by P. T. Hylton
Jake stopped pacing and looked out over the group. “And that was that. He was just another tree in the middle of the forest.”
The room was silent for a long time. Then Nate spoke up. “You gonna tell them the rest?”
Jake paused for a long moment and then nodded.
“My goal was always to find help for my family. To save them from Zed. Now that I’d trapped Zed, I wanted to get back to them as soon as possible. And before long, the book showed me how.”
He marched to the window and pointed at the forest. “Many of those trees are more than what they seem to be. Many of them are doorways. They lead to all sorts of different places and different times. Using the book, I can open the doors and pull people through, which is how all of you came to be here. But it doesn’t work the other way. I can’t send anything from here to there.
“I could watch my family using the book. I could see every breath they took, the food they ate, every kiss they exchanged. But I couldn’t send them a simple note. I couldn’t touch them or be with them or even let them know I was still alive. I had given up. I decided to stop torturing myself and vowed to stop watching them. The book showed me another way. Using the book, I could open the doors the rest of the way and it could be used both ways. But there was a catch.”
“There always is,” Logan muttered.
“It was an all or nothing type deal. To open one door, I would have to open all of them. And that would release the banished. It would mean Zed would be free, and he’d be able to travel to any of the hundreds of times and places the trees led to. Including Rook Mountain. I couldn’t afford to take that risk.”
“Is that what happened today?” Sophie asked in a shaky voice. “Someone opened doors the rest of the way?”
“I don’t think so,” Jake said. “They reversed the banishments, but the doors are still closed. For now anyway. Who knows what they have planned next.”
“So when you figured out about the door, that’s when you decided to stay here?” Logan asked, her voice an impatient rush. “Forever?”
Nate and Jake exchanged a glance.
“It started out like that,” Jake said. “I intended to live out my life here in the woods. But then, once again, the book showed me something new. It taught me about the trails.”
“They weren’t here when you got here?” It was Taylor who asked that question.
“They weren’t. It was my greatest frustration, the way the forest was always shifting. The book taught me how to cut trails that would limit the movement of the trees. But there was a problem.”
“The trails had to be walked,” Logan said.
“Exactly. And there was something else. The book suggested that if the trails were deep enough, they might allow me to isolate certain parts of the forest and open some doors without opening all of them. So I cut a trail that would, if it were deep enough, allow me to open a door to Rook Mountain without freeing Zed.”
“Wait.” There was more than a hint of anger in Logan’s voice. “You’re telling us you brought us here as slave labor? So we could walk your trails and help you escape?”
Jake looked her in the eye. “Yes.”
The group was stone silent.
“Of course,” Logan said. Her voice was venom. “You always intended to go back. To hell with the rest of us. As long as we did your work for you.”
“You know it’s not like that,” Jake said.
Nate said, “Listen, we’d all be dead if it weren’t for Jake. We all came here voluntarily. We all said the word. He didn’t pull in anyone who didn’t say the word.”
“Wait a minute,” Sophie said. “If you couldn’t get anything back, not even a message, how did the Sanctuary legend start exactly?”
“I didn’t create it. It already existed.”
Sophie scratched her head. “The story I heard was that the legend never existed before Rook Mountain went out of time and came back.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Jake said. “Look, the reason I am telling you about this is that Zed’s out there now. He’s free. And he’s gonna be pissed. He wants the book, and he’ll kill all of us to get it.”
Sophie thought for a long moment, her backpack clutched to her chest, before speaking. “Is there any way to stop him?”
Jake sighed. “Maybe if I had the book. But even then, we don’t know how to find him. He’s got every advantage. He’ll try to destroy us.”
Sophie slowly unzipped the backpack, feeling each tooth of the zipper release as she went. She wasn’t looking forward to this, but it was something she had to do.
She pulled out the book and the room gasped. She held the book out to Jake. “I’m sorry. I was looking for a way out of here. And one of the trees had writing on it, and it seemed like it was talking to me.”
Jake took the book, his face pale.
“She broke into your office. She put us all in danger.” Sophie didn’t even have to look up to recognize her friend’s voice. It was Logan. “She has to be banished.”
“There’s more,” Sophie said.
She held up the compass, its back facing out so Jake and Nate could see the broken clock symbol.
“Good Lord,” Nate groaned.
“Damn it, Sophie, where’d you get that?” Jake asked.
“It came over with me. It belonged to this guy who pushed me off a building. That’s how I got here, by saying Sanctuary while I fell. He had this compass. I grabbed it from him while we were falling.”
Jake’s jaw was set like stone. “We have to hide it. We have to hide both these things. Who knows the damage Zed could do with one of them, let alone both.”
A murmur of agreement rolled through the group.
“Okay, here’s what we do,” Logan said. “We all hunker down here at the house and defend our position.”
Nate shook his head. “I don’t think you understand Zed. Assuming he has all his powers back, he could materialize in the middle of this house at will. If we try to hide this stuff, he’ll torture the information out of us. Or, even easier, he’ll read our minds.”
“Then let’s not wait here,” Sophie said.
