“There are several hundred of those things. The tunnel is about ten yards from us, if ve are quick, I think that ve can make it without being seen. I vill go up first. If ve are spotted, I vill draw them off.” That last sentence wasn’t a request, and nobody argued with Freuchen. He climbed back up, checked that the coast was clear then pushed the manhole cover out of the way before slipping up and over the lip, using the wall surrounding the shaft as cover.
“Come on, now,” he called down to us.
We sent Michael, Albert, Miko, and Vihaan up after him. Then it was my turn, and I quickly followed behind them. In the distance, I heard screams and the screeching of metal, but it was cramped behind the wall, and I dared not move in case we were seen. Silas and, finally, Chou joined us, and we waited for the signal from Freuchen before we raced across the space between our hiding place and the huge tunnel doors.
“Meredith, you first,” Freuchen said, then tapped me on the back and said, “Go, now!”
I sprinted for the two huge doors, sure that at any second, I would be spotted, and the creatures would come for me, but I reached them without being seen and stood there, my hands on my knees, panting with fear as the panic washed over me. I turned back to face my friends and beckoned for Michael and Albert (who now seemed inseparable) to come and join me.
“Give me… a… moment…” Michael said, between gasps for air.
I took that moment to peek around the doors back toward the tower complex. “Oh no,” I gasped, which got everyone’s attention. Chou and Freuchen crowded in next to me.
“Ve need to go. Now!” Freuchen insisted, stepping away from the door.
Chou joined him, taking Michael by the arm and ushering him and the others further into the tunnel.
“Meredith,” Freuchen said urgently, beckoning to me to join him. But I couldn’t move. I was transfixed by what I saw in the pristine fields. There were hundreds of them, maybe close to a thousand, all under Abernathy’s sway. They swarmed across the fields, crashing toward Blue Alpha, who floated in front of the tower. She’d lost most of her tentacles, and of the remaining three, only one was still functioning, the other two hung useless below her, but at great cost to Abernathy’s army judging by the pile of bodies around her. As I watched, her final functioning tentacle was overwhelmed by a horde of men, women, and children that climbed up the useless limb, heading for Blue Alpha’s control unit.
The last thing I saw before Freuchen dragged me after him was Abernathy’s minions swarming over Blue Alpha like ants attacking a beetle, tearing her chassis apart as though it was nothing, as she careened into the ground in an explosion of dirt and sparks.
The collector belonged to the Adversary.
“Quickly!” Chou said, urging us forward while throwing a nervous look back over her shoulder toward the doors.
When we finally caught sight of the entrance, I was surprised to see that night had fallen, covering everything beyond the jammed doors with a black veil. Chou and I ushered everyone through the doors, then stopped momentarily while we all caught our breath.
The light from the tunnel spilled out beyond the doors illuminating the carpet of gray ash or dust. When we’d arrived, only our footprints had been visible, but now, I saw hundreds of tracks extending away into the darkness toward the forest. I pulled my flashlight from my backpack and shined it into the darkness beyond where we’d stopped, casting the beam around.
“My God,” Michael said quietly when he saw the devastated landscape.
“You’ve not been outside the collector before?” Freuchen asked, looking to Michael, Vihaan, and Miko in turn.
All three shook their heads.
“There simply wasn’t enough time,” Michael continued.
“Oh, you’re in for a treat then,” Freuchen said with a chuckle.
“So, where are we supposed to go from here?” Vihaan asked.
His question stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t even given it a thought. Our quest had been to get here, to the collector, but now that the collector had fallen to the Adversary, what were we supposed to do? If we called for help from the Brimstone, it would take them too long to reach us. If we stayed in the tunnel, then there was no guarantee the army of those monsters led by that tainted psychopath wouldn’t catch us.
“We need to make a run for it,” I said. “We can’t call for the Brimstone, it’ll take too long.
“Brimstone?” Vihaan exclaimed. “What do you mean ‘Brimstone?’”
