“And those losers out there will kill us,” Marco said, eyebrows raised so high they hid beneath his bangs.
“I’m not going to take everything. Everyone should be able to defend themselves—everyone—not just you guys. Everyone should share in the harvest as well as the work, too. Figure out a better way to do things around here.”
“Like what?” a lady said, sneering.
“I don’t know. Like hold elections every couple of years to see who gets to lead and make decisions that affect the community. Like splitting up the work that needs to be done and making sure everyone has a job to do—one that’s suitable to their abilities.” Myri narrowed her eyes at the group. “And I mean everyone. No one gets a free pass in this post ‘quake world.”
“Does this mean you’re staying here?” a voice from the back of the elevator asked.
Myri shook her head. “I won’t be staying. I have other things I need to get done.” She paused. “But I will be stopping back by. And if things haven’t changed for the better around here, there will be consequences.” She released the pent up energy she held in her hands out a large broken window. A huge ball of electric flame crashed into a crumbling stone fountain, the explosion sending rock shrapnel flying in all directions.
“I need you all to stay put while I go gather up those supplies I talked about.” She squeezed the elevator doors shut and wedged a couple of broken-off chair legs between the floor and the doors.
The woman who had agreed to watch Baby for her stared wide-eyed at the stack of food, weapons, and ammunition Myri and Lacy dropped at her feet. “How?”
They met up with the young teen, Jimmy, that Marco had been ready to shoot when Myri first arrived inside the walls of the Hilton. Jimmy’s eyes filled with tears as he thanked Myri for saving him.
“Lacy and Jimmy here are in charge of handing this stuff out. I can’t stay, but I’ll tell you the same thing I told the people at The Hilton. Figure out a better way to live and get along. Lacy heard what I told them and she has some pretty good ideas.”
“Did you take all of their weapons?” a man asked, a glint of vengeful hope in his eyes.
“No. I didn’t. No one group of people should be able to hold power over another. Switching places isn’t the answer. Working together is the answer.” Myri turned to Lacy. “Lacy. Jimmy. You guys take it from here. They’ll be asking for volunteers who have knowledge of how to safely use guns and how to plant and harvest food, and a bunch of other stuff. Share your knowledge. Work together. I’ll be back to check on you.”
She untied Baby, pulled her pack onto her shoulders, and headed off in a northwest direction.
They passed multiple deserted and destroyed towns between Hilton and the next inhabited town. They ran into an occasional loner here and there, living off the land, taking shelter in broken and abandoned buildings. These people chose to be alone and looked upon Myri with great suspicion. She learned quickly that interacting with her—or anyone—was the last thing they wanted to do. She left them alone, wondering if solitude, either forced or chosen, always ended up with the lone person evolving into something a bit wild.
On the third day after leaving Hilton, Myri and Baby spotted the next town as they crested a hill. Myri raised her eyebrows. Were those actual, functioning stores she saw along the main street running through the middle of the little valley?
She’d been working with Baby, training him to stay by her side, to sit and wait when she stood still, to not roar at people. “This is your big test, Baby. Stay next to me. Let’s go.” She slowed her steps as they descended the hill, not wanting to scare anyone.
Leaving Baby outside picking the meat off a bone she’d saved for just such an occasion, Myri entered a building beneath a recently painted sign that said “Mercantile.” She picked up an apple from a basket sitting atop a shelf full of produce and vegetables, turning it in her hand as she examined it before laying it back down.
“Can I help you?” a young man, maybe a few years older than Myri, said.
Myri smiled. “I’m just passing through. Can you tell me a little about your town? About this?” Myri gestured around the store.
“Sure,” the man smiled. “I’m CJ, what’s your name?”
“I’m Myri.”
“Well, Myri, I assume this is the first cooperative-slash-capitalist town you’ve come across in your travels?”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“Welcome to Winchester. The quick explanation of how things work here is that everyone works to provide either goods or services necessary for the survival of our town. My wife and I run the store here. The farmers, seamstresses, and other people sell their goods on a commission basis. Basically, they split the money with us.”
