Marked Read online

  I was going to need to push the Mark again, at least a little. The realization made me wince inside. I still felt as if I had ravaged myself.

  But we needed a safe place to hole up for at least eight hours.

  I pushed the Charger into Chaos again. As the universe boiled apart around me, I felt a twinge quite aside from the effort of using my Mark. As a billboard for the National Progressive Party USA swirled away into an inconstant pattern of light and shadow that might have been a billboard, or a lamppost, or a tree, or a road sign, I couldn’t help thinking about the cop I had left by the side of the road.

  Did he boil away like the sign as Ivan suggested? Did he just cease to exist? Did his whole history, birth, awkward adolescence, service in the military in a bizarro version of World War II, his stint in the police academy, marriage, birth of his kids—did all of that just disappear along with billions of other unique individuals just because I was no longer focused on them?

  I couldn’t think like that; it was madness. If Ivan truly believed that’s what happened, he almost had to believe that those people, those billions, were meaningless. Stationary. I couldn’t accept that idea. It meant that Mom and Dad—even Jacob—were just some meaningless side effect of the Mark. Ivan was wrong because he had to be.

  The bouncing of the Charger’s suspension brought my attention back to the Chaos surrounding us. I struggled to get my grip back around the roadway. Jacob or Ivan had become alarmed and had started talking excitedly. I ignored them to focus on the trembling breathless effort of the Mark pushing against me, against the car.

  I couldn’t keep this up.

  I tried to grope around the seething randomness, feeling for something concrete, like the road beneath us. I tried to pull us toward somewhere safe, where we could rest. When I touched something within the swirling twilight, I pushed the Charger out of Chaos and into another world of blazing noontime light and broken asphalt.

  I let the car roll to a stop and gasped with the effort. A painful spasm slammed into me, and I was surprised it didn’t leave me bleeding.

  No more of this, I thought. No more.

  I looked up from the wheel and looked down the road. The road itself was gravel and ill-maintained, with crumbling shoulders, massive potholes holding brown pools of water, and weeds invading from the edges. Tall grasses waved in the wind on either side of us, and beyond the tops I could make out the roofline of a barn to our left.

  I started the car rolling again, slowly on the broken roadway. We passed a battered sign half-fallen into the weeds by the roadside. Through the sun-faded paint and rust I could make out “State Line 15 Miles.”

  “If my sense of direction holds,” I told my passengers. “We’re almost at the Maryland border.”

  “Dana?” Jacob sounded worried.

  “What?”

  “You don’t sound well. Are you okay?”

  You’re kidding, right? I sucked in a breath and put on a brave front, more for Ivan than Jacob. I think if it’d just been Jacob with me, I might have let my guard slip. A little. But, instead, I pasted on a smile, said, “Everything’s fine,” and gritted my teeth. I tried to ignore the throbbing from parts of me that really never should throb.

  Wherever we were, it looked abandoned, which was fine with me. I followed the broken road until I saw the remains of a decaying split-rail fence being reclaimed by the tall weeds at the side of the road. I kept my eyes open until I pulled up to the wreckage of a gate. The driveway was close to invisible from the overgrowth, but it was there. I pulled to a stop in front of it and looked back at the other two. “Help me move the gate,” I told them.

  They were a set of wooden gates that had gone gray and warped. The two halves had been chained shut at one time, but while the chain had fused to itself, the gate to the left had so weakened that pulling on the chain caused a section of wood to disintegrate. That gate was more rotted than its twin, but it also had sunk in and buried itself in the ground, making it immobile.

  We worked on the other side, spending nearly twenty minutes forcing it open. In the end, the hinges refused to give, but the post—weakened with dry rot—decided to snap free at the base, sending all of us into a ditch by the side of what had once been a broad gravel driveway.

  I checked the ground for foreign objects, picking up a few long nails and tossing them aside. I pulled the Charger up, through the gate, and then about another ten feet into the weeds. Then I jumped out and locked it up.

  “What?” both Jacob and Ivan began to say.

  “I want it off the road.” I waved ahead, along the overgrown gravel drive. “And since I can’t see the driveway, I’m not driving it any farther than this. I’m not getting us stranded with a flat tire.”

  “Now what?” Jacob asked.

  “Should be a farmhouse up this driveway, and given the state of the property, I think it’s unoccupied.” I turned to find my way along the long, overgrown gravel driveway, I trusted the guys to follow me. More accurately, I was so burned out that I was preoccupied with finding a place to rest a while. If there was no immediate danger, they both could lie down in the weeds for all I cared.

  The drive was covered with waist-high grass, which still separated it from the old pastures where the growth had reached chest-level. It had obviously been years since anything had grazed here. I walked up a hill and when I crested it, I could see the remains of the farm over the weeds.

  I saw acres that were still recognizable as long-abandoned cornfields, I could see stalks poking up out of weeds, still following hints of the original field’s geometry. Closer, nestled in the weeds at the edge of the field, I saw the skeletal hulk of an ancient tractor listing toward the corn as if it had unfinished business.

