Her smile faded and she walked over to sit down next to him.
“Is this about Jeremy?” she asked him.
Bobby's shoulder's twitched, but he didn't look at her. Instead he stared down at the floor.
“Not really,” he said slowly. “He's a part of it, I guess, but only one part. It's everything, Sarah. All of it.”
“All of what?”
He turned his head and stared at her. Sarah was caught off guard by the look, as Bobby's face reflected both pain and anger in equal measure.
“This. Our lives. We Changlings managed to survive for ten years after the world fell. Ten! Just a bunch of stupid kids. We lived through attacks by dragons, the undead, evil spell-casters, you name it. And now, just as we're reaching adulthood and getting ready to head out and start a new adventure outside of Ottawa, all of this happens. Goblins? Dragons? Drakes? Damn it!”
His voice was getting louder and Sarah noticed that his left hand was clenched so tightly on the sword hilt at his side that his knuckles shone white through his skin.
“We don't deserve this. It's unfair!” he shouted.
Sarah didn't move. She just let his anger wash over her and kept her eyes locked on his.
“Yes, it is,” she said calmly as he glared at her. “It absolutely is, Bobby. But you can't look at it like that, you know? If I thought about the countless times that any of us could have died over the years, not just from monsters but from a million other things, it makes me wonder how we survived at all. How many accidents have we avoided clamoring through the ruins of the city? How often have we been sick or hurt or caught under a landslide of rubble? I can't even count that high. But look, here we are. Somehow. Yes, Jeremy is dead and yes, it is a tragedy. My heart breaks just thinking about it.”
Bobby's eyes filled with tears and she watched him compassionately.
“But we have to go on, Bobby. Because if we don't, we will dishonor his memory, don't you think? Wouldn't Jeremy have told us to do that? To survive?”
Bobby frowned at that idea and looked down at the sword on his hip. After a moment, he nodded.
“Yeah, of course he would. He was a generous guy, always worried about everyone else. He would want us to go on.”
His shoulders shook with emotion and Sarah reached out and hugged him tightly.
“But he was so young, Sarah,” Bobby mumbled into her neck through his sobs. “It's such a waste.”
“I know it is, Bobby. I know.”
They sat like that for a time and then Bobby pulled away and wiped his eyes.
“Go on now,” he said in a more normal voice. “You have things to do. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.”
Sarah patted his arm and smiled as she stood up.
“I know you will, Bobby. You're my rock. Don't ever forget that. But you are allowed to have emotions too, you know. We all are. I'll be right back.”
She walked out of the room, holding her glowing stone ahead of her.
Bobby watched her leave, feeling better than he had since she'd told him about Jeremy's death. It still wasn't okay and it never would be, but Sarah was right. If they gave up now, it would dishonor their friend's memory, and the memories of all of the others that they had lost. Not to mention the entire human race that had been wiped out.
“We'll make it through this, somehow,” he said evenly as he stroked the sword hilt. “And if some monster gets in our way, well then, we'll see what happens.”
Eric finally answered Sarah's repeated attempts to reach him, but it took several anxious hours. Bobby was actually dozing on his cot when her excited voice woke him up.
“You're alive!” she exclaimed as she stared at the stone on her lap.
“Who's alive?” Bobby muttered groggily as he sat up and looked over at her.
“Eric,” she told him. “Hang on, I can barely hear him. Eric? Where are you? What's happening?”
Bobby watched breathlessly as Sarah listened to a voice that he couldn't hear.
“Are you okay? How are the others?”
Sarah's eyes widened and Bobby had to bite his lip to stop himself from interrupting her.
“How badly are you bleeding? Oh damn. All right, what can I do?” She waited. “We're at the Diefenbunker. Yes, we made it back here. Everyone that I've talked to is trying to get here and regroup. Can you make it? Are you sure? Okay. Look, call me when you get closer and we'll come out to get you. Don't argue, Eric! I want you back here in one piece, so please do what I ask.”
She nodded, waited and then nodded again.
“Good. Okay, talk to you soon. Be careful, all right?”
She sat up and looked over at Bobby.
“He's in trouble,” she said tersely.
“Yeah, I figured that out. What happened?”
Sarah put her stone down and swung her legs around so that she faced Bobby.
“Like Miesha's place, Eric's camp was attacked. Somehow a drake got past his traps and invaded before they knew what hit them. Eric doesn't know how many got out. He tried to give the others time to use the emergency tunnel by basically just running the drake around his camp, playing bait. Once everyone got out, he made a break for the tunnel himself. And he almost made it.”
“What do you mean, almost made it? What happened?”
Sarah rubbed her eyes and Bobby noticed how red they were and how exhausted she looked. His heart went out to her. While he was snoring away, Sarah had been desperately trying to save their friends. He felt like a total jerk.
“He was bitten. Eric said he's lucky that the drake didn't take his leg off. By the time he had crawled to the surface, he'd almost bled out. He had told everyone to scatter, but fortunately Fani had disobeyed and waited for him outside. He helped Eric bind up his wound. Now the two of them are trying to make it out of the city. I told him to call when he gets closer to us and we'll go out to meet him. Are you willing to do that?”
