Mirage

 

I walked around the car and got in the back with Sweets. I heard Xero scoff from outside. He slammed the passenger door shut and got in the driver’s seat.

The engine buzzed to life and we began driving. I placed Sweet’s head unto my lap and looked for any bruises that had formed. I found a few too many. Poor boy, he didn’t know anything. “You have an ice packs in the car?” I asked soothing his forehead. “Sweets is bruising.”

Xero reached into the glove compartment, got out a small packet, and flung it back without looking. It hit me square in the face and flopped down on Sweet’s head.

Xero drove like a grandpa. Every turn was slow and almost too calculated. Heck, he tried to see if he could make it through when the signal light had turned yellow. “Where are we going?” I spoke again.

He ignored my and continued driving. I slipped a hand under Sweets head to cushion it and kicked Xero’s seat hard. “AH!”

“Where the hell are we going?” I spoke through my teeth.

“We are going to a safe house!” he snapped making an abrupt left turn. “The vampires will be looking for us by now. Don’t worry, you’ll survive without your air-conditioned house for a few days...”

When was having money a bad thing? In many cultures wealth represents good health and being blessed by God. Apparently, Xero didn’t think I was much of blessing.

We drove out of town for at least two hours. No attempts of small talk were made which made sense since I did blackmail him into cooperating. It was about two in the morning when we reached a shabby looking cabin on the outskirts of some woods that might as well be the picture perfect hunting ground for a cannibalistic serial killer. Xero turned the engine off and opened my door to help Sweets.

“This is our safe house?” I grunted as I took held his legs up so Xero could slide him out.

“Yeah,” Xero said breathlessly as he slung his friend over his shoulder.

“This looks like house made out of straws from the Three Little Pigs,” I remarked and got out of holding my ragged dress together.

“That’s just an illusion,” he defended, walking ahead. “It supposed to divert all attention from it. In real life it’s actually a three story bungalow.”

“Huh,” I said. I stared at the cabin with more concentration. “I don’t see it.”

He spun around. “Here,” he said. “Lemme’ help.”

Before I could reply, Xero lifted his hand and flicked my forehead hard. “Ouch!” I gasped. “What the hell!”

“What? That didn’t help?” He faked confusion. “Weird. Give it some time, honey.”

If my forehead looked like Sweets’ tomorrow morning then we were going to have a problem. We reached the Magic Cabin but it had no keyhole. Xero took his freehand and placed it on the centre of the wooden door. Multiple clicks were heard and then the door swung open.

Warm air gushed out of the opening, blowing my hair back.

We entered and I saw how right he was. This was no rundown cabin, this was something that belonged to a fantasy game. The beige walls decorated with old paintings and medieval weapons were so high that I couldn’t see where they ended. There had got to be more than three floors. “Wow,” I whistled taking my shoes off by the entrance.

Xero gave an involuntary chuckle and threw Sweets rather roughly on a faded red couch. He walked over to a cabinet at the corner of the room and started taking some medicine and bandages out. “So,” I started walking aimlessly around. “You live here?”

“No,” he answered curtly. “I don’t live here . . . anymore. This is more like a safe house for people like me.”

“And they would be?”

“Hunters,” he spoke after a small pause. “I am― I used to be one.”

“What do Hunters do?” I asked as he closed the cabinet shut and walked over to Sweets.

“There are two types of Hunters,” he said, and took a seat beside his passed out friend. “Some serve as a type of supernatural police; making sure all creatures behave properly and don’t interfere with the humans. Then there are the other type, they take actions when supernatural creatures act out despite given multiple warnings.”

“Which one are you?”

“Both,” he replied screwing some Tylenol open. He stopped and looked at me from head to toe. “You need a change of clothes . . . and a shower.”

What a gentleman, I thought.

“Go upstairs,” Xero instructed. “There will be a room right beside the staircase. The closet there is enchanted so you will find some clothes. Take a shower while you are at it, you smell like vampire ash and sweat.”

