Tar

by Taylor Hohulin

  The blight had never reacted to us in this manner. We had stood just as close as the representative did. We had leaned over the black pool to inspect it, and we had touched the crate numerous times, just as the poor man did now. I cannot explain why the blight chose this instant to hunger for human flesh, but the moment marked a turning point. Ever since the representative touched the crate, I have never seen the blight fail to strike when prey is within reach, no matter how recently it has fed. Something in that representative awakened the blight’s hunger. Now it will never be sated, except maybe in death.

  The black strings reached the representative in the blink of an eye. Just as they passed through every available opening in the crate, so they entered through every available opening in the representative. Blackness filled his nostrils, his ears, the corners of his eyes, and lastly, his mouth. He gagged, clutching at the blight’s terrible messengers, but unable to remove them. They began to grow. As color faded from his face, each string thickened, though the points where they exited the crate remained tiny as ever. The representative rolled his eyes heavenward as if praying to a god none of us trusted to save him. His knees wobbled and gave out, but he did not fall. By then, the blight was holding him up. His twitching feet only grazed the floor. The strands entering his mouth grew as big around as a man’s arm. His lips stretched wide to accommodate the monstrous appendage, and a single tear traced a path down his cheek.

  How must one respond to such dreadful events? When a man is suspended midair by an incomprehensible beast, what is the proper recourse? I had no answer then, and I have none now. That day, I only trembled in horror as the blight sucked that poor man’s life away.

  Neither Merovech, Samson, nor Ansel did more than I. The four of us stood in a line, a stupid audience watching a macabre play. But when the tendrils connecting the crate to the representative came apart and he fell in a crumpled mess on the floor, we did not applaud. We lurched backward, both in revulsion at what we had witnessed and in relief that it was over.

  Several black cords of blight still hung from his orifices, but only for a moment. They wormed into his body, and he shuddered as they pushed deeper. His frame did not swell one iota. His belly did not distend. I can only assume the blight hollowed him out, that it fed on his entrails, thus causing the change from tiny black threads to the monstrous tentacle that filled his mouth at the end.

  But our trial was not over yet. Those limp limbs that folded so haphazardly when he collapsed now unfolded. The random position of his body on the floor gained order. And then, like a marionette pulled to life by its master, the representative jerked to his feet.

  It was too much to bear. My horror rose again, this time escaping my lips in a sob. What had we witnessed? What had Merovech brought into the world?

  The representative’s eyes were opaque black orbs, and his head lolled to one side. He took a lurching step, and his entire body trembled with the impact. Even to call it his body seems wrong. This simple motion clarified that this was not his body at all. This was only a shell, a collection of parts that the blight had adopted as a vehicle to satisfy its hunger—a hunger which now directed itself at four helpless scientists.

  Samson was the first to act. He pointed a hand at the kitchen and called forth a knife from the cupboard. It banged through the flimsy wood door and came spinning into the workshop, flashing in the midmorning light. The blade hummed with velocity, sliced through the representative’s neck, and buried itself in the wall.

  In that moment, I believed the danger had passed. The representative froze, ceased his lurching steps. His lolling head leaned further until it rolled off his shoulder. It landed on the floor with a smack that makes my stomach turn just to think of it.

  But the body did not fall. It only drew closer to us, now with tentacles of blight extending from the stump of a neck, waving back and forth like cattails in the wind. The head lay at its own body’s feet, with blight spilling out of the ragged wound and forming a rippling black puddle. The mouth opened in a grotesque expression of hate, and more blight than I believed could fit inside something so small raced toward us. We all dove in opposite directions, barely avoiding the stuff. The blackness lashed out, an infected tongue desperate to taste our flesh. Fortunately, its reach had a limit. As we picked ourselves off the floor and backed away, the head, unable to move closer, gave up its attack.

  The body, however, was another story. It limped onward, and its waving-cattail tentacles all bent toward us, reaching with sick hunger.

