Sanctuary: Book One of Bloodlines

by C. L. Stevens

  “Does it hurt much?” Desiree asked in sympathetic tones.

  “I’ll live.” Anastacia replied almost curtly with a furtive glance at the gashes on Desiree’s own leg. The recent activity had made them start to Bleed again.

  “Well this isn't working.” Desiree admitted. “That was obviously not the way out.”

  “Do you think they were telling the truth about us mostly walking in circles?” Anastacia asked.

  “I, I don't know but I am not going to trust anything or anyone in this place besides you Stasha.” She replied. Her brows crinkled in thought though despite the proclamation. “I think we still best take precautions though.” She admitted. “Let me see your bag.”

  Anastacia handed it over. Desiree looked through it quickly and came out with a few sheets of paper with writing on both sides.

  “Do you need these?” She asked.

  “I can make more.” Anastacia replied with a wave of her hand.

  Desiree nodded and then tore a small piece off one of the sheets and dropped it on the ground. She moved a few feet away and looked back for the paper. As she had hoped, the white parchment on the thick carpet of green grass drew the eyes like a beautiful woman in a male prison.

  “Time for some breadcrumbs.” Desiree explained to her friend's perplexed expression and the girl nodded her understanding,

  “Well come on Hansel. Lead on.”

  “Why do I have to be the guy?” Desiree protested. Anastacia only rolled her eyes.

  Within half an hour they learned that though they probably had not been going in a circle, at least definitely not a tight one, they had certainly not been moving in a straight line. With several pieces of paper to guide them, they found themselves having to adjust their course time and again. They had been traveling this way for some time when the voice spoke to them again.

  “We could help you get out you know.” The voice said into the silence in overly sweet tones. “We wouldn't want the two of you to run into anymore unfortunate… entanglements.”

  The 2nd voice came in, sarcasm heavy in her, in its voice. Desiree found herself wondering if they had been following them all this time.

  “Who or what are you?” Anastacia asked them.

  “Come into the darkness and see.” Came the reply in unison. Their voices came together almost like music. There was also a very real predatory feel to the words that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

  “How about the two of you come into the light.” Desiree shot back.

  “Is that an invitation?” The more feminine voice asked playfully, dangerously. Desiree didn't respond.

  “You don't really inspire a lot of confidence.” Anastacia remarked flatly. “How do we know we can trust you?”

  “Because if we wanted you dead, we could have just watched you walk into that slaughterhouse and said nothing.” The first voice stated plainly.

  Desiree thought that it was hard to argue with that simple logic.

  “What do you want?” Anastacia asked, her suspicion not seeming to lessen one iota. “What do you get from helping us leave?”

  “Very astute human. We do want something from you. When we show you the way to safety, show you that you are still going the wrong way, you will be more inclined to grant our request.”

  “Tell us what you want now.” Anastacia demanded.

  “Oh no, no.” The two whispered together. Then it was the second voice that continued.

  “Once you are safe in the light of day, we shall ask.”

  “What is to stop us from just saying no once we are free?” Desiree had to ask.

  “Then you just walk away. No different than if we ask now and you refuse. But we calculate that you will be far more… amenable once you are safe.”

  Desiree looked to her friend and cocked her head. Anastacia just shrugged. The truth was, she was worried that they were still going the wrong direction. Anastacia had finished the last of the water hours ago. They needed to get out soon. They needed help.

  “OK.” Desiree conceded. “Show us the way out.”

  “Turn 45 degrees to the left from the way you are currently headed.” Came the immediate reply in harmonized voices.

  The girls did as instructed.

  They had been walking for an hour or so when the voices spoke in unison once more. The command was not loud but was full of such unmistakable seriousness that both girls obeyed without thinking.

  “Stop.”

  Desiree looked questioningly to her friend when nothing further was forthcoming. She opened her mouth to speak when a soft “Shh,” from opposite sides of the circle caused her to shut it again.

  “Take ten steps back.” The first voice uttered in a near whisper. Desiree saw that Anastacia was already moving so she followed suit.

  “Hold.” Both voices stated together in a harsh whisper just as Desiree was putting her foot down to count her seventh step. She nearly stumbled trying to stop herself from taking the eight. Anastacia also stopped abruptly and the two girls shared raised eyebrows and knowing looks. They stood there for another minute or so when Anastacia made a goofy face to her and it caught her so off guard that she had to cover her mouth with her hand in an attempt to hold in the laughter. But that urge was cut away as if by a knife when she heard the sound. She had heard it before and once again the noise completely unsettled her and made her feel as if insects were crawling underneath her clothing. It was the unnerving sound of many small feet scurrying nearby along with a not so subtle sound, like scraping carapace. The sounds came from somewhere just ahead of them. It went on for a long time before finally fading away. Desiree hadn't realized how much she had been tensing until she relaxed muscles that had been aching under the strain. Sweat beaded on her brow and she wiped it away absently as she stood from a crouch she had no recollection of taking. Anastacia was looking around worriedly and when Desiree moved closer to her she took her arm in an iron grip, her fingertips actually turning white under the strain.

  “You may continue forward.” Came the harmony of voices. “The danger has passed.”

