Out Through the Attic (30 page)

I stared at him, blinking for a few seconds, not really believing any of it. But I couldn’t deny where I stood. Couldn’t deny the golden wheat, the incredible tree, or that impossible moon. “Why me?” I asked in a whisper. I felt as if I were in a dream that wouldn’t let go. And I didn’t want it to.

He shrugged. “Happenstance? Destiny?” I really have no idea how this all works. “I’m passing it on to you as it was passed on to me over three-hundred years ago …
your
time.” He stepped up to the headstone and motioned for me to come nearer. “Help me sit,” he added weakly.

“What do you mean,
my time
?” I asked as I helped him down.

He sighed. It was a weary thing, full of memory. “I’ve lived two-thousand years in here, son.” He put his head back against the headstone. “You don’t age in this place … whatever it is. You’ll get tired of it sometimes … you’ll want to go home and see what’s going on back
there 
… back with the people you couldn’t stand to be around.” His smile was a knowing one. And then he grasped my hand. Tightly. Clutching.

Surprised, I tried to pull away, but his grip was firm. I felt a tingling, almost burning sensation. I looked down and watched the tattoo swirl across on the back of his hand like a storm-tossed cloud. It spun and coalesced into a stream of black that slithered down his fingers. Before I could pull my hand away, it slithered up onto my own. Its touch was ice, a deepening chill that ran through the veins of my fingers. The ink swirled once again, slowly reforming upon the back of my hand, resolving into the tattoo.

“Jesus!” I shouted.

I finally got a good look at the thing. The black circle was two inches across, with a crossbar holding a blue eye at its center. A single, sharp point dipped down from the corner of the eye, framing a pale octahedron with a beam of light shooting from its apex. Above the eye, arranged in a curve, were three dark stars. The beam of light passed through the eye and split, bisecting each star.

“It’s alright, John.” He loosened his grip and patted the back of my hand. “That’s the key.”

“Is this real?” I asked, looking up at the sky.

He paused then, a thoughtful look on his face. Finally, he said, “I don’t know … not with any certainty. I suspect it is. Or real enough, anyway.” A coughing fit took him, and he grimaced in pain. “I’ve always treated it as such.” He took a labored breath and shifted against the headstone. “I wish I had time to explain more to you … about the realities … but … it seems … I’ve just run …out….”

He closed his eyes and let out one last breath. Gray whimp-ered once and lay down at Ash’s feet. I stared down at him for a long time, too stunned to do anything else. Finally, I realized what I had to do. Moving carefully around Gray, I gently lowered Ash into the shallow grave and covered him up. The dog never took his eyes off me, but he didn’t interfere. It was as if he was waiting for something as I covered over his master and tamped down the earth.

When I finished, I stepped back just as Gray stood up. He circled the grave several times, sniffing. Finally, he stepped on top of the packed soil, lay down, and raised his massive skull, looking straight ahead. Before my eyes, the big dog turned to stone, a smooth marble with every feature preserved. I realized that Gray intended to watch over his master in an in eternal vigil. A single word had appeared upon the headstone: “Ash.” No date. No last name. It occurred to me that it was enough.

Standing there, I felt like I was in the middle of a Salvador Dali painting, with only a melting timepiece absent from the scene.
It couldn’t be real. Could it?
I don’t know how long I waited. I kept expecting to wake up, or have everything go black. I expected reality, the world of cogs and dregs and hyenas to come back into focus. There was only that place, filled with those sounds.

Finally, I walked back the way we had come, heading straight for the door, which still stood open amidst the swaying wheat. I paused at the frame, examining it closely. It looked like a normal doorway, but I had no doubt that it was something impossible, yet very
very
real. I stepped through and closed it behind me. The attic smelled dusty and dry. I heard a police car off in the distance, and a helicopter beat its way through the sky.

It was time to put Ash’s words to the test.

I closed my eyes and thought of something I’d always dreamed about. I pictured every detail … every shadow, every line. The sound of rain on metal, the scent of fire and billowing smoke. It was a place from my childhood, a book I’d read or dream I’d had. I couldn’t place its source, but in that moment it rose up out of the depths and filled my vision. In
that
place, there were no cogs. No supervisors or cubicles. There were no hyenas preying upon human castaways. There was good and evil.

I opened my eyes … opened the door. And there it was, a dream imagined … and made
real
.

A massive, armored leg stood off to the right, its pale, white foot sunk deep into mud. Rain spattered and splashed in through the open door, a hissing downpour that quickly soaked me. I stepped through into a night full of thunder and explosions. Lightning tore at the sky as anti-aircraft tracers raced up into dark, roiling clouds.

O O O

If the Universe is what I think it is, being a bear was the reason Ash found me. Or perhaps, I thought, the reason he created me. That thought gave me pause. Was I a figment of someone else’s imagination? Is that was the tattoo did? Gave permanence to something that had none? In time, I might understand how it works. But in that moment, only one thing mattered. I was far from home—albeit just outside the door—and I had a reason to live.

Clarity of purpose.

I stepped to the edge of the cliff, my heavy, armored feet squashing into deep mud. I stared down at Hell’s army. With laughter ringing inside my head, I stepped off the edge, plummeting straight for them. They roared as one. Pulses of purple energy lanced through the darkness, splashing against my shields. I hit the ground and folded into a crouch to absorb the impact. They stormed toward me, thousands of clawed feet shaking the ground like an earthquake.

I raised the blaster, raised the blade, and with a smile, let loose the bear.

AB
OUT THE AUTH
OR

Quincy Allen, is a self-proclaimed cross-genre author. What that really means is that he’s got enough ADHD to not stick with any single genre and, like his cooking, prefers to mix and match to suit his tastes of the day.

He has been published in multiple anthologies, online and print magazines as well as one omnibus. He’s written for the Internet radio show
RadioSteam
. His novel
Chemical Burn
—a finalist in the Rocky Mountain Writers Association Colorado Gold Writing Contest—was first published in June of 2012 and is due out in 2014 in a newly revamped edition from Word Fire Press, which will be carrying the entire Justin Case series. His new novel
Jake Lasater: Blood Curse
is also due out this year, as well as a military sci-fi novel from Twisted Core Press. He works part-time as a tech-writer to pay his bills, does book design and eBook conversions for Word Fire Press by night, and lives in a lovely house that he considers his very own sanctuary.

OT
HER 7DS BOO
KS

You can find all of our books at:

http://astore.amazon.com/7dbooks-20

Quincy Allen’s 7DS stories have been included in the following short story anthologies:

Seven Dwarf Stories
—“Cornelius”

Linger
—“In the Red”

Slayers
—“Tasty Tidbits”