by Otto Schafer
“Sounds like a ferry!” Jack shouted back. “Fly down and light it up so I can see.”
They did light it up, aiming their flames at the back of the ferry where there weren’t any people. But then he saw people scrambling all around. People he knew!
“That’s one of the outsiders right there! And that’s Pete!” Jack shouted. He leaned way out, craning to see. Then he saw Lenny and Garrett. His heart pounded and his blood raced with excitement. Excitement building into rage. We got him, Danny! We got him now! “Down, Aiden! Get closer!”
“I want the boy taken alive,” Goch said.
Jack frowned. Like hell, he thought.
Aiden dove.
“I’ve got you now, Garrett! And I’m going to make you pay!” Jack screamed. Aiden landed at the rear of the ferry as the people on the boat ran behind a snack truck parked at the far end. “You can’t run away from me anymore, Garrett! You killed Danny, you bastard! Time to pay!”
Goch landed beside Jack, and their end of the ferry dipped low into the water. A rush of muddy river water washed over the dragon’s feet, then receded like the tide as the ferry lifted slowly back up. Goch roared and fire burst forth, engulfing the closest parked car in flames.
At the far end, an unfamiliar voice was screaming, “Starboard, you got to make it go starboard now! Aw, dammit, Kong! I shouldn’t a passed out! I’m sorry!”
Jack shouted again, “I’m going to have the dragons burn it all if you don’t come out right now, Garrett, you freaking coward!”
The car fire burning in between Jack and the far end of the ferry deck made it hard to see. Then there were loud pops and flashes. Jack ducked his head as bullets zipped past his ear, too close. Suddenly, Aiden lurched to the side with a sharp scream, spitting fire forward across the deck and into the water. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Jack said, trying to hold on. But as the dragon pitched to the side, Jack fell to the deck of the ferry. He turned to see Aiden’s horned head with one eye missing and the socket seeping something viscous. Jesus, they had shot his dragon!
Jack got to his feet. If the coward wouldn’t come to him, he would go to the coward! He started to walk forward but stopped when Goch roared from behind him, blowing his stank-ass breath across Jack’s back.
“Garrett Turek!” Goch shouted. “I give you one chance to surrender to me now, or I will kill you and all your companions and lay whatever pieces are left of you at the feet of my queen!”
Jack held his hand up to his brow, trying to see through the flames.
Above him, three young dragons circled in the night sky.
“Have it your way, human!” Goch said, as he began to roar.
“Wait!” came a voice.
There was no mistaking that voice. It was Garrett. Jack sneered and balled his fists.
“I’m coming out!” Garrett said, springing up from behind the large snack truck.
Finally! He was going to rip every bit of Garrett’s life from his soul and fill his body with disease down to the very marrow of his bones. Finally, Garrett was going to pay!
Jack’s fists began to shake. Here we go, Danny. Here we go!
20
The Devil Has Come to Chiapas
Thursday, April 21 – God Stones Day 15
Rural Chiapas State, Mexico
Breanne!
Breanne’s eyes shot open as she fell backward, pushed by some unseen force off the cot and onto the floor of the hut.
Across from her, Gabi hit the floor too, letting out a guttural moan. What was that?
Something’s wrong! Jesus Christ, something’s wrong!
What do we do? Gabi asked.
Breanne didn’t answer. She didn’t know the answer. She needed to breathe. What could they do? Nothing. They couldn’t do shit, and now Garrett was dying! She needed to stay calm and think. Should she try again? No. Not now. She had to rationalize what she’d just felt. Garrett wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead… could he? No. He couldn’t be. Somehow, she knew that in that fleeting vision, she was there – physically there! Then a thought occurred to her. Not so much a thought as a feeling, a sort of instinct. Gabi, what we felt might not have been happening now. I have had visions of the future before, but they were clear images. This was different, like a fuzzier dream, and instead of clear images, it was a very real feeling or emotion. I… I don’t know. What if it was the future but further away?
I hope so. That means we could change it, right? Gabi asked.
I don’t know – maybe. I need to know more. She couldn’t attempt it again, not now. It was too much. She would try again later. Come on, Gabi, we’ll have to try this later – right now we need to go, she said, pushing herself up from the floor.
They hiked back down the steep trail and into the heart of the village. Strange how daylight brought with it new revelations. There was a small church and streets lined with ransacked storefronts. Near the center of the village, a large crowd was forming. Heated words were being exchanged and some people were crying.
What’s happening? Breanne asked, shrugging her pack up and tightening the straps.
I don’t know, but I think some of those are the ones we passed on the road.
But they were heading the other way. Why would they come back? Breanne asked.
Let’s see, Gabi said.
As they approached the group, the rapid-fire Spanish suddenly changed to English. Thanks, Gabi.
Gabi frowned, then smiled. I’m not doing it this time. You are.
What? How could that be? She wasn’t doing anything.
Yeah. You are a quick learner, I guess.
Gabi introduced herself and Breanne to the crowd, then asked, “What’s going on?”
