Into the Dread Void (The Dread Void Book 1) Page 3

  “Thanks,” Nell said. “Duly noted.”

  Up close, Nell saw Julie smile then. Her sharp eyes were trained on Nell like a bird of prey.

  “So who are these friends you’re visiting so late?” she asked. “I’m genuinely curious.”

  A whole mix of emotions swirled around inside her now, enough to make her nauseous. Annoyed with Julie’s probing questions. Angry that she should have the gall to ask them. Afraid that Julie would tell her parents, that everything would fall apart so soon, so effortlessly. And guilty—the knowledge that she had brought this on herself like a stupid, shortsighted child…

  “Please don’t tell your parents,” Nell said. She loathed the desperation in her voice.

  To her surprise, Julie’s smile faltered. It was hard to tell for certain in the dark, but it appeared she traded it for a look of pity.

  “I don’t care what you do,” she said.

  “Thank you…”

  “Maybe you haven’t met many in your life,” Julie went on, “but my parents are actually good people. Don’t make fools out of them.”

  Julie turned into the hallway and disappeared into her room, leaving Nell alone in the hall. She stood in the ensuing silence, mind reeling. She took a deep breath, about ready to disappear into her room as well, and caught a cursory whiff of the smoke clinging to her clothes. She pulled her shirt away from her collar and sniffed.

  I guess it is pretty gross…

  Something touched her other hand hanging at her side—something cold and damp—and startled her. She peered down to see Howard nudging her with his nose. She scratched the top of his head.

  “You won’t tell them, either, right?” she whispered.

  He only looked up with his sweet, always-sorrowful eyes.

  Nell sighed and returned to bed at last.

  5

  THE ENTITY

  With one hand on the wheel and the other loosely squeezing the bottle tucked between his legs, Paul Linklater navigated the twisting mountain roads with sleepy, half-lidded eyes. His truck’s headlights cut a large swath of light against the sleeping trees along the road before him, his harsh brights meant to make up for the clarity his tired gaze lacked.

  He took another sip of his beer, tucked it back against his crotch. He scratched his balding, flaking head. His fingernail happened upon a bump along his crown and he picked at it. Tender and crusty. A couple more scratches and he picked the scab clean off. He flicked it from under his fingernail. He tapped the place where the scab had been and felt a sticky moisture against the pad of his finger.

  “Hmmm…”

  He held his finger before his face, turned cross-eyed with the effort to see it. Blood, all right. His scalp was covered in similar scabs. Always scratching, picking, digging. Alice—his old lady—was always telling him to leave his scalp alone, marred by a long history of such nervous tendencies.

  “To hell with her,” he said under his breath.

  She was the reason he was out here now. Searching for peace. Searching for his own voice, uninterrupted by the otherwise constant complaints, the constant second guessing. A man couldn’t properly think in a house like his. Some nights he forgot the voice of his own inner monologue—it was her voice he heard instead. Badgering. Belittling. Nights like this, his thoughts were hardly his own. He needed desperately to reclaim them. Night driving was one such method. Following the canyon highways, his mind could reset. The curving roads, the lush forest guiding him along like bowling lane bumpers…

  “To hell with her…” he murmured again.

  He began scratching the top of his scalp again, an involuntary habit, until his fingernails located another scab and he got to working on it. Clawing, peeling, flaking. When he pulled it loose, he observed it dry and wrinkled under his fingernail, satisfied.

  “To hell with you, Alice…”

  His vision shifted from his fingernail to the road before him and his heart gave a sudden, cold rattle in his chest. He threw both hands on the wheel and jerked the truck off the road’s shoulder back onto the pavement. The tires audibly screeched. Having overcorrected, he jerked the wheel again and pulled the truck back into his lane. Something wet touched the underside of his thigh, soaking through his jeans. He looked down into his lap.

  “Oh, god… dammit!”

  He grabbed his tipped-over beer bottle, emptied across his seat and under his legs.

