Kaiser pulled open the thick blockade door leading outside. Silas didn’t need an invitation, bolting up the concrete steps and scratching at the upper bulkhead. Kaiser followed him up, unlocked the hatch, and shoved it open. Sunlight flooded the chasm as Silas disappeared over the lip. I heard his paws hit the ground in a quickening thwack-thwack-thwack as he ran.
Seeing the outside of the shelter for the first time in daylight gave me pause. The hatchway into my new home was located in the center of a huge clearing covered with a thick layer of pine needles. The clearing was surrounded on all sides by huge evergreens, not quite as big as those on the other side of the lake, but still monstrous. But the strangest thing was an object hovering just beyond the clearing. I spotted it between two trees – a billboard, much like any you’d see on any highway in America. Half of the sign was charred, bits of plaster flaking off in the breeze. The rest of it, though, was clearly legible. The Water Are Ris, the cut-off top of the billboard stated in huge black letters. Below those words a smiling woman with platinum blonde hair stared at me, framed in front of the ocean, a disembodied arm draped over her shoulder, presumably the woman’s phantom lover, lost forever on the singed half of the sign. The incomplete declaration below the picture said, A New Para.
“Wow,” I whispered, and glanced at Kaiser.
The boy nodded. “Paul said that sign was built more than two hundred years ago,” he replied. “He was surprised it lasted so long.”
“I agree with him on that,” I said.
We stood there for a good fifteen minutes or more and watched Silas scamper around the clearing. Every once in a while he disappeared into the trees, and I kept expecting him to emerge with some lost treasure the way he always did, but that never happened. Whenever his face poked out of the foliage, the only thing he held was a stick.
Silas began to slow down, moving at a brisk trot instead of a sprint. Kaiser knelt down and ran a hand down my boy’s back. The kid then twisted around and his eyes met mine. They glistened with enthusiasm.
“Did you read the letter?” he asked.
I nodded.
“What did it say?”
I was about to tell him everything, if only to have someone to share this insane story with besides my dog. But just as I opened my mouth I changed my mind. I felt indebted to Paul, a man I’d never met nor would meet in the future, strange as that is to say.
So I said, “Sorry, it’s personal,” instead.
Kaiser looked disappointed. “Please?”
“Nope,” I answered with a shake of my head. “Can’t do it, kiddo.”
“Fine,” he grunted. “That’s the thanks I get for helping you?” He sounded just like every scorned teenager I’d ever met in my life in that moment, which was a refreshing departure from the responsible wild-child.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Kaiser, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I truly do. But this situation is…sensitive. I’m not really sure what’s going on, myself. And Paul…let’s just say he didn’t want you to read the letter. After all, what were the instructions he gave you when he hid the letter in the vase?”
“This is for his eyes only. Don’t open it, even when your curiosity says you must.”
I sighed, thankful that Paul acted the same way I might have if I’d been in his shoes.
“It’s nothing against you,” I said. “It’s not like he didn’t trust you guys. He did. Immensely. In fact, I will tell you he wrote that the only thing he valued more than his own life was that of his children, Kaiser and Will. He loved the both of you very much.”
“I appreciate that,” said Kaiser, looking close to tears.
“I know. I would, too, if I were in your shoes.” I stopped there, pondering how to segue from this into my own questions. In the end, I said screw it and dove right in.
“Kaiser, where are the Outskirts?” I asked.
The boy acted like the question was as common as is there a McDonalds around here? He pointed off in the distance, beyond the trees. “We’re in it right now, but only the very edge,” he said. “There’s a rise at the end of the forest that leads to the Deadland, which in turn leads to the Crystal Mountain. The mountain is the barrier between Deadland and Wasteland. It is a forewarning of doom, this mountain, the visible threat of a place too dangerous to travel.”
Great, I thought. “And what about the Dreadnaught? Do you know where it lives?”
He shook his head. “Not really. I only know that it makes its home somewhere in the heart of Wasteland, which is a rather large place. And like I said, I’ve never been there before.”
