Young Writers Society

This is the first in a four book series of which the first is completed (in its 3rd draft.) It's 200,000 words long, and I'll post it a few chapters at a time as the crits come in... because they're just rolling in. (Note the sarcasm: the lowest form of irony that is my friend.)

Just to warn you, if you did not previously, I advise you to heed the R rating.

(Note: All first person thoughts are supposed to be italicized as they are in ms word, but I'm too lazy to go through it all again here, so just imagine that they're italicized.)

GREATER ELSEWHERE

Prologue

Mornings are supposed to be calm, but when the sun broke the horizon in Halverstire that day, the world was anything but calm. The sickness had reached the suburbs, bringing with it the moans of the dying and the constant wails of ambulance sirens.

Maggie whispered a prayer for the dead, whoever they were, closing it with a reverential, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”

According to the Maiyern, prayers for those who’d already passed on were pointless, but Maggie didn’t hold to that belief. The ignorance of the Maiyern priesthood was not a well-kept secret. What did old men in clean, well-lit churches know of real suffering? They didn’t know it as Maggie did – they weren’t here, now, praying with her as dawn’s light spilled into the room, drenching it and the rest of the suburbs in dull crimson. She sighed, toying with a loose thread at the hem of her blouse as she watched the ambulances flit past the house. The meaningless habit was somehow comforting against the dull and constant pressure of the world and its demands.

This had to be the end of it all: the end of the world. President Hopkins had released a press statement just the other day announcing that researchers had whipped up a vaccine – too late, of course. Not that the announcement didn’t come without sighs of relief for many, but it certainly didn’t do too much to console the Nivean States, the world’s last superpower, when its president was found with his wrists slit in a bathtub two hours after assuring the public that everything would soon be back to normal.

A cough from the next room quickly reminded her that there was no such thing as normal anymore. She yanked the loose thread free from her blouse and turned away from the window.

There were more coughs, becoming violent as she approached her nephew’s crib.

Poor kid, she thought, resting her forearms on the crib’s rail. He was barely four months old and the plague had already taken his mother during childbirth and his father just days before.

She stood straight again and hugged herself at the thought of her nephew’s parents, her big sister and brother-in-law. The world felt so different without her sister. She had no better word to describe it, this lack of feeling. It was strange that she should feel so little over the loss; she had been close to her sister, but she had grown closer still, in recent days, to the suffering. It had conditioned her – become a part of her.

Once again, a simple task lifted the weight from her mind; she frisked for a towel in the hamper at the foot of the child’s crib, eventually picking a red one because it was softer than the rest. She plopped it unceremoniously into a nearby tub, as the baby’s coughs turned to shrill wails.

“Shhh. No, don’t cry. Shhh,” Maggie said as she pulled the sopping-wet towel over his tiny forehead. She scolded herself for not wringing it out first when the water ran into the baby’s already watering eyes, making him cry louder. She wrung the excess water out into the tub and tried again.

“Your mother wouldn’t want you to cry. Be good for her… please… Please!”

The child wouldn’t settle though, and Maggie let out a wail of frustration to match him. She tried to plug his toothless mouth with a soother – smother the thing, she thought – but he turned his head away whenever she got close, glaring at her with those too-intelligent gray eyes before wailing even louder, as if just to spite her. As he continued his morning song, he bounced up and down, arms thrashing, his feverish face as red as the cloth in her hand.

“What’s wrong? Stop that! Stop that right now! Here, take this–”

She tried to stuff the soother in the baby’s mouth again, succeeding only after she held his head steady with her other hand. The baby settled, finally, and she retracted her hands, from the child’s face. She hated touching him, having her cool skin meet the molten heat of his.

I should be more caring… I should care! This is my nephew for Maiyora’s sake! For my sister’s sake…

She worked up some spit and gulped it down, to slow the thickening feeling in her throat before leaning over to plant her lips on the baby’s brow. The heat made her wince though, and she couldn’t keep the contact up for very long before recoiling guiltily.

