by Perrin Briar
There was blood. A lot of it. Dried and burnt, the bodies unrecognizable.
Bryan recalled the swirling miasma of the red hot magma and boulders the size of cars being tossed around like leaves in a strong wind. That could have done this. It had done this.
Then Bryan shook his head. No. This couldn’t be Cassie and Aaron. He rejected the idea. These mashed up bodies couldn’t possibly belong to anyone he knew or loved.
Tears stung his eyes and quivered, threatening to spill down his face, but never quite carrying through. His face scrunched up and he heard a low whine escape his throat, the cry of desperation.
These lifeless forms were the kids. They hadn’t escaped. They hadn’t gotten out. He had escaped with his life, largely untouched, while the kids had been fried to a crisp, beyond recognition. He couldn’t live without Cassie. Not like this. He couldn’t live with himself.
A rage overtook him. He forced himself up, difficult with his arms and legs tied, first into a crouched position, and then up onto his knees. He edged toward the bodies, the stench of their charred flesh stinging his nose. He fell upon them, pulling them close with his chin. He cried into them.
They never got a chance to be a family. They never got a chance to love each other the way they deserved. They had so much left to experience and give to one another. All these feelings of pain and regret poured out of Bryan and into the two bodies he clutched tightly to himself.
“I’m sorry,” Bryan said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
There wasn’t anything else he could think to say. What else could he say?
And then he noticed their hands.
They were thick and powerful, strong, like they were used to physical labor. Aaron and Cassie hadn’t had a hard day’s work in their lives. They were students, used to studying at school with pen and paper. They would not have hands like this. Then how did they come to have them?
The obvious answer struck him like a thunder bolt, and hope swelled in his chest at the ramifications.
Because they weren’t Aaron and Cassie. They were someone else.
But who?
Bryan thought back to the bodies of the miners who had died in the previous world, and their funeral ceremony. They’d been lowered into a pit of magma, what was believed to be a passage to another world. How right the miners had been, though they could not have expected it to be this world.
And suddenly it all made sense. The old man he’d thought he’d dreamed, the water, the sand, this cavern. It was all the same thing. The process of laying the dead bodies to rest. Despite not having the same scorch marks, Bryan had been mistaken for dead, as a cousin to these unfortunate deformed bodies beside him.
Then if these bodies were not Cassie and Aaron, where were they?
Bryan sat back on his heels and looked around. His heart leapt.
Aaron and Cassie lay to one side, right beside where he’d lain. Why couldn’t he have looked in this direction first? Then he wouldn’t have had such a scare!
“Cassie!” Bryan said. “Aaron!”
He fell to his knees and edged closer. He checked them over, but found nothing wrong with them save a few grazes to their bare skin. They were in one piece, their hair wind blown from their faces. They appeared perfectly healthy.
Except they were unconscious.
Bryan put his face to Cassie’s cheek and nudged her.
“Cassie?” he said. “Cassie? Can you hear me? It’s Dad. Are you awake?”
She obviously wasn’t awake. Bryan lowered the delicate skin of his neck to her nose. He could feel her breath. He checked Aaron. He was breathing too.
Finally, Bryan could breathe too, letting out a lungful of relieved air. He smiled, unable to hide his happiness. He hugged them close and gently nudged them with his shoulder.
“You need to wake up,” Bryan said. “Come on. Get up.”
Aaron and Cassie muffled, grumbling under their breath.
Bryan paused. He thought he’d heard something from one of the tunnels that branched off the cavern they were lying in. It began as a low rumble, vibrating the air and making it quiver. It emanated from the darkness of one of the tunnels. Bryan eyed one tunnel after another, but couldn’t identify which one the sound was originating from.
It could have come from any direction.
What made it worse was the sound reverberated off the walls in Bryan’s cavern. It sounded like it came from the left, but when he turned his head, it sounded like it was coming from the right.
How was he meant to avoid something when he didn’t even know where it was coming from? He might escape, but end up running directly at the creature. It sounded big, whatever it was.
“Get up,” Bryan said to the kids, his voice low. “We have to go.”
The growl from the mystery tunnel grew louder. It was coming closer. Bryan couldn’t pick the kids up with his hands and feet tied.
“Damn it!” Bryan said.
He turned and shuffled toward a large rock on his knees. He was moving too slowly, so he got to his feet and hopped. He dived behind the rock and waited, hoping the creature hadn’t seen him. He wouldn’t wait to find out.
A small rock protruded from the dirt, half buried. It had a sharp edge on the top. Bryan turned his back and lowered himself onto it. He rubbed his restraints against it, sawing through it. He felt the strands snapping, coming loose, the heat rising against the skin of his wrists.
Where had Zoe gotten to? He hadn’t seen her since they had entered the Passage in the magma world, what felt like another lifetime. Could she have been taken to another world? Could she have ended up somewhere else? Somewhere far away? He didn’t know. He couldn’t worry about that, not now. He needed to focus on saving the kids.
Bryan felt the rope give way. He massaged his wrists with his hands. It felt good to be free of the restraints. He leaned forward and began to do the same with his ankles.
