The Footsteps of Cain

by Derek Kohlhagen

  NO?

  “No. When you send someone out to commit murder, then you are no better than the one who commits the act. And besides, the characters in a story...they’re not real. No one is actually being killed, and so there is no real killer.”

  HMM. INTERESTING POINT.

  The spirit said no more, and surprised him by withdrawing from his thoughts.

  Ejelano was left, alone and pondering the odd conversation they’d just had, and the unusual surrender of the spirit. It wasn’t like his companion to give up on an argument so easily.

  * * *

  Chapter 51 – Samuel

  When Samuel heard Kelly say his name, a powerful relief rose up in him...one that he felt, very physically, in his chest. He rested his head against hers and gave thanks to whatever benevolent force had acted to bring her back to him.

  “Thank you...oh, thank you, thank you....” he said.

  “Sam...you’re crushing...me...get off....”

  He’d been so caught up with her return to clarity that he’d forgotten he was laying on her. He pushed himself up and gave her space to move.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “The state you were in...I thought you were going to attack me again.”

  “Attack you? What are you talking about? Why would I do that?” She winced and held up a hand to her aching jaw. “Damn it...that hurts. What happened?”

  “That thing...it can drive people crazy somehow—make them lose control. It got to you, too, and you came at me. Hitting you...it was the only thing I could think of. I’m...I’m so sorry.” He felt an urge to keep apologizing.

  She blinked, then nodded painfully, looking perplexed.

  “It was like...like somebody put me someplace else. The me part of me, I mean. Like I got locked up somewhere, but I was so small that I couldn’t even see the walls, even though I knew they were there.” She peered up at him. “And then I heard you, saying my name. I think hearing it reminded me of who I was, reminded me that it was mine.”

  He took her hand and helped her up, and then followed his urge to bring her in and hold her close. The warmth of her body was a healing balm to his. If ever there was a moment that he would have liked to freeze and live in forever, it was that one, holding her in his arms, even if the world outside had gone to hell. In the few seconds that they tightly hugged one another, in the cold, metallic encasement of the tower, he thought of other times and other possibilities and ruminated on the joys of what might have been. He stepped back and her eyes came up to his. The message in them was clearer, more pure, than anything that could have been spoken aloud.

  Then, everything went...white.

  It only lasted a fraction of a second, for him, and in another universe where he hadn’t witnessed the last moments of Ronny Baselton and been infected by them, he might have dismissed it as a trick of his malfunctioning senses. However, in this one, in this universe, he knew only too well what it meant.

  Just before it happened, just before he...blinked out...his head exploded with pain, and then he was cast into a vast...nothingness. Or, only partial nothingness. It was only his body that felt dissolved...spread out to the extent that he was the blinding void, not only a vessel marooned in it. And the sound! It roared at him, but then again he had no ears, so how could he be hearing it? He wondered if it was in fact sound at all, or maybe something else entirely, something that could only be experienced by some alternate perception...something that he’d gained in his bodiless state even as he’d lost everything else. It was like the world that he knew had skipped over a few frames of animation, and he’d gotten a peek of what was hiding behind the film.

  And then it was over, and he was back in the base of the tower, back in his body, the pain in his head pounding away at him again. It happened so quickly.

  If he had any doubts that he’d phased out, Kelly’s reaction was more than enough to confirm it. She was standing a step away from him now. He hadn’t remembered—no, he hadn’t been present to see her back away.

  She regarded him with shock and dismay.

  “Sam...you....”

  He nodded, sadly. Several seconds went by, neither one speaking but both comprehending the full meaning of what had just occurred.

  “How long have you known?” she asked, putting a hand on his cheek.

  “Since the server room.” He paused, debating. Then he gave in; he saw there was no point in keeping it from her any longer. “Ronny was there. I didn’t tell you, wanted to protect you from it. I was with him...when he was taken.”

  “What?”

