Crown of Vengeance

by Stephen Zimmer

  “No problem Lee. Did good biz today, from what I saw, didn’t we?” Ryan replied, taking a sip out of his own can. He raised the can in a saluting gesture towards Lee, “To a good day, Lee!”

  “Above average, I am happy to say,” Lee replied. “Campus brought us a few more deliveries than I expected. You must have gotten some extra coupons out.”

  “I’ve passed out quite a few for the cause. But must have been giving them to all the wrong folks, because Bob wasn’t too happy about the tips today,” Ryan replied with a chuckle, referring to Lee’s tried and true delivery driver.

  The man had grumbled throughout the day about the frugal nature of the campus students. The language that he had used back in the kitchen had often been quite colorful. Lee and Ryan had laughed heartily at some of the creative and very descriptive anatomical suggestions that Bob had for the cheap students.

  “Oh, he made us aware of that. But I made sure Bob got a little extra tonight,” Lee said, a hint of worry on his face.

  Bob was indispensable to his operation, knowing every optimal route and planning his deliveries to the height of efficiency. He did the work of two, maybe even three, mediocre drivers.

  “I saw that. And Bob looked pretty happy about it. He’ll stay around. Griping is natural to him, don’t worry,” Ryan said encouragingly. “And about those students. Just have them all work one day and night like this, and they will learn to tip really quickly. They should make it mandatory for cheap tippers.”

  “Very good point. I think that would work too. So, I noticed that you haven’t bolted yet. Is Pamela busy tonight?” Lee asked him.

  “Yeah, she sure is,” Ryan replied at the mention of his girlfriend. “Says she is just going to stay home and get some rest tonight. You know what that means. But I’m not too worried. She plays a bit, but she knows who the real man is. Nothing else will compare. She’ll learn!”

  Lee chuckled as Ryan’s youthful cockiness emerged. “I’m sure she’ll realize who the real man is.”

  Ryan smiled. “Hey now, that better not be sarcasm. Don’t you get in on disrespecting me.”

  Lee laughed heartily. “You worked well tonight, so I’ll give you a break. Have you thought about what we should watch for the film festival at my house tomorrow evening, if you are up for some movies?”

  “You need to get a game system, some day, Lee. And not a used one at the pawn shop. Get a cutting-edge console. But movies don’t sound bad right now. I could do with just about anything at the moment, except some boring drama or silly chick flick,” Ryan remarked.

  “We’ll figure something out, either on satellite or download,” Lee replied, finishing off his soda. He crumpled the can in his hand and pitched it into a freshly lined trash bin that Ryan had prepared towards the end of the counter. “Well, there’s the first start on tomorrow’s trash load. I am about done here. Time to get some rest.”

  “And you are just going to leave me stranded facing a boring night. I’m not ready to go to sleep yet!” Ryan commented, as he started towards the door. His steps slowed as he approached the glass-faced door. “Looks like there is going to be a thick fog cover tonight!”

  “Fog?” Lee replied in curiosity, coming out from behind the counter and walking down its length towards where Ryan stood gaping.

  “Yeah, come over here. I could see it even as I walked towards the front door,” Ryan said, turning back towards Lee while gesturing at the restaurant’s entrance.

  Lee walked past Ryan, his eyes fixated through the glass of the front door. He slowly unbolted the lock, and swung it open. Ryan followed close behind as they walked outside together.

  As Ryan had observed, a rolling fog bank was gradually invading and conquering the city streets. The fog had already become an impenetrable mass just across the street from where the restaurant was located.

  The tall street lamps near his restaurant cast a cramped glow, one that was visibly shrinking. The advancing vapors were steadily wafting in their direction, part of an enormous, rising tide.

  “This is just plain strange. I don’t understand it,” Lee commented, staring at the unusual mists.

  Enraptured, Lee continued to stand just outside of the unlocked restaurant with Ryan close by. The near proximity to the front door comforted him, as his eyes could not see more than twenty feet ahead of him.

  The fog mass seemed to progress as if it had a mind of its own. It continued to engulf the area around them, as the density increased swiftly in the immediate vicinity of the restaurant.

  “It is just fog, Lee, don’t get too carried away,” Ryan remarked.

  He waved his hands about in the misty substance as it encircled them.

  “It is, but I still haven’t seen fog move like this,” Lee commented. “Have you?”

  Ryan shrugged and grinned. “Haven’t given it too much thought.”

  The fog mass continued to shroud both them and the restaurant building itself, until they could not see ahead, behind, or to either side.

  Though they were standing just a few feet in front of the restaurant, the familiar construction had been utterly consumed by the wafting sea. Looking down, Lee realized that he could not even see the ground.

  The thickness of the fog was like nothing that Lee had ever experienced before.

  Of that, he was most certain.

  Section III

  MERSHAD

  Erika and Mershad sat silently as the mist continued to surround them with its cool embrace. The thick vapors had fully obstructed their vision of the trees that were less than ten feet away.

  “This is some fog,” Erika commented in a low voice.

  “We’ll have to take it slow, when we head out of here,” Mershad said.

  Erika looked over at him. “Probably won’t vanish anytime soon, knowing my luck. Good thing we know the lay of the land.”

