John Everson - NightWhere

Jesus, could they be onto him already?

Mark’s stomach froze. He slipped lower in his seat, and he motioned for Selena to do the same.

And then just as quickly, he relaxed. The group dispersed as soon as they reached the rows of cars.

“The night is winding down,” Selena said. “They’ll all begin filing away soon. First the newbies, then the regulars. And then the inner circle will finish their rituals and the last of the visitors will leave for the night. Just as we should.”

Mark nodded. “I need to hurry.”

He eased the car door open and stepped out. The early morning air was cool and moist-heavy with fog and dew-pregnant with the coming day. He drew it into his lungs in a long, deep breath as he patted the knife in his back pocket and the pistol in his front.

It might be the last time he tasted the predawn air.

Selena sat like a statue in the front seat of the car. She would not look at him as he closed the door. Mark shrugged and turned towards the barn. He got it. Selena thought she’d had him “hooked” and here he was risking his life for another woman. A woman Selena probably thought of as a worthless, evil slut.

But Mark had allowed Rae to be caught up in the allure of NightWhere. It seemed like a cult to him, in the end. And the only way to save someone from the brainwashing of a cult was to sever all connection to it. You had to force them away from the people who were playing with their heads.

If Kharon and the Watchers were all demons…then Mark had to believe they were using some kind of spell over Rae. The woman he loved and had lived with for years would never have considered using him as a sacrifice before.

He bent low and crept softly through the rows of cars. He didn’t want to be noticed by any hidden sentries before he was at the door. He’d have to move really fast then; he didn’t need them to be tipped off any sooner.

Mark stepped past the impromptu parking lot and began to follow the barn wall to the main door the crowd had just exited.

A cool hand grabbed him by the wrist.

“Mark, wait.” Selena whispered. She pulled on his arm until he backtracked around the corner of the barn. “I know a better way,” she said. “You can’t just walk in the front door waving a gun around. They’ll take you down before you ever leave the Blue Room.”

“I’ve never seen another entrance,” he whispered.

“There is. There’s a door to the Field of Flesh,” she said. “If you walk through there, you’ll come out in the hallway that leads down through the center of The Red. Once you pass the whipping rooms and the rooms of mutilation, atrocity and desecration, you’ll arrive at the final room before The Black. You can’t go anywhere but through, or back. That room is where you were last night, and it’s where Rae will be tonight. It’s used for the rite-of-passage room to The Black.”

Mark nodded. “Sounds much better than forcing through the front door.”

“Just remember,” she warned. “Do not listen to anything you hear in the field. Like everything in NightWhere, it’s a poisonous place. It will play on all of your fears. It will twist whatever love you have into hate and try to turn what you hate into love.”

“Ears closed,” he said.

She led him to a small side door in the barn. “I can’t go inside,” she said. “They’d be on me in a heartbeat.”

Mark nodded. “Thanks for getting me this far.”

She leaned in to kiss him. “Please don’t let them catch you,” she said. “I gave up too much for you to die now.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

He eased the door open, but still it squealed in the quiet of night. Just as he slipped inside, Selena said one more thing.

“Mark, I love you. I always have.”

Gordon

Kharon had promised him a new chance. Gordon had been furious when his rabbit had lost the race. He knew that there was some kind of status won there, and certainly Rae’s star had risen quickly in NightWhere after that night. Meanwhile, the Watchers’ interest in Gordon and Amelia, who had vied for the position of top degrader/degradee, seemed to have waned.

Amelia had since disappeared altogether. But Gordon had asked Kharon for another chance to prove himself. He’d been assigned the role of guard to Mark, ushering the man through the room of fire.

Kharon had seemed pleased and afterwards had shown Gordon to a private bedroom. “You may stay here for as long as you are able,” the lead Watcher had said.

Gordon had nodded and tossed his overnight bag on the bed. He had hoped for this. It was the first time he’d been invited to stay over in NightWhere, but he’d come tonight with the hope (and preparation) that he would finally join the inner circle. He knew it was either join or die trying, because the body in his basement wasn’t going to stay secret forever. Even if he transported it out of there, he was no dummy. Every genius murderer in the world hid the body someplace smart, and they always seemed to rise to the surface and get themselves found, fingering the killer with some kind of evidence in the process.

No, Gordon needed to disappear himself. And he couldn’t think of anyplace better to do it than in NightWhere. He could dedicate himself to pain here. He could offer people the kink they desired, and satisfy his own lusts in the process.

He liked it here and wanted with all his heart to call it home. Now, apparently, he could.

Gordon had felt victorious that first night. But on the second night, he was less sure. He got up the next day-actually the next night-and walked out of his room and down the hall into the thick of NightWhere. He’d tried to play as he normally did, but he found himself looking sidelong to see if any of the Watchers were paying attention to him. Wasn’t he one of them now? Shouldn’t they know?

On the night after he’d herded Mark into the fire pit, he didn’t see Kharon at all after the group dispersed from the fire pit cavern. Didn’t see any of the usual Watchers back in the Blue Room actually, except Sin-D. He flogged some people in the Blue Room and then disappeared into a sadism room in The Red. He’d found himself some empty kicks and then had walked back to his room alone. He didn’t feel like part of the in-crowd.

The same thing happened the following night.

He’d been taken in, but also summarily dropped. What the hell?

Today, he’d awoken to find Kharon at the foot of his bed. “You’ve had time to get acclimated and understand what we really are,” the Watcher said. “Tonight I have something for you to do.”

Gordon grinned, considering a number of ways in which he might draw blood. At last, Kharon was going to let him be part of the Watchers’ circle. “Just tell me what I have to do,” he said.

“Nothing right now. Wait for me in the Blue Room, and I’ll come for you later.”

Gordon hung out with Sin-D at the bar for a couple hours, until Kharon appeared. “We’re ready for you now,” the Watcher said. Gordon slid from his bar stool but Kharon put out a hand.

“Finish your drink,” he said. “There’s no rush.”

Gordon did as he said…sort of. He really chugged the last of his beer and then nodded. “Let’s have some fun,” he said. After the past couple days he was anxious to really put the pain on someone. Now that he was a permanent resident of NightWhere, he knew that he could take things farther than he ever had before. Stewarding Mark to the fire pit had opened his eyes. There was more here than met the eye. He knew that this place was more than off the map. It was off the earth, in some sense.

Gordon knew that he was serving demons.

He didn’t care. He loved the work. And wanted more.