  She was slack-jawed. He couldn’t quite pinpoint her expression. It was somewhere between disbelief, anger, and resignation.

  “I couldn’t tell you, Kelly. That’s how it spreads. If I told you what Ronny told me...when he was...blinking out...it would have infected you, too.”

  “You should have,” she said. “Ronny was my friend too, Sam. It wasn’t your choice to make for me. I—”

  Her sentence was cut off by another impact on the hatch, this one much more powerful than the last. Samuel whipped his head around and was appalled to see that the locking bar had yielded ever so slightly to the blow. There was now an ever-so-slight, alarming bend in the middle.

  He cursed. They were still being hunted, and now he wasn’t certain the walls of the tower could keep them safe.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the hand and heading for the staircase. “We’ve got to get up top.”

  “I’m with you.”

  He glanced at her in admiration as they started the climb. She looked far braver than he felt, and he made a note to himself to try and follow her example.

  They ascended the flights of stairs, their boots ringing out on the steel steps. Samuel had an unpleasant flashback to the day he’d chased Cameron up a similar staircase in another tower, only to see him plummet to his death off of the wall. He grimaced as the irony bit down: Now he was the one being chased.

  There was more clamor as the demons raged against the hatch below them. The solid thunks had started to give way to something more like metallic screeching, as the integrity of the hatch became more and more compromised. There was no longer any doubt about it; there would be no stopping them...eventually the beasts would get through.

  “Sam....” Kelly said. He could hear the tension in her voice, all too clearly.

  “Just keep going!”

  He blinked out a few times on the stairs, the first one hitting him half way up. His headache would flare, and then the world would go white again and that horrible roar would be all around him. In his imagination, it called his name, screamed for him.

  Then, he’d be back, disoriented and trying to regain his balance, to stop himself from falling forward onto the stairs ahead. It got to the point where he couldn’t even hold Kelly’s hand, for when he phased out, he would just lose hold of it again. They were reduced to climbing the rest of the staircase without the small, but nonetheless valuable comfort of each other’s touch, and Samuel was left to wonder, alone...the next time he blinked out, would he be coming back?

  After what felt like an eternity, they reached the top landing. The impacts on the hatch below were a bit quieter, now, although no less foreboding. They examined the inside of the small room, looking for another option...something that would cast a barrier between the bloodthirsty clones about ready to burst into the tower, and themselves. Sadly, there wasn’t enough refuse to clog the staircase, and even if there was, Samuel didn’t think it would be enough to prevent the advance of creatures that seemed to possess such unnatural physical power.

  “What now?” Kelly asked, dejected.

  “I...don’t know,” he replied. “The other towers? We could use the catwalk on the wall to cross over...but that’s a long run, out in the open.” His mind was racing with options, but everything he thought of seemed to end in failure.

  She wasn’t any more optimistic than he was. “And those things are faster than we are. We’d...we’d never make
it.” Her shoulders were slumping...wilting. Samuel could practically see her resolve leaking down through the floor.

  Her lip curled in a grim half-smile. “Well...shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  They stood there, looking at one another. The gravity in the room felt like it had doubled, like the planet itself was against them. It was a small, but welcome relief to Samuel that his headache had lessened, if only somewhat.

  Kelly tossed her head and brushed a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes.

  “I hate to say it, Sam, but...this might be it.”

  He sighed, and raised his face to the ceiling, getting her meaning and feeling the same waning of his own willpower. He tried to shrug off the surrender that was settling...it wasn’t his style. He’d pushed on, year after year, during the Great Breakdown of the Spire’s never-ending problems. He was conditioned to find solutions that could ferry them beyond the probable failures that just wouldn’t relent, coming at him in different forms on different days. Giving up was a foreign thing to him. It felt oily and repugnant, but at the same time sticky and resilient when regarded through the stark realism of their situation.

  He said the words, even as he hated himself for doing it. To him, it sounded like someone else’s voice.

  “Quittin’ time?” he said.

