Through the Gate and Beyond
This is a continuation of an ongoing story. It begins with Part One, so if you’re wanting to start out at the beginning , I recommend you go there. Or Part Eight is the previous section.
Chapter 25: We Begin to Learn
The three of us walked into the woods. Just as the giant had said, we found a door not far from into the woods. This one was open. We could see the main hall of his palace from here. Brad hesitated for a second. The door wasn’t wide enough for the three of us to go through side by side. He looked at me. I looked at Amber. She nodded to me, and I nodded to him. Then, still holding my hand, he stepped through.
His hand pulled hard on mine, almost pulling out of my grasp, and I rushed to follow him through the door. I stepped out onto the hallway, narrowly avoiding a fall as my feet found the floor a few inches higher than my brain expected it to be. Amber came through behind me and she almost fell, too. My heart was beating too fast, but it quickly settled once we were back in familiar surroundings.
The giant was standing there, naked as always, watching us. A hint of a smile touched his mouth, for just a moment. “So, what have you decided?” he asked, his expression now unreadable.
“Where can we get better weapons than what we came in with?” Brad asked. He said it a bit too loudly, which kind of ruined his attempt at a brave voice.
“Aha! That is the first interesting question you have asked so far!” he said with a full but brief grin. “I do not allow any to go armed in my home. The only one who ever snuck any kind of weapon in would be Morris, and, well, you fixed that problem.” He rubbed his chin for a second before continuing, “Why do you need weapons?” His voice seemed neutral, like he was asking out of casual curiosity. But something about him made me think he wanted to know the answer to that question far more than he let on.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Amber spoke first, “I loved Fiona and this world took her from me. I want vengeance.” I looked at her in surprise. Her strength amazed me. A single tear slid down her cheek as she stared at the giant. I squeezed her hand in support. She glanced at me in surprise. I felt a tingle along my skin. The hairs on my arm were standing up. Something was happening. I looked at the giant. His eyes were larger than usual. He seemed to feel it too, whatever it was, even as he tried to pretend he didn’t since it, too.
“I loved my father and this world took him from me. I want vengeance,” Brad said. The hallway, silent until now, echoed that last word back to us. The energy around us rose, like the air around a Van de Graaff generator just before it sets off a spark. The giant took half a step back, no longer pretending he couldn’t feel the power.
Unbidden, the words came to me, “I love my friends, both of them, and this world hurt them. I want vengeance.” My voice was a stage whisper, clear and audible to all of us standing there. The energy in the room spiked up and the giant took another half step back. Brad looked at me in surprise. I gave him the best smile I could muster. It wasn’t much, but he returned it. I could almost feel power flowing between us now.
“You must be careful! Calling upon vengeance in this world can be dangerous. Anger, rage, vengeance, these are powers. Powers best left alone if you value your safety!” the giant hissed. I glanced back at him and was shocked to see that the power crackling in the air was more literal with him than us. I could see sparks jumping from his head to the points of his ears, and between his fingers. To my shock, I could also see that this power was arousing him.
“Will you help us?” I said, to cover my embarrassment at his arousal.
“I will not. But I will show you to one who may,” he said with a cunning look that vanished almost before I saw it. Then he sighed. “Tomorrow. It will be an ordeal. Feast tonight, because you will want to fast tomorrow. At least, you will once you get there.” He closed his eyes. “Know that if you choose to do this, I cannot protect you outside these walls. I cannot help you out there.” With that, he turned and stepped into the painting of his forest trail and walked away from us.
The power in the room quickly faded. My palms were clammy with sweat, but I didn’t want to let go of either Amber’s of Brad’s hand. We looked at each other, confusion plain on our faces. “I will never love this place,” Brad mumbled under his breath.
“Yeah, nor feel safe here,” I said. “Come on. We’re covered in mud and I’d like to be clean as long as we can.”
He smiled and I smiled back. Hand-in-hand, we walked up to the staircase and headed to our rooms. In the sitting room, stacks of clothes sat waiting for us. We each went to separate bedrooms to shower. I came out later feeling clean and happy. Presently, Brad and Amber emerged.
“So… You said you came from 2017?” Amber asked uncomfortably.
“Yeah.” I answered.
“I came here in 1982. But I’ve not been here that long? I mean a couple of months, sure. But years? No way.”
We spent a while describing the world of 2017 to her. She was amazed and confused at the idea of cell phones and the internet. After an hour or so, the conversation kind of ran down. Brad yawned. “I’m going to lay down. I feel like beds are going to be in short supply soon,” he said, giving me a pointed look.
“Oh. Yeah, a nap would be nice before dinner,” I said and stood up.
Brad walked to our room, yawning again. At the door, I looked back at Amber. She was sitting there, looking tired and lonely. I grabbed Brad’s hand to stop him. He looked at me. I flicked my eyes towards Amber and raised my eyebrows. He gave me a questioning look. Then he got it, and nodded.
I turned back to her. “Are you coming?”
She looked up. A complex series of emotions played across her face. I saw fear and doubt in there, maybe shock too. But her face settled on hopeful. “Don’t you two want to be… alone?” she said, doubtfully.
I grinned. “You’re one of us now. We swore an oath together, remember?”
She smiled, tentatively, then stood up. “Are you sure?”
From behind me, Brad said, “We’re sure if you’re sure.” So the three of us went into one of the bedrooms. We talked quietly, trying to overcome our nervousness at this new situation. But it didn’t take long for us to fall asleep. I woke up first, maybe an hour or so later. I was spooning Amber and Brad was spooning me. It was an amazing feeling, so I lay there quietly, basking in a deep and newfound sense of belonging.
Once they both woke up, we got dressed and headed down for dinner. As before, the tables were arranged with a wide variety of foods. It was all delicious. We all ate until we couldn’t stuff another bite in my mouth. “Don’t worry, I will see that you leave with more food than what you brought,” the giant said with a brief smile.
“Please, don’t take this as a complaint, but why is there no meat?” Amber asked.
The giant’s smile slipped. “Livestock require resources. Food, water, and most of all, protection. I can grow crops or help others to do so and the predators you’ve experienced don’t care. They don’t eat plants. We can plant crops safely, then ignore them until harvest. Much less risky.”
