Apocrypha Sequence: Inferno

by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

  It was happening. He felt powerful, warm, and filled with loved. But the phoenix blazed into a supernova as the sun brushed the Indian Ocean. Damon held a hand in front of his eyes to shield him from the bright double-flare of the sun burning pink and the phoenix igniting into white-hot flames.

  "No!" Damon shouted.

  The phoenix gathered speed as it hurtled towards the ruin of Scarborough beach and the waterline beyond.

  Damon didn't even hear Diana's hunting call as he watched the phoenix increase the gap, meter by meter, as it renewed its cycle. He heard Jen and Toby's matching cries, but with the phoenix closing on the beach, his body had suddenly turned cold, his stomach weighed down by an acutely painful anchor of despair.

  "No!" he screamed again, refusing to acknowledge the limitations of his legs after all these months. "No!"

  He ran faster than he thought possible, drawing on strength borrowed from his proximity to his wayward soul. "No!" he screamed again, reaching out a desperate hand. Separated by a mere dozen meters, the phoenix's trail of heat blistered his fingers.

  Diana's snarl overpowered his desperate cries. As he sprinted and miraculously gained ground on the phoenix, something cold, heavy, and dark barrelled into his legs. The world tilted sideways and then around in circles until he came to rest on his stomach.

  With no time to regain his breath and the phoenix drifting towards an ocean grave, he battled for his feet but that same freezing weight crashed down on him, followed by searing pain in his shoulder.

  "Diana. No!" he cried, but another set of jaws tore through his thigh. "The phoenix!" he screamed. "The phoenix!"

  Snarls filled his world as teeth and talons ripped his flesh apart. Damon's body was numbed to the worst of the pain, and as his life ebbed and the light of sunset began to fade, he saw a black shape blur past and ahead, gaining ground on the phoenix.

  In Damon's final heartbeats, as the jaws of his wife and son ravaged his body, he witnessed the wolf form of his daughter Jen charge after and finally catch up with his long lost phoenix. She leapt up to the blazing firebird as it descended onto Scarborough beach, just meters from the ocean.

  The shadow and flames merged in an explosion of searing white light, and as Damon blinked one final time against the pain and the light, both wolf and phoenix were gone, replaced by the naked, shivering, but very real form of Jen—his Jen—crouched on the beach.

  Two wolves howled in unison, weaker for the absence of Jen's cry. The howling soon thinned out and disappeared as the Fremantle Doctor breezed through.

  Damon stared into the sun as it receded below the horizon, and for the first time he could remember, his thoughts were not filled with fire or guilt or the darkness of wolves. He closed his eyes to the dusk, and as he succumbed to the darkness, Damon dared to hope.

  * * *

  Colossus of Roads

  "Tell me the story of the Colossus, Dad. The day he took a step." Micha scrunched his Hessian pillow and nestled under his blanket. His eyes shone as he searched his dad's face for a response. The lone bulb cast sharp shadows across the room.

  Jovan smiled as he turned to gaze out the window. The bars had been removed many years prior. The glass was smeared with grime, although a circle had been rubbed clean, allowing his son an uninterrupted view of the Colossus on its watch. It was a healthy view, reassuring.

  He could feel Micha's eyes follow his as he studied the silhouette of the Colossus in the moonlight. Its shadow enveloped much of the town. Despite the toil of the preceding years—and the anguish—there was no safer place in the world than under that expansive shadow.

  Jovan's smile faded as he studied the ridged back of the Colossus. Countless retellings of the story to Micha, countless glances out his window at the bedtime hour, had ingrained the lines of steelwork forever in his mind. He lived for regaling Micha with tales of adventure, but the stories always burdened his heart. Memories of Micha's mother always bubbled to the surface.

  Huddled with Seline by the Colossus' foot, Jovan couldn't see where the noise had come from, but it sounded from everywhere at once and rose in pitch to a roar—the whir of engines given voice. Petrol fumes and Seline's earthy scent filled his nose.

  "Well, I forget how the story goes." Jovan turned back to Micha.

