Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative Page 29

  He descended another step toward me and I backed away.

  “That’s far enough,” I said.

  “I can’t believe you’re resisting.”

  “Like you said, isn’t that obvious?”

  “You disappoint me,” Mac said, descending another of the porch steps, “but you don’t surprise me.”

  He was gearing up for an attack, but for once he would have to play it safe. He couldn’t risk hurting me. If he killed me then he couldn’t complete his plan. It gave me another edge, a better chance to stop him. Mac stepped off the porch, but I stood my ground.

  “I told you to stay where you are.”

  My car was close, but there was nothing inside it that would protect me. I hoped a weapon was inside the house. I had to get in there, but I had to be smart about it. Running around to the back door wouldn’t do any good. Mac would be all over me. No, the only way in was through the front door.

  “You know I’m going to have to stop you,” I said.

  Mac laughed, but before he could say anything, I charged at my shadow. Leading with my shoulder, I thundered into him. My shoulder slammed into his gut and the air exploded from his chest before we merged again. I knifed through his flesh and we dissolved into each other. We crashed to the ground at the base of the steps, conjoined. I tried to tear myself away as I’d done before, but my strength deserted me.

  Memories and feelings bled out, but I didn’t die from this wound thanks to a transfusion from Mac. His past nourished my depleted character. Vivid images poured into my consciousness. I was with him in Trant’s institution. He tricked a young doctor into the sep-tank during a therapy session and stabbed her to death with her own pen. He then slaughtered two guards with the same pen before relieving them of their weapons. I closed my eyes to blot out the visions, but the avalanche kept coming. The finale to Mac’s escape was brilliant in its depravity. He’d broken out all the other shadow personalities, unleashing a hundred other killers imprisoned by the Trant method. Fueled by disgust, I wrenched myself away.

  “My God, what have you done?”

  I scrambled toward the house, climbing the porch steps on my hands and knees. I didn’t find my feet until I was through the doorway. I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it before he could recover. I knew it wouldn’t hold him for long, but I just needed some breathing space. I wondered if he had a gun, but didn’t think so. That wasn’t his style—our style. Knives were. I raced into the kitchen ripping out drawers, their contents spilling onto the floor.

  “You can’t prevent the inevitable,” Mac shouted.

  “That’s what you think,” I muttered to myself as I groped among the fallen cutlery for a butcher knife.

  Mac slammed a boot heel against the door. Wood splintered. The door wouldn’t last much longer under that kind of punishment, but it didn’t matter. I was ready to end his plan before it had the chance to blossom.

  After two more devastating blows, the door exploded off its hinges. Mac raced into the kitchen. I stopped him in his tracks, though. I jammed the knife against my throat. My move was a little too zealous and I broke the skin. Blood trickled from the wound.

  Fury contorted his face into an ugly caricature. Is that how I’d looked to my victims? Was that the last image the innocent had etched onto their retinas before they died? Poor bastards. Well, no more. It wouldn’t happen again.

  “Do you really think killing yourself will stop me?” Mac’s question was full of contempt.

  “Yes, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  He didn’t say anything, but a faint tremor shook his body. He knew I was right and he was screwed.

  “You need my body because you’re not complete.”

  “Neither are you,” he spat back.

  “But not like you. Me” —I bounced the tip of the knife off my chest— “I’m devoid of a personality trait. That’s no hardship. I can get by just fine without you, but you—you’re a snakeskin to be sloughed off and left to rot.”

  It was clear Mac wanted to kill me with an intensity that threatened to split him, but knew he couldn’t if he were to survive. I had the upper hand, but I wasn’t safe. A cornered animal reacts unpredictably and can’t be trusted.

  “You won’t do it,” he barked. “I’ve seen inside you. You’re a mundane little nobody. You need this second chance.”

  A few hours earlier I would have agreed with him. I hated my life and the shapeless excuse for a person that I’d become. The opportunity to be my old self and to kill again was a temptation I was only inches from accepting, but experiencing the victimization I’d handed out to so many people changed that. I learned something Trant’s treatment and Westerman’s therapy hadn’t taught me. I valued life—all life—including my own. If I were pushed, I even valued Mac’s.