“But, they do eat your crops. Some of them, anyway,” I said. Brad shuddered at the reminder of the farm house we stayed in.
“For the most part, those predators do not seek to harm us. It is a worthwhile trade.” He rose from his table and walked towards us. “Tomorrow, I will take you to… well, to someone who can help you prepare. You will be frightened by her. But, for my sake, she will help you. After that, you’ll have a day or two to rest while I make sure you have better supplies. Then I will show you out. But remember, I am not forcing you to leave. You are welcome to return, when you need to rest or have seen too much. I suggest, though, that you try to sleep tonight. After this, it gets harder. All of it gets harder.”
We collected a few snacks, just in case we got hungry during the night. Or perhaps because hording food had become a survival tactic; I’m not sure. Either way, we collected food and headed back up to our rooms. “I still don’t trust him,” Brad said quietly as we climbed the stairs.
“Me neither, but at least his food is good,” Amber said.
“The last place we stayed that had good food, the hosts tried to eat us,” I said with a quiet shudder. “I’ll take his food, gladly. But I won’t trust him, either.”
“What do we do?” Brad asked.
“We survive,” Amber suggested with quiet resolve.
“Together,” I added, a bit more forcefully than I’d intended.
“Together,” they both replied, each taking one of my hands, then taking each other’s hands. We stood there quietly for a second in the sitting room, holding each other’s hands. For the second time in a day, I felt the crackle of power rising in us. We quickly let go of each other’s hands.
“Wow,” Amber said.
“Yeah. I wonder,” I said. “This sounds stupid, but I wonder if that’s something like what Martha has?”
“Maybe. Probably. But how do we learn to control it?” Brad asked.
“No idea. I’m certainly not asking the giant to teach us!” I said. Amber giggled at that. She had a beautiful laugh.
“Can we do this? Can we survive on our own out there?” Brad asked, changing the subject.
“I don’t know. I think so. If we’re smart and we stick together. We’ll need food. And a safe place, somewhere we can call a home,” Amber added.
“We’ll see. We could go back to the ghost city. It had food stored up at least. But that’s just temporary. Until we can figure this shit out. Long term, I want to go find one of the gates to our world. I want to protect those that come through.” I said.
They both looked at me. “What? I don’t want to spend my entire life on the run. And I don’t want to leave others to suffer through the shit we’ve seen. Not if we can stop it.”
We talked through various plans and ideas, what we could do to make a safe haven out there somewhere. It was a long time before any of us realized that this was probably what the giant had done, in his own time. The idea that maybe we could do the same gave us some hope. More than we’d had in a long time.
We all slept in the one bed that night. It was still a little awkward. But we all felt safer together. The next morning, we came downstairs nervously. The giant met us with a solemn look on his face. He held an old, unlit, oil lantern in one hand, and a letter in the other. The letter was on some expensive, parchment-like, paper and was sealed with blue wax.
The giant led us down the hall of paintings until he came to one that was some kind of night scene. Dark trees stood out in the shadowy depths of the darkness. While there was nothing overtly ominous in the painting, it still sent shivers down my spine. I couldn’t put my finger on why, though.
“The woman beyond this gate is powerful,” the giant paused and pursed his lips. “You will not like her. But she is strong. Please try not to upset her.” He then touched the painting.
It expanded, somehow growing while the paintings near it shrank to make room. Finally, it had stretched large enough for us to walk through. “Do not spend too long in this place. And do not get lost. Eventually, she will grow bored with you. Or hungry. My introductions will not save you then.” He handed the letter to me, then lit the lantern and handed it to Brad. The giant stepped back and waved us through the painting.
My mouth went dry as Brad looked to us and then stepped into the darkness. I followed and Amber quickly came through behind me. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the night. The sky above was black; I could see no stars and no moon. The trees here had no leaves, like the dead of winter. No wind stirred the tree branches. The air was warm and humid and smelled like the ashes from an old fire.
Brad nervously adjusted the wick on the lantern. In the circle of light it cast, we saw a trail heading into the trees. It ended here, where a giant tree had split open, forming a roughly triangular shaped hole that stretched seven or eight feet up. We had entered the world through the split in this tree.
“Shall we?” Brad said, waving the lantern forward down the trail. His voice had a strange pitch. It sounded like he was talking at some distance in a heavy fog. My mouth was too dry. This place was not somewhere I wanted to be. We didn’t belong here.
I nodded rather than answering Brad and we started walking down the trail. I would’ve held his hand. And Amber’s, too. But the trail was too narrow. I made sure to keep glancing back, checking on her. She looked nervous, but was otherwise okay. Brad kept looking back at us, too. We walked down the trail for a few minutes, until it widened into a small clearing. Something gleamed in the center of the clearing with a pale white light. As we drew closer, I could tell it was our lantern reflecting off of something. We all slowed, unconsciously, as the gleams resolved into a pile of round white rocks.
No, as we drew closer, I could tell that they weren’t rocks. The shape was too uniform, too round. Finally, the circle of light from the lantern fell across the first few “rocks” and we could see what they really were. We had come upon a mound of skulls. They appeared to all be human skulls. Or, given where we’d come from, human-like, at least. The light fell across one skull in particular that was wearing a crown. We stopped, taking in the grisly scene.
From somewhere beyond the lantern’s light, we heard movement. The three of us drew in tighter. I put my hand on Brad’s right shoulder. Amber stepped beside me and placed her hand on Brad’s left shoulder. We had no weapons but the lantern. We were all shaking. Somewhere beyond the light, we heard the odd sound of hollow skulls rolling over each other as the mound shifted.
A shape appeared beside the mound. It was vaguely humanoid, but stayed beyond the light’s boundary, so we couldn’t see any details. A soft, high pitched, voice called out from the shape, “Why do you cower so? Come closer and let me see what Murdoch has sent me!” Her accent was thick and difficult for me to understand, like a much heavier form of Amber’s accent. But where Amber’s voice was beautiful and easy to listen to, this woman’s was harsh and, somehow, made me want to cover my ears.
