“Hayes, what are you—?”
He bellowed as he jumped off the cliff. The sound faded as he fell.
Rain slid down Nathan’s terror-etched face like tears. “We have to go, Elena.”
She continued to fire at the advancing spiders. Some were on the ground, others swaying in the trees. They were so close she could see the insidious intelligence glittering in their scarlet eyes. Their spindly legs carried them across the water so fast they appeared to be skimming the surface.
“We won’t survive the drop!”
“We won’t survive this, either. We have to do it!”
She kept shooting. The nearest spider scuttled at them despite the barrage, splashing across the water with its bristly pedipalps outstretched like fingers. Bullets tore into its wiry, translucent flesh, but it limped toward them with ravenous determination.
Nathan seized her by the harness straps and yanked. They tumbled backward into empty air and stinging rain. The wounded spider followed, multiple legs splayed out as if to slow its fall. Elena never stopped firing, even as the shrieking winds whipped, and gravity yanked her toward the salivating waters below.
Chapter 15: Heterochthonous Sanctum
Cynthia stared at Michael, her mouth open in shock or terror. It was hard to tell because the moment was awash in haze, as though in the stratum between dreams and awakening. Michael couldn’t tell where they were, or how he got there. Explanation defied him, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t important to him, because she was there. She was real, beautiful as ever as she clutched a child to her bosom whose eyes looked like his.
Soldiers surrounded her, men and women armed with sophisticated firearms that did nothing to alleviate the fear on their faces. Fear of him. Of what he could do.
Perhaps because he hovered above them, affixed in midair as though standing on solid ground. He was a god to them, a being pulled from myth, a living idol whose very presence demanded subservience and awe. He was the Herald. He was the inevitable. He lifted his hands.
They were stained with blood.
Michael shook his head. No. Not real.
He opened his eyes and sat up in a pool of water, gasping for breath. Rain fell in sheets, liquid pellets that struck hard enough to sting. He stood and shielded his eyes, straining to get a sense of where he was. The recollection gathered slowly, pieces clicked together to form a picture of recent events.
Still in the jungle. Still in the Aberration.
The last thing he remembered was a stream of pale, twisted Others rushing past him. They were even more devolved than the ones that attacked the mill, just gangly, grotesque flesh sticks embodied with the singular notion to slaughter whatever they encountered. Then the ravens came out of nowhere; thick, black and gleaming. Everything fused together in a chaotic rush of ebony eyes, stabbing beaks, and rupturing flesh.
He remembered nothing beyond that.
It didn’t matter. The Aberration pulsed, an ebony migraine in his head.
The rest of the squad was probably dead. Guy might still be alive, but Michael knew the terrors that stalked the shadows, the abominations spawned from the nether of the Aberration. The chances of survival grew slimmer with every passing moment. He couldn’t count on anyone else being able to stop the distortion. It was his responsibility.
He was the key. Somehow he knew it.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. It was a man, cautiously pushing his way through thick, green branches. What was his name?
Alexander Blackwell.
“Hello, Blackwell.”
Blackwell jumped at the sound of Michael’s voice. HIs hair was sodden, his face spattered with mud. His uniform was torn in several places, but he didn’t look seriously injured.
He sighed in relief. “Michael. Thank God. I didn’t know if anyone survived.”
“You did. Unfortunately.”
Blackwell gave him a wary glance. “Look, Michael. I know we got off to things on the wrong foot…”
Michael’s face heated. “The wrong foot? That’s what you call separating me from my wife and unborn child? Putting me in an asylum for insane people? Are you serious?”
Blackwell raised a hand. “True. All of that is true. I didn’t personally sign off on everything, but I take responsibility. It’s my operation. I was focused on the big picture, and that kind of tunnel vision makes you invisible to the personal side of things. I apologize, and what’s more, I promise to make things right when we get out of this. But first we have to get out of this, Michael. That will take everyone working together, including us.”
Michael gave a reluctant nod. “Yeah, I get it. You see anyone else?”