If he could get loose he might still have time to get the kids free before the creature found them. There hadn’t been a sound from the tunnels for the past few minutes and-
Bryan froze. No growl. No grumble. Nothing. In his recent experience, that was never a good thing.
A puff of dust rose from a sharp, strong exhalation from a large nostril. Bryan caught the stench of reeking meat. The creature’s diet. It didn’t bode well.
Bryan daren’t turn to look over the boulder. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to see or hear what the creature was going to do. Not if Bryan didn’t stand a chance of stopping it. He found himself doing what many prey in the wild did.
He froze.
5.
IT TURNED out freezing was the best thing Bryan could have done.
The creature stared directly at him, its large eyes piercing him to his soul, pinning him in place. Bryan had never been so terrified. Even his breaths came short and shallow. Luckily his bladder was already empty. The monster turned, the ground shaking with every step.
It wasn’t the first time Bryan had seen such a monster. How could it be here now? Had they gone backward? Back to an earlier world? Was that even possible? He supposed anything was possible when you didn’t completely understand the rules of the place you found yourself.
What was Bryan going to do? Wrestle the kids from the mouth of this huge beast? No. That wasn’t going to happen. He would end up getting himself as well as the kids killed. He needed to watch what the monster did. And if it bent down to eat the kids? Then he would distract the monster to give the kids a little more time to come round.
He’d race through the tunnels, getting the monster to chase him. He’d almost certainly end up lost, and in all likelihood, eaten, but at least the kids might get away.
The monster bent down, its huge head sniffing the unconscious children. Its great dripping tongue protruded from its mouth and ran over its sharp teeth and thick lips, and then over the scorched bodies on the floor, covering them in a thick film of sticky saliva. It could taste their blood, no doubt, and wo
uld be the first on the menu.
For the first time since finding the kids, he prayed they wouldn’t wake up. Not right then. It was the worst possible time to regain consciousness.
The great reptile lowered its head further, and for a moment Bryan thought it was going to consume the scorched bodies, but it didn’t. It took another step forward, fully extended its tail, and bent down to scoop up one scorched body in each of its short, powerful claws. It wasn’t careful with them, and let their heads drag along the ground.
The creature carried the bodies, with them swinging in its arms, down the same tunnel it must have entered through, its footsteps heavy and foreboding. Soon, it was gone.
Bryan emerged from his hiding place and ran toward the kids’ prostrate forms. How could they still be unconscious after what had just happened to them? Had they been poisoned? Or struck with something? Why was it he was awake and walking around while they were still like this? Perhaps size had something to do with it.
He shook them, more violently this time. The kids’ bodies flopped all over the place, but did not wake. He would have to carry them somewhere safe. Soon the monster would be back to take them away too. He couldn’t let that happen.
Bryan bent down and scooped his arms under Cassie’s knees and neck. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him toward a random tunnel. He stopped and put Cassie down. He wanted to take her farther away, but first he needed to get Aaron to safety too.
He turned to run back and get Aaron, and froze once he laid eyes on what was present inside the cavern. He crept back into the tunnel, and pressed his back to the wall, and let out a mouthful of air, silently.
The creature was there. How it had managed to creep into the main chamber so stealthily, Bryan didn’t know. But there it was, crouched over Aaron’s body.
The great beast peered down at the single body on the ground and looked around. It looked confused. It seemed to think there should have been another body there. It sniffed the ground, but couldn’t see any sign of it. It contented itself with just the one it had now. It bent down and performed the same careful procedure of picking Aaron up using in its front claws.
The monster turned, its great long tail whipping out in a wide arc. Bryan pulled back just in time before it almost struck him.
Now here was a pretty pickle.
Bryan didn’t like to leave Cassie by herself, but he couldn’t let the monster take Aaron either. Who knew what it might do to him. He could carry Cassie on his back, but he might just end up feeding her to the monster by mistake. Plus, she would slow him down, making it difficult for him to escape with Aaron.
“Crap!” Bryan said out loud.
He didn’t like it, but Cassie had a much better chance of survival if she stayed here. So would he and Aaron. He picked up a stick and wrote in the dirt: STAY HERE.
He tossed the stick aside and jogged back into the wide open cavern. He crossed to the tunnel the creature had entered. Bryan slowed down and began to edge inside.
6.
THE CREATURE was loud, its grunts and biting snarls echoing down the tunnel. With each sound, Bryan paused, pressing himself against the wall. The sound came suddenly, from nowhere, as if they emanated from right before him. There was a light at the end of the corridor, and the walls were damp with slime.
Bryan edged closer to the light. Once he got to it, he peered inside. It looked like the perfectly lit scene of a horror play. The creature’s large muscular back was moving, blocking Bryan’s view.
There were a pair of rocks in front of the door on either side. If he got to one of those he’d be able to see what was going on. But that meant stepping into the light. He remembered the beast could only see movement, not anything in light.
Bryan watched the monster carefully and rushed to hide behind the boulder. Not a second too soon, as the monster turned in Bryan’s direction.
It picked up one of the burnt corpses and hefted it. It put the body down somewhere, taking care to place it just so. The beast appeared to be putting a great deal of effort into the activity, requiring it to focus.