None of us moved. Brad was frozen and we were not about to move without him. “Come, come! I receive so few visitors!” she crowed. We couldn’t quite make out her face in the darkness. I honestly wasn’t sure I wanted to see her. She sighed and stepped forward, to just beyond the edge of the lantern’s light.
I had expected a fearsome, terrible, creature. She should have been something dark and twisted to match my mental image based on her voice. But instead, the dim light reflected a woman. She had long hair that seemed to drape to the ground. I couldn’t tell if it was black hair or just really dark in the lantern light. There were some kind of pale or white flowers in her hair. Her skin was as white, not just pale like a Goth person but white as a sheet of paper. She was shapely and beautiful beyond any woman I’d ever seen. She stood there, naked, just past the circle cast by our lantern’s light, and studied us. The expression on her face was one of faint disgust. It was the face I made when I was killing a spider in the bath tub. There was nothing about her that was scary, but yet I was still shaking. I didn’t know why.
“Are you afraid of me?” she said with a bit of a mocking tone. She spread her arms wide to us, in what should have been perhaps an invitation to embrace her. “Come!” she said. Her beauty should’ve made that invitation almost erotic, but fear drained any such connotation from any of this. I noticed she made no move to step into the full light of our lantern. And while she spread her arms, she was careful to keep even her hands beyond the light.
I tried to speak. Nothing came out, so I swallowed and started again. “I bring you a letter. From the giant.” My voice wavered in fear.
“What? Murdoch brings me a letter? He knows I cannot see the print out here in the darkness!” she said as if I’d told a great joke. I held the letter up so she could see it. “Open the letter, then. Read it to me,” she said impatiently.
I broke the wax seal on the letter. I felt something, a slight tingle, maybe, as the seal gave way. The letter was folded in on itself; there was no separate envelope. I opened the letter and saw that the words were written in a fine script, almost like calligraphy.
Reading aloud, I said, “Lady, I bring you these three humans. They are new to our worlds and still have not found their way. They come to me, asking for food, shelter, safety. I offered all of that, freely. For this, they forced me to sacrifice Morris, my servant. Perhaps he deserved it, but he was useful to me. They ask me for weapons, knowing I abhor and do not allow such things in my presence. They demand that I help them. Instead, I give them to you. Teach them or eat them, I care not which. Graciously, Murdoch.” I read the letter without really hearing the words. But once I’d said them, my blood ran cold and I broke out in a cold sweat. We were such fools!
I dropped the letter and grabbed Brad’s shoulder with my right hand, then reached out for Amber’s hand with my left as the woman broke out in a broad smile. Her teeth were lost in the shadows cast by the lantern, making her mouth a great, black, maw. Smiling should have made her even more beautiful, but instead it made her terrible.
“Murdoch is so kind to me! He sends me so many snacks!” she said, waving one of her hands to indicate the pile of skulls. “Our bargain has been a good one!” She licked her lips. Her tongue was solid black. “A delicious one. Now, extinguish that lantern and let us get on with this, hm?”
I swallowed hard. Amber’s palm was sweating and shivering in my hand. I could see sweat forming at Brad’s hairline. But none of us moved. Amber, in a quiet, shaky, voice said, “What did he mean by ‘teach’ us?”
The woman’s smile faded, just a bit. “Oh, I suppose I could teach you to the secrets of these worlds. The ways to influence them, to make them your own. I have done so before. Your kind are weak and soft, but learn fast.” As she spoke, she moved gracefully around to her right, circling beyond the lantern light. We shifted to keep facing her, Brad turning in place and Amber and I awkwardly shuffling so we stayed touching. Something in the air was making the hairs on my neck stand out.
“I could open the doors for you and make you powerful, as I have others. Three of you, together? You would be a force to be reckoned with! My yes, dangerous beyond measure.” She licked her lips again. That black tongue was unsettling, to say the least.
“Or I could just consume your flesh. Crack your bones and suck the marrow out. It has been long since I last tasted human flesh. Long and long,” she said, her voice silky and smooth. She spoke now with the soft cadence of a preacher in the midst of a sermon.
Something about her voice was wrong, though. I’d once bitten down on a bite of baked potato that had some aluminum foil in it. It had hurt my teeth in this weird way that’s hard to describe. Her voice felt the same. It hit me, suddenly, that she was trying to control us, somehow.
“Should I teach you tricks or sate my hunger? Decisions, decisions,” her voice continued, so softly we had to strain hard to even hear her. She had moved behind the mound of skulls now, and was sort of working her way up the pile. She settled into a pose with her hand on the skulls and her chin resting on her hand. It would have been beautiful, maybe even sexy, if she were resting on a pile of pillows instead of previous sacrifices.
I knew, in that moment, somehow, that her voice was a trap. “Why don’t you shut up?” I yelled out. My voice lacked the self-confidence I’d hoped for. It sounded like a child whining at a parent just before they break into a tantrum. But it was loud. My voice was loud where the woman’s was quiet. It was not much, but it was enough to break us free of whatever “spell” she was trying on us, if only for a moment. “Shut up and teach us or just shut the fuck up!” My voice found a bit more steel by the end. Not enough, I feared, but maybe a start.
Her face changed. One second, she was going for beautiful, inviting, friendly, and even a bit seductive. The next, anger took over her expression. “Stupid child! You will learn nothing from me!” I could barely understand her words through the raging vehemence and her suddenly deeper accent.
Brad raised his lantern up to head height. “Fuck you, bitch!” he said. Not his finest speech, perhaps. But then he stepped forward. Amber and I stepped with him. Now, the light fell across the mound of skulls. With a sharp hiss, the woman pulled her arms back from the light.
Again, Brad stepped forward. The light fell across the woman’s face. Anger distorted the perfect white of her otherwise beautiful face, but as the light struck her, she screamed. There were no words, just anger and pain and rage. She tried to pull back from the light. I could feel static electricity building all around me.
Once more, Brad stepped forward. The lady was fully engulfed in the lantern’s light, now. Her screams rose in pitch and volume. The static charge raged and I could now see a kind of glow coming from my skin. No, from our skin, because Brad and Amber were glowing too.
