Raiding the Fourth Wall

By C. Mage

"Hey, C-Man!"

Charles Mage looked up from his PDA, currently synched to a foldaway keyboard. "Hey, Esteban, what's up?"

"What are you working on over there? Writing a novel?"

Charles sighed inwardly. He had been working on a novel, but he had been having trouble getting his ideas to come out the way he wanted them to, and he'd been sidetracked by maintaining a job, dealing with family, and, most recently, being made involuntarily single again. "Actually, I'm working on a few short stories."

"What about?"

"Oh, adventure stories, Indiana Jones-type stuff." Esteban started to walk over, but Charles turned the PDA off and folded up the keyboard. "Uh, it's not done yet, still working out a few story ideas."

"You going to be rich and famous someday?"

"Yeah...someday." Just not today. "I'll show you where the website is where I have my work published."

"Sure," Esteban said, but Charles knew he wasn't really interested when Esteban left the breakroom. Just an idle curiosity, nothing more. Charles finished the chapter and checked it over. Having the Bad Guys working with otherdimensional forces was an interesting step away from the usual fare, but Charles liked to keep things fresh. His watch beeped at him and he closed the document, putting the PDA in the case on his belt, then walked out to the main floor of the electronics store where he worked, selling computers.

As he prepared to leave at th end of the day, one of his friends walked over to him. "Hey, Chuck, did that couple buy that game?"

"Couple? What couple?"

"There was a couple here, said they were looking for someone who knew about Lara Croft, you know, from the TOMB RAIDER game, and I remembered how much you liked the game, so I sent them back to look for you. I guess they wanted to know how to get past a level or something."

"Don't think I saw them. What did they look like?"

"Trust me, you would've seen these two. They sure didn't look like gamers."

"Well, I didn't see 'em. Only saw the usual people coming in and out. I'm heading home." He smiled and loosened his tie. "See you next week, Jim." Charles walked out of the store and looked around. It was a clear night, and the insects buzzed around the lights that illuminated the parking lot. He got to the car and unlocked it, getting behind the wheel and closing the door. He lay back in his seat, sighed, put on his seat belt and that's when he heard the voice behind him.

"Freeze, pal, or I'm going to put a bullet through your head."

Charles had enough presence of mind not to jerk his head around in surprise. NOW what?

"Good boy. Now listen to me very carefully. You're going to drive to that diner over there and we're going to pick up a passenger. Then you're going to take us home and we're going to sort a few things out."

"Look, if you want to rob me, believe me, I don't have that much. Look at where I work..."

"Buster, money is the least of my worries right now. Now do it."

Charles took a deep breath and reached out with shaking fingers to the key in the ignition. Why me? Haven't I suffered enough? He drove towards the diner and stopped in the parking lot, looking at the doors. He wanted to ask where the other passenger was, then he decided that the less he knew about his abductors, the safer he'd be...he hoped.

The passenger-side door opened and a woman climbed in. "Sorry about the wait, didn't have coin of the realm and I was getting bored in there. Is this him?"

Charles started to turn his head, but the barrel of the gun pushed against his scalp. "Eyes front, pal. Now drive."

Charles nodded and began driving home, having to use his rear-view and side-view mirrors. Even when he did use the rear-view, his captors stayed out of the middle, trying not to be seen. It was spooky, as if they knew when he was going to look back at them.

Charles pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex and they exited behind him. Charles suddenly wished he'd owned a two-door model; it might've given him a chance to make a break for freedom between the buildings.

"I'm not sure about this, Dave. Do you really think a person who doesn't even own his own house has the resources to do what he's done to us?" the woman asked, and Charles noted a British accent.

Holy crow...it's a writer's nightmare come to life. I've got two crazed maniacs who've adopted the personas of Lara Croft and David Connors and they've come to kill me because they don't agree with how the storyline's going. I'm as good as dead...

"Don't know, but we're gonna get some answers, you can count on that. Act natural, bub, or your new digs will be a box. Move."

Charles had no idea what to do. This was so far out of his imagining that all he could do was walk up the stairs to the third floor and unlock his door, going inside as "David" pushed him forward into the apartment. Charles turned around and took a better look at his captors.

What he saw made his brain turn somersaults.

