Black Creek

by Dan Kemp

  The driver slammed his fist down on a button on the dashboard. At that, the rear doors of the van sprung open. Three raptors leapt from the back, their claws clicking loudly on the asphalt. There were screams from the people inside as the three dinosaurs spread out, tentative at first, then attacking. The popping of scattered small arms fire could be heard, along with the anguished screams of men and women from inside the compound.

  Skye clambered over the hood of the van and onto its roof, where she could observe the scene safely. Unlike the driver—who had crawled through the van and now sat casually at its back, legs hanging over the side and a rifle cradled in his arms—Skye would go nowhere near the vicious beasts. Below was carnage, streaks of red and bodies scattered across the parking lot. The raptors had disappeared inside the buildings. One more gunshot rang out somewhere, and then it was quiet.

  Skye whistled and got the attention of the driver, who looked up at her. She nodded toward the buildings without a word and he hopped up, striding forward into the parking lot and letting out a long, musical whistle of his own. Nothing happened for a moment, and he whistled again, this time with a more harsh tone.

  The three raptors sprinted out of two different buildings, skidding to a stop near the driver and nipping and chirping at each other. He shouted at them, a wordless grunt, and two seemed to be cowed, dropping into a slight kneel. The other was spinning in place, chirping and calling out. Skye noticed that blood dripped from one of its thighs. The driver whistled and pointed to the van, and the two leaptback inside. Skye had to steady herself as the van rocked beneath her.

  The hunter raised his rifle and fired at the other, a tranquilizer dart piercing its neck. After a moment it fell into a snoring daze, and Skye shut the van's doors with her foot before hopping down.

  "Is he alright?" she asked the driver, who knelt over the sleeping beast.

  "Clean shot through," he said, indicating the oozing wound through its thigh. "He'll be fine. I've barely got a hold on them most times. When they get hurt, they don't listen." He pulled a bandage wrap from his pack and began to roll it around the leg. Behind them, someone else was pulling the van away from the gate. Church members, all in rags, began filing through the gap. Skye and the raptor trainer were the only Chains among them.

  Some of them were tearing down the fences now, which fell to the ground with a creak and a crash.

  "Mistress," someone said behind her. She turned to face him.

  "What is it?"

  "There are some still alive."

  Skye found them inside an old burger restaurant. The interior was mostly unchanged, and it seemed to have served as a mess hall for the people who lived here. Some half-eaten meals still lay on some of the tables in the dining room, and a half-eaten woman was sprawled out near the door. Blood ran in a sticky pool across the entryway. The survivors had barricaded themselves in the stock room. She tried the door, which was locked.

  "Come out," she said.

  "No," came the simple reply.

  "You can open the door, and possibly survive, or you can remain in there and die. Believe me when I say I truly have no preference."

  A silent moment passed before the lock clicked. A burly Rag stepped past her and kicked the door in, emerging moments later dragging a man and woman with him. He threw them on the floor at Skye's feet. Two more male survivors soon joined them.

  "Who are you people?" one asked, the same man she had heard through the door.

  "We are the followers of James," she said.

  "What do you want?"

  She crouched down to his height, her chains clinking on the floor. "I want you to stop wasting the gift James gave you." He stared at her blankly, without a shred of understanding on his face.

  Her smile dropped. "Our society was weak, corrupt, rotten to its core. We lived tedious, meaningless lives. We had no respect for what this world truly is, no perspective to appreciate true strength or sacrifice. So James took it all away. He gave us all a chance to start over. To achieve humanity's true potential. And you," she jabbed him hard in the chest with her finger. "You reject that gift. You try to rebuild what was broken. Why do you insult him?" She stood, her eyes scanning the captive survivors.

  "I watched it happen. On TV," another man said. "It wasn't any James. It was Martin Singh, he was just elected president. He gave a speech, and then he did this. I saw it with my own eyes."

  Skye wheeled on him, seized him up by his shirt. "You lie," she spat at him. He whimpered, fear in his eyes, and said nothing else. She let him drop to the floor.

  "These ones are beyond saving," she said, turning and walking back down the hall. "Kill them."

  "No, wait!" one of them men cried out.

  Skye turned back. "What?"

  "If what you're after is civilization, I can tell you about someplace better. We're nothing. I know about a place with electricity, houses, everything. Please just let us live."

  "I'm listening," Skye said.

  "Black Creek. It's on the south edge of Deep Creek Lake, not too far from here. I've been trying to get in for months."

  Skye nodded. "Thank you," she said, turning away from them once again, and their screams echoed after her as she went.

  ***

  Skye crept through the brush, dried leaves crunching underfoot as she picked her way between the thick trees and overgrown brambles. Night had just begun to fall, and a chill breeze was funneled through the forest. A lone cricket chirped somewhere nearby.

