Authors: Tim Waggoner
“Screw it.”
He opened the drive’s side door and stepped out onto the muddy ground …
… only to find the Black Beast waiting for him.
The thing stood less than a dozen yards away. It was a clear, sunny day, and for the first time since the damned thing had begun stalking him, Dale got his first good look at the Beast’s features. Black as night, its ebon hide seemed to drink in light instead of reflecting it. Roughly the size and shape of a large wolf, its head was closer to that of a wild boar, porcine with jutting black tusks, and its long hairless tail undulated like a serpent. Worst of all were the eyes. Glossy black orbs — cold, calculating, gleaming with malice and hunger.
The reporter in Dale was tempted to pull his camera from the pocket of his suit jacket and try to get a photo of the Beast. But the creature let out a deep rumbling growl, and Dale forgot about taking a picture. He was instantly alert, every nerve alive and on fire, all weariness gone.
A number of strategies flashed rapidly through his brain, techniques and anecdotes gleaned from reading nature articles and watching wildlife documentaries over the years. Meet the creature’s gaze and show no fear. Don’t look into the creature’s eyes. It’ll see that as a challenge and attack. Yell as loud as you can — noise will scare it off. Stay silent and don’t provoke it. Stand tall and make yourself an imposing physical presence. Fall to the ground and play dead. But in the end, Dale chose a strategy that had served his species well for several million years.
He ran like hell.
He almost tripped going up the wooden porch steps, and though he felt a nearly irresistible urge to look back and see how close the Beast was — for he had no doubt the thing pursued — he kept his gaze focused on the front door, pounded both his fists on the surface and bellowed an inarticulate cry, praying someone would open the door before he felt razor-sharp ebon claws sink into his back.
And someone did.
Dale stumbled across the entryway, shouting, “Close it, close it, close it!”
The woman who’d let him in didn’t bat an eye as she shut the door a split second before something large and heavy slammed into the other side. Dale listened for several moments afterward, but there was only quiet. It seemed the Beast had given up — for now.
Gulping air and pulse thrumming, he turned to thank his rescuer. But the adrenaline surge that had saved his life was fast wearing off, and he’d gone without sleep for so long that as the crash hit, it hit hard. His mouth formed words, but he was unable to get any sound out. He felt light-headed, kitten-weak, and his knees started to buckle, as if his legs refused to bear his weight any longer after the abuse he’d just put them through. He almost laughed. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, after all this, he died from something so ordinary as a stroke?
But the woman — who he now realized was little more than a girl, really — rushed to his side and took his arm to steady him.
“Let’s get you into the parlor,” she said, her voice gentle as the first breeze of spring. “You can rest there while I go get Miss Eve.”
The girl was sylph-like, but her grip on his arm was strong and firm as a linebacker’s. Her hair was raven-black, straight and cut short. Her skin was so pale it was nearly white, and it reflected light in a way that reminded him of porcelain. Her face was round, her features small and delicate. She had black makeup around her eyes that resembled the khol used by ancient Egyptians, and her lips were equally as dark, though there was something about them that made Dale think she wasn’t wearing any lipstick, that her lips were naturally that color. Her eyes were a cold, glittering blue, like ice chips mined from some far-off frozen world. She wore a sleeveless red gown that hugged her like it was her own skin, cut low to reveal the white flesh of her upper chest and the beginning swells of her small breasts. The gown’s hem fell to the tops of her bare feet, and Dale saw that the nails of her tiny childlike toes were the same black as her lips, though her neatly trimmed fingernails remained unpainted.
She steered Dale out of the entranceway and into the front hall. The walls and floors were made of wood so highly polished that it gleamed. A series of small chandeliers hung from the ceiling, lighting the way. They appeared to use real candles instead of candleflame-shaped bulbs, but though their lights flickered like fire, the white wax of the candles themselves showed no sign of melting. The air was filled with intermingled scents that made Dale think of an exotic spice market in some small desert country with an unpronounceable name. The precise make-up of the smells changed as they walked — stronger with jasmine here, patchouli there, now sandalwood … with each breath he took he felt his pulse slow, his breathing even out, his lightheadedness recede. Weariness subsided as strength and alertness began to return. Perhaps it was merely an effect of his relief at escaping the Beast. But he didn’t think so.
