"If the house lets us," Lisa replied.
"I feel like I could sleep for a year." Dink chuckled and looked around the room at his friends, but no one shared his humor or particularly cared for the fear they saw in his eyes. Still, they couldn't disagree. They each felt like they'd been awake for days; their bodies trembled from exhaustion and their heads ached from the sudden adrenaline dump.
They entered the dining room cautiously, peering into the shadowy corners and hoping there was nothing there looking back at them. The room had been stripped of all furnishings and decorations, but the warmth and light made it feel somewhat cozy. It was difficult for them to grasp what had happened and what awaited them outside when in here, everything felt so normal.
Roger saw it on Lisa's face, a momentary shift in appearance, a change in her posture. She was being lulled into a false sense of security by the crackling fire, a very dangerous sense of security.
"Don't let your guard down." Roger said it to everyone but watched Lisa to make sure she understood.
"It feels different in here," she replied. "Like the danger has passed."
"A few minutes ago, the house was trying to eat us," Roger scolded. "There's nothing safe about it."
"That sounds so ridiculous," Dink laughed.
"Am I wrong?"
Dink shook his head, and the laughter died in his throat. "No, you're not. What did we get ourselves into?"
Beth and Lisa walked toward the fireplace and sat on the hard floor. Waves of heat baked their skin and took away the chill that had settled in their bones.
"We have to keep an eye on them," Roger whispered. "Whatever is here is still here. I know it isn't over, I can feel it in my brain, like cold fingers poking around my skull and waiting for me to get complacent."
"I feel it too," Dink said. "I can't put my finger on it, but it's there. You know when there's something in your refrigerator that has gone bad, and you can't seem to figure out what it is? Same thing here. It's a smell in the air."
Roger nodded and bit his lip. He listened as Beth and Lisa talked quietly, but couldn't make out their conversation. He'd seen the same thing at a thousand parties and gatherings, and the normalcy of it all gave him the tiniest glimmer of hope that everything that had happened was nothing more than a drunken nightmare.
"Let's get in there. We don't want to risk getting separated."
Dink agreed with a grunt and entered the dining room, joining the girls around the fire. They stopped talking and watched as he sat next to them and groaned appreciably. It had never felt so good getting off his feet; the heat from the fire slowly eased the tenseness from his muscles. Roger refused to join them, instead choosing to walk the perimeter of the room, stopping now and then to peek through the broken windows into the storm outside.
"I know this is beyond fucked," Dink stated, "but do you think those things got Geoff and Stacy?"
"I can't think about that," Beth answered. "After what happened to Trina..."
"I know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."
"No, it's okay," Lisa interrupted. "We should be asking questions. We can't just sit here and expect everything to suddenly make sense."
"Dead," Roger added as he joined them. "They're dead, plain and simple. If those things got a hold of them, there's no way they survived. Just like Trina and just like Romeo. All dead."
"That's a shitty thing to say," Beth shouted.
"Of course it is, but it's probably true. We saw what happened to Trina with our own two eyes, and no one has seen or heard Romeo since the cellar door closed behind him. We walked into a fucking funhouse." Roger kicked a stray log into the fire and put his hands on his hips defiantly. "We're going to get out of here, do you hear me? No one else is going off on their own. I don't care if it means sitting right here for the rest of the night and pissing in a corner."
Dink giggled. "Well, four of us, four corners. It'll be like having our own private bathroom."
"God," Lisa groaned. "You'd make jokes in a cemetery."
"What did the corpse say at his funeral?" he asked. Beth watched him through squinted eyes. "Nothing! He's fucking dead!"
"You're an idiot." Beth kissed him on the cheek and slid closer.
"But I'm your idiot."
"You two are ridiculous," Lisa muttered. "After everything that has happened, you're still cracking jokes."
Beth turned on her angrily. "What are we supposed to do? Offer ourselves to those things and give up?"
Lisa looked away and played with her shoelace. In a few short hours, their party of eight had been cut in half. The odds definitely weren't in their favor.
