The Traveler (The Great Rift Book 2)

  The wolves watched with blazing eyes, and for just a second, Roger imagined how nice it would feel to get closer and bask in the fire.

  Good puppy, he thought. Nice doggy.

  Suddenly, his flesh grew warm. Hot. All he could think was to tear off his clothes and run out into the snow.

  The man was right. Freezing feels so much like burning.

  Roger's dying scream froze on his purple lips.

  The wolves backed away and playfully nipped at one another as they bounded across the ice, yipping and howling as another world died.

  ***

  The Skryel's home in the darkness filled with the sounds of the screeching dead.

  Romeo. Trina. Beth. Dink. Lisa. Roger. All part of the growing flood of soul energy the creature needed to become stronger.

  Worlds collapsed and blinked out of existence.

  Infinite numbers of terrified creatures looked to the skies, awaiting their damnation.

  The universe grew darker as the beast grew stronger.

  It had been here before - on the cusp of victory - but it had failed.

  Now, the Guardian - that hateful prick in human skin - had gone missing.

  Danny Harper had become a complacent, middle-aged man... an easy target.

  His other friends were dead and gone...

  ...except the final boy. Eric.

  The Guardian had done something to him. Saved him. Allowed him to walk between worlds.

  He was the fly in the ointment, the wrench in the works.

  The Skryel couldn't always feel him, and that terrified the creature like nothing had in thousands of years.

  But the monster felt him now.

  The boy's light beckoned, and the Skryel followed.

  Chapter 8

  Eric stopped in his tracks and groaned. His eyes glazed over, and although he was staring right at them, Geoff knew he was somewhere else. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder and shook him lightly. Eric's eyes cleared as a single tear rolled down his face.

  "They're gone," he whispered. "All your friends are gone."

  "What? That can't be. You said they were still alive."

  "They were, but the Skryel has taken them all. It needs to feed."

  "This is madness. Why can't you help them? What about this man you mentioned? Ben? The Guardian?"

  "When Danny and I fought the creature and sent it away, I had no idea how much a part of this I'd become. Danny needed me to defeat the Skryel. He used me like an amplifier, a way to make his own power stronger. We couldn't have won otherwise. By then, Brent was already dead, and Danny's girlfriend, Samantha, was clinging to life after being attacked by that fucking thing. I was all he had, and I died in the process."

  "He sacrificed you," Geoff shouted. "What kind of friend does that?"

  "I allowed it," Eric replied. "I knew it was the only way, and I'd gladly do it again. Danny was... part of me. We may have had different parents and different last names, but I loved him like a brother."

  Geoff put his head down and stared at his feet. He and Dink had a similar relationship. They were peas in a pod, and if one hurt, the other hurt. Although time and distance often made it tough to see one another, their friendship never suffered. Now, Geoff wondered if he'd taken that all for granted. This kid just told him all his friends were dead, and for the life of him, Geoff couldn't grasp what that actually meant. How could they be gone? How could any of this be real?

  "Wait," Geoff said. "What does this have to do with Ben?"

  Eric nodded sadly and continued walking.

  "Ben gave us everything we needed to confront the Skryel. As a Guardian, that was his job, but the beast is relentless. Ben needs to rest, recover. He can't do it alone anymore. After I... after I died, I woke up somewhere else. A dead place. I wandered alone for what felt like an eternity. I didn't need to eat or drink; I didn't need to sleep. All I had were memories of a different life to keep me company, and after a while, I think I went a little crazy. I started seeing ghosts of those I'd once known, started talking to them as if they were standing right in front of me. When I saw Ben for the first time, I hid from him. He was just another shadow on a broken street, but whenever I tried to shake him, he found me."

  "He saved you?"

  "He freed me. He gave me the ability to become something else. Something better."

  "He made you a Guardian," Geoff said.

  Eric met Geoff's eyes. When he began speaking again, his voice was weary.

