by The Behrg
“Don’t get me started.”
“Could it kill a person? I mean the ... electromagnetic radiation?”
“Where’s Dugan? I don’t usually answer to his cronies.”
“For all intents and purposes right now I am Dugan.”
Morley sighed. As loud as he possibly could. “It can’t hurt you. Not your flesh anyway. Though it’d probably blind you a thousand times faster than staring at the sun would.”
“Yeah, that we know.”
“Dugan’s making plans, isn’t he? On how to travel in this? He’s going after the Shaman.”
“Of course he is.”
“Yeah, but he’s making plans without you.” Morley saw that his words had an effect. “What’s wrong, he doesn’t value your opinion?”
“We each have our strengths.”
“And some are relegated to being just the muscle. I heard it was your decision to jump into that, uh, oil pan? In the garage? Is that why Dugan assigned you babysitting duty? Doesn’t trust your judgement anymore?”
“I don’t have time for this shit.” Rojo started walking away. Without turning back he said, “Did Dugan tell you what the earthquake was for?”
“What do you mean what it was for?”
“The fifteen miles around us? In a radius? Have been ripped from the rest of the land and elevated. We’re sitting atop a Shaman-constructed tepui.”
Morley wanted to call Rojo’s bluff but knew instantly that the man was telling the truth. A shiver shot down his spine, causing the pain in his back to roar.
What kind of man could do something like this?
“And now this ungodly light,” Rojo continued. “Worrisome, huh?”
Morley adjusted the wheels of his chair, rolling to catch up with Rojo. He could only move in small increments on his own, without having to leverage the muscles in his back. “What worries me, Rojo, is what comes next. There’s a prevailing theory among physicists that, should we ever be able to attain pure light — and remember, pure light is, or was, just a hypothetical myth — well, from it matter could simply be … created. Maybe not simply, but … you get my point.”
“Is that how God did it? Created the world from nothing?”
“Now you’re just trading one superstition for another.”
“Look outside,” Rojo said. “Not all myths are fairytales.”
A rumble sounded from outside the building. Morley grabbed the sides of his wheelchair, clutching it tightly. What now?
“They’re back.”
Rojo left, moving swiftly through the long corridor. After a moment of internal deliberation, Morley followed. Every movement of his arm on the wheels carried its own injection of pain, muscles he wasn’t used to using connected to nerve endings that had been damaged beyond repair. There’d be no quick surgery for him, not with everyone buried underground. But if Dugan did recapture the Shaman, there was a chance he’d let the native work his magic on Morley, mend his back in a matter of minutes rather than months.
With the gaping hole in the wall far enough behind him, Morley removed the thermal imaging goggles. One of Dugan’s men strode confidently through double doors from an exit that led outside. Morley thought they called this one Ken Doll, his looks rivaling any GQ model.
“Told you the light wouldn’t hurt you,” Morley said, catching up with Rojo.
“You find a vehicle?” Rojo asked, ignoring Morley.
“Yeah, we got a vehicle,” Ken Doll said, his goggles propped on his head like a pair of Oakley’s. “But that ain’t all we got.”
The black squirrelly fellow, Chupa, burst through the doors, dragging a young girl with him. She had to be in her late teens — long dark hair jetting over a thin face obscured with grey duct tape. Her shirt rose with her struggles, revealing a pierced belly button.
Despite Morley’s injuries, parts of him he worried would no longer work began reacting at the young girl’s approach. He loved it when they were tied up.
“The general’s daughter,” Kendall said. “Figured we could use some leverage.”
“I’ll take her from here,” Rojo said.
“What do you mean ‘you’ll take her from here?’” Chupa said. Morley noticed a patch of duct tape on Chupa’s shoulder, dried blood escaping from beneath. Despite the wound, his wife-beater looked no worse for wear.
“Go load the vehicle,” Rojo said. “Dugan wants to leave within the hour.”
“And you want to take credit for what we did? The girl?” Chupa asked.
