Shadows Rising

by Dean Rasmussen

  Pastor John’s body was nowhere in sight. Fresh blood sprinkled across Finn’s clothing, and the carcass of a raccoon next to him. Streaks of blood led away from the scene toward the doorway where they intended to go. He searched the area for his canteen or the medallion, but those were missing too. Passing the light across Finn’s body again, the silver watch on his wrist sparkled and his backpack had slipped down between what looked like the fur of a white cat and a soldier’s boot. He got down on his knees and yanked it out. Maybe he’d find some supplies they could use.

  “Look at this,” Joey said.

  Michael whipped his flashlight around as Joey had gotten down and was plucking out something deep within the piles of bones. Joey wiggled it back and forth, and metal clanked as he brought it up to the surface. The metal scraped against the bones as he pulled out a sword and held it out in front of him.

  He threw his foot down, attempting to stand up with the sword, when the skeleton beneath his foot cracked and crashed down below the surface. The debris shifted and spilled in toward his foot like the sand in an hourglass, and he scrambled to remain above it all. In a moment the shifting stopped, but the disturbance had echoed across the room.

  Everything around them rattled. It was the worst possible time for an earthquake. They wobbled from side to side and clung to the first object they found. The light jittered across the walls as they crouched down and fought to stay at the surface as the debris circulated around itself.

  “Go back,” Rebecca ordered.

  Michael nodded and shined the flashlight where they had come in. Two creatures circled around the doorway like vultures circling its dying prey. “Too late.”

  32

  Joey’s sword clanked down against a skull and scraped across the surface as he lifted it again. He swung it to the side, his arms waving as he balanced himself above the drifting mess. The surface rose and fell like a wave on the ocean.

  “This is crazy,” Joey said.

  “Hurry,” Michael said.

  Clacking emerged from the surrounding shadows although not in the same aggressive tone as when they had encountered the bessies in the tunnels. The tone now was defiant and taunting, as if they were watching a sporting event. Spread out over the walls, the creatures remained far out of reach. Flashes of light revealed fleeting glimpses of their faces. Razor-like beaks opened wide and snapped shut like starving baby birds waiting for the mother to feed them.

  A twisting mesh of tentacles surrounded the doorway at the other side of the room as if expecting their escape route. Nobody was getting out. Michael pushed over the top of a hardened corpse toward the door and leaned from side to side with each step as he weaved over the jittering bones. He looked around again near Finn’s body. Maybe something had fallen out of Pastor John’s pockets as he fell through the pit. Maybe the medallion was near Finn’s body somewhere. Time to look was running out anyway.

  The underside of a large black dog heaved below his hands and a muffled crack passed through the pile deep below him. Michael reached for a piece of wood that had risen to the surface and used it to keep his hand from slipping down into the jaws of skeletons threatening to swallow him. His foot slipped, and his leg flew back, knocking his knee down hard against a chunk of wood. Pain shot up his body, and he dropped for a moment before raising his leg back up and toppling over onto a corpse in a yellow rain coat. He held his knee and winced, rolling atop the shifting body. Parts of the skeleton poked up and compressed against his backpack. The straps tugged against his shoulders. He pointed the flashlight up at the ceiling and followed the cracks as they spread out across the ceiling like a spider web. How much more rumbling before that whole ceiling comes crashing down?

  Rebecca screamed and Michael flipped onto his side toward her as she lost her balance and tumbled over, grabbing at a large cow skull dancing in front of her. Joey had stepped back toward the original entrance with his metal sword still waving and dragging across the surface.

  “I got you.” Joey hurled himself forward toward Rebecca, but the debris shifted away from him and rose up, forming a cascade of carcasses tumbling down the incline.

  Rebecca got back up again on her hands and knees and crawled toward Joey. As they approached the edge of the pile, a group of bessies near the entrance inched down the walls and stretched their arms out toward them as if daring them to escape. Joey got up on his knees and swung his sword out toward the arms, but he wasn’t even close. Their tentacles barely moved as Joey waved the sword in their direction.

  “Keep moving!” Rebecca aimed her flashlight at the room’s exit and crawled in that direction.

