The Everborn Read online

  With that said...now, after hundreds of years of not having the power to do anything at all to speak of, Salvatia finally and absolutely had no choice but to rely on a wretched fourteen-year-old nobody of a Dreg.

  It was a bitch to be a Magdalene.

  To get right down to it, Salvatia held no love for Simon BoLeve. He was plainly her meal ticket to regaining the power to do things for herself once more...her meal ticket to regaining that power and with a vengeance. Simon could do whatever he chose to do with his end of the deal; she didn’t give a shit.

  Through Simon, she could potentially do whatever she wished, moreso than she ever could do as a human.

  Herself.

  She never held a greater hope in anyone other than herself. Ever. Until she learned of the existence of a Dreg. Until Simon.

  Because this time, everything depended on him, the little rat bastard. Everything depended on whether or not he wanted to help her...and it was all up to him helping her at the right time.

  Over the past five years, since her first proposition to Simon during the majestic catastrophe they’d both invoked at the Church of the Divine Jesus Christ, Salvatia manipulated and contrived numerous schemes for Simon to aid her in killing Andrew Erlandson.

  The hundreds of years of being able to do nothing more than to observe the physical realm had made her wise, and once she’d learned of the value in finding a Dreg, she knew what must be accomplished in order to walk once again as an interdimensional being, to have the ability to roam where living humans roam, to become physical as often as she wished. It was all cut and dry and good as pie: 1. Locate a Dreg. 2. Manipulate his life so that he could eventually freely choose without conscience to kill his own brother.

  Nobody said it would be easy.

  The chemistry Salvatia was concerned with dealt partly in the very thing that banished her into her Magdalene status in the first place. To reiterate, a Watchmaid cannot allow its Everborn to die, lest that Watchmaid become a Magdalene....

  Well....

  If she could manage a downhome Everborn death, yet even by the hands of its own soulless twin, which was a given, that Everborn’s Watchmaid would become banished to a Magdalene status all her own.

  And Simon, the Dreg, would conceivably claim his Everborn twin brother’s immortal Everborn soul.

  Most importantly, Simon’s brand spanking new immortal self would hold the power to proclaim Salvatia as his brand spanking new Watchmaid, therefore abolishing her Magdalene status and replacing poor, pitiful Bari who in turn would become a Magdalene herself. Of course. In theory.

  It made perfect sense.

  Also, lest one forget, it was prophesied.

  If it worked, no more Andrew, no more Bari. Just think of it: Simon and his Watchmaid, Salvatia instead.

  Simon and Salvatia. It had a ring to it.

  And, oh boy, it all wouldn’t stop there, not by a long shot.

  This sort of thing had never been done before. In all of time, no other Magdalene had made such an accomplishment. Potentially, a Magdalene reinstated as a Watchmaid may not be psycho-genetically bound to the rules of a normal Watchmaid. This would mean that her allegiance to her Everborn may not be instinctual or mandatory and she could roam about as she pleased pursuing her own interests. Hell...if Simon’s life should come to some fateful end, who knows? Maybe she would never become a Magdalene again! Oh, the blessed, unspeakable power!!

  If this was the case, the result of such a contrivance, then another factor stood to reason: any other Magdalene could come to her and she could let them in on her little secret. Perhaps she would hold the power to release them to become free and reinstated Watchmaid again, if all they would do was to but come to her and swear their allegiance.

  Hey, an army of vengeance-seeking ex-Magdalene nowWatchmaids exempt from the traditional rules....

  Under Salvatia’s leadership, they could very well rule the physical world.

  What a vision. It took centuries to develop.

  And it all depended upon whether or not Simon was in the mood to help her. She could only manipulate his life so much....

  It took five years for Simon to ultimately give in to a plan and to make an attempt to follow through with it.

  That, and it took five years for his consent to coincide with enough circumstances to make it happen...as usual, at the right place and at the right time....

