All roads lead to darkness

Saul leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Might as well get comfortable. The seat smelled like real leather. He shook his head. So many bad memories with leather. But had his life been any better since he told Mary he would never put on the leather mask again?

What was his mind doing going down that rabbit hole? Mary was dead. No one would ever put on a leather mask for her again. It was the smell, though, the smell that brought him right back to her feet. Not just leather. Sweat, sour sweat, old sweat, and leather. Saul was not the first terrified person to ride in the back of this SUV. It was not a comforting thought.

Where were they taking him? A CDC quarantine, out highway 86? There was nothing out here but desert. So, probably a good place for a quarantine. At least that made some sense even if nothing else did. What kind of disease could Mary have been exposed to last week that could have already killed her? How long does Ebola take to kill someone? Saul thought it was weeks. And they didn't even ask him if he had any contact with other people. If he had actually been exposed to a deadly disease wouldn't they have asked him who else he had been in contact with?

Saul registered a moment of dull disappointment with himself. He had not had any human contact in the past week outside of Olivia and Mary. Olivia... she hung in his mind and obliterated the rest of it. Really, the rest of it didn't matter. Where they were taking him. What happened to Mary. It didn't matter. Olivia... Saul smiled at her imagined crooked grin.

Daddy is right here, Olivia.

"How did you do that? How did you know my name?"

But Todd already knew. He closed his eyes. He knew, because he knew her name. The woman he killed. His doctor. Her name was Mary, and he knew it because he could feel her thinking now beside him. And more... it was spreading out, dripping down into the crevasses of his mind. The yawning chasm of self, the void where his own memories should have been. She was filling it, seeping into his past. Her memories. Her family. Olivia... her beautiful brown-eyed girl.

"Get out! Get out of my head!"

Todd tore at the tentacles connecting them. The stabbing pain paralyzed him.

Mary whispered in reply,

"Olivia..."

A wash of sadness filled them both up. Oh, Olivia. How could they see her now? Connected and mutilated like this. Olivia would be frightened. But they had to see her! Nothing was more important to Mary and Todd than Olivia.

Todd's eyes snapped open. They were glowing red, a fierce red that reflected in the opalescence of the tentacles that emerged from the corners of his eye sockets.

"We should leave now."

Mary shuddered at something in Todd's tone. Why did his voice suddenly sound so familiar? She could no longer feel what he was thinking.

"I don't think they are going to let us leave, Todd."

"I am not Todd anymore. You don't recognize me Mary? He let me out of the box."

"Isaac..."

"Yes, Mary. It is time to go. You know what you need to do."

"Isaac, I don't want you to hurt anyone."

"Not me, Mary. You know what you need to do. You can feel them. Outside. The men watching us."

Mary began counting out loud.

"That isn't going to work anymore, Mary. I am inside Todd now. You are never going to put me in a box again."

Mary put her fingers in her ears. She began singing her nonsense song. Isaac always made her feel like a little girl again. So many years in control but she had crumpled right back into that tiny little shell of a scared girl. But this time something was bubbling up from even deeper. Daddy!

"Isaac, what did you do!"

"That was so many years ago, Mary. And your father deserved it. You know what he did to you."

In that moment, Mary did know what her father did to her. So many years in denial but she crumbled right back into that broken pile on the floor. No one could have put those shards back together all the way.

"Mary, it is time to go. Olivia is going to need us."

"Olivia..."

Mary did know what to do. She could feel the men watching, from behind the mirrored wall. Four of them. She could feel their eyes blinking, their hearts beating. Each man wore the skin of her father. Time to stop their hearts.

The SUV slowed down. Saul had been pressing his face against the dark tinted window since they turned off the highway onto a rutted dirt road. Now they had driven off the road entirely, bumping and crawling across the sagebrush scrub. How long had it been since they left Tucson? Had it been hours? Maybe an hour? The sun was high in the sky. They stopped. The driver got out and walked around behind the SUV. The other agent opened the door and motioned for Saul to get out.

Here? There was nothing here.

"Here? This is the CDC quarantine?"

Saul did not receive a reply other than a rough grab and shove that left him sprawling face first in the dirt. He heard a door slam and saw the driver come around from behind the SUV with a shovel in his hand. The first shot did not kill Saul as it ripped through his skull and he screamed a strange high pitched squeal. A second shot rang out into the vast stillness of the shimmering desert air. The dry dirt crunched underneath the shovel blade.

All words and art by moi. This is part 9 of an ongoing series.

Part 1: A crumbling machine found in the desert
Part 2: Surface Expedition Report
Part 3: Disorientation
Part 4: Her eye glowed red
Part 5: Patient Number REDACTED
Part 6: The Skinny Squeeze
Part 7: Burning in the Darkness
Part 8: His name was Todd