“Long story,” I told him. “We’ll explain once we get there.” Then a thought hit me like a slap across the face. “What time do you think it is?” I said, turning to Chou and Freuchen.
“It must be somevare close to… oh!” Freuchen’s eyes grew wide.
Chou finished the sentence for him. “Close to the aurora.”
“We need to get away from here. Right now,” I said, ushering Silas and everyone else ahead of us.
“What? Why?” Michael said, slowing. I urged him on with a hand to his back.
“Because, when the aurora comes everything within the direct influence of the collector is going to be turned to this.” I scooped up a handful of gray ash from the ground and let it trickle through my fingers. I turned back toward the open doors, the beam of my flashlight sweeping over the ground and up the craggy rock of the mountain on either side of them… and froze. Something was moving across the rock above the doors.
“Chou. Freuchen,” I whispered, “there’s something moving up there.”
Chou swept her flashlight up the left side of the mountain, Freuchen did the same on the right.
“Vat on earth…”
Three shapes moved so quickly across the rough surface of the rock that it was hard for us to keep our flashlight beams on them. It took me a moment to realize what they were—two women and a man, climbing adeptly down the rock.
“Run!” I shouted, but at the sound of my voice, they leaped from the rock to the ground ten feet from us, sending huge puffs of the ash into the air that momentarily hid them from us.
Freuchen grabbed Albert and pushed the boy behind him.
The three figures were human. The two men obviously came from the twentieth century, judging from their clothing and the sneakers both wore. One stood a foot taller than the other and was almost as big as Freuchen, his short-cropped hair and thick-muscled forearms suggested he might be military or police, maybe. The kid looked like any teenager who’d hand you a cafe-latte at Starbucks. The woman was from an earlier time, her simple cotton dress torn in places and soiled with dirt. She’d lost her right moccasin at some point, and her exposed foot was badly cut, bloody and dirty, yet she seemed utterly oblivious to a wound that must surely be extremely painful. All three panted heavily, their shoulders lifting and dropping, and saliva dripped from their mouths like dogs that had been run hard. Their skin was covered in the ropes of black, and this close, I could see that the space between them was spattered with raised nodules, each one about a half an inch in width and spaced six inches from the next nearest. The nodules expanded and contracted every couple of seconds like lungs.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but behind each of their widely dilated eyes, I thought I sensed panic, fear even, as though the real person was trapped somewhere within—a passenger in their own body, unable to regain control.
“What’s wrong with the people?” Albert whimpered from behind Freuchen.
“I don’t know, Albert, but you don’t need to vurry, ve vill protect you.”
The two groups regarded each other silently across the short distance separating us until the nodules covering the three strangers’ skin suddenly vibrated in unison, and the three attacked.
The big man went straight for Michael, Vihaan, and Miko, his eyes focused on Candidate 1 and his comrades. Freuchen and Chou both ran to intercept him. The teenage boy darted around them and made a beeline straight for Silas, leaping on him and wrapping his arms under the robot’s arms and his legs around Silas’ waist.
The woman slipped by Freuchen and Chou as they wrestled with the huge man and ran toward Michael. I drew my sword, something I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to do, and dove to intercept her, swinging the pommel at her head, not willing to use the blade unless I had to. These poor people were obviously under Abernathy’s control, and if I could spare their lives, I would.
The woman ducked under my sword, but I still caught her a glancing blow across the top of her head, and I shivered inside as I felt the pommel scrape away skin and a clump of brown hair from her scalp. She screeched, dropped down onto all fours like some feral cat, and turned her attention to me, ignoring the blood streaming down her face. She leaped at me, and I instinctively threw a punch at her with my sword hand. A jarring bolt of pain traveled up my hand, wrist, elbow, then shoulder as I caught her square on the chin. She dropped to the ground at my side, face-first in the dust. I tried to roll her over to make sure she was still alive, but my arm hurt like you wouldn’t believe, so I left her and turned my attention back to the group.