Kaiser’s tone sounded strange, hesitating as if he was hiding something. “You never said that,” I retorted. “You said you weren’t supposed to go there.”
He didn’t answer.
“C’mon, Kaiser. I’m not your father. I don’t care if you broke the rules. You don’t need to hide anything from me.”
“I know,” said the boy.
“So spill it.”
Kaiser’s lower lip quivered. “Not long ago, while Paul was away on his mission, I ventured out there. I saw things I never wish to see again. I saw my past, and the future Paul warned us about. I’ve tried very hard to get the images out of my head, and I’ve mostly done so, but the horrible things always come back in my dreams.” He looked at me with pleading eyes. “I’m not hiding anything from you, Mr. Ken. It’s shame that holds my tongue. And fear. And shame for that fear. I’m supposed to be strong.”
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” I said, throwing my arm around his neck. “Everyone gets scared. Hell, I’ve been petrified since I woke up in this place. To be honest with you, I’m even more scared now, seeing as I have to go out there.”
Kaiser jumped back and waved his hands in front of his face. “No,” he begged. “You can’t.”
“I don’t think I have a choice, bud,” was my reply. “If I read the letter right, all of our futures depend on it.”
“That is something Paul told you?”
I nodded.
Kaiser frowned.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve got it under control, I think. But I do need your help.”
“In what way?”
“Well, first of all, how far away is it?”
“About a day’s walk, maybe a little more.”
“Really? But what about going out after dark? Didn’t you say that was…um…dangerous?”
“Yes. But during the Festival of Orval, there is no night. The Evening Orb is high in the sky, bathing the land in blue sunshine. Most of those who dwell in darkness don’t come out during the Festival.”
“This festival,” I said. “Does it have anything to do with the full moon?”
“Uh-huh. That’s strange. Sometimes that’s what Paul called it, too.”
I started laughing, and Kaiser stared at me like I was insane – which I probably was by that point. What a backward-ass world I found myself in. Back home, almost every horrific yarn ever passed down, from parables told by the Incans and African tribesmen and American Indians to countless modern novels and folklore, talked about the full moon’s power, its penchant for bringing out the beast in all. It seemed ridiculous that monsters would shy away from it.
“Well, that’s odd,’ I said when my laughter died down.
“Not so much,” shrugged Kaiser, his mouth twisted in a baffled expression. “It’s been like that forever.”
“Maybe here,” I replied. “But where I come from…oh shit, forget it. It doesn’t matter. Just tell me – when’s Orval start?”
Kaiser gazed skyward. “It’s starts tonight and lasts three days,” he said. “We used to prepare streamers and candles and pray by the Light of Night, but we haven’t done so since Papa Paul died. It seemed…disrespectful to do so.”
I snorted out my nose and hung my head. Silas, apparently sensing my heart drop a few inches in my chest, stopped his constant circling and nuzzled his head into my thigh. I petted him and breathed
deep.
“So much for getting some rest before the crap hits,” I said.
Silas panted and gave me his paw. Kaiser looked the other way, avoiding my eyes.
I wished I could avoid what came next. All I really wanted to do was go home.
33
Preparing for the journey took only a couple of hours. Kaiser packed me a bag of fresh fruit, five one-liter water jugs, and assorted canned vegetables that looked like they’d been sitting on the shelf for a hundred years. Ooh, yummy preservatives, I joked to myself, trying to ease my nerves. It didn’t seem to work.
“When do we leave?” asked the boy as he dropped a couple flairs and a large, rusty knife into the pack.
“We?” I said. “Sorry, kiddo, there’s no we here.”
“You can’t go alone,” he protested. “You don’t even know the way!”
I stepped back and glanced above the trees. In the distance stood the onyx-like peak of what Kaiser had called the Crystal Mountain. I remembered thinking only a day earlier that it looked kind of pretty. Even though I could only see the very tip now, however, it became ugly, intrusive, unwanted.
Like cancer. Like death.
Silas licked the back of my hand. “I think the two of us can figure it out,” I said, my voice trailing off.