The screams were loud and continuous. The woman wasn’t drawing breath. A faint whiff of smoke rose from her skin. “We are not food!” I yelled at her. I was angry now, where I’d been scared a moment ago. Angry, but not enraged. My anger was focused. It lent me strength. The electricity was so strong now that it almost hurt. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that it also was arousing me, but I shoved that awareness, that arousal, aside.
The woman’s screams were painfully loud. I focused my anger at all the violence and the fear we’d suffered through. I channeled that shit. I wanted her to suffer. And so she burned. As I watched, the smoke grew and burst into flames. Her scream rose beyond the range of my hearing and set my bones to vibrating painfully. I fed that pain into my anger and the flames rose higher.
She fell. The woman fell into the skulls and was silent.
My anger was gone, abruptly, as if it had never been. The electrical feeling was gone, too. Brad stumbled and almost dropped the lantern. I stumbled, caught myself, and then let go of Brad as I fell down in exhaustion. Amber landed heavily beside me. I gasped for breath as my vision blurred. Brad was bent over, breathing hard. Amber, too, was gasping. It was like we’d all been too long at the bottom of a pool.
Finally, I got my breathing under control. Gratefully, I accepted Brad’s hand as he helped me up. Together, we helped Amber up. We stood there, hugging each other or maybe just holding each other up. I still felt some of the arousal I’d felt under the power’s influence. It was so tempting in that moment to give into the lust, but I was just too tired.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, but not with much conviction. I glanced up. I thought I could see stars, maybe, like seeing the night sky when clouds are fading out. But I wasn’t sure. “We need to escape before the lantern dies.”
Wearily, we headed back up the trail. It wasn’t easy. All I wanted to do was collapse. We made it back to the tree. The lantern was beginning to flicker. It seemed the giant — Murdoch — had given us the bare minimum fuel. I guess he knew the light would fail and the woman could easily take us after that.
“What do we do when we get back?” Amber asked.
“Run. We escape.” I said wearily.
“What if he doesn’t let us?” Brad asked. The lantern was noticeably dimmer now.
“Then we get angry at him,” I said, looking pointedly back down the path.
Brad nodded. “Okay then. I better go last, so we’re not left in the dark.”
“Right,” I said. I looked from Brad to Amber. Her eyes were big with fear. I reached out for her. We hugged tightly for a few seconds. Too soon, I pulled away and looked into her eyes. “Follow fast. I’m going to need you.” I took a deep breath. Then I kissed Amber, hard. She froze in surprise for a second, before relaxing into the kiss. Again, too soon, I broke the kiss. Before I could chicken out, I nodded at Amber and plunged through the tree’s gate.
Chapter 26: From Palace to Log Cabin
I don’t know what I expected on our return to Murdoch’s palace. I know I was terrified. I expected him to be standing there with some great, oversized, sword in his hand, one of those wavy-bladed weapons that monstrous villains sometimes have in fantasy films or something. To my surprise, nothing of the sort happened.
I stepped out and dodged to my right. But there was no need. Murdoch stood there, lounging against a support column, eating an apple. He raised an eyebrow at me as I shifted. Before either of us could say anything, Amber stepped out. She, too, looked like she expected trouble. She saw Murdoch and then me. She let out a breath, as if she’d been holding it. As she stepped forward, Brad stepped out of the painting, looking around to get his bearings.
“So you made it back,” Murdoch said with a great smile that did not reach his eyes. He tossed the half-finished apple, core and all, into his mouth, chomped once, and swallowed. “Did she give you what you needed?”
“Fuck you.” Amber said, her voice dripping with anger.
I tensed up and stepped closer to her and Brad. But Murdoch just laughed. A great, big, belly laugh. The halls reverberated with the sound of his laughter. Tears streamed down his eyes because he was laughing so hard. I stared at him in confusion through it all.
His laughter faded to chuckles. He wiped the tears from his eyes and stared at us, hands on hips. “Little child, that would be uncomfortable and messy for me, painful and probably deadly for you. No, no I think not. You survived. Which means you learned to fight back. I held up my end of the bargain, yes?”
“You tried to feed us to that… that thing,” I said through clenched teeth.
“No.” All mirth was gone from his voice now, replaced by the stern lecturing voice of an angry parent. “I made sure you learned. I made sure you received the lesson you needed from the only teacher that ever truly matters in the end. Experience is a hard master, but her lessons are never forgotten.” He relaxed just a bit, letting his voice shift to that neutral, questioning tone that meant he wanted the answer but didn’t want us to know how much he wanted it. “How did you convince her to let you leave?”
“Convince?” Brad replied.
“We fucking melted her on her fucking pile of fucking skulls, you sick shit,” I said at the same time.
“Take care, child. Your anger is a dangerous weapon. I do not allow weapons here.” There was an edge to his voice that frightened me. Again, he forced himself to relax and gave us that winning smile that I didn’t trust at all. “Melted her? Truly?”
“Truly,” Amber said.
For just a heartbeat, worry painted his face. But only for a split second before a carefully neutral mask cleansed the worry. A small piece of my mind rejoiced at that worry. I’m not proud of that, but it is true.
“Well then. That is one Gate I no longer have use for,” Murdoch said lightly. We scrambled to get out of his way as he surged toward us. No, past us, to the wall. There, he took down the painting of the dark forest that we’d just stepped through. It had shrunk back to its original size while we were talking. He held the painting thoughtfully for a moment. Then, in a sudden motion that caught us all by surprise, he brought the picture, frame and all, down onto his knee. The frame broke. There was a crackle of energy as sparks flew between the broken frame halves. Those sparks caught in the painting, which flared up in green-tinged flames. My mouth fell open as they roared up, then faded. The frame crumbled to ash in his hands.
He dusted off his hands. The ash faded to nothing before the grains could reach the ground. The other paintings on the wall shifted around to fill the gap left by the now-destroyed painting. In a moment, there was no sign that the painting had ever been there at all. I closed my mouth and wondered if all of these paintings were Gates onto similar hell-scapes, or just some of them. I also wondered just how powerful Murdoch really was.
