The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

  The river was easy to cross, but when he reached the cornfield he lost his bearings. The scarecrow was no longer visible over the tops of the dried stalks. When he pushed his way into the first row and then the second he quickly lost all sense of direction.

  There was a rustle to his left, as something moved past him.

  “Follow me, detective Grant.”

  John’s head briefly appeared. Grant followed the scarecrow through the ranks of corn until they were in the center of the field in a small clearing. The empty pole John had been mounted on stood bare, a mute testament.

  John turned to face him.

  His pumpkin face was rotting, the smile twisted lopsided and curling inward. There were white worms crawling in and out of the eye holes.

  John said, “This is the last time I can speak to you.” His voice sounded faint and distracted. “I wanted you to know that Corrie and Regina have reached my world.”

  “They’re dead?”

  “Very much alive, detective. They’re resting now.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we’ll see. I thought I owed you a debt of thanks for protecting them. I thought I might pay you back in some small way.”

  Grant waited.

  “In my world,” John went on, “we remember none of our time here on Earth. But the presence of Corrie and Regina has triggered memory in those who have been near them. It has something to do with the fact that they straddle two planes of existence. They’ve brought a bit of Earth with them, I suppose.” He paused. “I wanted you to know that your wife Rose is with us.”

  Grant’s heart skipped a beat. “Rose …”

  “If all goes well, she will be fine.”

  “Take me back with you,” Grant said. “I’ll help you. I’ll do anything I can—”

  “You’ve already done more than you realize, detective Grant. I hope what I’ve told you has brought you some comfort. If you go to the farm where they passed over to us, you can wait there. It will be soon. If things work out against us, it will make no difference where you are. “

  “Pray for us, if you like, Mr. Grant.”

  “But you said—”

  A smile creased the ruined pumpkin face. “I said I didn’t know, Mr. Grant. I still don’t. But don’t you feel that some other power must be behind all of this, even if it shows no overt interest?”

  “I don’t know …”

  The pumpkin figure put a light hand on Grant’s shoulder. “As I said, neither do I …”

  Before Grant’s eyes, John disintegrated, breaking into a moldering pile of decay and then, as if in a movie, dried dust.

  Grant looked at the empty pole, and his hands were shaking.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Time to be going.”

  Corrie was having the most wonderful dream. He was four years old. His mother had taken him to the park and was pushing him on a swing. He gave a whoop of joy at each apex, and as he swung back down to her she followed the swing’s arc up with her hands and gave him a solid push forward, saying, “That’s my boy!” each time. He went higher and higher, feeling his stomach rise as he hit the height of his arc and then fall as he dropped back. He was as happy as he had ever been, and it was all the more wonderful because it had really happened.

  He awoke to see John looming over him, a statuesque length of smoke.

  “It’s time,” John said.

  Corrie sat up, rubbing his eyes. Reggie, yawning, was doing the same next to him. They had slept on the soft red rock creature that brought them here, who had lain down to form a remarkably comfortable bed.

  Suddenly Corrie fully remembered where he was, and a hollowness filled him, but nothing like the one of joy he had felt in the dream.

  “Are you ready?” John asked.

  “Will I ever be?”

  Corrie had the feeling that John was smiling humorlessly.

  “We must go.”

  Corrie and Regina followed the column of smoke out of their private room and onto the flat deck of the tall tower. They walked to the edge. Below them was spread a multitude of strange shapes. Corrie knew, though he couldn’t tell by their bizarre appearances — curlicues, rectangles, ovals, pillars, squat round buttons, tall boxy shapes of all hues — that they were staring up at him.

  They were utterly silent.

  In the distance, the black sky reached up from the horizon much higher. A distant thumping sound like that of giant machinery could barely be heard. As Corrie watched, there was a tearing sound as another patch of black ate up the sky.

  John spoke to the crowd below: “This is the time of the last battle. Soon we will know. But be aware that without these two friends from Earth, we would have no chance. What they have given up to come here is more than we can imagine. Each of us had a full time on Earth; these two did not. Their sacrifice is our blessing.”

  Corrie had expected some sort of cheer. Instead, there was something even more chilling and affecting.

  As one, the entire crowd of thousands of strange shapes bowed themselves silently against the ground.

  “Come,” John said, and Corrie and Regina followed him, with some difficulty, down the huge steps, eventually to the ground floor.

  They walked out of the building and the massive crowd, no longer prostrate, parted to let them pass. There was still eerie quiet. Only the thumping, which grew louder by the minute, broke the silence. As they moved through the massed shapes a few joined them, falling in behind: the cardboard cutout they had met the day before, and two others — a pale green star-shaped creature and one that resembled a balloon.

  Soon they had left the huge building, the crowd of onlookers, behind.

  They were back in the desert, with no discernible road in front of them.

  “Do we walk?” Corrie asked.

  John said calmly, “We would never get there.”

  The balloon moved up as if on cue, and John said, “Climb in.”

  Below the balloon shape was something like a wide seat. Corrie made himself comfortable on it. John’s smoky shape compacted, and he settled himself next to Corrie.