  ***

  As far as Simon understood it, the plan, on the night of its execution, was supposed to have been this:

  He and the creature, which called herself Salvatia were to quietly make an entrance into the Erlandson residence together. Salvatia would simply step through the back door, materialize on the door’s other side, and open it for her cohort. Andrew Erlandson himself was, according to Salvatia’s keen foresight and intuition, guaranteed to be fast asleep beneath his warm and cozy Galactica spaceship squadron bedcovers. His mother and stepfather were to be fast asleep in the master bedroom. Bari, lastly, was suspected to be anywhere.

  Salvatia was to subdue Bari in an anticipated confrontation and effort to restrain her long enough for Simon to do Andrew in with a retractable razor...Simon’s weapon of choice; too noisy with a gun...and besides, no one could scream with a slit throat.

  The next step in the plan was to do away with Andrew’s mother and stepfather in the same manner, so that for the benefit of the Simon and Salvatia duo no stone was left unturned. There were other reasons, unsaid reasons, why Salvatia insisted on their deaths. Simon presumed that if this was indeed his brother and mother whose lives they were to take, the deaths of everyone in the household would close the door to any emotional curiosities plaguing Simon since day one. Salvatia did not want Simon turning sentimental on her...before, during, or after their dark deed.

  Then why did she bother telling Simon that this was his brother and mother in the first place?

  Salvatia had always seen to it that Simon would never get close enough to the real truth beforehand and went one step further in making sure his interests were kept to a minimum. This was not to be a family reunion here. It was imperative that Simon retained a physical and emotional distance.

  This was all very confusing, even for a young man primed for murder and the supposed unbelievable results to follow. What held Simon in check were those supposed unbelievable results, the unspeakable freedom for both him and the Magdalene afterwards, and they were just enough to numb any embedded desires that a young man would have to uncover the secrets of where he once belonged.

  But soon after he entered the house through the rear doorway and emerged quietly into the kitchen, making his way into the nebulous shadows of the expanse of living room, a deep familiarity struck him.

  He’d been here before.

  He withdrew a penlight from his jacket pocket and clicked the button that turned it on. Its beam was bright but narrow. Simon flashed it upon the fluffy red and green pillows of a couch and a love seat, upon a wooden coffee table he was inches away from knocking against with his knee. There was a television on a stand, its rabbit ears reaching upwards towards an oblong painting of a rocky seashore. To the left of him, there was a bookcase riddled with books, a recliner, a sewing machine on a large end table, a tabletop compact stereo upon a lengthy wooden entertainment center sporting record albums through an opened sliding door below. Behind him, as he turned, was a homely brick fireplace, and upon its mantle sat framed photographs as were likewise hung above upon the wall.

  He flashed the thin light across each one, momentarily studying the complete strangers displayed in each frame and portrait, one by one, with an occasional glance beside and behind him in wary alertness for any sign of Salvatia --who disappeared since his entrance-- or for anyone stirred from slumber by his presence or by the urge for a midnight snack.

  The immediacy of his situation left him with little time to peruse the way he preferred. He came across a snapshot of a dark-skinned black-haired man sporting a beer belly and a foot-long fish upo
n a boat at sea. Another was a portrait of a light-toned woman, probably in her early forties, with long brown hair and fleshy cheeks, flashing a stiffened smile and wearing a black evening dress before a generic backdrop of autumn leaves. Another portrait was of the two together, the previous man this time a bit older and more the woman’s age, in a wedding photograph.

  The next picture Simon came across was that of a boy, autumn leaves backdrop and everything, smiling whimsically and seated casually upon a stool.

  Simon gasped; the boy appeared young, about seven or eight years old. And he looked exactly like Simon did, when he was that age. Same boyish features, same brown hair even cut to nearly the same length and parted to the right, brown eyes and painted-thin eyebrows, rounded face and chin, straight pool-stick tip rounded nose....