  Kelly shrugged her tired shoulders and sighed. “Always was my favorite time of day.”

  She smiled at him then, broadly, and in that fraction of time he knew beyond a doubt that he loved her. If only he’d come to it sooner. If only the world had given him the time. He reached out and clasped her hand, again, feeling the pulse in her palm and joining it to his.

  “Come on,” he told her. “If this is it, I’m not going to go in the shade.”

  He led her out onto the catwalk, high above the courtyard, where the feathery breeze tickled his skin. All his sensations were heightened, like the earth was giving him an extra helping of itself—a final meal before the execution that was coming. He breathed in the air, and even through the scent of death wafting to him from the wreck of the Dome he found a sweetness that he tried hard to cling to, drawing in its nectar and holding on to it for as long as was possible.

  The horrible sounds inside the Spire’s central building had faded. A significant amount of time had passed since Samuel had heard anything from it that might suggest there was anyone left alive inside. Outside in the courtyard, the bodies of those who hadn’t made it inside the Dome’s illusion of safety were scattered about. There wasn’t another living person as far as his eyes and ears could detect. He shuddered.

  Are we the last? The very last ones?

  It was the second time that he’d observed the raw efficiency of the monster who’d killed the world. But he wasn’t a boy, this time. He was grown. And so, based on the raw, lethal efficiency he’d witnessed, his adult mind understood now that they’d never really had a chance. Here, seemingly at the end of all things, he almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of any notion of survival he’d been holding on to.

  He was also curious to find, now that he’d embraced his own fate, now that it was almost over, that an inner peace was sliding down him like a thick layer of warm honey. After so long, he felt it all slip from him; the struggle, the strain, the responsibility. A valve twisted open in his brain, releasing the pressure that had built up over what felt like eons of perpetual trial and tribulation. It was odd...feeling such sudden relief at the edge of annihilation.

  The canopy shield crackled above him for a few last seconds, and then abruptly shut off, leaving only a lingering odor of ozone hanging in the air as its legacy. At the same time the proud cannons, the five that stood ready, hissed and drooped, returning to a slumber they would never wake from.

  Samuel’s technical brain fired a thought across his consciousness, and his shoulders slumped a little.

  They got to the generators.

  “Damn,” he said. “That didn’t last very long, did it? All that work, and we only had them running for a few hours.”

  Kelly cocked her head. “Mmm. We did it, though. Can’t take that away from us.”

  Now that Samuel and Kelly were standing atop the wall in full view, the clones below began to howl and mindlessly slap at the base of the wall in unproductive attempts to reach them. The ones assaulting the hatch redoubled their efforts, perhaps reminded of the blood they so desired to spill, the only thing they could understand. All the beasts called for their deaths. All were dedicated to their end, so seemingly excited and frenzied by it that they twitched and spasmed where they stood, like dogs anticipating a tasty treat.

  All except one.

  In the center of the courtyard stood the original. The first. The monster. The otherworldly light in its chest shimmered, steady...unwavering.

  It was staring up at them.

  Ever since he was a boy, ever since the day he was sent fleeing from death and leaving the sundered remains of his early life behind him, Samuel had considered the thing to be inhuman. Unfeeling. He’d never thought of it as anything but a force of nature, a mindless destroyer. It was a monster, of deed and in dream, and therefore to him it could only have one dimension to it: The killer. The life ender. Herald of the great, final void.

  And yet, facing the thing that had become the core of his deepest dread, he was startled to see not the blank face of cold, apathetic ruthlessness or nihilism personified, but rather something arrestingly, unmistakably...human.

  Regret. Fatigue.

  And perhaps the most curious of all: Apology.

  In that moment, Samuel saw through the monster to the man, beyond. Not the executioner or the murderer. He saw the prisoner.

  The monster...no, the man...raised a hand. A greeting? A simple acknowledgment?

  No, not exactly. It felt more like a salute. A send-off. Solemn...respectful.