Logan scoffed. “No one wants to hear from you, traitor.”
“No, I’m serious.” She held up the compass again. “We can use this to find him. It can find anything. And we have the book. Jake, you can turn him back into a tree.”
All eyes were on Jake now.
“Maybe.” He spoke slowly, his eyes distant. “But, look, it’s not as easy as you make it sound. The book’s getting harder and harder for me to use. It’s like it’s wearing me down.”
“You got any better ideas?” Sophie asked.
Logan frowned at her across the room. “Kinda mouthy for someone who may have gotten us all killed.”
It was quiet in the room for a long moment. Finally, Jake said, “Sophie, come with me. Nate, go warn the others. Logan, you’re in charge of the defense here.”
“Wait, you can’t go off with her,” Logan said. “We can’t trust her after what she did.”
“All the more reason to keep her with me.”
“Then let me come with you. You need someone to watch your back.”
Jake put a hand on her shoulder. “Our son needs you here. I’ll be okay. If all goes well, we’ll be back in no time.”
Logan reluctantly agreed.
Jake dropped to one knee and gave Mason a tight hug. Then he stood and headed for the door. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to; Sophie was right on his heels.
Sophie followed him, working her way through the group. When she was almost at the door, she felt a shoulder bump against her. She looked up and saw Taylor.
She froze, returning his gaze with an icy one of her own. From a certain perspective, all this trouble was his fault. She’d done it all, all the stupid mistakes and missteps, so she could bring him to justice. If she’d succeeded, at least she’d have something to show for this mess she’d made. And here he was, scowling at he
r, alive and free.
But maybe it didn’t have to be that way. Maybe she’d been over-complicating this all along. He was standing right there, his shoulder touching hers. And there was a knife hanging from her belt. A knife she was not unskilled in using. She could finish this right here and now.
He squinted at her as if reading her thoughts. “Don’t you think you’ve caused enough trouble already?”
“Sophie!”
She looked up and saw Jake at the door, glaring back at her.
“Let’s move.”
She nodded and followed Jake, not daring to look back at Taylor, afraid she wouldn’t be able to control her knife if she did. She marched toward the door.
They were about to exit the building when the attack started.
2. Rook Mountain
At first, Wendy hadn’t understood what she was seeing when she spotted the three men.
She’d gone to Sean’s house, just as his text had asked. She’d parked across the street and gotten out of her car. Then she saw three men come out of his house. In the darkness, she only recognized one of them. Sean. He was carrying the hammer. The other two appeared to be teenagers. They were leading Sean down the sidewalk at gunpoint.
It had to be the Zed Heads.
She slipped quietly back into her car and fished her cell phone out of her purse. She dialed 911 and told the operator Officer Lee had been taken hostage and that she was following the perpetrators. The operator had urged her to stay calm and to keep her distance.
Wendy followed the car when it left Sean’s house, staying on the line with the 911 operator the whole time. When they reached downtown and pulled over, Wendy knew exactly why they had picked this location. She politely relayed the address and hung up the phone over the operator's protests.
She didn’t care. She wanted to get closer. She needed to know what was happening. So she exited her vehicle and trotted around the block to the closest corner to the Zed Heads, where she’d be able to see them and even hear some of what they said while still being able to hide when the need arose.
She watched them, peeking out around the corner as far as she dared. At one point, she was almost certain Sean saw her, but she didn’t think the rest of them did. She tapped her foot nervously as she waited. The police would be arriving any minute, but would it be soon enough?
Then Sean hit the tree with the hammer, and a beam of white light poured out of it. And the next thing she knew, Colt was screaming.
She couldn’t help it. The responsible adult in her, the part that had been a school teacher for fifteen years, the part that held her genetic wiring to protect children, was too strong. She ran around the corner toward the scream.
Grant raised his gun and fired at the creature attached to his friend’s face. The bullet ricocheted off the thing, and Wendy gasped. Whatever the creature was, it was apparently bulletproof.
Wendy’s eyes frantically scanned each of the kids, making sure the bullet hadn’t hit anyone. Everyone but Colt appeared unharmed.
She stopped five feet away from Colt, halted by the gruesome sight. A strange black ball covered with two-inch spikes was embedded in the upper half of his face. His mouth was uncovered, leaving his scream of pain and terror unmuffled. The upper half of his face, including his eyes and nose, had to be ruined. The strange ball was wedged too deeply and too much blood poured out around it.
The ball gave a quick shudder and let out a tiny squeak. Wendy had the nauseating realization this thing was alive.
Colt reached up and grabbed the thing with both hands and pulled, trying to get it off. It didn’t budge, but Wendy could see from the way the muscles on Colt’s arms stood out that he was pulling hard. Suddenly, the spikes covering the creature grew an inch longer. Colt’s screams started anew as the spikes impaled his hands and, Wendy had to assume, dug deeper into his face.
The group of teenagers was frozen with horror and revulsion. Sean took a hesitant step toward the boy, his hand raised. What exactly he intended to do, Wendy didn’t know.
