by JG Faherty
When they reached the long staircase that led up to the guest bedrooms, Jason paused. The previously polished steps were now dull and cracked; several were missing and many others showed evidence of advanced wood rot. A quick look showed that the stairs heading to Professor Osvald’s quarters were in a similar state of disrepair.
Rather than risk falling through or breaking an ankle, Jason pulled Erika into the short passage that connected the dining room to the kitchen.
“We can hide in the cold pantry,” he told her. As they hurried past the counters, he kept an eye out for weapons, but the kitchen was as empty as the previous rooms, with not a knife or pot in sight.
The door to the pantry stood ajar, the opening a black stripe that was in no way reassuring. Jason stopped again, remembering what had happened the last time he walked through that door.
A crash sounded at the far end of the castle, a booming thud that echoed from room to room, its promise of violence undiminished. A chorus of growls followed.
Jason pulled the pantry door open and they ran inside.
He turned to shut the door, fighting another bout of dizziness that passed as quickly as it came on.
The door was no longer there.
Inside the Proprietor’s trailer, the black curtain at the back rippled and flowed as a skeletal figure emerged. In the darkness, the Proprietor glowed with a sickly phosphorescence. Sallow flesh stretched tight over bones, threatening to split open with every movement. His mouth, distorted into a long muzzle filled with razor-sharp teeth, opened wide, revealing a scaly black tongue forked at the end.
“Enjoy your time at the beach, Mr. Phillips.”
It’s happening again. He didn’t need to turn around and see the stagnant ocean or boulder-strewn beach to know it. Erika’s gasp, the smell of salt water and dead fish in the air, the clammy mist weaving around his knees—all of it told him exactly where he was.
More importantly, the slime tracks on the ground in front of him and the dismal gray fogbank already shrouding the light from the rising sun told him when he was.
Too close to the time when the creatures came out of their holes.
“We have to get through the cemetery before that fog rolls in!” Jason tugged at Erika’s sleeve. She was staring at the sea, her mouth hanging open. He tugged again, harder this time. The glazed look in her eyes faded as she looked at him and focused on his face.
“What…? How… Where are we? What cemetery? Dammit, Jason, tell me what the hell is going on!”
“There’s no time.” He grabbed her wrist. “I promise I’ll explain everything. But not now. Not here. It’s too dangerous.”
They crossed the beach, broken shells snapping and crunching beneath their feet, and started up the steep hill, Jason helping Erika when her hands or feet slipped. Although there was no way to know for sure—the hill looked the same to the left and right as it did where they were climbing—he was positive they were close to the same spot where he’d ascended before. Old slime trails crisscrossed the rough ground, indicating dozens—or hundreds!—of the mysterious monsters had passed by recently. Despite the trails being dry and faded, he made sure they only stepped on them when absolutely necessary, not wanting to risk having the caustic substance burn through their shoes.
At the top of the hill, he helped her over the edge and urged her forward, despite the fact they were both gasping for air. She stumbled after a few steps, and only Jason’s tight grip on her hand kept her from falling. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the endless cemetery stretching out before them, and Jason understood it was shock, not exhaustion, that had caused her to falter. Still, there was no time to waste, not if they wanted to get clear of the cemetery, or at least well away from the advancing fog, before the concealed creatures emerged from their hiding places. Supporting her with one arm, he hurried them across the dead ground and between the headstones and markers.
Until Erika stopped short.
“Erika, don’t—” The rest of his words died in his throat when he saw why she’d halted.
Two rows to their left was an open grave with a red rose atop the granite headstone. The same one he’d seen the last time. Only now, with Erika pointing directly at it, he had no choice but to read the inscription he’d averted his eyes from during his first visit to the bizarre necropolis.
Erika Snell
Age 24
Died that others might live
“Jason? That’s…that’s my name. Why is my name on there?”
Her last few words came out in something close to a scream, and he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close, figuring it would help calm her. Instead, she grew even more frantic, beating at him with her fists and shouting for him to let go of her. He tightened his hold and she responded by kicking his leg, connecting solidly with his knee. The unexpected pain made him cry out and he let go. The moment his grip loosened, she pulled free and ran away, heading back toward the cliff.
“Erika!” Ignoring the way his knee barked in pain and threatened to give out with each step, he sprinted after her. He caught up before she reached the edge and tackled her between two graves.
“Erika, stop! Calm down!” he shouted when she began to kick and squirm again. After a few seconds, she went limp beneath him. Hoping she wasn’t faking, Jason rolled off her. Instead of running, Erika sat up and burst into tears. Jason attempted to put his arms around her again, and this time she returned the embrace. He let her cry into his shoulder, and only pulled back when he heard muffled words instead of just sobbing.
“What is it?” he asked, wiping tears from her cheeks. He’d never seen her freak out so badly.
“That grave. With my name.” Erika’s words came out in short bursts between sniffles and the hiccup-like sounds she made whenever she was finished crying. “I…I saw it before.”
“You saw it? When? Where?” He couldn’t believe she’d never mentioned anything about it to him.
