Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (13 page)

Major
glared at Kole. “He can be gruff, but what he says is true. We seem to be in a
holding tank of some kind.”

“What
about the wolves? What happened to them?” Samuel asked.

“I
don’t know,” Major replied, his voice trailing off, but with a thin veneer of
truth covering his words.

Samuel
opened his mouth to ask about the other spirits he had encountered on his way
to the Barren, but then he reconsidered. Mara read the look on his face.

“What?
Is there something else?” she asked.

Samuel
shook his head and turned back to Major. “So how do we get out?”

“I
had hoped the man you slipped into would have had the answer. But he doesn’t,”
said Major. “The solution must come from within these walls.”

***

Samuel watched
Mara move about the Barren. She walked with a determined grace, as if every
step had its own purpose. He followed her to the tree line, where she gathered sticks
for kindling, snapping the twigs to place them in a bag.

“Need some
help?” he asked her.

Mara shrugged
without lifting her head from the forest floor. Samuel approached, bending down
to pick up pieces of broken branches.

“So you don’t
remember how you got here?”

Mara spun on
him, her eyes glaring with untold emotion. Her nostrils flared, and she closed
her eyes. Samuel watched the surge pass. Mara opened her eyes and responded.

“It’s none of
your concern.”

Samuel nodded
and continued picking up the pieces of wood.

“No. No, I
can’t remember,” she said as if his apparent lack of concern had pulled the
answer out of her.

“Did you go to
your senior prom?”

Mara stopped
and made eye contact with Samuel. A slight smile forced the corners of her
mouth up.

“Excuse me?”
she asked.

“Prom. Did you
go?”

“Yes.”

Samuel let the
one-word reply hang in the silence.

“Did you?” she
asked in return.

“Not my own. I
was too cool. Spent the night sitting in the woods with my other loser buddies,
a case of beer, and a bag of weed. Had a girlfriend that was a few years
younger when I was in college. Ended up going to her prom at my old high school
when I was twenty-one. My younger brother was in her class, so I was at their
senior prom three years after not going to my own.”

Mara waited
until she was sure Samuel had finished recounting his experience.

“That’s
pathetic,” she said, her face relenting with a reluctant smile.

Her comment
brought another wave of recollection from Samuel. He brushed past the light
banter and dug deeper into his patchwork of memory. “I know I had a wife, but
that’s about it. I mean, I saw the picture on the wall, the ‘reflection,’ as
Major calls them. I knew that was my wife, but I don’t remember anything. I
couldn’t remember the name of the thing that sparked fire when I first woke up
here.”

“A lighter,”
said Mara with a lighthearted tone.

“Yeah, a
lighter. So I get these bursts of memory, but it’s more like being asleep on a
train. The ones I can remember now are only snippets of my life.”

Samuel waited. Mara
looked at him and shook her head.

“The fire is
probably low. Let’s get this back to the cabin,” she said.

Samuel followed
her, watching her hips sway with every step. Mara’s feet appeared to glide
across the organic debris on the forest floor. Before she opened the door, he
spoke.

“There’s
something he isn’t telling me.”

Mara turned to
face him. She dropped the sack of kindling next to the door and put her hands
on her hips.

“And there’s
something you’re hiding, too.”

She stepped
toward him and turned her worried eyes up to his face. “I don’t know where we
are. I don’t know what this place is, and I’m not sure I even want to return to
my locality. It’s not like it’s likely that would happen anyway. But this Reversion
will wipe us from existence, and I don’t want to be here when it does.”

Mara stepped
around Samuel and pointed to the west, where the pulsing, dark cloud loomed
higher in the sky. “You see that? It’s coming for us, and when it does, we’re
finished.”

“Major knows
how to get out of here? Is that why you’re at the Barren?”

“I’m at the
Barren because the Barren is the only place to be. I know you’ve met our
friends the wolves, and I’m not convinced they’ve been sucked up by the cloud. So
if you have doubts about this place, or us, there’s the path.” Mara pointed at
the narrow trail leading to the tree line and to the west.

“I don’t trust
any of you, and whatever it is you need me to do to get out of here ain’t gonna
happen until Major, or you, or the dickhead, levels with me.”

Mara huffed and
looked over her shoulder. Samuel nodded and picked up the bag of firewood
before opening the cabin door.

Chapter 10

The rain came
like a cruel, silent invader. It fell from the sky in glistening waves that
obscured the tops of the trees, enveloping the sky and swallowing the light. Major,
Kole, Mara, and Samuel sat on the floor of the cabin in silence, watching the
dwindling supply of kindling burn down into anemic, yellow flames. Samuel could
not remember when the rain had begun or how long it had continued. The lack of
natural light combined with the quickening Reversion hampered his ability to
judge time. He recalled two fits of sleep on the hard, wooden floor. Samuel
thrashed and awoke achy, a prisoner of fitful dreams just beyond his grasp. He
remembered the image of a train moving on a track in the most desolate place
his head could conjure. But the vision disappeared before he could recall it. Major
rationed the remaining food, which never seemed to run out. Samuel was thankful
that the odd locality made sustenance less of a survival necessity.

“Look.”

Mara’s
silhouette cut a shape in the greasy window next to the door. Kole huffed and
waved his hand at her while Major and Samuel craned their necks forward, seeing
nothing but the back of her head.

“What’s that?”
she asked.

Samuel stood
and bent down to look through the pane of glass Mara had cleared with her
sleeve. She managed to push the grime across the surface with enough force to
see out of it. They both stood, staring into the black abyss.

“I can’t see
anything,” Samuel said.

“You have to
wait for the lightning,” she replied.

“Lightning?”
Major asked. “When did that begin?”

“It caught my
eye a few hours ago. Of course, no thunder coming with it, but the lightning
came, and each flash drenched that black place with a burst of light.”