I reached down and grabbed my precious boy under his chin. Slobber dripped over my fingers. I wiped the slop on my new pants, a pair of ratty jeans from the Paul Nicely Collection. Silas playfully nipped at me and I glanced down at him. His soulful brown-blue eyes stared back, full of anticipation. And loyalty, I thought. Never forget loyalty.
“But Mr. Ken,” begged Kaiser, “what happens if you run into trouble? Who’s going to protect you? I’m very skilled, and Will is going to be back soon. Please at least wait until he arrives. He can watch the girls and I can join you.”
Silas tilted his large head. I smiled as I looked at the panting canine, despite my fear. “You can’t, Kaiser,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Thankfully the boy didn’t protest much after that, becoming the strangely abstinent teenager he’d been when I first met him, instead. He fastened the pack’s straps over my shoulders and offered some final instructions. “Once you cross the Deadland and the Mountain’s base, steer clear of any settlements. They might seem peaceful communities at first glance, but they’re not. Those who inhabit those places are not to be trifled with. Stick to the shadows, of which there’ll be plenty once the sun goes down. But most of all keep an ear to the wind. The creature cries out, even when it sleeps.” Silas barked at that point, and Kaiser grimaced. “And try to keep your gi-faht quiet,” he whispered. “Those that dwell in the Outskirts will move toward any sign of life.” He frowned. “But Paul probably told you that already, didn’t he?”
I nodded and glanced at the sky. The sun looked to be as high as it could get, meaning I had a good four hours of full sunlight left. Plenty of time.
Something rustled in the trees behind us. We whirled around to see Will emerge, his expression as stern as it had been the night before. Silas panted, seemingly the only one glad to see him.
“Where are you going?” Kaiser’s humorless doppelganger asked, his voice a mask of ridicule.
“Mr. Ken is headed for the Wasteland,” replied Kaiser.
“Oh.” For the first time a tinge of worry crossed Will’s stoic expression. “Why is he going there?”
Kaiser glanced at me. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why are you going, Mr. Ken.”
I chuckled, shrugged, and felt the backpack’s weight tug on my shoulder blades. Without another word, I walked away from them on a pair of heavy feet. Paul’s words echoed in my head. You must free Kaiser and Will from their bonds. I wanted to do that for him, to give the spirit of my mystery friend whatever relief might result from completing this task. No matter how much my sense of self-preservation fought against it, I dismissed the urge to accept Kaiser’s offer of help and made a beeline for the forest. A snap of my fingers was all it took for Silas to follow. Terror clenched my chest, threatening to crush my ribcage with the weight of its burden. I wrestled with the impulse to spin around, run into the shelter, and hide in the dark, cramped space beneath Paul’s bed.
“I’m off to kill myself a monster,” I whispered, and kept on walking.
34
Heat assaulted me as I marched. It was much hotter than the day before, with stifling mugginess the likes of which I hadn’t felt since we visited Wendy’s aunt in Louisiana a few years back. Moisture constricted my esophagus, making it difficult to breathe. This made our progression laborious and monotonous, like being stuck in rush-hour traffic on the highway.
The heat mired Silas, as well. His usual prancing was reduced to an arduous strut. Gone was his customary, watchful loop – instead he stayed alongside me almost step for step. It actually seemed like he struggled to keep up with me at times. I didn’t take that as a positive sign.
The dense cover of trees thinned the further inland we tread, gradually revealing the Crystal Mountain and its ominous splendor. The black, rocky surface twinkled in the sun, casting funnels of light in all directions. It was equally a pyramid blessed by the gods as a beacon to the lost and a prison watchtower whose spotlights incinerated any wayward inmate. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.
We walked for hours in that oppressive heat and spotted nary a sign of life. Only the soft tread of our feet on the ground reached my ears. This lack of living sound – the cawing of birds, scurrying of insects, or the padding of a squirrel – gave the journey an impression of dreamlike extrication. It was as if the earth was telling us that when nothing subsists then nothing is real. Who do you think you are, Jean-Paul Satre or something? I thought. I snickered between strenuous rasps, a welcome feeling despite the pain.
