Page 55 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
“Why?” Owen asked. “Why did it lead you to me?”
“Because we are the same,” the man said, and there was something like hope in his eyes, an awkward smile pulling at his lips, and all of it was awful.
The rain was endless applause in the air. Owen folded the map and pushed it away into his trouser pocket for later inspection. The stranger’s dark eyes followed the movement.
“We are the same,” the man tried again.
Owen fired point-blank at the stranger’s forehead, intending to end it quickly. He was already thinking about disposing of the body—something he’d had to do on occasion in the past—but the man didn’t die. He jerked backwards a step, but the expected dark red flower didn’t blossom on his forehead. A moment passed, and then the expression on the man’s awful, unsettling face changed. The tentative hope vanished, and the man’s eyes widened in shock.
Owen fired again, assuming he had missed even though he knew that was impossible, and the man darted to the left and behind a tree. Owen fired once more, punching a chunk out of the tree trunk, and then he swept his hand sideways in time to see the man appearing on the far side of the tree. He fired again, knowing this time that he had hit the man’s shoulder, but the man just kept moving, passing another tree, scampering wildly and reaching into his bag as he fled. Owen took a breath, steadying himself, and shot once again, his flask-fuelled senses directing his aim perfectly true. The bullet should have blown a chunkout of the back of the man’s skull, but instead the man kept moving, untouched. And then he stopped, hidden behind a tree.
Owen stared in disbelief. He had never before needed so many shots to kill a man. He had killed men at much greater distances with a single shot. Something wasn’t right.
He started forward through the trees, the light of River House behind him and his shadow stretching in front of him. His ears were filled with the patter of the rain on leaves and the ground, but his senses were open, and he was hyperalert. He spotted movement, low to the ground and to the left. He jerked the gun downwards in response, expecting to see the strange man crawling away, but instead he saw a thick snakelike vine creeping up and out of the ground, pulsating with dark colours,inhumancolours, so different from those on the wings of any person. Owen’s teeth clenched with shock and his eyes widened as he saw other, similar things emerging from the earth, monsters digging themselves up from the wet ground and turning towards him. He fired, gouging wounds into one of the creatures and revealing pale, creamy flesh, but it didn’t seem to stop them or frighten them. The snakes too started to crawl towards him, moving like thick, massive caterpillars, stretching and contracting. Owen backed away, his calm and his confidence disintegrating in the face of so much impossibility.
As he retreated, a cool part of his mind realised that these were tree roots, but he also knew that was impossible, because trees did not hunt people.
Owen’s heel caught on something, and he tumbled backwards onto the cold earth. Immediately thick fingers wrapped around his legs and torso. Ahead of Owen, the stranger stepped out from behind one of the trees, holding a blue flower in his hand that Owen’s opened senses could see was glowing fabulously with colours. Owen understood immediately that the man was doing this, controlling the tree roots, and he realised with something like horror that the stranger had his own magical items, just like Owen’s flask.
Owen lifted the Glock even as the roots crawled up his arm, and he fired four shots straight at the man’s torso, but they did little more thanmake him stumble and back-step briefly. Owen kept firing as long as he could, until the weapon was empty, denying this impossible reality, and the man watched and waited. Once Owen was spent his arm was yanked back down to the ground, his four limbs restrained by the stiff, ropelike roots.
The man approached and Owen struggled with his whole body, straining against every root and the ground itself. The man bent over him, rain tipping off the brim of his cap and onto Owen’s stomach. The pungent smell of body odour and dirt filled Owen’s nose and the man’s face filled Owen’s vision. He had to close his eyes; he couldn’t look at it.
He felt the man pat down his pockets and his body until he found the flask hidden beneath Owen’s shirt. The man’s fingers worked their way under the chain around Owen’s neck.
“Fuck off!” Owen shouted, opening his eyes to glare at the man, spittle forming on his lips. He was helpless and vulnerable and unable to defend himself. “Fuck you!” Owen bellowed. “That’s mine! That’s my flask!”
The stranger ignored him and removed the flask by yanking it over Owen’s head. He stepped away and studied the flask for a moment. Then he unscrewed the lid and swallowed a mouthful of liquid. Owen saw his eyes spring wide open almost immediately, as white as torchlight against the darkness of the night, and the man staggered backwards to steady himself against a nearby tree. He turned his head slowly, and Owen knew what this man was seeing: all the colours of reality, the truth that existed beneath the surface world that everyone saw.
Then the man looked at Owen where he lay and Owen flinched away from that attention, turning his head and closing his eyes. The tree roots were like steel around his body.
“I see what you have,” the stranger said. “I see all the colours you wear.”
Owen said nothing, keeping his eyes shut, breathing heavily to calm himself, seeking a way out of this nightmare.
“You have killed people,” the man said, and he seemed horrified by this. “So many people.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Owen muttered. “I’m going to find you andkill you and take that flask back.” He tried again to yank one arm free, but nothing moved.
“You tried to kill me,” the man replied. “I didn’t do anything to you. But you’re scared.”
Owen dared a look at the man and saw his eyes widen as he saw the truth revealed to him by the flask.
“You are scared of me!” he said. “I terrify you.”
The man seemed to consider that truth for a moment. Then he lifted his eyes and gazed off into the distance, almost sniffing the air like a dog. “I see so many things,” he murmured. He was quiet, lost in his thoughts. “There are other magic things in the world. I can sense them in the air now. This drink, it makes me see things I didn’t see before.”
Owen frowned at that. He had never sensed magic things with his opened senses.
The man looked back at Owen once more, and Owen held his breath, waiting for the inevitable attack, the end to his own life. But the assault didn’t come. The man simply turned away and moved quickly through the trees, melting into the rain-filled darkness.
Owen didn’t shout after him and didn’t call for help. He simply waited, craning his neck to watch until the man was lost to the darkness of the forest, hating the relief that he felt once the man had gone. His relief told him he had been scared. It told him he had been beaten.
***
It was the rain that saved him. The heavy downpour pummelled the bare dirt beneath Owen, making it soft and pliable. Over several hours he freed his arm enough to retrieve the knife lying against the small of his back. Over more hours he cut through roots until he had enough freedom of movement to shuffle backwards out of his prison, and he dragged himself up and onto more solid ground, into the yellow light from River House.
He breathed heavily, lying there, knowing he had to get inside and get warm but struggling to find the energy. What drove him on was his fury at what had happened, his need for revenge. The colourlessman who couldn’t be killed had defeated him and had taken his flask, Owen’s most prized possession. He could not allow that.
