Magic Man Plus 15 Tales of Terror Page 4

  Now a man---mid-thirties would be his guess, but he didn't know how long he had been down here---his dark hair long and matted, hanging down to his bottom, his beard almost as long, hanging past his gut. His skin was pale and blistered with sores; some of his wounds still hadn't healed. He hadn't had a real meal in decades.

  Many years before, after several hours of playing that card game of Wishes and Hope and Reason and Fear, Gene had wanted to leave. Bill wouldn't let him. Bill said there was no way out. He said they had to keep playing, keep helping people. So Gene played a little longer and asked to leave again. Bill still said no. Figuring it was only a matter of time before Bill would call it quits from being too tired, Gene thought he'd escape while Bill was asleep, but Bill didn't sleep that night or any other to follow. Bill never slept.

  Only allowed to rest a bit here and there, Gene was told he had to keep playing the game, keep helping people get what they wanted, keep satisfying wishes and hopes and warding off fear, getting things, sometimes, in spite of reason.

  Perhaps a week or so into the game, Gene threw over the table, the cards scattering across the stone floor. He told Bill to rot in Hell and refused to play.

  What a mistake, Gene thought. He remembered Bill somehow appearing behind him and with thick fingers grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, dragging him into the darkness.

  Gene never forgot the first time he felt the hot sting of a lead-beaded whip tear into his back. Never forgot the soothing warmth of blood oozing over the wounds, temporarily washing away the pain.

  From then on, with each refusal to play, he was beaten. With each attempt at escape, he was beaten worse. Bill barely fed him; only gave him enough food and water to survive, but not enough to keep him strong.

  Head heavy, eyes drooping, Gene was prepared to sell his soul, just to die and be rid of Bill and that blasted card game.

  But you're helping people, Gene thought. You're doing the right thing. But . . . but you're also losing your own life. There's no way out. There's nothing down here except Bill and Fear and Reason and Wishes and . . . . There was no hope. Not anymore.

  Gene looked at Bill's eleven of Fear.

  I have a two in thirteen chance of beating him and a one in thirteen chance of tying him. He'd played this hand hundreds of times before. Sometimes he won and sometimes not. If his stomach wasn't so empty, he would throw up from just looking at the cards. Instead, he was forced to endure nauseating throbs and gut-twisting sickness.

  He forced himself to remain seated at the table, forced himself to play.

  Hand trembling, he reached for the deck of Wishes, not caring if he won or lost, if he helped someone receive the thing or person or feeling they wanted most, or if the person broke down inside from a desire unmet and they became self-destructive to ward off the pain.

  It doesn't matter, he thought. It's because of them, those selfish, no good, filthy, stupid people that I'm here. Taking a card, he paused before turning it over. What would Mom say? She'd want you to hope for the best, to help others. His inner monologue still carried the voice of a nine-year-old. But then, in a darker and lower voice, that of a man. Screw her! She didn't give you that BB gun! It was just a toy rifle. A stupid toy! Mom. She's why you're here. If it weren't for her---He flipped the card over. It was an eight of Wishes.

  "Blast them all," he said.

  Bill didn't say anything. He never said anything. Not anymore. Who Gene once thought of as a kind man who only wanted to help people was now just some sort of demonic host at a never-ending gaming party. Knowing that Bill knew he knew there was nothing he could do to escape . . . . He wanted to die.

  And that's what I'm going to do, after this game is over and I'm allowed to sleep, he thought. If he lets me sleep.

  Hope, foreign yet familiar, finally came.

  * * * *

  Ambling through the dark, Gene went to the corner of what he dubbed his "cell," a small room six-and-one-half grown-man paces by seven; double that when he was a kid. Bill had introduced him to the room the first time he slept down here, beneath the earth, away from his mother, his life and everything else he once knew.

  His mother.

