by Ryan Talbot
“You came here to save me?” She self-consciously pulled at her short brown hair trying to shove it back into some semblance of order.
“I came here to stop him,” I pointed toward the door.
“It’s the same thing,” she said.
I waved it away, it wasn’t worth the argument. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“It was camp, I was a counselor here,” she said. “When I was young, it was what I lived for.”
“I meant why this memory?” I clarified. “What prompted the nightmare?”
“In reality,” she said. “You never showed up.” She pointed at the desk. “He beat me and fed on me for hours. He left me to die in the dark.” Her tone was cold, and her eyes hardened as she spoke.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“For not showing up,” I said.
“You didn’t know me,” she said. “Why would you have come?”
“Killing men like that never gets old.” I knelt and stared out of the hole in the back wall. I waved my Mark over the shattered wood and spoke a Word of abjuration. “That should keep whatever that is at bay.”
The girl pointed at the shattered door. “Can’t they just come in there?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “They could also tear the roof off and come at us that way. I just meant they wouldn’t come in through the hole.”
“I suppose not.” She sat on the small end table. “How do we get out of here?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think we can get out the way I got it, or you’d just wind up in my head, and you wouldn’t like that at all.”
“It can’t be that bad,” she said.
“You have no idea,” I muttered. “What’s your name anyway?”
“Leah.”
“Mine’s Jason,” I replied as I peeked out the door. The darkness was undulating outside. It moved with a sinister throbbing, like a wave gathering strength.
“What’s it doing out there?” She leaned past me to look out the door.
The darkness surged forward.
“Attacking,” I said as I shoved her back from the door.
Screams sounded from all around the cabin. It was if the darkness itself had come alive. I wracked my brain as I spun around. The howls and screeching were maddening. The walls of the cabin shook and throbbed with the force of the rage outside. There was something here, I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Jason!” Leah screamed as the back wall of the cabin bowed and creaked, the boards bending to their limits. She ran toward the door.
“Stop!” I caught her by her hair and pulled her back. “Don’t fucking panic,” I said as I held her by the neck. “Panic kills people.”
“They’re getting in!” She screamed and pointed at the back wall.
“This has been done before,” I said. I scanned the seams in the walls as they pulsed open with the force of the onslaught.
“What?” Leah screamed at me. “What are you talking about?”
The walls moved and shook, even the roof strained against the attack. My Word held the darkness at bay, but the cabin still swayed and rattled with the beating it was taking. It was trying to frighten us, to herd us. I wasn’t much on being cattle.
I turned back to the door and screamed a Word of conflagration at the spot just above the lintel of the door. The wood ripped outward with the force of the blast, and the massive fireball that followed lit up the night sky like the sun at noon. There was a horrific scream and the smell of burning flesh filled the cabin.
“What was that?” Leah screamed from behind me. “What the hell was that?”
“That was your attacker,” I muttered as I stared out into the darkness. “He was waiting for us.”
“How did you know?” She asked, looking past me.
“It always comes back to the stories,” I said. “Gods are creatures of habit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Camazotz, the bat god of the Maya, used to herd his prey into hiding,” I took her by the wrist and stepped out of the cabin into the night. “When they stuck their heads out to see if they were safe, he’d swoop down and rip them off.”
“So this demon was trying to emulate his father?”
“Not demon,” I clarified as I carefully took the stairs, my eyes lighting on shadow after shadow, seeking the Son of Camazotz. “God. Demons are something else.”
“Is that so?” She asked, her voice harder than I expected.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “It is.”
I turned to look at her, and she kicked my feet out from under me.
“Look out!” She screamed as I hit the ground.
24
Claws whistled through the space my head had occupied seconds before. I gasped as the earth knocked the wind out of me. The Son of Camazotz fell out of the sky, his knees slammed into my chest pinning me to the ground. I threw my hands in front of my face and tried to roll him off of me.
“Vengeance!” He screamed, his bat-like face contorted with rage.