  “What was that?” Anastacia asked sounding equal parts curious, disgusted and terrified. “It sounded like a giant millipede. A hundred millipedes.”

  “Yes.” Desiree agreed. “Like it had a bunch of legs.”

  “Yes, many legs, many legs.” The first voice confirmed.

  “Yes, many more than you, many more than us. Many mouths to feed.” Added the second voice.

  Anastacia chuckled nervously.

  “How many legs do you have?”

  The voices only chuckled for a reply. A remarkably creepy one Desiree thought considering they both did so together and in perfect harmony.

  “Are you still leaving the breadcrumbs?” Anastacia asked.

  “Yeah, of course.” Desiree replied, looking back the way they had come to show her. Only there was nothing to see. No pieces of paper. She walked back a few more Yards looking in the grass but there was nothing.

  “What the heck? I swear, I have been still dropping them.” She said defensively.

  “The way is clear. You may move forward once more.” The voices reiterated.

  Desiree got a sinking feeling in her chest. She was about to ask the voices about her makeshift trail when she thought better of it. But she did share a warning look with her friend.

  They began moving once again when Desiree suddenly felt something strange in the back of her mind. It was an odd sensation that pulled strongly at her but not in a harsh way. In fact, the feeling felt comfortable and safe, like nestling in her own bed. She suddenly realized what was so odd about it. The oddness was not the feeling itself at all, but rather the absence of it. But more than that, more complex. It felt so odd because feeling it again both brought to her attention that, for one, it had been missing, and that she had never consciously realized that it had ever been there in the first place. But she remembered it now and the recollection was startling and profound. Having not fe
lt this jumble of sensations in the back of her conscious seemed almost unnatural to her now, like she had been missing one of her eyes or a limb. Now that it was back she realized that she had missed it dearly, like a pair of prescription glasses or a comfortable pair of orthopedic shoes. She understood just how much it had become a part of her and that safe and comfortable feeling was leading her in a different direction than where she was now headed. No, not leading, gently but incessantly pulling her like a penny to a weak magnet. Trust flowed through the sensation stronger than anything she had ever felt before. It was even greater than that of how she felt about her father when she was a child. It was as if her soul were calling to be reunited with her body, like it was a call to be whole again. She stopped and turned in that direction.

  “What's wrong, why did you stop?” Anastacia asked her worriedly. She examined her more closely and took her arm again, her voice growing even more concerned. “Are you OK? You have this strange look on your face.”

  Desiree blinked and looked down at her in confusion for a moment before the question finally sank in. She waved away the concern irritably.

  “We are going the wrong way.” She said calmly. “Safety is that way.” She added, pointing nearly directly behind them.

  “How do you know that?” Anastacia asked skeptically.

  “I know.” Desiree replied cryptically but with strong conviction.

  “But how do you know now when you didn't before.” Anastacia pressed. “What has changed in the last 5 minutes?”

  Desired looked down at her again. “I know.” She said again in tones that brooked no argument. Anastacia eyed her for a long moment and then just nodded as if she had never really doubted the fact.

  “But what about our new friends?”

  “Never did trust them,” Desiree admitted. “Besides, I am pretty sure they have been picking up our breadcrumbs so we can't find our way back.”

  Anastacia hissed angrily.

  “Then let's go,” Anastacia said and suiting her own words, started walking in the direction her friend had pointed. Desiree was matching her stride before she had taken her second step.

  “You travel off course,” Came the expected call after only a few moments. “Turn 144 degrees to your right.”

  “No,” Desiree replied firmly.

  “Freedom from the darkness, is that not what you seek?” The first voice asked.

  “We lead you to safety human. Why do you not listen?” Came the second voice.

  The girls kept walking. In fact, they picked up their pace as much as the circle would allow.

  “I wonder what game you play considering I know the way out now.” Desiree replied after a few more inquiries.

  “You know nothing mortal!” The 2 said in unison. The sheer volume of the words made both women stop in their tracks. “You are but sheep and spring quickly approaches. You are plump and foolish fish in a barrel. We shall not be denied!”

  Desiree grabbed her friend's hand and began moving again. Their pace soon out distanced the circle and they slowed reluctantly.

  “Don't worry Stasha, they can't enter the circle.” Desiree stated, hoping to calm her wide eyed and rapidly breathing friend. “I don't think anything here can leave the darkness.”

  They walked in silence for a good while and just when Desiree thought that they were no longer being tracked, the voices began anew when a sudden spray of tiny, torn pieces of paper entered the circle directly in front of them. They all settled to the grass as the girls stepped over them.

  “We will strip the skin from your pitiful carcass and lick the meat right off your bones.” Came a chorus of voices. There were far more than the 2 now but they spoke in unison as if one mind.

  “I will pull your brain out through your ears and drink your blood from your skull. We will crack your bones like a crab shell and slurp up your marrow as you scream in mortal agony. We shall dance to the sweet music that is your death rattle.”

  Anastacia began to cry and Desiree couldn't blame her, she felt like crying too.

  “They can't get to us.” She said repeatedly as they hurried along. She soon realized she was saying so as much for herself as for Anastacia.

