Corrosion: Terminal Horizon (The Portal Arcane Series - Book III)

by J. Thorn

  “Follow my lead.”

  Lindsay frowned and drew a deep breath. She wasn’t sure if she preferred the smell of the decaying flesh or a lungful of sand. She received both.

  “You will let us through to the city. You will part.”

  At first, the horde remained unchanged. Their feet were fixed to the ground while their bodies swayed back and forth. Samuel waited and then spoke again.

  “I know who sent you and why. This will not fulfill your ahimsa. The lord of the reversion is perverting your souls and using your flesh against you. Let us pass.”

  Lindsay looked at Samuel and then at the horde. If using words to no effect was Samuel’s plan, he was brilliantly successful.

  “Let us pass,” he said again.

  Lindsay giggled at the way Samuel spoke to the horde, as if they were being disobedient school children. His firm repetition would have failed just as miserably in a first grade classroom. She stepped toward the first member of the horde and slammed her knife through the creature’s empty eye socket and into his cranial cavity. She pulled it out with a wet squish and drew her knife back behind her right ear. The creature waddled, took a step forward, and then collapsed on to the asphalt at their feet. She smiled and winked at Samuel. Another creature took a step forward and filled the gap previously held by the one now on the ground.

  “Nice try,” Samuel said.

  Lindsay stepped forward and thrust again, using the same maneuver with the same deadly accuracy. Again, the creature fell to the ground. And again another took its place.

  “You keep that up and you’re going to dull the blade,” Samuel said.

  “Okay then, smartass. I’m following your lead.”

  She took a step back and held out her left hand to Samuel, palm up, offering him the next move.

  “If I try a local slip, we’ll get past them like we did the fire in the other reversion. But if I do that, we’re vulnerable. We could end up at the cauldron right in front of Kole and we’d be disoriented and unable to defend ourselves.”

  “And if we don’t?” Lindsay said. “Not sure what choice we have. I can’t understand why an army of the undead meant to keep you from getting to the city would not move because you asked them to.”

  “Sarcasm looks so good on you.”

  Lindsay smiled. She sheathed her knife and held her right hand out to Samuel. He took it and swung her around, placing a light kiss on her lips.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She kissed him back and closed her eyes.

  Samuel and Lindsay vanished from the road and the horde immediately turned and sauntered back towards the recesses of the city.

  Alex Brown stood up and looked over the boulder concealing his presence as he rubbed his eyes. He looked again to make sure they were really gone.

  “Holy shit.”

  ***

  “We got lucky.”

  Lindsay looked past Samuel and around the corner of the building. She could see the road leading into the city and the ground floor of another building across the street. Black holes sat where windows once were, sand dunes cascading upward toward the ceiling of the first floor. One of the horde walked down the street and turned to climb inside the building.

  “Either we came out really close to the rear of the horde or they dispersed faster than they gathered,” Samuel said.

  “Or the entire city could be full of them.”

  Samuel could not understand why he never considered that option. When he first encountered the mob of undead, back in the cabin with Major, Kole and Mara, they could see the extent of the group. But in the bones of this old city, there was no telling how deep they burrowed inside.

  “The sun is setting and I think we should find a place to spend the night, a spot we can defend if we have to. I don’t think the horde would attack us, especially if we’re not moving, but we don’t know where Kole is.”

  “Is he here for sure?” Lindsay asked.

  “Yes,” Samuel said. “He’s here. I can feel him and I think the reflections we saw were recent, maybe only hours old.”

  Lindsay turned around and looked into the dark recess of the alley. They came out of the local slip near a dumpster lodged between two buildings. The alley once provided rear access to each building, but the sand piled waist-high on each wall suggested it had been a long time since those doors opened.

  “Do we want to get inside?”

  “I think so. If we can find a room and secure the door we’ll at least be safe for the night.”

  “Let’s sneak around the front and see if the windows on this building are blown out like the rest.”

  “I’m sure they are,” he said. “Stay low. I can’t imagine how many zombies would gather in the streets if they knew we were trapped inside one of these old buildings.”