  “Yes, good for us that we do,” Mershad responded, grinning at her though he felt a little nervous about blundering about in the dense haze.

  “The cars must be slowed to a crawl as they come through up there,” Erika stated, as she gestured upward towards where the roadway was. “Or they’ve stopped.”

  Mershad then noticed that a permeating silence had blanketed the area, with no sound of anyone or anything coming from the normally active street above them.

  “I sure don’t hear anything either,” Mershad remarked. He slowly rose up to his feet, pulling his satchel over one shoulder. “Want to try and start navigating out of this?”

  Erika nodded, getting up off the ground herself. “Otherwise we are going to be here all night. I think that this stuff is here to stay for awhile.”

  Mershad agreed with her, though he held no objections to spending more time talking with Erika. The lack of visibility simply made him nervous. At the very least the process of getting out of there would be easier to navigate with a friend.

  “We’ll have to go slowly,” Mershad cautioned, taking the first step forward, grasping his satchel strap with his right hand. “Work our way to the sidewalk, and from there it should be easy enough.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Erika replied.

  Erika walked closely by his side. They went painstakingly, step by step. There was just enough visibility that they became aware of trees before they smacked their faces into the hard trunks.

  After they had moved about twenty arduous paces, Mershad noticed that their visibility was gradually increasing. He made no comment, continuing to press onward.

  Looking down, he perceived that there were more leaves and twigs on the ground than he had observed before, even a fallen branch that he had not noticed on his way in. The university’s maintenance staff usually kept the grounds around the student center very well groomed.

  “We must have gotten changed around,” Mershad said with some discomfort. “We should have hit the sidewalk by now. I know that we’ve been walking in the right direction.”

  “Well, this place is not that big, we’ll run into
it sooner or later,” Erika added. “Besides, it looks like our visibility is increasing.”

  “Yes it is,” Mershad replied, glad that she was noticing the improving visibility as well. It meant that it was not just his hopeful imagination.

  He took a couple more steps, when he suddenly tripped and fell forward. With a startled outcry, he slung his hands forward in reflex, casting his satchel ahead as he braced for the expected impact.

  “Are you okay?” Erika said in great concern, dropping to her knees next to him.

  Groaning, Mershad shook his head as he brought himself up to his knees slowly. He had caught his fall at the last moment, and was not injured other than a few light scratches.

  Brushing his chest off, he looked behind him. A large tree branch lay across his path.

  “Wonderful,” Mershad muttered, not wanting to know what had happened to his laptop. He looked sheepishly to Erika, highly embarrassed. “I didn’t think there was anything on the ground. Didn’t notice any fallen branches coming in here.”

  “It’s okay. As long as you are okay,” Erika said quickly, her eyes full of worry. “Let’s find your satchel.”

  They both looked all around, but could see no sign of the satchel. Mershad was perplexed, as he knew that it could not have fallen very far from where he stood.

  More than ever, the ground that Mershad could see beneath his feet looked markedly different than it had seemed before when he visited the area. There was a sprawling cover of debris, of fallen leaves, dirt, twigs, and grasses all about them, as if the surface of a wild forest. It was not the well-cropped, rich green lawn that he had walked through numerous times before. The feeling of unease grew faster within him.

  Even stranger, the rate of improved visibility was accelerating, along with the emergence of a steady breeze that flowed all around them. It was as if the fog was reversing itself, departing as quickly as it had come.

  Mershad and Erika remained wordless, fixed in place, their attentions captured by the bizarre phenomenon. Their range of sight increased by twenty, thirty, and then forty feet.

  Trees began to appear out of the misty air, and the uneven contours of the ground, with the rough covering upon it, spread out in all directions around them. Mershad struggled to comprehend what was happening.

  There was no sign of the sidewalk, the student center, or even a small patch of the rich, trimmed grass turf that they had been sitting on just minutes before. He barely moved a muscle as the fog steadily fell away, continuing to reveal the unexpected environment.

  “What is going on here?” Mershad stammered, his eyes widened in trepidation as he looked around.

  Erika shook her head in disbelief, staring ahead. Her voice was uncharacteristically full of anxiety. “I just don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  The fog proceeded to thin out on all sides. Strong rays of light began to cut through to them from above, a multitude of beams piercing the diminishing fog as they reached through the leaves and branches of the surrounding trees.

  “What is this? What in the world is …” Erika began, her words trailing off as the air above them finally cleared up.

  The strong light of a mid-day sun was revealed, cascading down from a nearly cloudless sky spread out far above the trees. It was a uniquely blue-greenish sky, like nothing that Mershad had ever seen before.

  Mershad and Erika now found themselves in the midst of a great forest, with matured trees of several varieties rising up high all around them. The bright chirping of birds met their ears, coming from all around, amongst the lofty branches, but it was the surreal sky above that transfixed his initial attention.

  ERIKA

  Erika continued to stare upwards, entirely stunned.

  There were no cloud masses to bar the view of the smooth, luxuriant sky, the light radiating from a solitary sun that seemed to be directly overhead.

  The blue-greenish tint to the sky was remarkable.

