Corrosion: Terminal Horizon (The Portal Arcane Series - Book III)

by J. Thorn

  Shallna nodded once.

  “You got the story, right? You can’t fuck this up.”

  Tommy closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He opened them and rehearsed yet again.

  “I was in the car with Mara. We got into an accident. Samuel ran into our car.”

  “Never say ‘Samuel’ just ‘some guy.’ We don’t want to hip him to the fact you know he was the one responsible for killing you and your sister.”

  Tommy nodded and smiled. Kole made eye contact when speaking to him.

  “Got it. Some guy ran into our car.”

  Kole nodded and took a turn smiling.

  “I thought I was knocked out because when I woke up I was on the side of the road. But when I looked around, I knew something was wrong because this wasn’t the road we were on and it definitely wasn’t Detroit.”

  “He’s pretty convincing, right Shallna?”

  Tommy didn’t wait for the reply. He continued.

  “I didn’t see our car, or Mara, or my hockey gear. There was nothing, so I started walking towards the city. That’s it.”

  “You don’t have to say ‘that’s it.’ Just end it by saying ‘city’.”

  “City,” Tommy said.

  “No. Say the whole last line again.”

  Kole put the heel of his right hand to his forehead and rolled his eyes at Shallna.

  “I didn’t see our car, or Mara, or my hockey gear. There was nothing, so I started walking towards the city.”

  “Good. Remember. You met nobody else. This makes it easy on you. You don’t have to say who or what you met. Just say nobody if they ask.”

  Kole turned around.

  “Well? Is he ready?” he asked.

  Shallna stepped from the wall and walked toward Kole and Tommy. He stood next to Kole and looked down at the boy.

  “Yes,” Shallna said.

  “Ready for what?” Tommy asked.

  “When you arrive, neither Lindsay nor Samuel are gonna know who you are. You’ll just be some kid and that’s good. They’ll immediately trust you more than they would an adult. But to really hook them, really drop their defenses, we need to give them a little more. The Reap here is going to hook you up with some info they’ll find fascinating, but not useful. The point is the story will endear you to them and make it easier for you to get to Samuel. When the time is right, when he’s not expecting it and when I give you the signal…”

  “I’ll cut his throat,” Tommy said.

  “Correction. You’ll cut his fucking throat. This ain’t kid stuff no more. It’s about time you start talking like the killer you are.”

  Kole tussled Tommy’s hair as if he mastered long division.

  “Shallna is going to implant a story in your head. He’s been in these places forever, so he can do shit like that. He’s going to make it feel like a dream to you so you can tell it to Lindsay and Samuel. This way, you won’t have to think. You’ll just have to remember it as if you really did have the dream.”

  “Will it hurt?” Tommy asked.

  “Nah. Shallna is going to wait until you’re sleeping. It’ll be just like a dream. More like a fucking nightmare, but you get the idea.”

  Kole relied on Shallna’s experience in the reversion. He surrendered control to his servant and approved the plan to implant the origins of the horde into Tommy’s head. Kole agreed the information was fairly useless, but Lindsay and Samuel would trust Tommy if they believed he was a victim of the reversion too. They would be on the same team, fighting to be released from the reversion.

  Once Shallna taught Kole how to scrye with the orb, Kole would be able to see Samuel letting down his defenses. When the time was right, he would order the assassination. Kole wasn’t sure what he was going to do with Lindsay. He’d decide when the time came. If Tommy was successful in slitting Samuel’s throat, Lindsay wouldn’t matter that much anyway.

  “What’s the story about?” Tommy asked.

  “It ain’t pretty man. It’s a story about how the zombies got here.”

  “Cool,” Tommy said with a squeal. “I love zombies.”

  “Of course you would,” Kole said. “You sick little fuck.”

  Shallna used his staff to tap Kole on the shoulder. He stood and glared at Shallna.

  “Listen, Tommy. Once you go to sleep and get the story in your head, you’ll wake up in the room where they’ll be. The Reaper is going to help me use the orb to get you there. Deva gave me some wicked powers before he vaporized and I’m dying to try them out.”

