A Neophyte's Tale: A Netherwalker Short Story (Prequel to Cloak of Shadows) Read online

Worlds Colliding

  He gave her that look. Abbey hated the sympathetic look people always gave her when she went searching for her missing mother. This time the look was coming from her mother’s boss. He hadn’t seen or heard from her in seven days. Neither had Abbey. Yesterday, the look had come from Maggie when Abbey lied and said her mom and stepdad were back from their impromptu second honeymoon. It was obvious that Maggie hadn’t believed her. The sad looks were always followed by too many questions that Abbey was ashamed to answer. She couldn’t stay with Maggie any longer, the sad looks made it impossible to stay.

  After Abbey left the love and warmth of Maggie’s house to return to an empty apartment and an eviction notice, she knew something was wrong. A week had passed and the blood and broken glass were still covering their kitchen floor and her mother’s remaining alcohol stash remained untouched.

  From behind his glass counter her mother’s boss was rolling up several deli sandwiches making Abbey’s mouth water. “If she comes in early tomorrow, I’ll give her another chance, but this is the last time.”

  “Thanks,” was all Abbey could manage as she walked out of the man’s store.

  “Hey, kid!”

  Abbey turned. The man tossed her a sandwich, still warm and fragrant in its waxy wrapper.

  “Good luck out there, huh?” he said, giving her another sympathetic look.

  Abbey barely nodded her head as she left the deli. She tucked the sandwich into her hoodie’s kangaroo pocket for later as her stomach growled in protest. Yes, she was hungry and had been walking around for hours, but she wasn’t starving. Yet.

  She headed for the last place on her mental list of where her mom could be. It was also the last place she wanted to find her mother.

  Please don’t be pee, please don’t be pee, Abbey thought as she walked down the abandoned building’s ratty hallway, avoiding the wet debris. As she made her way to the apartment and drug den she knew lurked within Abbey gathered her strength. It was the same apartment building her mother swore she would stop coming to. Abbey hadn’t believed her, not after seeing first-hand how many drugs were being passed so freely. But this time the building was quiet. There was no loud music blaring, no thick haze of smoke clinging to the air, and no coughing or wheezing coming from the countless addicts Abbey had passed during her first encounter. The building seemed empty now. When she reached the last door at the end of the hallway she took a deep breath and swung it open without stepping inside. Abbey gasped and put her hands to her mouth.

  Jennifer Thorne was sitting alone on the floor propped against a wall staring into nothingness. The apartment was bare, abandoned but for a few pieces of ruined furniture, and her mother had been left to rot. She looked like a rag doll that had lost all of its filling, weak, frail, and so limp her muscles looked like they had atrophied. The drying vomit surrounding her on the floor had started to attract flies.

  Abbey jumped as Jennifer took an unexpected shallow ragged breath, but still her mother didn’t blink and she actually looked… happy.

  Abbey’s shock was replaced by anger as she stepped through the threshold. “Well, you really did it this time didn’t you!”

  The grungy, barren apartment instantly morphed into a familiar house. Her stepdad waved at her from the kitchen as he pulled a turkey out of the oven. Her mom swatted him with a towel while he basted the bird. He pulled her into a kiss and smiled as he grabbed the towel and swatted her back. The sights and smells were intoxicating and Abbey swore she could live in the perfect memory forever.

  Memory? Abbey thought as her stomach growled. A flash of soiled couches assaulted her vision. She shook her head trying to remember something, but her mind felt hazy.  “Abigail Renee Thorne,” her mother’s voice whispered in her head as the couple before her remained locked in an embrace. The welcoming smells of Thanksgiving dinner began to sour, morphing into odors of rancid human waste.

  “Abigail Renee Thorne!” her mother said holding her stepdad’s hands and looking into his eyes.

  Abbey shook her head again, closing her eyes for a moment. She looked across the room at her frail mother as the apartment kept shifting from a festive holiday home into a dingy graffiti tagged drug den.

  “Mom! What’s going on? Mom?” Abbey ran across the room, fell to her knees, and shook her mother. Jennifer was lifeless, staring blissfully into nothingness. Abbey followed her mother’s gaze up to the ceiling and noticed an out of place shadow hovering in the darkest hollow of the room.

  The shadow looked like a canopy of mist draped in the corner of the ceiling, almost tangible, like a physical three dimensional thing sculpted from onyx.

  Jennifer gasped for air as Abbey was pulled back into the Thanksgiving vision.

  Her mother smiled at her husband as he carved the turkey. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. For everything.”

