by David Wood
Kyle didn't know what to say or think of her statement. Until recently his life had been – while not exactly a rose garden – at least normal. Now suddenly he had dark gods and flying monsters and psychic battles to deal with, and he didn't know where to even begin trying to process it. But the explosives were solid. The dam was solid. Those things he understood. Slumbering ancient evil and telepathic fighting? He didn’t know shit about those. One thing he knew for sure was that Maya was a woman with her mind made up, and he wasn't about to step in front of that train.
“All right,” he said. “If I knew how to argue with you or thought it would actually make a difference, I would. But please, get a little higher before you settle down. When that dam breaks this place is going to get really wet really fast, and I don't know how high it'll get. Go up a bit, and when you think you've gone high enough, go a little higher. I'll come find you as quick as I can afterward. Okay?”
Maya nodded, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thanks.”
Figuring they'd both earned more than that, he cupped her cheeks in his hand and drew her in for a proper kiss. Her lips were cool, but they warmed as he pressed against them, and her tongue felt hot as it slipped into his mouth and slid against his own. He breathed her in as deeply as he could, surprised at how she could still smell like cinnamon and oranges despite everything they’d been through. She pressed against him, curled her fingers through his hair, and returned his kiss with passion. When they finally parted, the rain seemed to fall a bit more gently.
“Gotta go,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
“Be safe.”
“You be even safer.”
Kyle smiled, intending to do just that, then gave her a final quick kiss before turning to leave. The warmth of her against his lips gave him the strength he needed to do what came next.
Green light filtered through dust in wavering beams, crossing breezes shifted the coal soot one way and then another, and the only sound was the miner as its engine rumbled like a giant cat purring in the night. But, as the dust settled, a bloody hand as black as the heart of the mountain burst through rubble and pressed against the ground. Soon a battered and bleeding body dragged itself free. Once out, the great black body lay still, its chest heaving as air wheezed in and out. Gaping wounds laid the body open and blood seeped to the floor, but as the seconds ticked past and more dust settled, the wounds stitched themselves closed. Eventually the beast rolled over and pushed itself to its knees. More wounds healed, and as they did the beast's heart beat faster and stronger. Within moments wings unfurled and shook the air in a mighty flap, swirling more dust into the air behind it.
Dark eyes looked forward, the gloom of the mine laid bare, and far in the distance it saw the opening that led out to the mine's parking lot. With a grunt Ash lowered his head and ran. His fight wasn't over, and he was going to make damn sure the world's long night was just getting started.
Chapter 24
Maya’s muscles and bones ached with every step up the mountain, her parched throat burned, and spasms gripped her empty stomach. She couldn't do anything about most of her problems, but she tried to slack her thirst by tilting her head back and swallowing the rain that fell into her mouth. It wasn't as good as the cold glasses of sweet tea she used to enjoy on her grandmother Mozelle's back porch, but every drop helped.
As Maya passed between a pair of trees her feet slipped on the wet grass. She reached out and grabbed the tree to her left to stop her fall. The rough bark bit into her hands and tore the skin of her palms, but that was nothing compared to the fire that suddenly burned up her forearms from her wounded wrists. When she was stable again she looked down, and the strips of cloth Kyle wrapped around them were spongy with blood. Seeing the moist red bandages weep crimson tears onto the mountain made her dizzy, so she looked away and tried her hardest to push it from her mind.
In the distance, lights moved through the trees as Kyle turned the Honda around and drove away. As the red taillights dimmed, a feeling of utter loneliness closed in on her and squeezed her heart. Even when that monstrous black beast had grabbed her and taken her to the mine, then tore her arms open with its claws to drip feed her life into its master at the bottom of the cavern, she hadn't felt hopeless, because she knew Kyle was out there and would come for her. Even though they had known each other for only a short span of time, they had forged a bond between them, and it had given her hope. Now he was going away, and all her hope went with him, leaving her none for herself.