  Before Simon could turn away, his penlight veered to yet another photograph, a photograph nestled dead center and prominent upon the fireplace mantle.

  The photograph was of two infant babes, side by side and against one another, heads touching, in button-up white bedtime knits decked in blue rocking horses, nested wide-eyed and lying face-up at the camera against an enormous white pillow.

  And they were very nearly a mirror image of each other.

  That was why Salvatia had bothered to tell Simon at the start that this Andrew was his brother, this brother he was to kill.

  It was true.

  And Simon would have found this to be true, eventually.

  He was confronted again by the feeling that he’d been here before, but this time the feeling was more profound, followed by a thought, perhaps, an awareness....

  He had lived here before.

  If this was the case, that his mother and brother had resided here since he was an infant and ever since...since whatever conflicting circumstances separated him from this house...they had remained here in anticipation of his return.

  That was silly. They would’ve considered him dead by now.

  Yet here he was.

  He returned.

  To kill them.

  His attentions were riveted from the fireplace mantle when he heard the screams and he turned to the vast living room darkness before him, his penlight poised. He moved rapidly past the furniture towards the entrance of the hallway. From there, he didn’t know which way to turn, for the screams had silenced.

  Standing within the hallway, his penlight flashed within the darkness upon an upright metal wall heater and upon one, two, three, four opened doors.

  He entered the opened door to his left. As he did, a commotion emitted from the hall behind him from one of the other rooms, followed by a deep bellowing gasp, a brisk ka-thump as though something struck against a wall, then the sound of shattering glass abrupt enough to be, perhaps, the toppling of a vase or some other fragile structure.

  Simon pivoted from the yawning entranceway of the first room, swung back, then turned back again to the disturbance, which suddenly silenced. He was panicked, unsure of himself or where to go, or, frankly, if he should remain in the house at all.

  Simon became at once struck with the possibility that there may have been someone resting within the room he now occupied, someone awakened by the same commotion and by now alert to his presence, someone who may be upon him before he knew it. He turned again anxiously and pressed himself further into this room, the nervousness which overwhelmed him tightening his grip upon the penlight in effort to maintain a steady focus, as well as a grip on his senses. His eyes searched, his penlight canvassed.

  There, before him, was an unkempt bed and a vacant room. Simon immediately knew, by the look of things, by the sight of the furniture and the posters and toys that this room belonged to Andrew.

  And Andrew was nowhere within.

  ***

  The sharp edge of the retractable razor was efficient enough to slice straight through a sheet of notebook paper as though it was air and the same effect applied to the unblemished skin over Simon’s right jawbone. He traced the bone line down from an inch before his earlobe and ceased just below the corner of his lips and short of his chin.

  He could feel the blood flow beautifully and rapidly across the lower side of his face and towards his neck, and he felt no pain. It gave him the sensation of shifting his cheek into a running drinking fountain, except that what flowed was warm.

  The warmth was good; Andrew’s room, in comparison, was cold, as was the rest of the house, as was the empty bed which Simon now sat upon.

  Cold, as was the smell of death. Simon could almost inhale the death, see it stream in vapors from his exhaled breath.

  Death. Fresh death.

  From the master bedroom, the room to the right down the hall past the furnace.

  It was his fault. He was to blame for this intrusion, for this crime. It all originated from his consent and he had been conditioned for it all along.

  Which was why it was a good idea to inscribe such a work of art upon his face, by the way. It gave him a subtly sublime comfort, an outlet for his guilt, a release from inhibited remorse...if, by this point in his very young life, he could feel remorse.

  This Salvatia entity, whoever or whatever she was, wherever she came from, was indeed real without a doubt, not a figment of a deranged and lonely child. If such a being could exist whose endeavors were responsible for Simon’s own daily realities, centered expressly on him, together with the munchkin minion of hers, which called himself Nigel, then the promises that brought him here must be true, just as true as she was real. It all stood to reason, the reason for his ultimate consent to take part in tonight’s escapade in the first place.

