by Carver Pike
Lisa threw her arms around Gabe’s neck and buried her face in his chest. She sobbed and held onto him tightly.
“I’m sorry for saying that I’m glad you’re here, but I am. I’m so afraid,” she said through her tears. “I’m so afraid, Gabe.”
Gabe stroked her hair and held on to her. “Shh,” he said as he assured her that everything would be all right. “I’m here. I’m gonna take care of you.”
“Don’t leave me,” she cried.
An hour later, Lisa lay on Gabe’s cot, her back to him, with his arms wrapped around her. “So you want to go back for Allie, even after everything she’s done to you?” Lisa asked. She wouldn’t look at him. She stared out at the others in the room, with her face resting on Gabe’s arm.
“I have to. I owe it to her,” he replied.
She closed her eyes and a tear fell from them. “You don’t owe her anything, but if you’re going, I want to go with you.”
Chapter 6 - Harbingers
Gabe and his group stood outside the Soothsayer’s shack, in what could be considered morning to those on the dark side of the mirror. There was no sun in sight, and the darkness left a shadowy dusk over the land. It was a dreary sight, like the scenery before a major storm or hurricane. Dark clouds blotted the sky and a chilly wind blew.
Gabe was no longer in sweat pants and shirtless, but instead wore protective gear given to him by the Soothsayer and his soldiers. He wore a black motorcycle jacket with padding all over his shoulders and arms. Black cargo pants were tucked into his black work boots. There was an automatic pistol on each hip and two knives in a holster on his back.
Lisa stood next to him, cleaned up, with her hair back in a ponytail and her own tight-fitting protective clothing. She had a gun at her hip as well, not that she’d ever used one. For a moment, Gabe watched her as she bit at her bottom lip nervously.
She was pretty. She was the girl you take home to mom. She was the housewife that actually bakes pies and helps the kids with homework. She was everything normal in a world that was the exact opposite.
She was Ivy yet she wasn’t.
And he’d fucked Ivy. He couldn’t get the thought out of his head. Here he was, trapped in a dangerous mirror world, and he was worried about cheating on a girl he wasn’t even dating. And cheating on her with her evil twin. Evil? No, perhaps not. Ivy wasn’t evil.
Ivy was just…Ivy. She’d been the animalistic, sex-starved, and passion-crazed version of Lisa. As he looked at Lisa he felt guilty. And he wondered if there was an Ivy hiding deep down inside her.
The Soothsayer stood in front of Gabe and the others. He eyed each of them up and down as if he could actually see them. He wore a purple gown and sandals, and Gabe thought he looked like the Merlin of the mirror world.
The Soothsayer turned his blind eyes towards a woman who stood next to him. She was in her mid-thirties and her arms were muscular, like an Olympic athlete. She was dirty and looked tomboyish, yet attractive in a mean kind of way. It was clear from her appearance that she knew how to take care of herself.
“This is Language,” the Soothsayer informed them. “Nic Nac, one of the most deranged images over here, cut out her tongue before we met. She can’t write, and only speaks in her Slavic tongue, but now it would be nearly impossible to understand her with her tongue missing.”
Dozier threw his arms up into the air as if to say, “great…just great.”
“You’ll have to do your best to understand her,” the Soothsayer continued.
“She’s an image though, right?” Dozier asked.
The Soothsayer nodded. Dozier shook his head in disagreement.
“Can we trust her?” he asked.
“If you want to make it through the Slums of York, you really don’t have a choice. Language appeared there. She can lead you,” the Soothsayer informed them.
“Appeared there?” Gabe asked.
“Images are created as young teenagers, right around the time that a child on the other side loses its complete innocence, usually around the age of sixteen. They just suddenly appear. They’re not born like humans are.
“So there are no children here?” Gabe asked.
“Never,” the Soothsayer said sharply as if he had been asked the most absurd question.
Lisa gripped Gabe’s hand tightly and stared off in the distance behind them.
“I thought there were no children here,” she said softly.
“What?” Dozier asked.
Dozier turned to look at Lisa and then followed her gaze. The Soothsayer turned his attention towards Gabe.
“Now it begins,” he said.
The wind seemed to pick up suddenly. Gabe squinted his eyes, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
Far off in the distance, walking side by side and stretched out in a straight line, were short, monstrous figures. Their feet kicked up a cloud of dust as they advanced. They stood about two feet tall and had tar-like bodies, cracked and sticky. Their eyes were narrow, and stretched from the bridge of the nose around to the side of the head, close to their ears, like black holes stretched out in squinty slits. Their noses were flat and wide.
A clacking sort of chomping sound filled the air as their razor sharp teeth opened and closed in rapid succession, as if they were land piranhas searching for meat.
“Those aren’t children,” Sergio said with a look of horror on his face. “They’re harbingers, the scavengers of the outer rings.”
