Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (3 page)

Are wolves
nocturnal?
They’ll go back to the den once the sun comes up
, Samuel
thought.

Samuel watched
as a new light crested off the horizon. He did not see the blazing orb of his
sun. He did not feel the warmth of the day. Hours passed, and yet the light
failed to chase back the darkness, seeping upward until a dull grey blanket of
mist descended on the forest. A quick pulse of memory shot through his head, a late-afternoon
thunderstorm at the shore. The feeling lingered, but the specifics of the
memory did not. He looked down at the pack. The females and cubs slept in
bundles of fur, and most of the hunters rested their heads in their paws, all
except one. The alpha male remained sitting, his eyes focused on Samuel.

***

As the light
faded yet again, Samuel felt the first cramps clutching his muscles,
threatening to eject him from his safe perch. His stomach threatened to turn in
on itself. He closed his eyes, unsure whether the hunger pangs could keep his
mind off the muscle cramps or whether it was better to focus on the cramps to
take his mind off of his hunger. Samuel’s tongue felt as though it were wrapped
in cotton. Sweat dotted his forehead, while his feet felt cold and dead.

It weakens.

The wolves
pushed up onto all fours and began circling the base of the trunk. The alpha male
reared back and howled. The cubs awakened with new fervor, hunger, and
bloodlust. Two hunters leapt onto the base of the tree, as if threatening to
climb it. They jumped back and forth, growling and snapping at each other’s
tails.

Samuel closed
his eyes, and the world swam beneath him. He lost his sense of perception and
fell from the branch, lunging out and grasping another to stop his plummet. The
branch slid beneath his fingers as he looked down at the ground below, feeling
dizzy and expecting the ground to rush up and snatch him from the precipice.
Samuel reminded himself not to look down, wondering why that seemed to be the
best advice for a fear of heights. The hunters saw the movement, and the other
wolves sensed it. The entire pack ran around the base, barking and growling in
a frenzy. Samuel hung by one arm, his left foot five feet from the ground. He
felt the sting as a pine branch opened a gash in his side, and blood dripped into
the open maw of the alpha male.

Not this
way,
he thought, wincing.

He drew a deep
breath and forced the pain from his mind. He considered giving up until the
thought of the pack’s teeth tearing at his flesh cleared his head. His mind
raced through questions, possible reasons for the wolves’ unending pursuit. But
in that moment, he realized it did not matter. He would have to survive before he
could have the luxury of reflection.

Samuel
shook his head, fighting the haze and scrambling to reach a higher position. The
alpha male lunged upward, clamping his jaws on the heel of Samuel’s shoe and
shaking it left to right, rear paws digging into the dirt with every backpedal.
Samuel kicked with his opposite foot but lacked power behind the motion. His
toe bounced off the skull of the alpha male, agitating him more with each
strike.

The other
wolves crowded the alpha male, snapping at Samuel’s foot in support of the
leader. Samuel felt his grip loosening and his pants being tugged downward by
another wolf that now also had a hold. He looked up at the branch, the tree
about to fulfill his destiny of death in a way the noose could not. As his
right hand released and another wolf climbed to his knee, a crack echoed
through the valley. Samuel crashed to the ground as the wolves froze. They spun
to face the sound as another shot whistled through the air and a slug lodged in
the pine tree mere inches from Samuel’s head.

We
will come back.

The alpha male
turned to snarl at Samuel before bounding over the remains of the fire and
though the trunks of the pine trees. The hunters, the females, and the cubs
followed with their tails tucked between their legs.

Samuel looked
over the fire with blurry vision. His breathing slowed, and he sensed motion. A
dark swath moved over the reemerging fire. It stopped and hesitated. The flames
jumped back to life, and Samuel squinted in the light. Again the fire burned
with a paltry, green hue, but compared to the blackness preceding it, Samuel shielded
his eyes from the glare.

“Who are you?”
he asked.

“Close your
eyes. We’ll talk when your body has recovered.”

Samuel rolled
onto his back and laughed. Floating ash danced overhead against the black-velvet
sky. Bare tree branches reached for it like bony fingers.

“The wolves,
they’re coming back,” he said to the visitor.

“They will. They
always do,” came the reply.

Samuel smiled
again and closed his eyes. He would sleep, or he would die. Either outcome
would rest his weary mind.

Chapter 3

Samuel felt the
nudge of the boot in his ribs and rolled over onto his back. The grey, gauzy
haze still hung in the sky. He put a hand to his throbbing forehead and
wondered how long it would take to feel normal again, if ever. Samuel detected
movement across the remains of the night’s fire, and a pulse of fear raced
through his chest. The tree, the wolves, and the howling—especially the howling—resurfaced
in his head. He gulped the air and recognized the movement of a fellow human. Samuel
squinted as he sat up on his elbows.

“What time is
it?” he asked.

“Does it
matter?”

He shrugged. “I
guess not.”

He
watched the stranger from behind. The man sat on a felled trunk, wearing a
tattered, black overcoat mingled with dried leaves. He wore a black, cloth
headband tied at the back of his head above a ponytail that was streaked with
shooting bursts of grey.

“Who
are you?”

The
stranger turned and faced Samuel. His eyes sat deep in his skull, surrounded by
dark blooms of age and fatigue. The headband crouched low over his eyebrows,
and the stranger’s nose sat crooked, in between two red cheeks and lips melded
together into a thin line. A bruise ran from his left ear, down across his
throat, and then up underneath his right ear.

“Call
me ‘Major’,” he said to Samuel.

“Is
that a name or a rank?”

Major
smiled and shook his head. “You ask too many questions.”

Major
placed his knife and sharpening stone on a rock, and the glint of the blade
sparkled when it caught the dull glare of the daylight.

