Where Nightmares Ride

by R A Baxter

  “I think so. What just happened?”

  “The explosives.” Jack propped himself up on his elbows to see over Clara. “Avard spilled that napalm all over. I think that bald guy kicked the flame into it.”

  “Then why aren’t we dead?” Katie stared at Jack. “Why didn’t this place collapse?”

  Jack only stared back at her.

  Katie forced herself upright and looked around the beehive-shaped space, its bumpy, curved walls rising into a conical ceiling carved from rough stone. A rounded tunnel entrance punctured the wall fifteen feet behind her and another tunnel cut into the wall twenty-five feet beyond Jack.

  A cawing sound turned her attention to a black bird perched on a protruding rock near the ceiling. It soared to a ledge on the opposite side of the cavern. She gave Clara a hand and helped her up.

  Jack stood and rubbed his eyes, then massaged his ribs. He took three steps toward Katie, his eyebrows rising, and looked down at his feet. “The ground looks solid, but my feet keep sinking into it.”

  “Mine too,” Clara said. “And your voices sound muffled. And where is that weird light coming from?”

  “Nothing’s making sense.” Katie shook her head and wiped dust out of her hair. “One minute, you two were shoving me against a rock wall, and the next, the wall disappeared and you both were falling on top of me.”

  “What wall? You told me that crow flew through the passage.” Jack pointed at the bird.

  “It flew between the boulders, but the passage was dark. I followed it and ran into a wall. Couldn’t you tell I couldn’t move? You pushed me against the wall so hard I couldn’t breathe.”

  “I’m sorry. I assumed you stopped to move rubble out of the way, or something.”

  Clara shook her said. “So, you’re saying a rock wall just disappeared into nothing?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” Katie said. “All I know is there was a wall right there and now it’s gone. That bald guy was following us, but he stopped all of a sudden, like he’d run into a window. He kicked that fire stick and everything went really bright for a second.”

  “That’s how it looked to me, too.” Jack walked between the boulders, looked around, and shook his head. “Now it looks like no one ever passed through here. It’s got to be an illusion. They did something to our minds.”

  “This does feel like a bad dream.” Katie heard a scraping noise and turned to a tunnel behind her. She gasped when a wall of solid rock appeared in its place. A new tunnel appeared in a wall to her right and she turned to Jack, eyes wide.

  The crow dived from its perch and glided down the new tunnel.

  Jack ran to the wall where the tunnel had vanished and pushed against the stone. His hands sunk three inches into the wall and the ground rumbled below their feet. He pulled his hands back and observed the imprint he’d formed in the rock. He placed his hands on his head and walked in a circle. “The rock feels like dry clay. Our minds are gone. It’s the only explanation. I don’t know what to do.”

  “We should follow that crow,” Clara said. “It led us here.”

  Jack shook his head. “What if the new tunnel disappears while we’re inside?”

  “Abby sent that crow,” Katie said. “I saw it with her. I think she sent it to guide us to safety.”

  “Don’t you get it?” Jack frowned. “None of this is real! The flying creatures, the crows, this cave, the disappearing tunnels, your sister’s ghost—it’s all in our minds. It can’t be real. It’s those things that were below our pillows, shooting stuff into our brains. Our dreams are mixing with reality. We’re seeing things that don’t exist.”

  Katie folded her arms and shook her head. “They couldn’t have made all three of us hallucinate the same things.”

  “Who knows what Intershroud is capable of? I can’t take this. I want out of here!” Jack charged to the passage between the boulders, then paused and stared at one of them. He sunk his hand into it and the cavern rumbled. “These rocks weren’t soft like this when we came through here before. And the napalm is gone. Maybe all that fallen rubble’s gone, too. I’m going to see how it looks on the other side.”

  “You might be walking back into their hands,” Katie said.

  Jack stared down the passage, then turned to Katie. “If I’m not back in thirty seconds, follow that crow.”

  Jack moved fast. His right shoulder rubbed against a boulder, carving a slice of it off and knocking it to the ground with a thump. He entered the tunnel beyond the passage and smiled. The collapsed wooden shoring now stood erect, supporting the stone walls and ceiling. No fallen earth or stone obstructed the ground and a bright light glowed a few hundred yards forward, promising Jack access to the forest around the distant corner.

