The Somnibus: Book I - Finding the Mark (A Paranormal Thriller) (3 page)

I
spent the morning touring apartments only to find
something wrong with each one. Having no luck, I headed home to have lunch
before Barnes came over with Mr. Bell.

My mind wandered, wondering why Mr. Bell wanted
our house so badly. With the real estate market still in the tank, I expected
to get less than the appraisal, but to get a hundred grand more was insane. The
house hadn’t been foreclosed on yet, but it was still an auction, and I
prepared for a lowball offer.

My eyes kept finding their way back to the clock,
time seemed to crawl along that afternoon. Two o’clock finally came, and it
brought Barnes and Mr. Bell with it.

The doorbell rang and I paused before opening the
door, not wanting to appear too eager.

The rug caught on the corner of the door as I
greeted them.

“Michael, how are you?” Barnes said.

“Good, just let me get this,” I looked down at the
rug.

“I’d like you to meet Mr. Mort Bell.”

My foot struggled to pull the rug from under the
door. It finally broke free and I greeted Barnes and Mr. Bell.

“Hello. I’m….” The words caught in my throat and
my ears pounded at the sight of the visitor. As if transported by magic from
the photographs, the creepy
guy
stood before me
holding out his right hand, the marked palm presented for me to shake.

“Michael. You okay?” Barnes asked.

“It’s good to meet you Mr. Black.” The stranger
tipped his chin.

“Yes. Um, glad to meet you. I’m sorry. I’ve had a rough
couple days.” I reached to shake Bell’s hand. I half expected a jolt, or flash,
a spark, something when our palms met, but it wasn’t that dramatic. The
lackluster shake left me feeling somewhat disappointed.

“Come on in.” I stepped aside to allow the two men
through the door. Bell removed his hat and unbuttoned his sport coat. He walked
through the foyer and into the living area. Sitting on the couch, his head
swiveled side-to-side, surveying the room.

“Would you like to check out the rest of the house
Mr. Bell?” I asked.

“Please call me Mort. I’ll have plenty of time. I
won’t stay long, I’m sure you have plenty to do before the move.”

“Well, yeah. There’s still a lot to do before the
end of the week.”

“Well, you can take your time. There’s no rush as far
as I’m concerned.”

Barnes leaned forward and jumped in on the
conversation. “Let’s not forget, Mr. Bell, the contract states payment is due
in full by the end of the week.”

That struck good old Mort the wrong way. Mort
didn’t acknowledge Barnes, but snapped back. “Don’t lose your trousers. I have
the bank’s check in my pocket. You’ll have it before we leave today.”

Embarrassed, Barnes settled back in his seat.

“As I was saying, Mr. Black,”

“Please, it’s Michael.”

“Fair enough.
My point was, if you
need more
time, just name
it and we’ll come to some sort of resolution. I do have
some work to do, but I only need a small space for my computer, and an area for
a few books. I’ll need a bed of course, but any of the four bedrooms will do.”

“I don’t understand, Mr. Bell,” I caught myself.
“I mean Mort. You mean like a roommate?”

He laughed, and my cheeks warmed.

“What I mean is that you can take a little longer
to clear out your things. I think I’m past the point in my life where I would
have a roommate, a male one at least.”

The corners of my mouth rose. Barnes kept checking
his watch every few minutes. The next time he checked the time, it prompted a
response from Mort.

“Do you have somewhere better to be?”

Barnes lowered his wrist. “No, Mort. I….”

“It’s Mr. Bell, and I would appreciate if you
stopped putting the rush on me. I’m paying the bank good money, so I would like
at least 15 minutes of your undivided attention.”

Barnes straightened his back and pushed his plump
chest out just a little. He furrowed his brow and pressed his lips together
while he sat shaking his foot.

“Let’s get back to you, Michael. How much time do
you need?”

“I don’t know. Once I get my money from the bank,
I should have enough for a down payment, and I hope to find an apartment within
a month.”