"I think someone should take watch," Roger suggested. "I'll go first. There's no way in Hell I'm going to be able to sleep."
"Who said anything about sleeping?" Dink asked.
"Sleep or not, it's your choice, but I'd still feel better if someone was watching out."
Roger grabbed the only piece of furniture he could find in the empty room, a rickety straight-back chair with stuffing billowing from the cushioned seat. He placed it in front of the window and sat with a sigh as cold air poured in through the broken glass and heightened his senses. Getting too near the fire would be asking for trouble. He felt a strange thrumming vibration in the floor beneath his feet but thought it best to keep it to himself.
Outside, trees crackled and groaned beneath the weight of newly fallen snow. It didn't seem to be slowing down; at this rate, it would be nearly impossible to reach the road, even if that was a viable option. A long, mournful howl broke the silence, but it sounded distant. It made Roger's skin break out in goosebumps.
Just as Roger got comfortable, he felt a warm breeze caress the back of his neck. He turned quickly, prepared to see something standing over him, but there was nothing. He exhaled a nervous breath and glanced at the others; they'd already fallen into restless slumber, tossing and turning and mumbling in their sleep. He'd never felt so alone, but for the first time, he was able to think rationally about what was happening to them. Still, he couldn't make the pieces fit.
His eyes grew heavy. He wouldn't have thought it possible under the circumstances, but he felt himself slowly slipping away. His head nodded, his chin resting on his chest.
Just a few minutes, he thought.
No sooner had his eyes closed when a branch snapped outside in the darkness. Roger bolted upright and stood, peering into the snow through the broken windowpane. When his eyes adjusted, he saw a figure approaching through the trees. It looked like a man, but he wasn't leaving any tracks in the fresh snow.
"Romeo?" His voice cracked and caught in his throat.
The man stepped closer.
"Romeo, is that you? Geoff? Come on, stop messing around."
When the visitor stepped into the light, Roger held his breath and backed away. He didn't recognize the man standing there, but he felt there was something very wrong about him. He was an older man, maybe in his sixties, and wore nothing more than jeans and a long-sleeve, plaid shirt. His black hair was streaked with strands of pure white, and his eyes blazed with an intense, inner light.
Roger turned to wake the others, but the man stopped him with a quiet word.
"Wait."
The saliva dried in Roger's mouth and his throat tightened. The man stood completely still; the heavy snow fell around him but didn't touch his skin, as if he was in an invisible, protective bubble. The wind whipped the trees into a frenzy, but a not a single hair moved on the man's head.
"Roger Dade," the man said slowly. "What brings you here on such a cold and wintry night?"
"Who... who are you?"
"Names aren't important, my young friend. What is important is that I have your attention."
"It's you, isn't it? You're the one doing all this."
"Smart and handsome. I see why Lisa finds you so irresistible, and yet you fuck that little Spanish girl at work. Whatever would your wife think if she found out?"
Roger looked over his shoulder to make s
ure the others were still asleep. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Now, now. We both know the truth. There's no reason to get upset. I'm not here to judge you, I'm just here to talk."
"What do you want?" The room had grown cold; the kind of cold that settles in your bones and weakens your knees.
"Only what's mine," the man replied.
"The house? You can have it. I never wanted to come here in the first place."
"Not the house. Your energy. Your world."
"I don't understand."
"Of course not. Humans are so proud of their accomplishments, but they have no knowledge of the bigger picture. They refuse to come to terms with their fate, spending billions of dollars on their elixirs and snake oils, all in the hopes of living to a ripe old age and leaving behind a good looking corpse. It's sad, really. Watching you all scamper around like cockroaches. I intend on putting you out of your misery - every last one of you."
"You're crazy," Roger cried.
"You're not the first to tell me that, you know?"
"Leave us alone. Just go back to wherever you came from." Roger listened to the words escaping his mouth and felt instantly stupid. He was pleading with this thing as if it was a man, as if it had the ability to show mercy and be negotiated with.
"Not this time, Roger Dade. Do you expect us to go our separate ways and pretend like this never happened?"
