No Rest for the Wicked

No Rest for the Wicked

Milo Brooks slowed the late model Civic as he approached a large section of tree blocking a portion of the one-lane country road. He hadn’t paid the twenty-five dollar fee to cover his ass in case of damage to the car, so caution ruled his foot. After passing the downed limb, he checked his watch and stomped his foot down on the accelerator.

The book signing had started ten minutes before, but he couldn’t go any faster than the Honda’s small engine and poor road conditions allowed. The fans were just gonna have to wait.

He hadn’t seen it or heard about it on the news, but this stretch of road must have weathered a hell of a storm the night before. More than once he’d had to swerve to miss scattered debris, or dodge water filled potholes deep enough to be considered lakes. As he searched forward through the gloom of the sun’s last rays, his phone began to ring.

As he leaned over the steering wheel to better see the road ahead, he felt along the passenger seat, walking his fingers over and around a scattered pile of copies of his last novel. If it was Liz calling again, he could ignore it—he’d already said all he needed to about the pregnancy and had nothing to add. ‘I’m not ready for a baby’ should have been good enough for her; it sure was for him. Also, he couldn’t help wondering why Liz thought was it his fault if her diaphragm couldn’t stop a persistent swimmer.

On the other hand, if it was Dillon, he didn’t want to miss it. There were a few choice words on ‘small town book signings’ he planned on sharing with his future ex-agent. He was thinking he might begin that conversation with something like, ‘What were you thinking?’

Just as his fingers closed on the telephone, a tire hit a rut, jolted the steering wheel from his three-fingered grasp, and whipped the car toward the ditch. He grabbed the wheel with both hands, straightened the car, and then dipped sideways for the phone, which had fallen into the foot-well.

Success.

He snatched it up, saw a blocked number, but answered anyway.

‘Hello?’

At first, silence and mingled static met his query. Then: ‘Mr. Brooks?’

‘One and the same. Is there something I can help you with? You must be..?’

The only immediate response was a distinctive hiss of the local shit-hole’s total lack of cell range. After another glance at his watch, he shook his head. ‘Is this about the book-signing? If it is, I should be there shortly. Just got a little turned around, is all.’

‘No. I’m sorry. It’s nothing like that, Mr. Brooks. It’s about the girl.’

An image of his ex-girlfriend surfaced: She was sitting with Shelly—her best friend and one of the biggest bitches on the planet—whining about how he’d “run off and left her”.

‘Liz? You’re calling about Liz? Alright, listen: I know this isn’t Shelly, so who the hell are you, and how the fuck did you get my number?’

The woman chuckled. ‘No, Mr. Brooks, this is about your future.’

Great, he thought, a psychic telephone solicitor…on a cell phone, no less. ‘Well, as I’m up to my elbows in shitty road conditions, would you mind sharing so I can pretend I give a shit, politely say no, then get back to driving?’

Amid the static, there was another soft chuckle. ‘Sure. It’s about time anyway.’

‘About time for what?’

‘The girl.’

‘Girl? What girl?’

‘My…associate. She’s right in front of you.’

The phone fell from his hand as he spotted a cloaked figure—not twenty feet ahead—step out from behind a bush. As he slammed both feet down on the brakes, the car lurched into a slide—and canned laughter wafted from the cell’s small speaker. Still barrelling toward the figure, he yanked the wheel in the opposite direction, not seeing a twelve-foot section of downed tree until he was right on top of it.

The car impacted with the tree sideways, striking it along the passenger’s side, flipping the car up and over. It rolled twice before leaving the road. Upon striking the ditch’s far embankment, Milo flew from his seat and shattered the passenger window with his head. His vision blurred as he fought to hold onto the seat. The next flip slammed him back into the driver’s seat, and pasted him up against the door as the car came to a rocking stop, up on its side.

The engine sputtered and died, and silence descended over Milo’s world.

Before his face, his left hand trembled—a bone-scraping gash ran from his elbow to between the knuckles of his pinkie and third finger. Blood poured freely from the wound, but he felt nothing; neither the pain of the cut, nor the warmth of the blood as it coursed over the spastic hand. He couldn’t move the arm—he couldn’t move anything.

