by Luka Petrov
Blood flowed, thick and sluggish, from a slash across his gut, spilling out a nest of glistening grey snakes of the Driver’s motionless body. Siobhan took a moment to examine the Driver, Christopher as she called him. His now lifeless body still and peaceful as he stayed strapped to the seat as it hung upside down. Siobhan mournful of her friend looked at his face. His eyes wide open. The expression as though he had never seen his demise coming. Rigor had not set in yet, in fact it was hours away, but as carbon dioxide would build up in his body, his muscle tissue and lactic acid would coagulate, stiffening him. Affecting the smaller muscles first, and then moving to the larger ones. He never once thought that he would not have made it out of this alive. At least not like this. Sure, being murdered during the night by the hooligans, that would be one thing, and he knew that he was knocking on Heaven’s door then, but he never expected to die in a car accident. His once tanned face, now in death a ghostly pale white. Almost as pale as she was, but not quite. His lips turned bluish as the blood ceased to flow from a stopped heart. He had gave the twins adventure and life. They knew a life that they would have never have had if it wasn’t for him. He hung by the strap of his seatbelt, still wearing the beaten leather jacked. Fresh dirt under his finger nails and grease on his hands from fixing the car days ago.
Looking at his lifeless eyes, Siobhan began to cry. Tears streamed from the corner of her eyes down her checks and accumulated in the nape of her neck. Christopher was her angel on Earth. Although he had an evil plan for the twins, one that he up until this point was beginning to feel bad about, the twins never fully realized the role he played. Their innocence and ignorance protecting them from the depths of evil humanity. To them he was their adventurous angel who showed them how to survive in this world. Siobhan reached into the vehicle and shut his eyes, closing them as if he were sleeping. “Dear sweet Christopher, enjoy your deep slumber. You are at peace now my angel. I pray you watch over us as we continue on our journey. I will see you again,” she whispered. Hamish wanting to begin the next leg of their journey faced away from the vehicle. She kissed her finger tips and then placed them on his cheek. “Sleep well,” she whispered once more. The side of his face cool to the touch.
They laid on the snowy ground, the wreck steaming and flickering with red flames. Hamish was on his back, still bleeding, covered in cuts and wounds. She dragged him to his feet, holding his arm her own. They scrambled to collect the guns from the car and struggled to pull one of the canisters of petrol from the back of the boot.
It pained Siobhan to leave Christopher there like that, but the twins had no other choice. They must continue on. They longed to live in a house, away from the cursed lands, away from the ley lines that plagued this Earth. They longed to frolic in the forest and experience life everyday like they did in the lighthouse. A time where they could forage for food, play, and laugh the day away, together. That is what they were working toward and that is what made every step toward that dream worth it. With a heavy heart, Siobhan turned away from the vehicle and Christopher and joined her brother. They pressed in the only direction that they knew, forward.
Carrying with them their meager possessions, they headed off toward the crashing sea visible in the shimmering green of the distance. With every step, it seemed that their motions grew heavier, as if their bodies were held fast by a stronger force of gravity. And then, as if by the direction of some unholy God, their ears were filled with a sound.
It began as a crackling then became a piercing hiss, as if many people at once were whispering sharply into their ears. Hamish, his body bruised and broken, immediately knew the sound, and so did his sister. The two briskly picked up their pace as they became aware that around them were floating shapes, dark shadows cascading around the hills and surrounding the trees, coming at them from all angles. The sound grew intense, filling their eyes and every waking thought. Hamish vomited blood, and Siobhan cried tears of black fluid. They continued to run as the shapes descended, the siblings stumbling up a hill of bushes and rocks.
One shape came particularly close, vibrating in its twisted, worm-like form. It floated down upon them, blocking out their sight. Siobhan ran toward it, almost pushing through it, her hair floating on end as if held up by static. The pale siblings tried to scream, but their voices were caught in a never-ending void, noise itself clasped up by the deafening pitch of the curse. Hamish tumbled, his large body dropping and crawling, until he reached the end of the grass at the other side of the hill. Siobhan’s body felt as if the skin was about to flay from it, great heat and cold passing through her blood.
