Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (23 page)

Chapter 14

He will not
trick me again.

The hunters
from the pack circled their tails, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. Strands
of saliva fell from their muzzles, turning the dark soil even darker. Some hunters
growled, while others kept their gazes low to avoid signaling a challenge to
the alpha male. The wolves’ yellow eyes cut through the darkness with laser
precision. The alpha male pulled back from the cave entrance when he no longer
felt the elder’s presence, fearful of what it could mean.

He is gone
from here. Banished.

The pack kept
moving, agitated and weary.

The end
arrives soon.

The horde had gathered
at a safe distance behind the pack. More creatures emerged from the trees, off
the path, and from other hidden places within the locality. They clumped
together, swaying back and forth, blotting out the trees and the ground with
their swelling numbers. The horde became a living organism comprising thousands
of unthinking beings. The edges oscillated like a giant cell membrane. The Reversion
kept advancing from the west, raking the horde to the cave like a pile of
leaves.

The alpha male
trotted to a rocky outcrop several yards from the cave entrance. He wound his
way up the shards of stone until he stood fifteen feet taller than the rest of
the pack. The wolf looked out over the field, where the horde replaced the
wheat, still teetering back and forth as if pushed by an invisible hand.

So many.

The hunters
paced underneath the outcrop while waiting for the alpha male to come back.

We must
pursue. We must descend into the womb.

The hunters
wailed, gnashing their teeth and snapping at each other’s tails, all the while
knowing that none among them could challenge for leadership.

***

“What
did you do to him?” Mara asked.

Samuel
stood still, staring at the dark-gray wall.

“I
gave him what he wanted.”

She
shook her head. “How did you do it?”

“I’m
not sure,” Samuel replied.

“Can
you do it again?”

“I’m
not sure,” he repeated.

Mara
turned and took a few steps toward the front of the cave. She approached until
the yellow eyes of the wolves danced in the darkness beyond.

“Between
the wolves and the horde, we’re not getting out of here.”

Samuel
nodded. In a recess, he noticed an array of angles foreign to rock. Samuel
stood and walked toward them. As the inner glow of the cave cast light on it,
Samuel discovered a small pile of broken tree branches and twigs. He gathered
them in his arms and walked back toward Mara. He dropped the bundle and began
to arrange them into a leaning pile.

“They’re
very damp. But it’s worth a try.”

Mara
smiled when she realized what he was doing.

She
helped arrange the wood as Samuel dug in his pockets for the lighter. He could
not remember if it had always been there or not. Samuel felt that sludgy
feeling returning to his head, slowing his thoughts and forcing him to think
hard about simple tasks. He recognized the feeling as the same one he felt when
the noose first dropped him into this locality, and he wondered if this was how
the end would come, if the Reversion would rewind everything, even the thoughts
and experiences in his head.

“Go
ahead and try,” Mara said.

The
comment shook Samuel, and he wondered how long he had been hovering over the
firewood with his thumb on the lighter.

“I
don’t even know if the lighter works.”

Mara
shrugged her shoulders and sat cross-legged on the ground. Samuel lowered his
hand and flicked the lighter. Sparks caught and ignited the fluid in the
reservoir. The flame appeared with a green tint, warm instead of hot. He
touched the flame to the smallest pieces. The wood cracked and sizzled but
failed to catch.

“It
was a nice thought,” said Mara, her face betraying her words.

“Not
sure how long it would have lasted, anyway. It’s not like there’s a stack of
firewood in here.”

She
nodded in consolation.

“It
was there, too,” Samuel said.

Mara
waited, sensing Samuel was speaking to himself as much as he was to her.

“I
saw the cloud in the portal, which is why I knew I was slipping him into that
one. If it had been paradise, like a picture of the steel-blue waters of the
Caribbean you see on office calendars, I’m not sure what I would have done.”

“You
saved me.”

Samuel
huffed, discomfort wracking his face.

“I
really don’t know if I can summon a locality or if it’s all chance. I don’t
even know if I can open a locality other than that one. Major could be waiting
for us when the next portal opens.”

