An Unquiet Desperation: Ch. 1, The End

The note was the first significant thing Daxton had written in the eight months since his wife’s death. Before that, there were the serial magazines filled with weird fictions and enough of a cult following for his first novel. He couldn’t have been more excited the day he got word from his publisher regarding its acceptance. It was received well enough among the few lovers of horror who read it, but wasn’t considered a defining piece of American literature. None of that mattered anymore.

Gone were modest tales of adventurous heroes thwarting evil schemes. The writing ended the day she was taken. It was then he realized the value of fiction. Beautiful lies applied to thin sheets of martyred trees. He had given it all more significance than it was worth. Like all propaganda, it succeeded in blinding him from the truth. Heroes don’t always save the day.

There is nothing more fictional than the happy ending.

He laid the note on the dining room table, pressing it gently against the wood. It was carefully and succinctly written, merely a few paragraphs in length. Yet, for him, that single sheet of paper bore more weight than the whole catalog of the national library. A vase with a single yellow tulip was put over the header. Yellow was always her favorite color.

Daxton surveyed the silent confines of his apartment with eyes at half-mast. A single, naked lamp bisected the main room in deep shadows. A haze of slowly settling dust softened the borders between light and dark.

Very little furniture remained after the creditors had their way with him. A writer who doesn’t write was of no use to his publisher. What hadn’t been sold was either discarded or thoughtfully packed into boxes resting in precarious towers in the bedroom.

The revolver rested on a layer of plastic over the hardwood floor where the coffee table had been. Grooves of scratched varnish were still visible on either side. It always moved when she put her feet up. Diffused moonlight shined through the sheet-lined bay window beyond, glimmering off the polished barrel and highlighting every notch in the drum.

This was not how he imagined it—the end. He supposed it wasn’t how anyone expected it. There was always the delusion of heroics, the fantasy of a noble death, the hope of miraculous survival, some distant dream of going quietly in the night after a long life well lived. He believed in such things once. Over two hundred nights of sleep stolen by nightmares about his ignoble survival left only doubt behind.

Daxton dropped to his knees with his bare back to the windows. His broad shoulders sagged under the invisible weight born upon them. The weapon was heavier than expected. He turned it to admire the light play off the cold steel while the fingers of his other hand absentmindedly traced the border of a pockmark midway down the surgical scar along his sternum. A few centimeters to the left and he would’ve shared his wife’s fate. The two bullets that followed hadn’t been guided by better aim. The second left its mark in his right shoulder. It was low caliber and shattered against his shoulder blade. The faint lines of the three surgeries required to clean it out reached across his arm and chest like cobwebs. It echoed the trauma on cold nights. The third went through his abdomen, as if he wasn’t even there, and met his wife’s heart.

Gunfire reverberated in his eardrums like thunder. Her scream was a howling wind. The cool breeze drifting in from the windows tickled his hot skin. His hair stood at attention.

Daxton pressed the barrel under his chin. Tonight, the nightmares would end. He closed his eyes to conjure a more pleasant memory of her for his final thought. His trigger finger squeezed.

A heavy thump came from the bedroom. His finger hesitated. An eye cracked open. There was a rustling of paper sliding over carpet and the soft clap of a book swinging shut. He released the trigger. The other eye opened. A tingle crept up his spine while he peered into the dark void within the wooden frame. Though he’d been alone for hours, it felt as if there was something looking back at him from that confined expanse—something familiar.

Daxton rose, keeping the revolver in hand. Blood thumped in his ears. For a moment, he thought it curious to be more anxious now than when he had a gun to his head. He moved closer, eyes adjusting to the gloom. The miniature skyline of his cardboard towers took shape. One of them had toppled and spilled its contents across the carpet. He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, yet he couldn’t shake the weight of hidden eyes upon him.

He turned on the light from the doorway. A dozen staggered piles of carefully labeled boxes surrounded an undressed mattress on the floor. Clearly, there was no one else here. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him in light of this evening’s goal.

A jumbled mess of notebooks and loose pages marred by Wite-Out and red ink met him on the carpet just inside. A yellow journal with his wife’s handwriting scrawled on the cover caught his eye. He recalled packing it away, but hadn’t the courage at the time to pay it any mind. He kneeled to retrieve it.