  "I can't explain everything. I wouldn't know where to start. Ben is once again in hiding, and your world is wide open for the Skryel's return. It's using you and your friends to gain a foothold while Ben is too weak to help with the fight. That old house... we knew nothing about it when we were kids. I still don't know if the monster used it as a portal back then, but now it's in complete control. Expanding its range, broadening its influence. That house isn't haunted by ghosts, but pure evil itself. It's all haunted houses. It's a door to a million other worlds, to all the universe's dead places, and that fucking monster uses it like an express elevator between realities."

  "I told you," Stacy interrupted. She'd been quiet so long, Geoff had almost forgotten she was still there. "The stories are true... the house sits between worlds, shivering in anticipation of warm bodies."

  "Christ, Stacy, you really know how to lighten the mood."

  Stacy watched him, confused, eyes half closed. "Huh?"

  "Are you okay? You're acting really weird."

  She blinked several times and her eyes appeared to clear. Color rushed back into her pale face and her posture straightened.

  "How am I supposed to act? Are we listening to the same story? Good versus evil, teenage boys with superpowers, houses that act like turnstiles to other dimensions. I'm sorry if I'm a little... off."

  "No, of course. You're right. I'm sorry."

  Geoff kissed Stacy on the cheek and lightly stroked her hand. In all the chaos, she was the only thing that remained constant. If he lost her...

  "Come on, keep moving," Eric interrupted. "I can feel it searching for us."

  "Can't you just snap your fingers and take us somewhere else?" Geoff asked. "What's the point of being all-knowing and all-powerful if your life still comes down to running from this fucking thing?"

  "I'm neither of those things. All I can do is try to protect you for as long as I can. The Skryel has you in its sights, and it will stop at nothing to influence you to do its bidding. It will wear you down and take away everything you love, just to have another chance to lay waste to the Earth."

  "Are we ever going to be able to go home?"

  Eric thought about it carefully before replying. "Yes, but by then all the pieces will be in place for the final battle. You're part of this now, whether you want to be or not. That story hasn't been written yet. Just like my friend Danny, you're a doorway, Geoff - one that needs to stay closed at all costs."

  Geoff and Stacy followed the boy as they walked aimlessly around an alternate Elmview. All of Geoff's questions died on his lips; the answers wouldn't make sense, anyway. His friends were gone, and the life he knew was a billion miles away, floating in the darkness of space. Suddenly, Dexter Maitland's television show played in his head. All his stories of hauntings, monsters, and UFOs didn't even scratch the surface. Geoff hated him even more. If it wasn't for he and Stacy sitting in front of the television at precisely the right moment, they wouldn't have ever seen the video on Maitland's show. They would have never known about the house on Two-Penny Lane, and they wouldn't have made the stupid decision to go there and find the Skryel waiting.

  Geoff felt that he was served up on a plate, like hors d'oeuvres at a twisted cocktail party. The Skryel licked its fingers clean and awaited the main course.

  "This might seem like a silly question," Stacy said, breaking their silence, "but what happens if you run into yourself?"

  "This isn't like Back to the Future," Eric laughed. "It doesn't work that way. You can't truly exist in
any reality where another version of yourself still lives. We're here, but we're not here. No one can see us. We all still exist in this reality, so all we really are is energy."

  "This is so fucked up," Geoff groaned.

  "If we're only energy, how can that thing still hurt us?" Stacy asked.

  "It just can. I know that isn't the answer you're looking for, but the laws of the universe don't apply to the Skryel. Wherever you are, it can find you and kill you. Your friends and family will wake up the following day having no memory that you'd ever existed."

  "I think I'm going to throw up," Geoff said. He burped quietly as acid rose into his throat. Never had he listened so closely to something without at least understanding the fundamentals. This kid could talk until he was blue in the face, and still, not a single word made sense. He might as well have been speaking another language.

  All he knew was that his friends were dead, and if he didn't follow Eric's lead, he'd be next.

  ***

  When Eric told them there was really nothing they could do, he wasn't kidding.

  They walked the sunny streets of Elmview for hours, discussing things of little consequence. Geoff's head was fuzzy from being dragged into another world, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't fascinating.

  Like a field trip back in time.