Tilting her head down, she focused on the ground right in front of her, and like a mule she went up the side of the mountain until she felt like she'd gone high enough to avoid the floodwaters to come. Remembering what Kyle said, she went a little higher still. When she felt like she'd reached a safe distance she hobbled over to the nearest tree and sat down with her back against it. The soggy ground soaked her butt, but it was better than being out in the open.
“Okay, Maya,” she said to herself as she crossed her legs and put her aching forearms on her knees. “You can do this. You're not alone. Focus, do your job, and then you can throw Kyle in the backseat and take him home. So put your big girl panties on, and let's do this.”
Using those words as a mantra, Maya closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing and heartbeat. When both were steady, she said a silent prayer, then pushed her consciousness down through her body and into the darkness of the mountain below. At first she met resistance, as though the layers of rock and coal that had been thrust into the sky over hundreds of millennia were trying to keep her out, but she forced her way through and pushed deeper, and then deeper still. As she burrowed, the resistance dissipated, and soon she felt herself being pulled down. The change sent a jolt of fear through her, but when she tried to slow her descent the pull increased. The harder she fought it, the worse it got, until she feared it would tear her mind apart.
Suddenly she burst through the earth and found herself floating in the ancient cavern, but it wasn't as she'd seen it with her physical eyes. Here she didn't see rock, or water, or caves. Instead she saw blackness stretch away from her so thick and complete that the idea of anything else had no meaning. Even space had stars to break up the infinite dark, but not here. The darkness just…was. But then, as her astral body turned to face the direction she was being pulled, she saw the true face of the evil that woke in the mountain. Her mind shrieked. It was terrible, the most horrible thing she'd ever seen in her life. The elder god was a mass of psychic energy, its thoughts like snakes rolling over each other, slimy and pulsing with dark power. The water was a faint white light surrounding them in a halo that felt like a gentle fire warming her face after too long in the cold, but the light dimmed with every passing moment, and the cold pull of the god took its place.
Maya didn’t want to get near it. Not even a little. The evil radiating up at her sickened her to her core. Not for all the money or fame in the world would she go near it. But she wasn't there for money, or for fame. She was there for Kyle, for his sister, for Darius wherever he might be. She was there for her friends, her family, and all the friends and families of people she didn't know. For them, she would do it. For them she had to. Maya let the dark gravity of the ancient god pull her close, and when she was next to the boiling black mass she dove in.
As the snake-like thoughts engulfed her, her distant body screamed until her throat tore and blood flecked her lips and chin. The ground beneath her trembled, and the tree at her back shook.
The Honda's headlights were ghosts caught in moonlight as the car rumbled down back roads. Kyle sent gravel flying into the air as he rocketed from one corner to the next, trees whipping by on both sides of him like horrified bystanders who could only stand and watch. A clock ticked in his head with the sound of thunder as the second hand moved, moved, moved, and his body shook from the urgency threatening to overwhelm him.
A flash of white lit the darkness in front of the car. It shone as bright as the su
n, and grand white wings spread out, filling his eyes with light. For a moment Kyle thought an angel had appeared before him, its wings shielding him from what was to come, and for those few beats of his heart he no longer felt afraid. He'd never believed in God before, never prayed a second in his life, but with that vision in front of him – and with everything else that had happened the past two days – he took it as a sign that he wasn't alone, that someone or something was watching out for him and wanted him to know. The relief washing over him made him shiver. He would be okay.
A second later a loud thump reverberated through the car as the angel became an owl and hit the top of the windshield. The blow wasn't enough to damage the tempered glass, but the small spray of blood on the window and the tumble of gray feathers in the rearview said the owl wasn't so fortunate. Kyle wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, so he did both. A sharp left turn suddenly appeared ahead of him that he was going too fast to make. He hit the brakes, gripped the wheel tightly, turned, and then hit the gas halfway through the corner. The back wheels slid into the ditch, and the frame dragged across gravel, but then he was through it and rolling down a straightaway.
