Arkadium Rising

by Glen Krisch

  Jason drifted to his own thoughts. Linda sounded somehow both remarkably sane and unhinged at the same time. What she said about nature made so much sense, yet…

  "But what about your daughter?" Leah said.

  "I've given my life over to Nature. It's for the great good of man."

  "So you're just giving up on her?"

  "No… no, I wouldn't say that. It's more like she gave up on following a righteous path, and I can no longer stand idly by while she defiles her flesh." Linda sat among the roots and stared at the Tree. She patted the ground next to her. "Please, at least come sit with me."

  2.

  Kylie and Dawn had finally found RJ in the uppermost level of the central pillar. They'd rushed into the room blindly, knowing that this was the last place he could possibly be. And finding him alone with his face buried in a book didn't seem unusual, even under the given circumstances. He had his back to them and was standing in front of a drafter's desk covered in books, maps and schematics.

  "RJ!" Kylie yelled, but he didn't respond.

  "Junior!" Dawn smacked his shoulder when he still didn't move.

  "Hey." RJ jumped up from his desk and pulled earplugs from his ears. "What are you two doing here? You're going to get us all in trouble."

  "The only trouble we're in is the Anaki warrior that's turned the courtyard into Black Friday at the outlet mall," Dawn said.

  He turned away from his work desk. "They're inside?"

  "There's one that we saw, but we heard more commotion coming from the front wall."

  "It makes perfect sense." RJ began to pace, his hands folded behind his back.

  "What makes sense?" Kylie asked.

  "The Anaki… of course they would come here. I bet they infiltrated the island long before this. Just like the Arkadium in mainstream society."

  Kylie didn't want to hear anymore crazy talk. She went up to him and embraced him, hard. He no longer hesitated when she showed him affection. He embraced her just as fervently.

  "Junior? We need to figure a way out of this mess. The others are here, too. Linda, Jason, a girl he found along the way. They're all here."

  "Where?"

  "In the temple."

  "That's good. That's exactly where we need to go." RJ stepped away from Kylie and headed for the door.

  "Why? What's going on?" Dawn asked.

  "It's true." RJ's face was full of awe as he opened the door.

  "What is? Can you just hold on a minute and tell us what the hell you're talking about?"

  "Everything about the Arkadium. Everything. It's true."

  "Everything?" Kylie said.

  "I've been poring over their religious texts, blueprints for the island, family lineages, histories that have passed down for millennia."

  "So these freaks are descendants from Adam and Eve, and they possess the One True Word, and… and that's what religion is all about?"

  "Well, I don't know about the whole spiritual component, but the history. My god, the history of these people! What I've read is crazy, and I bet I've only scratched the surface."

  "So why do we need to see Jason and the others?"

  "We don't. But there's a secret way off of this island, and you can only get to it through the temple."

  3.

  "Jason!" shouted Marcus when he burst through the door to the keep. He had momentarily spotted his brother in the chaos in the courtyard, but had lost track of him. His best hope was that he had the sense to take cover inside.

  His whole left arm felt like it was on fire. He didn't want to look at it, afraid of what he'd find. Before they had left the infirmary, he'd had Delaney wrap the freshly-set forearm in an inch of gauze bandaging. She'd wound it tight, just like he asked, and now his hand had swollen and was getting numb.

  "Marcus, wait up!" Delaney rushed in through the door. Adam came through a second later, and he lowered a bar across it just as the Anaki horde slammed into it. When the warriors worked together, throwing multiple bodies against the door, it shook in its frame. It wasn't nearly as stout as the door on the fort's outer wall.

  "Jason! We need to get out of here." Marcus turned to Delaney. "Where can they be?"

  "I'm guessing somewhere out there." Adam pointed to the door as it continued to shake. "He's probably dead, like everyone else will be before night falls."

  "Don't say that," Delaney said.

  "It's true, my dear. We're all short for this world. All of this time preparing for the future—our new life, our new world—and it's just now dawning on me that you can't prepare beyond today. Not really. Not like we were doing… how silly. How terribly, wastefully, silly."