“Money? You use real money, then?” That was something Manhattan had started doing again over only the last couple of years. Before that, everything was bartered and traded for. Or the strong just stole from the weak. That still happened.
“Yes. We are a self-sustaining town and the monetary system works well here.”
“What about people who have no goods or services to offer?” Myri was thinking about the beggars and orphans in Manhattan and the destitute people living outside The Hilton compound.
“We have very few here who are unable to work in some capacity. We have a system where everyone donates a small amount of goods or money to what we call the storehouse. Those people are taken care of using those donations.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Anyone who’s able-bodied is expected to pull their weight. The storehouse is only for those who can’t.”
“Like…”
“Like the elderly. Or the crazy guy, Chomper.”
“Crazy?” Myri asked.
“Yeah. He hears voices. No one knows his real name and he’s too far gone to tell us.”
“He isn’t from here originally?”
“No. He wandered into town a few years ago, half-starved and rambling on about a giant chasm opening up and swallowing his family. Mumbling over and over about a creature crawling out of the abyss.”
“Was it true?” Myri asked. “Did anyone else see this chasm?”
CJ shook his head. “Chomper either came a long way from where this happened, or it only happened inside his head. Some of us tried to backtrack the way he came, and we didn’t find anything after traveling several days from here.”
A strange feeling tickled the back of Myri’s brain. “Where is he now? Has he been able to tell anyone more about where he came from or anything?”
“He’s always close by Main Street, trying to convince people of his story. He always mumbles the same things over and over: ‘It crawled from the endless chasm that swallowed my Lilly and Tommy. Heat. Flames. Dark. Evil.’”
“He never says anything else?”
CJ plucked an apple from the top of the basket and handed it to her. “Only once. A couple of weeks after his arrival here we had another visitor. A man that gave off some pretty weird vibes, himself. He didn’t speak much, if at all, the first couple of days he was here. It was almost like he was observing us, learning how to talk and act.” CJ shook his head. “That sounds a little paranoid on my part, but that’s what I remember thinking.”
“Chomper spoke to this man?” Myri prompted him to go on.
“No, not exactly. Chomper freaked out when he saw him, yelling—no, screaming—‘that’s the monster! Kill it! Kill it before it kills us all’!”
Myri’s stomach flipped and she looked down, trying to hide her anxiety as she asked, “What did the strange man look like?”
CJ narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Just curious. I mean, what was it about him that set Chomper off, do you think?”
“I don’t know for sure. He made my skin tingle.” CJ looked down. “And to tell you the truth, I can’t tell you what he looked like. When I try to picture his face, it’s just a blur.” He looked back up and shrugged. “I can tell you that he wore a long robe, though.”
Myri wandered down
Main Street, Baby staying glued to her heels. People were friendly but gave her a wide berth when they passed by, eyeing the black panther with apprehension. A young girl carrying a basket of eggs walked toward her. She stopped abruptly, eyes wide as they fell on Baby. “Is that a cat?”
Myri smiled. “Sort of. He’s from the same family as a cat, only bigger. He’s a panther.”
“Is he friendly?”
“Yes, although sometimes he likes to growl or roar, and that can sound pretty scary.”
“Can… can I pet him?” The girl’s eyes never left the big, black cat.
“Sure. But you might want to leave your eggs there. He might think you’re bringing him dinner.” Myri crouched and laid a hand on Baby’s back. “Baby, lay down. Stay.” He obliged.
The girl sat her eggs in the street and approached, her footsteps slowing as she neared them with her hand outstretched. She swallowed and looked at Myri. Myri nodded encouragement and the girl reached out and patted Baby on the head. He purred as she scratched behind his ears. The girl smiled so big her eyes crinkled up at the edges. “My cat loves this, too.”
Since this girl was the first person to get close enough for her to talk to, Myri asked, “Do you know who Chomper is?”