What a gentleman, I thought.

“Don’t wander off. Go straight to your room. Also, don’t go to the third floor,” he continued. “It’s off-limits.”

“Why?” I squinted at him. “What’s on the third floor?”

He sighed and rubbed his temples in frustration. “This house is alive,” he said. “Over the years of continuous supernatural activity, it has developed a conscience of its own. Every object and evidence collected from all unearthly cases is stored here. We aren’t alone in here. So, if you want to make it out alive, do not roam around.”

I didn’t know how to feel about that. The idea of someone watching me that I couldn’t see myself was extremely eerie. I turned around without speaking and went upstairs.

Xero was right about the closet being enchanted; there were a pair of black shorts and t-shirt folded nicely inside. The idea of having a pervert ghost watching me made me too paranoid so I took a shower with my clothes on. The time between getting out of my wet clothes, drying myself, and changing into the ones, I wanted to die of embarrassment. I got out of the bathroom smelling like mint body wash and went downstairs.

Sweets was up and hyperventilating. I silently turned around to go back up but Xero glanced up and saw me. “Look!” he exclaimed, grinning in relief. “Tamara is here! She’ll tell you that I am not a blood crazed vampire!”

I cleared my throat and begun, “He is right. He isn’t a― Wait a second! You are too strong to be human.”

Sweets cried and scrambled away from him, crying while rubbing his now uneven head. Xero shot me a nasty look. “I am human,” he said through his teeth. “You have seen me bleed, Sweets.”

“No,” his friend shook his head. “Tamara is right, you are too strong.”

“How are you so strong?” I added on, taking a seat next to them.

“Natural Selection,” Xero answered. “My dad and I used to be Hunters.”

“What are Hunters?” Sweets asked the same time I asked, “Where is your dad?”

Xero looked like he’d rather be back at the club getting battered than stay another moment with us. His annoyance made me happy.

“I am going to explain this only once . . . more,” he said. “I am a Hunter. Most Hunters are people who can trace their roots back to these Spirit Warriors, but humans can be Hunters. We go after the bad guys, usually monsters. Yes, they really do exist, and no, I am not joking around. My dad and I used to work together until he died of old age. I quit a few years later when my best friend got killed on a job.”

“You didn’t tell me you were related to Spirit Warriors,” I protested, feeling deprived of key information the same Sweets murmured, “I thought I was your best friend.”

Xero looked like he wanted to through himself of a cliff. “You are my best friend,” he told him. “And before you ask if I want a hug I would like to say ‘no, thank you’. Anymore questions?”

We shook our head.

“Great,” he said and clapped his hands on his thighs. “Moving on to more important things. We will likely be here for a few days. Is there anyone you’d both like to contact to tell them you are safe? Friends? Family?”

“I am good,” I said. “I don’t go to school.”

“Did they kick you out because you were too stupid?” he asked faking sympathy.

I wish he’d burn in hell. “No,” I answered. “The kids at my school found out my mum was black and wouldn’t talk to me anymore.”

Xero looked embarrassed.

“You are biracial?” Sweets laughed with some pain. “Me too! I am half Macedonian and a quarter Chinese and Vietnamese.”

I was liking Sweets more and more. “It’s so great that you are getting along,” Xero said, smiling animatedly. “We can now all be best friends and paint each other’s nails.”

I took a breath to restrain myself from hitting him. “I am going to sleep,” I announced with great difficulty. “We will discuss what happens next tomorrow. Good night.”

I flew upstairs and shut the door to my bedroom. I noticed that the furniture inside had changed position. Great, I thought. Now I might wake up in the middle of the night on a bed that’s floating in midair.

I laid on the bed warily, making sure that my arms and legs weren’t hanging off the sides. A few seconds later I fell asleep.

I don’t recall when I woke up, or if I woke up at all, but when my head was no longer lethargic from tonight’s events, there was only one thought in my mind: I had to find it.

What did I have to find? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I supposed to be searching.

