by J. F. Halpin
“Great.” Summers stood, heading up the stairs to their rooms as he waved a goodbye. “I’ll see you guys in the morning, then.”
After a moment, Synel stood.
“We’ll have an early morning. I should go, as well.” She gave them a short bow before heading upstairs herself.
Cortez took a long drink as she watched the woman leave. Then she glanced down at her own key.
“She said we had three rooms, didn’t she?”
“I think?” Nowak replied.
Cortez looked from her own key, to Nowak’s key, then back up to the stairs again.
“For fuck’s sake.”
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Summers lay beside Synel, eyes closed.
It had been a long, long night. Though it was nice to have finally gotten off the ship, part of him was dreading the rest of their journey.
He breathed slowly, trying to clear his mind. He hadn’t slept for most of the night before. Between everyone on the ship moving around and the tight quarters, he just couldn’t keep his mind quiet. The only advantage he had now, besides the company, was the sheer amount of exhaustion he felt.
After a few minutes of internal struggle, sleep finally took him.
He awoke to an odd pressure against his neck.
“Hrk?” Summers grunted as he was wrenched upward. He grabbed at something around his neck—a rope—before pulling down with the slightest bit of force.
Almost immediately, he heard a man yelp behind him and stumble to the ground. Summers hesitated a moment before his half-sleeping brain managed to catch up to the situation.
The man drew a knife and lunged at him. Summers almost casually reached out, grabbing the man’s hand and squeezing. He felt something snap beneath his grip—likely the man’s arm—followed by a scream.
The knife clattered to the floor as he turned to find a second elf staring at him, wide-eyed, his knife moving toward a terrified Synel’s throat.
Summers rushed the man just a second too late.
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The door to the hallway exploded open, the body of an elf slamming into the second-story railing before tumbling to the ground below.
“Are you all right?” Summers bent over Synel.
The man had managed to lift the knife to her chest, probably trying to ward Summers off before he attacked. Now, she was trying to keep pressure on the large gash in her side.
“I’m fine,” Synel gasped before getting to her feet.
The man behind them only cowered in the corner, making no move for the knife.
Summers turned back to the hall to find three men with spears—one standing at the door to Cortez and Asle’s room. They all stared at him, more confused than anything.
He moved forward, kicking one man out of the way, grabbing his spear, and slamming it down on the back of the other man. He worked his way through the hallway, moving until a single gunshot erupted, taking the last man in the leg and sending him to the ground.
“What the fuck is happening?” Cortez moved from the room to the railing, her weapon trained on the floor below. He saw Asle move from behind her, Cortez’s sidearm in her hands.
“I have no idea,” Summers answered. He turned at the sound of a door opening and found Nowak emerging from his own room.
“Whatever it is, we’re clear,” Cortez reported.
“You didn’t bring your gun?” Nowak asked, looking at Summers.
“Didn’t think I’d need it for one night.”
Nowak, Cortez, and even Asle stared at him like he was an idiot.
Summers didn’t see the need to argue, especially as Synel let out a soft groan beside him. She was bleeding pretty badly.
“We need to get back to the ship.” Nowak moved to the stairs. “I can stitch her up there.”
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Summers stepped from the front door of the inn, shouldering Synel. He stopped as they found a dozen men in the street, waiting for them.
“I’m sorry for this.” The chief stood in the middle of the group. Each man had a spear in hand, as well as one who was armed with something like a crossbow. “Surrender, and I can promise you a swift death.”
Two short, precise bursts erupted from beside Summers half a second later. He saw the man with the crossbow, as well as the chief fall to the ground.
“Surrender,” Nowak said in Nos before looking to Asle for confirmation.
She nodded.
The spearmen looked at the now dead crossbowman and the screaming chief. They held for a beat before the first man broke, dropping his spear and sprinting down the street. The others followed soon after.
“Sarge, would you take her for a second?” Summers gestured to Synel. Nowak lowered his gun and moved to shoulder the woman.
As soon as Summers had handed her off, he moved to the chief. Nowak had only clipped the man, but the back of his thigh looked more like a side of beef than anything. The man still tried to crawl backward as Summers approached.
“What are you doing?” Nowak watched as Summers grabbed the chief by the shirt and began to drag him.
“Finding out what’s going on.”
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They arrived at the boat without incident, a few drunk sailors still sleeping on its deck. He watched as Nowak told Asle something, but his mind couldn’t grasp it for some reason.
He was still focused on what happened, on what could have happened. If they’d come for anyone but him first . . .
One of the deckhands stirred as they made their way on board.
Summers tossed the chief to the deck.
“Wake up the captain. We need to leave, now.”
The deckhand gaped at him for a moment before his eyes fell on the chief. Something in his drunken mind must have clicked, as he took off toward the captain’s quarters.
Summers watched as Nowak laid Synel gently down on the deck before heading to the small storage area below deck, Asle in tow.