“Then
we won’t be any worse off than we are now, right?”

A
howl followed by a series of growls made them both turn to face the entrance.

“I
have a feeling that they’re coming after us at some point. When the Reversion
gets right up close, these wolves are going to get over their fear of this
cave.”

“I
agree,” said Samuel. “And if the horde joins in, we’ll have our hands full.”

Samuel
watched Mara tuck a lock of black hair behind her ear, and he thought how
sophisticated she would look in middle age. He imagined that move revealing a
shimmer of gray by her ear and the slender hand pushing her hair away from blue
eyes that resonated with laughter, and experience, and life.

“Do
you think Kole is dead?”

“Yes,”
replied Samuel. “Whatever that means here.”

The
comment and its inherent mystery passed them by.

“He
was broken. On the inside.”

“Aren’t
we all?” asked Samuel.

“His
pain was so deep he couldn’t live without it.”

Another
howl, this one more intense and louder. The sharp retort echoed through the
cave like a gunshot. Mara watched Samuel’s face contort as if she could see the
memories floating back to the surface of his mind.

“I
was sick. Middle of winter, aches, the flu, the whole thing. We had been
married for quite a while at this point, kind of shed the little kisses and
light touches of the first few years.”

Mara
flinched, and Samuel could see her holding the pain inside the best she could.

“I
was in bed and having a hard time falling asleep. We had a big mattress that
left a lot of space between us. She reaches over and starts gently rubbing my
back with one hand. This was not foreplay. There wasn’t any of that happening
that night. She did it because she wanted to, and those couple of minutes of
contact felt like a million dollars. It’s that feeling that I miss. I ache
inside for that intimacy that comes through years of friendship, disagreements,
shared experience. It’s more than sex and more than physical contact. It’s a
spiritual connection between two people, unspoken, real, and powerful.”

Samuel
looked at Mara as she wiped tears away with the cuffs of her sleeves. “That’s
what’s dead here. That’s what this locality is missing. And if it is, maybe the
cloud needs to eat it. The Reversion needs to do its job and sweep this place
from existence.”

“It’s
love. I wonder why you can’t say that word? Everything you described is love. Do
you think it still exists elsewhere?” Mara asked.

“Why?
Why do you think it has to? Maybe love died like the summer breeze and the
sound of gulls soaring over open water. Maybe love is lying in its grave with
sunlight, and goodness, and righteousness,” replied Samuel

“It
has to exist somewhere else,” said Mara. “If I didn’t believe it did, I’d walk
out there right now and offer myself to the wolves.”

“But
does it exist for us, Mara?”

“We’re
here for a reason,” she said.

He
thought about Mara’s comment for a moment and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know
why I’m here,” he replied.

“You
do, Samuel. We all do. Some of us haven’t remembered it yet.”

Before
Samuel could reply, a howl from the alpha male brought them to their feet as
the wolf’s silhouette appeared at the threshold of the cave.

***

The cloud
continued its death march across the empty sky, eating the locality. The
rolling swirls of slate and obsidian pummeled the air. From west to east, all
but a sliver of the eastern horizon remained untainted by the Reversion. It also
dropped toward the surface like a heavy curtain. The cloud pushed down, placing
a pillow over the face of the last remaining motion in this world. The silence
overpowered everything, and distant vistas disappeared within the coming storm
of nothingness.

The trees of
the locality leaned inward, tired and exhausted from the continuous pull of the
Reversion. Some leafless branches touched the ground in homage to the
unstoppable force engulfing the land and everything in it. Some could not fight
any longer, their trunks snapping and toppling the head of the tree to the
forest floor, leaving a ragged trunk sticking up from the ground like a broken
tooth.