Excruciating pain radiated throughout both of the twins’ bodies. It was as if their flesh was being pulled away from their bones. Shadows appeared to close in on them. The dark shadows meant only one thing, the demons who ruled the cursed lands transpired on the Earth and deliberately haunted the twins.
Neither twin would be able to last long in these conditions. The static force seemed to attempt to break each of their bodies apart, where their flesh felt as though it was being stretched. Their flesh felt as though it was being stretched so far that a burning sensation engulfed their bodies. The constant radio static filled their minds, leaving them confused as they had no choice, but to continue on. One painful crawl in front of the other, inching their way to the promised land.
Siobhan felt as though she herself was Moses, leading the Israelites to the promised land. She whispered to herself as she crawled on her hands and knees in her moment of utter dispair, “Deuteronomy 1:8, ‘See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them’.”
Before they knew it, they had reached the other side and stumbled onto the beach. The hissing began to dissipate, fading to a very distant shout, until it could no longer be heard at all. They had made it through alive, but above them were the quivering lights, flashes of electricity pulsing on the horizon. Quivering and panting for oxygen, they dragged each other along on all fours before falling onto the cold sand. It was then that the heavy rains began, pouring acidic liquid down onto the pale skin of the siblings. They had lost their canister, but their rifles still swung from their bodies. Siobhan pulled her brother into cover, his heavy body leaving huge trails in the sand. They slumped themselves beneath the protection of a tree, waiting for the rain to stop.
Up ahead of them, Siobhan could see a dark shape on the water, much like the Ark of her memory. This time it was smaller and more shapely, a fishing boat with a large canopy. Distant figures stood on the vessel, its bow moored to a boardwalk of the bay. Through binoculars, the figures seemed to watch the siblings, the rain barring them from walking toward them. For some time, Siobhan and the boat shared this standoff, while Hamish almost passed out from the pain of his cuts and bruises. Finally, the rain stopped, pattering to the sands and joining the great waters. By the time they were awake, the group was approaching them.
They were fishermen with long beards and deeply knotted hair, dressed in large black coats and rainproof overalls. Siobhan was too weak for words, her brother worse so, but with great strength they carried the siblings to their feet and dragged them through the snow-covered sand, all the way to the planks of the boardwalk. After a while, they were on the boat, the rope untethered from its post, the vessel set adrift in the ocean. Siobhan and her brother were laid side by side in the cargo bay, a dank cellar of the craft, an oil lamp lighting up the room.
Siobhan awoke several hours later to the sound of screaming, a yelling in the distance from the outside of the ship. She woke Hamish, his pink eyes blinking to life. “Can you hear that?” she asked. He turned up his head and heard the great commotion of men clanking about the platforms, throwing riggings, and running around the exterior of their ship. Hamish nodded his head, a fresh drip of blood pouring from his nostril. Siobhan stared at her brother in awe. Wiping the blood away, it took seconds for her to know what wa
s happening. The sound from the hills returned, that ethereal hissing beneath the skin. She raised to her feet uneasily, now sensing the boat was rocking from side to side. The air, tinted with the haze of green, rippled with motion.
Siobhan clambered out of the dank cellar to find herself at a stairwell. The door in front of her was locked shut, bolted from the other side. The men seemed to scream louder and louder, unaware of her torment. She bashed and banged with all her might, screeching at the top of her lungs. Her desperation seemed to ripple the air itself, steamy particles of the cellar rippling the further she screamed. Then, with both eyes open, she looked at the door, the blank metal surface staring back at her. With great focus, she screamed an ear-splitting note, and the door, with all its rivets and metal, flung wide open and off its hinges as if crashed into by a car. The sea air howled into the lower deck, causing Siobhan to stumble backward.