Seeing Synel lying there sent a cool anger boiling up inside him.
“Please.” The chief held up a hand, clearly sensing something. “I only did this to protect my people.”
“And how is that?” Summers moved toward the man.
“We’re starving. Our fishermen can’t leave the shore, and we have no hunters, no trade. We’ve tried to appeal to the city, but . . .” He gestured to the ocean. “The beast, it attacks any ships we send.”
Summers stared back at the man, dumbstruck.
“You did this for our food? Why didn’t you just ask?”
“Whatever you could spare would not have been enough. Even if you were to sell it to us, we’re a fishing village. We have nothing to trade. ” He swallowed. “We’ve lost three of our own already.”
Summers heard shouting as the captain emerged from below deck, Nowak and Asle close behind. He shouted to the few sailors still asleep.
“We set out immediately. We’ll rest once we’re at sea.”
Summers looked to Synel, to his friends. They’d probably be dead if these people had had their way.
“No.” Summers raised a hand, stalling the man. “Sarge, I think we need to have a vote.”
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“Are we really doing this?” Cortez looked at Summers, an expression of worry on her face. “Not that I don’t think he deserves it. I’d just rather get the fuck out of here.”
“We can’t leave things like this,” Summers responded.
He began to drag the chief to the dock, the man pleading with him the entire time. Cortez sighed, hefting her gun.
A deckhand brought him a barrel of chum shortly thereafter. Summers picked it up, surprised by how light it felt in his hands.
He tossed it with everything he had. It sailed a good distance from the ship, spilling out, painting a small red circle on the water’s surface.
Then, Summers watched as the same massive head they�
�d seen earlier breached the waves. A beat, and he saw it again, closer this time.
He placed a hand on the chief.
“I’d swim fast if I were you.”
That was all the warning the chief got before Summers hauled him up and tossed him into the sea, nearly a dozen feet from the dock. His bleeding leg caused him to flounder for a moment before adrenaline took over.
Summers watched as the monster’s head bobbed toward the barrel before quickly changing direction to head toward the chief. The man began to swim for shore in a panic, arms pumping as he moved for all he was worth.
He nearly got to the shallows before the beast reared up, a massive head that resembled a horned snake breaching the water.
A spear sank into its side a moment later.
The monster let out a sharp, shrill cry as its mouth snapped shut and turned away from the shore.
Summers grabbed the next spear, launching it like a cannon. It struck home, sinking into a white-maned neck as the creature writhed. The third slammed into its head, and the creature stopped moving entirely.
The chief made it to shore in the next few seconds, breathing hard, staring at the now dead leviathan a short distance from the shore.
“Eat that,” Summers yelled.
The man didn’t respond.
Summers watched the chief sit there in the sand, breathing, bleeding, as their boat pulled away, turning into the sea.
Chapter 32: Dreaming
Summers sat beside his father in the passenger seat of an ice cream truck. The man had seen the truck broken down on the side of the road, and after a few minutes of looking over the engine, he’d decided that this was a good learning experience.
“Don’t you need gloves for that sort of thing?” Summers watched as a spark shot out, eliciting a curse from his old man.
“Don’t worry about me. Just keep watch.”
Summers hesitated before turning back to the dark streets outside.
“You should take me home soon.”
His father turned to him. “Why?”
“Because you said I’d be home today. Mom needs to eat dinner.”
“You’re what, ten now?”
“Eleven,” Summers corrected.
“Eleven. Christ kid, you should be enjoying life a little more. Don’t let your mom’s bullshit keep you from being happy. She’ll be fine for one more night.”
Summers watched as his dad reached back, pulling a bag of frozen popsicles from the back.
“There.” His father set the bag in his lap. “If you want, we can stop by your little friend’s and dump the rest of them. They’d just go bad when I scrap this, anyway.”
Summers immediately brightened.
“Aw man, that’d be awesome. We can just give it away, like Robin Hood?”
“Just like Robin Hood, yeah,” his father agreed, placing a hand on Summers’ head.
After another minute of work, the engine started to turn over, and the truck came to life.
His father sat back up, groaning.
“About fucking time.” He smiled. “Now, let’s see about getting you home.”
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Summers awoke, sitting upright in his bed aboard the ship. He moved so fast he nearly slammed his head into the ceiling before he caught himself.
“You know you talk in your sleep?” Cortez chided him from the hammock below.
“Mhmm,” he responded, reaching for the journal at his side.
“You’ve been doing that a lot lately,” Nowak observed from the floor of their small room.
“Yeah,” Summers answered, only half paying attention. After a minute, he stopped, a look of frustration on his face.
After another moment, he gave up, putting down the journal and lying back into the hammock once more.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Summers started. “Or . . . I don’t know. I keep having these vivid dreams.” Summers tapped the charcoal against his journal. “Or maybe more like memories.”
“Like they’re memories, or they are memories?”
