Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (45 page)

Major laughed at his own joke. He looked
at the confused look on Samuel’s face and decided to continue. “I was great at
the table games, too. Five- and ten-dollar blackjack led me to the high-roller
rooms. I played where winnings came with a chick on your arm and a vial of
blow. AIDS was breaking then, but when you’re strung out on crack and cards,
it’s not much of a concern. Not sure how in the hell I escaped that, but I did.
You tag so many asses without a jimmy hat, you’re rolling the dice.

“I wasn’t much of a family man. I mean, I
had a wife and kids, but I wasn’t part of the family. My money provided
housekeepers, pool boys, nannies, whatever we needed, but the money couldn’t
listen to my wife or help my kids with homework. The family made me legit,
somehow gave me the air of a responsible citizen. That’s the thing with the
white-collar criminals. They sit next to you at the PTA meetings, you see them
in the grocery store, you wave at them as they walk their dogs. Hell, some of
them even pick up dog shit with a blue plastic bag, yet they were robbing
taxpayers blind.”

“The bailout?” Samuel asked. His face
twisted, as if someone else had used the term.

“Oh, you bet I got a chunk of that. We
all did. By the time the mid-2000s rolled around, I had several business
holdings in various countries. I had secret offshore accounts and enough
capital to pay my mid-managers hundreds of thousands in bonuses. We had holiday
blowouts that made the gangster movies look like children’s birthday parties.
Women everywhere, and not the skanks from the street. I’m talking top-notch
girls, good pussy. The kind that makes you forget your name.”

Samuel smiled.

“By 2008, I had offices in Manhattan and
Newark. Jersey was a dump, but it was easier to hide assets there than it was
in the five boroughs. I had departments trading mortgages for years, and we all
knew that shit was going to crash. Anyone—including the Fed—that claims they
didn’t know is a bullshitter. An unspoken panic rippled through our ranks about
six months before the shit hit the fan. Guys were getting out fast, selling
assets, liquidating the adjustable-rate loans. We all knew those were going to
kill us. By the time Goldman Sachs became the media’s whipping boy, I had
stashed four hundred million I thought would be invisible. That’s what I
thought.”

Samuel noticed a hitch in Major’s throat.
His pace on the trail quickened as they turned directly into the path of the
cloud soundlessly rolling over trees as it approached the east.

“But then a few of my guys turned. They
had been working with the FBI the entire time. I had no idea. These were guys
that had been with me a long time, going all the way back to our private
bordellos and roulette wheels in the shadow of the boardwalk in Atlantic City.
These were guys I trusted with my life.

“My wife had left and taken the kids with
her by then. My new girl tipped me off. I was shacked up with this broad in one
of my Manhattan penthouses. I can’t remember exactly how we got together, but
she was doing some hardcore porn at the time. I saw her in a film and knew I
wanted a piece of that ass. Anyways, she rang my cell about 11:30 in the
morning, which I knew was trouble because she never got out of bed before noon.
She told me the Feds had been there and were on their way to my office. She
said they had warrants and paperwork and all the bullshit they needed to put me
away for a long time.”

Samuel stopped. As the path curved to the
right and descended down the gentle slope of the mountain, he saw the tops of
several cabins. They looked exactly like the others, and the curvature of the
land would no doubt reveal more as they approached. Major followed Samuel’s
gaze.

“Yep. That’s it. The Barren. We still got
another hour to reach it.”

“So what did you do when the cops
arrived?” Samuel asked.

“I had to take care of things before they
did. There was no way I was going to rot in a cell, become Bubba’s girlfriend.
I couldn’t do that. Plus, the lead prosecutor was a dickhead from way back. In
fact, I think I may have jumped him in a subway station, back in the day.

“After I got the call, I went to a hidden
panel in my office. I didn’t even have time to open the safe. Even if I did,
what was I going to do? They were coming. I couldn’t find the bullets to the
revolver under my desk, so I pushed through a drawer of sex toys until I found
the velvet rope. I had glass walls in my office that gave you a stunning view
of Manhattan. That turned the ladies on, and they’d even let me tie them up.
Some of those lays got crazy.

Anyway, I stood on a chair and
pushed the ceiling tile to the side. With the rope in one hand, I tossed it
over a steel beam. The end came back to my other hand, and by that time I could
hear them coming. The private elevator dinged a single tone. Footsteps in the
marble foyer. If I had more time, who knows? I might have reconsidered. But I
didn’t. I tied a knot at the top underneath the beam and took the other end and
twisted it around my neck. I wasn’t schooled in the knot-tying, Boy Scout
bullshit, so I triple looped it just to make sure it wouldn’t give. I remember
standing on the chair with that noose around my neck, and I was laughing. Maybe
it was the absurdity of it all, or maybe I had lost my mind by that point.

“The door to the waiting room slammed
against the wall, which meant the raid was seconds from reaching me. I took a
deep breath, closed my eyes and leapt off the chair. I think they came through
at the same time, because I remember someone shouting and I felt hands
grasping my legs. But they were too late. Those knots held better than
they were supposed to because they snapped my neck.”

Samuel stopped walking and turned to face
Major. He shook his head and coughed. “Is that all you remember?”

Major shook his head. “I remember waking
up at the foot of a tree. I remember looking around and seeing other ropes
hanging from branches and dangling next to streamers of yellow caution tape.”

“You woke up here, in this place?” Samuel
asked.

“Not far from your swingin’ tree, my
friend. But it wasn’t my first rodeo. I quit counting how many times I’ve dropped
from that cursed tree.”

Chapter 9

Samuel peered down the path at the
Barren. He saw three cabins. Although not identical to the two he already
discovered, they looked the same.