“Fine.
You have your month.”

“Thank you so much. If I can get it taken care of
before then, I certainly will.”

“Fine,” Mort pushed himself up from the couch and
heading into the kitchen.

“Alright Barnes, come get your check,” Mort
reached into his jacket and retrieved his checkbook. He wrote the check out and
held it in a way that made it clear Barnes was to come get it.

Barnes sat still before finally taking the hint. He
got up and scurried into the kitchen. He folded the check and slid it into his
pocket.

“Well thank you, I appreciate you taking the time
to meet me,” Mort’s eyes held mine in a tight grip. “It looks like we’re going
to get a chance to know each other a little better.” He placed his hat on his
head.

Mort walked out of the kitchen and stood by the
door, waiting for Barnes to open it. He gave me a wink as Barnes scampered in
front of him. Barnes held the door open before following behind him into the
driveway.

I stood in the doorway as they stepped off the
porch.

“When would you like to bring your stuff over?”

“I’ll get your number from Barnes and give you a
call. I’ll bring my stuff over before the end of the week.” He stepped into the
passenger side of the Mercedes.

“Sounds good.
Thanks, and I’ll talk to you later.” I waved with
my right hand.

Mort rolled down the window as they pulled out of
the drive and stuck his right arm out of the window and gave a wave back. My
smile straightened when the mark on his palm caught my eye.

“Be safe tonight, Michael,” he said as the car
backed into the street. 

Tonight?
What the hell
did he
mean by tonight?

M
y palms were sweaty and my stomach light when I
answered the door. I had no idea what to expect over the next couple of weeks.
Mort was a stranger and I needed to be cautious, but he had an odd familiarity
that made me comfortable.

“Hi, Mort.
Good to see you again.” I held the door open and
waved him in.

Mort stood there with his lips pulled back to
reveal his somewhat aged teeth. They were all there, in one form or another,
except for one on his right side. He removed his hat and stepped into the
foyer.

“Hello, Michael. Is this a good time?”

“As good a time as any,” I stuck my head out the
door, searching the street for signs of a moving van.

“Where’s the rest of your stuff?”

“Oh, I have my computer and some clothes in the
car. I held the movers off until you’d had time to get yourself in order. Would
you mind helping me grab my things?”

“Of course not.”

I followed him to the driveway.

“Which room do you want?”

“You tell me. Whichever room is easier for you.”

“Well, the first room at the top of the stairs has
a bathroom. I think that would work. I don’t have much stuff in there, and
there’s a connection for the internet too.”

“Sounds good.”
He opened the back door.

I leaned in and took the computer tower from the
back seat. Mort grabbed an armful of clothes and followed me back up the porch
steps. I carried it up the stairs and set it down on the floor. About to leave
the room I paused when I saw him running his finger over the window frame. His
fingers explored every inch of the wood before inspecting the lock.

Mort reached into a box he had at his feet and
pulled out a cordless drill along with a handful of long screws. He proceeded
to load the screws into the window frame, sealing the window shut.

He turned around, and his eye caught my curiosity.
“I like to be secure.”

“Obviously.
Are you going to do that to the entire house?”

“Not likely, though I do like to have one room
that I can rely on to keep
me
protected.”

“You mean like a safe room?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s as good a way as any to put
it.”

“Okay,” I shook my head. With a furrowed
brow
I left the room and closed the door. The unmistakable
zipping of screws being buried somewhere in the doorframe echoed down the hall.
What the hell
have I gotten myself into?

Mort spent the rest of the afternoon in his room,
and I continued packing up my parents’ things until dinner.

He’d been quiet for a couple of hours and I
thought he
may
be hungry. I went up to his room and
knocked on the door. After a few more knocks, I pressed my ear to the door.
Nothing.

