THE EVENT

by Jamie Heppner

  "This is as high as we can get." Shade spoke as he sat down on the edge of their pyramid of boxes. "It's not high enough. The crack is still at least ten feet above us."

  Dawn looked up towards the blue sky visible through the torn roof. Her eyes were ringed and dark from the work. They had only stopped whenever they absolutely had to, the constant pounding a reminder of what would happen if the monsters broke through.

  "If we had only found a rope."

  When Dawn had noticed earlier that they might run out of boxes, she had suggested a rope for the rest of the way. The two had broken off from their building for quite a while in search of something they could use only to come up short-handed. "Apparently this store doesn't sell rope."

  Shade had tried the door again after that, pulling on Dawn's power. The same result had come forth. As soon as the light on the panel had gotten brighter, the low moaning had begun. Shade quickly pulled back on his power and the moaning ceased.

  The two sat on the lower levels of the pyramid watching the door as they ate a light snack. The pounding had stopped again outside signalling the same time of day. They both new it would start again very soon.

  "That door has just about had it. We need to figure out something quickly or I think we are going to be in trouble again."

  Dawn nodded but didn't take her eyes off the door. She had had the foresight a while ago to move their loaded backpacks up to the top of the tower. "If we do think of a way to get up it would be nice to have them ready." She had explained when Shade asked what she was doing with them.

  The pounding started once again. Shade stared up towards the crack above, thinking he might be able to push Dawn up at least when a different sound broke the rhythm. With a metallic scraping sound, the door tore from its hinges and banged against the ground with a boom. The sound echoed off the room.

  "UP!" Dawn projected and started to scramble up the pyramid. Daylight still showed above through the tear in the roof. It was so close they could see out well but just too far to reach. Shade scrambled up after her knocking a box or two to the side. The tower held strong, he had done a good job of stacking the boxes. He glanced behind him as they worked their way to the dead end at the top of their own hand made trap.

  The beasts didn't come through the door at first. Only the door itself gently rocked back and forth on the ground. Its form so bent that Shade once again marvelled that it had held on so long.

  One of the monsters placed a foot inside the room. Blood was all you could see. It had been beating its own body against the door. It was barely recognizable. Shade had cut his leg once when he was younger. It was deep and needed quite a few stitches. He remembered that old pain now. It had been so bad he was almost unable to walk. This monster should have been screaming. Yet it slowly cast its eyes back and forth around the room. Those eyes of black, now ringed with dripping red, searched back and forth. It took another step in the room, and the light from above hit it, drawing out a moan the same as when Shade had used the panel. Slowly it stepped back into the hallway leaving a puddle of red on the floor where it had stood.

  "It's the light." Shade whispered. "We don't have long till they try again. We need to get out now." Shade looked at his watch. "In less than two hours it will be dark enough for them to come in here."

  The two sat at the top of the pyramid watching the door below and trying to find a way up. An hour later Shade had made up his mind.

  "I'm going to try and lift you out."

  Dawn's eyes went wide with fear and she began shaking her head side to side. "NO"

  The force of her projection caused Shade to wince.

  "We don't have a choice. Either you get out now or we both have to deal with those things very soon." Dawn still shook her head no.

  "Well let's at least see if I can lift you that high. I might not be able to do it. We can at least check and see?"

  Dawn stopped shaking her head and gave Shade an odd look but said nothing. Slowly she nodded "Ok" and climbed onto his shoulders.

  Shade moved carefully to the top of the tower of boxes. He hadn't realized how light Dawn really was, or how much stronger he had gotten in the last year. Maybe it was a little of both. Dawn's fingers reached up towards the crack. She was only about six inches shy of reaching it. Below the pair, the shuffling of feet began again as first one, then two, and then more and more began to pour through the broken doorway. Dawn was the first to notice them and her body became rigid with the sight. Shade twisted his neck around and saw them as well.

  "Up you go." Shade grunted as he lifted her higher by the legs. Pushing as hard as he could, he forced her high enough to grip the top and pull herself through. The room went dark as her body blocked most of the light.

  Dawn pulled herself up and took a deep breath of fresh air. She hadn't realized how stuffy it had become in that storeroom. She scrambled around to look back down at Shade still trapped inside. Her knees were scratched up on the hard concrete surface, she ignored the pain and looked down at Shade still inside.

  The people were shuffling forward until they surrounded the tower Shade and Dawn had built. None of them tried to climb it, they all stood at the bottom for the moment, unmoving.

  Shade watched them in silence. He sat as still as he could hoping that maybe they would not notice him and wander back out leaving him in piece. He wasn't so lucky. Slowly the monsters turned their heads upward one by one. Their bodies were in a horrid condition. Some of them had limbs torn right off or broken at horrible angles. Others looked as though they had been through a meat grinder. The flesh hung from them in ragged strips. The wounds would have incapacitated even the strongest of men, yet none of them even made a sound other than the noise from their movements. Without any form of communication, they all began to move at once. Shade's hope of being undiscovered faded as they all began to pull boxes away from the base of the tower. They were trying to bring it down, and him with it.

