Burn

by G E Hathaway

He shook her hard. “That name. What was the name?”

  Her head bounced against the rocks again and she saw red bursts of light across her vision. “Talisa!” she yelled.

  He released her. “It can’t be.” He backed away from her, still holding the torch high overhead. “Talisa.” He spoke the name with a strange guttural accent. “No. It’s not possible. She is here?”

  Ellie couldn’t answer. She tried to roll away, but he ignored her. He started to pace the cavern, the shadows shifting with his movement.

  “She is here...the Darkness cannot have her-... must have her...stop her...keep her from...she cannot...it kills...I have to!”

  He reached a resolution. To Ellie’s horror he began to walk away, the torchlight fading with him into the distance.

  “No, stop-” she started to yell, but then the man cried out in pain and the torch clattered against stone.

  Noah grabbed his legs and wrestled him to the ground. The torchlight illuminated a confusing scene of flying limbs and rolling bodies. Ellie rolled over and sat up. Her head throbbed, her vision still blurry, but she could see the torch. She could reach it. She crawled across the stone floor and her fingers closed around the wooden shaft. To her horror, the man had Noah pinned against the floor. She screamed, and the man looked up at her. His eyes shimmered in the light.

  “You weren’t alone at the train station,” he said, and his voice chilled her to the bone. “Your friends are down there.”

  His face began to change.

  Just like in the car, she watched his features flicker, shifting in shape to find his new identity. Even his body and clothes changed, shrinking slightly in stature until he was a different person entirely.

  Noah’s face stared back at her.

  “What the hell?” said Noah from the ground.

  The man scrambled off of him and made a desperate grab for the torch. Ellie pulled it out of reach and Noah gripped him around the ankles.

  “Keep him down!” Ellie shouted. She prepared to swing, the torch hanging heavily in her hands, but it was too late. The man with the stolen face kicked Noah hard and Noah released him. He rolled to his feet and sprinted down the tunnel, his footsteps scraping loudly against the stone and fading into the distance.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Now

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” Liam said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the man with Noah’s face.

  “You had me fooled for a little bit, but your facade has cracks in it. You may look like Noah, but you're nothing like him.”

  The man with Noah’s face shook his head, hands still raised in the air. He was on his knees now. “I think the heat’s getting to you Liam. You're going crazy. We should be finding Talisa.”

  “What about Ellie?”

  “Of course Ellie too, I just meant-”

  “How’d you know Talisa would be up here? The Darkness. I thought you sounded strange back at the train station. How did you know the Darkness was up here? Who are you?”

  Noah held out his hands, fingers caked in dried blood. Liam had to marvel at how exactly he looked like his roommate. Same blue eyes, messy brown hair, bandages wrapped loosely around his throat. He even had the same scar above his left eyebrow, a remnant from a childhood accident involving his younger sister and a metal toy airplane. “Wait a minute, let’s just talk about this-”

  Liam tightened his grip and sweat beaded down the side of his face. “What’s my last name?”

  “What?”

  “Better yet, what’s your last name?”

  Noah laughed in disbelief. “This is ridiculous-”

  The gunshot echoed across the valley and Noah jerked back. He looked down in surprise. For an awful second Liam wondered if he had guessed wrong. He watched Noah touch his shoulder and pull away bright red fingertips. He wavered slightly on his feet.

  “You shot me,” Noah said in amazement.

  Liam lowered the gun. Each passing second stretched by with agonizing slowness as he stared into Noah’s eyes. Fear and self-doubt begin to blossom in his stomach.

  Then Noah smiled, and it wasn’t a smile Liam had ever seen on him before.

  “I thought Talisa would be with you,” he said, his voice raspy and thick with an unrecognizable accent. “Butt she had already left.”

  “Where’s Noah and Ellie?” Liam demanded.

  “They’re lost to the Darkness.”

  “What about Talisa?”

  The man with Noah’s face curled his lips, revealing pointed teeth. “You don’t know what she is, do you?” The man lowered his hands to his side. Blood dripped down his arm and onto the dirt. “She is the giver of life, the reason things flourish in this barren wasteland. She is the mother of all children, and we are nothing but her offspring.” He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw. “And she must be stopped.”

  He sprang. The gun clattered to the ground and Liam let out a strangled cry. The man was biting him, teeth sinking into flesh at his shoulder. He shoved him as hard as he could and they both fell back against the car.

  Liam had fought Noah only once before during their early days in the barrio, and it was to keep Noah from chasing after a Tucson King for stealing his copper wires. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against them, and it wasn’t worth sparking a retaliation. It hadn’t been hard for Liam to pin Noah down. He was inexperienced and didn’t really want to fight. It was more his anger that Liam had to help restrain.

  This man was not Noah. He fought like an animal, twisting and jabbing with frightening speed, scratching at his arms and face with his long nails. Liam grabbed his GridGun from its holster and whipped him hard across the face. The man fell back, and Liam punched him squarely in the nose. He hit the ground.

  “Don’t get up,” Liam warned.

