She rubbed his hair. “There, there. How do you feel now?”
“Better,” Haunt replied.
“Good. Do you think you can walk?”
At first he wasn’t sure, but he rolled over to his front, which didn’t feel burnt anymore, and easily pushed himself up off the ground. His legs were strong and firm again. He felt even better than when he started.
“Yeah, I can walk. Where are we going, ma?”
“Out of the sun.”
She touched his cheek, and he rested his hand on top of hers. His red skin healed under her palm. While he rubbed her hand, he looked down at his mother’s attire. She looked out of place. She wore her favorite Christmas sweater with the reindeer piloting a sleigh. But she didn’t look uncomfortable. She was cheery and alive. He lunged in and hugged her, burying his face into her slender shoulder.
He pushed her hair behind her ears. “Why didn’t you run upstairs to get me if you were in so much pain? I would have helped you.”
“I promise I’ll tell you in due time. But first, we have to get you out of the sun.” She held out her hand and he took it. The open desert lay before them, the trees far behind them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Haunt felt odd the moment they started walking together. A nick in the back of his knee kept irking him whenever he planted his foot in the sand. Something wasn’t right. This feeling of uncertainty wasn’t in his gut, because in his gut, it felt right. This feeling was in his head. It was a tiny voice telling him he was heading in the wrong direction.
As he followed, he watched her hair swish like a pendulum. Before long his eyelids drooped and she started to blur. He rubbed his crusty eyelids.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “We’re almost there.”
Almost where, he thought distantly. There wasn’t anything in sight for miles.
As they continued, he couldn’t shake that strange feeling, as if he were a dog in a cage, scratching to get out. Even the sand started to look funny as it began to move and shift like it was being tugged in both directions. Haunt felt a sharp draft pass through his back and midsection, and the sand in front of him somersaulted in the air. It flew off the ground and became a spinning, yellow cyclone. His heart pounded hard against his ribcage.
The sand did loop-de-loops over and over again until the space between the granules started to take shape. As he watched, the growing wind swept more and more sand into the swirling pile. Haunt was mesmerized. He had never seen anything like this. It was like watching an old projector, flashing scenes, until the swirling sand wasn’t sand anymore. It was the opening of a large, purple stoned cave.
“We can hide from the sun in here,” she said.
They headed toward the mouth of the cave, but the pain in the back of Haunt’s knee grew worse. His heart ached. He stomped his foot in the sand and braked. His mother almost fell over with the sudden pause. She put out her free hand to stop herself.
“What’s wrong? What are you doing?” she asked.
He heard another, clearer voice push to the front of his thoughts. It was sharp, demanding and raw. It was the voice of Imagination.
“Look, behind you. See!”
He pivoted, almost tripping over his own feet, and saw the towering trees again. They were closer now than they had ever been. He could even see the darkness within them.
“We need to turn around,” Haunt said. He turned back to his mother and screamed. Her already long chin began to dip beneath the neck of her sweater, and her brown eyes turned sharp green, just like the aura around her.
“How could you possibly know?” she screeched. The green aura grew even sharper. He thought he could see her heart. It shone green and shot lightning.
Haunt backed away. "It's you! Get away from me!"
It was Instinct, what Imagination had called the Great Deceiver. He had fallen right into his trap.
Her face melted. Her hair fell out, and her skin dripped from her skull revealing her rotting teeth.
Haunt turned and ran toward the trees and didn’t look back. The earth beneath him shook in a slight tremor. It shook the sand. It also shook him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
His legs became heavy as he ran toward the tree. His feet sank deeper and deeper into the sand. Each step he took was like running on wet cement. The sand began to float up from the ground again, but this time it didn't swirl. It came right for him. A massive clump hit him in the jaw. He turned his face and put up his arms as it slammed his cheek. Another chunk came, this one even thicker. He dodged it but another came in its place, and then another, and another. The wind howled, and it knocked him down. He fought to rise and when he did, he pushed forward.
Stop! The Great Deceiver yelled in his head with his mother’s voice. When he looked back toward the cave, he saw her rushing toward him. She had a very unwomanly stride as she pumped her arms and legs. The green aura about her was almost blinding. He ran from her and pushed so hard against the wind that it hurt his heart. But he wouldn’t stop. Not on his life.
The more he ran, the heavier the wind grew. Haunt had to swim his way through it with his arms to advance. The wind and sand slapped at him. It punched him in the stomach and threw him to the ground. But he still fought against them. He had to reach the trees! There they stood in the distance, and beyond them, his wife and child. He clawed a path through the wind and blocked his face whenever he could. The storm pushed him down again and again until he was forced to take a knee. When he tried to get up, he couldn’t. The sand blew around him in a stinging cloud. He couldn’t even see his own hand.
There was too much scalding hot sand in the air. It burned his cheeks and thrashed at him like iron claws.
The ground rumbled beneath him. Something slithered underneath his hands and knees. It moved and he saw the sand peel from its monstrous black body. He shifted to the side but it was too big to avoid. It raced beneath him.