The floor erupted in a plume of gray dust. Daxton was knocked back. He shielded his face from a barrage of hardbacks and paper cuts. Loaded boxes were thrown like toy blocks. They burst open against the walls, spreading his memories like shrapnel. There was a flicker of light and another heavy thump. This time, it came from above.

When the wind subsided, Daxton stared dumbfounded into the cloud that consumed his bedroom. He staggered closer. The dust was fine and soft against his bare feet. His footprints were as distinct as those on lunar soil. From the door, he strained to see through the haze.

A dark figure took shape on the ceiling. Broad feathers rustled against splintering plaster. Eyes like inkwells glared back at him from the fading shroud.

The creature was something from a nightmare wrapped in stained leather armor. She was thin, skeletally so. Her bleached skin faded to charcoal at her extremities. The hands resembled talons. Sprouting from her arms and shoulders were a myriad of raven feathers. Indian ink bled from the puncture wounds where the quills formed her wings. The grotesquery of her face defined ugly. Dark hair dangled in damp, knotted locks. Her nose was narrow and pointed. Sharp, thin anglerfish teeth jutted from her mouth so haphazardly her lips couldn’t contain them. Black drool oozed in dangling strands. She glared with hungered malice upon the blood-drained face of the man in the doorway.

A gurgling roar bellowed from deep within her gut.

Daxton jolted to action, pointing the gun. Lightning cracked in his hand. Part of her arm burst into black mist. She dropped, righting herself in midair, and crashed onto the mattress below in a flurry of dusty plumage. Daxton squeezed the trigger again. The hammer fell with an impotent click. He pulled again.

Click, click, click.

“Shit!” He stared aghast at the useless metal piece in his hand. He’d only loaded the one bullet.

She struck him with her shoulder. The force threw him across the living room. Cheap plaster rained down on him from the crater he left in the wall. He sagged to the floor cradling his bad shoulder. Where the gun went, he couldn’t say.

“Daxton Wreaths!” the winged monstrosity bellowed like a hoarse banshee.

Daxton’s grimace evaporated. “How…how do you know that name?”

She crept out of the bedroom to leap upon him again. Convulsions overtook her. She writhed, screaming, and stumbled to a halt. Fresh wounds opened in her skin. A hundred invisible razors carved symbols into every square centimeter of pale flesh. They emerged on her arms and legs, across her throat and shoulders. More sprouted along her cheeks and forehead until her obsidian blood flowed in thick streams between the floorboards. The scores scabbed and healed into raised scars as quickly as they formed.

“What have you done to me?” Her wail vibrated the windows as she looked upon the black mess of her trembling hands.

Daxton was to his feet and prepared to make a break for the door. Her question gave him pause. A dreadful suspicion tugged at the back of his throat. He took in every detail of her hideous, trembling shape in search of anything recognizably human. Surely, he’d gone mad or his mind was gasping in the throes of death. This creature couldn’t be real. If she was, there was no one who could hate him more.

“Melanie?” he breathed his wife’s name for fear of the response.

She leapt upon him in a flash. He caught her by the shoulders before her teeth could tear into his throat. Talons raked across his naked chest, leaving five deep cuts. He drove his knee into her gut and staggered to put the dining room table between them while a quivering hand shielding his new wounds.

A broken cackle bubbled up within her. She licked his blood from her claws. The harpy came at him again. Daxton took a swing with one of the chairs. It knocked her to the floor in a hail of splinters.

Daxton rushed to flee the apartment while she was down. Before he could wrap his fingers around the doorknob, black ink seeped in through the wood grains. Hieroglyphs considered ancient to the pharaohs of Egypt took shape. With a tremendous shudder, the door was deconstructed before his eyes. In its place was a painted wall as if the entryway never existed.

“What? No!” He ran his hands across the surface in disbelief. Not even a seam remained. The wall was solid. His fists beat against it like a drum. “Somebody help me!”

Her spiteful laughter continued as she removed a nail from a fresh incision in her forearm. She’d altered a single scar and reality bent to her will. The windows went next. Daxton found himself trapped in a sealed room with a monster.

“Only human?” she mocked. “How fun.”