  The corpses and debris shifted suddenly and opened a pocket below Michael. He plummeted head first below the surface and lost sight of Joey and Rebecca. A suffocating stench choked his lungs as he scrambled to grasp a solid surface. A human skull crashed against his chest as he flipped onto his side.

  He’d almost sat upright when his backpack snagged on something. He tugged against it as the opening above him narrowed and then closed in. He was being buried alive. He fought to free his backpack and heard a loud crack as he pulled himself upright and scrambled up the shifting rungs of the corpse ladder in front of him. His legs and arms were on fire as he lifted himself until he burst into the open air again and saw the top of Rebecca’s head. Debris compressed into his chest, forcing out most of the air. He wheezed in a deep breath and twisted over onto his other side as his backpack snagged again. It pulled loose from one arm.

  The stability beneath him thrust him up as if on an amusement park ride and toppled him over. He rolled back down in an avalanche of body parts and bloated carcasses, away from Rebecca and Joey. His backpack broke free as he rolled to a stop at the bottom of the pile. His machete fell from his hand, and he sank under the surface.

  The pile rose again and revealed a massive hump, like a whale rising beyond Finn’s body. The claws on the monster’s arms scraped against a skeleton’s bare spinal column as they stretched upward. Debris crashed off its torso as it rose and consumed Finn’s body. The hump rose halfway to the ceiling, its skin as dark as a black pearl, but it reflected no light. Finn’s ghost white face reflected in its eight massive black eyes. Leviathan. Queen of the demons.

  “Michael!” Rebecca screamed.

  Michael flailed his arms and struggled to escape. The hump stopped rising and sat amid the piles it had created. It fixed its stare on him. The debris stopped shifting, and he caught his footing for a moment. He lunged forward, his legs burning with pain, until the enormous beast moved again and two dog carcasses in front of him shifted upward.

  He lost his balance and slid backwards toward the Leviathan’s mid-section. He fell in against its rumbling flesh, and his cheek smashed against its icy, damp skin. He gripped his flashlight and tried to scramble away. He dragged himself to the top of a pile of clothes and cried out for help, but the Leviathan shook its body and he fell back, jamming his lower back into what felt like spikes. It was playing with him.

  He hunched forward in pain, gripping his sides, and gasped for air. Joey and Rebecca yelled something, but it was all a blur. Joey’s sword clanked. Had his grandfather gone through this same ordeal? A human skull lay near his feet. He dropped back and rolled onto his side. He ran his fingers across the wounds in his lower back. The pain was too much. Joey and Rebecca’s flashlights whipped across the walls like a lighthouse with a broken motor.

  33

  The Leviathan rotated around toward Joey, and within the turbulence one of its claws, dragged him across the surface, lifting him into the air like a fish out of water, his arms flailing below him. He still clutched the sword in one hand and slashed at the beast’s limbs at every opportunity. It all seemed so hopeless. Its gnarled claw clung to Joey’s legs as if in a vise. His shirt draped down and covered his face. He screamed and cursed as it dangled him within an arm’s length of its gaping fish-like mouth, as if relishing its meal before devouring it.

  Michael twisted hi
mself around. Bones crashed against his face, scraping across his nose and up to his forehead. At some point, he’d lost his flashlight and it whirled around at his side until merging with the surrounding vortex. Two more limbs extended up from below Joey and clawed at Michael’s shoes. He kicked against the surface of its arms and his foot sprang back as if it had encountered an inflatable pool toy. Michael grabbed a hammer-sized bone near him. One end was fractured away leaving a pointed end like a knife. He jabbed his makeshift dagger deep into its flesh, and it let out a thunderous moan. He strained to push the weapon in farther as it writhed, but he stumbled back.

  The Leviathan’s head pivoted from Joey, dangling him off to the side for a moment before dropping him into the debris. It moved in closer to Michael. Its eyes fixed on him as if contemplating all the ways he was about to die. Within the mirrored blackness of its stare, he was paralyzed. Terror jolted through him.