“No!” Leah screamed and kicked him in the base of the skull from behind.
I slammed my Mark against his face, and spat out a Word of force, hurling him off of me and across the clearing between cabins. I kicked my way backwards, and scrambled back to my feet. A high-pitched chittering began in the deep shadows around the camp.
“No crickets,” I said under my breath.
“What?” Leah moved closer to me.
“No crickets,” I said again.
“Scared?” She asked.
“Dead,” I whispered. “Something ate them.”
“They’re all around us, aren’t they?”
I nodded.
“What do we do?” Her hands lifted to either side of her face and she fell into a fighting stance.
“Anything we can to stay alive,” I said.
“This is a nightmare,” she whispered.
“I’ve been through worse,” I said.
“No,” she frowned at me. “This is literally a nightmare.”
“Yeah,” I said, not following.
“We can’t win.” She lowered her hands. “That’s the point.”
“Yeah,” I frowned back at her. “Well, I’m not just going to fucking give up.”
“It’s impossible to fight,” she turned in a circle, staring out into the darkness. “You can’t win against your own fear.”
“Then you sit your ass down and give up,” I sneered at her. “That’s not what I signed up for.”
The Son of Camazotz let out a howl and launched himself into the air, black wings ripping through his clothes and lifting him aloft. I spoke a Word of conflagration and hurled fire into the cabin we’d vacated. It burst into flames, the old dry timbers taking a spark immediately. Hundreds of thousands of red eyes circled the camp reflecting the firelight. Leah was right. I swallowed. We were going to die.
I spun slowly in place, my eyes lifting to the sky. Somewhere in the void of the heavens, the Son of Camazotz was circling us. His darkness was the perfect camouflage against the starless sky. I heard him land a second before I saw him out of the corner of my eye. Tucking into a roll, I dove to the ground, his claws tearing through the space my throat had been a second before. I clambered back to my feet, Mark raised.
“I forgive you, demon.” Leah spoke confidently.
The Son of Camazotz froze. We both whipped around to face her, incredulous.
“You have no further power over me.” She stepped closer to him. A gentle light lit her skin, her face transcendent. Her hand glimmered with restrained power. “I am servant to He who is known as I AM. And vengeance is His.”
He opened his mouth to scream, and from the shadows, his creatures burst forth. Black-skinned monsters with twisted bat faces ululated shrilly, their voices raw with frantic hunger and rage. Her hand fell against his face, and a searing light washed out the clearing with white hot pain. I covered my eyes and held my Mark out in front of my
face, screaming my Master’s name. The light shattered before me, leaving a circle of twilight around my body.
As quickly as the flare sprang to life, it fell dim again. The earth around me lay desolate, charred and smoking ruins filled the clearing that once was a camp. Tatters of the American flag floated on the breeze. I lifted my eyes. There was silence, save the terrible ringing in my ears. The smoky air burned my lungs and made my vision swim in tears. Leah was gone. So too were the camp and Son of Camazotz. I blinked twice and my heart sank. Darkness lapped at the edge of my vision like the frigid winter waters of the Hudson. Just that fast, I was no longer in her nightmare. I was in my own.
25
I lifted my head as far as I could and gasped in deep lungfuls of air. The chill of the water constricted my chest, making each breath a herculean effort. Lowering my head beneath the water again, I opened my eyes. The silt and sediment of the riverbed made any sort of vision difficult. I shoved against the passenger seat with all of my might, trying desperately to dislodge it before the car sank any further. I was pinned. Between the seatbelt and the passenger seat, I couldn’t escape.
For once, I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d parked alongside the boat launch a thousand times before. It was my go-to place. When shit went south and everything unraveled, it was where I went to let it out. I’d just sit on the hood of the car and stare out at the river. More than likely, I’d go through a half of a pack of cigarettes while I sat there, but it worked. I couldn’t even remember what it was that made me go that day. Women problems? Probably; high school wasn’t the best time for that.
