Live Like a God

by Taylor Kole

  “I have females, JoshRidley. Though none as angelic as your Junea.”

  Josh recalled the first time he saw her, the feeling of her arm in his, her confidence when addressing the town. “I am already involved with a woman from home.” He spoke as much to himself as to Flavius. “Junea is but a guide, such as yourself.”

  Flavius held up is hands, palms out, “Not like me, JoshRidley. No, no.”

  “All right, enough. I have a fiancée.”

  “Why do you continue saying this? Being from the realm of Earth, your woman must understand the powerful needs of powerful men. Would your first be so selfish as to deny you Junea? She has chosen you and since you’ve fallen victim, you will know her. Your woman of Earth will understand.”

  Josh experienced a flash of Karen attacking him with an iron skillet. Another where she stood in the kitchen, yelling for him to get out. Humor turned to worry as he thought about what he risked by standing here, neglecting the responsibilities of his life back home, jeopardizing their future in that false world of concrete and lights.

  Needing a subject change, he asked, “Do you know the way to the queen?”

  They walked to the corner of the border marking and Flavius pointed down. “Find the corner.” He angled his arm diagonally inward. “Walk this way. The mound will be in its center.”

  “We must move carefully.” Josh said. “Avoid drawing too much attention.”

  “I see you are learning, JoshRidley. Have no doubt, I am more silent than the wind. Follow me.”

  IX

  They darted across openings. Hid from passing patrols. Trekked around obstacles and arrived at a hiding spot with a visual on the sacred mound.

  Hundreds of feet in circumference with a thirty foot crest, it looked like a geyser had spewed pebbles, which gathered and sculpted into a dune tall enough to sled down.

  The actual demonic opening lay hidden, but judging from all the ant holes he had stared at in life, as a normal-sized person, he easily pictured its center.

  “The same as with the border trails and direction maps. The ants spray an adhesive on that mound, layer by layer, so even with your heavy body you should be able to climb it,” Flavius said. “Otherwise, I’m sure you’re a fast digger.”

  They waited behind a pile of downed trees positioned in the form of a V, protecting them from three angles. Josh peered around the edge, a bit further than he needed to gain a better vantage.

  “Stay low, JoshRidley,” Flavius advised.

  This time the surrounding silence made him uneasy. Artemis' death would always haunt Josh. He could not allow his arrogance to bring harm to Flavius.

  Forty minutes of careful advancements had brought them to their location. Whether scared to proceed or gathering more intel, they had scouted the area for another sixty minutes. Josh now possessed a decent understanding of the fixed movements around the mound. Although additional intelligence meant less risk, night was approaching and they had to avoid wandering blind within the eviscerators’ borders.

  Easing back to where Flavius rested, he processed the main points of concern. Two sentries, easily the largest ants he had seen, continuously circled the mound. Occasionally they roamed off-course to investigate approaching ants or other phantom alerts. For the most part, they marched with deliberate intent. Unlike their Homo sapiens counterparts, these organic drones were methodical. They didn’t get bored or daydream about future events. Their heads swiveled without pause, as if every ordinary element of the jungle held sinister duality.

  The benefit lay in the timing of their rounds, which created a gracious window for the men to dash up the hill. Even with Flavius’ mortal speeds, Josh imagined they would be granted three times longer than needed.

  The risk lay in the randomness of ants coming and going from the mound. Every few minutes a worker approached the exterior and piled food or materials at the mound’s base. Another style of ant, Josh labeled them medics, periodically exited the ant hill.

  Together, he and Flavius devised a plan for how to breach safely and return before night fell.

  With go-time upon them, Josh’s nerves exceeded those of his young page, who seemed almost ambivalent to the dangers. He inhaled slowly, exhaled with the same control, then crept to the edge of their blind to await their opportunity.

  Trusting the Betaloome god to make the call, Flavius rested his hand on Josh’s shoulder and waited. The demon sentry marched around the bend, checking the perimeter with quick jerks of the head. As it came even with their hiding spot, it stopped. Its antennae went stiff.

