by Nick Pollota
During the night, I was awakened several times by something very heavy walking past our camp, the ground shuddering at every step. But either the thorn fence deterred intrusion, or else it had had pressing business elsewhere, for the colossus never tried for an entry. Eventually, it moved off into the night and did not return.
TEN
Dawn came as swift as the night. After utilizing the stand of trees decreed the lavatory, I started to brew coffee when Richard stumbled from his tent, yawning and stretching in the dim light.
For a scant moment he stood before the fire, his shadow dancing on the side of a canvas tent. Knowing that our lives depended on fast action, I moved as never before. Drawing my automatic pistol, I pumped fifteen rounds into the chest of Richard Anderson, tracking the body as it fell to the ground. In spite of that, he tried to rise, so I slapped in a fresh clip and let him have another fifteen.
With a jerk, the pistol was gone from my hands, both arms locked behind my back and a stinging pain formed along the front of my neck. I felt a drop of moisture flow into my shirt, somehow I knew it wasn't sweat.
“Talk fast or die,” Mindy said softly in my ear.
“Check the body,” I croaked, afraid to use my neck muscles. Never having experienced her sword from this position before, I now could truly appreciate its surgical sharpness.
By this time, the rest of the team was sprinting towards us, some fully clothed, one in his underclothes, but all carrying weapons. Donaher and Jess paused for a moment at the body, but Richard was plainly dead, so they continued on to me.
Maintaining a firm grip on his boxer shorts, George leveled his mammoth assault cannon at my belly. “What happened?” he demanded coldly.
“Ed killed Richard,” Mindy said succinctly, her grip on my throat tightening with anger. “Don't know why yet.”
“Isn't Richard,” I managed to squeak.
“Explain fast,” Father Donaher growled.
Gamely, I pointed. The still form laying beside the cook fire was beginning to blur. Ripples of light played over the body and now sprawled on the dirt was a simplified skeleton with exposed muscle tendons and no skin. The insect eyes were fragmented and the gash of a mouth filled with needle sharp teeth.
Mindy released me and I gingerly touched my throat, fingertips coming away red.
“Sorry, Ed,” she said, sheathing the sword.
“No prob,” I coughed raggedly.
Walking close, Jessica prodded the thing with her M16. “How did you know?” she asked puzzled.
Finding a medical pack, I started rummaging. “Saw its shadow. Not human.”
“An illusion,” Donaher said, scowling at the monstrosity.
“Yep.” I found the ointment and sterile gaze, and started wrapping my throat. Most assuredly, I did not want an infection, and I knew where that sword had been. Many times.
George gave me an impressed look. “Good thing you're a trained observer. Mandatory for a PI, I guess.”
“But what about Richard?” Mindy asked worried.
Touching her forehead, Jessica slowly rotated. “I do not sense him anywhere. He's either gone, dead or deeply asleep.”
“Let's hope for the best,” I said, tying the bandage around my wound. “Okay, spread out. Check under the bushes, in the tree and be careful where you step, he may be buried.”
It took awhile, but we did find him. Richard was alive, just unconscious and hidden under a bush with a lump on his head the size of an orange. Smelling salts roused our mage and Richard told us how he had gone to use the latrine only to awake spitting dirt out of his mouth. A quick review showed the thickets had not been breached, so the thing must have been already hiding in the camp when we erected the barrier. Just plain bad luck. What the hell, happens to the best of people.
For the sake of expediency, we buried the copycat in the same hole. Somehow that seemed fitting, almost ironic. Although, Mindy did cut off the creature's head and buried it on the other side of the camp. I couldn't blame her. Since we did not know what the thing was, even with thirty, hollow-point, steel-jacketed rounds through it, better safe than sorry.
The sun was fully up by the time we finished making sure the camp was secure. Preparing for a long day, we had a hearty breakfast and got ready to move. Using her rainbow sword, Mindy cut us a hole in the thorn bushes, keeping the disturbance to a minimum. Exiting first, I noticed the grass was thicker and greener today, the trees full of brown leaves. Didn't take a genius to realize this island was coming back to life. And faster with every passing hour. Another reason for haste in our actions.
