Necrolepsy

By Mick Sylvestre

Conservation Officer Bylilly Adam Lamere is a man born between worlds. Born as a Métis demigod he seeks a life among mortals despite what his half brother Clah wants of him. To join him in a quest to annihilate those that took his people's rights, land and hope. But there is an underlying grim history at work. Missing women are being murdered that spurs Bylilly to find out why his own mother was one of the hapless victims and bring justice and peace between the dream world and the waking one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mick Sylvestre
• Release date: Nov 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9780987737854

Mick Sylvestre

I'm an extremly creative soul that loves making his dreams come to life. I like creating things that are sometimes a little odd, often beautiful and sometimes (if I'm really lucky)...disturbing. Nuff said.

Book preview

Prologue

Barry Lithgow sat staring at his flat beer for an eternity. He sheepishly glanced around at the remaining night owls that wandered in to sit drinking off unwashed wood tables covered in lewd sketches carved in vulgarity and long dead phone numbers. The pub overall had a kind of melancholy, woodsy ambiance to it. The ochre lighting gave everything a moody cast of shadows and dark corners where many lingered in anonymity. Above the occasional rowdy and boisterous bouts of arguments and vapid conversations, a coin-starved, vintage jukebox continuously played old country tunes from bygone eras. The bartender seemed younger than Barry, but that did not say much. Despite the establishment's vintage feel, everything seemed like nothing in the outside world mattered.

The bartender nodded to Barry’s glass. Need another? Barry looked up and noticed he was not sitting at his favorite spot but at the bar on a stool expecting another.

At first, Barry looked around, confused, but then he tiredly shook his head. Sorry. Head’s all messy, you know? He looked around the bar and then back to the barkeep.

How long has it been, the bartender asked as he used a cloth to dry a washed beer glass, Since you’ve last slept, I mean?

Barry sheepishly looked at the bartender and blinked his bloodshot eyes, not quite sure. I reckon it’s been a month now, or two, maybe? He took off his stained Toronto Blue Jays baseball cap and ran his hand through his thin hair. Something he did when exhausted.

Have you seen a doctor yet for your insomnia?

Barry snorted as his hand went into his black and red plaid wool jacket. After a few seconds of searching, he withdrew a pill bottle, rattled its contents, and sighed. Either these damned things aren’t working, or I’m- He looked up and saw the bartender at the other end, bartending to someone else. Slowly going insane— Barry squirmed uncomfortably and slipped his pill bottle back into the top pocket. He took up his glass of beer and decided to call it a night. The flat beer on his pallet was bland and disgusted him; it tasted like someone had exchanged his beer for piss.

He stood to stretch and felt his back pop back into place, threw some cash on the countertop, and looked up at the clock just below the stuffed moose head. It was four in the bloody morning, and he still had to take his payload down Highway 16 to get from Prince George to Prince Barry. There was a Grocery store and a twenty-four-seven confectionary he had to deliver to on time. Honestly, though, all of his schedules and routes began to blur in his head. All he knew was that he had to go somewhere important.

Barry shuffled to the exit and noted the other patrons blinking and blurring out of existence like figments of his imagination. Everything was flickering in and out like a mirage. Strange as that was, he never paused nor questioned his sanity further. His large hand reached for the door to exit. A light flash in his head occurred, and before he knew it, he was right back at the bar sitting before a tankard of flat beer.

He vaguely remembered the trip he had taken. The deliveries and drop-offs he made, but the instant daylight appeared over the horizon. Barry was right back at the same window-less bar holding a half-finished beer.

This place... Barry bent into the lady that sat across from him. Why do I always come back to this place?

The woman looked of native descent and carefully regarded him. Her face was puffy and bruised as if she had just had an allocation with her old man. I see that you’re a long way from home too. She smiled at him but finding her at his table made him more uncomfortable.

I am at that, he tipped the glass of beer to her health. Are you from around here?

No, she squinted at him. Don’t you even remember bringing me here?

Barry squinted and washed a tired hand over his face. I-rightly don’t. He looked up at her just as she had started to rot away like someone melting from intense exposure to radiation, a usual cheesy fare of old sci-fi B-movies. He yelped out in horror, knocked over his beer, and pushed away from his seat to stand. What the Hell? He looked around at all those in the bar with him. This time they, too, started to shift and rot down to their bones, crumpling into ash. More people flickered in and out of focus as Barry hurried to escape the madness occurring before his eyes. As Barry tugged on the door to exit, a blinding light enveloped him. He staggered lost in the light with a ringing in his ears and vertigo taking hold of his remaining senses as he succumbs to the void.

-II- 

Barry was back in his semi, making another night delivery as daylight was fast approaching. A man possessed on the empty highway. The semi roared along the asphalt, trying to beat against the twilight hour. He refused to yield to the daylight. The darkness was his only companion, and the approaching dawn would never reach him in time. All along the highway, he could see them standing on either side of the highway meters apart, staring silently at him as he roared by.

Their shaded appearances and dated clothing were a reminder that Barry was not just traversing over many generations of indigenous lands but also into a supernatural world filled with horrified remains of victims that haunt his route—forever. They appeared like shades, silent and pleading for liberation with their hollow stares. For him, this was a torturous route for those destined to repeatedly trespass across the deep wounds where they spilled women’s blood.

Barry gnashed his teeth and kept his eyes on the road. Daylight was mere moments away. He pushed the petal to the metal and gripped the steering wheel like a life preserver through a storm. "You are not real-" He showed signs of losing complete control of his faculty. His mind was playing tricks on him. He needed to stop somewhere to rest. Though sleep was his only concern, those damnable souls just kept staring at him as he tore down that vacant asphalt corridor to reach the sanctuary that was his home.