  Samson lifted his hand again and pointed it this time not at the kitchen but at the monster itself. The power flowed out of him, and the creature flew across the room, tumbling over the workbench and slamming into the stone wall. It did not lay still for long before regaining its feet and resuming its pursuit afresh.

  Ansel spoke up, his voice shaking with fear. He said, “We have to leave.”

  Samson turned to him, eyes ablaze. “Run away? From our own home? No! We must stand and fight!”

  Ansel shook his head, even as the representative shambled nearer. “If there is a way to kill this thing, we will not learn it here. We must run while we still can. When we find safety, we can plan a new attack.”

  Samson let out a hard puff of breath. He knew Ansel was right, but was not ready to admit it. The representative drew closer by the second, hurrying his decision.

  And so he agreed. No sooner did he speak his hasty assent than we fled the arcanum, tearing down the dirt path outside the door, hoping the thing inside could not follow us. We ran from the arcanum, through town, and deep into the forest.

  Only after a half hour of running did we realize Merovech was not with us. He stayed behind with the infected creature in the arcanum.

  This persists as one of my great regrets. What if I had noticed his absence sooner? What if I had forced him to come with us? Perhaps we could have ended the nightmare before it began. Perhaps I would not be writing this Book of Memory.

  But Merovech remains in the arcanum. The blight continues to spread. And I worry that even this glimmer of hope in my chest is foolishness.

  Gods help us all.

  THE HOTEL SHALOM

  1

  Brendan read until sunset. Merlin’s handwriting was thin and jagged. It was hard enough to make it out in perfect lighting, but as shadows fell across the yellowing pages of the Book of Memory, the graying scribbles faded into nothingness.

  “So when does it tell me how to use my power?” Brendan asked.

  “There are no simplistic instructions, if that is what you want to know,” Samson replied.

  “What is this, then?” Brendan thumped the Book of Memory against Samson’s seat. “Your way of telling me to ignore my powers? Reading about the tar infecting someone is supposed to scare me away from doing what Merovech did?”

  “It will show you why your relationship with the blight is not to be treated as a weapon,” Samson said. “To Merovech, the blight was knowledge no one else had. It was a species no one else had researched. He was hungry for more knowledge, and it was that hunger that brought the blight into this world. I see that same hunger in you, and you must understand that it is a hunger that will never be sated. The hunger you feel is not your own. It belongs to something much larger, and much more evil, than you.”

  “So you’re not going to teach me how to do anything with this power?” It wasn’t a question. Samson had made his position clear.

  Samson only said, “There is a world of power you cannot even dream of. You will not discover it until you have read the Book of Memory in its entirety.”

  Before Brendan could tell Samson how stupid his comment was, Krystal shook his shoulder and pointed.

  “Look!” she said.

  Brendan squinted into the darkness ahead of them. Someone stood at the edge of the headlights’ range. He wore tattered clothes. A steady plume of smoke rose from the hood of a bio-powered car next to him. A
s they approached, he waved with hope.

  “He needs help!” Krystal said. They were thirty seconds from passing him.

  “Probably a trap,” Brendan said.

  “Maybe,” Krystal said. “But aren’t you two, like, super-powerful or something? You aren’t afraid of one guy on the side of the road, are you?”

  Samson scowled in the rearview mirror. “Even if it is safe, we have no time to waste.”

  The headlights washed the man in their white glow. His bio-powered car was close enough that Brendan saw rust spots.

  “Oh, come on,” Krystal said. “The tar isn’t going to destroy the rest of humanity in the time it takes me to fix a car.”

  They passed the man. When he realized they weren’t slowing down, he slumped his shoulders and gave up.

  “Just let me do this one thing, please?” Krystal said, now turning to watch the man recede. “You need to get out and stretch your legs, anyway. We’ve been cooped up in here for a while.”

