Under the Overtree

by James A. Moore

  Tony and Tyler stared at the space where They had been, too unsettled to think coherently. Jonathan Crowley sauntered over to where P.J. Sanderson was still attempting to stand and assisted the man to his feet. Sanderson nodded his thanks, not really certain how to take the kindness from his nemesis.

  Crowley flashed a million watt smile at the man who looked easily fifteen years older, patted him on the back, helping to knock loose some of the thick layer of filth on P.J.’s clothes. “Good to see you Philly. I thought maybe you’d wussed out on me.”

  The author stared at him with confused eyes. “You’re dirty. Somehow I didn’t think you could get dirty.” He felt foolish as he said the words, but they came from his mouth before he could stop them.

  Crowley chuckled, shook his head slightly and grinned even wider than before. “That’s what I like about you, Philly. You’re never at a lack for stupid things to say.” He stared at P.J. Sanderson with what almost looked like affection in his eyes and then looked over at the two young men standing nearby. “Well, looks like this is all of us,” he mused. “So, what do you say we all go kill a monster or two.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  1

  Tony stared at the surroundings glumly, with no real hope of breaking past the barricading trees and into the grove beyond. He glanced over at Jonathan Crowley, almost afraid to voice his question. “Uh, how are we supposed to get past all the trees?”

  Crowley looked back at him as if he had lost his mind. “How is easy, you just ignore the ones that aren’t there.”

  Tyler looked over at the man in much the same way that Crowley had just looked at Tony and asked the obvious question. “And how the hell are we supposed to know which ones are ‘aren’t there?’ They all look and feel pretty goddamn real from over here.”

  Crowley put on his thousand watt grin again, shaking his head as if he were talking to a skeptical child about the reality of Santa Claus. Without preamble, he grabbed a handful of dried leaves and dirt from the ground and tossed it directly at the trees. The dirt did the natural thing and bounced off of the trunks of the trees. Well, most of them, anyway. One of the trees failed to stop the light projectiles and Tyler looked on amazed as the soil sailed through the bark of the monolithic red oak. “You just have to know how to look, it’s kind of like watching where the magician’s hands are, if you catch my meaning.”

  “Sonovabitch.” Tyler walked over to the spot where the earth had failed to bounce and touched it with his hand. It felt completely solid. “How the hell did you do that?” Just to convince his senses that he had not gone completely insane, Tyler tossed some dirt of his own at the target tree. It passed right through the wood.

  “Fuck me…” Tony replied to the second failure on the part of the tree. P.J. Sanderson echoed the words.

  Without further preamble, Crowley walked into the tree, fading from view as he did so. “The tough part is convincing your body to agree with what your mind already knows. It’s not really here, it never was.”

  The three remaining men stared at the tree for a few seconds and P.J. made his move. “If that bastard can do it, so can I.” And with that, he too merged into the tree. Tony was next and lastly Tyler.

  Stepping through the illusion was unsettling at best. None of the men with the exception of Crowley, could accept the lack of solidity at its face value and whenever they wavered in their resolve, they could feel the start of the pressure around them, the pressure of a forty foot tall tree completely surrounding them. Fear as much as denial is what finally allowed them through the illusion. Crowley deliberately did not specify what would have happened if they had turned back, though he was sorely tempted to with Sanderson.

  Crowley broke back into the reality of the clearing first, stepping quickly aside to allow the others through without collision. He stared around with eyes that were mere slits in his face, nose wrinkled in disgust and teeth bared. At that moment he made P.J. think of a wolf, just by the expression on his face.

  The four men looked at the clearing, unsettled by what they saw, terrified by the implications. The clearing was impossibly large, larger than the area should have permitted, larger than the town of Summitville. And at the clearing’s heart, thrusting from the ground like a mountain in Its own right, the Stone pulsed, brooding protectively over the three figures at Its base.