Out the driver’s window—and crushed flat like a slide under a microscope—was a sea of grass. Through the windshield the hood lay flat against the window, stealing any view that may have been afforded of the surrounding area.

A series of scuffling thuds—each accompanied by a gentle sway of the car—caused him to follow its progress. Each inch his head gained more painful than the last, but finally he gazed skyward, out the broken passenger window. Though no more than four feet away, the distance might as well have been four miles; so far, he’d only managed to be able to move his neck.

As he eyed the window, the dirty face of a child-vagabond appeared, her features twisted in concentration. She disappeared from sight only to return seconds later; this time, smiling—smiling and clutching a bright red ball.

The girl! Milo’s mind spun back to the mysterious woman caller.

‘She’s right in front of you.’

The girl stared expectantly down at him then presented the ball.

‘Ball,’ she said, more a cough than a word. She leaned into the car, causing stray fragments of broken window to dislodge and shower down upon him like a faux diamond hail storm.

‘Please,’ Milo whispered. ‘There’s a phone here beside my head. Can you reach it?’

The girl giggled and dropped the ball. It struck him on the cheek, emitting a child’s toy squeak upon impact, and then rolled to a stop before his face. She held out her hand, grasping the air between them. ‘Ball,’ she repeated.

Great, he thought, a retard.  ‘Little girl, I can’t—”

‘Ball!’ Her eyebrows came together and her upper lip curled into snarl.

Milo’s eyelids drooped and each breath, which became increasingly painful to draw. ‘The ball is here…right beside the phone. You can come get both, but please help me.’

The girl retracted her arm as she narrowed her gaze. Then, as quickly as she’d come, she was gone from the window. The car teetered in the wake of her departure, but remained on its side.

‘Little girl? Are you there..?’ In the seconds of panicked silence that followed, Milo distinctly heard a sigh—a sigh amplified through a tiny, crackling, speaker; the woman hadn’t disconnected the call. ‘Hello?’ he moaned. ‘Please…hang up and call an ambulance. I’m…I’m. I don’t know where I am…but I think I’m dying.’

He struggled to remain quiet as she answered, just loud enough to hear: ‘Oh, I know where you are, Mr. Brooks. You’re in Sanctum. Welcome.’

The last of the woman’s words still echoed through his head as the car rocked once, twice, then dropped over onto its tires. As a result, his face connected with the steering wheel then hurled him back into the window. Through the blood-smeared glass, he saw a knee-high clearing surrounded by a circle of tightly packed trees. And there, beside the car, stood the little girl. In a white-knuckled two-handed grip she held a stout, five-foot length of wood.

Even as he attempted to process the image of the girl even lifting a piece of tree that must have outweighed her by at least fifty pounds, she dropped it and bolted toward the car. In a rapid succession of movements, she punched through the window, grabbed him by the lapels of his sport coat, and yanked him from the car. Once his legs cleared the window, she let go and he fell to the ground. He landed sideways and momentum rolled him onto his back.

‘How?’ he croaked.

But the girl had already lost interest in him; she leaned through the broken window, her belly teetering on the frame, legs in the air for balance, and then re-emerged, smiling. In one hand she held his cell phone and, clutched to her chest like a golden egg, the red ball in the other.

Afraid as he was, Milo wanted to think what he’d seen the girl do was just his mind playing tricks—that he’d hit his head and shock had caused hallucinations. But he knew what he’d seen. He also knew he didn’t have much time left.

He even thought he could hear his time ticking away, ever-so-quietly, like a clock.

‘911. Call for help,’ he wheezed. A tingling sensation had developed after landing on the ground, beginning with his extremities, and wound its way through his body with the measured gait of a plodding elephant. Is this it? Is this how Milo Brooks, bestselling author of ‘Watch the Ham Run’, going to die?

Instead of fuelling his fear, the tingling brought with it a peacefulness he’d never felt before. He guessed this must have been what the act of surrendering felt like—even though there was still a screaming maniac in the back of skull, begging for a reprieve, another breath, another chance to…just be.

