Blizzard of Souls

by Michael McBride

  He fell silent, gauging their reactions. Several sobs broke the silence occupied only by the grumble of breaking waves. The hook was set.

  “The time has come to ready ourselves for battle or we will bleed this very shore red.” He looked to the little boy and lowered his voice to make sure he held their complete attention. “The war is coming. They’ll come out of the snow and kill us all.”

  II

  ADAM WAS TRANSFIXED BY THE MAN ATOP THE TRUCK. HE FELT AS THOUGH he had seen him somewhere before, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember where. With the tailored coat and silk tie, he looked like he must have been a lawyer or some upper-echelon businessman before everything changed. Maybe it was the fact that even under the circumstances the man looked polished, but Adam instinctively disliked him. Regardless of his first impression, however, Adam could feel the truth of the man’s words resonating within him. All of them had known it on some instinctual level, but none of them had vocalized it. The man was right. The end of the world had only been the beginning for them. There were still battles to be fought and much blood to be spilled. He could feel it.

  There was a tug at his sleeve.

  “We must fortify our position and arm ourselves against what is to come,” the man said from atop the Ford, his voice rising with the level of his conviction. “The time is nigh to rise from our own ashes and begin anew.”

  Adam turned to find himself face to face with a guy who couldn’t have been more than twenty.

  “Jesus,” Adam gasped at the sight of the blood smeared all over the kid’s face. His eyes were recessed into darkness; haunted in a very real sense.

  “We need to get you cleaned up so I can look at your face,” Adam said, already reaching for his canteen.

  “No. Really, I’m fine,” he said. “I just… There’s something you need to see…”

  Adam creased his brow and inspected the younger man. The blood was definitely already dried and there were no visible lacerations, except for the small cuts on his lips where strands of skin had peeled away from exposure to the elements.

  “What do I need to see?” Adam asked. Behind him, a smattering of scattered applause and a few calls of support accompanied the man’s impassioned speech.

  “I need to show you.”

  “Do you think that guy up there is for real?” Norman asked. When he turned at Adam’s lack of reply, he saw the bloody young man. “Holy crap! What happened to you?”

  “He says he has something to show me,” Adam said.

  “Please…you can come too. Everyone needs to see this.”

  “Well…” Norman said. “My schedule appears to be clear.”

  “Okay,” Adam said, splashing the last of his water onto a shred of cloth. He offered it to the bloody man and mimed wiping his face with it.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking the rag and rubbing it over his mouth.

  “What’s your name?” Adam asked.

  “Ray Gorman.”

  “Shall we then, Ray?” Norman said.

  Scrubbing the crust of blood from his stubble, Ray turned and led them back toward the cave. When he reached the bonfire, he sifted through the ends of the thick branches hanging out of the fire and pulled one out, holding it up like a torch.

  “You’re going to need one of these,” Ray said, already walking toward the cleft leading into the mountain.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Adam said, watching the shifting light from the flickering flame reach out into the darkened corridor.

  “Claustrophobic?” Norman asked, removing the branch with the longest handle from the blaze. He offered it to Adam before grabbing one for himself.

  “Just spent way too much time underground lately,” Adam said, fighting to repress the memories of Ali Sadr and the friends he had lost in the labyrinth of caverns.

  Falling in behind Norman, they passed through the opening and into a thin corridor. Every imperfection in the rock wall cast a flagging shadow animated by the flames. Ray was a dozen paces ahead, the aura of light from his torch turning him into a being of shadow. He bent to the right, momentarily disappearing from sight. Rather than the darkness bringing with it the coldness of the grave, it seemed to be warming slightly as they penetrated the mountain, rounding the corner to find that Ray had gained ground on them. His torch appeared to have dimmed, the fire dwindling, but it wasn’t until they closed the distance between them that Adam and Norman could tell why.

  Ray was standing in an enormous cavern, so large that the light didn’t even reach the ceiling or the far walls. Norman stepped out of the earthen tunnel and into the larger chamber. He whistled at the size of it, the note echoing back at him from far off in the darkness.

  It looked dramatically different even with the weak firelight. While Ray thought he had been halfway into the room before, he now realized he had only stood at the precipice of it on a rock ledge that looked down upon the surprisingly large room. He must have been nearly to the edge when he’d crouched to find the knife, now stuffed into the front pouch of his hooded sweatshirt. Another couple of steps and he would have fallen from the edge of the cliff to the stone floor twenty feet below. He could only imagine lying there with broken bones poking out through the skin, waiting for someone to come after him, knowing that even his most pained screams would never reach their ears. But Tina wouldn’t have allowed that to happen…would she? Her appearance was now beginning to feel more and more like a hallucination from a fever dream. Had she ever really been there or had she been a manifestation of his mind’s descent into madness?

  “What’s that?” Adam asked, pointing down into shadows so thick it looked like a lake of tar beneath them.

  “Where are you looking?” Norman asked. He couldn’t see a blasted thing down there.

  “Straight out there,” Adam said, pointing over the cliff and off to the right. At the edge of the furthest reaches of the torch light, he could see a flat portion of wall that almost looked like it had several sawed-off telephone poles poking out of it.