  “Shit…”

  He tossed the bottle onto the passenger seat. Then, as he glanced to the road once more his heart rocketed into his throat, leaving a cloud of nausea in its wake. He grabbed the wheel with both hands a second time and pulled it leftward, barely missing the first tree illuminated in his headlights. The truck wobbled left. Dirt and underbrush rumbled and scratched beneath its undercarriage. The bottle in the passenger seat shook onto the floor with a dull clunk. Paul mashed his foot onto the brake just as his left headlight broke against another tree and the truck rebounded to the right. He fell sideward against his window, rapped his feeble head against the glass.

  Oh shit…

  Delirious and panicked, he pulled the wheel hand over hand as he continued to mash his foot against the brake but the truck was caught in a downward slide. Branches grated the passenger side. The side mirror tore off with a plastic crunch.

  “Gah!”

  Paul choked as the truck came to an abrupt stop against a cluster of aspens.

  He slouched in his seat for a moment. The side of his head was numb where he’d banged it against the window. His one surviving headlight shined ahead through the wooded pillars. Collecting himself, sobered only barely from the crash, Paul put the truck into reverse. He stepped on the gas and the truck spun its wheels in the dirt for a moment, before finally lurching back and immediately reversing into yet more trees behind him with a loud, rocking bang.

  “Mother fucker,” he groaned. “God… damned… mother…”

  He dropped his hands from the wheel into his lap and sat in silence for a time. Nothing but the sound of his weary, whistling breath. He rested his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

  “Goddammit…”

  Despite the excitement of his off-road adventure, he could have fallen asleep right then if he wanted to. It moved over him like a blanket, a quiet tranquility which melted his beer-softened body like gum onto his seat. In fact, he did almost fall asleep then. As the truck’s engine idled and clunked—a soothing white noise—his thoughts turned to mush, dissolving toward inevitable slumber, until something in the woods drew him back from it.

  Through the thin elastic skin of his eyelids, a strange light touched Paul’s vision. First he squeezed his eyes shut tighter, as disoriented and on the brink of sleep as he was, but as the light grew stronger, more vibrant, his cognition finally roused and he squinted toward it.

  The emerald light pierced his vision like a shimmering blade.

  “Oh my…”

  Paul straightened in his seat. It was in the trees ahead, passing through the woods, weaving closer, bright as a spotlight. It glared upon his truck, through the windshield, dousing him in its stunning brilliance.

  Without thinking, Paul unbuckled himself and opened his door. He left the truck running, idling, its single headlight drowning beneath the more powerful green light coming nearer. It approached leisurely. Calmly. Like a spirit of the woods, it floated above the ground, bobbing at about the height of a man’s chest as Paul stepped out onto the hard dirt. He rested his hands absentmindedly on the open door as the green light moved closer still, nearing the hood of the truck. There it stopped. Paul gently shut his door. He moved closer.

  “Wow,” he said.

  He came to a stop near the corner of the truck’s hood, near the broken headlight. The green light hovered only a few paces away. As it glimmered in Paul’s eyes, the surrounding woods fell away to nothing. Just the light. Nothing in his vision but the light.

  “What are you?” he asked aloud, but he could hardly hear his own voice over the drumming of his heart.

  The light didn’t speak. Only shined. Paul didn’t need an answer, anyhow. It was gorgeous, he thought. Unlike anything he’d ever seen. Though the woods were silent—aside from the ticking, rumbling engine of his truck—Paul detected a certain musicality to the light, although perhaps it was just his heart beating between his ears. But it seemed to beat in time with the shimmering light, the hypnotic twinkling of its starbursts in his tearful eyes.

  “Oh, Alice,” he said. “Oh, I wish you were here to see this…”

  It was hot, the light. It warmed the woods around him like a huge space heater, like an open, fire-breathing oven, and Paul twitched as he felt each of his pores opening up and beginning to sweat. He dared not move, fearing the light would leave him. Holding it in his watery gaze, he unbuttoned his flannel shirt from his collar down to the very last. He shrugged and shimmied the shirt off his shoulders, pulled his arms from the sleeves, tossed the shirt onto the ground. Next he removed his undershirt, pulled it over his head as quickly as he could so that the light only left his line of sight for a second.

