I almost laughed.
Time stretched and the silence grew. Soon the beach disappeared completely from sight and we were alone in the ocean. The raft held up surprisingly well, the construction impressive considering the resources. The black water seeped in just enough to soak our asses, but for the most part, it was stable and seaworthy.
I shut my eyes and let the motion of the waves lull me into a state of meditation. Occasionally, I would squint across the water, check on the Keepers, and then resume my rest. The dead sun continued to bleed its broken innards into the ocean and the inky water ingested it readily.
After some time, we switched and Trent and I were back on paddle duty. Kevin and Jess exchanged the oars for our blankets and laid down, resting while they could. Trent and I kept the conversation to a minimum, partly so we wouldn’t disturb the other two and partly because we had nothing to say.
It was a grind, an ever-changing shift. Row for an hour, sleep, row for an hour, sleep. The single Keeper we had seen from the beach had disappeared, but the two off the left side of the raft remained visible. They were still far enough away that I wasn’t too worried, but I wondered how long that would last.
Time stretched before us like a long, empty road.
“I can do another hour,” I said to Jess when my turn was up.
“You sure?” She asked, her hair plastered to her face as a cold mist rained down on us.
I nodded, “Yeah, why don’t you to back to sleep? I’m ok.”
Trent motioned Kevin away as well. “Yeah, I’m good, too.” Kevin shrugged and burrowed back under his blanket. Soon, the two of them were fast asleep once again.
“How you holding up?” Trent asked after a while, the raft gently rolling over the calm sea.
I glanced at him. “I’m all right. If I keep my shoulder moving it prevents it from locking up. When I started my last shift I thought I was going to pass out it was so stiff.”
Trent looked at my bandage, spots of blood seeping through. “You should have said something, man. You don’t look so hot.”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll be ok. Once I get it moving, the pain fades.” I looked at Jess sleeping soundly in the corner. “Plus I think she needs to rest. I don’t know what they did to her, but she’s not the same.”
Trent sighed, looking grim. “It’s a fucked up world here, chief.”
I pulled my paddle through the water. “She just sounds so…empty now. So hopeless. I can see it in her eyes; I hear it in her voice. They took that from her and God knows what else.”
“That’s why we’re getting out,” Trent said confidently. “We have to get her smiling again.”
I smiled sadly. “I appreciate you saying that.” After a moment, I turned to him. “Thanks for waiting. I don’t know what we would have done if you had already left.”
Trent grinned, “Call it good timing. Truth be told, it’s nice to meet people here who aren’t batshit insane and trying to kill me.”
“Like Kevin?”
Trent looked at the sleeping teenager, “Kevin’s a good kid. A damn good kid. I’m doing this as much for him as I am for me. He’s been through a lot. He doesn’t deserve this place.”
I looked at Kevin, bundled in his blanket with just his face poking out. “To kill yourself so young…I remember being a teenager. Everything hits so much harder at that age.”
“Mhmm,” Trent agreed, “don’t it ever?”
We were silent for a while and then I pointed my chin towards the horizon. “Do you think there’s an end out there?”
“There has to be,” Trent said, pulling his oar deeper through the water.
“How long do you think we’ve been going?”
Trent looked at the sky, “Well, judging by the sun and—”
“Ha ha,” I said sarcastically, earning me a chuckle. “It feels like we’ve been rowing forever.”
Trent flexed his arms, wincing. “Got that right. I’d say half a day, maybe longer.” He looked over his shoulder at the dead sun. “If that fucking thing would move, maybe we’d be able to tell time easier.”
“I think that’s the point,” I said. “There is no time. Just one long stretch of endless gloom.”
“And this damn rain,” Trent said, wiping it from his eyes.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Now would be the time.”
I paused, readying the question on my tongue. “Why’d you kill yourself?”
Trent’s face grew somber, his expression changing in a way I hadn’t seen before. His eyes darkened and the corners of his mouth turned down.
