by Sean Krick
“Allie, wait. Are you hurt?” My voice falters and cracks and my temples throb.”Allie!”
I search frantically for the fork and find it resting in a pothole in the ice. I stuff it in my coat and chase after Allie. She stops so I can catch up to her.
The gunfire inside ceases and the lights suddenly go out, leaving us in complete darkness.
I scramble to Allie’s side.
“We need to leave.” She doesn’t move.”Allie.”
I hoist her to her feet. Her wiry arms are trembling. My eyes adjust quickly and I can see the alleys between the houses across the way. I guide Allie toward one of the dark openings and shove her through.
“I saw it again.” She’s hysterical.”Just like before. I saw it.”
“If you feel anything strange, tell me.”
We emerge onto a smaller street lined with tiny shacks sunken in the ice.
“Do the snow cats at the edge of town work?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she sobs.
“If you see it again, yell as loud as you can. Do you remember the fork’s note?” Of course she doesn’t. I hum the note quietly.”Try to hit that note.”
We’re almost across the street when the bar door bursts open and shouts erupt behind us.
“Where is it?” one of the boys yells into the night.
I pull Allie to the edge of the street and crouch in the shadows. Movement flashes at the end of the alley: two of the army boys.
“Where’d it go?” The voice is tinged with panic.
“I don’t know! We need to get Brandt out.”
“No. Brandt’s gone. Back to back.”
The men press up against each other and shuffle across the ice toward the alley. A light suddenly blinks into existence and slants across the soldiers’ faces as they emerge from the alley.
“Help!” yells Allie, clutching a flashlight in both hands.
“What are you doing?” I scramble for the flashlight, but she pulls it away deftly.
“We need to alert the next village!”
The men stumble across the road and throw themselves down next to us.
“Where is it?” one of them asks. The blond boy is nowhere to be seen.
Allie waves the flashlight behind us.”Over that rise.”
“Where’d that thing go?”
“You can’t track it,” Allie says.”It’s not always visible.”
The soldier shakes his head.”Let’s go.” He springs to his feet and pulls at his friend’s coat.
“Wait,” says Allie.”Take the light.”
“Thank you. You two should head for the edge of town. We’ll bring help.”
The two disappear between the houses and the cold glow of the flashlight fades.
“What are you doing?” I ask.”There’s another town?”
Allie stares at me for a few seconds then shakes her head slowly.”The first time I saw it, I thought it was a dream.”
“Allie, is there another town?”
“I felt the warmth in my chest. It was comforting. But then it went somewhere deeper.”
“Allie.”
“It faded and I couldn’t hear or feel anything. I saw you though. It made me hate you. But I didn’t attack you. I wasn’t in control.”
The flashlight bobs through the streets, illuminating bits and pieces of weathered wood as the men scramble toward the rise.
“Allie, where did you send them?”
“To buy us time.”
Suddenly, all the disorientation I felt in the bar returns full force, but only for a second as a shadow lurches across the street
Allie tugs at my coat.”Come on. We have to get to the cats.” Her voice is calm.”You can tell where it is, right?”
“I can feel it when it’s close, but that’s it.”
Allie grabs my hands. I stumble to my feet and let her pull me back across the street. We cling to the houses as we move toward the eastern edge of town. She’s killing them. She understands how this thing works and she’s manipulating it.
“They don’t stand a chance now,” I say.
“Better them than us.”
“No,” I say grabbing her arm.”I’m here to help these people, not abandon them.”
“If we don’t leave now, we’re all beyond help.”
We find Kamik face down in a pool of frozen blood by the cats. His intestines poke from the bottom of his coat and his legs are slightly too far away from his body. Allie immediately jumps in a snow cat and starts searching for a key; no thoughts toward the dead man splayed out on the ice.
The flashlight bobs far in the distance. The men have almost reached the top of the rise. I flinch every time the light shifts, waiting for screams to echo through the night, but the shadow hasn’t reached them yet. It’s waiting for something.
“Found one!” Allie yells. She fusses with the key for a second before the low hum of an engine cuts through the silence. I look to Kamik but find nothing to say, so I simply nod and hop into the passenger’s seat. Allie is unnervingly calm.
