Cave in the Woods
moegreeb:
It had been eighteen years since Jason had first discovered the cave. He had been fifteen at the time. If asked, Jason would have been hard pressed to recall the events that had led him to the cave. It was summer…he knew that much. He had been visiting his grandparents at the time. Out their backyard was the forest. Miles of trees and bush and wildlife, as yet undisturbed by the grasping hands of urban sprawl. He had loved exploring when he was there and would pretend that he was an adventurer charting new territory and about to make an astounding discovery. He would be important. He would be famous. He would be something more than Jason Marlin…the kid who always had bruises on his arms and the scar under his eye.
He also could recall the feeling he held, that day, in his chest. The despair…the loneliness…the sense of utter displacement. That was, most likely, the reason that he had not been paying attention to where his young feet had been leading him. He had just wanted to get away. New trails were followed, unfamiliar glades were passed. Then there was the cave.
If Jason closed his eyes he could still see in his head how that cave first appeared to him. It lay under a hill covered in purple wildflowers and long grass. Here and there you could see the layers of rock that made up it’s support. It looked inviting to him. It looked safe.
Come to me, it seemed to say to him. Inside nothing can harm you. I can make everything better.
So he entered.
It had been so dark when first he passed through the entrance. His eyes strained to make out anything in the darkness but he was unable to make out much. The cave itself wasn’t too deep. Maybe no more than 14 feet deep…perhaps 18 feet wide near the centre. The longer he stood though the more clearly he was able to see. There was nothing there though. Nothing in this place he thought could be a safe haven. No hidden twisting passages leading deeper into the world. Just this one rocky room. With something mounted on the back wall.
The young Jason had walked to the back of the cave and there on the wall was a giant red switch. It looked much like an ordinary light switch…just much bigger. For long moments he just stood there staring at it. His hand, seemingly of its own accord, lifted and gingerly touched it. It was warm.
Try as he might, Jason had not been able to see how it was affixed to the wall. The longer he stared at it the more he was convinced that it had just grown out of the wall.
He had spent the afternoon that day just looking at that switch. Hours spent touching it and looking at it and wondering about it. He never used it though. Then finally he turned and left.
Eighteen years later he was back staring at it again. This wasn’t the first time that he had been back though. It seemed whenever he was depressed he would find himself back in that cave standing in front of the wall. Staring. Those were the only times he could ever find the place. It was only in those dark moments that he would see its entrance beckoning him in. Only when life seemed bleakest could he seem to recall the route that led to the switch.
Lafix:
He had tried to find it to show Carrie, his former girlfriend. He led her through the trees, eager to share the last remaining mystery about him with her. He remembered the look on her face as he came to a stop in the place he was certain he’d find the cave. He must have looked like a fool. He’d kept saying they were almost there even when she insisted they were moving in circles. After her third “déjà vu” comment, he admitted defeat.
Being distraught over the abrupt end of their relationship was the catalyst for his trek into the trees on this day. She’d been the only person with whom he shared the truth. The truth about everything.
If only he hadn’t revealed so much of himself. If only he’d kept his mouth shut and pretended his scars were from some macho pursuit like hunting or mountain climbing. He could have spared himself the pain of admitting just how deep those scars penetrated and, in turn, eliminated the burden she must have felt in knowing so much.
As he stood there pondering the infinite “what ifs”, the switch began to hum. A low-pitched, electrical hum. It sounded like he was standing on the expanse of ground under the power lines that cut through the field by the high school.
It made sense at first, until the switch began to vibrate. And holy shit! Was it starting to glow? It wasn’t really glowing as much as changing color. A more vibrant red. It looked somehow more inviting. He was more drawn to it than he had ever been.
He reached out and touched the toggle with the tip of his index finger and instantly felt energy surge through his entire body. Startled, he pulled his finger away, but watched in amazement as a bright blue current of electricity bridged itself between the tip of his finger and the switch. He kept moving his hand and the current followed. It was like the Van de Graaff generator demonstrations at the Science Museum where he stood on an insulated base and placed his hand on a sphere as his hair stood on end. But, this was more powerful and far more intoxicating.