“Absolutely. In fact, when that happens, you should stay here and coordinate and I can go get him.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“What, do you suddenly feel the need to be a hero?”
“No, but you're the only one who can talk to every other leader. They'll need you here to keep track of everything.”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
“That's because I screwed up when I made the other stones. I'm going to make more, with the right inscription this time.”
“Good. When you do, make me one too. That way, we can keep in touch with each other in the future.”
She nodded wearily.
“That makes sense. I should have inscribed a stone for you a long time ago, Bobby. I have no idea why I never thought of that.”
“Because I didn't need one. Now I do. And speaking of needs...”
He shook a finger at her, pretending to be stern.
“You're exhausted. Get some sleep. And before you say no, just leave the stone next to your head. If someone calls, I'm sure that it'll wake you up.”
Sarah showed just how tired she was when she didn't even argue. She simply gave him a weak smile and stood up to stretch.
“Okay, I think I will. Wake me up if there are any problems, okay?”
“Sure. Good night, Sarah.”
She lay down and curled up on the bed.
“Night,” she said and immediately dropped off to sleep.
Chapter 16
While Sarah slept, Bobby decided to explore the entire bunker. They had just assumed that the second and third levels were sealed and secure and he wanted to double-check, just for his own peace of mind.
He also felt that one of them should stay awake while the other one slept, just until the current crisis was over with, and he'd already rested for several hours anyway.
And so, once Sarah was asleep, he got up and grabbed a new torch from the stack near the door and set off into the darkness.
Had the bunker ever seemed so dark and alien when he'd lived here ten years before, Bobby wondered as he walked
down the long, echoing hallway. It didn't feel like the place that he had once called home. It felt brooding and malevolent, like a lurking monster just waiting to strike.
“It's your imagination,” he said to himself as he entered the stairwell and started to ascend. “Just your imagination, that's all.”
Or was it?
He walked up to the second level landing and opened the door there slowly to peer out at the hallway. It was, of course, as black as soot beyond the yellow light of his torch, so Bobby stood still and listened.
There was a distant creaking that sounded like the ragged breathing of a sleeping giant. It was the sound of the earth settling around the bunker. Bobby was familiar with that noise, but in such a large structure, it sounded much more ominous.
He stepped out into the hallway and looked down at the dusty floor. It was blank and untouched and puffs of dust particles arose with each step he took. His sneakers squeaked against the floor as if he was walking on tiny mice. It made goosebumps rise on Bobby's arms.
To his right was a narrow door with 'Emergency Exit' stenciled on it. None of the Changlings had ever opened it; they didn't even know where it went.
He held the torch up higher and tried to remember which of the many doors to the right and left led to where. Some of the rooms had been living quarters for the staff, while others had been laboratories. Most of them only had a letter and a number marked on them.
Testing rooms, the doctors had called them, apparently thinking that had made them sound less scary. It hadn't.
Bobby approached one of the doors at random. He turned the handle cautiously and pushed against the metal portal.
The hinges cried out and the door swung open so quickly that he almost fell forward on to his knees. A blast of warm air rushed by him and he staggered backwards. It stank of putrescence and he gagged, almost vomiting from the stench.
“What the hell...?” he gasped in fear.
Just for a moment, Bobby thought that he saw a grotesque figure lined in pulsing green light, with ragged wings and blazing eyes staring out of the depths of the room. And then the door swung back and slammed shut with a resounding bang so loud that it hurt his ears. He fell back and landed hard, pain shooting up his spine. He felt like he had intruded on something that shouldn't have been disturbed and he scrambled backwards, leaving a clean streak on the dusty floor.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry,” he gasped as he retreated so quickly that he slammed the back of his head into the door across the hall.
Bobby lay there with his skull throbbing, staring wide-eyed at the closed door. His torch had gone flying out of his hand and was burning sullenly a few feet away. He glanced at it and then crawled hurriedly toward it in a panic as he saw it splutter and begin to go out. The thought of being alone in the dark was terrifying.
He grabbed the torch and lifted it up just before it died and the flame spluttered back into life. Bobby hurried back toward the stairwell, constantly looking over his shoulder as he went.
What had happened, he wondered fearfully. What had caused that?
His thoughts were a jumble of confusion. There was no one else in the Diefenbunker; there couldn't be. So what was in that room? Or was it just some kind of freak accident? Maybe the door had been sealed for so long that it slammed shut because of a difference in air pressure or something?
Even to Bobby, that explanation seemed pretty lame. He had definitely seen something.
He stood just outside of the entrance to the stairwell and looked down the gloomy hallway. Now that he was safely out of range, Bobby began to question what had just happened. There had to be a logical reason for it. He tried extending his magical senses, but felt nothing. Not that that meant much though; he still wasn't very good at it.
The smart thing to do would be to go back downstairs and wait for Sarah to wake up. Then he could tell her about it and get her to use her powers to make sure that everything was okay. That would be the smart thing to do.
“Well, I've never been that smart,” he whispered.
