“Never mind that,” Samson said. “Can you fix it?”
“Maybe.” Krystal caught herself. “Probably. Let’s check under the hood.”
As Krystal asked Samson questions about sounds the car made, how it ran, and other things Brendan didn’t care about, his mind drifted. He still couldn’t get over that gas tank, mostly because it wasn’t the only outdated piece of technology Samson owned. The gun he’d used on Tiger Stripe hadn’t been the standard bio-powered blaster most people carried, either. It had been an old-fashioned shotgun, with a hammer and bullets.
Something about this strange, gray-haired man didn’t sit well with Brendan. As more questions arose, he trusted him less than ever.
17
Within an hour, Krystal had fixed up the car to Samson’s satisfaction. She confessed that she’d been concerned at first, having never worked with a gasoline vehicle, but it came as no surprise she’d been up to the task. Brendan had grown up watching her solve one mechanical puzzle after another.
In the early days, the rough-and-tumble salvagers eyed her suspiciously when they handed over their equipment. Not only was she young, but she’d somehow remained untarnished by the rotting world around her. Her positivity either struck strangers as naive or fake. But she worked faster and better than everyone else in Newhaven, and soon even the most cynical salvagers had to pay attention.
Now, years later, she’d established herself as the most trusted mechanic in the city. Not everyone liked her—in fact, many didn’t—but there was no denying her expertise.
After Krystal put Uncle Jeff to bed, Brendan helped her make up the couch for Samson, which meant digging through a closet for the blanket with the fewest holes. As Samson settled in, they stood in the hallway, close enough to see Samson’s booted toes while remaining out of earshot.
“You’re sure it’s a good idea to let him stay?” Brendan whispered.
“Why not?” Krystal responded. She punched his shoulder. “If anything goes wrong, you’re here to protect me, right?”
“You should’ve told him to leave. I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t trust anybody.”
“That’s why I’m still here.”
“What about me? Shouldn’t I be dead by that logic?”
Brendan couldn’t help but grin. “You’re too useful for anyone to kill you.”
Krystal put an arm around Brendan’s shoulders. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”
His grin fading, Brendan brushed her away. “Just don’t let your guard down.”
Krystal nodded. “Only if you promise not to keep yours up so high. Would it kill you to trust someone once in a while?”
“It might.”
Smiling, Krystal shook her head and said good night. Brendan cast one last look at Samson’s boots and made his way to the guest room. He left the door cracked and pushed the ratty mattress to the opposite corner.
Just to be safe.
18
Brendan stood on a dry, rocky terrain. He sensed a strange vibration in his heels, as if somewhere deep beneath the hardened earth, something was moving. Breathing. A great beast stirred miles below, and the reverberations of its discontent traveled through layers of rock and soil.
He’d had this dream before. It was one he’d grown to expect from an early age. It wasn’t a bad dream, but it wasn’t a good one, either. The cracked landscape always made him uneasy. It twisted something inside him in anticipation. Of what, he didn’t know.
With each of Brendan’s steps, the earth crumbled beneath him. He would lift his foot, and the dust where it had been would dissolve into a hole six inches deep, as if this world barely held together, and the slightest pressure threatened its entire existence.
A storm gathered ahead of him, incomprehensible shapes converging on the horizon, and he realized the path he took was not random. Something in that swirling dark drew him. It was a beacon in the distance, a black so deep it threatened to consume all the gray around it.
He continued, his steps lining up with the vibrations that might be breaths. Soon he felt it was his progress that guided every inhale and exhale. To stop walking would be to suffocate the mighty beast beneath him. Right, left, inhale; right, left, exhale; right, left, inhale; right, left, exhale.
The pace was hypnotic, and with every breath the storm grew closer.
Ahead of him, the earth fell away in a great, crashing roar. The breathing continued even as Brendan’s steps ground to a halt. He stood as close to the edge as he dared and stared out over the abyss. There was a roiling sea below him, black as the storm above it in this world’s dim light.
He was closer to the storm than he’d come in any other dream. He’d trembled in its shadow hundreds of times, but never from this distance.
