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  Michaelbrent Collings

  Copyright © 2010 by Michaelbrent Collings

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  For information send request to [email protected].

  website: www.michaelbrentcollings.com

  email: [email protected]

  cover image © 2010 used under license from Shutterstock.com

  DEDICATION

  To...

  Stephen King, for not leaving a human head on my doorstep,

  but leaving me with many scary stories...

  Dean Koontz, for showing me what craftsmanship is,

  and always taking my calls...

  and to Laura, FTAAE.

  PROLOGUE

  DOM#57-B

  STONY CLIFF, OHIO TERRITORY

  AD 1872

  PROTECTOR FAIL FILE

  Malachi waited in the saloon, his hand curled around a warm beer, and wondered how long it would be before he could just kill someone.

  It was neither a beautiful day nor an ugly one. Neither was possible in this place, where nothing was real. Though of course it all seemed real. That was the trick. That was the joke.

  That was the thing Malachi hated most of all.

  He looked around the saloon, noting the planks that had been laid on the floor, the counter he leaned on, the rough framing of the windows. The windows were open, for which he was grateful. Whether this world was real or not, he certainly suffered in its stale heat, and any bit of ventilation was welcome. No breeze stirred the dust outside, though, not even when the passers-by kicked it up in dry puffs that settled leadenly back to the ground.

  He peered out the window a long time, watching the people of this place walk by, carrying milk pails or books or nothing at all as they hurried to get to where they were going. He smiled tightly as the thought struck him that of all the people in the area, he was the only one who was really alive. They did not know it, but every single person in this tiny town was dead. Every person, that is, but one. And it was for that one that Malachi had come to this place.

  It had taken him a long time to find the man. At first he suspected that his quarry would be located in the mountainous areas outside the town. A few settlements were sprinkled through the outlying regions of this place, and Malachi thought it likely that his prey would be hidden in one of them. As a result, he spent several days tramping through dirt and mud, fighting his way through the surrounding wilderness to find those isolated pockets where people could be found. Or, rather, where the things could be found. For though they masqueraded as living, breathing people, the man knew they were not. He knew their secret. He knew their death.

  The one he sought was not among those groups. When he discovered this fact, Malachi thought perhaps he had been fooled. Maybe this place had no life in it at all, but was merely a trap filled with trees and streams and fish and insects and people who were not really people at all, but something dark and terrifying. His fear that this place was such a trap led him to be more cautious and slower than usual, skulking around the outskirts of the town as he observed the goings and comings, the ins and outs, until he was certain he was not being monitored or surveyed. Once his fears were allayed, he came into the town, and made inquiries, and quickly found his prey. He found where the man would be on this day that was not really a day at all, no matter how brightly the false sun seemed to gleam.

  The bartender spoke, jolting Malachi suddenly out of his reverie. "New?" he asked.

  Malachi shrugged. The bartender was a fat man, showing off a gut that bespoke prosperity in this place where life had to be earned by sweat and hard work. His armpits were damp on this hot day, staining the otherwise white shirt he wore. A high wooden collar pinched up below his jowls, and Malachi wondered if the bartender had creases in his throat when he took the collar off at night.

  The bartender watched him for a moment, seeming half-curious and three-quarters suspicious at Malachi's lack of responsiveness. The fat man’s fingers gripped a filthy towel that he used to wipe down the counter, sausage-like fingers digging into the stringy fibers of cloth that he pushed slowly across the wooden surface of the bar. Splinters chipped off as the rough-woven fabric caught at tiny fractures in the wood grain. They jammed themselves jaggedly into the cloth, adding their grit and texture to the fabric.

  The bartender stared at Malachi, waiting perhaps for a clue as to the stranger’s business.

  Malachi dropped his hand to his gun belt. The holster was completely enclosed, a solid pack of leather that gave no hint as to what manner of weapon hid inside it. Still, the fact that his hand now rested near the holster was enough to tell a smart man that he wanted no further questions.