"We won't say anything."
"You behave like you have a choice."
"Are you the Devil?"
The man laughed loudly, displaying a mouthful of sharp pointy teeth. The edges of his body had grown fuzzy and his eyes became wide silver globes. "I'm familiar with that name as well, but there's more to fear in the abyss than childhood tales of monsters and demons. There are entire worlds floating in the darkness that make your concept of Hell seem like a welcome vacation."
Hot tears streamed unchecked down Roger's cheeks; his bowels felt like hot soup.
"What do you want from us?" Roger sobbed.
"I want you to die, but we'll get to that. First, a little fun."
The man's body exploded in a flash of silver light, leaving a circular patch of melted snow and scorched tree limbs. Roger collapsed back into the chair and cried harshly, covering his face with his hands. Every inch of his body trembled and twitched. The air in the room suddenly grew heavier, and Roger had to struggle to raise his head. In the far side of the room, a black shape emerged from the wall; a formless mass coalesced in the air as long arms of smoke reached out and touched Roger and his sleeping companions. The icy touch sent a shock wave of pain through Roger's body, and he collapsed to the floor in a blubbering heap.
"A long time ago, a child named this place." The disembodied voice bellowed and filled the house with overlapping echoes. Roger covered his ears but still heard that ugly voice drilling into his brain. "He called it The Gray - a name I've grown rather fond of - but there's so much more than that. Horrors even he couldn't imagine."
Roger sat up as blood dribbled from his nose. His eyes burned and his fillings rattled in his teeth. He felt like his body was being pulled apart by strong, invisible hands. The black form grew tighter and slowly spun in the air as the room went out of focus. At its center, Roger saw a window into the lonely, vastness of the universe. Stars, planets, and entire galaxies glittered in the void, their cold light reaching his eyes billions of years after they had ceased to exist.
He wasn't sure if he was screaming.
***
Geoff and Stacy had finished half the vodka before they were willing to listen to the strange boy who'd seemingly appeared out of thin air. He had returned to his place on the floor, watching the cloudy image of a snow-covered Elmview on the television screen. Geoff had tossed the blanket aside as the room grew increasingly warm. The lights glowed dimly and the sound of muffled rock music thumped overhead.
"Who's upstairs?" Geoff asked.
"My sister," the boy responded, "and my mom. They do this all the time."
Stacy heard the sadness in his voice. This boy obviously had his fair share of grief.
"Do you get any other shows on that TV of yours?" Geoff asking jokingly.
"Nope, only this. Always this." Eric stood and once again joined them on the couch. "Are you ready for some answers, or do you need more of that?" he asked, pointing at the bottle.
"How can you possibly have an explanation for what's happening?" Stacy asked.
"I've done it all before. This may be new to you, but for me, it's a way of life now."
"You have to start making sense," Geoff pleaded. "I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but free booze and a couch that smells like warm shit aren't enough."
"You're here because you got too close to the veil. There's a reason why people don't come to Elmview anymore. It's a feeling they get in their bones, a voice in their head telling them to stay away. It's not haunted, but something far worse; it's a scar on the fabric of reality, one that allows travel between the world you know and the ones hiding in the dark."
"Are you sure you weren't hitting the bottle before we got here?" Geoff asked.
"You want to know what's going on and I'm telling you," Eric replied. "The Elmview you saw outside is not the one that exists in your reality. It's one that's been tainted by the creature that started this war..."
"This is nuts," Geoff shouted. "What is this kid even talking about?"
"Would you just let him speak?" Stacy scolded.
Geoff upended the bottle of vodka and drank deeply. "Can you pull that little trick again and fill this bottle?"
Eric nodded and smirked. When Geoff looked down, he saw the clear liquid was once again up to the neck.
"You'd make a hell of a bartender."
"Tell us your story," Stacy prodded. "And you keep your mouth shut." Geoff turned red and smiled bashfully.
"I grew up in Elmview. I was a teenager when all the crazy stuff happened..."
