TWENTY FOUR
***
Jason drew his gun and aimed it out the window. He pushed Lenore behind him, shielding her from her fear as best he could.
But it was no use. The force that powered Cowles’ existence did not center on him, it centered on Lenore. So when she moved behind Jason, the thug appeared there suddenly, grabbing her away and then yanking her out into the mist before Jason could react. He wanted to shoot the man, but the struggling form of Lenore was in the way and he didn’t want to hit her.
So he leapt out the window after them, running headfirst into the mist that had thickened even further. He could hear Lenore screaming, an aural beacon in the fog that he followed as rapidly as he could.
He saw shadows all around, but no Lenore. Then…there! A kicking foot, reminiscent of another kicking foot, dragged into an alley.
Jason threw off the cobwebs of memory and pursued Lenore and her kidnapper.
"Help, Jason!" screamed Lenore. "Hel –" And then her voice cut off and she was silent.
Jason had no time to despair; no time to think what he could do. In the instant that Lenore went silent, a pair of shadows moved out of the mist. Only these were not the police or guardsmen who were patrolling the empty town of Rising. It was a woman and her child, a mother and her son.
They were beautiful.
"Elizabeth," he said. "Aaron."
He reached out a trembling hand and touched his wife’s face, her lovely face. "We’re here, Jason," she said.
"Hi, Daddy," said Aaron.
It was too much. All thoughts of Lenore fled in an instant as he engulfed his family in an embrace. He smiled, lost in his wife’s loving eyes, then tousled his son’s hair.
"I’m sorry," he said. "I’m so sorry."
Elizabeth shook her head. "Shh. It’s all right, sweetheart."
She kissed him, long and deep…and then Jason pulled away. He looked at her deeply and said the hardest words he had ever said: "You’re not real."
"We could be," said Aaron, and the little boy’s voice, while still Aaron’s, now carried an undertone of madness and despair. A voice from Hell that tried to masquerade as a small piece of Heaven.
And why not? thought Jason. Why shouldn’t I get comfort in this fashion. It’s more than I deserve, for letting them die.
"Please, Daddy," said Aaron, and reached out to touch Jason’s arm with a small hand that was half-human, half-monster. A gnarled hybrid of innocence and destructive evil that flickered before Jason’s eyes, as though trying to decide whether to appear as salvation or damnation.
Lenore screamed in the distance, barely audible.
Jason left his wife’s embrace and turned to the sound. He stepped away from the ghosts of his past.
"Don’t," shouted Elizabeth – or the thing that Elizabeth had been.
Jason shut his eyes. He kept moving away.
"Daddy!" shouted Aaron. It was too much. Jason looked back at his family, weeping openly.
The mist billowed around them, strange and deadly.
Jason saw a hand push out of the mist: a gun, pointed at the back of Elizabeth’s head.
No, he thought. I never saw it happen, not even in The Dream, not ever, please, God, don’t let me see it happen.
"Save us," said Elizabeth. "You can save us. You just have to let go."
"Don’t let me die, Daddy," said Aaron.
Jason closed his eyes. "You’re already dead," he said. "And I have to save Lenore."
He turned away. Two shots rang out. Jason fell to his knees. "No!" he screamed, and all the terror and anger and anguish and loneliness of the past years were packed into the scream. It was so loud that his voice grew hoarse and raw and he could only sustain it for a few seconds. A few seconds of eternal hell, reliving his family’s death again.
And perhaps worst of all, Lenore was no longer screaming. She was gone.
***