Only Barry Lithgow did not make it back to the warehouse in time. For the rising morn reflected in his rear-view mirror and in that early blinding light, he felt lost.

-III-

Barry looked up from his beer, tired and irritable. He eyed the sparse crowd that lingered in the deadbeat bar. His eyes accidentally settled on a well-dressed and tanned fellow sitting alone, nursing a drink. A man with tied-back black hair, about in his mid-thirties, with a leather vest, jean pants, and polished pitch-black cowboy boots. To his surprise, the observant stranger suddenly stood and introduced himself. Barry grunted uncomfortably and looked intently at his half-finished drink.

Well, if it isn’t Barry Richard Lithgow, the posh native smiled and stuck out his hand for the trucker to shake. You son-of-a-bitch, how long has it been since we’ve seen each other: ten, maybe twelve years now?

Barry looked up, squinting with annoyance. The man he was looking at was not quite right, and his eyes held too much intent in them. They caused Barry’s head to swim around, making it hard to focus on anything but the man’s perfect teeth. Like a bird memorized by a snake.

Do I—know you? Barry asked dumbly.

Oh yeah... the man slinked uncomfortably closer and placed his arm over Barry’s shoulder. "We go way back to the very beginning."

Way back?

That’s correct, the smooth operator nodded.

But I-I just met you. Barry stammered and stuttered out. In frustration, he slammed his fists on the table. "I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but I don’t know you."

Oh, but you do, the stranger smiled even a bit more. "I know so much about you. That even you would be impressed, at how unlikely someone like me, could ever possibly know someone like you, as well as I do."

What? Barry made a face and then tried to stand.

The man simply reached out to Barry’s shoulder and pushed the poor sod back into his seat. Did I say you could leave?

Barry looked up at the man and found that he was no ordinary person, outweighed the skinny son-of-a-bitch by at least a hundred pounds or more. But the lanky stranger simply reached out and pushed him back down on his seat like he was nothing. How in the f- Barry grimaced as the man squeezed his shoulder until he buckled in pain. Okay, okay! You are hurting me. Stop it, you son-of-a...!

Oh, just stop with your drama and listen up The man bent low and started to whisper into Barry’s ear. Tears welled up in Barry’s eyes, and a look of utter horror was on his weathered features.

After a few minutes of briefing, his co-conspirator rose, and his eyes locked on him, so...we’re good?

Barry looked at the man as if he were mad, nodding adamantly.

Good, now just get back to your beer, and don’t worry your little head about the future. He padded Barry’s sore shoulder and started to walk towards the exit. After all, you have an eternity to think about it.

Chapter 1 – Look Out

As a child, Bylilly Lamere deeply revered and respected the forest. There, he spent so much time in the outback that it had become a career. So there he stood outside the forest ranger tower, in his conservation uniform with a pair of binoculars, scanning the vast alpine tundra. The forest around him spread outwards for hundreds of kilometers with nothing but a bright sun and a cumulus-filled cerulean sky. Bylilly scanned the area for smoke or other signs that someone was camping outside park limits. Sometimes he’d happen across a polluter or poacher. Occasionally he’d uncover an illicit cannabis growing operation deep in the bush. And each time, he’d either have to make an arrest or do a stop and seizure with his partner and long-time friend: Ned Pearson.

Today he was on the hunt for a poacher named Quana Oakridge, a local known to snag a few without a permit because of his indigenous status. His modus operandi was gutting, skinning, and selling whatever animal part (or organ); he could get his hands on to offshore collectors.

That was if Quana got very lucky today and evaded his arrest.

Located him yet? The walkie-talkie on his hip startled him, taking Bylilly out of the moment. Ned always had quite the knack of disturbing his calm. After years of their bromance and being conservation officers, his friend had a way of getting under his skin.

Yeah, Bylilly kept looking in the direction he would have to head. It’s got to be him. The grounds still too wet for a fire. Bylilly knew where the bears like to hibernate for the winter, but afterward, their range foraging seemed to deliver them into a poacher’s path.

Need backup?

Bylilly grabbed for his jacket as he trotted down to the exit. He’s just an old man, Ned. He burst through the exit, and the door slowly closed and locked behind him.

Didn’t he try to shoot you once?

With rock salt, Bylilly looked around before heading to his jeep to take the back roads that only a few knew.

Still fucking hurts, though, doesn’t it?

Bylilly sighed, If he wasn’t as blind as a bat.

Ned pulled beside him in a 2014 Ford F150 Fx4 and rolled down the window. So...you want back up, or not? After all, it’s your call—partner.

Yeah, it’s probably a good idea, Bylilly opened the passenger side door and climbed in.

Alrighty then, Ned revved the engine. Let’s go burst his bubble.

-II-

They both came to the river’s edge. Bylilly wasn’t fond of guns. But his job was to carry one; sometimes, if necessary, he’d have to use it. Though, he preferred not to. So as rare as that was, he had come to rely on his gifts . At a very young age, Grandfather Eagle had taught him how to survive in the forest. By showing him how to forage and live off nothing but what the wilderness had. What roots, berries and plants were safe to eat, to heal, and which ones could do great harm. He learned how to call out, mimic and live among the wildlife with great humility and respect. He wasn’t some hippy survivalist or even an ecological environmentalist. He was native by birth and was part of local traditions that ran in his blood for generations.

Ned stood by the stream alongside Bylilly. With a shotgun in his hands, Ned bumped his partner and gave him a big shit-eating grin, "so you ready to