God Stones: Books 1 - 3

by Otto Schafer

  “Your hand? Yes, of course I can, Gabi, it’s cold and…” Breanne’s eyes went wide. “I feel something else!”

  “What do you feel?”

  “Pressure… pushing. Like pushing in my head.”

  “Pretend your mind is a room and in the room is a door.”

  Breanne closed her eyes, concentrating on the pressure, picturing the room with the door.

  “Open the door, Bre!” Gabi said excitedly.

  In her mind, Breanne opened the door.

  Can you hear me, Bre?

  Breanne gasped. “I can hear you in my head!”

  Gabi giggled. Now think back to me!

  Breanne closed her eyes and thought to the girl. “Did you hear me?” she asked.

  Gabi shook her head. No, but try again.

  Breanne tried. Still, Gabi couldn’t hear her. “It’s no use. But how can you read my mind and not hear what I am trying to make you hear?”

  I can’t always hear your thoughts, just when you are… I don’t know, relaxed or concentrating on something really hard. When you’re focused, maybe?

  That was it. Focus. Mr. B had talked a lot about focus and the third eye that night when everything changed. Breanne focused. She thought about the room and the door and then she threw it wide open. Gabi, can you hear me now?

  Gabi squeezed Breanne’s hand and nodded, a gigantic smile lighting her face. Yes, I hear you!

  9

  The Burning World

  Monday, April 18 – God Stones Day 12

  Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Fish and Wildlife Area

  Tires scattered gravel as Garrett and the others frantically clicked through the gears on their mountain bikes. He dared to glance back over his shoulder as shrub woman, now having taken the form of a cheetah, closed in. “It’s gaining!”

  “Don’t look back! Just pedal!” Paul shouted.

  David was bringing up the rear, his squat legs pedaling hard. “God, please!” he begged.

  Just ahead, their small gravel road ended at a T-junction. They would have to go north toward the ranger station or southward into open fields. In short order, their decision was made for them.

  “Look!” Lenny shouted. “Tree!”

  Garrett saw it too. A large tree lumbered into the road leading north, pushing up pavement as its roots pulled it along. As they neared, Garrett could hear wood straining and pavement fracturing in loud pops.

  Behind Garrett, David huffed, “Oh god! Oh god! Please!”

  “Left!” Ed shouted.

  Garrett leaned back and squeezed the hand brake, locking up his back tire as he slid his bike sideways around the corner of the intersection. Releasing the brake, he mashed down on the pedals, closing in on Paul and Ed as he spared another glance back toward David’s horror-flushed face. David looked as if he just knew at any moment some form of shrub woman or that massive-ass tree would rip him from his bike.

  Fear gripped Garrett as he realized David might be right. “Pedal harder, David!” Garrett looked forward, then back again. She’s gone. He frowned, searching. He didn’t see the shrub woman. “Where is it?!”

  “Just keep pedaling,” Ed said, but this time he glanced back too.

  They were nearly a mile from the tree and nearing another intersection when David finally shouted up at the group. “I’m going to hurl!”

  Garrett looked back again to see they were losing David. But he also saw that were no trees around, or shrub women either – only fields. “Guys, stop!”

  “Are you crazy, kid? Keep pedaling!” Ed shouted back.

  “We’re losing David!” Garrett said, locking up his brakes.

  Paul turned to survey the scene. “Stop, Ed!” he shouted, turning his own bike around. “We need to regroup.”

  They regrouped under the morning sun, panting as David heaved into the ditch.

  “What the hell was that thing?” Lenny asked.

  “I thought… I thought I was a goner for sure,” David said, wiping his mouth.

  “Kid,” Ed said, “you need to pull yourself together and get back on that bike. I don’t feel like we got near enough distance between us and that… that thing.”

  “Give him a minute,” Pete said.

  “We may not have a minute.”

  “Then why don’t you go on without us, Ed!” Pete shouted.

  Lenny raised a brow.

  Ed nodded. “I would love to. Dragging a bunch of kids along is slowing me down, and that’s putting my sister at risk,” he said flatly. “So, if you want to turn and go home, now is the time.”

