A handwritten note on the table caught her eye.
Dear Soren,
I have seen Marina. She is alive. She has told me to meet her in the desert. After much careful consideration, I have decided to go. Forgive my betrayal. I love you like a brother, but if there’s any chance I can be with Marina, I have to take it. I only hope she does not change her mind.
Murphy
P.S. It is odd, but I don’t think she has aged a day. She is as lovely as the day we first met her.
Sasha felt frantically in the pocket of her snow pants for the piece of paper on which she had written “Meet me in High Desert Town.” It was gone. Had it fallen out of her pocket in the tunnel when she was with Murphy? Did he think she was Marina?
Timber gave a more determined whine.
Sasha shoved Murphy’s note into her pocket and hurried over to the exit, pushing the bolt cutters and hacksaw through the tunnel ahead of her. The vibrating of the mountain had increased, and the tunnel stunk like sulfur. Sasha turned to start running back the way she had come. Back to Soren.
A woman who looked almost exactly like Sasha stood in the tunnel ahead of her. She was beautiful, with lithe limbs, long dark curly hair just like Sasha’s and a generous sensual mouth. Her clothes were in tatters, and filth covered her face. A large diamond sparkled on her ring finger.
Marina.
Timber expelled a low growl behind Sasha. The woman ran to her. “Quick. Vincent sent me for you. He’s got Soren free. We have to meet them at Vincent’s boat.”
“You’re alive…how?” Sasha managed.
“The demons have had me chained up for seven years in here. Vincent just rescued me. We need to go.”
“But…” Timber growled again.
The woman grabbed Sasha’s arm and smiled. Her eyes seemed friendly and warm, and her teeth were perfect. “Don’t worry Sasha. Vincent said to say Franklin to you. You know, the safe word.” The woman nodded slowly and emphatically, in case Sasha had forgotten the safe word or something. “We’re going to be okay, if we hurry. Vincent said the volcano is going to erupt.”
The woman pulled her down the tunnel, and Sasha found herself running beside the woman with Timber following suspiciously behind them. Marina, still alive. How was it even possible?
Sasha checked the arrows as they passed another junction. They were heading for the cairn exit. Soren had said not to head to the cairn exit.
She glanced at the woman running beside her again. Her teeth and bone structure were straight and true. Smoke, ash, and dust had started to fill the tunnel.
“Soren said not to use the cairn exit,” Sasha said.
The woman didn’t break her stride. “Vincent did. Soren hasn’t been here in years. I trust Vincent. You’ll need to show me the way to the boat, though. I understand Vincent has a new mooring spot.”
Sasha ran on for a few more seconds, quickening her pace so she was a fraction of a foot ahead of Marina. The mountain continued to tremble. Then Sasha stopped abruptly, swung the bolt cutters as hard has she could, and hit Marina squarely in the jaw. The woman flew back against the tunnel wall, and a spray of blood and teeth erupted from her mouth. False teeth. The veneer shot across the tunnel and landed in a clatter on the floor.
Sasha braced for another swing as the woman righted herself, and pulled her lips away from nasty and distorted teeth in a cruel smile.
“I can see why he likes you,” the woman said. “You do look a lot like me.”
“Why did you pretend to be dead?”
They circled around each other. Sasha held the bolt cutters aloft, but the woman did not seem stressed, or particularly hurt from the initial blow.
“The distraction my death caused was enough to prevent Murphy and Soren from finishing some research they were working on together. Research that we needed them not to finish.”
The demon moved in on Sasha slowly, almost lazily, and then in a flash of movement and strength she was first one place and then another, wrenching the bolt cutters from Sasha’s hands and pushing Sasha hard against the tunnel wall, her hands around Sasha’s throat. Timber barked, but stayed back, clearly uncertain what was going on.
“There’s little need for you to head back to your beloved Soren. He does seem to have a preference for small dark-haired women. Did he call you litt ett? It’s his favorite term of endearment. It means little one. So cute,” Marina said as if she did not think it was cute at all. “He can’t even think of a new safe word. Anyway, no matter. Now that he has me back, he’s nearly beside himself with joy. We’ve taken him away from here for safekeeping. And I will just return to him and say you were killed. Such a shame.”
“It’s Murphy you want. Murphy’s the one who knows where the hole in the world is.”
“Is that what Soren told you? In addition to not being very original with his pet names, Soren’s a pathological liar. Murphy has been working for us, and after Soren beat him, he’s too addled to remember anything, but he’s a good enough little lackey. It’s Soren who knows the coordinates. Now that Soren thinks he has me back and believes I rescued him in his moment of need, he’ll tell me. Don’t bother coming looking for him. You’ll never find him.’’
“How does he even believe you’re the same person?”
“Love is blind to those things. Murphy has followed me around like a puppy dog from the moment I arrived back here on Paulet.”
“And what are you planning to do with me?” Sasha said.
