by Ian Rogers
Chapter 11
I could probably have left Donovan’s warehouse at that point and still felt a sense of accomplishment. I had no mind toward seeing justice done or carrying out revenge for the deaths of Jimmy Logan and Eve Sutter. I didn’t know them, and the vehicle of their destruction was now up on blocks. They had taken the drug of their own volition – Donovan was right about that if nothing else – and drugs do kill. It was that age-old public service announcement. All Donovan had done was put a Halloween mask on it.
Unfortunately, curiosity had me by the low and dangly parts. Call it an occupational hazard.
After loading the regular bullets back into my gun, I went over to the door Donovan had gone through. It led into a hallway that bypassed rows of offices with glass partitions that looked like cages in some Dilbert-esque zoo. At the far end I came to a small room with a door on the far side. Standing next to the door was something that made me stop in my tracks.
It was another containment chamber – a pink one.
There was no machine set up in front of it, no dump-bin filled with blister packs, but that didn’t mean it was empty.
I could have, and probably should have, left it for the PIA, but by then the curiosity was pulsing through me in heavy noisome waves. I was sick with it. Is there anything more tempting than an unopened box? Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.
I found the manual release for the locks and popped them open. Then, with my gun hanging by my side, I pulled open the heavy steel door.
A cold breeze wafted over me, chilling me to the marrow. Then it was gone.
The chamber was empty.
I heard a clicking sound and whirled around.
I had been so absorbed by the pink containment chamber that I didn’t get a good look at the door. I figured it led out to the back of the warehouse, and that was how Donovan had made his escape. But as I looked closer I saw it wasn’t just an ordinary door. It was one of those doors.
It had been left open a crack, and a breeze from the other side was pushing it lightly like a prodding finger. I put my hand on the knob knowing it was a bad idea and pulled it open. I stood on the threshold and gazed out on the Black Lands.
A field of tall grass stretched off endlessly. A moon twice the size as the one that filled our sky covered everything in a silver glow. The grass wavered in a chill breeze like thousands of tapering sword blades. It always looked like this here, I realized. There were no sunny days in the Black Lands. It was paradise for vampires and werewolves alike.
The open door was a taunt. Donovan wanted me to follow him through, but he knew I wouldn’t. Travelling to the Black Lands wasn’t inherently dangerous, just like swimming in the ocean wasn’t inherently dangerous. When you jump into shark-infested waters, the sharks may leave you alone, or they might tear you to pieces; it depended on various factors, none of which I felt like testing at that particular moment.
Put a stake in me. I was done for the night.
Chapter 12
Well, almost done.
I went over to the door’s power supply – a black box with thick insulated cables running into the doorframe – and emptied my gun into it. The box spewed some sparks, then some smoke.
I made the call to Agent Keel as I walked back to my car. I told him I’d answer all of his questions in the morning, after some sleep, coffee and maybe a heart attack or two.
But first I had a stop to make.
Chapter 13
There were no photographers or reporters or manic movie fans to push through at the film set. I checked my watch and saw it was coming on three in the morning.
Van’s trailer door was open, so I let myself in and went directly to the note that I knew I’d find. It was pinned to a drafting table covered with storyboard drawings. I didn’t bother to read it. I knew what it would say. I’m sorry for this, I regret doing that, please forgive me. By tomorrow it would be reprinted in all of the entertainment news rags.
I saw something on the floor and bent down to pick it up. It was a cardboard sheet similar to the ones I found at Donovan’s warehouse, except the tablets in these blister packs were pink, and the word stamped on them was different. One of packs was open, a single pill gone.
I felt a cold breeze slip past me. I dropped the sheet and followed it out.
“Boo.”
Author’s Note
The question I’m most often asked about the Felix Renn/Black Lands stories is if I was planning to make it a series when I first wrote Temporary Monsters.
The answer is no… and yes.
When I first came up with the idea that became Temporary Monsters, I really had only one thing in mind, and that was to write a story that combined my two favourite genres, horror and detective fiction. This was by no means an original concept. Plenty of other authors had written such stories. I’d even tried it myself a year or so earlier in a short story called “Relaxed Best.”
I thought Temporary Monsters would be an amusing follow-up to that earlier story, something longer and more in-depth, as well as a fun way to spoof on the film industry in Toronto.
Even though I started writing with the thought that it would be a one-off, I could tell from the onset that Temporary Monsters was going to be very different kind of story for me. What started as a simple mash-up of Stephen King and Robert B. Parker (I sometimes describe Felix Renn as a “supernatural Spenser”) quickly turned into a jumping-off point for a whole series of stories exploring this dark world where the supernatural exists as a matter of course.
I knew this by the amount of material I had to remove from the original version of Temporary Monsters, and the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to delete it outright. This material was mostly background on the Black Lands, stuff that wasn’t really relevant to the plot, but I could see potential in it for some other stories.
Sometimes the best ideas are the ones you never see coming. The ones that seemed to fall out of thin air. As if out of a portal.
– Ian Rogers, 2012
About the Author
Ian Rogers is a writer, artist, and photographer. His short fiction has appeared in several publications, including Cemetery Dance, Supernatural Tales and Shadows & Tall Trees. He is the author of Every House Is Haunted, a collection of dark fiction from ChiZine Publication, and Deadstock, a Weird Western novella from Stonebunny Press. Ian lives with his wife in Peterborough, Ontario. For more information, visit ianrogers.ca.
To learn more about Felix Renn and the Black Lands, visit theblacklands.com.