Before departing, we assembled several packs to take along with us, including; medical supplies, food, ammunition, a couple of LAW rockets and a satchel charge. I gave a brief sigh in mourning over the loss of my briefcase.
As we departed, the team filled the hole in the thicket with a trimmed thorn bush, laced into place with concertina wire, courtesy of Mr. Renault. Meanwhile I did a quick sweep about the encampment, but couldn't find any evidence of last night's behemoth. When something which sounded heavy as an elephant did not leave any tracks in soft soil, that made me very, very, nervous.
Tying a few tree branches together, we swept the ground in our wake to hide our footprints. Reaching the pavilion, we undid the branches and positioned them on the berm in what we hoped were natural positions. There were 18 hours before the killer cloud reached the mainland and we might need our hiding hole again.
As the team gathered round the island map, I was not surprised to find the pavilion in better shape today, with more color in the marble and large chunks of its roof back in position.
“Okay, where do we start first?” George asked, shifting his bulky ammo pack to a more comfortable position.
“The town,” Jessica stated, as if that was obvious.
Adjusting the cap on his bald head, Donaher agreed. “Definitely. That blank area can have no possible importance or else it would be more detailed, and the mountain is probably just the observation nest of Big Bird.”
I was amused. My pet name for the thing seemed to have stuck.
“The town it is,” Richard agreed, polishing his staff. In pirate fashion, a red bandana was tied about his head, covering the white gauze pad over his lump. It had proved superficial and the swelling was already starting to go down. Wizards are fast healers.
Reviewing the suggestion, I thumbed a thermite round into my grenade launcher. That was the problem with single shot weapons, you were forever loading the things. “Okay, George on point, I'll take rear guard. Five meter spread, slow walk. Let's not exhaust ourselves early in the recon.”
Assuming formation, the group moved out. Incredible as it sounds, in spite of the thick cloud cover, the land beyond the pavilion was bathed in the bright morning sunlight. Plainly, it was a tremendous garden, hectares large. Although long dead, ranks of tiny green sprouts were now forcing their way through the cracked soil and multiple rows of trellises adorned with twisting vines were starting to blossom. I wondered why the island was coming alive before the inhabitants? Did the people draw their life from the land and so it must heal first, or was there some agency hindering the return of the Cloud People? Of course, the resurrection may simply have been going up the evolutionary line: plants, insects, animals, monsters, people.
On George's recommendation, we secreted the emergency supplies next to a prominent flower arbor and marked the location with a radio beacon and an anti-personnel mine. As momma always said, when in doubt, use explosives.
Working our way among the brambles and dry weeds, I began to notice the faint outline of a road beneath the ever-present dust. A wide four lane expressway, with a rusty metallic rail running along the median. Mass transit for commuters? I was discussing this possibility with Father Donaher, when we broke through the vanguard of trees rimming the garden and saw the city.
“Trouble,” the priest sighed, pushing back his cap.
“Big trouble,” I heartily agreed.
Metropolis would not have been an inappropriate word to describe the awe-inspiring expanse of towers and skyscrapers visible. But even worse than raw size, the place was domed by a glass clear hemisphere of something that shone like polished crystal.
Even at this distance, we could tell the lower part of the structure was similar in appearance to the cliff on the beach, a smooth tan stone. But at forty feet, the material became transparent and curved inward to completely encase the city. Following the line of the road, led us to a blank wall with no alcove and keyboard this time. The engineering involved was damn impressive and damn annoying. How could we gain entrance?
I waved Richard closer. “Didn't you used to be in the construction trade?”
Using his staff as a walking stick, the slim man ambled over. “Yep, I was a class C stonemason before I discovered what Fort Knox really guards and accidentally became a wizard for the Bureau.”
“What could this dome be made of? Armorlite? Plexiglas? Transparent steel?”