  “The rubble we saw before must’ve been an illusion.” He turned and cupped his hand beside his mouth. “Katie, Clara, come here! There’s a way out!”

  The stone walls absorbed too much of the sound. He walked between the boulders but stopped when a large stone brushed past his nose and crashed into a nearby wall with a loud crack. Jack stared at the bowling-ball-sized stone near his foot, then looked to see who’d launched it.

  Avard stood twenty feet away, breathing heavily through clenched teeth and leering at him with bloodthirsty eyes. “You murdered me!” He found another rock five feet away, grabbed it and launched it at Jack.

  Jack ducked, the stone brushing through his hair before crashing against a boulder. “You’re crazy! You’re not dead. You’re standing right in front of me!”

  “Always the know-it-all, aren’t you, Park? You blew up the mine, fool! You knocked me out, then blew me up! I’ll end you if it’s the last thing I do!” He hunted around for another rock.

  “Nothing blew up. We’re hallucinating!”

  Avard charged at Jack and wrapped his hands around his neck, his face contorting in his thirst to strangle him. His hands sometimes passed into Jack’s head, but he didn’t feel it.

  Jack yelled and gave Avard a push. The man flew back ten feet and rolled on the ground.

  “So, that’s your power.” Avard pulled himself up and brushed dirt from his torn brown shirt. “Super strength. Don’t think for one second it’ll save you. If there is any justice in this world, I’ll get my revenge.”

  “I didn’t do anything to you!”

  “You murdered me!” He looked around again. His eyes lit up and he sneered. “What am I doing? I’m a ghost. I have my own powers!” He focused his gaze on his arms and his clothes moved and changed colors. He laughed at his camouflaged army battle gear. A combat helmet appeared on his head and black assault rifles formed in his hands. He raised the guns and pointed them at Jack.

  “Let’s see how yer super strength handles this.”

  Jack didn’t wait to find out. He dived between the boulders and ran as fast as he could move his legs. The cavern shook and rumbled, chunks of stone collapsing from the walls whenever Jack pushed off them or rubbed against them. Gunfire peppered the stone behind him, mixed with Avard’s laughter.

  “Katie, get to the tunnel!”

  Jack entered the cavern but found no one there. Solid walls now replaced the tunnel where the crow had escaped. He turned and saw Avard stepping over fallen chunks of stone and realized what he had to do. He charged at the boulders and began shaving large chunks of it into the passageway. The cavern shook violently, and Jack struggled to keep his footing, but he didn’t stop until he’d filled the passageway with rubble.

  Avard groaned, trying to heave rocks as big as his chest out of his way. “Don’t think you’ve stopped me, Park! I’ll never stop! I’ll get my revenge!”

  Jack didn’t stop shaking when the cavern did. He stumbled to the wall where the tunnel had been and trembled at the thought of Katie and Clara entombed in solid stone. He clenched his teeth and tightened his fists, pounding them six inches into the wall. The cavern quaked.

  “Katie, are you there? The rock is soft, like clay! Try to dig through it!
” He pounded again and again, yanking a cubic foot of stone off the wall with each swipe. After a dozen hits, the earthquake stopped, and the tunnel reopened.

  Katie and Clara ran out and hugged Jack, then stepped back from him.

  “I swear this cave is alive,” Katie said. “We heard you yelling and thought you’d catch up to us, but the entrance closed off.”

  “We heard shooting,” Clara said. “Are you okay?”

  A rock tumbled down the pile of stone in front of Avard and a gun barrel poked through a gap, pivoting toward Jack.

  “Run!” Jack waved for the girls to move back into the tunnel, scooped up two rocks, and darted to the barrier in front of Avard. He planted the stones into Avard’s gun—a bullet ricocheted into the ceiling—then ignored Avard’s groaning and pushed the entire pile deeper into the crevasse, sealing him in. The earth didn’t stop rumbling.

  Katie shouted, warning Jack to look out. He glanced back at her and shrugged, unsure why she was yelling. His knees buckled, and a four-foot-diameter section of earth lifted him into the air. Approaching the ceiling at a high speed, he raised his hands, ducked, and bent his knees, preparing to jump. Before he could do anything, however, the platform stopped six feet in the air and tilted slightly before rocketing down a new tunnel.