Debshock:
He watched the colors change in time with his heartbeat. He moved his hand, and the light followed. It seemed to call out to him. Hit the switch, hit the switch… He was paralyzed, fascinated and repulsed, all at the same time. Touch me… He knew he should feel afraid, but he didn’t, and that scared him more than the light itself. It felt strangely comforting, and yet his scars ached as though they had been sleeping for years and finally woken up. Perhaps in a way that was true. He watched his hand move closer to the switch of its own accord, as though it wanted nothing more than to disobey his order to be cautious. The light had enveloped his whole body at this point, and though the feeling was of intoxication and comfort, the voice in the back of his head didn’t like it one bit. It likes your pain, it said. It needs your hurting. He remembered how the only times he had been able to find the switch had been in his bleakest moments of anguish and how when he was with the woman he had loved, the switch had been unfindable. Still, the feeling of warmth and comfort was undeniable and he watched as his hand moved closer to the switch until it was almost a caress. I will make it all better, it said.
Before he could give himself time to think any more, he leaned against the switch.
He woke in the hospital.
Strange ninja:
Disorientation could not begin to describe what Jason felt as he opened his eyes.
Where was this hospital? How long had he been here? Why did his brain feel like it was trying to bore a hole in the top of his head?
Jason laid very still on the bed for what could have been hours. Trying to make sense of anything. Looking for any hint toward where this place was. There were things about this place that caused increased confusion. Or maybe it was the lack of things that he knew expect in a hospital.
This room had an adjustable bed, single window, curtain dividing walls and various machines. But what it lacked was anything resembling a true hospital. For starters, it was far too quiet. The only noises were those of his breathing and the steady beeping of the machine that was monitoring his pulse. There were no other noises. None. No bustling in the hallway that he assumed was on the other side of his curtain wall. No voices of other patients. No beeping of any other machines. Just his breathing and the beeping that represented the speed of his heart rate.
Jason was brought from the fog that was his mind by a young nurse entering his room. She was visibly startled when he sat up and looked at her. “Oh! I didn’t know you were awake. I’ll go and get your doctor”. and just like that she was gone. Before he had even had a chance to open his lips to ask her anything.
“She has beautiful skin” he found himself thinking. He realized how ridiculous this train of thought was given his current situation, but despite himself he couldn’t stop thinking of her flawless skin, and how her eyebrow had furrowed when she had looked up and saw him looking at her.
Jason became lost in his mind again. “How did I get here?” The last thing he remembered he was standing in the cave about to flip the switch. Wanting not to but knowing he would. He remembered reaching out. He remembered flipping the switch. Then nothing.
Jason realized he was lost in his thoughts. A doctor had come in. The young nurse was with him. The doctor was looking at his hand with what could only be described as urgency. “When did you first notice that the scars were fading?” the doctor asked. Jason looked down at his hand. The one that had the terrible scars. The one that carried terrible memories. It was completely smooth. Not even a hint of a scar.
“I…I..I don’t know.” Jason managed to stammer. His throat was so dry. The whisper he managed to get out felt more like a shout.
The doctor replied, “Well, stay put. We’re gonna run some tests”. His tone was overly cheerful. Suspiciously cheerful.
The doctor took the nurse to the other side of his tiny room and began to whisper with intensity. She kept looking over his shoulder at Jason with eyes that could only be described as apologetic.
It was then that Jason knew beyond a shadow that this was no ordinary hospital. He knew enough to listen to his gut instinct. He knew that he would not be “staying put” for any tests.
c-peterson:
Jason knew he had to get out of there. No. He NEEDED to get out of there. It took every ounce of his self restraint to keep himself from just running for the exit and taking his chances once he made it out of the hospital. He needed to do at least a little bit of planning. As much as he enjoyed the breeze it provided, he wanted to change out of the hospital gown.
The doctor and the nurse had been gone for a while. Maybe 5 minutes. Maybe an hour. Jason honestly can’t tell. He tried to get up but he collapsed. He couldn’t walk. What the shit? he thought. How long as it been since I’ve walked?
After an indeterminable amount of time Jason regained use of his legs. His clothes were sitting in a pile on the chair next to the bed. He changed into them and then made his way into the seemingly deserted hallway.
There was no one. No doctors, no patients, no nurses, no orderlies. No one. He knew better than to sear for anyone. Getting to the exit and getting the hell out of here were his only goals.
The trip through the hospital to the exit was uneventful. He occasionally heard some noises, but they sounded distant and muddled. Jason had finally made it to the exit. He expected, well, anything to happen if he attempted to leave this place. Nothing. The automatic doors opened and he walked out.
What was waiting outside for him, though, was not what Jason expected. Nor did it seem at all possible.
