Trail of Blood

by Michael McBride

  Death.

  Chapter 3

  I

  Western Colorado

  THE WESTERN SLOPE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS HAD BECOME AN INFERNO, the manifestation of hell on earth. Startled birds took to flight from their fiery nests, flaming feathers only keeping them aloft so long before depositing them atop the detritus, leaving them to hop away too slowly from the advancing flames. Straw-colored stags with golden antlers and tails bounded away from the encroaching wall of fire, darting through the smoke ahead of the does and fawns. They could only run so far before they would have to rest, only then to learn what it felt like to burn. The entire forest echoed with pained bleating and animal cries.

  It was music to the ears of the creature that had once been Richard Robinson. Fire roared from its fathomless black form as it launched stream after stream of molten magma into the thickets and underbrush, its reserves inexhaustible. It reveled in the charnel scent of burning flesh, in the snap of boiling sap exploding through the bark, dropping the upper canopies to the ground to incinerate to ash. It forged a trail of fiery death, its flames continuing outward in all directions in an attempt to engulf the entire world.

  The hairy beasts scampered ahead, invisible through the smothering smoke. Their roaring was deafening as they triangulated the smoldering ruins around them, making short work of the crying animals pinned beneath blazing branches or in their death throes as feathers and fur burned away to the scorched skin. Blood drained from their sharp teeth down blunted chins, patterning their hairy chests. Their hands were thick with crusted blood and soot, black gloves across which they slathered their tongues in the few moments when nothing screeched to be put out of its misery.

  At the crest of a steep slope, the Leviathan paused to survey the great valley of pine forests and skeletal aspens. The sharpened peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rose ahead, already beginning to seek refuge under a cloud of smoke. Beyond was the home stretch that would guide them toward Utah, the thought spurring it forward with renewed vigor.

  Its black arms stretched to its sides and its chest swelled. With a scream, it cocked its head back and sprayed a flume of liquid fire from its mouth out over the nothingness to spatter down upon the forest floor, laying its path before it. Multicolored animals flashed through the sparse meadows, trying to create distance between themselves and the inescapable fiery death stalking them. Flocks of birds erupted from the trees as fire rained into the upper canopy. A choir of tortured mammalian screams filled the valley.

  The Leviathan reveled only momentarily in the symphony of death before sprinting down the slope, spraying flames in every direction. The Pack bellowed their awful roars, a sound like thunder in the space between mountains. Boulders broke loose and tumbled down the hillside, avalanches of rock that cracked even the sturdiest of trees in half and tore the remainder from the slanted ground by the roots.

  Cleaving a path of destruction through the wilderness, they raced through the night with the hint of the rising sun at their backs staining the smoky world crimson, bearing the gift of their master’s namesake for any living being that would stand in their way.

  II

  Mormon Tears

  JILL STOOD BEFORE THE MURAL ON THE WALL WHILE THE PUEBLO BURNED TO her left. Smoke filled the cave, the churning clouds parting just enough to grant her the occasional glimpse of their chalk doppelgangers in the flickering glow. All of their faces had been replaced by black-eyed skulls. Red and gold flames rose from their bodies. Screams echoed in the closed chamber, but she couldn’t bring herself to look for their origins, as she knew full well to whom the voices belonged. She reached up to the wall and wiped away her own image. The wall beneath was black, as though scored by fire. There was an inhuman screech and she turned at the sound. A great white falcon perched atop the highest rooftop of the structure. The fire bent away from it as though the bird were contained within a glass bubble. It squalled again and Jill looked back at the wall where two words had been smeared through the soot. She heard herself scream. Flames crawled up her back and ignited her hair, and the words themselves turning to orange fire.

  Leave now.

  Jill awoke with a cry trapped in her throat. She was hyperventilating, unable to catch her breath. It had been a dream. Not one of her visions, but an actual nightmare. It just felt somehow…different. There wasn’t the sense that she was being shown actual events as they would soon unfold, but rather a warning. Whether from her subconscious or something more…spiritual, she couldn’t tell, but it shared a sense of urgency with her visions, an imperative she knew needed to be acted upon quickly. Maybe something had changed inside of her, something potentially…what? Hormonal? Was it possible that she had actually conceived? Could there be something, someone else dreaming…inside of her?

  She flinched and nearly released her pent-up scream when a cold hand settled upon her shoulder, another closing over her mouth. Eyes wide, she spun to face her assailant, his diminutive form a shadow against the dwindling fire.

  “Shh,” Jake whispered. “We need to let the others sleep a little longer. They’re going to need their strength.”

  He slowly removed his hand from her mouth and took a step back. The diminished flames reflected in reds on his damp cheeks. Jill looked at Mare, lying on his back on one of the unzipped sleeping bags, the covers they had shared bunched over his waist. He shuffled, dragged the blanket up to his chin, and rolled onto his side.

  “Outside,” Jake whispered, offering his hand.

  Jill stood and took his small hand in hers. His fingers were like ice. They walked away from the fire and carefully up the stone stairs. She studied him from the corner of her eye, but he looked directly ahead, betraying nothing. Once they reached the tunnel and stepped from the weak firelight into the embrace of shadows, he finally spoke.

