“I’m going,” she said, giving him her best determined face. There was no way she was staying behind.
“Okay,” Raphael relented, after a moment. “But we have to be careful. And if wherever we wind up seems dangerous, we’ll leave and get help. Deal?”
“Deal,” she agreed, her tension growing.
He dug into his pocket and pulled out Lily Rose’s gold pocket watch. “I tried to return this to her a few days after we used it to get home from Oberon’s alternate world,” he told Aimee. “You know what she said?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘It doesn’t just tell time, Raphael—it tells time what to do,’ and she made me keep it. It’s no surprise she’d know we might need it again. Are you ready?”
Aimee nodded, and Raphael carefully fitted the watch into the face of the control panel as he did the first time he’d used the wheel.
“Okay, Aimee—try to get a good image of your mom in your mind,” he said. “Then pull the lever.”
Aimee took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and thought of her mom puttering around in the kitchen, singing softly to herself. Take me to her, she thought and she pulled the lever.
There was a heavy metallic clinking sound and, just as it did the last time they used it, the wheel rumbled to life and massive machinery groaned and clacked beneath their feet. Then the huge turntable beneath them began to rotate, slowly at first and then faster and faster.
The wheel was going at super speed now, and Aimee was dizzy, disoriented. It felt like she was freefalling, plummeting to her death. The image of her mother fled from her mind as, panicked, she opened her eyes and looked up, expecting to see herself tumbling downward, away from the tracks. Instead, she saw only the stark, black dome above them. Her hand felt numb from the vibration, but she managed to release the lever. It swung upward, clicked into place, and the massive, unseen machinery ground to a halt. The wheel beneath them slowed and stopped. But she couldn’t quite shake that terrifying, plummeting feeling.
“We’re here,” she whispered. Whereever here was…
As soon as the tunnel exit came into view, Raphael knew something was very wrong. It was dreary when they’d entered the school to explore the tunnel, but the light that came through the great, arched exit now was even dimmer, and it was tinted with the ghostly reddish brown of a sepia photograph. Wind howled across the opening in a mournful, endless moan.
Instinctively, Raphael pulled Aimee close for a moment as he shut off the flashlight. He stuck it in his backpack and then they walked several yards up the tracks before they stopped, squinting into the lashing wind at the strange, unfamiliar world before them.
Everything was gone. There were no trees, no bushes—not even a single blade of grass. The earth was a sickly rust color, and so parched it was riddled with deep cracks. The dark clouds of swirling, blowing dust swept across the sky, behind which the sun hung, crimson and small, no larger, brighter or warmer than a stoplight. To Raphael, the landscape looked exactly like the NASA rover’s pictures of the surface of Mars he’d seen online. But this was no alien planet; the railroad tracks on which they stood stretched out across a barren plain all the way to the horizon.
“This doesn’t look anything like Oberon’s kingdom,” Aimee said. “At least, not the part we saw.”
Raphael led her out of the tunnel, into the open. The wind hit them so hard Raphael had to widen his stance to keep from falling over, and Aimee was having trouble staying on her feet. Even wearing his parka, he shivered in the frigid air. It had to be at least twenty degrees colder than it was when they’d entered the tunnel. Already, his nose and cheeks were aching from the frigid, harsh wind. He led Aimee a few more steps into the open and then looked around, taking in the lay of the land.
“What is this place?” Aimee asked.
Raphael stared into the distance, at a hill. A familiar hill.
“Middleburg,” he said, his voice almost lost in the wind. He pointed to the hill and saw recognition dawn in Aimee’s eyes, too. Perhaps a half a mile away was the rise on which Hilltop Haven normally sat. Although the shape and location were exactly the same as the Hilltop Haven they knew, there were no more beautiful mansions. The structure that now sat upon the hill looked more than anything like a pile of trash, but Raphael could tell there was an order to the seemingly jumbled pieces of wood and metal. It was a fence, a battlement. Some kind of fort.
