I play the scene back over and over in my head, and I see where I went wrong. The moment I brought the gun into play, there was no turning back. I defaulted to fear. When push came to shove, I assumed he had become monstrous and deserved to be destroyed. And then I put him out of his misery like a goddamn dog—
I could have reasoned with him. I could have shown him an ounce of compassion. For once in my life, I could have been kind. If I had stood there with hands open, he might have struck me, might even have killed me, but he wouldn’t have destroyed me. He would have found himself again.
But now — if he’s right about third death — there is no more ‘himself’ to find. I murdered him, erased him totally. Whatever I meet down there will be needles play-acting, presenting the face and words and emotions of a human, with nothing behind them except an alien survival instinct.
I have to get to that blue stone. I’ll climb down the mountain’s face if I have to.
When the sun rises.
I close my eyes.
I’m standing in the woods. Cold air presses in all around me. I don’t want to take a step; leaves would crunch, and icy wind would slice me apart.
I look left, through the trees, and see a clearing in which cars are parked in semi-organized rows. They all came for the festival, and now they’re all dead. A white van is pulling up, coming to a stop in the middle of a row. Two figures emerge from the back wearing HAZMAT suits with cartoonishly huge helmets, the bubble-window kind. One suit is white, the other orange-red. They start walking toward the staging grounds, somewhere to my distant left, where everyone was being thrown through the air and stabbed, before I ran away.
I have to run, raw-throated, through the woods. I have to take Ron with me, and we have to get away before those people reach us. Ron is in front of me, facing me, smiling beatifically. Posed as the goddess Demeter, she bears my shotgun in one hand and a sheaf of black needles in the other.
As I watch, desperate to communicate past this classical facade, she begins to fall apart. Her cheek slides down, a landslide of thorns, and then the front of her throat collapses, revealing vocal cords. Even as her arms disintegrate and she begins to shudder down into a pile of nothing, she smiles into my eyes.
I look down, and my chest is not collapsing, but rotting, because rotting is the fate reserved for murderers. A black sludge boils up through my skin, through my clothes, consuming,
A shout behind me. I turn a little and see the men in HAZMAT suits approaching, pointing angrily at me. Then they, too, begin to fall apart inside their suits, screaming in rage, wishing they could have killed m—
I awaken before first light and sit staring into the dark distance for a while. There are bits of a nightmare dancing on the edge of my mind, but as I try to grasp them, they fade like smoke.
I wonder how things are going back home. I wonder if this is how Samwise felt, waking up in Mordor the day he would reach Mount Doom. I think about Samwise having a shotgun and then losing it, how shitty he’d feel. Hope you’re glad you got to see elves, asshole. Bet you miss the Shire now.
When dawn has progressed enough that I can see my hands in front of my face, I take stock. I’ve lost my gun but still have the rest of my supplies. I’m uninjured, though exhausted deep in my core, as a few days of existential terror will do. And then there’s my left hand, a bone-white and steel-hard gardening claw, five-pointed, a parody of a human hand. I gingerly touch its sharp tips but can’t feel through them. It’s like having a prosthetic.
I can’t hide this, I realize. Even a glove would only highlight the claw’s sickening shape. I am now deformed. There is something visibly wrong with my body. I wonder if this is how Ron feels all the time.
When I regain my gun, I could destroy this hand. Set it against a rock and blow it off. See what grows in its place. The idea makes cold shivers run up the back of my scalp, but at the moment, it’s the closest thing I have to a plan. I wonder if my messed-up, attention-whoring, desperate, former best friend—
Something snaps inside me, and I’m crying without a sound, trying to hold in a desperate loneliness. I miss Ron the way I would miss a chunk of flesh torn from my chest. I let myself complete the painful thought: I wonder if, after she understood how this infection works, if Ron considered destroying that part of her body that so pains her, to let it grow back in a way that would no longer keep her up at night. I’m beginning to realize how lucky I was to be born into a body that I could love and cherish, and how much I miss it now.
