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

by J. Thorn

  “I don’t give a fuck,” she said, as if Samuel read her thoughts. “I’m gonna go down fighting.”

  He looked at her as they passed another street sign bent and pointing into the street. The number of cars piled on the sidewalks grew the closer they came to the peak. The wind pushed Samuel and Lindsay as they tried hard to run through it. Samuel knew it was no coincidence. The cloud wanted one last shot at Samuel, one final attempt to immobilize him.

  “Me too,” he said to Lindsay and the cloud. “No storm ever kept me down.”

  A wave of water fell from the sky as the cloud spewed forth its anger. The rain came hard, pelting them with drops the size of apples.

  Without looking up, Samuel stopped at the main entrance to one of the skyscrapers.

  “This one,” he said.

  Lindsay was breathing hard and brushing water from her face. She put her hands on her hips and looked up. The cloud was almost there, but she could still see the tip of the building pointing at the belly of the beast. It had a two-pronged top like a set of devil horns.

  “Sears Tower?”

  Samuel looked around. He knew of the Sears Tower although he had never been to Chicago. The pictures of the skyline on Lake Michigan swirled in his memory and he suddenly knew.

  “Yes. This is the peak. The cauldron is on the observation deck.”

  Lindsay nodded.

  “Ladies before gentlemen,” he said.

  She sighed and strolled through the space where the revolving glass doors used to be, gathering a moment of relief from the pounding rain. Lindsay walked into an expansive lobby. Water dripped from an unseen source. The ceiling sparkled with the remains of natural light coming from the outside. The green tint of the reversion made the inside glow as if deep within a mineral cave. Samuel walked across the floor, over massive cracks in the Italian marble floor. He turned to wait for Lindsay when he heard squawking and saw black birds flying through the lobby.

  “Ravens?” he asked Lindsay.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Samuel walked towards the elevators and Lindsay followed. He saw footprints in the sand and a desk in the middle of the lobby.

  “Looks like the security desk,” Lindsay said.

  Samuel nodded and stopped at the steel door next to the elevator, the one leading to the stairs. He grabbed the handle and the door swung outward. Samuel heard the rain pounding the outside of the building and water began dripping through the eroded structure making the stairwell sound like a miniature waterfall.

  “Samuel I don’t like this. Not at all. What if this whole building collapses?”

  “It won’t,” he said. “We’re inside. The game has changed. The horde can’t catch us now and the cloud isn’t to the peak yet. Kole knows once we climb the steps, the fight is on. I think he wants it this way. I think he’s itching for a brawl.”

  “Then let’s give the punk-ass what he wants.”

  Lindsay brushed past Samuel, grabbed the handrail and took the first step towards the observation deck.

  ***

  The horde spilled from the darkness. They crawled from the crevices and forgotten holes of the reversion on the command of their lord. The hooded servant summoned them, but the horde considered him an extension of their master. If the call came they would heed it. Some of the souls held on to scraps of humanity tucked deep in the recess of their memories. They remembered names, faces, sensations. Others were completely lost after the descension into this universe, stripped of the ability to think, reason or remember.

  Once they began to gather, the power of the reversion – the same elemental force that pushed the cloud across the sky – created a group mentality, a collective consciousness. Those zombies with the dead flesh filled the streets. Like animals sensing a natural disaster before it occurs, the horde prepared for the annihilation when the cloud would conclude its journey to the peak. Some souls went through it before while others were new to the localized apocalypse. However, saying the horde knew what was inevitable would be misleading. Their primal urge to coalesce was the most sophisticated organization they could muster.

  Hundreds and thousands of them stumbled into the streets near center city. They crammed the sidewalks, streets, parking lots. With flesh hanging from dry bones and dragging body parts behind them in tattered strings of ligament, the horde swelled as if waiting for a holiday parade. Some trapped in the middle of the mass remained still while those on the edges shuffled inward until they could not advance any further. Some stood and pushed towards the center while others were trampled. The horde moved in utter silence as the cloud stirred the winds into a frenzy.