  “I’ve read you, too. Without my body, you’ll die,” I said. “You’re weak. Your battery is running down. How long have you got left—months or days?”

  “What are you going to do, wait until I shrivel up?”

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

  “Why did you let the others out?”

  “Did you like that? I thought it was cool.” His mouth broke into a grin. “I couldn’t let my comrades in arms rot when there was a chance for everyone. Besides, it helped with my escape. With so many of us on the loose at once, the cops couldn’t launch an effective manhunt to catch anyone.”

  “Trant never should have tried to study the shadow personalities. He should have destroyed them when he had the chance.”

  “Well, I think he knows that now.”

  I detected an air of change in Mac. His frustration dissipated. He’d thought of something or I’d missed something. Whatever it was, he believed he had an edge. His gaze fixated above and to the right of my head. Unease settled on my shoulders and my poker face was lost.

  “Where are they now?” I asked.

  Mac shrugged. “Who knows? Probably trying to find their host selves.”

  “Is that how you see me—as a host?”

  Mac shrugged again. “Seeing as we’re being honest and all, and that it’s unlikely this little reunion is going to end pretty, yes, you’re a host, a sweet ride for me to travel about in.”

  He made some unnecessary hand gesture to distract me and edged half a step toward me, still looking at the spot over my damn shoulder. I wasn’t supposed to notice, but I was shit scared and I noticed everything. I still couldn’t see what he was looking at. I didn’t want to take my eyes off him to check. Fresh waves of sweat dotted my forehead and trickled from my armpits.

  “Well, you just lost your ride.”

  “Is that right?” He spoke directly to the spot this time and edged another half step. “You keep talking about ending it all, but I don’t see you doing anything about it.” He edged another half step.

  He was a mere stride from being within arm’s reach. My butt was backed against the countertop and I had nowhere to run. If he lunged, he would ensnare me. I had the knife in my favor, but I didn’t have his murderer’s dexterity. I reckoned it made us less than even—in his favor. I didn’t think he could prevent me from slashing my own throat, but I wasn’t sure I could do it.

  The moments we’d merged had shown me another possibility. I had something to live for now. I had a plan and a future, but for it I needed my shadow back. I knew it would break Trant’s heart if he was alive, but I needed to be one again. What the hell was he looking at? I turned and saw nothing over my shoulder. It had been a ruse and I’d fallen for it. I knew what would come next. Mac lunged. From the corner of my eye, I caught his smile. He thought he had me, but this is what I wanted him to do.

  I whirled to face him. His arms were outstretched, aiming for my throat. I lashed out with the knife. The blade was sharp and his shadow flesh was weak. The knife severed his right hand. Shock felled him, but didn’t curb his momentum and he lumbered forward, embedding himself into me. His chin melted into my neck. My chest dissol
ved into his. I caught a glimpse of our Siamese twin act in the reflection of the pots and pans hanging over the kitchen island. The curved surfaces distorted our merger beyond revulsion.

  “What have you done?” he murmured, as we exchanged thoughts and he glimpsed my plan. I fought to push him away and separate us. We couldn’t rejoin yet, not while he still had his other hand—a killer’s hand—or I would never have control. I had to remove his remaining hand. He knew this. My thoughts were his thoughts as we dissolved into each other and he bear-hugged me to prevent our separation. He sank deeper into my flesh.

  “Don’t do this,” he pleaded.

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  I swung a leg behind his and leaned my weight against him. It unbalanced us and we tumbled. I aimed our entwined bodies at the kitchen table. Mac connected with the wooden surface; I didn’t. Flesh and shadow flesh were entangled, but the merger made them weak. I thought we’d simply separate, but the impact tore us apart. Flesh ripped, bones snapped, and veins severed.