“I promised to help you and I have. But you are no longer welcome here.” Murdoch’s voice made it clear there could be no arguing with this. “You will leave — not through a painting, as you would not trust that. You may ask me for supplies in the future. Mask will honor that. But it will be in trade, not as a freely given gift like your stay has been. You have used up your free gifts, I think. I will give you no more.” Anger tinged his voice.
He pointed down the hall. Not far away, at an open door, stood Mask. That was the door we’d first entered Murdoch’s palace through, three days ago. We quickly headed that way. It didn’t take any sort of genius to know we had overstayed our welcome. Mask ushered us through the door and down the hall. He still creeped me out, but not nearly as much as his master.
We returned to Mask’s entry room. He went behind his counter and rummaged around for a moment. He handed me my staff and knife. “I told you you’d get them back, didn’t I?” His voice still set me on edge. I noticed the blade had been sharpened. He handed Brad his knife and hammer. He then hauled up three backpacks. They were made of leather and were stuffed full. Each had a blanket tightly rolled and tied to the top of the pack. Each also had a length of rope lashed to the pack. We took these and put them on.
I started for the double doors, but Mask held up a hand. “Wait. I’m not done yet.” He pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment and handed it to Amber. And then he handed her a long cloth bundle. The cloth was faded with age, dusty, and moth eaten. It looked like there was something wrapped up in the cloth. She started to unroll it, but Mask pointed towards the door. “Go,” he said with a snarl. We left, before he could change his mind.
I half expected to see Martha waiting for us. But the place was empty except for us. The silence was a bit eerie, but I was glad to be away from Murdoch. Brad started walking towards the street. “Wait!” I said. “Let’s see what we have before we go out, yeah?”
So we sat down on the floor and looked at Amber. She unrolled the parchment. “Oh! It’s a map!” She showed us. It took a minute to understand, but we figure out where the palace was, and then found the city we’d left. There was no indication of scale, so we didn’t have a good idea of how far apart things were. But we also saw little rectangles marked out at various spots. They were written in red, green, blue, or black ink. “Gates, maybe?” she said, pointing at one of the rectangles. Brad and I shrugged.
Amber rolled the map back up, then unrolled the cloth bundle. The cloth let off dust as she did so, making her sneeze. But inside the rotting cloth, she pulled out a sword. It had a black scabbard. Some kind of leather thong wrapped around the metal handle. There were no fancy jewels or gold or silver or anything. It was, really, not a beautiful thing at all. Carefully, Amber slid the sword out of the scabbard. The blade looked sharp. But, again, it wasn’t anything beautiful. I’d seen swords in movies and in display cases with knives and such. This wasn’t nearly as pretty or fine or shiny as any of those swords.
“That looks… It looks deadly,” Brad whispered. He was right. This was not a sword for show; it was a sword for killing. He looked up at Amber. “Do you know how to use that thing?”
“No. Not unless fighting your Dad with cardboard gift wrap tubes counts,” she answered with a frown.
“Then please be careful with that,” I said. Amber nodded and slid the blade back into the scabbard. She tried to wrap it back in the cloth. But the old cloth just crumbled into pieces. I wondered how long that sword had been sitting under Mask’s counter.
We went through our backpacks. They each contained two changes of clothes. There was a small frying pan in Brad’s, a small cooking pot in mine, and a tea pot in Amber’s. We each had a small metal box. Inside, there was a piece of flint, a bit of steel, and some fuzzy cotton-like stuff. It took us a minute to realize this was to start fires with. I’d have preferred a nice lighter, but beggars can’t be choosers. And we each had some small jars of canned vegetables and fruits. There were some bundles of hard bread as well. If we were careful, there was maybe a week’s worth of food, maybe. We each also had a few odd tools. Combined, we had a pair of pliers, three small kitchen knives, a pair of tweezers, a pair of scissors, three forks, a spatula and stirring spoon, and three spoons. Brad was also still clutching the lantern Murdoch had given him, but we had no fuel for it.
It was more than any of us could claim to own since we arrived. I swear, I damn near cried to see so much stuff that we could call our own. We sat there, looking at our new supplies for a minute, just taking it in. As we started packing everything back up, I thought about all the stuff sitting in my room back home. I did start crying then. At first, just a few tears. But the more I remembered the world we’d left behind, the more I cried.
Before I was half done packing, I was bawling like a baby. Amber and Brad moved in and hugged me as I cried. It took me a long time to settle down enough to explain what triggered my tears. They both held on tight until I was calm again. “Sorry, guys. Just,” I sighed, looking at the floor between my knees as I sat there, “Just mourning the past.” I said in a quiet voice.
They both tightened their hugs at the same time. I looked up, first at Brad, then at Amber. They were both smiling at me. And they both had tears in their eyes too. “It’s okay. We’re here,” Brad said.
“You’re not alone,” Amber said at the same time. Emotion had deepened both of their voices. I snaked my arms out from their hugs so I could hug them back.
“Thank you. Both of you,” I said, sniffling and trying not to cry again. “Okay, we need to get out of here. We can do this, right?”
“Yes we can!” Brad said, mimicking the chant from Bob the Builder. I laughed and called him a dork. He just grinned at me. Amber just looked confused. “From a kid’s cartoon,” Brad supplied.
We finished packing quietly and headed out into the city. I looked towards the tunnel, where Martha had taken us on a train ride. I shuddered at the thought of walking down that tunnel without the train. “Not the train, please?” I said.
“Definitely not. But that means a long walk.” Brad said.
“Yeah, not thrilled about that, either,” Amber added. “Maybe find somewhere closer to set up base?”
“I agree. But if we’re going to wander, I say we try to wander towards the old city we met in. Just because we know that place and what to expect, and because there’s food. But we try to find somewhere along the way that will do, for now at least,” I suggested
“Do we know what season it is here?” Brad asked as we walked down the abandoned street.
“We ate blackberries a few days ago. Those are a summer berry, right?” I said, trying to remember when we would eat those at grandma’s house.
“But I ate apples off a tree a few days before I found the ghost city, and those are a fall fruit,” Amber added.
“And we ate fresh corn, which is also a fall vegetable. Huh. Maybe seasons don’t work here?” I thought for a minute, “It seems this world just takes things from other worlds. I wonder if it has any seasons at all.”
