“But still,” he said again. “You’re an angel. You can’t die…just…heal yourself.”
Selena shook her head. “Not anymore,” she whispered. “I did what I came here to do. You’re free now. Just…do this for me. Go home. Live again.”
“No,” Mark said. “You were here for me. I’m not going to leave you now.”
He slipped his hands beneath her slim form and lifted her body from the floor. He pressed his lips to hers in the gentlest, most loving kiss he could give.
“Stay with me now,” he begged. “I need you more now than I ever did before.”
Mark moved through the door that led into the hallway of The Red, and then with a quick thrust of his hand, opened the door to the Blue Room and moved past the last couple of laggards still hanging at the bar towards the door out of NightWhere. Tailor still stood guard, but Mark didn’t even wait for the Watcher to try to stop him. Instead he aimed a kick at the man’s crotch, and threw the door open himself as the Watcher fell backwards.
He stepped outside and saw the orange of the sun on the horizon.
“Are you with me?” he asked the still form in his arms.
Selena struggled to open her eyes again. Those icy blue orbs stared into his again. But the spark was gone. She was fading.
“Stay with me,” he begged.
“I’ve always been with you,” she whispered. “You just never noticed.”
“Well I know now,” he said. “And I know that we just need to get those cuts stitched up and you’re going to be okay.”
Selena coughed again. A wet, wheezing sound. “If you say so,” she said.
“I’m your guardian now,” he promised. “Just hold on a little longer.”
Mark saw the inconspicuous grey of his Sonata out in the empty field near the vacant farmhouse. Normally it blended into a crowd and was often difficult to spot, but now…it stood there alone. NightWhere was gone, and soon, Selena might be too. He began to run. When they reached the car, he struggled to pull his keys from his pocket without dropping her.
“We’ll be at the hospital in just a few minutes,” he whispered, finally unlocking the car and carefully slipping her into the passenger’s seat. He lay the back of the seat down as far as it would go. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again,” he said.
Selena responded with a sad, but hopeful, smile.
“I know,” she whispered. “And I want you to know I’m glad I broke the truce.”
He kissed her forehead. The glow of the dawn colored the horizon and lit her face in a dusky-red light. Like NightWhere, but then again, not at all the same. This light bore hope, not blood.
“Hang on for me,” he begged, as the car started.
Selena nodded, but didn’t answer.
All he could promise her was love, but love was supposed to conquer all, right?
Mark pulled onto the road back towards the city, whispering three words to Selena like a prayer: “I love you.”
“I know,” she answered, smiling faintly. A trickle of blood bled from the corner of her mouth.
“Hang on,” Mark repeated. “I promise, if you just stick with me now, I’ll never leave you again.”
Selena nodded. “I know,” she whispered and a tear slipped down her face.
One clear, wet, saltwater tear.
John Everson
John Everson is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Covenant, as well as the novels Sacrifice, The 13th, Siren and The Pumpkin Man. Over the past 20 years, his short stories have appeared in more than 75 magazines and anthologies and have also been compiled in the collections Creeptych, Deadly Nightlusts, Needles Sins, Vigilantes of Love and Cage of Bones Other Deadly Obsessions. His work has been translated into Polish, Italian, Turkish and French, and optioned for potential film production. He is also the founder and publisher of the independent press Dark Arts Books.
John shares a deep purple den in Naperville, Illinois with a cockatoo and cockatiel, a disparate collection of fake skulls, twisted skeletal fairies, Alan Clark illustrations and a large stuffed Eeyore. There's also a mounted Chinese fowling spider named Stoker courtesy of Charlee Jacob, an ever-growing shelf of custom mix CDs and an acoustic guitar that he can't really play but that his son Shaun likes to hear him beat on anyway. Sometimes his wife Geri is surprised to find him shuffling through more public areas of the house, but it's usually only to brew another cup of coffee. In order to avoid the onerous task of writing, he holds down a regular job at a medical association, records pop-rock songs in a hidden home studio, experiments with the insatiable culinary joys of the jalapeno, designs photo collage art book covers for a variety of small presses, loses hours in expanding an array of gardens and chases frequent excursions into the bizarre visual headspace of '70s euro-horror DVDs with a shot of Makers Mark and a tall glass of Newcastle.
To catch up on his blog, join his newsletter or get information on his fiction, art and music, visit John Everson: Dark Arts at www.johneverson.com.
