Rebecca pulled into the dirt driveway that led to the large two-story house in the distance. Her low-bearing, burgundy, Subaru Impreza bounced over several shallow potholes before she could hit the brakes and take the drive somewhat easier. Her city car was not meant for these country jobs.
She parked the car in front of the house and shut off her phone’s music. She’d had “Oi, Oi, Oi” by the Cockney Rejects on repeat, but she was done with that play down, anxiety over, ready to go.
She took out her earbuds, put them back in their case, and shut off her phone. She placed her phone up on the dash and took in a deep breath before slowly releasing it. It was time to get to business.
She took a look at her own face for a second in the rearview mirror.
Rebecca had a pleasant face for a white girl, one that had been prone to comments such as “cute” and/or “sweet,” with dark-blue eyes, round cheeks, and full but small lips.
Those lips were now coated in black-cherry lipstick, and her stormy eyes were now decorated and accented by black makeup. She was bald except for the royal-blue Mohawk on her head, though that hair streak was cropped short for business purposes.
Today, she was dressed in her black Ramones tee and her favorite pair of black cargo jeans along with her black outdoorsman boots, because these were her “utility clothes” whenever she was out on a job. She had on her studded black leather jacket, because early January had hit and there was snow on the ground; it was cold out here in the Midwest.
True, she’d been a typical middleclass white girl not that many years ago, but times had changed. She walked the Anarchy Road now, though the others that walked the Anarchy Road did not exactly share her taste in clothes and music.
“The Anarchy Road,” she muttered. “How in the hell did I end up like this?”
She knew the answer to that, of course…It was tragedy. It was always tragedy, but in her case, that tragedy was her own damned fault.
Now she was forced to do these jobs, because no one in their right mind was going to do them. Oh, the Feds had their so-called secret bureau that did these kinds of jobs, but a lot of the legwork was done by people just like Rebecca, just once-average people that had been F’d over by fate and, in her case, personal stupidity.
There were groups like hers all over the world, but the Anarchy Road was different. Their group was only located in the Midwest, but they invited in anyone they could get that had the right…credentials.
Rebecca certainly had hers.
She turned and gave a wary look toward her “partner,” the “person” sitting in the passenger seat.
“Well, Sam?” she asked nervously. “What’s it gonna be? How many do I get? One, right?…Please tell me one…I’d prefer zero, but I wouldn’t be out here if that were a possibility.”
The skeleton in the Uncle Sam suit swiveled his deathly grin toward her and held up the bony digits of his right hand…all five of those digits.
“F…Five?” choked out Rebecca in slight horror. “Why in the hell did Minnie send me, then? Shouldn’t Roberto or Calvin be on this?”
The empty eye sockets of Uncle Sam stared straight through her.
“It’s important,” she thought. “Just suck it up. Still, that makes me mad.”
“What am I asking you for?” she huffed in audible disgust. “You can’t tell me…You know what? Never mind.”
She undid her seatbelt and exited the vehicle. There was no point in wasting time. Either she’d make it, or she wouldn’t.
“I’m keeping the car running, Sam,” she said unhappily. “With five…we may just have to run.”
She closed the front driver’s-side door, opened the back driver’s-side door, and pulled out a long, black, custom-made case that had been resting on the backseat. Her weapons of choice didn’t exactly need a case, but that little touch added to the professionalism of her calling…or maybe just the weirdness of it, of her, but that didn’t matter at the moment. All that mattered was getting the job done…She had to lay someone or something to rest.
“I should call them, but…” she muttered to herself.
She could call someone, but the fact of the matter was that…they didn’t know exactly what it was she could do. Minnie knew, but Minnie was a psychic, and that ability had made that old bat coo-coo, so…that was a nonstarter. No, Rebecca would look like a coward in front of Roberto or Calvin, or even in front of the likes of Amy or Leyla, so that wasn’t going to happen.
All she knew was that this job was very, very dangerous, because she had five this time, and she’d never had five. Of course, she never knew how dangerous a job was going to be until she was actually at the site, but this was on a whole other level.
“Had three,” she said under her breath. “Had three when it turned out to be a serial killer. Not the one I wanted but…Ugh…No, no. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, but…I’ve never had five. Never ever had five. I didn’t even think five was a possibility.”
She walked around to the passenger’s side of her car and stared at Sam until the bones in patriotic rags reached up and hit the window button with his right index fingerbone. The window rolled down a moment later, and Rebecca took the time to give him the staredown.
“I’m only doing this to stave off Judgement Day,” she scowled. “I’d also like the whole redemption thing, but if the world ends, my personal redemption won’t matter much, so…yeah.”
The skeleton in the tattered Uncle Sam suit nodded a couple of times back at her.
“He thinks it’s important,” she thought again.
At least he got the picture.
Who was Sam?…Maybe he was a remnant of the future, of what could be, an America devastated by evil, but whomever he was, whatever he was, he was part of Rebecca’s “gift,” though that “gift” had not been asked for, nor was it wanted.
Everyone that walked the Anarchy Road had a “gift,” because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t last long in these jobs. She doubted even a Delta Force member could do one of these jobs without a 50% mortality rate, and considering how skilled and experienced Delta Force members were, that was saying something…
On second thought, 50% was probably generous.
Being out here was all on Minnie’s info anyway. That crazy octogenarian had most likely not even told anyone but Rebecca, but that was par for the course. That woman was barely understandable as it was. It was a good bet the others didn’t know about this particular job.
“This is some bullshi…” trailed off Rebecca. “I’m telling you, Sam, that woman is trying to get me killed.”
“Maybe she just believes in you,” she thought. “That could be it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” frowned Rebecca. “Doesn’t matter now, does it? I didn’t drive an hour out of the city just to turn right back around…Ugh…Let’s just get this over with…I’ll probably have to use the first one just to find out what’s going on.”
“Trust in yourself,” she thought. “Stop tearing yourself down. You’re supposed to be working on positive thinking. You’ve come this far. Trust in what you can do.”
“I don’t trust anyone, not even me,” scowled Rebecca. “Especially not me…Anyway, let’s do this. I want to be over and done with this.”
Sam rolled up the window, but Rebecca ignored him. It was her responsibility to do the job, not his.
She walked up to the front door of the house and rang the doorbell. Even though this was the countryside, these people were clearly middle class, so a doorbell wasn’t out of the ordinary.
“No dog,” said Rebecca under her breath.
That was suspicious for a family living out in the country. Either these people didn’t own a dog (unlikely), or more likely that dog was carrion by now.
“They really need to find a military guy who has a gift,” muttered Rebecca. “That badass girl-boss crap only exists in the movies…Why in the hell am I here again?”
“Because you’re needed,” she thought. “You’re needed, and you need to cut the negativity crap.”
“I guess that’s all I’m getting,” frowned Rebecca. “I guess that’s all I’ve got…Guess it’s better to be needed than to be…to be…forgotten.”
She did not want to think about it. It wasn’t like her parents had forgotten about her anyway, and that’s what hurt the most. She’d been a fool, a real and riotous fool for doing what she’d done, but that was old news, water under the bridge.
“Can’t go back there,” she said unhappily. “Can’t go back…Just have to go forward.”
It took a minute or so, a minute or so of being left to stew within her own poisonous thoughts, but the door was eventually answered after that minute or so.
A young lady who looked to be in her early twenties answered the door.
This young white woman was taller than Rebecca and appeared to be a couple of years younger than her, maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. At first glance, the woman who had answered the door was around 5’8”, six inches taller than Rebecca. This young lady had an athletic build and weight for her height, not extremely curvy, small breasts, not an hourglass like Rebecca…
This stranger had brown eyes and thin lips set within an attractive face. Her black hair was short and in a bob, a hairstyle that Rebecca had worn at one time. The young woman was dressed in a pink pullover sweater and light-blue jeans, a “day off” from work kind of look, or maybe she was a student at a college somewhere…who knew.
“Oh…wow,” said the woman at the door, her expression a mix of mild astonishment and stark amusement.
“Let me see if this is where I need to be,” replied Rebecca with a tightlipped frown. “Did you give a shout down the Anarchy Road?”
“Did I give a shout…?” asked the young woman in visible confusion. “Excuse me, what?”