We chatted about this for a while longer as we walked. In just a few blocks, we hit the edge of whatever this town was called. One minute, there were sidewalks and unmarked buildings. The next, the pavement ended and we were standing in some kind of grassy park. Except it wasn’t a park, it was just… the world. “You think this place stole the cities, too?” I said.
“If so, are they human cities, or…” Brad started.
“Too many questions. Maybe Martha knows. Or Murdoch. But I don’t care to ask either of them,” Amber said, a bit testily. I looked at her. “Sorry. I’m getting hungry. I know, I know. We have to ration our food. But dammit you guys, we skipped breakfast!”
I laughed. It wasn’t that funny. Not really. But once I started giggling, I was done for. Once I started laughing, Brad joined in. It took Amber a moment, but then she too smiled and laughed, a little. Once I had control again, I apologized. “Sorry, I’m hungry too. It’s just,” I searched for the words, “It’s just nice to have that be our biggest worry, if even for a moment.”
I shrugged out of my backpack and set it down. With a bit of rummaging, I pulled out one of the pieces of bread we had. I carefully broke it into three pieces and let them each pick a piece. We ate quietly. It wasn’t filling. It wasn’t even flavored. It was as hard as trying to chew rock candy. But it was better than nothing.
We kept walking, following some old trail or road or whatever it might have been. Over the next hour, the area we’d taken to calling Murdoch’s Town faded away behind us. We eventually entered some trees, losing the town altogether. It was a thin copse, though, and when we came out, we faced a small farm of some sort. There were three log cabins. There was a large garden with corn, tomatoes, strawberries, watermelons, and a few other vegetables growing. Further on, we could see trees that might be apple or peach or pears, we weren’t sure. And there was a string of grape vines.
But there were no people. We called out, just so no one would think we’d snuck up on them. But no one answered. We explored the cabins. The first was a small storage building. It contained various farm tools. Rakes, hoes, axes, and such hung neatly from the walls. None of them had the perfectly-formed look of modern tools. The next was a barn. There, we found stalls for livestock (but this world has no livestock?), hay, and some empty milk jugs, right out of a 1950s black and white TV show.
The last building, though, was a house. It wasn’t a huge house, by any means. The ground floor had a simple kitchen with a wood stove, a table, and cookware. It also had a living room, with some chairs arranged around a fireplace. There was a ladder that led upstairs. Here, we found two rooms. One was some kind of storage room. We found wooden crates and travel trunks here, but they were all empty. There was an old wooden crib, too. And the other room was a bedroom. A mattress was in one corner, with a chair in another. A small chest of drawers was on the wall with the door.
But the most striking feature of the whole house was the one glass window. It was a huge, round, window in the bedroom. Easily six or seven feet wide, it occupied almost the entire wall opposite the door. The glass was perfectly clear and clean, except for the circle in the middle, which was colored glass. The metal work in the window formed an eight-pointed star. The center ring formed a minus sign, or like the symbol for subways in England, maybe. It was a stunning, beautiful, window with a view of the whole farm. And it didn’t belong in this rustic setting. Not at all. The other windows were simple holes in the wall with shutters, no glass.
“What the hell?” I asked as I looked out the window. We had noticed the window from outside, but hadn’t really paid enough attention to it, I guess.
“Guys, did you notice the lights?” Brad said. I looked where he pointed. There, above the bed, beside the great window, was an electric lamp attached to the wall. Once he pointed it out, I saw another electric light on the ceiling near the door. But there was no sign of electricity anywhere else in the house. I flipped the switch by the door, but nothing happened.
“Well, isn’t this just strange,” I said. I walked up to the window and looked out. We were up higher, so I could see further down the trail than before. There was nothing in sight anywhere along the trail. “Maybe we should stay here tonight? I don’t think we’ll find another shelter any time soon.”
“Let’s make sure we didn’t miss anything else. Just to be safe,” Amber said.
With a nod, we went back downstairs and went through everything a second time. It looked like the place had been abandoned for a while. Dust coated everything. Nothing useful like food or weapons had been left for us.
While we still had light, we brought in some wood from a pile against the eaves of the house. With that, we made a fire in the fireplace. We searched, but could find no food stores anywhere. So we spent an hour stealing fruit and vegetables from the garden. Brad tried to crack a Goldilocks joke while we were gardening, but it fell flat.
We ate well on the fresh foods. We cleaned up. We bolted the door and shuttered the windows. Then we went upstairs. Darkness was just beginning to settle in around the farm as we spread our blankets over the bed and crawled in. The bed was kind of small, but we made it work. Brad was in the middle, spooning me, with Amber spooning him. There simply wasn’t room for us not to spoon.
Try as we might, we couldn’t go to sleep. Part of it was worry about the future and fears of the world outside, for me at least. But part of it was how hot the room was. Finally, after sweating for half an hour, I gave up. “Fuck this. It’s too hot up here,” I mumbled and crawled out of bed.
“Oh god, yes,” Amber whispered. Brad agreed.
I tried to see if the giant window could open, but it wasn’t made for that. I sighed in exacerbation. “Oh to hell with it,” Amber said. She stood up and started taking off her clothes. I looked on in shock as she got back in bed, buck naked. “What? Murdoch didn’t seem to mind!”
Brad stared at me, wondering what was happening. He had a kind of deer-caught-in-the-headlights look on his face. Amber was looking at me, too. I think they were afraid I’d be mad or jealous or something. Hell, for a split second, I almost was. But then it hit me. I wasn’t jealous. I wasn’t worried. I loved Brad, and he loved me. I loved Amber, too. I hadn’t said so, not really, not to her directly. But I did. Taken to its logical conclusion…
I shrugged. Then I shed my clothes. There wasn’t much air moving in the attic, but it felt good to be naked. Relaxed and less confined. Brad stared at me for a second. I grinned at him and Amber. Brad got out of the bed and also undressed. His arousal was quite evident. Amber kept switching her gaze from Brad to me and back again. I smiled at them both as I got back into the bed.