  Now we really did need each other. Sinew kept my destroyed jaw in place. A gaping hole in my chest resembled a matching wound in Mac’s. A portion of his missing skull clung to a knot of flesh at my neck. He writhed on the linoleum, blood pumping from his wounds. I crawled over to him with the butcher knife still in my grasp. I grabbed his arm and he tried to fight me off, but it was a feeble effort. I pinned his remaining hand to the ground and placed the blade over his wrist.

  “No,” he murmured.

  I ignored him and leaned my weight on the knife. The blade passed through flesh and bone but I didn’t rest up until I felt it bite into the vinyl below. Mac whimpered in defeat.

  I tossed the knife away and rolled on top of my shadow. Neither of us fought our reunification. We let nature take its course. I felt him invade me. That rage and total disregard for humanity wormed its way into my way of thinking, refreshing old tendencies. I feared I’d made a mistake and for all I’d done to prevent the beast roaming within, it wouldn’t make any difference. But the fear didn’t last long. What was bad about him bled into me, and what was good about me bled into him. My humanity tempered his lack of one. Happiness bloomed within me and I would have smiled if unconsciousness hadn’t claimed me.

  When I awoke, daylight was breaking over the horizon. I moved my body and found it obeyed me. I struggled to my feet. I was blood-soaked and so was the kitchen, but I wasn’t injured except for a pair of old-looking scars encircling both wrists.

  As I ran my head under the faucet, my body felt like my own. Mac wasn’t trapped genielike in the recesses of my soul or a puppet master operating my strings. We were integrated, but not like before. I was someone new, in possession of certain skills that I would now need.

  I burned the farmhouse, using gas siphoned from Trant’s car. The fire claimed my three wise men and I didn’t want to leave until their bodies were ashes, but I drove off when the sirens drew close. I couldn’t be apprehended now. I hit the road, but I didn’t head home. That life, like the one before it, was over. I picked up the interstate instead to begin a new life—chasing shadows.

  “Kieran Malcolm,” I said to myself, naming the man who had entered the sep-tank after me. Kieran lived the closest, just across the Nevada border. I hoped his shadow hadn’t caught up with him yet, because I wanted to be waiting. His would be the first—the first shadow I would kill.

  — | — | —

  THE FOLLY

  ROBERT DUNBAR

  Thick and viscous floodwaters lapped at the small island. Mud particles swirled in the current, as did nearly microscopic organisms upon which thousands of tiny fish gorged before being swallowed in turn by their larger brethren. Egg cases clogged the vegetation. Tadpoles and water moccasins teemed in this primordial soup, and a fetid stench pressed the islet almost as heavily as the swamp waters. In spots where accumulated ooze drizzled back from the leaves of sodden trees, it seemed to rain perpetually.

  The monster approved.

  Fluid churned darkly as the creature waded onto denser mud, then heaved itself onto a tilting oak. Green with slime, even the trunk felt slick, but claws dug in. One thick branch led to another, then to one still further and the next. Drawing as near as it dared to the giant alligator, the monster settled on a limb to watch.

  ««—»»

  The child turned away from the kitchen door. “It will kill us all.”

  “Hush!” exclaimed Grandmother Fontaine, rattling her cup and saucer. “What’s wrong with that girl?”

  “Stop upsetting your grandmother, Cass.” Daphne reached for the cream. “Apologize at once.” At the far end of the table, older siblings smirked, but their mother shot them a look. “And don’t you muscle-bound louts utter a word.”

  “I am sorry to upset you, Grandmother,” intoned Cassie. “But it will kill us.”

  “Cass!” The child’s mother massaged her temples. Barely even dressed yet, Daphne could already feel the migraine starting. She tugged at her dressing gown. Though hardly the way she preferred to appear at the breakfast table, she found it so difficult to maintain standards on the island anymore, especially after being abandoned by the last of the servants. Unpaid wages indeed. Surely some things in this world were more important than mere money. And now the child showed definite indications of having inherited “colorful behavior” from her father’s side of the family. (Not that much else remained to inherit.) So difficult. The pain in Daphne’s skull throbbed. Twining a stray lock of unnaturally blond hair behind one ear, she reached for the crystal decanter and poured a generous slug of brandy into her coffee. Perhaps she could dress for lunch.