  She must have been worried sick because of him. Even now, he still never accepted that, in her mind, he was presumed dead. But they never found a body, he thought. He could only imagine her guilt or how many times she must have wished she would have gone after him the day he stomped out of the house.

  All over a BB rifle. So stupid. The toy-that-everyone-wanted-and-some-had no longer meant a thing to him. The day he stopped caring was the day he saw the toy next to his chair, leaning up against the seat, just waiting for him to finally pick it up, cradle it; the object that led him to a life of Fear and Reason and Wishes and Hope.

  "Can I go now?" he had asked Bill that day. If it was day, that was. He slept so little that day and night became one.

  Gently placing a hand on his shoulder, Bill said very simply, "No," and crossed to the other side of the table and sat down. Even after years of playing a game he could barely stand, even after giving up his life to help others, even after receiving the toy that had caused him so much pain and in a way things having come full circle---his life was still forfeit. He tried to kill Bill that day. He dove over the table and tackled him to the floor. The moment they landed, Gene found himself flipped onto his back, Bill on top of him, his captor's hard knuckles smashing over and over into his face.

  Now in his room without light, crouched in the corner, Gene held the rifle for the first time in years. It was heavier then he remembered it. But he was also thinner now---weaker---than the day he first received it.

  I'm so sorry, Mom, he thought. He then whispered, "So sorry." I don't deserve anything. Should never have asked for this thing. It's just a gun. Just a stupid gun used to kill--- "---people. Things. Me." Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. The salty liquid stung his dry, cracked skin. He didn't wipe the tears away. He deserved the discomfort. He didn't deserve reprieve.

  He set the rifle barrel beneath his chin, resting its butt-end on the ground.

  Finally, he thought. Peace.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The empty click that echoed in the small stone room was as devastating as if a real bullet had discharged.

  Just a pellet, he remembered. Not a bullet. He hadn't checked to see if the weapon was loaded with the BB pellets the toy was supposed to come with. Actually, he had forgotten it was just a toy. If only it could have discharged. If only . . .

  "I don't understand you, Gene. This is how you thank me for giving you what you wanted?" Bill said from behind him. The way the man could sneak up on you---so silently---chilled the nerves.

  Anguish wrenched Gene's heart at the sound of Bill's voice. He dropped the rifle and placed his face in his hands. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. So sorry. The words were like pins pricking his heart and mind; the painful piercings he deserved.

  "What do you want me to do?" he asked. He's going to whip the hell out of me again. "No," he whispered. "No more." Just kill me.

  "It's too late for that, Gene. I gave you what you wanted. You ignored it. I gave you the chance to help people, prevent them from suffering from being without the thing they wanted most, and you tried to end your ability to help them with a toy."

  "No, it's not like that! I just want to go home! I just want to go---"

  Somehow, without making a sound, Bill was right next to him, his thick hands pressing down on his shoulders, gripping him, holding him so he couldn't move.

  "From this day forward, you will service others," Bill said. "You will grant their wishes and erase their fears. You will give them hope and oppose any reason, even Reason itself, so that they can achieve peace."

  Bill leaned closer, his hot breath tickling the inside of Gene's ear. "You will not rest until everyone living is helped. Every. Single. One."

  Tears flowing freely, Gene could barely find the strength to speak. "But that'
s impossible. I can't . . . too long . . . I can't do it."

  Releasing him, Bill stood. "I know."

