Transcending the Legacy (16 page)

Daniel’s voice quivers, “So sorry
, Tom.”

Tom
answers, “We all have our stories. Mine is just one of many. A few days passed and I had already buried my Suzy and Tiff, when Bear and Shiva started acting more territorial than normal. I carried Tessa from room to room with me. The dogs, they wouldn’t leave my side at all. If they heard the sound of a creaking board, they would bark and growl protectively. I thought it might have been their instinct to protect us seeing that two of their pack, Suzy and Tiff, had fallen. Now, I realize that they were already sensing the Dwellers’ attack.”

Tom rubs the back of his neck, angling his head to the side as he says, “Daniel made it to us. He had a small staff and the supplies needed to perform
the implantations on Tessa and me immediately. I was so scared for Tessa to undergo something so intense on her small body, but I knew we didn’t have another choice. She had started wheezing the day before and I was counting the minutes before Daniel walked through our door.”

Tom shifts on his feet.
“Daniel and his staff stayed with us for a week just to make sure our bodies adapted to the changes. I wasn’t worried about my healing. I was more concerned with Tessa, but her wheezing was gone within hours of the implantation.”

Daniel interjects, “The young are very resilient.”

Tom bows his head. “Yes, and animals too, apparently.”

Daniel snickers audibly, drawing all of our attention to him. Tom does the same and my eyes bounce between them curiously.

I ask, “What happened? Did you implant the dogs?”

Daniel, “No, but if Tessa had it her way, they would have been.”

Tom shakes his head and grins slightly. “After the implantation, Daniel and I both told Tessa what had happened to her, that she had a device put inside of her to help her survive. She didn’t cry, a reaction that I had expected. Instead, she asked when Bear and Shiva would be implanted.”

Daniel
replies, “I tried to explain as simply as I could that we had not tested an animal implantation and we didn’t want to put her dogs at risk. I even examined the dogs, their heart rate, their oxygen levels and found them to be completely healthy which astounded me. Still, she insisted.”

Daniel looks at
Tom as he recalls her reaction. “She put up a fight, didn’t she?”

Tom chuckles softly to himself and says, “Yes, she did.”

Daniel’s smile fades as he speaks again. “The dogs, they were healthy. I did not lie to her when I told her that.”

Sebastian probes, “A genetic anomaly?”

Daniel shakes his head, “That is the only logical answer. Something within their genetic makeup was able to alter them quickly enough to adapt with the elemental shift.”

Tom
continues, “Daniel told me about the Dwellers. He asked if I would be willing to take Tessa and the dogs to a compound below ground close by. I was thrown for a loop that there was an underground compound in my town, only a couple of miles from us in the foothills of the mountains. I needed time to absorb that. One afternoon I was out getting supplies in town. Daniel stayed back with Tessa and the dogs. I saw a Dweller take a hold of a woman, climb inside of her through her gaping mouth and consume her. Her eyes blackened and her ashen face… that was all it took for me to agree to the compound. We packed up our things and headed below ground.”

The image of
the Dweller occupied woman we saw when we first landed in the U.S. resurfaces in my mind. How the dark being oozed, and whipped from her mouth when her body was no longer of any use.

Tom
went on, “Now, a year later, and our colony has grown exponentially. All of the colonists are survivors, fighters, and hard workers. The nitrogen spike in our environment and the longer days have laid blessings on our harvests. Even though we have a small plot of land that is easily accessible from the compound, it has produced so much. We are on our second season and it is producing more than we expected for the first year. We strictly manage what we consume, not knowing how long we will be able to dodge the Dwellers. The rain has become frequent recently, another blessing in this evolution. We collect rain water, filter it, and bottle it in whatever we have to hold it.”

Second harvest in one year.
It is still mind-boggling that we had been gone for an entire year, but Tom reminds me of all the changes the world has undergone in that time and how the human race has not crumbled under the transformation; we are resilient just as Daniel said. I look around at the cavernous facility that has become there world...they haven’t overcome the changes though. Like all the other humans in our world, they have been forced to live underground.

