Ararat

by Christopher Golden

  “I have to—” he began.

  “No. You don’t.”

  Heart pounding, he stared at Meryam, then turned to watch Hakan skidding and clambering after her. The wind kicked up again and for several seconds the storm swallowed Calliope entirely. They could still see Hakan, but she was gone.

  “Calliope, come on!” Adam shouted. “You can’t do this on your own!”

  Hakan paused on the mountain, turned to point back up toward them.

  “Stay on the trail. Camp Two is just below!” Hakan shouted. “Rest there no more than ten minutes, then carry on. I will bring her back.”

  “Let her go, Hakan!” Mr. Avci shouted. “We must have a guide!”

  But Hakan had gone. Adam could see him slipping, knees bent, maneuvering down the slope. He watched until, like Calliope, Hakan had vanished in the swirl of white.

  “I hate him,” Meryam said, standing beside Adam.

  “He hates you, too.”

  They stood another few seconds, staring into the frozen landscape, where the rush of wind and snow seemed to stretch out forever.

  Then Meryam took his hand and they marched down into Camp Two.

  Seven of them remained, and only Adam, Meryam, and Olivieri had any history climbing this mountain, all with more courage than skill.

  TWENTY

  They gathered behind a ridge of black rock that half encircled Camp Two, eating protein bars and drinking water. Walker wanted coffee, but none of them dared to take the time to make it, him least of all. They spoke little, still smothered in the paranoia that had been with them all day. They eyed one another, took a drink or a nibble, and then they packed up again. At first they had all been glancing the way Hakan and Calliope had gone, expecting them to return at any moment, but after the first ten minutes, there had been few glances in that direction. They had left enough people behind on the mountain that they were getting used to it.

  Walker ejected the magazine from his weapon, checked it over, and then slammed it back into place. He wouldn’t take any more chances.

  “Let’s move,” he said, standing up.

  Kim and Father Cornelius rose immediately. The others all glanced at Adam and Meryam, still thinking they were in charge. But Adam had to help Meryam to her feet, and the way he held onto her arm, assisting her, Walker wasn’t confident she would make it to Camp One, never mind off the mountain. Part of him wanted to abandon them all, to just get himself home to Charlie. He would be a better father now, he promised any god who might be listening. He would be kinder to Amanda, a friend to her in the aftermath of his failures as a husband. If he left Meryam behind—and the priest, damn it, because Father Cornelius was so old and so fucking slow—he could be a better man.

  But that made zero sense. How could he be a better man back in the world he’d known if he abandoned these people now? He couldn’t be a father any son would look up to if he left them to die.

  And you’d probably get lost and die without at least someone who’s climbed Ararat before. Walker trudged down the snow-covered trail, claws of his crampons keeping his footing firm. He peered through the snow, watching Adam and Meryam moving slowly up ahead, and tried to tell himself that wasn’t it—that he would have stuck with them even if he had climbed this mountain a thousand times.

  It’s not just that you need them, he thought.

  And he tried to believe it.

  He watched them carefully, now. For the first twenty minutes out of Camp Two, he kept his gun in his hand, but after awhile he had to holster it so that he could stretch his fingers and clap his hands together to get the blood flowing. The temperature ought to have risen at least a little as they dropped elevation, but if it had, Walker noticed no difference. If anything, the wind seemed to bring even colder air, frigid and biting, and there were spots on his mouth and around his eyes that had gone numb, places his balaclava didn’t cover. He tried not to think about it.

  Just as he tried not to think about the one thing on all of their minds with every step. Walker’s back prickled with his certainty that he was observed, that evil descended the mountain with them, burrowed inside their hearts or minds. If he let himself think about it, he found he couldn’t breathe. Fear trapped him between the desire to just stop and curl into a ball, huddling in fear, and the atavistic urge to simply run, screaming.

  The demon was here among them, and Walker could practically feel it relishing their dread. Each of the survivors knew it was only a matter of time. He watched Adam and Meryam up ahead, wondering. On edge, afraid, but also ready.

  “Slow down, Walker!”