  Lindsay followed Samuel as he jogged through the alley, staying low and as close to the wall as possible. He came to a wide sidewalk that wrapped around the east side of the structure and led to a storefront. With the weak rays of the sun creating shadows on the walls, Samuel and Lindsay made it to the front and slipped inside the building. At first, the air felt heavy and the blackness seemed to go on forever. After a few moments, their eyesight adjusted and Samuel scanned the floor for footprints. Either nobody had been inside in a while or the sand covered the tracks quickly because the floor appeared undisturbed. He held a finger to his lips and Lindsay followed in silence.

  She looked to the right where an odd shape caught her eye. Leaning against the wall was a ladies’ bow painted in a black camo pattern. The bow looked suspect in the dilapidated building, but Lindsay knew better than to expect logic in the reversion. She remembered Samuel’s stories of his knife, Scout, and decided to reach for the bow. It was almost three feet from axel to axel and weighed less than four pounds.

  Other than one afternoon at summer camp in sixth grade, Lindsay never shot an arrow, at least not one from a real hunting bow. An experienced hunter would have recognized the bow’s solid back-wall and draw cycle, making it instant death at twenty yards. Arrows lay scattered about on the ground. Lindsay picked up the bow and felt a thrumming in her hands as if the weapon chose her. She placed an arrow inside, pulled back and watched it flap through the air like a wounded pigeon.

  “I’m not even going to ask where you found that, but I am going to ask what the hell you’re going to do with it.”

  Lindsay smiled.

  “This is my Scout. Next chance we get, I need to do a little target practice.”

  “You need a lot of target practice.”

  Samuel pushed deeper into the building while Lindsay slid the new weapon over her shoulder. At first, the debris inside was hard to identify. But after making their way towards the interior of the building where the wind couldn’t reach, the sand gave way to marble tile. Bronze planters with plastic plants were stacked on one wall and the gaping elevator doors were on another. Bland, featureless office furniture lay scattered everywhere. Samuel and Lindsay picked through the rubble until they came to a door with the symbol for stairs on it. He nodded and used an index finger to point towards the ceiling. Lindsay nodded. Samuel pushed on the door and it opened with a tired squeal into an even blacker darkness. He cursed himself for not having matches. Samuel put his hand out and felt to the right for the other side of the wall, then down until he found a railing. Lindsay stepped into the stairwell behind Samuel and pulled the door shut with another squeal.

  “At least we’ll hear that thing opening,” she said.

  They both stood in total darkness. Samuel started climbing the stairs. He counted in his head until his leg came to a landing. The railing turned and he took the same number of steps upward until he reached a second landing.

  “Second floor,” Lindsay said.

  “Right,” Samuel said.

  The more breaths Samuel took, the less it satisfied. He gulped and then felt his heartbeat race. Samuel closed his eyes and then opened them, unable to tell the difference.


  “Lin.”

  “Right behind you,” she said.

  Samuel jumped and he felt sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Feeling a bit claustrophobic is all.”

  “I used to think it would suck to be stuck in an elevator but I gotta say being stuck in a stairwell ain’t much better.”

  “We’re not stuck,” Samuel said. He stuttered the three syllables.

  “No, we’re not. Let’s go one more level.”

  Samuel nodded and then realized Lindsay couldn’t see him.

  “Fine,” he said.

  Samuel took another step when a low rumble began. By the time Lindsay grabbed Samuel’s hand, it sounded as though a train was coming through the stairwell.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Don’t move,” Lindsay said.

  He listened to her. She squeezed Samuel’s hand. It felt like a dead trout. She pushed her body against his. They waited as the sound began to subside and then ceased completely.

  “I think it’s over. Let’s go.”

  “What’s over?” Samuel asked.

  “Go, Samuel. Walk up the steps.”

  He pushed himself off the wall but stumbled on the third floor landing. He could no longer direct his rational mind to count. The phantom noise made that impossible. When Lindsay felt Samuel stop on the landing, she nudged him aside and put out both hands. She moved them up and down on the smooth, steel door until she felt the latch. Samuel’s breathing sounded as if he was running sprints.