“That’s just it. I don’t know!” She frowned in frustration and pursed her lips. “It’s like it was a dream, but I can’t remember when I had it, only that I did. I was in a cold, dark room. You were there, sleeping. Everything was…old. Like antiques. Victorian. And I had this dream that someone had died, a whole family, and I was going to be next. They wanted me to join them.”
A shiver ran up Jason’s back while Erika described her dream, and the frigid, scaly hands of déjà vu dug their claws into his guts.
A cold room. Antique furniture. Dead people.
She dreamed about Osvald’s castle.
Only, how could that be? He thought he’d been the only one to fantasize about the storm-swept castle and its odd inhabitants. Since the moment he’d woken up in the Tunnel of Love, he’d never once heard Erika mention anything about going through a similar occurrence. So why now? Had she experienced something while under the water in the Tunnel of Love? Or had she dreamed about the castle some other time?
What the hell was going on?
“Erika, tell me more about this—”
He never got a chance to finish his question.
Erika screamed and pointed behind him. He turned, a part of him already certain the amoeboid thing from the grave was coming for them. And it was. With dozens of its friends.
The creatures crept out of the fog as silently as ghosts, the damp thumping and squishing of their soft bodies cloaked by the thick mists. Each gelatinous blob was several feet long and had rudimentary arms and legs, useless appendages made of the same amorphous substance as the bodies they protruded from. The loathsome monsters humped along like caterpillars, moving surprisingly fast despite the fact that they looked like elongated jellyfish.
What made the things truly awful, though, was that each one had a head and face with human features, features twisted and mutated by a lack of bone and muscle, yet human nonetheless.
Human features, but the dead, cold eyes of a fish.
Jason opened his mouth to tell Erika to run, but even before he could speak, he realized it was
too late. The disgusting creatures had them surrounded, pinned against the cliffs. Their only escape was down, and that would be just a temporary reprieve, because then they’d be blocked by the ocean. The deadly bags of slime would have no problem following them; he’d already seen their tracks all over the hillside, which meant they probably traveled back and forth between the graveyard and beach with regularity.
Jason let out a curse. They had no choice. They couldn’t fight their way through the jelly things, not with the acid slime coating their bodies. Their only hope was to get to the beach and pray it led to some kind of shelter. A cave, a house, anything.
“Down the hill,” he said. “And whatever you do, don’t let those things touch you.”
This time, Erika didn’t ask any questions, for which Jason was glad. What could he say? He didn’t even understand what was happening himself.
They reached the bottom of the hill in record time, sliding down the last few yards of loose soil like it was the world’s largest playground ride. As soon as they reached the rough sand of the beach, Jason turned them to the left for no other reason than it was the direction they’d come from. The tower of soupy mist had already covered the beach and reduced visibility to a few yards, and Jason’s stomach churned at the thought that anything could sneak up on them and they’d never see it before it was too late.
“Let’s go,” he whispered. Erika nodded, her face blotchy from their exertions and covered in sweat. She gripped his hand.
“Don’t let go of me.”
“I won’t.”
Together, they ran through the unending gray cloud, dodging rocks that appeared out of the fog without warning. More than once they found their way blocked by boulders and had to swerve to the side, both of them instinctively choosing to wade through the foul-smelling, stagnant water, rather than moving closer to the cliffs and putting themselves within reach of any creatures that might have finished their descent.
Jason’s sense of time and distance deserted him almost instantly, thanks to the limited visibility and lack of any landmarks. So it might have been five minutes or ten, a half mile or two miles, when Erika pulled hard on his hand and came to a stop.
“What is it?” he asked, the words tumbling out between long wheezing gasps for air. His lungs felt like someone had poured acid into them, and he assumed that’s why she’d wanted to stop.
“I…I heard something.” Erika was bent over, her chest heaving, but she managed to point at the unpleasant ocean on their right. “Over there.”
“What was it?”
Erika shook her head, unable to get the words out.
Jason took deep breaths, trying to calm the pounding of his own pulse in his ears. “What did—?” He stopped, because as his violent heart rate eased up, he did hear something over the sound of his own breathing. A metallic clacking, but distorted, overlaid with the more familiar sound of splashing water. It reminded Jason of someone washing silverware in the sink.
Click-clack-splash-clack-clack-splash-click-clack—
“You hear it.” It wasn’t a question. He nodded rather than answering, turning his head to see if he could get a better idea of where the sounds were coming from.
“It’s getting louder.” More than a hint of fear had crept into Erika’s voice, and Jason knew why. Louder meant closer. Or there was more than one thing making the noise. Either way, it meant trouble. Especially since they couldn’t see what was approaching. He peered into the fog, trying to catch any signs of movement.
“Jason…” Erika bumped into him as she backed away from the water. At the same time, the intensity of the sounds increased.
Click-clack-splash-clack-clack—
The water. It’s coming from the water.
He looked past Erika, across the ten feet of beach separating them from the stagnant ocean. An ocean that was no longer motionless, but boiling. The surface churned and bubbled right at the point where waves should have been lapping gently at the sand. Instead, there was a ragged, foamy line of demarcation between land and sea.