  "Jason!" Marcus shouted. Even though he could barely think straight because of the throbbing agony in his arm, he was glad he had declined the morphine shot. They would've never gotten out of the infirmary otherwise. And once they did leave, they'd rushed to the front wall, but by then, it was too late. Other embedded Anaki had made their presence known, and as they advanced through the interior of the fort, it was a bloody rout. Marcus and Delaney had found Adam and then barely made it back to the courtyard before the heavy twin doors were opened and the rest of the horde poured inside.

  "You sound like you just want to open the door, get it over with," Delaney said.

  Adam shrugged. "The walls worked beautifully, just beautifully." He chose to ignore her. "Everyone performed as they were instructed."

  "Not everyone. Not the fucking turncoats," Marcus said.

  "Even that…" Adam trailed off.

  "Even what?" Marcus said, his attention falling on his leader.

  "Even the secret Anaki… in here the whole time? Living in secret for the time when they could rise and assume their role in bringing down civilization. Just… beautiful."

  "Have you lost your fucking mind?"

  "Nothing of the sort, brother. The Anaki have their role. We have ours. We're basically one in the same. They just follow through less…" he said, his mouth forming a wicked smile, "judiciously. If anything, their behavior is much more in tune with Nature. And God is Nature, and Nature is God. You have to respect that."

  "I don't need to respect anyone, or anything." Marcus grabbed Adam by the collar and shook him. The older man's head flailed wildly, but he still smiled as he started to laugh.

  "Marcus!" Delaney said.

  He ignored her, shoving Adam hard until he slammed against the keep's outer wall. Marcus's rage was building. His pain was also starting to ebb in direct proportion. His nostrils flared and he tightened his one good hand into a fist and advanced on Adam, ready to find release.

  "Marcus!" Delaney's voice was shrill in his ears.

  "What is it?" A single stride away from striking distance, Marcus turned on his heel, ready to knock Delaney on her ass for interrupting him. She only pointed to the stairwell leading to the training rooms above.

  "Hello, Marcus." The black teenager from back in Concord strode down the spiral staircase. "Do you want to get out of here? Because I sure do."

  "RJ?"

  "You look surprised to see us." The kid's sister and his girlfriend were a few steps behind him, hesitant. "Well, do you want to get out of here or not?"

  "Fuck yeah, kid."

  "There is no way out of the keep," Adam said, but Marcus didn't believe him.

  "I guess that also means you want to see your brother?" RJ stepped off the last step to the ground floor. He looked different. Not physically. Something in his eyes… it was confidence.

  "Jason? Where is he?"

  "He's praying," Dawn said.

  "What?" Marcus said in disbelief. The idea of his brother and prayer didn't correlate in his brain.

  "He's right through that door." Kylie pointed to the door to the temple and the Tree of Life beyond. Marcus had never been a religious person, or even vaguely spiritual. Hell, he'd done any number of vile things against any number of different religions in his youth… but that room… the Tree, its power. It's evident… holiness… It was i
n that room and under the imposing branches of the Tree that he found the courage to take the final step to getting clean. He had never felt anything so uplifting and accepting of who he was until he stepped through those doors two years ago.

  Marcus walked toward the door.

  "There is no way out of the keep!" Adam insisted, following close behind.

  Marcus turned the latch on the door. He pulled it open and walked inside.

  4.

  Jason was in deep prayer for the first time in his life. He felt his mind drifting away from his body, lifting high into the canopy of the Tree of Life.

  No, not his mind, his spirit.

  He prayed for sanity in an insane world. He prayed to be surrounded by people he cared about. Who they were, it didn't matter, just as long as he had his own community. He prayed for Mike and Cora, for Kat, too. He prayed that what Leah had gone through hadn't left any permanent damage.

  He prayed, projecting his thoughts out into the world. He didn't pray to God. Merely focused his every good intention out into the world.

  And that's when he realized that the world… Nature… Nature really was God. An all-encompassing wonderment that held man's survival in its ephemeral hands.

