searing pain in my head and realized that Jake was now holding a fistful of my hair. He was maneuvering the bike singlehanded. I ignored the scalding sensation and struggled harder, but my efforts were useless.
“Gotcha,” he purred. It was the sound of a contented predator.
Jake twisted the throttle hard and I heard the engine roar to life like an angry beast. The motorcycle bucked and lurched unsteadily forward. “Xavier!” I cried just as he reached us. We simultaneously outstretched our hands and our fingers nearly met. But Jake violently veered the bike so that it slammed into Xavier’s side. I heard a heavy thud as the metal slammed into his body. I screamed as Xavier was thrown backward and rolled limply onto the side of the road. Then I couldn’t see him anymore. The bike sped past, leaving him lying in a cloud of dust. Out of the corner of my eye I could see people starting to make their way up to the road, attracted by the commotion. I only prayed they’d find Xavier in time to help him.
The bike hurtled up the deserted highway that uncoiled before us like a black whip. Jake was driving at such breakneck speed that when we rounded a bend we found ourselves almost parallel with the ground. Every fiber in my body yearned to return to Xavier. My one true love. The light of my life. My chest constricted to the point where I couldn’t breathe when I thought of him lying motionless in the dust. My pain was so all consuming that I hardly cared where Jake was taking me to or what horrors awaited. I just needed to know that Xavier was okay. I tried not to allow myself to consider the worst although the word
There was nothing else to do but call upon the Creator, praying, begging, pleading, bargaining — anything to make him protect Xavier. I couldn’t have him ripped away from me like that. I could survive emotional turmoil; I could survive the most intense physical torture. I could survive Armageddon and holy fire raining down upon the earth, but I could not survive without him. A strange thought entered my head: If Jake had killed Xavier, Jake would have to pay. I didn’t care what divine laws forbade it — I would seek retribution for my loss. I was willing to pardon any crime, but one against Xavier, and so help me, God, Jake would get his comeuppance. I wanted to scratch and tear at the body in front of me — to punish him for once again infecting my life with his black presence. I felt contaminated even being near him. I considered flinging my weight to the side and trying to topple the bike. I knew that at the speed we were traveling, we’d probably both end up smeared across the asphalt, but I was desperate.
Before my thoughts could rage further out of control, something happened — something I could never have imagined, not even in my most twisted nightmares. It should have terrified me; the very idea of it should have knocked me into unconsciousness. It was so unfathomable that I felt nothing but a sickening feeling that seemed to come from my core and spread like poison through my body. The highway defied gravity and suddenly reared up in front of us. A deep, jagged crack appeared in its center. The highway was splitting open. The crack widened like a hungry cavernous mouth, waiting to swallow us up. The wind that whipped my face grew warmer and steam rose from the broken asphalt. I knew instinctively what it was from the feeling of hollow emptiness that emanated from it. We were heading straight toward a gateway to Hell.
And then it was upon us.
I screamed again when the motorcycle hovered a moment in midair. Jake cut the engine just before we plummeted soundlessly into the void. I turned around to see the aperture close behind us, shutting out the moonlight, the trees, the cicadas, and the earth I loved so much.
I had no idea how long it would be before I saw it again. The last thing I was aware of was falling and the sound of my own ragged screams before the darkness consumed us.
6
Welcome to My World
I looked around, disoriented, and shivered in my flimsy satin shift. I remembered nothing about how I’d come to be here. My hair was damp with sweat and the fluffy costume wings I’d been wearing were gone. I figured they must have come loose and been wrenched off during the turbulent ride.
There wasn’t anything about this place that was even vaguely familiar. I was standing alone in a dark and cobbled laneway. Fog swirled around my feet and the air was pungent with a strange odor. It smelled like decay as if the very air itself were dead. It looked like the derelict part of some urban landscape because I could see the smoky outline of skyscrapers and spires in the distance. But they didn’t look real — more like buildings in a faded old photograph — blurry and lacking in detail. Where I stood there were only brick walls covered in crude graffiti. The mortar had fallen out in places, leaving openings that someone had stuffed with newspaper. I heard (or imagined I heard) the scuttling of rats coming from behind them. Overloaded Dumpsters were scattered around and the walls were windowless apart from a couple that had been boarded up. When I looked up, I found that there was no sky, only a strange expanse of darkness, dim and watery in some places and thick as tar in others. This darkness breathed like a living thing and was much more than the mere absence of light.
An old-fashioned lamppost shedding a milky light allowed me to identify a black motorcycle propped just a few meters away. Its rider was nowhere in sight. Seeing the bike made my mind reel and forced me back to my current predicament. I fought to make sense of what had just happened but memory failed me. Random images flashed through my mind in no apparent sequence. I remembered a rambling house off a highway, a grinning jack- o’-lantern, and the laughter and banter of teenagers. Then the harsh sound of an engine being revved and someone calling my name. But these images were like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that I’d only just begun to assemble. It was as though my mind were denying me access to the memories for fear I wouldn’t be able to deal with them. It was dishing them out in fragments that made little to no sense. Suddenly one vivid image crashed through the barrier and the recollection caused me to gasp aloud. I was back aboveground, immobilized by fear, as a motorbike driven by a raven-haired boy recklessly pitched itself through a slash in the highway. How was that even possible?
I had the feeling I’d been standing in the deserted alley for a while and yet had no sense of how much time had passed. My thoughts felt thick and sluggish, and trying to navigate my way through them was arduous. I massaged my throbbing temples and groaned. Whatever happened had also taken its toll physically and my limbs felt shaky as if I’d just run a marathon.
“It takes a day or two to adjust,” said a honey-smooth voice. Jake Thorn materialized out of the shadows to stand by my side. He spoke to me with such lilting familiarity, as if he and I had known each other long enough to dispense with formalities. His sudden appearance put my senses on high alert. “Until then you may experience some disorientation or a dry throat,” he added. His nonchalant tone was astounding. Despite my confusion I felt like screaming at him, and if my throat hadn’t felt as parched as a desert, I would have.
“What have you done?” I croaked instead. “Where am I?”
“There’s no need for alarm,” he replied. I wondered if he might be trying to reassure me, but he wasn’t able to pull it off and only ended up sounding condescending. I looked at him not even trying to conceal my skepticism. “Relax, Beth, you’re in no danger.”
“What am I doing here, Jake?” It was more a demand than a question.
“Isn’t that rather obvious? You’re here as my guest, Beth, and I’ve taken care of everything to ensure your stay is a pleasant one.” There was such an uncharacteristically expectant look on his face that for a moment I didn’t know how to reply. I looked at him wide-eyed.
“Don’t worry, Beth, this place can be a lot of fun when you’re with the right people.”
Almost to illustrate his point the ground beneath us began to vibrate. A song I recalled from last summer blared so loudly it ricocheted off the walls. It appeared to be coming from behind solid steel doors at the far end of the lane. They looked how you might imagine the entrance to a maximum-security prison. Only it wasn’t a prison but rather a venue of some sort, indicated by a neon sign flashing above the doors. PRIDE. I saw the tail end of the letter
“Pride is one of our most popular clubs,” Jake explained. “And it’s the only way in. Shall we?” He indicated via a courtly flourish that I should walk ahead of him, but my legs seemed rooted to the spot and refused to cooperate. Jake was forced to take my arm and escort me. The fog cleared to reveal a young man and woman standing outside
