A Latent Dark

by Martin Kee

  “I believe you are a bit rusty from your fighting days, Mr. Marley. That is, assuming you won all your fights fairly to begin with.” He grinned and tipped his hat. “Which I am beginning to doubt.”

  Charlie came to rest on the wooden floor, motionless. A stream of red froth continued to ooze from his mouth forming a puddle under his head. It stuck to his hair and spread around him in a crimson halo. Neither soldier saw the Reverend kick the boy’s head as he left the pub.

  The front door opened and The Reverend Lyle Summers stepped with a skip down the front steps of The Hungry Skunk, looking at the last fading plumes of smoke from Lassimir. Another six soldiers rushed past him as sounds of gunshots rang from the tavern.

  Sodom and Gomorrah, he thought. Those Catholic priests could continue fighting sin on a parish-by-parish basis. He would do them one better. He would rip the sinners from the world in chunks like the right hand of God. And not that weak, feel-good New Testament God, but the angry God of Lot and Nahum, a God of vengeance and hellfire. Passion burned in Lyle’s chest.

  The aerolore emerged like a black moon over the trees. Its shadow engulfed the waiting man and the building behind him. It extended a ladder which the Reverend climbed up in quick, energetic bursts. As its propellers—recharged with fresh chemical cells—turned the ship toward the coast, a plume of smoke leaked from one corner of The Hungry Skunk.

  Far in the distance, the two travelers noticed that the woods had caught fire again. They noted the direction of the airship and nodded to one another. The smoke from The Hungry Skunk drifted across the trees and mingled with the dying embers of Lassimir.

  Chapter 21

  Skyla knew she was being followed. A distant crunch echoed her last footstep. She thought at first that it was an animal or even just her imagination. Not much later a small rockslide cascaded down a nearby slope. She heard a crash and swearing. Whoever was following her, they sure were bad at it.

  “I know you’re there,” she said to the brush and trees. “You aren’t fooling anyone.”

  The forest did not so much end as simply fizzle out into scattered copses of eucalyptus and pine trees that dotted an otherwise grassy, shrub-dominated hillside. The mountains had been filed down to hills with every slope and riverbed funneling her toward the sea. Eventually, she gave up and just let the landscape guide her. The air smelled different as she approached the ocean. Rhinewall was not far.

  And then what? she wondered. Ask around? What was her aunt even doing in Rhinewall, and why didn’t she just come to Bollingbrook to rescue Skyla and her mother in the first place?

  She thought back to the times she had asked about her aunt, the way her mother had changed the subject or simply left the room. Was it really something so bad that Rhia couldn’t come to them instead? Even with their lives in danger?

  As she followed the dry, rocky riverbed at the base of the valley, Skyla came upon a farmhouse, surrounded by a scattering of walnut trees. It was a small wooden structure covered in chipped yellow paint, reminding her of that boy Mackerel’s teeth. Its windows were shattered spiderwebs of glass, every visible shard dirty and gray. Something had fallen through a section of the roof at one point, leaving a gaping hole in one corner. Houses outside the domain city-states were rare and this one had been punished by life outside city walls.

  A barn stood next to the house, its weather-worn frame tilted at an uncomfortable angle, teetering on collapse. She peered inside the wide doorway. Dust motes danced in the yellow light that crept through decaying boards. On the far side of the barn was a ladder.

  Whoever was following her would have to come in this door first. Skyla climbed up the gray wood ladder, testing each rung with her weight before hoisting herself onto the loft. She crouched directly above the entrance, behind a pile of rusted, unidentifiable equipment along the edge.

  After what felt like an hour, there was a rustling from outside and a crunch of footsteps on dry gravel. She held her breath as a shadow stretched across the floor, slow and cautious. A man entered the threshold and stopped. As he turned away from Skyla she recognized the twisting arm as it jutted out from his body.

  “Why are you following me, Dale?” she said in the biggest voice any eleven-year-old could muster.