And she did look visibly confused. However, just as Rebecca had grasped the thought of turning around and going back to the car, the young lady in front of her had a sudden widening of the eyes as a very visible realization on her pretty face overrode her previous visible confusion.
“You’re the one they sent?” asked the young woman.
“Why are you so surprised?” asked Rebecca.
“That’s kind of offensive,” she thought.
“You’re just…not what I expected,” said the young woman. “I didn’t mean anything by it…Umm…What am I thinking? Why don’t you come in…uhhh…”
“Reb,” said Rebecca.
That was her name now, the moniker she used for her new self. She refused to use her old nickname, because that one was…too painful to bring up again. She couldn’t even stand the sound of it.
“I’m Delila,” said the young woman.
“Old fashioned name,” pondered Rebecca. “Not one you hear anymore…They’re coming back in style. Hmm, maybe Reb will catch on for girls. No idea, but that would be cool.”
“Cool,” she said.
She stepped through the doorway and shivered as a sudden chill spread throughout her veins.
“Oh, you’ve got something going on here,” she said warily.
She clutched her black, leather, custom-made case tightly to her chest.
“I know,” said Delila in a low, unhappy tone. “I didn’t know what to do, but I remembered this card with a phone number I got from a friend of mine. He’s into all that occult stuff. He said that if I ever had anything like this happen, I needed to call that number and ‘give a shout down the Anarchy Road.’ I’ve never even heard of you people before. I couldn’t even Google information on you.”
“Well, I don’t know who your friend was, but he clearly knows about us,” answered Rebecca. “You can only find us on the dark web if you’re going the internet route…Nah, we’re mainly word of mouth and personal invite only.”
“Oh,” replied Delila.
But this chitchat was neither here nor there. It was time for business.
“So, what’s going on?” asked Rebecca. “Why did I have to drive an hour out here to the boonies?”
“I…I really don’t know,” shrugged Delila. “This is my parents’ house. I’m normally on campus, but I was staying here to housesit while they’re gone on vacation.”
“Bingo, college student,” thought Rebecca. “Friggin’ prey waiting to be eaten.”
“Uh, huh,” she said warily.
She looked around the house for a brief moment, but the place was nothing more than a typical middle-class residence. It possessed clean light-beige carpets, spotless tan couches, a big-screen TV setup in the living room, an open archway to the kitchen, closed doors that probably led to a study, bathroom, guest room, maybe…
There was a set of wooden stairs that led to the second floor, but that wasn’t unusual. No, what was unusual were the heebie-jeebies she was getting.
“This place spooks me,” frowned Rebecca. “I need some information, because something very wrong is going on here or has happened here.”
“You can tell that?” asked Delila.
“Yep,” said Rebecca flatly.
“Umm…Okay,” said Delila.
She put one finger to her lips and shook her head for a moment.
“I…I have trouble explaining it,” she said in a shaky voice. “Ummm…Our dog, Hartford, has been missing for a couple of days, and he never disappears like this. He’s a big dog, and he’s an outdoor dog, and I think he ran off, but why, I don’t know. But…But it’s more than our missing dog. It’s missing time.”
“Missing time?” asked Rebecca. “What do you mean ‘missing time’?”
“I mean I lose time,” said Delila in audible frustration. “I’ll set out to do something, like…oh…pick up around the house, but then I look at the clock and an hour has gone by and nothing’s gotten done. It’s like I blink, and hours have gone by, and I can’t remember what I did during that time.”
“Unusual,” said Rebecca. “Anything else?”
“There’s…There’s the basement,” said Delila with some hesitation. “That’s the real reason I called. The other stuff is unimportant compared to that…The real problem is…well, it’s the basement. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Mmm, hmm,” said Rebecca. “What’s in the basement?”
Delila closed her eyes, shivered, and shook her head no.
“Whatever’s going on,” said the young woman, “it’s in the basement.”
“Okay,” said Rebecca.
“There’s something in the basement,” said Delila. “I’m telling you, the feeling of some…some overwhelming dread assaults me when I’m near the basement door. I won’t go near it anymore.”
“All right,” nodded Rebecca. “I’ll check it out.”
“You’re going down there!” gasped Delila. “I wouldn’t do that. Whatever’s down there—”
“Is why I’m here,” cut off Rebecca. “Show me where the basement door is.”
“It’s in the kitchen,” said Delila. “Seriously, though, shouldn’t you call for backup, or have, like, a big guy do this? I know you have the whole ‘punk look’ going for you, but you’re a little too…uhhh…‘cute’ to really—”
“She’s not going to let it go,” thought Rebecca.
“If you wanted the police, you would have called them,” frowned Rebecca. “You called us, and I was sent…You know what, I’ll find the basement on my own. I need to find out what’s going on here.”
She walked past Delila and made her way through the open archway that led to the kitchen.
“Too cute, like a little princess,” thought Rebecca. “Run home now, little princess, before the dragon eats you.”
It was offensive, true, but Rebecca couldn’t blame the girl. The truth was that she, herself, felt like pissing her pants right now, and unfortunately, she actually had pissed her pants before in a situation like this one, a situation where imminent death was in the air.
“Don’t tell her that, though,” she thought. “Don’t tell her you’ve been a little coward that tried to beg her way out of trouble, tried to promise whatever you could to save yourself. You even tried to promise your own body to save yourself…This is your redemption, you little loser. You’ve earned the right to be punished. Maybe you just deserve it. Maybe you just deserve death, little miss yellow panties.”
After all this time and after all she’d been through, she was still scared of death. Extreme suffering and trauma did that to you. Go figure.
To her left, there was a white door next to a steel-colored fridge, and that door was probably the basement door.
She could feel it, actually, the danger. Powerful waves of death emanated from that white door…Oh, there was definitely something down there.
“I can feel it,” said Rebecca as she set her black, leather, custom-made case down upon the family’s round, wooden, kitchen table. “I can feel that something very, very bad is down there. You weren’t kidding.”
She popped the locks on her case and opened it up. She pulled forth her two metal bats from out of their red-velvet confines.
Rebecca held up her big bat and gave herself a grim smile. This bat was special-made, a steel club with an aluminum core, the outside of the bat coated with real silver, that silver molded with angelic symbols.
The second bat was smaller than the first but identical in its make, save for the fact that it was without any adornment, plain in its presentation.
She looked up to see that Delila had followed her into the kitchen.
“These are my versions of a katana and a wakizashi,’” said Rebecca with a wicked smile. “Every samurai has the long sword and the short sword, so every punk should have their big bat and their little one. These are custom-made and blessed by Father Martin, himself.”
“Bats?” asked the young woman. “That’s all you’ve brought?…I…I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think I need your help…”
Rebecca gave her a flat stare.
“And why’s that?” asked Rebecca.
“I just…It’s just…You’re just…” verbally stumbled Delila as she raised her right hand, palm up, at Rebecca.
“It’s because I’m a short, cute, punk girl,” said Rebecca matter-of-factly. “I look like a short, cute, sorority girl cosplaying as a punk rocker. Is that what you’re saying?”
“W…Well, yes,” stammered Delila. “You don’t understand…I actually have a conscience…I am genuinely terrified of whatever is down in that basement, and I don’t want you getting killed. It’d be like sending a puppy into a lion’s den. Dressing up a puppy as a T-Rex doesn’t make it a T-Rex.”
Rebecca gripped the haft of her large bat with both hands and shook her head no.
“Everyone who walks the Anarchy Road was granted a special gift,” she explained. “That gift allows us to fight the darkness that normal people can’t even see…or don’t want to see.”
“A gift?” asked Delila. “What gift?”
“It’s different for all of us,” said Rebecca. “It’s only granted to a small, select group of people. Trust me, I have a gift, and it can deal with your problem.”
“So what is it, then?” asked Delila. “What’s this ‘gift’?”
“Can’t tell you,” said Rebecca with a shake of her head. “I’m not allowed. The others know this, so they don’t pry. Their gifts are public knowledge for the rest of us, but…mine confounds them. Only one of us besides me knows, and she won’t tell. You’ll just have to trust me.”
“How can I trust you if you can’t even tell me that?” asked Delila in audible frustration. “And who ‘grants’ this gift? Why don’t more people have these ‘gifts’? Why don’t I have one? In fact, what makes you so special? How did you get one?”