I left the room quietly and entered a corridor that spread out in two opposite directions. I took a left and found a staircase going up. I took a step as gingerly as possible but the timber floor boards creaked anyways. I arrived in another corridor. There, I saw it. A pale wooden door waited at the end.

I made my way towards, pushed it open, and suddenly I was back inside my father’s study.

There he was, hunched over his work, scribbling notes in a messy handwriting that no one could read except of me.

“Daddy!” I called out and his head snapped at my direction. Only, he wasn’t look at me but something a few steps to my right. I looked to the side and saw no one there.

His expression changed from one of great concentration to one of absolute horror. He reached into a drawer, pulled out a lighter, and lit it.

Elvis started singing once again.

“Stay away from me!” my father roared. “Don’t come closer!”

His hands found a faded brown book that he was studying. He knocked it of the edge sneakily and cushioned its fall by using his foot. The heavy book bounced in his food and slid underneath a book shelf behind him.

“I swear to God if you come near me I will set you on fire,” he warned.

Whatever it was that I couldn’t see, made its way towards him. I saw it carving its way through the piles of books covering the carpet in a straight line leading to my father. All of a sudden my father begun gasping for air. I screamed.

It had lifted him a few inches off the ground by his neck. He coughed and clawed at it. I screamed again.

It threw him on the carpet and he landed amongst his prized literature.

“Dad! No!” I yelled and moved towards him.

His face jerked to the side and I skidded to a stop. “I don’t have it,” he answered to an unheard question. “I swear I don’t have it. Please, just let me go.”

His grey hair was pulled back as a punishment for lying. My father laid, pinned down, with his throat exposed on the floor.

This was it, I remembered. This was where he died; where I found him. I would see him die.

“Tamara,” he looked right at me. “Tamara . . .”

Just as a streak of red appeared on his skin a hand covered my wet eyes. I stood still, the hair on the back of my neck standing still.

“Whatever you are seeing, it’s not real,” Xero spoke in my ear. “I know it seems like it is but it is not.”

“I saw him,” I told him. “He saw me. He spoke to me.”

“That was just the room playing tricks on you,” he explained. “It picks up painful memories from your conscious and plays them on a loop.”

“But I-I didn’t see any of this―”

“It guesses the rest,” he cut me off, “but that’s not important. You need to let go. This place, it feeds off your thoughts. Give it too much and it can reshape all of reality. You have to stop thinking about your father.”

“I can’t,” I sobbed holding on to his hands that covered my face. “I can’t stop. I have to see how it would happen.”

“No, you don’t,” the Hunter replied. “None of this is real. Don’t think about what happened that night. If you don’t stop it will incinerate your mind.”

I wanted to stop but it was impossible. Every part, every inch of me wanted to see. I had to find out the truth. I had to see who was responsible.

My father’s face when he said my name flashed in front of my shut eyes. He would give me that look when I try following him in unstable grave sites when we would go exploring together. He would say ‘don’t follow me inside, Tamara. Go back to the base where it is safe’ without saying anything at all.

My daddy wanted me to be safe. He always wanted me to be protected.

“What do I do?” I asked, clearing my throat. “How do I stop?”

“I want you to see this place for what it really is,” he spoke louder with distaste. “It’s just a room. An empty abandoned with absolutely nothing inside!”

I gave him a nod.

“I am going to move my hands now,” Xero said. “Are you ready?”

“Alright.”

He moved his hands and stepped away. I saw the room for the first time. He was mostly correct, the room was vacant. Except from the corner of my eye I saw a hunchbacked figure bound my thick rusted chains that had wrapped themselves around it.

“Let’s leave,” Xero spoke, reclaiming my attention. “Come on.”

He took my arm and we walked backwards slowly. The creature hooded head followed me until we were out of the sight.

We stood still, looking into the pitch darkness of the room until Xero turned me around so I faced the stairs.

“We are going downstairs now,” he announced. I obeyed and let him guide me away.

 

 

Behind, I heard the door snap close with fury.