  Dale jumped as if hearing the voice of God. He looked around, then up at Skyla where she proceeded to burst with laughter. He made a dramatic grip on his chest.

  “You scared the crap out of me,” he said.

  “Oh, and you don’t think I was scared? You were following me like a stalker. What was that all about?”

  Dale took a moment to regain his composure, glancing nervously over one shoulder. “I wasn’t sure if you’d run if I yelled and you didn’t recognize my voice,” he said. “A couple of those boys from the docks disappeared in the same direction as you. I wanted to make sure they weren’t following you.” It was almost a plausible excuse.

  “You couldn’t have just yelled ‘Hey Skyla, it’s Dale. Keep an eye out for hooligans.’”

  “Well, when you put it like that…” He paused. “Sorry I scared you. Just… after that whole thing with Lassimir…”

  She climbed down from the loft and stood in front of him. The barn protested loudly, dust drifting from the rafters. A small flock of pigeons flew from the darkness above their heads and out into the open sky.

  “We should probably talk outside,” she said. “I’m not sure I trust this building.”

  “You’ve never seen a barn?” he asked as they walked across the grounds.

  She shook her head. “Is this what they look like? The only ones I’ve seen were in books and in the Ag Wedge. Those didn’t look anything like this.” She looked up and around before deciding it best to leave.

  “Well, they used to look a lot sturdier,” he said as they crossed the ragged lawn.

  “Wanna see the rest of Rancho de Skyla?” she asked. Dale did.

  They talked and joked as they made one last perimeter check of the grounds while it was still light out. The yard behind the house was overgrown with dry weeds, attempting to reclaim a bent swing set, a child’s tricycle, and what remained of a short picket fence. A large rusted tractor, home to a family of sparrows, rested at the foot of a dirt driveway, which stretched from behind the house and disappeared over a hill. There was much debate over whether the road was a good idea to use or if it even went to Rhinewall at all. Roads this far outside city walls were sketchy at best.

  “It probably just goes to another abandoned house,” said Dale. “They probably have a little network of abandoned houses out here, each with its own tricycle and rusted swing.”

  “Unless it goes to a farm,” she said. Her stomach gurgled.

  “Unless it doesn’t. For all we know it could lead to a place filled with people we don’t want to meet. Maybe even bandits… Does your stomach always make your decisions for you?”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. The sun was beginning to set. Soon the fog made it impossible to see anymore and they decided to head in for the night.

  The floors of the house, collecting dust for ages, had built up drifts in the corners where rat droppings and dead leaves decorated the floorboards. The single bedroom had a stack of mattresses and a musty smell. A broken doll with dead eyes lay in one corner. The living room would do just fine, they agreed.

  “Do you think anyone still lives here?” she asked.

  Dale shrugged. “Someone was definitely here at one point.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back?” she asked. “I’m just not sure I want to sleep here and have someone walk in on me.”

  “We could sleep in shifts if you want,” Dale said, kicking away a crumpled chair and using his boot to clear away some broken glass, making room to sit.

  “We could,” she said, testing a faucet. It was dry and made a deep clanking sound. She turned it off before whatever was deep inside could come out.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Dale said.

  “Or we could
flip a coin,” she said.

  “I don’t mind, really.”

  “You’re old,” she teased. “And besides, we’re both tired. Here.”

  Skyla unlatched the pocket on the thigh of her pants where she kept the coin. She pulled it out and turned it in her hand considering how much trouble it had caused her, how much trouble it might cause her still.

  “There’s no heads,” she said, showing it to him.

  Dale took the coin and examined it, then handed it back to her. “How about Snakes, I take first watch. Words-we-can’t-read, you take first watch.”

  She put the coin on her fist and flicked it into the air. It spun in the setting sunlight, end over end. They both watched it hit the floor and land text side up. Skyla groaned and they both laughed.

  “I can go first if you’re too tired,” said Dale.

  “Naw, it’s fine,” she said. “But I’m waking you up at midnight sharp.”