  The bartender was smart. He refilled Malachi's beer and moved away, picking up the spittoon that sat at the end of the bar. He handed it to a man who sat on the ground nearby, shining a pile of shoes and wiping used glasses.

  Malachi watched the bartender do this and took special note of the man. He was fairly young, perhaps in his mid-thirties, and had black hair with a shock of pure gray running down the middle, like a skunk. Like a skunk, the man stank; Malachi could smell him even at a distance, his obviously unwashed skin and hair casting rank waves of odor all around him.

  The man was obviously retarded, his eyes dull and vacant, glassy. Malachi did not note any of the distinguishing physical characteristics of Down's Syndrome or Fragile-X in the man, so he thought it more likely that he suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or perhaps Lennox-Gastaut. Of course, the people here had no such medical term for this man. No, they would call him...what? Special. Touched by God.

  As though God would actually touch such an abomination.

  The skunk man looked at the spittoon dully, his lips dry and cracked and moving slowly as he tried to divine what was expected of him. The spittoon sloshed, a disgusting noise that spoke clearly to Malachi of its contents.

  "Throw it out, idiot," said the bartender.

  Malachi watched it all. Took it all in. It was midday, so the bar was mostly empty. Three cowboys played cards at one end of the room, a small haze of smoke hanging over them like they were devils freshly emerged from the brimstone of hell. They were grizzled men, unshaven and worn. Malachi could clearly see their histories from his spot at the bar, histories of toil and meaningless labor that were indelibly written in the slouch of their backs and the curls of fingers that were tough and so callused it was a wonder they could even feel the cards they clutched.

  At the other end of the room a hooker slept against the piano, her legs wide apart in a gross parody of her profession. Rouge was smeared across her knees below the line of her bloomers, which could be seen under her red skirt. Her bosom heaved in and out as she struggled to breathe in the heavy heat of the day. A fly buzzed near her, then landed on her cheek and made its way across her lips and chin. She did not stir to wave it away, but slept on.

  Four total.

  And the bartender and the spittoon cleaner made six.

  He would kill the retard first, if he could. They always seemed so harmless. It would be easy to forget that the handicapped man was every bit as dangerous as the others; that the retardation would suddenly disappear and be replaced by cold analysis. By a will to kill.

  Malachi would not forget. It was his job not to forget, and he was very good at his job.

  The saloon doors swung open then. Someone stood in the frame, the bright light outside hiding his features for a moment. In that instant he was just a shadow, hardly as real as the world outsid
e or the light that glowed off his shoulders. In that instant he was a wraith, but then he stepped in and the sun fell away from him with a golden sigh and his face could be seen by any who cared to look.

  Malachi saw who it was, but even if he had not, he would have known that this was his quarry by the subtle way the atmosphere changed in the saloon. With the newcomer's entrance, everyone seemed to shift toward him. They seemed, not more aware of him, but rather more alive around him...or as close to alive as such could be. Malachi had seen it a hundred times before, and it was always a tip-off.

  Lucas - that was the name of his prey - tipped his hat as he entered. He kicked his boots against the floor boards, dislodging a few clots of dirt and horse manure picked up from the street outside. They fell in dry clods and broke apart on rough-hewn pine floorboards that had been rubbed smooth by the years. The other men in the saloon nodded to Lucas as he stepped up to the bar. He put his boot on the rail affixed to the bar, standing relaxed next to Malachi, unaware and unsuspecting that death stood beside him.

  "Whisky," said Lucas to the bartender. The bartender filled a shot glass, and Lucas lifted it to his lips. He noticed Malachi watching him, and nodded before throwing back the drink in one smooth motion.

  Malachi nodded back. He finished his beer and threw a quarter on the bar.

  "Keep the change," he said.

  The bartender smiled at him, giving him a complete view of his three remaining teeth. They hung to his gums as tenaciously as the saloon clung to life in this dead town, but like the town were doomed to fail in their struggle.