Even Language, who’d looked tough up until the harbingers came into sight, looked afraid. She pulled her gun out of her holster and cocked it.
“Get everyone inside. Sound the alarm,” the Soothsayer barked at one of his guards.
The guard didn’t hesitate as he quickly turned and ran towards the buildings. The other guards scattered and began warning people of the pending doom.
“How many of the little bastards are there?” T-Nate asked.
“They travel in groups of about fifty,” the Soothsayer warned them.
“And they just attack for no reason?” Gabe asked as he grabbed Lisa’s arm and followed the Soothsayer towards his shack.
“They have a reason,” the Soothsayer said. “You got through the outer rings without permission, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but who hasn’t?” Dozier asked.
“But only you had Cutter with you,” the Soothsayer replied.
Dozier looked at Gabe and wagged a threatening finger in his face. “You, boy, are way too much damned trouble, if you ask me. We shoulda left ya out for slaughter so we could all live peacefully,” he snapped.
“Peacefully? Here?” Gabe asked defensively as he puffed up his chest and met Dozier head on.
Sergio put a hand in between the two men and pried them apart.
“No, he’s one of us. Your image is a child killer,” Sergio reminded Dozier. “Does that make you any better than him? He can’t help who his image is any more than you can.”
Dozier stared at Gabe and sucked his teeth.
“Haissem? You better make it to the mirror and prove you’re worth it.”
“I don’t know what all this Haissem stuff’s about, but I’m gonna take care of Cutter. Just help me get there,” Gabe promised.
Dozier held out his hand for Gabe to shake. Gabe hesitated for a second and then smiled and shook it.
“Can you boys set aside your manly bonding session and come on?” Lisa asked nervously.
The harbingers were rapidly approaching, and as they grew closer, they let out high-pitched giggling sounds, almost like hyenas, but louder and more threatening.
“Come quickly,” the Soothsayer said as he entered his shack, led by two of his guards.
He stopped in the doorway and waited for Gabe and the others to follow him. Gabe looked to Dozier for direction, who shrugged his shoulders and smirked.
“They’re comin’ after you, pal. It’s your call,” he said.
“You can’t fight them,” the Soothsayer warned. “They gre
atly outnumber you and you are ill prepared.”
Gabe agreed and followed him into the shack. The others trailed behind.
The guards and the Soothsayer moved quickly into the back room where the guards slid the heavy concrete table over. Underneath the table was a large hole in the ground. Lisa stepped back and held her nose.
“Oh God,” she said, covering her mouth as if she was about to vomit.
“Old sewage line,” one of the guards informed her. “Been empty for years. Just an old stink.”
“Oh, good. Old stink is good,” she said sarcastically.
The guards lit two torches and then dropped down into the hole. They assisted the Soothsayer as he climbed down. The first guard held out a hand to Lisa, who accepted it with a limp grip.
“Are there rats down there?” she asked.
“Don’t worry. If there are any, the harbingers’ll eat ‘em all,” Dozier said.
“Right before they eat us if you don’t hurry,” Sergio added.
Lisa shook her hands nervously as she let the guard lift her down into the hole. The others climbed in after her. The last guard reached up and slid a rug over the hole, trying his best to conceal their escape route.
Inside the cave, one guard led the group with a lit torch while the other followed behind. The Soothsayer held onto Gabe’s arm as they moved cautiously forward. The walls around them were made of mud. The cave was wide enough for three people to stand side by side.
Running along the floor was a small stream of water. Lisa grabbed Gabe’s free arm and held on to it tight.
“Where did these caves come from?” Gabe asked.
“Colossus used to use them for mining. His slaves dug the holes,” the Soothsayer informed him.
“Who is this Colossus guy?” Gabe asked.
“Guy?” the Soothsayer repeated. “He’s not a guy. He’s a god. At least to these people he is. He’s one of the lords of the four quadrants.”
Before Gabe could ask any other questions, the high-pitched laughter of the harbingers was heard above them.
“They’ve reached the Dwellings,” the Soothsayer warned them.
Gabe held onto Lisa’s hand and gave it a squeeze as they followed the Soothsayer deeper and deeper into the cave systems. He could imagine her scrunching up her face in the dark, and as worried as he was about their current situation, that one reminder of the past brought a moment of comfort to him and he wanted so badly to be able to tell her that yes, this was a sucky situation, one worthy of a good face scrunch, but that he’d rescue her from it soon enough. He glanced down at her and winked.
The Soothsayer stopped and put both hands out to stop Gabe and Lisa. He put a finger to his lips, signaling for everyone to be quiet, tilted his head to one side and listened intently. He suddenly jerked upright and grabbed Gabe and Lisa’s arms. The sound of the harbingers’ cackling echoed through the caves, sounding too close for comfort.
“They’re in the cave,” the Soothsayer warned them.
