by Lisa Stowe
“Hang on!” he shouted. “I’m coming, too!”
He ran up to Max and Casey.
“Stay here,” Casey said. “It’s not safe.”
“I know.” Curtis’s teeth chattered so hard he was sure they heard the sound of his terror. “But I’m coming anyway.”
It was the right thing to do. Sharon was part of their group now, family formed by circumstance. Curtis felt tears rise. This was the only family he had left.
Terror was ice cold, making his heart high and light and fluttery. Making his stomach airless and queasy. Making his knees shake until it was hard to walk.
“I’m coming anyway,” he repeated.
“Okay,” Max said. “You’ve got guts. Maybe not too smart, but you’ve got guts.”
“Wait up!” Ethan shouted behind them.
Curtis looked over his shoulder. Ethan and Anya, with her dog and rifle, ran to them.
Ethan clapped Curtis on the back, making him stagger. “Can’t let you go without us, buddy.”
Curtis pulled in a shaky and profoundly grateful breath.
Max and Casey, a few yards ahead of them by now, moved at an easy jog over the tracks. He followed, stumbling. His body shook like the earthquake was now inside him. But at least he wasn’t alone.
At Avenue A they paused. Across the street, the river raced fast and full of debris. And in the middle of the street stood a large ebony raven, wide wings spread and head bobbing. When Max turned toward the road out of town, the raven lifted and took flight over their heads. The strong downdraft from its wings blew damp air into Curtis’s face as it flew over their heads.
As if leading them.
The rain tapered off as they made their way through the debris of fallen trees and buckled pavement, following what had been the back road out of town. By the time they reached the remains of the little gated community, there were small cracks in the clouds exposing fingernail slices of watery blue sky.
They climbed shattered trunks, crossed downed and dead power lines, and passed collapsed homes without speaking. Occasionally there would come the loud kwark of a raven’s call, sometimes behind them, sometimes ahead of them. Curtis scanned the forest fringe bordering the road looking for fog, for shadows, for the shape of Sharon somewhere ahead of them. He stumbled frequently, banging knees and elbows on downed trees and torn up pavement, but he couldn’t quit searching the woods for what might be there.
In the middle of scrambling over a broken telephone pole, his stomach growled loudly and he flushed. “Sorry.”
Anya slipped her backpack down onto one shoulder, unzipped a side pocket, and tossed Curtis a fruit and nut bar. “Here, get some protein inside you. Fear makes you feel hollow sometimes. So you think you’re hungry when you’re just empty.”
Curtis bit into the bar, thinking about the books he’d found in the library. How were monsters killed in the old stories? What might work on fog?
“Silver,” he said abruptly. “There’s always someone who has a silver bullet.”
“No silver bullets,” Max said.
“Crosses,” Curtis continued. “Salt. I read somewhere that the ringing of loud bells chases evil things away.”
“All those stories are about fighting tangible monsters.” Anya worked her way around a large boulder that had rolled downhill. “You can’t shoot fog, or stab it with a stake, or even sprinkle salt on it. Anything solid will pass right through.”
“You don’t know that,” Curtis said. “You’re assuming those old remedies were for tangible things. But salt spread along windowsills and doorways, wasn’t to shrivel something up, like a slug. It was to prevent entry. Right? So maybe…maybe we should have told them to find salt for the fire department doors.”
“Too late now,” Casey said.
“You’re smart, Curtis.” Anya heaved a big branch out of their way. “Think. You know more about this stuff than we do.”
“Okay.” Curtis fell silent, thinking.
“Just don’t take too long,” Max said. “I see movement up ahead.”
“I don’t know,” Curtis admitted. “I’m really sorry. I should know. Or know where to find out at least. Wait, you saw movement? As in monsters?” The protein bar suddenly coalesced into a heavy lump in his stomach.
“No,” Max said. “It’s Sharon. She’s almost to the Hole.”
