The Black Farm

by Elias Witherow

  It was a sound, drifting across the rolling waters from the infinite night.

  Drums.

  Drums from the darkness, a deep ominous note that echoed into the empty ocean air.

  Boom…boom…boom…

  After a few moments, it died, leaving us in petrified silence.

  “What…the fuck…was that?” Kevin asked, sitting up, now completely awake.

  None of us moved and I felt Jess’s grip tighten around my waist. After a moment, it began again, off to right side of the raft, still distant.

  Boom…boom…boom…

  “Nick?” Trent croaked worriedly.

  “I…I don’t know…” I said softly, listening to the drums fade again.

  “Guys, we need to move,” Kevin said, shoving blankets away, that edge of panic back in his voice.

  “It sounds far away,” Jess whispered.

  I dug my oar into the water, faster now. “Trent, let’s go. I don’t want to find out what that is. I doubt it’s going to happy we’re here though.”

  Boom…boom…boom…

  “Fuck me,” Trent cried, voice shaking.

  Not knowing what else we could do, we continued on. An urgency spurred us to row faster, the drums sounding off to our right and then fading, only to start again a few moments later.

  A bead of sweat ran down my face as I pushed myself to dig deeper, go faster. I felt like the darkness we found ourselves in signaled something, it had to, good or bad. I wanted to find out what before whatever was out there found us.

  Claustrophobic minutes bled together and formed a scared stretch of time, the four of us pale faced and tense. The water splashed around our oars, the noise filled only by the steady beat of the drums. After a little while, I realized that the sound was fading.

  The intervals became more and more distant, the dull beat trailing behind the black horizon behind us. I slowly allowed myself a breath and slowed my frantic pace, my shoulder blazing. Jess sensed my pain and took my paddle without asking. I let her and shuffled to sit against the railing in front of her. I wiped sweat from my face and heard Trent and Kevin exchange duties across from me.

  “Jesus Christ,” Trent breathed, slumping back against the railing. “I wasn’t sure there for a second.”

  “We’re not out of it yet,” Jess said quietly. “I can still hear it.”

  “So can I,” Kevin agreed, “but it’s so far away now. I think we passed by undetected. What the hell was that?”

  “That’s not something I want to think about,” Trent said, fatigue filling his voice.

  We fell into silence for a while, the darkness pressing in around us. I could almost feel it, the black was so thick, almost like we were passing through an inky cloud. I tenderly placed a hand on my shoulder and winced as I felt it bleeding through the bandage.

  As time extended before us in the grim stillness, I began to feel sleepy. I rubbed my eyes and begged energy into my body. I didn’t want to fall asleep, not now when I might need to take action at any moment.

  And what the hell would you do exactly?

  I sighed.

  You’re stranded in the middle of an ocean, surrounded by eternal night and huge stone monsters. Not to mention whatever is playing that drum.

  “You asleep, Nick?” Trent asked softly, interrupting the steady pattern of the oars.

  “Yes,” I answered, “fast asleep and dreaming about the sun.”

  Trent snorted and I heard him uncap a water jug.

  “Guys…” Kevin said suddenly, “hey, guys, do you see that?”

  I felt my heart leap in my chest as I spun my head around. “What? See what!?”

  “I see it,” Jess said softly next to me. Her voice was tinged with…excitement.

  “Look!” Kevin said, voice cracking with joy. “Look in front of us! Up in the sky! Don’t you see it?”

  I cocked my head and squinted in the night, staring out over the water.

  I felt my breath seize in my throat and my eyes widened. Holy…shit.

  It was a sliver of golden light. Its long rays reached down from coal-smoke clouds and illuminated a patch of ocean a couple miles ahead of us like a spotlight.

  “No…way…” Trent whispered in awe.

  “What is it?!” Kevin cried. I could tell he was smiling.

  I stared at the light, the strange, beautiful rays spilling out from oppressive clouds like a trickle of spring water through a congregation of rocks.

  It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And it was close.

  BOOM….BOOM…BOOM…

  We all jumped at the explosion of noise, directly to our left. The beat of the drum sounded like a cannon blast and I winced, my heart skipping a beat.