They passed no doors as they traveled down the hall, and it seemed to Dale that they walked a long time until they finally reached an open doorway near the end of the hall on the right. He no longer needed the raven-haired sylph’s support to walk, but she didn’t remove her hand from his own and he wasn’t inclined to encourage her to do so just yet. She led him into the room, and as soon as he stepped across the threshold he felt as if he’d taken a sledgehammer blow to the gut. This wasn’t a parlor. It was the living room of the first house he and Marianne had bought back in Chicago, right after Alice was born. The same second-hand couch Marianne’s mother had given them, sorely in need of reupholstering, the same wooden floor, creaky and worn smooth by the previous occupants, nothing like the gleaming wood in the hall outside. Same floor lamp with tacky tassels on the shade — a wedding present from Dale’s grandmother — same TV, same picture window with the same hideous red velour curtains inflicted on them by Marianne’s great aunt …
His thoughts stalled for a minute as he saw through the window not Eve’s apple trees, but rather streetlights, passing cars, and on opposite side of the street, the Kolzinskis’ house. He suddenly felt light-headed again, and he wondered if that was why the sylph had continued holding onto his arm, because she had known what he’d see in here and how he would react.
She escorted him to the couch and helped him sit. It seemed smaller than he remembered, but the groaning protests of the old springs were the same.
“Wait here. I’ll go see if Miss Eve is available.” She gave him a parting smile that was half amused, half sympathetic, and then left.
He sat, breathing in the familiar odors of frying bacon and brewing coffee.
Marianne’s
bacon and coffee. He heard the sizzle of meat, the burble of water being heated, the sound of a baby whimpering softly, followed by a gentle, “Hush now,” spoken in a voice he hadn’t heard in twenty years. He turned toward the open doorway that led to the kitchen, tears welling in his eyes, for he knew then that time hadn’t blurred his memory, and his wife’s voice was just as he remembered it. The living room astonished him, made him question his sanity, but it was still easier to deal with than that doorway. As miraculous as it was, the living room contained only memories in the form of furnishings. But the doorway to the kitchen … if what he heard through it was real,then Marianne was in there, Alice too. If he got up from the couch, walked over to the doorway and stepped into the kitchen, where would he find himself? Reunited with his wife and daughter in a world that had been dead for decades, or would he be standing in another room in Eve’s house, the illusion of the past dispelled? And if somehow he
could
rejoin Marianne and Alice, would he still be a man in his sixties, or would he return to his young adulthood physically as well as temporally? Youthful once more, his whole life ahead of him, his wife and child at his side.
He started to rise from the couch when the black-haired girl in the red gown returned. He settled back down with a pang of regret as she walked over to the couch and sat next to him. The springs didn’t make a sound beneath her, but then she was so petite she probably didn’t weigh enough to dimple the cushion, let alone compress the springs.
“I’m sorry to inform you that Miss Eve is engaged in entertaining another visitor at the moment. But I will be most happy to take care of you myself. As we say here at the Garden of Unearthly Delights, your pleasure is our life.”
She smiled — not in a lascivious way, but gently, with sincerity — and placed her small doll hand over his. The ivory color of his skin made him think her touch would be cold, but it was surprisingly warm. An event most rare occurred then. Dale Ramsey, lifelong reporter, found himself struggling to find words.
“I … how … this room …”
Her gaze showed understanding. “Everyone reacts like this. It’s only natural. But yes, it’s real.” She nodded toward the window. “All of it. But it’s not just the room that’s important, Mr. Ramsey. It’s the
day
.”
At first Dale didn’t know what the girl was referring to, but then a numbing terror clasped his heart with icy claws, and he understood. The girl continued talking, and while her voice now seemed far distant, he had no trouble making out every word.