  Startled from his reverie, he realized he’d nearly caught up with Adam and Meryam. Snow had gathered on his goggles, as if for several minutes he had been sleepwalking. A hot jolt of dread ran through him. Sleepwalking, or not in control of himself?

  He stopped and turned. Reached up and wiped the snow off his goggles, letting his hand come to rest on the lump beneath his thick layers of clothing, the hunk of bitumen rock on the twine around his neck. Anger flashed through him. They had relied on Olivieri. Even Father Cornelius had bought into the scholar’s logic, but obviously it had been no better than a guess. A guess we all wanted to believe.

  The curtain of snow parted and Kim emerged, Father Cornelius holding her arm to steady himself. A gust of wind embraced them, a squall of white that obscured them again, as if the storm were reluctant to reunite them. Then Kim was there, her eyes narrowed with frustration at being left alone with the priest.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just got into the rhythm of it.”

  “Do not leave us behind,” Kim replied with such emphasis it was nearly an accusation.

  Walker stood aside and let them pass. “I won’t. I swear.”

  Father Cornelius had been watching his own feet with determination, as if unsure of his steps. Perhaps he couldn’t feel his feet touching the ground. Walker swore silently. That would be very bad.

  “I need to talk to you about the charms,” Father Cornelius said.

  Walker thought he heard a cry behind him. His pulse quickened and he turned, holding up a hand to block the wind as he tried to peer through the storm. The other three members of the group had fallen back farther and were nothing but silhouettes in the storm. He cursed himself for not noticing, for getting so caught up in his own fear that he’d forgotten the people depending on him.

  “Walker?” the priest called weakly.

  But as Walker glanced back again he saw one of those silhouettes stumble, saw it fall, and then another began to hurtle through the veil of snow toward him. The third followed, running and sliding along the trail, moving with silent strength and confidence, and Walker knew. Just knew.

  Irritated by his lack of response, Father Cornelius pulled away from Kim and turned around, starting to berate him for his rudeness. Then the priest saw the figure springing along the trail with agility none of them could have duplicated.

  Kim shouted that it was back.

  It emerged from the storm, figure solidifying enough that Walker could make out the familiar shape of Armando Olivieri. But Olivieri had never moved like this, never been graceful or powerful or fearless, and this thing was all of those and more.

  Walker reached for his gun, drew it out with numb fingers, and those same numb fingers fumbled with it. The weapon bobbled, seemed almost to dance away from his grip. Reaching after it, he knocked it into the snow at the edge of the path, and then all of the calm he’d mustered fled him. Flushed with fear, heart seizing in panic, he dove after the gun and hit the ground, scrabbling in the snow. The gun had made an imprint but vanished into it. Father Cornelius and Kim shouted at him and at Olivieri even as Walker dug around for the gun, and he knew he was about to die.

  The thing came at him and he heard it laugh as it grabbed his head, ripped away the hood and the fabric of the balaclava that covered him. With the other hand, it tangled its fingers in his hair, got a fistful, and yanked backward in the same moment that his own fingers f
ound the gun.

  As it hauled him back, he twisted in its grasp and spun, aiming the gun at Olivieri’s face. The professor’s eyes gleamed with that internal fire, the glint of tainted orange light, and the demon grinned. Olivieri released Walker and stepped back, raising his hands as if in surrender. With Olivieri’s mouth, the demon laughed.

  “Shoot him!” Adam called, rushing up now to shove between Kim and the priest. “You can’t give it a second to—”

  “Oh, yes,” the demon said with Olivieri’s lips. “Shoot me.”

  Walker stared at it. For a moment his vision had shimmered and in the billowing snow he had thought he’d seen another face, a misshapen thing with horns and a mouthful of black needle teeth. Then still a third face, his little boy’s. Charlie’s.

  Shoot me, he heard inside his head.

  “What’s the point?” he snapped. “It’s only going to jump again!”