  Jack dug his fingers into the platform of soil, holding on for his life. He whipped down the mine shaft, breezing past scores of timbers which sometimes broke against his head, chest, or shoulders. Why they didn’t hurt him more severely, he couldn’t guess. At last, the dim light brightened at an opening to the outside, and yellowish daylight assaulted his eyes. The slab of earth flung him ten feet into the air, then crumbled into dust all around him.

  Jack flew between two tall pine trees, screaming and flailing his arms, then dropped flat on his stomach and sunk deep into the rocky surface of a mountain trail.

  Katie froze and stared into the now-empty cavern until a rock wall appeared and blocked her view.

  Clara ran and pressed her hands against it, but it only expanded, shoving her backward two steps. “This mine seems to be alive.”

  “We’ve got to find Jack!” Katie carved a deep gouge in the stone with her hands then shook with the rumbling ground. Stone scraped against stone and a bright light suddenly cast shadows on the wall before her. She and Clara turned around to a new opening in the side wall of the tunnel twenty feet away. Katie rushed to the opening, peered down the fifty-foot-long cross tunnel, and smiled at the sight of pine trees and daylight.

  “The mine wants us to leave.” Clara placed a hand on Katie’s shoulder.

  “We can’t abandon Jack.”

  “The mine isn’t letting us get to him.”

  Katie glanced at the blocked entrance to the cavern. “Abby sent that crow. We should find her. Maybe she can tell us what to do.”

  Clara nodded and they walked to the exit together. Once outside, Katie squinted from the brightness of the gray-yellow, cloud-covered sky. It rendered everything with a sepia glow. They stood on a narrow trail by a low hill rising to their left, overlooking a shallow valley of dark green pines.

  Katie leaned toward Clara. “I need to tell you something and I hope it won’t upset you. I don’t think we’re hallucinating. I don’t think all this is just in our minds.”

  Clara nodded. “It seems too real to me, too.”

  “It isn’t just that. You see, I watched that bald man. He ran into some kind of invisible barrier before he kicked that stick. I saw the explosion and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t hearing or feeling it.”

  “So, you’re saying the invisible barrier saved us?”

  “No. I’m saying there’s a reason we didn’t hear or feel it. Clara, I think we died in that explosion.” Katie’s voice cracked.

  Clara’s eyes widened. “But we’re standing here. My feet hurt. We can’t be dead.”

  “I know. It’s not what I expected either. But I watched that man disappear. Everything changed after that explosion.”

  “Do you think Abby led us here on purpose, that she wanted us to die, to be with her?”

  Katie shook her head. “She wouldn’t do that. She always protected me. I don’t think she meant for us to die.”

  Clara frowned and pointed at something up the hill. “There’s someone up there!”

  Katie looked up and her jaw dropped. Dark riders, donned in sinuous black robes, floated on ghostly black steeds enveloped in a billowing murky mist that rolled along the ridge. Blackened medieval armor covered their heads, hands, and feet, and they held lances tucked under their arms. Their bodies had the appearance of unsolid, narrow, waving rolls of tenuous black cloth. The apparitions disappeared over the ridge, without a sound.

  “What were they?” Clara looked at Katie, her eyebrows raised. “Medieval knights in the middle of Montana?”

  “They looked like cosplay actors, but who knows what’s going on.” She clenched her mouth tight and leaned her hand against an aspen. The tree leaned and made a cracking sound. Katie pulled her hand away and observed the imprint she’d left in the trunk, her mouth agape. She looked at her hand, frowned, and shook her head.

  Clara wrapped an arm around her. “We’ll figure this out. If this is the World of the Dead, we’ll find Abby. But I’m not so convinced we’re dead. Something’s just not right. This place seems familiar to me somehow.”

  Katie took Clara’s hand. “You may be right. Everyone tells me I always assume the worst.”

  “Let’s find Abby, she’ll be able to explain everything. I just don’t know where to start.”

  “Abby had crows with her, so maybe if we can find any crows, we’ll find her.”