Tymethiefslongerthougts:
There was nothing there. Not ‘nothing’ in the sense of an open field in the middle of nowhere. Just Nothing. He wondered if this was what macular degeneration was like. Staring straight ahead he could see in his peripheral vision the edges of the building he’d just exited but in front of him was… Nothing. At his feet some stairs lead down to a sidewalk and a street but the street started to fade at the midway point and by the time your eyes got to where the other side should be… blank space, like a painting someone had left unfinished, or maybe just lost interest in.
He then realized that he couldn’t hear anything. No birds, no cars the quiet was so deep his ears felt like they should be ringing. He snapped his fingers just to verify that he hadn’t suddenly gone deaf. Nope, he heard that, but in the silence it rang like cannon fire and made him jump a little.
For a moment terror and agoraphobia overcame him and he turned to run back inside; and stopped dead as he saw the Doctor and the Nurse standing on the other side of the glass doors, inches away and leaning against the doors with their hands and faces pressed against the glass. The Nurse no longer looked sympathetic, nor did the Doctor appear cheerful. Instead they both wore fixed feral grins, almost maniacal; their eyes were wide, staring and completely empty.
He turned to run the other way and was once again confronted with the Nothing. What was he supposed to do? He had to get away but there didn’t appear to be an ‘away’ to get to. Was this a nightmare? He usually woke up screaming by now.
He walked down the steps to the sidewalk below. The ‘Nothing’ looked closer, almost like a physical ‘Something.’ He stared at it and almost thought he saw a ripple. He made his decision. He couldn’t just stand here, he couldn’t go back inside. He might as well move forward. After all, how much worse could things get? He was already lost and injured. The only worse thing that could happen would be death and if he stuck around here doing nothing long enough that would happen anyway.
He walked right up to the edge of the ‘Nothing,’ the last spot where you could still see that there was a road there. He took a deep breath, and stepped forward.
thejohnblog:
Before his foot could confirm anything, a strong but small hand gripped his forearm. The word “Stop!” echoed like a gunshot and startled Jason, who flailed backwards back onto one of the steps. As he pressed his palms over his ears to stop the ringing, he saw a young girl, no older than eight, plop down next to him. She had strawberry blonde hair, put up in pigtails, and wore a yellow rain slicker over a white t-shirt. The shirt had a satin finish picture of ‘Smurette’ on the front. She wore faded jeans and Chuck Taylor Converse with hearts magic marker-ed all over.
“Oh, for Chrissakes that was close!” She placed her elbows on her knees and leaned over, head between her legs, taking panicked breaths.
Jason immediately felt that he knew this girl. Something about her was familiar. Disturbingly so. He found himself reaching out with a quaking hand. He was about to touch her strawberry blond curls when she suddenly rose up and looked back at the hospital.
“Oh, shit!” She gasped.
Jason turned to look and thought his vision was deteriorating rapidly. But it wasn’t his eyes. It was the hospital. What at first looked like a normal, four story hospital of nondescript status, was now, in appearance, a sandcastle crumbling under its own weight. The windows made a sick popping sound as the building came down intermingled with the sound of screaming. High pitched at first, it lowered like a house cat growling until building momentum into an indescribable moan. The girl grabbed Jason’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “We have to MOVE!” she screamed. “Do NOT let go of my arm or this is it!” The comment to not let go of her arm was unnecessary. He gripped her arm in terror and would apologize later during a quiet moment for the bruising.
She leapt forward into the nothing and before Jason could gasp, he saw her feet land firmly on a mound of dirt. A deep green ripple went in every direction from where she landed which quickly transformed into a fully formed clearing. There were some trees in the distance, and piercing blue skies. A few feet away was what looked like a hastily put together shack. A clubhouse that was clearly built by a team of eager children.
Jason glanced behind him and saw the image of the hospital crumbling disappear farther away from him. Before it vanished, he thought he saw the mass it had become form into the cave, purple wildflowers and wild grass included. As his eyes narrowed to make it out, it was gone. All that he could see now was more trees.
He looked over and saw the girl head into the shack, pulling out a cigarette. Taking only a brief moment to collect himself, he walked cautiously after her. He entered and saw her smoking, sitting on a stool in what could only be describe as a girl’s clubhouse. There were pages ripped out of TIGER BEAT and other teen mags posted on the shacks dusty walls. Jason could make out some as Corey Haim and immediately noticed how new they appeared. There were rainbow bright stickers, feather boas and a few standard naked barbies piled in the corner.
“You should sit.” She said, nodding to a rusted folding chair next to Jason. I could always tell when you were in ‘panic mode’ and this looks like you’re panic mode.”