  “No one said anything about turning and going home, but we don’t need you if you’re going to treat us like you’re some kind of drill sergeant!” Pete shot back.

  “I’m doing what I need to do, and if you can’t keep up, that’s not my problem.”

  “Ease up, Ed,” Paul said, in a tone that was somehow both irritated and pleading.

  Garrett recognized it as a tone used by brothers, and he thought of James.

  “We won’t do any good burning ourselves out in the first couple days. Besides, if we’re going to get some big miles behind us today, none of us can hold that pace – you included,” Paul said, jutting a finger toward his brother.

  Ed turned and started pedaling.

  “Is he actually going to leave us?” Lenny asked.

  “Nah, he won’t go too far. Just let him have his space,” Paul said, watching his brother pull away. He glanced back the way they had come. “The imminent danger seems to have passed. Let’s just get into a rhythm.”

  Garrett wasn’t so sure as he scanned the road, an uneasy feeling creeping over him. “David, we should go. That shrub thing could be coming, and I’m not even sure we would see it until it was right on us. Can you ride?”

  David took a drink of water, swished it around, and spit it into the dirt on the roadside. He bit down on the mouthpiece of his hydration bladder tube again and took another long pull, and this time he swallowed. “My stomach feels like I swallowed a cat-sized hairball, but yeah, I’ll be okay… if we can slow down a little?”

  “Sure thing,” Garrett said.

  They climbed back on their bikes and began pedaling south along the road through the fields. “What the hell was that thing?” Lenny asked.

  “Some kind of treant,” David said.

  “Treant?” Lenny asked. “You say that like I should know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Treants are like stewards of the forest. They’re tree-like creatures.”

  “And let me guess, you know this because of video games?” Pete asked.

  “Well, yeah, that and D&D.”

  “What’s that?” Lenny asked.

  “Oh, come on, you never played Dungeons and Dragons, Lenny?” Paul asked.

  “Is that a video game?” Garrett asked.

  “No, it isn’t a video game! It’s a board game. You actually interact with other players in the same room without an electronic device.” Paul nodded up the road toward Ed, who was pulling ahead. “Ed and I spent a lot of time on dig sites that don’t have power or at least don’t have internet. You can pass a lot of hours playing D&D. Better with more players, though. Sometimes we would get Bre to play or teach some locals.”

  “Okay, so back to this treant chick. What is it?” Lenny asked.

  David said, “I don’t know – treants aren’t shape-shifters in D&D, but this thing was shape-shifting. I think it had to be some kind of plant life though, because as it shifted it would go back to a sort of shrub in between shifts, plus it looked, I don’t know… woody.” David shook his head. “I mean, there are creatures in the games I play that can turn into trees and shape-shift – druids, maybe.”

  “What about the walking trees? What are they?” Lenny asked.

  “My best guess on those is that they are walking trees,” David said.

  “Dick,” Lenny said.

  Pete shook his head. “Listen, I appreciate that some of this crazy crap we�
��re seeing reminds you of video games and magic realm stuff, but this is real. What you’re talking about is made up.”

  “Not made up, Pete – it all comes from somewhere,” David argued. “D&D and most of this modern-day stuff was born from the mind of Tolkien, and he got a ton of his ideas from Norse mythology, which is pretty freaking old. I’m convinced this all comes either from things our ancestors saw firsthand or stories they’d been told.”

  “I don’t know, David – it all seems so far out there,” Pete said.

  “Not really. Back in the tomb, that dragon and the giant with one eye were pretty close to versions I’ve seen in books and in games. Maybe not perfect, but they are pretty darn—”

  “Oh my god, David! That’s the most unbelievable thing I’ve heard yet!” Lenny said, taking one hand off the handlebars to slap it over his mouth, eyes springing open.

  Garrett smiled.

  “What?! Which part?” David asked in genuine confusion.

  “The part where you read books!” Lenny laughed.

  “You know what, Len? You can go sit and—”

  “He said seen them in books,” Pete cut in. “We’re talking picture books, Lenny, so don’t get so excited.”

  Lenny barked out another laugh, sped up alongside Pete, and gave him a fist bump.

  Paul chuckled too, then pointed at David. “You are right though, kid. Some of this feels like straight-up D&D.”