  “Open it,” Samuel said.

  Lindsay grabbed the latch with her fingers and yanked. At first, nothing happened. She leaned back and yanked harder and the door gave way. Unlike the door on the first floor that was more susceptible to the elements, this one opened silently, the hinges still oiled. She saw a haze of gray light expand as the door opened and realized the remaining light of the day was filtering in, providing enough ambient light to navigate through the space.

  Lindsay stepped through the doorway and then reached back to pull Samuel through. She shoved him to the side and shut the door. Lindsay grabbed a broken chair near the doorway and lodged it against the floor. The door swung outward, so the chair wouldn’t prevent the door from opening, but it would serve as an alarm if someone was entering.

  Lindsay blew the bangs from in front of her face. She saw Samuel slide down the wall and on to his backside, his head titled back against the wall to open his airway. He was sucking air like he had just come up from a deep sea dive. Lindsay spun around, her eyes now adjusted to the dim surroundings. She froze and her heart almost shot out of her chest.

  “Fuck. Who the hell are you?”

  Chapter 5

  He sat on the couch hoping to save the girl from her wretched mother. They wouldn’t understand his love. She was almost of age and he could wait if he had to, but Alex Brown was tired of seeing the other men from 8th Avenue in Homestead, Pennsylvania, take their turns with her. It was abuse, and what Alex had to offer the girl was love. Brown knew her mother in high school, back when she wouldn’t so much as spit in his face if he asked for it. Now, her mother was lumpy, drunk and losing track of her marriages. Lindsay was headed down the same path.

  Alex sat on the couch with a bottle of Iron City beer. He looked down at his wrinkled and stained Steelers T-shirt and hated himself for being there. He had not touched Lindsay. He saw her at the Giant Eagle buying milk and bread after school and Alex had thoughts, but thoughts weren’t against the law. Lindsay’s mom was making money on her daughter’s womanly curves, even before she became a woman. That was illegal.

  “Now go keep Mr. Brown company.”

  The sound of his last name caught Alex’s attention. He sighed and thought how stupid it was that Lindsay’s mom called them all “mister,” as if everyone in Homestead didn’t know everyone else. Lindsay knew he was Alex Brown no matter what was spoken in the house.

  The old crone leaned over and whispered into her daughter’s ear before turning around and spitting verbal venom at the rest of the old, horny men hanging around waiting for a piece of barely-legal pussy.

  “Yinz get back to the party,” Lindsay’s mother said while spinning in a circle from the middle of the living room. “Just a woman disciplining her child.”

  She pushed Lindsay in the back toward the couch where Alex sat. Lindsay looked over a shoulder and glared at her mother.

  “Love you, Mommy,” Lindsay said loudly enough for Mr. Brown to take notice. He squirmed and knocked more condensation off the beer bottle.

  “I don’t need this kind of nonsense,” Alex said to Lindsay’s mother.

  The woman grabbed Lindsay by the arm and pulled her close. Lindsay shook her grip and stepped away. She held her mother’s gaze for another moment before walking over and sitting on Alex’s lap. He inhaled and felt an immediate erection pushing against Lindsay’s tight bottom. The girl stood, took Alex by the hand and walked him towards the bedroom.

  I can’t do this, he thought. She’s close to legal and I love her, but they’ll never see it that way. The cops, the judges. They won’t understand.

  Lindsay walked into her room and stood to the side, waiting for Alex to come in as well. He set his glasses next to the empty bottle on the nightstand while Lindsay closed the door. Both items appeared absurd in Lindsay’s room full of white, pink and frills. Lindsay lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Alex looked down at the girl, at her smooth skin and angelic face. His brain told him to grab her and jump out the window, to get Lindsay as far away from her mother as possible. His animalistic urges told him to climb on top of her. She invited him into her room. She brought the vampire inside and she was legal enough.

  A dry hump. That’s all.