  The barn stood, sun-bleached and swaybacked, between the cornfield and the farmhouse. Parts of the walls had fallen away so that, in places, I saw the sun shining all the way through it.

  The house seemed much more solidly built. Sun had blasted the old Victorian building until all the colors had turned variants of bone gray, and some of the gingerbread trim and about half the shingles had fallen away. But the walls were straight, and most of the windows still reflected a glassy stare at me.

  I had asked my Mark for a safe place to rest, without any people. I wondered if I could really trust that.

  Lord, what choice do I have?

  I was too tired to try and push through to find someplace less haunted-housey. I walked down through the weeds toward the empty house. I heard Ivan and Jacob following behind me. Jacob wondered aloud what happened to the place.

  I shrugged. I didn’t much care, even if it was kind of eerie. It was even more so when I thought that the main road had seemed just as abandoned. It didn’t much matter; whatever happened to this place had happened a long time ago.

  I got an idea how long ago when I tripped over a wood plank shoved in the ground. It brought me up short and looked down at it. The wood was weathered, untreated gray, and carved in the face were the words: Abigail Miller, b. 1910 d. 1919.

  I stared and found my mind returning to my mother. I bit my lip and knelt down to straighten the grave marker. As I did, Jacob said, “There’re more.”

  There were more. Seven markers for the Miller family, ages ranging from infant to just seventy years old. From the dates carved in the boards, three generations had all died between 1918 and 1919. I touched Abigail’s marker, from the dates, Abigail had lived at least long enough to see her grandmother and two of her siblings go.

  Good lord, what would that be like? I’d just buried my mom, and I still hurt from how my dad died—I couldn’t imagine watching an entire family wiped out in such a short time. I couldn’t imagine being the one left to dig the graves.

  “Flu,” Jacob said.

  I looked up and asked, “What?”

  “The Spanish Flu hit around then, the end of World War I.” />
  I turned back to the house and shuddered. “Is it safe, then?”

  “It looks like it’s been a decade or two,” Jacob said.

  I nodded, only half convinced. I wondered how often people like me and Ivan, travelers with a Mark, spread a disease to a population that had never been exposed to it? How many times had a population been devastated by some virus that had come out of nowhere?

  I straightened up and looked back over the abandoned farm. The tractor was the only sign of the twentieth century here, and I realized its skeletal appearance was less decay than it was obsolete design. I also now noticed the absence of any telephone poles or wires, nor was there any sign there had ever been exterior lighting on house or barn.

  The jet lag and general disorientation hit me full force. Not only did I know that this place had a much different history than the world I was familiar with, I had no real idea where in that history we stood. Back on the freeway, I felt as if we’d been in some version of the fifties after a very different World War II. Where we stood now? I didn’t know other than 1919, the latest year on the grave markers, had come and gone. I had no idea how long ago, though. Ten years? Twenty? Thirty?

  “Dana?”

  Jacob’s voice shocked me awake. I had closed my eyes and had been nodding off while I was standing there. I glanced up at the hard blue sky and said, “Let’s find a place to rest.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE FARMHOUSE FELT like a corpse that had dried and mummified into an empty husk. Wood furniture had turned gray and showed long splits where the wood had dried and shrunk. The padded couch in the living room had gone gray with dust, and some animal had long ago made a nest in its innards, cannibalizing it from the inside. Guano and old feathers coated the flat surfaces in the kitchen where the windows had lost their glass.

  I’d been afraid that we’d find the last Miller in one of the rooms, but whoever had dug the last grave had not stuck around to greet us. The only dead things in the house were mice and birds.

  The beds, of course, were hopeless. Not that I liked the idea of sleeping in a dead guy’s bed even if it wasn’t a literal rat’s nest or covered with bird droppings.

  Fortunately, Jacob found a cedar chest that had seemed proof against bugs and mice and managed to pull out two large quilts that were only slightly musty. He tossed one to Ivan and told him to find a spot to rest. He gave the other one to me. “You, especially. Get some sleep.”

  The quilt felt dry and smelled of dust and cedar so strongly it made me want to sneeze. I glanced into the chest, and there wasn’t anything left inside. “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s a big quilt,” I said somewhat lamely. We stared at each other for a long time as if we were both struggling to admit what I had just offered. I remembered Ivan with some embarrassment and looked over toward him, but he had already stepped out of the room.

  I looked back at Jacob and unnecessarily elaborated, “We can share.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right with that?”

  I turned around so he couldn’t see my expression. “Come on and let’s find a spot where we can lie down.”

  * * *

  —

  THAT spot turned out to be on the Victorian’s wraparound porch, which turned out to offer the cleanest surface to spread out the quilt. Ivan had beat us to it and was already dozing, wrapped in a bundle to the right of the stairs leading up to the porch.

  I found a spot by the corner of the house where the floor of the porch didn’t seem too springy, kicked branches and other debris away with my foot, and spread the quilt on the cleared surface. As it settled down, I felt a twinge when I realized that this was a handmade quilt with an elaborate wedding ring design. Back home, something like this would fetch over a grand.