The straw-haired girl studied the telephone for a few seconds, as a befuddled frown creased her brow, then recognition struck and she moved it close to her ear. Possibly at something said into the phone by the woman on the other end, she flicked her eyes to Milo, then back to the ball still clutched to her filthy cloak. While turning the ball in her hand, she nodded to no one, took a deep breath, and then, with the exhale, triumphantly said, ‘Ball.’

She crouched and placed the phone to Milo’s ear. As dirty-caked as she was, she smelled far worse. An overpowering stench of sun-rotted carrion hit him, stealing his breath and causing his stomach to quiver in anticipation of an impromptu expulsion. Biting back nausea, he concentrated on the voice of the woman instead of the odour of the girl.

The woman’s tone, still light and on the verge of a chuckle, entered his head like honey: ‘I know this all must be very confusing for you, but don’t fret. Things will work out for the best. They always do. Good night for now and I’ll see you soon.’

Milo didn’t see the small fist approaching until just before the blow closed his eyes. Then there was nothing.

~~oOo~~

-A clock: it’s constant, familiar meter comforted him, kept him calm…

-the creak of a door hinge in need of oiling; a bark from some animal, cut off as the door closed…

-darkness, both utterly complete and without pause, kept him fearful…

These things anchored him, reassured him he was still Milo…still alive.

Muted dialogue filtered through the fog in his head as though the words themselves were bound in cotton. A few rapid blinks revealed nothing. His world remained black.

He was lying on his back (that much he knew from the cool, hardness beneath his head), but had no recollection of how he’d come to be there or who belonged to the disembodied voice off in the ether to his left.

‘Where am I?’ He thought he said, but wasn’t sure if he’d only heard the question in his mind.

Some noise must have passed his lips; the unknown speaker abruptly stopped, and footsteps approached his left side. A cold hand caressed his cheek, followed by a pinch as a fingernail dug into the tender skin below his right eye.

Panic quickly passed as he realized what was happening. Tape, he thought: a blindfold.

His suspicion was confirmed as a length of gauze was peeled away from his face. An unrecognizable blob stood before him; flesh tones, dark hair, and a long white jacket were all he could discern. Behind the shape, the room stood in gossamer relief, shimmering like a high noon desert landscape; above him a naked bulb glowed with the cold radiance of an exploding snowball.

‘Sorry,’ said a familiar female voice. ‘Your eyes wouldn’t stay shut so I covered them while I set your arm. No offense—I just find it creepy. And before you bother trying to move, you can’t. Spinal damage, I’m afraid. You know, you really should have been wearing your seatbelt, you silly, silly man.’

The car, the weird little girl, the phone call: all came to him in one rushed jumble. ‘You’re—’

The woman shushed him and bent closer to examine him; running her fingers over his skin, she flicked a pen-light across his vision. ‘My name is Greta, Mr. Brooks. You’ve had a terrible accident and I need you to remain calm while I see what else needs to be fixed. Do you think you can do that?’

Milo nodded. He really had no other options available. ‘Thanks, Doc,’ he whispered.

‘You’re very welcome, but I’m not a doctor…well, at least not that kind.’

Like the girl, her breath smelled of rotten things, long-dead things, of wet garbage—but oddly, also of peanut butter. Surrounding this bouquet was an overpowering aroma of lilac; possibly an overdose of perfume meant to mask the more intrusive odours. His mind drifted as the blurry head ‘hemmed and hawed’ through her examination: he thought it was funny how when one sense was on the fritz the rest picked up the slack. The steady rhythm of the clock seemed louder. Above the woman’s odd murmurs, he heard a light-footed step from further off.

And he thought he heard another clock.

Upon completing her examination, the woman—whose features Milo was able to see more clearly now that his eyes were able to focus—smiled a dimpled smile. ‘Never fear,’ she said. ‘I’ll have you up and walking again in no time.’ He watched, rather than felt, as she disarmingly squeezed his dead left hand. Then she added a little extra wattage to her smile. ‘You’re in good hands. You’ll see. I need to go speak to the council on your behalf right now, but I should only be a minute.’

