(It's) Always There
Copyright© 2026 by Daniel Tors
Chapter 23
... ffffffff-ffhhhhhhhhsse ... hhhhhhhheh ... shhod
... Lessihnmif ... fieh ... hots layy in top ferrrr ... fuck ... mihd ... he’ss...
... on thhe, hhills a horse lead snow-fire rider to him ... fast to the corner the stranger took awy legs so he’d not ... faster ... hee’d been ... dropped ... wh?...
... last ... in morning he’d crawledto the steep and town wherre ... some ... lasting...
... her with ... happennned to find who had stocked his center had found...
... Graced his presence, his inside chest, toppled to hugs and room s shut from for them to push and shove and hold, whispers for either to be taken close not for understanding...
At Case’s side she lay, a woman staring into him, dancing, circling, pursuing tips on his outline as loving pin-prods to a cushion; poked in, a slight edge, finding again where they couldn’t help but prod and toy. They lay, and lay, together, and closer ... and lay ... and lay ... and lay...
“Case...?”
... Pricking, tracing, warmer and warmer, swooshes of a bare knee closing around him, to as well constant, rhyming billows from her far-too-close, far-too-familiar maw, taught stomach rising to a press at his waist, then in again...
Atlanta brought him to her, lulling, wilting, in curvy twanged words, “You need to get up, Case.”
... On her, with her, against the freezing wood they’d chosen as a mat for laying. Up to her pretty eye, blinded by morning, Case had to ask the woman, “Why?”
And she, above him, in the near-black of dusk, palms down on his stomach, said over ... and over ... and over ... and over, “Please wake up, please wake up, please wake up–”
... In a box ... There was a ceiling he didn’t recognize. Almost invisible lines of light on the wall from a shutter door – a closet.
He was awake.
Blood ... Dried blood caked ... cracked ... on the floor, pooled long ago from his back ... from a rag that had overflowed, too from another on his stomach, on a sweater turned rigid, under a jacket zipped apart ... too on freezing, pained, immovable digits placed over the wound ... to keep pressure.
It was morning.
He was lucid.
Logan was dead.
Atlanta wasn’t there.
Urges to get up, to move, and the hole shot through him – around the searing, in the broken fibers of muscles, in the absence of flesh itself – screamed; it’s shriek stabbed and stabbed to any twitch, wobbling the remains of his innards at the dark, pungent goo being let to the cold, having its “bandage” removed, feeling the gap exposed to air, knowing his lower half needed to shift, his legs had to get in position, he had nothing but the edge of a wall to pull up with. He just had to ready, steel, grit to his bones ... and ... Lift lift lift lift lift [mmmmmMMMGH] SCREAM ON THE INSIDE! FUCK! THE PREssure of sitting up was worse ... so much fucking ... head-spinningly ... F-fuck, Case needed to vomit, or faint, OR JUST ... No no no bad ... bad idea. Not yet.
... He’d have to stand.
He’d have to walk.
...
He knew how.
Teeth borne, spittle dripping, boot soles flat, stomach crunched, both arms ready to pull once, all he had to do was scream on the inside.
Lift.
...
In his box, Case was standing, saliva sprayed on the old paint before him. The hole wanted him dead, or dying. Every inch feet displaced to keep the man upright killed him a little more, rabid scorn of his continued being as what let him rasp, aloud, “Fuck,” and step back. Handgun drawn, door slid aside, Case hobbled out ... Maybe Atlanta was simply somewhere else, and she would put him to sleep again.
The room was completely empty, aside from his closet, two doors, a window, and a pool of blood. The blizzard had stopped, but snowfall persisted. The sun was rising. The next room was empty. The next room was empty. He reached the hall they entered (at his left) to, with the front entrance at his right across another hall splitting the building lengthwise in two. Nobody was there.
In the first room they checked to their left, nobody waited on the second floor to shoot Case through the collapsed ceiling. The wolf had to step around his dead friend to check all the corners. At least Logan was shot in the face, dead instantly. Maybe shrapnel from the wall Case was shot through had poisoned him, and Atlanta was out finding herbs, tucking him in a dark space so he could rest.
... There were stairs up. He took them. The new floor was laid out similarly, but not the same.
The first room was completely empty. So was the next. So was the next. So was the next. So was the next. He had heard nothing. Nobody had moved. Nobody else was dead.
In the same corner of the building as where he awakened, Case had checked everywhere but the attic ... Then he looked outside.
...
In the rolling snow, forming a line of ovals, were the vestigial concepts of footprints, beginning directly under where he was ... She made them. He followed them. They led to a camp, where three people tried to stay the night, but had to notice what was up the ... hill...
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