Eve of Redemption

by Tom Mohan

  Finally, her head popped above the surface. She gulped for air before the water pulled her back into darkness, like some gigantic sea creature was swallowing her whole. Her left arm slammed against something hard, and she screamed out, losing what little air she had managed to take in. Bright fireworks of light flashed across her vision. The current spun her about, battering her body and sending her careening off the submerged walls. Her fingers fought to find anything to grab hold of, but the rock was slippery and her strength spent. Her empty lungs demanded air, but there was none to be had. Her mind grew numb, and she knew death was close.

  Death. That’s who the spirit master reminded me of.

  Sara felt weightless just before she crashed into a hard surface. She rolled like a rag doll before coming to rest, lying on her right side. She gasped at the jarring impact, and air entered her deprived lungs. Stale air, to be sure, but the sweetest air she had ever breathed. She didn’t know how long she lay there, gasping and retching. She thought she was coughing up her lungs. At last, her coughing subsided, and she found herself on a stone floor, her wet, pain-wracked body shivering in the cold.

  “Sara?”

  A male voice brought her back to herself. She heard the sound of wet footsteps sloshing toward her. She managed to open her eyes and tried moving her aching body. She groaned with pain but rolled onto her back and sat up.

  “Sara, are you okay?” Kyle’s voice came to her in the gloom.

  “I don’t know. Every inch of me hurts. How about you?” She glanced over to see him moving out of the shadows, dragging his left leg.

  “I’ll live.”

  “Is Ryan with you?”

  He winced in pain as he sat down beside her. “No. He isn’t here?”

  “I lost him when the boat went over the falls.” Sara heard the note of panic in her voice and fought to get herself under control.

  “Maybe he ended up in another passage. There must be a lot of them in this place.” Kyle looked around. “Are we really under the lake? That’s radical.”

  Sara had no idea where Kyle got some of his phrases, but radical was as good a word as any to describe the experience. She looked around, taking in the damp walls. The sound of rushing water filled the room from where it continued to flow down the stairway from which she and Kyle had been spit. Strange crystals embedded in the walls cast an eerie glow, illuminating the room.

  “Yeah, I guess we are. Shouldn’t this whole place be flooded? The water flows all around it—what keeps it from coming in here?”

  Kyle shrugged. “Who knows? Nothing has made any sense since the Horde attacked. I guess this is what we were being trained for, though the training seems to be lacking in a lot of areas.”

  “The attack caught everyone by surprise. They weren’t ready for it. The masters probably thought they had more time to get us ready. Anyway, we’re here now.” Sara wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm. “You know what’s weird, though?”

  “Everything?”

  Sara laughed. It felt good. Then she remembered that Ryan was lost somewhere, maybe dead, just like Dana and Master Eleazar. “Why are we the only ones here? I mean, why us? The Keep was full of masters who were a lot more qualified to do this than we are. Where are they?”

  Kyle thought about it a moment. “I think we were just lucky, you know? We were in the tunnels below the Keep when the attack came. We had to fight our way out, but we ran into minimal resistance. Had we been in the Keep itself, we would probably be dead by now. Besides, some of the masters or other trainees must have made it out. The spirit master brought us here, so…” Kyle’s voice faded, as though he had done a poor job convincing even himself.

  Sara pulled herself to her feet. She reached a hand out to Kyle. “Come on, let’s see if we can figure out what we’re supposed to do now that we’re here. If Eve really is in this castle, I don’t think she’s going to come looking for us.”

  Kyle grabbed her hand and struggled to stand, still favoring his left leg. The floor shook, and they grabbed hold of one another for support. “Now what?” Kyle asked. Dust and crumbling mortar rained down on them. “We need to get out of here.”

  The idea of all this stone burying her in a watery tomb didn’t appeal to Sara, but she had come this far and had no intention of turning back. Besides, where would they go? Back into the lake with the rusalka and whatever else lay in wait? She would rather take her chances inside. She spun around. The only way out appeared to be the staircase that had been turned into a waterfall. Tapestries hung from the wall, whatever scenes they once displayed now indecipherable due to rot and mold. She ran to one and tore it down. It came away easily, crumbling in her grasp, but it covered nothing but stone. She ran to another, then another. On the third, she hit the jackpot—a wooden door set into a slight recess in the wall.

  “Over here, Kyle. I found a door.”

  He was beside her in a moment, and she pressed down on the latch with her thumb and jerked the door open. It proved heavier than she’d expected. As it swung open, a hot blast of air hit her. She gagged at the putrid odor that accompanied it.

  “Oh, that stinks,” Kyle said. “Smells like something died in there.”

  Sara refused to be hindered by the stench. “I’m open to options.” She watched as Kyle looked back toward the water-filled opening that had dumped them in the room, then back at the door.

  “I guess we don’t have any, do we?”

  “Not that I can see.” She turned back to the door. Now that the original surprise had faded, the stench had as well. “Well, let’s get on with it,” she said, stepping into the darkness.