The voice came between a deep exhale and Jason turned to take her in. It was the way she pinched the cigarette between her index finger and thumb, and the way she was bouncing her knee nervously that gave way to revelation.
“Oh, my God. Carrie?!”
It was. It was his ex girlfriend, only it was an eight year old version of her. She smiled at him weakly. “You know, I felt bad after we broke up. I always felt you were this sad, sad sweet guy and I left when I couldn’t make you happy.” She dropped and rubbed her cigarette out on the floor with her shoe. “But you were SO damn sure about that fucking cave. So I went back.”
Jason, mouth agape. Ignoring the chair, he squat down where he stood, listening intently but not hiding the fact that he was scanning her with his widened eyes.
”I found it Jason. You were right. I hit the switch, and suddenly I was here. It took me awhile to figure it out, but it’s this.” She ran her hand over one of the walls. “This place. This is the time in my life when I was the happiest. That’s what it does. It takes you to the happiest period of your life and lulls you into comfort. It’s so they can convince you to help them.”
Jason shook his head as if broken from a trance. “Wait, I don’t understand. Who is ‘they’ and I don’t… this just doesn’t make sense! I didn’t go to my ‘happiest period of time’ or whatever?”
Carrie sighed deeply and looked sadly into Jason’s eyes. “That’s because you were NEVER happy Jason.”
Jason rose from his position and started pacing the small room.
“You were the first to throw their plans off and now? Now they’re PISSED.”
Even if Jason had a response he would not have had time to give one, as at that moment, the barely hinged door to the clubhouse flew open.
Misscook:
Bile rose in Jason’s throat when he saw who walked though the door. It wasn’t possible. The man was dead, but yet here he was, taking up every inch of the small doorway looking like the living nightmare he’d always had been.
The ghosts of Jason’s past had finally caught up with him.
There was no sound save for the pathetic squeak of the remaining hinge trying in vain to keep the door to the clubhouse hanging. Jason ignored it and swallowed against the advancing bile and struggled to speak. His voice failed to cooperate.
He struggled not to wipe at the phantom feeling of blood trickling out of the long healed scar under his eye. He cringed as his body felt the pain of a childhood’s worth of bruises all at once.
“Jason it’s not really him,” Carrie screamed. “It’s a trick. Get out of here!”
The urgency in Carrie’s voice snapped Jason out of his fear induced paralysis. He forced himself to look away from the thing that had practically destroyed him and look back at the one good person in his life. The stark terror on her face engendered a purely protective response. His adrenaline spiked, and without looking back at the malignant presence in the doorway, Jason burst into action.
Scooping Carrie up in his arms, he used his momentum to break through the flimsy wall of the clubhouse, taking the brunt of the impact on his shoulder. The wall gave away easily, just as he suspected it would, with a cloud of glossy teen heartthrobs fluttering in his wake.
The path in front of him started to shimmer, and Jason knew instinctively to run toward it. Hearing no argument from Carrie, he picked up his pace, his neck prickling with the realization he was being pursued though he didn’t take the time to look back to confirm it.
He was almost on top of the shimmer when Carrie broke her silence. “Think of someplace safe,” she instructed.
The idea of someplace safe almost stopped him in his tracks. Was there anyplace he felt truly safe?
He couldn’t afford the time for indecision. He pictured the one place he had felt a modicum of safety, no matter that it was short lived, and ran headlong into the disturbance in the air in front of him with blind faith that whatever was on the other side was better than what was behind him.
Carrie gasped when she their destination materialized. “It’s my apartment,” she gasped, looking around in wonder.
“It’s the only place I really felt safe,” Jason responded gruffly.
“Oh, Jason. I—”
He cut her off, “Look, let’s not get into all the reasons why it’s fucked up I chose this place, okay? Oh, and by the way … you’ve seemed to have aged a bit,” Jason laughed humorously.
Carrie looked at her new form in shock. For the first since finding that godforsaken switch, she looked like herself. “How d-did you d-do it?” she stammered.
He looked at her, the disbelief clear on his face. “How the fuck am I supposed to know, Carrie? You seem to be the expert here. I’m just going on instinct.”
“Do not snap at me. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t been so persistent in trying to show me that stupid cave in the first place,” she spat back.
Jason drug his hands through is hair in frustration. She was right, of course. He had no right to be angry with her. “I’m sorry,” he said, afraid to look her in the eyes and see the hurt there.
