Dead Roots (The Analyst)

by Brian Geoffrey Wood

  “What is that?” Heather screamed from the back of her throat. “Tom, what is that?”

  “I don't know…”

  He kept onwards. The light grew greater. The floor started to incline upwards, pushing Tom's exhausted body even harder.

  The hands dragged Heather up the incline, and Tom found himself with time to catch up. Forcing himself to sprint up after her, he finally got a hand around her wrist and tried to use his weight to slow her. He succeeded only in giving his legs a rest, the arms dragging him along with her.

  “Tom, get these off me—Help me!”

  “I'm trying,” he shouted, almost irritated. “Just hold on, you're going to be okay.”

  “No I'm not!”

  They were dragged out of the tunnel into open air. Tom's eyes adjusted to the light. He lost grip of Heather.

  “Tom, don't you let me go!”

  Tom didn't hear her. He had no choice but to stop in his tracks and look at his surroundings.

  The blood-colored roots stuck up from the ground, the only interruptions in a sea of fine, white sand. The bleached sun bore down on him, and he felt a sensation like being in a great, unknowable room with no end. Floating in space, alone.

  The white sun was obscured, blocked by a canopy of flesh-colored branches.

  “Oh... God,” Tom said to himself, his throat going dry. He swallowed, looking ahead of him and instantly wishing he'd turned around.

  “Be one with me,” Akebara's voice shook the world.

  Akebara was alone on a tiny island in a pool of blood. The moat was surrounded by the frozen forms of dozens of people, standing limply with their feet rooted in the ground. Tom recognized a few faces from the files. Missing people.

  The trunk of Akebara itself was thicker than it had been years ago, and twisted with the forms of people that protruded along its mass like carvings. There was little trunk to see. Akebara was more a twisted, melted-together mass of bodies, stretching towards the sky, and writhing in what Tom presumed was agony, silent but for the husky groans of the sallow-eyed faces along its mass.

  Heather was dragged through the moat of blood surrounding the tree. Tom saw the hands lift her from it, as if baptizing her. Her clothes were torn from her effortlessly, leaving her suspended nude in the air, still screaming. The dead hands with their infinite, tentacle-like arms receded into the mass of Akebara. She was slammed against its trunk, and Tom saw her arms and legs melt into it. Only her naked torso and face were visible now, like the bulkhead of some terrible galleon.

  Tom's heart pounded. He tried to keep his eyes focused forward, and not on the infinite sky that lay above.

  “Heather?” he called out. “Heather? Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

  There was no answer. Her head twisted around, still struggling, but her screaming was dying down, replaced with long, low moans.

  Tom dropped to his knees. He shut his eyes tightly, fingers digging impotently into the sand. The tree continued to groan, Heather's exhausted voice added to the cacophony that droned in his ears. He felt the strength leave his limbs.

  ********

  “Do you remember me?” Tom called out when he had regained his composure. He dug his heels into the sand to force himself to his feet. “Do you remember me, you son of a bitch?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Vaguely.”

  Tom paused in his tracks. He felt keenly aware of the infinite desert around them, in which he was only a speck.

  “What?”

  He approached the tree. Some of the still forms around Akebara turned to look at him, their eyelids opening slowly to reveal rolled-back sclera. Some hands reached out slowly towards him.

  “You haunted me,” Tom implored angrily. “Ten years ago you haunted me in California. My dad left, because of you. I haven't spoken to my mother in years, because of you. You took my childhood! You took my life!”

  “I do not recall.”

  It was all Tom could do not to drop to his knees again.

  Tom pulled his pistol out, unhooking the safety. He fought back shaking. He felt completely idiotic for having revealed such vulnerability.

  “A single sigh... in a thousand years of glory. Be one with me and become greater. Be one with me and live forever.”

  “You'll remember me,” Tom yelled. He pointed the gun at the nearest human-stalk and shot it in the head. Blood splattered out and each of the myriad taken people screamed out in pain at once, clutching their heads.