  By the time the cloud reached the top floors of the skyscrapers, the rain was falling with a horrific force. The dusty earth rebelled at first, swallowing the moisture like a thirsty sailor. But the volume of water overpowered the dry wasteland and it began to surge through channels cut into the roadways, fissures of concrete becoming streams and eventually rivers. Lightning raced across the sky without thunder, which could not have been heard anyway behind the overpowering drumming of water dropping from the sky. The previously silent reversion was now being pummeled into submission by water droplets the size of golf balls. The water pelted the horde and knocked many to the ground where they became a mixture of rotting flesh and wet sand. It pulled skin from bone and within a matter of minutes the water rose to the ankles of the horde. Sand and fallen flesh filled the sewer system. The water continued to rise until the city appeared to grow out of a shallow lake.

  Gather, my masses.

  The horde twitched at the sound of the lord’s voice. His servant, the hooded one, may have initiated the gathering, but it was the master commanding them now. He was at the peak, at the cauldron, with the orb in his possession and ready to protect the reversion from the one sent to destroy it. The horde would remain in the city and prevent anyone from escaping. They were the guards and it was their charge to plug the gaps and keep those at the peak from leaving unless at the mercy of the cloud.

  He is rising. Kole communicated to the horde through the orb. Tighten the circle around the base of the peak so that none may leave.

  The horde pulsed and shuffled. They listened to Kole’s commands as they had Deva’s. Some remembered their duty in the reversion and some remembered nothing, but all obeyed out of fear, like a dog beaten by a cruel master.

  ***

  “You’re afraid of heights? Are you shitting me? The Grim Fucking Reaper is scared?”

  Shallna remained motionless with his back to the wall. Kole could see the cloud, no more than a few hundred yards away. Based on its progress, he believed Samuel had about thirty minutes to make it to the peak. Kole probably could have used the orb to send the horde into the streets and block Samuel’s way and the cloud would have gotten him. But Kole didn’t think that would be much fun. He wanted the chance to prove to Samuel, to Deva, that he was worthy. He was not the inferior, expendable, second-born. Kole knew he was powerful and once he learned more about the orb, he would be indestructible. Shallna helped him the same way he did his father. For Kole, defending the cauldron was his duty but crushing Samuel would be his pleasure. And if he could waste Samuel’s little tart in the process, all the better.

  “C’mon. I need you over here to hold the orb when I start kicking his ass.”

  The thought of visceral, bloody, violence snapped Kole from his revenge fantasy and refocused his attention.

  “Where, master?” Shallna asked. He moved off the wall and, while clearly avoiding the steel grid platform beneath the cauldron, walked towards Kole.

  “They’ll be coming up there any second now. We’ve got about twenty minutes to kick their ass and then ten to kill them. I don’t want to risk having the cloud get here first. I’m lord of the reversion and I’m protecting the cauldron.”

  “The orb,” Shallna said. He held a bony hand out to Kole.

  “You take good care of her. I’m looking forward to more head-popping after t
his. Maybe the next reversion will be full of people with fat heads. That would fucking rock.”

  Shallna accepted the orb and pulled it to his chest. He did not reply to Kole or affirm an affinity for bursting skulls.

  “Deva. He sent me away from the cauldron with the orb.”

  Kole hesitated, unsure if Shallna was giving him a subtle clue or asking why they were deviating from tradition.

  “That’s right. You weren’t at the peak of the mountain, were you?”

  “No.”

  “Well I want you here. I want you close. You take care of my balls, Shallna. Hold my balls tight.”

  Shallna remained motionless. He did not respond.

  “Just trying to lighten the mood a bit, Grimmy. I’m not suggesting you like to touch balls or anything.”

  The wind knocked sheets of rain into the side of the building hard enough that water splattered and doused Kole and Shallna. Kole looked up and stuck his tongue out, capturing water.

  “Nice. This is some killer rain.”

  The building began to sway and Kole grabbed onto the railing surrounding the cauldron. The top of the skyscraper moved back and forth, only a matter of inches but enough to turn Kole’s stomach upside down.