“Mort?
You want to come down and get something to eat?” The
room’s dead silence increased my heart rate. The door squeaked as I nudged it
open, and with all the work he’d put into securing the room I wondered why it
wasn’t locked. His silhouette slouched in the corner of the dark room. I opened
the blinds to get a better view.

He sat with his back pressed to the wall. The
slight rise and fall of his chest told me at least he wasn’t dead. Carefully
stepping toward him, pulse racing, I knelt at his side and my foot crunched on
the metallic links of a chain. Tension pounded in my ears as I followed the
course of the binding that led behind him. It fed through a well-attached
I-bolt anchored to the wall. The straps around each thigh
were
secured
to a thick leather belt upon his waist, the harness locked at
the buckle by a large combination lock.

Mort’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t
open,
his breathing deep but controlled. His right hand made
a fist while his left hand hung at his side. Lowering my head to his chest, I
searched for his heartbeat while mine rose into my throat. I fell backward when
his body convulsed. I scurried to the nearest wall and pressed my back against
the corner as his entire body shuddered. His legs thumped the floor while his
arms quaked and head jumped from side to side. Saliva escaped from the corner
of his mouth while he struggled against his confines.

He took a deep breath when the seizure finally
released its grip. Mort’s pupils remained dilated while his empty eyes held me.

His bony fingers uncurled and a small, round
pebble spilled from his grip, a blue pebble like my mother’s stone. Mort sat
motionless, chained to the wall. Life filled into his eyes as his lips
separated, revealing aged teeth.

“Hello.” He cleared his throat and wet his lips.
“Well, this is a bit awkward.” Inhaling deeply his fingers fumbled for the
padlock, hands trembling as he dialed the lock free.

The harness rattled when he released himself. It
piled onto itself while he pushed his way to his feet. My gaze held his as he
made his way across the room and stood in front of me with his right hand
extended. “Let me help you up. We need to talk.”

“No shit.”

I made sure to follow him downstairs to the
kitchen where he made a pot of coffee. My mind swam with questions, flooded
with the image of chains and his seizure.

“Have a seat, Michael.”

I pulled a chair out but remained on the other
side of the table in order to keep a little distance between us. Mort took the
seat across from me and sat in silence, stirring his coffee.

I couldn’t take the silence. “Okay. I’ll start.
What the hell was that?”

Mort sipped from his cup and let it settle before
answering me.

“You might want to do the same from now on.” He
sipped from the steaming cup. “Your little field trip to the middle of the
interstate the other night, what do you think happened?”

My mind’s eye flashed the vision of that semi,
sliding ass end toward me while my feet remained glued to the pavement. I had
no idea how I’d ended up there, but I had a sense that Mort did. I also had a
hunch that it wasn’t as simple as sleepwalking.

“Y
ou miss
your parents a great deal, don’t you?”

His words sent a tear racing down my cheek before
I wiped it with the back of my hand.

“Of course I do. I don’t feel whole anymore.” I
took a few more swipes with my hand before I finished.

I wanted to change the direction of the
conversation.

“In their pictures, how did you know my parents
and why… I mean, how do you look the same in every picture as you do right now,
sitting in front of me, sipping coffee?”

Mort took a long drink from the cup and paused
before finally surrendering an answer.

“I knew your mother most of her life. Your
grandfather introduced me to her when she was just a girl. I took it upon
myself to watch over her for him.” He took another sip before continuing. “I
helped with her gift. When she came of age to understand her bridging powers, I
felt it my duty to guide her. I gave her the stone, the trace she used. It was
chosen for your family.”

My mind struggled to wrap around what he’d said.
My forehead wrinkled more with each sentence he spoke.

“Bridging powers?
Trace?”
My confusion must have been obvious because Mort’s head tilted to one side as
he studied my reaction.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

I must have had a curious puppy expression because
he stood and motioned for me to follow him to the living room. He continued
talking while we sat sipping coffee and exchanging glances.

Before I realized it, my mouth opened and
interrupted him.

“Why were you chained to the wall upstairs?”