  Samson didn’t respond. It seemed he would drive forever into the night and leave the man stranded. But eventually, he let his car roll to a stop, killed the ignition, and turned to Krystal.

  “You have thirty minutes,” he growled. “Then we leave.”

  Krystal pursed her lips. “Thirty minutes is barely enough time to figure out the problem. I’ll need at least two hours.”

  “One hour.”

  Krystal grinned. “You got yourself a deal!”

  Then she opened the car door and jogged toward the man and his smoking car.

  2

  Brendan and Samson hurried to catch up, but Krystal beat them to the broken-down car. The man stood beside his vehicle, hands folded in front of him as he bowed graciously. His clothes hung ragged off his body, and he was bone-thin. His left eye had been replaced with a mod that clicked every time it moved. From the looks of it, the mod couldn’t do much more than a regular flesh eye. The replacement had likely been done out of necessity, not a desire to upgrade.

  “Thank you!” the man called. “I was beginning to worry no one would come.”

  Samson clicked on a flashlight, flooding the man’s features in yellow light. “Put your hands up. Don’t move.”

  Fear contorted the man’s face, and he obeyed.

  Krystal turned back. “Is this really necessary? I mean, look at him!”

  Brendan stared at her with a stern expression. She should’ve known better than this. She’d lived in Newhaven long enough. It wasn’t as wild as the ruined highways crisscrossing the planet, but neither was it a city where people got away with letting their guards down.

  “Check the car,” Samson muttered to Brendan when they reached the man.

  Brendan pulled open the back door and set about searching for hidden weapons or traps of any sort inside the vehicle. Outside, Samson patted the man’s hips in search of similar threats.

  “So what’s your name?” he heard Krystal ask.

  “Ernest. Ernest Lorde,” said the man. His voice shook, but not with fear.

  “What are you doing all the way out here?” Krystal asked.

  “Oh, just driving home. Darn car’s been giving me problems for weeks, and it finally gave out.”

  “Well, let’s see what I can do to help you out.”

  No sooner had Krystal spoken than she rapped on the window. Brendan had crawled into the back seat to sift through the layers of salvage and trash strewn about and started at the sound. Krystal grinned at his reaction.

  “Think you could pop the hood for me?” she asked.

  Without a word, Brendan clambered over the driver’s seat and pulled the lever. The hood bounced up, and Krystal set to work. Soon, she and Ernest were chatting over the gentle whirring of Krystal’s mod.

  Satisfied there was nothing concerning inside the car, Brendan climbed out. Samson waited for him there, arms folded. His icy blue eyes followed Ernest’s every move.

  “You found nothing inside?” Samson asked.

  “Just junk. Looks like he’s safe.”

  Samson nodded. “She trusts him.”

  “Yeah.” Brendan shrugged. “She was right this time.”

  “This time,” Samson repeated. “She trusts easily.”

  “Sometimes I wish she wouldn’t.”

  In the quiet, Brendan overheard some of what Krystal was telling Ernest, but he understood little of it. Sometimes he wondered if the only reason Krystal used all her technical mumbo jumbo was to give people the sense she knew what she was doing. Plenty of salvagers looked at the skinny, dark-skinned girl and doubted her expertise on bio-powered tech.

  “I used to trust like she does,” Samson said. “A long time ago.”

  Brendan couldn’t be sure, but he thought Samson’s voice suppressed a hint of emotion.

  “I used to believe there were good people in the world.” Samson paused, thinking. “But I’ve lived too long to go back. People fail you. Whether through treachery or incompetence, they all fail. It is best to trust only yourself.”

  “Does that mean you don’t trust me?” Brendan asked.

  Samson glanced at him, taking his eyes away from Ernest for only a moment.

  “Should I?”

  3

  Krystal took longer than her allotted hour to fix Ernest’s car, but by then, Samson had relaxed. He’d swept the area and found no warning signs of ambush.

  “There you go! Good as new,” Krystal said when she finished. “At least, for now. I’ve fixed it up as best I can, but once these things get to a certain age...” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.