  Josh’s body went rigid.

  Sensing the abnormality, Flavius’ fingers clamped down.

  The ant’s antennae bounced. Paused. Quaked. Pointed toward them. Six little steps in their direction. A tilt of the head.

  Josh’s temperature soared as the decision to avoid fighting his way in was made for him.

  Josh clenched the handle of his sword. As he applied gentle pressure, intending to pull the sword down, the ant chortled and motored on.

  Staring at the beast as it went by, he couldn’t help but be intimidated by its fierce size. The guardian ant’s head lined up with the dimensions of a bathtub. It was at least double the size of the ants he had previously fought.

  Once the ant moved out of sight, Josh whispered, “Ready for this?”

  A squeeze.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Josh shot across the open patch so fast that by the time he reached the halfway point and looked back, the boy had ventured six feet. Josh unclasped his towering sword and turned back and forth, searching for approaching chaos, making sure to keep an eye out for one of the medics exiting the cave.

  Flavius made it to him without harm and continued past without acknowledgment, as instructed. The ends of his long salca wobbled with each stride. Josh dropped behind him, walking backward, eyeing the jungle.

  The sound of feet churning rocky earth dominated. A hot breeze whistled in his ear. His heavy breathing was like a log being vigorously sawed. As they clamored up the dune and saw nothing, he allowed himself to relax. They were good on time and had almost reached the mound entrance, which would save them an encounter with the sentries.

  Flavius’ scream shattered all hopes of an uneventful breach.

  An eviscerator clawed its way out, exiting away from Flavius, giving them precious seconds.

  Though the ant was one of the medics, it was ready to fight. It rushed the stunned teen.

  The pressure Josh put on his lead foot to lunge compounded his density, sinking him ankle-deep in rocks. He stumbled.

  Intense fear seized Josh. The slip meant the demon would reach Flavius. Watching him die might fracture Josh’s psyche.

  Keeping his eyes on the action, Josh pushed off as the ant’s mandibles separated and went around Flavius’ upper body.

  The teen thrust his salca up and then, as if struck with extreme fright, went rigid and fell backward in a trust fall.

  The pincers clamped together within inches of tearing the young man open. Flavius’ weapon struck out, closed around one of the creature’s antennae, and clipped it from the head.

  The ant reeled back, dipping partially into the hole, coughing out barks that seemed like confusion. It jerked back and forth, then stumbled around the lip of the opening, scrambling to avoid falling in.

  As Flavius found his footing, Josh calculated the pressure needed to launch himself off the stone. In one stride, he brought his blade down on the disoriented ant, separating its head as effectively as a French guillotine.

  “They’re coming, JoshRidley.” Flavius pointed to opposite sides of the mound.

  Josh didn’t need visual confirmation to know the hulking sentries were rushing toward the disturbance.

  Flavius dropped into the opening.

  Josh took in the entrance. Dropping down would give them a moment’s respite but it offered no real protection. The sentries would follow Josh and Flavius in their home. Josh looked back to th
e still twitching medic ant. Wedging its body in the opening might block the entrance.

  As if in answer, Flavius called, “It grows narrow in here.”

  Josh secured the scimitar and grabbed the corpse. Using compressing force, he crumpled the beast, snapping exoskeleton and spraying mucous as he formed its body into a misshapen-ball and pulled it behind him as he entered.

  Six feet in, the ant’s body touched both sides. A few tough jerks and the lifeless shell became an effective blockade.

  As Josh retreated to avoid the death spray, the corpse rocked from the other side, startling both men and wedging the defense deeper.

  The angry chirps, so unlike any sound he’d ever heard, shook him. The clear unfiltered hatred backed him into the dark as effectively as a flamethrower.

  “Quickly, m’lord. We must slay their queen.”

  Josh thought he could read the boy’s next thought: so we at least accomplish something before we are killed. What other choice did Josh have? At that moment, were this a video game, he’d have pressed pause and looked up what to do next.

