Out of the Black - Lee Doty [159]
Careless... stupid. Maybe it wasn't too late. He struggled harder. Then there it was... warmth at first, then light- light that burned his left hand. The Loom resolved from the static that coursed over him. He slipped around it, engaged himself in its mesh of creation. As he did so, what remained of his left hand felt like it was being eaten by a flaming tiger.
Full of surprises. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe he wasn't completely alone, not yet damned beyond all redemption. Maybe the Outsider had caught him... maybe his plan had worked. Maybe it hadn't had time to hurt Dek before...
He spent a few seconds staunching the blood that flowed from his ruined hand then a few more to put the pieces back together again.
Head throbbing, he rose to his feet, flexing his reconstructed hand. Ouch.
On the floor by the refrigerator were two dead puppets. Both had been killed with the sword Issak had made with his own hands over seventy years ago. The table had been turned over and the chairs were strewn across the floor. There were several large dents in the stainless steel door of the refrigerator. He didn't see any trace of Dek... perhaps he got away... full of surprises, that kid.
His smile was banished by the breeze that moved through the room from the hallway that led from the kitchen to the bedrooms. It was refreshing, damp, scented of rain. A peal of thunder followed on the heels of a brilliant flash. Though the hallway was filled with light and sound, the living room windows reduced the effects through the other archway to a flicker and a rumble. The lightning cast stark shadows in the hallway. He could make out the silhouettes of at least three figures standing by the window at the other end of the hallway.
He began to accumulate power. As his consciousness expanded out through the Underworld, he felt the deformities that the puppets caused. A cluster of seven puppets stood around that corner near the shattered window. He struggled with all his might to see through the distortions. After a few seconds he was sure Dek wasn't at the end of the hall with them.
The implications broke over him. They had lived, Dek had not. Thanks to him, Dek no longer had the ability to survive a fall from this height. The destruction around him took on new significance. Here his boy had met his final challenge, made his final moves. He'd done so alone, betrayed by the only person he had left to trust.
The grief crashed in, so loud he couldn't hear it. The rage burnt inward, so hot he couldn't feel it. Alone. The world seemed to slip past him, like it would until he eventually died... a slipstream of minutes and seconds, eons and millennia. He would remain; burning, untouched, alone.
He stumbled toward the elevator. Inside, he hit the button for the lobby. He had an umbrella in his hand... raining outside, but he didn't remember picking it up. The feeling of sinking inevitability filled the elevator as it dropped slowly though the surrounding building.
It would be a relief if somehow he missed his floor and the elevator continued downward until the doors finally opened onto a flaming hellscape. There amongst the cavorting demons, under the distraction of their loving torture, perhaps he could forget who he was, what he'd done.
He'd been prepared. But sometimes preparation isn't enough. He'd had a plan, but plans fail. He had to make this right. For this empty world of ashes, he had to make it right.
Downward at the slow speed of inevitability, umbrella in his hand. The road to hell was paved with his intentions.
A soft tone sounded. The doors slid apart to reveal the familiar lobby. Here the ghosts of his dead family walked, surrounded by the sound of furious rain that seemed to cover the earth. He was separated from the downpour by windows and doors, but that was the illusion. Here with the ghosts, the storm boiled within him.
He crossed the lobby, deployed his umbrella and stepped into the distracting relief of the downpour.
Near a destroyed car, in a field of glass and water, his boy lay. Then