  “You sure?” Dale asked. “I don’t mind, and you look exhausted.”

  “A deal’s a deal,” she said firmly, cutting off another protest.

  “Fair enough,” Dale said and shrugged.

  They talked for hours on the dust-covered floor as a silk glove surrounded the house. The evening conversation turned to ghost stories, of old fairy tales and the mythology books that Skyla used to read with Melissa.

  “Um… Doesn’t the church up there frown on stuff like that?” Dale asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It was a bootleg book that her father bought for her from a traveling merchant. It was pretty interesting, actually. She made me swear to secrecy.”

  Dale made a skeptical face.

  “No, I’m serious,” she said, eyes wide with conspiracy. “I know one kid whose entire family was jailed because he’d shown some pamphlet to another kid about some religion where they worshiped elephants.”

  “Have you ever even seen an elephant?” Dale yawned.

  “No,” she said wistfully. “But I hear they’re huge. Bigger than a horse, or even a capybara.”

  Dale laughed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “You’re right, they are much bigger than a capybara. Why don’t you tell me one of the stories from that book.”

  She sent Dale to sleep with stories of the old gods, of myths and forbidden beliefs. She told of giant wolves and serpents that ate the roots of the World Tree. Outside, the fog rolled by like breath from a tired ghost.

  *

  Skyla yawned, her stomach growling. Standing guard was maybe the most boring thing she had ever done in her short life, and that was taking school into consideration. Dale had given her his wristwatch and now she sat staring at the second hand as it crawled by, each second taking longer than the last. Dale’s snoring was the only sound.

  She looked at the coin in her hand, considering for a moment what it might be. Coins didn’t just pop through space and into your pocket. If the goggles could show her other possibilities outside her own actions, maybe they could show her something she didn’t know about the coin. She flipped the lenses down where they clicked into place.

  Through the goggles, the room was a scene of what would have been on the other side of the coin toss. Dale stood over a sleeping Skyla, his crooked arm fidgeted nervously as he stared at the girl. It reminded Skyla of the way that hermit, James had been looking at her clothes when they dried. It made her skin crawl.

  The goggles provided insights but no sound, a silent stage play. The Ghost Dale stood over her double for a few more moments while she slept. He then glided across the room like a wraith toward the empty doorframe, disappearing around the wall and out of sight.

  If wearing the goggles while sitting wasn’t disorienting enough, wearing them and walking was almost impossible. Skyla stood on wobbly legs and followed him along the wall toward the door. Almost immediately, a bright ghost flooded her vision, making her jump and filling the goggles with painful light. Ghost Dale had walked right through her, back into the room.

  Guard duty. Maybe he was just checking the—

  Her thought was cut short by a second figure, and then a third. They wore the same armor as the soldiers who had killed thousands in Lassimir, the same as the boy who had tried to capture her the day her mother was taken and her home burned by a madman. They glowed a malevolent orange as they followed the Ghost Dale across the room. She held her breath.

  The Other Skyla stirred and opened her eyes. Dale said something and she began to scream as the two soldiers grabbed her. A thick armored hand covered her mouth while another guard grabbed her ankles.

  She bit the hand over her mouth. The soldier jerked away and held her by her shoulders as she kicked and flailed, screaming into the night. Dale took one last look around the room and followed them out.

  The lenses came up. She glared at the sleeping traitor on the floor. Was he even sleeping? She thought about kicking him to find out.

  Dry grass rustled outside the house as something took a step, just beyond the window. She dropped to her hands and knees and tossed the backpack over her shoulders when Dale stirred. Skyla froze, watching him.

  He rolled over and faced the wall, then continued snoring. She released a long, steady breath through clenched teeth.

  On hands and knees, she made her way past Dale, toward the pungent room with the doll. The window was glassless; fog leaked in and over the mountain range of stacked mattresses. She edged closer to the window, wondering if it might be the only exit that wasn’t guarded.