Rebecca set her bats back down in their case, stared the young lady dead in her brown eyes, and simply told her the truth.
“I died,” she frowned.
“Oh,” said Delila in awkward reply. “I hear near-death experiences can sometimes bring out hidden talents due to brain damage suffered during death. I think they call that an “acquired savant” or something like that…How…How did you die? Did you overdose or something?”
“She thinks it’s drugs,” mentally sighed Rebecca. “They always think it’s drugs…She doesn’t know. Of course, she doesn’t know, so educate her.”
“Uhhh, no,” she replied. “I was murdered. I was tortured to death.”
Maybe it was the dead-serious look on Rebecca’s face, or maybe it was the dead-serious tone in her voice that cinched it, but the young woman named Delila paled at that response. She turned the color of old milk.
“Oh…” said Delila in a quiet voice.
“I remember every second of it,” said Rebecca flatly. “Did you know that women have more nerve endings than men? We actually have a lot more nerve endings than men…I bet you didn’t know that…We feel pain on a whole other level than men do. I learned that the hard way.”
“That’s…That is…horrific,” grimaced Delila.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” replied Rebecca with a tightlipped frown. “Living the life I live now, walking the Anarchy Road…let’s just say that…that this is my way of recovering from trauma.”
“I think…I think there are other ways to recover from trauma than by putting your life on the line like this,” said Delila. “We have therapy and medication for that. Doing this seems…reckless. Aren’t you scared of death?”
“Terrified,” shrugged Rebecca. “I’m really scared of dying, but I’ve been to Hell and back, and if there’s a Hell, then there must be a Heaven, so I already know dying isn’t the end of everything, and if I can get into Heaven this time, then I’m all right facing death…I’ll face death for the right cause, and walking the Anarchy Road is the right cause.”
“Oh, I…” said Delila as she shook her head no. “That’s too much…I just…You have issues, Reb, and that’s if any of this is even real. Maybe I’m just being para—”
“I’m going down there now,” said Rebecca firmly as she nodded toward the basement door. “Whatever’s down there, I’ll handle it. I’ve been to Hell, so I’m not scared of your basement. So, you just wait here, and I’ll investigate. I’ll fill you in on the details when I get back up…Where is the light switch down there?”
“There’s a hanging bulb with a pull cord, but there’s no light switch,” said Delila. “You’ll need a flashlight just to get down the stairs.”
“I have my own,” said Rebecca. “Just wait here. I’ll be back.”
“I’m not going down there,” said Delila as she shook her head no. “Not for all the money in the world, and I don’t think you should go down there, either. I was expecting somebody with actual—you know—combat training, like someone from the military or…or someone with a police background, a big guy that can handle anything rough…
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was expecting, at the very least, a man. If I won’t go down there, I don’t see how another woman is going to go down there. I think we’re around the same age, too.”
“Trust me, I’ve said the same thing many times…” shrugged Rebecca. “But we don’t always get what we want, and somebody has to do the job, so here I am. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“I still don’t like this…” frowned Delila. “I feel like something really bad is going to happen to you, and then it will be my fault. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”
“You’re a good soul, Delila,” nodded Rebecca. “Don’t worry about me, though…For one thing, I’m not deserving of it, so just hang tight up here; I’ll be right back.”
She was not going to let Delila stop her or even slow her down…This job had to be done.
And with that finality of resolution, Rebecca picked up her bats, held both bats with her right hand, rested both of those custom-made bats upon her right shoulder, pulled her orange mini-flashlight out of her jacket pocket with her left hand, and then clicked the back button on her flashlight to turn it on.
She walked to the basement door after that, briefly put her flashlight between her teeth, opened the door, took her flashlight into her left hand again, and stepped into the darkness at the top of the stairs, those stairs nothing more than bare wooden steps that led to whatever lurked below.
Waves of doom battered her psyche as she made her way down the steps and into an ocean of infinite darkness. Whatever was down here was clouding reality with shadow over shadow, a sea of cloying, suffocating black that even her flashlight had trouble piercing.
She stepped onto cold concrete, every nerve in her body screaming at her to turn and run, every hair standing on end, but she’d come this far, and she wasn’t turning back now.
The poor lighting from her own luminescent device caught the glint of glass, and she centered the glow of her small orange flashlight upon a hanging lightbulb with a pullcord.
“Let there be light,” she said quietly as she pulled the bulb’s chain with her left hand, her mini-flashlight still in that hand.
The soft glow of the bulb lit up the bare, concrete floor around her, but the darkness that surrounded that glow seemed endless and impenetrable, as if she had stepped into another world, a world of complete and total shadow.
“This is bad,” thought Rebecca. “This is really, really bad. Like faaaaar worse than it should be.”
“No shi—” she started to say.
She was interrupted by her larynx and spine being ripped asunder as her head left her body. Time slowed as her vision spun in a lazy circle, and blood, red-hot and in a crimson fountain, blasted across her eyesight from the stump where her head had been attached to her neck.
As her severed head spun through the air, she could see the concrete floor, that floor splattering out with slow-motion droplets of blood, her blood, and she could see that floor rushing up towards her…She was going to impact it face first.
“Oh, this is going to su—” thought Rebecca just before her brain stopped functioning.
*****
Rebecca opened her eyes and took in a startled breath. She shook her head once to get over the sudden shock of dying, and then she turned toward her companion to give him a wide-eyed, surprised look.
Sam stared back at her with those empty eye sockets. He was still in the passenger seat of Rebecca’s little burgundy Impreza, and she was still in the driver’s seat, and the car was still running.
The skeleton in Uncle Sam rags held up four bony digits of his once-right hand.
“I know, Sam,” frowned Rebecca. “I know. Four left; got it. The sad thing is, I didn’t even see what killed me…No, there’s something seriously wrong going on in that house, and it’s in the basement.
“There’s like a whole other world down there, a whole sea of…No…There’s a whole ocean of darkness in that basement. It’s really freakin’ weird, and it gives me the willies on a level you can’t imagine…
“I think I should call Minnie and ask her about it. I’m not going to call for backup just yet…but I’m definitely going to ask Miss Crazy Pants about this one.”
Sam simply stared at her with his empty gaze.
“Yeah, yeah,” sighed Rebecca. “Give me a second to call Minnie, and then I’ll get back in there…Satisfied?”
The deathly patriotic figure nodded once at her in a creaking of dried bone on bone.
“All right, one second,” said Rebecca.
She took the flat slab that was her phone from off the dash and quickly dialed Minnie’s number. The old woman was crazy, true, ancient, true, but she still had a phone.
Minnie’s phone rang for a few seconds before it was picked up, and Rebecca switched the audio over to speaker.
“Hello, Rebecca, dear,” came the old woman’s voice. “What do you need?”
“How do you always know it’s me?” asked Rebecca. “You have an old pushbutton landline. There’s no number ID on that dinosaur.”
“Do you still need to ask?” asked Minnie. “You should know better by now.”
Rebecca sighed. She actually did know better than to question anything involving Minnie.
“No, I guess not,” she replied. “Look, I’ve got a situation at this site you’ve sent me to.”
“And that is?” asked the old woman.
“There’s a girl around my own age here, and there’s something seriously wrong with her basement,” explained Rebecca. “I went down there to investigate, but…it’s like a whole other world down there. There’s nothing but darkness…like…infinite darkness except for the little ring of light I get from the basement bulb.
“I got the bigtime heebie-jeebies from that basement, and even worse, there is something seriously bad down there, like really, really, bad, like decapitate you without ever seeing what it was that killed you bad.”
She could hear the old woman’s breath over the line, but it took Minnie a few seconds to answer.
“Hmmm,” said the crazy octogenarian. “That is much cause for concern. It sounds like you stepped into the Umbra, but I didn’t think such a thing was possible in our realm of existence. Perhaps it’s only a piece of Death’s realm, a shadow brought over by something really nasty, like you said, but I’m not sure yet. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“Nope,” said Rebecca flatly. “That’s it.”
“You’re of very little help, Rebecca, dear,” said the old woman.
“I know,” replied Rebecca.
“The young lady of the house?” asked Minnie. “What was your impression of her?”
