by J. Thorn
Lindsay continued upward, her pace even and consistent. As they climbed, the rain began to taper and the desert floor shied away. The cloud felt closer as they approached the peak, and Samuel thought the top of the mountain had dropped. She was within a few hundred yards of the summit when the climb plateaued. The rock walls opened to an incline that ramped up to the peak, where a dull light could be seen just over a distant outcropping. She stopped and placed her hands on her hips, drawing deep breaths in the thin air.
“That’s it,” she whispered to Samuel as he stood next to her.
“It is,” he said, giving his lungs time to nourish his blood.
“I need a second,” she said.
Samuel followed her. She sat down, legs swinging over the edge like a little girl on a playground swing. The rain had stopped completely, and the cloud engulfed the horizon, giving the impression the mountain now floated in the atmosphere on a groundless planet.
“The light. It’s like a beacon of sorts.”
“I figured as much,” Lindsay said.
“I don’t know what’s there, but I know it’s the time and place where I either find my salvation or I get dumped back into the cycle. And I think it’s the same for you.”
Lindsay nodded and stared out over the edge and into the eyes of the cloud.
“So if there is something you need to tell me, now would be the time.”
Lindsay turned to face him. The climb had drained the resolve from Samuel’s face. She saw wrinkles deepened by the gouging rain.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like the dream you’ve tried hiding from me.”
Lindsay sighed and shook her head. “Major. I met Major.”
Samuel felt the name roll around inside his stomach, threatening to turn its contents inside out.
***
The flame danced in the unseen movements of the air within the tower. Deva stood back, admiring his work, proud to have reached the peak before succumbing to the powers of the reversion or the inevitable atrophy of his physical manifestation.
He thought of Shallna and the orb, bringing on a paradoxical mix of sadness and joy. Deva no longer felt the presence of either and would need to take satisfaction in knowing they no longer belonged to this locality, whether plucked from it by another force or because Shallna followed orders and submitted to the reversion. Either way, they were no longer a concern to weigh him down. The shedding of that duty allowed him to come to grips with what would take place at the peak, and he sensed he would need the focus.
Deva peered out of the top of the tower, where the cauldron had sat for eons. The carbonized fuel caught fire immediately, yet the chains holding the cauldron appeared rusty and worn. The beacon was lit, and now he would wait for them to come. He sensed the woman and Samuel, an unspoken disturbance between them. Deva chuckled, glad to accept any advantage the reversion would hand him.
The cauldron was the focal point of the transition from one overseer to another. It also drew the successor forward with a magnetic force that strengthened as he came closer.
He stepped back and examined the tight room at the top of the tower. The walls began at the floor as chiseled bricks, which the masons had fit into the natural rock of the mountain. A few feet off the floor, the stone walls met several yards overhead in a convergence of angled lines, creating a natural peak within the tower. Rough hands and worn tools created two windows that gazed upon the eastern and western horizons. The cloud obscured any view Deva might have had of either vista.
A stone bench ran the perimeter of the space, and Deva imagined the priests on it, conjuring words from the ether and ascribing them to deities beyond the realm. He had a vague recollection of them and the practices used in ancient times, which now seemed too distant to be true. He stood and walked to the cauldron, where the flame hissed at the renegade raindrops that found their way to it. Deva looked at the green and yellow hues coming from the flame, never quite accepting fire that did not burn red and hot, still in awe of the reversion’s dulling powers after all this time.
He would wait for them and follow his ahimsa. Deva would honor his duty as those before him.
***
Lindsay saw the contortions forming on Samuel’s face and felt a sliver of regret for telling him. She shook her head like a cheating spouse.
“He’s alive?” Samuel asked.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me,” she said. “I don’t know if we’re alive.”
Samuel nodded, conceding the point. “What did he say?”
“He wants you, Samuel. You have something he needs.”
Samuel stood and faced the peak, where the light danced and twirled in the dead air. The rain subsided to an annoying mist of water. It brushed against them in defeat, unable to cope with its failure of keeping them from the peak.
“We need to go.”
Lindsay stood and looked into his eyes.
“But I haven’t told you any more about the dream.”
“There isn’t time,” Samuel said. “Deva is waiting for us.”
He struck out ahead of Lindsay, leaving her shrugging and bewildered from his lack of curiosity.
Chapter 10
“He’s there.”
She nodded, and followed a step behind Samuel as they came to an opening in the rock directly beneath the mountain’s peak leading to a carved granite tower. The tower housed the cauldron and the ceremonial place where the power of the reversion would transfer from father to son. Wind and rain wore the fine edges of the tower to rounded corners but the windows carved in the side remained. The granite tower sat on the mountain’s peak, thrust into the sky and threatening to break through it.
The rain fell away, leaving silence and nothing more than a handful of puddles in its wake. The reversion’s cloud held firm in the black sky and encircled the mountain, shrouding the rest of the locality in mystery. Samuel quit looking over his shoulder toward the end of the climb. Whether the cloud ate the locality or simply obscured it made no difference. He would not turn back and jeopardize his best chance at salvation. The talisman on his chest thrummed from a slight vibration that buzzed through his teeth. Samuel came to the threshold of the opening and stopped. Before stepping into the tower’s staircase, he paused to give Lindsay one last chance to stay behind.