  The moon was climbing above the horizon when she emerged from the trees, a mile away from the place where she'd left her motorcycle after parting with the rest of the Church members. The still water of the lake was like a vast, dark mirror laid out before her. There was a gentle sloshing of water against the rocks on the shore nearby.

  The natural beauty of the place had been disturbed, though. On the far bank and off to her right, unnatural orange lights shone, mounted high on metal poles and illuminating the rock dam below.

  Even at this hour, men were working there, the sounds of their shouts and the reports of their hammers on rock and metal echoing across the lake. Though exposed from the direction of the water, tall, thick walls protected them from the sides. Behind the dam, the faint glow of more man-made light diffused over the tops of the trees.

  So the man hadn't been lying after all.

  Skye had scarcely believed the story until she saw it with her own eyes. She couldn't see inside those walls, but they were massive and covered a large area. It was plain enough to see they had an abundance of resources inside, and electricity to power it all. Thanks to the dam in this very lake, she could only imagine.

  The very existence of the place was an insult. As she watched the men working from afar, Skye seethed.

  She rode back to the Church alone, and by the time she arrived the slightest hint of light on the horizon suggested sunrise could not be far away. Though her master needed to hear of her discovery, he wouldn’t want to be disturbed at this hour. It could wait until morning, and Skye was exhausted. She made straight for her quarters and was asleep the instant her head hit the pillow.

  ***

  Skye dreamed of days not long past, though to her they seemed to be eons gone.

  "Welcome to the Church, Skye," the green-eyed Robe had said to her as she threw down her blade, moments after defeating the other prisoner.

  But there had been no welcome; there was only another room. The green-eyed man disappeared as quickly as he'd come, leaving Skye in a room with a dozen gray-ragged men and women, these ones numberless. On a table right near the door, only a tiny pocket knife.

  When she took the knife, examining its discolored brass handle, the others attacked.

  They came at her all at once, charging and howling at her unlike any human should. Not knowing what else to do, and without time to think, Skye whipped the knife out in an arc before her. In her dream, she could still see the face of that one man as he looked down, his bowels spilling out of his opened g
ut. Him trying in vain to hold them all in before he went pale and fell to the ground. And yet the others came for her still.

  Skye fought, stabbing and slicing with her tiny knife as fists, knees and elbows landed all across her body. Five or six of their number must lay dead or bleeding by now, but still they dragged her to the ground, nails clawing at her skin. Now it was all she could do to keep the knife beneath her and out of their hands.

  The blows continued to rain down upon her and her head was woozy, consciousness fading away from her. And then they were gone, simply disappeared along with the bodies of the dead, and the door opened behind her just as her vision went black.

  The next thing Skye remembered was a whip cracking across her back, and her screaming.

  "Good morning," came a voice, then another lash of the whip, cutting into her flesh.

  Some image was being projected across the wall before her but, without the energy to care, she let her head sag down. Her arms had been stretched out and tied to posts, leaving her on her knees dangling between, all the weight on her shoulders.

  Another lash, and Skye yelped with each hit. "Look up," the voice said, and Skye did, her eyelids heavy.

  She could barely hear the words as the man spoke about humanity, how it had grown weak in its contentment and luxury. How a once proud, noble species lost its way, and the time had come for a return to its natural ways. A world where only the strong would survive.

  "Are you strong?" the voice asked her, and she could only groan in reply. Skye had no idea how long all this must have gone on. Days, surely. Until suddenly the projected images disappeared and the lights came on once again. Her arms were freed, and Skye collapsed forward. Dirt stuck to her dry lips.

  Powerful arms rolled her onto her back, and in her blurry vision she could see a smiling man with bright green eyes leaning over her. He pressed his hands to her chest, and Skye felt all the pain begin to leave her body.

  When he was done, Skye sat upright. Her back no longer burned, and her head no longer swam and ached. The man laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'm James," he said.

  To Skye, coming out of that place felt like being reborn. The color of the sky, the sway of the trees, the caw of birds overhead was all a bit more sublime as she was led through the Church's headquarters for the first time.

  "We will not meet again for a long time," James told her before leaving her with the green-eyed Robe. "But remember everything you do is for, and with, me. I will be here for you."

  She was Chained. Where the Robes sat and thought, she would take action and fight. Each different, each an equally important part of their cause.

  The time since had been filled with training. Nearly every day she woke, spending her mornings exercising until she vomited, collapsed, or both. In the afternoons she trained with weapons, or sparred with others while her master watched. After a while, the training became less torturous. Whether the training had actually gotten easier, or she had just gotten used to it, Skye couldn’t be sure.

  She hadn’t seen James again since, his lair forbidden for her to enter, but his presence was always felt. As the days, months, went by she felt more and more at home here and those early, torturous days seemed to be no more than dreams.

  ***

  "Sister Skye."