  The boy rolled his eyes, but his face was hungry with impatience. "In the days after the Fire ..."

  "Thanks." Jovan took the cue they'd rehearsed dozens of times before. It had started as a game but was more a ritual now. Like the Colossus outside, it was a comfort to father and son alike.

  "In the days after the Fire, the Artisans came to power," Jovan began.

  With theatrical timing, Micha slid his face below the blanket, leaving only a pair of brown eyes to peer out at his father. Jovan laughed a little, and even more on the inside, when Micha did that—always at the mention of the Artisans.

  "Well," Jovan went on, "the Artisans were cruel and enslaved the people when they flocked to the ruins of the city. The few people left after the great catastrophe that was the Fire were lost and confused. They were easily overpowered.

  "Those the Artisans could use were taken from their mums and their dads and their families and put to work in the power camps. There they toiled to keep the lights of the city burning, lights that mirrored the twinkling stars at night, only brighter. The people grumbled. The Artisans controlled the food and the weapons. The people had to obey.

  "Those who defied the Artisans suffered a fate worse than slavery. Those poor souls were bound together and imprisoned inside huge living sculptures called Golems."

  Micha shuddered, not yet numb to the horror, despite his familiarity with his dad's story.

  "I've seen a Golem," the boy murmured.

  "I know you have, champ. I know you have." Jovan coughed, shifted his weight against the wall, and stared out the window once more. Outside, stars crowned the Colossus. Its presence was reassuring to more than just the children. Jovan breathed deeply and then exhaled.

  "Your mum and I," he continued, his voice as shallow as the breeze outside, "we came from a place called Ceduna before the Fire. We'd lived off the land for years until there was nothing left. Back in those days, there weren't any trees like there are now, they were all burnt away. You can still see the scorch marks on the rocks and outer walls from where the Fire came through. Without food, we had no choice but to head to the city. They called it Adelaide in the olden days.

  "All the people in the city were slaves to the Artisans, but your mum and I weren't used to living that way. Just like you, Joaquin, Kale, and all your other friends, we were meant to be free. So when your mum found her father, your granddad, among the city slaves, we hatched a plan to escape."

  "What was granddad like?" Micha crept from the sheets a little.

  Jovan paused. His son had never asked this question before.

  'Gun it straight for its right foot,' the old man had said between coughs. 'There's a hatch there on its Achilles heel ...'

  "Well, he was very smart. Just like your mum. Did you know Granddad was one of the people who built the Colossus?"

  "Really?" Micha's eyes lit up.

  "It's true. There were men and women as smart and as powerful as the Artisans. Just not nasty and evil like them. They were called Technicians. Granddad and the other Technicians worked out here when the Fire befell us. Your mum and I thought he died along with everyone else in the Fire, but your granddad and the Technicians were tough old buggers. Granddad was cunning as well as smart. He told us the people who used to live here needed protection from the things out in the wastelands. Those monsters are all but gone now, starved out, being too big and too slow to feed themselves on bush tucker. But back then, they attacked people in numbers.

  "That's when granddad and the Technicians built the Colossus. The Colossus of Roads, they called it. Granddad said the name was a joke. It stood guard over the town, which was called a complex back then. Never had a grander project been completed. The world
had not seen the likes of the Colossus before and never will again. It was attacked by all sorts of monsters but never bested. The Technicians made sure it was unbeatable.

  "You know our automobile?"

  Micha blinked, then nodded.

  Jovan knew the boy sat behind the wheel sometimes, imagining adventures in the wastelands or life before the Fire. It didn't matter that the auto hadn't run in years—the depletion of the town's petrol supply had seen to that. The auto was a status symbol now, something to brag about with friends, a playground for the Mayor's son.

  "The Technicians used all the automobiles they had, and they had an awful lot of them, to build the Colossus. It was built to move. Built to protect. Back then, it moved all the time, and its enemies quaked with fear."

  "I'd love to see that!" Micha punched the air in his excitement.

  "Hey, I'm getting side-tracked here. Besides, it's getting late, and you need some sleep."

