The Gift of Illusion: A Thriller (20 page)

Isaac took a long sip of water then pushed
his plate toward the end of the table.

“You know, that morning, as I recovered in
the hospital. I remember thinking so clearly. How could I let this
happen? I thought of all the things over the years that I should
have done differently. All the stupid, selfish things I'd done that
I wished I could take back. I thought of all the years we spent
trying to have a child together, and the joy in her face when she
first held Amy. How she would never see Amy take her first step, or
be there on her first day of school. I wanted to tell her so many
things. I wanted to tell her I loved her one last time. But I
couldn't. She was gone. I had this vision in my head of what my
future would be like, and she was always there beside me. We were
still young and had so much to look forward to. Our whole lives
ahead of us. I thank God for Amy, she's all I have left.”

“I think it’s good to focus on the positive
things in life.”

“I try,” he said. “I really do. But
sometimes I still can’t help that feeling. It has stayed with me
all these years, eating away. How could I let this happen?
How?”

Virginia squeezed Isaac‘s hand again,
tighter. “It wasn’t your fault.”

How many times had he heard that line over
the years? Dozens. It seemed so easy to say, yet so impossible to
believe. It was all a matter of perspective; the hole always
appears much deeper when you’re looking up from the bottom.

“You don’t know how much I want to believe
that.”

Upon leaving Rusty’s, the conversation
shifted to a lighter note. Isaac paid for dinner, like he said he
would, and had no problem doing so. Overall, he was glad he had
decided to go out for the night, it almost seemed like his worries
had vanished in an instant. On the drive home, he told funny
stories of things Amy had done growing up. All the while, Virginia
sat back, listened, and laughed along with him. Everything appeared
to be going great, until he pulled into the driveway and noticed
Amy’s car missing, and the lights off in the house.

Isaac rushed out of the car, not bothering
to shut the door, and dashed around the front of the house.
Virginia followed close enough behind to safely stay out of his
way. As he reached the front door a supercharged bolt of lightning
struck down in the distance. Seconds later, thunder.

This isn't happening.

He fumbled with his keys on the lock, then
swung open the door. The sweet aroma hit him like a gust of cold
air, brisk and chilling, nearly knocking him off his feet; it was a
smell he had hoped to never witness again, and it only helped
confirm his worst fear. He braced himself against the door.
Virginia stepped up from behind and placed her hand upon his
shoulder. The switch on the wall would bring his fear into the
light—tear his heart out from his chest. He could already feel the
clammy hands clawing from within, ready to steal the last part of
him that was human.

It would all end here. It would all end
now.

His fingers scratched at the wall, searching
for the switch, and then finally fell upon it.

As the light awoke the dark room, an
eternity passed in an instant. Isaac sensed his heart jump out of
his body and stop beating right before his eyes. He tried to
breathe but his throat felt thin and dry, as though it had been
stuffed full with chalk. His fear lay out in front of him, just
like he had imagined, though not in the manner he had expected.

The dark ash pressed against the coffee
table was not that of his daughter, but of Randy Wilson. The body
had been almost completely burned like the others, from the bottom
of the feet all the way to the neck. Randy's head, however,
remained virtually unscathed. The mouth frozen in a snarl. Eyes
open. Staring at the ceiling.

Isaac slowly stepped further into the room,
not taking his eyes off of the body. The room seemed to shrink the
closer he moved, but still he continued forward, until at last he
looked straight down into the black graveyard of ash. He wanted to
both scream and cry at the same time as anger and sadness waged war
within him. The feeling was not unusual; he had felt it before.

None of this was new.

The dark house.

The storm.

The broken window.

The body.

He had been here before, and now something
wanted him to come back. Something wanted to give him another
chance. It was all a test, and even after sixteen years of guilt,
torment, and doubt, he had failed again.

Isaac ran past Virginia and back out into
the rain. She watched him hurry across the yard to the house next
door, and then followed behind. When she arrived at the door, half
soaked in rain, Isaac was already inside. The door was wide open,
knocking back and forth against the rubber doorstop. She waited at
the entrance for a second, peering around the corner into the
kitchen, before continuing forward down the hall. The house smelled
much the same as Isaac’s, though not near as sweet and fresh. She
was almost to the edge of the living room when she heard Isaac yell
from the back of the house.

Isaac was at the doorway to the master
bedroom. He stepped out of the way and let her enter the room. On
the far side of the room, at the top of the bed, were the hands of
Randy’s
bride-to-be
tied to the headboard. The rest of her
was piled on the mattress. Virginia backed out of the room, at
first unaware that Isaac had left, and then hurried down the hall
not wanting to be alone.

She followed Isaac into the garage, stood
back against the wall, and peered down at yet another body of ash.
Tonight was the first time she’d seen the devastation Lucius
brought back from the grave and there were absolutely no words to
describe it. A part of her hoped she could take back everything she
had said the previous night, forget she knew anything, and go on
with her life as though none of this mattered. For the first time
since she shared her knowledge with Isaac, Virginia was truly
scared of what was to come of it. But there was no backing out now.
She would stand by his side and help however she could to bring Amy
safely back to her father.

Isaac left the garage, exited the house, and
sauntered back across the yard. A large bolt of lightning split the
dark sky behind him. He made it to the front steps, brushed the
door open, and stepped inside. His mind wandered back into familiar
territory; a dark and dusty closet of feelings, and the words came
back to him again. He stepped backwards against the wall and slid
down to the floor. He lowered his head into his hands. “How could I
let this happen?”

Virginia stood in the doorway, her face
expressionless.

“You can leave now,” he said. “I’m
sorry.”

“I’m not leaving. I'm going to help you find
your daughter.”

“There’s nothing to find. Don‘t you
understand? She‘s dead,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes.
“And that’s my fault.”

