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

by J. Thorn

  Blood dripped down the shaft and into the water, where it sent up a thin tendril of smoke. The chief walked up to the white panther and pulled the arrow out. The animal roared and shook as the cold air entered the wound and paralyzed its lungs. The panther thrashed and snapped its jaws, but did not attack the chief or his warriors. The chief bent down and captured several drops of blood in a wooden cup before the panther turned and disappeared into the forest. When the chief looked down, he saw the blood turning the cup black. It cracked into two pieces. He handed them to his son and the clan continued on their journey.

  Over the years, the sons of the chief would inherit the pieces. The people believed those holding the wood, blackened by the blood of the white panther, would protect them from the evil forces of the underworld. Placing the two pieces together would summon the white panther and it would fight for them, forever grateful to the clansman who pulled the arrow from its side. They created idols and worshiped the beast and the followers of this new way became known as the Clan of the White Panther.

  For hundreds of years, the Catholic missionaries did their best to stamp out the heresy. The Europeans converted or killed the native tribes that worshipped the White Panther until they were forced to hide it. Clans remained active and spread throughout what would become Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Years passed and the rise of industry shifted the focus to the gods of commerce instead of the natural world. The natives that once worshiped the white panther died off and the few Europeans who knew the story incorporated it into their local folklore.

  The pieces of wood christened by the panther’s blood survived and changed hands many times throughout the centuries. They were stored in boxes and transferred between attics and basements, nothing more than a curious native artifact. By the 1850s, they were separated from each other but still in existence. One of the pieces belonged to a librarian in Monroeville. His son’s name was John, but everyone called him by his nickname, Jack. The other piece was sold several times until it became part of a collection owned by the Broneski family that lived on the hills above Homestead. In the 1930s they would change their surname to Brown. The oldest grandchild’s name was Alexander.

  ***

  “A what?”

  “A panther. White,” Alex said.

  Jack stepped next to Alex and faced the hallway. The panther looked up at him and snapped at the air. The animal’s red eyes bored into his own while its heavy, ragged breathing rattled the walls and shook the frames still hanging on them.

  “Why isn’t this thing coming after us?” Jack asked.

  “The Clan of the White Panther?” Alex turned his voice up at the end as if Jack should have known the answer already.

  Jack shook his head and looked at Alex. Alex saw the paralyzing fear in the young man’s face.

  Let him feel the fear for a change, Alex thought. “I’m guessing you’ve never heard of the folk tale.”

  Jack turned his head sideways and gave Alex a smirk. He looked back at the panther. Its fur gleamed in the dark hallway and its paws looked as big as tennis rackets.

  “Well, there was this tribe in Michigan. And some time in the—”

  “The horde is filling the streets and there’s a massive white panther in front of us. Skip the history lesson,” Jack said.

  “Do you carry any good luck charms, like a rabbit’s foot or lucky penny?” Alex asked.

  Jack chuckled and shook his head.

  “Yes.”

  “Right. What is it?”

  “That’s not import—”

  “What is it, Jack? What do you carry in your pocket?”

  “A lucky charm. A hunk of wood with a black stain on it. My grandfather gave it to me. He said it was some ancient Indian voodoo charm or something.”

  Alex laughed and slapped his thigh with one hand. Jack shifted his weight and balled his hand into a fist.

  “It’s not voodoo. It’s the Clan of the White Panther.”

  “Is this one of your avatars in an RPG? Do you need a special sword to get to the fourth level of the underworld?”

  “Stop being a dick, Jack. The clan is real. Could we have summoned the panther if it wasn’t?”

  “We didn’t summon anything,” Jack said. “That thing walked in here.”

  “Look.”

  Alex reached beneath his T-shirt and pulled out a rawhide string. On the end was a piece of wood stained black, similar to the one Jack had in his pocket.

  “I’ve got the other. Our proximity to each other here, in this reversion, it summoned the panther just like they said it would.”

  During the conversation the panther remained still, its head moving back and forth as the men spoke. Its white fur illuminated the hallway more than the lighter did. The animal seemed to be waiting for a command.

  “I’m not playing this game. You can explain to me later how a white panther got here. Right now, I need to know if this thing is going to eat me or not.”

  “He’s our protector. Our ancestors saved his life and now he will help us.”

  “Help us do what?” Jack asked.

  “With them. He’s going to clear us a path to the center of the city.”

  As if he understood his charge, the white panther growled. It walked past the two men and put its front legs up on the window sill. The panther stuck its nose outside and sniffed before jumping down and standing by the barricaded door.

  “He’s going to fight the horde?”

  “Unless you have a better way of getting past them, yes.”

  Jack leaned back against the wall. A local slip was risky. It might dump him into the heart of the city or it could land him in the middle of the horde.

  “Go ahead, panther whisperer. Do your thing.”

  Alex pushed his glasses up on his nose and smiled. He put a hand out to rub the panther’s head and then retracted it. He thought it was best not to tempt fate.