Daxton’s panic faded in favor of indignation. His hands balled into fists. “Fuck it.”

To her surprise, he charged.  Two solid blows landed on her jaw before she recovered. With a shriek, she responded in kind. Stunned, Daxton was defenseless when she drove him through the table. The vase went flying. Melanie’s tulip tumbled to the floor in a wake of broken glass.

The feathered demon crushed it underfoot. “Time to die!”

Daxton’s gaze traveled from the destroyed petals to her twisted visage. He couldn’t admit it then, but anger felt so much better than guilt. “Maybe later.”

He dove into her like a linebacker. She carved red furrows in his back. The pair slammed into the doorframe leading to the bedroom. Her chest was a punching bag. Daxton laid into her.

The creature caught him by the arm and twisted until he cried out. She wrapped her long fingers around his neck, thrusting him against the wall. Her coffin nail claws drove into the plaster. He raked at her arm, gasping for breath, but couldn’t break free.

She smiled toothily at his futile effort. “You will die for what you took from me.”

Daxton spit in her eye. “Shut up and do it!”

“As you wish.” A single claw cut a narrow trench across his screaming face. She leaned in close. Her foul breath filled his lungs. It tasted of bile and decay. “But it will not be swift.”

Daxton’s focus drifted to the opposing wall. He blinked with the certainty his suffocating eyes were playing tricks. A pane of glass formed on a rectangular section the size of a door. It receded as if being drawn into the neighboring apartment. Yet the wall remained unbroken. The edges shimmered like prisms, splitting into multiple vertical layers arranged like dominoes. The receding image within the leading pane continued to shrink away into a long tunnel resembling two mirrors staring each other down.

The harpy’s ears perked at the sound of crackling, broken glass and television static. Her grin collapsed. She looked upon the glistening portal with what Daxton guessed was utter dread. He could feel her shiver through the hand on his throat.

“No!” She turned back to finish Daxton off.

“Yes!” He drove his fingers into her eyes. She tottered back with a cry. Daxton coughed as his lungs rushed to fill themselves again.

From down that mirrored tunnel, a white-haired man approached. His chin and jaw were covered in short whiskers from a beard in defiance of any attempt to trim it. His dark eyes were kind, yet fierce.  In an oxygen-deprived daze, Daxton watched him with an expression of unplaced recognition. The portal vanished without a trace the instant the man set foot in the apartment.

He wore an unremarkable collection of business attire. Dark blue in varied saturation dominated his slacks, shoes, shirt, and vest. Over it all, he wore a knee-length leather jacket of similar hue. On the upper sleeve of each arm was a circular, silver logo with an uppercase ‘A’ at the center.  The horizontal line across that descendant of the aleph was separated into three individual bars much like the chevrons on a sergeant’s uniform.

“Author!” the creature shrieked.

“Damn, you’re ugly!” The white-haired man broke her nose with a single punch. “And not getting prettier!” He gave Daxton a halfhearted salute while she reeled. “Hello there. The name’s Ernest.”

The harpy recovered, assaulting him with all her fury. A flashbulb went off in Daxton’s head as he watched them trade blows. The white-haired man—the Author—named Ernest. Daxton knew where he’d seen his face before.

“Ernest Hemingway?” Daxton suggested.

“Aye,” he replied with a smile, burying his knuckles in her gut. “I’ll be with you shortly, son. This little witch is spirited!”

“I thought you died almost fifteen years ago.”

“I’ll see to that!” The creature slashed at Hemingway’s raised arm.

“Damn!” Hemingway’s eyes were like saucers at the ribbons cut into his sleeve.

“I got her!” Daxton hoisted a splintered table leg and took a swing at her head. She was swift, ducking it by a hair. Her feathers swept across the floor. He was knocked off his feet.

Hemingway stepped on her right wing to keep her from rising. “You can’t win this. Surrender and I’ll take you home.”

“I have no home!” she cried, tearing her arm from the feathers. They didn’t let her go easily. Torn flesh was the toll paid for her freedom. Once more, she tried for Daxton’s jugular. “Because of you!”

“Fine.” Hemingway’s uppercut hit her jaw like a guided missile. She fell back spitting shards of broken teeth. “I’ll kick your ass. Then, I’ll take you home.”

