The Footsteps of Cain

by Derek Kohlhagen

  A heavy shroud of silence descended upon Ejelano. He struggled to fathom what he had just heard, but his mind could not conceive of it. He understood the words; it was the idea behind them that was utterly absurd. Even if he wanted to do such a abominable thing, it was an impossible task, and he almost laughed at the incredulity of the notion.

  I don’t understand. That’s not possible.

  I THINK YOU’LL FIND THAT, WITH ME, A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF IS POSSIBLE! THE SKY’S THE LIMIT, BUDDY! OK, I CAN SEE YOU’RE FLOUNDERING. LET ME SEE IF I CAN PUT THIS IN A WAY YOU CAN GRASP:

  SO, BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THE FOREST THAT YOU AND YOUR FELLOW MONKEYS CALL HOME, THERE ARE OTHER FORESTS, OTHER FIELDS, OTHER CAVES AND MOUNTAINS AND VALLEYS THAT OTHER PEOPLE—OTHER TRIBES, IF YOU WILL—CALL HOME. I KNOW YOU KNOW THIS, BECAUSE YOU’VE DEFENDED YOUR VILLAGE AGAINST A VERY SMALL PORTION OF THEM FOR YEARS. WELL, BEYOND THOSE TRIBES ARE OTHER TRIBES, AND BEYOND THOSE OTHERS, ON AND ON AND SO FORTH AND SO FORTH.

  AS TIME GOES ON, YOUR SPECIES WILL MULTIPLY. EVENTUALLY YOU HUMANS WILL BREED YOUR WAY AROUND THE ENTIRE WORLD, IN FACT. YOU CAN BARELY COMPREHEND THIS, I KNOW, BECAUSE YOU ONLY HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR HOME AND A FRACTION OF THE SURROUNDING LANDS.

  (BY THE WAY, YOU REALLY SHOULD GET OUT MORE.)

  SO ONE DAY, THERE WILL BE MORE PEOPLE, MORE MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN WALKING AROUND ON THIS BIG BALL OF DIRT FLOATING IN THE VOID—CALLED A PLANET, LITTLE FUN FACT THERE—THAN YOU EVER COULD HAVE IMAGINED. AND, BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN SELECTED AS THE BIG WINNER, YOU GET TO KILL ’EM ALL.

  How can such a charge be put upon me? I am not the only one to take a life!

  NO, YOU’RE NOT. BUT IT WAS THE EMOTIONAL AURA OF YOUR MURDERS, THE PASSION WITH WHICH YOU COMMITTED THEM, THAT SHOT YOUR NAME TO THE TIPPY TOP OF THE LIST! YOU SHOULD REALLY BE PROUD OF YOURSELF, VERMIN. WHEN YOU KNOCKED OFF YOUR BEST FRIEND FOR GETTING IT ON WITH YOUR BRIDE TO-BE, YOUR HATE, YOUR UTTER DISREGARD FOR MERCY OR FORGIVENESS...HOW INTENSELY YOU RELISHED PLUNGING THAT KNIFE INTO HIS HELPLESS BODY...WELL, LET’S JUST SAY IT BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE. YOU’RE THE PERFECT CHOICE, MAN! THIS IS YOUR THING!

  You’re insane!

  PROBABLY. AND YOU’RE A MURDERER. IT’S TIME TO START ACTING LIKE ONE.

  I don’t care who or what you are. I have my own will. You cannot force me to do this!

  I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT. THAT’S WHY I’VE DECIDED TO PROVIDE YOU WITH A LITTLE HELPFUL MOTIVATION.

  In his mind, Ejelano again saw the helpless form of Lena bound to the ancient tree, which ignited once more. Again Lena was engulfed in the fire, and her screams rang out into the hellish, blazing skies above. Ejelano screams mingled with hers, and it was as if he could feel every lick of those flames himself.

  No! Stop!!

  The voice continued in a conversational tone as Lena continued to burn.