  ***

  The horde swayed as if the asphalt was shaking loose from the earth. Hairless heads and empty eye sockets looked out upon the world, facing the center of the city they were bound to protect. The descension slowed to a trickle and then stopped altogether as the last of the casualties from one of countless nuclear catastrophes fell from the sky. The cloud morphed back together and continued its march east as it looked down upon the new denizens of the reversion. The hive mind cried out with sorrow, remorse and utter sadness, but fell to silence like the rest of the dead world. The souls trapped inside of rotting bodies wailed like prisoners on death row. The Great Cycle commanded them to guard the peak, the cauldron and they would do as they were commanded.

  Those not on the highway clogged the sidewalks along the old streets and some pushed into the shops and offices that used to line the main thoroughfare into the city. Viewed from above, the scene would have resembled a Halloween parade. Thousands of bodies packed shoulder to shoulder, ready to respond to any movement towards the cauldron.

  Jack followed Alex and he followed the panther. The young man kept shaking his head, looking back over his shoulder and into the hallway, almost expecting to see another animal crawl from the darkness. He giggled at the thought of it, stomping through the main lobby behind Alex. This was Jack’s show. He was in charge, until the white fucking panther showed up. He was terrified until he realized it probably was not a real panther. The creature would not try to bite off his face or slice it open with his claws. Alex told him some bullshit fairytale. It had something to do with a charm that connected them to the mythical creature, a protector in dangerous times. It was just that, bullshit, as far as Alex was concerned. He was in the reversion long enough to know anything could be manifested by it, including white panthers delivered from sixteenth century Michigan.

  “Wait.”

  The panther stopped but did not turn to look at Jack. Alex did.

  “Yes?”

  “What are we going to do when we walk out this door?” Jack asked.

  “We’re going to follow him,” Al
ex said.

  “And?”

  Alex sighed and shook his head.

  “Jack. Don’t you see what’s going on here? My destiny, yours. Its wrapped around Lindsay. We’re here to save her and we summoned the panther to help us.”

  “Stop with the supernatural bullshit. You just got here. You don’t know how this place works or what the fuck it can do, so stop pretending to be Chief Wampum Panther Master and listen to me. That crew out there, they have one job. They need to keep us from getting to the cauldron at the top of the highest building in the city. No magical charm or ghost panther is going to get us there.”

  “He’s not a ghost,” Alex said. The panther looked up at him and then turned back towards the door. Alex reached down and patted the animal on the head, forgetting his earlier fear of the panther having his fingers for lunch.

  “This is fucking insane,” Jack said.

  The panther walked in a slow circle around the room, its ragged breathing the only sound inside. Alex smiled and watched it while Jack looked up at the ceiling. He sighed and turned back to Alex.

  “We follow him out into the Thanksgiving Day Parade of the dead? Maybe we should ride him down the yellow brick road all the way to Oz.”

  “You can ridicule all you want, Jack. Either way, we have to leave this building. I must do it for Lindsay and you deserve a talk with Samuel.”

  The name made Jack shiver like a glass of ice water dumped on his head. He nodded and looked out the window at the sea of dead flesh.

  “Yeah. Me and that motherfucker are gonna talk.”

  The panther stopped circling the room and sidled up next to Alex. The white panther made him look like a child. The animal’s head was as high as Alex’s shoulders.

  “Are you ready, Jack?”

  “Of course not,” he said.

  “Great. Let’s go.”

  The panther moved to the door on Alex’s command. He pushed the desk aside to allow Jack and the panther through.

  “One, two, three.”

  Alex opened the door and seven thousand guardians of the damned turned to stare at them.

  ***

  The white panther could not remember coming into the world. He rose from the bog in the first days. Man did not exist then and the panther ruled the forest. Creatures hid from the white fear. When the naked, filthy, upright creatures came to the wilderness, the white panther was not impressed.

  Cretins with a brain the size of a walnut, he remembered thinking.

  They ran through the woods fighting and fucking like the wild beasts they were. Even the most primal of the woodland creatures carried themselves with more dignity than man. But as the centuries passed and the earth shook the glaciers off its back like a wet dog, the panther sensed something was changing. Man started to gather together. They built structures to protect themselves from the weather and they learned to hunt in packs. They became, dare the panther think it, smarter. It was becoming man’s time and the panther would need to go into seclusion until their time passed.

  The white panther decided his power might not be enough any longer, that a well-disciplined hunting party could find him. His white coat would no doubt attract them. The white panther left his lair and traveled in darkness through the forest, moving through what would become Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania. He slept during the day and navigated by the night sky, the stars reflecting shimmering sparkles off his white coat. He met many creatures in his travels. Some became friends and others became meals. The white panther struck up a friendship with the coyote. The trickster amused the white panther and he enjoyed watching the coyote manipulate humans to his advantage. The more the panther traveled, the more humans he observed. It was not until the bearded man arrived that the white panther knew his horizon was shrinking.

  They brought fire sticks and tree slayers made of steel. They also brought more of themselves. The bearded white people came through the forest and horded the resources, slaughtering the forest and the woodland animals like gluttonous pigs. The white panther watched as the humans swarmed and attacked their new bearded brethren, to no avail. The bearded man would be the new ruler of the land.