“You think you can take Cy’s place or something?” Kendall said.
“I don’t think anything, I’m just telling you what Dugan wants.”
“He wants the Shaman. And only we know where they’ve taken him. We didn’t raid Gutierrez’ home just for the girl, you know, and Chupa didn’t get shot just so you could take the credit.”
“Oh yeah? So where is he — the Shaman? Since you think you know so much.”
“Like I’d tell you,” Kendall said.
Morley wondered if he could roll his wheelchair back out of the hallway without drawing attention to himself.
“You don’t have a clue where he is because the general would never have left behind someone who knew, or someone he cared about.” Rojo flicked the girl’s hair back with a swat of his hand. “This girl isn’t leverage; she’s a liability. I’m doing you a favor by taking her to Dugan because I can convince him you’re not complete muku screw-ups. But if you want to go to him yourselves and ignore what he specifically asked me to have you do? Be my guests.”
After a few more awkward seconds, Chupa thrust the girl in Rojo’s direction. She fell, her knees and hands slapping against the hard tiled floor. Rojo bent down to pick her up, throwing her over his shoulder.
“What are you looking at?” Chupa said, staring at Morley.
“You wouldn’t have a, uh, joint on you? Would you?” Morley stammered.
Chupa turned, walking away without an answer.
“Or something a little stronger? I can pay!”
“He’s in an underground prison somewhere,” Kendall called back, halfway to the exit. “Not everything we do is worthless.”
“But none of them knew where it was, right?” Rojo asked.
Neither of the two men had an answer.
“We know where Gutierrez would have taken him,” Rojo continued. “Even if we had access to the control room I doubt we’d be able to find it. But there’s someone the general forgot about, someone who knows where it’s located. Someone who’s been inside.”
“Who?” Kendall asked.
“Load the vehicle. As much as you think she’ll carry. And for the record? I am the new Cy.”
Kendall’s face changed; not quite softening, it was more like seeing him come to terms with something unpleasant. “We’ll have it ready.”
As they returned down the hall, Rojo walked slower, making sure Morley kept up.
“Maybe I was mistaken, about what I said earlier. You know, the muscle comment.”
Rojo didn’t respond. The silence between the two men grew until it was ringing in Morley’s ears.
“But why did Dugan want you out of the meeting?” Morley pressed.
“He needed someone to keep an eye on you.”
Verse XX.
Grey stood outside the church’s single bathroom, having closed the door behind him. Half a step inside and his gag reflex had kicked in. The stench was fouler than a port-a-potty that had been turned upside down and left roasting in the sun for weeks. As if being trapped in a church the size of a small classroom, with people who couldn’t understand you, wasn’t bad enough.
A balding woman, whose cheeks hung almost as low as her chin, grabbed onto Grey’s arm, shaking it. She spouted something in Spanish, motioning to the door he stood in front of.
“No, it doesn’t work. It’s broken.” He made a motion of snapping a twig in two, hoping she might understand. Instead she just kept on shaking him. “You can’t go in! It’s ba
cked up. There’s … excrement all over the floor.”
He looked around at the other faces crowding the small hallway. No help there.
Throwing his hands up in the air, he stepped away. “Alright, be my guest. Just don’t blame that volcanic discharge on me.”
The woman shuffled closer to the door, patting him gently on the back, then went inside, shutting the door softly behind her. To his surprise, she didn’t come bolting back out.
Grey shook his head. Would wonders never cease?
As he shouldered past the ripe bodies of townspeople huddled like cows in a corral, he couldn’t keep from wondering how Donavon and Kenny were doing. Probably stretching out on the long couches in the front room, each with their own bottle of liquor. The more he thought of them, the better their situation improved — somehow they had found a brothel on their way home last night, Venezuelan models throwing themselves at the handsome Americans. Or maybe one of Sir William’s contacts, the one who got them out of prison, had chartered an emergency plane down to save his friend from whatever this light was and, finding a famous American actor, had taken both Donavon and Kenny back to the States.
