by Davis Ashura
William rolled off the old man and leapt up with a groan. His locket lay at his feet, and unthinking, he stuffed it into his pants pocket.
Jason raced toward the creature. From his hands burst a blaze of white-hot fire. William felt the heat all the way to where he stood. It would have set the creature alight, but no matter how quickly Jason cast his fire, the creature moved quicker. It evaded his attack and circled closer.
“There’s no time to tether you,” Mr. Zeus said, his voice slurring. “I’ll hold him off.” He stumbled to his feet, almost falling over again.
William wasn’t listening. Serena stood there, past the oak. Her face was set, as if she intended on attacking the creature herself. William ran to her side, unsure what he could do.
“Grandfather! Go!” Jason shouted.
Serena cried out and fell away from the monster. A line of blood trickled down her arm.
William shot a quick look back. The rainbow bridge flickered.
“You have to,” Jason continued. “The necrosed can’t cross the bridge.”
“No!”
“You must. It can’t get to Arylyn.”
William glanced at Mr. Zeus whose face clouded with indecision before firming into an expression of frustrated fury and sorrow. “You stay alive!” Mr. Zeus shouted to Jason. His voice throbbed with pain and passion. “No matter the cost, I will bring you home.”
William reached Serena’s side. The creature continued to dodge Jason’s fire. William heard a high-pitched whine. Mr. Zeus and the rainbow bridge were gone.
“I’ll split your bones and drink your marrow,” the creature roared.
Jason’s fire caught it full on its torso. It howled in anguish, stumbled, and fell flat, but managed to rise and dart away, too fast for Jason’s fire to set it alight again, though it ran more slowly than before.
Jason shot another blaze at the monster. It dodged once, twice, three times. The fourth time, the flames blasted it head on.
The creature screamed, and this time it retreated.
“What the hell is that thing?” Serena sounded hysterical.
A gale from Jason’s hands caught the creature flush and hurled it through the air. “Fire and wind won’t hold it forever,” Jason said. “We have to make a run for it.”
“What about that bridge-thing Mr. Zeus made?” William asked.
“It’ll take too long,” Jason said.
“The Scout. I’ve got the keys,” William shouted. “Follow me!” He led them in a flat-out sprint, keys out and ready.
Jason’s fire roared like an open blast furnace, but William didn’t dare look back. An instant later, the creature’s scream rang out again.
Good!
“I’ll kill you all,” the monster cried out.
William unlocked the Scout, and all three of them tumbled into the vehicle. He gunned the engine and threw it into reverse.
“Go! Go! Go!” Jason shouted.
Through the windshield, William saw the creature. It had risen up and shambled toward them, gathering speed with every step.
William slammed the Scout into first gear. He hit the gas and spun the steering wheel. Tires squealed, and with a stutter the vehicle began to move.
Hurry up!
“It’s coming!” Serena screamed.
William glanced in the rearview mirror. The creature filled it, gaining steadily. William cursed and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. He plowed through the gears as fast as he could.
A thump hit the Scout, and it shuddered and shook. The creature had slammed into the right rear-quarter panel, threatening to tip it over. The Scout tilted for a moment before banging back onto all four wheels. Miraculously, it remained pointed in the right direction.
The creature roared.
“He’s still there!” Jason shouted.
William glanced in the rearview mirror again. The Scout was finally getting up to speed. The creature couldn’t keep up. It dwindled in the distance, shaking an impotent fist at them before loping into the woods.
William breathed out a shuddering sigh of relief before punching the ceiling in triumph. “We did it!”
Serena and Jason shared in his joy. They laughed, delirious at their survival.
When their euphoria died down, Serena turned to face Jason. “You better tell me what’s going on,” she demanded. “What was that thing?”
William kept his eyes forward, concentrating on the road, but he listened to what Jason had to say.
“I don’t know,” Jason muttered. “I’m just glad we—”
The long, gravel driveway took a right hand turn just before it intersected the old, country road. A warning siren went off in William’s mind.
“You know exactly what that thing was,” Serena snapped. “Don’t pretend you don’t.”
William noticed a disturbance in the trees. Something big was pushing through the forest. Something coming on fast, and headed toward the Scout. It would intersect them when they reached the right-hand turn.
Fear clambered at William’s heart and his mouth went dry. “Hold on!” he shouted.
Serena faced forward and must have seen the disturbance moving toward them. “Oh no,” she whispered.
William never let off the gas. The creature raced out of the woods to their right. It burst from the foliage, angling closer. Parallel to them. Massive and terrifying.
Time slowed.
The monster grinned.
William kept the pedal down. They hit the turn. The Scout wheel hopped. Tires squealed. The creature loomed closer and reached out. Closer.
The Scout slipped, right wheels lifting. William’s heart seized. They managed the turn, barely. Then all four tires were on the ground. The vehicle roared out onto the old country road, and they quickly outstripped the creature.
It bellowed and roared in frustrated fury. This time when William glanced in the rearview mirror, the creature simply stood staring after them.
“It’ll be back,” Jason muttered.
“Talk,” Serena demanded of him.