Standing before him with a really angry expression on his face was a man who looked uncannily like the concept Charles had of David Connors. The build, the hair, the face, the gun, everything! Charles had been expecting someone that looked and dressed and acted in a similar fashion, but Charles couldn't deny it. It was David Connors, or whoever this guy was had a mind-reader for a plastic surgeon. The woman turned back to Charles and he felt lightheaded as he realized that the woman was Lara, at least how he thought Lara would look. There was no robin's-egg blue rubber one-piece or shorts, but the two-gun rig hidden by her trenchcoat were unmistakable. Charles looked down at David's boots. He recalled mentioning that David wore them a lot, but he didn't recall ever describing in detail what they looked like. He looked down and confirmed his suspicions.

Snakeskin boots, diamondback rattler coloration.

Charles sat down. Only later did he realize he was grateful that a sofa was behind him, or he'd have sat right on the carpet. "Oh...my God..."

"Alright, buster. I'm only going to say this once. You had better start explaining what's going on right now."

"I...I don't know what you're talking about..."

David snarled, cocking the Desert Eagle. "I'm going to give you until the count of one...!"

"Dave, please, calm down. I don't think this is being helpful at all." Lara walked over to a chair and turned it to face Charles, sitting. David didn't sit, but looked at Charles with a harsh expression and stood behind Lara's chair. "As you may have guessed, we're both a bit disoriented, and we have been looking for you for some time."

"For me? What for?"

"You mean you don't know anything about us?"

"Of course I know about you...well, about what I've written about Lara and David's adventures. But those were stories! You two can't truly be here!"

"I admit, it somewhat caught us by surprise as well. It all started three weeks ago, when we were up against a man named Darson Creer."

"Yeah, I just finished the most recent chapter today. They got into a big battle and Creer hit them both with a Spell of Banishment, sending them to a far-off dimension, where..." Charles blanched. "Wait a minute..."

"Yep, wise guy. You sent us here." David smiled viciously, bringing up the gun again.

"Dave, no!" Lara yelled as David lifted Charles bodily and slammed him back against the wall, pushing the barrel of the Desert Eagle under Charles' chin.

"You killed my wife and daughter, you miserable son-of-a-bitch. You killed them and you probably didn't give one thought to how that was going to affect me!"

"Dave, he didn't know. How could he have known?"

"Oh, he knew all right...he knew. Think that was funny, asshole? Let's see how funny you look with blood and brains coming out the top of your skull!" He cocked the Desert Eagle.

"David, NO!"

"Lara, this guy's unleashed all sort of horrors upon us and all for the sake of entertainment. He deserves to die for all the pain he's caused!" Before Lara or Charles could stop him, David pulled the trigger.

Click.

Lara heard the misfire and got up, swinging the chair at David's legs, knocking his knees out from under him. Charles fell back and hit the carpet, then tried to pull away. David reached for him as he tried to get up, but Lara pulled David back. "Lara, what are you doing?" David demanded.

"Do you really mean to kill him?"

"As many times as I can!"

"For what? David, we don't know what's truly going on. We need answers, not felonies!"

"You heard what the Voice said when we got here!"

"And I don't think I trust disembodied voices, Dave. Now calm down. Don't make me sit on you." Lara turned to Charles. "My apologies...but we do have some questions."

"Well, I can be a lot more informative ALIVE," Charles groaned, pulling himself up on his couch. "Tell me what you remember."

"We were sneaking into the lair of a man calling himself the Ivory Snake, a spellcaster. We turned a corner and saw a bright flash, then...then we were here. As we landed, we heard this voice, telling us that we needed to find you, that you were the one that orchestrated all of our problems...although, no offense, but you don't seem like the godlike mastermind we were expecting. That was a week ago, and we've been somehow transported to some sort of world where we don't exist, and neither do any of our contacts and resources."

"Actually, you do exist...sort of." Charles went to his computer and booted it up, pulling up his web browser. "I think, in a way, the voice was right, but not the way you think."

"Explain," David said with a growl.

Charles pulled up the FanFiction web site and went to where his stories were collected. "Read from this chapter on," he instructed, then left the room to change out of his work clothes. He dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and came out a few minutes later to see Lara reading and David sitting on the floor with a haunted look on his face. "Uhm...David?"

"I don't believe it...I'm a figment of someone else's imagination..." David looked up at Charles. "So you did create us?"

"Well, I'm not so sure about that. Maybe you just come from a parallel universe where your actions are coincidental with my stories." Charles stopped. "No offense, you two, but you could both use showers. Bathroom's that way."