  Alex climbed on top of Lindsay and she felt the friction of his jeans on hers and she knew what came next. He pushed back and forth, the denim burning his erection, begging to be set free.

  Just a quick touch, he thought. Through her bra.

  He reached down and squeezed Lindsay’s breasts.

  “Maybe you can just show me what ya got. I won’t touch skin unless you say it’s okay.”

  “What would my mom say?” she asked.

  “She said it was okay. Me and your mom go way back. I’m like part of the family.”

  “You sure she won’t be mad at me?” she asked.

  “No, honey. She wants us to have fun. You wanna have fun with me, dontcha?”

  Lindsay smiled at Alex. He knew it was fake. He could tell she was terrified, yet he was beyond control. He reached down to unbutton her jeans, hoping to brush his fingers over her cotton panties.

  “Hold on, let me help,” she said.

  Alex kneeled down and then leaned back. Lindsay was on her back. He gripped his T-shirt with both hands and drew it over his head, then slid the jeans off his hips revealing yellowed briefs. Lindsay started to snicker when he backhanded her across the face. He loved her and that meant he had to teach her manners. You didn’t make fun of a man and his private parts without expecting to get hit.

  Tough love, he thought.

  “Your mom always liked it when we played rough. Do you like it rough, Lindsay?” he asked, slapping her again.

  She’s playing the game. This is all consensual. If it wasn’t she’d tell me to stop.

  He put his cock on her thigh, stuck two fingers underneath the edge of her panties and ripped them off.

  “Let me lick it like a lollipop,” she said.

  Alex stuck his throbbing manhood into the air. Lindsay sat up and put a finger to the corner of her mouth.

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  Alex did as he was told.

  The sensation that came next did not match what Alex thought would happen. The bottle came down hard on his skull. He tumbled to the floor, facedown, blood trickling from his left temple. Alex’s twisted underwear looked like misplaced bandages.

  “Everything all rig
ht in there?” Lindsay’s mother asked through the door. “She treatin’ ya fine, Mr. Brown?”

  “We’re fine, Mum,” Lindsay said.

  “Yinz come and have a drink when yer done.”

  “We will,” Lindsay said. She heard her mother’s raucous cackle as she reentered the party in the living room.

  Alex moaned and opened his eyes to see Lindsay putting her clothes on. His vision swam in and out as if the room was filled with water. He tried to speak but nothing came out of his mouth except groans. Alex blinked and he opened his left eye with his nose stuck to the grimy, hardwood floor. Everything came into focus for a moment, long enough for Alex Brown to see the love of his life, Lindsay, swinging the heavy end of the floor lamp down towards his head.

  Everything went black. He heard sounds in the room and caught snippets of conversation as he came in and out of consciousness, each time releasing a heavy moan into the air.

  “Pulling ourselves back together, Ma. Showin’ Mr. Brown my dolls.”

  “Everything okay in there?”

  “Fine, Mom. I’m really fine. Always have been.”

  Alex dipped into the void and came back out again. He could taste the copper in his mouth and pain tore through his eyes every time he opened them. Someone was banging on the door and Alex heard yelling.

  “Lindsay. Open this damn door ’fore I beat your skinny ass.”

  More banging.

  “Fuck, Lindsay. Let me the fuck in.”

  Alex felt a rush of air on his face. He smelled the stale cigarettes and beer on Lindsay’s mom as she bent down to look at him. Alex raised his head as far as he could and his hand fumbled on the floor for his glasses.

  “You’re just as pathetic as you’ve always been, Alex. Serves you right to get bloodied by a teenage girl.”

  Alex’s world went black when Lindsay’s mother’s fist smashed his nose.

  ***

  It took weeks for Alex to work up the courage to hang himself. He knew what the inmates would to do him if he was convicted. Lindsay ran away and it would be years before DNA evidence was used in court. Alex might walk on all charges but he couldn’t take the chance. Besides, he lost the love of his life. He had the opportunity to take her away from the pain, to care for her, to be there for her. Instead, he succumbed to his primal urges and it cost him everything.