John Everson - NightWhere

Mark shrugged. “Then I guess I’d better get ready.”

Selena looked him up and down once. “I’d suggest that first you’d better get some clothes.”

Breaking Down

Rae cried. But every tear hurt. Her body was racked with pain so extreme she couldn’t move. She curled up on the stone table and called for Kharon. After Mark had run, the room had emptied, all except for Rae. As her face pressed against the cold stone, she felt her heart pumping louder in her chest. Struggling.

Her breath came in short, hard gasps.

While Kharon had been in the room, she’d felt electrified with power. Now she could feel her life slipping away. It was hard to keep her eyes open, and when she stared at the blood-drenched walls, her vision fuzzed and faded.

She blinked and forced herself to breathe.

A burning hand stroked her hair, drawing the sweating, bloodied strands away from her eyes.

Rae looked into the black eyes of Yvonna. The Night Mother smiled faintly at her, with blackened lips. Then she leaned down to kiss Rae.

As the strange woman’s lips touched her own, Rae felt her pain and fears melt away. A heat built in her mouth and bled like a wave of honey down the back of her throat. The excruciating pain in her abdomen slowly turned to a pleasant burn; at the same time the acid-hot burning in her crotch and across her back where the skin had been ripped away faded to a pleasant hum of feeling.

Rae felt adrift on a buzz of pain and pleasure, mixed up and cross-wired. She sighed as Yvonna’s face pulled away.

“I’m dying,” Rae whispered.

“Not yet,” Yvonna promised. She pressed two black fingertips, each one emblazoned with a tiny snake, to Rae’s eyelids, nudging them closed.

“Sleep,” she whispered.

A New Plan

The dumpster top was bulging; clearly pickup day was near. Mark threw the lid back and looked for something he could use. Cars were beginning to pass by on the street out front; he could hear the quiet rush of the occasional vehicle echo through the alley. Selena stood like a sentinel nearby, clad only in a black robe.

But Mark was clad in nothing, and he needed to remedy that so that they could find a way back to his house. Just a few blocks from the refinery was a strip mall that held a pizza joint, a 7-Eleven, a tailor and a cleaners. He was betting on some refuse from the latter two to cover at least some of his skin.

He leaned against the cold green metal of the dumpster and shivered. He hated to touch the garbage bin with his bare skin, but what choice did he have? He pushed aside some boxes and a plastic garbage bag. Something smelled bad as he pushed the refuse around inside, and he prayed that he’d find some scrap of cloth or discarded pants before he found the reason for the stench.

Bingo!

Just behind a coffee carton, he saw a bundle of dark blue. Mark hung over the side of the dumpster and fished it out. He tossed it on the pavement and then went back in for more. There were several balled-up bits of clothing.

He separated them on the ground and found that he had a woman’s sundress, drenched in something wet and foul, a fat man’s pants (the reason for the disposal was obvious-the seam of the rear end was completely ripped out) and a handful of stained or otherwise unwearably damaged business shirts.

Mark shook out the fat pants and a blue striped shirt with a long yellow stain down the front, and pulled them on. He hated to think about the last thing to touch the material, but…he couldn’t walk naked down First Street during morning rush hour. Or ever, really.

“What do you think?” he asked, pivoting briefly for Selena. He’d tucked the shirt into the pants, but to keep them up, he had to hold a six-inch bunch of the waist with his left hand.

Selena smiled faintly. “You look like you’ve lost some weight,” she quipped.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Now we just need to find a way across town so that I can get some real clothes. And I’m guessing you’ll want more than a black silk robe eventually.”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t suppose you have any cash or a bus token hidden in that robe?”

She shook her head.

“Let’s start walking then.”

“How far?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Tinley Park’s probably about ten miles so…let’s just say it’s probably going to be a late lunch.”

They walked in silence for a while, though Mark kept sneaking glances at Selena. She held the black robe tightly around her with arms crossed. But he could still catch a hint of her cleavage where the robe V-ed. It was her face that really drew his eye though. Her cheekbones were high, her skin flawless. Her eyes were stunning, when she looked at you. Ice blue and large, when she talked directly to him, Mark felt himself lose all ability to think. The pale skin and thin eyelids and white-blonde hair…she made him weak if he let himself pay attention.

Luckily, for a lot of the walking she looked straight ahead and seemed inclined to say nothing.

“Why did you help me this time?” he asked. “You wouldn’t help me and take me to the club to find Rae before.”

She looked at him sidelong before answering. A long, considered look.

“I told you already,” she said. “I won’t help anyone go to NightWhere. But you deserved help to escape. You were prepared to give everything to save your wife. Even if she doesn’t deserve it, you deserve someone to help you after something like that. I didn’t want to see them kill you.”

“Why were you there at all?” Mark asked. “I’ve gotta assume nobody gets in on those kinds of ceremonies as a newbie.”

Selena nodded. “I’ve watched things at NightWhere for a long time.”

“So you’re a Watcher.”

“Not the way you mean.”

“Then how?” Mark kicked a stone with his bare toe and grimaced.

“I look for people like you,” Selena said. “And I try to convince them to go home, where they belong.”

“Sounds like a lost cause.”

“Most often,” she admitted.

The traffic grew around them as they wound down Waverly to Pulaski, zigzagging their way west as people filled the roads on their way to work. They made a strange pair; Mark holding his ballooning pants on, and Selena walking in a silk robe. At one point, Mark heard a wolf whistle behind them. He refused to take the bait and turn around.

When they finally turned onto less traveled roads leading past the forest preserve and suburban houses instead of strip malls, he was relieved. He’d been worried the whole walk through downtown that eventually a squad car was going to pull over and start questioning them. But aside from gapers, they passed through the suburbs unbothered. Selena didn’t talk much without prodding, and after a while, he let her be, to walk in silence.

Mark’s calves and feet were numb by the time they reached his subdivision. He wasn’t big on walking in the first place, and had certainly never gone barefoot for hours before. He guessed they’d been walking for more than three hours when they finally staggered up the driveway to his house. He went around to the backyard patio and pulled the hidden house key from the statue they kept it hidden under (for just this sort of contingency…though they’d never imagined needing it quite for a reason like this). Then he unlocked the back door and held it open for Selena to enter.

He locked it again behind them. He didn’t imagine that would stop one of the Watchers from reaching them, if they were so inclined. But it might slow them down a bit.

The house felt…empty. The hum of the refrigerator was audible, and the LED on the microwave read 10:23. The morning light was grey, which didn’t help the mood. The sky had turned overcast during their long walk.