The guard at the rear turned around to look behind him. He quickened his steps as he continued to look to the rear. “Go!” he ordered.
“Go! Go!” Dozier echoed his command.
They quickened their pace, avoiding the cracks and crevices in the cave floor.
“Where does this cave lead?” Gabe asked no one in particular.
“To the falls,” the lead guard informed him.
The harbingers reached the group in a matter of minutes. The guard in the rear gasped with fright when the little animals came into the light. He raised his gun in their direction and his hand shook uncontrollably. Sergio turned to look behind them and saw that the guard was hesitating.
“Shoot!” Sergio yelled as he spun around and brought his gun up in front of him.
Both Sergio and the rear guard opened fire on the approaching monsters. Sergio’s shower of bullets ripped through the neck and upper body of the closest creature. It spun around and slid across the cave wall before splashing down onto the muddy floor.
Sergio aimed at two other harbingers and traversed the cave, mowing them both down. One of them took a bullet in the mouth, shattering its teeth. It howled as it flipped backwards into the horde of oncoming creatures.
The rear guard snapped out of his trance and started to unload his magazine on the monsters. A few of them jerked backwards and fell to the ground, but the others seemed to be angered by the retaliation and cackled loudly as they raced towards them.
One of the beasts ran up the wall and across the roof of the cave at a blinding speed. Dozier blasted it with his rifle. Another one ran up the wall while two others raced right at the group of fleeing humans. Language turned and shot the one to the right. Dozier shot at the one on the ceiling but missed. Sergio picked off the one on the left wall.
“Keep shooting! There’s more of ‘em!” Dozier commanded.
The harbinger on the ceiling leapt at Dozier and aimed straight for his neck. Dozier reacted quickly, spun around and caught it in mid-air. He slammed it down to the floor, expecting to stun it at least, but the harbinger was too small and quick. It jumped to its feet and dove at him, sinking its teeth into his knee.
He grabbed the animal by the back of its head and screamed in agony. The harbinger jerked its head from side to side, trying to rip out his kneecap when Sergio stuck the muzzle of his gun into the monster’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The harbinger flew off Dozier, but left its teeth in his kneecap.
Dozier reached down and yanked the teeth out of his knee one by one and then hobbled forward, trying to escape the army of small and hungry beasts.
Language and Sergio moved backwards as quickly as they could with their weapons still unloading on the approaching harbingers. Gabe grabbed Lisa’s arm and handed her over to the lead guard. He pulled both of his guns from his holsters.
“Keep moving forward with him,” Gabe told Lisa, referring to the Soothsayer. She nodded and grabbed the Soothsayer’s arm.
T-Nate and Ty turned with Gabe to assist in the battle.
“These walls ain’t gonna hold up much longer with all this shootin’!” T-Nate yelled.
Gabe looked at the dirt walls surrounding them and knew that T-Nate was right. He was surprised that the walls hadn’t already collapsed.
“You’re right. We gotta get out of here!” Gabe replied.
Ty ran over to Dozier, who was still doing his best to fight as he limped forward as quickly as he possibly could. Ty threw Dozier’s arm over his shoulder and helped him speed up.
“You have to move it, old man! We don’t have time for your pity party!” Ty yelled at Dozier.
“Fuck you!” Dozier replied with a smirk. He pulled his trigger and shot a harbinger that was trying to attack from the ceiling.
One of the harbingers dove at Gabe. He swung his gun around and smacked the barrel against its head, sending it flying into the wall. He fired a rapid burst into the creature’s head.
Above him, three more harbingers ran across the ceiling. Gabe swung his gun up in another arch and sprayed them with bullets, cutting them down right across their midsections.
The lead guard and Lisa led the Soothsayer to the end of the cave, where it ended abruptly and dropped down into a pool of water. The drop was at least a hundred feet. Off to the right was a gigantic waterfall.
“We can’t jump this,” Lisa said. “It’s too rocky.”
The guard scanned the area all around them.
“We need to climb down the side. Over there,” he informed her, pointing off to the side of the cave where the rocky terrain looked somewhat manageable.
They held onto the Soothsayer and led him towards their escape route.
Further back in the cave, Gabe had both of his guns out and pointed in opposite directions. He shot two harbingers at the same time, slamming them into the muddy walls. Ty barely had time to throw Dozier out of the way before a harbinger chomped down from the ceiling, right where Dozier’s forehead had been.
Ty s
hoved one of his wooden stakes through the attacking creature and then whipped around to impale another one. T-Nate screamed out in rage as he fired on several of the harbingers. Language handed a grenade to Gabe.
“I can’t use this in here!” Gabe yelled at her. “It’ll cause the cave to collapse. We’ll all die.”
She shook her head and pointed towards the end of the cave, where the drop to the water was. Gabe’s eyes lit up, as he understood what her plan was.