Bobby took a deep breath and began to retrace his steps. The hall was now deathly quiet and the earth seemed to be holding its breath. Something was waiting for him; he could feel it.
This is dumb, this is really dumb, he told himself as he continued to creep forward. Why am I doing this?
When he got close enough to the door to see it again in the light of his torch, Bobby stopped and stared at it in surprise. The door was wide open.
Hang on. Wasn't it closed just a minute ago? I didn't imagine that, did I?
He listened intently, waiting for some suspicious noise, some sound, anything at all.
Nothing. It was so quiet that Bobby could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. The silence made the situation even more frightening.
He was poised to run, balanced between curiosity and fear. He took one more careful step forward.
“That would be most unwise.”
He cried out and spun around, slipping on the thick dust and then recovering his balance awkwardly.
A woman was standing a dozen feet away, glowing with a pearly light. She was tall, taller than Bobby, and she wore a long white gown, plain and yet elegant as it hung to the floor. Her large blue eyes and silver hair gave her face an ethereal appearance. She was smiling slightly as Bobby stared at her in shock.
“Unwise?” he asked numbly.
“Yes, most unwise. Something has moved into this place. Something...malevolent. It is content to exist in the darkness, brooding until its time has come. Disturbing it would only end badly. For you.”
Bobby tried to follow what the woman was saying, but her sudden appearance had thrown him into confusion and he was having a hard time concentrating.
“I recognize you,” he said cautiously. “You're Esmiralla, aren't you? I saw your picture back at our old camp.”
“Ah, how lovely that you know me. It will save me some time. Yes, I am Esmiralla, and I wanted to speak with you, young man. It was a fortunate happenstance that I decided to come when I did. You were about to make a rather terrible mistake.”
“Was I?”
Bobby looked over his shoulder at the open door and the shadows inside of it.
“Why? What's in there? What is waiting for me?”
Esmiralla shook her head.
“I will not speak its name. That would give it power and perhaps embolden it. Its name might draw it from the realm of dreams into the physical world and then you, and Sarah, would be in mortal danger.”
“World of dreams? I don't understand.”
The woman's smile widened.
“Have you not realized that you are dreaming, young man? How else could I be here, at this moment? All of this,” she gestured around them, “is in your mind. It is an accurate representation of reality, but it is not.”
“So I'm still sleeping?” Bobby asked skeptically. “But it feels so real. When I hit my head a few minutes ago, it really hurt.”
“Yes, I am sure that it did. But that does not make it real. The mind is powerful and can generate its own pain in dreams. But your body is uninjured and is lying down below on a cot, sleeping still.”
“Um, okay. If you say so. But that thing,” he poke a thumb over his shoulder at the door behind them, “is actually real?”
“Absolutely. It is a horror that once could only be found in dreams, but with the magical power surrounding the Earth again, things like it can crawl out of the shadows into the real world under certain circumstances. Giving it that chance would be foolish. There are enough monsters in the world now without adding any more, don't you think?”
“Definitely. But what is it, really?”
Esmiralla's smiled twisted and she gave Bobby a chilling look.
“Do you really want to know? You are free to walk through that door and find out. I will not stop you.”
“Um, no thanks. I'll take your advice and stay away from it.”
“Very wise. Come, walk with me. We shou
ld put some distance between us and the horror that lurks in the dark.”
She turned away and walked slowly toward the door to the stairwell. Still confused, Bobby stumbled along behind her.
“I wished to speak with you for a singular reason,” Esmiralla said as they walked. “But before I mention it, tell me; how did you like my gift?”
“Your gift? Oh, you mean the sword?”
Bobby looked down at his waist, but the sword wasn't there.
“Hey! Where is it?”
The mysterious woman laughed lightly.
“That blade does not exist in the world of dreams. No matter how hard you try, you will not be able to summon an image of it.”
“Why not?”
Esmiralla stopped and turned to look down at him.
“The explanation is long, convoluted and exceedingly dull. You will simply have to take my word for it.”
Bobby swallowed nervously. Standing next to the woman really illustrated just how tall she was, and how intimidating.
“Okay, I'll do that. Thank you for the gift. It is beautiful. And it looks really old.”
“Oh, it is. Far older than you might believe. That blade was forged in the days of legend, when magic first existed on the Earth. Those days are lost in the mists of time now, but there are a few artifacts that have survived over the years since then. That sword is one of them. The wand that I gave to Sarah is another. Both are powerful and will serve you well, should you learn how to use them to their full potential.”
“But how do I do that?” Bobby asked plaintively. “I have no idea how to use a sword. If I try to use it in a fight, I'll probably die before I even get a strike on an enemy.”
Esmiralla watched him, her expression almost sympathetic.
“I know. And that is unfortunate. But no one lives now who could teach you swordplay. You must pick it up yourself. But I will tell you a little secret, a way that you might accelerate the process.”
“Yes please!” Bobby replied eagerly.
She smiled, even laughed a little.
“Learn its name,” she said cryptically.
“Um, I'm sorry?” Bobby said, confused. “It has a name?”
The Changlings (The New Earth Chronicles Book 2) Page 21