The girl nodded.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yeah.” She turned and pointed back the direction she’d come. “I just saw him down by the mill. He was getting a drink out of the stream.”
“Thank you. Maybe I’ll see you later and you can play with Baby some more.”
Her eyes lit up. “That would be awesome!”
Myri waited for the girl to pick up her eggs before continuing on toward the mill.
She knew the man leaning against a tree by the fast moving stream was Chomper. His hair grew in a matted mess around his sun-worn face mostly covered with a scraggly beard. And he greeted her by saying, “It crawled from the endless chasm that swallowed my Lilly and Tommy. Heat. Flames. Dark. Evil.” The intensity in his eyes gave the impression that whatever disaster had befallen him, had just happened. Not years ago as CJ described. But just moments before.
“You poor man,” Myri whispered.
A low growl from Baby didn’t even cause the man to flick his eyes in the big cat’s direction. He continued staring right through Myri and into her soul.
He leaned closer, his rancid breath blowing in Myri’s face. “It crawled from the endless chasm that swallowed my Lilly and Tommy. Heat. Flames. Dark. Evil.”
Myri laid her hand on his arm. “Can you show me where?”
Chomper’s eyes widened. “You… believe?”
She nodded.
He mimicked the motion of her head, nodding, before turning to splash across the stream. He looked back once to make sure she followed him as he led her away from the town.
As darkness fell, Chomper finally stopped his hurried foray away from Winchester. He turned to Myri and looked her in the eyes for the first time since before crossing the stream at the mill. He pointed in the direction they’d been heading. “It crawled from the endless chasm that swallowed my Lilly and Tommy. Heat. Flames. Dark. Evil.”
“I believe you. Show me the chasm.”
Fear sprang up in his eyes and he shook his head and pointed again. “Five days. Maybe six. Good luck.”
In an ambling gallop, he took off back toward the town of Winchester, mumbling, “It crawled from the endless chasm that swallowed my Lilly and Tommy. Heat. Flames. Dark. Evil.”
Only stopping when Baby dropped to the ground, refusing to go another step, Myrikal made good time. As the panther fell into an exhausted sleep, Myri lay next to him on a soft cushion of grass. Her mind raced, preventing her from getting even a moment’s real rest.
The creature who crawled from the chasm had to have been Cascus. She knew he wasn’t human. She’d been able to see his true form beneath the human façade he’d somehow constructed. Evil. Chomper knew it, too. So had CJ. Too bad Branch refused to recognize it.
She allowed Baby to rest for a couple of hours before waking him up and continuing in the direction Chomper had pointed her. As the fourth day dawned, Myri saw dark smoke rising in the distance. As she neared the smoke, a familiar stench filled her nostrils and her stomach clenched.
Cascus. It smelled like Cascus.
Myri pulled her spare shirt from her pack and tied it around her mouth and nose. It barely stanched the odor, but made enough of a difference to settle her stomach. Baby growled low in his throat, the hair on his neck and back raised.
“You don’t have to come with me,” Myri whispered down at him.
Baby wasn’t the only one with raised hackles. Myri stole toward the smoke-emitting crevasse, eyes darting back and forth, taking in her surroundings. The ten yards of ground surrounding the crevasse was void of vegetation and sprinkled with bones. Baby predator-crawled just behind her, occasionally nudging her foot with his nose. She tightened the knot of the shirt fastened around her face and swallowed. As nauseating as being near Cascus had been, this was at least ten times worse.
As she drew in another stomach-turning breath, Myri realized something—she could hold her breath for an extended period of time. “Duh, Myri,” she whispered, rolling her eyes. Taking one last deep breath, she untied the makeshift balaclava and let it fall behind her.
She dropped to a crawl near the edge of the gaping chasm, dust billowed around her as her arms and knees hit the dead earth. The smoke coalesced into a thick ribbon and shifted to envelope Myri as she moved to peer over the edge. Green flames licked at her face and hair.