This was more than she could handle. She was only seventeen! She wasn’t ready for this kind of responsibility… she wasn’t ready… but she couldn’t let her big sister down now. The thought of her sister brought on the tears this time. Her chest clenched painfully as violent, shuddering sobs wracked her. Something had filled the emptiness. She didn’t know what had triggered the despair this time but was strangely glad for it. At least now there was something to feel; her emotions didn’t belong to the Void.

Maggie shook her head and ran one of her long, pale hands through her hair, breaking the knots as it went along. Her gaze wandered over to her bed before returning to the child in his crib. He consumed every one of her waking hours, always crying, but never this loudly before. At times, like now, she was almost tempted to put the creature out of its misery… put it down like a bad breed of dog. Then she would scold herself for being so weak. Her sister had never been weak. Her sister had been perfect.

She wiped her eyes. They were almost as red as the boy’s face, and she didn’t want to show weakness to her sister’s child. He was too precious and too scared already. Maggie needed to be strong for the both of them, so she gathered her wits and took a deep breath, prepared to do whatever it took to comfort him. The bags under her eyes lightened, her face became bright, and she dipped the cloth into the tub of water once more, ready to soothe. Ready to bow down to her responsibility.

A crash sounded from the back of the house, causing her to startle and bump her shin on the side of the crib. She swore quietly to herself and gripped the leg before freezing, suddenly realizing what the crash could mean. Her eyes widened, and the child stopped crying.

It couldn’t be… No. The plague hasn’t passed yet. They don’t come until after it’s moved on.

There were rumours, bitter rumours of men who followed in the wake of the plague, thieves, who killed any survivors but took the children for sale on the Vodichian slave market and anything else of value. But a vaccine had been synthesized… Soon the plague would grind to a halt, and the thieves would be out dry. Of course they were early.

Maggie’s hands quivered as she laid them upon the child’s head, maternal instincts stirring, conquering her previous fears.

More sounds drifted towards the pair from other parts of the house. Footsteps, lights snapping on and off, muffled whispers, the occasional sniffle: the sounds drew closer as the robbers assessed the property that would soon be theirs. Maggie finally found a bit of nerve and slipped across the room, silent in her soft cotton slippers. She shifted the door closed and made her way back over to the child who was whining quietly. She picked him up and headed to the window, or began to when she stepped on a creaky section of hardwood. She froze, ready to bolt, her eyes wide and bloodshot from crying.

There was a long silence. Maggie strained to hear the thieves, unable to move from where she stood. Were they coming?

I should move. I should move.

There was a creaking of hardwood again, and this time it wasn’t from her. She snapped her gaze to the door just as it banged open, so hard that paint chips flaked into the air. Her muscles screamed for her to let them move, but she wouldn’t. They screamed at her to move for the boy’s sake, for her sister’s sake; but she just wasn’t the strong one.

“Too late Missy, time’s up. This fuckin’ town’s time is up,” the thief announced as he stepped through the doorway.

“What do you want?” she asked with only the slightest waver in her voice. Her sister would have been proud, even if it had been a stupid thing to say.

“Just your possessions,” he admitted without a trace of guilt, his eyes wandering up her figure appreciatively. “All o’them o’course.” His mouth cracked into a twisted grin, and Maggie stumbled back with a whimper that sounded almost giddy.

“Alec, Turner, we got us a live one here!”

“Please, no! I mean… just don’t hurt the child. Promise not to hurt the child! Please! I’ll cooperate! I’ll do anything! Just don’t hurt him, please!”

The man snickered at her.

“I can’t really promise anything Missy. I hear that Vodich is lookin’ for fresh young’uns. I can make a lot o’money off the kid… He’ll just be one o’many. The plague’s in the major cities now. There’ll be plenty enough orphans in York ‘fore long.”

“You can’t! He’s just a baby!”

“I can’t? I think I will Missy, but first thing’s first… Let’s talk about this tension between us.” He approached, the grin crumbling from his face.

