Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (19 page)

Samuel
exchanged glances with Mara. He saw a flicker of fear in her eyes.

“I don’t need
help from either of you,” replied Samuel.

He separated
his feet to match the width of his shoulders. He bent at the knees and balled
both hands into fists. Major stopped his approach and held both hands in the
air, palms facing out.

“Calm down. This
doesn’t need to be messy. Once we determine which object is the talisman, you can
try to punch a hole that slips all four of us out of here. I know how it works,
and I can show you.”

“No,” mumbled
Mara. “It’s a trick. They’ll leave us. I think the talisman can only slip two.”

The men looked
at her as she trembled.

“What?” Kole
asked with a sneer.

“Don’t give
them anything, Samuel.”

Major chuckled
and shook his head, treating Mara like an insolent child. He turned and spoke
to Samuel.

“We’re going to
find the talisman, I’m going to show you how to use it, and then you’ll get us
all out of here just like you were doing in the tree. Except this way will
work. There’s nothing on that path out there but painful emptiness. More
nothing until the Reversion claims the last pathetic creatures here. It’ll
churn us in the cloud along with the horde and the wolves. If you’re fine with
that, then so am I. I’ve been punched through enough localities. I’m tired.”

Kole stepped
between Major and Samuel.

“Give Major the
talisman, you little bitch.”

When Mara’s
eyes met Samuel’s, she knew what he wanted her to do.

She lunged
forward, placing her hands on Kole’s forehead and plunging her thumbs into his
eye sockets. She felt his warm, moist eyeballs against the pad of her thumbs as
he screamed in pain. Samuel raised a knee upward until he felt it stop against
Major’s pelvis. The old man dropped to the floor and pulled his knees to his
chest while writhing in the fetal position. When Samuel looked back at Kole, he
was on his knees with Mara draped over his back. She removed her thumbs from
his eyes while dragging her nails across his face. Samuel watched the crimson
lines appear like whiskers. Before Mara could utter a sound, Samuel grabbed her
by the wrist and spun for the door. He pulled it open to reveal the horde
exactly where they had left them. Black orbs in gray faces lifted at the change
in the environment. Samuel dashed forward, pulling Mara with him. They stepped
outside the cabin, and before Samuel could slam the door shut, he heard Major.

“They won’t let
you leave,” Major said. His voice sounded shaken, defeated.

“We can outrun
them to the tree, and that’ll get us back on the path on the other side of the
Barren.”

Major’s laugh
slid into a ragged, choking cough. He had barely recovered from his fight with
the wolves. Kole remained on the floor with his hand over his eyes, where the
blood seeped through his fingers.

“I’m not
talking about the undead.”

Samuel looked
at Mara with his head sideways and his eyebrows raised. Before they could
speak, a distant, muffled howling came from the west, riding the black cloud that
hovered above the Barren.

***

“We’ll never
catch up to them.”

Major pulled
himself upright and placed a hand on Kole’s shoulder.

“We won’t have
to. The pack will eat their flesh and leave the rest.”

Kole rocked
back and forth, his eyes running with a watery pink mixture of tears and blood.
He blinked and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The lines drawn into
his flesh by Mara’s nails turned black as the blood coagulated and dried on his
skin.

“She’s not like
us. We knew the time would come when we’d have to force the situation. We can’t
slip three,” Major said.

Kole huffed and
dabbed his face with the collar of his shirt.

“She tried
gouging my eyes out. I want to hurt her. Bad.”

Major stood and
swayed as the nausea radiated from his groin into his lower abdomen. He sat
down again.

“Samuel is like
us,” Major said, ignoring Kole’s desire to inflict pain. “He slipped into this
locality under the same circumstances as we did.”

Kole shrugged,
nurturing his wounds and festering revenge. “So what?” he asked.

“Nothing. I’m
not sure it means a thing,” replied Major. “But unless you or I get our hands
on the talisman, well . . .” Major’s voice trailed off.

More distant
howls reverberated off the mountains, resonating back to the Barren, trying
hard to puncture the oppressive silence.

