Shadow of Forever (Eaters of the Light Book 2)

by J. Edward Neill

  Shadow of Forever

  J Edward Neill

  Cover Art - The Hive, by Amanda Makepeace

  Tessera Guild Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 J Edward Neill

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1542907323

  ISBN-10: 1542907322

  I can’t remember who I was.

  A farmer? From Earth? Or a killer, forsaken and sent out to murder an entire world? I wasn’t born so much as I was created. I became only what they wanted me to, only what they’d planned.

  And now they’re all dead.

  In a place too far from home to imagine, I awaken. I watch the stars night after night. I know what will come. I’ve seen it before.

  A part of me wants to help. To teach. To prepare the last of humanity to fight a war against the darkness.

  But another part wants to stand in the fields beneath the stars, watching and waiting. It would be easy not to care. After all, I am already alone.

  Death can do nothing to me.

  -Chapters-

  Remember

  Ghosts

  Bells

  Sibling Rivalry

  Dusk

  Digging Deep

  Glass Houses

  Better to be Alone

  Hurts

  When all other Lights go Out

  Answers

  She Waits

  Lighting Fires

  Home Away from Home

  Hollow

  The Dead World

  Do not go gently

  The Edge of Nothing

  Two of Us

  Nosfera

  The Hive

  Invader

  Crawl

  Heart of Darkness

  The Coffin

  Impact

  Making a Mess

  The Lords of Death

  Shallow Grave

  Turning

  Cremation

  Strings

  Callista

  You Forgot Me?

  Dark Tower

  Darkest before the Dawn

  Remember

  It was always hot beneath Sumer’s two suns.

  At night, when the blue and crimson stars slid beneath the horizon, the heat had a way of lingering. The high green grass beyond my house soaked up the day’s warmth, and the rains that had fallen each day became a nightly fume, blanketing the fields in steam, roiling in grey clouds off the little green-watered river.

  I liked to walk at night.

  It was calm, and I could be alone.

  Most evenings, after the rain ended and the clouds cleared off, I dimmed the lights in my little glass house and strolled out into the fields. Most people who’d lived in the village nearby had moved on to more fertile grounds, something I’d been helping them do for almost twenty years. By then, I was one of only a few dozen people left, and my plot of land was a good two kilometers from the others.

  It could’ve been a peaceful life.

  I might have lived out my days alone and content.

  I could’ve grown fruit in the summer and Earth-like crops during winter. It’s not as if anything on Sumer would’ve stopped me. The hot, wet planet didn’t have any animal life other than the species’ the Exodus people had introduced. It was all plants, all forests and farms and dark green rivers.

  The world was a garden. And I was its farmer.

  And so, on a night some twenty years after I’d first landed on Sumer, I prepared for my walk the same as every evening. I strapped on my thick boots and threw a towel over my shoulder. I had to wear the boots whenever I walked in the high grass between my house and the green river. Some of the blades were sharp enough to take a toe off, and my legs were already marked with hundreds of small scars. The towel was for my sweat, which would start streaming down my forehead the moment I left the cool confines of my simple glass dwelling.

  I wasn’t as young as I’d once been.

  I was as fit as ever, but twenty years of building pipelines and digging irrigation trenches beneath the grueling suns had taken their toll.

  Or maybe it’d been something else that had aged me.

  The stars were many that night. I waded through the shallow fog, alone and silent. Like so many eves, I felt as if I were the only living soul on the planet.

  Or in the universe, I thought.

  But as it turned out, I wasn’t as alone as I expected. At the green river’s edge, I stood in the starlight and gazed across the water.

  And my heart skipped a beat when I heard her voice behind me.

  “Next time, you might wait for me,” she said. “You knew I was coming to see you.”

  Callista.

  I didn’t need to turn around. I waited until she fluttered up beside me. I felt the soft blue glow of her light on my cheek, and much of my loneliness fled.

  “Sorry, Cal,” I murmured. “It’s just…it’s been a while.”

  She floated in front of me. She was as beautiful as she’d ever been, maybe more. Since being reconstructed by Sumer’s scientists, Callista was back to the size she’d been before we’d left Earth together. I marveled at her too-human lips, the soft blue filaments of her hair, the way her ten-centimeter body glowed above the water.

  She must’ve seen the love in my eyes.

  “You look like you haven’t seen me in years.” She smiled. “It’s only been what…three weeks?”

  “And a day,” I added. “Three weeks and a day.”

  “I know. Sorry for that,” she said. “After all this time, it’s still hard for a nano-girl to get a hovercar ride. I scare people, I think. If you’d just move to the city, we could see each other every day. I wouldn’t have to come all the way out here to see you.”

  All I wanted to do was hug her.

  But I couldn’t, of course.

  No matter how hard I loved her, no matter how badly I wished otherwise, Callista wasn’t human. Her body was a few hundred-thousand glowing nano-bits. She hadn’t been born, but had been made in a lab back on Earth.

  And Earth is no more.

