Classics Mutilated by Classics Mutilated # (v5.0)

Author:Classics Mutilated # (v5.0)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, horror
ISBN: 978-1-4804-2921-5
Publisher: IDW Publishing

Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;

Who slayeth the dragon; the shield he shall win.

Jim felt a runnel of sweat trickle from his hairline, into the hollow of his cheek. He looked at Poe, searching his eyes for some suggestion of unreality—a frailty in the seams, perhaps, where imagination had hurriedly put him together. But Poe showed no such weaknesses; he appeared as real as anything Jim had seen.

I need to come down, Jim thought. I need to escape. He reached out and touched Poe, then turned and touched the door. Both solid. Both there.

The ticking sound continued to make the air shudder. Jim was no longer sure if it was the man’s watch, or his heartbeat.

He touched the door again. “Where does it lead?”

“The Other Side,” Poe said, smiling.

“Naturally.”

“Time is running slight, James.” Poe touched the door and with a childlike cry it swung inward. Jim’s gaze was dragged to the opening: a rectangular rift in the fog. He could see nothing of the Other Side, only darkness: a bed of black fuel waiting to be ignited.

“It’s a grave,” Jim said. He tried to inch away but could not. “If I step through that doorway, all of this becomes real. I’ll never wake up.”

Poe raised his eyebrows. “How much of the unknown do you truly wish to obtain?”

“I’m not afraid.” But his heartbeat suggested otherwise. Like the watch, it clashed and clanged and roared. Disorientation swept over him and he staggered either forward or backward, his legs buckling, the fog whirling in his brain. He remembered the arms that had thrust from the alleyway walls, and wished that he could feel them now. They would grab and scratch and make him bleed, but they would hold him upright and keep him from falling into that terrible doorway.

“Come, James,” Poe said, stepping toward the darkness.

“I think I’ll stay here,” Jim said, trying to back away, but the doorway inched toward him. He turned around, his breath catching in his throat, and then the doorway shifted—to the side, and then in front of him again.

“Truths and answers abound.” Poe’s eyes glistened like the raven’s feathers.

“I think I’ll just wake up now.”

“Come …” And with a single step Poe disappeared into the darkness, leaving nothing but his voice, spiraling in the air, as thin as candle smoke: "Come … follow me down.”

Jim tried to—

WAKE UP

—convince himself that none of this was happening, and with the same mind-space he fought/thought to resist the doorway. But it pulled him, tempting, like a drug he had already taken. The more he struggled, the closer he got … until finally, with his heart crashing and a terrible moan rising from his chest, he succumbed.

Darkness: a thousand nights crammed into one tiny space.

The door slammed closed.

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