“I tried to follow Guy. The ravens were…everywhere. I think he called them. Controlled them somehow. They were attacking those monsters.”
“And the rest? Did you see any of them?”
Blackwell’s jaw clenched. “I saw Chen go down. Didn’t see him get back up.”
Michael took a wary glance around. Visibility was severely limited, but he knew what was out there. Pushing his sodden hair away from his face, he nodded. “All right. We have to keep moving.”
He hadn’t lost his machete, and used it to hack away at the fiercely snarled foliage. Somewhere in his mind a phantom voice whispered. You know that’s unnecessary. There are better ways, faster ways to clear your path. You are the forest. You are the island.
He pushed the voice away. It wasn’t real. It was madness. He glanced back at Blackwell, desperate to distract himself. “Your team compiled all the raw data on Aberrations. I never heard Guy talk about it in technical terms. How do you science something like this?”
Blackwell stepped carefully, eyes swiveling as he checked for threats. “Dr. Kelley and her research team compiled an enormous amount of sensory projection data on the foundation of Nathan’s rudimentary findings. The algorithms were conclusive in their results. These Aberrations appear to be the detritus from a doorway, or portal to another dimension.”
“Don’t have to be a scientist to know that, Blackwell. Question is: why is the Other side full of sick, perverted monsters?”
“The figures suggest the Others, as you call them, are a byproduct of corrupted data. Shadows of submerged consciousnesses unable to fully negotiate the threshold.”
Michael shook his head as he hacked at the brush. “I suppose it’s too much to explain that in layman’s terms.”
“Right. The evidence proves that these Others are not alien in origin. They are not monstrous inhabitants of another dimension. They are reflections. Murky, indistinct mental projections trying to find their way home.”
“Home? From where?”
“From the future, we think.”
Michael stopped in his tracks as the world vibrated. Individual raindrops froze in place, glimmering in the muted light like uncut diamonds. For an instant everything altered as the world transmuted into indecipherable symbols. Every leaf, every pool of water, every hanging vine became electric phantoms, shimmering with billions of luminous veins.
“Michael? Are you all right?”
He winced and staggered as the vision vanished in a blinding afterglow. The world swiftly darkened, returning him to the blasphemous gloom of the anomalous jungle.
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, unsurprised at the smear of blood. “Yeah. Just great. So what makes you think the doorway is from the future?”
“It took a great deal of time and effort, but my team was able to break aberrant energy down to its barest element. To its code, if it were. Just as everything on this planet can be broken down to DNA coding, so it is with aberrant energy. Only its coding is clearly synthetic.”
“Synthetic? You mean it was artificially created?”
“Absolutely. Light years ahead of our current abilities, beyond our ability to fully even comprehend, but Dr. Kelley is certain the coding is not biological.”
Michael threw up his hands. “What does that even mean? We’re being slaughtered by ph
ysical creatures, Blackwell. Not some kind of advanced special effects. Did you happen to miss our ship being torn in half by some monster squid? Or the jellyfish with human heads inside? If the Aberration was some insane computer virus, it couldn’t affect the real world. Not like this.”
Blackwell laughed softly. “Just because you lack the means to fully explain your hypothesis doesn’t mean it isn’t right. We’re talking about a brand new kind of science here, after all.”
Michael’s heart leaped to his throat when something moved at his feet. He gasped as a face protruded from the mud right in front of them.
The eyes snapped open.
He yelped and jerked back when the ground came alive at his feet. A humanoid figure violently emerged from the sludge, plastered in sewer-nasty colors of brown and green. Michael stumbled backward, trying to pull pistols from empty holsters. He faintly remembered dropping his guns when the Others first attacked, and cursed himself for his stupidity.
The mud-spattered figure laughed. “Damn, you fools look like you seen a ghost.”
It took a few seconds for the panic to subside long enough to recognize the voice. It was nearly impossible to tell, but the mud-covered person in front of him was Charlie Foxtrot.
