Shadow Falls: Badlands

by Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff

  “Miles,” she whispered. Something had taken control of his body and was killing him from the inside—and now, without Father Henri to help, Alyson feared the worst for her brother.

  I'm all alone. Her family and friends had all been killed.

  Alyson could not believe that these beasts—ones capable of unspeakable slaughters—could have been made by God’s hand.

  She wondered if they. They had seen her. They killed Odile without so much as even touching her. One even looked back; it had acknowledged her. Alyson knew that if she chose to run, they could find her.

  But she had no choice. She had to run. If they were to come for her, it would be at her back.

  With the palms of her hands, she wiped the tears from her eyes and rose up. The wind shifted slightly, and the smell of death and decay again filled her nostrils. Above, crows began to light in the trees, incessantly cawing.

  I have to go—now, Alyson thought. I can’t watch these birds pick apart my friends for their dinner.

  She made her way to the home of a woman who had helped raise her; she needed provisions. She found a wicker basket, and used it to carry what was left of a loaf of bread. On her way out, she saw a waterskin hanging on a nail by the door; she took that as well, delaying slightly. Given how light it was, there was no surprise when she removed the cork to find it empty. She would go fill it before leaving this place forever.

  As she approached the well, her mind started playing tricks on her, imagining a beasts waiting to spring out from within the hole to attack her. With each step her chest tightened.

  When she got there, there was only complete darkness.

  Alyson took the wooden bucket and made sure the rope was attached to the handle before dropping it down into the well. It vanished for a brief moment before she heard it splash into the water below.

  Wrapping the rope around her small hands, she began pulling up the bucket. It felt full and she strained from the extra weight. She brought in the rope hand over hand—the way Father Henri had taught her—but she continued to struggle; it seemed to be getting heavier.

  Again, she peered over the edge—wondering if the bucket or the line had caught on something.

  But there was nothing other than the rope disappearing into darkness.

  Alyson continued pulling up the bucket, all the while trying to figure out where she would go. The Father had mentioned another settlement far off to the west, but Alyson couldn’t remember which direction that was.

  Is it where the sun rises or sets? She felt the push on her back.

  Instantly, she was off her feet and tumbling headfirst into the darkness of the well, falling for what seemed like minutes before crashing down into the water below. Her head smashed against the stone wall and she cried out, her mouth filling with water.

  Struggling, she made it to the surface, coughing the water out of her lungs as she gasped for air.

  Her head buzzed and her ears rang; it was seconds before her eyes came back into focus.

  And then she saw him.

  “Miles?” she called out.

  Standing more than twenty feet above her and looking down from the edge, was her brother. Yet he made no acknowledgment, or effort to help her.

  “Miles!” she called out again. Even with the light behind his head and his face in shadow, she could tell it was him—the sibling she’d spent her whole life with.

  “They’re all dead,” Miles said.

  “Help me, Miles!” Alyson called out, frantically treading in the deep water.

  “And they died so that I shall live,” he continued. His voice echoed around her, enveloping her like cold winter rain. “For the selfless sacrifice of their lives helped me survive to fight again.”

  “Selfless?” cried Alyson. “They were murdered!”

  “They were fulfilling their purpose, dear sister. Why do you think God, in all His infinite wisdom, chose to put them here?” Miles was growing more confident. “They were like sown seedlings, waiting to be reaped at my desire.”

  A horrifying thought came to Alyson at the same moment Miles put it into words.

  “And it was you, dear sister, who I asked them to follow in order to find this place. You led them here.”

  Tears fell down Alyson’s cheeks as his words cut into her like knives.

  “I asked them to spare you,” he continued. “I was going to let you live, but I have been badly injured and I fear that it will take one more sacrifice to give me the strength I need.”

  Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to speak. The cold water began to numb her arms and legs.

  “This is my sacrifice, too, Alyson. I do love you,” he said and before slipping away.