She was quiet for awhile. He found the courage to glance at her from the corner of his eyes to see her soaking up every detail of the small apartment. Her eyes took in everything from the blonde bamboo flooring to the soft yellow of the walls. He watched transfixed as she ran her delicate hands over the velvety soft upholstery of the plush sofa that was the centerpiece of the living room. He loved that couch, mostly for the many nights they laughed together watching bad movies on its rich brown surface. She moved on to the pictures of her family, her touch tentative as if she were afraid the illusion would break. His courage failed when her hand went to her mouth and her sad eyes shown with tears.
Jason didn’t have to see Carrie to know her shoulders would be shaking as she wept. But he let her have her moment in private, because he knew she thought crying made her weak.
“Jason,” her voice a plea, quivering with uncertainty, “I’m scared. I don’t know how to get us out of this.”
He didn’t even stop to think about it. He simply pulled her into his arms, trusting she needed his comfort more than she needed to appear strong. Her thin arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer as her body trembled with newly formed tears. He placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head, savoring the familiar scent of her favorite shampoo. She always smelled softly of vanilla, and he was comforted by this small detail.
They stood like that, embracing each other against the uncertainties all around them, for an interminable amount of time. Jason didn’t mind, content with the fact she was letting him hold her. He was so attuned to her needs, he felt the moment her body tensed with the need for space. He let her go immediately, not wanting to break the fragile new bond between them.
Carrie walked away an continued to explore the rest of her apartment, opening random cupboards and doors to find everything just as she had left it.
Jason ignored her and drifted over to the window. Whatever hopes he had that they were actually in her apartment were dashed the moment he looked outside. The view of the quaint French bistro with it’s red, white, and blue striped awning was replaced by … the nothing.
The same nothing that greeted him outside the hospital.
He choked back the inappropriate laughter that came with the thought that here he was—scared of nothing.
Until the nothing began to shimmer. Which could only mean one thing.
Jason calmly turned around just as Carrie walked back into the living room. “We’re about to have company,” he said, his voice emotionless.
Carrie nodded in understanding, his unnatural calm bleeding over onto her. “How much time do we have?”
“Two minutes. Tops.”
“I’ll explain quickly then. Are you ready to know the truth?” she asked him.
He allowed himself one last glance outside, the shimmering spot growing larger with each passing second. “Tell me what you know,” he answered, his jaw clenched in anticipation of the truth she was about to reveal to him.
akaperdant:
Staring at the determined set of his shoulders, she crossed the room to stand next to him, placing her hand on his forearm.
Explaining the physical contact, she mumbled quietly, almost apologetically, “just in case we have to move sooner than I thought, we should stay close.”
Enjoying the touch of her hand on his arm, far more than he expected he could, he just nodded his head, encouraging her to continue.
Sighing deeply, as if gearing up for some sort of battle, she started, “Ok, here’s goes nothing. All the people you’ve met since waking up in the hospital, even the one chasing us, are from the future.”
Feeling disbelief wash over him, he watched her, as she seemed to be lost for a moment in some sort reverie. He noticed that her free hand was mindlessly toying with an open pack of cigarettes resting on the window sill. After such a statement, he was impatient for her to continue, but he didn’t want to push her too far. Suddenly it dawned on him, how little time they had, and he urged her on, “What do you mean, the future?”
“They come from a time where the cure for aging has been discovered. Some geneticist figured out the genome, or whatever the hell it’s called, that directs the cells to age, and at what rate.”
Looking into her eyes while she spoke, Jason felt a quick change in the pressure at his back. Knowing that there were no longer alone, he was about to think of a safe location when he felt her hand tugging his arm.
Realizing quickly that his vision was overcome with that same blinding light that the portals seemed to indicate, the next thing his eyes could focus on was the empty space of a wooden structure. The exposed beams of timber, the scattered bits of golden reeds and the dusty beams of intermittent light filtering through the space reminded him of his grandfather’s barn.
Forgetting momentarily that this wasn’t real, he fought the disorientation that came with being in a building that he’d seen burn to ground. Still, he wondered, as he took in everything in front of him at that moment, it appeared to be an exact duplicate of the remembered building.
Turning around to quickly take in the rest of the space, he confirmed it was the barn located at the edge of his grandparent’s property, where the woods butted against the back yard. This was where he and Carrie had spent the rest of the afternoon when he’d been unable to find the cave to show her. He looked up at the loft where they had daydreamed together about the future. Within the month the barn had burned to the ground, and not long after that, their relationship had followed suit.
