The Pale: Volume One, Jacob Long [best beach reads TXT] 📗

“And you shall be returned to the material plane. The energy you absorbed from the ethereal predator’s life force is more than enough to allow you to do this, but you are unfamiliar with your new abilities. You will need my help to guide you back. Once back on earth, you will use the powers that you have been given to enforce the will of the Wheel of Fate. Hunt down these aberrations of existence and restore balance to the energies of life and death.”

“I’m ready,” Adam said flatly. “Where to first?”

“I will be transporting you to your hometown of Farol Verde, California,” the Custodian answered.

Adam’s jaw slackened. He hadn’t expected that.

The Custodian continued, “It has come to my attention that a stable mutation has begun victimizing the populace there. However, the soul is unhinged from the Wheel of Fate. I cannot tell you an exact location.”

“There’s a monster in Farol Verde?” Adam asked. He bowed his head in thought. “Of course, the chupacabra,” he breathed.

“The chupacabra?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah. I’ve heard about these attacks. People were calling it a chupacabra.”

The Custodian simply said, “Perhaps it is an apt name.”

Adam shook his head. He doubted goat sucker was the apt name. “But . . . that would mean that it’s not just in my city,” he said. “It’s in my old neighborhood! I need to leave right now!”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” the Custodian commented. “Very well. I will return you to the material plane. After that, I will not be able to affect your life and cannot help you.”

Adam was overexcited to be back home. He bounced restlessly on the balls of his feet. “That’s fine. I don’t need it. Let’s go.”

“Very well,” the Custodian said.

In the next moment, the world around Adam began to warp as if distorted in a funhouse mirror. Colors became amorphous, and shapes melded into one another like a lava lamp. The bizarre effect disoriented Adam. All at once, he felt as if he were upside down and spinning. He could feel his body being tugged at from every direction. Soon the melded colors began to realign in a different configuration. All Adam could tell of it at first was that the colors were much darker and more natural. The pale cyan was gone and was being replaced with a multifaceted darkness. Unclear shapes began to form. Adam could feel his body being pressed back together as if the air around him was incredibly dense and pushing on him from all sides.

When the world snapped back into place, Adam was assailed by somehow unfamiliar sensations. He was standing in a deep forest at night and the air was cool on his exposed skin. The full moon kissed the trees with its pale ambience, and a blanket of leaves coated the forest floor. The gravity of the world exerted its ever-present force on Adam, and in the wake of this turmoil, Adam simply tipped over like a fallen tree and flopped onto the ground, face-first.

The landing was soft, courtesy of the leaves, but still, Adam’s whole body ached. Supporting himself in the ethereal realm was so much easier than supporting his true weight in the material realm. He needed to rest. The toll phase-shifting had taken on Adam’s body was immense. He could tell why he needed the creature’s soul to accomplish it. Anything less might have killed him, if that made any sense.

Adam knew he should try to stand, but he was simply too demotivated. He didn’t want to move, so he just lay there, the cold breeze dancing over his back and bare buttocks. Even keeping his eyelids open was a chore. He didn’t see a reason to fight it. He allowed his eyes to close. Sleep came quickly. Funny, Adam didn’t think he would have to sleep anymore.

7

The sleep that came to Adam was peaceful, feeling empty and heavy all at once like the infinite stillness of death. Like the void that cradled him before he was thrust back into the agony of consciousness by the Custodian of the Wheel of Fate. His only concern was that he might wake to find that he was still dreaming. A part of him hoped to stay in that darkness. At least there he was safe.

In defiance of Adam’s wishes his eyes opened, and it was still the dead of night in the leafless white forest where he’d landed. The meager slice of earth he could see from his prone vantage was illuminated brightly by some unnatural light source other than the moon that cast mighty rays of light before Adam and equally deep shadows that obscured the forest beyond in pitch darkness. The shadows the leafless trees cast were hooked and clawed. The wind blew, and they grasped at the distant abyss.

A couple of loose dead leaves flittered past Adam’s vision, and he watched them pass from his slothful resting place. At least he could take solace that it wasn’t a hospital. There was no nurse and no harsh fluorescent lighting. No familiar faces were waiting to greet him to a new nightmare. It was the cold of the forest that had aggravated him from his exhausted slumber. His body simply wouldn’t abide it in his sleep. Some of the exhaustion had dissipated, but Adam still didn’t feel nearly as strong as he had before making the jump back to the world of the living. Point of fact, he still didn’t want to move. He felt a weight on him different than weakness. It was the same defeated reluctance to get out of bed he felt on mornings he would wake up just knowing the day was going to be hard.