Staring up at it and squinting into the icy gale, he took a few steps off the track and almost tripped on something. Looking down, he saw part of an old weathered, aluminum can protruding from the hard soil. He loosened it with the toe of his shoe, then pulled it out. The green color had almost faded to nothing, but he could still make out the word Sprite written across it. He glanced at Aimee.
“You think this is really Middleburg?” she asked.
“Or at least, it used to be.”
Fighting through the wind, she bent next to him and pulled something else up from the soil. It looked like a shard of smooth, white pottery with a hole in it. Maybe, he thought, it had been part of a large, round jug for holding liquids.
She turned it over in her hands. “What do you think it was?” she asked.
Raphael saw another shard sitting nearby and picked it up. It fit with the first shard like a puzzle piece and what it formed made Raphael feel suddenly sick.
“A skull,” Aimee whispered. She dropped the pieces and wiped her hands on her jeans just as a sudden scream pierced the air, answered shortly by another, more distant call. The eerie shriek seemed distorted in the blasting wind.
Raphael looked around. He saw nothing—no one—that could have made the unearthly sound. He looked up at the ramshackle fort on the hilltop, and he and Aimee headed in that direction, through what he thought had to be hurricane-force wind, with gusts so strong they had to lean forward at a forty-five degree angle just to stay upright. In the cold, even with his hands in his pockets, Raphael’s fingers were entirely numb.
They walked for perhaps five minutes without talking; there was no sound except for the howl of the wind and the faint scuff of their feet on the dead earth.
“What do you think this is?” Aimee shouted over the gale, breaking the silence. “Some kind of parallel dimension?”
“Yeah—maybe,” he said. “The Magician told us that time is an illusion, that all time exists at once, but we’re able to perceive only the present. I think the Wheel somehow breaks down the illusion that separates different times, allowing us to travel between them, from the present to the past or the future.”
“So the last time we used the Wheel, when we fought Oberon?”
“The distant past, I think.”
“And this is the future?” she asked sadly.
Raphael nodded. “I think so.”
To their right, the rusted, skeletal frame of an old car was half buried in the earth. It looked like a weird piece of modern art.
“What do you think happened?” Aimee asked, “Nuclear war? An asteroid? Maybe overpopulation created some kind of environmental disaster?”
“Looks to me like all of the above.”
Suddenly, he put a hand on Aimee’s shoulder, and they stopped walking. He pointed ahead. Three triangular shapes were coming toward them across the barren landscape, from the direction of the fort, moving fast.
“Down,” Raphael said, and he pulled Aimee with him to the ground.
“What the heck are those things?” she asked.
“Don’t know. But whatever they are, they’re heading right for us. Come on.”
They hurried back to the rusted car frame and ducked behind it. When he looked out again, he could see they were much closer now. At their current speed, the brown triangles would arrive in a matter of seconds.
He gently pushed Aimee back against the car. “Crouch here, okay
? I need you to stay safe until I find out what we’re dealing with.” She gave him a quick kiss and took cover beneath the rusty car frame.
Raphael looked out again, as the first of the three triangles shot past. It was a windsurfer somebody had put together, Frankenstein-like, from an array of scrap wood and metal, with a sail made of what looked like a multitude of filthy rags stitched together. But that wasn’t what worried Raph: it was the creature riding it.
It looked like a man, slightly taller than average and so sickeningly skinny that it was just a skeleton with skin stretched over it. A few long, wispy hairs clung to its otherwise bare scalp. It was almost naked save for an oily-looking leather loincloth, and its skin was so pale it was almost blue. It shrieked, the piercing sound of a baby in pain, showing as it did it a mouth full of sharp, elongated teeth. To Raphael, it looked kind of like Golem from Lord of the Rings—Golem, in desperate need of a suntan.
The other two triangles shot past too, moving at incredible speed. As Raphael watched, all three swung around to make another pass, and he could see wicked-looking metal weapons in the hands of the riders.
“Stay here, Aimee,” he said. She nodded, and he stepped away from the car.
The first sail-rider raced toward him, his windsurfer board skittering smoothly across the blasted earth.
