The animal screams echoed from the face of the cliff, followed by the crashing of bodies through the waiting branches of the trees unable to slow their descent. Their bodies pounded the earth. Bones broke, tearing through hide. Organs were pulped, splashing through the rent flesh in explosions of blood. Some still struggled, trying to drag themselves into the thicket with jaggedly fractured limbs, shoving past broken and disemboweled carcasses through mud thickened by blood, their plight permanently terminated as molten fire splashed down upon them. Skin and fur crackled and burned, surrounded by pools of boiling blood.
A triumphant roar tore the night. Joined by another…and another, and another as a shroud of smoke settled over the burning world.
IV
Highway 40, Utah
PHOENIX STOOD APART FROM THE OTHERS, ARMS WRAPPED AROUND HIS chest for warmth, staring off into the darkness to the west. It wasn’t particularly cold, yet his whole body shivered. He could feel his adversary out there, the bitter chill emanating from his dark fortress. Now that he understood what he was feeling, he supposed the sensation had been there all along. Maybe it had been dulled by distance on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, but it had been there nonetheless. He had first noticed it on the back of the motorcycle as they ascended into the mountains, a biting sensation of coldness he could easily blame on the wind and the coming nightfall, heralded by the shadow of the mountain that fell upon them when the sun set behind the peaks, but the feeling intensified with every mile they put behind them. The goose bumps had risen up his arms and into his shoulders, triggering his teeth to begin chattering. Even the buzzing engine beneath him no longer produced sufficient heat. It had been more than the cold, however. He felt somehow magnetized, as though his body were being drawn by some unseen force, urging him faster even than the bikes would go, always guiding him to the east like the needle of an off-kilter compass. He was becoming increasingly polarized, the force attracting his inner magnet growing stronger every minute. That was how it worked. He understood now. He was being drawn to the opposite pole by an irresistible force. Not just a separate, warring pole, but like a magnet, the opposite half of himself.
It was a startling revelation, though he knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. It was the cosmic order of balance, not that he was the ultimate good and his doppelganger the epitome of evil. They were both tainted by the original sin of human flesh, by differing measures of love and hate, greed and generosity. Opposite sides of the same coin that together made a whole.
He should have realized from the start that this was never about them as a band of survivors, but about his adversary and him. Theirs was the battle that would determine the fate of mankind. He should never have even allowed the others to come. Maybe he wouldn’t have made it to his destination alone, but their lives were worth more to him than his own, and he had willingly jeopardized them. Those who had saved him from his lifetime of imprisonment in so many cold, dark basements, who had welcomed him and given him a family for the first time in his entire life. Those who had loved him. And how did he repay them? By driving them like cattle to their deaths.
Pinching his eyes shut and grinding his teeth, he tried to force the visions to reveal themselves, to show him their destiny, but all that filled his mind was the frigid blackness that had been his whole world for so long. He knew that some of them would fall, but no more than that. He didn’t know whether they would prevail in their mission or die along the way. Not knowing was the worst of all. He cocked his head and bit his lip contemplatively. Or maybe that just meant that the outcome had yet to be decided, that they controlled their own destiny. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save his friends then. He was certain his own fate was sealed, and that of one more, but beyond that he had no idea if the rest lived or died. Maybe he had it within his power to save them. Maybe, just maybe, he could—
“Come back by the fire,” Missy said, wrapping her arm around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder. She followed his line of sight into the night, but couldn’t see what held him enrapt. She had been watching him since he wandered off. He was receding into himself again, and there was nothing she could do about it.
He nodded and turned, allowing her to guide him back to where the others sat at a pair of picnic tables with the barbeque pit between them burning nearly a foot above the grate. As he approached, he looked from one face to the next, wondering which one of their deaths he would be unable to prevent, or if any of them would survive to bury those who didn’t.