“You left for work early that day, skipping breakfast so you could meet with a source at a diner downtown. The story you were working on wasn’t all that important for a big city like Chicago — allegations of financial mismanagement at a small charitable arts organization. Allegations were unfounded, as it turned out. But there were no small stories as far as you were concerned, were there? You were young and ambitious, a would-be crusading reporter determined to save the world one word at a time.”
Dale detected a new scent mixed with the smells of coffee and bacon, an acrid tang that stung the back of his throat.
“You hadn’t wanted to get a gas stove, but your wife insisted. She said they were easier to cook on, that food prepared on them tasted better, that her own mother had never used anything but a gas stove. You were very much in love and wanted to please her, but you still had your misgivings. You were a reporter, and even at so young an age, you’d seen much of the darker side of life. One tragedy after another … accidents, murders, scandals, betrayals … a random series of meaningless events that convinced you the universe was indifferent at best and maliciously cruel at worst. You used to joke that you didn’t think the glass was half empty. You weren’t even sure there
was
a glass.”
The odor of gas grew stronger, until Dale could no longer smell the bacon or coffee. His throat felt thick and swollen, and every breath became an effort.
“If you hadn’t left early that morning, you’d have been there when the stove exploded. You might have been able to keep your wife and daughter from dying in the fire that resulted, and failing that, you could have at least shared their fate. But you didn’t find out until several hours later, when you stopped in at the office and your managing editor took you aside to tell you what had happened.”
The smell of gas was overwhelming now, and Dale felt dizzy and sick to his stomach.
“You can stand up and walk into the kitchen, Mr. Ramsey. You can turn off the burners on the stove before it explodes. You can save Marianne and Alice.” A pause, one that seemed heavy with hidden meaning. “If that’s your desire.”
Dale’s gaze was fixed on the kitchen doorway, and though he wanted nothing more than to leap off the couch and run to the aid of his wife and daughter, there was a question he had to ask first. “Is this real? If I go in there, if I save them, will …” He couldn’t bring himself to complete the sentence.
The girl finished for him. “Will the past be changed? Will the fire have never happened? Will you have continued your life as a reporter in Chicago, watching Alice grow up, Marianne by your side? Yes and no. The past will remain the same in what most people consider the real world. But things will be different for you, Mr. Ramsey. You and you alone.”
Dale tried to speak, coughed, tried again. “It won’t be real.”
“It will
seem
real. Isn’t that almost as good?”
Dale was tempted — God, was he tempted! — but how could he abandon Joanne and retreat into an illusion of the past merely to ease his loneliness and guilt? Was that the kind of man he was? The kind of man Marianne and Alice would want him to be?
He looked once more toward the kitchen doorway, suppressed his tears, and turned his attention back to the girl. Dale struggled to choke out a single word. It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life.
“No.”
The girl shrugged, and at once the smell of gas was gone, along with the scents of bacon and coffee, and the sounds of Marianne and Alice in the kitchen. The silence came near to breaking Dale’s heart. He told himself that they hadn’t been real, that none of it had, but it didn’t matter. Real or not, losing them again still hurt like hell. But painful as it was, Dale fought to push his feelings aside. He could deal with them later. Right now he had work to do.
His throat felt normal again, and he was relieved to find himself able to speak easily once more. “I came here for information. A friend of mine suggested Eve might be able to help.”
“As you wish. Our only purpose is to satisfy your desires, whatever they might be. We can supply the information you seek … if you can afford to pay the price.” She said this last part matter-of-factly, but her ice-blue eyes shone with a cold, calculating light. He’d seen eyes like that before. Marshall had them, as did Lenora. All pure-bred Crosses had them.
“You’re Eve,” he said.
Much, if not all, of the coldness left her gaze and she smiled with genuine joy. “Very good, Mr. Ramsey. I thought you might guess the truth.”
Dale had never visited the Garden before, but he wasn’t surprised Eve knew who he was. Gleaning that bit of information had to be ridiculously simple for someone who could see into the hidden recesses of his heart and bring his most secret desire — or at least an illusion of it — to life.
“Why the pretense?” he asked.
“It keeps me from having to explain why a woman as old as I am looks the way I do.”