by Dave Hazel
Once outside Mykal struggled to lift his head. The sunlight shocked his eyes. The little he could see of the Pass reminded him of the Niagara Gorge from his home town in Niagara Falls, New York. The rock wall behind the town rose much higher than the gorge of the Niagara River.
They walked Towbar to the edge of the town. The locals stopped to watch Towbar carry his near dead body away. Mykal raised his head to push a whisper. “I’ll be back. I’m coming back,” he tried louder and collapsed into blackness.
2.
Mykal woke to the sound of Towbar calling him. He felt the giant loomed over him, but only saw a blur. Pain worsened. His head shook side to side nonstop. Involuntary tremors of his head brought a new terror. “I can’t stop,” he blurted helplessly.
“Mykal, are you awake?”
“Yeah, I think so, but the world’s going in circles.”
“Listen to my instructions. Do not stop me despite what you think you may see. The poison is trying to destroy your mind. You will imagine strange sights. I must finish regardless of the pain you feel. Trust me with your life. Do you understand?”
“I think so.” Mykal sounded tentative.
Towbar’s voice faded in and out. The giant’s words seemed distant like he spoke from behind a closed door.
“My head’s screwed up.” Mykal didn’t know where they were but he sensed the cold of a large flat rock under him.
“I am going to draw the poison. Do not fight me.”
Mykal remained motionless but he focused on Towbar’s words. The giant’s voice changed. Towbar’s words became distorted and evil. Mykal knew he heard the growl of a wild animal. He opened his eyes but he couldn’t make out anything. He lifted his head and suddenly a new, sharp, pain drilled into him.
“Noooo!” he wailed and slumped back down. When he looked up he saw a half-man half-animal standing where Towbar stood just a moment ago. The body before him loomed large like Towbar’s, but fur covered the chest. The head reminded him of a large wolf. Eyes bulged with no lids. Bright red glowed from the sockets. The evil creature frightened him more than anything he ever faced. The long snout drooled slimy white foam. The beast snarled which exposed its large pointed teeth covered in a yellow and brown scum.
Mykal couldn’t believe his eyes. The thing raised Towbar’s long sharp dagger over its head. It intended to drive the 14 inch blade into his frail frame. “Towbar, you gotta help me,” he pleaded. He looked for Towbar. Suddenly several people dressed in black robes, faces hidden, stood in a circle. “I’m a sacrifice?”
Towbar stopped Mykal’s panicked attempt to roll off the rock slab. “My friend, you must lay still,” Towbar demanded.
Mykal turned to the sound of Towbar’s voice, relieved to see his friend. The man-beast and the black robes were gone.
“I thought you were gonna kill me.-- Aw frickin hell!” he gasped to a new perception of pain. He felt concentrated fire dancing over the surface of skin occupied by the black poison. Towbar stood over him like a doctor. His razor sharp blade cut a line through Mykal’s inflamed flesh.
Mykal distinguished the difference between the slicing pain of Towbar’s blade into the infected area, and the relief of pressure as pus escaped his body like air from an over inflated tire.
Mykal imagined himself as a deer being gutted or a fish being filleted. “I’m not an animal,” he mumbled. “Please, help.”
He shook his head side to side in an attempt to withstand the pain. Undergoing surgery without anesthesia was too much. “I can’t take it anymore,” his barely audible voice complained.
“Stay strong, my friend,” Towbar said from miles away.
In an instant the man-beast turned into a Japanese style chef at a Benihana restaurant and slashed wildly with the blade. Mykal helplessly accepted the fact he had been diced into a hundred tiny pieces. He saw the thing laugh maniacally at his suffering. “You sonovabitch,” he blurted. “You lied to me. You wanted to kill me all along.” Mykal couldn’t fight. He couldn’t move. He felt so weak.
“Wait, I should be dead if that’s real,” he whispered. “The poison’s messin’ with my brain.”
“Trust me, my friend,” a tiny voice said from so far away.
“I can’t go on,” Mykal grunted.
*******
Towbar sliced into the diseased flesh, hot blood and black gooey wetness spurted out from under great pressure. The black pus on Towbar’s skin burned on contact making him wince. He could only imagine the suffering Mykal endured. He continued.
“Think of your loved ones, my friend,” Towbar called out.
