The Pale Titan (The Convergence Saga Book 1)

by Rick Kueber

  Taking comfort in the idea that, for all practical purposes, we were alone, we melted into each other and just existed for a while. Though I couldn't really remember how I knew Elle, it just felt right. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps we were related, but I reasoned that away instantly. If that had been the case, she wouldn't have told me that Bobby was her brother. Were we married? I caressed her shoulder with my left hand as a distraction so she wouldn't notice that I was rubbing my fingers together to feel for a wedding band. There wasn't one. Were we dating, engaged, lifelong friends... I didn't know the answer, but at this moment, I didn't care to know. In my mind, at this point in the fabric of time, however, brief it may be, she was my everything.

  Nearly half an hour had passed while we enjoyed the intimacy and solitude of the mountain side, with the tremors and electrical humming of the Titan growing ever farther from our ears and our minds. Though I still didn't know my role in Elle's life, I had come to a decision. I was going to kiss her. My left arm and hand had been around her back, gently rubbing and caressing her shoulder and arm. I nervously slid my hand from her shoulder to her neck, and then beyond to the long tangles of her ebony hair. I clenched my fingers together almost making a fist, pulling her hair and causing her to react by arching her neck back, exposing it and her full, pouty lips to me. I leaned into her, and softly brushed my lips against the tanned skin of her neck, exhaling my hot breath slowly as I kissed my way up across her cheek. Her moans were nearly silent, but they existed, none the less, which gave me courage. I kissed again, and again she sighed, until ultimately, I reached the cherry redness of her lips. Their softness was only matched by her willingness and obvious desire and enjoyment. Our hands searched each other's bodies as our kisses became more passionate, our tongues connecting with the excitement, like the spark of electricity.

  Our mouths broke free from their bond long enough to draw in a deep breath and gaze into each other's eyes. Elle gasped out loud and scurried backward until she had collided with the body of her brother who had lain there, silently, almost forgotten in the throes of passion. But, his silence too, was broken. He groaned ever so lightly, and Elle once again nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” she jumped up grabbing handfuls of her own hair as she paced a quick three step-turn-three step pace. “Holy fucking crap!”

  “What do we do? He isn't dead!!!” I pointed out the obvious.

  “But you..” she stammered, “Your eyes,” she spoke quietly, raising her hand to her mouth, as if in disbelief. “Can you see me? Are you okay?”

  “I'm fine,” though that was really far from the truth, “My vision is kinda screwed up, to be honest, but I can see you... prolly better that if it was normal. It's prolly pretty dark out here, isn't it?”

  Elle seemed frightened. “You sure you are okay?” She asked again but kept her distance. Bobby began to take audible breaths, and it was a much-needed distraction.

  “I'm fine.” I reiterated. “Now...what are we going to do with..” I gestured towards Bobby. I didn't know what to call him... a him, it, a taker, Bobby... I didn't want to offend her by de-humanizing him, and I did not want to give her false hope by making her think of him as her brother. If we had to 'put him down' I would rather she thought of him as a 'zombie-Taker' than as her own brother.

  “Maybe it's safe enough to head back down to the cabin. If he doesn't wake up, maybe we can carry him down there and tie him up until he does come around.” She rubbed her forehead and I knew she was more thinking out loud, than telling me her plans. “What do you think?”

  “Well, I know those things are pretty damn strong, right?” She nodded in response. “So, what if we do get him there and tie him up... he may just break free, or worse. I mean, Hell, he could come to while we are carrying him down there.”

  “Okay..points made and taken, but we can't just leave him here.. not just because he is my brother, but because he is a Taker. That could be more dangerous than bringing him with us. He could come back with a whole army of those things.”

  It was comforting in a creepy sort of way to hear her call them 'things'. It eased my tensions about her not being able to break the sibling bond should the Taker wake up and not be any more 'Bobby” than when I struck him with the stone I had picked up.