“You
saved my life,” said Samuel.

Major
shrugged.

“Thanks.”

“You’re
welcome . . . er?”

“Samuel.”

“You’re
welcome, Samuel.”

Major
stood and walked over to Samuel. He slid a rock around and sat facing him.

“What
do you remember?” he asked.

“The
noose.”

Major’s
eyebrows pushed the headband up slightly.

“It
didn’t work. I know it was tight on my neck. I don’t remember that, I just know
it. Then it was at my feet, and the bruises on my neck turned red.”

“Before
that?” asked Major.

Samuel
shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Family,
friends, work, women?”

Again,
Samuel shook his head.

Major
whistled and stood. “Haven’t seen many that close that don’t end up with rigor
mortis.”

“Close
to what?” asked Samuel.

Major
waved his hand in the air and bent down to rummage through a rucksack a few
feet from the fire pit. He pulled out a plastic jewel case. The cover had four
symbols on it, and the spine read “Threefold Law—
Revenant
.” He tossed
the CD to Samuel.

“Know
what that is?”

Samuel
smiled. “I’m not an idiot. It’s a CD.”

Major
snatched it from his hands and tossed it back into the sack. “Personal, not
cultural,” he seemed to say more to himself than to Samuel.

Samuel
stood and stretched his back. His stomach moaned, and he stepped toward Major. “I
can’t remember the last time I ate anything.”

The
comment shook Major from a momentary daydream. He pulled the rucksack closed
and reached into a blue, plastic shopping bag behind it, grabbing cheese on
wheat crackers wrapped in cellophane. He tossed them to Samuel.

“One
of the few of those I have left. Might be one of the last ever.”

Samuel
ignored the remark as he tore into the snack crackers. The overpowering sting
of salt flooded his mouth and overwhelmed his senses. And then, as quickly as
it came, the taste disappeared. He chewed what now tasted like dried cardboard.

“At
least you got a glimpse, a surge of sensation. Most of the shit I find now
doesn’t even give me that much.”

Samuel
finished the crackers and immediately recognized how thirsty he had become. He
gave no mind to Major’s cryptic remarks.

Major
walked to the nearest pine, lifted a twelve gauge shotgun, and laid the barrel
over his left shoulder. He loaded a lead pumpkin ball into the chamber and
clicked it shut. Major grabbed the rucksack and swung it over his head.

“I’ve
gotta go.”

Samuel
stared at him.

“I
left you a water.”

“Hold
on! Where are you going?”

Major
ignored the question and strode past Samuel toward the enveloping darkness of
the forest. The filtered light retreated downward from the sky, leading Samuel
to believe it was nearing dusk.

“What
if the wolves return?”

“They
will,” said Major. “But not for two or three nights. I wouldn’t linger here for
too long, if I were you.”

***

Samuel sat at
the base of the tree that had become his refuge from the pack. He leaned his
head back and closed his eyes. What he recognized as night returned, smothering
what remained of the reflected light in the sky. He decided against following
Major into the woods. The man must have been here much longer than he had, and
it would not be difficult for Major to lose him. And then Samuel thought of the
wolves and thought better of venturing into the wilderness on his own.

He reached over
to the water bottle Major left and noticed a scrap of paper underneath it. Placing
the bottle to the side, he unfolded the note.

Most of the
bodies have nothing of value. Scavengers have cleaned them out. The trinkets
lying in piles are worthless or don’t work, neither of which will help you. I
can’t tell, but I think it’s accelerating. Not at an even pace like a clock,
but more like the tides. It moves faster the closer it gets. I’ve seen it
before. I’m moving to higher ground. So should you.

Samuel read the
note again. It was not addressed to him, and it was not signed by the author. He
had to assume Major left it and decided that another confrontation with the
pack would not be in his best interest. He shoved his personal items into a
pocket, drained the last of the water, and climbed the tree. When the morning
glow crested over the horizon, he would follow Major’s trail as far as he could
and hope that it would lead to higher ground.

***

Samuel awoke. He
had dozed on the branch, but would not go so far as to call it sleep. He felt pain
in his hips, and his muscles ached from the slight tension needed to keep him
balanced and from falling out of the tree. A thin beam of light appeared on the
same horizon after what felt like more than a single night of darkness.

It’s
accelerating.

Samuel thought
about the phrase in Major’s note, and the fact that the night had felt longer. He
shook his head and turned one ear toward the unending forest. Samuel had not
heard them baying or seen so much as a falling leaf since Major had left. The
silence of the forest again felt suffocating, dead. He slid off the branch and
climbed backward down the trunk until his feet landed on the pine needles.

Samuel made the
decision to find higher ground regardless of Major’s note, and he walked into
the forest in the same direction that Major had, following the man’s first few
footsteps. Samuel laughed and remembered tracking a deer in his youth. He
smelled the fresh blood and felt the crisp snap of the frigid winter air of
days gone by. He stopped, frantic and yet exhilarated. That memory had returned.
If it did, others might, as well.

***

He spent the
next few hours trudging through the ancient forest, unsure as to whether he was
making progress or simply walking in a huge arc. Samuel had not come across his
campsite again, so he considered his time as progress. He approached a narrow
creek running across the path. The water moved over the low rocks and passed by
without so much as a gurgle. The entire stream had fallen silent. Samuel
reached into his back pocket and removed the cap from the plastic water bottle
left by Major. He dipped the bottle into the water and filled it to the top. Samuel
sniffed the water and could not detect an odor, and he poured a drop into his
mouth. He swallowed and waited. His stomach did not cramp, and he could not
detect anything toxic. He threw the bottle back and drained it three more times.