“I was stupid,” he said quietly, averting my gaze, “and I did a lot of stupid shit when I was alive.”
“Hey if you don’t want to talk about it—” I started apologetically.
“I overdosed,” Trent said bluntly, “was trying to forget about my son’s mama. Just kept shoving shit up my nose until finally…well…” he trailed off and I saw sorrow fill his eyes. “I left behind my little boy. He was living with me in some shit hole apartment in the projects,” Trent bit his lip, voice quivering. “He was only six. Ain’t no one else but me and him. Goddamn it, I pray every second that he’s ok, that someone found him and is taking care of him.” He wiped a tear rolling down his face, sniffling. “He deserved better than what I gave him. He deserved someone better than me.”
“Hey,” I said gently, “don’t be so hard on yourself; I’m sure it wasn’t like that.”
Trent looked at me with bloodshot eyes, grief painted across them. “No, it was like that. I was a terrible father, just a selfish punk who didn’t want to grow up.” He wiped his face, his voice growing steady again. “If anyone deserves this hell, it’s me.”
I didn’t know what to say and so we just rowed. Trent seemed content with the silence and so I let it grow between us. I regretted bringing it up.
Everyone who entered the Black Farm carried hell with them.
Eventually, Jess stirred and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. I watched her and saw the dread settle back across her features as she realized where she was. She sat up and pushed the blankets away.
“How long have I been out?” She asked groggily.
I shrugged, “I’m not sure. A while, now. How’re you feeling?”
“You should have woken me up,” she said, toeing Kevin from his covers.
Kevin yawned and pulled himself out from his nest. “Did we make it out yet?”
Trent tossed him his oar, “Not yet, chief. But your shift starts now.”
Jess crawled over to me, unsteady on the rolling craft, and touched my shoulder, “I need to change your bandage.”
Her eyes were ringed with darkness and bags drooped from them. Her blond hair was tussled and stuck up in the back.
“I can keep going for a little while longer,” I said, offering her a smile.
Jess shook her head, “You look dead, Nick. Let me re-wrap your shoulder and then I’ll take over. You and Trent should get some sleep.”
I gratefully allowed her to peel away my filthy, bloodstained bandage, wincing as she touched the wound. It stunk and a nasty, vile slime coated the partially scabbed hole. I turned away as she gently poured water over it and then wiped away the excess filth. As she dug in a bag for something to wrap my shoulder with, I turned away and looked out over the ocean.
The two Keepers still roamed in the far distance, their enormous cross-shaped heads nothing more than smudges in the gloom. I looked to my right and the empty expanse of endless water filled my vision. Where had the other one gone? Were they following a pattern or patrol route? What drove them?
I shivered as a thought snaked its way like ice through my veins. What if it was attacking Suicidals? What if some unlucky bastard had tried to make their way across the ocean, just like us? Could that be why it had disappeared?
Jess had torn the corner off a blanket and was finishing binding my shoulder again when I handed her my oar.
“I think you’re
right,” I said suddenly exhausted. “I need some sleep. Thank you.”
Jess took my oar and offered a weak smile. “Sleep then. I hope we have good news when you wake up.”
I kissed her on the cheek and then crawled into the corner. Trent was already three blankets deep with his eyes closed. I covered myself, the fabric still warm from Jess’s touch, and sighed heavily. I focused on the subtle rocking of the raft, closing my eyes and allowing my mind to decompress.
Sleep came easily, but it was filled with more than just empty darkness.
I dreamed I was back in Muck’s cave, chained to the floor. Someone was screaming behind me and I tried to turn around, dirt scraping my cheek, but I couldn’t. My neck was wrapped in a leash that connected to a spike driven deep into the floor. Someone screamed again. A woman.
It was Jess. She was screaming my name and I could hear Muck grunting and breathing heavily. I howled, thrashing about, desperate to free myself and help her, but the harder I struggled, the deeper the spike sank, driving my face into the dirt.