  Their branches were beginning to burn down, throwing embers behind them as they moved slowly toward what almost looked like steps descending into the darkness. The slate had been roughly chiseled away to lead from the outcropping around the front of the cliff, winding down to the cavern floor. Adam raised his torch as he stepped down from the final stone stair, guiding them ahead. The cave floor was smooth, interspersed with clusters of stalagmites that were nearly as tall as they were, occasional droplets falling from the stalactite-riddled ceiling to land on the tips. Something off to the left reflected the glow of the flames from the floor, rippling like a small body of water. Ahead and to the right, what they’d seen from above slowly came into view. It was a manmade structure composed of straight lines and boxes, climbing several stories against the back wall of the cave. While at first it looked like adobe, the closer they came, the more it began to resemble packed mud and thatch, crumbled away in large sections to reveal an inner framework of sticks. There were no windows or apparent entrances on the lower floor, but several poles were roped together to make primitive ladders that leaned against the structure.

  “How old do you think it is?” Ray asked, pulling on one of the cracked edges only to have it fall away around his feet.

  “Hundreds of years, I’m sure,” Norman said. “I think it was the Goshute or the Shoshone who lived in this area.”

  “Why do you think they built this here?” Adam asked. “I mean I’ve seen cave dwellings and plenty of these pueblos built out in the open, but I’ve never even heard of such an elaborate indoor creation.”

  “I know why,” Ray said.

  Adam and Norman turned at the sound of his voice. Ray had his back to them and was facing the stone wall where it met with the pueblo. He held his torch up to the flat rock surface, highlighting enormous primitive chalk drawings covered with a thick layer of dust. Had the torch not been so close to the designs, they might not have been able to see them at all.

  “J
esus,” Adam whispered, staring at the flickering image of a man with a snake’s head and yellow- and black-marbled eyes. There was a red dewlap beneath the thing’s chin, but it was what was beside that creature that made Adam’s heart race and his breath stale in his chest.

  A chalk rendition of his face stared back at him through the ages.

  III

  GRAY CICCERELLI SAT ON THE FENDER OF HIS PICKUP, WATCHING THE MAN standing atop the hood of the truck trying to rally the enrapt men and women to his cause. There was no longer any point in trying to hide his shotgun. Everyone else seemed to draw comfort from it and he had to admit that there was a certain measure of power that emanated from it. His power. He and his wife Carrie had been in their sleeping bags inside of their insulated tent when the mosquitoes had passed through the high country, and while they had heard the insects beating against the walls of the six-man, only a small number had managed to penetrate their inner sanctum, but they had been unable to pierce the thick waterproof hide of their sleeping bags. The couple with whom they had been camping, Carrie’s cousin Jessie and her louse of a boyfriend Sam, hadn’t been as fortunate. They’d run screaming from their trailer, the same one Gray and Carrie now called their own, into the swarm of mosquitoes, trying to escape those that had infiltrated the camper through the exterior ducts. Their screams had been unbearable, trilling on for what felt like forever before finally being drowned out by the humming of wings. Gray and Carrie had waited a good ten minutes before daring to climb out to investigate, all the while Gray fighting against his sobbing wife who wanted to run out to save Jessie, but by then it was far too late. They’d found their bloated black bodies lying face down in the dirt at the edge of the ring of stones surrounding the extinguished fire pit. Gray had poked them repeatedly with the end of a stick, but all that oozed out was a sappy white fluid. It positively reeked of disease. He’d seen all kinds of dead animals, and even a man’s body once, but none of them had looked even remotely similar to those corpses with bluish veins rising beneath their sweaty ebony skin. Carrie had begged him to load the carcasses into the camper and take them back down into Billings, but he knew that whatever was replicating inside of them to cause such dramatic swelling was something with which they didn’t want to take their chances. He’d tossed a couple shovelfuls of dirt atop them to keep them from being scavenged before they could return with the authorities, but that hadn’t been good enough for Carrie, who refrained from speaking to him for several hours afterward. By now, she just wasn’t doing much talking to anyone at all. She just kind of sat there staring off into space, but she was slowly beginning to come around, her eyes flashing with an occasional sentience, especially as she watched the guy on the hood of the big old Ford.

  Gray had to admit that the guy was a masterful orator, but he’d known far too many people of this man’s ilk in his life. They were brilliant when it came to finding the common ground to sway people to their perspective, but they always had an agenda. For the life of him, however, he just couldn’t pin down this guy’s ulterior motives, but give it time. Give it time. Gray had been a claims adjustor for the largest private insurance company in Montana before what turned out to be their final camping trip, so he was accustomed to dealing with lawyers on a daily basis. This guy was as smooth as they came, a real snake oil salesman. Even in those unwashed clothes with dirt and grime all over his face, this man came off as polished. He had politician written all over him. And while Gray had strong opinions about such lower forms of life, he knew they were a necessary evil.

  “We have been gathered here at Mormon Tears knowing that soon we must make our final stand,” the man bellowed, his voice rising with his reddening face. “Band together with me and we will triumph and usher in a new age of humanity!”