  Pivoting away from the only exit, he considered the possibility his macho vacation had morphed into a suicide mission to save a bunch of humans living like an ancient civilization.

  The constant beat of the guardians against his barrier robbed him of time to dwell. Flavius was right. If they were going to die anyhow, better to have made a positive impact no matter how minimal.

  Cracks of sunlight lit the initial ten feet. Staring down the slope, Josh knew it would quickly become too dark to see.

  Pushing past Flavius, Josh squatted, unhooked his blade, and maneuvered it around his front. With his strength and the blade’s sharp point, he could clear an impressive path. That would become more complicated in total darkness.

  The humidity of the cave bordered on moldy and had the smell of a landfill after a heavy rain. The rhythmic banging grew quieter with each step.

  “Great job up there,” Josh said. “You probably saved both of our lives.”

  “Thank you,” Flavius said with pride. “I followed my training. Please, let us take a moment. I can hardly see.”

  Josh stopped. A darkness greater than black waited before him. When he turned to seek the sliver of light, he spotted the shadowed outline of Flavius treading back to where they blocked the tunnel with the ant’s body. The youth vanished up the incline.

  Traveling by touch alone was no way to map a retreat. Attempting to assassinate the queen of an alien race while lacking a modicum of sight was madness.

  A crack sounded near Flavius. Josh zipped forward, fearing the sentries had broken through. Instead, light flared.

  Flavius rose from his knees. He had made a torch by breaking the salca, balling his shirt around the end and dipping it in an oil, an ant’s discharge.

  “We must be quick,” Flavius said. “The queen might be a fair distance but others lurk closer. Stay on guard, JoshRidley.”

  No problem there. Josh had never been so alert.

  With every step, his extraordinary body created an indentation, relative to a couple inches into the earth. He winced lightly with each left step, a reminder that his flesh was vulnerable.

  The tunnel widened and the ceiling height increased at the end of the slope, granting as much room as any school hallway. A soft, steady breeze carried a menthol odor from the depths.

  The cave walls were smooth and well formed. Movement in the dark ahead broke Josh’s examination. He braced himself for the first strike.

  A minute passed without incident and they continued.

  Tunnelways appeared out of the black too suddenly for them to take extra precautions. Shoving the torch into an opening hardly illuminated its depth. Admittedly, the queen’s lair could be down any one of them, yet Josh’s gut pulled him forward, along the main corridor.

  All rulers kept their chamber in the furthest hall. Maybe to force visitors to observe their surroundings. That commonality argued an innate wisdom existed in all life and connected the biological world. Many tendencies seemed to point to a shared history, a common memory of order stored in every life. Since he was edging through a demonic catacomb, he stopped any further thoughts on the subject.

  The menthol odor spiked at one opening in particular. A stab of the torch illuminated an immense chamber. Moving the flame left and right exposed reflections that shimmered like a hundred blinking frogs.

  Flavius eased the torch in farther and gasped at the sight. Mucus-covered sacs formed rows of translucent, opaque eggs.

  A skitter of claws deep in its dark recess made the men back up. After a moment of shared disgust they continued into the dungeon.

  With each step, the clean menthol smell of the nursery faded, replaced with the common stench of dried bowels. Every intake of breath made the smell worse.

  The increasing stink told Josh one of two things: either they would soon reach its source or succumb to the powerful odor and lose consciousness, leaving them as snacks for the next passing ant.

  The prospect of what beast or chamber created such a smell worried him. To compound the frightful reality, the torch flickered, indicating its depleting fuel source.

  Just as Josh contemplated making a mask from the cloth of his toga to filter the smell, the air changed, the wall stretched outward, and the ceiling rose beyond the light provided by flames. With a thousand micro-clues of air pressure and sound and more, Josh knew he now stood in an auditorium. A cathedral of dark.

  The orange light waned as Flavius raised the torch in an attempt to illuminate a ceiling. Then he whispered, “This must be the queen’s lair.”

