by Jason Brant
“I can’t keep running like this,” Ben said. “I’m too out of shape.” He didn’t look at anyone else in the group, choosing to stare at his feet. His cheeks twitched in an odd rhythm as he did, making Bryan question if Ben was starting to lose hold of his sanity.
Katie’s eyes refocused at Bryan’s question. “You’re asking me questions that I don’t have the answers to. This isn’t exactly a situation that we discuss at writer’s conferences.”
“Then guess,” Kyle said. “If one of those things finds us...” He trailed off, not wanting to describe what none of them wanted to hear.
“Perhaps we should go back to the church,” Katie said. “It stands to reason that if that piece of land is the crossover point, then we should stay there and hope that we can move back through whatever wormhole, or gate, has been opened before it closes again.”
“How do we go back through the gate? I don’t even understand how we went through it in the first place?” Bryan asked. He wiped at his brow with the back of his hand absentmindedly, oblivious to the dirt he rubbed into his wounds. “What happens if we don’t go back through? Are we stuck here?”
He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the ‘celestial alignments’ Katie had mentioned earlier. At the rate things were going, he didn’t think they would make it forty more minutes here, let alone forty years.
“Again, don’t look to me for answers. If I knew what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have gone through with this, now would I?”
“I hate to point out the obvious, but if we go back to the church, we’re going to have to deal with a giant, pissed off centipede,” Kyle said. “You know, the thing that was breaking down a solid wood door?”
Travis and Joey had huddled together, shining their flashlights in wide arcs around the forest, jumping every time a reflection would bounce of a rock or tree stump. They were both shivering, though Bryan figured the temperature had to be at least seventy-five degrees.
“No way am I going back there with that thing hanging around.” Creepy Joey’s eyes were as wide as saucers, and appeared to be stuck that way permanently, as he continued looking around the forest.
Ben had wandered a few feet away, stumbling around a small grouping of rocks as he mumbled to himself.
“Ben, what the hell are you doing?” Travis asked, trying to keep his voice low.
“What?” Ben asked. He turned back to the group, his ankle rolling when the rock he stepped on shifted. Crying out in pain as he fell backward, he clutched at his calf.
“Goddamn it, Ben,” Travis said. “I’m not carrying your stupid ass out of—”
A long, gangly arm reached out from the darkness behind Ben and grabbed a hold of his face. Several thin fingers wrapped around his head, too many knuckles running their lengths, and yanked him backward, into the black forest.
His legs kicked wildly as he disappeared before them, his screams muffled by the hand covering his face. He grabbed some of the fingers wrapped around his head, trying to pull them free. His hands covered two of the knuckles, leaving three more exposed, further illustrating their unnatural size.
Then he was gone, pulled into the darkness surrounding them. His muffled cries continued for several seconds, getting quieter with each passing moment before falling away completely. Everyone stood in stunned silence, watching the place where he had been taken.
Travis and Joey began screaming in unison, and bolted toward the hill behind them. Joey’s ample belly slowed him down as he tried to run up the slope, not allowing him to bend over far enough to grab a hold of the rocks that jutted out of it. Travis moved up the hill faster, his short legs allowing him to scale it rapidly at first, though he slowed after several yards, his breathing growing increasingly ragged.
Bryan and Katie watched them as they fled, rooted in place. Kyle never took his eyes from the spot where Ben had vanished.
“I’m going after him,” Kyle said after several seconds.
Bryan jerked his head around, staring at Kyle in disbelief. “What? We need to follow them and get out of here! Did you see what that hand looked like? It pulled him into woods like a fucking rag doll!”
“I saw it,” Kyle said. His voice had taken on a calm, determined tone. “I won’t be able to live with myself if I leave him here without even trying to help.”
“You hate him!”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I’m going with you,” Katie said. She fixed her gaze on Bryan, her eyes sharing the same determination as Kyle’s. “I have to see what else is here. This is the discovery of a lifetime.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Bryan couldn’t believe what he heard. After everything they’d seen in the last ten minutes, how could they even consider going further into the forest?
“Maybe,” she said. “I won’t be long though – I’m afraid our time here is going to turn short rather quickly.”
“Kyle, even if you find Ben, what are you going to do to the thing that grabbed him?” Bryan asked.
Without answering, Kyle began inspecting the ground around them before bending down and picking up a large stick. He tried to flex it with both of his hands before finding it satisfactory, and turned toward the spot where Ben had disappeared.
Bryan grabbed his shoulder, hoping to convince his friend to keep from committing what he could only see as suicide. “Kyle, don’t do it! This isn’t a fucking football game, you can’t win this!”
Kyle turned back to his friend and gave him a fierce glare. “Would you want me to leave if it had taken you?” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked into the darkness, his cell phone supplying just enough light for him to see a few feet in front of him.
Katie followed him, using her high-end flashlight to search the ground. “I won’t let him stay out there for long, you have my word.” She continued into the forest, following Kyle, and leaving Bryan alone at the bottom of the hill.