  Salvatia was real, Nigel was real, as real as his own existence. There lay the meaning of his life, the essence of his destiny…what Salvatia persuaded him to attempt with her held a logical purpose, a purpose for her, and a purpose for him. A salvation for both...to kill his own brother was to achieve salvation for him and for her, for all time.

  The problem was, he was never utterly convinced this was his own brother, his own family, the family residing in this house.

  Correction.....

  The family who now once resided....

  Now, after five years of wondering but never having been granted the opportunity to find out for certain, this was his family. For certain.

  And somehow, for some reason, his brother was nowhere to be found and remained alive. Simon had considered the possibility that Andrew wouldn’t be there, but he never expected to be as relieved over his absence as he was.

  He never expected the photographs in the living room, never expected to be pitted against the truth.

  He never anticipated the plan to go this way, to bring such enlightenment, to bring such woe.

  Salvatia was there, though, in the house, and by now anywhere. Having discovered Andrew’s absence, she took it upon herself to do away with the mother and the stepfather anyway...perhaps in rage toward a plan ultimately failed, perhaps to partially complete a plan already initiated if nothing more. From what Simon had gathered, Salvatia could materialize within a perimeter of twenty meters of him, being that he was special and all that. He was in the house and that was all it took for her to invade their bedroom and to kill them.

  Thus generated his first scar. It was his fault, for he never even knew the woman who was his own mother.

  The scar made him feel better, a little better.

  Held in the opposite hand from his razor was a children’s book, a ten-page flip-book depicting a monster upon each page, a cartoon scribbling per page for every childhood nightmarish atrocity a kid could imagine, each one an allegory for a child to understand and overcome. There was a monster in the closet, a monster under the bed, and on another page, even a monster among the dustballs behind the couch. Andrew must’ve enjoyed this book.

  Upon the opened page which Simon held within his lap and facing him was sketched simple beast, its contorted green body grimacing and awkward. The caption below its depiction read, plainly typed,

  SCR
ATCH

  ...the monster from outside.

  Suddenly Simon was distracted from this, from the blood, from the book, by Salvatia’s distant voice.

  The voice summoned him to the school park beyond the house across the street, away and into the night.

  And, reluctantly, he went.

  36.

  The Son of A.J. Erlandson

  Throughout the accumulated years of the average fourteen-year-old, one can experience many changes. Andrew Erlandson was, overall, no exception to this, but for him there had always been a small handful of constants.

  He had always lived within the same one-floor, three-bedroom Gilbert Street house, situated across the street from the Dr. Jonas E. Salk elementary school and the grass field posterior of Magnolia High.

  He had never known his father, A.J. Erlandson, the Hollywood B-movie director who disappeared from the world without so much as a fleeting farewell mere months before Andrew was born.

  Andrew’s mother was always there for him. She had raised him, bonded with him, took care of him, would’ve died for him. Andy’s mom shared with him the bewildered, empty grief of personal loss, the feelings of being only half a family...the lost other half nothing more than a perished void. That void was filled to a healing extent when his mother succumbed to a marriage proposal a handful of years ago making Dan Risselbërgen Andrew’s inevitable stepfather. And he was a good man. Andrew and his mother, however, chose to stick with their own last name.

  Bari was always there for him, too. When someone has lived with a presence like Bari since the first day he began to observe the world around him, that presence simply settles into it all and takes its place within the varied mental categories of normalcy. When Andrew was very young, he took it for granted that everyone knew about Bari as well as he did. He soon learned the contrary, that no one else knew about Bari but himself and decidedly his relationship with Bari was best kept secret. In the eyes of those around him, Andrew oftentimes retreated into a reclusive fantasy world, a world where Bari solely existed, and oftentimes Andrew himself questioned his own sanity during the long periods when Bari chose to remain quiet and unseen even by him.