Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1)

by Benjamin M. Piety

  “Oh, boy, you’re perfect. This is perfect,” the woman continues to call out as she rocks herself atop Logan, who tries to tug against her, but only makes the rhythm worse and his cock harder.

  And then a scream causes Logan to open his eyes and witness a dark ooze sliding down from a long and slender grate in the ceiling. The inky black slime drips like a thin tentacle before wrapping around the waist of the woman. The others in the room stand back, hands to mouths, eyes wide with shock and fear. The woman is still lost in Logan’s struggling thrusts, unaware of the black ooze coiling around her breasts and neck. In fact, judging by her reaction, the whole affair seems to lure her even more out of control. Her moans rise in passion, and her momentum becomes erratic to the point that Logan can’t hold back. His head tilts, and his hips lift her up. At the minor of climax, he winces in pain, but the woman only closes her legs, squeezing him, at which Logan screams out, both with total pleasure and absolute pain. The woman’s eyes open, and she reaches out to his gag, taking it in her hand.

  The slime yanks the woman, jerking her off Logan and dragging her to the ceiling. The gag rips from his face, but the unknowable sight silences the room. The woman realizes what’s happening and screams out, reaching for Ted and the others. Her eyes catch Logan, who’s nearly faint from the uproar. When she’s pressed against the ceiling, the ooze doubles in size, covering her entire body and creeping down her throat. It glistens in the soft neon light of the room and flows back and forth in a peculiar, ruthless action. The woman’s head lurches backward as she finds herself in another state of unfelt pleasures while the smell of burning flesh fills the room. Before long, she passes out, and her body is carried up through the broken grate and disappears, leaving Logan and the others alone, as if the woman was never there.

  For an extended major, no one moves. Logan squirms, still trying to loosen the leathers. Ted grabs two of the women and drags them from the room as Logan calls, barely audibly, after them, “Heyo, don’t leave me here.” Ted turns back but ignores him. The last woman in the room is still motionless, tears streaming down her face. Logan cocks his head to her. “Please, sur, I know this was all in fun, but you have to let me loose before that frek returns.”

  She looks at him, her eyes flush with fear; she shakes her head as if she doesn’t understand him.

  “Please. I don’t care what you and your friends were doing. Just let me go. Please—” He shakes violently in protest.

  The woman nods meekly and then fumbles forward, her dainty hands attempting to manipulate one tangled strap’s lock.

  “It’s wisnok, just take a deep breath. You have it.”

  She nods again, shaking her hands and taking a deep breath. Behind her, the black slime starts to ooze back toward them. Logan turns back to the woman, who’s nearly finished with the first lock. He attempts to hide his panic, but she notices his glancing eyes and turns her face upward, screaming.

  She stands. “Apory, little boy,” she says and runs off without looking back. The ooze drips downward toward Logan.

  He shakes the hand the woman was working on; it’s loose enough to slide through the cuff. Free. He rolls to his side and quickly begins to fiddle with the other strap, every few minors catching a quick glimpse of the black tar falling toward him. As it’s about to touch, he sets his second hand free and rolls off the bed, slamming to the floor. He stands, lifting his pants, watching the black slime thud onto the space where he was just held before slinking toward him.

  He runs from the room, slamming the door behind him, and finds himself back in the hall with the stairwell door behind him. Disoriented, he tries to retrace his steps: east, west, east, west, east, west—until he returns past the room and back down the steps of the entrance stairs.

  As he steps down, he sees Sanet pacing calmly in the foyer. She nods politely to various men and women who show her signs of affection or attraction. He walks up to her, and they step out of others’ hearing.

  Sanet starts. “Find anything?”

  “More than I cared to. I found a staircase that rises eleven stories up. You?”

  “Same.”

  Logan looks around. “Let’s wait for Bernard, but I think we should go in through our co-ed hall.” He rubs his neck. The thought of the black ooze wrapping around him feels both horrifying and strangely . . . desirable.

  “Agreed. Do you think the top floor is all connected?” Sanet inquires.