“Ed, not even diamond sheets or compressed carbon filaments would suffice,” Richard commented wryly. “There is no known substance that could make a dome this size. The support beams would be crushed under their own weight. It would take something out of a science fiction novel to build...” He gestured expansively. “This!”
“Or magic,” Donaher added practically.
Richard admitted the point.
A detailed examination of the tan wall yielded a plate of glass, or plastic, embedded at shoulder height alongside the decrepit roadway. The smooth material was in the shape of a hand. We were familiar with these. Pressing your mitt against the glass would activate an internal scanner to read the fingerprints and match them against a master file. Authorized personnel gained entrance, unauthorized personnel would get enough voltage shot through them to vaporize a Buick.
With a pocket EM transmitter, I attempted to electronically jam the scanner and got nowhere. Richard tried to cycle open the doorway with magic, but the portal was sealed even tighter than the cliff. He could barely detect that there was an entrance.
Jessica attempted a mindprobe to no result. This left us with three options: failure, Mindy, or George.
“Let me try,” George urged, patting the satchel charge slung at his side.
Hesitantly, I agreed and he set our last C4 charge against the wall.
“Rich?” I asked.
The wizard nodded. “No problem. Oh, George? If anything goes wrong and you damage my staff like you did back in Wisconsin, this time I will not turn you into a toad.”
“Huh? Well, that's damn nice of you,” George acknowledged hesitantly.
Stepping closer, Richard towered over the small soldier. “I will only turn parts of you into a toad.”
The soldier gulped. “Fair enough.”
Lifting the top flap, the timing pencils were set and we retreated to safety. Richard waved his staff about and after thirty seconds, the satchel disappeared in a violent expansion of light and gushing smoke. It was weird. I felt a gust of wind rush by and ducked under the rain of dirt that followed, but didn't hear a single sound.
Remarkably, the titanic blast got results. As the smoke cleared, we could see that the wall was broken with a thousand gaping cracks. We got a glimpse of buildings inside the structure before the damage started to promptly close as if it was a wound in living flesh.
“So much for brute force,” Mindy said, giving her quiver and bow to Donaher. The sword she kept. Her will stipulated that she was to be buried with it in hand. Or else.
The priest slung the quiver over a shoulder. “Ready?”
“Nothing to it, but to do it.” Raising her bracelet, she muttered a word and faded from view in the manner of a departing ghost. Dimly, we could perceive the vague outline of her body step round the blast crater and phase into the wall.
A slow minute passed, and a transparent Mindy lurched out and fell to the ground gasping for breath.
We rushed to her and I cradled the solidifying woman in my arms. “Geez, what happened, kid?”
“The wall resisted me,” Mindy panted, color flowing back into her face. “Waves of pressure crashing against me. I dug in my heels and kept going, but the pounding constantly increased until I was pushed out.”
George popped a stick of gum from a MRE pack into his mouth. “What now, fearless leader?” he chewed.
Scowling, I sighed. “We need a hand.”
The rest looked at me blankly, but Richard got the idea.
“A hand from an inhabitant of the island,” he explained. “We warm it to body temperature and place it against the scanner. With any luck, we're in.”
“Check.”
Jessica made a face. “Grisly, but effective.”
“It's worked before.”
Bending over, Father Donaher helped Mindy to her feet. “What are we supposed to do, circle about looking for another way in, or go search for a graveyard?” he asked, restoring the quiver and bow to their owner. The martial artist tightly held the items as if drawing strength from the weapons.
A graveyard was a swell idea, but since we didn't know for sure where one was, the choice was easy. On a coin flip, we went to the right. The featureless wall moved by with monotonous regularity and an hour later, we reached the rear of the city and paydirt. Only a short distance from the wall was a dense row of trees, behind which was an open area all too familiar to this crew.
“Graveyard!” Mindy cried out in triumphant. “Yahoo!”