  “Miles!” The cold was getting more intense, and Alyson could only whisper

  Hypothermia was setting in quickly. She could barely kick her legs.

  Moments later she sensed a shadow from above. Once again Miles peered over the edge.

  “I don’t want you to be alone down there. I brought you some company,” he called down to her.

  She could see him lift something over the edge of the well before dropping it down. It briefly blocked the sunlight as it fell, splashing violently into the water just next to her.

  Next to her in the dim light, Alyson could see the bloodied face atop a limbless torso.

  Her sudden shriek filled the well, rushing upwards into the open sky, where it floated, ignored, into the heavens.

  Miles pushed another corpse into the well, ignoring his sister’s screams.

  A third body came down and, with nowhere to go at the bottom of the well, Alyson could only close her eyes and wait for the impact.

  Miles whistled as, one by one, he gathered the shredded bodies and tossed what was left of them into the well.

  Within minutes, Alyson’s voice was muffled. He waited for several more minutes of silence before leaving the settlement.

  ***

  Nena’s eyes were full of anger and restrained tears..

  “So you see, if it is that land—the cursed killing fields of Shadow Falls that are calling out to you, summoning you to return—then the only thing you will leave in your wake is death and suffering.”

  And with her words, she withdrew a dagger from her cloak, and pulled back Galen’s hair, and held the blade to his throat.

  “And there is no way I can allow that to happen again,” she told him.

  Galen shut his eyes. At her hands, his deliverance would be swift and merciful. His journey would end here.

  But when she raised the knife to plunge into his throat, the pockmarked man called out frantically.

  “Someone’s coming down the road! Someone’s coming down the road!”

  The pair froze, sharing the same fearful thought.

  Miles had found them.

  *****

  CHAPTER 23

  Each breath came with a dry rasp. It stank of impending death. In the light of day, Cyril looked more like a skeleton than a man, his skin pulled so taut over his face that he could no longer fully close his mouth. His lips bore a slight—and very cruel—unintentional grin, so that his rotten teeth shone at all times. His eyes appeared to have sunken into seemingly bottomless pools, staring outward into oblivion.

  “Must keep moving,” he muttered. “Must keep—”

  The trip had taken its toll on Cyril. The beating sun had left his skin burnt and blistered. Internally, it had cooked his brain, turning his skull into a boiling cauldron of disjoined and violent thoughts. When his horse had tired, he left it behind and set off on foot, leaving the animal to die. That had been days ago, although the exact amount of time was a blur.

  What remained in his head was nothing short of complete madness.

  The words of the fallen one—Briar Ghent—raged in his mind. His insides felt diseased, like an infested and rotting tree.

  Cyril continued to play back the moment when Briar whispered to him what deep inside he had suspected, but suppressed for fear of
what it meant about his own existence. These words, repeating over and over, had destroyed the foundation of everything Cyril believed in, and had left him shaken and lost, like a ship without a rudder. Adrift, the only compass he could follow pointed him directly down the path of vengeance.

  It had been days since he had eaten or slept and his throat burned, dry from lack of water. His body felt on the verge of collapse, but every time he stopped or closed his eyes, Cyril found himself haunted by the face of the boy: the creature who had ordered his gruesome demise only to resurrect him as a pawn, a tool of Death with no soul and no hope of escape from this purgatory. Dying offered no escape; the last time he was, ostensibly, mortally injured—his execution for desertion—he was forced to claw out of his own shallow grave.

  Although Miles had promised him eternal rest as reward for his servitude, he knew he would never be released—never experience respite.

  In all too plain words, the fallen one told him what Miles’ designs were, the consequences the consequences of which were so great that Cyril knew Miles would never let him go. In a world scourged by fire and plunged into darkness, his service as a hunter would be too valuable to his master.

  And from that point, there was no turning back; whatever lay beyond was damnation eternal.

  For everyone.

  Cyril kept moving, knowing that no amount of exhaustion could kill him. The physical pain had abated to a dull and persistent ache, but the mental agony of having enabled the designs of a monster like Miles Lawton clawed at his mind.

