by Peter Telep
“Sorry.”
As we start toward the colorful entrance, the personas of a middle-aged man and woman wearing faded military-style clothes approach us.
“Some kind of security?” I ask Keane.
“Old soldiers,” he says, “But not anymore.”
“Come to our table,” the man says, lifting his voice like a singing salesman. “Bed seventeen! We’ve got loads of gear, stuff you haven’t seen in years!”
“And some cremat and goshno!” the woman adds.
I frown.
“Like tea and coffee,” Keane mutters, translating for me. There are always some words my wreath has trouble with.
“Come find us,” the man says. “Bring your trades.”
“How’s business?” I ask.
He sighs. “The crowds are still here.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?” Keane asks.
He makes a face. “That’s what I say.”
“Have you heard about the nomads at the Palladium?” I ask. “They’re all gone.”
“Forget the Palladium. This is the Hall of Vines, the bright center of the universe!”
“People are leaving, aren’t they,” I say.
“They’re fools,” the woman answers. “Despers come here with crazy stories, and everyone gets nervous. They’ve lost their minds. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
The man stares angrily at the woman. “I told you to shut up about that.”
“Okay, yeah, thanks,” Keane says, trying to blow them off. “Maybe we’ll stop by your shop, okay? We need to go.”
“Everything all right?” Tommy asks, with Hedera, Rattle, and Blink shuffling behind him. He’s got a pistol holstered at his side.
The traders glare at Tommy and disappear—
Just as Steffanie comes rushing up to us, breathless with excitement. “I found a guy who knows Joshua.”
“Who?”
“Joshua! He’s Pace’s father. Their caravan is here. And they’re close. Right in the fourth bed!”
“Well that’s lucky for us,” Meeka says, speaking through the fakest smile I’ve ever seen.
As we’ve just learned, the Hall of Vines is divided into sections between the arches called “beds,” and there are at least a hundred, maybe more. Steffanie’s not sure. She’s never seen the entire place, it’s that big…
I may never see it, either—
Because we’re nearly trampled by a loud, nervous crowd bursting out of the hall. They pass through the archway and gesture toward the cliffs overlooking the valley.
Even the workers near the warehouses have stopped what they’re doing to stare up, point, or draw back their heads in confusion and disbelief.
And now even more traders pour from similar exits all along the archways in a mass evacuation to see what’s going on outside. Some raise rifles toward the cliffs and stare through the scopes.
I shield my eyes from the sun and have a look myself.
CHAPTER FORTY
“Doc, what are they?”
Instead of answering Hedera, I grab her arm, pulling her close as a group of kids nearly knocks us over, struggling past the crowd for a look themselves.
The grren push up behind us, and Hedera connects with Grandpa. She’s trying to calm him down, along with the other grren, who hiss and snarl. Of course the onslaught parts around us as those fleeing stare in shock and awe at our sharp-toothed companions.
“Back to the buckets!” Tommy hollers from somewhere in the crowd.
“What’s happening?” Blink shouts—
But his question hangs unanswered.
We charge toward our rides and crouch near the tailgates as thousands more people surround the hall. The grren join us, and Tommy cautions a few armed traders to hold their fire and reminds them that the grren are with us and won’t attack. Nervous chatter rises into a roar like we’re smack in the middle of a gigantic Super Bowl game… and something huge is about to happen.
Still more Florans race outside, tripping over each other for a look at the mountains.
I nudge Meeka with my elbow. She nods and hands over the binoculars.
Holding my breath, I point them at the cliffs and zoom in on the glowing persona of a bearded man wearing heavy armor like a medieval knight.
But the armor’s strange.
It’s pure white and outlined in that same flickering energy I saw on Julie’s cloak. Wide shoulder plates swoop down like feathers while the layered chest plate drops in a series of Vs.
The man slowly raises his thick, plated arms at forty-five degree angles.
His gloved fingers spread wide, as though preparing for something.
But then he just stands there like some heavenly knight, a white knight, a good guy… please tell me you’re a good guy…
I pan left to the next persona.
Her dark hair falls across more snowy armor. She, too, raises her arms. I zoom in tight on her face. I could be wrong, but she looks sad.
I lower the binoculars, allowing my eyes to sweep along the cliffs.
And then I’m cursing in awe before I realize it.
These personas stand about twenty feet apart, lining the edges of every cliff across the entire valley.
There could be thousands of them… maybe more.
“Are they immortals?” I shout to Meeka.
“I don’t know,” she answers. “Never seen them before.”
“Hedera, do you know them?” I ask.
Her persona lights in her palm. “No, but they’re obviously soldiers. Not nomads. Not any military I’ve ever seen.”
Keane does an awkward crawl maneuver, kicking up sand to squeeze in next to me. “Okay, I’m scared out of my mind.”
“Join the club,” I tell him. “You know who they are?”
He snorts. “Um, bad guys?”
Tommy whips around to face me. “Son, we better find the hospital and find it fast—because that ghost army up there? I think they’re gonna do a lot more than pick their noses.”
“Roger that,” I answer.
“Y’all ready?”
