Dastardly Bastard(51)

“You look good.” Mark laughed, and it felt far too good.

Annabelle looked away, grimacing. The corner of her mouth lifted. She seemed as if she was considering something. Mark knew what that was even before she said it. He wondered, if Annabelle wasn’t a projection of his own mind after all.

“It can only get you if you let it.” Annabelle looked back down at him and nodded. “Right? I mean, you’re not really here. Are you? I don’t think any of you know exactly where you are, but that doesn’t matter. You’re not here. You’re not lying on a broken door. There’s no wood in your knee. And I don’t exist. Not really. Not anymore.”

“Thank you, Annabelle.”

“Oh. You’re welcome.”

“Right.” Mark nodded. “Now if I can just—”

He wrenched his leg loose of the snag. The pain exploded far too much to be just in his mind, but he didn’t let that stop him. He was on to something. He began pulling himself off the floor. Annabelle was already walking away. She was heading straight for a wall.

“Hey,” Mark called. “I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

“I know. Me, too.” She shrugged. “But whatcha gonna do?” She pointed out the door behind Mark. “I suggest you do something about that. Good luck.” Annabelle vanished through the wall.

He turned around, steeling himself for the battle at hand. The monster was lumbering around on the front lawn. The thing wasn’t trying to come for him. Pacing back and forth across the expanse of the grassy area, it grumbled and fumed. Shards of chipped wood rained down from Trevor’s horrid mouth as he gnashed his teeth. Marsha hung from her side, eyes rolling around in her head, drool dripping from her lips. Jaleel laughed maniacally as if he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world.

Mark leaned forward, his belly pushing through the threshold out into the porch area. Trevor raged. Marsha’s eyes gazed upon Mark as if he were a tasty treat. Jaleel stopped his caterwauling long enough to train his eyes on Mark’s stomach. None of them met his eyes. They were all focused on his tummy.

He leaned back.

The monster went back to pacing.

“They can’t see me in here.” To test his theory, Mark stuck his arm out of the doorway, up to his elbow.

The monster bellowed. Marsha and Jaleel’s arms beat at Trevor’s chest, making the beast look like King Kong boasting to his beautiful blond goddess. When Mark pulled his arm back in, they calmed.

The realization had no explanation, but Mark couldn’t ignore the facts. When he was outside, it could see him. Inside, he was invisible. It didn’t make sense. Either way, Mark was glad for it.

He took his time assessing his knee. The wound stung as if someone had jammed hot coals under his kneecap, but the blood no longer ran. He dropped his pants leg back over his gash, then raised his uninjured leg. The injured one supported him just fine. Taking a short step forward, he found his knee didn’t even hurt anymore.

“Because you never hurt it.” Mark spoke the words, attempting to have faith in them. He needed to believe.

When he looked back down, his pants were no longer bloody. The red was gone, and so were the holes. Annabelle, or Mark himself, depending on how he looked at it, was right. He had nothing to be scared of; none of it was happening.

A different, more terrifying thought surfaced. “If my body’s not here, where the hell am I?”

Mark didn’t know if he was dreaming or not. Dreams didn’t hurt. Then again, pain was mental, a chemical reaction after injury.

Pain was only real when you took the time to realize it was there. Mark’d had plenty of time to think about his pain, even though he hadn’t realized he was injured until he tried to move his leg. Whatever powers were at work in the place had meant to slow him down. But why?

“Because it wants to play with the real me somewhere else.”

Mark knew he had created the pleasant visage of Annabelle as a survival method. Could he do more if he wanted to? He doubted he could go as far as summoning a Howitzer to help him destroy the monster in the front yard, but he might be able to do other things.

“Use them. Use the memories the son of a bitch tried to use against you. Give those boys one last hoorah! Fuck the dumb shit. Give ‘em a win!”

“Present and accounted for, Mr. Simmons!”

Mark found the faces of the dead when he turned around, every soldier ready and awaiting orders. He was no commanding officer, but those were his memories. His army. Mark would use them because a man couldn’t die twice, and those soldiers were far past revival.

Mark called them all by name and rank, just as he had in that hallway back when Annabelle was still missing half her head.

Well, he had his own legion. They all looked very ready and very pissed off. The unrequited dead harbored memories, their lives snatched from them far too soon. Mark would use that. Though they were not his memories, he would imagine they were. He knew how every one of those soldiers had died. He’d chronicled their lives and their deaths.

“Atten-hut!” Mark ordered. “You ladies and gentlemen ready?”

“Sir! Yes, sir!”

“It doesn’t look too tough!”

“Light the fires and kick the tires!”

“Hoorah!”

“Have at ‘em, guys!” Mark stepped to the side, letting his army file out of the door. One by one they went, the fallen, the torn, the ravaged men and women who had given their lives for a war most of them didn’t fully understand. He just hoped it would finally lay them to rest. At least in his own mind.