  Almost at once the balloon rose. Corrie’s stomach dropped out from beneath him, and once more he was reminded of his dream.

  He looked down to see Reggie sitting in the middle of the green starfish, which was flying over the ground. He heard a yelp of pleasure. The cardboard cutout flapped along beside it like a bizarre manta ray.

  “Tell me what to expect,” Corrie said.

  Already, as they drew closer to the edge of the world, the sky was growing darker in front of them. The thumping became more insistent. Corrie could feel it in his chest, a deep measured throb.

  “The Dark One is eating away this world piece by piece,” John said. “He is forcing his own world, which is nothingness, into this one. Three quarters of this way station is already gone.

  “You will have to face him on the ground.”

  Corrie felt his stomach tighten.

  “When this campaign began, we of course tried to face him ourselves. Those who did simply disappeared. They turned from something into … nothing.”

  “What makes you think I can do any better?”

  John was silent. “That is the hard part. You were prepared for this long ago, Corrie, because, coming from your world into this one, and still being alive, you hold certain powers of negation over the Dark One. If he destroys my world, then he can move into yours. But he cannot deal directly with your world. You are a line he cannot cross. He will try, because he must, but when he does he will be thrown back into his own realm and shut out of this one. His only hope was to pass through this place directly to Earth. But …”

  “I’ll die when he tries.”

  “Yes.”

  “And disappear like the others.”

  John was silent, and then said, “We think so.”

  Corrie looked down at Reggie. “And what about her? Is she the backup, in case I fail?”

  John was silent. “
No.”

  Corrie found himself getting angry. “I won’t let anything happen to her. If I have to die then let it happen. But send her back to Earth and her parents.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  Corrie waited, but John said nothing.

  Finally, the figure next to him said, “You are the backup, Corrie. She is the one who must face the Dark One, and be annihilated.”

  Corrie was speechless.

  “It is hard for me to explain,” John said. “Though you were prepared for years, it was discovered when the time drew close for this battle that you … might fail.”

  “How?”

  “The Dark One … may be able to use certain things against you to weaken you. Reggie, it was discovered, is much stronger and will be able to withstand these … temptations.”

  Corrie was stunned. “I won’t let anything happen to Reggie.”

  “You don’t have a choice. She is the one who must meet the Dark One, or we all will perish.”

  Corrie looked down at Reggie, who was still shouting “Wheee!” as the starfish she road flew over the desert below.

  He was filled with rage and impotence. “You can’t do this! She doesn’t know! And after all that time, all those years and the things I went through, you tell me I’m not good enough to help you?”

  Corrie felt a light touch on his shoulder, which reminded him of the first time he had met John, by the cornfield after he returned to Orangefield. It seemed a thousand years ago. The pillar of smoke had moved nearer, and a thin tendril of its matter was formed into a delicate hand with thin smoky fingers.

  “Corrie, I know this is hard. But this is how it must be.”

  “I won’t let it happen. I promised to take care of her.”

  John said quietly, “I also have a selfish reason for being thankful this is the way things turned out.”

  Corrie was still staring down at Reggie.

  “Do you remember the effect you had when you arrived among us?” John asked. “Those of us who came into contact with you remembered their former lives on Earth.”

  Corrie said nothing.

  “So did I,” John said.

  Still, Corrie was silent.

  “I’m your mother, Corrie.”

  Corrie stiffened.

  “I remembered yesterday. It was like a lance through me. But it’s true.”

  “My mother …”

  Corrie turned to stare at the thing next to him, the thing he had known as John: who had helped him into this world and who now told him that the little girl who had been dragged along with him had to die.

  “You see, if it’s necessary for Reggie to face the Dark One, I will be able to keep you alive. You will be safe. Otherwise, you might disappear forever. Now that I know who I am, I could not bear to lose you again.”

  “It’s still not fair to her!”

  “This is how it must be. When I first came here to Samhain’s domain, twelve Earth years ago, I felt I had a special calling to help you. I didn’t realize why. There were others” — she indicated the cardboard cutout, still driving itself over the desert below like a landlocked ray — “already doing the work. They had been preparing you since you were seven. But I felt compelled to help. Now I know why. In a way, I didn’t have a choice, Corrie.”

  In the distance, the sky grew taller and blacker and more empty, and the thump-thump grew in Corrie’s chest like a dagger being thrust there.

  The world was black. Above them, towering like a line of massive thunder heads, the fabric of the world disappeared. They hovered, and Corrie looked down: the desert was there below him, but a little ahead it disappeared into a ragged black emptiness. There was this world, and then one step further on there was … absolutely nothing.

  He was reminded of the ancient Earth explorers who feared that if they sailed west from Europe, they would fall off the edge of the world.

  There was a hollow, massive boom. Below the balloon the desert disappeared. There was no falling of sand and rock. One moment the pale land was there, and then it had vanished. Corrie felt a faint wash of bone-chilling dry cold move past him.

  He leaned out to peer into the new darkness, which faced them like a wall. The yellow haze and gray clouds of the atmosphere ended as if snipped off with a pair of scissors. In the blackness, there was no movement, no sound, no hint of habitation or life.