“Last chance,” he said to Lindsay.
“For what?” she asked.
“To stay out of it and let the reversion hit your reset button. I’m pretty sure you’re still in the cycle, and if you let the cloud do its work, you’ll come through the forest again with another chance and a bit wiser.”
“Like you?” Lindsay asked. “The way you were so happy to reset and come through again? No thanks. I’m here to finish and get the hell out by doing whatever it takes. If getting a reboot was such a great thing, you wouldn’t be here now, would you?”
Samuel laughed and shook his head. He wondered why he had given Lindsay the out when he knew nobody wanted to remain in the cycle. It was something Jack was probably realizing a little too late. Deep down, Samuel felt as though he could not entirely trust her, and giving her the option to turn around was in some way self-preservation.
“No, I would not,” Samuel said. “I guess I should be expecting a surprise visit from Major?”
Lindsay looked at her feet and bit her bottom lip. “I’d say odds are good he’s going to crash the party.”
Samuel held his gaze on her, looking for the indication she would not provide verbally. “Then we’ll have to save him a seat, won’t we?”
Samuel stepped into the darkness, not waiting to see if Lindsay would follow. His first sensation was of endless open space. He was not sure why his body perceived the entrance to the peak in this way, but he reached his hands forward and imagined them stretching out over a wide, bottomless chasm. Samuel drew back until he felt the chill of the rock on his back. He inhaled sharply and blinked his eyes. The blackness was as deep and impenetrable with his eyes open as it w
as with them closed. Lindsay crossed the threshold and he could hear the same visceral reaction in her. She grabbed for his hand and felt the warmth from the touch, the only source of heat inside the mountain.
“Nice view,” she said.
He smiled and gave her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it and sliding his feet to the right. Samuel realized that although the darkness seemed absolute at first, his eyes were now adjusting, and several shapes began to appear. Samuel saw a tremendous slab of rock jutting from the sea of darkness below. It lurched upward at a forty-five-degree angle, resembling an ancient white spaceship in midflight. Other rock formations crystallized as charcoal shapes against the velvety-black. Samuel remembered family visits to commercialized caves in Kentucky. He thought of the damp smell of earth and all of the random, inauspicious sounds that crept out of the depths. The reversion had stolen the sounds of the locality as well as the ones inside the mountain. Not even the dripping of water could be heard.
“Put a hand on my shoulder,” he said.
He felt Lindsay’s long fingers caress the side of his neck before resting on his shoulder. Her touch brought a tingle that radiated throughout his body. Samuel pushed his desires aside and convinced his feet to disobey their natural instinct and press farther into the innards of the mountain. He could not determine whether the path he was on was natural or manmade, but he followed it nonetheless. Lindsay’s hand remained on his shoulder, and he could feel her breath on his neck. The path inclined and rotated so that Samuel came past the slab of rock, but now from the other side and at a higher point. He was able to look past it and down at the entrance where the cloud pulsed on the other side of the threshold, seemingly forbidden from pursuing them inside. He remembered the cave, which spurred a memory of Mara’s final moments, bringing a spark of sadness. It also brought a warning, reminding Samuel the peak, much like the cave, would hold the reversion at bay temporarily. But even this god of stone would crumble beneath its powers.
As they circled the slab and rose higher within the peak, Samuel saw the first glimmer of light flickering from a wall torch mounted at the doorway to a spiral staircase. The doorway was not much more than a hole that appeared to be blown through the wall, yet Samuel saw no evidence of the act, as though the loose mortar and fragments of stone had long since been whisked away. When he reached the aperture, Samuel ducked his head and placed a foot on the steps, then turned and held his hand out to Lindsay, who came through behind him. She looked down the staircase first and then up.
“Can’t imagine what’s down there,” she said.
“Doubt we’ll ever find out,” he said.
Samuel examined the steps and slid his palm across the walls of the staircase. He believed them to be handcrafted, hewn from the stone, chisel and muscle of an ancient man and left as a testament to the craftsman’s dedication.
“We don’t have much time left.”
“I can feel it, too,” Lindsay said. “We should get moving.”
Samuel took one last moment to breathe before starting up the stairs.
***
He could sense a flutter in his chest. It shocked Deva because it reminded him of a humanity he believed lost forever. They were in the staircase, and would most likely not be distracted from it at this point. The reversion had tried. It had hoped to hold them so it could dismantle them, but that didn’t happen. Deva was grateful it had lessened their numbers, but in the end, it was only Samuel who threatened him. Only Samuel had the power to keep Deva in the cycle, whether he realized it or not.
Deva knew the girl came too, and he felt her intentions muffled, like trying to ascertain the location of the sun on a cloudy day, only there as evidenced by the light. Lindsay had not yet mastered the energies of the reversion, but could be used as a crude weapon by those who had.
When their feet struck the carved stone inside the spiral staircase, Deva knew the confrontation was at hand.