  Tommy stood and smiled at Kole, having no idea what he was talking about or who Deva was.

  “It’s an old newsroom on the third floor of a building near the center of town. When you get there, feel free to do whatever you want until they arrive. Make sure you tell the story as soon as you can. Like a real dream, it’ll start to fade with time and so you need to tell it to them right away. Got it?”

  Tommy nodded and ran around the chair to an old sofa against the opposite wall. It sat by the door, sagging and covered in dust. Tommy jumped on it and kicked his feet, knocking dust particles into the air. Shallna walked over and Kole followed.

  “Tell me a bedtime story?” Tommy asked.

  “A request you will certainly regret,” Shallna said, as he motioned for Kole to stand at the foot of the sofa. “Close your eyes so you can die again.”

  ***

  Shallna delivered Tommy and left the building by opening a portal in the stairwell. He departed moments before Samuel and Lindsay made it to the third floor. The residual energy from the closing of the portal shook the stairwell like the aftershock of an earthquake.

  He hated dealing with the child but knew that his master’s plan was solid, and could be their best chance at keeping Samuel from making it to the cauldron. The man seemed to have found ways of circumnavigating the horde, although Shallna wondered if maybe an increase in sheer numbers would help keep Samuel pinned down. There was not a shortage of decimated souls spread across the multiverse. Shallna simply needed to search for worlds on the brink of collapse and have Kole push those civilizations over the edge.

  Deva did that in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s and those two incidents swelled the ranks of the horde for decades and across many reversions. Those that suffered and perished at the hands of an atomic catastrophe reemerged as the walking dead, their radiated and decaying flesh dropping as they soundlessly obeyed the lord of the reversion. But even the most massive influx of souls to the horde would not last forever. Eventually the bodies would break down and it would be up to the reversion’s master to orchestrate another mass extinction to repopulate the army. Shallna did not care about the people trapped inside those diseased vessels. He was glad they could not communicate, did not have free will. Some souls would always be fodder for others. At least that’s how Deva explained it to him.

  The air felt thin and the darkness comforted the boy, which was not what Shallna expected. He knew Samuel and Lindsay would be arriving soon and he did not have time to provide the child with more instructions. If the dream took root the way it was supposed to, Shallna would not worry about its effectiveness.

  ***

  Tommy heard the latch and knew someone was on the other side of the door. He pushed the chair towards it, backwards, until he struck a desk turned on its side.

  Lilly? Linda?

  He could not remember the names of the people who were supposed to show up but he was glad the Grim Reaper left. Tommy was not afraid of the monster, he was threatened by him. The personality buried deep inside that hooded robe felt insecure and powerless. Tommy wanted to exploit him and destroy the creature but he had to do his job first. He was happy to do what Kole wanted him to, although Tommy would have gladly stabbed Samuel without a reason. The man was responsible for killing Tommy and his sister, but the longer he was in the reversion the more Tommy enjoyed it. He was beginning to think Samuel did him a favor, released him from a life of rules and ethics and into a world where all th
at mattered was escaping the cloud. The fact that his salvation was through cold-hearted revenge only made the situation that much more appealing.

  He saw the shapes of two people as the door swung open. The first one, the woman with long hair, pulled the man through and then shut the door. Tommy heard rattling and breathing as she did her best to bar the door. He watched as the man slid down the wall and on to his backside while the woman turned to look at the room. Tommy stood up, slid off the chair and took three steps toward her. She froze and he could see her eyes even in the dim light.

  Fear. Pain.

  Yes, Tommy knew those well.

  He remembered his objective. He had to use his age to his advantage and not freak them out. It would be hard, but Tommy thought he could do it. He gave the woman the happiest smile a ten-year-old boy could.

  ***

  For the first time since he slipped the noose over his head and stepped off the chair, Alex contemplated his situation. Instead of dying he ended up in a strange world, where people aged ten years and disappeared when faced with an army of zombies on a highway leading into an abandoned city getting swallowed by a cloud. And then the cloud was eating everything. And a fist fight with some teenager and then a flight through a portal to another universe.