Maybe even Spree had gone with them.
The crate he had been sitting on before going to the bathroom was now occupied. Grey stood, shoulder to shoulder with several shorter men near the kitchen, the room which had been converted into a sick room. He heard Father Shumway inside, consoling one weeping family or another. A cluster of people seated on the far side of the room sang quietly together, their hymn no more than a faint haunting tune.
Grey’s foot tapped wildly, his fingers slapping against his legs. He was going to lose it. This was worse than a New York subway — the stink of sweat and body odor; every breath of air polluted with someone else’s carbon dioxide; arms jostling, feet stepping on feet; the persistent wail of a suckling child, combined with the oppressive humidity — there was only so much a man could take.
His thoughts turned to the one person he wished was here with him. The same person he was grateful wasn’t. By the time Grey had gone after Faye last night, a war had erupted. Gunfire, explosions and flames, army jeeps driving past the church in a blinding flurry. Grey had stayed within the vestibule of the church, not even daring to step onto the main road for fear of catching a stray bullet.
Once the chaos had died down, the military jeeps all leaving the scene, he had been one of the first to venture out. At the time he thought he was being brave. Now he recognized what a coward he had been.
Faye was missing. Piecing together the broken English of a few townspeople, he had learned that she had been taken by the alcalde, the same man who had swept Grey and his camera team up, throwing them in that filthy prison.
But Faye hadn’t been there. They had tried — Donavon, Kenny, and him. Demands shouted, guns pointing in faces; all of it had resulted in a walk through the empty prison, a guard repeating, “She is no here.”
It’s like a bad dream, Grey thought. This entire trip. And we’re still trapped between REM cycles, hoping that someone will come and wake us up.
“Grey.”
He spun, almost knocking the mustached man next to him over. A few grunts and sharp words followed, muttered in a language he thankfully didn’t understand. In between the man and his stout companion, the blind child with the marked face stood, looking up in Grey’s direction. Josue.
“How’d you know I was here?”
“Quick, follow me,” the child answered. “Something is coming.”
The boy ducked past the man and woman, slipping in and out of the narrow gaps between more labored souls.
Something is coming.
Grey followed. He slid against the wall, stepping over children and squeezing past parents, apologizing the entire way.
“Hurry,” Josue stood at the corner, one hand extended out toward Grey. The blind leading the … what? Spiritually blind?
Grey took the boys hand, following in the space created as Josue wriggled between more bodies. He stopped at the end of the hall. More space was open here, a necessity with the door to Father Shumway’s room. But Josue wasn’t facing the door to the priest’s quarters. Instead he groped at the wall, finding a corner of the tapestry that covered the opening to the storage room. The same room where Sir William’s body still lay.
“Don’t! The hole in the ceiling; it’ll let the light in,” Grey said.
Josue just stood there, silently breathing, his face a mask of calmness.
“What’s coming? Josue, what’s coming?”
Josue turned toward his voice, his mouth moving as if he were counting in his head.
“Now,” he said.
A chorus of screams echoed down the hall from the assembly room, frightened children and women, even men, crying out against the unknown.
Something is coming.
Grey watched as a shadow covered the crowd at the end of the hall, a blanket of darkness reaching its tendrils toward him. Josue lifted the tapestry back. A black pit as deep as a midnight sky burst through the gap like water rushing from a crack in a wall, and then Grey was drowning in it.
Drowning in darkness.
His cries joined the macabre chorus around him, the occasional shout or scream piercing over the thrum of noise. Only Josue was silent, already accustomed to the dark with the loss of his sight.
Grey felt a small hand brush against his face and then he was grasping Josue by the shoulder. The boy ducked through the unfinished doorway. Grey followed his lead into the storage room, a room heavy with the musk of Sir William’s decomposing body.
“What is it, Josue?” The storage room had become an endless pit with no light. “What’s happening?”
