by Joseph Lallo
“What are you saying?”
The hunters moved back. The alpha male barked, and they continued past the standing undead and left the cavern.
We have done what was asked of us. We have released her. I would have rather eaten the flesh, but that command will not be given.
The alpha male trotted by Samuel and around the undead. The wolf stopped in the tunnel and looked back at Samuel.
He that commands will fulfill the contract and release us from the grips of the reversion. The other beasts, they seem to be destined to be eaten by the cloud.
The alpha male stared at him for another second before turning and disappearing into the darkness of the cave.
Samuel looked at the horde. The creatures inside the cavern remained in their animated sway. He clawed at the dirt, dragging his injured leg behind as he crawled next to Mara, whose breathing came in ragged gasps. The wolves had torn ragged chunks from her arms and legs, which bled openly.
“I’m going to save you,” he said.
Mara smiled, even as he recoiled at the sight of her wounds.
“I’ll last longer than you think. The reversion. It slows even death.”
Samuel smiled, his face contorting between sadness and pity.
“Deal with the horde.”
Samuel took her hand and looked up at the sentinels standing in the cavern, their lifeless orbs staring back at them both.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Mara winced, trying to staunch the flow of blood with strips of fabric ripped from her pants.
“I need help. You know things about this locality, this place.”
“It’s time,” she said as the creatures came toward them.
***
Samuel slid his left arm underneath Mara’s right arm and she grabbed his shoulder as they both hobbled on injured legs. With his right, he grabbed a crooked stick from the ground to use as a club. Samuel took a deep breath as he felt the blood pulsing in his ears.
“This is the only way,” he said.
“Go on,” she said, gritting through the pain.
The first thirty feet through the passage proved to be the most difficult as Samuel tried to keep his balance. A creature appeared occasionally, arms outstretched, until Samuel would strike it with the club. He struggled to climb the rising incline of the passage while supporting Mara. He shifted as best he could, but their pace was slow at best.
When he reached the first intersection inside the mountain, Samuel glanced back at the horde behind him. New arrivals came through the tunnels at a trickle, giving him time to strike and then step over them.
“Hurry,” Mara said. “Not much time left.”
Samuel moved forward into the tunnel that led upward toward the surface of the locality. Samuel thought about that, and wondered what good it would do to race to the surface of a world about to be demolished by the reversion. Before his rational mind could answer, he took more steps toward the surface.
He let the club swing next to his right leg as he climbed through the tight passages. Samuel turned several times, Mara slowing with each step. When he reached another tunnel, Samuel stopped. He let Mara slide to the ground, careful to keep a hand near the back of her head to prevent it from striking the stone wall. He placed his hands on his knees and drew as much air into his lungs as he could. Before Samuel stood, he heard a rotten voice speaking as if from the grave.
“Our last stand is here. We cannot let you pass.”
***
Samuel gazed at the form slathered in darkness. The voice felt different, yet it retained a familiar timbre. With another glance at Mara, he stepped forward, gripping the makeshift weapon in his hand. The color fell from her face as more of her life bled from the wounds. The entity stepped to the side and into the glow cast by the cave. Samuel shook his head and wondered how long the ambient light would last as the reversion bore down. With a quick glance, he looked at Mara’s wounds, which appeared deeper and more serious than his own.
“You remember?” the form asked.
“We spoke of ahimsa, moksha and rebirth. On the edge of the marsh,” Samuel said.
The creature nodded and stepped closer.
“The reversion has exhausted the horde, broken them down. You will not need that any longer.”
Samuel looked to his hand holding the club and then back over his shoulder at Mara.
“Nothing will attack her,” the creature said, following Samuel’s eyes.
“You’re different.”
“Than you?”
“Yes. But different from the horde, too,” Samuel said. “You speak with more authority in your voice, more experience.”
“Maybe you hear that as less threatening. I came to you in the marsh to try to explain the universe, or as much of it as you could comprehend. The others—” The creature waved a hand in the air. “The others are bound by their duty, their dharma.”
The last word hung in the air, and Samuel felt the familiar twinge of memory. He thought back to his conversation with this entity.
“Aren’t you, as well?”
“Yes, but not the same dharma.”
The creature stepped closer and motioned for Samuel to sit on a wide, flat rock near the wall of the cave. He looked at the opening and then back to the rock.
“It is swallowing what’s left as we speak. You are free to run into that if you so desire.”
Samuel shook his head and sat down.
“Some call it the path of righteousness, but I find that misleading. It has nothing to do with right or wrong, only duty.”
“What can I call you?”
A smile burst upon the creature’s face, contorting it into a grin reserved for Halloween jack-o’-lanterns.
“You may call me Deva.”
Samuel nodded, waiting for Deva to continue.
“The Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, they all incorporated dharma into their belief systems, but it is much more ancient than that. Those in the West liked to call it fate, but even that is a misnomer.”
Mara groaned and turned her head. She was sitting, but her eyes were now closed. Samuel stood, looking at her and then back at Deva.