As he was still reaching out, a sudden noise filled the air, and the hairs on the back of Wendy’s neck stood on end. Her first thought was, the Unfeathered, but this was something else. This song came from a dozen places at once. This song had words.
“Why have you brought the little one to this place? This bad, bad place.”
“What the hell is that?” Sean whispered.
She followed his gaze up the street, hoping to see police cars. Instead, she saw a large black mass swirling through the sky. She squinted at it, trying to make out some form in its ever-changing mass. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw it was moving toward them.
The mass suddenly jumped fifty feet backwards in a second. It paused and began moving toward them once again.
“This is a bad place,” the many voices repeated. Somehow they seemed like they were coming from everywhere at once. “You shouldn’t have brought the little ones here.”
Colt’s screams had mellowed into a series of agonized moans. Two of the Zed Heads ran over to help him. The rest of them had their eyes on the black shape.
“Little ones?” Sean asked. “What are they talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Wendy said. “But I think we need to get out of here, like right now.” There was a tickle in the back of her mind, as if she were missing something. The voices had said ‘little one’ the first time. The second time they’d said ‘little ones’.
Suddenly, it clicked. She looked down and had to suppress a scream. One of the round creatures was on the ground near Sean’s feet. It was quivering and drawing in on itself, making itself smaller.
“Sean, look out!” she yelled.
He turned in the direction she was pointing and then yelped and jumped back. But he wasn’t fast enough. The creature launched into the air, its spikes extending as it went, spinning in a crazy spiral toward Sean’s face.
He swung the hammer wildly and somehow managed to hit the creature mid-air. Wendy had no idea how he did it. He must have been operating on pure instinct. When he connected, a loud snapping sound split the air.
The creature fell to the ground and lay still.
Wendy squinted at it. “Sean, look. You cracked it.”
A long jagged crack zigzagged down the side of it. As they watched, the crack grew wider, then wider still.
“You don’t think—” Sean said, but he never got to finish the thought. The creature cracked in half like an egg. Something slipped out of the shell and glided into the air. It was like a shadow, and its form shifted and flowed like water as it moved skyward.
“What the hell is that thing?” one of Zed Heads asked.
Wendy shot the kid a look. “You idiots brought us out here. You tell us.”
The shadow creature spun around them haphazardly.
“A new voice for the song!” The black swarm moving toward them was going faster now, and there was excitement in their voices.
The shadow creature made a tentative, soft try of its voice. “Hurts...time hurts.”
The other voices answered quickly. “Do not try to speak alone, little one. Join the song. Join and we will take you to a place with no time. A good place that does not hurt.”
Still the solo shadow spun and wobbled through the air.
Wendy realized Colt was still whimpering. He’d fallen to his knees now. His hands were still impaled on the creature’s spikes. The tattoo on the back of his right hand had a spike sticking through the middle of it. His friends looked on helplessly.
Wendy said, “Sean. Use the hammer.”
A crooked smile grew on Sean’s face. “I’ve wanted to hit that kid with a hammer for a while now.”
He swung and connected dead center. Colt let out his loudest scream yet, and Wendy felt a twinge of sympathy. That couldn’t have felt good. The creature split down the middle, and Colt groaned as the shadow creature wormed its way out.
“Hurts,” the new arrival said. “It all hurts.”
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The two halves of the shell fell off Colt’s face. Wendy had to look away from the mess of puncture wounds and oozing liquids that had once been his eyes and nose. The boy fell to the ground, moaning.
Suddenly, another sound split the air. A sound that made Wendy’s heart soar. Sirens.
Two police cars skidded around the corner five blocks away and sped toward them. Wendy wasn’t exactly sure why the sight made her so happy. After all, what exactly were a few cops going to do against the abominations that were circling overhead? Or the mass of black shapes coming out of the hole in the tree?
She didn’t know. But the normalcy of police answering the call, of officers of truth and justice coming to her aid, made her feel better. Of course, she’d had an officer of the law here with her the whole time, and he was doing a mighty nice job with that hammer.
But the police cars weren’t the only ones racing toward them. The dark mass of clouds had almost reached them now. “We can help, little ones. We will stop the pain.”
“Officer Lee!” one of the Zed Heads shouted, pointing at the door in the tree.
Wendy glanced down. Three more of the creatures had slipped through onto the pavement while they had been distracted.
“Damn it!” Sean shouted. He swung his hammer, striking the three creatures in quick succession. Soon three more moaning shadow creatures were slipping out of their shells and rising up to join their brothers.
The black mass was circling now, and the voices were still singing. “We will help you. We will stop the pain.”
The discordant newborn shadow creatures were singing too. “It hurts. The seconds hurt. They bite as they pass.”
Then Wendy noticed something even stranger than the creatures above her. The pitch of the police sirens was lowering. She stared at the police cars, and she could have sworn they were traveling much slower than before. Barely moving, actually.
The breath caught in her throat. “They’re stopping time. These creatures are taking us back out of time.”
“No, no, no,” Sean said. Four more of the round creatures had passed through the gate. Sean went at them one by one. The sky over their heads darkened as the number of shadow creatures grew, blotting out the moon and the stars.