  “Where am I?” Alex asked himself.

  He stood up and walked to the middle of the highway. Brown waited until the army of the undead crawled back into whatever hole they lived in and then he sat on the guardrail trying to figure out what to do. His ass hurt and he had not seen a zombie in an hour, so Alex decided it was time to do something.

  The highway stretched into the distance and came together as a pinpoint of asphalt at the horizon. The wind continued to blow thin waves of sand back and forth while the cloud sat on top, suffocating it, pressing down on the land so the sky was nothing more than the underbelly of the cloud. The mountains on each side of the highway faded with the road and Alex thought he might like to know what was at the end of that highway. But then Lindsay’s face popped into his head and refocused his attention.

  I’ve gotta save my love, he thought.

  Alex turned around and looked at the city.

  She’s in there somewhere.

  He remembered his trip to New York City again. He took the Path train from New Jersey into New York’s Penn Station. Alex climbed out of the labyrinth of the subways and into the frenetic street life of mid-town Manhattan. Thousands of people filled the sidewalks, each going about the day fulfilling dreams or earning a paycheck, a few lucky ones doing both. Brown flashed back to riding the E Line and then heading north towards East Harlem, where the human landscape changed yet again. He ate the best two-dollar rice and beans meal he ever had before climbing back down into the subway at dusk when the drug lords would rule the city streets until dawn.

  “That city looks as big as New York,” he said. “Lindsay could be anywhere in there and it would take me years to find her.”

  The words fed his desperation and Alex began to take quick, shallow breaths. He stumbled to the guardrail and placed his right hand on it to keep from collapsing to the asphalt.

  If you love her, truly love her, you’ll protect her.

  Alex was not sure if that thought belonged to him or was planted there by another. It shook him from his momentary daze and he stood up. He straightened his glasses, pushed his hair to the side and brushed the sand from his pants.

  “That’s right. She’s always been and always will be my destiny. I’m coming, Lindsay. I’ll protect you.”

  With that declaration and his head held high, Alex started walking down the lonely road leading to the last city he would ever visit.

  Chapter 7

  “Hi there,” Tommy said.

  “I’m sorry about the F-bomb. You scared me,” Lindsay said.

  “That’s okay. Coach says it sometimes too when we’re not doing what he says.”

  Lindsay looked at Samuel still slouched against the wall and then turned her attention back to Tommy. The last thing she expected to see in the desolate interior of the building was a child.

  “Wanna race me?” Tommy asked.

  “At what?”

  “Chairs. From that side to that side,” he said pointing to each end of the floor. “Loser has to eat a booger.”

  Lindsay giggled despite the oddity of the situation. She never really liked children and promised herself never to have them. The thought of saggy boobs and stretch marks grossed her out, as did the mucous that always seemed to be oozing from children’s faces.

  “My own or yours?”

  “Your own, silly,” Tommy said. “Someone else’s would be really disgusting.”

  “What’s your name?” Lindsay asked. She hoped to sidetrack the race by engaging the boy in conversation.

  “Tommy.”

  “I’m Lindsay,” she said. “And that guy over there is Samuel.”

  “Is he hurt?” Tommy asked. The kid’s eyes locked on to Samuel at the mention of his name and then came back to Lindsay when she started speaking again. Tommy gazed at her high cheekbones and long, dark hair. He sensed a darkness in her eyes and felt the tingly feeling down below, the same one he had when thinking about Mara coming out of the shower.

  “No. He’s just tired. Samuel—” Lindsay called out. “Come meet Tommy.”

  Lindsay and Tommy watched as Samuel stood. He put an arm on the wall to steady his balance and took slow, measured steps across the floor. Samuel stepped over papers and the remnants of furniture as his breathing regulated.

  “I’m Samuel.”

  Tommy looked at him, said nothing and turned back to Lindsay.

  “Ready?”

  “For what, hon?”

  “Our race. Me versus you, Lindsay. Loser eats a booger.”