  Dawn watched the people tear down the tower, unable to help. As soon as Shade had seen what they were doing, he threw up the two packs, and they lay beside her now. Her gaze flew over them for anything that she might toss down to help pull Shade up. They had been over it a hundred times. There was nothing strong or long enough.

  Dawn began searching frantically in the fading light. The rooftop was barren, only steel bars popped up here and there from the structure. She spared a glance back inside to see the tower lilting to one side as the base was slowly pulled out from under it. Shade held a dagger in one hand and a flashlight in the other. He was attempting to use the beam to slow them down, with little success. There were just too many of them. Dawn put her hand down into the hole to see how far she could reach, but it was still too far away. As she pulled herself back up her sleeve caught on one of the steel rods sheared off at the hole. It tore her sleeve into one long strip.

  "I’m a fool!" She thought to herself and she sent a vision to Shade. "Hold on!"

  As quick as she could, she pulled her clothes off and tied them into knots. She had been wearing good, sturdy jeans and a thick sweater. They should hold long enough for what she would need. She dropped the bundle over the edge and tied one end off on the same steel bar that had torn her cloths.

  "Climb" She sent to Shade and he turned around stashing the knife and flashlight in his pockets. His hands grabbed the makeshift rope and the tower of boxes collapsed beneath him in a tumbled mess.

  Shade swung beneath the hole in the roof his hands holding on tight to the lifeline Dawn had made for him. "She used cloths. Why didn't we think of that before?" Shade spared himself the thought as he climbed hand over hand to the top.

  The beasts below milled around the destroyed tower they had created to get out. They seemed unsure what to do and the food appeared to be of no interest to them.

  The clothing robe under his hands stretched some, but didn't tear as he pulled himself to the rooftop. He gasped heavily as the reality of how close he had been to his death set in. Shade only spared
a moment and looked back down the hole to make sure the beasts weren't up to something new, but they just seemed to be waiting. A few were walking back out of the door.

  Shade looked up to thank Dawn for her quick thinking, but the words never came out of his mouth. His jaw hung slack as he saw her standing before him in the fading light. Shade had never seen her like this before.

  Women had rarely come into his mind since the event had changed everything in his world, but before him stood one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She was still young. Shade wasn't sure how old she was, they had never spoken of it and it hadn't been important. Her skin was alight with the life that was in everything. She was still dressed in her underwear so she wasn't naked, but it was easy to see that her body was fully developed. Her rough cut, wavy blonde hair hung down to her shoulders. The look was ragged, but it did suit her.

  She had broad shoulders and her chest was well developed. The bra she wore was much too small, it forced her chest up and together in a way that Shade wouldn't mind seeing more often. It seems I'm not the only one growing. Her waist was thin, and the muscles in her stomach clearly defined. Wide hips contrasted the thin middle. A memory came to him of his mother long ago talking about another woman and saying."Those are good child bearing hips."

  Now Shade knew what she had meant.

  Dawn's legs were well muscled, but still lean, her calves in good shape from all the walking they did. Shade suddenly realized that his friend was very beautiful.

  He wasn't sure if he had been staring a minute, or ten, but Dawn sent him a vision of a question mark, and it shocked him out of his stare. He tore his gaze off her and pulled her cloths back up undoing the knots as he went. Handing them back over his shoulder to her, she pulled them back on. They were stretched and twisted but still did the job of covering her again. Shade choked down his disappointment. Once they had their packs on their backs, Dawn placed her hands on Shade's head.

  "What was that look you gave me for?"

  Shade almost choked on his own tongue. "Umn, later maybe, I think we should get out of here before those things find a way up here. I have an idea. Where is that car I found earlier?"

  The two looked around for their bearings a moment, and then soon found a way to the edge of the building closest to the parking lot. It was a small jump from the roof to the upper edge. The very same ledge they had slid down to get to the front doors. When Shade looked down, he saw the shipping doors piled high with rocks and debris below.

  "Guess it would have taken a while to dig out that way too."

  Dawn nodded agreement and easily jumped the gap to the other side. Once at the car Shade threw his pack in the back seat.

  "I have been thinking about this a lot while we tried to get out of that trap. I wonder if I can do the same thing with this car as we did with the lock."

  Dawn shrugged her shoulders and climbed into the passenger seat. Shade noticed when she shrugged that it made her chest rise.

  "How didn't I see that before?" He mentally slapped himself for not seeing the beauty right in front of him.

  Shade climbed in the driver’s side and grabbed the keys he had stashed under the seat and placing them in the ignition. He had never driven a car by himself before, but his father had shown him the basics. He knew he could figure it out if they could just get it to run. Shade fumbled around with the keys trying to remember what one was the correct one for the ignition when Dawn blasted him with an urgent vision.

  "Get down!"

  Shade looked behind him, but couldn't see anything coming up from the rift behind them. Dawn pushed down hard on his neck as she lay flat on the floor getting as low as she could get. As she pulled him down, he saw a quick flash of movement out the front window...wolves. Shade didn't have a chance to count them but they were coming up on the car fast.

  "What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" Shade whispered but Dawn silenced him with her hand.