  “You'll remember me and my family forever,” Tom roared. He emptied the clip into the nearest human form.

  Akebara's guards all cried out with the pain of each shot, but it wasn't long before Tom realized it was a futile effort. The wounds closed and disappeared as quickly as they came. Desiccated forms reached towards him, dozens of bony hands grasping at air.

  “I am forever,” Akebara's voice rumbled the earth. The taken all around were reaching towards Tom, snarling and roaring, but they could not move.

  Tom dropped to the ground, letting his pistol land softly in the sand. That was the last of what he had.

  ********

  A voice chided Tom over his shoulder.

  “You are an Analyst. So analyze.”

  Tom looked over his shoulder. A woman was standing there, with a face he recognized, but not much else. The eyeless sockets were not visible, covered by a black blindfold that complemented her long tresses of midnight hair. She was wearing a white robe with billowing sleeves that hid her folded hands. Her head was set at the end of a snake-like neck several feet long, which bent down to be level with him.

  “Akebara is not trying to take you. Why?”

  Tom took labored breaths through his open mouth. He stared at Creeping Wind in disbelief, but pushed his questions to the back of his mind.

  He stood to survey the situation. Akebara's stationary form was writhing with the bodies of those it had claimed. The desert around them was endless. There were no clouds in the sky; it had looked like rain was coming before he’d come here. The height of the sun said it was almost noon.

  “But it's not even eleven yet,” Tom said with recognition. “This place is impossible. I'm not really here.”

  “Akebara's power is absolute here,” Creeping Wind said simply. Her neck rose so that she was near her full height.

  “Then I have to force it to manifest...”

  Tom holstered his pistol and reached into his pocket. He drew the half-empty foil packet of anti-anxiety benzo tablets. Taking one out, he put it in his mouth and swallowed it dry, gagging at the taste.

  “When your medicine takes effect, we will be unable to communicate,” Creeping Wind explained, standing behind Tom and placing her hands on his shoulders. The hairs on his neck stood up as her head lowered and turned around to face him. “We have something to discuss.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “There are many that Akebara has taken that might have lived. But your actions, and mistakes, have changed things.”

  “How?” Tom said, his shoulders shrinking forward. Creeping Wind’s spindly fingers on the skin of his neck were cold like the grave. “I don't understand.”

  “When Akebara is defeated, all of those who have been taken will die. The severance from the tree will kill them, and I will usher them into the world of the dead. This is my price for your survival in the ravine. This is the price for taking your rightful revenge.”

  Tom felt a pit in his stomach, but made no effort to argue. His dream from the night before returned to him: Keda's deepening voice, the sick yellow eye rising in his throat.

  “Strike true, as is your right. Make right the wrongs done to you. Then leave this place, Thomas Bell.”

  “Can I ask why...?”

  “My reasons are my own. Take solace in the continued beating of your heart, and be assured there shall come no punishment.”

  “...Okay.”

  Tom felt the hands slip away from him and tightened his grip around the ax. His fingers
felt for the handle of his gun, and Creeping Wind faded from his sight.

  “Akebara will be angry, Bell. Be ready.”

  The sky began to darken. At once, all of the tree's faces screamed. The rooted humans reached for Tom, wailing at him incessantly.

  Tom's grip around his ax tightened. He watched the landscape change. The desert sands began to blow away. He shielded his eyes out of instinct, and then realized there was no need. The sand was not real.

  The dunes under his feet dissolved in the spectral wind. He stood now in damp brown dirt. Clouds rolled into the sky and a light rain kissed his cheeks. Pine trees, the forests of West Virginia, groaned as they rose from the ground. A mountain appeared in the distance. Within a minute, Tom saw where he truly stood. A clearing in the woods outside Orchard.

  Akebara itself saw no such change, but the moat of blood was now a muddy ditch, a ring of filthy rainwater around its corporeal form. Its guards, the rooted men and women it had absorbed, still stood with their feet buried in the wet dirt. Now, however, many of them were still wearing their torn, dirty clothing.