  It was turquoise, like the surface of the waters about the Caribbean islands that Erika had once taken a vacation to with friends, on a break from school.

  Beautiful and vivid, it was nonetheless frightening. At the very least, though she did not consciously acknowledge it, the commanding presence of the sun was a stabilizing and comforting element to her jostled psyche.

  “What do we do?” Mershad asked, his eyes still wide in a look of surprise and bewilderment.

  “I have no idea,” Erika said.

  “This can’t be a dream,” Mershad remarked.

  Some beads of sweat now stood out upon his forehead. He reached down and rubbed his arms, and even felt his own face, as if about to pinch it to test the reality of the moment.

  He looked over towards Erika with a helpless expression. “This can’t be a dream.”

  “I know that it isn’t. I know when I am asleep, and when I am not,” Erika said slowly. Her eyes were filled with fear, but she had already started to reach down into deep, internal reservoirs of personal strength to gain some elemental bearings. “This is real. Make no mistake about it. Whatever it is, we are both in it, it is real, and we had better acknowledge that first and foremost.”

  As she spoke the stark words, some more of that strength welled up in her. She took a few cautious steps forward.

  Her shoes crunched on the debris-strewn forest floor. Mershad stared after her, until she turned and beckoned for him to follow her. Gingerly, he took a step, then a second, and slowly trailed after her.

  She continued onward, feeling the hard ground beneath every step. Unexpectedly, she discovered that she was taking notice of the very air. It felt exceptionally fresh and clean within her lungs. She took many deep breaths of the sweet air into her, as her heart rate began to steady from the initial shock.

  Though she was no naturalist, she knew that the trees around them were of types that she was familiar with. Likewise, the chirping and chattering coming from the branches above was akin to the sounds that she had heard before on wilderness hikes.

  Other than the color of the sky itself, she could not help but think that they were not too far removed from the university. The state was filled with thickly forested areas, and as far as Erika knew, they were in any one of those regions. It was just a mystery as to how they had gotten there, perhaps something conjectured in some obscure journal of theoretical physics.

  The continuing commotion in the branches attracted her attention. She looked upwards, searching for the squirrels that she expected were running about the trees, just as they did all around the university campus. She knew the sight of a few little squirrels would be something else to grasp onto, as her mind struggled with the unprecedented instability of reality itself.

  Any hope that she had of taking another step towards calming her mind was swiftly evaporated.

  The creatures making the ruckus in the trees looked like diminutive foxes. They had reddish fur, elongated snouts, and four narrow legs that ended in grasping appendages, like those of monkeys. Long bushy tails protruded out behind them.

  Even more unusual, sprouting from their backs, were the presence of a pair of leathery wings that they kept tucked in as they skittered about the branches nimbly.

  Erika gaped at the astonishing little creatures.

  “What are those … animals?” Mershad asked, having taken note of the host of small creatures himself.

  Erika was breathtaken, as one of the creatures glided gracefully through the air from the branch of one tree, over to the limb of another tree situated about thirty feet away. It moved with dexterity as it alighted smoothly upon the new branch, grasping it firmly, with exceptional balance. Folding its wings, its little eyes watched them intently, and though the creature looked cautious, it was clearly not overly afraid of the two humans.

  “No idea,” Erika replied. “I think we’ve just discovered a new animal. But wouldn’t you know it? We don’t have a camera with us.”

  Mershad shook his head. He looked far more worried than regretful about missing t
he opportunity to document a rare species. “This is getting crazy.”

  Though the environment held some features familiar to her, there was no denying now that there was something utterly alien about it as well. It was no longer just a matter of the anomalous sky.

  She kept a wary eye on the little bat-foxes, not knowing whether or not they presented any kind of threat, but not about to underestimate them. Sometimes, the smallest of creatures could be the most deadly.

  “Let’s move on, this way,” Erika suggested in a low voice.

  Erika slowly turned to the right, beginning to carefully make her way from the area. She cast a sideways glance to make sure that Mershad was following her lead, but kept the greater part of her attention fixed upon the disposition of the little bat-fox creatures.

  The creatures continued their high-pitched chatter among the branches, a few shifting their places amid the cluster of trees that they were situated within. To her immense relief, they made no moves to follow the two humans.

  Erika had observed, with not a little worry, the fact that the creatures were not terribly startled by their presence. The creatures appeared to be no more wary than were the squirrels that heavily populated the university campus’s grounds. Yet whether or not the little creatures were some sort of pack hunter in their own right, it soon became clear that humans were not likely their prime quarry. Erika and Mershad gradually lost sight of them, as the little beasts’ hyper, high-pitched sounds faded farther behind.

  Finally, she felt comfortable enough to turn around and face forward, picking up her pace a little in the process.

  Erika looked over her shoulder several times to check on Mershad. “They are not coming after us, I’m pretty certain,” she commented, as she recognized his lingering fear, her gaze sweeping around the area for a moment as an idea came to her.

  She walked a few paces to the right, leaned over, and snapped off a branch that had been attached to a tree that had long since fallen to the floor of the forest. She stripped it of a few narrow offshoots, leaving behind a rather straight, sturdy piece of wood.