“They’re
coming,” said Major.

“Did you call
them?” asked Kole.

Major leaned
his head back to rest on the wall of the cabin. He did not answer.

“That means you
did,” said Kole. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing, old man. Ain’t like
these are trained canines sniffing for drugs.”

“Well, I’ve
been trying to dig my balls out of my abdomen since he kneed me. Do you have
any better ideas?”

Kole wiped
another drop of blood from behind his ear and decided to shut up. Major had been
beaten down by a man, but he had been bested by a woman, a flimsy girl.

“Yeah, me
neither,” said Major. “Besides, the pack don’t know the deal. They’re only
working on animal instinct.”

“You sure about
that?” asked Kole.

“What’s it
matter?” asked Major.

***

“Don’t stop,”
Samuel yelled as they dodged the oncoming horde that tried to reconfigure itself
and block the path.

They sprinted
for the tree, but several of the undead arrived first, making it impossible for
them to climb the rope to temporary safety. Samuel recalled the view of the
landscape from memory, adjusting the altitude to fit where he was on the
ground. When the howls rolled in underneath the dark cloud, Samuel pushed his
legs to pump even faster.

“The pack. The alpha
male. They’re back.”

“What are you
talking about?” asked Mara as she followed Samuel, their hands still locked
together.

“We’ve got to
get back on the path, outrun the horde, and find ourselves another shelter.”

Mara could only
make out a word or two as Samuel ran, projecting his comments into the heavy,
dead air. The horde started to recede as Samuel and Mara put space between
them. No new creatures appeared from the west, which led Samuel to believe that
they could outrun the horde created by the cloud. He pushed the image of the alpha
male from his mind, as well as the inevitable Reversion that crawled ever
eastward. He kept on the path, which was only visible for ten or fifteen feet
into the distance. Samuel thought that if a new group of the undead stumbled
upon the path he’d have no choice but to run at them.

“Up there,”
Samuel heard Mara say as he dodged right to miss a low-hanging branch that
threatened to put an additional bruise on his neck.

He could sense
the outline of a structure about ten feet from the path. Samuel traced the
shape with his eyes and knew it was another cabin, almost identical to the ones
he had already discovered in this locality. When he took a few more strides,
his hunch was confirmed. Samuel slowed and let go of Mara’s hand. She leapt to
his side until they both stood in front of the door.

Samuel turned
to see the first of the horde coming into view, shuffling down the path in slow
pursuit. More howls reverberated through the silent stillness until they raised
the hairs on his neck. Mara looked at Samuel, and they made a decision without
speaking. Samuel stepped into the inky blackness of the cabin, pulling Mara in
behind him. He slammed the door shut with nothing more than her sweaty hand in
his and a heart hammering in his chest.

***

Major opened
the door to a desolate and empty scene. He had become so accustomed to the
horde occupying the space that the Barren felt like an underwater realm, filled
with a formless void of darkness and silence. The locality held no trace of its
occupying army of the undead—it had pulled up stakes and set off on the path,
following Samuel and his talisman. He could not muster a lick of concern over
the girl. She was cute, like a pixie, punk-rock chick, but Major felt like he
was far beyond the ability to ever experience a crush again. While he felt no
direct animosity toward Mara, he would gladly remove her if she was in his way.

The howls grew
in intensity, but Major did not need verbal confirmation to figure it out. He
could feel the alpha male coming. And the wolf was angry. He had been denied
the hunt and the spoils.

“We going after
them?”

The question
broke Major from his thoughts. He turned to see Kole standing several feet
back. He had dirty scraps of cotton in his hands that he would use to dab the
blood from his face. Kole blinked constantly, and his puffy, red eyes looked
possessed.

“Can you see?”
Major asked.

“Yeah, enough,”
Kole replied.

“The horde
followed the path, which I’m sure they used. Samuel said he saw it extend to
the east on the other side of the Barren. No doubt he headed that way with
Mara.”