Hamish steadied her, stopping her from falling. His ears bled from the pitch of her scream, the drums within now completely burst. But the knowingness in his eyes showed what he knew, a deep understanding that reflected something he had always believed that something within them—those pale children born of the blackout—were special. They stumbled out together onto the bow of the boat, to take in the sight before them. The team of fishermen were now dead, their bodies strewn about the ship in bloodied piles. Much of their skin was missing, some of them smoldering as if set on fire. Though only Siobhan could hear it, the hiss outside took on an orchestral quality, a deep singing as if multiple beings were emitting the resonance of its pitch.
The siblings walked around the boat to discover it was covered by the looming, flickering shadows of the shapes. One fisherman, still alive but weakened and bleeding from the eyes, fired rounds from a gun toward the figures. Each bullet seemed to do little but quiver their rippling forms as waves crashed all around the boat. Siobhan stared up, for the first time, at the darkest face of one of those things. It appeared like a rippling series of black bursts, morphing in and out of the air. She screamed, her lungs emitting another ungodly wail, a tone unheard of in nature. The rippling black above her seemed to disperse at once, abandoning the ship. And with it, the sound left, the tide returning to a state of gentleness.
12. The Ring of Brogdar
The unmanned-boat crashed up against the shore of the Mainland, the siblings bracing themselves by holding onto the sides. They had watched the fisherman live out his dying breaths, and now they were all that was left. From the cargo bay and the storage rooms, they had eaten many rations of dried meat and canned vegetables, storing the rest in backpacks. They were now dressed in thick fishing coats, protected from the acid rains that poured down upon them. Hamish weakly helped his sister clamber down from the ship, the two walking onto the shore together. The rain foamed up against the sand, creating flotsam of strange pigments. At first, they looked for caves or nooks to hide beneath but found no rocks suitable and continued onto the flat land of grass.
It was not long before they heard the horns, deep booming sounds that crossed the island. They could have been made by an animal, save for their rhythmic balance. They seemed to form a song, one sung by those from other areas of the island. Then they heard the beating of drums, the thudding that accompanied each boom of the horn. Hamish laughed weakly, a feeling of warmth filling his bruised chest. His sister squeezed his hand. Hamish could not hear her when she spoke, but she whispered words of warmth very close to his ear. She could tell that even though he was strong, he was close to some form of death. Blood dripped from his mouth and his wound seeped fluid. She held him close, heading toward the cobblestone walls of the farmland.
There, on the horizon, Siobhan saw the source of the horns—silhouettes of figures standing in a circle of stones. The stones were shaped into a ring, the tall dark form of each rock positioned equally distant from each other. She turned her rifle around to the front of her body and stalked carefully up the hill. She had no choice but to seek out medicine, to find some way to heal Hamish, but she knew that it would be at the risk of both of their lives. As they walked arm in arm up the bank, she saw the first arrow fly. It was a short stick covered in a flight of bird feathers. Aiming her rifle up, she looked down the barrel and fired toward the circle. The crowd above her dispersed, running and hollering in unearthly shrieks.
A sound behind them shuddered the ground, shaking the island to its very core. The stone walls of the farmland crumbled beneath its weight, sending Siobhan and her brother to the ground. Brilliant flashes ignited all around them, the green sky prickling with clouds of lightning. Siobhan turned in time to see the island they had just come from covered in an eerie mushroom cloud of prickling blackness. She knew that this meant it had been consumed by the cursed land and that all eventually would be too. As she got up from the ground, the white snow falling down upon them, she realized she could no longer move Hamish.
