by Graeme Hurry
There were tears in Kal’s eyes as he regarded his brother. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘I couldn’t let father go, but I was … afraid.’
Ra’vihd reached over and mussed the youth’s wild hair. Why couldn’t Kal realize they would be better off without their father? ‘I would never let harm come to you while I was able to stop it,’ he said. ‘But you … you’re going to have to watch out for yourself now.’
‘Maybe you’ll find a way, brother. If anyone can survive out there, it’s you.’
The boy had always thought him capable of anything.
Ra’vihd smiled sadly. ‘Maybe.’
When Ra’vihd strolled up to the city gate that evening, the gathered peace officers just nodded as if he was the one they had been expecting all along. It was embarrassing how well everyone understood the dynamics of his family. He held his arms out for the officers to shackle, then let himself be loaded into the back of a small truck. A section of the city’s protective dome blinked out, and the truck rumbled through.
Instead of the slightly more bearable terrain on the other side of the city—due mostly to a single meandering river—this side was all barren plains. Jagged boulders occasionally stood sentinel in the distance, but that was all. The area was known as the wastelands for good reason. Only a lessening of radicite dust indicated how far they were leaving their city behind.
The long ride passed in complete silence.
Finally, the truck shuddered to a stop, and two of the peace officers helped Ra’vihd climb out. He held his shackled hands out to one of them, but the officer just shook his head sadly.
So that’s how it was. No wonder there had never been any survivors. The other officer helped him out of his mining clothes until he stood shivering in only his undergarment. He noticed one of the officers eyeing the spiral tattoos covering his body that marked a boy’s passage into manhood on Purgatory. He knew the officer had noticed how fresh the ink was. He couldn’t help but hope the man would take pity on him.
Instead, the peace officer just shook his head sadly and stepped away.
‘You are hereby exiled in place of Zaried,’ one of the officers said, ‘to be accepted back with all due honor should you survive the night and find your way back to the city, as prescribed by our laws. He was found guilty of—’
Ra’vihd waved the man to silence. ‘There’s no reason for all this ceremony. Please get the hell out of here and let me die in peace.’
The two officers glanced at each other. One of them nodded, and both men climbed back into the truck. Its tires spun, showering Ra’vihd in red dust, then the truck whirled about and sped in the direction of the city. After only a short while, the truck disappeared from sight. Soon, even the sound of its laboring engine vanished, and he was truly alone.
Naked, shackled and alone.
He slowly turned to face the opposite direction of the city. He knew the scaarak would approach from that way. At the very thought of them, his breath shortened and a shudder passed through him.
The scaarak were a native species of Purgatory. It wasn’t known whether or not they were sentient, and nobody was in a hurry to find out. Everyone was too terrified of them. For one thing, the scaarak were ethereal. How that was possible was something that had baffled humanity’s best scientists. The worst thing about the scaarak, however, was the intense pain they caused a human by their mere proximity. It had something to do with brain wave interference. They could be felt anywhere on the planet’s surface—the biggest reason nobody had wanted to colonize the world. Close to one, the pain was exponentially worse.
It was this Ra’vihd had to look forward to.
He turned and ran in the direction of the city. It wasn’t possible to make it back before nightfall—that was the purpose of them bringing him so far out—but what other option did he have? He stumbled in the soft red dirt, fighting his way back to his feet and continuing on.
The sky darkened to black.
He wanted to cry out in frustration but would not allow himself. He could not be weak if he wanted to live.
A roar rose up behind him, soft at first but quickly growing louder. What appeared to be a giant cloud wall had risen from the ground, rolling toward him in a great wave. Inky blackness filled it, far darker than the night sky above. He knew it was no cloud, but thousands of wraith-like scaarak crawling over each other in their eagerness to reach their prey. This was what the people of Purgatory called a scaarak storm, and it had killed everybody ever caught out in one.