  “Oh no…no..” Kevin whimpered and I heard him drop his oar into the boat.

  “Jesus Christ, that was close!” Trent yelled, scrambling to recover. He grabbed Kevin’s oar, desperation and hope in his voice, “Let’s move! Head for the light! QUICK!”

  I turned and grabbed the oar out of Jess’s hands and plunged it into the water, pulling us along as fast as we could manage.

  BOOM…BOOM…BOOM…

  I shuddered at the blasts, scanning the darkness off my side of the raft. It sounded like it was right there, right next to us. Still rowing with a fury, I noticed something rising out of the water, the far off light painting the faintest image on the ocean.

  “Are you seeing this?” I gasped to Jess, nodding at the sudden shape rising out of the water.

  “Keep going, Nick, please…I see it,” Jess answered, fear back in her voice.

  I gritted my teeth and pulled us past the shape, eyes nervously roaming its form. It was a huge rock rising out of the water, like a stalagmite. It rose dozens of feet into the air, a single spire emerging from the still surface.

  And impaled on the slick stone was the impossibly long body of a human-shaped creature. It was naked, its skin almost glowing it was so white. Its long, bony legs squirmed and kicked against the stalagmite like it was in agony. Its head was arched back slightly, huge square teeth clinking against the sharp tip of the stone it was impaled upon. The spire protruded from its gaping mouth like the end of a spear, a constant stream of thick yellow fluid running down its massive body. Its face expanded out, a long pig snout growing below human eyes.

  Strapped to its body was a massive drum, the crude instrument driven into its flesh with nails the size of baseball bats. Despite the creature’s obvious pain, it raised its arms and pounded on it with a huge piece of waterlogged wood.

  BOOM…BOOM…BOOM…

  I turned away from the hideous thing, fear melting over my body like cold snow. Keep going; just keep going. I focused on the light in the sky, the golden rays offering a hope I didn’t dare believe in.

  Kevin saw the mutilation rising out of the water and began to scream, fear brutally taking him at the sight of it. Jess crawled to him and held him in her arms, trying her best to quiet his cries. I could hear Trent mumbling to himself, frantic, his strokes fast and hard.

  We shot across the water, the yellow light growing closer across the distant sky. We passed the impaled monster but were rattled again as it smashed on its drum.

  It’s sending out a warning, I thought suddenly.

  Trent seemed to be thinking the same thing as he cried out across to me, “Faster, Nick, faster! The light is the answer! If we can make it, we can get out of here! I just know it! DIG DEEP! MOVE!”

  Panting, I responded with vigor, a deep dread spreading across my chest as the drum continued to thrash behind us.

  And then I heard another one, ahead of us on Trent’s side of the raft. I leaned into the darkness and after a moment I spotted another spire rising from the unmoving black, a sprouting formation jutting from the water that held a creature identical to the last. As we steered away from it, towards the light, I shuddered. Its paralyzed body was oozing yellow from its mouth and coating its pale skin.

  BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!


  The drums were constant now, a neverending jolt of deafening noise. I leaned into my oar, gasping, my back slick with sweat. The golden rays were getting closer, the color like long fingers goading us towards them.

  That had to be a way out. It just had to be.

  “Nick…”

  I ignored Jess, focusing every ounce of my attention on rowing faster and continuing to breathe.

  “Nick!” She cried again, “Nick, look!”

  I heard the terror in her voice and I took a second to throw a glance over my shoulder at her. My eyes went wide and I felt my heart slam to a stop. My oar slid uselessly between my fingers onto the deck.

  “Nick…do you see them?” I heard Jess plead, voice shaking.

  My eyes soared past her toward the horizon at our backs.

  I counted nine Keepers.

  And they were hauling ass towards us. The glowing glyphs lining their bodies shot out across the darkness, pulsing with alarming urgency. They blinked in the empty expanse between us like larger than life fireflies, rocketing toward our meager raft at a speed I couldn’t comprehend.