It was a long time before we slept. A long, wonderful, happy time. It was good, having a way to keep the fear and bad memories at bay, even if only for a little while.
Chapter 27: A Statue
One problem with giant, round, beautiful windows is that they let in all of the morning light. Dawn broke and we all wished that window had a curtain or blinds or something. The warm, bright, daylight was just too much. I lay there, only barely awake, thinking about the night before. That helped me “wake up” even more than the sunlight had. Amber groaned as the light finally hit her. God, the sunlight, playing along her perfect skin, was an amazing sight. I mean, Brad was beautiful, but Amber’s beauty was… different, softer, it was hard to find words for. But seeing her laying there, her back to me, naked in the light, was a mental image I’d cherish for a long time. I caressed her hair, willing myself not to think about all the ways last night could mess things up for all of us.
Shortly, Brad woke up. He, too, was reluctant to face the world. And, based on the evidence at least, we hadn’t completely exhausted him the night before. With mischievous grins, Amber and I took advantage of that situation. He didn’t seem to mind.
We eventually dressed and headed down to the kitchen as the attic began to heat up. There was no bathroom, no indoor plumbing even. So we went out behind the house. There was an actual outhouse here, much to our amazement. Brad said he’d used one in Boy Scouts, at a camp grounds they used. But that this one wasn’t nearly as smelly.
Honestly, it had no smell at all until we’d all used it. We washed our hands at an old-fashioned pump well. The novelty of country living had worn off long since. With sighs and grumbling stomachs, we all worked quickly to gather fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden. We had breakfast and packed a few bites of the fresh leftovers in empty jars. They made our packs heavier, but we had no idea how scarce food would be out here.
It was a few hours after sunrise when we set out. Part of me wanted to stay at the farm. It felt safe. But experience had taught me that safety was something of an illusion here. And we’d promised to at least try to help new travelers, if we could. I had doubts about how much of a difference we three could make, but I kept that to myself. We were all kind of quiet as we left the farm, lost in our own thoughts.
About an hour into our morning hike, Brad slowed down a little and broke the silence. “So, um, are we going to talk about last night and this morning?” I’d also been worrying over the change in our relationship and what it meant. Pangs of fear shot through my stomach at his question. But I’d been expecting it, if not from him then from her.
I looked at Amber. She raised her eyebrows at me but didn’t speak. I pursed my lips as I tried to reign in the swirling chaos of my thoughts. I stopped walking, so Brad and Amber stopped too. We stood there for a second, just looking back and forth between us. They both had worried expression on their faces. I suppose I did, too.
“Brad, do you love me?” I said slowly, terrified that I was going to screw up everything by what I was about to say.
“Yes! Of course I love you,” he answered quickly and a bit nervously. I smiled, at him. Hearing it still made me happy and caused the butterflies in my stomach to dance. He looked even more worried, now.
“And you know that I love you, right?” I said carefully, watching his face.
“Yes, I know that,” he said. But his voice wasn’t as sure as his words.
I noticed that Amber looked a bit crestfallen as we went through this. “Amber,” I started. I paused as the butterflies started flying around quite violently in my stomach. This was a totally different kind of fear than what I’d sort of gotten used to in the last two weeks. But it was a fear nonetheless.
“Amber,” I started over, paused again, took a deep breath, and plunged forward, “I know it’s only been, what, five days now?” I was stalling, but I waited for her to nod. She still looked unsure about what was happening. The butterflies were drinking espresso or some shit. I feared I might throw up. I swallowed, hard, and plowed forward, “It seems like we’ve known — No, that’s not what I want to say,” I looked at my feet, then at Brad. “I love Brad. I do, and that’s not changing. But,” I looked at Amber and forced myself to quit stalling. “But I love you, too.” My face turned bright red as I said it. Oh, god, I was going to throw up.
The look on her face shifted so fast I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She looked from me to Brad. I was too scared to look at Brad, afraid I’d just fucked everything up with him, with us. “You,” Amber said, “You do?” Her voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear her. I still was afraid to look at Brad.
“We do,” Brad answered. I looked at him, shocked. He looked surprised, too. He straightened his back, glanced at me then back to her. “We do. We both do. I love you, too, Amber. We love you.” Emotions made his voice rough as he said it. My stomach settled to a mere “panic” level, rather than “throw up” level. I was grateful for that.
“Oh. Oh!” Amber said as a smile lit up her face. Brad smiled, too, a bit hesitantly at first, but then with more confidence. I was smiling, too. “Oh, god. I’d,” she stopped, swallowed hard, blushed, but pressed on, “I was so afraid that,” she paused again. “Aren’t people only supposed to love one,” she started, then stopped again. She was clearly flustered.
I stepped in before she could speak again, and kissed her, hard. Kissing her was so different from Brad, but still good. Really good. When the kiss ended, Brad gently tapped my shoulder and I stepped back. He stepped in and kissed her too. When he stepped back, her face was even redder than before.
“I love you, both of you, too,” she said all in a rush. “After Fiona, I just, I thought,” she forced herself to stop for a second. The memory of Fiona stole her smile. “After Fiona, I just knew I’d die, alone and probably in serious pain, and probably soon. I kept moving, tried to stay alive. Probably out of stubbornness more than anything else. Then that guy caught me in Ghost City and I just,” she swallowed as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I knew I was done. That was it. No more.” She looked up, making eye contact with me and then with Brad. “And then suddenly I wasn’t dead after all. You guys were there. But you were clearly a couple and so I thought ‘well, I’m not dead. That’s good.’ And then later it was all, ‘I have friends now, that’s good too. But really, I’m still alone.’ And that was okay. But really it –“she stopped to take a breath. “Really it wasn’t okay.” She looked down at her feet. “I wasn’t okay at all.”
I reached out and took her hand. Brad took her other hand. I smiled and took Brad’s free hand. Our triangle was some powerful shit and we all knew it.
“I think it was when we killed Morris that I realized I was falling in love with you two. But I couldn’t say anything. I mean, you’re a couple. I didn’t want to fuck that up. So I forced myself to,” she looked down at her feet again. I squeezed her hand. “To pretend I didn’t have feelings for either of you. I figured you’d have to abandon me. I mean, otherwise, jealousy or fear of jealousy or — I dunno. I just figured I’d be alone soon, so you two could be a couple. I was the unwanted third wheel.”