“Monster!” Maggie screamed, picking up the ceramic tub of water and hurling it at him as best she could. It tumbled lopsidedly through the air in his general direction, spilling its contents, and he was easily able to dodge aside. It shattered loudly against the titania-green wallpaper. Drops of water cascaded down the wall, creating tendrils of creeping, darker green, like the veins of a leaf that had yet to experience winter’s chill.

She cried out in horror as he lunged at her, tearing the baby from her arms. It tumbled to the ground in a rumple of blankets and tears, and Maggie struggled against the brute as he tossed her onto the bed, across from the crib, pinned her down and straddled her like an unbroken horse. The bed bounced and creaked from the impact of their bodies and soon from the man’s anticipatory rocking as he ripped her shirt open and then went fumbling with her jeans. Maggie screamed again but fell silent when she saw the child staring up at her. She had to cooperate for the child. Maybe the man would take pity…

She looked up at the man as he slid down his own jeans to reveal stained plaid boxers. The expression on his face told her everything she needed to know. He would have no mercy for the child, or for her.

He ran a rough tongue down the perfect skin of her flat, quickly rising and falling stomach, making his way upwards. His stubble scratched her as his chin brushed across the path that the tongue had taken. His hands roamed her body, touching places they shouldn’t have, and Maggie shuddered, preparing for what was to come, blinking back the tears. He stopped his roaming and brought his face level to hers.

“You ready for this Missy! You ready for me!” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth, his breath smelling of Territine beer. He leaned back and laughed, ready to go. His stubby, dirt encrusted fingers pulled at the elastic of his boxers, toying around before his great unveiling. The tendons in his wrists became taut, and his jaw firmed. He slid the elastic down past his hips–

A gunshot.

Blood splattered across Maggie’s body.

The thief sat on top of her for a moment, rigid. A third eye of sorts had formed above his brow. The bullet lodged in his brain was the pupil, and it stared at her. A spasm shook the man’s body, and then the muscles loosened, his jaw slackened and blood dribbled out of his gaping mouth. He slumped forwards, slowly, dead.

Maggie was squealing under his corpse, and beside her stood another thief, his cold, blue eyes framed by a dark, jutting brow. A gun smoked in his hand, which tightened and loosened impulsively. He grabbed his dead companion by the shoulder and rolled him off Maggie with a rough indifference. The dead man tumbled to the floor beside the bed, and there was a resounding crack when he landed on his arm, breaking the bone beneath his lifeless flesh. The other thief gave the dead man little regard, focusing his gaze on Maggie. He raised his gun to her forehead, his face rippling with conflicting emotions, muscles tugging back and forth around his mouth and eyes.

“Please… don’t hurt the child! Help him! Please!”

The man said nothing.

He cocked his head downwards, acknowledging the baby who lay crying on the floor. Then, his cold eyes settled upon girl’s tear-streaked face. He lowered the gun and nodded to her. The nod was a promise, and she sighed with relief.

He smiled comfortingly for a moment, then his arm went up, and he shot her in the head, just as he had his partner. His smile had disappeared. He was frowning now, at what he’d had to do. He knew that he was a monster for shooting her, but he’d had no choice.

He draped a sheet over the body to cover the nakedness, to protect her modesty on her deathbed, and then he placed his gun gently down on the mattress. He closed her eyes with a practiced care and sighed, then stood still for a moment, lost in thought. His hand twitched. He scooped the gun up with his other hand and holstered it in the belt that held up his carpenter-cut jeans. The saviour and executioner likewise scooped up the child and cradled his tiny body in the crook of one arm. The baby looked up at him with suspicious gray eyes, somehow not crying.

“Okay kid,” the man said softly, almost tenderly, as a third thief entered the room.

“Alec! What the fuck did you do to Tommy?” Turner squeaked.

“He had it coming. We kill because we have to, but we don’t take advantage. My rules. Now, let’s go. The child is deep into the fever… He’ll be lucky to survive.”

“No bloody way! You killed Tommy you fucking maniac! For the love of…”

Turner touched a small stone that dangled from a chain around his neck, a tear of Maiyora.