A right turn jumped in front of him a few seconds later. He dropped his speed again, sloshed around the corner, but as he hit the gas pedal the road turned left again, and he yanked the wheel around while letting off the accelerator. The world shrank to a narrow stretch of gravel twisting between fortress walls of tree trunks that threatened to smash the car's front end with every swerve. After several tense seconds and hard turns of the wheel he broke free of the mountain and its trees. Several dozen yards ahead of him gravel ended as asphalt cut across it, and off to the far right stood Stillwater Dam.
Maya floated in darkness, but a darkness that was wet and hot and moving. She felt smothered by it, buried, drowning, dying. She'd been stupid to think she could do anything against the ancient evil, so stupid, and now she was going to die, barely a mote in its eye.
As her life faded, she once again thought of her grandmother Mozelle. How disappointed the old woman would be in her for being so foolish. The thought scarcely formed in her mind before a small dot of light appeared in front of her, so small and fragile yet it was like a star in the vast emptiness, and in it she saw her grandmother sitting in her old chair, her hands working her crocheting needles as sunlight streamed through a window to warm her bones. The darkness retracted the tiniest bit, and that gave Maya hope she desperately needed.
Suddenly, as though to crush her spirit before it could gain strength, the darkness took on form and crashed into her. It pushed against her, rough and hurtful. It pressed against her mouth, her nose, her ears. Then it pressed between her legs, wanting to penetrate her, rape her with shadows. She tightened her astral body and pushed at the dark, fighting for even an inch of space to breath, to be free. The gloom closed around her, but after several panicked seconds it pulled away. She was relieved, but then a voice spoke to her, and that was somehow even worse.
“Such a frightened little thing,” it said, the voice like thunder and ice and murder in the dark. “You quiver in the face of what is to come, but in you is the blood of all the terrors that once were. We are kindred, you and I. Soon your dark blood will echo my song as we reclaim our world. Look, and see what delights you have in store...”
The darkness held her effortlessly, as if she were nothing, and her mind filled with the evil it once knew, the world it once held dominion over. The images were so alien to her they could have come from another planet entirely, but she knew they were of the world around her, the world that once was and would be again.
Nightmare images hit her in rapid succession – Fire striding on black hooves, creatures scurrying from the sea to throw their slick green flesh against beasts from mountains that crumble behind them, driving them to their death. Deep within bloody oceans great shapes lumber slowly, and monsters large enough to eclipse the sun float in the sky. Obsidian ziggurats rise from cracked plains in worship of Dark Powers, and sacrificial crimson paints their stones as the faithful prove their worth. Everywhere is death and pain and torment.
But no horror is as great as the evil lying in a volcanic caldera, its swollen body blackened by the heat of the earth’s molten blood but strengthened by its pain and isolation. Massive tentacle arms sprouting from its body like malignant tumors scoop earth and lava together to shape foul beasts that it fills with its seed to give them life so it can then send its children off to destroy and terrorize. No evil is too minor, no torment too small. It wages a campaign of darkness it believes will never end.
But then came the rain and the lightning and the wind, a storm created by forces it didn't know or understand, and the tempest swept the world until every trace of those who'd once strode it was no more.
The ancient evil had more work to do, though, and as it raged against its death it struggled to find a way to save itself. When the raging flood slammed it against a mountain, the Dark God used every bit of power it had to pull the mountain down on top of it and hide. By the time it was done the evil had nothing left, no power or strength. But the water couldn't kill it, no matter where it came from or how powerful it was. All it could do was suppress it and contain it with sleep.
Until now.
“So you see, little one, our time has come again. I will rise, and your blood will burn as I send you into the world as my emissary of darkness. You need resist me no longer.”