He felt Josue’s hand leave his own, a sharp intake of breath following — his own, he realized. Then the boy spoke, in answer.
“It is night.”
Verse XXI.
The military jeep, which comprised their new and only mode of transportation, coasted to a stop over brambles of long-stemmed grass. Equipped with FLIR thermal-imaging goggles, Dugan and his men were surrounded in a vista of grays. Gray trees, gray brush, gray roads and skies. The only light source came from animals in the bushes or on the ground, appearing and disappearing like blinking lights as they funneled through jungle growth.
If this light was meant to stop them, the Shaman would have to try something else.
“What’s wrong?” Dugan asked, Oso sitting at the wheel.
Oso brought a finger up to his lips, demanding silence.
Dugan shushed the men behind him, the overcrowded jeep a maelstrom of complaints and snickers and inappropriate dialogue. The men quickly drew quiet, listening to the sounds outside their little vehicle.
A chorus of howls and unearthly shrieks surrounded them. While the noise was dampened by glass, it still felt like a litany of fingernails scraping against chalkboards. One of the men lowered their window, the shrill laments and inhuman cries drowning out all thought or reason. It was as if the entire jungle had come alive, every living creature screaming in unison.
“What the hell is it?” Chupa asked.
“Close the window,” Dugan said.
“Look, I don’t scare, but every hair on my body is tingling right now,” Rojo said.
“So what, your beard and ass-hairs are tingling?” Kendall asked.
“Shut the —”
“It’s everyone,” Dugan said, cutting Rojo off. “I feel it. It’s … in the air, it’s the opposite of electric. Like it’s … sapping energy.”
“You all want to talk about your feelings or we gonna keep moving?” Zephyr called, from the very back of the vehicle. He was sitting on top of, and beside, their arsenal of weapons. The general’s daughter they had left behind in the care of Doctor Morley, with the admonition that if he touched her, she would be the last thing he ever touched.
Still, her chances weren’t good.
“Holy mother of Mary.”
Dugan glanced back at Rojo w
ho had raised his thermal goggles up over his eyes. Rojo raised a hand in front of his face, drawing it closer until it bumped into his nose.
“Dugan?”
Dugan didn’t like the fear he heard in the man’s tone. He adjusted his own goggles and was plunged into complete darkness. Not even the faint glow of any buttons from the dash. The Jeep’s headlights, which had automatically turned on, trailed pale flecks of light a foot, maybe foot and a half, into the darkness before being swallowed by it.
Beyond the wispy trail of the headlights, they were surrounded by an empty nothingness. That darkness was absolute. Smothering. And it caused Dugan’s breath to shorten with each gasp.
“First light, now this?” Kendall said. “We sure this is worth pursuing?”
“He raises a mountain, curses the day, and now he claims the night. Nowhere is safe,” Chupa said.
“We’ll be safe when we control him,” Dugan said.
A few of the men mumbled beneath their breath.
“I’m not so sure that’s something we’ll be able to do,” Rojo said.
“We don’t have another option,” Zephyr said.
“Only because you need him as much as Dugan does.”
“Where would we go, Rojo? How would we get there? He might as well have transported us to Neverland. Until we see this through and stop him, shit’s only gonna get stranger.” Zephyr’s words, while anything but calming, seemed to cast a spell of reflection on the men.
“We keep our eyes on and we’re fine,” Dugan said. “We’re almost to town.”
Oso started the jeep forward, though at a slower and more cautious pace.
After some time, Kendall spoke up. “Hey Zeph, as long as we’re in Neverland, I think you should be Peter. Always wanted to see you in tights.”
The men roared with laughter. Even Oso broke into a smile. More comments followed, the men bringing it back to Zephyr’s pale ass and hospitable garb, until Zephyr smashed out the back window plate, letting the howls around them replace the roasting that had begun. Mirth was difficult to maintain in the face of such bestial agony.
“You think all of this — the light, the darkness — it’s only happening to us? Only on this new tepui?” Chupa asked.