“What are you saying, Turner? You gonna turn on me? I got you vaccinated you ungrateful prick.”

“Well…” Turner paused for a moment. He scrunched his nose in thought, something that should have been foreign to him. Finally, with his decision made, his hand darted to the holster at his waist.

Alec was faster, and Turner took three bullets to the chest. He fell in a bloody heap onto the floor, his narrow face twisted into a grimace of shock and pain, the last expression his face would ever wear. Alec stood there for a moment, gun arm still raised, baby cradled in his other arm. He was almost as shocked at his own actions as Turner had been. What was he doing? He was risking his life, for this… He looked at the baby he held.

“I was told to give them all the children,” he whispered, holstering his gun. The people he worked for were unforgiving. They’d made it clear that this would be his last and only chance at freedom. They’d made it clear what his job was. He couldn’t risk it.

The child wriggled uncomfortably, and Alec couldn’t help but sigh at the little thing.

“You won’t tell on me, will you?” Alec asked, smiling at the baby. The little creature made a gurgling sound. “You’re gonna cost me kid. You’d better be worth it.”

The baby’s feverish face drew up in juvenile seriousness, and he started to cough lightly. Alec sighed and hugged him close.

“Well I guess you ain’t gonna be worth anything dead, eh?”

Alec took the child and left the house at sunset, when suburbia was painted red by the sun’s half-faded light once more.

They headed city-ward, to York.

*

A blue dry-erase marker, the brand name on its side rubbed away by sweaty fingers, squeaked obnoxiously against a white-board. The nurses’ shift-board.

S-T-O-N-E-D-A-Y, S-E-C-O-N-D-S-P-R-I-N-G 1-0-t-h…

What year was it?

Karen fumbled around in her mind to remember it, and, after a while, she finally did. She marked it down beside the rest of the date and proceeded to fill out the tape-marked boxes with shift times, duties and the rest. She was the first of the day-shift to arrive that day. While the head-nurse Samantha was on vacation in Passinia, enjoying the azure waters of the Baextin Ocean, Karen was covering her duties. She would much rather be left to her own duties, to not have to bother. (It wasn’t as if she was earning double-pay for working double-jobs.) And Karen certainly did not regard herself as much of an altruist. No, on the contrary, she was quite a selfish woman, wanting nothing more than to be totally and utterly left-the-fuck-alone. Why she’d become a nurse she could only wonder. She hated people. She didn’t want conversation. She didn’t want to see her mother or father who were, to Karen’s dismay, still clinging to life. She didn’t want to see her brother, wherever the petty crook was. She didn’t want friends or even friendly conversations with co-workers. There was a time when she didn’t mind the occasional male companion, though she was getting on in years of late, so such things were on the bottom of her things-to-worry-about list. If it were up to her, she’d lock herself away in a room and just listen to old Mastiff records, a rock band that had composed the personal soundtrack to her life.

But she had to interact with people. She had to work. Due to circumstances her unborn self could not have foreseen – or she probably would have strangled herself with her umbilical cord – her body required sustenance that only she could provide it with. Sustenance, in its purest form: money.

Karen certainly was not popular among her colleagues, but she was the best damn nurse on the ward… excepting only Samantha. And Samantha had made reality clear to her on more than one occasion: “You’re good at what you do Karen, but nobody would shed a tear if I fired you tomorrow, so if I ask you to take my duties, you take my duties, got it?”

Oh yes, she got it. Samantha was on top, and she’d always be on top. That was the message. That was always the message.

Someone was always on top.

“Excuse me, Nurse Ford?”

Karen startled and spun around. On the other side of the polished green reception desk stood a young man, twenty-something, gawky-looking. He goggled at Karen’s breasts that were quite obvious, even under her loose-fitting uniform.

It was just Hansen, an intern.

“Get your eyes away from my chest and tell me what you want Hansen.”

The young intern aimed his eyes nervously at the roof, idiot, and mumbled something incoherent. Karen sighed, more tired than angry.

“Hansen, I meant look at me, just not at my chest, and I said tell me what the problem is.”