“Allie.” She turns. Nothing in her eyes except fear. I relax a little.”How much gas do we have?”
She glances at the gauges.”Enough. We can make it to the ice road at least, get picked up there.”
“Kamik never said anything about an ice road.”
“I’m not lying to you.” I stare at her, waiting for a weakness in the façade, but I find none.”It was them or us,” she says.”They won’t die in vain.” She throws the levers forward and we spring into motion. I peer through her window at the ridge, where I can barely make out the light. Suddenly, it disappears. My breath catches in my lungs, but it reappears a second later.
“They’re our ticket out of here.”
Up ahead, another light cuts through the veil of darkness near the coast. The silhouette of the lighthouse is etched into the sky. The light rolls across the windshield, resetting my vision and forcing me to adjust to the darkness again.
“Why is the light house lit?” I ask.
Allie shakes her head.”It’s never lit this time of year.”
I try to remember whether it was lit when Kamik drove me into town. I’m almost certain it wasn’t. The spinning light looms closer and closer until I can see a dark blot in the middle of the beam every time it faces us. Someone’s in the tower.
“Do you see that?”
Allie cranes her neck, inadvertently pulling back on the levers.”Someone’s there.”
“Go there.”
“We don’t have time. Whoever it is will have to—“
A shrill squeal pierces through the cabin and the horizon twists in front of us as the cat heaves to the left. Allie’s window shatters on the ice and another sharp impact resounds, so percussive that it rattles my teeth. I’m looking down into a jagged fissure next to Allie’s shoulder. Everything’s still for a second, then Allie screams.
An infinitely dark shape crawls up the wall of ice, twisting and dancing like a corrupted reflection. The nausea returns and I feel an intense sensation of vertigo, like I’m teetering on the edge of the planet peering into the void. Allie’s frenzied screams inspire panic, and I kick blindly at the door. It creaks open slightly then slams shut under its own weight. I stand on my armrest and force it open with all my might. I climb out on top of the cat and lie flat to reach as far as I can into the cabin.
Allie claws at the cat’s controls and continues screaming as the shape crests the fissure. She finds a foothold and boosts herself up toward me, reaching for my hand with outstretched fingers. The undulating blot of darkness suddenly disappears and something purple flashes through Allie’s eyes. Her mouth clamps shut and I wrench my hand back, but it’s too late. She’s got my forearm in an impossibly strong grip. Her look of hopelessness is replaced by a twisted smile. Her fingers tighten, cutting off my circulation. I scream the fork’s note and she recoils slightly, just long enough for me to break free and ext
ract the cold metal from my coat. I fall backwards off the cat and land hard on my back. Before I can even catch my breath, she’s on top of the cat, crouching like a predator ready to pounce. I roll to the side and smack the fork on the ice.
Allie’s screams were nothing compared to the pained wail that erupts from her mouth now. I stand on shaky legs and stumble toward the lighthouse while she writhes on the mangled snow cat behind me, the thick tone of the fork reverberating from the ice. I’m halfway to the lighthouse when the tone begins to fade and the nausea slowly closes in. I quickly strike the ice to renew the sound. Allie’s scream intensifies, threatening to cut through the fork’s tone. I feel both sounds battling in my chest. Suddenly, Allie’s scream is all I can hear and my vision goes blurry.
I spin just in time to see her spring five meters into the air. I fall back, but I still have enough sense to strike the fork. The sound barely penetrates Allie’s scream as she hits the ground and sprints toward me, somehow finding traction on the ice. I strike the fork even harder, but it only slows her. I turn and sprint as fast as I can toward the glowing beacon of the lighthouse, now gray and muddy as the skrimsli’s energy clouds my senses.
My vision is so opaque that I almost run head-first into the side of the light house. I wrench open the door and throw myself inside, slamming the fork into the concrete floor with all my might as I fall back into the opening and slide a pair of heavy bolts into the concrete wall. The concrete reflects the fork’s tone through the lighthouse. The door shudders as Allie collides with it, but I’m already racing up the stairs.
“Sirmic!” I call, panting in the stifling air.”Sirmic, is that you?” There’s no answer.