"Come on," Geoff interrupted. "You're still a teenager. That shit happened thirty years ago."
"I told you to shut your mouth!" Stacy shouted. She grabbed the bottle from his hand and slammed it down on the coffee table.
"It's easy to get confused," Eric said. "None of it made any sense to me either. I'm not sure if it makes sense now, but what I'm telling you is no joke. I lived here with my mom and sister; my father had died when I was younger, and my life sort of fell apart. If it wasn't for my friends Danny and Brent, I would have killed myself. I even thought about it a couple times, and I probably would've done it if it wasn't for them. They were good guys. Really good guys." Eric's bottom lip quivered, but he quickly got himself under control.
"They're gone now?" Stacy asked.
Eric didn't answer but continued with his story.
"In the summer of 1986, something happened here that turned everything upside down. A monster, a creature, a thing came to Elmview to claim what it believed was its property. We came to know it as the Skryel, an entity so powerful and so full of hate, that its only goal was to plunge the Earth into darkness and wipe out everyone we'd ever known. It despises the human race, sees us as a plague that had taken over the universe, and it won't stop until the void is once again the barren wasteland it once inhabited. Our world is only one of millions just like it; realities are lined up side-by-side, and if one topples, they fall over like dominoes.
"It sits somewhere in the abyss, overlooking all creation, finding ways to create chaos. It feeds on fear, grows more powerful with each world it destroys, constantly looking for a way back into our world, a key reality that decides the fate of all the others in the string. Many other worlds have already been destroyed and left behind to rot. My friend Danny called it The Gray."
"Okay, hold on," Geoff said. "So this monster, this Skryel, is like an alien? A demon?" Stacy shot him a nasty look and exhaled loudly, irritated by the mocking tone of his voice. Eric shook his head and continued.
"It isn't any of those things, and it's
all of them. The Skryel is that feeling you get in a dark room when you're sure you're being watched; it's the chill that creeps up your spine when the clouds pass over the sun, and the shadow you see out of the corner of your eye. It's everywhere and nowhere at the same time. There was once many of them, an entire race that governed the universe, but this is the last, and its anger and jealousy have made it pure evil over the eons. It needs special people, doorways, to enter our world and bring about the end. It hunts these people down, tries to turn them to its will. Once it finds one, it can manifest in its true form, and there's almost nothing that can stop it."
"Almost?" Stacy asked.
Geoff rolled his eyes.
"The Guardians," Eric said. "They were the balance, a separate race that protected the multiverse from the Skyrel's wrath. Over the millennia, the Guardians were eradicated until one remained. He hid in our world disguised as an old man, waiting for the signs of the Skryel's next attack. His name was Ben, and without him, we would have all died in our beds without any knowledge that we'd ever existed at all. Ben was the last Guardian, and my friend Danny was the most powerful doorway to have been born for thousands of years."
"That must have been one hell of a 'What Did You Do This Summer' essay, huh?" Geoff laughed. "Went to the amusement park. Played some video games. Got laid for the first time. Oh, yeah, saved the world from a space demon. The end. A plus!"
"I know you think this is the story of some crazy kid with nothing better to do, but if you didn't believe it, you wouldn't be sitting there getting drunk and making jokes to hide the fact that you're scared shitless. I didn't go back to school after summer break because there was nothing to go back to. When that fucking thing finally tore through the veil, it left Elmview a broken ghost town; most of my friends were killed, and it left a permanent mark on the curtain between worlds. We did what we had to do, and in the end, only Danny was able to walk away with the knowledge of what had happened to us."
"You're here," Geoff scoffed. "Apparently you miraculously survived."
"No. I didn't, and that's why I'm here."
One minute Eric stood before them, and the next he was gone. The room was dark and cold, the bottle of vodka empty and covered in dust. Snow fell outside, adding to the eight inches that had piled up in Elmview's empty streets. Geoff looked at Stacy and suddenly regretted what he'd said. No amount of vodka could make this right.
The Traveler (The Great Rift Book 2) Page 10