He watched as their lights moved away from him, trying to understand how everything had gone to shit so quickly. If they had to get back to the church, how much time did they have to lose looking for Ben? Was he actually considering leaving a kid like Ben behind to save his own ass?
Ben was an asshole, that much he knew, but he didn’t deserve what had happened to him. His friends and employers had left him behind, which told him that leaving with them would likely make him as big a scumbag as they were. Either way, without a light, he had to make up his mind now, or be stuck in total darkness.
“Shit,” he said to himself under his breath. He bent down and felt blindly along the dark ground beneath him, trying to find some kind of weapon. His hand brushed against a rock with a jagged edge on one side. With both hands he pulled it free from the ground, estimating it to weigh at least twenty pounds.
“Hey Kyle, do you remember the time I followed you into the woods to fight monsters with nothing but a rock? Oh you don’t? That’s probably because we’re both dead.”
He carefully followed their lights, which had begun to shrink as they moved away from him, and tried to catch up. Losing his balance several times, he kept staggering forward, slowly closing the gap between them. The darkness surrounding him was terrifying in its solidity. He held the rock to his body with his right hand and held his left out in front of him, trying to ward off any loose branches that might jab at his eyes.
The only things visible to him were the two lights ahead, moving back and forth as Kyle and Katie looked for Ben. Twice he stopped when he heard sounds off to his right. Both times he held his breath and listened, praying to a God he hadn’t believed in earlier in the day that nothing was coming for him.
The flashlights were forty or fifty yards ahead of him and he wasn’t closing the distance as quickly as he wished. Every time he stopped to listen for something, he lost what ground he had gained. He wanted to yell out for them to wait, but was afraid to give away his position to whatever shadowed him to his right. His shins and toes were sore and bleeding from
continually running into stones and logs while he tried to catch up.
As he pushed further into the forest, he noticed the smell of salt water grew stronger with every step. The humidity in the air grew thicker, reminding Bryan of the beach more than the mountains of Pennsylvania.
After another twenty seconds of staggering through the woods, Bryan was about to shout out for them to stop, when the lights ahead of him halted in place. Trying to use their pause to his advantage he crept forward, careful of the treacherous ground. He could hear their whispering as he closed in, finally able to see them as he got within twenty feet.
The woods came to an abrupt end and Bryan stumbled out of them with his feet sinking into sand. Katie and Kyle stood just outside the edge of the forest, shining their lights along its edge, blinding Bryan as he approached them.
“What the hell? How are we on a beach?” Bryan asked.
“Glad you came with us,” Kyle said, dropping his hand on Bryan’s shoulder. “We were just following the trail from Ben and that... thing, when we ended up here.”
“It’s fairly obvious why we’ve smelled salt water for the last few hours.” Katie looked down the beach, into the darkness ahead. “We’re by an ocean.”
Bryan shook his head slowly, trying to understand how they could be near an ocean. Not even an hour ago, he’d been standing in redneck country in Pennsylvania. Whatever had happened to them in that church had taken them far beyond what he could have imagined.
He looked at Katie, trying to understand how she could remain so calm during everything. Bryan knew Kyle well enough to know that he thrived under pressure, and always kept himself together when things went wrong. He’d been involved with the volunteer fire department down the street from their college for the past three years, and had dealt with some disturbing situations during that time.
Kyle was at his best when everyone around him was panicking. But what about Katie? How could a reclusive author handle this kind of insanity? All Bryan wanted to do was run back to the church, and hope for the best. Katie seemed more interested in discovering about this world, or dimension, or whatever it was, than keeping herself safe.
“Wherever we are, it’s certainly not a mirror representation of our own world,” Katie said, turning back to them. The high humidity and exertion of running through the woods had her sweating profusely. Her t-shirt clung provocatively to her tight stomach. Bryan thought about slapping himself for noticing her attractiveness at a time like this.
“Is there any sign of Ben? I seriously want to get back to the church – monster inside or not.” Bryan held the rock in his right arm tighter to his body, wondering if he was wasting his time even carrying it. What could a rock do to something that could carry a full-sized man away by his face?
Kyle pointed his light at the sand between them, illuminating a trail running further down the beach.
“It looks like it dragged him this way. Check out the footprints beside the path,” Kyle said. “The prints aren’t too big, so hopefully it’s something we can handle.”
Katie slapped at her leg, cursing and hopping away on one foot. “Something bit me!” They couldn’t see anything, but Bryan thought he could hear something scampering away through the sand. He felt like they were being watched.
Ben screamed from somewhere ahead.
Chapter 17
Kyle charged down the beach with his cell phone and stick held out in front of him. Katie ran at his heels, trying to angle her flashlight ahead of him. Pulling up the rear, Bryan lifted his rock with both hands and held it in front of his chest, ready to throw it at anything that drew near.
They followed the trail in the sand for fifty yards where it abruptly ended, trampled by many tracks the same size as the footprints they’d been following. Droplets of blood were splattered on the beach.
“That’s not good,” Bryan said, staring at the blood. His heart, already pounding away in his chest, sped up even further, his head throbbing under the stress.