  “Thank you!” David said, letting go of the handlebars long enough to shoot both Lenny and Pete the bird.

  Paul nodded. “But look, just because some of this feels familiar doesn’t mean we should be quick to apply rules for what we’re seeing. Even if you have seen some version of a treant in a book or game, it doesn’t mean these things are going to fit the mold or follow whatever rules our imaginations have placed on them.”

  David nodded. “Now that is a fair point.”

  Paul focused back up the road toward his brother, his face becoming serious.

  “He going to be okay?” Garrett asked, pulling alongside Paul. “The guy really seems to hate me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you, Garrett. He’s just hurting. We lost our mom a few years back. It was hard on us all, but Ed was really close to her. We can’t lose Bre too. We just can’t.” Paul turned to meet Garrett’s eyes. “You doing this, keeping your word to me, it’s a big deal. I don’t take it lightly.” Paul nodded back toward Ed. “Don’t worry about him. We have a long way to go. He’ll come around.”

  Garrett and the others continued to give each other crap as the miles peeled away and central Illinois turned into southern Illinois. They avoided towns by sticking to the deep country and staying away from forests by navigating through farmland. They kept their eyes peeled to the sky, thankful the rain stayed north, but even more thankful the sky held only clouds.

  On the smaller roads, they would often spot abandoned cars that had drifted onto the shoulders, a stark reminder of what the world was before Apep assembled the God Stones and everything went instantly dark.

  Eventually Garrett and the others made their way near the Illinois River, where the fields stretched on and on through what were probably floodplains. They had skirted a couple bigger towns earlier in the day, seeing only the occasional farmhouse and seldom coming across people. Those they did see were walking and probably moving on, hoping to find food. Hoping to find help. One advantage of the bikes was that they could simply speed up and whiz by anyone they came across, avoiding any potential confrontations.

  It wasn’t until they neared the outskirts of St. Louis, late in the day, that the reality of a world gone to hell really hit home. Off Garrett’s shoulder, the cloudy sky cleared as the sun melted into a westward horizon, but it was the glow far to the south that snagged everyone’s attention, a glow so large and unnaturally bright it could only be St. Louis – in flames. It was just like he had seen in his dreams. The world really was burning.

  “You guys! Holy hell!” David said.

  “Yeah, that looks bad, real bad,” Lenny said, his face going uncharacteristically serious.

  A heavy quiet fell over them.

  It was Lenny who broke the silence as a wry grin formed on his too-serious face. “David, you remember when Trisha said she would only go out with you if the world were about to end? You might want to give her a call, bro.”

  “This isn’t funny, Lenny!” David said.

  “Sorry! What can I say, this is how I deal with shit!” As an afterthought Lenny added, “And I’m sorry, but the thought of Trisha dating you is hilariously funny.”

  David pursed his lips and shot daggers from his eyes at Lenny.

  “This is insane is what it is,” Pete said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Ed pulled to a stop. “We need to avoid that.”

  “But if we cut back east to go around, we’ll have to go through the Shawnee National Forest,” Pete said.

  Garrett nodded. “Right, and if we cut west now before we hit St. Louis, we’ll have to cross both the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers. Both directions mean dealing with trees. We can use Route 16 to get across the Illinois River, but we’ll have to find another way to cross the Mississippi.”

  “Doesn’t the Illinois River meet the Mississippi before St. Louis?” Pete asked.

  “It does, but if we go that far south, we’ll have to go through Alton and into the St. Louis suburbs,” Garrett said.

  “I thought you’ve never been this far from home. Sounds like you’re describing your own neighborhood,” Ed said.

  “Studying maps was a chore I had to do most nights before bed.”

  “Studying maps?” Ed asked. “As a chore?”

  Paul smiled. “There’s a lot you don’t know about these kids, Ed.”

  “You guys, my ass has never hurt so bad, and my legs are jelly. We must have gone like eighty miles or more today. Please, we got to stop and rest,” David begged, massaging his butt cheeks.

  “Yeah, let’s look for some place to crash, then we can figure out our next move,” Garrett said.

  A little farther down the road, they crossed Route 16. “Did you see that?” Paul asked.