“She’s good people,” said Rebecca in honest reply. “She was genuinely worried about me heading down into the basement. She said as much. She’d rather have a big strong guy go down there. I was thinking of calling Roberto or Calvin, and one of them could—”
“No,” said Minnie quickly, and her curt tone cut short anything Rebecca was thinking of doing.
“What?” asked Rebecca.
“You will not call them,” ordered the old woman.
“Who does she think she is!” thought Rebecca in an instant mental rage.
“Excuse me!” she exclaimed in obvious anger. “You don’t give me or—”
“Enough!” barked Minnie. “You will not call them. They are not to know of this job. If you call them, their pride will lead them to that house and to that basement, and there they will die. They will be lost forever, and you will be to blame.”
“So I’m just supposed to go down there and die in their place; is that it!” asked Rebecca in a fit of well-placed rage.
“Yes,” said the old woman in a cold tone. “Only you can cleanse this house. Only you have the power to do so, and you and I both know why.”
“Unfair,” grimaced Rebecca. “Absolutely unfair. That is totally uncool…Did it ever occur to you that I might not be able to handle it, huh?…Did that ever occur to you, you crazy old bat! Sending me down there is like sending a puppy into a lion’s den. You can dress up a puppy as a T-Rex, but that still doesn’t make a puppy a T-Rex!”
“Stop using another’s words,” said Minnie. “You know better than to speak with someone else’s mouth.”
“What the…?” verbally stumbled Rebecca. “How did you…?”
“You need to get back in there and cleanse that house,” demanded the old woman. “You need redemption, young lady, and this is part of it. You know what you did and you know what happened to you because of what you did, but second chances don’t lead to third ones, so I suggest you do your best with what you’ve been given.”
Rebecca swore under her breath and shook her head.
“She always plays that card,” she thought in mental anguish. “She knows everything about you because you let her touch you, and because of her gift, that’s all it took. Now she knows your whole life, and she knows what a pathetic little coward you are.
“She knows about every little bad, nasty, and tawdry thing you’ve ever done, but most of all, she knows what you did…She knows exactly what you did, and you deserved everything that happened to you because of it…
“God, you’re pathetic. You’re just a pathetic little loser…You don’t deserve redemption. You should have stayed in Hell.”
“Shut up,” scowled Rebecca. “Just shut up…You don’t get to talk about my past. That’s my private life, not yours…I won’t call Roberto or Calvin, but you have officially pissed me off. I’m officially mad now, you dried-up old prune. I’m going back in, but I’m definitely going to pay you back for this one.”
“Oh, my ivory brush is meaner than you are, Rebecca, dear,” replied Minnie. “It actually pulls my hair. You, on the other hand, still have a lot to learn. A puppy can only bark so loudly…Now, I want you to get back in there and get me more information. If you can do that, I can help you.”
“That’s going to involve getting me ki…” trailed Rebecca. “Ugh…Never mind. I’ll go back in, but I’m not happy about it. I’m not happy about this at all.”
“I know, my dear,” said Minnie in a condescending tone. “I know.”
And with that, Rebecca hung up and glared over at Sam.
“He’s got to know,” she thought.
“Did you know about this?” she demanded. “Did you know about this…this ‘Umbra’?”
The skeleton in rags nodded once at her, but she knew that was the only answer she was going to get from him.
“Of course,” sighed Rebecca with a roll of her eyes. “Of course, you did.”
*****
“I still don’t like this…” frowned Delila. “I feel like something really bad is going to happen to you, and then it will be my fault. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”
“You’re a good soul, Delila,” nodded Rebecca. “Don’t worry about me, though…For one thing, I’m not deserving of it, so just hang tight up here; I’ll be right back.”
She picked up her bats, just as she had before, and made her way to the basement door. She pulled forth her mini-flashlight, flipped it on, and then turned back toward her host.
“Listen,” she said firmly. “Ummm…You’ve got something way worse than I first thought was down there, so whatever you do, don’t send anyone else down there. I don’t care if you’ve got a Green Beret in your pocket, just don’t do it…That really will be on your conscience.”
And with that, she opened up the basement door, shut that door behind her, and made her way back down into the oppressive darkness that had already killed her once before.
She shone her mini-flashlight until she once again caught the gleam of a bulb and pullcord.
“Let there be light,” she said in a quiet voice.
She pulled the cord, and the soft warmth of electric luminescence lit up a small circle around her. She then immediately spun and turned toward the direction from which she had been previously attacked. She was not stupid.
The ocean of velvet black around her still pulsed with ominous doom, but this time she was ready. She pocketed her mini-flashlight, switched her small bat to her left hand, and then gripped her large bat in her right.
“It’s payback ti—” she began.
She caught sight of a clawed hand coming at her, of red eyes gleaming, glowing in the pitch dark, then a glint of red on black beneath the radiant eyes, and then pain as her face was raked open.
Rebecca screamed as she swung wildly with her large bat, but her vision was off due to her left eyeball hanging down out of its socket and across her gory, shredded left cheek. She heard a guttural cry of pain as her bat impacted something, and then the offending arm that had swung that weapon, her right arm, was grabbed and torn out of its socket by an undeniable strength.
Her blood sprayed from the terrible wound as her screwed-up vision caused the darkness to dance, she felt dizzy with vertigo, and then a pitch black subsumed her sight as her brain shut down once and for all.
*****
Rebecca opened her eyes and took in a startled breath. She squeezed her eyes shut this time, shook her head twice, opened her eyes, and then turned toward her skeletal companion.
Her patriotic “uncle” held up three digits of his bony right hand.
“Yeah, yeah,” breathed out Rebecca. “Three left…Okay, okay, just give me a second.”
She took a moment to calm down. Being brutally murdered always took its toll, and she didn’t think she would ever get used to it, nor did she want to.
“Let me think, let me think,” she said quickly. “I saw a hand this time. I saw a…a hand with long black nails or claws, and it was…it was grey…No…No, it had fur…It had grey fur, but it wasn’t a paw. It was definitely a hand.”
The skeletal Uncle Sam simply stared at her with his empty orbital sockets.
“It…It has to be some kind of lycanthrope,” said Rebecca slowly. “It’s got to be. It’s super strong, it’s super fast, and I think I hurt it with my big bat. My bats have an outer layer of pure silver, and I think that really hurt it, because it tore off my right arm right after I hit it…
“By the way, having one eye dangling out of your head reeeeally sucks. My vision in it was still working, and I got serious vertigo from having it stare at the floor while my right eye was still staring ahead. I didn’t even have time to feel any pain from being torn apart, but I got vertigo, like, instantly. How does that work?”
There was, of course, no reply from Sam.
“Never mind,” sighed Rebecca. “I know what I’m dealing with now, so I think I’m going to have to slow it down to my level, my speed. I’ve got that revolver in the trunk that Roberto gave me, the one with the silver bullets. If I can tag this sucker at least once, maybe I can slow it down enough to finish it off.”
Sam’s empty gaze revealed nothing of use in the realm of advice, but Rebecca took that as an insult.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” she said quickly. “Why didn’t you use the gun in the first place, Reb? Just shoot it, you moron…You know I don’t like guns…not that I can shoot worth a damn anyway…It’s a .45, and I still can’t hit anything with it. Roberto was going to give me a .357, but there’s no way I could use that hand cannon. That would knock my head off from the recoil alone.
“Anyway, I’m going to get that Ruger Vaquero in the trunk and put a few holes in this thing. Lycanthropes change back into human form once they’ve been killed, so I’ll ask Delila if she can identify this sucker after the job is done. Maybe she knows him.
“I could call Minnie, but she’s officially pissed me off, so I’ll wait on that…or maybe I should call her…I don’t know. What do you think?…Never mind. I’m not going to call her. That crazy old bat can sit and spin.”
Sam’s only reply was to turn his skull toward the house in the distance.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” said Rebecca unhappily. “You’re so naggy anymore, so unhelpful; I swear.”
*****
“I still don’t like this…” frowned Delila. “I feel like something really bad is going to happen to you, and then it will be my fault. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”
“You’re a good soul, Delila,” nodded Rebecca. “Don’t worry about me, though…For one thing, I’m not deserving of it, so just hang tight up here; I’ll be right back.”