Lara looked at David. "You first. I want to finish this. I found some other stories, but Dave isn't in them."

Charles moved well away from David, then turned to Lara. "David's an original character, you were the star, so to speak. Go to the search engine and run the words 'tomb raider' or 'Lara Croft'. They'll explain more about what's going on. Look, I have to get some sleep. It's been a long day. Feel free to use the papasan, it's big enough for the both of you." Charles yawned. "Don't go outside the apartment and don't make any phone calls or anything, okay?"

Lara nodded noncommittally and waved him off, engrossed in her exploration of the Internet. David just glared at him from his resting place on the sofa. As Charles went to bed, he hoped nothing else mind-boggling would happen tonight. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Charles woke up the next morning to a quiet apartment. He sat up, looking around blearily. I need caffeine. I cannot handle reality without caffeine. I must have caffeine or I will slip into a coma. His mind played this litany over and over again until he could get to the kitchen.

As he stumbled towards the refrigerator, he found himself aware that something was not quite right. He took out some soda and drank, letting the carbonated water and artifical ingredients awaken him.

Lara and David.

LARA AND DAVID!

Charles spun around and looked out into the den. Apart from the usual furniture and his computer screen showing off a LOTR screensaver, there was nothing and no one else around. He blinked, then his face relaxed into a relieved smile. I imagined the whole thing. His smile grew. It was all just a bad dream. I really gotta lay off the spicy food before sleep.

He heard a knock at the door and he rubbed his eyes. The dream was so real, but so impossible. Well, I'll just rest today, maybe even add this to my current storyline...

He opened the door.

"Hey, Chuckers, make a hole, we got groceries here." David Connors strode in, plastic grocery bags looped around his forearms, nearly pushing Charles to the side as he entered and headed for the kitchen. Lara came in behind David, carrying some books from the local library, according to the tags on the spines. Charles gaped as David put the groceries away while Lara camped out on the sofa, putting the books at her sides and going through them. They acted as if Charles wasn't even there.

Please, God, let me still be dreaming. "Could someone, I really don't care who, tell me what's going on?"

"Well, Chuckers..."

"Will you please stop calling me that?"

"Nope. Anyways, since you've proven to be of absolutely no help whatsoever in telling us how we got here, not to mention how to get home, we're just going to have to figure it out on our own. And trust me, buddy-boy, we know how to do that really well. So, just try to stay out of our way, okay? Thanks."

Charles bristled. "What gives you the right to...?"

David slammed his hands on the countertop and looked at Charles. "Don't even try it, asshole. Considering what you've done to my wife and child...!"

"I had nothing to do with that, it was just a story!"

"And Lara and I are just characters in that story, right?"

"Well...I don't know for sure, but it seems that way."

"Then you won't be able to pin it on me if I come over there and beat the shit out of you...!"

"David Connors!" Lara stood up, indignant. "Stop this right now!"

David looked at Lara, then back at Charles. "Just one excuse, just give me one reason, I swear to Christ, and you'll be one dead HACK. Got me?"

"David, may I have a word with you...in private?" Lara grabbed David's arm and pulled him into the bedroom. As the door shut behind them, Lara turned to David. "What is the matter with you?"

"I'll tell you. It burns my ass knowing that the person responsible for setting up may family to be murdered and tortured is in the next room!"

"Indeed? Then consider this, David Connors. If it were not for this man, we wouldn't have met. As bizarre as this is, we need his help and he doesn't deserve your wrath."

"Bullshit!"

"David, listen to me very carefully, because I'm only going to propose this once: back in the world we lived on, did you have written upon your currency, 'In Charles We Trust'? Did Mark Twain or Shakespeare imagine that Huck Finn or Hamlet were suffering or enduring when their stories were being written? I don't know what forces are at work here. Maybe it is all just a coincidence. Maybe he does have the power to influence us. Either way, he is our only hope of getting home and you have yet to respect that, David Connors!"

"But...but how could he possibly know the kind of pain of losing someone you've loved more than life itself?"

"David, darling, I love you but you can be so thick sometimes. Have you even looked around this place?"

"What about it?"

"Dave, in his closet, there are only his clothes."

"So he lives alone, big deal."

"Dave, he has a wedding ring on his finger, but he has no pictures of his wife up anywhere, not even on his desk. You're a detective, or at least you were once."