“Grab something to eat,” Adam said between mouthfuls of kelp. “I think we should all try to get a couple hours of sleep before hitting the road again.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” Mare said. “Not after those birds. There was just something too creepy about the whole thing. I mean, I haven’t seen a single bird since. Not one.”
“It’s like something scared them all at once,” Jill said. “I can’t even imagine what could possibly do that.”
“Best not to think about it at all,” Ray said. “No good can come of it.”
“We have to be prepared for whatever is out there,” Adam said. “So we need to think about it.”
“It’s the fires,” Jill whispered, her eyes glazing over. “They’re going to burn the entire world if they have to.”
“Who?” Evelyn asked.
Jill could only shake her head.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ray said. Jake had fallen asleep across his lap while he unconsciously ran his fingers through the boy’s hair. “Whatever it is, either we beat it or we die. There’s no point in speculating.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sunshine,” Mare said, but the gravity of his words rang true with all of them, whether they wanted to hear it or not.
Phoenix took a pair of kelp leaves and paced while he ate, thanks to an overabundance of nervous energy. Missy finally had to sit down beside her brother, folding her arms on the table and resting her head on them. With her eyes closed and lips parted, she looked like he imagined an angel might. He wandered over to the side of the visitor’s center where a map of the entire state of Utah was framed behind a cracked sheet of Plexiglas. A gold star had been placed beside the words “You Are Here” to mark their current location. It only showed a small sliver of western Colorado, but it still appeared as though they had a long way to go. He traced his finger along the line of the highway they had been traveling to the southeast, the route winding a little farther before straightening out. Several smaller lines intersected with the highway, identified by numbers that meant nothing to him. When his fingertip reached a dotted line, he paused and glanced at the legend at the bottom. A dotted line indicated a trail. When he looked back at the map, the trail was no longer a broken line, but a single rivulet of blood rolling down the glass from where he had sliced his fingertip on the crack.
“The Trail of Blood,” he whispered, immediately recoiling and wiping his finger on his pants. That was where they needed to go. Of that, he had no doubt. And it looked as though they would definitely reach it during the coming day.
Everything was happening so fast now that he was scared that even if it was within him to save them all, he might miss the opportunity.
He headed back to the fire. Adam was trying to divvy the gas from the reserve tanks equally between the bikes, while several of the others had begun to doze off. Missy was snoring softly with her head still on the table, and Mare and Jill had climbed atop one of the adjacent tables, side by side beneath the blanket that had been carrying this evening’s meal. Ray was now lying on his back on the bench with Jake atop him, running his hand across the boy’s back, slower with each pass. Evelyn rested her head on her folded arms like Missy, but Phoenix could see her eyes were still open as she watched Adam.
He walked over to Adam and held the empty tanks in place so they could be strapped back to the seats.
“Our journey begins now,” Phoenix said when the work was done.
Adam looked him in the eyes. “What aren’t
you telling me?”
“We’re going to have to abandon the highway.”
“Why?”
“There’s a trail we’re supposed to take. The Trail of Blood.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Neither do I.”
“Why’s it called The Trail of Blood?”
“Because Death is at the end.”
V
JILL AWOKE WHILE THE MOON WAS STILL HIGH OVERHEAD, THE BLACK SKY riddled with stars, the sound of Mare’s gentle exhalations beside her. He shuffled and rolled onto his side on the picnic table, flopping his arm over her chest. His features were so peaceful, his eyelids resting softly closed, the lines of stress on his forehead and the corners of his lips vanished. His formerly spiked hair no longer stood erect, as it was becoming too long. He was still just a kid. They both were. Surely it had been weeks since he shaved last, but he only had downy growth on his upper lip and chin. And he was going to be a father. They weren’t ready to bring a life into the world together. Not even close. The worst part about it was that he didn’t even know. Maybe she was waiting for the right place and the right time, but even then, she didn’t know what she was supposed to say. How would he react? She imagined the look of horror on his face, his eyes widening and jaw dropping, the metamorphosis to confusion while he struggled to rationalize the life-altering fact. What if he freaked out? Worse still, what if he ran away? What if the shock caused him to no longer love her and their child, the daughter growing inside her?