“I can’t…take…any…morrr…” Mykal’s head rolled to one side.
“You must desire to live!” Towbar shook Mykal’s leg.
*******
Mykal lifted his head. His body had been splayed open as if by a surgeon. Numbed to the idea of living any longer, he just wanted to go to sleep. Towbar’s voice sounded so distant.
He wanted to shout out his extreme agony. Sound wouldn’t escape. “You friggin bastard. Make it stop,” he barely gasped.
The dizzying perception increased. Lava oozed from within and touched the surface of his stomach. His thoughts flew in all directions. He could distinguish a metallic force scraping his insides as if Towbar cut something specific from his entrails.
Mykal watched the man-beast dive snout first into his midsection. He closed his eyes to yell but sound wouldn’t emit. He felt the creature chomping, pulling and tearing his organs, feasting on his being while his life ebbed away. His mind envisioned each yellowed fang driving into his soft internal tissue. “Just friggin kill me,” he howled.
Mykal heard Towbar call him. Towbar mentioned his family, and fighting death. “Ah, the poison’s attacking my mind,” he remembered. A sudden thought of Pam made him want to weep.
Moments later his mind reverted back to the imaginary beast. He wanted to physically fight the strange creature but he couldn’t move. He lay in a state of catalepsy. He knew his last moments alive would be witnessing the creature eating him alive.
The man-beast withdrew his blood covered head from Mykal’s body. In its muzzle was a chunk of bloody organs, dripping precious blood. Mykal closed his eyes but he saw his beating heart in the creature’s mouth, fangs ready to puncture the muscle of life. The man-beast laughed hysterically.
“Help me,” he whispered. ‘Why can’t I move?’ He felt paralyzed. ‘My only chance, fight off the beast and run away’.
He forced his arms free to push the monster away, but when he lifted his hands there were only bloody stumps where his arms had been. ‘How?...How?’ He shrieked mentally.
With a wild, evilly distorted laugh, the creature drove it’s snout into Mykal’s stomach again. Snarling, yellowish green, scum covered fangs ripped into his mid-section. The head clamped down and shook violently. A frenzied shark tearing away a meal. Mykal reached for the thing, but marshmallows and cotton balls dropped from the bloody stumps of his arms. ‘Nooooo!’
An image of Pam appeared. She held his two sons and called for him to come home. He snapped back to reality. He watched Towbar pull back from his body, his face, neck and chest were covered in blood. The giant spat out black, syrup like, pus and blood. The poison obviously burned him. He saw Towbar paw at and wipe his mouth and face, squinting and wincing at the pain.
“Think of your family, my friend.” Towbar coughed and gasped. He continued wiping the burning from his mouth. “Do not allow the poison to control your thoughts,” he said and lunged down for another dose of the burning pus.
Mykal’s heart seemed to stop thumping. His breathing ceased and time froze. Pain departed. He felt no physical feelings of any kind. He sensed an odd cold. Not a carnal cold, but an empty, lifeless, non-existent, cold. ‘Am I dead? How would I know?’
No longer concerned, he eyed Towbar working feverishly to remove the toxin. He read the expression on Towbar’s pained face as he spat out the black sludge. The mighty giant struggled. He looke
d like he couldn’t take much more of this rescue attempt.
He watched Towbar take a drink of water, gargle and spew out the contaminated water with gasping and coughing. ‘If I’m dead how can I see him? I don’t feel anything.’
Towbar thumped his chest making Mykal cough. Suddenly the intense pain returned. “Ahhhhh!” he cried out and groaned.
“Stay strong, my friend. It will be a short time.” Towbar’s words came from a wind filled tunnel.
Mykal saw him pour water on his face and wiped his mouth and grimace.
Mykal fought to process the words through the murkiness of confusion. Towbar grabbed his six foot sword with both hands. With his back to Mykal he uttered words from his native language and thrust his sword skyward. With the gleaming blade pointing to the heavens he held tightly and fought for control.
“Mykal, are you still with me, my friend?” Towbar yelled from a distant land. He slowly lowered the sword. He gave a war cry and thrust the sword upward again. “Are you with me?” The giant’s voice almost faded away.
“Yes, I am,” Mykal whispered weakly with a dry rasp.