The storm hurtled towards him, growing to dozens of times the height of a man. Ra’vihd screamed and tried to run faster, stumbling again then crawling madly away on his hands and knees.
The reality of what was about to happen was far more terrifying than he could have anticipated.
Inevitably, his thoughts turned to the only man he knew to survive scaarak, if only a few. Yul was once a respected foreman in the mines, but he was now a beggar. The poor man had survived an encounter with a bare handful of rogue scaarak but lost his mind in the process. He was fine physically, for what that was worth. But ever since, he just sat in the market district speaking nonsense and drooling on himself.
Ra’vihd glanced back again. The storm towered over him. He thought he could make out individual grinning faces in the roiling mass. Sharp rocks sliced his hands and lower legs, but he kept moving. The constant pain he’d always lived with in the back of his head started to grow worse in powerful waves.
There was a shrill shriek as the storm caught him. It sounded as if the storm was screaming his name.
He immediately lost all sense of direction as thousands of scaarak swarmed him. Their bodies were not solid, but there was a thickness to them that buffeted him wildly about. They did have faces. He could see them in the whirlwind of movement. The faces were large and animal and yes, they were grinning.
The pain in his head blossomed into something far worse than he had ever experienced. It felt as if something had pried his skull open and was clawing at his brain. Ra’vihd screamed. All he could think about was making the pain stop. He picked a direction and ran, pushing through the scaarak barring his path.
But it was no use. There was nowhere to run. The hideous creatures continued to leer at him. He fell to the ground and tore at it with his hands, flinging handfuls of red dirt in every direction. The task was made more difficult by his shackled hands. Finally, when he’d dug a large enough hole, he shoved his head in it and blindly tried to scoop dirt back in the empty spaces.
Still, the incomprehensible pain assaulted him. He could feel his grip on sanity being pried away. It was too much. He jerked his head free and began to claw at his own face. The pain of the gashes his fingernails dug was as nothing.
Something ripped deep inside his throat, and his screaming was silenced. His voice was destroyed.
He knew he couldn’t last much longer and welcomed an end to it all. If only his father wasn’t such a worthless maggot of a man. This was all his fault.
When he thought of his father, another emotion joined the terror inside his mind. Rage. He’d kept it locked inside for so many years; now it poured out of him in a flood.
And the pain lessened. It wasn’t much, but it had eased a little. He was sure of it.
Ra’vihd desperately summoned the worst memories of his father. All the humiliation and abuse. The times he allowed himself to be beaten bloody and said nothing, all to keep Kal from suffering the same. The time his father had somehow procured a foreman’s electro-whip and brought it home for some fun, grinning his evil grin the whole while. The times he would hurt Ra’vihd in front of his friends, and everyone would laugh as if it was the funniest thing in the world. The haunted look in Kal’s eyes as he watched the man he loved do these terrible things.
Ra’vihd had never imagined such a depth of rage resided within him but was thankful for it. He wielded it like a club, beating away at the horrific pain coming from every direction. Time lost its meaning as the battl
e raged. Just as he started to think survival might be possible after all, the mental attack intensified and he was on the brink of insanity again.
Then the torrent diminished considerably, to an almost manageable level. A thousand voices whispered into his mind as one.
‘None have withstood us this long before.’
Ra’vihd wasn’t sure if his language chip understood their tongue or if they were speaking his. It mattered little. He remained silent, but let the barest hint of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.
‘Even so,’ the scaarak continued. ‘We could still destroy you in only a few more moments. Do you wonder why we have not?’
‘Yes.’ His ruined voice was barely audible.
‘We have seen your destiny written in the sleeping places of your mind and do not want to keep you from it. If you wish it, we can share this destiny with you. Do you wish it?’
He thought about it a long time before answering. It seemed the scaarak were sentient after all. More than that, even. Almost godlike. He realized he truly did want to know what they had to tell him.
‘Yes.’ He noticed he was holding his breath and made himself inhale.