She raised her arms and tilted her head back, allowing the deluge to wash away the layers of filth. After the rain transformed her into a slightly more recognizable state, she snatched her rifle up and inspected it with a critical eye. Michael recognized it as a TAR-21 equipped with an M203 grenade launcher.
She worked methodically, ejecting her rifle magazine and examining it. “Good to see someone made it. Thought I was the only one. Y’all is the worst outfit I ever worked with. The moment things go ate up, everyone scatters like cockroaches. Where I come from, that’s called a GYAD response.”
“GYAD?”
“Yeah. Get Yo Ass Dead. I killed a whole lotta those creepy chicken monsters, but when I looked around, wasn’t nobody but me still standing. Saw Chen. What was left of him, anyway. Bastards ripped his head clean from his shoulders. Sucks. We go back a ways. Could count on him. But what could I do, you know? When I seen them trees rustling like something big was coming through ‘em, I got ghost. Figured I’d lay low for a bit and see how things played out.”
“Things are playing out with us still headed for the laboratory. You coming?”
“Hells yeah.” She stood and hoisted her rifle. “Past time to pop smoke. I see you got empty pockets, meathead. Lose your burners?”
Michael glanced at his vacant holsters and felt his face redden. “Things got hazy back there.”
“What, you high or something? I seen you on the ship, staring into space like a dope fiend.” She pulled a Glock 17 from her belt and tossed it to him. “Try not to lose that one. I like it.”
She gave Blackwell an approving nod. “At least you’re still strapped. You know how to use those things?”
Blackwell patted the handguns. “I was trained by the best.”
“Trained ain’t live action. Guess it’s better than nothing. You stay with Mike. I’ll watch your backs.”
Michael nodded, pushing ahead. The maelstrom in his head expanded, flooding the crevices of his mind with darkness. His teeth clamped together and the world blurred as his muscles quivered from the effort of trying to focus. One foot, then the other. He concentrated on moving, forcing himself to go forward despite every instinct telling him to turn tail and run the opposite direction. The yearning to flee was nearly commanding, an animal instinct that threatened to overwhelm his senses.
He was so absorbed in the effort that he nearly missed the lip of a steep ravine. His waved his arms for balance as his feet teetered on the edge. The jungle opened up to a forested clearing; lush, green and cloaked in rolling fog.
Blackwell grabbed him by the harness and pulled him back to safer ground. His eyes stared past Michael, his mouth wide open. “I can’t believe it.”
Michael didn’t answer. He stood transfixed, his gaze fixed on the edifice that towered above them, smothering the clearing in shadow.
It was as if a massive tower had fallen from another world. Perfectly proportioned and gleaming like wet ink, it was devoid of even a speck of mold, moss, or dust. Only the rain touched it, gliding down the mirrored surface as though it were coated with oil. Unreadable runes were imprinted on its shiny exterior, arranged in symmetrical patterns. Against the green and uncivilized backdrop it looked positively sinister; a blasphemous stain of synthetic malevolence.
The top of the obelisk was lost to a whirling vortex of tumultuous cloud-masses that eddied faster than nature allowed, sizzling with lightning that flashed and forked as though striving to fend off the roiling darkness. Thunder rumbled with cavernous strength, a steady thrum that beat down from sky to trembling ground. Pools of water rippled; liquid mirrors that reflected the insanity above.
Charlie Foxtrot joined them on the ledge, hesitant for the first time since he’d known her. She squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them as if trying to verify what she saw was real.
Michael empathized. Everything about the scene appeared hallucinogenic, some psychedelic image created for the sole purpose of inciting insanity.
Looking up, he imagined the beacon atop the obelisk, the fizzling cord of galvanic energy that beamed upward, connecting their world to one of nightmares. The Other side.
Once, he had seen Guy enter the Threshold, pass beyond their dimension into one of fire and darkness. He had no idea what Guy had encountered, or how he had survived when the entire building exploded. But against all odds Guy did it. He stopped the Aberration at the risk of everything, including his own life.
Now it was Michael’s turn.
