Chapter 3: The Apothecary Between Worlds

Chapter 3: The Apothecary Between Worlds

The world didn't just blur; it tore itself apart. The grimy glass of the phone booth melted into streaks of weeping color, the solid floor pitching like the deck of a ship in a typhoon. Alistair’s stomach lurched into his throat, his knuckles white as he gripped the Bakelite receiver, the only solid thing in a universe that had turned to liquid. The low drone he’d heard through the phone was now everywhere, a bass note that vibrated in his teeth and rattled his bones, the sound of reality grinding to a halt. He was falling, or flying, or being dragged through a dimension for which there were no words. The phone booth was no longer a booth; it was a coffin, hurtling through the static between stations.

Then, with a bone-jarring lurch that slammed him against the glass, it stopped.

The drone ceased, replaced by a silence so absolute it was a pressure against his eardrums. The colors outside resolved, not back into the familiar squalor of The Last Drop, but into a uniform, horrifying blackness. He was somewhere else.

Through the grimy panes, he saw a landscape stolen from a madman’s dream. The phone booth rested on the shore of a vast, motionless sea. The water wasn't water; it was a thick, viscous ooze, black as crude oil, that swallowed the light and reflected nothing. Above, the sky was a shroud of utter black, punctured not by stars, but by cold, distant pinpricks of dead light—holes in the fabric of the night that offered no warmth, no hope. There was no moon, no wind, no sound. The air he breathed was thin and cold, carrying a scent like rust and deep space.

His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. This was impossible. This was a whiskey-fueled hallucination. But the cold glass under his hand was real. The terror coiling in his gut was real.

And there, across a short causeway of packed, gray dirt that rose from the ooze, was the only other feature in this desolate emptiness: a building.

It was a ridiculously, impossibly ancient Victorian apothecary, its narrow facade rising three stories into the dead sky. Its wood was dark and warped, its shingles mismatched slates that looked like dragon scales. Ornate ironwork twisted like thorns around the windows of the upper floors. A single, flickering gas lamp on a rusted bracket cast a sickly green-gold light over a large bay window, illuminating rows of bizarrely shaped bottles and jars within. Hanging above the heavy oak door was a swinging wooden sign, its gold-leaf letters miraculously untouched by whatever decay ruled this place.

The Verwood Apothecary. Purveyor of Curiosities.

Alistair’s breath hitched. He had followed the name on a sliver of glass to the end of reality.

He shoved the phone booth door open. It didn’t creak; the sound was instantly swallowed by the oppressive silence. He stepped out onto the gray dirt, his worn boots sinking slightly. He had to get to that shop. It was the only point of reference, the only chance for an answer in this cosmic horror show.

He walked the fifty feet to the door, every step a battle against the primal urge to scream. The black ooze lapped silently at the edges of the causeway, thick and syrupy. He had the distinct, terrifying feeling that if he slipped, he would not be submerged, but absorbed.

Reaching the door, he hesitated. What kind of monster waited inside a shop that existed in a sea of nothingness? Gritting his teeth, he pushed the heavy oak door open. A small brass bell chimed, a ridiculously mundane sound that was more shocking than the silence.

The interior was a chaotic sanctuary from the void outside. Every inch of wall space was covered by floor-to-ceiling shelves, bowed under the weight of countless glass bottles, stoppered jars, and wooden boxes. Their contents glowed with faint, internal light: liquids that swirled with captured nebulae, powders that glittered like ground diamonds, and darker shapes that seemed to squirm just at the edge of his vision. The air was thick with the scent of a thousand dried herbs, of ancient dust, of ozone, and something else—something metallic and sharp, like fresh blood and old pennies. In shadowed corners, he could see cages from which emanated not animal sounds, but whispers, faint and pleading.

Behind a long counter of dark, polished wood stood a man. Or the memory of a man.

He was impossibly old, his body a fragile collection of bones draped in skin so thin and wrinkled it looked like parchment. He leaned heavily on a gnarled cane that seemed to have grown into his hand. His cloudy, cataract-filled eyes were fixed on a small crystal bottle he was polishing with a silk cloth, yet Alistair felt the weight of that gaze, a gaze that saw more than light and shadow. It saw timelines and intentions. It saw the fragile construct of Alistair’s sanity beginning to fray.

“You’ve come a long way for a consultation,” the ancient man said. His voice was a dry, rustling whisper, the sound of brittle leaves skittering across a tombstone.

Alistair’s own voice was a harsh crack. He strode to the counter, his fear momentarily eclipsed by a surge of desperate anger. This was the source. This was the architect of his nightmare.

He reached into his pocket and threw the shard of glass onto the counter. It skittered across the polished wood, coming to a rest beside the bottle the old man was cleaning. The strange colors within the shard seemed to pulse in the shop’s dim light.

“Evelyn Reed,” Alistair snarled, the name feeling like a prayer and a curse. “Julian Croft sent me. Not intentionally.”

The old man, Dr. Verwood, finally looked up, his clouded eyes settling on Alistair. There was no surprise, no fear. Only a detached, professional curiosity, like a watchmaker examining a broken timepiece.

“Ah,” he whispered, his gaze drifting to the glass shard. “A customer service complaint. Most unusual.”

“Complaint?” Alistair slammed his fist on the counter, the sound shockingly loud in the cluttered shop. “I heard a woman get murdered. I heard your product shatter as she died. Then I saw her on television, alive and smiling with dead eyes! What did Croft buy from you? What the hell did he do to her?”

Dr. Verwood set down the bottle he was polishing with agonizing slowness. He extended a long, skeletal finger and gently tapped the shard of glass.

“Mr. Croft is a connoisseur,” Verwood rasped, a faint, dry smile touching his paper-thin lips. “A repeat customer. He does not purchase endings. He purchases new beginnings. A transaction was made. The product was delivered. The instructions, I assume, were followed.”

The old man’s calm, amoral tone was more chilling than any scream. He was talking about Evelyn’s soul as if it were a faulty appliance. Alistair felt a cold dread wash over him, a dread far deeper than the fear of the void outside. He was not talking to a man. He was talking to something else, something that had been selling nightmares since before the first cities were built.

“Tell me what it is,” Alistair demanded, his voice dropping low. “Tell me what was in that bottle.”

Dr. Verwood picked up the glass shard, holding it delicately between his thumb and forefinger. His cloudy eyes seemed to look right through Alistair, into the messy, violent event that had brought him here.

“You are a determined man, Mr. Graves,” the ancient purveyor whispered. “It is a rare quality. Most simply get lost in the dialing.” He held up the shard, letting it catch the green-gold light. “It seems you followed the label all the way home.”