Kole growled at
the sound of her name.

“And now the
pack is coming hard out of the west. Seems like we got ourselves a party!”

“What are we going
to do with them?” asked Kole.

“It may not be
up to us,” replied Major. “If the horde or the pack get to them before we do . . .”
Major let his sentence trail off with a shrug of his shoulders. “Hike up your
boots, Sally.”

Kole bristled
at Major’s insult and wiped another drop of blood from his face.

***

Samuel had lost
the ability to register sensations. He groped like a drowning man bobbing in
the infinite ocean. He felt his eyes bulge and dry as he forced his lids open
only to see nothing but blackness. He flailed his arms in hopes of striking
Mara and verifying her existence, as well as his own. He opened his mouth and
screamed, but the space stole the words from his ears. He sensed his body
floating and stopped fighting the momentum. Samuel drifted until the images in
soft focus came to life inside his head.

“Another
round?”

The
bartender looked at him with his mouth slightly agape, the beginnings of a
smile that would never quite blossom.

“I don’t
think so, pal.”

Samuel
shrugged his shoulders and looked at the young woman sitting next to him. She
wagged her index finger back and forth while stifling a drunken giggle.

“C’mon, man.
One more for me and the lady. We’re walking through campus after last call. Not
like we’re getting behind the wheel.”

The
bartender rubbed the iron-cross tattoo on his outer bicep and snapped the dish
rag down on the edge of the bar. He grabbed a clear, tall bottle covered in
Cyrillic and poured two fingers of vodka into each shot glass.

“Six bucks.”

Samuel
reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a ruffled ball of paper
money. He slapped a ten-dollar bill on the polished maple bar and lifted one
shot glass with each hand.

“Thanks,
man. Keep the change.”

Samuel spun
to face the woman on the stool next to him. Her face glowed, a mixture of
alcohol-infused color and youth.

“Don’t know
if I’m going to be able to make it back to my dorm,” she said, accepting the
shot glass from Samuel.

He felt a
bolt of electricity as her hand touched his. The charge traveled through his
torso like a whiskey burn and settled in his groin with a slow smoldering. She
moved her leg inside of his and ran her toes up his calf. Samuel looked down at
her bare foot, untethered from her sandal, and fantasized about seeing her
perfectly painted toenails next to his ears.

“You can
always crash at my place. My roommates already left for the semester. Got the
whole place to myself.”

She smiled
and let her eyes peek at Samuel’s lap. She let the look linger.

“Certainly
don’t want you to be all alone now, do we?”

Samuel
looked around the bar at the survivors. The underclassman and underage kids had
binged through the early evening hours and had already been escorted home or
put into a cab. The shot and beer regulars had not returned yet, although once
spring bled into summer, they would come to reclaim their neighborhood bar, at
least until dorm move-in day in August. For now, Samuel felt like the bar was
his, and the people finishing their drinks in it belonged to him as well. He had
taken the remainder of his finals yesterday and printed out the last history
paper in the university computer lab that morning. Samuel’s parents wouldn’t be
expecting him home for another week, and it would be a week after that before
he’d be back on the assembly line at the factory, making enough money in the
summer to pay for his books in the fall.

Pride
motivated Samuel more than the promise of a good job or the adulation of his
family, who marveled at him as he became the first to steer toward a college
degree. In fact, Samuel believed most material possessions owned him. He had a
car, a beauty of Detroit engineering. Samuel loved his 1988 Dodge Daytona, but
he still had a year of payments left on it. He belonged to that car, or more
accurately, to the bank that owned it. He spent long hours at the circulation
desk. The countless stupid questions and disparaging glances from blue-haired
librarians felt like a chain tethering him to a world he knew he was inevitably
entering. The position came with a stipend, which, to Samuel, was another way
of getting owned. He savored the few moments in his life when he felt truly
liberated, and this night was going to be the first in a string of six or seven
that would belong to him and him only.

“No, you
don’t. I’m afraid of the dark, so maybe you could come into my room, tuck me
in.”