  “Why so glum?” She did a little spin in the air. “I thought you’d be happier. I’ve got my real body back. Now we can finally be married,” she joked.

  “It was my birthday yesterday.” I returned my gaze to the water. Glimmering in the starlight, the river flowed in silence before me.

  “I know,” said Cal. “Big forty-four.”

  “Sixty-four,” I reminded her. “Just because twenty of my years were in hypo-sleep doesn’t mean they don’t count.”

  “Right,” she laughed, and tiny strands of her blue hair cascaded over her shoulders. “You look good for sixty-four. Though I’m not sure I like the beard.”

  I touched the scraggly growth on my chin. I’d almost forgotten it was there. Given my aloneness, I’d forsaken my appearance. I’d worn the same shirt for a week. I hadn’t trimmed my hair in months.

  “I get distracted sometimes,” I said. “Most days, I do the same thing. I lose myself in my routine. I—”

  “You don’t have to explain.” She fluttered closer to me. “I know my Joff. I know what he’s like.”

  We lingered there for a while, her and me. She hovered beside me, and I marveled at the way her blue light reflected in the river. We’d been through so much; we didn’t really need to talk anymore. We might’ve stayed there for hours, happy just to be together again.

  But as was ever my way, my mind turned to darker things.

  The longer I stood there, the more I needed to gaze skyward.

  And I found what I was looking for.

  “Maybe we should go to your house,” whispered Cal. She knew what it meant whe
n I stared at the stars too long.

  “It won’t matter.” I didn’t look at her. “It’s not as if I won’t think about it just because we’re inside.”

  “Joff, please?”

  “Shhhh.” I shushed her. “I’m thinking.”

  I could tell she wanted to say more. To her credit, she didn’t. She sat on my left shoulder, weightless as the wind, until my darkness began to pass.

  “Joff?” she said after a long silence.

  “Yeah?” I answered.

  “Can I stay with you for a few days? I promise not to be any trouble. I won’t even pester you at night.”

  “You can stay as long as you want.” I tried to smile, but I kept looking at the stars. “Forever, if you like.”

  “Ok. Thanks,” she answered. “I think a few days will be enough.”

  By her tone, I knew something had changed. In mind and mood, she was as human as any other woman in the world. I looked at her, and I knew she’d fallen from happy to sad.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she fibbed.

  “Come on.” I tapped her leg with my finger. Her nano-cells floated apart where I touched her, but retook their shape a second later. “Tell me.”

  She fluttered off my shoulder. Right away, I missed the warmth of her tiny blue body. “It’s Griff,” she said. “You know, my friend. The one I made.”

  “I know who Griff is.”

  “Oh. Right,” she sighed, as if a tiny blue nano-girl had any breath to let out. “Well…Griff, he accepted an offer to go to Arcadia. They’re doing some research there, kind of like the tests they did on me a few years ago. I tried to talk him into staying with me. He wouldn’t listen.”

  “Arcadia? That’s the big-big city, right?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just go with him?”

  She looked down to the water. I swore, if only for a moment, the light within her dimmed.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess maybe I felt wrong about going. As if it weren’t the right thing for me. It’s just a feeling. Isn’t that stupid?”

  “They created you to be human,” I reminded her. “Only makes sense for you to have feelings. And no, it’s not stupid. Happens to me all the time.”

  “Oh.” She sounded relieved. “What are your feelings?”

  I looked to the stars again.

  And she understood.

  * * *

  Far from the river, in the starlit shadows, we returned to my house. The grasses were shorter there, owed to the fact I’d trimmed them every day for the last fifteen years. As we crossed the last field leading to my little glass-walled dwelling, my boots crunched on a path of dry, dead weeds. Callista floated beside me, ever quiet.

  Too quiet, I thought. She’s still worried about me.

  Just before we reached my door, I veered off the path. Cal didn’t say a word. She’d been right. She knew her Joff.

  I walked into the shadows behind my little glass house. In the tangled fields beyond, a vast dark forest loomed, with trees thrice as tall as any that had ever grown on Earth. And in the gloom beneath the trees, something lurked in the night, a black deeper than anything.

  The Sabre.

  “It’s seen better days, hasn’t it?” Cal remarked as we came to the hulking spacecraft. The Sabre’s scythe-like wing crawled with vines and creepers, while the weeds beneath it were many heads taller than me.

  “Yeah,” I exhaled. “I used to sleep in it sometimes. You know, just to remember. But it’s too close to the forest. The tangle grows too fast. It’s a pain to trim back.”

  “Does it still fly?” she wondered.

  “Does it matter?” I quipped.

  Deadly serious, she looked at me.

  “Do you ever think of taking it?” she asked. “And I don’t mean for a quick sail into orbit. I mean a real flight. Out there.” She pointed to the stars.

  I knew exactly what she meant.

  “It doesn’t have any weapons left.” I shrugged. “And the gravity controls are still damaged. If I used the quantum engine, there’s a chance it might turn me into jelly.”

  “That’s not what I asked.” She stared harder.

  I know.

  “Ok. You want the truth,” I said.