His elbows and knees sank into the sand, and he could barely see the trees. They lingered in the back of the storm like a goal post, wavy in his line of vision. The sand rose up around him. It was up to his shoulders and flying so fast he couldn’t move.
Haunt tugged and pulled, but the more he did so, the more he dragged himself even deeper. He rocked his head back and tried to extract his arms but it was no use. He was trapped.
He didn’t know why, but he suddenly thought about his mother—His real mother—Not Satan in drag. He thought about how he found her on the kitchen floor with her eyes wide open. Her mouth was stretched in a silent scream and the centipede crawled from its home in her hair. When it came out it didn't try to hide but circled her mouth before it slipped inside.
“NO!” Haunt screamed.
The sand, all at once, fell from the air as if on command. It landed on him in one heavy drop, and it burned. Some of it got in his eyes. He shook his head but it was hard to get out without hands to wipe them. He kept trying to blow upward. But upon hearing his own breathing in the silent air, he noticed something else. Something was coming fast from beneath him.
An eerie silence filled the desert air, and it was so loud, it hurt his ears. He stretched out his mouth to try to yawn but nothing came out. He heard it again—the rumbling. It was nearer now. It was just a bit off. It was—
BOOOOOM!
An explosion erupted from the desert floor and shot up a few feet in front of him.
Waving back and forth and blocking the sun, stood an enormous centipede about the size of a capsized ocean liner. Half of it was in the ground. Its visible legs wriggled back and forth on both sides like the many arms of Vishnu. The two pincers at its head clacked together like ginzu knives. Its segmented shell was perfectly black, and Haunt saw his terrified face in it. Haunt screamed and the creature screamed with him.
“SCREEEEEEEE!!!”
The sand fell from Haunt’s clothes, and he got up and ran. Behind him, the rest of the creature’s body erupted from the desert floor. He dared a glance over his shoulder.
It was gaining on him. Its two pincers clacked and its face was nothing more than a gaping, drooling hole of mess and teeth.
From the other direction, someone raced toward him with the flames of hell at his heels. It was Steve, bathed in green like the Great Deceiver had been! He wore his red Polo shirt and khaki work pants, but neither seemed to hamper his speed. The hilt of a blade poked over the back of his right shoulder and the butt of a shotgun over his left.
“Get down!” Steve yelled, and Haunt dropped. Once in the sand, he looked up and saw his friend’s shadow as the short man vaulted over him. His blade was unsheathed and pointed downward. Behind him, Haunt heard a tremendous screech and could feel the hot air surge through his clothes. There was a harsh, metallic sound, like a hammer brought down upon an anvil, and another SCRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Haunt pushed himself up and ran like hell. He stumbled, and rolled to look behind him. Steve stood on top of the monstrosity, trying to extract the blade from the creature’s bucking head. It was unreal. The monster’s legs thrashed back and forth and shook his friend all around.
The centipede rocked its upper appendage and tried to throw Steve off, but the man wouldn’t let go.
“Run!” Steve shouted before the beast sent him flying. The blade still lodged in the monster’s forehead.
Haunt got up but the centipede soon closed the distance between them and encircled him before he had could regain his footing. With its bulbous black body around him, it snipped at him with its razor sharp pincers as crimson blood leaked from its skull. Blood dripped into its mouth. Haunt stumbled.
The centipede roared and crept toward him. The blade poking out of its top looked like a metal horn as it jutted up from its absent face. Haunt shouted again, and the centipede hissed.
“Hey! You! Ugly!” Haunt heard, followed by the explosion of a shotgun blast. The side of the centipede jerked inward where the blast hit, and the centipede screamed again.
There was another blast, and then another. The centipede unfurled itself from around Haunt. He saw Steve again, hunched forward like a wild animal. His eyes didn’t even look human anymore. A pulsating, green glow enveloped Steve.
Steve fired a shotgun blast just shy of the beast’s head, and the centipede reared up.
“Now’s your chance, Jeff! Run!” Steve yelled.
Haunt didn’t have to be told twice. He turned and jetted away only to hear a spitting sound, followed by what felt like the crack of a whip against his back. He rolled into the sand as the feeling of jagged fingernails tore at his flesh.
Haunt yelled and clawed at his back as he turned over. The scorching sand bit into his open wounds, which made him scream louder.
Haunt rolled back onto his stomach and saw two giant blasts from the shotgun go into the side of the centipede’s face, making pieces of it fly off. Its pincer mouth dripped with smoky purple droplets and Haunt wondered if that was what had hit him.
The centipede tried to bite Steve, but he feinted. He reached with his left arm and grabbed the hilt of his blade. He was flung up into the air by the bucking creature and landed back on its head. With two hands, he ripped the blade from the beast’s forehead, making it shriek louder.
Haunt’s vision darkened. He was heading back toward the great darkness with the ghosts grabbing at his clothes with their ice cold hands. Through his muted viewpoint, he saw the beast lunge in at Steve. But his friend was fearless. He ran at it with the blade extended as if it were a part of his arm. His green aura flashed.