Promptly, George stuffed a cookie into her mouth. A master of stealth Ms. Jennings was not. She took the indignity with grace, and chewed before swallowing.
Peeking through the bushes, I was delighted to find the graveyard was not domed or even encircled, but just sat there easily accessible. Only a low stone wall, barely a meter high, ringed the place and the front gate was missing.
Using binoculars, I scanned inside the fence. Filling the middle area were endless rows of simple tombstones, all exactly identical, and in each corner of the cemetery was an ornate stone building, no windows, one door. Mausoleums, without a doubt.
However, off to the right of the place was a huge earthen pile dotted with the remnants of busted wooden wheels, broken glass, rusty wire, strips of cloth and general assorted lumps. A garbage dump? They buried their dead alongside a garbage dump?
Either these people had a strange sense of propriety, or else just didn't care where they were buried. It also indicated a rich civilization. Poor societies do not have garbage. Can't afford the waste. Poverty is what truly invented recycling.
Spreading out, the group used what natural cover there was as we advanced upon the place. Once inside, the team spread out along the gravel paths, habit making us avoid treading on the graves themselves. Ya never know, ya know? Hardly any dust was present here, if that signified anything. In front of us, the mountain range lifted to the cloud, the sheer bulk of it hiding the cliff that rimmed this weird island. Rising like a knife thrust from the center was the main, snow capped peak, towering above the others as a king. Was it tall enough for snow?
Calling a halt, I stooped and tried reading the inscription on a tombstone. But the ancient writing, if it existed, was beyond deciphering. “Rich, try talking to one of these, will you?”
Fingering a complex gesture, the mage rapped the tombstone with his staff making it ring softly like a bell. “Awake,” he ordered in a Voice Of Command. “Speak to me of this place.” A faint growling sounded from the marker that quickly faded away.
“Blast. Sorry, Ed,” he apologized. “This rock is too old. Poor thing is senile.”
The rock was senile? I just hate it when he says things like that. Always makes my head hurt.
Just then, a sharp whistle called for our attention and leaving the stone dead, we hurried over to where Donaher and Jessica stood waiting impatiently for us.
Reaching the middle of the graveyard, I noted the graves ended a bare circle, some fifty meters diameter. Scattered abo
ut on the hard ground were dozens, hundreds, of wooden crosses. Not small grave markers, but human-sized gallows, the beams scarred with numerous nail holes and the wood stained dark by some dripping fluid.
“Dear gods,” Richard breathed.
“My feelings in the singular,” Father Donaher said, removing the tiny silver crucifix that dangled from his belt and placing it around his neck.
In the hub of this hellish wheel was a glazed pit in whose charred center lay four blackened chains, the thick links ending with heavy cuffs. A crematorium was the first thing that came to mind, but one where you had to chain the corpse down?
“Alive,” Mindy said, her hand twisting on the braided handle of her sheathed sword. “The bastards burned them alive.”
“Could have been executing criminals,” George offered, rubbing his unshaven chin to the sound of sandpaper.
“Jess?” I asked.
Hugging herself, Jessica could only shake her head no. Poor kid was probably near sensory overload from the amassed negative vibrations of the people who died on this spot. I decided to keep a close watch on our telepath.
Brushing a loose strand of hair under my cap, I saw my wristwatch. “Come on, time's wasting and we need a hand.”
George flipped out an entrenching tool. “Dig we must.”
“Anybody buried in the ground is long destroyed by worms,” Father Donaher stated. “The only hope is a mausoleum.”
“Okay. Which?” Mindy asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” Richard said, his gaze shifting back and forth across the landscape. “I can feel that it does.”
We waited. Silently, Jess reached out to point a finger at a building apparently no different from any other. That was the one we headed for.
The door to the mausoleum was similar to a beach bum, bronze and simple. I could have picked the lock in my sleep. Cracking the portal, the air that gushed out tasted stale and a bit musty, but without any of the telltale bitter traces of archeology's arch-enemy, methane. This close to a dump, that could be a real danger.