Something behind me cracked, sounding like bone, and Jess lost it. Her cries split my skull and I felt tears roll down my cheeks as I fought against my restraints. The spike holding me sank deeper and then disappeared completely underground, and without warning, my head went with it. Dirt and rock pressed in around me, filling my mouth and nose with grit. I spat and choked in the darkness as I was pulled further down, my shoulders joining me in the black.
I tried calling for help, tried screaming for Jess, but every time I moved, I slid deeper into the earth.
I could feel myself suffocating, the coarse soil pouring down my throat and cramming up my nose. I coughed, but only inhaled more of it. I felt myself dying.
And then something rocketed towards me from deep, deep down. I could feel the ground shake around me, a rumble buzzing in my head. Whatever was coming was absolutely enormous.
Fear seared my chest and my heart raced, a desperate drum. My eyes burned and my tongue filled with dry filth.
It was getting closer, burrowing right toward my face at an alarming speed, my world rocking. Right before it reached me, I heard something so earsplitting that it jolted me awake.
It was the scream of a pig.
A hand slid over my mouth, startling me from my troubled dreams. I jumped up, but was hurriedly pushed back down, a face looming over me in the darkness. Cold sweat soaked my clothes as I tried to recover from the nightmare. I blinked, trying not to panic, as reality pushed aside the hell in my head.
“Shhhh,” Jess urged, hovering over me, a hand still locked over my lips. Her face was inches from mine and her eyes were wide and terrified.
And that’s when I realized something.
The sky was pitch black.
Dread seeped into my stomach as I stared past Jess and up into the empty, ebony expanse.
What the hell…?
Slowly, Jess peeled her hand away and put her lips to my ear. “Be quiet; don’t make a sound. There’s something you need to see.”
Dazed, I sat up, placing a hand on my chest. Kevin had his back to me, bent over the side of the raft, staring into the water. I looked and saw Trent awake and doing the same. He turned to face me, and in the darkness, I saw terror spark in his eyes.
“What is it?” I whispered.
Kevin pointed into the water, his voice shaking, barely a whisper, “Look.”
The feeling of dread wrapped itself around my body and began to squeeze as I crawled to his side and peered over the railing.
At first, I saw nothing…
…and then the depths flared, an eerie blue color far, far below at the bottom of the sea.
“W-what is that—” I started and then paused as the color faded and ignited once again.
It was a Keeper, laying along the length of the ocean floor, its immense size stretching out below us like a downed skyscraper. The glyphs on its bizarre, rocky body pulsed in rhythm, the alien markings lighting the colossal shape.
We were directly over its head, the glow from the glyphs lining its arms casting murky shadows that revealed the mammoth cross that rose from its unmoving shoulders. I could see hundreds of long chains floating in place, reaching out toward us from the great metal arms of the cross.
But at the end of the chains…were people, countless Suicidals all staring up at us from their eternal hell. Their eyes glowed with every pulse of the Keeper’s body, every head upturned to watch us as we passed.
“Jesus…Christ…” Kevin croaked, unable to pull himself away, horror cracking his voice.
Trent raised a trembling finger to his lips, his voice barely audible. “Quiet…we need to be so, so quiet.”
The raft drifted forward, crawling at a snail’s pace along the entirety of the behemoth. My knuckles were white as they gripped the railing, my heart slamming into my chest. Everyone was completely still, frozen in place by fear.
“Is it dead?” Kevin hissed.
Jess put a finger to her lips. “I think it’s sleeping. Look at the way those markings are lighting up. It’s almost as if it’s breathing through them.”
“Keep it down!” Trent hissed, his eyes as big as baseballs. “I don’t care what it’s doing if it sees us we’re all fucked!”
I looked out into the open darkness, craning my neck to stare up at the starless sky.
I leaned into Jess’s ear. “What happened? Why is it so dark? Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Everything suddenly changed. We tried rowing back a little bit before we woke you, but I think we got turned around.”