  Now that he finally understood why he had been made to shadow Galen Altos, it made it all the more important why he had to find him again. Through the fogginess in his brain he could still feel the direction Altos had headed; that had not deserted him, at least not yet.

  Cyril knew he would be free once Miles was gone, and his mind worked frantically to engineer his master’s annihilation—before it was too late.

  ***

  The air was dense, as if a wet blanket of humidity had descended upon the entire camp. Nena's face drained of all its color, and Galen believed she was about to turn and run.

  Lot of good that would do you, he thought. “She's terrified.”

  Nena's chest heaved with indecision, her eyes anxiously watching the road that lead into their clearing.

  “Untie me,” Galen said, looking right at Nena.

  The pockmarked man snapped. “Don't do it!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Galen barked at him, turning back to Nena. “Damnit, Alyson!” he screamed. The sound of her true name broke Nena's stare free of the road.

  Gazing down at the knife in her hand, she turned to Galen and, with a quick slash, cut through the rope that held him to the whipping post.

  “You're gonna regret that,” spouted the pockmarked man.

  No, you're gonna, thought Galen, imagining wrapping his hands around his scarred throat. His thumbs were crushing the man’s windpipe.

  Galen rubbed his wrists, which had nearly been abraded raw from the rough-hewn rope had used to bind him. Feeling quickly returned to his fingers, and he grabbed Nena's hand.

  “Let's go!” he shouted. Clenching her jaw, she nodded. Galen burst with whatever energy he had left as he began running with Nena in tow.

  “What should we do?” called out the pockmarked man.

  “Hold him off me as long as possible!” she shouted back.

  Yeah, good luck with that, thought Galen. He couldn't have nominated a better guy for the suicide mission.

  Gathering the men and summoning others to bring as many guns as they could muster, the pockmarked man prepared them the way bees defend their queen. As Galen and Nena made it up the hill toward her cabin he turned to her. “They will all most likely be killed, you know.”

  “They are the Magus. They have been preparing for this day,” she answered.

  “And what day is that?”

  “The beginning of the end,” she told him, meaning to avoid all confusion.

  But Galen when looked back at her, he was unsure of what she meant—though he could not shake the feeling that the dominoes had begun to fall.

  “We're going to need a way out of here,” he shouted at her, noting the woods surrounding the enclave.

  At the cabin, Galen pulled Nena behind the small wooden house and peered around to the clearing. The entire Magus had assembled, carrying guns, knives, and clubs. To Galen, they looked like some kind of ragtag militia—average men and boys, some just out of their teens. The pockmarked man ordered those dozen or so with guns into a firing line, their inexperience and nervousness showing. Those remaining did not to know what to do with themselves, milling about on the fringe until receiving instructions.

  Galen had seen many soldiers like that in the war—men who seemed unsure why they were there, or even which end of the gun to point at the enemy. Rarely did a single one live to see sunset on the day of battle—their only purpose to serve as fodder for the cannon.

  Nena clutched his hand as she continued to peek around the side of the cabin. All but the nearest end of the road was visible, and though they couldn't see him, the sense of their brother's presence was unmistakable. Even after more than a century and a half, their sibling bond had not diminished—though any trust they shared in each other had definitely vanished.

  The young man who had brought Galen buckets of food and water while he had been pilloried kept watch on the dirt road. He tracked a single figure followed by a cloud of dust, advancing.

  The figure was that of a young boy.

  The growing cloud of dust in his wake was rising to the sky, created by dozens of four legged creatures that padded obediently behind him, their yellow eyes reflecting the sunlight.

  Their open mouths full of sharp teeth.

  “Keep an eye on your ammo. You load while the man next to you shoots!” barked the pockmarked man as the bucket boy came running past, his face completely pale with fear.

  “Where the hell are you going?” shouted the leader. It was one of the others who pointed first.