A man with a thick black mustache stepped forward. “We were trying to get to the safety of the cenote, but just before sunset we came to a place where the road had completely washed out to a sheer cliff. It was impassable. We were forced to turn back. That’s when things got worse. In the night, after the rain slowed, a demon attacked us!” The man shook his head and tears spilled into his mustache. “It came from the jungle so fast, and it was so big. It hit us, knocking many of us off our feet. Diego, my brother, dropped his daughter when it hit us, and when we stood back up, she was gone!” The man dropped to his knees. “I can still hear Diego screaming as he ran into the jungle after her – after his little Dia!” He looked at the small girl next to him who was holding a woman’s hand as she too cried. He reached out and grabbed the girl, pulling her to his chest. “I still remember his screams from the jungle. I stayed on the road with the others, holding on to my own daughter for dear life! But before we could stop her, my brother’s wife, Ana, ran in after them. A moment later we heard her screams.” A wretched sob broke from the woman next to him as she collapsed beside him.
Breanne’s heart broke.
“Then everything went quiet,” the mustached man continued.
“Lo siento,” Breanne said softly.
The man smiled weakly. “Thank you,” he said, running a hand across his sober face. “Fearing the demon would return, we fled back here. And found shelter in a small, abandoned hut,” he said, pointing just off the dirt path.
The hut was tiny, all right. Breanne couldn’t have imagined how they all got any rest. Tell them how to get to Violeta’s hut, Gabi. They need to rest. Oh, and tell them about the mamey tree and the garden. Breanne could hear them in perfect English, but that was in her mind. She couldn’t speak fluent Spanish, and she didn’t know how to make her English words turn to Spanish in their minds.
Gabi spoke and pointed, and their sad eyes followed, broken yet grateful.
“What about you girls?” It was the woman who spoke now, strangling her sobs.
“We have to go back. We are taking medicine to a sick friend.”
“But didn’t you hear me?” the man said in a pleading tone. “There is nothing for you that way but death!”
“Then we will find another way,” Gabi said.
Suddenly Breanne felt very uncomfortable. Were they really going to try and stop them from leaving?
“To go that way is to die. The demon is… is…” The man’s thoughts wandered away, as his eyes drifted, fixed suddenly to somewhere beyond the girls, beyond their conversation. Then the man’s eyes, having narrowed to focus afar, popped wide. The others shared his look too, with accompanying gasps.
The ground shook lightly beneath Breanne’s feet, like a locomotive was approaching but still far off. Then it stopped. She frowned. Something was wrong. She turned and followed their eyes to the road leading out of the town, the way they had come. At first, she thought she was disoriented. Hadn’t that been the way? Yes, of course it was. The road was right there, but now it didn’t seem to lead anywhere. It was only jungle. Where the road had led out of town was now thick with trees so close, they were almost touching. No, they were touching. She squinted. This wasn’t many trees – it was one massive cypress tree, with what looked like a dozen different trunks protruding high above a single massive one. The colossal tree was wider than any redwood she had ever seen, maybe dozens of feet across.
Bre! That tree! It wasn’t there before! Gabi said.
Gabi’s voice was shaky, even in Breanne’s mind. She thought back to what her dad had told her. Gabi, you remember I told you my dad said trees were moving?
Gabi nodded. Bre, my parents took me to see a tree once. It was a special tree, not because it was the tallest or oldest but because it was said to have the largest trunk circumference in not just Mexico, but in all the world. They call it El Tule. It’s only a few hours from here.
Breanne somehow knew what came next, but she waited for Gabi to say it.
Bre, I think this must be that tree!
“The devil has come to Chiapas!” the mustached man shouted.
Breanne and Gabi startled at his outburst.
“We must run! We must get away from this unholy place!” another man said.
Everyone turned to run – only to see that the road leading the other way was blocked too. But the ground hadn’t shaken as smaller trees quietly crowded in, moving with an animated ease. Their motion was odd as they seem to drag themselves through the dirt, presumably by their roots. Their limbs moved too, swaying to and fro in some irregular gait, the strange strides of otherworldly creatures. As they drew close, Breanne heard the flexing of stretching wood fibers, like the pops and cracks of dried old cartilage.
Just as Breanne started weighing how to get off the road and cut upward into the village, the small buildings lining the road came apart as trees, unseen until now, pushed through, smashing everything in their way.
Gabi! Breanne shouted, grabbing the girl to her.
The man with the mustache made the sign of the cross and dropped back down to his knees. “Mother Mary! Hear me, I beg you!”
From the opposite side more trees came, pushing up to the road, hemming them in on all sides. Nowhere to run now. Finally, after sealing them inside an inescapable ring, the trees went still. Leaves rained down around them like a windy October day back home. But it wasn’t fall, and these leaves weren’t burnt orange, brown, or yellow.
The woman collapsed in a heap next to the mustached man and sobbed. Her wails and his mumbling prayer were the only sounds as green leaves fell silently. Falling. Falling. Falling.
Then, at the end of the road opposite El Tule, trees went into motion again, dragging themselves over just enough to form a narrow opening.
They all looked.
Then Breanne saw her. The silhouette of a tall woman in a long open cloak walking toward them. The woman held something in her right hand. A bow? Breanne frowned, fear washing over her. In a fluid motion, the woman reached over her head, drew an arrow from a quiver, nocked it, drew back, and fired.