Samuel looked
at Major, and then back to Mara. Kole continued to sit on the floor, using his
finger to draw concentric circles in the dust.

“There!”

Major shook his
head in frustration as he looked outside a split second too late, but Samuel
saw it. At first, he chuckled to himself. He held his breath, withholding
judgment until he could take a better look. What felt like hours passed before
the next strike, but Samuel was ready. His initial curiosity washed away with
the surging rain.

The bright bolt
illuminated the form standing twenty yards from the cabin, facing east. Samuel
kept telling himself it was an ape, but he knew better. Mara reached down and
grasped his hand, squeezing hard. She continued to stare out the window, her
breathing erratic and muffled.

“Did you see
it?” she asked.

Samuel gave her
hand a return squeeze and looked at Major. He looked into the man’s eyes, wary
of what he saw in them.

“I did,” Samuel
replied.

The storm
tossed another round of lightning down from the sky. Samuel wondered whether
the dark cloud that was eating this place had sent the storm or if it had happened
naturally. Either way, the darkness and the downpour seemed to conspire against
his sanity. The concurrent blasts of soundless light fastened to the shape like
a spotlight.

Samuel held
that image in his mind like a photograph. The rain matted the man’s hair to his
head, covering the gray, exposed scalp. Water dripped at an angle as it ran
from his chin. Ragged flaps of flesh lay exposed on the man’s face, bloodless
and rotten. Samuel noticed that the man wore tattered remnants of clothing that
fell in strips about his body. His arm jutted inward at an unnatural angle. Artifacts
of pants came toward the ground to meet bare feet that sank into the cold mud. Nothing
on the creature mattered to Samuel, however, more than its eyes. Samuel looked
into the lifeless, black orbs and felt a whimper crushed within his chest.

“Who could it
be?” Mara asked.

Another round
of bolts crashed through the forest as Major stood. He looked over Mara’s tousled,
black hair at Samuel, who knew that the still frame in his mind was now also in
Major’s.

“There’s more.”

Samuel heard
the words enter his ears as if they came from outside of his own head. He
shuddered and felt the muscles in his abdomen cramp. He could no longer feel Mara’s
vise grip on his fingers.

Two
more stood behind the first.

“Are they
people?” Mara asked, still hopeful in her heart, but not in her mind.

“They used to
be,” replied Major.

Samuel looked
at him, tilting his head to one side, awaiting elaboration.

“When I first
saw them, I thought they were reflections, but they’re not. When they appear,
the wolves get real skittish.”

“Undead?”
Samuel asked.

“That’s one way
to describe them. I think they’re more like warnings. They precede the final
phases of Reversion. Canaries in the coal mine.”

“Ha!” yelled
Kole, still sitting on the floor drawing in the dust. “Zombie birds!”

Mara crinkled
her face and shook her head at Kole.

“What do they
do?” Samuel asked.

“Not sure,”
said Major, shaking his head. “I’ve only come across them a few times. They
don’t do much but draw more of their kind, like moths to the flame.”

“For fuck’s
sake, dude. Are they canaries or are they moths?” Kole asked. “Tell it like it
is, and quit being a fucking drama queen.”

“He’s just
trying to explain what’s happening, you asshole.”

The outburst
from Mara grabbed Samuel’s attention. He saw her shake her head and heard Kole
laugh in response.

“It doesn’t
matter, does it, hon? This place is heading to the shitter with zombie tour
guides. Your prince charming there can slip, but he’s got no way of controlling
it, and we don’t know if he can do it without us. Probably has a small pecker,
too.”

Samuel shifted
and turned his shoulders toward Kole.

“Everyone quiet
down.”

Major rubbed
his forehead, trying to think and de-escalate the situation at the same time.

“Tell the bitch
to quit her crying,” replied Kole.

Samuel took a
step toward him, and Kole stood at the same time. The men faced each other,
nose to nose. Kole flexed his biceps.

“Go ahead,
Sammy. You want a crack at me, go ahead.”

Samuel balled
both fists. He had eased the right one back to his hip when he felt Mara grip
his wrist.

“Let it be. Don’t
give the prick the fight he wants. Save your strength.”

Samuel looked
into Mara’s eyes, and his fingers eased back from inside his palms. He shook
his head at Kole, who had not moved.

“Why here?”
Samuel asked Major as he stepped away from the confrontation. Kole winked at
Mara, and she glared back.

“It could be that
the Barren draws them somehow, like magnets. It drew us here, didn’t it?”

“You told me to
come here,” Samuel said.

Major shrugged.
“Semantics. You would have ended up here, regardless.”

“What do we
do?” Mara asked.

“There isn’t
much we can do. Nobody is planning a Sunday hike any time soon. We stay here
for now.”

“Genius,” Kole
said.

“Man, you’re
not helping,” Samuel snapped.

“Look,” said
Mara, before Kole could prod the situation further.

In the flashes
of electricity filling the sky, several motionless figures had turned into
dozens.

***

As the undead
stood shoulder to shoulder, surrounding the cabin, Major ordered a watch. Samuel
agreed, as did Mara, while Kole refused to cooperate. His dust drawings had evolved
into charcoal portraits, which he drew on the walls using the ash from the fire.
During Major’s shift, Samuel felt the pull of sleep. He curled into a ball with
his head on the hard, wood floor. The image of a train returned as a new dream
seeped into his subconscious.

The track
extended to the horizon in one long, loping stride. It curled like a tail
around to the east, where the setting sun tore a flaming path in the sky on its
descent. A wind moaned outside the cabin car, the noise signifying to Samuel
that he was dreaming. The landscape lay as a flat expanse with an occasional pile
of scree left like crumbs on a table. The dreamworld contained no trees or
manmade structures as far as Samuel could see.