Out of the corner of his eye William noticed that, for once, Jason was the focus of her intense gaze. The observation didn’t bring him any relief. When she learned the truth, especially his part in it, she’d be pissed.
“What was that thing?” Serena asked.
William wanted to hear this as well. He glanced through the rearview mirror at Jason, who sat ashen-faced and quiet.
“It’s called a necrosed,” Jason said. “It’s a creature of magic, dead and alive at the same time, and they kill. That’s all they do. There is no talking to them. No reasoning with them. No begging for mercy. We run if we ever see one.”
“Exactly who is we?” Serena asked. “You and Mr. Zeus? How did you do that thing with the fire? And that bridge-thing Mr. Zeus created? Who are you?”
“They’re magi,” William answered. He glanced at Jason, surprised that he could talk about magic.
“I lifted Mr. Zeus’ collar. You can tell Serena all you want about us,” Jason said.
“You know about this?” Serena accused William. Now he was the focus of her intensity, and as he’d figured, she was angry at him.
“I only learned a few weeks ago over Thanksgiving,” William said, defensively. “I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. Mr. Zeus did something to me so I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean, he did something?” Serena demanded. She sounded more furious than scared.
William kept his eyes on the road. “He cast a spell on me,” he explained, mentally wincing at how stupid it sounded when put like that.
Serena scoffed. “A spell?”
William chanced a glance in her direction. She glared at him, and he quickly returned his attention to the road. “That’s what happened. I couldn’t tell anyone what I knew. I couldn’t even write it down.”
“Or maybe you just lied to me.”
William’s irritation, fired up by his recent fear, stirred. “If you don’t want to believe me, that’s you
r problem.”
“My problem is being lied to.”
“And mine is that you can’t seem to understand simple English,” William snapped back.
A tense silence fell over the Scout.
“You’re saying Jason and Mr. Zeus are magi,” Serena said, eventually breaking the quiet.
“So are Lien, Daniel, and their parents,” William said.
“Right. Can’t forget that,” Serena jeered. “I guess that makes all of you wizards or something.”
“We’re magi,” Jason corrected. “The plural of magus.”
Serena gave him a hard stare.
“Wizards are something else,” Jason said. “So are witches. We’re different from them.”
“Fine. You’re magi,” Serena said. “And this monster that attacked us, this necrosed, is like a magical Terminator.”
“Pretty much,” Jason agreed.
William glanced again at Serena again. She didn’t seem quite as angry. He took it as a good sign.
“It seemed to know me,” he said, speaking softly. “It talked about my parents. It talked about killing them.”
Serena’s angry expression softened. “I’m sure it was just saying that to make you—”
“It killed your family,” Jason broke in. “It wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.”
“I thought you said no one knew anything about these things,” Serena said.
“We know some,” Jason said.
“Then why do you think it was telling the truth about my family?” William asked.
“When we first saw you in the hospital after the accident there was a smell on you, like spoiled meat. Mr. Zeus and I didn’t think much about it. We thought it must have been the air in the hospital or something to do with the accident. But it was the necrosed. They’re animated corpses. Rotting flesh. Some of its stink lingered on you.”
“A zombie Terminator,” Serena muttered.
“You think that thing really killed my family?” William asked. Even as he spoke the words, uncertainty gave way to surety. He recalled his dreams of the accident, the brutal figure watching in silence from a nearby embankment, menace and cruelty pouring off it like a miasma. His lipless mouth, gorilla arms, and massive size. It had been the necrosed.
William’s anger flared to fury and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He had trouble concentrating. His family was dead because of that abomination. “Why did it kill them?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Who knows?” Jason replied. “The necrosed use the flesh of others to maintain themselves, but to thrive they require the lorethasra of an asrasin. Maybe it was on the hunt and was attracted to you because of your potential as an asrasin.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why it didn’t kill you, though. Maybe it was hoping you’d come into your power and it could kill you then.”
Son of a bitch! “That thing dies,” William vowed. “I don’t care what it takes.”
“How long has it been watching William?” Serena asked. Her prior outrage at being deceived seemed to have dissipated.
“Since it left him alive,” Jason answered, “probably since last winter, after it killed his parents and his brother.”
William shot a glare at Jason. “You knew nothing about it?”
“Believe me, if any of us had known a necrosed was stalking you, all of us, including me, Mr. Zeus, and the Karllsons, would have immediately evacuated to Arylyn.”
William grunted acknowledgment. “What else do you know about these necrosed? What are their weaknesses?”
“They don’t have any. Only a holder—think of them as monster hunters—can kill one, but they all died out a long time ago,” Jason said. “Once a necrosed has a target, it won’t stop until it kills it. Almost everyone who has fought one ends up dead. The only way to survive it is to escape to my home.”
“Your house in Cincinnati?” Serena asked, sounding confused.
“No. The place I come from. Arylyn. It’s an island. It’s where Mr. Zeus, Daniel, and Lien went on that rainbow bridge.”
“They’re okay?” William asked.
“Better than we are.”
“Where is this island?” Serena asked.
“I can’t tell you,” Jason replied. “I’m not allowed.”