The horde
remained, most of them fastened to the last remaining piece of solid, real
matter. As the Reversion continued to churn from the west, the horde began to
revert as well. Clumps of undead flesh fell from their bodies in silent mounds
of rotted bone. Teeth and hair trickled from the creatures’ heads, followed by
limbs no longer strong enough to withstand gravity, the lone natural force left
virtually untouched by the coming disease. Scraps of clothing that had long ago
turned into dirty, gray remnants floated to the ground in silence. Some of the
creatures standing on the edge of the clearing collapsed on themselves, leaving
a pumping, empty jaw on the ground spewing nothing but meaningless silence.

The pack
suffered along with the horde. The alpha male’s hunters hunkered down in a
clearing not far from the cave, but several remained motionless and still for
far longer than would be natural. Two of the hunters lay with their noses
nuzzled underneath their tails, the rise and fall of their chests no longer
visible. The alpha male strode amongst the wolves and noted the change, one he
felt within.

It must be
now. Nothing will remain.

Of the six
hunters with their muzzles in the dirt, three stood in response to the alpha male.

The horde
shall join. There is not much will left in the dead flesh, but I command that
on His command.

The hunters growled
and circled their leader. They paced back and forth, staring at the black hole
in the mountain. The alpha male trotted forward and circled around. Three dozen
members of the horde shuffled, their legs dragging them toward the entrance to
the cave. Several more attempted to march until their atrophied bones dropped
them to the ground in a pile of dirty fabric and gray flesh. Seeing the
movement, the alpha male looked into the sky as it closed in on the tops of the
few trees brave enough to reach up into it.

The alpha male
brought his ragged army to the edge of the clearing until he could feel the
subtle exhalation of the mountain coming through the mouth of the cave. He
paced back and forth, growling and snapping at the air.

Come out.
We are not done.

***

“We can’t stay
here.”

“I know.”

Mara lowered
her head and wrapped her arms around her torso. Samuel moved closer to the
entrance, where silent movement caught his eye.

“The alpha male
is calling me out. He must sense the end of the Reversion drawing closer, as
well.”

“I’ll come with
you. I’ll fight, too.”

Samuel smiled
at Mara and nodded, knowing that she would do so regardless of what he said.

The water
running down the walls of the cave intensified, but did so in silence. Samuel
turned and paced the edge of the walls, his eyes searching for anything that
could be of use in their predicament. Mara watched and then did the same,
starting at one end of the main cavern until she worked her way back to Samuel.
Neither gathered anything useful for what they knew was an inevitable conflict.

“Think, Samuel.
Can you reopen the portal on a different locality than the last one?”

Samuel closed
his eyes and let the nothingness encompass his inner vision. He waited without
hope, knowing that the knowledge to open a portal to escape the locality was
escaping him, like the old horror movies when the car would not start no matter
how many times the ignition was turned.

“It’s there,
but I can’t access it. I can’t say if I could open something, and if I could,
I’m not sure where we’d land.”

Mara looked
toward the entrance, where several of the hunters joined the alpha male in his
pacing, accentuated with hisses and growls.

“Maybe this is
not our last stand. They don’t seem to want to enter here, the wolves or the
horde. Maybe we push through the cavern and go deeper into the mountain.”

She wrinkled
her nose in disgust and shook her head back and forth. “I’d almost rather have
my throat ripped apart by the wolves.”

Samuel nodded,
understanding why she would suggest such an alternative. “It could come to that
anyway. Let’s try to avoid it with the understanding that we may have a last
stand.”

Before Mara
could answer, the alpha male crossed the threshold with a yelp. His cry broke
the silence of the Reversion like the crack of a whip. The other hunters
followed, all enduring the hurt caused from crossing over into the cave. The
horde came next, slagging forward and oblivious to the pain the crossing had delivered
to the pack. They shuffled in a single-file line, arms dangling and heads
cocked to the side as if held to their shoulder by an impenetrable force.

“C’mon,” Samuel
said to Mara.

He ran into the
labyrinth of tunnels that led deeper into the mountain, hoping to avoid the
dead ends. He heard Mara’s breathing and her feet slapping against the dry
powder on the cavern floor. The growling of the wolves came too, reverberating
through the cave and not far behind.