  The Leviathan’s head blocked out the light circling the room from Rebecca’s flashlight as it moved closer.

  Michael hid the weapon behind his back. Maybe it knew what he was up to, but he was out of options. One of its claws extended out above his head, and within seconds it would have him in its possession. He moved back. It snaked forward. He waited until it was within striking range, and then sprang forward and stabbed upward, piercing one of the small lower eyes. Black blood sprayed out over his wrist and arm. His weapon snagged its eye for a moment before dropping away. The Leviathan convulsed and recoiled. It plummeted down again, crashing deep within the debris. Michael’s legs sank and became wedged between a corpse wearing a faded white dress and a deer’s headless torso. He couldn’t move his legs. The debris shifted like water rushing in to fill the void of a sinking ship.

  He clenched his teeth. Every leg movement shot pain up his spine as if a cleaver had sliced through every vertebra. His muscles tingled and burned as he struggled to rise above the bones, but he sank deeper and deeper into the debris, a partially clothed skeleton pressing against his chest. Remnants of the corpse hung from its limbs and brushed against his face as it scratched over his exposed skin.

  Joey’s sword clanked in the shadows. Rebecca screamed beyond his sight. The light from their flashlights became dim, and he could only make out their outlines as he sank down farther below the surface. He would become one corpse in the pile of hundreds. Maybe his grandfather hadn’t made it either and was waiting for him within the turmoil.

  “You piece of shit,” Joey yelled. The Leviathan bellowed low and loud.

  Michael attempted to free himself by twisting around where he might have more room to maneuver. He stared up into the darkness toward the faint swirl of shadows above him. His hands were cold and numb. Moldy clothing and dirt smeared across his mouth. Sweat dripped down his face and ran over his lips. He licked away the salty, putrid sweat and moaned.

  Rebecca screamed again and Michael dragged his fingers across a dog carcass beside him. He stuck his fingers through the dog’s torso, clinging to its rib cage like a life preserver until it too sank below a mound of decomposing flesh hovering next to him. The dog’s skull poked into his chest like boney fingers, fingers of death pulling him down to hell. He pulled himself up as far as he could. The Leviathan rammed its body against his shoes below the rising bones. Would playing dead help at this point? Would that make any difference? He was almost dead anyway. The debris jabbed into his chest and squeezed the air from his lungs. He gasped for each shallow breath. He pulled himself up to his armpits and held onto a pile of clothing that had become snagged around a spinal column. Someone’s ribcage became his life preserver.

  His eyelids weighed down, and his legs were frozen. He couldn’t move his arms, although his fingers clutched at the tattered clothing over his mouth. Each breath blew up over his face. He’d wanted to do so much more for his grandparents. His heart drained of hope. He couldn’t help Rebecca’s mother or Joey or Rebecca. Maybe Rebecca’s mom was up in the room where Rebecca said she’d seen her, but she would suffer the same fate as they would. If his grandfather was up there with her, at least they’d have each other until the end. Poor Grandma Mary all alone in the nursing home, not knowing where everybody went. His eyes welled up and tears mixed with sweat as it trailed down into his mouth.

  Joey groaned from across the room, or maybe that sound had come from the Leviathan. He couldn’t tell anymore. Rebecca called out, but her voice was weak. They were dying now despite their grand efforts. They’d join the pile with Finn and all the other poor souls who were unfortunate enough to have fallen out of favor with Pastor John.

  The bones crashed behind him, burying him alive for some time before the Leviathan ripped up through the pile and clamped its claw around his torso. The claw contracted, forcing the air from his lungs. He gasped in the darkness. It could have snapped him in half. Michael grabbed a cow skull as it lifted him up from the pile until his head was exposed above the surface.

  It was his time to get eaten. Faint light flashed across the debris. The cow’s skull dropped back into the pile. A cracked bone, about the size of a person’s forearm, lay in front of him. He grabbed it and held it between numb fingers. He waited for the Leviathan’s face to approach again before he lifted it above his head. Would it approach him a second time? It rose and paused, its eyes locked onto the shard of bone in his hand. Its injured eye no longer bled, and the wound had sealed, although strands of torn flesh dangled from its socket. Its face moved in closer toward him. The mouth puckered, and then widened as it drew near.