  “This shit used to happen at the top of Lady Liberty. Damn, Grimmy. I was up there once with my uncle when he visited and we were looking out the windows of her crown. I’m telling you, the thing was moving back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. I about tossed my cookies inside the green lady.”

  “They’re coming, my lord.”

  Kole turned to face the open door, staring over the cauldron at the top of the final steps leading to the observation deck.

  “Don’t you have to light it or something?” Kole asked.

  “The ceremony knows what must be done. Do you?”

  ***

  “The last time,” Lindsay said, “going up wasn’t the issue.”

  Samuel sighed as they rounded the corner. He lost count, the floor signs all worn or missing.

  “Twenty eight?” he asked.

  “No,” Lindsay said. “We’re at least to the fortieth floor, aren’t we?”

  Samuel kept moving as the water now rolled down the walls like massive tears. The ambient light from outside didn’t reach the stairwell, except for a few shafts from where the door was open at the top.

  “I keep thinking a hundred and eight for some reason. I’m pretty sure the Sears Tower has a hundred and eight floors,” Samuel said.

  Lindsay’s hair plastered her face and she felt the straps of the water-logged backpack digging into her flesh.

  “You’re right, by the way. Once we got off the mountain and started up the granite steps, we were fine. Coming back down, well…” Samuel said.

  “What happens after this, Samuel? You don’t really know, do you?”

  Samuel groaned as he reached another landing and had to climb up yet another step. He hated to admit it to Lindsay but he didn’t know. Deva told him he would be released from his duty, that his ahimsa would be fulfilled. But Samuel had no idea what that meant. Lindsay chose to come back to him. She accepted her own role in the reversion, so he did not feel guilty about the situation. Samuel decided to do the only thing he could. Be honest.

  “No, I don’t. I know I have to destroy the cauldron and you have to help me. You know that too.”

  “Uh-huh,” Lindsay said. “I have to protect you.”

  “When we defeat Kole and destroy the cauldron, I can’t imagine what force that might unleash. Things could simply wink out of existence or we could be bringing one serious shitstorm down on the zombie parade.”

  “I have to believe we’ll win and we’ll get what we deserve,” Lindsay said.

  “I believe that too,” Samuel said. “That’s what has me worried.”

  A gust of wind shook the building and whistled through the stairwell like an angry seagull. They felt the air pressure changing and their lungs were burning from the climb as well as the altitude. Samuel had slowed the pace of his climb since they entered the stairwell from the lobby.

  “What happens if we get a reboot? Seriously, as nice as the beach was, I don’t think I can go through another. These reversions are brutal. I feel tired in a way I can’t describe.”

  “I know,” Samuel said. “I feel it too. I have to hope Deva was telling the truth and we’ll be released. From what and into what, that is the unknown.”

  The light from the top of the stairwell grew brighter and, although the cloud was squeezing daylight from the reversion, enough of it illuminated the stairwell. Samuel guessed they had at least ten more floors to climb and he hoped Kole would be just as tired as he was. Samuel and Lindsay kept chasing the light until they reached the doorway.

  Samuel stepped from the stairwell first with Lindsay appearing a second later. He stopped and took a step to the side to let her exit from the darkened doorway. Rain pounded the top of the skyscraper and the winds swirled the water in the air as if the peak was inside a massive blender. Shallna stood against the far wall with the orb tucked in his arms. A concave dish holding wet firewood sat on top of a steel grid that protruded out to an observation deck, suspended in the air above the streets below. Kole stood behind the cauldron, smiling at Samuel while beads of water ran down his forehead and dripped off of his nose. Samuel looked past Kole to the grand, expansive wasteland. What was an ocean of sand an hour before was now a wide, shallow lake.

  “It’s like its turning into Lake Michigan after all,” Kole said. He followed Samuel’s eyes as they looked out across the skyline and then returned to the cauldron.

  “How’s that gonna light?” Samuel asked. He pointed to the wet wood.