  Suddenly Anastacia cried out and fell hard. The sound of it so close to her ear made her jump even though she knew the source. Desiree continued forward almost unconsciously when she turned back to her friend and saw why Anastacia had stopped. A dark hand at least 3 times as large as a normal human hand was sticking out of the ground, grasping the girl's ankle. Plumes of oily looking smoke rose from the grotesquely deformed appendage and it seemed to hiss and sizzle. A foul, rancid odor assaulted her senses. It was unlike anything she had ever smelled before. The smell was worse than bad, more than bad, it was wrong, completely wrong. Her stomach heaved and she vomited harshly even as she stumbled toward her friend, toward the smell.

  “Get it off me!” Anastacia cried in desperation. She growled in agony as she tried to pull away. “It burns! Get it off me!”

  Desiree kicked at the giant hand as hard as she could. When her bare foot made contact, pain blossomed like a flower unfolding and she hissed between her teeth. There was no longer any skin on that side of her foot. She looked at her friend scrabbling in the grass and in obvious pain and kicked it again. She didn't stop kicking until her friend was free.

  Even the impossibly soft grass did little to ease the sting each time she placed her newly injured foot down. She made a vow then and there that if they lived through this, she was going to always wear sensible shoes.

  The going was slower at first now that both her legs were injured but she soon forgot about the pain of the new injury as the voices hurled threats and obscenities at them. Now that they were actively looking out for it, they were able to avoid further attacks from underground with relative ease. It was a simple task to step aside when the grass before them began to move. Anastacia stumbled and fell again but Desiree had her up to her feet and moving again before the half dozen sections of moving grass that signaled an imminent attack could converge.

  “Sorry.” Anastacia said wearily. “It's my head. It's throbbing again and I feel dizzy.”

  Her eyes were red and had a distinctively unfocused look to them.

  “It's not much farther.” She promised and gave her a worried smile but Anastacia had already turned to watch the ground before them as they stumbled along.

  It was close, she could feel it. Feel that whatever was out there calling to her, pulling to her, was very close indeed. At first, she thought that their pace had become too fast and they were outrunning the circle again so they slowed their pace only to realize the darkness was not just getting closer in front of them. The circle was shrinking again only much faster this time.

  “Go!” She yelled. “It's only a few feet.”

  It was a few feet too far. The darkness closed in and swallowed them like a gaping maw. Anastacia screamed, shrill and piercing. The sound of insidious laughter drifted from behind them.

  “Ah, sing to us. We shall dine to the symphony of your delightful screams.”

  Desired grabbed her petite friend and tossed her forward with all her strength. She managed to take two more steps before the pressure began to build like it had before and press in on every molecule of her being. But suddenly her face broke through the wall of darkness and she could see the light of day. It was the middle of the day with the beautiful sun sitting strong and proud in the sky and at the glorious sight of it she fully understood why some cultures deigned the glorious golden orb for worship.

  Anastacia was a good 10 feet away on her hands and knees and appeared to be rising, if a bit unsteadily. She saw all of this in a split second before things, many things, some as large as the hand that grabbed Anastacia and some seeming as small as a single digit of a finger, grab her and pull her back into the blackness with such force that she felt her neck almost snap from the abrupt and violent change in her momentum.

  She felt pain everywhere, over every i
nch. She was being held aloft and could not even move a limb, let alone fight back. Still she tried with everything she had even though she feared she would go mad from her terror and pain and that awful and oppressive darkness. And then she prayed that she would indeed lose her grasp on reality just so it would all end. So she would not have to hear anymore, to feel anymore. Through all the clamoring of laughter and cursing and her own screams, she heard a single word spoken in harmony from a seemingly endless throng of delighted voice.

  “Delicious.”

  Chapter 18

  Desiree tried to raise her eyelids but she only managed a crack before the heavy weight of them won out and they closed again. She was cold, especially her back. She did not hurt anywhere, not in the general sense at least but she certainly did not feel well. She felt weak, frail, as if she were only just now on the mend from a terrible case of the flu. She lay there unmoving, unable to speak, like a helpless newborn. Her body shivered, the involuntary act intense enough to rattle the teeth in her head. Even that was too much for her to bare, unwilling and uncontrolled as it was and she faded into unconsciousness once more.

  “I am sorry my dear, but it is not working.” She heard a man say, rousing her from a strange dream that faded from her memory so quickly that she was not even aware of dreaming at all. She recognized the voice but could not put a name to it.

  “We keep trying,” A woman replied.

  She knew exactly who spoke now and she struggled to sit up but not a single muscle in her entire body would obey her command. Trying to speak, to just grunt, to make any sound at all proved equally fruitless.

  “No matter how long it takes. We keep trying!” The woman continued heatedly.

  “It has been weeks honey and no change.” Said a different woman in tones that were firm yet still full of sympathy. “You have done all you can, all anyone can do my dear. It is time. You must safeguard yourself and let her go. Let her rest at last.”

  “No mother! I can still feel her! Again!”

  There was a long moment of silence before Desiree heard loud sighs. She felt someone grab her wrist and then the other.