  Her master was a slight but lean and muscular man. He sat on a red velvet rug, facing toward her as she entered his room. He was bare-chested, as all men of their order were, whereas Skye wore a plain white shirt tucked into her tan military-style cargo pants.

  "Master," Skye said, sitting down cross-legged across from him.

  "What news this morning?"

  "The compound is destroyed. A few survived our attack, but they were not fit to join us."

  "This is a shame," he said, crossing his wrists in front of him, his chains clanking together.

  "What became of them?"

  "They spoke very troubling lies. I had them killed."

  His reaction was subtle but, to her, clearly one of disapproval. The Church certainly didn’t shy away from slaughter, but the killing of helpless captives was not usually seen as a sign of strength among the Chained. Skye felt the need to defend herself.

  "They said that James was not our savior, that it was another by the name of Martin. I’m sorry for showing weakness, master, but I was enraged by their lies."

  There was a fury in his own eyes, which were an unnatural neon green, as well now. He rubbed at his forehead and the anger seemed to leave him. "I cannot truly blame you, Skye. You’re not the first to lose their temper in the face of such heresy. Still, we must remember that discipline is strength."

  "Yes, master."

  They were silent for a moment. The room was dimly lit by candles, the only light source available to them. The wind howled outside and the thin walls shuddered.

  "May I ask, master, you have heard these same lies before?"

  He nodded solemnly. "I have. As the Robes tell it, James teaches us of a great adversary. He has been known by many names, as James has himself, but today he is known as Martin. He claims false credit for the deeds of our leader, and his followers desire nothing other than to poison the holy name of James in the world."

  Rage was boiling in Skye's gut at the mention of this. "What can we do about them?"

  He smiled. "We fight them, when we can. But the greater battle is between James and Martin themselves. We will aid him in what small ways we can, but mortals such as you and I cannot stand against this adversary. Much as we might yearn to do so, James will not allow his loyal followers to throw their lives away in this fight. It is his alone."

  Not long after, she walked alongside her master down the dark and drafty hallway and then up some stairs where they emerged onto the open roof. They paced along the railing which overlooked the yard below, where a group of Rags were undergoing their morning training. Their Chained instructor barked out gruff orders, and his own bright green eyes could be seen from across the yard.

  Whereas the Robes might be considered the brains and the Chains the brawn, the Rags were the sheer manpower of the Church, be it for fighting or for menial labor. Those in crimson were true initiates, but ones without the aptitude for a higher calling. Those in gray were no more than prisoners. Their numbers were not so great, but still they easily outnumbered most these days.

  "You are doing very well, Skye. You still have much to learn, and much to teach others. But I am proud of your progress in these past months."

  "Thank you, master." She paused a moment, stopping where she stood. "There's something you should know."

  He turned to her, his swirling green eyes inquisitive.

  "No more than ten miles from here, they've built a city. Right under our noses. They have walls, and buildings, and electricity. These things I have seen with my own eyes. And if the stories are true, they have even worse things inside. They've completely rejected the gift. They call it Black Creek."

  He smiled, and nodded softly. "Yes, Skye. We know of this place."

  This answer hit her like a truck. She had never considered that the Church might already know of its existence. Otherwise, why would it still be allowed to stand?

  "But, it must be destroyed. Every day they are allowed to build is another insult to us, and to James."

  "We have tried, and failed. This is no ragtag band of survivors. They are well protected, and heavily armed." Seeing Skye's reaction, he went on. "Trust, Sister Skye. We will tear those walls to the ground before long. But it is no simple task."

  Skye forced down the bile that seemed to be rising in her throat. "Yes, master."

  "Your commitment is admirable. Patience will be rewarded." He rested a hand on her shoulder. "We'll speak later."

  "Does James know of it? Surely he would help."

  Her master hesitated before turning around. "James knows all. These are not his struggles to bear, but ours. Do not go to him."

  With that, he left her there on the roof. Skye was alone in the courtyard, the
training session below also having ended while they spoke. None of this sat well with her. Surely they could not intend to let this affront pass. Was this a test?

  Skye took the steps down off the roof two at a time, walking quickly across the camp. Finally, she descended a natural stone stairway which left her on the tiny shore of a small but peaceful lake. A cave opened up in the side of the cliff.

  The place had an eerie feel to it, just as it had the first time she'd seen it. James's sanctuary. A place forbidden to any who had not been summoned.

  A solitary torch burned along the base of the cliff face, and the mouth of the cave was like a black void. With just a moment's hesitation, Skye snatched the torch off of its mount and entered.

  A man sat inside, alone, at a small oak table. He read a book by the dim light of a single candle. A bookshelf sat against the wall behind him, and off to the side the cave curled away into the dark. He looked up as she entered. His hair was sleek and black, his eyes that same eerie green. He regarded her with a friendly face and a warm smile as he closed his book, marking his location before he did so.