“W-well… uh…” Hansen’s eyes wandered down from the roof, back to her chest, then darted back to the roof again. “Well… there’s a… um… man here to see you. Said his name was Alec. Said it was important.”

He looked down, finally into her eyes, and perked up eagerly. “Do you… uh… want me to tell him to s-scram, Nurse Ford? Looks like a bit of a rough guy.”

Karen rolled her eyes.

“No Hansen, just direct him to me. Actually, you know what, tell him to meet me in room two-fourteen so we can talk in private.”

“Oh. Um… okay, Nurse Ford. Are you sure, Nurse Ford?”

“Yes, Intern Hansen, I’m sure.”

“Right. I’ll go do that then.”

The intern scampered off down the hall, and Karen waited for him to disappear from sight before venting her frustration on the second-floor reception desk, though she’d have much rather vented with her fist in Hansen’s ugly face.

What the hell does Alec want? I told the bastard to leave me alone.

She fingered the phone cord, tempted to call the cops.

“I should,” she said to the empty hall.

Her fingers wandered, clamped down on the receiver…

She closed her eyes and slumped forward, releasing the phone and quickly gripping the edge of the desk so as not to fall over. What did Alec want this time? That big part of her still wanted to be left alone, but another part of her was curious. What did Alec want? Loud, familiar footsteps began to echo down the halls, no doubt waking a few patients.

Room 214.

She lifted herself away from the desk and sucked in her gut. She couldn’t let Alec see her all slumped over like that, weak, just an aging woman starting to plump. She had to maintain some sense of superiority when dealing with her brother.

*

She expected Alec to swagger through the door as he always did, arrogant, cocky, so full-of-shit she was surprised he didn’t explode, but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t, because then it would be easier for her to deal with him, and the world just didn’t want to make anything easy for her. She had no idea what to expect from him when he slumped in through the door, carrying some kind of package in the shelter of his long cloak. He obviously wasn’t here to hit her up for money. And, though his eyes were bloodshot, it didn’t look like her baby-brother was here for drugs again. He just looked… tired, distraught. His hair was a tangled, dripping mess, creating a small pond around his feet. Rivulets of water filtered down through the fuzz of his worn cloak, clotting into damp blotches in some places and dripping straight down to the hem in others.

“It’s raining pretty hard I’m guessing,” Karen said, expecting some sarcastic or snide remark. She received nothing but a grunt.

He threw off his cloak and swept it aside with an impressive flourish, spraying water everywhere, to reveal the bundle he carried. There was a gasp, and it took Karen a moment to realize that the gasp had issued from her own throat. Her normal cold control fled her as she stood there, gaping with horror.

“My… God, Alec!”

He thrust the bundle towards her.

“Take it,” he grunted.

“No! Alec… Who’s is it? Is it yours? Maiyora help you if you expect me to take your child, Alec!”

He grinned wolfishly, a little of his old self seeping through, though gruffer. She’d never seen him like this before, face dark with stubble, voice grating. New scars decorated his face, a face so different from the one she’d always known.

“Well I’m glad you’re invoking Maiyora to help me, sister,” he growled. “Maybe you should take it then, if Maiyora is with me. Take it.”

“I never said Maiyora answered my prayers!” she bit back, though with less fire than she would have preferred.

He chuckled. “Dear sister. I’m glad you didn’t go naïve on me while I was gone. It would have been a pity for the world to lose the strongest woman I know. Come on, take him. Take him.”

Karen couldn’t help but smile, smile and sigh as she took the baby from his arms. He handed her a note also, the word Alec scrawled on a diner napkin. She looked up at him quickly, eyes wide.

His grin broke into a dark smile.

“Yes, I know how to read and write now. This is just a little sampling. I can do more than just my name, but this was the first thing I wrote.” He nodded at the napkin in her hand. “For you. Just like the baby. Both for you.”

“Alec… I can’t take this baby. I just can’t.”

“Karen… he has the plague.”

She gasped, almost dropping him. She’d been vaccinated, but still.