  THE FIRE SHE IS FEELING AT THIS MOMENT IS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT SHE’LL ENDURE IN THE BOWELS OF THAT ETERNAL, SPOOKY DARKNESS, WHICH IS WHERE I WILL PLACE HER IF YOU DON’T COOPERATE. WHEN YOU CAME TO, AFTER SLAMMING INTO THE FLOOR OF THE CHASM I OPENED UP, YOU THOUGHT DAMNATION WAS COLD AND EMPTY. YOU COULDN’T BE MORE WRONG, VERMIN. IT’S HOT. REAL, REAL HOT. THERE ARE THINGS THAT LIVE DOWN THERE, IN THAT PLACE OF PERPETUAL PUNISHMENT, THAT YOU ONLY MIGHT BE ABLE TO CONJURE UP IN THE WORST OF YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES. SHE WOULD DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH, OVER AND OVER, EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF TIME. THAT’S WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT, HERE. ALL BECAUSE YOU REFUSED THIS LITTLE THING OF SLAYING YOUR ENTIRE SPECIES.

  LOOK AT HER. LOOK AT HER AND UNDERSTAND WHAT’S AT STAKE. YOU CAN’T PREVENT YOUR OWN DAMNATION, BUT YOU CAN PREVENT HERS. CAN YOU CONCEIVE OF WHAT “EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF TIME” MEANS? TRY. TRY HARD.

  Ejelano suffered as Lena suffered. He tried to go to her and aid her, but found that he was rooted to the spot. He could do nothing. He was helpless.

  SO LET ME MAKE THIS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR. YOU DO WHAT I ASK, AND I LET HER MOVE ON TO THE—WHAT FOOFY THING DID YOU CALL IT? THE LEAVES OF HER PARADISE, OR WHATEVER? IF YOU REFUSE, SHE’LL BE SLIDING DOWN A SPIRAL OF SUFFERING ALONGSIDE YOU, FOR THE REST OF FOREVER AND EVER...AMEN.

  Lena’s arms and legs were spasming against her bonds in futility. She was throwing her head back against the solid trunk of the twisted tree, trying to escape the relentless torture of the heat.

  No, please....

  THIS IS A ONE TIME OFFER, VERMIN. MAKE YOUR CHOICE. WE DON’T HAVE ALL DAY, SO I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A COUNTDOWN. FIVE.

  Madness, born of his beloved’s torment, crept onto the edges of Ejelano’s mind.

  FOUR.

  Lena’s eyes, wide open with her pain, fixed on the alien orange skies. Her screams had grown hoarse in their intensity.

  THREE.

  I....

  TWO.

  Ejelano moaned with the weight of his choice. It crushed him, pounded him into powder.

  ONE.

  Yet, she was all that mattered.

  I’ll....

  ZERO.

  She was all that mattered.

  I’ll do it...I’ll do it...Please...I’ll do what you want!

  There was as sneer of satisfaction, in the darkness.

  OF COURSE YOU WILL.

  * * *

  Chapter 35 – Ejelano

  Abruptly the fires in his vision were once again snuffed out, and although Lena was again healed, she remained chained to the evil tree. She moaned Ejelano’s name aloud, and for a moment she seemed to look directly at him, although whether she actually saw him he couldn’t be sure. Then, the entire image, the hill, the hellish landscape, the tree, everything vanished from Ejelano’s mind and was replaced by the blackness of the pit and the pressure of the earth atop him, and he was once again alone. Mostly.

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU, VERMIN, ARE NOW THE UNRIVALED, BAD-ASS EXECUTIONER OF YOUR ENTIRE SPECIES! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?! COME ON, SOMETHING FOR THE CAMERAS AND THE PEOPLE AT HOME!

  Ejelano’s misery and resignation saturated his thoughts.

  What am I to do now? How is this supposed to work?

  WELL...I’M NOT COMPLETELY INSENSITIVE TO YOUR POSITION. LITTLE OL’ YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY DO THIS THING AS YOU ARE, NOW, SO TO START I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU IMMORTAL. I’LL MAKE SURE THAT THE BONY SPECTRE OF DEATH FORGETS THAT YOU EXIST FOR THE DURATION OF YOUR SERVICE. WHAT’S MORE, YOUR PHYSICAL BODY WILL HEAL ITSELF OF ALL THE PUNISHMENT YOU’LL INEVITABLY RECEIVE, BECAUSE ALTHOUGH YOU’RE A PRETTY GOOD LITTLE SOLDIER, YOU’RE STILL GOING TO GET MESSED UP PRETTY BAD AS YOU GO ALONG. WE’RE TALKING SHOT, STABBED, BURNED, FROZEN, CRUSHED, PUMMELED, DROWNED, AND BLOWN THE FUCK UP. YOU’LL RECOVER FROM EVERYTHING ALMOST IMMEDIATELY SO YOU CAN CONTINUE TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT! GREAT, RIGHT?