  The branch people dragged themselves along the ground towards Tom, their faces mangled and dribbling red and brown offal. Where they should have had ankles, their legs extended into the ground, roots to the tree of flesh.

  Tom didn't know what else to do but start swinging.

  The ax struck an arm. The flesh was rotted and the blood congealed, and bone splintered with little effort. He hacked away at the closest one and a chorus of pained cries cut the air. He cut the man-shaped root from its legs, rendering it an immobile, twitching husk. But what the roots lacked in strength they made up in numbers.

  Another was upon him just as he finished. He felt those cold hands wrap around his ankle and grip his pant leg. He swung down, chopping its head off. He tasted a bead of sweat in his mouth.

  “Flesh is fleeting. I am forever.”

  Even with its hand removed, the root grasped at Tom, vainly mashing its bleeding stump against his leg. It seemed he had to cut them from the source before they would finally die, a task that was becoming more difficult as more of them blocked his way.

  With three of them on him, he found it hard to get in a good swing. Swinging with his elbow, he managed to carve a few solid chunks out of some shoulder meat, but he felt as if he'd have accomplished the same by slapping them with his open palm.

  “We will be one.”

  *

  One of the branches wore Heather's face. With gnarled hands squeezing his throat, blocking his windpipe, he saw her descend to him, eyes lidded, bearing a sedated grin. Her hands cradled his face as he struggled to breathe.

  “You want me, don't you Tom?” her voice asked, giggling huskily. “Tom, don't you want to fuck me? You can have me, forever.”

  He struggled to choke out a response. He only managed to spit.

  “It's like cumming into eternity,” she moaned. “Be one with us Tom. It feels like...”

  She shuddered.

  “Heaven.”

  *

  Suddenly he could breathe again. All at once he felt their grips recede. As though the strength was being sapped from their very bones, the taken people released him and slid to the ground. The one that had taken Heather's form slumped to his feet, motionless.

  Keda, Tom realized. Keda and Artie. They did it.

  A great rumbling sound, followed by a roar of frustration, deep as though unearthed. Tom spat out a mouthful of rotted flesh, from his attempts to bite at the hands. His mouth was stained by the taste and he vainly resisted the urge to vomit, expelling the scarce contents of his stomach onto the dirt.

  Akebara's trunk writhed, its prisoners squirming as though trying to break free. Tom rose to his feet. He spat on the ground again to try and wash the taste from his mouth. Taking deep, haggard breaths, he popped his neck and took stock of his surroundings.

  Akebara's 'branches' had all fallen limply to the ground, leaving only its body standing in the middle of its dirt ring.

  Tom pulled his wallet from his coat pocket. Through exhausted breaths, he spoke to the tree, flipping the wallet open to display his badge.

  “Niku no ki Akebara,” he said haggardly. “Thomas Bell, DPSD. You are charged with unsanctioned habitation and wanton supernatural aggression, consisting of innumerable counts of murder and attempted murder, towards both civilians and DPSD personnel. You will be taken to a DPSD facility for processing and exorcism or you will be presently terminated. Will you come quietly?”

  Tom flipped his badge shut and waited.

  For several long seconds, there was no response. Then a groan rose from the earth, as something massive moved underneath it. The faces of Akebara's trunk screamed at Tom hoarsely, and he saw its base start to shift.

  “Figured not.”

  Dirt kicked up around Akebara's trunk. Tom could see it tearing itself from the ground, uprooting itself.

  “I am forever... We are forever...”

  Tom picked the wood ax up from the wet dirt and rubbed his chin. The entity had pulled itself from the earth. Its roots bore the shape of legs and arms. They flailed and twisted along the ground, dragging the tree creature towards Tom at a clumsy, lumbering gait. The trunk swayed with its motion, its branches rustling, faces screaming.

  Tom stood his ground. He knew the thing was powerless.

  Akebara dragged itself through the mud, the arms along its surface reaching towards Tom impotently.