9
Curtis wanted to drop to his knees and give thanks to the Stone Woman that he hadn’t been in the Hole when the quake hit. Boulders had calved from the wall, taking trees with them, hitting the ground so hard they’d sunk into craters. They’d fallen to create a tangled mess of rocks and trees piled at the base of the Wall. But the Hole’s door wasn’t completely blocked and it gapped at the top between debris. And Sharon was carefully picking her way up over the boulders, moving cautiously around giant swords of splintered cedar and fir.
Curtis knew it was up to him to do something. After all, the Hole was his responsibility. He stopped at the edge of the rocks, with one shaking hand resting on the cool granite. “Hey, Sharon. What’s up?”
“What are you doing?” Ethan asked him.
“I have no idea.”
“Stay put,” Max said as he passed Curtis and started up the boulder field. “Hey, Sharon, it’s not safe up there. Hang on. Let me help you.”
Sharon paused and looked down, her face pale and drawn. “I don’t need your help. Not anymore.”
Anya came up on the other side of Ethan. “What’s in there, Curtis?”
“All my equipment. If any of it survived.”
“Tell us what you did in there,” Ethan said as they watched Max near Sharon. “What should we know if she gets inside?”
“Basically we were researching the Fifth Force. Newtonian physics. There are four known forces, gravity, electromagnetism, and two nuclear forces. We hoped to find proof of a weaker fifth force operating on the molecular level.” He faltered to a stop. “Sorry, I ramble when I’m nervous.”
“No, keep going,” Ethan said. “What else?”
“What else?” Curtis’s mind went blank with confusion.
“Did you find it? The fifth force?”
Curtis shook his head. “Oh, not yet. Henry thought the experiments had to do with searching for parallel universes. Nothing to do with our work at all. He even thought the gravity experiments caused the minor tremors…” He saw their expressions.
“Maybe he wasn’t so far off,” Anya said. “Where else could these things have come from except some other world?”
“Oh, no, really,” Curtis said. “There’s no such thing. And even if there were, these monsters are from our cultures, our mythologies. So basically they’re from here.”
“Maybe from here,” Casey said, watching Max climb. “But like you said, they went underground according to old stories. So maybe hundreds of years ago ‘underground’ was a word they used because they didn’t know about alternative realities.”
“I haven’t seen anything to convince me that there’s any such thing as parallel universes,” Curtis said.
“And two weeks ago there was no such thing as that, either.” Ethan pointed at the mist trailing through the trees on the Wall, drifting closer.
Curtis stared up at the fog. Tendrils separated almost as if flanking them. Did these things reason?
Max paused just below Sharon. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Sharon used a spar of shattered tree to pull herself up onto a large rock in front of the Hole. “Can’t you smell that? Something sweet. I need to see where it’s coming from. And you need to go away.”
Curtis drew in a deep breath. He smelled only the forest, the loamy earth, crushed fir needles, and sweet, damp air.
“Max, let me try,” Casey said, starting up the rock pile after Max. “Sharon, can you tell us what it smells like?”
“I told you.” Sharon straightened and rested a scraped and bleeding hand over her chest. “Sweet. I smelled it in town but it’s stronger
here. It cools what’s burning in me.”
A memory slammed into Curtis with so much force that he staggered. “Come back! Right now! All of you!”
“What is it?” Ethan spun, wild eyes searching their surroundings.
“Max!” Curtis shouted. “Grab Sharon, don’t let her go in there. Radon!”
“What?” Casey stopped climbing and stared down at Curtis, her face paling.
“Radon. The Hole. This granite has the highest concentration of radon gas anywhere on this whole planet!”
“But you worked in there.” Anya caught Curtis’s arm.
“Yes, but it was in granite, not air. Now, with the earthquake?” Curtis pulled his arm free. “Who knows how the quake affected the gas. You could end up with radiation poisoning. You need to come down now! All of you!”
Max and Casey hesitated, looking at each other for a long moment.
“You heard the man. Go back, Casey,” Max said. “Come on Sharon. Let’s get you out of here.”
“Max! Behind you!” Ethan shouted.
A long tendril of mist snaked over a splintered tree and sinuously entwined around Max’s torso. He twisted, grabbing at it, but his hands passed right through.
“No!” Casey screamed, scrambling up the rocks.