  He prayed, and he prayed to nature… and to God.

  He leaned over, just realizing his legs were falling asleep in his seated position on the temple's floor, the Tree of Life sprawling, strong, and indelible before him. He needed to stand, to stretch his legs…

  And when he stood, he felt light-headed, but also that he could breathe. His pain wasn't gone, no certainly not gone. But he could breathe. Like a weight had been lifted, a weight that had been pressing down on every square inch of his skin. Like he had just surfaced from the darkest depths of… floodwater.

  He heard a commotion in the circular hallway outside the temple. Shouting that sounded like muffled whispers in the insulated world of the Tree. Leah, who sat next to Linda a short distance away, noticed it too. Linda seemed oblivious to anything happening outside her silent prayer. She sat with her feet crossed at the ankle in front of her. She held her arms out wide, like she might start flapping them and just fly away. She blinked with her glassy eyes staring up at the Tree, and mouthed silent words of prayer.

  "Is it the Anaki?" Leah asked.

  "I don't know," he replied. "I wish I could snap my fingers and take us away from this place."

  "Where would you take me?"

  "Anywhere but here."

  They looked into one another's eyes, sharing a moment of intense silence.

  The door to the temple burst open and Marcus entered, his broken arm wrapped in white gauze that made his blood-choked hand look distended and black in the low candlelight.

  "Marcus. Of course. Who else would it be?"

  "We don't have much time. The Anaki are set to destroy the island."

  "Obviously."

  The others came in through the door at a rush. Kylie, Dawn, RJ, and Adam, who had a blade point pressing against the back of his neck, courtesy of Delaney.

  "And I'm assuming you have a plan figured out."

  "No, I don't," Marcus said. "But Adam here, he knows a way out. Isn't that right, RJ?"

  "Yes, he does. There's a secret chamber underneath the temple, and a tunnel system that goes under the river. And Adam knows where it is."

  "No, there's not!" Adam glared defiantly even with the knife point pressing into his neck.

  "And how do you know he knows, RJ?" Jason asked.

  "The tunnels and Tree were built at the same time. I've seen the blueprints."

  "I thought the written word was banned?" Jason said.

  "The Arkadium couldn't do away with all writing. Not if they wanted to maintain their upper hand on the rest of the world."

  "Figures," Leah said.

  "Sound familiar, Marcus?" Jason said.

  Marcus ignored his brother's jab, instead focusing on Adam. "So where is it?" Marcus took hold of Adam's shirt collar and practically dragged him across the temple's dirt floor to the base of the Tree. "Show me the tunnel."

  "There is no tunnel. What RJ read, that was purposely written into the recorded history of the Arkadium. It's meant to confuse and obfuscate."

  A number of voices chimed in, some arguing with him, some defending him. Jason watched them all, and as he watched, the sounds of the Anaki breaching the keep registered even through the temple's soundproofing. With everyone still arguing, he ran to the door and threw the bracing arm down to lock it.

  Marcus smacked Adam across the face with his right hand. Adam flew backward against the Tree. He slumped down to the ground, but Marcus again grabbed his collar.

  "We don't have time for this." He shook Adam, more to jostle the fog from his head than to harm him. "Delaney, grab his arm."

  Delaney relished the task of doing as she was told and took hold of Adam's wrist. Adam struggled against her grip, but he knew the situation was untenable. Marcus would have his pound of flesh, and he would have to suffer through it.

  Marcus splayed the fingers of Adam's right hand wide, the palm parallel to the floor. He then removed his knife, and tapped each of the fingers with its tip as if he were playing a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

  The knife stopped on Adam's index finger. Marcus smiled. "Hold it, Deli. Hold it good."

  Delaney grabbed the selected finger and Adam struggled even more. "This is going to hurt," Marcus said, "but you've left me no other choice. There's a way off this island, and you're going to tell me."

  Jason rushed back down to the Tree in time to see Adam swaying on his feet. Delaney held fast, anchoring his hand so it wouldn't move.

  "Dear heavenly father," Adam trailed off into prayer as he closed his eyes.