  Vending machines carried soda for a quarter a can. Poison and Motley Crue blared from car stereos. Girls walked around in bikini tops and shorts, their hair perfectly crimped and kept in place with copious amounts of hairspray. The marquee above the entrance of a small movie theater announced that Ferris Bueller's Day Off would be playing all weekend at a discounted rate.

  Stacy gawped at her surroundings but hadn't said anything for the past hour. Geoff was beginning to worry. She'd started lagging behind and chewing her fingernails, a habit Geoff only saw her partake in when she was nervous or depressed. He couldn't blame her.

  When she screamed, Geoff's heart skipped a beat.

  "What? What's wrong?" he asked. "You're going to give me a stroke."

  "In the sewer," she pointed. "The storm drain. The biggest rat I've ever seen."

  "Jesus Christ, that's it? We have bigger problems, Stacy."

  "It was the size of a goddamn dog."

  She'd gone pale again. Dark circles appeared under her eyes and her hands began trembling uncontrollably.

  "It's coming," Eric said. "Be ready for anything."

  "What do you mean be ready for anything? It doesn't look any different than it did a minute ago."

  "Just do what I tell you, goddammit. We don't have the time for me to lead you around by the hand."

  "Now wait just a minute..." Geoff said.

  "We don't have a fucking minute! If you don't believe me by now, then I don't know what else to say. That thing is going to hunt us down and destroy everything in its way." His words were punctuated by the screeching of tires on asphalt. Across the street, two teenage girls shrieked and ran inside a small accounting office as a gray, fuzzy creature leaped off the ground and attacked a stroller being pushed by a wailing woman.

  Geoff watched in horror as two pudgy legs disappeared into the animal's mouth.

  He found Stacy's rat.

  It looked just like any other but must have topped the scales at over twenty pounds. It gulped the infant down its throat in a single swallow before turning on the child's mother. It knocked her to the sidewalk and began loudly chewing her nose to a pulp. Another rat - this one even larger than the first - grabbed the woman's head between its sharp teeth and dragged her down the sidewalk. She beat at it furiously until a third rat joined the others and pulled her arm from its socket in one quick motion. It disappeared down a nearby storm drain, carrying its prize and squealing gleefully.

  A scuffle ensued as others joined the party, tearing the woman's flesh and gorging on the blood quickly pooling in the gutter.

  "You get away from there," an old man shouted across traffic. He rolled a newspaper in his hand and held it in front of him as he was knocked over from behind. His dentures tumbled from his mouth as another mutant rodent grabbed them in its jaws. For a moment it appeared to be smiling. The man stopped moving as his jugular sprayed into the street.

  Screams surrounded them now: from the streets, from inside houses, from the storefronts, from cars that sped by wildly and collided into one another. They seemed to multiply in front of their very eyes. Geoff grabbed Stacy and pulled her out of the way as a Corvette jumped the curb and crashed through the plate glass window of a beauty parlor. A woman in curlers ran from the building only to be crushed beneath the wheels of a speeding, white van.

  Stacy watched it all with the same vapid expression on her face. Even Eric seemed unmoved; he'd seen worse.

  Once upon a time, he'd watched as one of his friends was cut in half by an identical white van. He'd seen Elmview's intersection become a fiery deathtrap. He stood by as a child was pulled into the air by a skinned vulture. Buildings crumbled at his feet as the world he knew was slowly destroyed around him.

  This wasn't his world, but the sights and smells were the same.

  The outcome was the same.

  His feelings of helplessness... the same.

  "Do something," Geoff shouted over the din. "Get us out of here."

  "It doesn't work like that. I can't just snap my fingers or click my heels. It takes time for me to... recharge."

  "Rats," Stacy mumbled. "I really don't like rats." She said it as if she was commenting on her dislike of a band, or a blouse she'd just pulled from a clothing rack. Geoff looked at Eric questioningly, but the boy simply shrugged. He wasn't full of the answers Geoff had hoped for. He might know what's going on, but it didn't seem he was any more equipped for it then Geoff and Stacy.