But Adam had to come to terms with his reality. He’d asked to be sent back to earth for a reason, so he lifted his arms and braced them against the ground, then pushed and clambered to his feet. His stance wavered at first, but he maintained his balance by leaning against the nearest white-barked tree. The bright light illuminating his immediate area drew Adam’s attention to a house on the edge of the forest. The radiance was being produced by a kind of obnoxious floodlight some paranoid was using to light his back porch, only it boasted the sort of lumen count that made Adam feel like he was staring into the disapproving eyes of God.

At least it was civilization.

Adam blundered toward the light. Being newly reborn, he had to learn to walk again. He swayed in the wind like a drunkard for his first few steps, staggering into another tree. He still felt heavy, like he’d just waded from a swimming pool.

Each tree in Adam’s path served as goalposts for his forays into infantile movement. He would take a few steps and then support himself against one before his body had a chance to fail him. Pointy plant life poked at his tender feet and gusts of wind weaved their way through the trees. They assailed him with their chilling caress.

Adam recoiled and wrapped his arms around his nakedness. “Jesus,” he huffed. “I need some clothes.”

Adam had nearly reached his goal. Each of his footsteps had gradually become more assured. At the edge of the forest, he huddled up against a tree to conceal himself the least bit. From there, he could make out other houses in a neat row further on. The forest in which the Custodian had dropped him appeared to be at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac. Houses and streetlights lined each side of the road ahead. Adam didn’t recognize the stubby stretch of pavement. The houses were alien. Adam found it hard to believe the Custodian would transport him somewhere besides Farol Verde on accident, but in the dark, he was as lost as a child.

With no alternative, Adam stepped away from the meager camouflage of the white tree and onto the lawn of the house equipped with God’s laser eye. Adam didn’t want to walk on the street, especially naked, but he had to get somewhere he could recognize, so he cut across the neighborhood’s various backyards. None of them were fenced, at least not with wood panel fencing. The only fence Adam did see as he crossed the lawns was on a dog kennel. The dog was alerted by Adam’s presence and started barking incredibly loud. It jumped from its resting place and pounced on the chain-link. Adam wasn’t afraid of the dog or of the noise it was making. It was the kind of noise people usually ignored. Who knows how many times it had barked at far less interesting things in the dead of night while everyone was trying to sleep.

Before long, Adam had decided the area probably was Farol Verde, just the poor part of town. That’s why he didn’t recognize it. He had little to no dealings with the place in life. His family didn’t live there. They were well-to-do, and so were Adam’s friends. His best friend’s parents were both in medicine. Adam’s decision to join the Army had blown everyone away. He had the means to do anything, but he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his dad.

Adam continued down the lane, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. Eventually, he came to the end of the block. Crossing the street was a unique experience. From a distance, he probably looked like something from Close Encounters. Someone could have taken a blurry picture of him sneaking around and sold it for money. He was that shifty and out of place.

For a good while, it seemed as if Adam wasn’t getting anywhere. The suburban sprawl continued without end in the distance. Adam desperately didn’t want to break into anyone’s home. Even if there did happen to be a man living in the house he entered—who he didn’t want to meet—there was no guarantee the clothes he found would even fit. He needed a clothing store. He needed a commercial district.

Finally, the residences parted to reveal local businesses. These buildings looked dilapidated as well, but that was good. In the richer part of town, people would still be walking the street at that late of an hour, and a small thrift store would do Adam just fine.

Trepidatiously, Adam crept down the sidewalks. No one was around. He could walk along, checking the facades of buildings to find what he sought. He found what looked like a specialty clothing store not even a full block from the end of the residential area. It was something like a boutique. Cupping his hand to the showcase window, Adam figured he could maybe make out men’s clothing at the back.

It was good enough. Adam slid over to the front door and tried to pull it open. The glass door held fast, of course. In a neighborhood like that, no one could be too careful. Then again, maybe the rich part of the city was worse for crime, he didn’t know.

What he did know was that the door wouldn’t budge. Adam looked down at his hand and slowly formed it into a fist. As awful as it sounded to admit, the concerns of this store owner over his or her wares was nothing compared to the immense gravity of concerns that weighed on the champion of the Wheel of Fate, and Adam possessed the means to take whatever he wanted if he felt it would help him accomplish his mission in any capacity.

Without much hesitation, Adam rammed his fist into the glass door. The glass cracked as if struck by a softball perhaps, but it wasn’t old low-grade residential glass. It was made to resist impact. The result was that Adam did little more than hurt himself. He recoiled in pain and held his throbbing hand with the other, making little hops.

As Adam groaned and hopped, he lamented his stupidity. He could have broken his hand. He very well might have. He was weak. The soul of the monster had been spent, assuming that any of that craziness had actually transpired, and Adam wasn’t still trapped in a traumatic nightmare. He likely didn’t have any more strength than a regular human being.

A car pulled around the corner down the street and drove in Adam’s direction. Adam quickly ran to the far side of the boutique and pressed himself against the rough brick of