The Scout grew quiet again, and for the first time, William noticed a niggling sensation in the back of his mind. He’d been too scared before to pay it any attention, but now that the immediate danger was past he could feel it more clearly, like a bug crawling on his skin.
He feared what it meant and wiped sweaty palms on his pants. “What does it mean if I can feel him?”
“Feel who?” Jason asked.
“It. Him. Whatever. I can feel him. I can feel the necrosed. I even know his name.”
Jason leaned forward and eyed him in uncertainty. “You sure about this?”
William nodded. “He’s a male. I can even tell where he’s going. I can almost feel his emotions.”
Jason sat back with brows furrowed as he stared out the window. “I don’t know what that means,” he finally said. “I don’t know much about the necrosed. No one does. I’ve never heard of someone feeling anything from one of them.” William caught a worried look from Jason. “You really know his name?”
William nodded. “Kohl Obsidian. And he’s coming after me.”
The winter breeze carried the cheery scent of smoke from a fireplace, along with a wetness that tasted of a pending snowfall. Another gust of wind blew, and William shivered. The breeze bit hard, and he hoped whoever was enjoying the fireplace was warmer than he was. His numbed fingers, stiff as frozen sausages, could barely work the gas pump as he fed fuel into the bottomless maw of the Scout’s tank.
They’d had to stop in a small village in Ohio, a place named Rio Grande. Rolling hills and farms gave it a picturesque beauty, but it was most famous for being the home of the Bob Evans Farm. The billboards lining the road said so but William didn’t care, not about Rio Grande’s history or the village’s beauty. He might have once—he did love Bob Evans—but not now. Not with a zombie Terminator out to kill him.
“Can you still tell where the necrosed is?” Jason asked.
An old pickup interrupted William’s answer as it rumbled to life and sputtered away in a cloud of gray smoke. Other than the Scout, the gas station now stood empty and only occasional traffic traveled the nearby state highway.
“He’s behind us,” William replied. “I can’t tell much more than that. I don’t know if he’s even moved off that saha’asra.”
Jason muttered under his breath before glancing at the gas station. “What’s taking Serena so long?”
They stared through the windows of the gas station, but she was nowhere to be seen. The only people visible inside were a skinny, teenage girl standing behind the counter chatting with a husky boy.
“I think she’s calling her dad on the pay phone inside,” William said. “She also wanted to clean off the cut on her arm.”
“She’s using the gas station bathroom?” Jason asked in obvious shock. “Why didn’t you warn her?”
“I did warn her.”
“You should have warned her harder.”
William shrugged. He didn’t really want to talk about Serena right now. He needed to talk about the attack from a few hours ago. “What are we going to do?”
“Survive,” Jason answered. “If we can.”
“That’s not much of a plan.”
“I know, but it’s all I’ve got,” Jason said. He paused a moment before speaking again a beat later. “Serena will have to come with us.”
“Why?” Until now, William had planned on just dropping Serena off at home and figuring out the rest afterward.
“Because Kohl cut her. It means she’s been marked,” Jason said. “The necrosed won’t stop until she’s dead, too.”
“Have you told her?” William asked, already dreading how that conversation would go.
“No. I was hoping you’d d
o the honors.”
William grimaced. “I’ll take care of it,” he said with a sigh.
“Listen, there’s more you need to know. Remember I told you about the saha’asra in Cincinnati? It’s in Winton Woods, but it’s not connected by an anchor line to Arylyn.”
“That rainbow bridge?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “That’s how we travel from one saha’asra to another. But the one in Cincinnati doesn’t have an anchor line to Arylyn.”
“Does it have any anchor lines at all?” William asked.
“One. It leads to a saha’asra in Thailand. That one leads to Arylyn.”
“Then why can’t we use that one?” William asked, hope burgeoning. “Or why can’t we just go back to the park in West Virginia and leave from there?”
“The necrosed bled on the saha’asra in West Virginia. I saw it,” Jason answered. “The blood is like a signal to others of its kind. It’s a sign of weakness. Any necrosed that comes across Kohl will eat him, if he can. Some might be on their way to the meadow right now, hoping we or Kohl will be stupid enough to return there.”
“I hope they get him,” William muttered.
“So do I, but I doubt they will,” Jason replied. “You have to understand, the necrosed have a way of traveling that we don’t understand. You say Kohl is hours behind us, but if he wanted to he could cover that same distance in seconds.”
“What about the saha’asra to Thailand? Why can’t we use that one?”
Jason shook his head. “Because the anchor line going from Cincinnati to the Thailand saha’asra is only large enough to transport small items like the nomasras Mr. Zeus and I use to stay in the Far Abroad,” he said. “It’s not big enough for a person to cross.”
“Nomasras. Lorasras. Lorethasras,” William scowled in disgust. “Why did your people have to make everything sound the same?” He knew the question was petty even as he asked it.
“They’re your people now, too,” Jason said.
“Don’t remind me.”
“You wish you weren’t one of us?” Jason asked.
“If I wasn’t, then Kohl Obsidian wouldn’t have attacked my family. They’d still be alive,” William said with a bitter snarl.