  “My god,” he said.

  Despite the heat, he trembled all over. Shivered like a withered old dog. He kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks. He unbuttoned his beer-soaked jeans and slid them off his legs along with his skivvies. He stood completely nude, basking in the emerald glow. His hairy, saggy body continued to twitch nervously. A strange, sweaty chill. Even stripped of his clothes, the heat seemed to smother him and still he trembled. His arms were slippery against his torso, sweat dripping down his sides. He licked his upper lip and tasted the salty sweat gathering there. He sighed loudly, panting with exhaustion.

  “I wish Alice was here,” he said again.

  He wiggled his
fingers, clenched his fists. It was only getting hotter. He felt it deeper now. The heat was in his bones, the marrow simmering inside them. It blossomed through his sinewy flesh. Sizzled underneath his skin.

  “What… are you?”

  His eyes bulged from his head like billiard balls, and there was so much sweat running down his face that they stung with it. He ran his hands over his belly, over his chest, vacantly touching himself in the glowing heat. It was becoming so hot, the sensation was both wonderful and painful. A sauna in the middle of the woods. The light’s heat was inside him now, transforming him into a blinding star all his own, ready to burst with luminescence at any moment.

  He was honored.

  “Ho boy,” he said, licking more sweat from his upper lip.

  As he moved his hands across his body, he felt a strange vibration against his palms—an almost imperceptible hum beneath the skin. Electric. He continued to stare as the green light continued to twinkle, entranced as he explored the unusual sensation under his fingertips. It was getting stronger. The vibration. The marrow in his bones was boiling, he thought, the bones singing with the heat. His body buzzed with simmering juices, rising to the surface of his flesh, and he felt it. Bubbling. Expanding. His skin crawled, heated slowly from the inside out. More painful than wonderful now, but extraordinary nonetheless. Breathtaking. There was little he could do but remain in awe of its strangeness.

  “Oh, Alice…”

  He slid his hands from his chest up his glistening neck, up the sides of his face. He felt it there especially. The bubbling. His flesh was positively lively, rippling in pulsing waves off the hard surface of his skull. He was like a marshmallow in a campfire, turning soft and pliable. Moldable. He pushed his sweaty palms up along his temples, fingers curved across the shiny dome of his scalp. His flaking, scabby scalp. It was bubbling, too. Tender. Practically falling off the bone.

  “Oh, Alice… Oh, Alice, Alice…”

  It was so fucking hot, he thought. He needed desperately to cool down, but dared not step away from the emerald light. To step away would offend it, he thought. It would leave him, find someone more deserving. Someone less afraid. Someone tougher, more durable. No, he would stay. He could endure it. It wasn’t too hot for him. Not yet. Not ever.

  He wasn’t totally undressed, after all.

  There were more layers to be shed.

  6

  NELL

  Nell followed Kacy through the thrift store, through the disorganized shelves and the many similarly disorganized shoppers as they prowled for additions to Kacy’s cassette collection. Nell couldn’t say it was the most thrilling experience, but watching Kacy in her unbridled enthusiasm to find something new was entertaining enough. Now and then, Nell caught glimpses of Kacy which filled her with private envy. Glimpses of pure, thoughtless passion. Glimpses of complete naivety, where it became clear Kacy wasn’t familiar at all with the world’s tendency to disappoint, to overwhelm, to crush. In many ways, Kacy seemed much more a kid at heart than Nell ever felt as an actual kid.

  “Have you been to any thrift stores before?” Kacy asked, crouched at a low shelf, where she pulled a thick plastic bin out onto the floor. The bin was full of cassettes, tossed carelessly inside like the junk it mostly was.

  Kacy’s question elicited a laugh from Nell. She swallowed most of it down, intent not to make Kacy feel foolish.

  “Yeah,” Nell said. “I’ve been to lots of them.”

  Kacy began to dig and sift through the bin of cassettes, and Nell watched her curiously as she set several aside. At one point Kacy scoffed, and pulled an unraveled cassette out from the rest, its guts tangled and knotted through the others.