“Because that’s what should be done; it’s how we
protect ourselves. There are dark forces that also possess the power, and they
can be dangerous.” He tipped the cup once again. “When you fell asleep holding
your mother’s trace, what happened? Do you remember?”

“Of course I do.” I paused after his words
settled. I’d never discussed that with him or anyone else. “How did you know
about that?”

He disregarded my question and asked his own.

“What do you remember? Tell me what happened.”

My skin tingled as I remembered the dark
shadows, the white light, and the stench from that night.

“I fell asleep and I had some kind of a nightmare.
I felt a painful surge, as if it had sent me out of my body and into some other
place, a dark and horrible place. A green haze settled around the periphery of
my vision, and I had a few moments where I felt like I became someone else.” I
shifted in my seat before the next sentence left my lips.

“I looked down and saw a woman’s hands. I wore
women’s clothes, my mother’s favorite dress. I reached my hands up and touched
a soft face, felt an inner happiness.” My mouth quivered before I finished my
sentence. “I felt like I had become my mother.” My voice cracked and trailed
off.

“Then what happened?” He leaned forward.

“The green haze faded, and darkness engulfed me.
My mood switched to sadness.
Not a normal sadness but a
visceral type of misery.
These wraithlike things surrounded me like a
school of sharks.” I folded my arms in front of me. “What are those things? You
know, don’t you?”

He sat studying my face for a moment before
answering.

“Somnibus.
They can be pure evil. The place you entered,
it’s a world that is passed through in dreams, and it’s where we pass through
when bridging.”

“Why did it happen? I’ve dreamed a million times
in the past and never seen them. Why was this time different?”

“You fell asleep holding the stone. The stone adds
a different dimension to dreaming. An alternate world, you might say. You held
her trace when you fell asleep, and the thoughts of your parents weighed heavy
on your mind. Give me your hands.”

He stood in front of me and grabbed my hands,
flipping them over to expose the fresh pink skin on my palm. His finger traced
the edge of the mark.

“You have the mark so you possess the power too.
That ‘nightmare,’ as you called it, wasn’t a nightmare.”

He sat up and locked his squinting eyes on me.
“You don’t know any of this, do you?” 

“No. How would I?” I stood up and went back to the
kitchen. I couldn’t take his treating me like an idiot. “How would I know about
all this stuff? Why are you here? What do you want from me?”

I dumped my coffee down the sink in frustration.
When I turned to catch his response, I found him standing right behind me.

“I’m not here for me. I’m here to protect you.”

I tried to take a step back, but the counter top
caught my lower back.

“What do you mean? Protect me from what?”

“From yourself; from the
Somnibus.
They will come for
you now. You broke the rules, and they’re not a lenient bunch. I saved you
once, and I almost
got
stuck there myself. Now that
you’ve used the trace, you must keep it with you at all times.” He lowered
his head and took a step back.

“You knocked that thing off me?”

My head spun with all the information. My lips
finally asked the question my mind had been screaming.

“What’s bridging? What do you mean I have the
power,
too?”

Mort sipped from his cup and took a deep breath as
if preparing for a long speech.

“Well, there’s a lot to it, but here it is in a
nutshell. When you have the bridging ability, you are able to merge your mind
with the minds and bodies of others. You see what they see and feel what they
feel. You are able to manipulate what they do.”

“What happens to the person? I mean, does it
hurt?”

“The person being bridged is in a trancelike
state. They know something is not quite right, but they are powerless to stop
it. When they are released from the bridge, they have only a foggy recollection
of scattered memories and go about their everyday lives.”

“What does my mother’s stone have to do with
anything?”

“It’s called a trace. You might as well use the
proper terms. You must have a trace in order to bridge others. In the hands of
a normal person, the trace is just a stone. In the hand of someone with the
ability, it is much more.”

He raised his hand and flashed his palm, tracing
the mark he wore on his palm with his left index finger.