  Kevin huddled into himself, eyes wide, mouth forming words that dribbled across his lips in silence. He had picked up my ax from the bottom of the raft and clutched it to his chest, terrified.

  “Oh my god…” Trent hissed as he saw the approaching horrors.

  “It’s over, it’s over, it’s over,” Kevin mumbled, tears rolling down his cheeks. “We should never have come out here…we knew we weren’t supposed to…”

  Jess squeezed my arm, her face pale. I looked into her eyes and wished I had words of comfort to offer.

  “Row!” Trent suddenly yelled, “We have to try! We’re so CLOSE!” In frantic desperation, he began to churn the water at a furious pace.

  My heart sunk into my chest as the figures on the horizon grew, a rolling mass of lumbering power and stone. Even from this distance, I could hear the screams of the damned as they swung on their chains, dangling for eternity from the enormous crosses.

  And we were about to join them.

  “NICK!”

  Trent’s pleading shriek snapped me out of my daze and I quickly grabbed my oar and plunged it into the water. I grit my teeth and rowed as hard and as fast as I could, feeling the growing threat at my back. Jess was at my side, watching the Keepers, her face blank and ghostly. We let Kevin cry.

  The beam of golden light grew closer as we shot the raft through the black ocean; Trent and I put every ounce of strength we had into our efforts. Water sprayed into my face and sweat rolled down my neck. My shoulder screamed and my muscles threatened to cramp, but I pushed through it all, the sound of our pursuers growing louder at my back.

  I could hear a faint rush of water as the giants approached, their massive legs cutting through the ocean like it was nothing. And it was getting louder…and louder…

  I shot a quick look over my shoulder and almost stopped paddling, my heart dropping into my stomach. The Keepers rose from the darkness, close, way too close. The illumination from their bodies lit the sky in blue color and I stared up at a sky of dark crosses.

  “Don’t stop Nick! ROW!” Trent urged, panting. But even I could hear the hopelessness in his voice.

  We weren’t going to make it.

  Wordlessly, Jess wrapped me into a hug and buried her face in my chest. I let go of my oar and pressed her into me, my heart drumming against her ear. Trent was screaming for me to not give up, but his voice was lost in the roar of water, the Keepers only a couple hundred yards away now. I looked at the golden light in the sky and squeezed my eyes shut. We had almost made it…we were so fucking close…

  A blast of wind shook us as the Keepers towered closer, the roar of their approach deafening the world. The raft was bathed in blue light and I knew we only had seconds before they were upon us.

  Trent was lost in himself, screaming madness and continuing to row, unwilling to acknowledge that this was the end for us. Kevin had pulled a blanket over his head, cuddling next to my ax as if that would somehow protect him.

  I pulled Jess away and cupped her face in my hands, staring lovingly into her eyes. “I love you,” I whispered into the torrent around us.

  Jess smiled sadly. “This is it. This is where our journey ends. We’re going to swing from those monsters forever.”

  A tear rolled down my face as the Keepers reached us. “I’ve gone through the darkest hells to find you. I can find you again.” I leaned in and kissed her fiercely. “I fucking love you, Jess.”

  And then I pulled Trent’s knife out of my boot and stabbed her in the head.

  I screamed as I did it, blood gushing over the handle and down my arm. Jess’s eyes went wide for a split second…and then she was gone. Her body slumped over into me and I pulled my hands away shaking, screaming.

  I turned my bloodshot eyes to the monsters looming over us, tears blurring my vision, agony and self-hatred coursing through me in overwhelming currents. The Keepers were lined shoulder to shoulder in a semi-circle, their titanic bodies like mountains rising from the depths.

  And then they began to fall on us, a great creaking wave of stone and water and wind.

  Seconds before they hit the raft, I pulled the knife from Jess’s head…

  ….and plunged it into my heart.

  I felt an explosion of force throw me from the raft as I gasped, splinters and wood raining down around me. I soared through the air, gobbled up into the dark sky like a dying star.

  And for the third time…I died.