“Protect Albert,” I yelled at Michael, just as Miko grabbed Albert’s hand and pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Freuchen wrestling with the big man, who seemed more intent on wrenching himself free of Freuchen’s clutches, his eyes never leaving Michael and his group. The man’s face was a bloody pulp, his nose broken, teeth shattered from where Chou delivered blow after blow. But he simply wouldn’t stop. Unbelievably, he was dragging Freuchen with him, taking one slow step after the other toward Michael.
He wanted Michael, that was obvious.
Vihaan shouted, “Meredith!” and I turned, expecting to see the woman I’d knocked unconscious, getting to her feet ready to attack again, but she still lay face-down in the dust. “Silas,” Vihaan added. “Your robot.”
I looked for Silas in the confusion of flailing bodies only half-visible through the fog of dust that now hung in the air from our struggles. Silas stood completely still, the teenage boy still wrapped around him, locked in an unwanted embrace. I had to blink a couple of times to make sure what I thought I saw was actually what I was looking at.
The nodules on the teenager’s skin had grown, lengthening in an arc from every part of the boy’s body and fixing onto Silas’ golden skin, like long black fingers. The boy’s mouth hung open, his eyes looked vacant, saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. His chest rose and dropped in fast dog-like pants, his body vibrating as though he was shivering from the cold or excitement.
I shot a look back at the big man, straight into Freuchen’s eyes. He was struggling for the pistol he’d stuffed in his belt. He got it free, brought it up to his opponent’s midriff, then grunted as the man’s flailing arm caught Freuchen’s hand with a glancing blow and sent the gun flying away, only to be lost in the layer of ash.
I felt a tremor roll up through my legs. The aurora. It was coming, and it was coming soon.
I stumbled my way to Silas.
“Silas! Silas?” He did not respond. This close, I could smell the boy’s rotten, fetid, stench. It was… nauseating. I tried to pry his fingers free from Silas’s body, but they were like clamps. “Help me,” I yelled, turning back to Michael and Vihaan, who were little more than ghostly outlines in the dust and shadows of the night. They emerged from the darkness and tried to pull the boy from Silas, who remained absolutely still and unresponsive. I caught a glimpse of Freuchen and Chou, silhouettes in the gloom, twisting to try and change their position as the big man reoriented himself to Michael’s new position.
“It’s… no… good,” Michael said between hard breaths, stepping back from the boy. “He won’t budge.”
“Oh God,” I whimpered, as the reality of what I would have to do to save my friend finally hit me. I had tried every day to be the kind of person that I’d silently pledged to Silas I would be back on Avalon, but I would not let my friend die. I simply could not.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said, barely able to see through the misty haze of hot tears that suddenly blurred my vision. I placed the tip of my sword against the side of the boy’s ribcage, roughly where I thought his heart would be, took a shivering, deep breath of the cloying air to try and steady my shaking hands… and ran the tip of my sword into the boy’s side.
The blade clipped a rib and then slid effortlessly through the rest of his body.
The teenager shuddered as though I’d hit him with a million volts. His grip slackened, then slipped off Silas, and he fell to the ground, pulling himself from my sword and sending me staggering backward. The black tentacles snapped, sending pieces flying through the air. The parts still attached to Silas shivered and wriggled like leeches that had been sliced in half, then one after the other, they fell into the gray dust and vanished.
Silas was suddenly awake again. “Meredith? What happ—” He saw the boy, writhing in agony on the ground, kicking up even more ash. “I must help him,” Silas said and started to take a step forward.
“No!” I yelled at him. “The aurora is coming. If we don’t get out of the zone in the next few minutes, we are all going to die. All of us, Silas. Do you understand?”
The robot paused for a moment, then said, “Yes. What do you want me to do?”
I nodded at Vihaan and looked around for Miko and Albert. Their forms were still visible, but only just. “I want you to get them all to safety. Right now. It’s imperative that you keep them all safe. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” Silas said. “Follow me, lady and gentlemen.”
Michael took my hand in his. “What about you?”