Leading him to a few of the haphazardly collected bales of hay, all the while unaware of the darker memories dominating Jason’s mind, she took a seat on the first one closest to them. Motioning for him to join her, she explained “we’ll have a little more time here. This is the first time I’ve used this memory in a long time; we should rest while we can.”
Before he could comment on his own fondness he held for the location, even if perhaps bittersweet, he was interrupted by the sound of her inhaling deeply from the fragrant, albeit dusty, air.
With no acknowledgement being given to the change of scenery, she continued on with her story. “Sometime around 2021 the “cure” for aging is discovered. From what I understand it went public about 10 years later.”
Snorting, she continued on, clearly bitter, “public my ass”. “From what I’ve been told, the ‘cure’ went for just under a million dollars. Apparently rich jackass after rich jackass and their vain wives filed in for ‘treatment’. And this was they way off it for over 40 years. Then the first murder, at least on record, happened. A psychiatrist, one of the first ones treated with the cure, was invited to one of his former patient’s wedding. As the story goes, the bride tossed her bouquet and shortly thereafter made her way to the restroom. Once there, she encountered her former doctor. Beaming at him, she leaned in to hug him, and thank him for his attendance. According to the police reports, her neck was snapped, and he was in the process of literally gnawing and grappling his way through her ribcage when the best man found him.”
Wresting his free arm on his thigh, he tried to absorb everything she was saying. It all seemed too far-fetched to be believable. The fantastical overtones made it easier to absorb. Less real and subsequently less scary, but as her words filtered through his confusion he began to feel the first breaths of panic urging him to get away. Not only from this hell, but from her, and her words that kept wrapping the truth of their situation, the hopelessness of it, around him, tighter and tighter.
Attempting to control the rising panic, he concentrated on her hand resting on his arm. He focused on the intricacies of the structure that she had conjured up from memory: the scent of the woods, which while surely not actually outside this imagined temporary shelter, still seemed to infuse the air inside with the musty mixed scent of sunshine and dirt. In one of the empty stalls he could even see the old afghan his grandmother had positioned so that the barn cats could give birth away from the scratchy hay, and rough timber floors. Focusing on these details helped him to distance himself from the horrors she was laying at his feet.
Taking a deep breath, staring off into space, it was apparent that the revelations were taking a toll on her, as well, “Over the next decade or so several men and women were found either eating, or attempting to eat the internal organs of someone who had seconds before been enjoying one of life’s truly joyous moments. I don’t know why, but they only go after people in their purest moments of happiness. There isn’t a single record of anyone but those who are at their happiest being attacked. There was a mother killed who had just held her baby for the first time, a few other brides, hell, one guy lost his virginity to a woman who finished the act by eviscerating him so that she could have at his entrails.”
“Are you trying to tell me those things out there are zombies or something,” Jason interjected with his first question since arriving in the barn. He immediately regretted opening his mouth; this clearly wasn’t easy for her to repeat.
Looking up, as if searching an invisible sky for answers, she took one of the cigarettes out of the open pack she apparently had brought with her from the last “location”. He watched as she fingered the length of the tobacco packed cylinder. He was surprised to see her slide it between her lips, as she dug a lighter from her pocket. He’d never seen her smoke, other than in the shack, and now she was lighting up her second cigarette in less that 5 minutes.
Inhaling deeply from the first drag of nicotine infused smoke, she finally responds, “God, I know I sound like a fucking psycho repeating this shit, but I don’t know what else to tell you. It sounds like a fucking zombie movie, but these people were very much alive when they killed, and ironically enough, brains were never on the menu. From what I understand, there wasn’t one case of brains ever being eaten. Just organs located in the torso/abdomen. Maybe the brain holds too many bad memories…or maybe,” she laughed softly to herself, “it’s just too hard to get at with the skull in the way, you know?”
Exhaling softly, she persisted “regardless, it seems the first organ this monsters go after is the appendix, but they never eat more than one organ. On a few occasions a victim has been assaulted by more than one person. The next organ of choice is the spleen, then the heart and the rest in no particular order. Again, no one ever eats more than one organ, but they all go for the appendix first. It seems the cure comes at a price. Every single person who was caught claimed that they couldn’t control themselves. They knew what they were doing, but when the hunger took over it was so consuming that it couldn’t be denied. Being in proximity of someone going through some joyous moment seemed to trigger the hunger. It was as if their bodies moved of their own accord.”