  The orange eyes flared brightly and Olivieri snarled. Then, abruptly, the professor’s face changed. The light went out of his eyes and he stumbled forward a step. Walker nearly pulled the trigger, prompted by that step forward, but then he saw Olivieri’s sorrow and confusion and he understood that the demon had left him.

  He only had a moment to wonder where, and then he felt it slide into him. A shudder rocked him, a mixture of pleasure and regret and a sorrow so deep that he yearned for the release of death. The filth spread through him and he imagined it as a kind of poison or infection, a stain seeping deeper and deeper, so that the urge to peel away his skin gave way to the desire to dig deep into the flesh, to drain the marrow out of his own bones. Anything to be rid of the filth inside him.

  In that moment, Walker understood insanity. He opened his mouth to scream, but the screams were only silent things that echoed inside his mind, because his mouth was no longer his own.

  Neither were his hands.

  Walker could see out through his own eyes, but he felt the evil inside with him. He felt his arm move and tried to fight it, but the demon had control. The intruder violated his flesh and his heart, the core of his soul, and he could feel its glee. Its jubilation.

  “No,” Professor Olivieri said, arms out, moving through the blizzard toward him.

  Walker’s right hand lifted the gun. He felt the twitch of his finger as the demon pulled the trigger twice. The shots rang out, echoed by his own screams, lost inside his head … and then he fell forward, dropping to his knees.

  The demon had left him.

  “—it, Walker!” Kim was screaming. “Fight it!”

  You can’t fight, he thought, not sure if his voice would be his own.

  Olivieri lay on his back on the snow, hands over his chest. Blood welled up through holes in his coat, steam rising as the bright red spilled down the fabric and began to melt snow, a vivid pool of color.

  “I’m sorry,” Walker said. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”

  Olivieri coughed and blood sprayed from his lips, then began to drool from the corner of his mouth. Meryam and Adam went to him, kneeling on one side while Walker stared in mute horror on the other, his flesh afire with shame that he had been so easily used, his body perverted for such evil purpose.

  Kim stood behind him with Father Cornelius, who had begun to say the prayers that accompanied the last breaths of the dying in his church.

  Walker bent forward, eyes pressed shut, cradling his own gut as he fought to hold on to some sense of himself.

  When he opened his eyes again, Olivieri had stopped coughing. The dying man stared at him, but it wasn’t Olivieri anymore. The demon grinned up at him, eyes gleaming, and it laughed softly, a wet chuffing almost lost in the whistle of the wind.

  “Poor Ben,” the demon rasped, blood bubbling out of its mouth. “You thought you could fight me, but how easy it was to cast your will aside. I can’t wait to meet Amanda. I can’t wait to get inside Charlie. The things I’ll make him do.”

  Walker stiffened, all of the self-loathing and guilt burning right out of him.

  “You’re not getting anywhere near my boy,” he said.

  Again the demon laughed. He spoke again, more quietly this time, but Walker bent forward and he could make out the words, even in the storm.

  “You’ll never get away from me, you fool. You’ve taken me with you.”

  Sneering, Walker raised the gun again, this time in full control. But then the light went out of Olivieri’s eyes—both natural and unnatural—and the professor’s head slumped to one side. His body went still.

  Walker got up, legs unsteady.

  “It isn’t right to just leave him,” Father Cornelius said.

  “What else can we do?” Meryam asked weakly.

  Walker spun and took aim at her left eye. Meryam froze, but he swung the gun over to aim at Adam’s chest, then at Father Cornelius.

  “It’s me, Walker,” the priest said, his voice a tired rasp. “It’s only me.”

  For a long, breathless moment, Walker stared at him, then glanced around at the others. They were all just themselves, it seemed. But only for now. It had gotten inside of him. Adam had been possessed as well. Father Cornelius and Kim had each been at least temporarily tainted by it. It could take any one of them, any time it wanted. Which meant that Walker had to start thinking differently. He was not going to let the demon off this mountain. It would never get the chance to threaten the people he loved. If that meant he had to kill them all, and then eat a bullet himself, then that was exactly what he would do.

  A last resort, he thought.