And now, as he waited at the edge of the cliff overlooking churning waters, something new happened.
He heard a roll of thunder.
It rumbled deep in his chest, threatening to pull his organs loose and shake the marrow from his bones. A voice spoke in the heart of the thunder. Or maybe the thunder itself was the voice. All Brendan knew was what it said.
Come.
19
Brendan woke to the sound of Krystal screaming.
His heart hammering, he leaped out of bed and pulled the blaster from under his pillow. It had been a mistake to allow Samson to stay with them. Krystal was too kind for her own good sometimes.
Careful not to let the door creak as he opened it, Brendan stepped into the hallway. Krystal’s screams weren’t coming from her bedroom. She’d gotten up in the middle of the night, and in the quiet darkness, Samson must have seized his opportunity.
Brendan entered the living room. The couch was empty.
The screams came from deeper into the house, in Uncle Jeff’s room behind the kitchen. Less concerned with silence as he drew closer, Brendan hurried his steps, hoping he wasn’t too late.
“Don’t do it!” Krystal shrieked. “You can’t!”
Samson gave a shout of rage. There was a smack of skin on skin, and the sound of a body hitting the ground.
“Please!” Krystal repeated, only not as loudly this time.
“I have to do it,” came Samson’s voice, loud and commanding. “You know it as well as I do.”
Krystal only responded in sobs.
Brendan burst into Uncle Jeff’s room. He was prepared to fight, to level his blaster at Samson and open a hole in his temple.
But nothing could prepare him for the scene awaiting him.
Krystal lay on the floor, sobbing and rubbing her cheek. Samson stood a few feet away, but he wasn’t looking at her. He held his shotgun in one hand, pointing the barrel at something in the corner of the room.
Uncle Jeff.
Only it wasn’t Uncle Jeff. Not anymore. His eyes had turned black, and oil-colored veins crisscrossed his entire body. His mouth stretched wide, with black tentacles reaching out toward Samson and Krystal. The tentacles stretched halfway across the room, flicking inches away from Samson. A patch of tar writhed on the floor a few feet from the creature that had once been Uncle Jeff. That was new. It had no business being in Uncle Jeff's room. Krystal’s whole house was tar-proofed. And yet there it was, writhing and recently fed.
Brendan noticed Samson held his free hand—the one not gripping the shotgun—in front of him. Long, ropey veins stood out on his scarred forearm, and his hand trembled with effort. As Brendan looked closer, he realized Uncle Jeff wasn’t standing in the corner of his bedroom by choice; he was stuck there by some invisible force. Uncle Jeff was straining just as hard as Samson. Was it Samson he strained against? Did the invisible force come from Samson's trembling hand?
Tendrils of black spilled out of Uncle Jeff's nose and ears, spreading along the walls like ivy and squirming like worms. They were trying to reach Samson from behind while he focu
sed on the tentacles flowing out of Uncle Jeff’s mouth, but there wasn’t enough tar to reach all the way.
“Brendan!” Krystal looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
Brendan had no response. He'd been this close to an infected dozens of times, but it had never been someone he knew. Uncle Jeff remained a silent fixture in Brendan's childhood, always sitting on the couch, always staring into nothing, always waiting for Krystal to spoon soup into his mouth and dab it off his chin.
But now the tar had transformed Uncle Jeff.
As the blackness claimed them, his eyes gained passionate focus, a striking change from the blank stare Brendan had grown accustomed to seeing. Uncle Jeff’s gaze was wide and unblinking, and his lips gave no hint of their customary tremble. He stood tall and resolute, black veins bulging on his arms as he strained against whatever held him in that corner.
“He’s trying to kill Uncle Jeff!” Krystal sobbed. Pleaded.
But this was not Uncle Jeff. This was a piece of tar wearing the hollowed-out husk of a body that formerly belonged to Uncle Jeff.
But Brendan wouldn’t convince Krystal this was true, not in a million years.