As she turned to walk away her jacket parted, revealing a holstered handgun. He caught only a glimpse, but thought it was a snub-nosed .38. It was slung low on her hip, like gunslingers of old. He made a decision right then to do and say whatever this woman wanted. Whoever she was, she was also the reason he was lying there, despite her friendly demeanour. And she had a gun.

Not knowing whether he might be able to use the knowledge of the gun to his advantage later somehow, Milo quickly dropped his gaze to the third person in the room. Supergirl sat in the far corner (having no other reference than what he recalled of their roadside meeting, he guessed that to be a fitting a name as any for the girl). Still as filthy as he remembered, she was slumped forward with her legs spread, rolling a ball between her hands.

He continued to watch the girl until the door closed behind Greta.

Before he could formulate what he might say to her—or if he even would—the girl jumped up and crossed the room. Much the same as Greta before her, she bent close to his face. Mere inches from his nose, she barked a sharp report of laughter, causing him to involuntarily flinch, and then she sniffed at his neck like a dog before taking a step backward.

The girl shrugged and slowly dragged her thumb across her own neck. She finished the gesture by pointing at him. He didn’t need to speak ‘crazy’ to understand her message: she thought he was going to die. He’d already come to a similar conclusion—that if he stayed there he was a dead man.

‘No shit, Supergirl. Got any more startling revelations?’

Apparently she didn’t. Her lips tightened into a sour pucker.

Milo focused his gaze on the girl. ‘Are you a prisoner here too?’ The girl remained silent, and stared through him as though he were already a ghost. ‘Would you like to leave with me? I can pay you?’

She remained still for a moment. Wherever the clock was, it throbbed out its seconds; growing louder the longer the girl remained static. Finally, she nodded and held the ball out to him. ‘Ball,’ she said, as though that one word said it all.

He wanted to lash out, to take the ball from her and beat her to death with it. ‘Fuck your ball!’ he screamed, as blood-flecked spittle coloured his shirt. ‘That bitch is gonna let me die and all you want to do is play with your goddamned ball?’ He wanted to wail, to vent, but those few words winded him and the room warped before his eyes. Not finished speaking, but finished for right then, he said, ‘Fuck you,’ then closed his eyes.

Minutes later, as he basked in his own misery, a warmth began to spread where he’d previously not felt anything at all. He smelled urine—no surprise there—but he thought he could feel the liquid heat as his bladder emptied onto the table beneath him.

His eyes flew wide and his head jerked forward. The girl stepped back a pace at his sudden movement, instilling within him a small measure of satisfaction. Ignoring her, he instead peered down the length of his uninjured right arm. Concentrating with all his might, he willed his fingers to move, to shake, to do anything. But the fingers had plans of their own—plans that didn’t involve movement.

Exhausted from the strain of holding his head up, he slumped back, frustrated. There was no use. The sensation had been nothing more than one last joke upon a dying man. It seemed his mind had more tricks than a street whore.

Just as he’d convinced himself he’d imagined the warmth, and that he was indeed paralysed and going to die very shortly, something very curious happened: his mind sent him another lie. According to his brain, the inside of his right wrist had an itch.

He ignored the itch and continued with his own personal black mass. As he imagined his funeral, the itch moved down the back of his hand and tickled each finger, starting with his pinkie. As his imaginary funeral came to a close and the mourners began turning back toward their own lives, his right forefinger tapped the table.

Again, he stretched his gaze down his arm, this time staring at one finger in particular. Mister home key had something to say: Type me a ‘j’, finger—come on…

And it did. Ever so quickly, mister right-hand home key typed a ‘j’. This small victory meant something to him. If a finger could move, then he might not have been as bad off as Greta believed. Without another wasted second, he flexed the finger, then fingers, and, after several failed attempts, his wrist. Soon, he was keeping time with the tick-tock of the clock: tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap…

As Milo immersed himself in his newly reacquired dexterity, the front door opened and Greta darted into the room—her eyes round with fear, hair messed, and one jacket sleeve missing from the shoulder on down. She slammed the door and threw a series of bolts before slumping against it. Tucked under one arm, she carried a plastic box similar to the type used for picnics to keep the beverages cold. She set it on the floor beside the door.