  "Would you like to see something?" asked Malachi, and the bartender nodded, eager to be friends with this big tipper.

  Malachi drew his gun, lifting the holster flap and pulling out a shiny black Heckler Koch with a silencer threaded into its muzzle. It was a beautiful weapon. It was also a gun that would not appear here for well over one hundred years, if time were allowed to continue unabated.

  If time existed at all.

  "What the hell?" whispered the barkeep. Malachi smiled again. Of course the bartender would not have seen anything like this before. The barkeep pointed at the silencer baffle.

  "What’s that?" he asked.

  "So it doesn’t make noise," answered Malachi. "Watch." He pulled the trigger, and the gun whiffed. The hollow point bullet took the barkeep in the throat, tearing his head off at the neck.

  Malachi twisted, pointing at the back door where the skunk man was reentering the saloon with a now-empty spittoon. Another bullet flew from the gun, piercing the man's skin. It was too fast to see, of course, and the sound of its passage through the air almost unnoticeable as it traveled through the man's skull, and then exploded.

  In the time it took to do that, he had already fired on the three card players. Three loud pops, and their bodies slid to the floor. Not drunk, this time, but decapitated and bleeding.

  The whore was next. She never woke up.

  It was just he and Lucas now. Lucas was shivering uncontrollably, his hands waving in front of him as he backed away from Malachi. Malachi smiled pleasantly, as though he were preparing to play a game of horseshoes rather than having just killed six people in the blink of an eye.

  Urine dripped from Lucas’s leather chaps.

  "Please, no," he whimpered

  Malachi's grin widened.

  "It’s my salvation," he said, and pulled the trigger.

  Lucas fell to the floor like the others.

  Malachi looked around. Seven bodies, only one of which really counted. He checked Lucas' pulse, and though he found no heartbeat, he emptied the rest of his clip into the man. He smiled as he pulled the trigger, the fiery flashes of gunfire gleaming like the promises of angels in his sight.

  He checked Lucas’ pulse again, just to be sure, and nodded as he felt nothing. Life no longer stirred in Lucas, and so the man could be at peace. He was in Heaven now, Malachi supposed, and kissed Lucas' hand tenderly. He had to leave before anyone else came in the saloon, but he took a dangerous moment to glory in his actions.

  It came to him then: the Dream of what would be.

  He saw fire everywhere. Everywhen. Fire to consume the whole earth this time, and not just a small part of it. He saw babies writhing in pain as the flames licked at their tender bodies; lovers locked in intimate embraces, their cries of ecstasy becoming screams of agony as tongues of fire burned their horrible caresses to cinders; children playing and singing "Ashes, ashes" and then all falling down in a charred heap, their bodies disintegrating and never to be whole again.

  The final baptism of flame would come, come soon, and it would end.

  Everything would end.

  Malachi smiled. He hated this place. But all of it, the endless searching for Lucas, the sleeping in the forest with snakes and ticks, the smell of horse feces and human excrement, it was all worth it in this moment of triumph and Dreaming.

  Then he heard a noise. He turned around. The retarded man’s corpse was twitching, his legs shuffling minutely, then seeming to gain strength.

  Malachi cursed softly. He was not surprised, for he had seen this happen before. It merely meant that he had failed to completely destroy the man's brain stem. But that in itself could create problems. He had to finish the job and leave before anyone else came into the saloon, or else the town might Activate. And while any such occurrence would come too late to save Lucas, a full-scale Activation would make his escape difficult.

  Malachi pulled an implement from his pocket. It was shiny and metallic, the shape and size of a pencil. He pressed a button, and it snapped open like a spring-loaded telescope, ending in a wicked point.

  He walked to the mentally crippled man. The headless body was moving fluidly now, sitting up and then flipping itself around so that it rested on its hands and knees. It had no sight - the eyes were gone - but the hands felt for Malachi’s vibrations on the floor.