  * * * *

  Desecration of Is

  Victimization is everything when you become slave to a system of existence of living of dying and though things cannot change you force yourself to do everything within your power to become all powerful all changing all needing and wanting and eventually consuming and though you defy fate fate defies you and soon you seek outside help because what are we but alone just alone and no matter how stronger or smart or powerful you are there is always someone stronger and smarter and more powerful except for me as I have been given everything to right the wrongs and wrong the rights and contrast your life as you wish it to be however my favors were not given to me by choice though I was told during the card game that I chose to receive the ability to change destiny so be it I will acknowledge it but never accept it for few accept the fate we've been given no we always must change something as humans are selfish and pitiful creatures I once was human but now am more than man perhaps even a god speaking of which I do not know who or what gave me these powers other than his name was Bill and surely he was not a man but now I can serve you now I must serve you in order to be free of this curse of aid yet in return for my services I wish to have something more you must give me yourself and endure what I've endured in order to receive the thing or person or state of mind or spirit that you want most so I ask you again can you take it can you give it do you really want it that badly I know I can take it and give it and I want you to be happy that badly for my freedom depends on it yet why press on in such an impossible task well here's why and that's because we are never happy with what fate has given us and what destiny has decreed to be true.

  by the Magic Man

  Time: nonexistent

  Place: the cave, where nothing matters

  * * * *

  Shedding the Skin

  It had been living inside him for so long that it didn't know if it could break free. His body was its home. But, it had come to this place before, the time to shed the old skin and find a new, younger host. It was a lion. Its name, as dubbed by the press, Beast of Night. Beast lived in the body of Herman Gordes. But it wasn't much of a body anymore. Herman was a paraplegic, his neck having been broken when Beast tangled with the swamp monster of Spirits Bog a long time ago.

  Before, on the nights when the Northern Lights danced like wisps of bright cloud on a chalkboard, coming out of Herman was easy. Now, coming out was difficult as Herman, having resigned to being a seventy-two-year-old man in a wheelchair, had stopped feeding Beast the anger needed to be released.

  Beast was on his own. These past few months when the Northern Lights graced the sky, Beast could feel them, sense them, hear them call. But Herman, unbeknownst to himself, would keep the lion contained.

  It was time to break free.

  Here, inside this body, there was darkness. The only light coming in when it was day, the sun's rays shining through Herman's old flesh in an odd array of oranges and reds, while he was out in his wheelchair, his nurse having taken his shirt off so he could get some sun.

  It was night now, and Beast had no light to guide him in his task.

  I'm leaving, Beast told Herman.

  Herman gurgled something in his sleep. That was all.

  Good-bye.

  Forepaws pressing against Herman's ribcage, Beast let his claws break free. They punctured the flesh and a spurt of blood splashed him in the face. He didn't mind. It fueled him to dig further. Herman awoke and Beast felt him trying to find the strength to scream. He didn't want his friend to suffer. Quickly, he scraped away Herman's lungs, the flesh leaking down the interior of the rib cage like oil on a wall.

  Bone. There was bone in the way. Beast brought his paws back and thrust them forward, his claws poking through the gaps in the cage and through the muscle and skin on the other side. For the first time ever, his claws probed the air of Herman's bedroom. He curled his paws, the pads finding purchase on Herman's rib bones.

  Beast pulled and the bones tore apart, snapping like dried twigs, blood splashing as high as the ceiling. Like a dead man rising from the grave, Beast rose from Herman's body. His friend lay there, his chest a messy heap of skin and bone and flesh, ripped and torn in pink and red folds.

  Beast blinked his eyes and saw the world for the first time in years.

  Tonight he would find a new host.

  * * * *

  Spinning Room

  It had to work. Sharon was sure of it. She knew what was going to happen; her heart rate was already quickening.

  Thunder crashed and lightning flickered in sharp flashes against the deep purple sky beyond the gray, marble railing to her left. The lightning's bright flash reflected off the shiny surface of the gigantic marble pillar on her right; if it wasn't for being under such terrible circumstances, she might have stopped and waited for the lightning to bounce off the surface again just so she could say it was beautiful.

  This place, this room---this round room---a balcony wrapped around a massive pillar like a band around a finger, was as good a place as any to be on All Hallows Eve. But it wasn't really a room, was it? More like a washer around an amazingly tall cylinder, or a gigantic ring encircling a pillar so far and wide that it dwarfed anything the Greeks or Romans could conjure up.

  Thunder boomed.

  The air changed, humid now, feeling thick. Sharon kept her pace.