  ALSO, FROM TIME TO TIME I’LL GIVE YOU A LITTLE TUNE-UP. YOU HUMANS SURE DO LIKE TO HAVE BABIES. AND THOSE BRATS WILL GROW UP AND HAVE MORE BABIES, AND SO ON AND SO FORTH. SO YOU SEE, VERMIN, THAT HUMANKIND WILL JUST EXPONENTIALLY OUTPACE YOUR MURDEROUS RAMPAGE IF YOU ARE LEFT AS YOUR CURRENTLY WEAK, POWERLESS SELF. SO, WHEN I DEEM IT NECESSARY, I’LL DEAL OUT SOME PRETTY SWEET ABILITIES TO ENABLE YOU TO BE, SHALL WE SAY, MORE EFFICIENT IN YOUR ENDEAVORS.

  The voice chuckled.

  OF COURSE, I’M NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU TOO MUCH TO START WITH, BECAUSE THERE JUST ISN’T ANY FUN IN THAT FOR ME. THIS IS MY SUPERBOWL! I WANT TO MAKE IT LAST!

  Even though Ejelano only really, truly comprehended a small morsel of what he’d agreed to, he still felt the first weights of it lashing themselves to his spirit, felt the center of the planet pulling at him as it had never before. The only hope he still had was that one day he would cease to feel anything at all.

  OH, COME ON, MR. DROOPYFACE...IF MY CALCULATIONS ARE CORRECT, IT’LL ONLY TAKE TWENTY-THOUSAND YEARS OR SO. FOCUS ON THE FINISH LINE! LET’S GET GOAL-ORIENTED, HERE! I’LL BE WITH YOU THE WHOLE WAY, AND I’M TOTALLY YOUR BIGGEST FAN. WE’LL GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER REAL WELL, LIKE TWO GUYS ROAD-TRIPPIN’ ACROSS THE WORLD! Y’KNOW, HAVING ZANY ADVENTURES, PICKIN’ UP CHICKS.... EXCEPT, Y’KNOW,
IN THIS CASE “PICKIN’ UP CHICKS” ACTUALLY MEANS KILLIN’ FOLKS. C’MON, IT’LL BE OVER BEFORE YOU KNOW IT.

  OKAY, I GUESS THAT’S NOT TRUE AT ALL.

  STILL, WE’LL NEVER GET ANYWHERE IF YOU KEEP LYING THERE. HERE, I’LL GIVE YOU A LITTLE BOOST TO START YOU OFF RIGHT.

  A surge of energy blasted Ejelano, beginning in his chest and lancing out to his arms and legs. A strength he had never before known filled his body with possibility, and convinced him that his earthen tomb could no longer hold him. He brought his arms toward his body, and pushed down against the soil and rock beneath him until he felt himself rising up, resisting the immense weight above that had trapped him. When he was in position, he used his legs as well, hoisting himself until he was standing up. The loose dirt around him settled into the open space he had made, once again pressing in on his body, but he kept working his extremities, digging and boosting himself upward through the subterranean depths. He continued his slow ascent for what felt like hours...days, even...until finally his arms burst forth from the ground and into the open air above. As his head emerged, a dim light washed over him, and he looked up to see distant stars in the wide, open sky. Then in a mighty heave he gritted his teeth, forced his hips and legs out of the hole, and rolled onto his side. Even considering the new strength he felt in his limbs, he was utterly spent...his breaths heaving and sputtering.

  Then, lying there in the dirt and filth, all at once he sensed vigor returning to him, more rapidly than he’d ever recovered from any previous form of mortal fatigue. He found that within seconds he could stand again, ready to push on, as if his climb from the depths had never happened. He marveled at the alien sensation that possessed his body, and looked down to examine himself. He was not ready for what he saw.