Thunder cracked and a blinding light illuminated the sky momentarily. Another booming crack of thunder shook the area and lightning struck Towbar’s sword. The boom of thunder created raw trepidation in Mykal. He wanted to curl up and crawl away, but he could only close his eyes. Thunder rumbled through his entire being. It created smothering terror so great he wanted to cry out.
Flashes of light penetrated his eyelids. He couldn’t resist and opened his eyes to see it wasn’t light but a steady stream of silver flowing from the glowing sword in Towbar’s strained arms. Liquid mercury floated in air, flowing in all directions. Suddenly, a blinding bright sun illuminated the area, so that even Towbar dared not look up. Within moments the sun burned out, leaving bright dots inside Mykal’s eyelids.
Towbar looked like a mad scientist holding streams of electricity by the grip of his sword overhead. The jagged bolts of electricity forced the floating mercury to stream into a sphere that glowed and hummed audibly. The sphere engulfed Mykal making him feel weightless inside the mercury orb.
“Are you alive?” Towbar called out. The vibration in his words told of the great strain the giant experienced.
“Yes, I’m alive,” Mykal said faintly. Unsure if Towbar heard him over the electrical excitement, he prepared to speak again. Abruptly many streams of mercury shot from the walls of the orb and penetrated Mykal’s body from hundreds of angles.
Like hundreds of long acupuncture needles they connected him to the sphere. He couldn’t see it, but he felt he had been lifted off the rock slab by the penetrating needles. He sensed he floated weightless, and didn’t feel any pain or pressure.
Mykal stared in awe as the inside of the orb changed. The mirrored walls flashed with dazzling colors. The colors seemed endless and constantly changing beyond description. His throat choked shut stopping his breathing but the amazing visual show held his focus and kept him from fear. The display affected him like art so beautiful it produced only tears of joy not words.
Various colors emitted scents and smells while other shades caused his taste-buds to come alive. One particular tincture from the vast spectrum produced feelings of deep joy inside his being. Or was this just more madness on the journey of death?
He tried to label all the colors, shades, hues and tints that surrounded him. He tried to name the scents and tastes that they produced, but every thought he came up with seemed so pedestrian, so human, so below what surrounded him. Just like a story he read of a man who died and got a glimpse of heaven. The man could not come up with words to do his experience justice.
Everything slowed and turned peaceful. Conscious of his surroundings, pain hadn’t returned. He saw Towbar, shrouded in a light blue glow, while he swirled in multi-dimensional rainbows.
He wanted these impressions to last forever. Everything seemed beautiful and strange. Colors, sounds, tastes, sensations and lights came down and touched his face in a friendly way. His entire being soothed in peace, his head buzzed with the hum inside the orb. He wanted to laugh and cry and shout for joy.
The light energy fascinated him as it danced on his face, imparting warmth as each particle of light penetrated his body. ‘Don’t take it away,’ he mused. ‘If this is what drug addicts feel, I can understand why they destroy their lives to re-live that feeling. Is this real? Is this just madness? This is friggin great!’
“Are you still with me, my friend?” Towbar called out in a strained concern. “I need to know you are with me.”
“I’m here,” he whispered to Towbar’s back.
Towbar sounded like he held a conversation with someone else but Mykal couldn’t see or hear the other party. Towbar’s sword pointed heavenward and suddenly an explosion jolted Mykal’s body. The orb shattered, all the colored lights were gone. The explosion knocked Towbar to the ground. The giant looked stunned and had to shake his head as if to clear his thoughts before he rose to his feet. He hurried to Mykal’s face.
“I’m here,” Mykal repeated in a hushed gasp.
“You are alive,” Towbar laughed out and retrieved his sword from the ground. Thick blue smoke floated from the blade. “Try not to speak.” Towbar unscrewed the hilt to his sword. He turned the sword upside down and blue crystalline powder poured into his palm. He stabbed the sword in the ground.
Towbar carefully sprinkled the blue dust into Mykal’s gaping wound until completely covered. Mykal tried to mouth that the pain and burning sensations were returning, but he couldn’t speak.
Mykal saw Towbar grab his razor sharp dagger from his waistband and raise it. Mykal’s breathing increased hoping he wasn’t going to be carved up again. His body couldn’t take any more. Towbar made a fist, pumped it a couple of times and suddenly slashed his own wrist.