  “I had a dream last night.” His voice was so tiny it needed the reinforcement of his echo for Jill to understand. “One of those, you know, real dreams.” He paused, the only sound the scuffing of their footfalls on stone. “There was a tall building, a skyscraper, but it was so black, so cold. Everything around it had been burned as far as I could see. And there was still a haze of smoke over everything.” He bent with the curve in the tunnel and his voice faded, his tone and mannerisms almost as though he were still sleeping or in a trance. “There was a man clear up on top of the building. I couldn’t really see him, but at the same time, I could. He was even blacker than the building, but his eyes were as red as stoplights. I couldn’t look away from him. I tried, but I couldn’t. He just…held me. Even from so far away I could feel him holding me. I couldn’t even move. The ground was hot and hurt my feet, but I couldn’t run away.”

  He stopped when they reached the point where the gray light of dawn stretched through the cave and into the rock corridor. Jill turned to face him. His lower lip quivered and there was snot on his upper. He was terrified.

  “Is that when you woke up?” Jill asked, thankful for even this horrible distraction to spare her from thinking about her own nightmare.

  “No,” he whispered, looking past her into the mouth of the cave. “He said something, but I knew I shouldn’t have been able to hear him from so far away. It was like he was standing right behind me and talking down to me, even though I could see him up there on the roof, so small on top of the building.”

  “What did he say?” Jill asked, rubbing at the hackles that had risen on her arms.

  A shiver rippled through Jake’s body as though merely trying to conjure the words was a physiological process.

  “He said ‘And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.’”

  Jill turned away from the terror in the boy’s eyes, his hand falling from hers. Instead, she looked outside to where the sun twinkled on the distant waves. Even its golden light felt somehow cold and tainted by the fleeing night.

  “He said that now we must come to him, that we would know the way if we followed
the trail of blood.”

  Jill closed her eyes and willed her pounding heart to slow.

  Leave now.

  Her own dream was bad enough. She had hoped that as the day chased away the demons that haunted the darkness, so too would the urgency of her nightmare dissipate. Coupled with Jake’s dream, however, the message was unmistakable, its insistence undeniable.

  His frigid hand slithered into her grasp again, sending a shiver through her body. The tunnel felt suddenly constrictive.

  Jill led him into the cave on trembling legs. Even the larger earthen maw felt like a mouth closing with them inside. The sooner they were out on the beach, breathing the fresh air, the better off they would be. Her stare locked on the vastness of the lake to fight the oppressive feeling of being asphyxiated in the mountain. She drew her first deep inhalation of—

  Her mouth filled with the taste of death and her mind registered the putrescence. It was a smell she knew intimately, but had been trying desperately to repress. The scent was the same as the stale air that wafted out of the houses within which the dead rotted, that same gut-wrenching reek contained behind the closed windows of the sweltering cars where the black bodies slumped against the dashboard. It was more than death, beyond the simple act of the soul’s departure. It was the stench of what remained, the deterioration of flesh at the behest of cellular rot, of liquefying meat dripping from bone.

  Jake retched, triggering Jill to do the same.

  Leave now.

  Her gaze fell to the shoreline and she had to hurriedly look away. The image was already seared into her brain, though, and even as she slapped a hand over her mouth and nose and looked up into the bland sky, she could still see it. Bodies mounded on the foaming scarlet surf. Web-footed fowl pocked the beach, surrounded by fish bones with the gray skin and scales peeling away. Equine flanks stood out of the water like bloated islands. Brightly colored birds speared long beaks into their festering wounds and draining fluids. More and more bodies tumbled to shore with each wave, carcasses rolling in and out with the tide.

  Leave now!

  “What’s going on out here?” Mare asked through a yawn. He appeared to be having difficulty rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes.

  “It’s time to go now,” Jake whispered, risking a glance at the carnage.

  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.

  III

  PHOENIX SAT ALONE IN THE DARKNESS. ALL OF THE OTHERS WERE AWAKE and outside on the beach, the fire dying to glowing embers in their absence. He just needed to be by himself for a little while, alone in his head with the multitude of thoughts bouncing around like so many rubber balls. None of them would hold still long enough for him to grasp them, offering only fleeting glimpses down the road ahead. He knew the time had come to abandon Mormon Tears and begin their journey eastward, a perilous trek that would lead them into the land of the dead along the Trail of Blood. It was a path that would bring them through the ebon heart of evil, and even should their fate be to succeed, not all of their tracks would be filled on the return trip. It was more than a feeling; it was a certainty. A spectral cloud of death hung over them like a fog and they all knew it. No one had questioned him about the extra pair of headstones they had placed on the beach. They were strong. They were survivors. But the knowledge of their impending demise would rob them of their remaining strength, and perhaps they wouldn’t be able to do what needed to be done when the time finally arrived.