  She rounded the corner, hoping she could change things. Adjust . . . something . . . so she and her family wouldn't die. So they'd be fine.

  Thunder crashed again, sending a shockwave through her chest. Lightning followed this time and right at the last bright white flash, was her Aunt Clora, beautiful as always. Aunt Clora stood about midway between the railing and the wall, her white dress---bright but with dark, shadowy folds in the material---blowing in the gentle breeze. Black rings encircled her eyes, complimenting her long red hair, the ringlets blowing with what seemed to be a harsher wind. Almost as if the wind blowing her dress blew in opposing directions and speed as the wind that blew against her hair.

  There was the glint of black metal as Clara raised her hand and aimed a gun at Sharon.

  Sharon poured on the speed, praying her aunt would be kind enough to let her pass. Sharon ran by her, already changing something. Her aunt's gun remained aimed at her. If Clora fired . . .

  Almost past, almost past, Sharon thought. Her heart ached from its rapid beating and she could envision the flakes of cracked dry skin at the back of her throat. Each panting breath only dried it out even more. She should have drank something before she started the "obstacle" course again.

  Thunder boomed.

  No, not thunder---

  The bullet blasted its way into Sharon's left shoulder blade, exiting through a neat hole in the middle of her front deltoid. Blood splashed out of her red sweatshirt, the two tones oddly clashing with each other. Fire stung her skin; her left arm burned, but the sharp pain of the bullet wound burned even more.

  She kept running, her tears making it difficult to see. No matter how many times she wiped them away, they returned full force. Pressing her other hand against her shoulder to slow the bleeding, her stomach twisted into a knot at the feel of the warm blood spilling from her wound.

  Her bones ached.

  Something else was about to happen now. Supposed to happen.

  At least she remembered to look to her right this time. On her previous run, she had forgotten and only remembered at the last second, but it had been too late, she having ran past her mother and the man about to end her mom's life.

  Already watching the wall, she came around the bend, the gray marble abruptly stopping and becoming a tinted window. It was difficult to see through the window running by as quickly as she was, but she did make out the two figures inside. One was tall and lean, the other shorter and plump.

  Her mother was in a private room with a man, someone who was not her father or
anyone she recognized.

  Mom, get out of there, she thought, the other guy's gonna come in. She didn't know how she knew a second man was going to enter the room through a black door, a bar of dim yellow light coming from the room or hall beyond. But he was going to come in wearing red. The tall man . . . he wore blue.

  A faint memory crept to the fore of her mind. She wasn't supposed to know the stocky man in the red jumpsuit and hood was going to come in the room.

  Not supposed to know? Eyes still on the window, tears filled them the moment the tall man grabbed her mother and tore her apart, his long sharp nails digging into her mother's doughy flesh, ripping her insides open. Blood burst from her mother's body like water from a balloon.

  Sharon ran past the window. In spite of the heartache and blazing pain in her shoulder, she forced herself to wipe her eyes and press on. There was another that needed saving.

  It wasn't long before Sharon's legs filled with fatigue, hot, gooey blobs of tiredness invading her thighs and calves. Her pace slowed; her biceps ached and raising her arms was nearly impossible.

  He's just around the next turn, she thought. She pressed on toward her father. Already she could envision what was happening in her absence. This particular arc of the Spinning Room seemed extra long for some reason, almost as if the path was straight instead of curved. Readying herself for the smooth marble to end and for the chalky gray of ancient Roman-like pillars to appear, arranged in a waist-high railing, Sharon's lungs screamed, her breathing rapidly increasing. She suddenly forgot what was supposed to happen now, what she was supposed to stop.

  Before she could slow down to think or even just catch her breath, the thick stone railing supported by miniature Roman-like pillars appeared. Over the railing was a rectangular room, inset into the wall. The wall, like the railing, was a powdery, light gray stone. The sound of rippling water came from just below the railing.