Towbar’s eyes closed tightly at his self-inflicted mutilation. Blood shot from the vein and spurted freely. Towbar tipped his hand over Mykal’s wound, his blood gushed down his fingertips into Mykal’s open flesh, to mix with the blue powdery crystals. Mykal felt soothed by the warm fluid, and then another sensation surfaced as Towbar’s blood mixed with the magic powder. Mykal remembered as a kid, the bursting snaps of Pop Rocks candy in his mouth. That same feeling appeared in his inner most being, but it wasn’t a bursting in a physical sense. Trying to make sense of it his eyes grew heavy until he couldn’t keep them open. Awareness fading, he feared never awakening again.
3.
Mykal opened his eyes and he couldn’t feel anything. Pain didn’t exist. Silence surrounded him. A strong breeze blew that made the nearby trees rustle, prompting him to turn his head. He saw Towbar sitting a few feet away. The giant rested while applying direct pressure to his own wrist.
The closer Mykal looked the more he realized Towbar wasn’t resting, but rather he shielded his eyes with his arm from the bright lights that shone down from the sky. The lights reminded Mykal of a sci-fi spaceship. Multicolored lights danced around him. Brighter lights zeroed in on his wound. Blue powder popped and sparkled as if the special lights ignited the crystals.
He felt no pain, but rather a warming, comforting feeling coursed through his body. A smile formed due to a ticklish numbness growing in his brain. It felt so good to be alive. The light beams felt like little fingers tapping against his wound. A blue glow similar to Towbar’s hovered over his open wound. Still no pain.
‘I must be dead,’ he thought. He accepted it calmly. ‘Such an awful mess and I can’t feel a friggin thing.’
Beneath the floating blue glow he could actually see his damaged flesh joining together. He saw grafting take place before his eyes. His mangled flesh was like putty being moved and formed by invisible fingers. Extreme fatigue settled in. He tried to study the mending and healing, but his eyes sealed against his will and his body fell limp. He slept.
He started to dream again. Not nightmares, but peaceful visions that produced smiles and happy sighs. It was as t
hough he lay on a large cloud despite the fact he laid on a hard flat rock. He felt wide awake, but his eyes remained closed. He detected activity going on around him, but couldn’t open his eyes to see what transpired. ‘Maybe I’m really dead now.’
“If this is what death is, then I don’t care,” he chuckled. “Just let me be dead, I guess.”
“Do not think of death, my friend,” Towbar replied from another dimension. “It is not over. Think of living. Think of your family. Think of home. Think of your friends,” the giant’s voice began to fade, “Only do not think of death.”
“No problem big guy,” Mykal gave a giddy laugh. “This is some good stuff you got me strung out on. No kiddin’, it’s really knocking me on my ass. I’d like to bottle this stuff.”
When the silliness subsided he fell back into a peaceful sleep. Mykal slept hard as if he hadn’t slept in a week.
CHAPTER EIGHT – Day 10
1. Saturday, July 2nd 1983
0834 hours, The Pass- location unknown.
Mykal opened his eyes after a peaceful rest. He looked past the surrounding trees to the blue sky dotted with a couple of cotton-ball clouds. He found it peculiar he could distinguish between the shades of Azure, Royal and Dodger blue. He noted various greens seemed to jump at him. The base- Forest green with Myrtle, Hunter and Fern- all slight variations of darker green, but he saw them distinctly. The lighter shades- Sea, Pine and Shamrock all popped at him and danced in the slight breeze.
He felt great, though his body seemed stiff. He took a deep calming breath. Everything seemed so real. The smells were incredible. He sniffed the aroma of Pine mixed with Maple and Mimosa. He detected scents similar to pumpkin spice, blueberry muffins and oatmeal cookies. In his mouth he tasted root beer. His senses seemed to be on overload. ‘Is this another dream?’
He didn’t know where he lay. His body rested on a large flat rock in a clearing surrounded by trees. To one side, the rock wall of mountain stood tall and straight like a granite skyscraper. He tried to recall what happened, but it all seemed so odd. “Where am I?” He sat up and looked at his surroundings. He had been left alone, but had he been left… for dead? Mykal recollected strange thoughts and bizarre dreams.