She picked up her short bat this time, tucked it through her belt, pulled out her mini-flashlight, and turned her attention back on Delila.
“I can sense that what you have down there is some kind of lycanthrope,” said Rebecca.
“A lycanthrope?” asked Delila. “You mean like werewolves, like in Twilight?”
Rebecca rolled her eyes. She knew better than to trust popular fiction, but this was not the time to argue with a complete stranger over something stupid.
“Yes, like that,” she said quickly.
“How are you going to fight something like that with a little bat?” asked Delila. “I mean, I think all of this is crazy anyway, but…let’s just say for argument’s sake that there is a werewolf down there. How are you going to fight it?”
The look on the young woman’s face was one of genuine concern, and Rebecca felt somewhat offended by that unwanted expression, but then she thought better about it…It was clear that Delila was simply being a good person. Whatever the case, the young woman of the house was about to be educated on the matter.
“I have this,” said Rebecca.
She pulled forth her Ruger Vaquero from the holster she had strapped on while she had been outside. That holster was on her belt, but the gun and its holster had been well-hidden by her black leather jacket.
“A gun?” asked Delila in audible surprise. “I didn’t know you had a gun. I don’t know if I like this…”
“Don’t worry,” assured Rebecca. “I have training with it, but more importantly, it’s loaded with silver bullets.”
“Oh, it has silver bullets, but you’re lying about the training,” she mentally scolded herself. “You’re a terrible shot.”
“Really?” asked Delila.
“Yes, really,” replied Rebecca. “Now you stay put, and if you hear gunshots, do not go down into the basement.”
“I’m not going down there,” said Delila with a shake of her head. “I thought I explained that already.”
“You did, and that’s good,” said Rebecca. “You’re a good person, Delila, and you don’t deserve to get hurt, so just wait for me here. I’ll be back.”
“I…I still think this is a mistake,” said Delila.
“I know, but somebody has to do it, so I’m going,” said Rebecca, because she would not delay this any longer.
“I should call the police,” said Delila. “I don’t feel comfortable with you having a gun. I definitely don’t feel comfortable with you firing a gun in the house. If the police do it, then I’m forced to accept that, but just having a random stranger—”
Rebecca had already figured the young woman would say something like this.
“I understand,” she replied. “Why don’t I just go down there real fast, and I’ll come right back up, and then we can call the police. If I don’t see anything, we’ll call the police, and then they can investigate the basement.
“If I sense something really bad, I’ll call in some big guys I know. I’ll even call in the priest I know, Father Martin. Whatever the case, I really should check this out first so I have something to tell them. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
All of that was a lie, of course, but Delila didn’t need to know that.
“I…uhhh…okay,” said Delila. “Make it really fast, though.”
“I will,” smiled Rebecca.
There was no more talk to be had.
She opened up the basement door, flicked on her flashlight, and closed the door behind her. She walked down into the oppressive dread after that, down into the darkness, her light in her left hand, her gun in her right.
She pulled the chain on the basement light again, the soft circle of light rained down upon her, and then she turned, counting down the seconds as she did.
“Three, two, one…” counted Rebecca.
She turned and fired in the direction from which she had been attacked twice before. There was the muzzle flash that briefly lit up the darkness, the booming sound of the firearm itself, and the image of the humanlike beast directly in front of her.
Her bullet impacted the creature center mass, there was a high-pitched, distinctly-female scream, and then the beast was upon her, knocking Rebecca to the concrete floor.
The monster in the basement bit deeply into Rebecca’s left arm as Rebecca desperately tried to keep it off of her. That bite hurt, that bite was instant pain, not the nerveless death shock she’d felt from the previous times she’d been attacked.
Rebecca screamed as she pulled the trigger of her gun twice more, the barrel of the gun right up against the monstrous thing’s grey belly.
The beast popped off of her arm and screamed down at her in return, its fanged mouth wide, its thin black lips pulled back in a raging fury.
It had dead white eyes, eyes that had once been another color, a human color, though who this twisted creature had been, Rebecca did not know.
A viscous fluid, thick and black, vomited out of the creature’s mouth and all over Rebecca’s face. She closed her eyes as she choked on the stuff, gagging as the vile fluid worked its way down her throat as if it were a living thing.
The beast on top of her removed its weight, slowly retreating into the darkness, melding with the ebony pitch, a once-human woman of athletic muscle now nothing more than twin scarlet lights where its dead eyes were, a vermillion inner glow shining forth from those dead eyes, watching, waiting, a low growl its only warning…
From its neck swung a wrought black chain, and on that chain was a brooch of some sort, a ruby oval set within a large equally-oval casting of black iron, that jewel a crimson glimmer in the darkness to match the glow of the beast’s eyes, that jewel swinging low between the creature’s clearly human breasts, though those small jiggling breasts sported black nipples surrounded by grey fur.
Those were the last details of the basement monster that Rebecca could notice before she went into shock.
Her left arm shook from the searing pain that threatened to force her into unconsciousness.
“Oh, fu—!” she began, but she was cut short by a scream, her own voice behind that tortured shout.
Her skin was on fire, burning and itching at the same time, and she felt a darkness closing in on her from within, as if her soul were being forced from her body.
She instinctively sat up to a kneeling position, flung off her black leather jacket, and cried out as her fingerbones warped and elongated.
She stared down in horror as her nails turned black and razor sharp. A light coating of brown fur erupted from her skin as her new claws ripped apart her black Ramones tee, tearing the shirt to shreds without effort. She ripped off her bra as an afterthought, and then her attention turned to tearing at her jeans and her belt as she bent over from the crippling pain and undeniable darkness growing within her. Savaging her clothes was uncontrollable, automatic, even though she could still think.
“No!” thought Rebecca in a mental panic. “I can’t change into a werewolf! I’ll be stuck like this until I die! Someone will have to kill me in order for me to—”
Those thoughts died as her ears lengthened, growing to a ridiculous size, far larger than a wolf’s ears could be. Her nose flattened and grew around the nostrils, those nostrils growing to a ridiculous size as well, and new, dark-brown, leathery wings burst out from her back, spreading up and outwards to yet another ridiculous size, just like her new equally ridiculous ears and nose.
After this bizarre transformation, she looked up toward the infinite black as she opened her fanged mouth to shout forth one piercing, deafening, sonic screech.
There was nothing but pure shock after that, shock and horror as she felt her soul sundered, ejected, from her new, bestial body.
*****
Rebecca opened her eyes and took in a startled breath. She stared over at her companion in wide-eyed alarm, though Sam simply stared back at her with his empty orbital sockets.
“I turned into a bat!” she spat.
It sounded stupid now that she had said it out loud, but what had happened was still fresh in her mind, right along with the image of the creature that had attacked her.
The skeleton in Uncle Sam rags held up two bony digits of its skeletal right hand, the index finger and the middle finger.
“Two left,” said Rebecca quietly. “I’ve got to figure this thing out…Think, Reb, think…”
She took in a deep breath to calm herself, holding it for a second before slowly releasing that stored air.
“That wasn’t a werewolf,” she grimaced. “That definitely was not a werewolf. She had white eyes, like dead eyes, and a beast-like face. She had grey fur, and the underside of her nose was black and bumpy like a dog’s nose…no…like a wolf’s nose, but she wasn’t a werewolf; I know that.
“Her eyes glowed red in the dark after she got off of me. I got bitten, but I also swallowed whatever that bile was that she threw up on me…Eww…That was an experience…
“I turned into a bat, though, not a wolf…I was like a half-bat thing, but the wings came out of my back instead of from my arms…It was weird…Plus, I ended up back here, so it’s clear that I died right after that, which means…”
Rebecca picked up her phone and immediately dialed Minnie’s number. True, she was still mad at the old woman, but she also needed the crazy old bird’s help.
The phone rang a few times before it was picked up.
“Yes, Rebecca, dear,” came Minnie’s elderly voice.
“I thought that thing was a werewolf, but it wasn’t,” said Rebecca quickly.
“You should have called me, dear,” chided Minnie. “You went in again and didn’t call me. I told you to call me when you had more information.”
“Wait…” said Rebecca as something strange occurred to her. “How in the hell would you know that? If my timeline gets reset, then we never had our first conversation…from your point of view anyway.”