This one is different.
Myri gasped in the whirling smoke as a deep and ancient voice reverberated in her head. Not just in her head—in her chest, her limbs, her soul.
It’s not burning. Not screaming.
She felt the confusion of this new voice inside her pounding head.
“Who are you?” she asked before holding her breath again.
Prisss… cussss. This voice came to her as a hoarse murmur, cracking and wheezing.
“What are you?” she whispered.
The voices bombarded her. Pounded against her brain. Disturbed the regular rhythm of her heartbeat.
Ancient…
Trapped for eons…
It’s our time…
Only Cascus escaped…
Even through the immense heat, Myrikal shivered.
The smallest amongst us…
Sent to conquer…
… return for us.
Lower life-forms to serve us…
… or to be eradicated.
It took every ounce of strength, both physical and psychological, for Myrikal to pull away from the chasm. She scrambled backward, away from the evil inside the pit. Baby had a hold of her pant leg, pulling her away. The strange hold on her mind didn’t fully release until she moved well beyond the perimeter of dead earth. She rolled to her back and sucked in a breath of rancid air. Baby pounced on her chest and roared into her face.
“I know,” Myri choked. “We need to get away from here.” She pulled him to her in a tight hug as her heart calmed to a normal pace. “We need to get back to Manhattan.”
The DefCo uniform felt surprisingly good, familiar and non-restrictive with her movements. The time had come for Myrikal to fully embrace her powers and quit trying to pretend she was just like everyone else. Wearing the uniform was the first step.
Baby ran beside her, his legs stretching in long strides. He’d grown considerably since she’d first taken him under her wing. He could now stand on his hind legs and put his front paws on her chest and stare into her eyes. She figured he weighed over a hundred pounds. And he wasn’t done growing.
It had been about a week since they’d run from the chasm filled with unspeakable, evil beings. Myri had no idea how long, at this pace, it would take for them to reach Manhattan. She hoped it wasn’t too late, though she couldn’t even imagine the timeline needed for Cascus to fulfill his—their—plan. Sh
e was just grateful he’d been the only one of those things that had been able to escape from whatever prison held them beneath the earth.
Lost in her own thoughts, it took Myrikal much longer than it should have to see the approaching figures, really only noticing them when Baby let out the most vicious growl she’d ever heard. By the time she snapped out of her thought-trance, he’d bounded ahead of her.
“Baby! No!” She jumped, reaching him just as he crouched to leap at a blur of brown and black fur running toward Baby. Myrikal grabbed Baby’s tail.
“Lobo!”
Myrikal jerked her head up. She knew that voice. And that name. She narrowed her eyes and focused in on the boy, still twenty yards back, running toward them. “Dal?” she said. She flung Baby backwards and jumped between him and the large, oncoming dog. She caught the dog, mid-leap, around his torso, holding him snug against her chest as he barked and snapped his teeth.
“Myrikal!” Dal stumbled to a halt then bent and put his hands on his knees, gasping as he tried to catch his breath.
She turned and gave Baby the hand signal for “stay” then lowered Lobo to the ground next to his boy. Dal grabbed the loose rope that served as Lobo’s collar. “Sit!” he commanded.
Continuing to growl, the dog obeyed, eyes never leaving the enormous feline.
“Dal, what are you doing here?” She was sure she was still a couple of days away from the city, even at the fast pace she’d been traveling.
“I came to find you.” The quiver in his voice seemed more than just oxygen deprivation.
Myrikal bent down to look into his face. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Cascus.” He scowled. “You have to come back. He’s out of control.”
“Did Branch… Morgan send you?”
“Hmf,” Dal snorted. “Not even. Morgan is his Number Two. He’s just as bad.”
Myrikal flinched, her throat tightened, making it difficult to speak. She wasn’t really surprised, but had been holding out hope that Branch would somehow get over his worship of Cascus and see the truth. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “What’s going on?”
Myrikal Page 21