Milo decided to keep his newly reacquired ability to move his fingers to himself. Then he began to do what writers do best. He plotted.

The girl walked over to Greta and raised her finger to trace a cut in the woman’s shoulder. Greta took the girl’s hand in both of hers and kissed it.

‘It’s nothing, Lily. Go play with your ball in the other room. I have some work to do.’

Lily. The girl’s name is Lily.

Lily hesitated, but did as she was told.

Milo raised his head as Greta approached. ‘What…what happened out there?’

She cupped a hand over the gash and chuckled ruefully. ‘It seems the council doesn’t approve of you.’

‘Council?’

‘Yes—of Sanctum.’

‘And they did that?’ he flicked his gaze to her shoulder. ‘That’s some town council.’

‘You have no idea,’ she said. A ripple passed over her features then vanished as a smile twisted one corner of her mouth. ‘Can you believe they wanted to let you die?’

Milo couldn’t formulate an answer to that.

‘But not to worry; I’ve changed a few minds.’

‘Really?’ he croaked. ‘About what?’

‘Why, about keeping you, silly. I said you’d live. I never said anything about allowing you to leave.’ Then she turned and strode to the window. With the curtain pulled back, Milo was afforded a view of the nightscape. Past her head he saw no trees or stars, just a ceaseless void—like they were trapped somewhere north of Hell’s foothills.

He thought of the cooler next to the door and shuddered. Some years back, he’d written a short story about an organ thief—‘Today’s Leftovers’ was the title—and couldn’t help but relive the fatal final scene. Is she going to steal my organs? And what kind of town council attacks its citizens?

Book signing forgotten, Liz and her baby forgotten, Milo had just one thing on his mind: Survival.

Before he lost himself to despair, he dared to ask, ‘What’s in the box, Greta?’

Without turning from the window, she said, ‘Your salvation, Mr. Brooks. Did you think it was a midnight snack?’

Milo thought he should have been relieved at her seeming willingness to want to help him, but couldn’t get past the fact that she’d never actually told him what was in the box.

Sensation had been slowly returning to his body, and he was very aware of its return. His torn left arm throbbed in time with his heart, sending arcs of pain charging through his body. Tiny beads of sweat blistered upon his forehead, grew fat, and slid back into his hairline.

Greta shed the torn jacket and held it aloft. She ‘tsk-ed’ twice then tossed the coat onto a chair. ‘I’ll be right back. I just need to freshen up a bit.’

He watched through half-lidded eyes as she floated back into the room a few minutes later. Whatever he decided to do it needed to happen soon; he needed to get away and find one of the other people she’d mentioned. He closed his eyes as she approached pushing a tray of gleaming instruments.

He knew what he needed to do.

She placed a hand upon his forehead. ‘Oh, you’re on fire with fever. I should get your I.V. set up.’

His eyes fluttered open at her words, though he kept them trained on the ceiling.

‘Could…could you come to the other side? I can’t see you.’

‘Certainly, Mr. Brooks, but I should tell you that if the surgery is left too long, you might end up like Lily.’ She circled the table and placed one hand on his chest and the other upon his brow, then leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially into his ear. ‘If you haven’t noticed, Lily’s a tad slow on the uptake. She wasn’t fresh like you. You’ll be better, like me—won’t that be nice?’

Above the ponderous thump of his own heart, a clock ticked down his final moments. He cleared his mind of all but one thought and then set about causing its fruition. ‘Tell you…something,’ he whispered.

‘Can it wait? We’ll have plenty of time to converse after you’re well enough—’

‘Closer,’ he mumbled. Each breath fed the fire raging through his chest.’

‘Very well,’ Greta said as she knit her brows, ‘but—for you own sake—do hurry.’ Then she moved closer and turned her ear to his mouth.

‘Godche…’

Greta pulled away, puzzled. ‘What was that? I couldn’t quite make it out.’

In a trembling hand, mister home key on the trigger, Milo lifted her revolver and pointed it at her face. ‘I said gotcha’ he sucked in a breath, ‘bitch.’