“I know you think I’m crazy, my dear, but I assure you I’m not,” said Minnie firmly. “This is my gift, so yes, I know what’s happened simply by talking to you. We are connected, you know. I’m connected to a degree to everyone I touch…
“You, however, are not only like an open book, you are a shining beacon in the darkness, a light so bright I can’t possibly ignore it, even if I wanted to. I believe this may have something to do with you being pulled from you-know-where and given a second chance. Because of your…uniqueness…my gift can sense your former ‘lives.’ Believe it or not, I remember them.”
“Okaaaaay…” said Rebecca warily.
“Maybe she isn’t crazy,” she thought. “Maybe she just sees realities that never happened but would have happened if I hadn’t died in them.”
“So, tell me what happened,” said Minnie. “What information do you have?”
“That wasn’t a werewolf,” said Rebecca. “That thing was a she. She had breasts, for one thing. That was definitely something I noticed right away. She looked like a woman with short, spikey, black hair. She had grey fur and an animal-like face, a wolf-like face, but I don’t think she was a werewolf.
“Her eyes were white but could glow red like a vampire’s, but she wasn’t like any vampire I’ve ever met before. I know vampires can take animal shapes like the wolf and the bat, but turning into mist and stuff, swarms of rats, that kind of thing, and the half-animal thing, as far as I know, is pretty rare for them.
“Anyway, after I got bit by her, she threw up some kind of black bile all over my face, and I ended up swallowing some of it. She got off of me after that, and that’s when I started turning into some kind of half-bat thing…After my new wings popped out, I just…well…I died…I just died, and it was horrible. It felt like my soul was being torn out of my body, like…like having your heart ripped out, only spiritually…It’s hard to explain…
“Ugh…And I had wings—wings!—and I didn’t even get a chance to fly. How unfair is that?”
Minnie gave a brief chuckle before her elderly voice turned serious again.
“That was a feral vampire, Rebecca, dear,” said the old woman. “Feral vampires are created through weak bloodlines, a breaking down of the genealogy of the vampire, a victim far removed from an elder or an ancient sire.”
“Oh,” said Rebecca in surprise.
“Their bloodline is so weak, so diluted, they’re just animals inside, creatures of bestial darkness,” continued Minnie. “This one is different, however. This one brings a piece of the Umbra with it…This is an Umbral feral vampire, an abomination supercharged by the first darkness to crawl forward after the light made such evil retreat, a killer without remorse or pity of any kind, a great white shark in that velvet pitch you described. A ‘remorseless fang,’ as Melville would say.”
“Dramatic much?” snorted Rebecca. “Were you a thespian, perchance?”
“Yes, dear,” admitted Minnie.
“Oh…” said Rebecca in sheepish reply.
“I used to do Shakespeare in the Park, Rebecca, dear,” said Minnie. “But that’s not important. You should have called me the second time you were killed. I would have reminded you that the Umbra is Death’s realm, a realm of undeath. No living creature comes from there. Though cursed, a werewolf is still alive.”
“Yeah, yeah,” grimaced Rebecca. “I figured that out on my own.”
“I know,” said Minnie. “Did you notice anything else?”
“Umm, let’s see,” said Rebecca thoughtfully. “This woman was definitely taller than me. She had short, spikey, black hair, athletic build…small breasts, maybe a B-cup…I don’t know how much that information helps, but maybe it will…Let’s see…Where was I?
“Focus, dear,” coaxed Minnie. “Concentrate. Anything else?”
Rebecca nearly smacked herself in the face as she remembered one particular detail, a very important detail.
“Yes!” she said excitedly. “She was wearing some kind of a brooch!…It…It was like a black oval with a large red jewel in the center of it…like a ruby, but an oval ruby.”
“Was it on a chain?” asked the old woman.
“Yes…Why?” asked Rebecca in return.
“Then it’s an amulet, not a brooch,” replied Minnie. “A brooch is pinned or clasped on.”
“Semantics,” frowned Rebecca.
“An important distinction,” said Minnie. “Amulets were used in the old days to ward off evil, but in general, they are magical in nature. The amulet you described is more than likely an ancient vampiric amulet…In that case, the ruby in its center was not a ruby. It was a bloodstone.
“I see now. That amulet is a cursed object. It’s an artifact that was created by an ancient vampire. I’ve seen these amulets before, though there aren’t many of them, because not many were made. These were made by the vampire lords for the vampire lords. These amulets were designed to channel the power of Death, to act as a conduit to the Umbra. Such a power can only be controlled by an elder vampire at the very least. A lesser vampire would be overwhelmed by such power over time.”
“What if a normal person put it on?” asked Rebecca.
“That person would immediately die,” answered Minnie. “Worse yet, that person would become a vampire, but one without control or consciousness.”
“Like a feral vampire?” frowned Rebecca.
“Yes,” said Minnie.
“Oh, great,” replied Rebecca as she rolled her eyes.
“You’ll have to destroy the vampire in order to get the amulet,” said Minnie. “Once you destroy this cursed creature, you’ll need to take the amulet here. I’ll give it to Leyla for logging and containment. Don’t put it on.”
“Durrrr, I’m not stupid,” said Rebecca. “Like I’d actually wear it. Stop treating me like a child.”
“You are a child, dear,” said Minnie.
“Har, har, you nutty old witch,” said Rebecca. “I’m freakin’ twenty-five.”
“Still a baby,” said Minnie.
“Okay, buh-bye,” said Rebecca.
She hung up and shook her head in frustration. She rolled her eyes and let out one long sigh.
“Oh, she is sooooooo difficult!” exclaimed Rebecca.
She turned to look over at Sam, but he simply gazed upon her with his empty eye sockets.
“Looks like it’s holy oil, my bats, and wooden-stake time, Sam,” she said with a pop of her lips. “I’ve got to go kill a vampire…Not that I mind. They got me into this mess to begin with. I wouldn’t even be doing this if it weren’t for them. I’d be an R.N. by now.”
*****
“I still don’t like this…” frowned Delila. “I feel like something really bad is going to happen to you, and then it will be my fault. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”
“You’re a good soul, Delila,” nodded Rebecca. “Don’t worry about me, though…For one thing, I’m not deserving of it, so just hang tight up here; I’ll be right back.”
She picked up both bats and rested them on her right shoulder. Her flask of holy oil was in a pouch she had looped on her belt, and she had a wooden stake inside her leather jacket. She pulled out her mini-flashlight to hold within her left hand, so she was ready to go.
“Time to play the psychic game,” thought Rebecca. “I’m about as psychic as a bowl of fruit, but she doesn’t need to know that.”
“One more thing,” she said as she turned toward her young host. “I’m sensing something, seeing something…something important. Do you know anything about a…a brooch…or…no…No, no. I see…I see an amulet…Yes, it’s definitely an amulet. It’s made of some kind of black metal on a black chain, and it has a large red stone in the middle of it, a large, red, oval stone. Does that sound familiar?”
Delila looked truly out of sorts. Her brown eyes widened as she stepped backwards in surprise.
“How did you know about that?” she asked. “That’s so weird…”
“I told you; I have a gift,” replied Rebecca. “What do you know about this amulet?”
“My…My grandfather on my mom’s side was into the occult,” said Delila after some hesitation. “He had a leaden lockbox that my mom never messed with. She has a cardboard box that has a few of granddad’s things stashed away in it. That box is in the basement, and the lockbox was in it.”
“And?” asked Rebecca.
“I dug through granddad’s things because I was curious,” said Delila. “I found the lockbox, and I accidently dropped it. The big lock on it popped open, and inside it was an amulet just like you described…That’s so weird.”
“Hmm…” said Rebecca as she screwed up her lips. “Are you the only one here?…In the house, I mean?”
“Yes,” said Delila. “I hope so.”
“Is it possible that someone could have broken into the house through the basement and found the amulet?” asked Rebecca. “Maybe a thief got in looking for something to steal and found the amulet?”
“It’s possible…” shrugged Delila. “But the windows in the basement are pretty small, and they’re painted over in black for some reason…Granddad did that…I always wondered why he did that, but he was into the occult…
“Even so, a person that wasn’t overweight could crawl through one of the windows…That’s really scary, though. I don’t like the sound of that…To think maybe one of the windows is busted out or was unlocked and someone snuck in…”
The young woman held her own arms as she shivered in visible fear.