She felt the heat of the tears on her cheeks and turned away for fear he might open his eyes and see them. What was wrong with her? She rode an emotional roller coaster and was too quick to cry. Sure, there were the wildly surging hormones, but they could only be blamed for so much. She felt as though there were an enormous weight on her chest. Every so often, there seemed to be a powerful thought, a budding revelation that barged its way to the forefront of her mind, but she could never completely grasp it. It was like the key to some profound cosmic secret, and with it came such intense feelings of dread and fear that she could hardly breathe. The tears would flow and she would find herself on the verge of a panic attack, but she could never truly explain why, even to herself. In these hazy moments following waking, when dreams and the rational world swirled in an indistinguishable miasma, she was sure she could reach right out and grab the key, but she was never quite able. As soon as she was close, her multiple-great grandmother’s words always forced their way through, a thought knife slashing through her gray matter.
“Would you sacrifice everything for the child?” she whispered.
The darkness converged from all sides, overwhelming her as though she’d plunged into a sea of oil.
Flames burned through the darkness. At first it felt like the same vision with smoke churning all around her, so dense it hurt her chest and made her cough, but even when it parted on the breeze, she couldn’t see the trees around her. The ground beneath her was solid, not the spongy detritus of the last dream. No scent of boiling pine sap or burning wood, but something else altogether, almost the sulfurous reek of rotten eggs. A human shape composed of shadow appeared through the shifting smoke, running toward her through what appeared to be a ragged and uneven doorway.
“It’s right behind me!” the shadow shouted, a voice she immediately recognized as Mare’s. He pushed her back and grappled with something at the side of the doorway. A black sheet slid partially across the opening with a metallic scream of wrenching metal. He jerked at it, but it appeared to be stuck. “No! No! No!”
Mare turned and looked directly at her in the smoke-clogged darkness. There was a moment of hesitation before he pulled her to him in an embrace.
“Don’t do this,” she heard herself sob, tightening her fingers into his shirt and holding on with all of her strength.
“I love you,” he said into her ear, the crackle of flames like evil laughter. “Make sure she knows how much her daddy loves her, too.”
He tried to pull away, but she held him, her fingers knotted so tightly in the fabric of his shirt that they felt as though he would have to break them to free himself from their embrace. She wouldn’t let him go. She couldn’t. He pushed and struggled against her, but she held on with everything she had. Light flashed from his eyes and she saw the look of sheer terror on his face.
“You have to let me go, Jill!” he shouted. “Let me go!”
Another black figure appeared through the partially closed doorway, only flames rose from this one, long tendrils of fire reaching up into the sky from its shoulders and head.
“Now, Jill! Please!”
She heard her meek voice protest, though the words were jumbled by the fear and tears.
A fiery smile slashed the black face out there before the entire form became a living body of fire, exploding outward. Blinding light filled the doorway. Searing heat blasted her in the face, forcing her to close her eyes. The last thing she saw was Mare’s hair catch fire, his mouth stretching into a soundless scream as gold and orange arms of fire wrapped around him. Her skin ignited, every nerve ending simultaneously experiencing a level of pain like nothing she had ever imagined. She opened her mouth to scream, inviting the flames down her scalded throat and into her lungs, the tissue-like sacs hitching as they—
Jill saw the stars again and Mare’s frightened eyes staring down at her. He still had his hair, and his formerly blistering skin was again intact. She was flopping on her back, gasping for air. Red blossoms of oxygen deficit migrated across her vision, amoebae on the lab slide of the night.
“Give her space!” Adam said, shoving Mare away, but he only allowed himself to be pushed so far. Mare clung to her hand, the pressure binding her to reality. “You have to calm down, Jill. Focus on your breathing. Slow. Even. Deep breath in…blow it all the way out. Another deep breath in…”
The splotches faded from the stars and her breath caught with a gasp. She expelled it as a scream that echoed off into the silence.