“She will not worsen while we speak.”
“What about her condition after?” Samuel asked.
“That is why we’re speaking,” Deva said. “Please sit back down.”
Samuel did so, wringing his hands.
“There is a natural order of things, an ŗta. Your dharma corresponds to this order. In your case, and in hers,” Deva said, nodding toward Mara, “you must answer to it.”
“Of course the Hindus used moksha to reinforce the caste system, which put thousands of people into the gutters of their cities, but the idea behind moksha was you would be rewarded for pursuing your own dharma.
“In the Rig Veda, the teachings claim that dharma is not just law or harmony, but it is pure reality. ‘Verily, that which is dharma is truth’.”
Samuel watched Deva smile again, as if his own words began to reawaken a lost humanity inside.
“What does this have to do with me? With the reversion?”
Deva nodded, feeling chastised for his own intellectual indulgence. “Your dharma includes the woman, as well as the man you sent through the portal. Until you deal with both of these souls, your dharma will not be fulfilled.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with either of them,” Samuel said.
“Neither do I,” Deva said.
Samuel stood and kicked at the limestone powder coating the cavern floor. He put his hands over his head and rested them on top.
“Major’s gone,” he said.
“He’s coming back” Deva said.
“What about the horde?”
“They were to bring you to this moment, this place. That is why they no longer serve the locality.”
“The alpha male and his hunters too?”
<
br /> Deva shook his head but did not elaborate.
“When the moment arrives, you will fulfill your dharmic responsibility, or you will be reborn in the cycle tied to your fate. It is how the universe will be. It is how it has always been.”
Samuel felt the blood rush to his face. He dug his nails into his palms.
“That doesn’t explain shit.”
“Who owes you an explanation?”
The question knocked Samuel askew, like a punch to the jaw.
“Then there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason for you and me to be talking.”
Samuel turned his back on Deva and walked toward Mara.
“There is one more thing.”
Samuel stopped and looked over one shoulder. Deva waited, unmoving. Samuel turned and came back to stand in front of the undead creature.
“The old man. Major. He will return soon, and if you do not defeat him, your soul will be lost to this locality, destroyed by this reversion.”
“I thought I already did that. I dropped him through the portal and shut it.”
Deva shook his head.
“His dharma binds him to this locality, like you. He is coming back, and you must face him.”
Samuel spotted the club on the ground and reached for it. Deva kicked at it, the stick clanking off the rocks as it skittered into a dark recess.
“You’ll need a weapon with dharmic power. That will not suffice against the man.”
Samuel waited, anticipating more from Deva.
“We are bound, Samuel. Our forces have unresolved energy that will carry through this cycle.”
Samuel stood, trying to decipher Deva’s cryptic speech. Before he could ask a question, Deva extended his arm. Samuel saw the strips of fabric and flesh dangling from the bone.
Deva turned his palm upward and opened his hand. There, glistening in the reflected light, sat the Scout, the knife Samuel buried in his father’s coffin, and the one that returned briefly to this locality. He grabbed it from Deva’s palm and then bowed.
Chapter 16
Mara heard Samuel speaking as if he were under water. She identified a second voice, but couldn’t recognize it. Her body ached, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep, but the pain would not allow it. She listened to the cadence and rhythm of the conversation without comprehending it.
The cave began to take on a shimmering light. She felt an energy pulsing through the rock and running through her entire body. It wasn’t until she opened her eyes that she recognized the power.
The floor opened like the gaping maw of a fantastic beast. The darkness swirled about the portal like water pulled down a drain. The image in front of her resurrected long-lost lectures in science class about dark matter and black holes, immense voids that would not allow anything to escape gravitational pull.
She tried to scream, to warn Samuel, but the force burrowing through the floor of the cave stole her words. She writhed in pain, moaning in a vain attempt to attract his attention.
Mara pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her head felt light and unstable, as if it could roll off her shoulders at any time. She squinted at the cave entrance until two forms materialized in her vision. After blinking, one remained, and it moved toward her. She could feel Samuel’s presence at the same time the black hole continued its rapid expansion inside the cave.
The water flowing down the cave walls stopped and dried. Chunks of stalactite broke free from the hidden ceiling and crashed down to the floor like arrows of stone. The entire cave moved as if shaken by an unseen hand. Even the ambient light in the cavern pulsed and faded as if a malevolent force worked to extinguish what meager warmth it provided. The floor of the cave thrummed, and Mara caught a whiff of sulfur so overpowering in the sensory deprivation of the locality that it caused her to dry heave. Her ears detected a hum that increased in intensity until it became nothing but a wall of excruciating sound threatening to split her skull in two. She grimaced and placed her hands over her ears while rolling in the dirt. Mara wished for the pain to end as the black hole expanded. The edge crawled closer to her corner of the subterranean room. Mara passed out. Samuel stood, his feet riveted, as the portal ejected a man from within.
“’Sup, Sammyboy?” Major said.