“H-have you got… the plague, Alec? Is that why you look…?”

“No. No.” Alec waved her away as she stepped forward. “I… worked a deal for a vaccine. I, um, work with a team that does damage control, cleaning and stuff, finding children in the wake of the plague.”

Karen’s eyes narrowed sceptically. “Then why are you bringing me this?”

“Please, sis. Don’t ask questions. I… promised his mother that I’d take care of him.”

“So why don’t you, Alec?” She pursed her lips in a thin line, as wide as they could go, and shook her head. “Typical you. Never good on your word. Always–”

“Karen, please.”

“–shirking responsibility. Never owning–”

“Karen!”

“–up to your damned mistakes! Expecting others to clean up your messes!”

“Karen! It’s not like that!”

“Really, Alec? Really? Well guess what? I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you.”

She shoved the baby at him and it woke with a start, beginning to wail. He took the boy and promptly hushed him. They were quiet, all three of them, for a long while as Alec cradled the baby tenderly. Finally, he looked up with those tired blue eyes of his.

He said, “Tell me sis, what kind of father do you think I’d make?”

The question shocked her.

“I… don’t know. I’d never thought…”

“Not a very good one, I don’t doubt, and that’s a risk I’m not taking. I still have a job to do, Karen. I’ll be leaving this baby here, like it or not, to return to my masters like a good doggy. There’s nothing you can do about it. Now either you take this child, care for it and give it the life it deserves, he deserves, or you leave him. Your choice. This is as far as I can take him.”

Silence again.

Karen reached out and stroked the baby’s head. His skin was on fire. Without medical attention, he would die, but Alec hadn’t needed to mention that. She knew. They both knew. To give the child to Alec was to kill it. She was his only hope. She could save a life. The kid would be deformed from the sickness as all the survivors were, but he would be alive.

I’m don’t care about anyone! I don’t care! I don’t care about this child… or my brother. I don’t give a–

“Alright,” she said, contriving to check her watch – normally a nervous habit – pretending to care less than she really did. “Give him to me.”

Alec sighed and handed her the baby again.

“And uh… one more thing sis…”

“You need money, don’t you?”

He shrugged and donned the rain-soaked cloak again.

“Whatever you have on you would be fine. I burned up my cash getting me and the boy here.”

“The boy and I,” Karen corrected, eyeing the child in her arms sceptically, as if the strange thing might explode on her at any second.

“Whatever,” Alec said.

Karen stripped her wallet bare and handed the cash over to him.

He flipped through it, grunted and left.

Karen shook her head with disgust. “No thanks,” she said to the baby. “Nothing ever changes.”

*

The celebrity sperm and egg market was the country’s newest craze in the wake of the plague. The sons and daughters of Nivean film and music stars like Max Kinney, Holly Temere or Phillipio Tanner could be yours for the modest starting price of fifty-grand a pop. Egg donation was a bit more of a rarity, usually coming from stars of the small-screen or washed-up supermodels, though a few of the women of Sinders County were willing to go through the risks of surgery for the immediate cash reward. It was said that an egg from Hilary Monnarde was worth upwards of half-a-million smackers. And there weren’t any refunds if the implant failed or the child died of birthing complications.

Celebrity sperm sales were in considerably higher demand, especially for rich couples with an impotent husband. It was common a tongue-in-cheek practice for a couple – with one firing blanks – to pretend that they conceived the child naturally. Then, in future years, while sitting around a television watching the entertainment news, a picture of the child’s biological father would spark interesting conversations, usually beginning with something like this: “Why Timmy, did anyone ever tell you that you are the spitting image of Michael Hopper but with red hair?”

So it was that when Samantha returned from vacation all knocked up, the mocking question began to fly.

“Who’s is it?”

Not that Samantha could have afforded celebrity sperm on a nurse's wage, even as the head nurse of South York General, but still.