  The man stopped carving and lifted his head towards Abbey. Only smooth pale flesh stared back at her, no mouth, no nose or eyes, only emptiness. Her stepdad had no face. He began carving again, but this time the bird was gone and he used the blade on himself. As he cut parts of his own flesh from his arm, the skin and sinew fell to the floor. They disappeared, one after another as Abbey’s reality threatened to slip away. For a moment she feared her spine was melting as she strained to avert her eyes from the horrific and jumbled images.

  From above her the shadow appeared and rattled like a snake’s tail. It was as though her two realities were morphing together. The shadow shimmered from the darkest black to the bleakest of grays, as if it were reacting to Abbey’s awareness of it.

  “No time. Hood up, like I taught you!” Jennifer said cupping her stepdad’s cheek as he kept cutting.

  Abbey complied without question as the shadow rattled louder and louder.

  “Now run and don’t look back! I’m so sorry, baby girl. Always remember that I love you.”

  Abbey looked at the shadow again as it began to slither off the ceiling and morph into...Oh my god!

  A sharp pain ran up Abbey’s leg. It felt as though something had pierced her thigh. The dregs of her happiest memory faded as her awareness completely returned to the filthy room. She looked down once more. Jennifer had grabbed her leg and was now looking directly at her.

  “Run.” Jennifer mustered a shaky warning as she took one last breath.

  Instincts Abbey didn’t know she possessed kicked in as she jumped up and ran from the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. Running down the hall with her head down and hood up she heard a loud roar and a thud against the apartment door that vibrated through the floor beneath her feet. Her mind was still hazy, the illusion of her stepfather on Thanksgiving had been so real. Please tell me I’m hallucinating that creature, too!

  “Hey!” an arm reached out and grabbed her.

  Ouch! What the hell was that?

  The policeman let go and recoiled as a jolt of electricity surged through Abbey’s body.

  He must have felt it too! Abbey thought, taking advantage of the cop’s stunned reaction. Pulling her hood further down to cover her face, she ran down the stairs and didn’t look back.

  “Hey, Kid! Stop!” but the cop didn’t follow.

  Fighting back tears, Abbey heard another splintering thud against the apartment door that demanded the officer’s attention. The shadow creature sounded like a caged beast, feral, and wild. Her mind was hazy as if waking from a dream. She wondered if the shadow had done something to her. Fearing the creature had been real and that her mother was truly dead she ran blindly down the city street trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  †

  “What about the girl--?” asked Detective Jack LaCrosse.

  “Abbey? That’s her name as far as I can tell,” Bernie Stevens said with a southern drawl. He sighed and walked away from the apartment towards the detective waiting for him in the hall. “I heard her momma yellin’ it once or twice.”

  Detective LaCrosse seemed shocked.  “Tha
t was her mother?” he said, pointing down the building’s ratty hallway littered with trash and flickering light bulbs.

  Bernie lowered his head slightly, trying to erase the image of the dead woman’s body he wouldn’t soon forget. “Well, if she wasn’t her momma she was the closest approximation to family I gather Abbey had. It’s a damn shame.”

  “Do you think you can find her again?”

  “She’ll find her way to us. She’s almost ready.” The southerner scoffed. It was apparent the detective didn’t know much about what a shepherd actually did. “I’ve been watchin’ her for a while now.”

  The young detective scratched his head. “So, she’s a neophyte then?” he asked, waving a uniformed officer over who had sworn the girl was one of them. “You’re sure, Bernie?”

  Bernie looked at Detective LaCrosse.   

  Shrinking a little under the seasoned guardian’s gaze, LaCrosse waved the uniformed officer away. “Of course you’re sure...Why--How did she end up like this?”

  Bernie looked around, waited for a few dociles from the precinct and coroner’s office to pass, and then whispered to his fellow guardian. “The Court may’ve been built of stone and mortar, but there are cracks in any foundation, my friend. Sometimes people slip through.”

  LaCrosse let a few more dociles pass then whispered, “Well, whoever she is she’d make a damn good hunter.”

  †

  Abbey shoved her back against the brick wall as hard as she could, trying to wake up from the nightmare she now found herself in, but she knew it wasn’t a dream. As the haze in her mind began to subside, reality set in. She was alone and her mother was dead. Abbey bit down hard on her forearm and muffled her screams of terror into her sleeve. The jagged bricks dug into her back as she slid down the wall. She welcomed the pain. Unencumbered her tears flowed mingling with the rain streaming down her face as she slumped to the ground. Exhaustion consumed her and the edges of her vision dimmed. She welcomed the darkness as sounds faded and everything around her turned to black.