  “Sweet Christ,” he said, his hand shaking with ghastly tremors.

  They were visible now—no more than a hundred yards away. Miles Lawton led a pack of coyotes—creatures coiled and ready to strike at the boy’s command.

  “Miles,” uttered Galen, the name spilling out of his mouth. As if a vault had opened in his brain, a flood of memories rushed through his mind.

  He blinked. His brother looked exactly the same as the last time he had laid eyes on him—back in a previous century, when they had crossed to this country aboard the Majestyk.

  Nena’s jaw dropped. Even from this distance she could see his blank eyes, the same ones that stared down at her at the bottom of the well. Her entire body seethed with anger at the sight of Miles; there had been plenty of time for her to understand what it was her brother had become.

  “No, don’t,” she said to Galen as he stepped out from behind the cabin, pulling away from her. His gaze attempted to transfix Miles. This was the younger brother he had known as a baby—the best and closest friend he’d had growing up. He and Miles had shared everything, and the pull toward his sibling was like the clutch of a giant claw drawing him near.

  And now, for the only time he could remember—in this lifetime—he felt something that he could only imagine was the sense of family.

  But it was coupled with something else that Galen could only identify as underlying evil.

  He stepped forward, toward Miles, overcome with a need to be close to the boy—a sense to somehow protect his younger brother from the demons that shadowed him in the darkness. Inside his heart, he felt his sibling crying out to him for help. And though Nena tried to hold him back, Galen continued toward his brother.

  His movement caught Miles’ eye and, when he looked up to see Galen, a smile crossed his face. The two he had come looking for were both here.

  And soon, he thought, one of them would die again.

  They stopped behi
nd Miles—these four-footed creatures of darkness, just visible through the dust—horrid, misshapen beasts obedient to their master, lining as if a regiment. The ground rumbled with their guttural sounds—wet, bloodthirsty snarls intoned with the soulless quality of murder.

  The boy sized up the ragtag bunch in front of him, convinced their defiance was worth the respect he gave by letting them continue to live these past few seconds.

  “Loose!” he cried. The snarling beasts descended upon the Magus, as if all Hell itself had been unleashed.

  *****

  CHAPTER 24

  The repeated thunderclap of the first salvo of bullets roared as the line of gunmen opened up on the hoard. Most of the shots, misaimed by trembling hands, missed their mark. Few found their targets, but those that did found fur and flesh and bone—crushing skulls, legs, and jaws.

  The second line of rifles came to bear, the men's shaking hands desperately searching for accuracy. The bullets, fired in haste, did nothing more than did the first volley.

  Massive paws beat against the dirt; the coyotes charged down the men who dared to stand their ground. Those who had not dropped their weapons to flee weren’t given a second chance. From a dozen feet away, the beasts launched themselves into the air at their prey, their great bodies enough to crush the Magus soldiers.

  The men in the circle had only moments to glance up from their muzzleloaders to witness their gruesome fate. Claws and teeth.

  The first wave of beasts hit the ground with a crash, grasping their prey in their jaws or pinning the helpless before clawing them to shreds. Cries of unspeakable agony drowned in blood. In moments, the ranks of the Magus were halved.

  Not everyone gave up without a fight. One man, a hardened veteran of the war, spun his empty rifle and crushed the skull of a beast. He never felt the sharp claws tear into his back, severing his spine. Helpless, he lay as the coyotes bit into his body, pulling him away before taking his legs.

  The pockmarked man dodged the first beast and picked up a fallen axe from the ground after tossing his empty pistol aside. He buried the heavy blade into the neck of one coyote, then spun to split open the head of another. But the first animal's blood sprayed onto his face—into his open eyes—blinding him. And as he went to wipe it, strong jaws clamped onto his left arm,. He felt the beast's sharp teeth sink all the way to the bone, and from his mouth came a horrible shriek. Gritting his teeth, he uttered the phrase Nena had taught him—the summoning curse that only be used once.