“Unbelievable.” Blackwell’s eyes quivered as though recording the image to analyze later. “The material doesn’t appear to be anything native to this planet.”
Charlie Foxtrot ran fingers through her thick cornrows. “Damn, you saying aliens built this? What the hell did y’all get me into?”
“You volunteered for this mission, remember?”
“I didn’t volunteer for this soup sandwich.”
“Now you sound like Hayes.”
She barked a laugh. “Hayes. He’s a bag of hot wind. Hope the bastard is still alive.”
Michael said nothing. He hoped Nathan and Elena were still alive, but he knew the odds. Chances were none of them would escape from the place with their lives. No one but him. He’d survived an Aberration before. He planned to do it again.
“All right. Let’s find a way into that thing.”
They picked their way down the slippery gorge until they made it to the bottom. The pulsing throb emitting from the obelisk was nearly overpowering. Michael forced himself to focus, ignoring the darkness, the whispers of madness in his mind.
His concentration was so intense that he didn’t even see the figure that pushed through the dripping brush until he was seized and pulled down to the sopping ground. He thrashed in a panicked frenzy before recognizing his steely-muscled captor. It was Guy. His eyes were dark as a raven’s, his voice a carefully leveled whisper.
“Better be glad I saw you. You were walking into a trap. A troglodyte guards the entrance.”
Michael followed his pointing finger. Something was barely visible in the billowing mist—a willowy, sentient shadow. Taller and thinner than any man could be, it moved like a scarecrow in the wind, its pale face tilted to the side as if listening to voices in the storm. The gaunt creature paused, only yards away from where the group huddled behind thick green shoots and the humid steam of their own rising fear. Its sallow face was like the Others; barely registered bone against gelatinous, vein-riddled membrane.
Michael looked at Guy, who shook his head in warning. Michael ignored him. He was tired of hiding. Tired of the filthy fog that shrouded his mind. Tired of being afraid of nightmares spawned from the hazy darkness.
He stood. The startled exclamations from the others were muted sounds in the distanc
e. He spread out his arms in challenge to the troglodyte.
“Looking for me?”
The troglodyte whipped back as if startled by the bold display, hissing like a den of disturbed adders. But in the same flow of fluid movement, it rushed at Michael, unfurling gangly arms that blurred as they morphed into multiple, shadowy whips. Its bellowing scream cast away the rain before it, drowning out the sound of the storm.
A searing conflagration flared across Michael’s mind. The heat enveloped him, threatened to consume flesh and bone, reduce him to cinders. His teeth clamped together, blistering blood fanned from his nostrils and dripped over his lips.
He lifted his hand.
The troglodyte screamed.
Chapter 16: Lusus Naturae
The water was cold as death. The foamy waves bullied Nathan, slamming into him with bruising force, pulling him under and choking him. He fought to keep his head above the surface, all the while shoved about with brutal repetitiveness. He tried to look around, peering through waterlogged lashes, his vision more blurred than he had led the others to believe. Without his glasses, everything outside his immediate vicinity was slightly hazed, conjuring disturbing interpretations of the many obscure shapes that swept by.
“Elena!”
His voice volleyed across the water, but the only answer was the roar from the raging stream. His limbs felt numb, lifeless. It had taken all of his energy to simply stay afloat, but his strength was fading quickly. He knew he had to reach the shore, but the river refused to release him. The current was monstrous, keeping him trapped in its ruthless embrace.
A large shape came out of seemingly nowhere, emerging from the dark waters in front of Nathan, who desperately tried to alter his route. But the waters forced him forward, into the body of the massive figure. Stony limbs encircled him, tried to force him under…
“Stop struggling!” Ariki’s familiar voice shouted in Nathan’s ear. “It’s going to be hard enough dragging you out of here.”
Nathan sagged in relief, allowing Ariki to pull him toward the shore. The hulking soldier proved a greater match for the raging river, cutting across diagonally to finally reach the shadows. Nathan staggered forward on wobbly legs, never so grateful to feel his feet on solid ground. He placed his hands on his knees, spitting water.
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