  “What the hell?” Samuel marveled. Despite his own impending doom, he haltingly returned the gesture. It felt like...well...like the right thing to do.

  The original, the holder of unsuspected humanity, gave him a final nod of its...his...head and then turned away, leaving Samuel with a hundred new questions.

  It took Kelly’s alarmed voice to revive him from his pensive daze.

  “Sam! Look!”

  The warning in her words shook his attention loose from the being in the courtyard; she was shaking his arm and pointing out beyond the wall, toward the Wastes. He followed the indication of her hand with his eyes, his mind still partly preoccupied with his revelation about the nature of the destroyer. After he shook off the fog and saw what she was pointing to, his jaw dropped and he inhaled sharply.

  Out in the Wastes...or perhaps more accurately where the Wastes used to be...stood a blank wall of the purest white. No, not a wall, he realized...an expanse. He got the distinct impression that there was a vastness to it, a depth that he couldn’t bear grasping the wholeness of with his limited, human mind. The world beyond was gone...no horizon, no western cliffs...hell, there wasn’t even any sky left. It was like the thing had dissolved it.

  “What the...?” he said.

  “It’s advancing!” Kelly said. “Look...look where it’s touching the ground!”

  Sure enough, down at the ground level, Samuel could see the ruined terrain being eaten up by the thing...cracking and crumbling, and then falling away into...what? Infinity?

  There was only maybe a span of a few hundred feet of earth between it and the wall. By its speed, Samuel estimated it would be on them in a matter of minutes.

  He followed it with his eyes to the left, back and around beyond the profile of the Dome. It was apparent to him now that they were completely encircled by it...besieged by it. Even as he watched, there was a terrible screeching sound from the opposite side of the settlement, and he was thunderstruck to see parts of the wall there start to give way. His very bones shook with the force of the collapsing structure. The metal panels split, steel girders breaking forth like bones through skin, and then w
hole sections of it began to plummet into the unflinching blankness.

  “What the fuck is going on?!” Samuel yelled.

  By all observation, it looked like the Spire...or what remained of it, anyway...was the only thing left standing, anywhere, and by the look of things it didn’t seem that it would be standing very long. If something didn’t change, the whole thing would be swallowed up, and he and Kelly along with it.

  And then...what? What would happen to them? How long would they fall until they reached the bottom? Or...if there wasn’t one....

  He shuddered.

  It was too much to take in. His mind was numb with the effort of trying to stretch around the circumstances. Looking into the depths of the white sheet made him feel utterly insignificant, like a molecule floating through the ocean.

  And yet...there was something about it...something familiar that he felt he’d seen before.

  Then, it hit him.

  That’s it.

  The complete lack of color. The feeling of emptiness and space. It was identical to what he experienced when he phased out, into the formless space that waited for him on the other side. The more he thought about it, the more he knew he was correct.

  They were one and the same. Not similar. They were the same thing.

  Kelly put her arms around him and hugged him close, still staring at the horror of the void that was coming for them.

  “I...I don’t even know what’s real, anymore,” she said, her voice small and lost. “I feel real. You feel real. But everything else is unraveling. Everything’s...falling apart.”

  “What’s...real....” he muttered, staring into the blankness.

  “What?”

  The pain in his head, the reminder of his inevitable deletion, spiked. He clutched at his head and gasped.

  Could it....

  “Samuel...what is it? What’s wrong?”

  Could it be that...easy?

  “Kelly,” he said out loud, “I...I think I know how to get us out of this.”

  “Get out of...what do you mean? How is that even possible?”

  When he’d put it together...that the void before him and the one he experienced between blinks were the same thing...everything fell into place. All at once he understood, and everything made perfect sense. The disappearances, the sickness, Ronny...everything. And, when it was laid bare before him, all he could do was slap his forehead and curse himself for his stupidity, because it was so obviously what his mind had been trying to tell him...maybe his whole life.