  “Look over the other side. It’s pretty crazy,” Kole said.

  Lindsay and Samuel looked off of the east side and down at the streets. It took them a moment to figure out exactly what they were seeing. The ground appeared to shift and pulse as if an ant colony was exposed beneath the surface.

  “The horde. Those fucking zombies, man,” Kole said. “They’re kinda slow but if you need to keep something in place, they work really well. I’m glad you two decided to join the party because they ain’t lettin’ you go home.”

  Samuel looked at Kole and then to Shallna. The hooded figure remained still. He said nothing.

  “No one here gets out alive.”

  “Clever,” Kole said. “Morrison is a god. You’re not Morrison.”

  Samuel smiled and sighed. He looked at Lindsay and saw the concern rolling down her face with the rain.

  “Can you stop this? I mean, we’re here. The rain is overdoing it a bit, don’t you think?”

  “Take it up with the cloud, brother. I got no control over the weather.”

  “Somehow I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe whatever the hell you want to,” Kole said. “Should we get down to business?”

  “What do you—”

  “Shut up, bitch. I’m not talking to you,” Kole said, interrupting Lindsay. “You don’t got a dog in this fight.”

  “I do,” she said. Lindsay pushed her chest out and spread her feet apart as if preparing for a fist fight. “I’m here for Samuel. His fate is my fate.”

  Kole laughed and shook his head. He turned to Shallna.

  “You hearin’ this shit? What kind of cornball story is this? Please do something with her.”

  Shallna stepped toward Lindsay with the orb. Red sparks came to life and it began to glow. The cloud flickered and the rain stuttered as the power from the orb rippled through the atmosphere.

  “This is between you and me. Leave her out of it,” Samuel said.

  “Priceless,” Kole said, trying to speak while laughing even harder. “It’s like you planned to fight me with action movie clichés. Now tell me I should kill you but let her go.”

  Shallna took another step toward Lindsay with the orb and she leapt at him. Samuel was paralyzed by her unexpected move and he could do nothing
but watch her launch at Shallna. She had a knife in her hand coming down at Shallna’s shoulder. She sunk the blade into the soft flesh under his collarbone and his hands released the orb. It fell and rolled out on to the steel grid platform, stopping at the base of the cauldron. The red sparks subsided and the orb went dark. Shallna turned and struck Lindsay with his right arm. The blow caught her on the side of the face and knocked her to the ground. The hilt of her blade bobbed up and down as Shallna moved, the knife still deep in his flesh.

  “Stop,” Samuel said.

  Kole giggled but neither Shallna nor Lindsay obeyed the command. Shallna reached for the orb and Lindsay rolled over, driving her heel into the side of his knee. She felt the crack of the creature’s ancient ligaments and Shallna collapsed to the grid in silence.

  “Make him stop,” Samuel said to Kole.

  “Enough,” Kole said.

  Shallna’s right hand grabbed the knife and pulled it from his shoulder. He tossed the weapon at Lindsay now lying on the grid.

  “He’s the fucking Grim Reaper. A little stab ain’t gonna hurt Death. Seriously, what are you thinking?”

  Lindsay grabbed the knife and crawled back to the wall where Samuel stood. Shallna reached down and picked up the orb, igniting the red sparks inside yet again. He resumed his position on the east wall.

  “You don’t have a son,” Samuel said.

  The smirk fell from Kole’s face and a gust of wind slammed into the top of the skyscraper. The building shook and swayed and for the first time concrete from its exterior began to crack and fall to the street below. Chunks of stone and mortar rained down on the horde, crushing it with a brutal indifference.

  “What did you say to me?”

  “You clearly haven’t thought about it. Did Deva ever tell you that you had a spiritual son? You don’t, do you?”

  Samuel could tell by the look on Kole’s face that he didn’t.

  “So what happens to the reversion after you? Who inherits this shit when you’re gone? Deva had both of us. You’ve got nobody.”

  Kole looked to Shallna as if he could provide an answer but his hood was over his head and he was looking down at his feet.