Something rose out of the water. A claw, longer than Jason’s hand. Then another. And another. Within a few seconds, there were hundreds—thousands!—sticking up, opening and closing in unison.
Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!
Erika backed away from the sudden invasion and Jason followed, putting a large boulder between them and the impossible life forms emerging from the ocean. Three and four feet long, with multiple antennae and a dozen spiny legs, they were a geneticist’s nightmare, a combination of lobster and spider crab and centipede, all claws and jaws, with segmented bodies covered in a spiny shell and giant, multifaceted eyes.
“Run!” The word erupted from Jason’s mouth even as Erika was already turning around.
Except there was nowhere to go.
Twenty feet away, a swarm of the jelly-slugs was materializing from the fog, their combined slime trails creating a glittering rainbow sheen across the ground. The saclike creatures humped and slid across the earth and sand and pieces of shell without pause. As they drew closer, their humanoid mouths gaped open, displaying jagged fangs.
In that moment, Jason’s mind gave up. Coherent thought disappeared, replaced by a numbing blanket of gray as his brain anesthetized itself. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing registered. His senses all still worked, but the messages they forwarded never reached their destination. It was the acceptance of the end, the realization that not only was he going to die, he was going to die the most horrible death possible. And rather than experience it, his consciousness retreated into a place where there was no pain, and never would be.
It would have been perfect, if something didn’t keep echoing inside his head, a single word, repeated over and over.
Son. Son. Son. Son.
“—son! Jason!”
Erika’s voice broke through his mental shields, bringing reality crashing down on him at the same time. The monsters were drawing closer, the discordant mix of clicks and clacks and thumps and squelches nearly drowning out Erika’s shouting.
“Jason! The rock. It’s our only chance!”
He shook his head. The rock? What was—? Then he understood. She wanted them to climb on top of the towering boulder they’d been hiding behind. A rush of adrenaline surged through his veins, renewing his energy and propelling him into action. He gripped the jagged rock with both hands, pulling himself up, ignoring the sharp edges cutting through his flesh. His feet fought for the slightest ledges and crevices. Next to him, Erika scrambled and clawed just as fast. Five feet, ten feet, and then they were at the top, standing on a dome just large enough to hold them safely if they squeezed against each other.
Below them, the jelly-slugs and mutant lobsters engaged in an insane, violent war, claws and mandibles tearing and shredding soft flesh, teeth crushing shells and acids dissolving organic matter. The stench of death and alien fluids rose up in rank waves, accompanied by the squeals and groans of primordial death. Looking down, Jason realized where all the broken shells on the beach had come from. They were the remnants of past battles, a macabre testament to an endless cycle of primitive warfare fought by mindless life forms and fueled by instinctive hatred.
Life forms so intent on killing each other they weren’t paying any attention to the two humans atop their perch. For the first time since they’d appeared on the beach, Jason began to feel safe.
Until the earth began to shake.
Erika lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his chest.
“Hang on!” he yelled, praying the rock was too large to topple over. Up and down the beach, rocks and boulders tilted and swayed as the earthquake grew stronger. A distant roaring sound drew his attention to the ocean, just in time to see the waters receding, exposing weird reddish-yellow plants and shells with twisted, irregular shapes.
The roaring grew louder, drowning out the sounds of the animals battling on the beach. Erika shouted something but he couldn’t hear it over the deafening thunder f
illing his ears.
The wave came out of nowhere, a giant wall of gray water thirty feet high and only a few shades darker than the surrounding mists.
The wave hit with the force of a speeding car, slamming Jason so hard it didn’t just knock the air from his lungs, it pounded it out, compressing his chest until there was no place for the air inside his body. It wrenched him from Erika’s arms, their fingers grasping and reaching as polluted water pulled them from each other.
The last thing he saw was Erika’s horrified face surrounded by the ghostly, half-human countenances of the jelly-slugs.
Then bitter fluids filled his mouth and flowed down his throat. The world faded away around him as his oxygen-starved lungs screamed in agony. Once more, his brain threatened to close shop, shut down, erase the pain.
Only this time he refused to let it. Not with Erika so close. He couldn’t let her go like that. Couldn’t let her get taken from him.
Swim! he shouted at himself, forcing his body to move through the cold waters.
Live!
Li…
Water. Cold. On his face.
Alive?
It didn’t seem possible.
Jason opened his eyes. A woman hovered over him, a damp cloth in her hand.
Erika? No.
Maria.
He blinked, but her face remained.
If Maria is here, then…
He was in the castle again, his brain answered. Not the Warlock’s Castle. Johann Osvald’s castle. On the island. In the past.
Erika. She didn’t die. Not here. There were no monsters. They were just part of…what? A nightmare? A hallucination?
Was it all part of the same dream? The face above him grew fuzzy. What was real? Any of it? He didn’t know anymore.
Erika. She was real. Concentrate on her. She was…
Missing. She’d been drowning. No. Wrong dream. Wrong time.
Sleepwalking! I followed…and something hit my head.
“What happened?” The words came out hoarse but steady. He sat up, ignoring the way the hallway spun around him. Real or not, it was where he was now, and he had to find Erika before something—something else—bad happened to her. In this timeline or any other.