Samuel looked at Mara and then back to Major. He stood on the edge of the portal, which danced with blue and purple light. The headband and overcoat remained intact, but Samuel thought Major looked tired, worn out. When he looked back to Deva, the creature was gone. Samuel felt the handle of the knife in his hand and knew it was not a reflection or a visual construct of the powers in the cave.
“You didn’t think pushing me through there was the end for ol’ Major now, did ya? I happened to land in a spot a little nicer than this one. Had me a talisman in the palm of my hand and now I’m back to get the most powerful one for myself, the one that’ll get me out of these damn reversions for good.”
“This isn’t about you,” Samuel said.
“Oh, I think it is. See, you tried offing me, boy. I’ve spent enough time around thugs and killers to know when that happens. You didn’t give me a Columbian necktie or a pair of concrete shoes, but you tried doing me just the same.”
“Mara is hurt bad. I don’t know what to do.”
“Fuck her and fuck you. I don’t really care what happens to you or your little girl. I need you to slip us both into a brandy-new locality before that cloud outside tears up this cave like it’s done everything else. Nobody I met here in this place got the mojo you do, boy.”
Samuel squinted and raised an eyebrow.
“Ah, you haven’t been outdoors in a while, have you? C’mon and take a look. I won’t bite,” Major said.
Major stepped away from the portal. Samuel looked at him and then back to Mara.
“Seriously. She’s as good as dead. You and I got unfinished business. Frankly, I don’t care what you do with her.”
Samuel nodded and walked toward the entrance to the cave as if he approached the edge of a city skyscraper roof. He felt the empty blackness before he reached the threshold.
Samuel remembered the military videos he had seen in his youth, the ones filmed in the American Southwest during atomic-bomb trials. This reminded him of that.
The cloud had lifted somewhat, which allowed a view of the landscape across the field, and all the way to the base of the mountain in the distance. Most of the trees lay on their sides, with gnarled root balls jutting from holes in the soil. The swaying wheat from the field lay flat like the massive crop circles that appeared in England. Even the mountain in the distance appeared bare, tired and lonely like a hunchbacked man waiting for death. Between the surface and the bottom of the cloud light hung, much like the light generated inside the cave. It gave Samuel enough to see the landscape, as if it were created with software for a child’s movie about fairy tales gone horribly wrong.
The movement inside the dark cloud coalesced into silvery streaks of motion that resembled serpents. Samuel thought all those ancient myths about flying, feathered snakes now seemed a bit less foolish. Silent lightning bounced between spots in the cloud, while the air felt heavy and still at the surface. Samuel scanned as far as he could see, but detected no life. The wolves were hiding or already eaten by the cloud. The horde, along with Deva, did not show their faces if they even remained. Samuel regained a sliver of his sense of smell, although he wished he hadn’t. The dying world smelled and tasted like cold, wet cigarettes. As he stood, gazing upon a world that was never his, the cloud inched closer to them in a slow, methodical descent.
“The last phase. Seen it a few times, closer than I care to admit. Luckily we got you, so you and I can sell our front row seats to the shit-storm.”
Samuel turned and saw the spreading smile on Major’s face. He wanted nothing more than to pummel that look from his skull, but knew Major wouldn’t let that happen. He came back from the banishment in the portal, and he had knowledge about this that
Samuel did not.
“What happens when the final curtain comes down?”
“Not really sure,” Major said. “Heard some stories in other localities, but it’s always hard to verify. Not like someone’s gonna get video of it on their phone, right?”
The reference to the ordinary made Samuel wince. He thought about the phone, the television, the car, and all of the other supremely boring everyday items in his life. He wanted nothing more than to feel normal again. It was not the extreme high points he missed while being abandoned in this place, but the little stuff. He wondered if he would ever have that chance again. He dreamed about standing on a frost-covered driveway in the bright sun of a February morning. He smiled when picturing the brilliant green of the lawn in the first few weeks of spring. He could almost taste the bitter jolt of a hot cup of French roast coffee.
“You with me, pardner?”
Samuel nodded.
“I’d love to stand here and watch the world die like they sang about in that Everclear song, but I don’t want to go down the drain.”
The pop-culture reference was another dagger in Samuel’s heart. He remembered how much he missed his music, even the free stuff from friends.
“I’ll hear you out.”
“Damn straight. Not like I’m giving you a choice. I’m being a gentleman.”
Samuel huffed at Major’s self-proclamation.
“We both know you can open the portal. We both know you can slip, with my help. We both know there ain’t much time left before the cloud sucks this place dry. But only one of us knows the girl’s gotta be left behind.”
“I can’t do that,” Samuel said.
“You’re going to have to, son. I ain’t never seen someone slip more than one other person, and I sure as hell ain’t getting left behind.”
“So you’d leave her here to die?”
“She’s already dead, brother. Don’t ya get it?”
Samuel shook his head. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Where do you think you are? This ain’t Wyoming or Montana or some other heavenly wilderness.”
Mara moaned. Samuel looked at her and then back to Major.