Ghosts of Eden (24 page)
Authors: Keith Deininger
THE OTHER SIDE
ONE
The door to his grandmother’s house swung inward. The familiar smell struck him—musty, but homely and comforting. Kayla was behind him. “Are you sure this is okay?” she asked him.
“Yeah. Why not? You’re my little sister, right? And this is my house now, so you can stay with me.”
Inside, the house was mostly as his grandmother had left it. All of the furniture was still in place and the kitchen cabinets were filled with his grandmother’s pots and pans. The bedrooms were the same, his grandmother’s with the floral bedspread and olive-green carpeting, the oil painting depicting the turquoise lake and flowing field of red wheat still in place.
In the hallway, the painting of the goat-like king and queen remained, as did the glass case with the ancient gun in it his grandmother had called a “blunderblast.”
Even the bedroom at the end of the hall was mostly the same. It looked exactly as he’d left it after cleaning up the last day he was here, throwing things back into boxes, pushing them into the corner and against the wall, the faded square on the wall where the picture of his great uncle had hung.
They’d taken a car from Xander’s garage and Garty had driven Kayla and him all the way back to Albuquerque. Stopping in Santa Fe for gas, he’d called his asshole of a stepfather, who’d given him the news. His grandmother had passed away and left him her house. “She was loopy in the head, if you ask me,” his stepfather had said. “But the house is yours.”
Garty moved to the couch and sat down. He was exhausted and his bandaged hand felt as if fire ants were roaming over it, biting and stinging the place where his fingers used to be. Using his good hand, he removed a couple of pills from his pocket and popped them while Kayla explored the house.
“So? What do you think?” Garty asked when Kayla came back around.
“It’s good,” Kayla said, her eyes on her nervously shuffling feet.
“Creepy, huh?”
“I don’t think it’s creepy. It’s nice.”
* * *
Garty told Kayla she could take the bed in the bedroom closest to the front of the house and he fell asleep on the couch.
In his dream, something was chasing him. He was running through the red wheat again, through the field from the painting hanging in his grandmother’s bedroom. He looked next to him, but Kayla wasn’t there; he knew he had been separated from her. He was scared for her, hoped she was okay, wherever she was. Then the thing chasing him, from right behind him, spoke: “Perhaps, in time,” the voice said, “simulated beings could mix with regular ones and then who could tell the difference?” The voice was huge and sounded strange and garbled. Garty’s heart lurched with terror. He ran. He dared not look at what was chasing him. He didn’t have to. He knew what it was, what almost had him. It was Dr. Xander, reaching for him with wet and glistening talons, goat-like face grinning with murderous intent.
Garty woke with a scream contorted on his lips, but he was too horrified to make a sound. Were they safe? Could Xander still get to them? The fucker had wanted Kayla, but they’d escaped the dark jungle. They’d made it out. They were safe here in his grandmother’s house. Weren’t they?
He sat up, feeling the cold air on his sweating brow. His heart, despite the pills, was beating furiously in his chest. His wounded hand throbbed. Instinctively, he grappled the bag of pills from his pocket. He took three and pulverized them with his teeth, swallowing the bitter powder with what little saliva he still had. His eyes darted about the strange and dark room. The house seemed, to him, like a dark jungle, as if he’d never escaped.
He sat like this for several minutes, slowly letting the pills take effect, calming him, slowing his heart. He took three more, swallowed them whole, and lay down. He forced his breathing to slow. He thought of everything he’d been through; of his mom lying crumpled and dying of lung cancer in her hospital bed; of his friend Hector and his mad ravings about rehab before he’d shot himself in the head; of his crazy inebriated nights at parties, with nameless friends; of Kayla and her sweet, young face, how he wished desperately he could wipe that troubled look from her eyes, make her innocent again, make her forget everything…
TWO
Kayla had woken up to Dr. Xander’s words in her head:
good girls must eat.
But what he’d meant was:
good
denotics
must eat
. She’d shivered, stood, and stretched.
For a minute or two she’d stared at a painting on the wall of her new bedroom. It depicted a stone table in an otherwise empty room with an ornate red curtain pulled closed in the background. For some reason, she felt at home in this house. She felt as if she’d been here before. She felt as if she belonged.