Major led them through towering trees and
into the valley. He had gone quiet since finishing his story, and Samuel
wondered if the retelling put an emotional drain on the old man. Major looked
over his shoulder as he walked, measuring the pace of the cloud as it
approached from the west.

Samuel could see two people at the
Barren, but they were still too far away for him to make out features. The
shapes appeared to be gathering things off the ground.

“A week, maybe two.”

The comment caught Samuel by surprise. He
stopped walking and shifted his weight to one hip, waiting for Major to
elaborate. When he didn’t, Samuel spoke.

“Until the cloud arrives? Until this, uh,
reversion gets here?”

Major didn’t answer. He kept maneuvering
down the path, stepping over jagged rocks and debris, trying not to twist an
ankle in the process.

Samuel followed Major. As they approached
the Barren, the shapes began to take form, a man and a woman. He noticed the
eyes first. It wasn’t their gazes so much as the hurt behind them. Samuel
shivered and felt an ache in his heart. The woman appeared to be in her
twenties, thin yet magnetic. He imagined she was once an actress or
possibly a singer. She had scraggly, black hair that hadn’t been washed in
days. Remnants of makeup were brushed across her face in random places.
Eye shadow ran down her cheeks like cracks in a porcelain cup. She held her
lips together, creating the single line of her mouth. The woman’s pointy nose
sat in perfect symmetry with the rest of her face. Samuel flushed, realizing he
had been staring longer than was socially acceptable. He looked at the ground
and then back up at the woman—this time, his eyes locked on her neck.
Underneath her jaw and across her collarbone was a diagonal black
bruise. The discolored skin made a line toward her heart, and the bruise looked
recent, but not fresh.

The man stepped in front of the woman and
broke Samuel’s gaze. He sneered at Samuel and shook his head. “Who’s this?” he
asked, directing his question at Major.

Major walked up and placed a hand on the
man’s shoulder. He smiled. “It’s speeding up, Kole.”

The man shook his head and nodded his
chin toward Samuel, who stood behind and to the right of Major.

“Find him in Aokigahara?”

“Yeah,” Major said. “He landed in the Sea of Trees, like the rest of
us.”

“We don’t need his help,” Kole said.

The woman stared at the top of the path,
through Samuel, as though he didn’t exist.

“Posturing,” Major said. “He’s trying to
act like a tough guy.”

Samuel watched as Kole put his hands
on his hips. His dark, rich hair crept far enough down on his forehead that it
could have been fake. He wore a tattered, white T-shirt that accentuated the
taut muscles underneath. A black belt fastened black jeans on his slender
waist. Black leather completed the outfit. A sleeve of tattoos full of cryptic
symbols and half-naked women circled his right arm, and a needle track
ran up his left. The top three punctures sat atop a blue, swollen vein that
oozed pus. Two red lines bisected both of his earlobes where earrings once
hung.

“We’re wasting time. Did you find anyone
who can slip?” the woman asked Major, indicating Samuel could not be the man
for the job.

“I was hoping someone else would here, at
the Barren.”

“Well, nobody’s here but us,” Kole said.
He kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot.

The woman stepped past Kole and Major
until she stood face-to-face with Samuel. He caught a whiff of vanishing
fragrance, masked by natural body oils, and then it scuttled off, leaving the
vacant emptiness of this place with its silent stillness. He felt her eyes
latch onto him again, and he could not turn away. Samuel’s mouth went dry, and
he felt a tingling in his feet.

“What’s yer name?” she asked.

“Samuel.”

The woman nodded. “I’m Mara. That charmer
over there is Kole.”

Samuel dropped his head to Mara and then
turned to look at Kole.

“He’s a dick. You’ll get used to it.”

Kole glared at Mara. “Fuck you,” he said.
“And fuck you.” He pointed at Samuel.

Major laughed, tossing his head back and
grabbing his abdomen with both hands.

“Kids, kids, stop. You’ll have time for
your schoolyard scraps tonight. For now, we need to get our supplies in order.
Kole, make sure we have enough wood. You know how hard it is to maintain a fire
here. Mara, get the gruel going. I think it’s been days since Sammyboy here
ate, and he’s going to start feeling it soon.”

Kole waved a hand at Mara and Samuel. He
shuffled past the cabin and toward the edge of the tree line.

“Whatever you say, old-timer. Apparently
someone put you in charge when we weren’t paying attention.”

Major smiled and put his arm around
Samuel. Mara turned and headed into one of the cabins, shutting the door behind
her.

“You and I need to examine some things,
see if we can punch a hole in this place. Based on the speed of the death cloud
over there, we’re running out of time.”

Samuel shook his head, trying to use the
physical motion to make sense of the situation. After several more attempts, he
realized it wasn’t working.

“We have to get out of here,” he said.

Major turned and looked at the cloud,
then toward the cabin with Mara, then beyond the path to where Kole was picking
up firewood.

“Without a doubt,” he said.

***

Major poured the steaming liquid into a
filthy clay mug, where it bubbled with a light froth.

“Drink,” he said to Samuel.

Samuel sniffed the mug and wrinkled his
nose. “A hint of licorice?” he asked. “I hate licorice.”

“It’s one of the few things in this place
you’ll still taste. That’s gotta be better than a colorless, bland drink.”

Samuel shrugged and sipped. The tea burnt
his lip and caused him to inhale.

“I want you to try something,” Major
said.

Samuel set the mug on the table. He
looked through the greasy window of the cabin and saw Kole and Mara arguing
with each other. Mara thought they should be cautious with Samuel while Kole
agreed with Major’s plan of testing Samuel’s abilities in the reversion.

“What are they doing?”

Major grabbed Samuel’s right wrist with
his left hand. “I need you try something.”

Samuel nodded.

“There’s a man who might be
trapped in the ether. It’s a nowhere place, a void. He might have the ability
to punch a hole in this place.”