  Ernest held her hand in both of his. His mod eye whirred. “Thank you. Thank you so much. This car...it’s my life.”

  And then, as if suddenly realizing a great truth, he reached into his back pocket. He fished around and pulled something out. Samson stiffened. His hand darted to the gun strapped between his shoulders. He watched Ernest’s outstretched hand with suspicion, but relaxed when the moonlight reflected off the small object. It was a large gold coin an inch across. Unlike Ernest’s car, it was well-polished and shone even in the dim lighting.

  “Take it,” Ernest said.

  Krystal held out one hand in a polite refusal. “Keep your money. We don’t need it.”

  Ernest shook his head, stretching his hand out further. “Not money. Even better.”

  “Better? How?”

  Ernest’s eyes widened. “It gets you in.”

  Brendan stepped forward, arms crossed. “In where?”

  Ernest only responded by turning and pointing a bony finger behind him. Set against the silhouettes of ragged trees, a shape with sharp corners and hard edges rose into the night.

  “What is it?” Samson asked, but Ernest had lost interest in conversation. He’d already shuffled into his car and fitted the headpiece to his skull, so the vehicle could draw electrical impulses from his body.

  Ernest stuck his head out the window, pulling the wires from his headpiece taut. “The Hotel Shalom,” he said. “It’s safe.”

  The car powered up and puttered into the dark.

  “Want to check it out?” Krystal asked once the silence returned.

  Samson grunted. “We need to keep driving.”

  “You guys!” Krystal said, flinging her arms in the air. “Take a break for once. We’ve been in that car a long time, and I, for one, think a hotel sounds nice. And Ernest says it’s safe.”

  “What if he’s lying?” Brendan asked.

  Krystal rolled her eyes. “What if he isn’t? Wouldn’t you like to sleep somewhere safe? We all need the rest, and we’ll sleep better if we’re not worried about the tar all night.”

  She was right, of course. The road had taken its toll on all of them, and if they simply tried to sleep in the car, they’d barely get any rest. Away from the relative safety of a city, there was no telling what looters and bandits lay in
wait.

  Samson must have reached the same conclusion, because, after a pause, he said, “Fine. Let’s go.”

  4

  The path leading to the black shape Ernest had called the Hotel Shalom was unpaved, winding back and forth through a sickly, wooded area. As they drove, Krystal turned the gold coin over and over in her hand. On one side, a word had been stamped into the metal: SHALOM.

  Soon they found themselves in a clearing in front of the building. There were no other cars nearby. Samson brought his vehicle to a stop and switched it off. He reached for the Book of Memory and flipped through, shining his flashlight on the pages the whole time.

  Satisfied he’d burned no memories using his power to create more gasoline, Samson shut the book and jerked his head to one side, signaling Brendan and Krystal to follow him to the hotel.

  They walked across the clearing, staying close to each other and watching the shadows for signs of danger. Tar-proofing material covered the structure from foundation to roof. They hadn’t bothered to turn on exterior lights, either, knowing they’d draw bandits and the infected like flies. Good signs, so far.

  Once they came within a few paces of the hotel, a slit opened in the tar-proofing. A hushed voice came from within.

  “Are you clean?”

  “We’re clean,” Samson replied.

  “Do not lie to me. It will be worse for you if you do.”

  “We’re clean,” Samson repeated, more firmly this time.

  The voice didn’t reply, though the slit remained. Soon it grew wider, and then a yawning, black opening appeared in the gray structure before them.

  “Enter,” said the voice.

  5

  They passed through the opening into utter darkness. It wasn’t until the tar-proofing resealed behind them that the lights came on. The glow was dim and flickering, but enough to make out an entryway like the one in Logan’s hotel. To their left, a makeshift observation booth dominated the wall, with tar-proofing and thick-plated glass to separate the observers from whoever entered the hotel.