Maya didn't want to believe it, yet part of her knew it was right, that it spoke the truth. But she wasn't ready to give in to the nightmare, no matter how persuasive it was, so she summoned what courage she had and sheltered it like a candle against the wind. “You don't know anything. Time is running out for you, and you don't even know it. My love is out there, and he'll end you.”
She wasn't sure what reaction she'd hoped to get, but the laughter that rumbled around her wasn't it. “Nothing can stop my rise. The sacred water had power, but now it is gone. A new dark age is at hand. See what I see, and accept the new world order.”
Before she could guess what the voice meant, her vision clouded like static on an old TV screen, and seconds later she found herself flying high above the town. Flames twinkled in the night, and a rhythmic sensation flexed the muscles of her back. Maya realized her mind was now a passenger in another body, one that had recently held her in its claws like a doll and tried to drain her dry. In the far distance were the lights of her car as it came to a stop next to the dam. Panic filled her heart like a million frantic butterflies, and the evil pressed against her harder, tightened around her throat to still her screams.
The parking area on the south side of the dam stood empty, so Kyle pulled into the closest spot and parked. When he let go of the steering wheel his hands trembled fiercely enough to rattle his fingers, so he grabbed the wheel and squeezed it.
“You're okay,” he told himself, the tremor in his voice betraying him. “The fucking world is depending on you, so get your shit together. Don't think about the fact that your hometown has turned into a goddam horror movie, and that you just killed your dad, and that your sister...” Kyle closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out in a long exhale that left his lungs empty and the windshield fogged up. “Fuck it, let's do this before I shit myself and run for the hills.”
Kyle shoved the door open and stepped into the cold rain. After filling his lungs he circled around to the Honda's trunk and opened it. Sitting to the right of the flat tire were the two cases from the construction building, which he set on their sides and opened. In the first were four bricks of C4, each one wrapped in foil and easily mistaken for meatloaf a kindly wife would wrap up and send with her husband to work for lunch were it not for the fact that they were set in molded foam and had warning symbols all over them. In the other case were four detonators and a remote trigger. He pressed the power button on each to make sure they still had a charge. Small red lights blinked.
Looking at the detonators and then at the C4 brick
s, he wondered how hard it would be to put them together when he reached the sluice gates. Carrying around explosives with the detonators plugged in and ready to blow wasn't what he'd call a good idea, but it beat trying to do it when all he had was a ladder to hold on to, so after making sure the remote trigger was turned off he took a brick in one hand, a detonator in another, and pressed the metal prods into the C4 like a kid pushing his finger through clay. Once it was secure he powered up the detonator and set it to RADIO, then did the same thing three more times.
Finished with that delicate operation, he went around to the rear passenger door, opened it, and looked around for the backpack he'd seen earlier. A few seconds of rooting through the pile of crap in the floorboard rewarded him with a green canvas bag. After everything in it was dumped out, he carried it back to the trunk and set the primed C4 in it, then put the trigger in a his front pocket, careful that the plastic guard was secure over the trigger button even though it was turned off. Better safe than sorry. He was taking enough risks already. The backpack went over his left shoulder a moment later.
The walk from the car to the river side of the dam was twenty yards at best, but it was the longest twenty yards of his life. Every step seemed to push it two steps away, and the crunch of gravel beneath his feet sounded like gnashing teeth. Even the rain seemed to push him back, slow him down, but eventually he made it to the ladder embedded in the concrete that led down to a sluice gate. There were three other ladders just like it further down the dam, all of them blocked by a loop of chain and a “DO NOT CROSS” sign that anyone over the age of seven could get around.
Kyle grabbed the raised ladder rail and swung around the chain. When his foot hit the rain slicked top rung it shot out from under him, and he found himself dangling over a hundred foot drop by his right hand. The backpack slid down his left arm and nearly went into the drink before he caught the strap. His arms burned and his legs were jelly, but after he caught his breath he reached over and pulled himself onto the ladder. How long it would take his balls to drop back down was another matter entirely.