Without thought, Curtis started up, breath coming fast, legs weak with terror. But Ethan caught his arm and stopped him.
“Stay with Anya. Help her if she needs it.” He went up the rocks.
Curtis hesitated, torn between the need to run after Ethan or do what he was told. He drew in a shaky breath and made the safer decision, going back to Anya. But once at her side, he saw the shadow people forming around Max’s torso, sliding upward.
“Cover your mouth and nose!” Curtis shouted.
Max dropped to the ground, one hand over his mouth and nose, the other trying to beat off the tendril. The fog took humanoid form and something that was almost a hand, almost fingers, searched Max’s face. Probing.
Casey grabbed Max around the waist and tried to pull him away but the fog just floated after him.
And then it entwined around both Casey and Max.
Ethan was almost to them.
“Ethan, wait!” Anya shouted. “You’ll just get caught, too.”
“Then what the fuck do I do?”
Max shook his head, gesturing for Ethan to go back.
Panicked, Curtis dug shaking fingers into his hair and pulled. He needed to calm down. He needed to think. Knowledge was his strength. He squeezed his eyes shut. What killed shadows? What dissipated fog?
Sunlight.
Wind.
Casey screamed, the sound muffled behind her hand. Tiny bits of fog rose up her neck, seeping into her ears. Max rolled on top of her, putting his hands over her ears. The tendrils paused, shifted, headed back toward him.
Wind.
Curtis scanned the sky. “Yes. Wind.”
He heard the coming wind before he saw the huge raven flying through the trees. Its feathers glowed like moonlight on oil as its wide wings swept up and then down. It flew to them, to Max and Casey, and its wings beat strong downdrafts against them. The powerful movement was a hard pressure against Curtis’s eardrums. Ethan staggered backward. Max wrapped his arms around Casey and held on. And still the raven beat the air, its wings bringing the storm.
The shadow creatures shifted, disintegrated, melted through gaps in rocks and trees. And Max and Casey were free. The raven lifted up on air currents to soar higher circles around them. But Curtis barely glanced at the raven. The shadow creatures were coalescing, reforming, and softly flowing toward Sharon.
“Sharon! Look out!”
Sharon hoisted herself up over another boulder. She looked back at them and Curtis had a sudden sense that she was no longer there. She looked…luminous.
The raven came down, settling on a tree trunk next to Sharon and cawed once before folding its wings. Sharon glanced at the bird, but then seemed to look off to its side. She cocked her head as if listening.
“It’s my time,” she said, and paused. “I choose now.”
“What’s going on?” Anya asked. “What is that?”
The filtered light coming down between tree branches, broken clouds seemed to shift, and an old woman stood next to the raven. She held a tall walking staff and her charcoal gray dress moved in the wind circling her. Hair, gray as the clouds, hung to her waist and blew around her face and shoulders.
“The Stone Woman,” Curtis breathed.
The ancient woman nodded to Curtis. “I have not heard that name in many ages. I did not think anyone remembered in this time.” Her voice was rough, the voice of age. The voice of the raven.
“Oh, wow,” Curtis said, his whole body rippling in gooseflesh.
Bird vaulted onto the boulders and scrambled upward until he was between the old woman and the others. His hackles climbed and his head dropped on level with his shoulders. They clearly heard his growl.
“Bird, here!” Anya started up the rock field after her dog, but Curtis grabbed her around the waist.
The old woman didn’t seem aware of the dog at all. She turned her black eyes on Sharon. “My daughter. Will you leave what binds you? Will you take what seeks your fire?”
Max, still breathing hard, glanced at the shifting fog easing toward Sharon. He motioned for Casey to stay where she was, and climbed over the remaining boulders until he could reach out and catch Sharon’s wrist. “Come down, now. Come with me.”
The Stone Woman raised her staff and the raven launched for Max, wings beating against him. He twisted in silence, struggling against the bird as it stabbed its beak into his shoulder. Down went the bird’s head again and again, each time coming up with flesh and blood.
Casey screamed and frantically scrambled toward him.
“Bird!” Anya shoved past Curtis and pointed at the raven. “Bird!”