  “Give up,” Tom stated to it simply. “You're beaten.”

  “Arrogant, fucking mortal. Die in shit.”

  Tom had had enough. He stepped towards the creature evenly. He stood not a foot from it, staring into one of its twisted faces, the eyes rolled back into its head. Trunk-arms grasped at him, tugging weakly at his jacket. He brushed them away.

  He saw Heather's body, adjacent to him. Her arms and legs had disappeared into its mass, leaving only her bare torso and head, which hung with a sick expression. Red vomit erupted from her mouth. He winced, but watched as she turned to face him, seeming as if she could barely open her eyes.

  “Do it, Tom,” she croaked.

  Tom blocked out the screams of malice around him. He took a step back and raised the lumber ax into the air. He swung.

  Blood sprayed from Akebara's trunk as the taken screamed in unison, keeling over and clutching their stomachs in pain. Tom swung again, taking bloodied chunks out of the tree's body.

  “Do it,” Heather begged through groans of agony. She vomited again, dark red sludge pooling down her front. Tom ignored her suffering as best he could. He swung, and swung, and swung.

  He screamed with exertion, hacking away at Akebara's trunk wildly. With each swing Tom cleaved through the flesh of countless arms, legs, torsos. He felt resistance as metal hit solid bone, wiped a splash of blood out of his eyes. The trunk had, at its core, a column of bone, like a great spine.

  “You will die, bargainer. Race traitor. The deaths of these humans are on your head.”

  “Don't listen,” Heather sputtered out. “Send this... motherfucker... back to Hell.”

  Tom tuned both of them out. There was only the aching in his arms, and the flesh-lumber.

  *

  Finally, it was done.

  The weight of Akebara's trunk overwhelmed it. Tom had cut through so much flesh and bone that the whole thing started to lean over. He stood back and watched as the tree of dying flesh toppled over onto the trees surrounding them. Great cracking and crunching sounds were heard, from the real trees being toppled into by the weight of Akebara, and from the bones remaining at the base of its trunk that snapped from its descent. Flesh sloughed from its form and fell to the ground.

  With a great crashing sound, finally, the air was silent. The screams ended. Akebara was felled.

  Tom wiped sweat and blood off of his brow, and looked over his work. The spine at its core lay splayed out from within, the bodies and twisted mass of flesh surrounding it having come loose during its des
cent. The taken people surrounding the small island now lay across the ground in heaps. The clearing was littered with dead.

  Tom dropped the ax to the ground, exhausted. He looked up. The sky was gray and he became aware of the weather. A mild rain wet his cheeks and soaked the blood all around him into the grass.

  Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He rubbed his forehead in exasperation. If the phone was to be believed, he'd been gone less than half an hour.

  He took one last look at the trunk, and considered its final words. He made out Heather's nude form on the ground. She was the least mutilated of all around him, which wasn't to say her arms and legs were not broken, or that she was not caked with blood and gore. Making his way over to her, he knelt down and checked her pulse, more out of habit than anything else. He cradled her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. Her eyes were locked open in death, a hollow, glassy stare looking past him into forever.

  Bargainer, it had called him.

  He removed his jacket and laid it across her torso. He gingerly lifted her form. She was wiry and weighed little. With Officer Dawes, killed in action, in his arms, he turned from the scene and set off back down the tunnel to the Bailey house. The journey was much shorter this time.

  12

  “Margaret”

  “So how bad is it?” Margaret asked with concern, her voice crackling through the sub-par cellphone reception.

  “I don't know what this town is going to do,” Tom said. He sipped from a can of soda, blowing out some smoke and leaning against the car. Artie was inside the Garden using the facilities.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I got back to the Bailey place and... well, all those people outside were... dead.”

  Tom tried to push the image out of his mind. The house had been infested, and Artie had told him that the noise had just stopped in an instant. He looked inside the car. Keda was sleeping in the backseat. Susan Bailey’s copy of At the Mountains of Madness lay on the floor, its corner peeking out of a nondescript plastic bag.