21
Your Mom Says Hi
Wednesday April 20 – God Stones Day 14
The Mississippi River, near Alton, Illinois
Hearing Jack’s voice sent a chill down Garrett’s spine. But the accusation Jack shouted cut his very soul. You killed Danny, you bastard! Time to pay! Danny hadn’t made it out of the river after all. Garrett thought back to that night when he threw Danny out of the tunnel. He had killed him. He had killed Jack’s brother. Dear god, he’d really killed someone. He swallowed dryly.
“Don’t! Don’t you think it!” Lenny whispered fiercely. “I see that look on your face, Garrett. You didn’t kill him. The river killed him. Besides, they had weapons, or did you forget about the tire-iron and bat?”
Garrett shook his head. “Come on, Len! That’s like saying I pulled the trigger, but the bullet did the killing.”
David’s voice cracked and went high. “Who cares! In case you didn’t notice, Jack has somehow teamed up with dragons – actual dragons!”
There was a loud thud as their end of the ferry lifted into the air.
Thrown off balance, Garrett staggered forward into the snack truck as the truck itself slid away from him. The ferry settled back down with a splash as a loud roar and foul stench washed over them.
“Speaking of dragons!” Lenny managed just as the other side of the snack truck lit up in greenish-orange flames.
Garrett squatted down, cowering in front of the truck, Lenny on one side of him and Pete and David on his other.
“Not again with the dragons and rivers! There’s nowhere to go! We’re sitting ducks! Dead for sure if we don’t make shore, and like now!” David begged.
“You’re not helping by stating the obvious, David!” Pete chimed in.
There was another car parked next to the snack truck and Paul and Ed were taking cover in front of it, nearer to the far starboard corner. Louie was there too, yelling something out into the river, but all the voices faded into the background as one played over and over through Garrett’s mind. You killed Danny, you bastard! A human being had died by his hand. He was a murderer. He’d murdered someone! “I’m a murderer.”
Then from beside him, loud pops rang in his ear. Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack! Flashes of gunfire lit Paul’s face as he stood in front of the car with both hands extended, squeezing the trigger as brass shells clattered around him to the deck.
Garrett blinked.
The dragon spoke.
“Garrett, what are you doing? Don’t even think about it!” Lenny said, grabbing Garrett by the arm.
Garrett shrugged him off and stepped out from behind the snack truck. “I’m coming out!”
“Garrett!” Lenny said in an urgent whisper.
Garrett looked back at Lenny and then toward Paul. “Get us to shore! I’ll see what they want and stall as long as I can!”
“What they want?!” Lenny asked in disbelief. “What they want is to kill you!”
“Well… let’s try not to let them,” he said flatly.
Garrett walked forward with his hands held out in front of him. As he passed the burning car, the massive dragon came into view, standing at the end of the deck. It lowered its head down toward him. To his left was another, smaller one – sitting quietly, one eye missing, the other watching him. The dragon was smaller, yes, but it was still as big as an elephant with a neck as long as a giraffe’s. And Garrett could feel there were more. He didn’t know how, but he could. Three more, he thought, circling high above.
The dragon who had spoken was gigantic, with large blood-red scales that shimmered in the strange combination of the moonlight and the car fire. There was no animal alive on earth to compare it to. Even though it was only the second dragon Garrett had ever seen, it looked different from the one in the tomb. It only had one head, but the head was as big as a small car and had different facial features, including spiked horns that ran from the tip of its snout all the way up between its sinister, red eyes, spreading across the top of its head. Horns protruded along its long jaws on both sides, outlining its fa
ce.
Garrett looked away from the giant beast and met Jack’s eyes. “Jack… I… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean for Danny to…”
“Say it, you piece of shit!” Jack pointed. “Say aloud what you did!”
Something about Jack was different. Something more than the striped leather jacket he wore. It was the boy’s dark eyes, Garrett realized. Jack’s eyes were cloaked in shadow like he hadn’t slept in days, and maybe he hadn’t, but it was even something more. Garrett saw it in his eyes, dark blue in the light but not now. Whether by night or by hate, they seemed blacker somehow, black as the abyss between stars, wild and unhinged. Garrett knew it as sure as he knew a streak of hate ran through Jack, dark as a coal vein through a mountain – something far worse than darkness lived in those eyes. Garrett’s own eyes darted back to the dragon, then back to Jack. He tried to speak, but no words came.
Jack glanced to the dragon, then back to Garrett. “You should be worried about me and what I’m going to do to you and all your friends,” he said, nodding past Garrett.
“These were your friends once, Jack. What are you going to do, kill your friends? You’re not a murderer!”
Jack looked down at his feet and smiled, but the smile was foul and twisted. “We’re killing everyone, Danny,” he muttered aloud as he grabbed a fistful of his own hair and squeezed.
Garrett frowned, momentarily confused. He looked from side to side, almost expecting to see Danny appear from hiding. Maybe he’d tell him he was alright after all, and they’d just been foolin’. But there was no truth in false hope, and just as Garrett knew that to be true, he realized another truth. Jack was far more disturbed than even his shadowed eyes revealed.