David considered, looking around the bedroom. It looked bare, and there was no evidence of anyone else living there besides Charles. He turned and walked over to the bathroom, checking out the drawers and trashcan. No feminine hygiene products, no hairstyling accoutrements. What he did find was a prescription bottle for Zoloft, half-full and the prescription dated two months before. The wheels in his head began to turn.

"So, David, what can you deduce from all this?" Lara asked from behind him.

"That either his wife left him...or she's dead." David sighed. "And he's taking anti-depressants, so it was either recent, or traumatic, or both. Place and personality type suggests self-loathing...aw, jeez."

"And you just told him that you wanted him dead, David."

David moved through the door and Lara moved to the side to let him pass. He rushed into the living room to find that Charles had left. He scanned his desk to find that his keys were still sitting on top of the pile of papers in front of his monitor. "He must've just walked out."

"Then perhaps we should find him."

"Right."

Charles walked along the road in front of his apartment complex, a major cross-street with almost no traffic, not uncommon for this time of day. He walked in silence, hands jammed into his pockets, eyes on the concrete sidewalk in front of him.

"Hey, Chu...Charles! CHARLES!" David yelled.

Charles didn't answer, but hate bloomed in his heart like a gunshot wound. Great. I couldn't even get half a block. "GO AWAY!"

"Charles, wait!" Lara called, catching up to David's slow pace easily, moving to his left side. "Charles...?"

"In the words of a great British philosopher, 'PISS OFF'." David kept walking.

"Look, Charles...I want to apologize."

"Spare me," Charles said acidly.

"Charles, come on. I'm sorry, alright?"

Charles stopped and turned to look at them, eyes shining with tears of pain and anger. "SORRY? I'll tell you about 'sorry'! I'm sorry I was such a terrible husband, I'm sorry I had my life taken away from me when my wife left me, and I'm sorry that I'm so alone and lonely, so alone that I only have one thing in this stupid, fucked-up existence that proves to me that I'm not really in Hell! You know what that is, Dumb and Dumber? My writing. It's the only thing in this world that couldn't be taken away from me, or that's what I thought. Now I find out that everything I write actually happens, that the pain and sorrow that the characters feel, they really feel it! Well, to Hell with all of you! I QUIT!"

Lara and David suddenly crumpled to their knees, pain on their faces as they began to flicker in and out of existence like a degrading television picture. David was the most faint, so distrorted and transparent that Charles could see right through him to the concrete under him. Lara was more opaque, but growing less tangible by the second. Charles stared at them, suddenly glad the street wasn't busy. "What the...?"

"Charles...please..." Lara looked up at him, her face beginning to distort. David was bent over, his body beginning to twist and deform like melting taffy. "Don't...do..."

Charles shook his head, then backed up. His instincts told him to bolt, run, forget all this craziness, but something in his mind told him what he needed to say:

"Alright...I'm not quitting."

As soon as the words were said, David and Lara snapped back to normal, still crumpled on the ground, but groaning and breathing heavily. Charles sighed and helped them to their feet, walking them back to his apartment and letting them collapse on the sofa. It was a good thing that whatever had happened to them was more painful than debilitating; the thought of holding up David's full weight alone was daunting.

Charles went to the refrigerator and stopped as he realized it was loaded with food, easily three times the amount he purchased on his shopping trips. "Please tell me I'm not broke."

"Relax, Chu...Charles, " David said, the feeling of numbness going away from his body. "We paid for it."

"How?"

Lara sat up and smiled, then winced as she tried to move her arms. "Let's just say there's a drug dealer in Dallas who has a lot of explaining to do to his bosses about what happened to his shipment and their money."

"Great, a regular Robin Hood and Maid Marian...except for the fact that Robin gave the money to the poor." Charles closed the refrigerator door.

"Actually, to put it more accurately, Charles," Lara corrected, "he gave the money to the needy."

"And trust me," David continued, "we were needy."

"Is this going to visit my house at some point in the future?"

"No, we got away clean, Charles." David grinned. "You don't have a thing to worry about."

Outside in the parking lot, two men with sacrificial knives in hidden sheaths walked up to the door, dressed in white shirts, slacks and ties. They also wore blank eyes and wide, enthusiastic smiles as they walked to the door, their mission clear in their minds:

KILL CHARLES MAGE.

TO BE CONTINUED...