  "C'mon, Dad. Please finish the story."

  "Okay," Jovan mock-sighed.

  "Granddad told us about the Colossus and the complex where the Technicians had lived. He said life there had been good for a while, but a terrible sickness forced everyone to leave and seek help from the city people. They had been isolated out here and hadn't known the Artisans had taken power.

  "So, Granddad told us how to escape the city and then to find shelter beneath the Colossus. He also told us how to activate the Colossus should the Artisans ever follow."

  'A drum of petrol will fire up its innards. If there's still juice in its reserve tanks, the Colossus is yours.'

  "Didn't Granddad go with you?"

  "No, he didn't, son. He was too sick to make the journey, but he was with us in spirit."

  Micha looked out at the Colossus again, a wistful expression crossing his face. Even at eight years of age, his mind was deep and full of mystery. Seline would have been proud.

  "We stole our automobile from the Grand Sculptor herself, one of the very last working autos, which made the long journey easier. With the henchmen of the Artisans on our tracks, we needed every advantage we could get. I'll always remember first seeing the Colossus. We'd been on the road for days, the bad men following closely behind ..."

  #

  "Look at that!" Jovan pointed to the sunburnt horizon.

  "Is that ..." Seline asked, holding the steering wheel steady.

  "TheColossus."

  It rose hundreds of metres in the air, a titanic statue of auto parts. As they approached, lines of tyres became obvious along its arms and legs. The dusk light glinted off uncounted sheets of metal—doors, boot lids, and roof panels—a patchwork of metallic colours welded together with pre-Fire craftsmanship. Taller than the crumbling half-towers of Adelaide, it was a beacon of hope and sanctuary. They sped towards it in awe.

  "Can you see anyone behind us?" Jovan squinted into the side mirror.

  "No ... wait. There's a cloud of dust."

  "Damn it. How can they keep up?"

  Seline bit her lip and focussed on the road.

  "This is gonna be tight. You remember what your dad said?"

  'Gun it straight for its right foot,' the old man had said between coughs. 'There's a hatch there on its Achilles heel. A drum of petrol will fire up its innards. If there's still juice in its reserve tanks, the Colossus is yours. Petrol. Lever. All yours. It will know what to do. Just be careful. You'll only get one chance—unless you find more fuel.'

  She nodded briskly, too briskly, without taking her eyes from the road. He knew what that meant; he sensed her pain more than saw it.

  "Look, I wanted to bring him just as much as you, but he never would have survived the checkpoint—or the hills."

  "I know," was all Seline would say.

  Before he had time to visualise the operating instructions, the expanse of the Colossus' legs filled the windshield. They straddled a gate, connecting a huge concrete wall tipped with razor wire, which encircled the complex. The mesh gate was emblazoned with a faded sign reading Mitsubi—. The rest of the letters had been claimed by the Fire. Beyond it was the facility complex, dominated by a massive warehouse and dotted with outbuildings.

  Deep in his heart, Jovan knew he was home.

  Seline skidded the auto to a halt next to the right foot of the Colossus. In moments, they were both out and grappling with the drum of petrol stowed in the back.

  "Damn it!" Jovan pointed to where they had just come from.

  The dust cloud was growing.

  "Quick, open that hatch." Seline snatched up the drum.

  Jovan raced over and heaved at the hatch. It was defiant from disuse but yielded after the third tug. As the hatch came away in his hands, he teetered on his heels for a moment before he dropped it. The hatch fell to the ground like a muffled bell, billowing the dust and ash beneath it.

  With a few deft twists, he unscrewed the inner lid and tossed it onto the discarded hatch. The clang was dull but resonant. Wind whistled through the upper reaches of the Colossus. Vibrations shuddered beneath their feet.

  "Onto the pump!" Seline extracted a short hose and trickled the first drops of petrol into the gargantuan foot.

  Jovan nodded and darted around to the heel. He pried open another hatch, this one hinged, and discovered a lever perfectly matched to the Colossus' size. He threw himself at the lever and pulled down with all his weight. It barely moved.

  "I can't do it!"