  14

  I begged not to wake up. I knew what awaited me on the other side of the calm nothingness I found myself floating in. I willed the seconds of still silence to stretch on forever, a soothing ocean of numb euphoria.

  But that wasn’t what the Black Farm demanded of me.

  I swam through the currents of emptiness and felt a riptide pulling me back to reality. A slow dawn of swirling sensations tickled my mind and I felt the rain on my face. I smelled the wet dirt beneath me. I felt the mud squishing my face.

  Get up.

  Gritting my teeth, I pulled my eyes open. Dull gray pushed aside the darkness and a world of gloom rushed in around me. I groaned and blinked, trying to get my bearings.

  What…had happened? Where was I?

  I coughed and scrubbed rain and muck from my face. The raft…the Keepers…

  …Jess.

  I was suddenly shocked into alertness as the memories came rocketing back. I scrambled to my hands and knees, eyes tearing across the rolling grassland around me. The mountain towered before me, an immense symbol of the impossibility I had tried to overcome.

  Escape the Black Farm…

  “JESS!” I screamed into the wind, eyes watering. Where was she? Where had she been reborn?

  I cupped my hands to my mouth, heart racing, “JESSSSS!”

  The rain stung my face like a swarm of bees, a gale pushing the curtains of moisture into me almost as if I was being punished for my actions.

  Jesus Christ, where was Jess? What had happened to Trent and Kevin?

  I found myself gasping into the storm, disoriented and scared.

  Take a breath, Nick. Figure out exactly where you are first and then formulate a course of action. Don’t panic. You’ve done this before, you can do it again.

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. I looked around where I had fallen from the sky, hoping to see my ax.

  “Shit,” I hissed, teeth chattering. I felt naked without it in my hands.

  Squinting, I looked around again, searching for landmarks. I almost jumped as the Needle Fields sprang into view, alarmingly close. I swallowed hard, the acres before me filled with endless rows of sharp spires, littered with bodies. So many Suicidals…so many dead…

  Muck’s cave is close. You need to get out of here. Don’t let him take you again. You’re alone, exposed, and without a weapon. You’re an easy target right now.

  I balled my hands into fists, standing. I wr
apped my arms around myself as the cold wind whipped and pulled at my shirt, raking my hair across my face. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Where was I supposed to go? I didn’t have a plan, didn’t have any clue where Jess was, and had no idea where to go even if I found her.

  I felt terror and despair slowly drip into my stomach, churning like a poisonous mill. I was back to square one.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!” I screamed, trembling under the shadow of the mountain. I had put so much faith in our plan, in the raft and the ocean. I thought for sure…maybe…

  I shook my head angrily, trying to replace my fear with rage.

  I heard the howl of Pig Born in the distance, in the direction of the unseen ocean. I had to move.

  “You are so fucked,” I whispered, rain streaking down my face.

  As I raised my eyes, something on the mountain flashed, high up on the summit. It was a red light, followed quickly by a blue one. They blinked once, twice…and then vanished.

  I counted the seconds in my head, never breaking eye contact with the mountain. The gray sky pressed down on me and I felt something click in my head. It wasn’t much, but it was something to latch onto. A drive.

  “I think it’s time someone met the Eyes of the World,” I muttered. My options were running out and I was finding fewer and fewer places to turn. I knew Jess was out there somewhere, and it absolutely killed me to think of her in solitude again. But I needed a plan. I needed something to offer her if—when—I found her. I had saved her from an eternal chain on the Keeper’s cross, but she wasn’t safe by any stretch.

  You saved her by killing her…

  “Please know that I am going to find you again,” I whispered. “Just stay safe until I can.”

  Naked of belongings, I started to trudge toward the mountain. The Needle Fields on my left stretched before me like the border of some horrific country, a world filled with pain and endless torment. I tried to avert my eyes as best I could from the rising spires. It wasn’t easy.

  My boots splashed through the mud and I looked in the distance for the Temple, still trying to cement my sense of direction. No part of me wanted to run into the Hooves, not now, not ever again. The rolling grassland wrapped around the base of mountain and I knew that on the opposite side sat the broken remains of whatever was left of the Temple.