Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Then Elias pulls back. “But you already returned the favor. I went out there for the same reason that morning, remember? You saved me, too.”
Kyle’s face falls flat.
“Guys,” comes Brock’s voice calmly.
The two of them turn to Brock.
Brock’s hands are clasped in front of him. “I … spoke with God. H-He assured me we will be okay. He told me to be calm and let what will be, be. He told me to forgive you.” He faces Kyle. “I forgive you, Kyle. It isn’t your fault. I chose to come back into your life, to break my own hand, I did all of that. And Elias,” he continues, facing him, “I know we don’t know each other all that well, but I get the sense you’re a great guy. Our parents and I even had dinner together. Business thing, kind of short n’ boring, but I was there, met your mom. Small world, all of us connected in our ways. Just more proof of God’s great design.” He puts a hand on both Kyle’s and Elias’s shoulders and leans forward, as if huddling in one last football game. “I’m gonna do better. I’m gonna be better. We’re gonna get through this, all of us, together. My s-son …” He chokes up, fights back tears. “My son needs me to come back home to him.”
Kyle and Elias exchange a look. It’s Elias who returns the gesture, putting his hand on Brock’s shoulder and giving it a pat. “Apology accepted.”
Brock meets Kyle’s eyes. “I’m real glad to be here with you, Kyle. Glad to be here with my old pal, my buddy. I’m so …” He fights tears yet again. “I’m so happy you didn’t die that day twenty-seven years ago. Somewhere in my heart, I swear to God, I knew. I … I just knew you were still alive, somehow.”
Just then, a noise at the door.
Kyle, Brock, and Elias turn to it at once, alarmed.
The doorknob rattles, stops. There’s a grunt of annoyance from outside. The knob rattles again, then turns at last, and the door gently swings open.
A tall man enters, six and a half feet. A sickly, artificial pink colors his cheekbones, otherwise pale as paper and gaunt as the dead. Thin lips, pencil mustache, sunken eyes, and brownish hair parted crookedly down the middle, appearing odd.
The instant impression is this man is not a real person. At once unsettling. An alien. A creation of a tortured artist who rides the uncanny valley, eliciting no good feelings at first sight.
What Kyle might have once produced, had he tried to draw people instead of lions.
A thin, soulless monster with sad eyes.
And bad hair.
“Hullo,” he greets them simply, voice deep and curt. He wears a pinstripe suit and tie with shiny shoes. “You are Kyle Bentley Amos, secured from …” He produces a tablet, pokes a long finger upon it, swipes left, left again, left again, left again, then arrives at a name. “Scarlet Sands, yes?”
Elias and Brock glance at Kyle. After a second of terror, Kyle finally makes himself nod and say, “Yeah, that’s right.”
The man purses his lips. “Come. All of you.” He leaves.
Kyle glances back at Brock and Elias, uncertain, then heads out of the room, following the strange man. Outside the room is a wide, vast office area that might have once contained many cubicles, but is now completely barren, an expanse of nothing. As they walk, Kyle looks around the dim room, lit only by a single fluorescent in its center, the rest shut off or burned out. The room is so wide, so dark, it doesn’t even seem to have walls on any side, even with Kyle’s enhanced vision. His senses pick up a steady stream of defiance from Elias, which he takes to be his particular brand of courage, ready to fight, yet staying as calm as he can manage. From Brock, Kyle feels an eerie sense of hollow hope that God is watching him, peppered with the salt of soul-crushing terror he’s struggling not to taste.
From the tall man ahead, Kyle feels only ice.
Ice and nothing.
Is that what Kyle felt earlier? Did he mistake the coldness for nothing, when it was in fact this man?
Suddenly Brock takes hold of Kyle’s hand, fear thumping through his system, sharp and terrible. “Is he a demon …? That man? A b-bloodsucker? He’s … He’s … He’s one of …?”
“I think so,” murmurs Kyle, feeling out-of-body, unreal.
“I don’t like this.” Brock shakes his head. “No, no way, we can’t follow him. We need to get outta here.”
“Brock, I don’t think we—”
At once, Brock takes off, running into the darkness to the left, disappearing. Kyle and Elias stop to watch, alarmed.
Until suddenly Brock emerges from the darkness to their right, then stops cold at the sight of them. “W-What the—?” sputters Brock. Kyle and Elias spin, surprised to find him there, as if he teleported somehow from the left side of the room to the right. “How’d I—How did you—?”