In any event, I’d gotten in the car to leave. As usual, I’d parked with the driver’s side facing the river. In the winter, it was often too cold to sit on the hood, so I’d crank the window down and blast the heat while I lost myself to the river’s soothing song. This day, oh, this day was a fucking winner. I’d just turned the damned key when he hit me. A delivery truck carrying some shit light beer to the restaurant just down the waterfront from the launch, lost his air brakes as he came down the steep hill leading to the water. He hit me full on. The guardrail was there for show. It was missing half of the retaining bolts, and like most of the city, was in utter disrepair. It didn’t stand a chance.
My car sheared the guardrail off at the base, as cleanly as a razor. I remember screaming as the ice-cold water poured in through my open window. No sooner did the car begin to sink, than a huge log smashed into the windshield. Though at the time, I was screaming my head off, I was thankful. That dead tree was the only thing that saved my life. My tiny Cavalier, wedged between the heavy log and the bank began to fill with water.
The passenger side of the car was destroyed. The impact dislodged the passenger seat, pinning it between the remnants of the door, and the driver’s seat. No matter how hard I fought, I couldn’t get it free. The headrest crossed my lap, crushing the seatbelt release against my leg. The very thing that was supposed to save my life was going to drown me. No matter how fast the fat bastard driving the truck ran to get help, it wouldn’t be fast enough. I was going to die.
I sputtered and coughed as I pulled my head out of the water again. I tilted my head as far back as the headrest would allow, my lips pushed out to their limit as I tried to pull in air. The water sloshed over my chin, and my eyes burned from the silt and gods knew what else was in the filthy fucking river. I kicked against the floorboards in a vain attempt to dislodge my seat. I thrashed and shoved and threw my weight around. Nothing worked.
I lifted my head again, my lungs aching for air. No matter how I stretched, how much I fought against the taut seatbelt, I couldn’t get my head free of the water. It was too late. Spots formed in my vision and a sense of lightness filled me.
ARE YOU SO EASILY COWED, BROTHER?
I shook my head. What the hell was that? A shadow circled the car, eyes darker than the gulfs between dead stars peered through the shattered windows at me. A loud crack reverberated through the water as the log snapped and the car plummeted to the lightless depths of the river.
MEMORIES ARE NOTHING MORE THAN THE ECHOES OF DEAD MOMENTS IN TIME. YOU ARE DECEIVED!
His voice in my mind stilled the panic that threatened to unhinge me. My hands ceased their fruitless tugging on the seatbelt. I expelled the stale air from my lungs and watched the bubbles float upward in a desperate bid to break the surface and rejoin the atmosphere. He was right. I’d never gotten this far. The truck driver had risked his life to save me. He’d dragged me out and nearly died doing so. This was all wrong.
I closed my eyes and pushed the rest of the air from my lungs. The seatbelt sagged just enough for me to feed it back into the tensioner and unlock it. As it relaxed, I pulled it wide and slid free of it, worming my way out the window. I looked up at the dim light on the surface of the water.
IS THAT TRULY WHERE YOU WISH TO TRAVEL? TO THE SURFACE OF THE NIGHTMARE? SHOULD YOU NOT SEEK THE SOURCE?
He was right. I needed to find out what was tying this all together, what Thorne was after. I dove toward the bottom of the river. The water became colder the farther I descended. The lightless depths brought terrors of their own. I could hear strange laughter, obscene sounds, guttural chanting the lower I got. Screams ripped through my head, and the sound of hundreds of children weeping surrounded me. With every downward stroke, the sounds grew worse and worse and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t consider turning back.
Bright light assailed me as the darkness fell away like the curtain dropping on a bad play. Gravity kicked in and I plummeted toward a floor I couldn’t see. My body found it anyway. I gasped, crumpled in a heap on a floor made of hematite and diamond. I rolled onto my back and looked up. A miniature sun burned in the center of the room. It looked exactly like the twilight sun of Perdition. Except where Perdition’s sun was white and cold, this was red and the surface seethed with hate. It gave off a greasy light, like a campfire thick with fat from spitted meat. It gave off no smoke, and it seemed somehow impure. I didn’t need to be a sorcerer to know that it was linked to the nightmares.