‘You will know much pain in your life, many unfathomable sorrows. The rage and need for vengeance will fester inside your soul until it consumes you, and death and destruction will follow in your wake as closely as your own shadow. You will be great, and the universe itself will be sorry that it ever allowed one such as you to exist.’
‘Wow. All that huh? And … that’s why you didn’t kill me?’
‘We too are creatures of chaos and destruction. We see in you a kindred spirit. We will be watching you. The first step on your bloody path will be taken soon. It begins with your father.’
‘My father …’
‘Yes. Peace, brother.’
The pain flared out in one agonizing flash, and Ra’vihd collapsed in an awkward heap on the ground.
When Ra’vihd shuffled weakly up to the city gate the next day, the peace officers on guard duty just stared at him dumbly for a few minutes before shutting off their small section of the protective dome. They rushed out to him, unshackling his hands and helping him to the small guardhouse to get some water and fresh clothes.
A small crowd gathered. It was mostly peace officers, but more and more civilians were coming to see what was going on. At first all was silent, then the crowd erupted in a chorus of excited whispers. He had survived. It was impossible, yet here he was.
But how? What happens now?
Ra’vihd waited until he felt strong enough to do what needed to be done, then asked the nearest peace officer for his sidearm.
‘Excuse me? Did you just ask for my weapon?’ The officer was completely surprised.
‘Yes,’ Ra’vihd rasped. There were things that could be done for his voice, but it would never be the same. ‘I survived my exile, now the final judgment of the accused is in my hands.’
The officer looked perplexed. ‘Surely you mean to pardon him. He’s your father. Wasn’t that the whole point?’
‘Give me your sidearm.’
Slowly, reluctantly, the peace officer handed it over. Ra’vihd immediately set out for the residential district and his home. The crowd followed silently, beginning to realize what was going on. Ra’vihd ignored them. It was time to do what he should have done long before. He would never be a victim again. If the destiny the scaarak laid out for him was true, he would embrace it wholeheartedly.
When he neared his home, the door slid open and Zaried stepped out. He held his arms wide as if preparing for an embrace. ‘I’m so glad to see you son,’ he called out loudly. ‘I knew you could do it.’
His condescending smile sealed his fate.
Ra’vihd raised the sidearm and fired. Blood sprayed from Zaried’s back and he dropped to the ground, dead before the red dust settled. The crowd made no sound as Ra’vihd glared down at the massive corpse.
‘Father!’
Kal broke from the crowd and sprinted to Zaried’s side, falling to his knees and weeping. ‘How could you?’ he spat.
Ra’vihd simply turned and walked away, the gathered people giving him a wide berth. He felt for his brother. He really did. The boy needed comfort.
But Ra’vihd was no longer capable of giving it. He was changed. He felt as if something deep inside himself had been profoundly altered and would never be the same. He thought of what the scaarak had said of his destiny.
‘So be it,’ Ra’vihd whispered, shoving the peace officer’s sidearm into his belt. ‘So be it.’
SUNNYDALE DRIVE
by Daniel Davis
I arrived at the entrance to Sunnydale Drive, surprised to find that Sheriff Hoagland had barricaded it. Then, when I got out of my car, I was even more surprised to learn that it hadn’t been Hoagland who’d given the order, but Dennis Reinhardt. I found him standing with his hand on his hips, this side of the barricade. He jumped when I walked up beside him.
It took effort getting up there. The barricades had been set right at the edge of the forest. Didn’t have to worry about people sneaking past—Sunnydale Drive cut through a valley, a wooded ravine that spanned the two miles between Route 130 and Lincoln Highway Road. Nothing but forest, and except for the road, it was treacherous going; it looked like you could just walk into the forest, but after about three steps you’d find yourself falling twenty feet, landing on a bed of rocks, sticks, and accumulated forest debris. Sunnydale Valley—what we called it—was about as wild a place as Central Illinois could muster. It belonged somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
A crowd had gathered. The other deputies were there—it’d been my day off, so I was the last to arrive—and a few townie cops as well, though we were three or four miles outside their jurisdiction. Also, the people who lived there had congregated, whole families. Sunnydale itself possesses no inhabitants; no one in their right minds would live there, the road is far too treacherous in the winter, and isn’t easy to navigate the rest of the year, either. But at the top of the valley, the land was flat, devoid of trees, and there were several nice homes, the kind that are just modest enough to make you think you could afford one eventually. The people were crowding around the barricade, trying to pry information from the officers, deputies, each other. Still, even with all the noise, I managed to scare Reinhardt when I spoke to him.