A firecracker spark opened a small rift near the palm side of his wrist. An angelic hum followed a duel-bladed sword out of that pocket. The divergent edges were separated by a narrow slit to form a sharpened tuning fork.

The harpy rushed at Hemingway, driving him through the thin wall into the neighboring apartment. They crashed to the floor under a rain of plaster and asbestos. His sword missed his grasp, stabbing the floorboards halfway to the hilt.

“What the hell, man!” Daxton’s neighbor, Ted, a balding man with bloodshot eyes and a pony tail, took a screaming dive off his recliner. He cowered there while the violent pair tore through his home.

Daxton strained to pull himself to his knees and wiped the blood from his eyes. Every joint was lit aflame. Each cut screamed for attention. He caught his split reflection in the upright sword. The slasher films Melanie loved to watch sprang to mind. Before reason could overtake him, his fingers embraced the leather-bound grip. Much like Arthur pulling sword from stone, Daxton drew the blade from varnished oak.

Its gentle hum traveled through the hilt and up his arm. Daxton could feel it in his teeth. The music rang in his ears. Somehow both familiar and new, the sword’s song reignited a flickering light in his eyes. His posture straightened. His bleeding chest swelled. He turned his attention to the battling duo next door.

Hemingway cried out at the harpy’s teeth digging into his shoulder. With a heave of his boot, he launched her across the room. She bounced off the sofa and crashed through the coffee table.

“In other news today, President Carter signed—” said the television before her tantrum knocked it from its stand. The screen gave an electric pop as it broke.

Ted scampered to escape, slipping on debris underfoot. She pounced at him, claws primed. Daxton shouldered him out of the way, taking the brunt of her force. Two talons slipped between his ribs.

“I’m not finished with you yet!” Hemingway pulled her away by the collar.

“You’re wrecking my place, man!” lamented Ted from the other side of the sofa.

“Shut up, Ted.” Daxton rose with a sigh, cupping his new punctures. “And stop blasting Zeppelin at three in the morning.” He pointed the sword at the terrified man. “It pisses everyone off!”

Ted’s hands were up in surrender. “Yeah, okay, man, like, sure. No problem.” He watched Daxton join the fight with the demon in a daze of horror.

The harpy pinned Hemingway against the refrigerator. “Got you!”

A portal opened at Hemingway’s other wrist. His second sword ejected, running her through the gut. He smirked. “Got you first.”

Her scream deafened.

“Just leave me alone, you witch!” Daxton shouted, swinging the blade. It carved cleanly and swiftly through the bones of her neck. The limp body dropped. Her head rolled across the floor until it came to a rest beside Ted.

The poor man went pale. “Oh, I’m never buying shit from Dave ever again.”

“Thank you.” The pocket flashed open at Hemingway’s wrist. He let go of the hilt and his sword was consumed within the miniature singularity in moments. Blood staining the blades burned away on contact with the event horizons. Once it was fully withdrawn, the portal vanished from sight.

“No. Thank you,” Daxton replied between huffing breaths. He stood there a marionette with half the strings cut away.

Hemingway reached for his other weapon. “I didn’t catch your name, son.”

He handed it over, still working to catch his breath. His eyes drifted to the ink-blooded corpse between them. “Daxton. Daxton Wreaths.” He promptly passed out.

Hemingway wasn’t fast enough to catch him before he hit the ground. “Damn it!”

Ted perked up. “Wait. That’s Daxton Wreaths? I read his book, man! Good shit.”

“Ted, was it?” Hemingway kneeled over Daxton to check his pulse. His remaining sword was recalled into its pocket.

“Yeah?”

“Stop talking.” Hemingway gave a sigh of relief for the gently beating jugular. Pressing a button on his wristwatch, he spoke into it, “Leo, I need a medical team on the double.”

“Understood,” a voice crackled over Hemingway’s radio. “Medics are en route.”

“Have them bring a second stretcher. The Fictional is dead.”

There was a noted pause on the other end. “The Editor isn’t going to like that.”

“I don’t like it,” Hemingway snapped. He quickly composed himself. “There was no other way. Herb will understand.”

“I’m sure he will. Stand by for an incoming Gate in thirty seconds.”