  He didn’t know if he would have the strength. There was so much to live for and he was only now beginning to experience it. He had friends and an honest-to-God family for the first time in his life. There was more than just the hope of escaping his darkened surroundings; there was hope for the future. He was in love, an emotion more powerful than any he had ever felt. More powerful than self-preservation, more motivating than fear. More pervasive than the biological urge to breathe. Missy was more important to him than even himself, and it physically pained him to know how much he intended to hurt her.

  “Please grant me the strength,” he whispered into the shadows, wiping the uncontrollable tears from his cheeks.

  Right now, the others would be staring in terror at the masses of dead animals riddling the beach and trying to determine how to dispose of their carcasses. He knew, for he had heard the poor creatures dying during the night, their inhuman cries piercing his brain like nails driven through his cranium. There was nothing he could have done, though. His feeling of helplessness was matched only by the agony of their screams. He imagined Missy mourning each and every one of those dead animals, her raven-black hair shimmering under the fresh dawn. All thoughts inevitably led back to Missy. They always did. She had been his guiding light in the basement prisons he had endured, and even more so now that he was out in the world. He hated himself for the torture he inflicted upon her daily, for the wedge he had no choice but to drive deeper between them every time they spoke. He thought that by hurting her a little more each day it would save her from the awful pain at the end of the Trail of Blood, but she was stronger than he ever imagined. She loved him. Unconditionally. Each silent wound he inflicted was a lashing from a cat-o-nine-tails, yet she persevered, holding out hope that he wouldn’t deliberately hurt her the following day, while he went out of his way to do just that.

  “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, burying his face in his hands.

  “What are you sorry for?” a small voice whispered from the top of the staircase leading down to the fire.

  Even without being able to see her, he would have known her voice anywhere. He had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t sensed Missy entering the cavern.

  Phoenix sniffed and tried to swipe the damp residue from his face even though he was sure she wouldn’t be able to see it. A long moment of silence passed between them before Missy finally spoke.

  “I saw you with Evelyn.”

  He waited for her to continue. He could hear the implication in her words, but the message eluded him.

  “Do you love her?”

  “Of course,” Phoenix said softly. He heard her breath hitch at the confirmation of her fears.

  “That’s all I needed to know,” Missy said, her voice tremulous. She rose from where she sat on the stone outcropping, a rockslide of pebbles cascading to the stone floor far beneath.

  This was the perfect opportunity to drive her away, to make her hate him, but he couldn’t bear the aura of pain that radiated from her. It was almost as though he could feel her heart breaking, and it made him want to throw himself into the hot coals. How evil was he to hurt her so? Before he knew he was going to say anything, his own voice echoed back at him from the cavern walls.

  “Wait.”

  The sound of her tread stopped, but he could tell she hadn’t turned around.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Don’t go…”

  “What do you want from me? Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

  Her words stabbed him like frozen knives. That had been exactly what he had been trying to do, but hearing it from her mouth was the most terrible thing he had ever endured.

  He rose and walked toward the stairs, ascending quietly so he could hear her footsteps if she decided to run away, but she stayed where she was. Her breathing grew ragged, a reflection of the sorrow and tears. She was so strong, so amazing. When he reached her, he wanted nothing more than to take her hand and tell her how sorry he was, but he choked back his voice and instead said nothing.

  “You should have told me,” she said. “That would have been far better than seeing the two of you…together. Watching you give her that flower. I thought…” She caught a sob before it could wrench out of her chest. “I thought you were different. Special. But you aren’t, are you? You’re just like all the others. You only wanted to be with me until someone…prettier came along. Someone…smarter.”

  “Prettier?” he whispered. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve
ever seen.”

  “A lie. That’s just a lie.”

  “No,” he said, taking her by the hand, but she jerked hers away.

  “I gave you everything I had. Everything I am. But it wasn’t enough, was it?”

  “It was more than I ever could have hoped for.”

  “And yet still it wasn’t enough. Do you just want more than you can have? You had me. Heart and soul. You had me, and you went after Evelyn. Can’t you see that she’s in love with Adam?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then what? You just couldn’t stand the fact that she wanted him more than you?”

  “My heart has no longing for Evelyn. I love her, but not like I love you.”

  “Don’t. I saw you with her. Saw your face when you gave her that flower.”

  “It was more than just a flower. It was a gift—a very important gift—just for her. I…have a gift for each of you. A part of me. A small part of myself to bestow upon each of you.”

  “And what do you have for me? Heartache? Is that my gift?” Missy scoffed. “What did you give to Evelyn?”

  Phoenix was silent for a moment.

  “I…I gave her the gift of life,” he finally said. “Your gift is far more special.”

  She turned to face him in the darkness. “Then why are you treating me like this? Why do you feel the need to push me away when all I’ve ever wanted is to be with you?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Too late for that now. It seems like that’s all you want to do.”

  “It will be easier for you…later. If you hate me.”

  “Do you think that’s how it works? Do you think love can just be turned off? Hurting me may make me sad and it may make me miserable, but love is unconditional. You of all people should know that.”

  “I’ve loved you since before we even met, since the only place I could visit you was in my dreams. It was you, the promise of you, that kept me going when all I knew was misery.”