“Hey!” Raphael shouted. “We don’t want to hurt you. We’re looking for someone.”
The rider hissed, adjusted his sail, and shot forward. He was upon Raphael instantly, lashing out with some kind of crude saber as he ripped past. Raphael managed to sidestep the blow, but the blade slashed his jacket open in an explosion of feathers.
“This coat was my dad’s!” he shouted, furious. He dove and rolled just in time to dodge the second attacker. The third caught a big gust of wind and jumped, pulling his desert-skimmer into the air and attacking Raphael from above.
Raphael deflected the attack, slapping the flat of the blade away just in time. It sliced so close to his face he could feel the stirring of air on his skin. He had no time to regroup; the first surfer had already turned and was heading back to make another pass.
Raphael looked around for something to use as a weapon. There was nothing but dirt and large, half-buried stones. Not so much as a stick anywhere.
Breathe, Raphael told himself. Focus. Harness the Shen.
But his body was so clenched up with the cold he couldn’t relax, and before he could even draw one deep breath, the next sail-rider was on him, hacking at him as he sped by. Raph felt a sharp sting in his shoulder and glanced down to see a small gash, just beginning to bleed.
“Raphael!” Aimee called.
“I’m fine!” he shouted. “Stay there.”
But it was too late. She had already emerged from beneath the car frame and was running to him. One of their attackers saw her, swung his sail around and shot toward her. She tried to change her direction to avoid him, but he kept coming, swinging something over his head. It was a bola, Raph realized, a cord with a rock tied to both ends. He threw it at Aimee and it wrapped around her legs, tripping her and sending her tumbling in mid-run.
Raphael ran toward Aimee but at that moment another sail-rider swooped in. Raph tried to sweep him off his board with a leg kick, but the rider hopped over his attack and struck back, slashing Raphael’s coat once more. The third rider was close behind, but this time Shen responded when he called on the power. It sizzled through every nerve in his body and exploded from his outstretched hand. The scorching blast of lightning knocked Raphael’s enemy from his sailboard and sent him sprawling to the dirt. Instantly, Raphael was on him.
The hideous maggot of a man squirmed violently beneath Raphael, struggling with super strength to shove Raphael off, but Raph concentrated all his energy on his enemy’s wrist, on the hand that held the weapon. First he pinned it, then twisted it. The creature growled and chomped at him, trying to bite him with those creepy, sharp teeth, but Raphael kept twisting and finally made him let go of the weapon. The rider gave a shout of pain as Raph seized the weapon and brought the handle of it down on his head three times, knocking him out cold. The weapon, something like a crude sword, was an oddly shaped piece of rusted metal. It looked like a salvaged piece of machinery someone had sharpened on a rock, with a grip that was nothing more than a length of dirty fabric wrapped around bare metal, but it would have to do.
The other rider was sailing in for another pass. Calmly, Raphael watched and waited as he approached. At exactly the right moment, he feigned a high strike then quickly crouched and chopped at his enemy’s legs, catching him solidly in the back of one knee. The man-thing shouted pitifully and crumpled, falling face first to writhe on the hard earth. His board stayed upright and shot across the empty desert for about fifty yards before it finally hit a rock and tipped over.
Raphael looked around for Aimee. He didn’t see her anywhere.
As his concern turned to desperation, he spotted it: the triangle of a sail, far away now, and moving fast, toward the fortress on the hill.
“Crap,” Raphael murmured.
As fast as he could, he stooped over the windsurfer belonging to the rider he’d knocked out and pulled it upright. The raging wind almost jerked it away from him.
He’d skateboarded for a while in Middle School, until kung fu had become more important to him. And he’d never sailed or surfed in his life.
I’d better learn fast, he thought, watching his enemy’s windsurfer fading into the distance, taking Aimee with it.
He stepped onto the board. Instantly, the wind gusted and blew him over. He righted himself and tried again, pulling back against the wind this time, and in a moment he was moving fast, skimming across the desert floor, toward Aimee.