  Raquel’s feet slid as she sped around the corner of yet another dilapidated building. Behind her she could hear Tiny’s ragged breath as he struggled to keep up. She assumed Martinez was back there with him but didn’t bother verifying that assumption. If he was there, great—if not, oh well. He would just have to fend for himself.

  The beasts that stalked them were persistent, if not fast. The trio of Rebels had managed to keep well ahead of them, but each time they stopped to give Tiny a chance to catch his breath, they only had a couple minutes before they were once again forced to flee. Raquel had more than once considered standing and fighting. She hated running away. But the enemy was too many and her companions too few. Right now, running made sense.

  Raquel paused at the edge of the building and peered out at the street beyond. Like the rest of the city, it appeared deserted. She heard the sound of pursuit, but it came from behind them. If anything awaited them here, it remained hidden.

  Across the street, a glint from a fourth floor window caught her eye. She waited a few seconds and saw it again. A light? If someone was up there, they might be able to offer help. On the other hand, they might not be friendly.

  Tiny came up alongside her. He followed her gaze. “You see something?”

  Raquel pointed to the window as the light flashed again. “In that window. Something’s going on up there.”

  “I saw it. What’d ya think?”

  “I’m tired of running.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “No telling who’s up there,’’ said Martinez. ‘’Might not like us barging in.”

  Tiny clapped the big cop on the back. “You’ve gotta learn to live a little. Besides, we’ve gotta fort up somewhere and make our stand. That looks as good a place as any.”

  “We could end up surrounded, trapped in there with who knows what.”

  “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears.” Tiny’s face clearly said the idea better be good, but Martinez shook his head.

  Raquel led the way across the street. The trio stuck to the shadows that covered the front of the building until they came to a rotted door that hung from the bottom hinge. Raquel pulled the piece of wood open far enough to slip inside. Dusty light filtered in through the dirty, broken windows, but it wasn’t enough for them to identify any of the shadows that lurked inside. Behind her, she heard the men pulli
ng the door closed behind them. If they were lucky, nothing had seen them enter.

  Who was she kidding? Luck didn’t exist here.

  She allowed her eyes to adjust to the dim light. The room they were in was big. Some kind of warehouse, she guessed. A row of windows lined three sides. Shadows filled the room, any one of which she expected to come to life and attack them.

  “We have to get up to the fourth floor,” Martinez whispered. “The back seems to be the best bet for finding stairs.”

  They made their way to the back of the building. The room grew darker as they moved farther from the windows. The shadows turned out to be crates that had been stacked without apparent purpose throughout the first floor of the building. Raquel couldn’t shake the feeling that something about the place just wasn’t right. It all seemed generic, staged even. Now that she thought about it, the entire city had seemed that way. No real detail, just props. Except for the monsters. They were real enough.

  Raquel let her senses guide her, and she soon found a stairwell. If there had once been a door covering the opening, it was gone now. The stairs themselves were concrete with a metal handrail. Generic.

  “This place has déjà vu written all over it,” Martinez said.

  Raquel grunted her agreement.

  The door they had entered crashed to the floor, announcing that their pursuers had caught up with them. Break time was over.

  JOSIAH DID HIS best to keep the Rebels together, but Max and Dierdra were missing. They had been running for too long, and they didn’t know these streets like the monsters did. Josiah had considered his options as he ran, but he had never been a smart man, and he was too unfamiliar with the territory to make a guess as to where to go. He kicked himself. Tiny and Raquel had trusted him to take care of the flock, but Josiah’s only claim to power had been the knowledge the voices had given him—knowledge now proven unreliable.

  Josiah turned toward another alley to the right. He heard the others follow and was surprised that none had questioned his authority. Probably no one else wanted the responsibility of leading the gang through this madhouse. A concrete stairway led down into darkness. Something in the back of his consciousness told him to duck down there, even if his rational mind knew that would be the stupidest thing he could do. He had no idea what might be down there. They might even find themselves trapped at a dead end.

  Still, something nagged at him.

  He cursed himself as he turned and fled into the darkness below. There were only six or seven steps. He didn’t really take the time to count. The wide stairs ended at a set of double wooden doors—the door on the right had a rusty handle with a thumb latch. He grabbed the handle and yanked on the latch, but it refused to move. He used his palm to push down on it and then pressed down with both hands before it broke loose and the door swung inward. Josiah shoved through it, helped along by the mass of bodies that piled in behind him. As soon as everyone was in, he slammed the door.

  “Find something to brace it with,” he said. He scanned the room. Dim bulbs swung on wires from the ceiling, creating dancing shadows in the basement. As far as he could remember, this was the first sign of electricity they had seen. Two of the men slid a heavy wooden table in front of the door. Another set a heavy box on top of the table.

  “Keep it coming,” Josiah said. “The beasties be slow, but that doesn’t mean they ain’t strong.” He grabbed another table and, with Spec’s help, added it to the pile in front of the barricade. Just then, something slammed against the other side. The doors flexed but otherwise held.

  “No windows,” Spec said, “but we’ve gotta make sure there’s no other way in.”

  “There’s another door back here,” one of the men said.

  “Can you barricade it?” Josiah asked.

  “It opens the other way,” the man said as another crash slammed the front doors.