The dog leaped and slammed the raven, knocking it from Max. The dog and the bird fell, rolling down the rock field, the raven’s claws embedded in Bird’s stomach. Anya raced toward them, bringing up her rifle one-handed.
“You’ll hit Bird!” Curtis yelled.
Anya dropped the rifle and kept going. “I’ll kill your raven!” she screamed at the Stone Woman. “You take my dog, you bitch, and I’ll kill that raven!”
The dog screamed as they came down on a boulder. The Stone Woman raised her staff and the raven’s wide black wings spread. It cawed loudly, once, and lifted upward. It soared the few yards to the Stone Woman, alighting at her feet.
Anya reached Bird and gathered the bloody dog tight to her.
Casey had her arms around Max but he didn’t seem able to move. Ethan climbed fast, with almost deadly precision, straight for Max and Casey. He slid over a boulder, granite pulling up his shirt and ripping skin. He hit ground with a thud and then hauled himself up over a tree trunk.
Terror pounded in Curtis’s heart, filled his body with airless adrenaline. He could only stand, rooted, useless to help.
Ethan, breathing hard, pulled Max’s arm up over his shoulder. Casey slipped under Max’s other arm and between the two of them they lifted him to his feet. Blood flowed heavy from deep puncture wounds across his shoulders, arms, and neck.
“Come on, big guy,” Casey said.
Max slipped and sagged but Casey caught him, taking his weight. She couldn’t keep them from falling though, and both were pulled free from Ethan, coming down hard on rocks.
Casey got to her knees, and then to her feet, tugging on Max. “Ethan! Get Sharon! Don’t let her go in the Hole.”
Max sagged out of Casey’s grip. Ethan started toward her, then twisted around and ran for Sharon.
Curtis took a stumbling step forward, and then another, and then another. He pulled himself up onto a boulder, jumped to the next one, and climbed to Casey. Breathless, heart racing with panic, he reached for Max.
Ethan was almost to Sharon.
The raven spread its wings next to the Stone Wo
man, and cawed loudly. Curtis flinched away, but then gripped Max who groaned in pain. Casey got hold of him on the other side, and she and Curtis pulled him to his feet.
The raven, head cocked, beak bloody, watched them. Dread shook Curtis but he held tight to Max, knowing what he needed to do. That he needed to speak old words from books.
“I fear you not!” His voice was high and tremulous. “I claim this man! I claim these people!”
The Stone Woman cocked her head, eerily mirroring the raven. “I hear you, my son. I bind you to your claim. But the daughter is mine.”
The raven lifted airborne again. This time though, it simply landed between Sharon and Ethan, holding place with its wings spread wide. Ethan, breathing hard, froze.
“We just want to save our friend,” Curtis said. He gestured to Casey and they moved Max downward a few feet. “We don’t want anything to happen to Sharon.”
Sharon didn’t appear to have heard him. She moved away, nearing the collapsed entrance to the Hole. The heavy metal door tilted where it had been pulled free. She tugged on it briefly but when it didn’t budge she bent and twisted around, working to squeeze through the opening.
“Ethan!” Anya pointed into the trees.
Ethan looked up. The Shadow People seeped closer to Sharon. But one tendril separated, sifting in his direction. He scrambled backward, falling over rocks, picked himself up, and vaulted downhill. The fog slowed and then coiled back toward Sharon.
She paused in the opening of rock. Her hands came up to cup her left breast. Her eyes closed and she swayed.
The ghostly wisps thinned and then coalesced into vague human forms that slid with a purpose straight for Sharon.
“How do we stop them?” Curtis shouted at the Stone Woman.
The wind around the Stone Woman grew. She lifted her staff but didn’t speak.
Horrified, Curtis gripped Max and Casey. He stood transfixed and helpless to stop something that had no substance, no being. Something that Sharon now passed her hands through.
“No!” Anya yelled. “Sharon, no!”
Sharon lifted her face to the sky and opened her mouth. The vapor swirled around her body as if caressing her. Tendrils curled around her left breast and clung there like a suckling baby. Others slid over her shoulders and around her waist and arms and legs.
