I, Keveny - pt 19

"Keveny—Keveny. Yo—wake up."

 

I slowly came to. Daniel was kneeling over me, slapping me in the face with one of those massive paws. If I'd had a brain still, he would be giving me a concussion.  I grabbed his hand to give my eyes a moment to stop rattling in my head.

 

"What the hell was that?" My head throbbed.

 

"I don't know, man, you tell me." He helped me up and I noticed he was looking around a lot.

 

"What's going on, did you pull me back again?"

 

"Pull you back? Again?" Daniel shook his head.

 

"Yeah, that thing. It yanked me back here a little while ago." He looked at me.

 

"K, don't trust that thing. I don't think it's what it's pretending to be."

 

"What is it pretending to be? I thought you don't know what it is." I rubbed the side of my face, the ache going from my eye to my brain gradually easing.

 

"I don't. But I know it's not good."

 

"What do you mean, what happened?"

 

Daniel smiled. "See my man, Keveny. Always ready to step in and help out."

 

I hadn't said that, but I let it go for now.

 

"What happened?" I asked again. "Hey, I thought you had moved on, when I was here last it told me you were 'nonesuch' or something."

 

"See, that's why I'm suspicious of this thing. I didn't go anywhere. Nobody has. It just sent me to the basement for something."

 

"This place has a basement?"

 

"Yeah, it does. But I didn't find what it wanted. I'm starting to think we're not going anywhere, but something is coming to us."

 

"Why? I mean, you seemed so sure before."

 

"I know, but… it's hard to explain. You'd have to really be here to understand."

 

There was a noise not far away from the house. I looked over and saw two orange-reddish lamps about twice the size of basketballs hovering near the top of the mist. For a minute they just hung there.

 

"For instance, stuff like that," Daniel said. "That's it. Sometimes it just stares at me."

 

"You mean those are its eyes?" If the hairs on the back of my neck were real, they would've been standing.

 

"Right now they are. It doesn't have a real form. I don't think it needed one before now. Before us."

 

"Why is it just staring?"

 

"It pretends when it wants to, but I don't think it understands us. I think it tries to copy, but it's at a loss when it comes to humans. Or at least the human spirit."

 

It rose from the mist to about five feet above the mist. Yellow globes within the lamps swiveled around to our side. Okay, now it was looking at us and fake or no, the hairs on the back of my neck did stand.