Greta folded her arms across her chest. ‘Honestly, Mr. Brooks. Do you actually think I’d carry a loaded weapon? You’re being quite silly. Give me the gun,’ she said, then reached out her hand, palm up.

Milo’s vision swam and the gun swayed with each laboured breath. ‘What’s… in… the… box, Greta?’

Greta scrutinized him, and then smiled defiantly. She obviously wasn’t accustomed to being questioned. After a glance at the tray, she reached sideways and picked up a scalpel.

‘Stop that,’ he said.

‘Stop what? This is an instrument. You’re the one holding my gun.’

With difficulty, he cocked the gun and closed one eye.

‘Alright, fine, I’ll tell you.’ She let the arm holding the scalpel fall to her waist. ‘Immortality, Mr. Brooks. The culmination of two-hundred years of research; the god-like infusion of youth, of outliving all future generations, of seeing what comes next, and then next again. Is that good enough for you? Now, give me the gun.’

‘No,’ he spat. ‘An…answer the fu…fucking…question.’ So damn tired. I just want to sleep…to be done with it. The realization that he was going to die came as a relief of sorts. The next time he closed his eyes it was for keeps, but would be on his terms.

‘See what you’ve done?’ she asked. ‘You’ve gone and screwed everything up.’

He didn’t mean to. Milo was no killer—he’d never been hunting, he’d never kill a spider—but her hand closed over his on the gun, and it went off. As one eye, then the other darkened, and a clock ticked ever faster, the image of the bullet penetrating her forehead played over and over and o—

Milo Brooks, author of many number one bestseller’s and father of a child he would never know, died at approximately 4:33am. July 2^nd, 2010. He never found out what was in the box.

~~o0o~~

The creature’s eyes opened sluggishly then slammed shut as a blinding white heat seared his retinas. Rage filled him and he pawed blindly, yet impotently, at the light. When he peeked again it was still there, but hurt less. The beast squinted and cautiously peered around. He thought he should know what to call the place where he was, but could think of nothing except that it had four walls. He would need to think on it.

As he thought, a distant, steady thump came to his attention, yet he couldn’t figure out from where it came. Its call was ‘tick-tick, tick-tick’. He found it to be wonderfully hypnotic. Each time he thought he knew where it came from, it seemed to come from elsewhere.

Pain!

Again!

An object struck his face. He grabbed the thing before it could strike for the third time. He held it with…he couldn’t remember that either, but what he held looked exactly like what he’d used to capture it.

He decided to think some more.

It seemed that the five-digited beast who’d struck him was attached to him. He decided it might be best to investigate further. He placed one of the digits where his (he didn’t know what that was called either, but it was the hole he made noise from) and he bit down. The pain was both immediate and excruciating. He did it again. Same results. Curious.

From far away, a square in the wall opened and a thing moved toward him. The thing was soft-looking and smelled nice. It made noise from its head, but the creature wasn’t sure what the thing meant with its noises. The digit in his head-orifice began to taste funny, like metal—but runny, like snot.

The thing touched him where the digit was and pulled it gently out of…where it was. The thing made more noises, followed by a tinkling sound as the corners of the thing it made noise with turned upward. The thing seemed happy. The creature thought he should be happy too. He clapped his…hands? They’re called hands!

Again, the thing made noise, but, amid the melody of its sounds, he found a word. A word he knew. A word he loved. A word he should say too.

‘Miiilo,’ he slurred. The word tasted odd on his tongue but felt so good to say—so he said it again.

The smiling thing clapped its hands.

He clapped along with the smiling thing!

Both of them at the same time!

He was learning so fast! Words came and words came. This was fun.

When the smiling thing moved closer, the creature noticed a puckered hole above the thing’s eye, and he felt something in his chest. He felt…guilt. He frowned. Gently, he caressed the ridges of the hole with a fingertip. ‘Miiiloo?’ he queried.

The thing shushed him and pulled his hand into both of its soft hands. Over its shoulder, the smiling thing said, ‘Lily, there’s someone I want you to meet.’

According to a clock buried deep within his chest, a creature named Milo was created at precisely 07:14am, July 3^rd, 2010—into a town known as Sanctum.