Marina gave an unpleasant sort of laugh. “Unless you are willing to make yourself useful by telling me where Vincent’s boat is, you are completely expendable and useless. I plan to push you, or your body, into the crater. We’ll call you my stunt double.”
Timber growled again and moved in closer.
“And that nasty dog. I have no idea when Soren became a dog person.”
Sasha felt her knees start to tremble. The shuddering in the mountain seemed to have intensified. Or perhaps it was just her, shaking like a leaf. But the whole tunnel gave a sudden lurch and a thunderous crack echoed through the air.
Timber lunged at Marina’s arm, his teeth bared. The demon released Sasha and turned to fend off the dog, which she felled in a single blow.
Sasha leapt out of arm’s reach as the shaking intensified, tossing Sasha and Marina to the ground like rag dolls. Rocks fell from the ceiling. Sasha covered her head and Timber let out a terrified howl. Sasha was dashed against one tunnel wall and then the other. She scrambled for something to hang onto and managed to hook her arm around the entrance to Murphy’s quarters. Marina lunged for Sasha but was thrown against the adjacent wall by a sudden jolt. Bits of the demon’s hidden form—wings and claws and feathers—temporarily appeared with the impact. Marina rose up, but her now vacant black eyes seemed focused on something in the distance. Her lips curled up into a terrifying smile.
“Master,” she said. “You’ve come.”
Sasha rose to her knees, snatched up the bolt cutters, and hit the demon in the head as hard as she could. Then she leapt to her feet and staggered off down the tunnel with Timber as fast as she could go.
Chapter 13 – Into Mist
Belatedly, Sasha realized that she had continued down the tunnel that led to the cairn exit. The tunnel down which Soren had told her not to go. She soon saw why. Not far from Murphy’s cave, a pile of rocks blocked the tunnel. The starlit night sky was visible just beyond the cave-in, but the opening was far too small for her to squeeze out through, and the rocks too big for her to move.
She looked back over her shoulder. Marina would be after her within seconds. She was trapped. The shaking from the quake had quieted, but the mountain still vibrated, and now smoke poured down the tunnel and the stench of sulfur had become almost unbearable. Sasha coughed. The smoke was making her dizzy.
Marina rounded the corner of the tunnel three hundred feet away, closing in with terrifying speed. Sasha closed her eyes.
Then the mountain exploded.
&nb
sp; Sasha was thrown backwards against the rocks blocking the tunnel, which shot out into the night in a spray. Sasha landed heavily on the hard rock of the mountain with Timber on top of her. Her back felt shattered, and a shower of rocks landed all around her, narrowly missing her shoulder and leg. She pushed Timber off and curled into a ball as rocks descended around her. She thought she would be killed by the flying rocks, but they seemed to be falling away from her, and she could hear the impact of rock on rock. She was sitting in the shadow of something.
She turned, and in the moonlight saw she had her back to a large funnel shaped rock and cement cairn. It was protecting her and Timber. They had been just light enough to fly over it. The air was sooty dense and sulfuric, and the heat was mind-blowing. Bits of rock continued to shoot through the air, as explosion after explosion rocked the mountain.
In memory of Marina, read the plaque on the cairn.
Sasha peeked over the edge of the cairn. A huge mushroom cloud of smoke filled the sky and fiery streams lava had already started to pour down the edges of the volcano.
She stood up on unsteady feet and ran down the mountain, stumbling over the new piles of rubble, through squabbling and flapping penguins. The air hung with toxic smoke, and ash had started to fall from the sky. She was close to passing out when she saw the bridge of rock that covered the beach that held the boats. She threw herself down the hole and dragged the rowboat to the water with Timber nosing all around her, before realizing that Murphy’s boat was gone. Timber refused to get in the boat initially, but after Sasha yelled, he scrambled unsteadily into the small boat and cowered in the bow. The surf pushed her back onto the shore again and again, and she pushed desperately against the sand to release the boat.
When she was finally afloat, the waves kept pushing her back in the direction of the beach, soaking her feet and filling the boat with water. Finally she managed to grasp the front anchor rope that held Vincent’s boat in place. She pulled herself to the steel reinforced hull of the boat and, by grasping the rivets and some ribbing along the side, managed to pull the rowboat around to a place near the stern. She clambered into the larger boat, clasping the rowboat bowline, her gut muscles and bruised back nearly seizing up with the effort. Then she pulled the rowboat around to the very end so Timber could jump on board, and tried fruitlessly to haul the small rowboat onto the larger boat, but it was swamped with water.
She abandoned the rowboat, and turned to head into the cabin of the boat, but not before noticing why the surf had been manageable. Jagged rocks enclosed much of the small bay, leaving only a small opening.