“Are you all right?” Mare asked, nuzzling up to her cheek, his breath warm on her ear. She couldn’t look at him for fear he would appear as he had in her vision.
“No,” she whispered, closing her eyes. All she could see were flames. Her own screams echoed inside her head. She squeezed his hand and reveled in the damp warmth of his cheek against hers.
Nothing would be all right ever again.
VI
The Ruins of Denver, Colorado
DEATH COULD FEEL HIM. EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE STILL SEPARATED BY more than a hundred miles, Death could feel his presence like hookworms burrowing beneath his scales. The Lord’s chosen, his diametric opposite, was coming to him, precisely as it was meant to be. They would face each other on the field of battle, in the ruins of the once great society that had spawned them both, with nothing less than the future of the world at stake. He would crush the boy and grind his bones to dust, leaving his disciples in a state of disarray, ripe for the slaughter. That was if they even made it this far, anyway. He couldn’t overlook the fact that his minions were nearly upon them now, his perfect creatures who would set upon them with fire and savagery. He could almost smell their burning flesh, hear the snapping of powerful jaws tearing meat from bone, the resultant screams and pleas for mercy…
He closed his eyes, the filmy lids snapping shut over his glowing crimson orbs, and savored the moment. An image of his adversary flashed before him, granting a glimpse of what he was surprised and delighted to see was only a child. Long white hair whipping across a face covered with ribbons of blood. Head bucking back, his mouth a rictus of pain. Tears diluting the blood to a shade that matched his pink eyes. The chin finally dropping to his thin, pale chest. Still. Unmoving. The breeze blowing tangles of knotted hair over his face to clot with the blood.
A grin full of wickedly sharp teeth tore Death’s face in half, and he finally allowed his eyes to open, spilling scarlet light like blood into the room, washing over the scattered piles of bones covering t
he floor. He leaned back in his throne of haphazardly assembled skeletons, that hellish monument to the fallen, and peeled apart the layers of shadows for those he knew were there. The tent of stretched skin enclosing the chamber resonated with the red glare. Hollow sockets plead with him from beyond the grave in crushed and battered skulls.
Pestilence and Famine stood to either side of the black doorway, backs against the wall. They were diminished now. With their insect swarms nearly depleted, they were little more than hollow shells, their life forces all but spent. He knew he was still going to need them though. With God conspiring against him, he was going to need every advantage he could get.
They answered his silent summons, crossing the room on bones that cracked and shattered beneath their tread with the sound of glass shards grinding to sand. Both reached the foot of the throne and knelt, one to either side of his legs, slid back the hoods of their cloaks and lowered their heads. Famine’s alabaster skull shone beneath Death’s glare, while Pestilence’s leathered flesh appeared far too tight, cracking like a dried pond beneath the desert sun. Only a handful of long black tufts of hair remained, scraggly and disheveled, as though savaged by disease.
Leaning forward again, Death spread his claws and placed his palms on the crowns of their heads. He pressed the sharp tips of his nails into the backs of their skulls, applying just enough pressure to pierce the skin and touch the bare bone beneath. Closing his eyes, he concentrated all of his senses. He felt the blood coursing through him and channeled it from his chest outward into his extremities, along his arms and through his wrists, until the power burned in his hands. Neither of them cried out, though smoke rose in tendrils from their scalps, the power building to a crescendo.
Death snapped his hands closed, his fingers breaking through bone and embedding themselves in gray matter. Pestilence and Famine bucked and thrashed against the invasion, eyes bulging outward from the pressure, mouths opening into soundless screams that produced only smoke. Their limbs went limp and they collapsed to the floor, yanking Death’s fingers free. He opened his eyes and studied the twin heaps at his feet. Electrical currents flashed through their veins like lightning bolts, striking even across their open eyes. Had he not known better, he would have assumed them dead.
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