“This mark has even more power. The trace becomes
a powerful thing capable of much more than just bridging.”

Mort reached into his pocket and pulled out his
blue trace.

“Let me show you something. Your mind is
vulnerable right now. You’re struggling to make sense of all
this,
and your mind has no real focus. Your thoughts are scattered, to say the
least.”

Mort returned to the living room and sat back on
the couch. I watched his eyes closely, not sure what he had planned, but my
pulse sped up in preparation.

My eyes closed and when I opened
them
I stood over the stove. Confusion wrinkled my forehead
as the circle on the glass top stove turned red before I lifted my left hand
and held it over the heat. My hand burned, but I couldn’t move it. Willing my
hand to move away, my muscles ignored the command. It became more painful and
my hand flew back. Stepping away, I regained control of my body and rubbed my
hand, turning from the stove. Mort sat on the couch, glaring at me, rolling the
small blue rock between his thumb and forefinger.

“Get the idea?” 

“Yeah.
I get it.” I made my way back into the living
room and sat across from him, still rubbing the palm of my left hand.

“Why did this happen all of a sudden? Why didn’t I
know about this sooner, and what caused it to happen now?”

“I guess your mother didn’t want you to know about
it, and your father knew nothing about the power.”

“What happened that made it click?”

“When you dream, there is an energy that creates a
signal. A normal dream sends off a benign signal, like a ripple. During a
bridge, the signal sent off is much stronger, more like an ocean swell. The
Somnibus sense this and investigate the trace holder. At first, you as the
trace holder will bridge as normal. For the first few moments, you will be in
your host and all is good,” he lifted his cup again.

“Like when I bridged my mother, right?” I
interjected.

“The Somnibus are there to keep a balance. They
have a role, though a not-so-polite one. There is one major rule that when
broken, they have no tolerance for. We can never bridge to the dead, it’s
forbidden, and should be the first thing explained to those who have the gift.
You said it yourself, you felt as though you had become your mother. That is
why the Somnibus want you.”

The base of my skull pounded, as if
my brain was being pulled down by the stem
.

“What would they have done to me?”

Mort stared at me, more like through me, for a
minute before giving a response.

“They would have kept you there. Your host body
here would pass away, and your soul would be stuck in their dark world forever,
as a Somnibus. Their recruiting methods are a bit harsh, but it is their duty
to hold on to as many as they can and keep them in their world. The one that
you got away from, he’s a particularly miserable prick. He doesn’t give up, and
he will try to get to you.”

“Is there any way they can come here, to our
world?”

“Yes, they can and they do. They have the ability
to bridge to those here in our world. Have you ever watched the news and
wondered ‘How could anyone do that?’ The answer is usually simple: Somnibus.
They invade the minds of the fragile. He will bridge to a host, usually when
the mind is vulnerable or otherwise weak. The host sees what the Somnibus is
doing, and they experience the emotions, but they have no self-control. Their
mind is bridged with that of the Somnibus, and they must sit powerless while
the Somnibus does what he has come to do.”

Mort sipped from the cup while his eyes narrowed,
and he too became a bit uneasy.

“Why do they bridge to our world? What’s the
point?”

Mort squirmed in his chair a bit before answering.

“They cause pain and heartache in order to ensure
a steady stream of weak minds to invade. The depressed and those that have
given up on themselves are vulnerable.” Mort tilted his mug once again. “They
also need to feed. They feed on small animals here in our world. They need the
iron from the blood. You will never forget the metallic stench from your
encounter, will you? That is the smell of a well-fed Somnibus. There is no food
source in their world. That is part of their motivation to bridge here, into
our world.
To feed.”
 

“How are you able to go back and forth? You were
there and saved me, but you came back.”

Mort stood, and before he went upstairs, he turned
his chin over his shoulder. “I’m different, that’s how,” holding his right hand
up in the air, exposing his mark, while he climbed the stairs.