  “Alright.. you have made your point too. We will carry him to the cabin, if we can, and then do our best to restrain him. You do realize that that means we will have to take turns watching him. We won't be able to both rest at the same time.”

  “I'm cool with that.” she said nonchalantly.

  “K.. then we better get going.” I was unsure of our decision, but I didn't feel we had time to safely consider all of our limited options in depth.

  “Right. He could wake up anytime.” She concurred.

  “I'll take the head, you take the feet.” I said, not trying to take command of the situation, but because I knew the bulk of the dead weight would be at the upper half of the body. I squatted down at his head, and carefully slid my arms under his and around his chest. Elle reached down and took one ankle in each had and with nods of agreement, we stood up.

  “Well Hell! Put him back down easy.” I said, and Elle scrunched her eyebrows at me in confusion. “I got this. He doesn't weigh anything.”

  Once he was laid down again, I stood to face him and grabbed him up by the waist. As gently as I could, I placed him on my shoulder and holding him in place with one hand, I slightly bowed and gracefully extended my other arm. “After you m'lady.” I jested with a smile.

  I followed Elle back down the path we had taken when we fled the invasion of the Takers only a few hours ago. At first, I thought she was checking on me to make sure I was okay and was keeping up with her, but I began to realize that there was a concern in her eyes when she would look over her should to me. And the farther we went, the more frequently she would look. If she was wondering if I was getting tired of carrying Bobby, she needn't worry; carrying him was no more difficult than packing a sack of potatoes on my shoulder.

  After what felt like a short hike (possibly because we were going downhill this time) we arrived back at the cabins. This place seemed familiar, but everything in my memory was still such a blur. With each passing minute, the fog was becoming less and less dense in my mind.

  The front door stood wide open, and through the darkness, I could easily see the interior was in a state of disarray. I carried Bobby to one of the bedrooms and laid him on his back on the bed. Elle nervously lit two candles. She sat one on the nightstand and took one with her to look for anything to tie up her brother with. I stood guard over him like a silent sentinel, awaiting any movement, no matter how slight.

  Elle quickly searched the house and the cellar utility room for something to restrain him. She immediately found a sheet that could be cut into strips to tie his hands and feet, but she did not stop. Elle understood the strength that the Takers had, and ripped cotton cloths would not hold him. After finishing on the main level, she crept down into the utility room. Searching and scouring the boxes and shelves, she came across screws and nails, tape and scissors. There were bits of wrapping paper, extension cords and pictures framed for hanging that were so atrocious they didn't even deserve to be in a cellar. 'Wait', Elle thought to herself, 'extension cords'. She turned back to the box that held the cords and ransacked her way through it, digging out three heavy duty cords of various lengths. Snatching up the scissors on her way out of the cellar, she quietly and swiftly entered the bedroom.

  Elle unwound the first cord. It appeared to be around twenty feet in length. Straightening it out and folding it in half, Elle withdrew the scissors from the pocket on the front of her sundress and began the strenuous task of trying to cut through it. Her hand was growing tired and pained as she sawed the scissors open and closed across the cord. The thumb and finger holes of the scissors rubbed reddened circles until finally, she had to stop.

  “Damn it.” she muttered, stretching her hand
and massaging the reddened areas.

  “Let me try for a minute while you give your hand a rest.” I smiled at her, but she stared blankly into my eyes. I hoped my intuition was wrong, but somehow, I sensed fear in her as I took the scissors and cord from her. I poised the edges of the scissors into the underwhelming cuts Elle had already begun. With a bit of force, I made my first attempt and cut the cord into two pieces like I was cutting through a piece of shoestring licorice.

  I shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows with a half-smile. Handing her back the scissors, I reassured her. “You must have gotten through the tough part before I took over.”