  “Yeah, that was a sign for Hardin. That’s the way we need to go if we decide to cross the Illinois before it meets up with the Mississippi,” Garrett said.

  Paul turned his bike around. “Yeah, but that’s not what I saw. Come on.”

  They turned west onto Route 16 and there, pulled onto the shoulder, sat a large, abandoned Greyhound bus.

  “What the heck is that thing doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” David asked.

  “Same as all the other cars we’ve seen. They probably coasted off the road when all the power went out,” Paul said.

  Ed pulled a holstered pistol from the side pouch of his pack. “Looks abandoned, but let’s be careful until we’re sure.” He clipped the holster inside his waistband behind his back and drew the pistol, racking the slide. “Paul, let’s go.” He nodded toward the bus.

  “We’ll come with,” Garrett said.

  Ed waved him off. “No. Just wait here and keep a lookout. This won’t take long.”

  Garrett frowned at Lenny as the two disappeared around the bus.

  “Garrett, Ed’s got to stop treating us like a bunch of kids. This sucks!” Lenny said.

  “Technically, we are a bunch of kids, Len,” David said.

  From David’s tone, Garrett figured at least one of his friends was completely content with staying back and letting the “grown-ups” clear the scene. “You’re right, Len. I will talk to him,” Garrett said.

  “Yeah, well, do it soon, would you? This is getting old,” Pete said.

  Garrett nodded. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

  “Bro, the moment will never be right. Just tell him if he doesn’t knock it off, we’ll go our separate ways.”

  Lenny was right and Garrett knew it, but he also knew Ed wasn’t trying to hear anything he had to say.

&nb
sp; Paul appeared around the side of the bus. “All clear! Bus is abandoned! We got ourselves first-class sleeping arrangements tonight, boys.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” David shouted, starting for the bus.

  “Look at him go, like he’s being chased,” Garrett said.

  “That’s the fastest I’ve seen ole pornstache move since he was being chased by the tree thing!” Lenny said, shaking his head.

  Garrett settled into a high-backed leather seat and gazed out through the tinted bus window across an expansive field of green soybean sprouts. Farther back, Ed and Paul were finishing up their modifications to a few more bus seats. Through brute strength they forced them back to a horizontal potion, creating makeshift cots. The seat Garrett rested in now wasn’t modified, though. He wanted to sit up for a while. Across from him, David lay in a fetal position and, judging from the snores, sleep had found him instantly.

  Digging around in his pack, Garrett retrieved Coach’s journal. Then he heard his name.

  “Garrett?”

  He looked up to find Paul standing in the aisle.

  “You better rest. Ed wants to start out in the dark. We’re hoping the trees can’t see in the dark and won’t notice us slip by when we cross the river.”

  Garrett wasn’t sure that made sense, but he guessed they shouldn’t assume anything. Exhaustion consumed him, but unlike David, he wasn’t ready to sleep. He looked over at his friend and worried what this trip would require of him. It would be hard for them all, but it was David he worried about the most. David was the youngest of them, plus he was out of shape and his only ability was healing, which Garrett didn’t take for granted one second. But David also passed out every time he healed someone, leaving himself vulnerable. He would need to keep a close eye on his friend.

  He worried about James and his mom too. He had left them. In the moment, it had felt so right. It still did, but the guilt was there too, gnawing at him. Why did he feel guilty for abandoning people he never agreed to lead? He had left them in good hands – the best hands. James was so much more capable than he was. And what about his mom? She would think he’d done this for a girl he barely knew. You’re being immature, Garrett. You have people that need you, Garrett. You’re the descendant, Garrett… He could hear her voice in his head and all it did was piss him off. Maybe he had only known Bre for a few hours, but at least they were honest. His whole life had been nothing but lies. He hadn’t asked for any of this, and he knew what it looked like. Running off to save a girl he’d just met. But it was so much more. It was about keeping his word. It was about fixing a wrong that he let happen. He had to get her back. And when he did, Apep would pay for taking her. This was his decision, not a decision anyone else was making for him. Besides, if anyone could get the others to Mexico, James could. Still, despite it all, he felt guilty, and he missed them.