The last thing Haunt heard was SCREEEEEE! And then, everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Marigold awoke to strong arms pulling her by the armpits. Her hair fell in her face and her head pounded.
“Damn. The fucking slut is heavy,” she heard the person holding her on her ride side say.
It was dark and cold and her slippers were missing. Where was she? And who were they calling a “fucking slut”?
With her head down, she could only make out her captors’ feet as they walked. Their limbs glowed and they cast soft white shadows. Even coming out of the darkness of sleep, this shocked her. It also kept her from screaming. Her throat closed at the sight of their radiant hue.
“Logic has some fucking balls coming into our territory and telling us what to do,” the one on her right said. His voice sounded dirty like crude oil, but behind his voice was music. She thought of violin strings, vacillating back and forth.
“Look, it’s whatever,” the one on the left said, his voice similar. “The master seemed happy after he talked with her, so who cares? Let’s just get this over with.”
“Yeah, but I’m just saying, it’s bullshit.”
“Maybe, but we’re the ones who found her. So stop complaining and consider yourself lucky, pal. We hit the gold mine with this bitch. The master will be pleased.”
The air was filled with the overwhelming scent of pine.
The trees. The massive ones that she had seen from…the boat!
Her memory replayed in her mind like replays of sports highlights on a Jumbo-Tron. Imagination, the boat, Instinct, the umbilical cord monster, the bird—it was all there, fast forwarded behind her eyes.
“Did this bitch just get heavier?” the captor on the right asked.
“It feels that way, right?” the one on the left huffed.
Her two captors stopped for a moment and hefted her up again. Both their hands squeezed her armpits and she bit her lower lip to keep from screaming. They dragged her again.
“Why’d the master want her so much in the first place?”
“Word around camp says that she’s a Messiah Mom.”
Messiah mom? What do they mean?
“That can’t be true,” the captor on the right groaned. “What the hell would she be doing out here?”
“I heard a stork was flying real low through these parts a few hours ago.” He paused to catch his breath. “That’s why I thought to come here. Maybe it dropped her off.”
“In these parts? And why would it carry a woman? Where did she even come from?”
“I don’t know. Imagination probably had something to do with it. That’s the rumor.”
“But this ain’t anywhere near the Tree of Life. What are storks doing out here?”
“Look, I don’t know if it’s true or not. That’s just what I heard. But the master wants her.”
Marigold didn’t understand any of what they said. Watching their glowing feet stepping over branches and through dried mud hypnotized her. Their shadows lent just enough light to the darkness so she could see the ground. Every so often, an even larger light would shine down as if they passed beneath street lamps. But that didn’t make any sense. This was a forest. Why would there be street lamps?
“I hate being kept in the dark,” the one on the right said.
“I think it’s exciting. Nobody’s passed through these parts in forever and now, we get a Messiah Mom?”
“A supposed Messiah Mom.”
“Yeah, whatever. Let’s take a break, alright?”
The two of them laid her face down in the mud. It was a relief on her armpits, which were beginning to chafe.
“Logic wouldn’t come to the forest and the master wouldn’t send out a search party if this old bag was worthless,” one of the captors said above her, still huffing. “Something’s up, and if you ask me, I think we’re going to get a piece of her once we get her back to camp. It’s been said that fucking a Messiah’s Mom makes you more virile for ages, like the life inside of her is special or something. Hell, mankind would reap the benefit if that’s true. Sex for them would be like dynamite, man, even if it was only for a day. What we get, they get. So really, fucking this broad will be for the greater good. Why else would the master tell us to bring her back unharmed? The master probably wants a poke at her himself. Hopefully, we’ll get second and third pokes, being that we were the ones who found her.”
Oh, no they wouldn’t. Marigold pushed herself up and ran
.
“Get that bitch!”
She glanced up and noticed square, golden lanterns dangling from the trees’ high branches. She dashed under them and a sense of déjà vu washed over her. She dared a look back and saw the figures gaining ground. Their bright, glowing light was growing closer, but their faces were hard to distinguish. She tore her gaze away and bolted.
As Marigold ran, she couldn’t escape the feeling that she had been here before. She slowed and stared at the sprawling forest. Yes, she had been here before, but how, and when? It felt like it was recently. Her ears twitched at the sound of distant wings flapping above.
Wings…she thought slowly as she came to a complete stop in front of a massive oak tree.
And that’s when it hit her.
The forest. The one from her dream in the bathroom. The one—
A force struck her from behind and brought her to the ground. While she struggled to get up, she noticed that her captors were naked, but also sexless like Ken dolls. But that’s not what kept her frozen in fear. It was their faces. Their noses were where they should be, but their eyes and lips swirled clockwise around them like planets in orbit.
“Fucking bitch!” one of them stood up. “Hold her down.”
The other one held both her wrists and kneeled on her knees.
The standing one stomped on her face.
She saw an explosion of colors, and then returned to the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Haunt gasped for air like a drowned man brought back from the abyss. He wheezed and let out a chain of sharp, stabbing coughs. A face above him leapt back.
The Darkness of the Womb Page 9