  “I would imagine.” Looking up, Logan sees the windows of rooms that overlook the entrance. He tries to find theirs but can’t discern one from another. In some, couples are slipping each other, their parts pressed against the glass. Farther up, the windows stop. He counts the floors. A shiver shoots over his skin. The image of the woman on the ceiling being pulled into the darkness. Something touches his forearm. He jumps.

  “Hey, is everything wisnok?” Sanet asks, recoiling her hand.

  “Yes. Apory. This place isn’t what I thought it was.” Focusing, he continues, “It looks like thirteen floors. Ours, then eleven more. Counting these, there’s only twelve. So that thing’s room should be overhead.” He points straight up. Sanet looks. “I told you this was a flam plan. Where do you think Bernard is?” he asks. Knowing the sort of danger he was in, Logan’s heart skips at the thought of what Bernard may be facing.

  “He did take a major to ready Brute and the krakes outside; perhaps that’s why he’s taking so long.”

  Logan nods without an answer. A boy can hope.

  They wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  “You don’t think they caught him?” Sanet asks.

  Logan observes the west staircase occupied by any number of men, hoping to see his old friend. Come on, Bernard. Please be safe.

  “Should we go after him?”

  “Maybe. I can go looking . . .”

  “If anything chances to that man, I’ll never forgive you,” Sanet states.

  I’d never forgive myself. Prosh, I should have just let Bernard and Sanet continue north, instead of dragging them into this nest of hazards.

  Endless majors later, Logan catches Bernard zipping up his leather jacket and adjusting his pants as he jogs down the staircase. “There he is.” The two attempt to hide their relief from others watching as Bernard meets them.

  He looks disheveled. “If the threat of some monstrous frek weren’t looming and I wasn’t still coupled . . .”

  “Don’t say it, Bernard.” Sanet presses her finger to his lips.

  If Bernard only knew what waits for us. “Come on, let’s go. I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.”

  Logan leads them back up the Co-Ed Hall’s staircase and through the maze of rooms to the back door, edging slightly away from the room where the black ooze is kept. Ahead, they wait for a young woman leading a parade of half-dressed men into another room before they enter the dark staircase.

  “Red? My staircase was green,” Bernard notes.

  “Yellow for me.”

  At the top floor, Logan presses his ear against the door again. Still nothing. “Shall we?”

  They nod. Logan turns the metal knob and pushes the door open far enough to peer through. Another hall. This one lit in the same manner as the staircase, with green and yellow and red neon lining the walls. They enter.

  As they walk, they come to an intersection. Looking down both ways, they infer that the dark staircases from each hall must all lead here. Ahead, the path widens enough to present double doors standing ten feet high.

  “This is odd, right? I mean, any jarent friend could stumble up here,” Bernard says as he grabs for his rifle.

  “I don’t think whatever’s behind those doors would mind,” Sanet replies as she, too, loads her weapon.

  Whatever is behind that door isn’t just there. It’s in the entire grewst, Logan imagines.

  They sneak toward the doors.

  With each step closer, sounds begin to emit from behind the door. At first only the
usual sounds of moaning. Then piggish grunts. These sounds are more primal. And then there are squeals. The shouts of men and women. Noises of pleasure and pain. Heavy breathing. Panting. Curses. Yells to stop. Faster. More.

  As Logan paces nearer, he feels himself getting warmer. Flushed. Unexpectedly, he wants to turn and rip off Sanet’s clothes. He wants her to be on top of him like the thin woman with the cig. The fear he felt, the shock and terror, fades into a hunger for pleasure. He wants to expose Sanet. He swallows, turning back to her, and finds that her eyes are filled with their own lustfulness.

  He asks, “You feel that?”

  Sanet can barely answer; she nods and squeezes Logan’s forearm. Her touch makes his pants tighten. He turns to Bernard, whose arms sweat and biceps pulse. His short hass and pestler hair brings a masculinity to him that Logan hadn’t noticed before. Though he’s been with men, it’s usually with another woman to break the monotony of travel. Bernard is something more. Maybe I could experiment a little with the old man. Turning back to Sanet, he watches her chest move up and down. A drop of sweat trickles down into her cleavage. To taste that drop’s destination. He licks and bites his lip.