Instead, he helped her to her feet. He whispered in her ear, hugged her, anything to get her out of the room. If she didn't see Samson pull the trigger, it would be easier. For everyone. Deep inside, she had to know what needed to happen. It was impossible to look at Uncle Jeff and come to a different conclusion.
The simple act of standing and holding Brendan’s hand seemed to calm her. The sobs subsided with each step, and Brendan allowed himself to think she would accept what was about to happen. But then, as they passed Samson, she lashed out. She brought a fist down on the gray-haired man’s wrist, and the shotgun clattered to the floor.
A domino series of events occurred in that moment, and time slowed as they did. Startled by Krystal’s attack, Samson stumbled to one side, reaching for his weapon as he staggered. Simultaneously, the force holding Uncle Jeff in place disintegrated. He leaped forward, those horrible tentacles flowing from his distended jaw. As Samson fell, he grabbed a fistful of Krystal’s shirt, and she tumbled with him, shrieking the whole way down. Black tentacles whipped above them.
Samson dove for his shotgun, dodging an inky tentacle. He rolled to his feet and recovered in time for another tentacle to burst from Uncle Jeff’s mouth, straight for him. His left hand shot up, and that invisible force threw Uncle Jeff back. The old man slammed into the wall, cracking the plaster, and stayed there, suspended two feet off the ground. Tentacles whipped from his mouth, nose and ears, but Samson was too far away.
“What are you waiting for?” Samson said, shaking with effort. “She should not have to see this!”
That last comment elicited another scream from Krystal. She leaped for Samson, but Brendan managed to catch her before she collided with the old man. The screams kept coming, even as Brendan wrapped his mod around Krystal's waist and dragged her toward the door. She couldn’t break free. Her repairs had been too good.
Finally, they escaped Uncle Jeff’s bedroom. Brendan kicked the door shut and dumped Krystal in a tangle on the floor. She tried to rush back in, but Brendan blocked her path. Sobs wracked her body as she pounded his chest.
Two gunshots shook the house, one right after the other.
Then, stillness.
The sound of gunfire quieted Krystal in a hurry. She stopped hitting Brendan. Her efforts to break through were useless now. Uncle Jeff was dead.
Krystal grew limp in Brendan’s arms, and he went from holding her back to propping her up. It was as if the moment Uncle Jeff died, something inside Krystal died, too. Brendan knelt, lowering Krystal to the ground. He sat beside her, not prepared to hold her and comfort her, but knowing to leave her now would be the wrong move.
Samson stepped out of Uncle Jeff's room. His cool blue eyes flicked to the scene on the floor.
“You could have gotten us all killed,” he said, his voice flat.
Krystal let out a guttural sob.
“He was already gone. You know that.”
“Leave her alone,” Brendan said. “She doesn’t need you to tell her how the tar works.”
“But it is the truth,” Samson pressed. “There is no coming back once the blight claims a soul. It was a mercy to kill him.”
This last statement only elicited another round of sobs. Krystal curled her body into a ball, as if to wring the grief out of herself like water from a rag.
Now Samson’s eyes moved to Brendan. “This is the world I am trying to end. I ask you again, come with me.”
But Brendan didn’t respond. He was already helping Krystal to her feet, walking her back to her bedroom, as if she—or any of them—would sleep at all.
20
Brendan barely slept, and when he did, bizarre and disturbing nightmares haunted him. He spent most of the night trying to forget the image of tar leaking out of Uncle Jeff's mouth and nose, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw Uncle Jeff’s black ones.
When the glowing clock on the wall showed 5:00, Brendan figured he’d tried sleeping for long enough. Besides, he wanted to get out before Krystal woke. He couldn’t let the night before affect his salvaging. Heartless, maybe, but another sub-par haul would be backbreaking.
But when he stepped into the living room, he found Krystal sitting on the couch. Her feet were flat on the floor, her hands rested on her knees, and her eyes pointed straight ahead. She’d been thinking, and she’d been waiting. For him.
“I want to go with him,” was all she said.
Brendan sat next to her. “We don’t know him,” he said. “What if he’s crazy, or worse? This friend of his might not even exist.”
