Terror Incognita Read Online Free

Maybe it was seeing a woman who could still smile. Or maybe it was her  smile, in particular.
    She had been an environmental activist, besides being an animal lover and a Jew. She had believed in Gaia; that the Earth was like a living, breathing God itself. Ohh...big mistake. On the smooth forehead of her otherwise unmarked pretty face were tattooed the words: “Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
    They couldn’t mar her prettiness. It wasn’t truly flesh, after all, but the tangible image of her spirit. And how he wished to press the lips of his spirit to hers. And yet he was shy. Of her, of the others around. And there was so little time. So very little time...
    Then back to eternity.
    Machinegun chatter outside. Screams. Fleming calmly checked over his shoulder. He saw a man slam up against the glass, smearing the blood from the holes in his face as he slid down the surface. Robed, hooded figures came into view, pulled him away. Fleming heard a chainsaw revving up. More screams. Fleming drained the last of his espresso.
    “One more?” asked Chani.
    “I got time?”
    She looked to a wall clock. “Ten minutes, about. You came in at quarter to eight.”
    “Eight at night?”
    “Yes.”
    Only ten minutes left, and yet now Chani was called away from him to tend to another customer down the counter. Fleming was bitter and agonized. He was used to the cold he’d just braved for eight months to get back here. The mutilations, the disease. But it had been a long time since he had had to feel this pain.
    When she came back he would take her hand atop the counter, he decided. Squeeze it. He could do that, at least. Link his fingers through hers. Maybe then lean forward and kiss her. Or if not that much, at least he would have broken the ice for next time...
    She returned just as he drained his last black coffee. He didn’t have to glance at the clock; he felt the magnetic pull already rising up, like a current, beginning to lightly tug him toward the door. He could resist another minute only...
    “Well,” Chani sighed. “Hope you liked it. No tip?”
    “Put it on my tab.”
    “See you in another couple years?”
    “I’ll see you one year from today.”
    “Oh come on, you don’t have to do that. There are so many other places to see. It’s something to do, isn’t it? To look around? Even at Hell.” It was big enough, after all. Much, much bigger than Heaven, with its small and elite population.
    “There’s something to be said for familiarity, too,” he replied. “Comfort...”
    “I guess.”
    Oh, this was  too intense a pain. His body was accustomed to the horrors beyond this jingling door. Humans were so adaptable. Hadn’t he once read that children had still played while imprisoned in Auschwitz? Those children had since told him that in person, since so many of them who had been burned there were here to burn again.
    “Well...” he said. The door jingled behind him as a new soul staggered in. He was distracted, and miserable. Her hand,  he hissed at himself within. It was there flat on the counter...waiting...
    The pull was growing stronger. Insistent.
    A man seated himself on the stool directly to Fleming’s left. He hated the poor mangled bastard for it. And yet, it was almost a relief to be forced not to act.
    Instead, Fleming reached out to Chani’s hair. Or so it seemed for a moment. It was Bast’s sleek fur he stroked. The cat seemed to remember him also, and purred at his touch. Now he felt a little better. They were linked, Chani and Bast. He withdrew his hand feeling that he had also caressed her, in a way.  In a way.
    The man to his left began trying to speak, his lower jaw gone. It would grow back just in time for him to eat a little bit of something. Chani slid the man a pad to write his order on. She looked irritated at the distraction also. In fact, Fleming thought her eyes even appeared moist...
    The pull yanked him backwards off