“I think we should call the police,” she said quickly.
“We will,” nodded Rebecca. “I’m going to investigate real fast, and then we’ll call the police. If it’s something supernatural, something the police can’t handle, I’ll call in a couple of big guys, and I’ll even call in my priest, Father Martin.
“Still, I have to go down and check it out to know what we’re dealing with. I’m going to use my gift to sense for anything supernatural, and I’ll run back up here if there’s an intruder, so I’ll cover both bases. Once I do that, then we’ll know what to do…It’s either the paranormal or just the normal, but I need to know which. Does that sound fair?”
“O…Okay,” stammered Delila. “Just be careful, okay? This whole thing is terrifying.”
“I know,” said Rebecca. “I’ll be right back. You just stay put.”
“Wait…What does the amulet have to do with anything?” asked Delila. “I’m more worried about a thief in the house than something of Granddad’s.”
“That amulet is the source of the ‘trouble’ you’ve been experiencing,” explained Rebecca. “It’s the reason for that ‘overwhelming dread’ you keep feeling when you near the basement door. That amulet is bad news; I can sense it. It’s got to be locked up again.”
“I…see,” said Delila in visible uncertainty. “Still, I’d be careful. Someone could have actually broken in and still be down there.”
“Well, I’m going to find out,” said Rebecca. “Hang tight.”
There was nothing more to say. She could talk all day, or she could get a move on, so she decided to get a move on.
She opened the basement door, flipped on her mini-flashlight, and made her way down into the oppressive dark.
“You really are a liar,” she thought. “But this time, I think, it was for a good cause.”
She shone the light around until she found the bulb and its pullcord again.
“I think switching on the basement light is immediately attracting the vampire to me,” thought Rebecca. “Let’s set my plan in motion before I turn it on.”
She slowly bent down, set down her bats, stood, and then removed her flask of holy oil from its leather pouch. She poured out the oil in a small circle around herself, put the flask back in its pouch, pulled a small matchbook from her right jeans pocket, tore out a match, and then lit the match.
“Let’s rock, you undead witch,” she said quietly.
She dropped the match into the oil, a ring of flickering orange flame lit around her, and she quickly picked up her bats.
The creature came out of the darkness a moment later, but Rebecca was already ready for her, as was the ring of flame. The low, flickering flames burst upwards as the beast approached, a wall of orange fire that jumped up as the feral vampire advanced.
The wolf-woman screeched and then growled, red eyes in the pitch dark the only thing to mark her location.
Rebecca swung her clubs in twin lazy circles and raised her chin in defiance.
“Come on!” she taunted. “Come get some! Let’s dance!”
The feral vampire leapt forward again, the flames roared once more, growing in size and heat in an instant upon that evil’s approach, and Rebecca formed a cross with her bats, the little bat across the large one.
The grey creature screeched and leapt backwards again, red eyes in the dark, but those eyes died down in their crimson glow, their twin lights blinking out of existence to leave in their place nothing but a pitch darkness.
Rebecca looked this way and that, but she could not sense the monster’s location. She did not know from what direction it would attack.
“Crap!” she hissed.
She set down her bats and pulled forth her wooden stake.
“Come on!” she yelled. “I’m right here!”
The beast attacked out of the dark a second later, just as Rebecca was turning to her right. The flames leapt, the wolf-woman leapt through them in return, there was a slash of claws, a thrust of a wooden stake, and then it was over within that violent span of seconds.
The singed creature turned and stared with mournful eyes, mournful, human eyes, mournful, human, brown eyes that centered directly upon Rebecca.
Rebecca gurgled out blood in a torrent as she desperately tried to stop the spraying wound on the right side of her neck. She pressed down on the wound with both hands, but she was bleeding out, and fast.
She looked upon the naked woman in front of her, the woman beyond the now low and flickering flames, that woman with blood spurting out from the wound the wooden stake had made, that stake accurate in its mark, that mark the human heart.
This woman was no longer a beast, not a creature or a monster of any sort, but a confused and horrified human being who was not long for this world, a person who could not understand what had just happened. She spoke to Rebecca in reply to Rebecca’s murderous act, and that word was only one word, and that one word was just as horrifying to Rebecca as it was to its speaker.
“W…Why?” choked out the nude young woman before her.
The oppressive darkness around them lifted, and the basement’s normal dull interior came into view, but a new darkness in Rebecca’s vision closed in on her as she felt herself fading, and both of them, both Rebecca and her once-horrific assailant, fell at the same time to the basement’s concrete floor.
*****
Rebecca opened her eyes and took in a startled breath. She turned and took one look over at Sam, but the skeleton simply held up one bony finger in reply.
“I know what’s going on!” she exclaimed. “I know what happened, Sam!”
The skeletal Uncle Sam simply held up that single digit and stared at her with his empty orbital sockets.
“I know, I know, I’ve got one left, but I know what to do now!” said Rebecca.
She turned to stare forward, held the sides of her bald head, ran her right hand over her blue Mohawk, and shook her head once. She pounded her legs twice with clenched fists before she shone forth a wide grin.
“I know what to do!” she said excitedly. “I figured it out!”
She turned to look upon Sam, but his empty gaze gave nothing in return.
“I’ve got one left, and I know exactly what to do with it!” she said. “I can’t call Minnie; there’s no time! I’ve got to get back in there and finish this!
“You see, a regular vampire made the old-fashioned way would have turned to ash after a stake through the heart, because they’re a true undead, but that’s not the case here. This woman died from a cursed amulet powered by the Umbra, so I think that’s why she turned back to normal after I staked her. Her soul had been ejected from her body when she put on the amulet, but it popped right back in at the moment of her final death…
“That was horrible, by the way, truly awful. I don’t even think she knew what had happened. I felt like complete and utter slime for staking her too, and I was dying at that moment…Huh…I must be getting better on some level, because in the past, I’m pretty sure I would have been more concerned about my own death than hers. In fact, I would have been pretty pissed about her killing me…”
She closed her eyes, shook her head twice, and opened her eyes again.
“Focus, Reb,” she said unhappily. “You’ve got a job to do.”
She looked over to Sam again, but the patriotic skeleton in rags simply turned and stared at the house in the distance.
“On my way,” agreed Rebecca. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Oh, this job’s been real, and it’s been fun, but it ain’t been real fun, Sam…It’s time to end this, and the best part about it?…I don’t even need any special gear.”
*****
“I still don’t like this…” frowned Delila. “I feel like something really bad is going to happen to you, and then it will be my fault. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”
“You’re a good soul, Delila,” nodded Rebecca. “Don’t worry about me, though…For one thing, I’m not deserving of it, so just hang tight up here; I’ll be right back.”
She picked up her bats, rested them upon her right shoulder, and then pulled out her mini-flashlight. She turned to walk toward the basement door, stopped, gave herself a brief smile, and then turned back around.
“On second thought, I don’t really need to go down there,” she said confidently.
“Why not?” asked Delila. “I mean, I agree with you. I think staying up here is the smart choice. We really should call the police.”
“There’s no need to do that,” said Rebecca.
“Why?” asked Delila. “What’s going on?”
“What month is it, Delila?” asked Rebecca.
“It’s January,” answered Delila. “Why would you ask that?”
“The year?” asked Rebecca.
“It’s 2025,” said Delila. “What is this about?”
“Okay, the year and the month match, and that’s good,” nodded Rebecca. “One more thing, though…What day is it? What’s the day and the date?”
“It’s Sunday, the 12th,” said Delila in audible confusion. “My parents left last week.”
“No,” said Rebecca as she shook her head in reply. “It’s not the 12th. It’s actually Friday, the 17th.”
“What?” asked Delila. “No, it’s not.”
“You said you’ve been losing time,” explained Rebecca.
“That’s right…” said Delila slowly as she turned her head slightly to the right, her eyes still upon Rebecca.
“What does your phone say?” asked Rebecca.
Delila took the black slab that was her phone from her jeans pocket and flipped it on.
“It says it’s Sunday the…” she trailed off. “No…No, that can’t be right. It says it’s Friday, just like you said.”
“It’s been five days, hasn’t it?” asked Rebecca. “It’s been five days since you found your grandfather’s amulet and put it on, hasn’t it?”