  Michael waited until its eyes were close enough to spit on. The lips of its mouth moved within inches, and he pounced. He threw together the final spurt of energy within himself and thrust the cracked bone, this time into one of its two largest eyes. Black blood squirted from the wound across some corpses below it. As it lurched back, the blood sprayed into the air and rained down over his hair and shoulders.

  The Leviathan bellowed and squirmed. Painful shrieks pierced his ears. It clamped tighter around his chest, again pushing the air from his lungs, and then hurled Michael through the air. The shadows whipped across his eyesight. He spun as if he’d been swallowed within a tornado until he crashed down into the pile again. He felt no pain when he landed. He was entirely numb, and blood thumped within his face. He convulsed with each gasp for air. The clatter of debris as the Leviathan shook drowned out his own moans.

  At the bottom of his vision, a sharp object poked out through his chest near his shoulder. Still no pain, and he found he could control his left hand. He crawled his fingers over to the object now sticking out inches below his chin. His fingers slid across the bloody surface of a bull’s horn. A rush of cold air blew over his body and passed into him. What a strange way to die.

  He ordered his body to sit up, but nothing responded. As the loose flashlights swirled within the pool of death, they threw shadows across the ceiling. He watched the shifting shadows churn above him. He was dying. The darkness came in from the sides first, and the voices and moans from Rebecca and Joey muffled and faded. The icy cold started in his feet and spread up his legs to his stomach and chest. Death had cold fingers. It fanned out over his arms and up to his head. Darkness swallowed his eyesight.

  “Sorry Dad,” he whispered. “Sorry Grandpa, sorry Grandma, sorry Mom.”

  The Leviathan’s blood drained through his hair down into his mouth as darkness overcame him.

  34

  Screams and a low rumbling faded into his ears as if somebody were cranking up the volume on a low quality soundtrack. With his eyes open or closed, either way, he bathed in the darkness. Bones clacked and rattled around him as if someone had thrown him into a washing machine along with a hundred children’s toys. His arms lay against a pile of soft clothing nestling beneath his back like a pillow. He shuddered and jolted forward, wheezing in air to fill his lungs just enough for him to let out a quiet moan. His body was burning up from the inside as if someone had poured molten lava down his throat and he gasped again. T
he cool air flooded his lungs. A flash of rotating light from a flashlight illuminated a corner of the room over the top of the debris. Rebecca and Joey lay several yards apart. A wave of bones had pushed Michael up higher and closer to the center.

  “Michael,” Rebecca yelled.

  Had he died? That was Rebecca’s voice, but he was breathing.

  Within the swirling vortex of bones Finn’s body came into view again for the first time. The shadows blacked out his face. Michael didn’t want to see his face again, not in that horrible way. Finn’s backpack moved with his body. They rose and fell across the surface as the Leviathan moved below like a grumpy child awakened from his nap. A flashlight fluttered across the room and illuminated the stairway near their exit, and for a moment, he saw the smeared blood running up along the side of the debris toward the staircase. Pastor John must have made it out of there alive… of all the people to escape that place.

  The glare from a metal surface caught Michael’s eye, and he looked over toward Finn’s body again. A canteen’s strap wrapped around Finn’s ankle and the metal surface poked up within a mound of matted fur. Finn’s canteen? The odds of it being his were slim. Drinking water would help, but it wouldn’t get him out of there. If it was the Dunamis, it was too late. He couldn’t make it over that far anyway. Another flash of light across the canteen revealed the dark stains covering its sides. It was his, and it was waiting there for him to pick it up. The canteen he’d risked his life to retrieve for his grandmother, the one that had almost cost Rebecca and Joey their lives too.

  The room silenced as if the audience had left. The debris stilled. Rebecca stumbled at the edge of his sight. She crawled like a wounded animal on her hands and knees across the surface of the bones. She was halfway across the piles of bones toward the exit. She called out his name again and again until it faded into a low moaning. The cries of a girl who had emptied all her tears.