I nod. “Meeka? Steffanie? You know the way.”
“We’ll split up,” Steffanie suggests. “I’ll find Pace.”
Meeka looks at her. “No, you won’t”
“We’ll find her,” I tell Steffanie. “But right now, let’s stick together.”
She bears her teeth but nods.
As we get to our feet, ready to squeeze and shoulder our way back inside, a hush falls over the masses.
“Are you kidding me?” Keane hollers.
Hedera gasps. “Something’s happening!”
“We need to run!” Steffanie yells. “Hedera, tell the grren to connect with each other!”
“Why?” she asks.
“Just do it! It might save them!”
Grandpa, who’s just behind me, leaps back on his hind legs and roars so loud that I can’t hear anything else.
Hedera crosses to him—and closing her eyes against the horror show of Grandpa’s fangs and claws—she grabs one of his ears.
Seconds later, he and the rest of his pack jump into their personas… and the personas vanish.
Meanwhile, up there along the cliffs, the heavily armored personas are lifting their arms over their heads—
And then… one by one… they explode in balls of blinding white light that shoot straight up into the sky.
The balls flash for a few seconds, and then they grow dim and begin to take shape…
Into noses… mouths… chins…
Blank white eyes.
These are the Masks of Galleon—
And they look a little like the personas who created them.
The crowd’s anxiety thickens the air as someone shouts, “The vines! The vines!”
I glance back at the nearest arch.
Gigantic leaves in all those different colors start turning pale and falling limp.
Fingers of blackness spread from the base of the arc
hway, clawing their way up through the vines like a plague.
Branches become weak, collapse under their own weight, and then turn to ash as they sift down through each other, piling up across the sand.
Meanwhile, as the hysteria heightens and people scatter, the masks rumble and release vicious cracks of thunder that rip across the sky the way a drummer bangs from one end of his drum kit to the other, sweeping back and fourth, covering the entire valley.
Now the ground quakes…
And a much deeper hum, one way more powerful than our engine—more like a million subwoofers wired together—comes straight from the rock formations. The sound hits so hard that my ribs hurt.
At the same time, the buckets rattle and the windshields shatter. Out near the mountains, cracks form in the stone faces, and they chip away, with pieces tumbling toward the foothills. All that beautiful art collected over hundreds of years is being destroyed before our eyes…
Now the air grows strangely humid.
And what’s that horrible smell? Like a combination of rain and fried electronics… I whirl around, trying to see it all from every direction.
The Hall of Vines continues withering into a skeleton of stone and beams, while the carvings of arbors lose their expressions as they disintegrate…
Behind us, thousands of Florans stampede toward several roads leading out of the valley.
Others closer by jam themselves back into the buildings, the tents, or even the buckets.
The humming gets louder.
Meeka grabs me, digging her nails into my sides, clinging to me with a shiver. I clutch her tightly to my chest.
Above us, the masks simultaneously open their mouths, bearing their teeth. Their blank eyes grow even wider… and then with a sharp crack and buzz—
Dark blue veins of energy erupt from those eyes, lashing out at the Florans below, zapping them one by one, while we can only gasp and tremble and push ourselves tighter against the buckets.
But out there, it’s just awful:
Twisted faces shriek and wail and cry.
That burning electrical stench gets stronger.
And those blinding flashes, along with that buzzing like a billion short-circuiting computers, might never stop.
I pull away from Meeka and steal a look across the valley.
Men, women, and children dissolve before my eyes as the lightning arcs and curves and spins through columns of thin, white smoke.
A few traders lift rifles toward the sky and cut loose with barrages of fire.
Rattle clutches his pistol with both hands and squeezes off a few shots before Tommy screams for him to get down, it’s no use…
A mother and two little girls charge toward us. They’re holding hands and look at me with sheer terror in their eyes. “Please!” the mother cries. “Help us!”
She comes within five feet, and then—
BOOM!
A single bolt divides like a vein to strike her and the girls.
Their bodies flash, and bones appear behind their clothes, like they’re being x-rayed. Beams of blue energy trace along their bellies to target their glowing wreaths.
I can barely watch as the little girls screech in pain.
All three rise into the air, and then…
…they simply evaporate…
Leaving behind a fiery blue outline of their bodies that lingers for a second before flashing out.
I can’t blink. I can’t breath. I can’t do anything but listen as more thunder explodes overhead.
Hedera screams.
So do we…
Because now she’s hovering over the sand, suspended by a jagged bolt stitching across her chest.
The persona glowing in her palm shrieks.
The bolt lifts her higher, maybe ten feet now.
Rattle jumps from our bucket and grabs her legs—
But the second he touches her, he’s thrown flat onto his back and starts shaking violently.
Hedera’s eyes begin to flutter, and maybe she’ll pass out… or even die…
But then… the bolt vanishes…
And she drops in a heap. Not moving.
Meeka grabs Rattle, and I go for Hedera. We drag them back to the bucket.
“Stay down!” Tommy orders.
I lean over and put my ear to Hedera’s mouth. Her breath comes warm and steady. “She’s alive,” I tell Meeka.
