As Samantha looked on she found herself staring with curiosity at some peculiarity of the scene. It took her a moment to identify just what it was; then it came to her: It was that wooden box. The same one that she had seen in the newspaper clipping at the library and the same one Mike had had with him the night before. The geometric pattern engraved on its surface and stained darker than the rest of the wood made it distinct. And now here it was again, though no one seemed more perplexed by its presence than Mike himself. He seemed to hold it awkwardly in both hands away from his body. His body language told of the desire to throw the box to the ground and lunge at the creature before him but something — some nagging voice in the back of his mind, perhaps — seemed to be stopping him from doing just that.
It was at that point, as Samantha looked on, the creature showed its uncanny speed and lunged forward, closing the distance between itself and Mike in a way that could only be described as menacing. This time, when instinct and adrenaline kicked in it was more anger than fright that flashed within her. Instead of screaming, Samantha, without hesitation, threw off her book bag and went sprinting down the path towards the pair. She didn’t take the time to consider what she could be getting herself into. Her only thought was that she had a score to settle.
Only after David’s foot connected solidly with the finish line bar did he reluctantly allow himself to come out of the zone. He looked up to make sure that his name and time had registered on the board then began to ease up on his pace. The whole run had actually been pleasant. Once he had hit his stride, he knew that he was running ahead of all the other participants and the time he had posted for his distance was definitely competitive in any heat.
He continued to slow down, the patchy crowd that had assembled along the finish line thinning out the further he went from it. It would take him a few blocks to cool down. He kept one eye open for Samantha but didn’t see her amongst the small crowd gathered. He wasn’t surprised. She had been protesting the “early” hour until the last. Maybe he had time to run home, shower and give her a call to see where she was at. If she still hadn’t left her house he would wait for her while keeping his father company at the pancake breakfast. David knew that the awards ceremony would not start until after at least three finalists had placed in all categories, including the full marathon. So he figured, he had nothing but time.
His jog now gave way to a walk, long-strided and brisk. The noise associated with the burgeoning festival soon slipped away into the distance as he left the main street. He turned a corner, wiping sweat from his eyes with his sleeve and pulled up suddenly. He was not sure what he was seeing. He had found himself at one end of the path that ran alongside the Drop and there was the girl he’d been looking for, Samantha, sprinting like an athlete towards…. Mike? He could tell it was Mike by the odd deformities that he had begun to notice in his friend’s posture. And was that…? His breath caught and he involuntarily took a step back. Wasn’t that the creature they had, all three, encountered at this very location how many nights ago? It was the creature. David could tell that by its deformities. Seeing it now in the daylight, he really wasn’t sure what it was. The thought came to him, quite involuntarily, that it could even have been human… once.
The creature was grappling with Mike while Mike was trying to fend it off while holding in his hands — of all absurdities! — his mother’s antique box.
This was the scene onto which Samantha was approaching with good time. When Samantha, without even breaking stride, reached down and grabbed a hefty tree branch that had fallen alongside the dirt path, David understood that she meant to join the fray.
It was at this point the trance in which David had been captive shattered and he too began to sprint toward the melee. But as it turned out, his aid was not at all needed. By the time he was within arm’s length of the scene, Samantha had already pulled up behind the creature and in the same fluid motion she had the branch swung behind her at waist level, gripped with both hands. When she swung the hefty stick forward, David knew that she was hitting a blistering forehand winner, placing the imaginary tennis ball just inside her opponent’s base line.
The connection between branch and bone was solid and audible and if something didn’t break at that point it did a moment later. So forceful was her swing, the creature was thrown sideways, lifted off its feet. When it landed it did so head first, neck striking the low guard rail that abutted the Drop. The second crack was also audible and the unnatural angle at which the neck came to rest left no doubt — whatever that had been was dead. As if in affirmation, a series of intense blue flashes momentarily lit an already bright blue sky — more dry lightning the locals would say — leaving no doubt as to the finality of the situation.
The three teenagers looked down at the figure before them in wide-eyed silence. Samantha was the first one to break that silence. Only when she did did Mike seem to realize for the first time their presence and fully process what had just happened.
“Oh my God,” Samantha kept repeating over and over again. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” She sounded like she was getting ready to wail. “I killed it!” she sobbed, panic-stricken, “whatever it was I killed it! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she repeated rapidly. She had dropped the branch and now one hand lay over her mouth and the other rested on the top of her head.
Mike finally broke in and articulated what they were all thinking which was that if it was human — some hermit or some other such thing — she was going to be in a world of trouble.
“It was self-defence,” he pointed out helpfully.
“I’ll run back to the festival, I passed a bunch of ambulances lining the street not too far from here,” David said, needing to do something but knowing, really, there was no rush for EMS.
Just as he was turning to leave the looks on the other two faces caused David to pause and return his gaze to the broken corpse at the side of the path. Their wide-open eyes had grown even wider and his soon did as well. As they all looked on the creature, literally now a sack of bones, became deeply wrinkled, turned a grey ashen colour which seemed to dissolve to a fine powder that was easily and instantly carried away by the summer breeze. Soon there was no trace that a body of any kind had occupied that space at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As Mike watched the ashes blow away he felt a real lifting of the burden that had been upon him. It was like whatever force he had been grappling with — whatever had been trying to take him over mentally and physically — had simply relinquished its grip and vanished. Almost instantly the pain left his bones. The wooden box released its pull on him as well, even though he still clung tightly to it. The crystal? The magic? James? For the first time in a long time he couldn’t feel their presence at all. He had the curious feeling of being alone inside his own mind and body. He felt it was really over.
The sureness of knowing that none of them would speak about this event, ever — what would they say? To whom? Who would believe them? — was the last of the burdens to fall from his shoulders.
* * *
In the end death had come quickly. Well, really, death had been slow, long, painful, spanning millennia. But at the very end it had been quick — almost instant. Despite this, images from a lifetime lived several lifetimes ago flashed so rapidly through the explosion of white light that had blossomed behind the creature’s eyes that they were a blur. Then, one image took on a clarity the others had lacked and mercifully lingered. It was of a young man standing at a work bench in a cabin dimly lit by sputtering candles. He was amongst four or five of his peers. Someone was giving a lecture or demonstration. The young man had felt wonder and knew in that instant that he just had to become a mage, no matter how rigorous the training. In the next instant one of the others, a woman, the only woman amongst them, had pursed her lips and asked a pointed question while sweeping a tendril of red hair from off of her forehead. He remembered thinking, What insight! and knowing that that was the woman he
wanted to marry.
Then, that image, too, was consumed by the white light which itself disappeared into an absolute darkness and nothingness except for peace, at last.
THE END
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