Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (74 page)

Then, a putrid smell assaulted his nose.  Spencer recoiled from it.  A piece of the dire wolf’s fur fell off, then another piece, and before long great clumps were falling to the pavement.  Its lips peeled back in rapid decay.  Its eyes were soon turned to nothing more than pus, and the concaves of its empty sockets still looked at him.  The jaw moved up and down, even as the flesh was corroded, as if by some acid.  Spencer figured, if the dire wolf was twisted and mutated by some other world’s poison, perhaps so too were the bacteria inside of it.  He backed away, lest
those eager bacteria somehow find him, and his own open wounds.

Spencer’s right arm was singing.  Finally, he lowered the chainsaw, shifted it to his left hand
, and let it sag.  Still panting, he watched the rest of the animals turn and slink away.

In front of him, the dire wolf’s jaw continued moving up and down, as if trying to say something.  And then, it did.  Spencer stepped away
mistrustfully as the strange syllables came through, even as it gargled on its own blood.  The syllables were strange, but obvious.  “
Arrruuugunnnzzz
…
buhhhhfhhhhuuurrrr
…
thuhhh
…
gotttsss
…” it said, its breath even more rancid than its decay.

Strange words, but somewhere in the back of
Spencer’s mind, they took root, connecting with something from ages ago, and rolling around.  His brain was like a computer with its hourglass cursor, telling him it was searching, searching, searching.  Then, it found the correct algorithm and released the data:
Arrogance before the gods
.  He knelt, and from about fifteen feet away, he stared at the remains of the dire wolf.  “Nemesis.”

A lonesome howl from behind.  Spencer turned, and spotted a moderately-sized wolf-thing throwing its head back, summoning
the others.  It stood at the end of the street, and was quickly joined by a few other mutts and wolf-things, and together they slinked off into the darkness.

He looked back at the rotting corpse, which was now infested with maggots that had come from nowhere.

It was difficult to say how long he remained there.  When he finally stood up, Spencer dropped the chainsaw to the pavement, and hobbled down the street to the Acura.  He opened the door, got inside, and shut the door.  The seats were ruined, and the windows were spiderwebbed or shattered, with the dire wolf’s blood spread across them in great fans.  He’d need another vehicle soon if he didn’t want to attract attention.  He started it up, and just sat there a moment, looking at his bleeding upper thigh.

Sighed.  Took out a Sobranie.  Lit it.  Sucked on it.  Looked in the rearview mirror.
  Shook his head and chuckled.

Spencer’s
humor soon dissipated, and he sat staring out the spiderwebbed windshield.  He turned on the wipers, removing the snow that had collected on the outside.

Nemesis
.

Was it just another weird item from Kaley’s or Shannon’s fucked up charm?  Probably not.  For Spencer, there were few coincidences in life, only convergences.  He sucked on the cig, rolling the thought around in his mind. 
If it somehow saw into my mind, it might’ve just drudged that nemesis shit up, and brought it up the way a dying person might talk about a random softball game from their youth, just before they croak
.  He took another toke.  Either way, he intuited that it meant the dire wolf hadn’t just been after the darkness it smelled on him, but after
him
.  Him, specifically.

Why?

Spencer took another toke, savored it, and exhaled slowly.  Finally, he put the SUV into drive, and pulled slowly away.  He rolled over one mutt’s corpse, and trundled slowly down the street, cautious of the ice.  He reached into the plastic bag, which the dire wolf had kicked to the floorboard, and retrieved his antibiotics.  He took a few pills, and then a few Demerol tablets for the pain.  Spencer glanced into his rearview mirror.  For a moment, for just one second, he thought he saw someone standing in the middle of the street, watching him go.  A tall figure, kind of humanoid…or maybe just a lamppost?  He couldn’t be sure, because the next instant he turned the corner and was moving down Mayakovskogo Pereulok, not knowing where it would take him.  He spoke into his iPhone, “Find airport.”