  Around him, the hall begins to spin. The colors of the neon breathe. Logan feels jarent. Lightheaded. He turns back to the door. “We need to go through there—”

  Bernard nods, unable to break eye contact with him.

  Logan reaches for the handle; it’s soft and warm. He opens the door and is met by a blast of hot air that pulses through him. There’s breathing in the darkness. Moans and whimpers. Logan drops to his knees. His clothes feel suffocating. He rips off his shirt and tosses his jacket aside. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, a silhouette appears ahead of him. It oozes in a humanoid form. Logan wants to feel it. To cool his warm flesh against it. The moans of the room pulse with his breath. Louder when he breathes in, softer when he breathes out. His mind slows. The room retards.

  This is your nature. You are meant to breed. Logan closes his eyes, attempting to remember why he ever came in here. The form ahead beckons him to crawl toward it. Be my boy, Logan, it calls to him. Then a woman’s screams. He struggles to tilt his head upward and finds Iahel tied upright and spread-eagle while another man whips her with a stick topped by leather straps. She screams again. There’s no pleasure in those screams. Logan closes his eyes. Fighting against the heat. The desires to touch and feel and breed. He forces himself to stand and then to draw his pistol and, with every ounce of his will, to pull the trigger.

  He can’t.

  “No!” voices scream out around him. Shadows reach for him. From the corner of his eye, he sees Bernard step forward with purpose, cocking his gun and blasting at the oozing shadow. With each shot, Logan jumps. The air feels thinner. Cooler. His breathing regains a semblance of control. The air around lightens. Quickens.

  And then, from his east, a swift flaming arrow shoots past him and into the ooze, illuminating a melting figure, its facial features deformed. The oozing demvirst has four black eyes leaching from their sockets. It moans and dissolves onto the floor, losing its shape. It reaches out with its dark, dripping limbs, and with newfound confidence, Logan fires his own gun. The flaming bolt is extinguished, returning the room to darkness. The other denizens around them fall to their knees. Their pleasuring, painful moans subside as the demvirst continues to melt into an ever-expanding pool of black liquid. From what was its form, a waning hiss issues.

  Logan’s normal temperament returns as he gains more awareness of the room, brightening with each breath. Naked men and women come to, as if from a long sleep. They hold their heads and squint. The black oozing corpse of the demvirst seeps into the floorboards through to what Logan presumes is the large foyer below. He holsters his pistol, hurries over to Iahel, and unlatches her wrist and ankle straps. She embraces him, in full tears, her voice soft and trembling with gratitude. Bernard and Sanet pace the room, untying ropes and knots from bound men and women, each of them professing their deepest approsh.

  “I think it’s time to leave,” Logan states. As they do, he picks up his jacket and wraps it around Iahel. The rest of the denizens are in different states of awareness.

  They return down the dark staircases and through the halls. They seem quieter, though the sounds of slipping are still prevalent. On occasion, denizens hurry past them mumbling about the collapse of a beast. Iahel limps as they walk, and seeing so, Logan picks her up and carries her.

  The entrance foyer is in total chaos. The demvirst’s ooze drips down in giant globs onto the center desk, having smothered and sent left the man in red leather. A few other denizens are covered in the black tar, which burns and eats at their skin. They scream, falling to their knees and reaching out for help. No one does. The screams of panic in the crowd make for a simple escape, with Bernard running ahead, pushing and yelling for everyone else to move aside.

  Outside, Sanet and Bernard untie the krakes as Logan lifts Iahel onto the bigger gold krake. He hops onto it behind her. With Sanet’s assistance, Bernard leaps onto George. Brute eagerly dances around, excited that Bernard has returned. It makes quiet whimpers and clawing motions at him. Sanet leads the two krakes away from the red-neon building as even more denizens run out in various states of bewilderment and horror.

  Logan holds a shaking Iahel. You’re no hero, Logan. You nearly lost yourself up there. He shoots a last look back at the entrance to Greren and Tapsters. The male statue’s head has for some reason fallen and landed in the waterfall staircase, cracking the stone and causing the black waters to stream out onto the ground below.