  A silhouette appeared, framed by the empty pane, jagged and dark. It was just like the soldiers she had seen before, watching, alert. He seemed anxious, waiting for something, a signal perhaps. A trap, she thought. Dale was laying a trap!

  She crept back across the floor and turned toward the rear door, no more than a wooden frame with a rusted screen that hung like torn fabric from the corners. If she could run fast enough, she might be able to escape the house and disappear into the night. Outside, visibility in the thick fog was limited to a few yards at most.

  She was reaching toward the screen door when she heard the crunch of a booted foot. Either the same soldier had come around to this exit or this was another one. She had seen two soldiers while wearing the goggles. Where there more? She pulled her hand back from the doorway and from behind her a floorboard creaked.

  As she turned toward the source of the sound, something touched her hand, wet, furry with tiny claws like tacks, followed by a scaly tail that raked across her fingers. Skyla shrieked and recoiled.

  The soldier, who had only just arrived at the rear door, spun around and centered his gaze on her. He took a step into the doorway—and froze. Something changed in his posture. He took a step backwards, tense and uncertain.

  Skyla turned her head just in time to see the crooked figure of Dale standing up in the living room. He took a step and froze as well, his mouth moving soundlessly. Confused, Skyla looked back at the soldier who had now taken several paces away from the house, motioning as if to say “get away.”

  From behind her Dale yelled, cut off by the deafening sound of cracking wood and shattering beams. The floor gave way beneath her as something enormous launched into the air and over her shoulder.

  A roar rattled her teeth. She flattened herself to the ground just before a mass of sinewy muscle and claws flew overhead, charging at the frozen soldier with dizzying speed. The door exploded outward, the frame flung aside as the bear-sized tangle of arms, legs and pitted flesh tackled the soldier with a dull thud and a muffled scream. There was an awful sound of teeth on metal as the man, shrieking, tried to push the thing off of him.

  The second soldier appeared at the fallen man’s side, looking confused and stunned, as if he somehow couldn’t quite see the massive beast on top of his fallen comrade. He raised his weapon slowly, as if in a dream, just as the viscous shadow made a smooth, blurred movement, toward him. It twisted through itself as claws and tendrils unfolded from impossible angles, spearing
the soldier as if he was wearing paper. He made a guttural moan and went rigid before collapsing to the ground like a dropped curtain.

  She took another glance over her shoulder. Dale was a statue, his face barely visible in the darkness. She thought she saw his mouth open as he stumbled backwards.

  The black mass of claws and limbs continued to wriggle over the twitching soldier. Its abdomen tapered, flowing from the grass back through the door, a twisting umbilical of shadow that ended in the darkest corner of the room.

  Realizing that this may be her only chance, Skyla launched herself through the door, passing inches from the writhing mass of muscle. Looking at it from this distance was like looking through some smoked prism, visible only at the corners of her perception.

  The goggles, she thought. The idea passed through her mind as quickly as she passed the grisly scene on the ground. There was another crunch from the dead soldier as she danced around the feeding creature.

  She ran into the fog as dried grass crackled and whipped at her knees. A small grove of walnut trees materialized from the mist and she almost ran into a trunk. She grabbed the tree and hugged it, collapsing against it, panting. Wide green leaves clung to her hair with sticky sap.

  The creature was the only noise now as it lolled and rocked over the dead soldiers, which twisted beneath it like broken puppets. She knew she should run. For all she knew, more soldiers were waiting for her. One could have walked up and grabbed her then and there.

  Curiosity overriding her actions, Skyla lowered the lenses. There was a click.

  What had been an indescribable black mass was now a kaleidoscope of brilliant color. The thing shifted and twisted against the backdrop of black fog. Its neon blue and pink skin shifted and melted like different colored oils over the heat of a flame. Its broad shoulders flowered into a mane of lashing, sea anemone tentacles. Nestled in the center was what could have been a head, or might have been a mouth. It’s beautiful, she thought.