Virginia leaned down next to Isaac. “None of
this is your fault,” she said. “Why are you so quick to give up? I
don‘t think she’s dead.”

“Because I’ve been down this road before and
I know where it leads."

“Isaac, I know you’re scared, so am I, but
how do you think she feels? Imagine what’s going through her head.
Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Of course it does. But how do you know
she's even alive? I mean take a look,” he said, pointing at the
body of ash a few feet away. “Look what happens. If she's dead then
I don’t want to see it.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but please
just trust me. I don’t think your daughter is dead. Lucius made you
a part of this. He wants you to come after her, and he knows that
you will. He wants to see you suffer. He wants to see how far you
will go.”

“So you’re saying I should give him what he
wants? Play right into his game?”

“What other choice do you have?”

Isaac bowed his head again. She was right,
and he knew what he had to do, but he was scared of the
consequences, scared that Amy would fall to the same fate as Randy,
as his wife many years ago, and that he would be there to witness
it. “Where do you think he took her?”

Virginia stood back up and paced around the
room. “Well,” she said, searching for an idea. “I really don‘t
know.”

“You see, he could be anywhere,” said Isaac.
“How am I supposed to find my daughter? I‘ve been following this
thing around for a week. I always show up late, and that’s exactly
what I’m afraid of.”

“Yeah, but this time I think he wants you to
come after him. He wants to lead you to him, or to your
daughter.”

Isaac stretched his legs out then pulled
himself to his feet. “If he’s supposed to be leading me then he’s
doing a pretty shitty job. If you were him, where would you take
her?”

“Where would I take her?” Virginia repeated.
“That’s a good question.” She continued to pace around the living
room. “I would probably take her somewhere familiar. Somewhere that
I could—” She stopped as her eyes fell upon the black face of
The Immortal
resting on the coffee table, and the answer
seemed so clear. “Home. He took her home.”

Isaac peered down at the book and nodded.
For some reason, the thought had never crossed his mind; he never
believed it would end there. Fate had dealt him the worst hand, but
he would make do with what he had. Perseverance, and a still
beating heart.

They left the house in silence and began the
journey into the unknown. Virginia drove while Isaac sat back and
watched the rain beat down on the windshield. He called Simmons to
let him know what had happened, and to hurry and meet them. With
one look at the sky, it was apparent that the storm would not let
up for some time; it would follow them to the end, for tonight
there was too much at stake.

The car sped down Maria Avenue, past the
church, to the stone mansion at the end.

Chapter
Sixteen

1

From the corner of Fairway Boulevard to the
Great Baptist Church eight miles down on the right, Maria Avenue
appeared much like your average road. The surroundings were clean
and well kept, the streetlights were stark and luminous for nightly
travel, and even the road had recently been re-paved. There were no
malls or large shopping centers, no chain grocery stores, but there
were a few small businesses scattered about, along with a new set
of apartments that seemed to sprout up overnight. There were also a
number of residential housing areas filed in between large fields
of flat farmland. The majority of homes and trailers rested in the
first mile of Maria, and only one after the third.

Between the third and eighth mile, the
countryside opened up its mouth and breathed. The fields were
continuous strands on each side of the road, with only the
occasional horse or cow roaming about. There were a few old barns
and stables resting far back in the distance at the edge of the
forest, but for the most part, until the church steeple popped its
head up over the hillside a few miles down, the land was flat and
barren.

Once you passed the church, however, the
entire structure from which Maria Avenue had been built upon
collapsed, and at times even disappeared altogether. It was almost
as if God had drawn a line separating the part of Maria that
mattered and the part that didn’t, or the good half from the
bad.

The newly paved roads, which made for such a
pleasant ride earlier, gave way to scabby, uneven surfaces. Parts
of the road were so bad tall weeds had grown between the large
chunks of missing concrete. The last street light stood tall at the
end of the church parking lot, so if you were to trek any further
down the road after nightfall, you would make the journey with
nothing but the silver glow of the moon to light your way.

The large farmland, which had stretched for
miles before the church, cut back sharply as the forest in the
distance closed the gap and bullied its way to the side of the
road. A half a mile later, the barren fields were replaced entirely
by the forest which stood tall and dark, with long, twisting
branches hung over the road, and the echoes of the unknown crying
out from within.

Without a doubt, this desolate section of
Maria was not an area explored often, or at all anymore. Most
people knew better and would avoid the unlit, beaten road at all
costs, even if they were curious where it led. Their mind
recognized the imaginary line and warned them not to cross it; for
it wasn’t the length, light, or shape of the road that mattered,
only where it led you in the end. Maria had its dark spot, its
shadow under the trees, and it hid it well.

2

Virginia slowed the black Nissan as a pair
of orange road horses came into view through the thick rain. One
horse had been knocked on its side, probably by the tumultuous
wind, and lay a few feet from a ditch at the left side of the road.
She applied more pressure to the brake then turned the wheel to the
left and stopped at the side of the only standing road horse. She
tried to make out what the orange tape read through the gusting
rain but was unable from her position.

“
What does it say?” she
asked.

Isaac unlatched his seat belt and moved
closer to the window. The view was very dark and obstructed by the
storm; add the black tint and fogged windows, and it made seeing
anything more than a few feet away seem impossible. “I can't
tell.”

Then, when he had about given up, the rain
calmed long enough to get a clear view. The words were easy to
read, but difficult to say.

“Dead end,” he murmured, glancing over at
Virginia before sliding back into his seat. “It says dead end.”

The storm picked back up again.

Quietly, Virginia wondered if she’d made a
mistake. There appeared to be no sign of the green Civic and this
was literally the end of the road. Could it have been possible that
they came this far for nothing? “I wonder where your daughter’s car
is.”