Karen could have cared less about the gossip, but at least it redirected the whispers and curious stares away from her, the one who’d supposedly discovered a baby abandoned in front of the hospital doors. That had not been easy to explain to her colleagues, the walking mouths with eyes and ears. Of course, any claim she might have had to the baby was now gone, as she’d only found the thing after all. Now it was being treated for the plague, and she had no excuse to see it. None at all. She’d even been stupid enough to hand over the napkin with her brother’s name on it, claiming that it had been left with the child. That had become the baby’s name.

She should have been glad that the child was off her hands, that it wasn’t her problem anymore.

“How’s Alec doing?” she found herself asking the asshole Doctor Monroe who was responsible for treating victims of the plague.

“Why do you care?”

Yes, why do I care?

“No reason. Um, do you know what’s going to happen to him?”

He shrugged.

“The orphanages have almost reached their quota, so if they don’t take him and nobody adopts him… what happens to him?”

“Karen, how the hell would I know? I’d imagine someone will come to collect him. Now, do you mind? I’m kind of busy.”

The baby’s fate was down to her, but what could she do?

A whole lot of nothing, that’s what.

She wouldn’t be adopting the kid. That was for sure. That she’d vowed. Not for her brother. Not for some dead bitch who couldn’t keep her fly zipped. Not for anyone. But still… she couldn’t just let him disappear. She couldn’t let the world forget about him, just cut him loose and run. She felt responsible for him. He’d been left under her charge. She decided to pay a visit to a friend, the term being a loose one whenever she was concerned.

Her old Hemington Sedan pulled up in front of a pair of towering black metal gates and, after a few seconds pause, they swung open with a shuddering groan; the maw of the beast opened to admit her. A fat, gluttonous beast. She parked in front of the white awning and tried to hold her head high as she stepped out of the car. He was probably watching. He was always watching, somehow.

It had been almost seven years since she’d met the man, Tim. It had been almost seven years since she’d caught him blackmailing some city big-wig at a charity ball. One thing had lead to another… She’d been engaged to a young senator at the time, though they’d broken it off two days before the scheduled wedding. The break-up was probably a direct result of Karen having become Tim’s lover. Probably. She had been, she knew now, young and foolish.

The butler answered the door, a fat, short man with a moustache and tiny little eyes jammed into plump sockets. He was incredibly old, and the way he wheezed made Karen suspect that he would probably die soon.

“I called. Tim’s expecting me.”

“Follow me, Ms. Ford,” he said.

He took her through the house to a glass-enclosed garden in the back, surprisingly modest in size, modest having about as much square-footage as a small city block. Layered walls of pine trees lined the glass walls outside, their needles crashing together loudly from the harsh wind of the winter that was upon them. Karen had to struggle even harder to maintain composure. Even when she’d been sleeping with the man, it was never easy; Tim was… imposing.

The trees outside cast the greenhouse in shade, and within the shade grew a variety of ferns, hostas and jag-leaved hellebores, clinging to their dark-enshrouded lives with inspiring determination, but Karen didn’t even see them. They didn’t register to her in Tim’s presence. He stood at the end of a narrow bridge that spanned a stream winding through the garden. His feet were together, back stiff and straight, chin level, just like a soldier at attention except his hands were clasped in front of him, kneading each other.

“Hello Karen.”

“T-Tim,” she said, quickly checking behind her for the fat butler. He was gone. She was alone with the man of her nightmares, and she could only comprehend the feeling as surreal. It had been so many years.

He probed her with his eyes… those eyes. She tried to avert her own gaze but found it ensnared by some sick fascination, like the desire to know how one would eventually die, how all of it would end. It was like staring into the Void, completely empty and uncaring. They were barely recognizable as human, and the sight of them made her sick. Her stomach churned, filling the back of her throat with a sickly sour, burning taste.

“What do you want, Karen? I thought you never wanted to see me again.”

She gulped past the taste, still unable to break the spell of those dark orbs – gouged things, slashed, blackened, pitted – utterly destroyed yet still remarkably there, still intense, still alive and seeing. Tim normally wore shaded glasses to hide them, but for her he showed them off quite intentionally.

She bit her lower lip, not wanting to let it out, not wanting to admit her weakness, but it spilled out anyway: “I need… your help.”