***
Samuel felt his mind shift as it detached from the physical realm. He heard Lindsay’s voice trailing off as another one filled his head.
“The old man is gonna show.”
Samuel blinked twice. The light threatened to burn his eyes from their sockets. He placed his hand on the wall, expecting to feel the mortar and brick, but instead recognized the smoothness of painted drywall: modern construction. He recognized the voice before he could see him.
“Why should I care? I’m more worried about another sucker punch to the face.”
Kole laughed and then he filled Samuel’s vision. The colored ink on his arms nearly leapt from his skin. Samuel noticed his black hair remained cropped tightly on a chiseled skull, and Kole’s T-shirt clung to his chest, revealing the cut muscles beneath. He had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth behind a five o’clock shadow approaching six. Samuel shook, trying to regain his equilibrium.
“I’ll give you a second,” Kole said to Samuel. “It’s easier in dreams, but we don’t have that luxury now, do we? Let’s consider this an ‘internal slip,’ one I summoned. Bet that gets your panties in a bunch, don’t it? Me yanking you out and not the other way around? You ain’t the only one that picked up a thing or two in this bullshit.”
Samuel blinked and forced his lungs to settle into a calm rhythm. He looked over Kole’s shoulder to see the Pup-A-Go-Go sign hanging above a Formica counter. Folks wearing polyester pants and fuzzy sideburns stood in line, ordering soft drinks and pretzels.
“Monroeville Mall. 1976. You like that shit?” Kole asked.
Samuel shrugged and let his head turn to survey the landscape. He sat on a slatted, wooden bench, Kole now next to him. The colored lights underneath the water fountain changed as a family of four walked toward JC Penney on their way to new school clothes or a dining room set. Samuel heard a sharp crack and recognized the sound of a frozen puck slamming off the end boards in the ice rink next to the Pup-A-Go-Go. Before he could speak, Kole interrupted as though he were about to tell Samuel that Santa did not exist.
“Dawn of the Dead. You remember that fucking movie, dude? Don’t play like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Shit, I watched those Romero films dozens of times, and yet there was something about Dawn that always got me thinking. I mean, growing up in the mall culture and all, shit like this,” Kole said, spreading his arms to visually encompass the mall. “Shit like this was our utopia. My mom would have never left the place, and Romero turns it into the last bastion of humanity before the zombies overrun it all. And don’t forget the biker dudes. That was good shit, eh?”
Samuel paused, not wanting to puncture the pride with which Kole had crafted their meeting. He put thought into the place, however campy or stupid it happened to be.
“Let’s just say I know Monroeville Mall well,” Samuel said. “And the zombies in Dawn of the Dead were nothing like our friends in the horde. Romero’s zombies ate people.”
“I knew you’d appreciate this,” Kole said, removing a lighter from his pocket. “You can even smoke in here, in 1976.”
The stainless-steel lighter shot a blue flame from the tip, which Kole sucked into the end of his crumpled smoke. He exhaled and leaned back on the bench, throwing his left arm around Samuel.
“Don’t rush my smoke break, dude. Time here is like the dream. I got ya covered.”
Although Samuel did not entirely trust Kole’s knowledge of the reversion’s ways, he had no choice but to comply. He thought of Lindsay and then pushed her from his head. He needed it filled with logic, not emotion.
“What do you want from me, Kole?” Samuel asked, realizing he had to play by Kole’s rules, but he could still help move things along.
“I think you know, brother. You and I, we were never buds, but we weren’t enemies either. We just happened to be getting played by the old man at the same time.”
“Major,” Samuel said.
“The one and only,” Kole said. “The way I figure it, he wants that talisman off your neck and so do I. He’s wi
lling to try to take it while I’m being polite. I’m asking for it.”
“Yes, I’ve always admired your social graces.”
Kole paused before taking another drag from his cigarette. He watched a mother push her child in a stroller.
“I don’t think you need it. You and the chick are heading for Deva, and that’s your business. Either way, I don’t see you needing that talisman anymore.”
“How do you know that?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Kole said. “I feel it. I can also tell you Major’s been mind-fucking that little hottie of yours. He’s been whispering in her ear.”
Samuel felt a pit form in the bottom of his stomach. He had tried prodding Lindsay into revealing her conversation with Major, but she wouldn’t. He heard the puck slam the boards again. The sound felt like a loud, brash secondhand that was counting down the time left in the reversion.
“Don’t ask me,” Kole said before Samuel could answer. “You know Major is sly, and I haven’t been able to figure out what he wants her to do. But I know he wants that talisman too, and he ain’t gonna take you on a trip to Zombieville 1976 and ask for it. Smoke?”
Samuel waved his hand in the air, declining Kole’s offer. He saw a few folks walking by. As some came closer, he noticed their faces were empty, featureless. Bland, smooth skin ran from their foreheads to their chins, covering the places where eyes, noses and mouths should have been.
“We don’t have much time left in this vision, do we?” Samuel asked.
“You seen peeps losing their faces too, eh? When the walkers disappear and we’re in this mall alone, you’ll know we have to get the fuck out.”