Ted leaned in with a dog-eared paperback entitled The Wrath of Phoenix. Daxton’s name was scrawled in bold, red text along the bottom. “If he lives, you think he’ll sign my copy?”

Hemingway grumbled. “Ted, my knuckles are still sore from fighting that thing.” He pointed a thumb at the harpy’s body. “I’d rather not have to punch you in your goddamned mouth.”

Ted shrank away with a slow nod.

A glass tunnel opened in Daxton’s apartment. Several men and women in uniforms similar to Hemingway rushed through. Theirs were sky blue with white bands around the logo on their sleeves. They spared no words before setting to work on the bloodied man. Another team worked to wrap up the harpy.

“Get me complete biological and resonance scans on her as soon as possible,” Hemingway said to them. “I want to know where the hell she came from.”

“Yes, sir.”

A lean man with dark, faintly curling hair paused in the crevice opened between the apartments. On sight alone, it was clear he was at least twenty years Hemingway’s junior. Though he bore the same insignia on his chest as the others, his uniform was more a mildly armored flight suit in muted indigo. He gave a long, descending whistle at the sight of the devastation.

“Subtle as always, Ernest,” he commented.

Hemingway folded his arms. “Don’t start with me, Jake. I’ve had a rough morning.”

“I can see that.”

“Just be grateful I provide you with something to do every day.”

“Who are you people?” Ted shouted when Daxton was carried through the portal. He narrowed his eyes at the man dressed like an astronaut. “Are…are you from outer space?”

Hemingway gave the bridge of his nose a pinch. “Could someone get Ted a glass of water and a muzzle please?”

A pair of medics ushered Ted toward the portal. He gave only mild resistance and could be heard talking until he passed beyond the horizon. “Alright, man. Don’t shove. Just no probing, okay? I had enough of that in the Sixties.”

“Quite a character,” Jake gave a light chuckle, putting on a pair of glasses with a scanning HUD in the lenses. He looked about the apartment.

“That’s one way to put it.” Hemingway followed him. “What’s the verdict? Is it salvageable?”

“I’m not detecting any further Fictional activity. The damage appears mostly superficial—seems like a basic patch job. My team should have it worked out in an hour or two. You can tell the redcoats they can sit this one out when you get back.” He paused over the harpy’s body. The lenses highlighted it, and her scattered blood, with green static. “What do you make of her?”

“Damned if I know.” Hemingway massaged a knot swelling in his shoulder. “She packed a hell of a punch. Have you or your brother ever seen anything like her?”

Jake crouched, running his fingers along the scars on her bicep. “No, I can’t say we have.” He took another scan of the room. His brow furled. “What happened to the doors and windows of the other apartment?”

Hemingway mirrored his reaction. “Son of a bitch. I hadn’t noticed. You don’t think—”

He was interrupted by the distant wail of police sirens.

“Sorry, Ernest. We’re running out of time. You’d better head back now. I’ll find you after we’re finished.” Jake rose and addressed the whole room, “Anyone who is not a Master of Continuity, please make your way to the Gate immediately.” He looked to another armored member of his team setting up a device the size and shape of a small nightstand on the other end of the room. “Kim, is the marker in place?”

“Yes, Mr. Grimm,” she replied, consulting a digital tablet. “Isolation protocols are ready. The Proofing team is standing by.”

“Excellent.” Jacob Grimm watched the Gate fade away after everyone had gone. His finger instinctively reached for his forearm and pressed a button on the control pad. A helmet with a clear dome above the nose formed, sealing him off from the environment. The others followed suit. He looked to Kim.  “At your discretion.”

She nodded. “Initiating temporal isolation in three, two, one.” She turned a knob on the device as if choosing a setting on a washing machine.

Grimm watched the clock. Soon, the space between ticks lasted more than a second. The chasms of silence grew ever larger until the hands froze. He listened for the call of the police sirens and heard nothing but deep resonance fading to silence.

He nodded. “Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we may have all the time in the world to clean this place up, but I’d rather not take that long. Let us begin.”

The adventure continues for WDC members through the link below!:

BOOK

Fiction, Vol 1: An Unquiet Desperation  (18+) An Author travels a multiverse of Fictional Realms to fight a patient and arcane enemy. #2263022 by JDMac