  Unraveling the other two shorter cords, we gently tied Bobby by his wrists and ankles to the thick timbers of the rustic four poster bed. When we had finished, I felt comfortable in the security of his bindings. Tight enough that he could not slip out, but not so much that it could cut off his circulation. He looked odd laying there motionless in his tattered clothing, spread eagle on the bed. My hopes of sleeping in this bed had been thrown out the window, but there was another bed, and since we wouldn't be sleeping simultaneously, it would do just fine.

  “I'm gonna grab a washcloth and a bowl of water. Be right back.” Elle left me alone with her brother again, and I couldn't stop my mind from wondering, why had the woman who had been so flirty, and even kissed me earlier, now felt uncomfortable around me.

  She returned and cut straight to the bedside, shooting me a sideways look of distrust. I was lost. The memories were all coming back quite clearly now, at least as far back as my being alone in the desert, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't recall anything I had done, or said, that would have caused her to flip on the 'cold shoulder' switch so abruptly.

  Elle sat on the bed next to her brother, placing the bowl on the nightstand next to the candle, and dampened the washcloth in the water. His hair was a matted mess of dirt and sand, and wet and dried blood. She began to blot and rub the bloodied mess and clean away the gritty, reddish brown blood from his forehead and face.

  “That looks refreshing. If you are okay, I'm gonna go splash some water on my face.”

  “Go ahead. I'm fine.” Her words were cold and flat.

  I grabbed up one of the candles and took it with me to the bathroom. Placing it on the top of the toilet tank I reached over and turned on the faucet. The water was cold and crisp, and though it was a shock to the system, it was an awakening I needed. I snatched a hand towel to dry my face and looked up to give myself a look of displeasure. I wasn't sure who I was in my previous 'real world' life, but I was fairly certain that I was no lady killer. I was also pretty sure that I hadn't done anything that would have so blatantly repulsed Elle.

  Suddenly, there it was. “Dear God!” I said directly out loud. I stared into my own eyes, not even recognizing my own reflection. There, in the mirror, were two eyes, slightly luminous, pupils... pale green, and whites that were only slightly bloodshot. What the hell? The Ahsusha had attacked me, I remember that now, but what had happened to it, and what the hell had happened to me. I began to think about the events that I had thought nothing about, but now I began to question a few things. I reached down and peeled back the bandages on my calf. The wound was all but healed. Somehow, I had carried a full grown man down the hillside without even giving my leg a thought, when just before the attack, I had struggled to climb the hill, hobbling on my leg that was nearly disabling.

  My mind was working overtime, working better that it ever had, better than it should, and it started explaining itself to me. It began to make sense of things I couldn't and I found my thoughts explaining everything to me. I wondered if this was how a schizophrenic felt. It felt like there were almost two consciousnesses inside my head. I understood that when I was overtaken by the Ahsusha it should have drained the life energy from me starting in my brain where a vital energy exists. I should have become one of the Takers, controlled by the Ahsusha who had taken me, that is unless it had not stopped, in which case I would have been drained of every bit of life force. In the case of the latter, I would have been used up and dropped like a deflated balloon: limp, lifeless, dead.

  Instead, when I was attacked, something had sort of repulsed that beast, and it had retreated and quickly met its own demise, but that wasn't all. I had gained some things from its possession of me. I was notably stronger than I had been, my leg had healed almost entirely in a matter of minutes, and though my eyes had the frightening look of an undead alien, I could now see quite well in the darkness. I wondered if there would be more that had changed, things I hadn't discovered yet. Would there be things about me that would continue to evolve? I hadn't asked for this, and I certainly didn't want it. I should have been dead, or a mindless slave like the others. Either of those might have been better, or, at least, easier to deal with than being forced to accept that I was evolving into something that was no longer 100% human. I didn't know if there were pieces of my humanity that were gone and had been replaced by attributes that were alien to me; things that were simply alien.