  “Sounds fair,” Samuel said. He crossed his arms and smiled at Lindsay. “Booger eaters are always losers.”

  Tommy stared at Lindsay as if Samuel was not even in the room.

  “Where’s the starting line?” Lindsay asked.

  Tommy leapt into action, grabbing two chairs by the back rest and dragging them to a spot on the floor. He used his feet to push the papers and other items out of the way and continued to clear lanes to the other wall. Lindsay smiled at Samuel as they both watched. With Tommy setting up the finish line, Samuel whispered to Lindsay.

  “We don’t have time for this.”

  “He’s a kid. Alone. We need to earn his trust.”

  Samuel rolled his eyes. He turned to a desk lying on its side, the drawers open and exposed. Samuel bent down and flipped the desk on to its legs, closed the drawers and sat on top of it.

  “Fine. One race. Go ahead,” he said.

  Lindsay was already walking to the starting line. The light seeping into the room began to dim making it more difficult to see. When the sun set, the office would be as dark as the stairwell and they would either have to remain there until morning or start moving again.

  Tommy came running back from the finish line and grabbed his chair. Lindsay stood to his right and Samuel remained on the desk, at about the midway point on the track.

  “Start us?” she asked Samuel.

  He sighed and nodded.

  With a toneless delivery, Samuel counted them down. “Three, two, one. Go.”

  Tommy immediately dropped his backside on to the seat and swiveled the chair around so he could use his legs to propel himself backwards. He looked over his left shoulder at Lindsay. She also dropped on to the seat but she was using her legs to pull the chair rather than push it. Her feet moved as if her legs were riding an imaginary bike. Lindsay pulled ahead and when it became clear she would easily win, her feet stumbled and she gave an exaggerated sigh. Tommy giggled and his little legs propelled him past Lindsay and over the finish line. The entire race lasted less than twenty seconds.

  “I won, I won,” Tommy said.

  Lindsay stopped moving and held both hands up in the air.

  “You did,” Lindsay said.<
br />
  “Eater, eater, booger eater,” Tommy chanted.

  Samuel smiled and waited to see what Lindsay would do.

  She stood up from the chair and turned sideways so that the right side of her face was hidden from Tommy. Lindsay took her right pointer finger and pushed it up over her lips and alongside of her nose while grunting. From Tommy’s perspective it appeared as though Lindsay’s finger was knuckle-deep in boogerland.

  “Ewwwww,” Tommy said.

  Samuel was smiling now, laughter oozing from his mouth.

  “Now eat it,” Tommy said as Lindsay held her finger up in front of her face.

  She twirled it around and squished her face, pantomiming her booger feast and enhancing it for Tommy’s amusement. She shoved her finger in her mouth and chewed as if eating a piece of taffy. With one last, exaggerated gulp, Lindsay stuck her tongue out at Tommy while opening her mouth wide.

  “Ta-da,” she said.

  “That was so nasty,” Tommy said. “High-five.”

  Lindsay reached up and her palm met Tommy’s. The sound cracked the silence of the office space and snapped Samuel back into the moment. He looked out into the desolate office. Samuel shook his head and sighed as he heard Lindsay clear her throat.

  “So you don’t remember how you got here?”

  Lindsay asked the question and then looked up at Samuel over her left shoulder before turning back to face Tommy sitting on the chair. The boy was dangling his feet and attempting to swivel the chair around while Lindsay remained crouched in front of him at eye level. She used her hands to hold the bottom rail of the chair, keeping Tommy’s line of sight constant. Samuel stood behind them both with his arms crossed. Several times he glanced at the door as if he heard a noise but he said nothing to Lindsay about it.

  “We’re losing the light,” Samuel said.

  “Is that what you keep looking at,” she replied while keeping her eyes on Tommy, waiting for an answer.

  “It’ll be dark soon and this place will be pitch black. Days don’t last as long in the reversion.”

  “Agreed,” Lindsay said, speaking to Samuel but looking at Tommy. “Honey, can you tell us what happened?”