Before long the land became a steady procession of rolling hills. Rough brown grass covered the terrain, the blades swaying even though there was no breeze. The large evergreens dwindled, replaced by meager patches of much smaller perennials that looked like sickly elm or maple trees. Their branches sagged beneath the weight of their crinkled leaves, the decayed remnants of a defeated army forgotten by all but the effects of time.
I kept getting the impression I was being followed, but every time I turned around there was nothing there. I passed it off as nerves. The setting sun, now low on the horizon and hiding its huge red body behind the mountain of black rock, cast portentous shadows from the trees’ moldering carcasses. It made everything dead seem to come back to life, to this day one of the creepier sights I’ve ever experienced. It’s no wonder I’m getting paranoid, I thought.
Silas whimpered while we crossed this wide plain. His gait became a stagger, as if every movement caused him pain. We’d been in constant motion for at least four hours, and it obviously wore on him. My own back ached from carrying the heavy bundle over my shoulders. A familiar lack of darkness spread its cloak over the land as the cobalt hue of the full moon, emerging from a bank of clouds on the other side of the horizon, replaced sunlight. I stared up at it like a child, captivated by the dark gorges and craters that were plainly visible to the naked eye. I knelt and rubbed Silas’s back, feeling his lungs expand and contract.
“There it is, bud,” I said. “Our nightlight.”
My feet throbbed inside my crude boots, so I set up camp underneath the limbs of one of the dying trees. Dropping the bag on the ground, I removed the blanket Kaiser had packed and spread it out. I took off my boots and tramped over the blanket to flatten the grass beneath. When it gained the proper impression of evenness I sat down. The compacted grass acted as a mattress of sorts. It was more comfortable than I expected it to be.
“C’mon, Silas,” I whispered. He waddled up to me, creaking like an old man, and collapsed in a heap by my side. I put down my head, using a second blanket as a pillow, and slithered my arm beneath Silas’s neck. He moaned while I scratched his soft underbelly.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, staring up a
t that brilliant moon and the stars as they revealed themselves. At least for the moment, I felt no fear, which was nice.
35
A shrill wail pierced my ears. I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was. My lungs seized. I’m drowning, was my initial thought as my sensitive heart pounded away. I started hyperventilating, each failed gasp discharging a million tiny spikes through my chest and arms.
So this is what it’s like to die.
I curled into a ball and grasped the nearest object I could find, pulling a bundle of musty smelling fabric in tight and holding it like a lifeline. The fear I felt, with the lack of awareness that came with an abrupt end to a deep sleep, was very real.
Get yourself together, Ken, my mind ordered. Calm down.
I took my own advice, grabbing my knees and counting each breath with a metronome’s steady pace. Before too long the pain dissolved and I felt somewhat normal again.
When I opened my eyes the reality of my situation came back. I was lying on my blanket beneath the dying tree, surrounded by a bright azure haze. I sighed. A part of me expected to wake up in my bed with Wendy beside me and Silas at my feet. Finding out the truth was a little disappointing.
Thinking of Silas brought my wits full circle. I glanced down the length of my body, anticipating the sight of his shiny black coat, but he was nowhere to be found. I picked up my head and looked around. He wasn’t on the blanket, or behind me, or rummaging through the grass in search of lost treasure.
“Shit,” I muttered.
The wailing that had awoken me sounded again. It shook the atmosphere with its histrionics and then seemed to break down into a series of hitching sobs. I remembered Kaiser’s warning about the Dreadnaught, how it would make itself known even when sleeping, and wondered if that’s what I heard. There’s no way, I thought. I hadn’t even crossed the Crystal Mountain yet – which, by the way, became a glowing sapphire temple under the light of the moon. These were still the Outskirts’ boundarylands, a “safe zone.” So unless Kaiser had either lied to me or screwed up his facts, which seemed unlikely, I still had a ways to go.
Silas: A Supernatural Thriller Page 15