  Noah’s face flickered and changed, and his body grew larger, his features shifting until he looked like someone else entirely. A stranger knelt before him, tall and broad chested with long, scraggly hair and emaciated arms and legs.

  “What the hell…”

  Then the man ran for the cave entrance, leaving a trail of blood in the dust. Liam scrambled to pick up his gun and flashlight, and chased after him.

  * * *

  “Noah…”

  Noah drifted in and out of consciousness for a long time, hovering between reality and lucid dreams. Memories replayed themselves over and over. He was consoling Ellie in the hideout, arguing with Liam in the train station and fighting the fire monster in his house. He felt the heat from the flames on his skin, then the refreshing raindrops from the storm.

  “Please get up.”

  He opened his eyes.

  Nothing had changed. He could still see parts of the cavern walls by torchlight, flickering softly in the dark. The air was still and quiet and comfortably cool. Noah slowly did a mental inventory of his injuries. Possible concussion. Burns on his throat. Cracked ribs. Pain everywhere. He had an overwhelming urge to go back to sleep, but he fought it and opened his mouth instead.

  “Ellie?” his voice cracked. He swallowed hard. His throat was dry.

  “I’m here.” Her voice floated in the void. She moved closer, and he realized she was holding the fire. Warmth radiated overhead as she stood over him. He felt her fingers wrap around his cold hand.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I feel heavy,” she admitted.

  “You need to stay awake.”

  She’ll sleep forever.

  He shook away the thought, not sure where it had come from.

  “No, I’m not sleepy,” Ellie said quietly. “The air is heavy. It’s pushing down on me and I can’t think straight.” She paused, and when she spoke again he could hear a twinge of fear in her voice.“Is the dark a living thing?”

  “What?”

  “That man said he was a prisoner, that he couldn’t resist It. I think It made him crazy. Do you think It was the d
ark?”

  He carefully pushed himself to a sitting position and leaned heavily against the stone wall. “Don’t think too much into it, crazy people say crazy things.”

  She shook her head and he could see the worry on her face in the flickering light. “No. You’ve been asleep for a long time. At least an hour. I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to wake up, and I’m starting to feel like my mind is melting.”

  He looked at her closely. She sat hunched against the wall, her knees tucked under her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. She held the torch in one hand. The bandages around her feet had unraveled, revealing scabbed toes. She wouldn’t look at him.“You’ve been sitting here, alone, for the last hour?” he asked. Even with the flame, the darkness pressed suffocatingly on top of them. No wonder she was panicking.

  Her chin trembled, and she nodded.

  “Okay. We’re getting out of here.”

  “You’re in hardly the shape.”

  “It will only get worse the longer we stay.” He pushed against the wall for support and climbed to his feet. The room spun and he closed his eyes briefly. “If we can get near the exit, maybe Liam can hear us.”

  “That man went back for Liam,” Ellie reminded him. “We don’t know-”

  “Liam will be okay,” Noah insisted, more for his own benefit than for hers. She stood beside him, still gripping tightly onto his hand. He suddenly became strangely hyper aware of the smoothness of her skin, the muscle flexing and stretching underneath. His own skin tingled at the intimacy, but something else lingered there. Something...primal. Something wrong. Was this what Ellie had been feeling?

  “After you,” he mumbled. He could feel every bruise in his body with each step.

  Ellie slowly led them through an opening in the rock wall and down a narrow corridor. Noah had to hunch to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling. Ellie hesitated a few times whenever she came across multiple corridors, carefully considering their options before choosing a direction. Before long the ground began to steadily slope upward.

  “This might be it,” she said, her voice sounding hopeful. “We didn’t have to travel long in the first place-”

  They turned the corner and the path came to a dead end.

  “No.” Ellie pushed against the smooth stone surface.

  “It’s okay, we’ll double back and try again,” Noah said, trying hard to keep his voice light and relaxed. “Come on.” He led her back down the corridor, twisting and turning until they found the next opening. They took it. “We’ll get out of here in no time, don’t worry-”

  Kill her.

  He blinked, startled at the thought.

  Bash her head against the rocks.

  He shook his head and kept walking, his grip slightly loosening on Ellie’s hand. He felt a growing sense of dread.

  Just do it. Grab the torch from her. She’ll never get out. Leave her to rot in the cave.

  “I don’t feel so good, Noah,” Ellie said from behind him.

  He had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. He started walking faster to outrun the intrusive thoughts but they followed him like a dark cloud.

  It would be so easy to kill her now. While she’s confused.

  Stop it. Stop. I don’t want to do that. What’s wrong with you?

  “Noah, are you okay?” She was struggling to keep up with his pace now.

  “I’m fine,” he said quickly. He didn’t slow down. He found another opening in the tunnel and turned into it.

  Don’t you want to know what her insides look like?

  “No!” Noah shouted, and his voice startled him. He hadn’t meant to speak out loud. Ellie yanked her hand from his grip.

  She’s so trusting. She wouldn’t fight you much-

  “Noah, stop!”

  He turned to look at her. “What?”

  She was sobbing. “Do you hear yourself?”

  Oh no. He hadn’t realized he’d been speaking out loud.