  Josiah cursed and hurried over to inspect the door. He twisted the knob and was disappointed when it turned easily. He pushed the door open and peered down a narrow passage. Naked yellow light bulbs hung from the low ceiling.

  “Well Josiah? What now?”

  Josiah shrugged. “I’m tired of running, but I don’t like the idea of trapping ourselves in here, either. My gut says we keep going, see where this passage leads. If we run into anything we don’t like, we can always hightail it back here and make a stand.”

  “If those others don’t get in first,” Lynx said, nodding at the door from which they had come in. Josiah realized it was the first time he had heard anything from her in quite some time.

  “Anyone for waiting here?” Josiah didn’t get any takers. No one wanted to face those things that had decapitated Throttle in the street.

  Josiah hefted his lucky machete and led the way into the passage. After a few steps, he paused. “A couple of you grab some of those cement bags and add them to the barricade. Only a couple, though. If we have to come back this way in a hurry, we don’t want to have to clear too much to get out.” If nothing else, Josiah figured anything breaking through the barrier would make enough noise to alert him to their presence. The remnants of the Lord’s Rebels followed the underground passage for twenty yards before coming to a narrow wooden staircase. Josiah held up a hand for the rest of the group to stop as he peered up to where the steps disappeared into darkness. He was getting a bad vibe from it and was about to tell the others to turn around when the sound of the barricade breaking open changed his mind.

  “Step it up, slackers. We’ve got company.” The ancient steps creaked and bowed beneath his feet when he pounded up them. As the light faded, he slowed just enough to avoid running his nose into the door at the top. Still, he hit it harder than he would have liked, and Spec came from behind to double the impact. Josiah felt for a doorknob and spun it both ways, but the door remained shut tight. He hit it with his shoulder, but it refused to open.

  “Hank, get up here,” Josiah called. “We need some body weight.” Josiah stepped as far out of the way as he could in the confined space to allow Hank to climb to the top of the stairs. The monsters made their slow but steady way toward the Rebels.

  Hank slammed against the door once, twice, then three times before the distinct sound of cracking wood announced his success. Josiah squinted at the bright light as he followed the big man through the splintered door. They had gone no more than a few steps when Josiah ran into Hank’s back.

  “Don’t stop! Keep going!”

  “Go where?”

  Josiah peered around Hank and gazed out over the remains of the derelict city. The entire side of the building had caved in, leaving only the narrow portion on which Josiah and his friends now stood. Josiah retraced their steps in his mind. They had gone from the street to the basement, and then up one flight of stairs, which should have put them back at ground level. He slipped around Hank and as close to the edge as he dared and looked down. They had somehow climbed higher than the ground floor.

  A lot higher.

  Burke reached out and took hold of the noose. Icy fingers closed over his, the specter of Laura offering assistance. The stench of rotting flesh nearly overpowered him. He wanted to gag, to rid himself of the stench once and for all, but the rot was his own failure. It was as much a part of him as of his wife and daughter. He had failed them, and now the price for that failure would be paid in full. He would join his family in whatever hell they now resided. Burke wanted to tell his wife he was sorry, that he never meant to be a bad husband, a bad father, but he knew she didn’t care about his sorrow. She wanted retribution.

  “I found your body, you know,” he said without looking at her. “You were wearing that same blouse, but you were decayed beyond what you look like now.” Burke didn’t know why he was saying this. He just felt like she should know. The smell of her rot took his mind back to that scene beneath the church. There had been little left of her. A skeleton and some scraps of clothing. Why did she appear to him as this decaying monstrosity? Did she wish to torment him with
the gruesomeness of it, or was it something else?

  “Would Laura ever do this to you?”

  Burke started at the voice and saw Red standing in a corner of the cell.

  “I failed her.”

  “Yes, you did. Again I ask, would your wife ever do this to you?”

  Burke watched as the specter of his Sara approached Red like she was unsure what to make of the girl.

  “I deserve this.”

  “No, you don’t deserve this. Justice does not belong to the dead. It belongs to God alone.”

  “God doesn’t care.”

  Red laughed. “Of course he cares, silly. Why do you think I’m here?”

  Laura pulled on his hand, trying to force the noose closer to his head.

  “God sent you? So you are an angel?”

  The little girl smiled, and the specter of Sara shied away, as though the smile had physically shoved her.

  “We’ve been through this before. I’m here to help you do whatever it is you have to do.” She pointed at the noose. “I’m no expert, but I don’t think that’s it.”

  Burke almost smiled. Red’s presence made him feel better. The gloom of his guilt lifted, and even the smell of decay faded. The icy chill of Laura’s hand grew warm and then hot as the specter became agitated. Laura’s mouth opened, revealing a long green tongue, and her face contorted as something beneath the rotting flesh struggled to escape. Then, with a low groan, the vision of the specter collapsed upon itself, leaving little more than a distorted shadow in its place. A quick glance showed Burke that the specter of his daughter had vanished into shadow too. Though the illusion of his family was now broken, the hatred that radiated from them remained as powerful as ever. Whatever these shadows were, they loathed him with a passion beyond anything humanly possible.