  “It would be nice if they organized things a little better,” Kacy muttered.

  She set the destroyed cassette aside from the others.

  “Are those ones you don’t already have?” Nell asked, pointing to the little collection Kacy was forming on the ground.

  “Maybe,” Kacy said. She pushed the bin back onto the shelf and pulled her phone from her pocket. “I don’t always remember which ones I have and which ones I don’t. But I’ve got a list of them all on my phone, so it’s just a matter of checking…”

  Nell grimaced. It was both a tedious exercise and yet charming, she thought. As Kacy scrolled through a long list on her phone and systematically tossed cassettes back into the bin, Nell peered around the wide, open-floor store at the other shoppers hunting about. It always amused Nell, the different kinds of folks she saw in a thrift store on any given day. One would think a thrift store would mostly benefit those on tighter budgets, those who inherently needed to be thrifty to stretch their paychecks until the next, but time and time again Nell discovered that was hardly ever the case. Oftentimes there were BMWs parked outside, sometimes idling there at the break of dawn awaiting the morning clerk to unlock the doors and let them in. There were women wearing designer clothes who scoured the various clothing racks, not for themselves but for their online stores, where they then resold the used clothes for three times what they paid for them.

  However, as she scanned today’s clientele she saw only ordinary folks, those looking to save a few bucks on things they probably needed. As she continued to observe, and as Kacy continued to rummage through the bin and sort through her list, Nell noticed something odd unfolding at the front of the store, near checkout.

  “Random question,” Kacy said, still scrolling through her phone’s list. “What are your thoughts on camping?”

  Nell didn’t hear Kacy. Not at first. Near the store’s entrance, a rather haggard-looking woman was shouting—or speaking quite fervently, anyway—as employees gently barred her further entry. By the looks of the woman, and the many layers of tattered clothes she wore, Nell thought it was safe to assume she was homeless. Two employees walked her slowly toward the front doors, arms outstretched to prohibit any attempts to get past them, as the woman called to the store at large with her face lifted, standing on tip toe to project her voice as best she could. Her voice was apparently too weak to reach very far, as Nell couldn’t understand anything she said.

  Meanwhile, Kacy noticed absolutely none of this.

  “Nell?”

  “Huh?” Nell said, finally bringing her attention back as the employees succeeded in escorting the troubled woman outside, closing the doors securely after her.

  “I said, what are your thoughts on camping?”

  Nell blinked a few times, collecting herself.

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “I haven’t really been.”

  Kacy halted her prospecting to peer up at Nell with disbelieving eyes. “You haven’t been camping? Really?”

  Nell simply shrugged again.

  “Oh, you’re going to love it, then,” Kacy said. “Casey’s parents have a cabin up the canyon, and we always spend a weekend with them around the Fourth of July.”

  “That’s this weekend,” Nell said.

  “I know! That’s why I wanted to ask. Some people don’t enjoy camping, crazy as that is to me. But you’ll love it, I promise. There’s a beautiful lake to swim in. We always make a fire. That’s Julie’s favorite part…”

  Nell’s mind clung to one detail in particular—the mention of a lake. The mere thought of swimming sent a chilling, nauseous anxiety blooming through her.

  “I don’t have a swimsuit,” she answered meekly.

  “No problem,” Kacy said. “We’ll stop on the way home and get you one.”

  Nell swallowed nervously. She looked to the surrounding shoppers once more, reflecting. Dreading. That sick sensation wormed its way through her a second time.

  Tell her you don’t know how to swim.

  The words traveled to the tip of Nell’s tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it out loud.

  Despite the amount of time and effort spent in rummaging the cassette bin, and sorting through her endless list of already obtained cassettes, Kacy left the thrift store empty-handed. She couldn’t have been more pleased by that, however. Nell quickly gathered that half of Kacy’s enjoyment was in the thrill of the hunt itself.

  “I did see a lot of new cassettes in there this time,” Kacy said as they moved through the sliding exit doors. “I just have them already…”