Katie raised her light, aiming it down the same direction the trail had been moving. Several shapes stood in a rough circle further down the beach, looking down at something unseen between them. They appeared humanoid, though their limbs were too long, their necks too short, and their torsos pale and emaciated.
When the light fell upon their ashy skin, they screeched in fury and pain, whirling into an animal-like crouch. Their mouths popped open as they hunched down, their long, gangly hands digging into the sand. Rows of short, sharp teeth lined their maws, reminding Bryan once again of a shark.
“Is that what came after us in the hidden library in the church?” Bryan asked, his voice so low that he could barely hear himself.
“I think so,” Katie replied softly. “Except now we’re seeing their entire form. Apparently, the gate wasn’t fully opened when we saw them earlier. I think.”
Kyle pulled his weapon back, his arm at a ninety-degree angle like a baseball player stepping to the plate with a bat. “Whatever they are, they took Ben, and I plan on making them pay.” He started down the beach, his stride calculating, but not fearful. “It’s time to die mother fuckers.”
Taking a deep breath, Bryan raised the stone over his head and followed his friend. He prayed for the second time that night, hoping that he wasn’t marching to his death. Katie walked by his right side, the flashlight her only weapon. She held the beam on the small group of creatures, flooding their bodies with light, exposing more of their inhuman features.
Like the worm monster in the church, they had no eyes or neck. Their heads appeared fused at the shoulders, unable to turn without their upper bodies rotating. Their mouths opened even further back, looking as if they were about to unhinge. They threw sand behind them with their lanky hands, like a bull preparing to charge.
As Katie moved closer, the light seemed to agitate them more; they hissed in what Bryan hoped was pain. Slowly they withdrew, some trying to shield themselves behind others as they stepped backward. One stood in front of the group, its mouth chomping over and over as it continued throwing sand behind itself at a furious pace. Its shoulders seemed slightly broader than the rest and its arms a little more striated.
“So you’re the alpha, aren’t you, you chicken shit. Stop throwing sand like a little girl and step up,” Kyle said, spitting the words out. “Let’s see you take on someone that isn’t a defenseless nerd.”
“Dude, let’s not antagonize the monster!” Bryan never took his eyes from the beast in front of him, but tried to look at Kyle with his peripheral vision. He knew that Kyle was worked up, but couldn’t believe that he seemed ready to attack an alien creature with a stick.
“I happen to agree with Bryan. Perhaps we can—”
It leapt at them, clearing the fifteen feet between them in one jump.
Kyle was ready for it, and swung the thick branch like a lumberjack, breaking it over the skull of the monster. It tumbled forward, its momentum thrown off by the blow, and crashed into Kyle, knocking him back. Their bodies rolled over each other, shoving Bryan aside before he could react.
Katie moved in, bringing the bright light within a few feet of the creature as it rolled on top of Kyle, pinning him in place. Its skin darkened where the light touched it, searing under its intensity. The beast threw its head back, screeching in agony before gnashing its teeth at Kyle’s face.
He moved his head to the side, barely evading the chomping jaws. It pulled back and prepared to strike again, drool arcing through the air from the movement.
Bryan recovered quickly, lifting the heavy rock above his right shoulder and thrust the pointed edge into the thing’s temple. He felt the reverberation travel up his arm, jarring the rock from his hands. It fell onto Kyle’s stomach, pushing the air form his body in an audible whoosh.
The creature fell over, disoriented from the strike. Black liquid oozed from a gash that had been opened. It flopped on the ground, trying to push itself to its feet before falling again, its equilibrium thrown off.
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Scrambling for the rock, Bryan pried it from Kyle’s hands and slammed it onto the back of the beast’s head with all of his might. A sickening crack filled the air as its skull took on a misshapen appearance, caving in at the point of impact.
Without another sound, the creature fell to the sand, its body twitching once before lying still. Bryan picked up the rock again and held it ready, prepared to deliver another blow. A putrid smell wafted up from the corpse, catching his breath for a second before he turned his head away, trying not to retch.
Katie came up beside him, rapidly moving the flashlight from the seemingly dead body, to the group of things further down the beach. They had moved closer during the fight, but had stopped when their leader had fallen. Now they stood in place, pawing at the sand and snarling.
Bryan noticed his hands had touched the black ichor that had come from the beast as he held the rock. Its viscous texture and rank stench made his eyes water. He held it at arm’s length, trying to keep the smell as far away as possible, but not wanting to drop the only effective weapon they had.
He tried to clear his thoughts, needing to concentrate on the pack of ungodly creatures standing only a few yards away.
“What do we do about them?” he asked Katie. He had just killed something that no one else had ever seen, yet he still found himself deferring to her for answers.
“I think my curiosity is satisfied,” she said. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
“I didn’t come down here to satisfy your curiosity – I came here to find Ben.” Kyle struggled to his feet, holding a hand to his stomach where the rock had fallen on him. He bent down and lifted one of the broken pieces of his stick, holding it by his side.
Katie kicked at the creature on the ground, trying to determine if it was truly dead. Another blow to the ribs produced no result and she trained her flashlight on the group further down the beach. They recoiled as the light hit their pale skin, screeching as they shrank away.