  The entire area around the Stone was surrounded by a small ocean of the Folk. Fear gave Them a reality They had lacked before. Shaped by the minds of their foes and by the mind of Mark Howell, the Folk were both beautiful and frightening. They stood only a few inches in height, with soft pearlescent skin and flowing hair of every possible color. The Folk shifted from foot to foot, stretching wings that resembled a bat’s in structure and a butterfly’s in color. The shapes that They held fluctuated, changing subtly as They perceived the fears of Their enemies. Sibilant whispers came from Their mouths, mouths which were rapidly filling with tusk-like fangs.

  Lisa Scarrabelli and Cassie Monroe lay at the foot of the towering Stone, apparently unconscious and apparently unharmed. Directly in front of them, stood Mark Howell. Or rather, what had been Mark Howell. The face was the same, as was the body. But the stance, the posture that he assumed, those were as different from Mark Howell as the sun was from the moon. The easy way in which he crossed his arms, the casual contempt that was sneered across his face, these were not expressions even really known to Mark Howell.

  As if in slow motion, the sneer changed, grew into a smile that put John Crowley’s to shame. Mark’s eyes pulsed with a rhythmic light, the same color as the Stone behind him. Tatters were all that remained of his clothes and his hair was wild, blown around his head in a halo of darkness.

  But the voice, the voice was as cold and alien as the surface of a distant, dead star. “Too late, Hunter, the boy is ours now.”

  The others were distantly aware of Crowley cursing under his breath as Mark Howell stepped forward. Mark’s arms were spread wide, his athletic chest rippled with the motions, his arms flexed casually and his voice bellowed forth thunderously. “Come to me.”

  The Folk responded instantly, breaking into clouds of darkness that whirled and tore at the air on Their way to Their master. In a matter of seconds, Mark Howell’s body was surrounded, sheathed in a nebulous cloud of non-light that wove about his body, embracing, merging. The Darkness completely hid the body of Mark Howell, all that could be seen was a writhing black mass, that shifted, warped, danced in the air that Mark Howell should have been breathing.

  Crowley stepped forward and the darkness grew eyes. The golden irised eyes stared malevolently at the approaching figure and the entire mass of darkness contracted briefly.

  Crowley took another step forward and the darkness exploded.

  2

  P.J. Sanderson stared around himself in shock, but there was nothing to see save an endless field of black in all directions. There was nothing to hear, nothing to feel, nothing to smell. The taste that filled his mouth made him think of clotted blood and other, far worse things. Phillip James Sanderson was far from the bravest man on the planet, but everyone has their limits. P.J. had just reached well beyond his own limits and now was the time to stop the nonsense.

  “Show yourself,” he demanded, ready for whatever would come his way. His body was tensed, ready for motion. Nothing at all happened. He repeated his demands and though there was nothing yet to see, nothing yet to hear, he knew that he had been heard this time and he knew that the answer to his demands was on the way.

  After long minutes, a blue light, painful on eyes that had long since tried to adapt to absolute darkness, split the black field before his eyes. P.J. closed his eyes partially against the sudden glare. The source of the light was uneven, wavering around the edges. Something stood in the center of the brightness. The luminescence was too much, P.J. could not decide what it was that stood waiting for him. “Who’s there?”

  No response.

  “I don’t know who you are, bu
t I want the boy back. I want him left alone.” P.J. hated the whining edge he heard in his own voice, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  The figure did not move, it made no responding sounds.

  P.J. stood equally still for several long minutes and then he started forward, ready to do battle for the soul of Mark Howell. Before him, something shifted in the glowing, electric blue pool.

  It took an endless span of time to reach the light, to reach his opponent, but when he did, P.J. Sanderson knew that he had made a horrible mistake. Something cold and wet grabbed hold of his arm as he tried to back away. The light faded into nothingness as P.J. Sanderson screamed.

  3

  Tyler was closest to Jonathan Crowley. He almost heard the words that came out of the man’s mouth. Even as he strained to hear them more carefully, the darkness disappeared. To his left, the very visible shaken Tony stood looking around, eyes wide and face pale. A light blanket of sweat covered his body. To his right, Jonathan Crowley stood calmly, looking utterly unfazed by the sudden darkness that had swallowed them all. For his own part, Tyler felt a very prevalent urge to take a leak.