  Tension compressed Josh’s chest. Quietly, he eased the scimitar as high as possible and discovered his movements would not be limited by ceiling height.

  The darkness pulsed with a heartbeat, the air waned and waxed, as if the chamber breathed. It threatened to extinguish their light source. Josh’s nerves challenged his sanity. The blackness bored into him, the futility of retreat was sickening.

  He heard nothing, yet every instinct told him something lived in this darkness. In a method of sneaking one leg forward then listening, Josh moved deeper.

  A sudden breeze pulled the torch’s flame inward, almost to the point of extinguishment, as if the shadows were a malevolent cat and their torch a sleeping infant.

  The possibility of being in this tomb without a guiding light spurred urgency. Josh suddenly wondered why he was here. What was so wrong with spending a life behind a computer screen consumed by someone else’s responsibility, void of free thought or will, hating your body and lack of self-improvement? At least he was safe.

  “Careful,” Flavius cautioned as the tip of the broken salca eased by Josh, washing him in heat.

  Josh couldn’t be more cautious without encasing himself in bubble wrap and traveling inside a hamster ball.

  “Do you hear that?” Flavius said.

  The men stopped.

  Josh heard faint clicks and whistling sounds but nothing he could identify, yet his hairs stood on end. Something lurked in the shadows.

  They shuffled away from the wall, moving as one. On the fourth cautious step, the sound of a barn’s worth of floorboards creaking to their breaking point erupted from the black.

  Josh backed into Flavius which helped stymie his scream, or perhaps the boy’s lack of fear absorbed some of Josh’s.

  Regardless, he felt Flavius’ hand connect with his back and nudge him forward as if pushing him back into a boxing ring. The rumble subdued.

  Josh crept forward, Flavius at his back, the torch to Josh’s right. When the edge of the light met an actual mass Josh’s knees trembled.

  Cracks, as loud as snapping logs mixed with creaking wood, were heard as the demon queen rose from her slumber.

  The sight brought Josh to the brink of madness. “Dear… God…” he said.

  Flavius cursed as an ant twelve feet tall at its back end rose from a rest that may have began in the Triassic era. Its mass
ive head was like polished onyx and lacked antennae. Its eyes reflected the flame’s light, which swished around the orbs as if creating aesthetics from a fine brandy moments before the first sip.

  The ant was as wide as a small house. Its body sloped up into the darkness.

  As the demon queen revealed her full height, Josh had a momentary feeling of calm, as if he would soon be part of an intellectual dialog where he would learn secrets lost to humankind.

  Instead, the beast screamed with enough hot force to ripple Josh’s hair and clothing. Before he could apologize for the intrusion or begin conciliatory negotiations, his emissary charged.

  Only its mandibles being less proportionate to its head than the other ants saved them from the initial strike.

  No technology, machine, or beast in the human world combined such size and agility.

  To avoid being gored, Josh grabbed Flavius and rolled them to his left, slicing at the queen’s face.

  The blade connected and gouged a chip of exoskeleton. If the queen felt the wound, she gave no indication.

  As Flavius backed up, the scant bit of torch light moved far enough from the queen to make her vanish.

  Josh lunged into the oblivion where he imagined her to be and chopped thin air.

  Panic surged as he found himself inside the pure dark. Before he stepped back into the comforting glow of fire, a leg shot out from the black and struck him in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer, knocking the breath out of him and throwing him back six feet.

  Blind fear overtook him as he found himself outside of the light for a second time. He dropped to his hands and knees and spun, desperate to return to the orange glow. Locating it, he crawled with a single-minded need, whether luck or instinct, he kept the sword in his hand.

  Josh watched in horror as a wrecking ball swung toward the fire, connected with Flavius, and threw him into the distance. The torch sailed toward Josh.

  Flavius flew into the darkness. Josh heard the sound of a body landing as if lifeless.

  Josh scrambled to where he thought Flavius had landed. He found his friend and pulled him toward the flickering light.