  The gaping hole in his chest remained, but no longer was empty, exactly. There was a cold, white radiance emanating from within him where his heart had once rested, and Ejelano knew from the bolts of energy surging from it that it was the source of his newfound potency. His body, still unclothed from that morning’s hunt, seemed to glow from within, and he illuminated the walls of the vast crater around him in the ghostly light. He was fascinated and loathsome of what he’d become.

  He looked up from his new body to take in his surroundings. All around him was the wreckage of his former home. He saw jagged, splintered pieces of wood sticking up through the dirt here and there, wood that once had been joined together to form the lodgings of his people. They would never be made whole again. In one fell swoop, his entire village...his family...had been cast down into the ground, where it would never again feel the warmth of the sun.

  He stood there, a creature of contradiction; part of him given great power, and yet another, more human part irreparably broken. The mass grave he stood upon cradled far more than the people he’d known, loved, and protected all his life; it now marked the end of his time as a true human being, as well. He’d made his choice. He’d chosen her, and in doing so he’d sacrificed everything good and pure he’d known himself to be. Those parts of him were as dead and buried as the remains on which he stood.

  He lingered at the bottom of the crater, mourning the loss of his past life, and the people entombed below him in the dirt, for three long days. During the daylight hours, the sun lanced through the shadows around him, and was only just briefly visible over the lip of the deep hole on its way across the sky until it inevitably set and once again plunged him in darkness. Throughout his stay in the pit he never slept. He never felt the urge to search for water or food, never felt the pangs of thirst or hunger, urination or defecation. Curiously, his new body seemed unencumbered by such biological contrivances.

  The voice, as he had come to call it, had gone mercifully quiet during the first two days of his lamenting, until the morning of the third when its words again entered his skull. At first its ramblings were gleeful as it spoke to him about the glorious task that lay ahead of him. Then, here and there it would torment him with obscene songs that contained and slandered the names of his beloved people, like morbid nursery rhymes. At these Ejelano’s impotent anger swirled and bucked, although he knew there was no way to relieve it by silencing the horrid thing. With no physical neck to wrap his hands around, the spirit had him quite helpless against its ceaseless torment.

  By the end of the third day, it had grown restless and addressed him impatiently as he sat, despondent, on his throne of dirt and ruin.

  OKAY, COME ON, REALLY...DON’T YOU THINK IT’S TIME TO GET GOING? THESE FOLKS AREN’T GOING TO KILL THEMSELVES OFF. WELL, I GUESS SOME OF THEM WILL, BUT MOST WILL NEED A LITTLE HELP TO OPEN UP THOSE VEINS. I GET THAT YOU’RE SAD AND LONELY AND YADDA YADDA YADDA, BUT I GUARANTEE YOU THAT YOU’LL PERK UP ONCE YOU GET SOME MURDERING DONE. SO, LET’S GO, DAMN IT! OR WOULD YOU LIKE ANOTHER SHOT OF YOUR LADY-FRIEND BLISTERING IN THE BLAZE? WE’RE BUDDIES, SO I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT, BUT I WILL IF I HAVE TO. UP AND AT ’EM! LITERALLY, I MEAN. OH COME ON, SURELY THAT WAS FUNNY.

  Ejelano’s thoughts were of Lena. Would she understand that the lives he took, he took for her? Every last breath he drew with his own hands would be a step back to her, every dying scream a door, opening a bit wider. He would build his atonement to her with the bones of the world. Time would tell if she would accept it, or spurn him for the atrocities he’d committed in her name.

  Please, my love...please understand what I now do, I do for us. For you. I can only hope that will be enough to earn your forgiveness.

  He rose to his feet and walked to the base of the muddy shelf that would lead him to the surface. He heaved a heavy, shuddering sigh, and dug his hands into the clay, pulling himself up and pushing with his feet, hand over hand, foot over foot, until he had left the remnants of his old life far below him.

  He grabbed a fistful of grass at the top of the wall, and pulled himself out into the fading sunlight. His newly-found preternatural strength had made the climb almost effortless this time. He sensed that it was growing, as if his body was easing in to its new condition.

  The voice interrupted his thoughts.