He turned. I’d never seen his face so pale. Even for a redhead, he looked bleached, drained. He was scrawny, too, just a kid, and though his uniform hung a little loose on him, I thought I could see his body trembling beneath it. He didn’t speak to me for a few seconds, just kind of stared past me.
‘Christ, Dennis, what is it?’
He smiled. I don’t think he knew he was doing it; Reinhardt always had a good head on his shoulders, a smart kid who was just dumb enough to join the Charleston County Sheriff’s Department. He had tact, was polite and well mannered, even with drunk drivers who vomited all over his backseat. And yet, he smiled, and I forgot about the August sun beating down on me. It may as well have been January.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. The smile drifted away. ‘I put up the barricades…in case.’
‘In case of what?’
He didn’t answer. Just looked back down the road. As if he was searching for something specific.
‘Dennis? Where’s Bob?’
He inclined his head. ‘Went down there with Jasper and a doctor. Dr. Clemmens, I think.’
‘Someone hurt?’
‘Maybe.’
I grabbed his shoulder. ‘Kid, snap out of it. If somebody’s hurt, we need to go down there, not set up barricades and keep the paramedics out. You get me?’
He didn’t say anything else. He’d gone around me; gone around Frank Bean, even, and Bean was next in the chain of command after me. I looked around for him, saw him near the back, talking to the Coffeyville Chief of Police. I walked up, shook the Chief’s hand. He wandered away, to talk to one of his officers. Bean gave me a look
I couldn’t read—his face wasn’t blank, but the emotions I saw weren’t telling me much.
‘Glad you’re here, Aaron. Christ, this is a mess.’
‘What’s with the barricades?’
‘Didn’t Dennis tell you?’
‘He told me Bob, Jasper, and Dr. Clemmens drove down Sunnydale Drive to help someone injured. Didn’t bother to tell me why he’s keeping the paramedics out, though.’
Bean shook his head. ‘They didn’t drive.’
‘They walked?’
‘Car wouldn’t start.’ He pointed to a cruiser I hadn’t noticed, amidst the throngs of people. It was Bob Hoagland’s cruiser, all right.
‘They could’ve taken—’
‘None of the cars will start.’
I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. He repeated himself, and said, ‘You can go check yours, if you want. But once you turn the engine off, it won’t crank up again.’
‘I don’t—’
‘None of us understand, Aaron. We have no fucking clue what’s going on. Did Dennis tell you about Bob’s call?’
‘No.’
‘Well, all we know is this: about an hour ago, someone called the station saying they heard a scream.’ Bean nodded towards the nearest house. ‘Them. Said it came from way back in the valley.’
‘Impossible.’
‘I know. But that’s what they called in to 911. A scream. And something burning—smelled smoke, I guess.’
I sniffed.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Gone now, if it was ever there. Anyways, Bob and Jasper get out here first. Dr. Clemmens was at the station already, helping fill out reports for that pile up the other day on Route 16. They get here, and Bob calls the station to say it doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t say why, just says it’s ‘wrong.’ His word. Also says he turned his cruiser off, to see if he could hear anything, and when he tried cranking it up again, it wouldn’t go. So he decided to hoof it. Waited until Dennis and I got here. Larry’s around someplace, too. Then they went in. The ambulance got here later, after the barricade was up.’
‘They find whoever was hurt? Why haven’t they brought them out?’