“I don’t know,” Summers repeated. “I decided to write them down, to see if there’s a pattern or something.”
He turned the book over to Nowak. The man looked at it tentatively for a moment before taking it and reading the last page.
“This is way too coherent for a dream.”
“I know. But I don’t remember anything about them. And they weren’t as . . . they didn’t make sense before. They were just snippets of things.”
“Like what?” Nowak looked at him, confused.
“There was a guy with us. A kid, here in this world,” Summers explained.
Nowak stared at Summers a long moment before he spoke. “What else did you remember?”
He saw Cortez eye him, as well.
“Just something about Bambi . . .”
“Show me the page.” Nowak gestured to the book.
“What?”
“Did you write it down, this thing with the kid?”
“Yeah.” Summers took the journal for a second before handing it back.
Nowak read, then reread the page he’d given him. He looked back up to Summers.
“Do you know who Adams is?”
“Should I?”
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Summers wrote as fast as he could, trying to fill the journal with as much information as possible.
“Should we write about ourselves?” Cortez asked. She and Nowak flanked him from the side.
They’d tested Summers on the few things they’d known about him. Other than Adams, he hadn’t forgotten much else, which wasn’t saying a lot. He’d always been a private person, and now, that was biting him in the ass.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Summers answered.
Synel leaned down beside him. She’d shown up a few hours ago, along with Asle, curious about his writing. They both stared at him with worried expressions.
“This might be a strange question, but do you know how much you’ve forgotten?” Synel prompted.
She spoke with obvious anxiety in her voice. Asle looked on from her side.
“No. But maybe this means it’s getting worse.”
He put the book down for a moment, taking a long breath.
“You know, it kind of reminds me of something,” Cortez offered. “Like after an explosion—when you have that ringing in your ears. It’s supposed to be the ear cells dying. And once it’s gone, you’ll never hear that frequency again.”
Cortez looked to Summers. “Could be the same thing. The memory plays one last time before it’s erased.”
That sent a chill through Summers. If she was right, everything he’d dreamt since his time in the city had been something he’d lost.
“Great,” Summers declared. “Guess I’ll just stop sleeping for a while.”
“You know that’s not going to work,” Nowak replied.
“I know.”
Synel moved to put a hand on Summers’ shoulder, then winced in pain herself. Summers looked at her, worried.
Nowak considered Summers a moment longer before he turned to Synel, speaking in Nos.
“How are the . . .” He forgot the word, pointing to his side instead, the same that Synel had been injured on. “Stitches?”
“Painful, but it’s doing better.” Synel bowed a head to Nowak. “I’ve had worse,” she added, looking at Summers.
“Thanks, by the way, Sarge,” Summers muttered.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve gotten depressingly good at sutures since we got here . . .”
Summers turned back to Synel.
“How long before we get to the next town?”
The last few villages they’d passed were either abandoned or burned to the ground, likely casualties of the approaching army. Synel and the captain had expected as much and planned accordingly. Thankfully, they’d be breaking into their former enemy’s territory soon.
“A city, actually.
And I believe it will be another two days or so.”
“You haven’t heard of anything that might help, have you?”
Synel shook her head.
“I know of cures, salves, and the like. However, most, if not all are frauds. It’s a . . . very prevalent problem in the cities.”
“Of course, it is.”
Summers sighed again. He’d have to think of something. If he didn’t, given the rate at which this thing inside him was progressing, this might be his last stop.
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A day later Summers watched as Cortez sparred with Orvar. To his credit, the man knew how to handle himself. Cortez had been one of the better hand-to-hand fighters he’d seen. Most soldiers didn’t bother with anything past the most basic fundamentals of hand-to-hand. After all, if an enemy gets in close while guns are in play, knowing how to punch isn’t going to help. Only those with real interest would get to be Cortez’s level.
And while that wasn’t necessarily true for this world, Orvar was apparently one of those people. He dodged a left hook from Cortez and shot in, tackling her to the deck.
She patted his back, and he got back to his feet, helping Cortez up. Summers watched them a second longer before turning back to his journal.
He yawned as he began to write again. He hadn’t slept since his revelation a day ago, and though he didn’t seriously think avoiding it would help, it had made it significantly harder to get there. And he was definitely feeling the fatigue.
He heard someone sit and looked up to find Asle beside him.
“What are you writing about now?” She looked at him, curious.
Summers thought about how to respond, until he eventually decided to tell her the truth.
“My mom. I don’t remember a lot about her anymore, just . . . pieces. Things she said. Or that I think she said. I wanted to write down what was left.”
Asle nodded, thinking.
“Can I write about me? When you’re done, I mean.”
Summers considered that. The throbbing in his writing hand told him it wasn’t the worst idea.
“You know how to write in English?”
She nodded. “Also Nos.”
“All right, sure,” he agreed. “We’re blood, right?”
Asle cracked a small smile as he handed over the book.