Tom continues, “The canned goods, non-perishables we have scavenged from the vacant homes in town is great, but it won’
t last forever. The crops on the single plot of land might not last through another climate change. We don’t know how long our reserve will hold us if that happens. The fuel we have conserved won’t last forever either.”

His words hit me like a to
n of bricks, reminding me that eventually all the goods that have been collected, all the supplies, all the shelter won’t be enough forever. The colonies can’t sustain themselves without being able to live in the world above. All of this has to end.

Tom reaches down and strokes Shiva’s head, changing the subject. “Bear, he lost his life to a
Dweller outside of the compound about two months ago. A couple of colonists, Bear, and I were patrolling the perimeter of the compound walls for any natives. It came at us like a slithering snake, whipping through the brush. Both Shiva and Bear lunged at it, but they didn’t stand a chance against it as it attacked Shiva first, wrapping itself around her body. Bear...” Tom looks down at Shiva, “...he bit down on the Dweller and drew it away from her and me.” Tom pinches his eyes closed and shakes his head from side to side like he is trying to rid himself of the image of his dog’s sacrifice. “That thing wrapped around Bear’s body and forced itself into his open mouth.”

He looks upward to keep from losing himself and shedding tears.
“I shot him before it could take him.”

Tom, clears his throat and pus
hes his body away from the wall. “Jesca, I know letting you stay here is a risk. Briggs made that completely clear.”

I’m about to tell him I’m sorry when he holds his hand up to me, stopping me from mouthing the words and continues, “I know who you are and what Daniel says you are capable of. I’m willing to take the risk of keeping you and your guardians safe tonight
if that could mean the end of these Dwellers and the survival of our race beyond these underground compounds.”

My voice is hoarse when I speak, “Thank you
, Tom.”

Tom nods.
“Let’s get you all settled into your quarters.”

He pats his leg once
and Shiva heels instantly. He walks through the opening into the darkened tunnel with Shiva by his side. As we all file out after him, I bring up the rear. The walk back is long as I think sleep will be hard to come by tonight.

I’m walking down an alley, the road slick from fresh rain.
It is dark, night. I try to stop myself from moving, so I can look around me and get my bearings. I can’t, my legs keep moving me forward down this narrow alley. My body turns into a side alley and I’m faced with a metal door. My hand reaches for the handle, pulls it, and I move inside. I want to crawl out of my skin, turn and run, wake myself up, but I’m a captive in my own body. In a distant room somewhere above me, I hear screams and yells mixed with gunfire. My stride doesn’t slow as I approach an open doorway to my right. The screams are intensifying, getting closer; something is chasing them. It has to be Dwellers. I want to stop walking, crouch and avoid what I know is approaching, but my form continues to move smoothly through the doorway into an open area lined with wooden cargo boxes. It looks like some kind of storage area. I hear the sound of pounding feet running. I turn in the direction it is coming from, another passage leading out of the room. The padding becomes louder and louder, closer and closer. I beg myself to move, hide, but it remains at a standstill. Suddenly, a running form shows itself in the hallway as it charges toward me. It is a man, but I can’t get a good look at him as he runs past me.

He is moving fast, turning in a circle searching the room for something.
He doesn’t see me though, completely overlooking me like I’m invisible. His eyes dart back to the hallway he just came from just as I hear a multitude of thumping feet heading this way. The man, his eyes increase in size two fold and he dodges behind a tall wooden box. The onslaught is released as at least a dozen more Dweller occupied humans enter the room. The sight of them will always be spine-chilling; the charcoal filled eyes lid to lid, the bulging red veins surrounding them, the fast motion writhing that is both unnatural and forceful. The unsettling feeling it stirs throughout my body is indescribable. One woman Dweller walks right up to me, nose to nose. She sways from side to side, eyes shifting from left to right, scanning the room. I am completely unseen. That is when I realize that this isn’t an astral projection. It is a vision.

The occupied woma
n continues to sway, twitching every so often aggressively. What am I meant to see?