  "Try harder!" Seline redoubled her efforts, shaking as much petrol from the drum as she could without spilling it.

  Jovan hung from the lever and braced his legs against the Colossus' heel in the hope of unsticking it. With every tug, it only descended a few centimetres at a time.

  In the distance, the dust cloud dominated the sky. A rhythmic rumble shook the earth as it approached.

  "Come on!" Seline screamed at the drum, willing it to empty its contents all at once. In her impatience, she spilled a few precious drops.

  The petrol drum finally gave up its contents just as the Golem emerged from the dust. Men in black coveralls with rifles tied across their backs clung to the Golem's protrusions. Still more rode atop its back.

  Seline scurried to help Jovan as he struggled with the lever. As much as she and Jovan fought not to, they couldn't resist looking at the monster stampeding towards them.

  Within its cage-like exoskeleton, bodies were compressed together in a wall of flesh. This Golem was fashioned to resemble the elephants Jovan had read about as a child. Its four splayed feet carried it forward; its head was armed with an array of spikes and tusks crafted from real human bones. Runes covered much of its bone structure–granting it the power to tap into and subdue its human power source, granting it unholy life.

  Some of the men riding the Golem unslung their weapons.

  "Come on," Jovan screamed through clenched teeth.

  With Seline's help, the lever moved more easily. Within moments, they could hear the petrol pumping up the titanic leg.

  The Golem-elephant and its riders advanced within the Colossus' shadow. The Golem was huge and exuded waves of menace as it charged toward them.

  Jovan clutched Seline after the last dregs of liquid had been pumped into the bowels of the Colossus. They held each other tight and waited, hardly daring to breathe.

  As the Golem neared, they could distinguish the individual bodies wedged inside the creature. They appeared naked, bleached, and shaved. Their faces were slack, their eyes unseeing.

  Seline pulled Jovan behind the shelter of the Colossus' foot as the Artisans' henchmen opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off the Colossus' sheet metal armour and slammed into the ash, raising clouds on impact. Between shots, Jovan heard men barking words he couldn't understand.

  The noise of grinding machinery stopped the Golem in its tracks. Huddled with Seline by the Colossus' foot, Jovan couldn't see where the noise had come from, but it sounded from everywhere at once and rose in pitch to a roar—the whir of engines given voice. Petrol fumes and
Seline's earthy scent filled his nose.

  The Golem backed up, aware as if for the first time of its proximity to the Colossus towering over it.

  Jovan marvelled as he heard the scrape of metal. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Colossus raised its fist. The action sent the Golem into full retreat. It stampeded back the way it came, trampling two men thrown from its back. Their screams died in their throats.

  With a soaring spirit, Jovan watched the foot of the Colossus lift off the ground and take one almighty step towards Golem and riders. That one step was all that was needed, for the henchmen of the Artisans fled and never turned back lest they incur the Colossus's wrath.

  The engine-fuelled roar abated as the Golem disappeared down the highway, leaving the Colossus standing inert, defiant, its metal fist raised in warning at the city beyond the horizon.

  #

  "Were you scared, Dad?"

  Micha snapped Jovan out of his reverie. He was lost in the memory of holding Seline tight to his chest, exultant with freedom, intoxicated by her scent. From that day on, the shadow of the Colossus became hope. Even when Seline had succumbed to the sickness that claimed her father, the Colossus had stood as a monument of optimism for their baby son.

  "Yes, Micha," he said, collecting himself.

  "Do you still get scared when the Golems return every year?"

  Jovan looked down at his son, into eyes wise beyond their years, and struggled for an answer.

  "A little," he admitted, "but not as much as the Golems, I think."

  He smiled, which was matched by his son.

  "Dad, do you think the Colossus will ever take another step, like if the Golems come too close again?"

  'Just be careful. You'll only get one chance ...'

  "The Colossus has always been there for us. Have faith." Jovan patted Micha on the head and tucked him safely in for the night. "Get to sleep, champ."

  He flicked off the bulb, plunging the room into starlight, and gave Micha one last pat on the head.