  He knew what to expect, so when he approached the man, he was ready. The headless body lurched at him, and he sidestepped easily, kicking the corpse in the back.

  The man fell, and Malachi jabbed his instrument into the back of what was left of his head. The point penetrated the meat easily, before grinding to a halt against bone. As soon as it stopped, he hit the button again. He had to be quick, for in that instant the man was already rising once more, turning toward him with hands that clicked together like pincers. Should they find him, Malachi knew he would be crushed in their vise-like grasp, his life torn from him by the fingers of a man who was not dead, because he had never been alive.

  Malachi was quick, though. Quick enough to do what needed to be done, and survive. The instrument crackled with energy, and the smell of burning flesh wafted into his nostrils.

  The idiot’s body jerked like a fish on a line, and then fell to the ground. The tiny portion of his head that had remained was a charred nub now, burnt beyond recognition. It was dead. And, more importantly, it would not move again.

  Malachi touched the button on the shaft of the metal implement a third time, and the probe withdrew to its original pencil-shape. He put it back in his pocket and headed to the door of the saloon.

  He wanted out of this place. Out of this time.

  And on to somewhen else, to kill again.

  ONE - LOSTON

  MEMO REPRO S-7/102467

  Johnny was six years old when the man tried to kill him.

  He was standing in front of the kitchen window that morning, pouring himself a bowl of Wheaties. The dry brown flakes rustled like leaves as they fell into his bowl, settling gradually into a small mountain that Johnny would soon destroy with a well-placed spout of milk, pretending he was a Rain God pouring out destruction on a mountain where his subjects cowered in fear.

  Pouring that milk would represent the only concrete enjoyment to be derived from the cereal, as even with generous portions of sugar added to it, Johnny thought it tasted like nothing so much as dirt. And not just plain dirt, but dirt that had been left out in th
e sun too long and had somehow gone bad.

  There were other brands of cereal, of course, but his mother didn’t allow them. She believed cereal should have the consistency and taste of old particle board. If it didn’t, it was at the very least bad for you, if not downright evil. So she fought the good fight against the sin of sugared cereal, waging battle against her enemy with Shredded Wheat and Puffed Rice and Wheat Chex, merciless in her attack and deaf to the cries of her son: the innocent casualty of a most cruel war.

  Johnny begged and pleaded for a year before he got the Wheaties, which his mother saw as a borderline breakfast food: a fuzzy demarcation between the sides of good and evil. They were horrible, but still better than Shredded Wheat, so Johnny did the best he could with them: he shoveled tablespoons of sugar on the Wheaties and closed his eyes and pretended they were something...fun.

  That’s what he was doing that Saturday morning, when it all happened, when it all began: he was pouring cereal and minding his own business and wishing for some Froot Loops or even just some Frosted Flakes, but knowing with the grim certainty of a six year old of that neither was in his future. He would eat Wheaties until he died of fiber poisoning, and then his mother would be sorry. She would cry, and perhaps put a box of Froot Loops on his casket, but it would be too late then. He would be dead, and the Froot Loops would go uneaten, and it was all Mother's fault.

  He put cereal in the bowl. Milk on top. Sugar. Stir it up. Add a little more sugar. More milk so that it sticks. And some sugar. Taste. More sugar. It was a ritual that would end as it always did, with his eyes closed and his mouth working at a frantic pace as he choked down grainy masses of sugar and pulped Wheaties and then worked up the courage to ask Mother one more time for something tastier.

  The ritual was interrupted mid-stream, however, as he noticed the man who was walking down the street in front of the house. He was clearly visible from Johnny’s vantage point, perched as he was atop a chair in front of the kitchen sink. Johnny could see the man clearly by looking out the large window his father had installed only the year before, at Mother's urging. That window now provided Johnny with an easy view of the man, who stood a mere fifty feet away from the boy and his breakfast.