She moved where Garty slept and peeled back the blankets. Garty’s eyes were open. She stared, couldn’t look away, every muscle in her body tensing. His skin was cold to the touch. His lips were blue and caked with yellow vomit.
“No,” she said. She took his cold hand, dropped to her knees, pressed it to her forehead and cheeks.
She’d lost everyone.
“No…” but her voice was hardly a whisper.
Xander had won.
THREE
It was several weeks before Xander showed up at the house, just as Kayla had known he would.
She’d spent most of her time fixing things up, cleaning every nook and cranny, rearranging the bedrooms to make them more comfortable, organizing the kitchen. She’d found a large mason jar on one of the top shelves in the closet in the master bedroom filled with more than enough money to live on for a while.
On the shelf of books in her new room, she’d found the complete
Chronicles of Narnia
. When she’d finished the final book in the series,
The Last Battle,
she’d put the book down in her lap and cried.
She’d been busy preparing everything, making sure things were just right.
One day, she saw a squirrel in the bushes in the front yard. She stared at it from the window. It was carrying a small acorn in its mouth, but otherwise seemed not to be doing much. As she watched, it came right up to the window and looked at her, putting one of its paws up on the glass, as if to comfort her, then it scurried away. Another day, a cocker spaniel was hanging out in the yard and seemed to be watching her as she vacuumed. Kayla put a bowl of water and some food out on the front porch for it. Later, when she went to go check, the dog was gone, the bowls empty.
She kept the house dark, the shades drawn, and she began to eat a lot. At night she was filled with vague dreams.
She’d not gone back to school and no one had bothered her or come to the house, but if they had she would have told them she was busy, that she could not be disturbed.
Until the day came when there was a hard thump at the door.
Kayla stood from the recliner chair where she’d been reading. She put her book face down on the coffee table and clicked the lamp off. She walked to the front door. She slid open the deadbolt, and opened the front door.
He’d been through a lot and part of his mask had slipped away, but she knew right away who it was. From his back, draping over his shoulders, things wriggled like tentacles, and his face had been scratched and seared, yellowing horns beginning to burst through the skin on his forehead, the pupils in his eyes misshapen, like a goat’s.
“I believe we have some things to discuss, denotic,” Xander said.
“Do we?” Kayla took a step back.
“Oh, yes,” Xander said, looking back at the street to make sure no one was watching. He stepped up into the house. At his sides his talons clenched and unclenched.
Kayla took another step back.
Xander smiled his close-mouthed smile.
When Xander was five or six feet away, Garty stepped out of the dark house right behind Kayla, his face wrinkle-less with a plastic sheen like newborn skin, and said right over Kayla’s shoulder, “Would you like me to do it?”
Kayla screamed with laughter, lifted the blunderblast, and blew to pieces Xander’s shocked and astonished face.
OUT OF THE JAR
It was snowing but it wasn’t cold. Lazy flakes drifted through the still air from above. The sky was a motionless gray sheet, covering all that lay beyond.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
Her child’s face turned up so that her vision was filled only with the flurried air, relishing the cold pricks as the snow brushed her skin, melted in her eyes, old and wise beyond her years.
“Yes,” Kayla said. “She’ll be safe here.”
“For how long?” Garty said, just over her shoulder.
Kayla didn’t reply, looked at the house she’d chosen. She could feel her hands trembling as she gripped the jar. She had to be careful in the future. She had to be responsible. Slowly, she twisted the lid free. She set the jar on the sidewalk and lifted from it a baby wrapped tightly in a blanket.
“Wrigley’s been spotted. The Council—”
“They’re watching.” Kayla lifted one hand to silence Garty, the baby cradled lovingly against her side with the other. “They’re always watching…”
With a subtle nod, Garty looked back at the empty street.
And then together, they headed for the house.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An award-winning writer and poet, Keith Deininger is the author of
The New Flesh
,
Fevered Hills
, and
Marrow’s Pit
. He grew up in the American Southwest and currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife and their four dogs. He is a skeptic and a bit cynical. For more, visit his website:
www.KeithDeininger.com
.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.
To discover more titles published by DarkFuse, please visit its official site at
www.darkfuse.com
.
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