  But as a shaking Mr. Avci came stumbling along the trail, his own gun trembling in his hands, Walker wondered how long he could wait before the last resort became the only choice.

  Somewhere out there in the storm, Hakan and Calliope might still be alive, but he wasn’t counting on it. Without them, that left six survivors.

  And a long way still to go.

  “Adam, lead the way,” Walker said.

  Hesitating, Adam stared down at Olivieri’s corpse. At last, he gave a nod, but his eyes were devoid of hope. He took Meryam’s hand and they started down again. The others fell into step, all of them keeping close now.

  Walker knew the demon moved with them. There was only one way to stop it.

  Father Cornelius walked with Kim’s assistance, with Mr. Avci taking up the rear. The officious little man had his gun out and his gaze shifted left and right, peering into the storm, as if what they had to fear was out there somewhere, instead of within.

  “Walker, you must listen,” Kim said. “Cornelius and I have been talking. There’s no way to know what limitations this creature has—”

  “It’s a ‘creature’ now? I think we all know what it is,” Walker replied.

  Father Cornelius erupted in a rattling cough, then spit into the snow. After all they’d been through, he looked his age at last. More than his age. He looked a hundred years old, but Walker figured they all looked like walking cadavers by now.

  “In all the priesthood taught me and in all I’ve learned in my secular research, there’s never been any reliable account of anyone dealing with demons like this,” Father Cornelius said. “Exorcisms, certainly, and loads of ancient writings about evil spirits, but always with the caveat that they could be driven out … and once they were driven out, they would either lose their power or one could guard against the return of that evil. I’ve never run across an account in which a demon could move from one person to another with such ease.”

  “In your vast experience,” Walker said drily.

  “Walker, you’re being an asshole,” Kim observed. “He’s the only one here who’s ever been to an exorcism, and I don’t know about you, but he’s certainly spent a lot more years researching all of this than I have.”

  Shuddering, Walker reached up to pull shut the collar of his coat. The more tired he became, the more the cold sapped his strength and will.

  “I know,” he said. “That’s frustration talking.”

  “The charms
are not working,” Father Cornelius said. “That much is clear. But what if they’re actually hurting instead?”

  The question made Walker falter a step, so that Kim bumped into him. He kept moving, but shot the priest a hard look as he went.

  “How do you figure?” he asked, but his own thoughts were already shifting.

  “Maybe it’s not a good idea for us to have taken anything from the ark that had any contact with the cadaver,” Kim answered. “Maybe the demon’s consciousness was still in its bones or still in the ark—we have no way of knowing—but if so, do we want to walk around with bits of its sarcophagus around our necks?”

  Seemed like a good idea at the time, Walker thought. Olivieri had convinced them the bitumen shards could protect them, but Olivieri was dead now. The fingers on Walker’s right hand twitched, muscle memory from the moment he had pulled the trigger and murdered the professor. Only he hadn’t pulled the trigger at all, had he? The demon had done that.

  But Walker’s body remembered it.

  “I’ve been thinking the same,” Mr. Avci said, closer behind them than they’d realized.

  Walker flinched and glanced back at him, watching the gun in Avci’s grasp. The man seemed himself, but there was no way to be sure.

  Mr. Avci reached his left hand up to his neck and dug through the layers of fabric, pushed his fingers in and then yanked hard, tugging out the gleaming black bitumen shard and the twine on which it had hung. Without hesitation he flung it away and Walker saw him visibly relax, as if the charm had been a terrible weight on his spirit.

  Anger rippled through Walker and he felt his brow furrow. He faced forward again, picking up his pace to catch up with Meryam and Adam. Kim and Father Cornelius did their best to keep up.

  “What do you think, Walker?” Kim demanded.

  “I think you should do what you want.”

  “But—”

  “Wait a second,” he said, shaking his head as he slowed again. Meryam and Adam kept going. Mr. Avci caught up, but Walker paid him no attention. His thoughts had drifted back to the cave—to the first time he’d seen one of those charms. Nearly the whole descent he had been ruminating, flipping through images in his mind, trying to find any hint at the demon’s nature. Something that would help them.