  “Always.”

  “Then yes, I think about it,” I admitted. “Sometimes. Not always. And I know how pointless it is. It’s not as if I can find them. And other times, I think to myself, ‘let them come.’ It could be a hundred generations before they find Sumer and destroy us. Or maybe a thousand. By then, no one will remember what we did. Honestly, sometimes even I forget.”

  Cal looked at me as if she didn’t believe me.

  And I couldn’t blame her.

  Ghosts

  “She’s getting what? To who?”

  The rain thundered against my house’s glass walls. Rivers of water slid down the panes, blurring the greyest afternoon I’d ever seen. With her arms crossed, Callista floated above the table while wearing a too-big smile.

  “You heard what I said.” She feigned a yawn. “Your sister’s getting married.”

  I sucked in a breath and leaned back in my chair. I felt calmer at once. It wasn’t as if I’d spent much time with Aly in the last several years. Whom she married and why wasn’t any of my business.

  “I guess I thought she’d never do it,” I said. “I mean…you know how Aly is. She’s a loner. She’s always working, always doing her science.”

  Cal floated down and sat on the table’s edge. She looked absurdly beautiful, especially with the grey rain dimming the world beyond her.

  “I don’t think it’s love.” She stretched out her legs. “Not that I really know what love is like. I had the impression, without cheating and reading her eyes, she’s marrying him for business’s sake.”

  I retreated into thought.

  I thought she’d marry the young man who used to bring her flowers. If anyone, it should’ve been him.

  This can’t be for love.

  After what happened to us, she doesn’t want children.

  If this is what she wants…

  …I guess it’s ok.

  “They’re moving to Arcadia?” I asked.

  “Moving?” Cal shook her head. “Nope. They’ve already moved.”

  “Am I invited?”

  She smiled. “I’m your invitation.”

  I stood and walked to the window. I had to step over piles of clothes, eating containers, and a mound of soggy towels. I wasn’t much for cleaning up after myself. My only visitor ever was Cal.

  And she doesn’t judge me.

  “When?” I asked as I gazed into the rain.

  “Seven weeks,” said Cal. “It’s going to be lavish, whatever that means.”

  “It means I’ll have to shave,” I murmured.

  “And maybe dress in something other than a twenty-year old tunic,” she added with a grin.

  A gust of wind caught the rain beyond my window. The day was as dark as twilight, and the sheets of falling water moving as though alive. I lost myself for a moment. In the spaces between the rain, I imagined eyes. In a peal of thunder, I swore I heard voices.

  “Maybe she’ll listen now.” My voice was almost a whisper.

  “Listen? What do you mean?” Cal floated to the window.

  “If she’s marrying him, she’ll be wife to the governor. She’ll have his ear when he makes policies. She’ll be…influential.”

  “Joff, don’t—”

  The thunder rolled, low and powerful. I touched the glass and imagined monstrous shapes moving in the rain. They weren’t there, not really.

  And yet I see them.

  “Don’t take it lightly,” I said. “If anyone can help people believe, it’s Aly. She knows.”

  “Everyone knows,” Cal argued. “It’s just—”

  “They don’t understand,” I interrupted. “To them what happened on Ebes and Earth is just a story. It’s not real.”

  Cal let out as long a
sigh as a little blue nano-girl could. She knew exactly where my mind had wandered.

  “The last time you argued this with her, you two didn’t speak for a year,” she reminded me.

  I know, I thought.

  “And Aly, she’s the only person on this planet as stubborn as you,” Cal added.

  I know that, too.

  “So just how is it you’re going to change her mind? How, with nothing new to show her, will you convince her?”

  No idea.

  “I have…information.” I pulled my mind out of the rain. “Two-thousand three-hundred thirteen more stars have gone missing since we talked. And it might be even more, but I’m only working with one orbital scope. No telling how many other stars they’ve destroyed.”

  Lightning flared beyond the window. The rupture of cold white light burned shapes into my eyes. I caught myself shivering.

  The Strigoi.

  They’re out there.

  They’re—

  “Joff?” I heard Cal say my name. “Joff, are you listening?”

  I blinked, and the shadows fled my mind. I was just Joff again, standing in my kitchen. The only light in the house came from Callista. There were no monsters, at least not out in the rain.

  “Sorry.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

  “As I was saying, it’s not just about Aly,” she continued. “You’re asking an entire planet to mobilize against something they’ve never seen. You want four-million people to leave their lives and go to war.”

  “Their lives…” I mumbled. “You mean the ones they won’t have.”

  Cal went silent. In part, it was because she knew I was right. The Strigoi, eaters of the light, were out there. We’d seen them butcher hundreds of people on the planet Ebes. We’d heard their voices echo in the void. And we’d killed them together, burning away one of their planets with the only thing that truly caused them pain.

  Sunlight.

  But Cal also went silent because she knew there was no point in arguing. We’d done the same dance several hundred times. I’d always tumble into a dark state of mind, and she always tried to pull me out.

  By then, she knew better.

  * * *