  "Out of the frying pan?" She sent with her close contact. Shade nodded his agreement and tried to get himself as low as he could. Luck was on their side though. The wolves passed without stopping and headed straight into the rift. Dawn lifted her head carefully to watch as they passed. One wolf stopped at the edge of the rift and cast about with his head.

  "He seems to be trying to smell something." Dawn spoke inside Shade's head. She didn't turn to see if he caught it.

  Shade was having a hard time concentrating. So soon after seeing her in a light he had never seen before, he was now crammed into the front seat of a car with her. She was so close he could smell the fragrance of her skin near his own.

  The light inside of her was always there, just under her skin and now he saw it even more clearly. He was intoxicated with it, the wolves already fading from his memory. Luckily, Dawn snapped him out of it with another sending.

  "He ignored it and jumped inside with the other ones. It looked like there were ten all together. If we want to leave, now would be a really good time."

  Shade shook his head, trying to clear his mind.

  "Right, yeah, the car, right! Ok let's try again." Shade tried to detangle himself from around Dawn and get back in the driver's seat. The blood was pumping hard in his ears; it was a wonder Dawn couldn't hear it. Shade found the right key and placed it into the ignition. Dawn held his hand and didn't comment on the fact it was sweaty. Shade spoke silent thanks for that one to himself. As Shade felt the now familiar surge as Dawn lent her power to him, he again turned the key.

  #####

  The werewolves ran straight through the parking lot to the rift. They had been able to spot where the mall had been a while back. All of them ran silently to their destination. Most of the wolves had the bloodlust in their eyes. This was their chance. Finally, they could strike back at the Nightwalkers that had plagued them for so long. The old leader had never let them move out in a strike force. Many wolves had been angry at that.

  All the wolves plunged down silently towards the front doors of the mall. It looked ready to collapse but no one cared. Bonetwister stopped just at the edge of the rift; something had caught in his nose. The scent was familiar, somehow, but he couldn't place it. He cast about looking for the source but the light was failing. "The wolves' timing could have been better but they wouldn't have waited regardless." He thought as he dismissed the scent and plunged down after his brothers toward the waiting doors. They hung aside, destroyed. Torn off their hinges, glass smashed and spread out in front the pieces cracked under foot. The group waited just outside for Bonetwister to give the signal to move.

  "Remember, we are here to find the leader's children." Bonetwister’s voice gravel-like broke the silence and he plunged inside the ruins. Hundreds of conflicting scents assaulted him as he burst through the gaping doors. He didn't have long to analyze them.

  As his vision adjusted to the darker insides if the mall, he saw a wall of Nightwalkers. They all moved in unison, like some sick version of an undead soldiers march. The wolves flew in behind him and started to tear through them.

  Unfortunately, for every one knocked down, two more stepped in to take its place. There were hundreds inside the mall, perhaps thousands. Bonetwister felt fear for the first time. "This might have been a big mistake." was his only thought as he began to fight for his life instead of a rescue mission.

  #####

  Shade pulled in as much power from Dawn as he could. He turned the key again, still nothing. They had tried everything they could think of but he could not make the engine turn over. Another howl broke the air from the rift behind them. The wolves had found the monsters inside some time ago and by the sounds of the howling they were moving deeper into the mall.

  "Maybe the two will wipe each other out." Shade whispered as he once again tried to start the car.

  Dawn had stopped paying attention to him some time ago and was peering out the back window with interest. He didn't need her attention to draw from her. Just some kind of physical contact was enough.

>   "I need to think." Shade spoke to the night air. The stars up ahead were as bright and clear as they had been since the day of the event. He noticed for the first time he hadn't seen the moon since then even. He racked his brain to see if he could remember seeing it since then. "I will have to think about that later." Shade thought to himself. "I have a more pressing problem right now." Shade closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the problem.

  All around him, he could feel the life. Dawn was the closest and she covered much of what he could see on the one side. Outside the car, the trees and plants glowed, not as much as they had by the cabin, but there was still life inside them. He could barely sense the wolves inside the mall. They had moved too far away. He wasn't sure, but it didn't seem like there were ten anymore. Something else glowed behind him. It wasn't moving as the wolves were and was a lot closer. Shade kept his eyes closed and reached towards the source of the light. His hand bumped into the backpack he had placed in the back seat.

  "What the..." Shade began pulling items out of the pack until he removed the box his father had made for him. Sending a small surge through it, he popped the lock and the light grew more intense. Shade opened his eyes and looked at the stone that his father had gifted to him on his birthday. He could feel the power pulsing from the stone. In the darkness that had grown even more, the stone now pulsed with a light. The same light as the plants held around him, only more, much more.

  The last time Shade had held the stone in the daylight, it had drawn power from him. Now in the darkness he could feel it giving power instead of taking it. Shade turned to look at Dawn and ask if she saw the same thing he did, but she wasn't paying him any attention. Her eyes were still looking back towards the rift and her hand dug into the back of the seat, while the other rested on Shade's leg. It supplied the link he needed for her power. Dawn hadn't noticed him rooting through the bag in the back seat. Her eyes were staring hard at the darkness outside, barely even blinking.