Enough, I gently scold myself. Tedrin may have resurrected already, and I can’t let him find me unprepared. It’s time to get moving. I wipe my face with my good hand, zip up my backpack, and start into the tunnels.
Finding a way down is easier than I thought; the layout follows a geometric pattern that repeats every five floors, so after a little exploration, I can always tell where the next stairwell will be. Tedrin and I had climbed about halfway up the mountain. By the time I reach the one-third mark, dawn has become morning.
I have no idea how long Tedrin’s head takes to regenerate; for all I know, he’s already on his way up. If his theory of ‘third death’ was right, he’ll be inhuman, amnesiac, atavistic . . . I think back over all the paranoid fantasies I’ve been having about him, and slowly realize that he’s now in a state to actually fulfill them.
Facing him is not a potential scary thing that might happen if God hates me; it is inevitable. I’m going to turn a corner and there he’ll be, eyes wide and psychotic in the near-dark. There are terrible things he might do to me here, far from any help, if his rebuilt brain decides to let him take pleasure in them.
I would permanently remove and give away multiple body parts just to have my gun back.
By the time I reach the bottom floors, I’m jumping at every shadow and stealth-ducking around every corner, for all the good it might do. I hold tight to my little Swiss army knife, in case Tedrin needs a bottle of wine opened before he starts . . . doing things to me. Maybe I can claw his face apart with my left hand while he . . . yeah.
Then I’m in the front chamber with the writing on the wall, and the tunnel to the outside is clear. I spend a few minutes investigating that part of the wall that makes my neck tingle. Judging from the tickle-radius, the source is buried only inches under the surface of the stone. If I can bring back a pickaxe, I might be able to dig it out, if I only use my right arm.
Reluctantly, I pull away and head out through the tunnel. When I reach the entrance, I sit down just inside it for several minutes, listening, occasionally looking back into the dark tunnel as if something might follow me out.
If I strike out into the savannah, I might make it to a portal and find help. I’m sure I could convince someone in the National Guard to send a brigade through, with or without me guiding them. Someone would retrieve the blue stone and figure out how to use it.
But I would be out in the open, an easy target. I can’t move as fast as Tedrin and, when he inevitably catches up to me, I can’t fight him off. Plus there are still predators out there, and I’m pretty much defenseless.
Getting to that blue stone is my best hope. I remember vaguely where it is; I need to leave the entrance and skirt the mountain, through the foothills, until I can climb up into the valley between the mountain and its range. It’s a long walk, and Tedrin could be anywhere along it. The terrain is rocky and steep, with what could be charitably called ‘light cover’.
I sit back and try to plan what I’ll say and do if he appears in front of me, but the idea is too unsettling. Anyway, it all depends on how his resurrection has changed him. He might be a new creature, or he might pop up and sheepishly ask if we can go home.
Better to show no fear. He respected that before; maybe he will now. I leave the tunnel entrance and strike out toward the mountain range, keeping my eyes on that high valley. More of a pass, really. For the first time, I wonder why they placed an accessible stone there, instead of here in the foothills. Then again, maybe ther
e was one here and it was buried or destroyed by the elements.
“I’m a fukken badass,” I whisper to myself every thirty seconds or so, in an effort to keep my stride confident. “He won’t even see me coming. I’m a fukken badass.”
I come up over a little rise, through a bit of unusually hot air, and finally have a good view of the terrain between myself and the stone’s position. There’s a shallow, wooded gully that spreads down from the pass and blends into the bare, rocky foothills. The woods don’t look anything like the thorny groves out in the grassland; their branches are heavy with black leaves. I’m about ten minutes’ walk from the edge of the trees; if I can reach them, who knows how long I’ll have to hike up the pass.