Leaning away from the smoke drifting up from the lit cigarette, he listened as she continued, “Once ‘fed’ the attackers all claim to be back in control. They stay that way for decades at a time, until it hits again. It wasn’t until much later that it was understood that the hunger takes over, what is assumed, to be every lifetime.. If someone hadn’t taken the cure, and should have lived to say, 70, then every 70 years, the hunger strikes.”
Standing up to further distance himself as far as possible from the cloud of smoke that was now hanging thick and low over her head, but still close enough if needed, Jason asked “but you said this happens in the future, how are we here? What is this place, I mean, how in the hell is it our problem?”
Clearly bitter, Carrie responded “It became our problem when some fucking asshole at NASA figures out how to create a black hole. His theory, which had been speculated on, even in our time, is tested and finally proven true. This ‘black hole’ is the basic foundation for time travel. Again, I know this sounds like horseshit, Jason, but think about everything that’s led you to this moment: the switch, the hospital, the shimmering spots of fucked up passageways. It’s the truth. Anyway, I don’t understand the science behind it, but we are in the equivalent of a time weigh station.”
Shaking his head, with confusion knitting his brow together “I don’t understand how that explains the disappearing hospital, or the vanishing scars, or hell, even why you said they want my help.”
Lowering her eyes, “They want your help, the same way they wanted mine. When they realized they couldn’t make a meal out of me, they tried to get me to help create the scenarios that would trick people into being happy.”
Tilting her chin up gingerly with his free hand, so that he could see into her eyes, he asked ” what do you mean they couldn’t make a meal out of you?”
Sliding her chin out of his grasp, she explained “that’s why they look for people who are at their bleakest moments, they are the easiest to trick.”
“They are the one’s so desperate for happiness that they will gladly go back to any happy memory that can be provided for them, or even accept an unknown reality if it seems to promise them the opportunity for a new start. They take people who have nothing left to lose; those who are so alone that any hope is grasped at with unquestioning eagerness. They are desperate for hope, and these monsters give it to them, hoping for a feast.”
“But why don’t they just trick people in their own time, why are they stealing people from the past? Wouldn’t it be much easier to just rig up some sort of scam in their own time?” he asked as he tried to remember a different happy location, in case they needed another quick escape.
“Well, first of all, the people in their time have figured out what’s going on. Would you go around letting yourself be happy if you know it might get you killed? Secondly, the way this ‘rest area’ between times works is perfect for what they need. They didn’t create this intermediary patch of space, from what I understand, it is part of the black hole. It’s impossible to go from one time to another without some sort of balance needing to be achieved. This space is fluid, it is collection pot for any energies disturbed while traveling between times. This makes the creations, the illusions, that much easier to pull off. If they can’t woo you into happiness, they’ll try to recruit you as an actor… a prop. If that doesn’t work they kill you so that you can’t warn anyone else. They’ve sent my own nightmares after me, but I’ve been running a long time, it seems they’ve given up on me. That’s why the monster that has been chasing us now is made to look like…”
“My father” he said, finishing the thought so she wouldn’t have to add that fresh pain to the already overwhelming revelations he’d been subjected to in the past 10 minutes. God, had it really only been 10 minutes? It seemed like he had been with her for days.
Clearly confused he ignored the uncomfortable disclosure and continued, “But how did you get here? How is it that you know so much about it? You say they’ve been chasing you for a long time? How long have you been here?”
“Jason, first thing you need to remember is that the time and the physical realities that make up this space bend and sway at the slightest breath. Strong emotions, personalities, or even desires can shape the spaces around us. They can also affect the way time is perceived… how it impacts us. So some people are taken together, at the same time from our reality, and one can end up having been here 5 years when the other just arrives. You were taken before me, but I have been here much longer… much, much longer.”
“But how did you get here in the first place, Carrie? You said that they only take people who have no hope. What could have happened that left you that lost?”
“You, I was lost without you,” she whispered, tears in her eyes.
“You disappeared from our time, almost a year before I was taken. I… I thought you had killed yourself. That’s when I went looking for the cave. That’s how I was able to find it. I was lost without you. I love you.”
Grabbing his hand, and looking away from the shock on his face, she mumbled quickly “it’s time to find another rabbit hole”.
The shimmering energy that engulfed them gave way quickly to a rather rundown bedroom. No, not a bedroom exactly, it was a motel room. Looking closer, Jason could make out the small table next to a heating and cooling wall unit, and in the back corner the tell-tale exposed bathroom counter of motels world-wide.
Smiling at the new location, he wondered aloud, “This was our hotel outside of Orlando, when we went to see Disney World, isn’t it?”