“He can’t be all full of it. You saw what that gun could do.”
He had, starting with his front-row seat to Tiger Stripe's death. Since Uncle Jeff hadn’t come stumbling out of his bedroom, it was safe to assume what Brendan saw on the porch of that house was no fluke.
“But let’s say he’s actually telling the truth. There really is a friend who somehow has a portal to the source of all the tar. Do you really think it’ll be that simple? We jump through a portal, destroy this source, and then everyone lives happily ever after?”
“It’s not about that,” she said.
Now Krystal looked at Brendan, and he noticed the ghostly traces of a good, long cry. Her eyes were red and puffy, her expression hazy. But a fire blazed somewhere deep inside her, one that tears wouldn't quench.
She said, “That stuff killed my uncle, Brendan. I just watched the only family I had turn into a monster. And then a stranger shot him dead. This...this can’t be what the world is supposed to be. People shouldn’t have to go through that. And we have a chance to change that. Maybe Samson is crazy. Maybe he’s making this whole thing up. But if he’s right...if we can start over, without the tar...I want to make that happen.”
The door to Uncle Jeff’s room cracked open, and Krystal started. Samson walked out, his long gray hair ruffled from sleep. His eyes showed none of the puffy bleariness that came with exhaustion. Samson had spent the night with a corpse, and he’d slept like a baby.
“I’m not crazy,” Samson said. “The blight can be defeated, and the work will be much easier with his help.”
He leveled a gnarled finger at Brendan.
Krystal stood. “I’m coming with you.” Her eyes widened. Her own forwardness startled her. “I want to help. However I can.”
“Can you control the blight?” Samson’s gaze didn’t leave Brendan.
She held out her hands, showing nothing to offer. “No.” Then her face lit up again. “But I can fix your car! I’ll do it for free, even. If you break down on the side of the road, I’ll be there for you. You won’t have to find a mechanic, and you won’t have to wonder if they’ll rip you off.”
Brendan grabbed her arm. She didn’t know what she was sayin
g. Once she moved past her grief, she’d understand.
Krystal pulled away. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Why don’t you want to go?” she asked. “What is there for you in Newhaven? More salvaging and more hiding? Another night at Logan’s?”
“I don’t trust him,” Brendan said.
“Then trust me.” Krystal turned back to him. “We’ll be in it together. We can watch out for each other.”
The fingers on Krystal’s mod danced, flicking their tops back just long enough to remind Brendan they were there. The message was clear; he needed her. She’d repaired his mod and put him up for the night more times than he could count, and she hadn’t charged him once. Brendan wouldn’t find that anywhere else.
“I’m going whether you come or not,” Krystal said.
Brendan blinked. Samson remained in the doorway to Uncle Jeff’s room. He'd crossed his arms, but his eyes never left Brendan. Krystal stood a few steps away from the couch, looking at him with a pleading, terrified expression.
Brendan looked at his satchel, half open to reveal the assortment of tools he’d snatched from an abandoned basement before watching the tar infect Tiger Stripe. Krystal was right. Newhaven had nothing to offer him. Maybe Samson also had nothing to offer, but if they really could destroy the tar with his help...
“Okay,” Brendan said. “I’m in.”
From the Book of Memory
Whatever it was, I will forever think of it as a star, though I am certain it was something else.
Even now I cannot understand its origin or purpose. Perhaps the answer is written in a book: A footnote of a footnote in a long-forgotten text, but nothing I can recall would explain what we encountered that day. After all we’ve seen, it remains beyond us, and so I will call it a star.
The purple glow never faded, remaining just as strong the next morning. The four of us struck out at sunrise, guided by the strange beacon. Merovech did not want to join us. He considered his work in the arcanum more important than any quest we might undertake, and insisted this phenomenon was only a trick of the light. Perhaps an arrangement of clouds had created a distortion in the sunlight, or our neighbors to the east had lit an exotic oil. Whatever the case, he would have stayed back had I not ordered him otherwise.
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