  Sanet leads them along the road to the main thoroughfare. Before deciding which direction to take, Sanet asks Iahel, “Do you want us to bring you back to Earls?”

  Iahel shakes her head. “I want to leave these Tunnels forever.”

  With that, Sanet gives her a giant smile. “That’s the first thing you’ve said I double on.”

  Chapter 11

  TREASURES AND RETALIATIONS

  As he holds a shaken and quiet Iahel after the unsettling events at Greren and Tapsters, Logan decides not to turn back south toward the Rails. Instead, he’ll continue north with Sanet and Bernard until they reach the Crossroads. The thought is wrong. The plan . . . is wrong. But Iahel is too frightened to let go and, perhaps, so is he. From the Crossroads, he’ll have to take the longer trek through the fogs of the Misipit Valley and eventually catch the Rail in Renant. Under the weight of the events back at the grewst, no one questions or comments on his decision.

  Along the way, Bernard and Sanet switch off riding George, which can handle only a single rider at a time, while Iahel and Logan ride in tandem on the gold krake, still uncuramed, though Logan half thinks Carl or Whistlers would make solid choices. Iahel’s behavior is quieter than when they first met at South Freks Worth It. Embarrassment or shame, Logan imagines. A flam mood to feel. There’s no shame in being sucked into an addiction. No shame in finding your path or choosing a path that dead ends. That drops you into the unexpected. But there’s no convincing the lost they’re not.

  One of the first stops they make after a few hour’s trek is at a small shop that sells clothing and simple weapons. Inside they bargain for supplies and a hideaway dagger for Iahel to carry during the dull yet often dangerous trip north.

  They continue.

  As the days pass, and the events of the grewst decay into a withdrawn and kiptaled memory, the moods of the others warm—others, save for Iahel, who were not the recipients of an unexpected assault. Logan overhears Sanet and Bernard snigger as they attempt to out-describe the other’s visualization of “Sur Taron.” Electing to ignore them, Logan attempts a bit of innocuous dialogue with Iahel, asking her about the long, unbroken neon light overhead. It’s a sight he’s often seen but never spent much thought on, being that most trips into the Tunnels ended just under a day’s trek in.

  She answers courteously, with an air of obligation over eagerness. “Earls used to contend there were fa
ctories on the surface that generated the energy down here. That they were run by hundreds of priced denizens.”

  So many friends in chains; so many in service across the Land. Hypocrisy leaches through every state as they justify their own priced while in the same breath condemn others for the same transgressions.

  After a while, they find a quiet tavern to sleep off the night. Sanet and Bernard sleep in a bed together, while Iahel sleeps wrapped around Logan, who doesn’t sleep at all. Thoughts of the demvirst stay with him. How easily he fell to its lust. How easily it snatched that woman.

  He watches Sanet sleep. Quiet. Her appeal still clawing for him. She is unknown, yet entirely familiar. As he closes his eyes, his mind wishes that the next few weeks in the Tunnels could continue forever. His considerations of the impending conflict with the Victors in Organsia and leaving Sanet and Bernard behind turn his stomach. For a fleeting minor, Logan imagines continuing north with Sanet, into the Yikshir Sands, avoiding and hiding from the Victors altogether. But they’d find me. That would put her in danger. The thought speeds away as quickly as the demvirst stole the thin woman. He opens his eyes again, watching Sanet sleep in peace while he can only sleep in fits.

  Over the next few days, Iahel’s mood softens. She details her youth in a children’s square in the state of Niance and how she was orphaned and faced, by state law, being sent left at the age of five. However, she was given a respite after a massive explosion in South Province opened its population numbers. Iahel was one of only ten children in Niance who met the requirements to continue living, solely because of the fact that she and the others were the youngest of the population. At fifteen, she stowed away on a kleep and traveled across the sea, landing many months later in Yikshir. After a year or so, she migrated south and into the Tunnels, where she met Earls, who hired her to act as an exhibitionist for him at Greren and Tapsters. Since Iahel refused to slip with any man, and Earls, a recent widow, enjoyed only watching women, they found themselves in a mutually beneficial relationship that grew over the next two and half years. Eventually, she offered to help run his store.