Chapter Eight
Aimee fought with all her strength until her muscles ached, but she knew escape was not going to happen with the bola wrapped tightly around her legs. They were gliding over the desert on some kind of sail-sand-surfer thing, and the man (if that’s what it was) was holding her firmly in front of him. He had tied her hands with a strip of leather, and one of his arms was clamped around her neck in a fierce headlock. She never would have guessed such a skeletal limb could be so strong, but it felt like a steel band. No way could she break a grip like that. With his other hand, the pale creature steered his sailboard expertly across the flat, empty land, toward the hilltop fortress.
Aimee managed to look back over his shoulder twice, hoping to see Raphael in pursuit, but there was nothing behind them but the howling wind, blowing furiously in a gritty, brown tempest. The thought that one of the other pale riders got Raphael was too horrible to contemplate. She tried to look back a third time, and the creature’s breath on her face was so rancid she had to turn away—but not before she saw him grin and close his lips over his sharp teeth, lips dripping with thick, putrid saliva. She couldn’t tell if he was hungry or if it was some kind of invitation to hook up. His voice raspy and hollow, he whispered in her ear as he pulled her more tightly against his scrawny chest.
“Tahw-wheeeeeat,” the vile thing rumbled.
Aimee struggled more fiercely against him. His grip on her neck tightened.
“Towah-eeeeeeit,” the creature wheezed, more insistently, and suddenly she felt a spark of pain on the top of one ear.
“Ow!” Angrily, she jerked her head away. The skeleton thing grinned at her, blood glistening on its sharp front teeth.
“To eeeeat,” he said again, and grinned.
Aimee shuddered as terrifying images crowded in: this pale, skinny thing ripping her apart with its sharp teeth and devouring her one limb at a time. She shook her head, banishing the vision—and then, chaos erupted.
Something slammed into the board, sending it careening to one side. It tipped over and Aimee tumbled across the hard sand and skidded to a stop a few yards away. And then she was on her back, staring up at the brown
, dust-choked sky. From behind her came the sound of clashing weapons, and she turned to see Raphael and her captor dueling with primitive, roughly made swords.
She sat up, pulled her wrists out of her now-loosened bindings and then started unwinding the bola from around her ankles, keeping an eye on the battle. The lanky, pale warrior was an inch or so taller than Raphael and moving with practiced precision as he swung his scythe-like blade at Raphael. Raph easily parried the strike and countered, slashing his enemy’s shoulder, which only made the creature more furious. It lashed out at Raphael, swinging hard—too hard. Raphael moved slightly, letting the blade go past him as his enemy followed through, its arm crossing over its body. Raph quickly stepped forward and pinned its arm against its chest with one hand. With the other, he swung his weapon at the creature’s neck in a decisive blow. When Aimee saw the blood start to spread across its pale chest, she looked away.
They were now at the foot of the hill; the fort was only a few hundred yards away. My mom could be in there, she thought. In two minutes, we could be together again.
And she heard it again. “Aimee . . .”
Sad. Afraid. Pleading. And it was coming from the direction of the garbage-dump fort. She picked up the bola—though she had no idea how to use it—and with renewed energy, she charged up the hill. Something was pulling her forward. Something that was making her unafraid.
Raphael’s voice came from behind her, faint in the roar of the wind. “Aimee, wait! Aimee!”
She heard his footsteps coming up behind her, but she could see a break in the fortress wall. She headed for it, slipping on the powdery earth, then regaining her footing and charging onward. At last, she reached the top of the hill and burst through the opening.
Instantly Raphael was next to her, breathing hard, his weapon raised to protect her from whatever enemies were lying in wait. But there were none. Aimee moved forward, making a slow circuit around the inside of the fortress wall. Bones littered the ground all around them: small bones, from the rodents that the skeleton-men probably ate, and larger bones that looked frighteningly human. A number of human skulls lay around too, half-buried in the soil. They look like stepping stones, Aimee thought, from some horrific fairy tale.
GHOST CROWN: THE TRACKS TRILOGY - Book Two Page 13