Below the sun, a massive knot of spiders roiled around each other. Each of them distinct and different from the rest. They all had glowing red eyes, and a greenish miasma clouded around them. Glyphs marked their backs, each one a Word. I knelt and shook my head as I got a closer look at the Words. Each described a hellish torment, and there were hundreds of the miniature monsters.
“Now you see, Liar,” the Widow lowered herself on a delicate thread from the darkness of the ceiling.
“These are your children,” I said, pointing to the mass of spiders.
“They are,” her arachnid form grew hazy and fell away, exposing her humanoid form.
“And the father?”
“Need you ask?” She ran her hand over her stomach.
“Thorne,” I said.
She nodded. “Rare is the slave that knows not the touch of the master’s rod.”
“Classy,” I frowned. “Really fucking classy.”
“What did you expect, Liar?” She walked around me, trailing one of her delicate fingers over my collarbone and shoulders. “That I would ignore my most potent weapon against my aggressors?”
“I thought your venom was your weapon of choice,” I pushed her hand away.
“Hubris, Liar.” She smiled coyly. “Your enemy’s pride is the greatest weapon you can ever possess.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I nodded, thinking of my Master. “But what does it get you?”
“Freedom,” she smirked. “Of a sort. I go where I want, when I want. So long as the Harbinger does not require me.”
“And you’ve chosen to be here?” I gestured to the room. “Why?”
“You interest me,” she looked at me through her long eyelashes.
“Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “The floor,” I changed the subject. “Hematite stores memory and diamond…” I trailed off as no immediate solutions presented themselves.
“Fear,” she kne
lt and knocked against the impossibly hard surface. “Enhanced by the kiss of adamant.”
“Scatters reason,” I said, following her logic. “The memories are stored, empowered by the spiders and the victims are scared clean out of their minds.”
“Exactly,” she smiled.
“Why?”
“Where’s the fun in letting others do all the work, Liar?” She laughed. “Some things, you’re just going to have to discover for yourself.”
“Thorne was collecting something from the containers in jars,” I thought aloud. “What comes from nightmares that’s of any use to him?”
“So close,” she grew hazy as she shifted back to her arachnid form. “But can you find your way to the truth in time?”
“In time for what?” I asked as she ascended on her discarded silk.
“To save all Reality.”
26
I dug my cigarettes out of my jacket pocket and summoned a flame into my palm, lighting one as I knelt next to the spiders. What could Thorne be collecting? For all I knew, he could’ve been scaring the piss out of people to feed a sick fucking fetish. Thorne was too smart for that. He’d made two of the most ancient beings on Earth afraid. What could he have done? I opened my mouth and let the smoke drift up and I inhaled it back through my nostrils, blowing a smoke ring at the sun.
I exhaled fiercely, “No fucking way.”
I started pacing. A theory began to build in my brain. Satan despised Thorne. Hekate called him Unbeholden. The only person that might actually be able to help me sort it out had just fled from me. I had to find Leah. She would know, she could confirm my suspicion. Beyond that, she was my gateway out of the nightmare. She’d been my door into this hell, and without finding my way back to her, there was a chance I’d be trapped forever.
My Sight showed the hundreds of threads connecting me to the dreamers trapped in the cargo containers. Each and every thread passed upward through the floor, wove through the mass of spiders and knotted itself in the center of the sun before diving into my chest. This was the epicenter of the nightmare. Everything that Thorne had built relied on this room to function. The spell structure of the sun, the room and the bindings were far beyond what I’d given Thorne credit for. This was near perfect work. If I wanted to take it apart, it would take me the better part of a century to do so. Obviously, that was out of the question. But, in staring at the construct I grinned. There was a better way to move through the nightmare, to bind Thorne’s work to my will.