  Another thunderous thumping boom, and they were rocked back by the advance of the black wall.

  Beside Corrie his mother made a motion, and the balloon slowly settled to the ground. They stepped from it. Reggie’s starfish lay still, and she was helped down and ran to Corrie.

  She sobbed, “Corrie, I’m scared!”

  Corrie drew her close and said, “Don’t worry, Reggie. Like I told you, we’re in this together.”

  Reggie suddenly pointed. “Look!”

  Corrie looked to his left. Something was moving swiftly over the desert toward them, a wide, faint cloud of vapor that compacted and coalesced as it grew closer.

  “Samhain,” Corrie’s mother whispered.

  The cloud reared up in front of them, took shape into a frightening ghoulish face ten yards high, a flat wide oval with empty eyes and a huge mouth.

  Reggie held Corrie tightly. He could feel her trembling.

  “You cannot harm them, here,” Corrie’s mother said.

  “True,” Samhain’s voice boomed with barely pent up fury. “But, now that you’re close, I can deal with you—”

  Howling rage, the face rose up. A body — thin torso, impossibly long arms with taloned fingers — formed beneath it.

  With a sudden movement Samhain’s clawed hands lashed out, sweeping John and the starfish that had borne Reggie into the empty darkness.

  “Mother!”

  There was a single muffled cry, cut off, as the two shapes disappeared into the blackness.

  Samhain reared up over Corrie.

  “I can take the girl back, now. Give her to me and I’ll return her safely to Earth.”

  Corrie smiled grimly at the huge figure. “Even you know I’ll fail?”

  “I’ll take you both back, if you wish.”

  “Then no one faces the Dark One, and you win.”

  A wind was rising around Samhain. Corrie could feel the ground beneath him beginning to tremble. The blackness in front of him crept forward and above, the black nothingness arched over in a wave, making the sky disappear all at once.

  “Corrie! I’m so scared!” Reggie cried.

  Samhain was looking up in wonder, his mouth open in awe.

  “Dark One …” he said.

  The wave rose and widened. There was an impossibly deep booming sound. It was like nothing Corrie had ever heard, like the rending of the heavens themselves. He lifted Reggie and held her away from him. She was crying hysterically. Her black eyes were growing blacker and deeper and wider as the wall of nothingness closed in all around them like a prison.

  A voice like thunder proclaimed, “ALL OF YOU WILL SOON BE WIPED FROM THE FACE OF THE UNIVERSE.”

  “Remember me,” Corrie whispered to Reggie, then he turned to face Samhain.

  “Take her back!” he shouted, and flung the girl at Samhain.

  Then he leaped into the nothingness—

  The booming ceased in an instant. All sound was gone, and light, and time. Corrie felt nothing — there was no ground beneath his feet, no air to breathe, no wind, no taste, touch, odor, sight.

  He did not even feel suspended.

  He was surrounded on all sides by — nothing.

  “So it is you, after all,” a voice said. It did not come from any particular direction, and it was not in his head — he just heard it, as if it had come out of nowhere. It was oddly flat, and calm, and hateful.

  It sounded pleased.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “They prepared you a long time. But you know nothing.”

  “Then I know you.”

  “The girl was stronger. Yet you cam
e instead.”

  “I wanted her to live.”

  “Nothing will live. After our meeting, everything will be gone. Every scrap of life on your world. Already, death itself is gone.”

  “Why do you hate us?”

  A pause. “I don’t hate.”

  “You hate life.”

  “It’s the opposite of what I am. Creation leads to chaos. It is messy. Without creation, the Universe was a placid place.”

  “Who created creation?”

  A longer pause. “No one knows.”

  “And yet you try to destroy it.”

  “Samhain has found you interesting creatures. That’s because he is inextricably linked with you. Your deaths give him life, and meaning. Your questions mean nothing.”

  “Because you are nothing.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you are nothing, how can you speak?”

  “Because I wish to. I am nothingness itself, not a creature of it.”

  “How can I stop you?”

  There was the longest pause yet. “You’ve already failed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re still alive.”

  “You haven’t moved from Samhain’s world into my own, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because … you are here.”

  “Preventing you?”

  There was silence.

  He knew the Dark One had withdrawn — though there was no change in his surroundings, no change in temperature or air pressure, no difference in his blank surroundings.

  He knew he was alone.

  And then he saw a light.

  He moved toward it, though he didn’t feel himself walking. There was no sense of movement. The light grew closer. It resolved into a vertical rectangle, a door, and suddenly he was through it and standing in a room.

  He could breathe again, and smell, and taste his own sweat, and feel his feet on the floor beneath him.

  He studied his surroundings. The door he had passed through was now closed, and there was another door in front of him. The room was a cube about ten feet on a side, made of steady light. He stood on something that felt like a floor.

  “Choose,” the Dark One said.

  The door in front of him opened. He saw a vast red plain, a multitude of motionless figures. They were gauzy, barely discernible, human-shaped. A sea of moans emanated from their unmoving features. Their eyes were fixed on nothing, pleading.