  I will make my pilgrimage home, the panther thought at the time. I will go to the home of my ancestors and wait for time to dispel the foul, bearded humans and their red-skinned cousins. I will wait for Mother to cleanse her world and cover their bodies with forest moss and fallen leaves.

  The white panther never made it. Somewhere in the wilds of Penn’s Woods, one of the bearded men saw him. He was an unusual fellow, training in the ways of the bow instead of the firing sticks used by his kind. The man saw him and gave chase. The white panther laughed at first, knowing with three strides he could leave the man behind. The white panther played with him for a while, allowing the man to get close and then springing ahead into the distance. As the bearded man approached for the sixth time, the panther was tiring and had enough. He took a step to the right and was about to lunge one last time when he felt a strain on his front legs. The white panther looked down and realized he was stuck. The animal stood on the edge of a boggy marsh, his paws sucked into the soft, wet mud below the surface.

  He heard the sound of the arrow before it struck. The panther thought it was a hummingbird until the arrowhead pierced his flesh. The panther roared and thrashed about as blood poured into his lungs. The bearded man ran up to the beast and drew another arrow into his bow. However, he made a fatal error. The man assumed the panther was wounded and he let his guard down.

  His head popped off and it hit the ground with the sound of a ripe apple dropping from a tree. The white panther’s paw cut through the man’s neck with ease. While he savored the decapitation, the panther realized he was sinking. The mud that held his feet tight was now up to his underbelly. The panther’s lungs spasmed as more and more blood flooded into his chest. He had one option if he wanted to live, so the white panther took it.

  The animal decided to hope the same species that initiated his demise would save it as well. He slid beneath the surface of the bog and let the mystical waters surround him. The white panther knew the water would not heal, but it would preserve. The sulfuric odor and mineral deposits worked its cosmic magic to suspend the white panther until the arrow could be removed from its chest. The panther hoped a day would come when man would pull the arrow out, and the one who did would receive the panther’s everlasting protection. That man and all of his descendants would be protected members of the Clan of the White Panther.

  ***

  A low moan came from the horde as the panther opened its wide jaws. The resounding roar shook the building and charged the air with energy. The reversion abhorred noise and the cloud pulsed in anger at the panther’s outburst. The undead turned to face the threat, their feet still planted firmly in place.

  Alex stood beside Jack, ready to step across the threshold and follow the white panther into combat.

  “Will they fight?” Alex asked.

  “They’re not going to let us stroll down the street, now are they?”

  Before Alex could respond, the white panther lunged forward and into the mass of gray, tattered flesh. Chunks of hair and clothing flew as the animal tore into the horde. A rotting odor filled the air.

  “Let’s go,” Alex said.

  Jack moved forward, holding the pipe wrench in his hand. He raised it above his head and swung in a long, wide arc. It connected with the jaw of a woman, the left side of her face sliding from her skull. Alex walked behind Jack. He did not have time to grab a weapon and would rely on the panther to protect him from the horde.

  The white panther advanced, tearing into the zombies with his teeth and claws. They began to pile up on the asphalt and the horde shifted towards the animal as more fell at its feet.

  “He can’t possibly take them all,” Jack said as Alex watched.

  The young man continued to swing the pipe wrench, connecting with the creatures and watching their skulls split. The cloud boiled and li
ghtning flashed across the sky. Several of the zombies closest to the panther looked up, mesmerized by the sight.

  The animal charged forward and yet the horde remained fixed. However, the wind awoke and blew sand across the desert and towards the city. At first it was a silent, gentle draft but it picked up speed and intensity. Alex and Jack felt the gusts knocking them back and forth and they struggled to remain upright. The white panther ignored it, continuing to maul the decomposing flesh.

  Jack was the first to see them move. He was standing behind the panther and to its right when the members of the horde closest to the fight began walking backwards.

  “They’re retreating,” he said.

  The wind swallowed his words, but Alex saw it too. The horde was parting and the panther was at the epicenter of the fissure. They could not see the outer edges of the pulsing mass of bodies, but those on the highway and closest to the panther pushed backward, forcing those behind them to push as well. It created a ripple of motion away from the faded dividing line on the roadway.

  Alex could not tell if the wind was attempting to push the horde apart or hold them together. The white panther did not slow the carnage. The beast’s white fur was now almost black from the fight. The panther was covered in rotting flesh in the green-tinged daylight.

  The panther turned and faced the center of the city where the roadway pierced it on the horizon. Alex and Jack could see through the horde as they separated, creating enough space for the panther and the men to walk through. The undead closest to the center of the roadway swayed back and forth into the open channel, but none planted their feet on the line. They stood like a retaining wall holding the rest of the horde back. The wind subsided and the white panther stopped his attack.

  “Holy fuck,” Jack said.

  “I told you that the panther was powerful. Do you believe me now?”

  Jack nodded but was too stunned by what he saw to do more than curse.

  “The talismans we have, the ones that summoned the white panther, they’re powerful and they’re going to help us save Lindsay.”