I scan around in all directions as I walk, nervously clenching and unclenching my hand, wanting my shotgun. No sign of moving life, humanoid or otherwise. Still, my gut is a tight, burning knot. It’s all I can do to shove constant terror-visions from my mind; I can’t stand the distraction.
I reach the woods without incident. I stop to rest just inside the treeline and drink half a bottle of water. Every rustle and brush of wind keeps me on edge, but I still see nothing moving in any direction. Then again, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life in the past few days, ‘nothing happening’ just means nothing’s trying to kill me yet.
Constitution restored, I start hiking uphill through the trees. The air is cooler in the shade and doesn’t fluctuate as much. The trees themselves don’t react violently to my steps and cautious touch; in fact, as far as I can tell, they’re just trees. Their black leaves form an eerily dark carpet but they crunch as expected under my boots. The ground is firm; I’m reminded of four-wheeler trips around my uncle’s property.
I walk as quietly as I can, but there’s urgency building in my chest. I will never be safe again until I lay hands on that stone.
Sunlight begins to intensify up ahead; I must be nearing the top of the gully. Fully aware that I’m jinxing myself, I start to hope that Tedrin’s still lying on the ground somewhere, reconstructing his medulla oblongata. Maybe he was impaled on a tree and is having trouble getting loose.
Maybe he fell onto the blue stone. Maybe he’s already obliterated. Why does that image — of a headless body falling helplessly onto destruction — disturb me? . . . Well, shit, why shouldn’t it?
I’m so wrapped-up in my thoughts that it’s only when I hear a loud snap ahead that I realize I’ve been staring at my feet for a dozen steps. I stop cold and look up, scanning the woods.
Not a sound or movement.
My stare roves up into the branches, then to my right, then left, then behind me. I’m alone.
I start forward, but there’s a sudden, electric feeling in the air. Intuition says I’ve set off a trap. When that doesn’t make sense, it guesses again: That I am a very vulnerable prey near a very deadly predator. Still, I see nothing but trees and black leaves, though that thought isn’t enough to calm my hammering heart.
Movement, flitting so quickly that I’d swear it had appeared in the corner of my eye, even though it was straight ahead of me. I freeze again, and this time I begin to see. I stare as hard as I can at the air.
There’s something huge in front of me; its mass is undeniable. It could never hide.
Suddenly I’m terrified that, like a laser pointer under the prowling stare of a cat, the moment I register its presence, it will be upon me. My body seizes up; enough doubt surges through my veins to block all rational thought.
Something boils up through my core and overtakes me before I can think to fight back, and suddenly I spring to the right—
There, floating in the air inches from where my nose had been, are flat, black tubes roughly the length of broomsticks, arranged kind of like this:
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
But they’re undulating up and down in mid-air. The individual cells — broomsticks? — are impossibly flat, almost invisible from the front. Only by moving quickly can I see it from the side.
It twists toward me, and I get the impression of jaws yawning open. It moves like a Chinese dragon, like fluid made airborne.
I’m still moving, dashing where I can, pushing off of trees to propel myself up the steepening hill, ducking and jiving and twisting myself around and pounding my feet as hard as I can into the— I’ve made it another five yards uphill—
Drilling pain explodes in the small of my back, and I hit the dead leaves—
WHAM, my head bounces off a root and I’m dazed, body still struggling weakly to get up, reaching for whatever has pierced—
The ground flies away, and then I’m moving sideways. A tree trunk comes out of nowhere, and all I can do is curl up a little, face turned away, choking on a—
WHAM
I drop to the ground and gasp for breath, but there are more and more holes being carved in my back, traveling up toward my neck. Even the thickest part of my backpack has been pierced, and a burst water bottle is leaking down over me. With my human hand, I grasp a root and hang on for dear life as I’m worried back and forth, teeth clenched together, and it occurs to me to lie very still, play dead, and maybe it will—
I’m wrenched backward in the leaves, root torn from my grip. Then up into the air again, and down—
CRACK
KLIK-KLAK
Consciousness returns fuzzily, a little at a time. My body is being moved very slowly, as if by something shy—
BLAM
Now I’m awake, mind scrambling. Fire burns up and down my back, but needles are already filling the gaps, patching me up. I rise to my knees, and a wave of nausea sweeps over me. I cough and gag but manage not to vomit, though my head spins.