  "Wait!" Jason called out. "Maybe there's another way."

  "Like what, brother?"

  "I don't know. Something else… Not this…"

  The Anaki pounded on the door to the temple. It was only a matter of seconds before they tore it off its hinges.

  "You know, I always thought you were above human weakness. But I guess I was wrong. Which is why you're going to tell me…" Marcus slipped the knife point under Adam's fingernail and pressed it deep, until the blade reached the submerged depth of the cuticle. With a flick of the wrist Marcus sliced the nail out.

  Adam screamed a throaty agony, and his legs went out from under him.

  "Where's the tunnel, Adam?"

  "There is no…" he replied, sobbing.

  "Grab his hand again."

  Delaney grabbed Adam's hand. Blood was dripping from his ruined nail bed. Tears and snot ran down his face.

  "Hold him steady, God damn it."

  "Wait!" Linda said, and everyone turned in her direction. "Let me… let me talk to him."

  Delaney eased her grip and Adam nearly pulled free.

  "Delaney, I need your help. I need you to focus. Now hold his hand."

  Delaney did as she was told.

  "Marcus, let me talk to him," Linda repeated.

  "We have no time, old woman," Marcus said.

  Linda ignored him, stepping close to Adam. She moved so steadily, so lightly, it almost seemed like she floated across the temple floor. "Evan, did you know that God speaks to me?"

  Confusion rippled through the gathering.

  "For instance, he told me your real name is Evan Daniels. You studied to be a high school guidance counselor. You're from Hobart Indiana."

  Adam shook his head. "How… how did you know?"

  The door started to bow under the constant barrage from the Anaki.

  "Like I said, God speaks to me." Linda reached out for Adam/Evan's damaged hand, and transfixed, Delaney relinquished her hold. "He told me why you no longer work as a counselor. He told me that you are a good man, a man who sins terrible, horrible sins, but a good man nonetheless."

  "H-he did?"

  "Yes, He did. He also told me that you would lead us to safety, so we could worship Him as it should be. In the wild. In
nature. Inside of him."

  She covered his ruined fingernail with her hand, pressed it with her gentle fingers. When she released her grip, he looked down as if expecting it to be healed, but a steady pulse of blood still trickled from the wound.

  "Why… why didn't He speak… to me?"

  "Evan, you know why He didn't. Am I right? He may forgive your sins, but that doesn't make you a righteous vessel for His message."

  Adam/Evan looked away, ashamed.

  "Will you do His will? Will you show us the way out of here?"

  Still looking at the ground, Adam/Evan nodded and sniffled back a tear.

  "It's over there, on the far side of the Tree."

  "Let him go, Deli," Marcus said.

  Adam/Evan clutched his injured hand to his chest and then practically ran to the far side of the Tree. He dropped to his knees at the base of the Tree and started digging in the loose dirt gathered around one of the intricately carved tree roots. When he unearthed a shallow tunnel underneath the root, he shifted something in the divot—a lever.

  Stones shifted beneath their feet, and then the edges of a five foot-wide rectangular shape defined itself in the dirt floor. The dirt within the rectangle began to vibrate, shaking until it became loose dirt and dust. The rectangle shifted open, and the loose dirt piled up to one side, and once the opening in the floor was revealed, the piled dirt fell into the opening.

  "That's it?" Marcus asked.

  "Did you expect an escalator?" Adam/Evan looked like a defeated man on so many levels.

  There was more pounding on the door, on the walls themselves. It was more than pounding, more than the force of a battering ram. It was explosions, and they were tearing the walls apart.

  "Everyone, inside!" Marcus grabbed a torch from the wall and handed it to Jason. "We're going to get out of this."

  "I think you might be right," Jason said.

  "Don't sound so disappointed."

  Jason took the torch and followed the others into the opening. A stone stairwell descended at least a hundred feet into a vast alcove that seemed nearly as big as the temple room above them. The couple of torches they brought with them barely did any good. Jason and Marcus fanned out, searching for an entrance into the tunnel system, while everyone else shuffled close behind.