  Chapter 6

  FAMILIAR STRANGER

  I have no idea how long I stood there leaning on the sink edge, staring blankly at the stranger in the mirror before I gathered myself. “What the Hell is going on?” I muttered to myself. Fear let in a multitude of improbabilities, including the possibility that this thing that attacked me hadn't died, and perhaps I hadn't won. Had I become a host to some alien race and would soon become some zombified 'Taker' like so many others I had seen? Sweat beaded heavy and cold on my brow and my stomach turned and knotted as the thought of changing into some mindless slave that would turn on my new found friends. I had to talk to Elle about the chance that I could become the enemy. An insurmountable wave of anxiety washed over me making it difficult to breathe or even focus on anything but the fear that I could soon die at the hands of a woman I might be falling in love with. Love... a strong word, but this woman was beyond amazing. Elle had single-handedly saved me and countless others, putting her own life on the line for a hodge-podge of complete strangers. She had selflessly tried to help every single person she had encountered, and every person she had encountered was now dead... except for me and her brother, but my intuition told me this could and probably would change all too soon.

  I splashed my face with a bit more icy water to rinse the beads of sweat from my face and patted it dry once again. A knock came at the door just as I hung the towel in its place on the rack.

  “You okay in there?” The soft voice of Elle filled the silent space.

  “Yeah, I guess. I'll be right out.” I wasn't really okay. I felt slightly nauseous thinking of an inevitable conversation we would soon be having.

  “Okay... Just checking.” There was a compassion in her tone that I hadn't expected. Though a part of her instinctively feared me like a monster from a black and white horror film, there was another part that she kept hidden deep within herself that genuinely cared. It could be that she felt sorry for me and related my situation to her brother's and to all of the Takers that she had put down.

  I turned to grab the candle when I realized it had completely burned down and left an eerie, waxy mess on the back of the toilet. Not only had I been staring in the mirror far longer than I realized, but the flame had gone out and I hadn't even noticed. I had wasted a candle that Elle could have used, and we couldn't just 'run to the dollar store' to get another. I grabbed the doorknob, drew a deep breath and gave it a twist. Another thing I hadn't noticed until I opened the door was that the length of time I had spent in the tiny bathroom caused the air to grow close and stuffy. The cooler air rushed in from the hallway and felt so refreshing I nearly sighed out loud. I meandered back into the bedroom where Elle's brother Bobby was confined to the bed. Elle had finally relaxed a bit and melted against the wall near the head of the bed.

  “I'm sorry I was kind of harsh, but...” She tried, awkwardly, and failed to make eye contact with me.

  “Stop... just stop.” I studied the lin
es in the hardwood floorboards and swayed timidly. “I didn't know... not until I looked in the mirror. I guess I'd be pretty freaked out too if I was you. Looking back, I'm really surprised you didn't shoot me at first sight.”

  She smiled kindly but never raised her eyes. “I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind... a couple of times.”

  “Yeah.” I stumbled with my words, but in my mind, I knew it was probably the best time to spill my thoughts. “You might have to...” My voice cracked and then trailed off. “...at some point.”

  “Come on! I was just kidding.” She finally looked up and mumbled “Sort of...” When her eyes met mine, I could sense that she could read the sorrow and despair I was feeling and that perhaps there was some honesty and seriousness to my words.

  “There's something going on in my head, and probably all of me, that I don't understand. That thing attacked me, but it 'died' or whatever.” I rubbed my fingers across the stubbly 5 o'clock shadow on my jawline. “It may have died, but something has happened to me too. I don't have to tell you that.”

  “True...” She began. “...but you're still alive, can still talk and think straight, so...I don't know what happened to you.”

  “That's just it. I don't know either. There are crazy things happening and thoughts running through my brain. I thought I won that fight, but I'm starting to wonder if I have some sort of alien parasite or something. Maybe I'll still turn into one of those Taker things.” I ran my hands through my hair and rubbed my face vigorously as if I would somehow snap back to normal, but I knew that I wouldn't. “So, if I am still fighting a battle on the inside, and I lose... you have to do what you have to do to stay alive.”