  Dread filled the pit of his stomach. “It’s okay, Ellie, there’s nothing to worry about.” He tried to take her hand, but she had already stepped out of reach. She brandished the torch like a weapon between them. Her eyes shimmered with tears.

  “I never should have gotten in the car with you,” she sobbed.

  “I’m sorry,” Noah said, and he meant it. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t mean any of it I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

  Kill her. Twist her throat.

  Ellie flinched, and Noah realized that he had been speaking the thoughts out loud. He looked at her, horrified.

  “Ellie, please run away.”

  She backed away slowly, but not fast enough.

  “Ellie, run away!”

  His voice magnified off the stone walls, and she sprinted back down the tunnel. He watched her fade away into the distance, a glowing ball of golden light. His chest heaved as he tried to keep out the thoughts, fists clenched painfully at his sides. The darkness pressed against him. He gasped for air.

  She’s getting away. You’re missing your chance.

  He shook his head, but he could feel something feral move up from his chest and through his throat, and he let out a low, guttural growl.

  Then he lost control.

  His vision turned into a blur of black and yellow, the light serving as a beacon for his prey. He moved instinctually with newly acquired ease. Blood pounded in his ears. He could hear panting, but it wasn’t his own.

  He could hear Ellie.

  There was panic in her breath, and as the light drew nearer, he realized he wasn’t just seeing the flame. Heat emanated from her skin, a faint orange glow that indicated life. Then he was on top of her. She screamed. It excited him.

  He needed to rip her open, sink his teeth into her, taste her-

  Pain exploded on the side of his head. Ellie faced him now, holding the torch like a baseball bat, eyes wild with fright.

  He looked at her, confused.

  “Ellie-”

  “Don’t come near me!” she shrieked. There were scratches on her arms. He’d put them there.

  He wavered on his feet, feeling strange.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know why…”

  The feeling came again from his stomach, moving into his chest and up through his throat like a crazed animal. An insatiable urge to destroy. He moved toward her, hands outstretched.

  “No!” She swung the torch again.

  Then he saw nothing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Talisa felt Its presence the moment they drove into Vail.

  She observed the invisible black cloud resting over the region like a harbinger of death. She saw Its presence in the vacant houses, the empty streets, the decaying buildings. Something had come up from under the earth. Darkness had claimed the town, and there was no one left.

  Liam, Noah, and Ellie had brought her here, but she couldn’t let them go further. The risk was too great.

  She waited until long after they’d fallen asleep, Liam and Noah stretched out in the train station and Ellie bundled in the car, before climbing down from the railcar and heading up the mountain toward the cave entrance. The journey lasted several hours on foot. She listened for the gentle hum of desert night sounds, but there were none. No movement in the underbrush. No signs of owls or bats in the night sky. Darkness had consumed any remaining life in the valley, leaving behind an eerie silence that pressed unnaturally against her ears.

  By the time she reached the cave entrance, Darkness had felt her presence too, and It was waiting for her.

  Talisa walked past the aged barricades and signs warning away trespassers and plunged into the cave. She needed no light to guide her way. She would go as deep into the earth as she could.

  Hours passed. She followed man-made corridors that wound around sinkholes and climbed cliff edges. The air was cool and dry. Finally, she arrived in a large cavern at the end of the t
rail and she knew she had reached her destination. Even in the pitch black she could see huge rock formations hanging from the overhead ceiling. But in here, the rocks seemed to quiver with anticipation. With life.

  She sat down in the center of the room, held her hands in the air, and closed her eyes. Time dissolved as she prayed, waiting patiently for an audience. The silence pressed down on her, feeding her thoughts, filling her head.

  A memory flashed in her mind.

  “The rules have changed,” the man said, looming over her as the sandstorm swirled around them. “Here I am, more powerful than ever. And you? Now you’re just a girl.”

  She flinched.

  She had very little memory from before that morning. The Circle K was the first building she had come across as she traveled through the desert surrounded by saguaros and palo verde trees, the sandstorm looming behind her. Then she saw his face appear in the wreckage, and she felt a fear she hadn’t felt in a long time. In an instant, she knew what he planned to do to her, and she knew she wouldn’t survive if he succeeded.

  You come to me.

  The voice was faint in her mind. A mere thought that she might have mistaken as her own.

  Talisa spoke aloud in the ancient language. “I need your help.”

  A god as powerful as you needs help from me?

  Talisa could sense Darkness’ mockery, and she chose a different tactic. “How long have you been awake?”

  I’ve been awake for centuries, and I grow more powerful still. The humans sensed me. They tried to keep others from entering the cave. But now I don’t need to wait for them.

  “Why?”

  The Fall. When the Grid went offline, we were released. I can lure anyone here now.

  “Is the Fall why I am awake?”

  You are not the only one the Fall has awakened.

  “That is why I’ve come here seeking you. I need your protection.”

  Against?

  Talisa thought of the confrontation in the sandstorm and spoke his name, and she felt the cave shudder all around her.

  You do not know what you are asking for.

  “Your protection will keep him from me.”

  All these years, and he still seeks you out.