  A cheer arose from the forty-some spectators and Gray couldn’t help but grin. This guy knew how to work a crowd.

  Richard climbed down off the hood of the truck and was immediately surrounded by people patting him on the back and hurling questions at him only to be met with that practiced smile. How did he know that the creatures would be coming for them? What could they do to help prepare? He didn’t have any of the answers. Not yet anyway, but so long as he appeared as though he did, he would be able to maintain the illusion of omniscience.

  Gray slung the shotgun over his shoulder to hang by the strap. Maybe it was time he introduced himself. Hopping from the tailgate, he eased through the mob until he reached the man and offered his right hand.

  “Gray Ciccerelli,” he said, his hand clasped in the well-rehearsed shake he’d expected.

  “Richard Robinson.” He could tell from Gray’s eyes that he would be a hard sell, but there was strength in his skepticism. Richard knew he needed this man on his side.

  “Familiar name. Do I know you from somewhere?”

  “I’m a congressman. California. West Hollywood and Beverly Hills actually.”

  “That must be it,” Gray said, releasing his grasp. “So what’s the plan, chief? Now that you’re in charge I’d imagine it’s time to buckle down and get to work.”

  Richard could tell that Gray was still sizing him up, carefully baiting him to gauge his response. Sometimes to take a yard you had to give an inch.

  “We need to find shelter for all of these people with winter coming. Maybe head into Salt Lake City and see if we can start the process of rebuilding.” He paused. “Does that sound like the kind of project you’d be interested in heading?”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” Gray said. He wasn’t having much success getting a clear read on this guy, but he could definitely tell when he was being worked.

  “See that you do. Well…it was nice to meet you, Gray,” Richard said, clapping him on the shoulder and then turning to face the others who wanted to shake his hand and congratulate him on his quick ascension to the head of the pack.

  “Oh, hey! Richard!” Gray called after him.

  Richard stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

  “I meant to ask,” Gray said, thumbing the strap on his right shoulder, “how do you know these creatures are going to come after us?”

  Richard paused and bit his lip. This was a man who wouldn’t be easily placated by a smile.

  “Because I’ve seen it in my dreams,” he said, allowing himself to be guided away by the masses toward the comfort of the bonfire.

  Gray watched him walk away. That last statement had caught him off guard. He wasn’t a particularly spiritual man, but the last couple of days had begun to cause him to reevaluate his stance on such matters. He hadn’t been to church since the last time his parents had made him as a child. He didn’t believe in aliens, and the mere idea of ghosts was laughable. But the truth was that he had driven all the way to Utah based on a gut feeling, and while he had learned through the years to trust his instincts, he hadn’t thought to question why he had driven away from the life he knew to end up at the Great Salt Lake. It had begun simply as progressing from one town to the next in search of help for Carrie’s cousin, and then a quest to find any other survivors, but there had really been no conscious decision as to how far they would go or when they would stop. It had just felt like the natural progression. Now that he truly looked at it for what it was, could he honestly rule out the prospect that they’d been led there by something, some divine force greater than themselves? And if he gave that thought credence, was it indeed possible that this man Richard could see the future in his dreams?

  He shook his head. He didn’t like where his thoughts were leading him. There had to be a rational order to life. He just had yet to find it. That was all.

  Something still nagged at him, however, as he walked back to his camper… If he were actually willing to consider the notion that they’d all been gathered here by some spiritual force to prepare for some great battle to come, then what would be the consequences if they lost?

  IV

  RICHARD SCARED PHOENIX. NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING HE’D SAID, BUT because he reminded
Phoenix so much of the man who had kept him imprisoned in the basements of all of those different houses for his entire life. There was an aura of death surrounding him, a black haze that clung to him like crude shale. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at the man anymore, for every time he did, all he could hear were the screams of the dying.

  No one else seemed to notice. Not even Missy, who’d joined her brother farther down the beach so that she could hear the man more clearly. He didn’t know why he felt the way he did, nor did he know how to vocalize his concerns. All he knew was that this man would bring death upon them all if given the chance.

  Phoenix shivered and wrapped his arms around his chest, forcing himself to look away from the spectacle and to the lake. A small flock of birds stalked the shallows in front of him on long, spindly legs, racing up and down the shore with the tide. He couldn’t tell what they were spearing on their knitting needle-beaks, but there were apparently more than enough of them to go around, the crimson birds gurgling contentedly as they choked back the morsels, down gullets that expanded like a bullfrog preparing to croak.

  Rising, he waded out into their midst, startling them to flight. They swirled around him, protesting with a haunting call of mourning before alighting again, though maintaining their distance from him. The water was so cold it positively hurt, but it was a pleasant distraction from the thoughts of the man with the dark cloud of death around him.

  There was a scream from above him, sending the birds scattering in all directions. He craned his neck back to stare up into the overcast sky while retreating from the water. A layer of ash still hovered above, though by now he’d adapted to the point that it no longer burned in his lungs. The lightning had petered off to the occasional violet strike that shivered from one thunderhead to the next. A flash of white winked at him before blending back into the clouds, another shrill scream piercing the day.