  I realized I was so tired my mind was wandering. I knelt and spread myself out on one side of the quilt. Every muscle in my body suddenly realized I had stopped moving and decided to melt. Even the Mark seemed to ache from fatigue and weigh me down. I don’t think I could have gotten back up if I wanted to.

  I heard Jacob grunt, lying down next to me. He didn’t touch me, but I felt his presence, and something made me roll over slightly, so I ended with my head leaning against his shoulder.

  “You okay?” he asked me.

  “Uh-huh,” I answered, already half asleep.

  “Why are we trusting Ivan?”

  I opened my eyes. “Jacob?”

  “You know nothing about him, and you’re letting him lead you into God-knows-what.”

  I sighed, reached over, and placed a hand on his chest. “I need to know,” I said. “And I don’t trust him, really. I trust you.”

  “Then does this make sense?”

  Very weakly, I shook my head “no” and closed my eyes.

  * * *

  —

  JACOB had a point. I had seen Ivan kill someone, and the only information I had about what was going on came from him. The deference he showed could easily be an elaborate act to get me . . .

  Get me to do what?

  Do exactly what we were doing.

  Deep down, I knew I was being played. I had been a cop too long to take Ivan at face value. It was obvious he was working some sort of angle. It was worse because even if I knew so for certain, I would still end up going with him. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t ignore the connection to my Mark, what it was, what it made me.

  Worse, I was certain that Ivan understood that about me. I hadn’t been too good at keeping that secret. It was obvious exactly how easily I could be manipulated about this.

  I fell asleep wondering if there was any way out.

  * * *

  —

  I dreamed of a tall cold building of stone and wood. Everything seemed huge, tapestries and furniture built for giants. The air smelled of smoke. I hid from the smoke and the noise and sobbed to myself. I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but I knew it had been bad. My nightshirt was scarlet with blood that wasn’t mine. I hugged myself, curled in a corner, rocking back and forth on my knees behind a tall chest, half behind a heavy tapestry that showed a man with a crown and a sword.

  The door to the room burst in, letting in the sound of men screaming and the crackling roar of something burning. A huge man burst into the room calling out an unfamiliar name, “Llewellyn! Llewellyn!”

  I saw the man’s face before he saw mine, and it was craggy and handsome and black with soot except where tears had drawn tracks across his cheeks. I knew the man—both my terrified dream-self, and the me that was somewhere aware I was dreaming.

  The huge man spinning desperately in the room was the same man who had appeared to pound on my window, who had been cut down by Ivan. My dream-self knew him but couldn’t bring herself to move or acknowledge his presence. I stayed where I was, rocking back and forth, as if nothing I did could change anything.

  The man drew the tapestry aside and found me. “I’ll take you to safety.” He spoke in Old English. “To your mother.”

  I didn’t respond to him or even look directly at him. I kept rocking back and forth. It was a dream, and I was going to wake up. Part of me knew that was true, but some other part of me realized that for the small girl huddling behind the tapestry it hadn’t been.

  The small dream girl said one thing as the man gathered her up.

  “Where’s Papa?”

  To my horror, as soon as I realized that I perceived an actual memory, the vision started falling apart. The scene was a phantom image that I could only see out of the periphery of my vision. When I focused on it with my full lucid attention, the part that was memory consumed itself. I stood in place of the blood-covered child, dressed like I had just come from work, holding my IMI Jericho 941 in my right hand as if I was just about to take down some suspect. The old man had vanished, to be replaced by my m
om on a hospital bed.

  The stone room had transformed itself into a hospital room; the only holdovers from the memory were the hanging tapestries, the smell of smoke, and the distant sounds of men fighting.

  I walked up to the side of the bed and said, “I’m sorry.”

  Mom looked up at me. “You know I’m not your real mother.”

  “I know.”

  “You were adopted.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe you should talk to her.” Mom raised a finger and pointed.

  I turned around and saw another woman, covered in blood, collapsed in the corner. The hospital room was gone, replaced by a cheap apartment. The dream girl had returned, hugging the woman as she died.

  I knelt next to them, asking, “What happened?”

  The dying woman coughed blood and said, “They killed your father.” She pointed at the anachronistically dressed corpse on the floor of the apartment. “He tried to kill you.”

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Your brothers . . .”

  * * *

  —

  . . .I woke up. I whispered a curse in frustration as I tried to grab the threads of the dream and fix them in my memory before wakefulness burned them all away. It was frustratingly elusive, the elements of clarity seemed irrelevant, while the parts that seemed important were shrouded if not completely gone.

  Some of it, at least, I was certain was a real memory, something that happened to me.

  I opened my eyes to the night-shrouded porch and whispered, “Llewellyn.”

  Jacob stirred next to me and said, “What?”

  “Nothing,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Too late,” he said. “I’m awake. What did you say?”

  “Llewellyn,” I repeated.

  Beyond the porch, night had come to cover the world in a silver-blue blanket. I saw the bottom edge of a fat moon just peaking under the eaves.