Smiling at her own memory, she replied “I tend to remember it as the first place you ever said you loved me”.
“How long do you think we have before they find us here?” he said, while turning her around so that he could take her in his arms.
“We should be safe for a while here, Jason. This is the only memory I’ve used that I’ve never been found in, so for now, could we, maybe just hold each other for a minute?”
Pulling her closer into his arms, he smells that sweet vanilla scent that was always with her, even in this hell.
Leaning into the hug she whispered, “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Through all of this…this craziness, the thoughts most often in my mind centered around finding you, Jason. I knew sooner or later you’d arrive here, and then they’d have you. Now they have both of us, but for right now, we at least have each other.”
Pressed so tightly against him, so wrapped up in the adrenaline of escaping, she barely heard him whispering into her ear, even with his breath so close that it tickled all the way down her neck, “I love you, Carrie. Being with you was the first time I ever felt loved. Hell, it was the first time that I ever loved anyone. I’m sorry I put all that shit on you. I should have found a way to deal with it on my own. This is my fault. I’m sorry.”
Stepping back, only far enough away that she could still feel the pounding of his heart through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, she looked up into his eyes and said “I love you too, Jason. This isn’t it your fault. This isn’t something you chose. This isn’t something you could control. If you want to blame someone, what about me? I was the one who ran scared when I didn’t know how to help you. But it doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t. What is important is that I love you. I always have, and that we will figure a way out of this. And when we do, when we do, Jason, we’ll figure out a way to start fresh. I wish, more than anything, that I could grow old with you.”
Feeling the first smile, in what seemed like years, tugging at his lips, he pulled her back into the closest confines of his arms and chuckled.
“What?” she questioned, referring to the display of humor at such an absurd time.
Murmuring again, softly into her ear, “I was just thinking, ‘it figures that the first time I’d be truly happy would be in the kind of hell where such an emotion could get me killed. I’m nothing if not consistent when it comes to putting myself in the line of fire.”
Leaning back into the support of his arms, so that she can stare into his face again, “You are happy, Jason. I can see it in your eyes. I can’t tell you how important it is that you’re happy.”
As soon as the words fell from her lips, something seemed to change in the way she held him. For a second it seemed like she was trying to pull away from him, while she started to say, “something’s wrong”.
Jason wasn’t sure what he noticed first, the odd edge to her voice, the unfocused stance of her gaze, or the tightening grip of her hands, but he did know for certain the last thing he heard before he felt the quickly realized pressure and subsequent explosion of pain was her whispering, like a suggestive would-be lover might, “I need you inside of me.”
She wasn’t lying. She did need him, more than he had ever needed her, even when he was at his weakest. She had said the fucked up mechanics of time had landed her in the hellish limbo much longer than he had been there. The truth was that she had been there almost a century when she heard of Jason’s arrival.
At that point she had been “cured” almost 90 years. She’d run and hid and escaped from the monsters for almost 10 years before they’d caught her. This room had been her safest haven during that time.
But she’d been caught while trying to help a new victim. Her beauty was something they weren’t quick to destroy. It could be used to lure new victims into a false sense of happiness, or hell even lust would work at times. So they had given her the cure in hopes of breaking her, and making her a willing participant in the deceptions.
When she had refused, they’d kept her locked in the childish memory of her homemade shack.
She had been trapped there ever since, until three days ago, when it had opened up.
She didn’t know why until she’d stumbled upon the newly risen hospital, and seen Jason about to step into the nothingness. She’d done that once, in her early days here. The pain of that experience, even a century later, still brought a muffled sob to her throat. She’d wanted to help him. She was trying to help him. When she sought him out, it had never occurred to her that were setting her up.
All of these memories and thoughts floated through her mind while she fed. She new that when the hunger was sated, that the other scavengers would be by to have their share of the meal. If she had known she was going to end up bringing them a victim, she would have helped sooner. Anything to avoid being responsible for Jason’s death.
Feeling the hunger pains subside, she came out of the uncontrollable stupor that had compelled her hands to take his life.
Satiated, she finally glanced up. The look of muted surprise on his face, even with the almost comical “o” still forming his lips, had such a look of contentment that she couldn’t help but feel the sting of fresh tears in her eyes.
Staring at Jason’s last, maybe even ONLY, moment of happiness in a very long time, written across his unmoving face, she realized what it must have felt like for Jason, the first time he found that damn cave.
The despair, the loneliness, the utter sense of displacement, these burdens that had led him to the cave… these harbingers of hell, they were hers now, for eternity.