  “It will.” Ignoring her mother, which required little effort, the child calmly buttered another piece of toast, spreading the butter with meticulous precision. Obviously, it needed to be exactly even. When at last it met with her approval, she cast an expectant glance toward her Aunt Pandora before taking a bite.

  At the far end of the table, Pandora noted the look and nodded. “I saw it again.”

  “But you’re insane, dear,” said Grandmother. “Pass the butter, Cassie, if you’re quite through.”

  “I saw it,” repeated Aunt Dora (as they sometimes called her) undaunted. She was accustomed to this sort of treatment. Many years before, while watching an old Bette Davis film on television, Pandora Fontaine had been struck by the moment when the leading man asked, “Is it Miss or Misses?” only to have the heroine reply, “It’s Aunt—every family has one.” Pandora had never forgotten it, if only because people so often insisted that she looked like Bette Davis, which she never interpreted as a compliment. Davis’ glamour eluded her. She thought the woman just looked nuts. “Yes, Horace,” Pandora acknowledged. “I see you. Here, Virgil, pass this to your brother before he pitches a fit. And I did catch a glimpse of it from my bedroom window last night. It came all the way to the edge of the garden and stood there, looking up at the house.”

  “They put people away for saying stuff like that,” said Great Uncle Jason, nodding in simultaneous disapproval (of her remark) and approval (of his own). “Y’all just remember your grandmother,” he added to the group at large.

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “Not you. The other one.”

  “I tell you, it was there again,” insisted Pandora. “Didn’t you hear the dogs barking?”

  “Ain’t there no more bacon?”

  “Where them dogs at anyways?” wondered Uncle Jason.

  “Outside somewheres, I suppose,” Daphne hazarded. “Where else would they be? Now let’s have no more of this unpleasantness at table, shall we?” Daphne hoped to steer the conversation toward a trip into town she planned to make this week. Perhaps planned was too strong a word. She’d need someone to handle the boat, and of course some cash would be pleasant. “Coffee, Uncle Jason, dear?” She leaned forward and played with her curls in what she ardently prayed still constituted a fetching manner. While smiling, she allowed her gaze to stray toward poor Pandora—now
that’s who truly needed a trip to the beauty parlor, as Daphne had so often helpfully suggested. But would Dora listen? Stubborn creature. The old maid of the family—small wonder she looked prematurely middle-aged. Her figure had possibilities, one had to admit, and her eyes might not be bad, what one could see of them, if only she would learn not to stare so intently through those thick glasses. But as for that hair (which had obviously never been cut in her life) and this unfortunate tendency to wear her dead father’s old clothing…

  “So when’s that photographer coming?” asked Virg suddenly.

  “Uncle Jason, dear. I was wondering if…”

  “What photographer?”

  Daphne frowned at the interruption. Actually, she frowned a great deal when it concerned her boys. Constantly in fact. Especially now that the twins, often fondly referred to by their mother as “those oafs,” neared twenty. Could they be small-boned and delicate boys whose diminutive stature belied their (and her) age? No. Of course not. Virgil and Horace just had to be overgrown goons.

  “They don’t never miss breakfast,” Horace mused.

  “Photographers?”

  “No, stupid, the dogs.”

  “What photographer?” asked Cassie.

  “Don’t be all the time calling your brother stupid,” said Grandmother. These carryings on did not amuse her. Why could they never have a civilized meal?

  “How come? He is, ain’t he?”

  “Next week sometime.”

  “Am not!”

  “What photographer?”

  “What’s this about next week?” Grandmother felt herself growing heated. More than anything in the world, she detested being ignored and when frustrated resorted to volume. “And why is everybody always picking on poor Horace?” she shouted.

  “Thanks, Grammy.”

  “Don’t you call me that! If I’ve told you once…”

  “Another magazine wants to do a piece about the house,” explained Pandora patiently, though they’d had this conversation several times already. Repetition remained one of her major functions within the family.