Delila looked upon Rebecca with wide eyes, a shock for the ages written all over her face.
“How did you know about my granddad’s amulet?” she asked.
“It’s all black with a red stone in the center, isn’t it?” asked Rebecca.
“Y…Yes…” stammered Delila. “How did you find out about…? How do you know this?…You’re really scaring me right now, Reb.”
“It’s my gift,” said Rebecca quietly. “Look, I don’t know how to say this in a tactful way, so I’ll just come out and say it…You’ve been losing time…because you’re dead, hon.”
“Wh…What?” asked Delila.
“You’re a ghost, a spirit,” said Rebecca. “I didn’t see it because…well…because you don’t know you’re dead and you’re just that convincing…You put on the amulet, didn’t you?”
“Wh…What has that got to do with anything?” stammered Delila. “I’m not dead, Reb; that’s ridiculous!”
“Did you try on the amulet?” asked Rebecca.
“Yeah, but—” started Delila.
“I knew it,” said Rebecca. “That amulet killed you, Delila. Your body became a vampire, and you…well…you clearly didn’t know you were dead, but a part of you, a part of your soul, wouldn’t let you move on because you are an honest-to-God decent person.
“You’re a good person, Delila, so you stayed behind to keep that thing down in the basement from coming up here…and making its way out into the world at large. The light of your soul has kept the monster in the basement where it belongs.”
“This is…This is insane,” said Delila in visible denial. “You’re insane!”
“You called our number for help,” said Rebecca. “You gave a shout down the Anarchy Road because you got a card from a friend…Thing is, our numbers don’t come on cards. Our number is word of mouth only…So where is that card, Delila?”
“It’s right here,” said Delila.
She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a business card. They both stared down at that business card a second later.
“That’s a business card for a professor at your college,” said Rebecca firmly. “None of our numbers are on that card.”
“That’s…It’s…It’s just the wrong card,” frowned Delila. “You’re crazy, Reb. I’m not dead!”
“Oh?” asked Rebecca. “Then hold my bat for me.”
“Your what?” asked Delila.
“Hold my small bat,” repeated Rebecca.
She put her mini-flashlight back in her jacket pocket and held out her short club with her left hand.
“This is stupid, but o—” said Delila as she reached out to take the weapon.
She was cut short as the small bat passed through her right hand and clattered along the kitchen tiles beneath them, the club passing through her as if she did not exist at all.
“What?” asked Delila in visible shock. “What just…Wh…What?”
“You died on Sunday because you put on a cursed artifact,” said Rebecca unhappily. “You’re a spirit now, because your body is a vampire. Your soul never moved on because of who you are.
“You are keeping that monster trapped below in order to protect your parents and the rest of the world. That’s also why your dog is missing, because you sent him away. You sent him away to protect him…
“You called us because you genuinely needed help, and heavenly forces granted you the ability to do that, because our number is not on that card, Delila.”
“No,” said Delila as she shook her head over and over again. “No, this isn’t real. I can’t be dead! It must be a trick! It’s not real!”
She backed away, her body passing through the kitchen table. She turned and noticed where she was, and then she danced out of the table, tears spilling down her pale cheeks.
The realization of her own demise that played out upon Delila’s pretty face was a jagged knife that twisted in Rebecca’s heart, but all was not lost.
“There is a way to fix this,” said Rebecca.
“Wh…What!” sobbed Delila. “I’m dead! I’m a ghost! You’re telling me my body has become a monster! If that’s true, then…My God, my parents are going to come home and…and they’ll be slaughtered!…No!…This is horrific!…My God!…I need help, but…how can anyone possibly fix this!”
“With my gift,” said Rebecca. “I’m not allowed to tell a living soul about my gift, but you’re already dead, Delila, so I can spill it to you…My gift is life. My gift is life, and I’m giving it to you. I started with five extra lives at this location, and I’ve died four times battling your dead body down in the basement, but I have one extra life left on this job, and I’m giving it to you.”
“What does that even mean!” cried Delila. “I don’t understand!”
Rebecca picked up her small bat, walked to the table, and put her bats back in their case. She turned, gave the weeping Delila a sad smile, and then reached up with both hands to cup them over her own heart. She closed her eyes, removed her hands from her chest, and then held up a ball of light, a brilliant ball of golden light, within her cupped hands.
“Everyone who walks the Anarchy Road has a divine gift,” explained Rebecca. “That gift is based upon the trauma we experienced. I was rescued from Hell after I was tortured to death. I was rescued right before I was to be taken through the Black Gates.
“When I died, I had no arms, no legs, no eyes, no tongue, no teeth, and I was missing a number of other parts I don’t want to mention, but after I was rescued from Hell, I was given a new body, a new life, and a second chance, so my divine gift is…well…it’s life itself.
“Once I give this to you, you’ll return to a moment in time before you died. You’ll be alive again. All you have to do is box up that amulet, call our number again, tell us you have a very cursed object, and send the amulet to a location we’ll designate to you…Do not put it on this time.”
Delila’s teary eyes widened as she stared into the ball of golden light.
“I can feel it,” she said in sheer, raw amazement. “I can actually feel it…It’s incredible…like nothing I’ve ever felt before…Everything you’ve said is true, isn’t it?…It’s all true…all of it…Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. Why are you doing this for me? You don’t even know me.”
“Sometimes bad people get a second chance after they’ve screwed themselves over,” replied Rebecca. “Sometimes good people get a second chance after they’ve been screwed over. You and I are two sides of the same coin.
“Now…this is part of my redemption, even though I won’t remember it. I guess that’s part of doing good deeds. You don’t get to tell anybody you did them.”
“What do you mean?” asked Delila.
“I mean once you take my extra life, time will reset, and none of this will have happened for me, but you’ll remember everything,” explained Rebecca. “Just do me a favor and keep being you. You’re a good person, Delila, and people like you are the reason our world is worth saving.”
She held up the ball of light, her last extra life, and the golden ball slowly traveled toward Delila. The orb of pure life merged with the young woman’s spirit, there was a burst of spangled brightness, and then nothing more as everything reset itself one last time.
*****
Rebecca’s eyes fluttered open as she shook her head twice to ward off…whatever had just happened.
“Rebecca, dear?” asked Minnie. “Are you with me? You faded out there for a second or two.”
Rebecca stared at the old woman in slight confusion, reached up, and rubbed both of her own eyes as she chased off…sleep?
“Oh…What happened?” she asked.
She looked around and realized she was sitting in one of Minnie’s red-velvet chairs in the old woman’s bedroom. The elderly woman was sitting across from Rebecca in her own red-velvet chair in front of her own vanity dresser. Minnie was wearing one of her white dresses, one of the very old-fashioned ones with the frills.
There was, of course, a more pressing concern for Rebecca.
“Why am I in your room?” she asked.
“Because you are to take this box down to Leyla,” said Minnie. “It has to be archived.”
She held up a small, heavy-looking lead box with a black iron latch on it. The latch was locked with a thick steel padlock that was nearly as large as the box itself.
“What the hell is that?” asked Rebecca.
“There’s a cursed artifact in this box, dear,” said Minnie. “It’s an amulet, and it’s very old and very evil. It’s deadly, in fact, so don’t try to put it on.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Why in the hell would I put on a cursed artifact?” she huffed. “I’m not seven. What is wrong with you?…Why in the hell do you have it anyway?”
“It was sent in the mail to me,” said Minnie.
“Someone must reeeeally hate you then,” snorted Rebecca.
She gingerly took the box from the old woman and stared down at it.
“Where did this come from?” she asked. “If it’s that old and that evil, then I understand why it came to us, but I wonder how some normie knew what it was…I wonder who found it?”
“You did,” said Minnie.
“I did?” asked Rebecca in surprise. “I’ve never seen this before in my life!”
“Don’t you remember?” asked the crazy octogenarian. “You had a ghost send it here after you turned into a bat and had your throat ripped out.”
“You need to lay off the vermouth,” said Rebecca with a roll of her eyes. “I’ve always thought you were out there, Minnie; you’ve always been flying around the moon, but today, you are-a-cruising around Mars, you nutty old bird!”
Anarchy Road Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Note: The picture for this story was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of Canva.com.
