赤裸裸的滑稽故事

“Why are you helping me?”

“I told you, I made a promise.”

“That’s not enough,” Alice scoffed. “I may not remember you, but even I can tell you are a man who is careful in the decisions you make and the people you help. So, what do you get out of this?”

Tomas sighed.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Fine,” Alice replied. “What do you want out of this?”

Tomas looked away.

“Forgiveness,” he whispered.

Alice narrowed her eyes at him.

“I’m not asking for it,” he said, quickly glancing back at her. “I may want it, but I know I don’t deserve it. So, this is the least I can do for you.”

Alice stared at him, feeling frustrated with her lack of understanding. Even the whisper in her mind told her to let it go, but she hated not knowing anything.

“Who am I to you?” Alice asked. “Or what role did I play for you?”

Tomas swallowed and lowered his eyes.

“You were someone important to me,” he said. “Someone I betrayed.”

Alice clenched her jaw. She recognized the look in his eye. Another doll, another life she would never remember.

She saw the image of his hand against her cheek, tender, loving. And then his angry tears. She took deep breath.

“Whoever I was to you, she wasn’t real,” Alice sighed. “So, whatever you did, it doesn’t matter. I probably did worse to you. I usually do.”

“No!” Tomas shouted. Then glancing at the door with fright, he quieted his voice. “No, Laura was real. Maybe not to you, but to me… she was very real. And I loved her.”

Alice swallowed and looked away.

“I hurt you,” Tomas said. “I was the monster, not you.”

Again, she saw his hands on her shoulders, gripping her tightly. Angry tears, and then he grabbed her dress, bunching it in his hands he tore at it. Alice quickly shook away the image.

“I’m not a monster, just a doll,” Alice said. “Didn’t you say we were in a hurry?”

Tomas looked away and nodded. He walked to the door and started to open it.

“Wait!” Alice called out.

Tomas turned and held his finger to his lips, reminding her to be quiet. She nodded and mouthed to him again to wait.

Alice walked to the desk and stared at it. There was something here, something she needed.

She opened the drawers but didn’t see anything. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Then, finally, in the bottom drawer, she found a book.

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll.

Alice pulled it out and turned it in her hand. She set it down, opened the cover, and then the first twenty pages. There she found a hole cut into the center of the pages of the rest of the book. Inside was a small velvet pouch.

She picked it up, and though she was tempted to look inside, the little voice that whispered in her mind told her to keep it safe and worry about it later.

Alice slipped the pouch into a zippered pocket on the inside of her jacket and then turned back to Tomas.

“Ok, let’s go.”

They made their way out the door and around a corner, keeping close to the walls and hiding whenever they heard someone nearby.

Alice didn’t recognize anything.

It was strange. She knew she had been here; she knew this place. But none of it made sense. Her mind was a jumbled and foggy mess.

It wasn’t long before they heard shouts and the sounds of people running through the halls.

“They must know I’m gone; we need to hurry!” Tomas whispered.

He moved quicker now.

Though she had been dizzied when they started, she felt fine now. It was her mind that was struggling to keep up.

She recognized everything and nothing. She heard conversations in empty hallways.

“Alice,” Tomas called to her. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

“Good, because we are almost at the end of the line,” he said, looking around. “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to take you all the way. But if you stay in the shadows and go toward the eastern border, you’ll find an SUV parked behind an old watershed with the keys in the front passenger wheel. It’s not a perfect plan. I can’t promise you’ll make it out.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Alice sighed.

Tomas nodded.

“Ok, there is a door around this corner. Go through it, and then remember to stick to the shadows. Avoid drawing attention to yourself. Just get to the truck and go.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What about you?”

Tomas smiled.

“I know about Roman’s feelings for you,” Tomas said. “If he knows you’re running, he won’t care about me. He will come for you. So, I gotta keep him focused on me for as long as I can.”

“Why don’t we both just run?” Alice asked. “Right now, while he still doesn’t know where either of us are!”

“There’s nothing left for me, Alice,” Tomas smiled. “If you could remember me, you would know this is a much better end than I deserve.”

Alice clenched her jaw.

“Go,” he said. “Let me do one good thing with my life.”

“Tomas is gone!” a shout from down the hall rang out.

“Find him!”

“Go, go!” Tomas said, pushing Alice toward the door.

She hesitated, but she knew he wasn’t coming, and she needed to go.

Alice turned and rounded the corner.

Tomas heard the soft click of the door opening and then closing once more.

He smiled as the hall in front of him filled with wolves formerly loyal to him and him alone.

Growls and snarls murmured over each other. Men stared with fierce eyes; some grinned and bared their teeth.

Tomas stood up straight and tall. He was not a large man. Compared to someone like Wyatt, he was considered relatively small. But his size was deceptive. He was a strong fighter and a survivor. He hadn’t become Alpha of Autumn because of his bloodline or a people’s vote.

No, little Tomas from the slums of Autumn had made his way up the chain through the sacrifice of blood and bone. His entire life, he had fought men twice his size and been outnumbered at least three to one.

Tomas was built to survive, and if today was the day he died, he was going to die the way he lived. Covered in the blood of the people who stood in his way.

***

Roman walked down the hall. He didn’t bother to step over the pools of blood or the twenty or so lifeless bodies that were sprawled out over the granite flooring.

He ground his teeth as he walked by these pathetic excuses for wolves.

They couldn’t even handle one old man.

At the end of the hall, panting and leaning against the wall, completely covered in the blood of the people he had once led, his father struggled to keep on his feet.

Roman stopped only a foot away.

“Hey, dad,” he smiled. “How’s your night going?”

“Not too bad,” Tomas coughed, spitting the blood from his mouth onto the floor between them.

Roman nodded and chuckled.

“Why’d you run, dad?” Roman asked, taking a step closer. “You knew I’d find you, and you didn’t even get that far, so what was the point? Why not accept your fate and die like the miserable old man you are.”

“What can I say,” Tomas smiled, a mouth full of broken and bloodied teeth. “I was never any good at taking orders.”

“Roman!” came a shout from the direction he had come from.

Roman glanced back. A man came around the corner, quickly stopping as his eyes grew wide in horror at the scene before him.

“What is it?” Roman asked. “Can’t you see I’m having a tender moment with my father?”

The man blinked and furrowed his brows, struggling to process all the bodies and the blood.

Roman let out a low warning growl. The man quickly realized his own danger.

“The doll… Uhm, Alice… she….”

Roman turned to the man with a deep and low growl, his eyes burning brightly.

“What about Alice?” he demanded with a snarl.

Behind him, Tomas laughed.

Roman slowly turned back as the man answered.

“She’s gone.”

Tomas grinned, and Roman’s hand shot to his father’s throat. A slight wet gurgling escaped the older man’s lips before Roman squeezed and squeezed until there was a pop and squish.

The man watched in horror as the former Alpha of Autumn’s body crumpled to the floor, a gaping hole where his throat used to be.