The ground around me is littered with flat broomsticks, inanimate, a part of the landscape. I shudder, retch again, and raise my head.
Tedrin stands ten feet away, to my left, looking as bad as I feel. His sweatshirt and jeans are torn rags, stained through with his blood. He’s lost his shoes, and his feet are bloody. His hair is wild; I see at least one twig.
His face—
I stay there, on my knees, wishing to God that the forest would stop spinning around me, and I stare at him.
There’s something wrong with his face, like it’s still healing. Ragged, bruise-colored lines run from his jaw to his hairline, splitting his expression into sections of new, gleaming, bone-dry flesh. His eyes are human, as curious about me as I am about him, utterly alien to that broken face.
In his pale hands, he holds my shotgun. There’s a taste of fire in the air; he used it to blow away the dragon. He came upon us, it ravaging my back while I flopped unconsciously, and he killed it.
He saved my life.
I swallow, though my throat is painfully tight and dry. My gasps are becoming breaths. And still, he just stares at me.
I swallow again, and whisper, “Thank you.”
He looks down at the gun, and behind his eyes is something alien, some logic I can’t penetrate.
I cough awkwardly, and decide the friendly route might be best. “Are you okay, Tedrin?”
He takes a step toward me, and I flinch. The pain in my back is still sharp, but I think I might be able to run, if only I can get to my feet. He sees the panic in my eyes, and keeps coming, bare feet crunching in the leaves.
I’m struggling to get up but my body is still too heavy and racked with pain. “Tedr—”
His grip closes around my left shoulder. He’s dropped the gun. His other hand is on my throat. SLAM, I’m on my back in the leaves and he’s on his knees next to me, bearing down with all his weight, and I hear something start to crunch in my neck—
I gasp at him, writhing as I mouth words, begging, and I think of sweeping my claw-hand into his eyes, but he’s holding that arm in a vice-grip— I reach up with my free, human hand and push at his face, his neck, his chest—
His gaze is still so human, or maybe a parody, something innocent and normal to calm his prey until it’s too
late—
He presses down against me until our faces are very close. My world fills with those big, dark-brown eyes, even as its edges start to dim from lack of oxygen.
“That’s not my name,” he whispers, voice hoarse.
His grip eases a little on my neck, and I cough hard, sucking in grating breaths. “I’m sorry!” I whisper, still struggling underneath him. “What’s your name?”
We stare at each other, me panicking, him a bottomless well.
“You don’t have to do this,” I mumble desperately, and I hate the tears in my voice.
“I do what I want.”
I struggle for breath as his grip starts to tighten again. “You don’t want to do this! You’re so caught-up in what you think you should do—”
“This is what I am now.”
I shake my head vigorously. “Your theory, about brain overwriting, it’s bullshit! I mean, yes, after a few hundred or thousand overwrites, you’d have pathway damage, and I get it, the brain is complex, but there’s no way two overwrites would cause you to—”
He squeezes until I can’t breathe. I’m panicking again.
Try to think like him. Jesus, try to think like him. As my brain starts to scream for oxygen, I squeeze my eyes shut and try my hardest to think of a way to appeal to the human inside him.
As my struggles weaken, his grip on my arm loosens.
Idea.
Repulsive idea.
Which means, if he’s still human, it should repulse him, too.
I grab his arm-gripping wrist with my free hand and gradually pull it loose. He’s so focused on throttling me, he barely notices. The flesh of his wrist is hot.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m taking a huge risk. I don’t know how this will turn out. But it’s the only idea I have.
Eden Green Page 16