I continue around the spiral staircase, pulling myself along the railing. There’s something slick on the railing, or cold, I can’t even tell. Halfway up the stairs, I slow to a brisk walk. The sound of metal scraping against concrete rises through the stairwell as Allie relentlessly attacks the door. Suddenly, the sounds stop and my nausea recedes just enough to highlight the pain in my shoulders and knees. I can see the walls and the railing now. They’re coated with blood. Tiny, white fragments of bone are scattered across the steps. I climb the remaining stairs slowly, straining to hear any sound at all. Warm light flashes under the door at the top of the steps, illuminating the dry, yellowed skull of a steer.
“Sirmic.”
I push the door lightly and it swings open. The light swivels, blinding me momentarily. The beam sweeps around the cylindrical room, illuminating the walls until it leaps through an opening facing the sea. The floor is littered with broken bones and a film of dried blood. The light flashes across a form on the other end of the cylindrical room.
“Sirmic?”
“I saw it.” His voice is deep and calm.
“What?” A chill creeps up my neck.
The light turns again, clinging to the walls and peeling back the darkness. Sirmic is standing absolutely still, staring straight up at the ceiling, which is open to the sky. I can see the stars now; the deep smear of darkness has receded.
“I saw it change at the bar. It revealed itself.”
I feel my way around the room, straining through the darkness that follows each sweep of the light, gripping the fork so tightly I can’t feel my fingers. I wait for the light to pass then crouch and feel the floor until I find a splintered spire of bone, a fibula or an ulna.
“We can make it out of here. We can outsmart it,” I say.”You saw it, but that doesn’t mean it’s over.”
Sirmic turns to me just as the light passes.”But you told me…” His voice wavers.”I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter, Sirmic. We’re getting out of here.”
“I’m sorry about the markers.” He’s whimpering like a child. I can see his eyes glistening through the darkness. No purple. His enormous shadow bounces up and down as he sobs.
I move next to him and look out the opening in the wall toward the rise, clutching the bone close to my side. The soldiers’ flashlight has disappeared behind the hill.
“They’ll bring help,” I say, as much to myself as to Sirmic.
Sirmic’s breathing suddenly changes. The whimpering is replaced by a deep wheeze.
“Sirmic.”
No answer.
I don’t wait for him to change. I smack the fork against the wall, kick his knee with all my might, and pull the back of his coat so hard his hood tears off in my hands. I’m on top of him before he lands. My kneecap hits the concrete with his back, a shock like electricity lancing up my leg. He bellows, and in an instant, I see the skrimsli enter; a point of infinite darkness that reflects everything around it. I see my own face as its energy batters my thoughts, but I’m already swinging the bone. With a sickening pop, the bone breaks through flesh and sinks much farther than I anticipated. The beacon turns, and I’m faintly aware of my slick hand on Sirmic’s temple. Darkness floods my vision and the room seems to tilt. I retch forward as searing pain erupts in my chest.
The light turns again and Sirmic’s face contorts. I try to jump back, but he turns my wrist and I fall to the ground. The pain in my chest is growing. I can feel the thing’s thoughts reverberating in my head, dark and foreign. The scrambled thoughts coalesce into blurry images that disappear almost the instant they resolve. I see Allie lying on the ice at the foot of the lighthouse, the two soldiers sliding down the other side of the hill toward an empty expanse, and a marker covered entirely in clear ice.
My vision returns, but everything is shades of gray, even the beacon’s light. The fork’s tone is completely gone. The pain in my chest fades, but an enormous pressure rushes in to take its place. My limbs go stiff and I only manage a weak kick before I’m rooted in place. My tongue seems to grow in my mouth and I’m staring up through the ceiling at the aurora. It’s much less welcoming without color.
The pressure in my chest grows and spreads to my arms and legs. My knees bend against my will and dark splotches invade my vision. The splotches form a shape, a disfigured face with hollow eyes that darts from my view every time I try to focus. Slick teeth glint behind twisted lips and then the shape dissipates, leaving only the aurora.
I breathe heavily, unable to feel whether my lungs are expanding or not as the pressure crawls from my chest up my neck to my sinuses. All I can do is look up through the open roof at the array of stars. The faintest hint of red gilds the aurora’s edge. It’s the only color left. The pressure in my head expands until I can barely stand it, then even the red fades to black.