  In front of them, Mark Howell still stood in the same pose, a slight smile on his otherwise expressionless face. Behind him, Lisa was starting to move, standing up with a murderous expression on her face. Cassie was still out cold, her face as calm and angelic as ever, more so when compared to the expression on Lisa’s face.

  Mark Howell looked directly at Jonathan Crowley. “One down. Three to go. Who should We take next?” It was only at that moment that Tyler realized the absence of P.J. Sanderson. He felt his heart grow cold, in the last six months he had grown very close to the author and to have forgotten the man’s presence there made him feel incredibly small. Mark Howell had apparently killed the man. The implications left him too numb to feel much but a heavy case of numbness.

  Jonathan Crowley was still smiling, shaking his head softly. “What the hell makes you think of wiping out Philly as a success? I mean, he meant a lot more to you than he ever did to me, Mark.” At that moment, Tyler wished he had a gun with which to kill Crowley. “Hell, Howell, that doesn’t even qualify as having won a battle, let alone the war.”

  Tony came out of his blank eyed daze, shaking his head and whispering the word “No” under his breath repeatedly. Rational thought took to wing and Tony charged across the fifty feet that separated him from Mark Howell with a scream trying to boil out of his mouth. Tyler watched Tony’s powerful legs tear the ground apart, mesmerized by the way his muscles shifted and contracted across the plains of his body. Crowley watched as well, shaking his head again and knowing, it seemed, that Tony didn’t have a chance.

  Three feet away from his target, Tony launched himself into the air, ready to collide with Mark Howell, ready to break his once-friend into pieces for causing harm to his Uncle Phil. Tony’s brutal face was made ugly by combined rage and grief.

  Mark Howell very calmly stepped to the side, moving in a blur and timed a perfect backhand at Tony’s face. Tyler was certain he heard something break as Tony’s head snapped to the side. Tyler felt a bleak darkness slide into his body and soul as he watched Tony fall to the ground, no longer able to move, no longer conscious. Tyler saw that he was breathing, wondered whether or not he would ever be conscious or able to move again.

  Beside him, Jonathan Crowley called out. “No, Tony, wait. Stop. You’ll never be able to hurt him.” The words were dry, sarcastic and unnecessarily cruel. Tyler felt the fires of his own anger flare brighter and was not certain if he was truly angry at Crowley or at Mark. The only certainty was that he was indeed very angry.

  Crowley said only one word, “Now.” Lisa Scarrabelli attacked Mark Howell. It was preposterous, really, her soft little form going up against the mass and bulk of Mark Howell. More preposterous still, she was doing a much better job of it than her brother had.

  The first blow struck Mark from behind and it wasn’t what Tyler thought of as a “Girl’s punch,” it was a double fisted full swing that hit rather like a sledge hammer. Mark’s head snapped forward and his knees buckled. He dropped to all fours, with a dazed look that was much more along the lines of the old Mark, than the new improved Mark. Before he could recover, Lisa had hauled back her leg and shot her foot between his own legs, hitting hard in a spot that simply had to hurt like hell. Mark’s eyes flew wide, his mouth dropped open and she kicked him there again. And then a third time, apparently intent on kicking his testicles hard enough to launch them from his throat. Tyler stared on in numb surprise and Crowley crossed his arms, smiling broader than he had all night.

  Crowley placed an arm on Tyler’s shoulder and Tyler could hear the mirth in his voice. “Gee, he’s gonna feel that tomorrow, if he lives through it.”

  Lisa developed a new tactic after about seven good shots to Mark’s groin and stomped hard on his lower back, in the kidney region. Mark let out deep groan, thrashed feebly and thrashed again as she repeated the process.

  Tyler stepped forward to help him, feeling like a machine with a programmed automatic pilot and was stopped by Crowley. “This is her part of the fight, Tyler. Don’t you think she’s earned it?”