  Three gunshots reported behind Katie and she turned around. Avard stood behind her, leaning against a boulder, clothed in military combat armor and dangling an assault rifle from his right arm. “You two ain’t going nowhere ’til you find me yer buddy, Mr. Park.”

  Jack lifted his head from the ten-inch-deep imprint he’d left in the earth, sucking in the dusty air and wheezing with each breath. He stared down for five seconds before shaking dirt from his face and hair and pushing himself up. He winced at every movement of his aching arms and legs.

  “How did I survive that?” He dragged himself from the body-shaped impression on wobbly arms, rolled over and sat cross-legged, then looked around to find his bearings. A high, pine-covered mountain stood behind him, running along the trail on which he sat. Loose rocks smothered the lower twenty feet of the mountainside. The dense white trunks of thousands of aspens dominated his view along the other side of the trail, except for a fifty-foot-wide rolling meadow of yellow grass a few hundred feet down the trail.

  Jack started to stand when movement caught his eye among the trees. A green, slimy blob crawled toward him through the low grass. The creature snagged a nearby twig for a walking stick, stood up on its spindly hind legs, and placed a felt hat on its head. Jack gasped and rubbed his eyes. Before him stood a rather large, human-like bullfrog.

  “My, you aren’t the normal fare, are you?” The animal had a deep English accent.

  “What the…?” Jack scrambled to his feet and stepped back.

  “Bit daft, aren’t you?” The frog hobbled two paces closer and rolled his bugged-out eyes. “What do you mean, ‘what the?’ I’m a frog-who-walks-and-talks—obviously. You seem to be on a journey. You don’t mind if I join you, do you?”

  “Wow.” Jack laughed. “This tops them all. I’ve gone insane.”

  “I’m not inclined to argue with you.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know what’s going on here, would you? I need to find a way back into this mine. My friends are trapped in there.” He searched the stony hillside for an entrance and located a five-foot, circular opening, twelve feet up, through which the cave had spewed him out.

  “What is occurring here presently is, I introduced myself and you asked me a question. I’d have thought it was fairly obvious.”

  “Very funny.” Jack was
in no mood for bad jokes. “What’s obvious is that you’re a figment of my imagination and I’m wasting my time talking to you. I’m going to see if I can climb back in through that hole up there.”

  Jack charged up the mountainside, watching his step as he hopped from rock to rock. He soon realized however, the gravel below the rocks was sloughing off with his every step. He couldn’t make any progress up the mountainside. He put all his strength into it and raced up the slope until he reached the opening, but the entrance collapsed and filled with rocks, showering him with dust. Jack stopped and the rocks slid him back down to the foot the mountain.

  “It’s like the mountain is alive!” Jack kicked a rock and sent it bouncing down the trail.

  “The cave has collapsed,” the frog said. “If you don’t mind my saying so, caves aren’t my preference for journeying. Let us henceforth proceed with our walking and talking along this delightful mountain trail.”

  “My friends might suffocate in there!” Jack bent down and shoved an armful of stones aside, amazed that they weighed less than loaves of bread. He smiled and shoved aside larger piles of them, until he realized new stones were popping up out of nowhere. He gritted his teeth and pounded swathes of stones aside, but the mountain reacted. He held his arms up to block hundreds of stones now flying at him, hurled by an unseen force. Despite the jagged appearance of the rocks, they felt to him like mere jets of air. The combined force, however, threw him backward and sent him rolling on his back across the trail and into the aspens.

  “Why are you doing this? Let me in! My friends are in there!”

  The rocks rolled from the trail, flew up the mountainside, and came to rest.

  “The cave rejects you,” the frog said.

  Jack charged after it and the frog hopped away, screaming. A moment later, Jack stopped and dropped to his knees, rolled on his back against the rocky slope and placed his hands over his face. He wanted to melt into the rocks and disappear.

  “What am I going to do?” Jack peeked between his fingers and spotted two vultures circling, riding the updrafts high in the gray-yellow clouds. “What’ve I done? Katie would’ve been just fine if I’d left her alone. She had money. She was beautiful. Her father is a CEO. Then I came along and ruined her life. She trusted me, and I’ve probably killed her.”