“Airport…
found
.  Take…next…
right
…ahead.”

He put pressure on his thigh to stop the bleeding.  On his way to the airport, he would have to find a new car, and a means to change clothes.

Sirens off in the distance.

Spencer smiled. 
The best time to be alive
. 
Right here, right now
.

Epilogue

Echoes…

There were things there in the darkness, in the nothingness, that swam about and played and frolicked.  Something churned.  Something else was dying.  Something else collapsed.  She felt like she was turned inside out.

Echoes…

There were such strange echoes.  Like a pebble tossed down a long cavern, ricocheting and plopping down into a well, and just when you thought the pebble could go no further, it ricocheted once again.  And then again.  And then again.

She sensed no borders or boundaries.  She was walking…kind of.  There was definitely something beneath her feet,
although it wasn’t exactly terra firma.  She could propel herself along, but it was only half done by her feet, the other half was by force of will.  She willed herself forward, down into a miasmic cavern with no discernible reason for being.  Somehow, she sensed that the tunnel was spinning around her, and that it was just one part of a vast, intricate network of wormholes burrowed by old worms.  Each one was either a half forgotten or totally forgotten passage, left by Other travelers.

Echoes…

She knew many things about her environment but she did not know
how
she knew them.  Her hands were out and searching for purchase, a behavior that was more revenant than relevant here.

Though her eyes didn’t work, the darkness wheeled over end with such permanence that she knew it was the truth.  There were no stars here.  Indeed, there might not even be a sky.  Or rather, perhaps it was all sky and there was no ground.  Almost assuredly there was no way to clearly define one over the other.  She somehow knew (though again, she didn’t know how she knew it) that there were no stars here, at least not for trillions and trillions of light-years around, and she suspected that that wasn’t even the case.

Echoes…

Nothing lit the path.  Indeed, her eyes fed her no information at all.  There would be no adjusting of her eyes, no way of taking in more light, no way of gaining her nighteyes like she did after half an hour in bed back home.

Back home
.

She thought briefly of Shannon, of her mother, of Aunt Tabby, and wondered what they would make of her disappearance.  She wondered…
No, don’t think about that
. 
Best not to dwell on things that can’t be helped
. 
Best if I just take stock of everything I’ve got, and make the most out of it
.  It was what Spencer had called “resource management” back at the dock house.

Echoes…

Taking an inventory of her resources didn’t take very long.  She had her arms and legs, but they weren’t very efficient at handling the materials around her.  Certainly she found purchase here and there, but not the kind she wanted.  It was like reaching into cotton candy at times, and through cold pudding at others.  Her ears detected sound (echoes) but she didn’t like the sorts of sounds they were detecting up ahead.  She could smell…acrid smoke, or something.  It was an unusual smell, mixed with roses at times and bile at others.  She had her eyes, but those didn’t work here, so they didn’t count.

She continued down whatever tunnel
she was in, sensing a trembling in the “walls” around her.  Something was burrowing another hole above her.  As this happened, her passage underwent some changes.  It closed up ahead, but opened up to her left.  She didn’t know how she knew this, she just knew that it was an inescapable truth.

Echoes…

She had already retched twice.  The vomit had come out easily, almost as if though it were pulled out of her.  It had happened when she first arrived, feeling strange forces exerting themselves on her.  Every organ, every cell, every particle felt like it was being elongated, then mushed, then elongated again, then mushed again.  Like somebody was using her basic atomic structure like Play-Doh.

Still, somehow she managed to keep it, and herself, together.

Thunder…

There was some great power quaking beneath the surface of everything, but a dark curtain kept it shrouded.  She had a feeling that if she peeled that curtain back, something would find her that she didn’t want to find her.

Echoes…

She no longer felt Shannon.  Nor did she sense Spencer, or anyone else nearby.  She hoped Shannon was okay.  As for Spencer…
He’s always okay
.  She had no doubt that the monster was back to his old ways, running and skulking, constantly scavenging what he needed to survive off the corpses he left behind him, off the people he had conned, off little boys and girls too innocent to know any better.