There was a long pause in which the only sound was of the stream, the flow of water from some unknown start to some unknown destination. Then, Tim smiled. The smile did nothing to make his gaze more pleasant.

“You need help, Karen? You of all people need help. I thought that you were above it, above humanity even.”

“What, like you?” she sneered.

Tim chuckled. “Yes, but I don’t just think it, Karen, I know it, and so do you.”

Another pause, before Karen turned to leave. “I knew this was a waste of my time,” she muttered.

“Yes, it probably was, but please don’t make it a waste of mine,” Tim said. The muscles in her legs froze at his first word, and even though she could no longer see his eyes, she could feel them boring into her back.

“Turn around and face me,” he said, his voice emotionless, suddenly above contempt. He made her sick, but she turned regardless. “What… do you want?”

“There’s a boy. I need him to get a spot in one of your damned orphanages, and don’t you dare tell me that you have no say in state affairs, cause that’s bull. I know you do, and it’s not much that I’m asking.”

“No,” he said with a nod, “it’s not. But, frankly, I’m curious. I never figured you to be the maternal type. Why go through the obviously discomforting trouble of coming to me just to save some child? What’s in it for you?”

“I… nothing.”

“Are you trying to defrost your heart, Karen? It might be easier just to have someone toss it in a microwave for you. Then you wouldn’t have to live with the shame of having done something good for another human being.”

“Fuck you, Tim. Fuck you.”

“No, I’d rather we not. We’ve been there before, and that didn’t turn out too well. Why don’t we try this instead: you bring me this child who seems to have somehow wormed its way into your heart, just to satisfy my curiosity, and I’ll find a home for it. Is that too much to ask?”

“Yes.”

“I guess it was a lot to ask, but will you do it… so as to spare the agony of having your heart ripped out of your chest and tossed into a microwave?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, splendid! Do bring the child along at your earliest convenience! Now if that’s all…”

It was.

Karen was already walking away, still aware of Tim’s heavy gaze upon her back. She tossed the finger over her shoulder as she departed. The fat butler was waiting in the back hall to show her out.

*

Tim sighed, picked up a rumpled white bag he’d left on the path, full of crumbs for the birds housed in his greenhouse, and crossed the bridge. His eyes, as they ran across his garden landscape, saw far more than eyes should ever see. Among other things, they saw a hooded figure, its not-quite human face barely visible below its cowl and its Void-black eyes standing out as darker spots in the shade. Its eyes were darker than his own.

“I told you that one of the five would be delivered to you soon.”

Tim grunted.

“Yes, and you’re right again. As always. I still don’t have to like it. It’s beginning to move, faster. Too fast damn it. Too bloody fast. Don’t get me wrong; I want it, but still. It seems strange, the thought of it. It always has.”

The figure shifted where it stood, or rather, where it was, for it had no need to stand. “You should know,” it said, “that the boy is afflicted.”

Tim’s head shot up with shock and he dropped the bag he carried, scattering bread crumbs all about him.

“You’re sure… oh, of course you are. You’re always sure.”

The figure chuckled in an imitation of dark humour. Tim knew that the creature couldn’t feel humour, but still, he felt it was mocking him.

“Not only is he afflicted, but he is the third of the five. The middle variable. He will awaken the Revenant when the time comes. He will deny his love as the others have done. You must do everything you can to maintain complete control over this one.”

Tim nodded.

“Yes, yes of course. And what of the woman, Karen. She doesn’t want to admit it, but I believe she is fond of this child.”

The figure paused, then shrugged. “Kill her. There can be no chances taken. Any misplaced variable can throw off the equations. The world isn’t fixed to clockwork, though I know I can’t convince you otherwise. Still, it will be safest simply to kill her.”

Tim nodded again. There was a time when such an order might have shocked him, when he might have questioned. But not now. Things were in motion. They were moving too fast! He had to control, had to maintain as much power over the important variables as he could. The strange figure was right on that one point: he had to eliminate any unknowns.