheet of red leather, and sticking out from the material was a lady’s leg all smooth and shiny, and a man’s, muscular and hairy. Changeling was accustomed to sleeping with both a man and a woman at all times, just to make sure that both sides of his personality were always pleased.

  It had sickened Slither at first, but he’d grown used to hearing the howling of a man and the sighing of a woman. Surrounding Changeling’s bunk, hanging on the wall behind it, were strange masks collected from all parts of the world.

  At the center of the living areas, the three assassins sat at an old wooden table playing a game of cards. Viking’s wooden chair was leaned back on its rear legs so that the back was resting on his bunk, where the naked woman lay snoring. In his right hand was a large mug made of bone. He swallowed what remained in the mug and then slammed it down hard against the table, causing all of the cards and wooden playing chips to rattle.

  Slither hissed and flicked out his tongue while trying to steady his chips.

  “You looossssse,” Slither said with a sly grin.

  Viking tossed his handful of playing cards down onto the table. They had strange hand-drawn symbols on them.

  “Hargh! You’re a fucking cheater!” Viking howled. “I shoulda expected it from a snake like you. Hargh!”

  With Viking’s second “hargh” the girl behind him moved a little, but didn’t fully wake.

  “I don’t know how anyone could sleep through that dreadful ruckus of yours. Geez, you’re a loud one,” Changeli
ng said with his feminine face and voice, looking oddly sexy to Slither, who had to shake the thought quickly from his mind.

  Viking stared at her for a second, as if considering what it might be like to be with her, but then she turned to her manly self and Viking shook his shoulders loose and snarled. He reached down to adjust his cock and spit a wad of phlegm onto the floor.