“So’s he,” Meeka says, checking Rattle’s neck for a pulse.
The attack continues.
More blue flashes. More heat. That smell.
All those strangled cries.
Keane tucks in beside us, and for the first time in his life, he has no words.
Steffanie looks up with watery eyes. Her lip trembles. And then she launches into a strange chant:
“A healing wreath of three or more will keep the demons from your door.”
She raises her voice and chants again.
And again.
Until I find myself joining her.
We all do—
Because the noises around us…
Are just too terrible to bear.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The wind blows softly across the valley, whistling through the buckets.
Out along the cliffs, an occasional rock breaks off from the remains of a face and smashes across the rubble below.
And while the stone archways still tower above us, the remaining vines continue to hiss and crumble…
Otherwise, it’s eerily quiet.
Not even a peep from Grandpa and his pack.
And out there… the Hall of Vines…
…that amazing place filled with thousands of people…
Lies empty. Dead. Everyone gone except us and the grren, whose personas return soundlessly to their bodies.
We stand there… just gazing across the valley.
In shock. In disbelief.
Understanding nothing. Hating everything.
Hedera and Rattle are weak, nauseous, but back on their feet, clutching each other for support.
“I feel like we’re at a funeral,” Keane finally says.
“No, we’re not!” Steffanie shouts. “Come on!”
She takes off running.
We call for her to wait, but she won’t, and the next thing I know we’re sprinting through the archway entrance and into the hall itself, passing shops like the ones at flea markets lining both sides, with hundreds more arranged in islands through the middle.
I’m as motivated as Steffanie now—because I need to be wrong about what happened here. We’re not the last ones. Somewhere out there, inside the hospital, my parents are waiting for us. And we’re coming…
I struggle to catch up with her as sunlight flashes between bare sections of trellis. Piles of dead vines and gray-and-black dust litter our path, and even more dust trickles down through millions of invisible hour glasses.
We’re slipping and sliding as we pass a sign that reads “Bed 3,” and Steffanie increases the pace.
Behind us, the grren grunt skitter and crash into tables, their claws drawing deep, white lines in the stone as they fight to regain their balance across the smooth stone floor.
We race past one table filled with cans of vegetables from Publix, our favorite supermarket in Central Florida. Solomon sent this stuff from Earth for his nomad army.
“Tommy, look!” I shout, pointing at the cans.
“We’ll come back for it,” he says, clutching Blink’s hand.
Meeka passes me and charges up behind Steffanie. Twice she tries to grab her, but Steffanie’s on a mission.
She begins to holler, “Pace? Joshua? Are you here?”
As we reach the fourth bed, Steffanie slows to a jog.
And then a voice comes from somewhere close by:
“Everybody stop! Weapons on the floor, hands in the air!”
Out of breath and starting to tremble again, I pause next to Tommy, who scrutinizes every booth, table, counter, and drapery pulled across the s
hopfronts.
“They got us surrounded,” he mutters.
I don’t even see them.
We shift into the center of the aisle, along with the grren. I gesture for Hedera to connect with Grandpa and try to keep the pack from attacking.
“Joshua, is that you?” Steffanie asks.
At once, men, women, teenagers, and even a few smaller kids and old people emerge from their hiding places. Their jackets, pants, and scarves dangling from their necks are as worn and sun-bleached as they are.
Many shoulder thick sashes with bulging pockets (like the bandoliers worn by soldiers) while some have beanies tugged down to their brows. The three or four most athletic-looking eye us through mirrored goggles probably stolen from the nomads.
They converge on us, maybe twenty in all.
The grren bob their heads and start growling and clicking their teeth.
Hedera looks at me, eyes pleading.
The grren aren’t listening to her.
I’m not sure what to do. But then—
A towering black man ducks out from behind a booth and comes forward. All eyes turn on him.
One shoulder sags under the weight of a heavily loaded sash, and his goggles sit like a second pair of fish eyes on his forehead. Jagged tattoos slash across the rest of his shaven head, just like the grren’s markings. As he gets closer, fingers with long, yellow nails stroke his gray beard.
He stops, studying us with eyes that seem normal but then flash a shiny silver-gray… not exactly human.
“Joshua!” Steffanie cries. She bolts to him, leaps into his arms, and nearly knocks him over.
He hugs her tightly. “You remembered to connect?”
“No, we’ve been drugged.”
“Well that is a blessing from the sand.”
The grren break into a chorus of hissing.
Joshua eases out of Steffanie’s grip and walks through the center of our group, heading toward Grandpa.
Weirdly enough, Joshua hisses himself, clicks his teeth, and then with a nod he jumps into his persona and touches Grandpa’s neck.
“Oh, yes,” he growls. “We’ve come a long, long way, you and I… and all for our people, yes? The wreath of life is meant for all of us, my friend…”
A few breaths later, Joshua returns from his persona, and crosses calmly to the other grren, petting them vigorously and scratching behind their ears. They gather around him and begin licking his hands and neck—and they don’t even poke him with those sharp teeth growing from their tongues. He laughs and backs away. “Okay, my friends. Okay.” He glides through us and returns to the front of the group.