His body lay cold in the gray grass, mouth set ajar. His pink eyes were closed, dark and sunken. She wrapped her arms around him and zipped up his hood, trying to protect hat him from the fallout. She could feel his shallow breaths, understanding he was still alive, only unconscious. She wept when she realized he would not awaken, her tears falling onto his pallid features. But as the land filled with the whitest of snow, the figures from the stones descended upon them. They were a large group of men and women, their faces painted in colored pigments, flesh pierced with bones and metal. Three of them held rifles, each dangling with beads and feathers. Siobhan could only raise her hands, still weeping at her brother below, waiting as they tethered and bundled them up the hill.
A blow to the head landed her unconscious. The tribe had carried her and Hamish up to the stone circle and bound her to a thin wooden post. Her hands were tethered to either side, another blue rope twisting around her waist. In the center of the tall stones, they had built a high fire, each member of the tribe adding branches and planks to its body. Siobhan awoke to her white face being anointed with animal blood, a female shaman painting her with a brush fashioned of horse hair. She pleaded desperately, but her mouth was gagged, covered by a cloth. Looking around her, all she could see was the watchful eyes of the filth-covered cult members as they crouched around her. Some made offerings of candles, lighting them at either side of her.
From across the other side of the stones, she saw Hamish, now brought to his feet, bound by the neck with a blue rope. She watched as they dragged him toward the woodland in the distance, his pale figure inching along the snowy bank of the hill. Hamish could give her one last glance, observing as a red-faced woman held a knife against his sister’s throat.
Siobhan looked up to the green swarm of the clouds, praying in her mind. She prayed not for her safety but for that of her brother as the sky grew ever darker. Soon the sparks of the large fire were prickling at her skin, the inner circle gaining some fierceness. Some of the tribesmen now held black banners of salvaged materials, beating their drums and dancing around the growing fire. Siobhan felt deep within her that they too were praying to something, to the same force that dealt the land its cursed ground. She could hear in their infernal chanting a strange desperation, a desire to take back control of nature.
Soon they lit flaming torches from the fire itself, the deep green of the sky now dissipating to a murky blackness. The moon was high above them, just visible through the line of clouds. But when those of the tribe were far away from her, Siobhan felt something—a deep, drowning sensation in her lungs, as if she was unable to breathe. The smoke moved in swathes around her as tears flooded down her face. She knew that Hamish was dead. The sadness that she felt seemed to rock her soul as if her ego itself was dying. The world no longer seemed to matter without the sensation of her brother being in it. She thought of all their moments together, of everything they had shared, all of the islands they had explored. Of the apocalypse and how little it meant to a world that had already ended.
Some time passed, the rest of the tribe returned from the woods. Sh
e did not expect to see Hamish, and he did not return, but in his place was a backpack full of things laid out at her feet. An empty flask of whiskey was placed by her lap, with a ring of keys and a handbag. These objects meant nothing to her, but their familiarity seemed immediate, as if they had been written into her mind since the dawn of time itself. The head of the tribe approached her clad in a headdress of feathers, his face weighed down with metal. He crouched just beside her, staring into her eyes through the blackened ink of his face.
“It’s time, mah dear,” he said, his voice guttural and horrid, “tae meet wi` th’ goddess.” The drums beat loudly, thudding all around her, and the women of the group began to wail into the night, crying out as if in mourning. They carried old traffic signs, banners of arcane symbols strapped to them. They began to untie Siobhan from the post, bringing her towards the heat of the fire. The music reached a point of wild cacophony, the chanting growing ever louder. Bells were rung as people spat into the fire in the center of the circle. Slowly, Siobhan approached the licking flames, the heat becoming overwhelming.
She scrambled desperately to untie herself from the binds behind her back, the knots tight around each wrist. She tried to survive if only for the memory of her brother, if only to prevent these beings from causing further torment, but the ropes stayed firmly in place. Flames licked at her knees, the jeering faces of the tribe visible all around her. Her pale skin quivered, her pink eyes wider than ever, until finally, the gag around her mouth came loose. Siobhan screamed, a scream louder than even her body was believed capable of. The scream deafened the sounds of the fire, the chanting, the movement all around her.