Kevin gently sat back in the raft, wrapping his arms around himself. “We’re dead, we’re all dead…”
Trent slid next to him, placing his arm around the kid. “Don’t freak out, chief. Just stay quiet and we’ll make it through this.”
I squinted into the water, searching along the entirety of the Keeper. Its size astounded and terrified me. The chains swayed from the depths, the eyes of damned locking with mine, unblinking and pale in the blue light.
“We’ve stopped moving,” I muttered, voice low.
Kevin curled into himself, panic growing. Trent shushed him and came to my side, looking at Jess. “Can you help him? Please? He’s on the brink of losing it and if he gets any worse, it’s bad news for all of us.”
Jess nodded silently and crawled over to Kevin, bringing a blanket with her. Every creak of wood sounded like a gunshot and I winced as she settled next to him, whispering soothingly into his ear.
Trent gripped my shoulder. “If we don’t get the hell out of here, then this could be the end of the road.”
I picked up a discarded oar and handed it to him. “Then let’s move…quietly.”
He took the oar and licked his lips nervously. “Nick, what the hell do you think happened? Why is it so dark out?”
“I have no idea,” I whispered, gently picking up the second oar, “but something’s changed. Something is different now. Which could either be very good or very, very bad. Let’s just focus on moving away from the Keeper and worry about the rest later.”
Trent bobbed his head nervously in agreement and slid on his belly to the opposite side of the raft. Together, we ever-so-quietly dipped our oars into the black water and rowed past the Keeper.
It was agonizing and I held my breath with every stroke. I expected the stone giant to come surging from the depths at any second…but it didn’t. My oar was a ghost, sliding into the waiting water, the phantom strokes generating silent ripples as we floated directly over the cross-beam below and then finally past the tip of the head.
I looked over at Trent and nodded my head encouragingly. Jess was laying next to Kevin with her arm around him, calming him with soft assurances. Kevin had his eyes closed and was shaking beneath the blanket, fear rocking him like a tornado.
I fought against my own crippling terror as we put distance between us and the slumbering monster. The inky sky was infectious, the darkne
ss clawing around us and pressing in. As the blue light of the Keeper disappeared, I began to feel claustrophobic. I could hear Trent breathing across the raft and heard Kevin mumbling next to me, but they were just spaces in the black.
I don’t know how long we rowed into the eternal emptiness. If I hadn’t heard the water lapping around us, I would have thought we had drifted into endless space, devoid of stars or life.
Eventually, Kevin settled and his whimpers diminished into the night. Jess crept to my side and wrapped her arms around my waist from behind, her head resting on my back.
“He’s asleep,” she whispered.
Continuing to row, I sighed, “Good. Thank you. If he had started screaming…”
“I know,” Jess said, her cheek pressed against my shoulder blade. “Nick…where do you think we are?”
“Somewhere we’re not supposed to be,” I said softly. “But I think the immediate danger is past. I can’t even see the light anymore.”
“You’ve been going at it for a while now, you want me to take over?” Jess offered.
“No, I’m ok,” I said gently. “Just…stay with me for a little while.”
Jess tightened her grip around my waist and we continued our voyage into the nothing. I scanned the horizon, searching for something, anything to give us some kind of clue where we were, but the coal black night offered no answer.
After a while, I began to feel increasingly uneasy. Trent remained silent, just a shadowy figure across from me. My shoulder was burning, but I refused to acknowledge the pain. I had bigger issues to deal with right now. What if this was the end of the Black Farm? What if we had reached the final plane and were doomed to float in the empty waters until we died? What if we didn’t die? Would we be damned to suffer this eternal darkness as punishment for our attempted escape? I shivered at the horrifying thought, feeling the walls of claustrophobia press in closer.
“Someone say something,” Trent called quietly. “I can’t fucking stand this. I feel like I’m trapped with my eyes closed.”
I was about to respond when something caused us all to freeze, my heart crawling up into my throat.
The Black Farm Page 19