It was a surreal moment. This man, my son from another dimension, so much older than me and yet, his concern… his love for me, a facsimile of his own mother, obviously. I could only imagine how utterly confusing and painful my existence must be for him.
“I’ll be right there. Now go. There’s no time.” I ignored the incongruence of the last part of that sentence, because up until this moment, there had been nothing but time, it seemed.
Michael nodded and allowed Silas to lead him and Vihaan into the darkness in the general direction of where I had last seen Miko and Albert.
I spun around just in time to see Freuchen and Chou appear out of the particle-filled blackness not five feet from me, the big man lumbering ever forward in the direction Michael had taken. I took an involuntary step backward, stumbled and fell, my hands flat against the dust and dead ground just beneath it. The earth thrummed beneath my hands... and it was growing stronger by the second. The aurora was coming and, like a freight train barreling toward a precipice, there was nothing any of us could do but get out of its way.
As if to illustrate the comparison, the big man managed to slip one arm from Chou’s grip. He delivered a blindingly fast right hook to Chou’s head, who, half-blinded by the dust and almost at the point of exhaustion, simply didn’t see it coming.
It sent Chou sprawling into the dust. Freuchen immediately threw an arm under the attacker’s armpit and pulled him back, but it was obvious that even Freuchen, with his almost superhuman strength, was tiring, and it would not be long before he was unable to hold the big man. And then this tainted monster would barrel through me and Chou, and there would be nothing between him and Michael.
Freuchen knew it too. “I’ll join you, but you have to run. Now!” he yelled.
I grabbed Chou and pulled her to her feet, switched my flashlight to my left hand, and slipped a supporting arm around Chou’s back. She was dazed, a large welt rising below her eye.
“What?” she mumbled. “What’s happening?”
“We’ve got to go. The aurora.”
That seemed to get through to her, and she began to stumble forward with me into the blackness. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to spot which direction Silas had taken everyone else, but it wasn’t hard to spot the huge indentations he left in the dust, even as the wind from the building energy ate away at them.
The ground was trembling now,
dust dancing on the surface layer like iron filings attracted to a magnet.
“We’re going to make it,” I whispered, repeating it over and over, as the two of us stumbled forward through the growing dust.
A deep reverberating foghorn-like bass note began to fill the air, growing louder by the second and only adding to my disorientation as I stumbled onward through the night, sure that at any second, I would become nothing as the energy released by the collector turned me to nothingness. Now, I couldn’t even hear my own breathing, let alone the soundless words that Chou mouthed at me.
“Can’t… hear… you,” I mouthed back.
Chou broke free of my arm, staggered for a second, then pointed down at our feet… and the layer of pine needles and dead leaves beneath them. I turned my flashlight’s beam back in the direction we had come. Ten paces behind us, the edge of the dust-zone whirled.
We had made it. We were out.
I heard Vihaan yell, “Meredith, over here.” I followed his voice, and then used the glow of Silas’ eye-bar to guide me the thirty steps or so beyond the dust-zone to where Michael, Miko, and Vihaan sat, still covered in the gray dust. I let go of Chou, and she sagged against a tree and slowly slipped down its trunk, obviously still not in control of her senses. I dropped to my knees, huffing in breath after breath until my head began to clear. I looked up and saw Miko standing right in front of me with a horrified expression on her face. It took me a second to realize she was alone.
“Albert?” I wheezed through lips chapped and dry. “Miko, where’s Albert?”
“I… I don’t know. Just before Silas took us, he let go of my hand, and I couldn’t find him in the dust.”
“The dust interfered with my senses, too,” Silas said. “I could not track Albert through it, and you made it clear that our new companions were the priority.”
Miko helped me to my feet. I turned back toward the collector; it was beginning to glow with that same ethereal light we had seen when we arrived the night before. There wasn’t much time. Every second was going to count now, so I unbuckled my sword and handed it to Miko. “Stay with them,” I told Silas, “I’ll find Albert.”
A Memory of Mankind: (This Alien Earth Book 2) Page 23