I almost broke out into that quote from Disney’s Lilo and Stitch movie about “family means no one gets left behind,” before I remembered that she wouldn’t get the reference. So instead, I just hugged her. She started crying in earnest then. Which made me cry. Brad joined the hug and, since his cheek was on me, I could tell he was crying too.
“God, we’re a bunch of saps, aren’t we?” I said, intentionally breaking the mood. They both chuckled and the hug ended. We all sniffled a bit. “Come on. Let’s try to get somewhere worth seeing before night comes.” So we kept going, walking hand in hand (in hand). But this time, our mood was lighter. The world was just a little less terrifying today, and that made the road a little easier to travel.
Somewhere around noon, we left the trail and had a picnic with the food we took from the farm. It wouldn’t keep for long, so we needed to finish it first. We forced ourselves to only eat a little. I hated rationing. I wanted a pizza and a cheeseburger and a side of fries and a milkshake. I missed easily available foods! I’d never imagined how much I took basic things like that for granted.
Not long after our meager lunch, the trail curved into some trees. Not a dense forest or anything, but enough to provide shade for the trail. I was kind of glad for the shade. But I was also nervous, because predators can hide in trees much more easily than in grass, as I’d learned the hard way. We slowed so we could watch not just the ground but the trees as well. Reluctantly, we stopped holding hands, so we could have our weapons, such as they were, in hand and ready. Probably, we were just being paranoid. But this world had taught me that paranoia was necessary for survival.
We went on like this for a while. I had to constantly remind myself to stay vigilant, just in case. It was too easy to lull myself into thinking this was just another woodland area back home where it was safe. It was getting hard to remember the details of home and that hurt. I didn’t want to forget, even though forgetting meant a little less homesickness.
I was chasing those thoughts, bouncing between homesick remembrances, pain over the things I couldn’t easily recall anymore (the details of Mr. Monroe’s face were already beginning to fade), and mentally slapping myself to pay more attention to my surroundings. But then Amber gave a soft hiss. We stopped as she pointed ahead and to the right of the trail.
I looked. At first, I couldn’t see anything. But then, beyond a large tree, I saw someone standing there, facing the trail up ahead of us. We all froze for a second, then scurried back a ways.
“Who is it?” Amber asked in a quiet whisper.
“Who the fuck knows. I’m more worried about what is it,” Brad answered quietly. I agreed with him.
“Circle around to the left and keep going?” I asked.
“No. If they see us…” Amber responded.
“Okay, then circle to the right and try to come up behind them?” Brad said.
Amber and I nodded. My stomach clenched in fear as I gripped my staff tighter. We moved off the trail and began trying to sneak up on the watcher. I can’t say we were experts at it. But we didn’t sound like a herd of elephants either.
Maybe we’re stealthier than I figured, I thought. The watcher hadn’t moved as we came in from their rear. As we got closer, I realized the watcher was standing on a stone or stand or something. And they were holding a stick or club on their shoulder. It was unnatural, how still they were. I didn’t like it.
“Oh! It’s a statue!” Amber said. Her voice made me jump. We’d been so focused on moving quietly that her normal voice seemed loud by comparison. But then I looked again and realized she was right. The “watcher” was a statue set on a pedestal.
We approached with no further attempt at stealth. The statue looked like a memorial to Civil War soldiers, with a rifle over his shoulder and a blanket wrapped over the other shoulder. There were several gravestones positioned around the statue that we hadn’t seen until we got closer.
The pedestal had some inscription on it, but the letters had worn beyond my ability to read them. The gravestones were also too worn to read. We wandered around looking, though. There were a dozen or so gravestones and a larger stone tomb that rose a foot or so from the ground just behind the statue.
“I wonder who buried these people.” Amber said somberly as we sat down under a nearby tree. We all needed a rest.
“I wonder if this place stole the cemetery, or stole the people who later were buried here,” I said.
“Can you imagine a Civil War soldier coming here?” Amber said.
“If it hadn’t been for the electric lights and that window, I could totally picture Civil War vets making that farm,” Brad added. “Except for that attic.”
“You think maybe they came here, built the farm, and then the lights came later?” I asked.
“No. No way. I mean, I know time moves differently here, but surely the farm would’ve rotted away by now, right? Besides, who buried them if they lived there? And carved the statue?” Amber said, looking around.
“Yeah, this place probably stole the cemetery,” I responded. We sat quietly, enjoying the breeze and letting our feet rest. The breeze died down after a moment. It was still unsettling how quiet this world was without birds. Then the leaves started rustling again and I welcomed the sound.
I welcomed the sound until I realized that the leaves were making noise but the breeze hadn’t returned. “Fuck. What’s going on?” I said under my breath as I stood up and grabbed my staff. Amber and Brad looked at me. “The breeze is gone, but the trees?” I said as the hairs on my neck stood up.
They looked around and then jumped up, too. “Back to the trail,” I urged as quietly as I could. We grabbed our packs and ran. By the time we got to the trail, the sound had faded and the trees were silent once again.
We stopped there, catching our breath. “False alarm?” Brad asked.
“I guess so,” I began.
Amber spoke over me, “Look!” She was pointing back towards the cemetery.
Brad and I looked. The statue on the pedestal was different somehow. It took me a second, but then I realized he’d been wearing a cap before, just like the Civil War uniforms I’d seen in history books. But now he wore a helmet with a wide brim. I couldn’t be positive at this distance, but I was fairly sure his uniform and gear were completely different too.
“What the fuck?” Amber said in a stage whisper. “That’s a World War I uniform!” I squinted at the statue. Yeah, I vaguely remembered that helmet shape from some documentary in history class.
“I think we better get out of here,” Brad whispered. We started walking, quickly, down the trail again. Then we started jogging as we heard but did not feel another breeze kick up. We would have run, but with our packs and gear, it was just too much.
None of us felt safe for a long time. Not until we had put a mile or more between us and that statue. Not until even the trees near it had faded from sight behind us.
The story continues in Part Ten.