  “She’ll kill him!” Couldn’t the man see reason?

  “I doubt it, but she’ll certainly soften him up.” Tyler flashed on Lisa lying pale and battered in the hospital bed of her room in the clinic, shook his head at the thought and stopped trying to go forward. She’d progressed to kicking him in the side of his head while the brief conversation was carried out. Tyler could see that she was winding down, her energy fading as she vented her rage.

  Tyler did something he would have never really thought himself capable of, he stood by while a defenseless individual was battered. He kept watching and waiting, waiting for when she would be done. Finally, in an obvious state of exhaustion, Lisa fell back from Mark. She slumped down on the ground and cried tears of bitter rage and frustration. Even then, Tyler only watched.

  Crowley on the other hand, went immediately for Mark. The man reached into one of his pockets, pulled out a small leather bag and began sprinkling the contents on and around Mark Howell. Again he said odd words, words that made absolutely no sense. For once, he wasn’t smiling.

  Mark couldn’t have jumped more or harder, if you had set an electrified hot-wire against his leg. His mouth was stretched wide, it was obvious that he was trying to scream, but no sound came out. Every muscle in his body stood sharply out, vibrating and convulsing. His chest bellowed in and out, air trying to reach his lungs and failing. His arms tried frantically to reach the source of pain in his back, but the black-green powder may as well have been attached with Krazy Glue for all the good his efforts came to. Crowley finished with whatever he was mumbling and stepped back as Mark Howell hit the ground.

  Crowley looked down upon his foe with no expression on his mobile face and then he said one more word.

  Mark Howell was lifted into the air, thrown really, and a bolt of painful white light lanced outward from his back, striking the Stone behind him, missing Lisa’s head by mere inches. The light grew even brighter, draining all of the color from everything around it, bathing the clearing in a field of luminescence that seemed as powerful as a hundred suns at high noon. Tyler smelled burning flesh.

  Crowley grinned.

  Mark Howell landed on the ground like a inflatable doll filled with bones. No tension, just a rattling thud that left him laying in what was obviously a painful position.

  Crowley smiled at Tyler. “Well, that’s that. Now, I need you to move as quickly as you can, I need you to move everyone out of the area.” There was no room for questions, Tyler grabbed Lisa under the arms and started hauling her out of the way. He was relieved to see that she was apparently unharmed. Crowley grabbed Tony, yanked him by his heels and dragged his motionless form away from the spot where it had landed earlier.

  Next Tyler grabbed Mark and Crowley grabbed Cassie. Her skin was feverish, but that would have
to wait, whatever was going to happen was obviously bad, judging from the distance that Crowley hauled his burdens away from the Stone.

  4

  P.J. Sanderson fought desperately, struggling against the wet formless mass that was doing its best to destroy him. He fought not out of desperation or fear for himself, he knew that if he ran, the thing would let him be. Instead he fought for the shimmering image of Mark Howell that lay far across the seemingly endless, shapeless room in which he found himself.

  He pulled and cursed, trying to reach to the other side of the area, gaining inches only to be pulled back yards. He felt that he was beginning to understand how this game was played. All he had to do was fight against the tide of this creatures bulk, rather like fighting a small ocean and reach Mark.

  Several people had died at the…Hands? Claws? Tentacles?…of this creature, all that had crossed its path had become pieces of rotting meat. There should have been no escape from the flabby, multicolored puddle that was busily wrapping itself around his legs up to the thighs. But he was mostly unharmed. Why? Because of all the people that had died under strange circumstances, only he was close to Mark Howell. Somehow, in some way that made no true sense to him, the creature was barred from causing him irreparable harm.

  P.J. was very glad to hear it, he’d already seen the strange flotsam and jetsam of this living ocean and most of it was still recognizable. He knew that his tears were likely still mingling with the—just what the hell was it anyway?—that surrounded him, he didn’t really have time to acknowledge them at this point.