  They made their way through the traffic at Elmview's main intersection, squeezing between wrecked vehicles as screams filled the smoky air. The bank on the corner had caught fire, sending panicking pensioners onto the sidewalk. They huddled close together as the giant rodents picked them off one by one. Stacy was almost run down by one of the creatures as it ran past, clutching a ruffled, gray wig between its teeth. It barely phased her. She hadn't been the same since they slipped into this reality. Geoff feared for her sanity.

  And his own.

  A pickup truck narrowly missed them before running over a fire hydrant and crashing into the stalled cars at the intersection. Rusty water sprayed twenty feet into the air and rained back to earth in a reddish-brown downpour. It looked and smelled just like blood.

  Eric cried quietly. For the second time, he was forced to watch as the monster waged war in Elmview. He had a sinking suspicion it wouldn't be the last.

  "Where are we going?" Geoff asked.

  "Away from the center of town," Eric replied. "Somewhere we can rest until I can get us out of here."

  "Where the hell can we hide from these things? They're everywhere."

  Something whistled past Geoff's ear, forcing him to duck behind a parked car. Stacy stood on the sidewalk, wide-eyed, as the sound of small arms fire erupted across the street. Geoff pulled her down beside him and peeked around the side of the vehicle as shots rang out from Elmview's police station. Uniformed officers burst through the door, shooting at everything that moved. One of the giant rats squealed loudly as the top of its skull exploded in a spray of blood and bone. Passing cars were caught in the crossfire as terrified officers emptied their weapons into the approaching horde.

  Stacy sat up and looked over the trunk of the car. Her eyes were wet and her hands were shaking, but she had a crooked grin on her face that scared Geoff half to death.

  "Christ, Stacy, get down. Do you want to get shot?"

  "I juss wanna see," she slurred.

  He pulled her down where she hit the concrete with a grunt.

  "Wait," Geoff exclaimed. "You said we're only energy here. Right? If we're not really here, then we can't be hurt."

  "The bullets won't kill you," Eric said, "but the rats sur
ely will."

  "Then why the hell are we hiding here? Can't we just go?"

  "Instinct," the boy explained. "If someone told you to hold your hand over a fire, would you do it? Even if they said it wouldn't hurt a bit? No, you wouldn't. Our brains don't work like that. Not in your world or in any other."

  "This is too confusing."

  Eric nodded. "You'll learn quick."

  "I don't want to learn anything!" Geoff bellowed. "I want to go home and watch bad television. I want Stacy to stop looking at me like I'm a bug squashed on the windshield. I wish we'd never known about that fucking house. About alternate realities and monsters and giant sewer rats. I want my life back. I want my friends. I don't want any of this."

  "If you didn't feel this way, then I'd be worried."

  Geoff poked his head out and watched as a group of wailing teenagers were attacked by a half-dozen rats and pulled over the side of the bridge into the stream below. Their screams were mercifully short. The entrance to the police station was clogged with a mass of writhing, screeching monsters. Elmview's police force had been wiped out in a matter of minutes. Panicked citizens pried the officers' weapons from their dead fingers, only to be knocked down and savaged before having a chance to fire a single shot.

  "Come on," Eric urged. "Stay close and keep on your guard."

  Geoff nodded and followed.

  Stacy tugged on his arm and backed away as a rat bit into the rubber sole of her shoe. After the monsters they'd seen running the streets, this completely run-of-the-mill, common rodent was almost laughable. No larger than a pet guinea pig, it clung to her shoe, determined to prove it could play along with its much larger brothers and sisters.

  "You picked the wrong day to grow a set of balls, my little friend," Geoff said. He held Stacy still, raised his foot, and brought his shoe down on her attacker's head with a crunch.

  Eric looked at him with a smile. "You feel better?"

  "Call it revenge."

  With Eric in the lead, they walked briskly away from the center of town.

  ***

  Elmview's east end was much quieter than the chaotic nightmare downtown. Geoff stopped at the next corner and bent over, sweating and out of breath. Stacy stood motionless behind him, watching as black towers of smoke drifted into the bright, summer sky. Alarms blared all over town: car alarms, security systems, the high-pitched wail of the fire companies' sirens. Horns honked, dogs barked, people screamed.