In the light, it was easier to make out the details of the creature. It had a long snout with large pointy teeth and short front legs with vicious claws. One was badly chipped. It had a long tail and a crest on the top of its head that stretched all the way down his back to the tip of his long tail.
Bryan could only see what he could because of the streaks of light that came in through a hole in the roof, cast by what appeared to be a beautiful blue sky.
Bryan moved around the boulder, taking care to place his feet so as not to disturb the creature. There was a disgusting noise, nothing at all to do with the growls the monster made. Bryan couldn’t put his finger on what it was… Until he saw it with his own eyes.
It was a machine. A modern-looking contraption, but with elements of something that would not have looked out of place in a torture garden. It had sharp spikes and razor sharp edges, a vicious machine used to hack and slash.
Bryan crept closer, and watched as the creature very delicately and carefully slid the scorched body onto a spike, like a small cloth puppet onto a finger.
The monster moved to one side, coming to a large pedal. Its footsteps shook the cavern, making small rocks dive from the roof and dust rain down on Bryan’s head. The monster lifted its giant muscular leg and placed it on the large flat pedal. It exercised its huge muscles and pressed up and down, pumping. The machine came to life.
However advanced this machine was, it didn’t have access to electricity. The giant creature had to provide its own power. Bryan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A monster operating a machine? He pinched himself. He felt it. He wasn’t dreaming. What was going on?
Then he saw the horrific processes the machine was capable of. The body began to spin gently on its turntable and, as it did, a series of sharp knives descended from the ceiling, moving in concentric circles.
The knives were attached to an intricate mobile of shiny metal rods that bent and flexed around metal joints. It reminded Bryan of the innate intricacy of long spider legs. They moved in and out, back and forth, up and down, performing a dance to which Bryan had no idea was their purpose.
They came closer and closer to the lifeless body that spun on its squeaking turnstile. Then, finally, Bryan could see what they were going to do. They inched closer to the cadaver, until they pierced its skin and inserted themselves deep into its flesh. Still the body kept turning, the knives, sharp as anything Bryan had ever seen, slicing at the meat like it was paper.
They cleaved the flesh from the body cleaner and with greater efficiency than Bryan had ever witnessed, even from a professional butcher. Thick congealed blood dripped onto the platform and rolled into a large bowl. The flesh peeled and dropped from the bones like a seed from a grape.
Saliva dribbled from the dragon’s thick moist lips, splattering across the floor. The sight of the blood and smell of the flesh should have driven it berserk, but it remained calm, restrained. It continued to pump at the pedal and watched the body turn, the knives doing their work. Finally, with just a few chips to the bones, the skeleton was all that remained of the scorched man, his flesh stripped clean from his body.
Bryan was certain that in no world, in no culture, would anyone have imagined the afterlife to consist of such turmoil as this. It was beyond the realm of imagination. This was clearly not heaven. It wasn’t hell either, but simply another world, with its own rules and limitations. Bryan was certain he could never get used to such a place if such things were routine.
Still the creature did not stop pumping its pedal, up and down its leg went. The pedestal turned and the skeleton was lifted into the air, continuing to spin. Another piece of metal hooked into the frame, and it slid to the floor, hanging beside a twin skeleton.
There were a dozen of them, lined up like fancy dress costumes. It was merely the front line of dozens like it. They were all grinning. Some had missing ribs, cracked skulls and bent ja
ws, but they were largely in one piece.
Another arm began to lower down from the ceiling. It held a small box that blinked red. It approached the newest skeleton before savagely shoving itself into the chest cavity. Something squirted out of the arm, some kind of sticky material that fixed the box in place.
Finally, the creature stopped pressing the pedal. The platform continued to turn, gradually slowing, the remaining metal arms retracting up into the ceiling. The monster approached the bowl of blood and meat, what Bryan now recognized as a food trough, bent down, and began to feed.
Bryan was still recovering from what he’d just witnessed. He couldn’t have seen what had just happened in front of him. He couldn’t have. He must have been mistaken.
Next would be the second scorched man. And then it would be Aaron’s turn if Bryan couldn’t get him out of there in time. It wouldn’t take long for the monster to finish its meal. If he was going to act, he needed to do it soon.
Bryan peered around the boulder at Aaron. His breath hitched in his throat.
Aaron was beginning to stir.
7.
THE MONSTER’S back was to Bryan as it gorged itself on the meat. It was ravenous. It was surprising to Bryan it could have waited so long to feed. It was slurping, dropping chunks of food over the floor. Its long tongue wiped at the bowl to get every last morsel.
Bryan turned to Aaron. He needed to warn Aaron to stop moving. If he didn’t, the monster was going to see he wasn’t dead and, presumably, kill him. There was something very sinister, deliberate and routine about this whole setup. Bryan didn’t like it. The monster was simply going through the motions, doing what it had always done.
What it had been trained to do.
Bryan got down on his hands and knees and crawled toward Aaron, making slow, deliberate movements. He got to Aaron and then lay down beside him, their noses no more than an inch apart. The monster seemed content with its meal.