  WELL NOW, THAT WASN’T SO BAD, WAS IT? YOU’RE ON YOUR WAY! AND GUESS WHAT? FOR BEING SO AGREEABLE, I’VE DECIDED TO GIVE YOU ONE OF THOSE TUNE-UPS I MENTIONED EARLIER. IT’S ONE THING TO HAVE THE BRAWN TO LITERALLY RIP INTO PEOPLE, BUT IT’S ANOTHER ENTIRELY TO BE ABLE TO FIND THEM TO DO SO. YOU’LL NEED A RADAR OF SORTS, SO YOU CAN ZERO IN ON YOUR PREY. IT WON’T BE AS STRONG AT FIRST AS IT WILL EVENTUALLY BE, EITHER. ONE DAY YOU’LL BE ABLE TO LOCATE EVERY HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET, JUST BY THINKING ABOUT IT! FOR RIGHT NOW, THOUGH, WE’LL START WITH THIS.

  Ejelano’s head swam with disorientation. His vision blurred, and a smoldering heat sprouted in his chest that burned white-hot. The feeling became worse and worse, until he felt a scream rising in the back of his throat. Then, the pain abruptly subsided and his eyes cleared.

  That was when he first heard them.

  A thousand voices rushed into his consciousness. By reflex he threw his hands over his ears to block the sound, which did nothing to mute the clamor as it wasn’t actually physical in nature. It was as if someone had opened a channel in his brain and let the flood waters of others’ thoughts close over him until he was drowning in them.

  It’s too much! It’s too much noise!

  NO, IT’S NOT. YOU’RE JUST NOT USED TO IT. THIS IS ONLY A FRACTION OF MINDS THAT YOU’LL ONE DAY BE ABLE TO TRACK, VERMIN. ONE DAY YOU’LL PUSH THE NOISE BACK INTO A PLACE WHERE IT WON’T BE CONSTANTLY BEATING ON YOUR LITTLE BRAIN. JUST LOOK AT ME! I HEAR EVERYBODY, NOT JUST THE MERE SAMPLING THAT YOU DO, AND I HAVEN’T LOST MY MIND.

  HEY, WATCH IT. REMEMBER, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING.

  The spirit was right. Even now, the multitude of voices that battered the raw surface of his consciousness seemed to lessen in volume, not completely, but at least to a tolerable level. He was able to think, again. What was more, he noticed that he could tell not only what the voices were saying, but where they were. A force gently pulled at his body, l
ike a second gravity, and he somehow knew that if he followed the strongest pull he would find a great many of them. It was a powerful urge, and it had taken up root in the most innate part of him. It sought to override any good and decent impulse he had.

  The multitudes called to him, beckoned to him. In his mind they were begging for death, begging to be released from the cruel burden of living. Almost against his bidding, he took a step, one drip in an ocean of his future, and then another, and then another.

  OKAY, THEN! WELCOME TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! NOW, LET’S GET THOSE HANDS A LITTLE BLOODIER, SHALL WE?

  Unable to fight the compulsion any longer, Ejelano plunged off into the forest and embraced the horror that he’d become. He cast himself into his new purpose and his new future, trying to convince himself that what he did, he did because there was no other choice for him.

  He could do it. He could sacrifice the world for her.

  He carried her face in his head, and began the hunt to end all hunts. And above him, the wind in the trees produced a wheezing sound, a gasp of a world that beheld the face of its killer for the first time.

  ***

  And thus the countdown began. Humankind started its agonizingly slow progression into the final silence. He razed his ancient world as a legend, only revealing himself to those whose sight he would steal, whispered from the mouths of children trying to scare one another after dusk. He became a ghost that lived in the dark corners of mortal imagination.

  As promised, the spirit denied him the full levels of his destined, lethal efficiency for many thousands of years, after he’d been driven to the very brink of madness and back by the oceans of blood he’d spilled. As promised, the sheer numbers of his former species dwarfed his progress and flooded the world while he toiled away, ineffectually chipping away at their rising ranks. Pieces of his former life fell out of his head, one by one, until a mountain of ignorance separated him from what he’d once been. And all the while her face was in his head, swimming in his scattered memory, even after he’d forgotten her very name.