More
Dweller humans have already entered the doorway through the hall and have been set free into our world. This one, she was not interested in leaving yet. With the entire wave of the Dwellers gone now, she backs away from me spasmodically toward the passage that she entered from. She stops at the doorway and crouches wickedly, perched and waiting. From where I am standing, I can see both the man hiding behind the large box and her. She stares blankly with her onyx eyes and waits. She is waiting for the kill. She knows he is here, but she wants to make it a true hunt.

I want to close my eyes, but I have no dominion over my body or the direction of this vision.

The man
begins to rise behind the box ever so slowly and I wish I could tell him to stay down. He looks around the side of the wooden box at the doorway all of the Dwellers had escaped to, except the one perversely waiting to make her move. He can’t see her from the angle he holds and unknowingly he moves away from the box. Instead of looking in the direction of this beast of prey, he looks at something beyond me. The ruler of this vision pulls me away from the scene so that I see both the man and the Dweller behind him. The man is standing in front of a wooden door with a rusty knob hissing, “I know you are in there Michael.”

Michael?

The man takes hold
of the door knob and wiggles it. “Michael! It isn’t too late!”

Michael Sanderson?

A series of screams and yells emerge from door leading out into the world, the Dwellers hunting grounds. They have found prey. I will the man to look behind him, to see this Dweller behind him, but he steadily pounds on the door and continues to wiggle the door knob and yells, “You can still be saved Michael!”

This man, he is trying to keep Michael from being taken, but he has locked himself in a storage room. Why? Why doesn’t he want to be saved?”

I hear muffled words emanate from beyond the door, “I don’t deserve to be saved.”

The man wiggles the knob once more, before the cowering
Dweller leaps across the room and forces the man to face it. The man’s blood-curdling and disturbing scream will be forever ingrained in my head. In an instant, the Dweller takes hold of his head and snaps his neck, ending his agonizing cry with one swift movement.

The Dweller
drops the man’s lifeless body to the ground. Not coordinated with the body it has taken, the Dweller’s hand paws the knob in an attempt to open the door; it succeeds. The door slowly opens revealing Michael on the ground, leaning against a shelf of supplies with his eyes closed.

The Dweller
infested woman tilts her head back and opens her mouth wide. For the first time, I hear a Dweller speak through its vessel. The woman’s mouth does not move, just remains unnaturally agape as the Dweller speaks through her, “You will not die slow.”

In a split second, the woman takes Michael by the shirt and brings his face directly in front of hers, mouth still ajar.

The quick motion of him being lifted by this
Dweller startles Michael to open his eyes. As he witness the pure evil of this being, his voice shutters and trembles, “No.”

The woman places her hand on his chest and begins to chant. The language sounds like the
Rephaim’s dialect, but I can’t be sure. The Dweller is saying it so quickly and I forget to listen when I see Michael’s eyes widen and his breath catch, leaving his lips parted. A pearly vapor suddenly rises from his open mouth.

The Dweller
says, “You will lead us to them.”

The vapor, it must be his life force, his essence, his soul!

The pearly mist dances between them for only a moment, when the woman’s body begins to shake uncontrollably. The shadowy, fluid Dweller slithers out between the woman’s lips and latches onto the iridescent life force hovering above both of them. Michael’s fixed eyes and stiffened body falls to the ground as does the woman’s.

The inky
Dweller surrounds Michael’s airborne soul, then dissolves into it becoming invisible within the atmosphere. Did the Dweller become part of the soul? They can’t do that! The Dwellers take souls, not become them. Or did the soul become the Dweller?

I can’t see any trace of it, but I can feel its dense malevolent energy hovering near.

Suddenly, the master that is controlling this vision pulls me backward through the doorway, through the alley, until I hear my own panting breath in the present. I wake drenched in sweat and breathless. The panic settles in quickly. What if this altered Dweller has already made it to us? It is invisible we wouldn’t be able to see it. It could enter any of us and we wouldn’t know it.

Nate!
That is what is trying to control Nate!

I have to tell him.
I dress quickly and head to the main cavern to find him.