She had no sense of home.  Even Shannon’s name, and its significance, was fading from her.  Her own name was also losing its magnitude. 
What happens when I forget my name?  What happens when I forget Shannon’s name?

Nan’s voice, emerging from yet another world.  “Names ain’t got nothin’ to do with who you are, chil’.  Name’s an’ words are just things people put on somethin’ they ain’t defined yet.  Just remember who you
are
, an’ who Shannon is
to you
.  Name’s ain’t important.  They don’t have no spell or power over your heart.”

One passage closed, and another one opened.  Then that one closed off and she had to double-back.  Then eight more passages opened.  She selected one by a game of “eeny meeny miney mo,” and then stepped inside.  Somewhere far, far ahead was something larger than she could hold in her imagination.  She knew that, the same way that she knew many other things about this environment that she oughtn’t know.  She propelled herself forward, half by feet and half by will
, towards some unknown confrontation that would surely destroy her.

There was little choice.  It was either that, or sit here forever and starve—the body still had the same imperatives as it had in the world she was from, so food and water would be a necessity soon enough.

Echoes…darkness…thunder…

On and on she went, choosing her paths by various games and absolutely certain that none of them were correct.

Something roared overhead, some quaking leviathan, searching for its way out, or at least a way to someplace else.  A monster of unparalleled power, joined in the fugue by countless others. 
Monsters, saints, innocents, psychopaths and telempaths
. 
This is the dance we do
. 
The dance macabre
.  Spencer’s words, flung at her a million years ago in that car ride away from Avery Street.

Echoes…

Another tunnel closed.  Four tunnels opened.  She chose one at random, and stepped through.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

As with the first book, some of the cityscape and geography has been played with for story purposes.  Locations and landmarks, such as the docks, churches, and the Bogema Apartments, while mostly taken from real sites, may not be precisely where I placed them.  Also, while human trafficking is a problem the world over, and Russia is no exception, I have no evidence to support that Chelyabinsk is particularly guilty or has run amok with the trade, at least not more so than other cities.  I apologize if this offends anyone that’s ever lived in or been to Chelyabinsk.  I’m sure it’s not a bad place.

However, much of what I’ve described about the syndicates here are all taken from actual organizations and events.  And yes, there really
is
a Russian Mafia boss that the FBI and other police agencies say can affect the World Economy with a phone call—he has that much power, that much money, and that much influence over law enforcement and politics.  At least, according to their website.

And yes, there is indeed a “super pack” of wolves numbering in excess of 400 roaming wild in the massive Siberian wilderness, killing cattle and (reportedly) even people.  However, that pack is on the
other
side of Siberia, far away from Chelyabinsk.

I want to stress that the non-supernatural things depicted in this series are, while gruesome, largely taken from real instances.  I keep up with the news and I tend to research just about every little thing
that I read about as a matter of a habit.  Of course, many things are rearranged or embellished for drama’s sake, or for the purposes of presenting Spencer, Kaley, and other characters with a predicament where they must question the nature of evil, and ask just how much of it is within themselves, if they can control it, and if they are capable of maintaining the light in a world so dark.  (Or, in Spencer’s case, how much can he take without caring?  Or, more to the point, how long can he go
justifying
that he doesn’t care?)

When I first started writing this series, my goal was to place a pair of innocents into a world so bleak
and malevolent, that their greatest challenge would be, not merely to survive, but to see if they could keep themselves from giving up, throwing in the towel, and finding their own hearts and minds corrupted by a seemingly endless sea of iniquity.  I hope the story has entertained and provoked some thought.

As I’ve said before, Spencer’s world and his philosophy are harsh, and I’m not sure I agree with any of his lessons.  If the reader has any grievances, then please take them up with him.

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you’ll join our weary heroes and villains next time.

Chad Huskins

January 20, 2013