She threw open the cabin door and ran through the teak interior of the boat and up the steps to the pilot house. It was a small room, with leather bench and table and captain’s chair in front of the wheel and a panel of instruments that looked almost as complicated as those on an airplane. She pulled out the key that Vincent had given her and placed it in the ignition. The engine sprang to life.
She pushed the button that read anchors and heard the whir of something happening at the front and back of the boat. When the whirring stopped, she tentatively shifted the boat out of neutral, pushed the throttle forward, and turned the wheel to the left. There was no way she could navigate through those rocks backward—she would have to be able to turn this thing around if she had any hope. The bay had better be deep enough.
As Sasha prayed, the boat turned slowly in a circle until it was facing the narrow opening of the bay. Then she pushed the throttle forward a little bit, and the boat surged toward the opening. She tried to control her panic as she eased out through the jagged rocks and headed out toward the open ocean, her breath coming in short puffs. There was probably some depth finder she should be turning on, but right now just going forward seemed like a major feat. The orange glow of Paulet was reflected off the bow of the boat, and a green aurora decorated the sky in front of her.
In the deeper water just off the island, she cut the engine. Vincent had said to wait for ten minutes. She stared back into the cave opening for any sign of a light. For Vincent and Soren. But the cave remained bleak and dark.
She watched the cave for ten trembling minutes, wondering when the island was going to blow, while the tears streamed down her face. Maybe it didn’t matter if she died if both Soren and Vincent were dead. But Marina had said they had taken Soren away.
Hope.
It keeps you walking.
She closed her eyes and restarted the engine.
Ten minutes away from the island, an earthshaking explosion rocked the air. She turned. The top of Paulet had been blown off and the island was a brilliant display of red, with lava coursing down most of the mountain. Small chunks of rock pelted off the top of the boat and scattered in the water all around her.
She clenched her jaw and kept the boat headed away from the island.
When she had gone far enough to feel safe from the volcano, she put the boat in neutral. The ocean swells had increased and the boat rode up and then down them in a sickly fashion. Timber had curled up in a small, unhappy, wet ball at her feet.
She shivered. She was soaked and freezing. She would need to figure out how to use the depth finder, and figure out where she was going. She needed a plan. Any plan. The suggestion of sunrise peeked over the horizon to her left, filling the air with a pink glow. So she had gone north. She had thought there were other islands around Paulet, but the faintly lit ocean ahead of her stood remarkably empty.
She pulled open a closet in the narrow cabin. It was filled with heavy wool sweaters and trousers. Men’s clothes, Vincent’s probably. She stripped off her drenched gear and donned some dry clothes, cinching the pants tight with a belt. The note Murphy had written fell out of her pocket in bits of damp paper, the ink bleeding.
She stared at his cramped scrawl.
What had he meant? Had he thought she was Marina? Or had the real Marina—the demon—told him to meet her at High Desert Town?
She flipped the piece of paper over. On the back Murphy had scrawled a URL. www.princetonreporter.comApril211998VolcanoResearcher
Sasha returned to the front to shuffle through the manuals tucked into a side pocket beside the wheel. She had to figure out how the navigation systems worked, if she in fact had any navigation systems.
A piece of paper dropped out of the operating manual for the boat.
“Find me” was all it said.
The note was in Murphy’s handwriting.
The sun slipped over the edge of the earth, illuminating the ocean in a shimmer of light.
Ahead of the boat a giant patch of fog had formed over the sea, and amidst the fog a few lone lights glimmered.
About the Author
Jennifer Ellis lives in mountains of British Columbia where she can be found writing, skiing, and working as an environmental researcher. She also has a PhD, reads tarot cards and springs surprise walks on unsuspecting neighborhood dogs. She has wanted to be a writer since she read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and did not want to come out of the wardrobe.
Her Derivatives of Displacement series is science fiction fantasy for middle-graders (and adults) that explores the intersection between science and magic. She also writes adult fiction with a dystopic edge including In the Shadows of the Mosquito Constellation and Confessions of a Failed Environmentalist (forthcoming, spring 2015). She has also contributed to several anthologies, most notably Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel, and Tales From Pennsylvania.
Check out her website at: www.jenniferellis.ca. She tweets at @jenniferlellis.
Apocalypse Weird
Follow the trail and explore the World of Apocalypse Weird.
It's Bigger than you imagine… Or fear.
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The Red King
Texocalypse Now
The Serenity Strain
Immunity
The Dark Knight
Go deep. Go dark.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Aurora
Chapter 2 – The Event
Chapter 3 – The Worst Kind of Night
Chapter 4 – Day of Dark
Chapter 5 – Back Into the Light
Chapter 6 – At The Edge of Sight
Chapter 7 – Illuminations
Chapter 8 – Hell on Earth
Chapter 9 – A Warmer Form of Hell
Chapter 10 – Switch
Chapter 11 – Hole in the World
Chapter 12 – Debts
Chapter 13 – Into Mist
About the Author
Apocalypse Weird
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